#don’t respect their enclaves and don’t respect their laws | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

didanawisgi · 4 years ago

Photo

Martin Luther King Jr., Guns, and a Book Everyone Should Read

BY JEREMY S. | JAN 15, 2018

“Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 89 years old today, were he not assassinated in 1968. On the third Monday in January we observe MLK Jr. Day and celebrate his achievements in advancing civil rights for African Americans and others. While Dr. King was a big advocate of peaceful assembly and protest, he wasn’t, at least for most of his life, against the use of firearms for self-defense. In fact, he employed them . . .

If it wasn’t for African Americans in the South, primarily, taking up arms almost without exception during the post-Civil War reconstruction and well into the civil rights movement, this country wouldn’t be what it is today.

By force and threat of arms African Americans protected themselves, their families, their homes, and their rights and won the attention and respect of the powers that be. In a lawless, post-Civil War South they stayed alive while faced with, at best, an indifferent government and, at worst, state-sponsored violence against them.

We know the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857 refused to recognize black people as citizens. Heck, they were deemed just three-fifths a person. Not often mentioned in school: some of that was due to gun rights. Namely, not wanting to give gun rights to blacks. Because if they were to recognize blacks as citizens, it…

“…would give to persons of the negro race . . . the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, . . . and it would give them the full liberty of speech . . . ; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

Ahha! So the Second Amendment was considered an individual right, protecting a citizen’s natural, inalienable right to keep and carry arms wherever they go. Then as now, gun control is rooted in racism.

During reconstruction, African Americans were legally citizens but were not always treated as such. Practically every African American home had a shotgun — or shotguns — and they needed it, too. Forget police protection, as those same officials were often in white robes during their time off.

Fast forward to the American civil rights movement and we learn, but again not at school, that Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a concealed carry permit. He (an upstanding minister, mind you) was denied.

Then as in many cases even now, especially in blue states uniquely and ironically so concerned about “fairness,” permitting was subjective (“may issue” rather than “shall issue”). The wealthy and politically connected receive their rights, but the poor, the uneducated, the undesired masses, not so much.

Up until late in his life, MLK Jr. chose to be protected by the Deacons for Defense. Though his home was also apparently a bit of an arsenal.

African Americans won their rights and protected their lives with pervasive firearms ownership. But we don’t learn about this. We don’t know about this. It has been unfortunately whitewashed from our history classes and our discourse.

Hidden, apparently, as part of an agreement (or at least an understanding) reached upon the conclusion of the civil rights movement.

Sure, the government is going to protect you now and help you and give you all of the rights you want, but you have to give up your guns. Turn them in. Create a culture of deference to the government. Be peaceable and non-threatening and harmless. And arm-less, as it were (and vote Democrat). African Americans did turn them in, physically and culturally.

That, at least, is an argument made late in Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms. It’s a fantastic book, teaching primarily through anecdotes of particular African American figures throughout history just how important firearms were to them. I learned so-freaking-much from this novel, and couldn’t recommend it more. If you have any interest in gun rights, civil rights, and/or African American history, it’s an absolute must-read.

Some text I highlighted on my Kindle Paperwhite when I read it in 2014:

But Southern blacks had to navigate the first generation of American arms-control laws, explicitly racist statutes starting as early as Virginia’s 1680 law, barring clubs, guns, or swords to both slaves and free blacks.

“…he who would be free, himself must strike the blow.”

In 1846, white abolitionist congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, advocating distribution of arms to fugitive slaves.

Civil-rights activist James Forman would comment in the 1960s that blacks in the movement were widely armed and that there was hardly a black home in the South without its shotgun or rifle.

A letter from a teacher at a freedmen’s school in Maryland demonstrates one set of concerns. The letter contains the standard complaints about racist attacks on the school and then describes one strand of the local response. “Both the Mayor and the sheriff have warned the colored people to go armed to school, (which they do) [and] the superintendent of schools came down and brought me a revolver.”

Low black turnout resulted in a Democratic victory in the majority black Republican congressional district.

Other political violence of the Reconstruction era centered on official Negro state militias operating under radical Republican administrations.

“The Winchester rifle deserves a place of honor in every Black home.” So said Ida B. Wells.

Fortune responded with an essay titled “The Stand and Be Shot or Shoot and Stand Policy”: “We have no disposition to fan the coals of race discord,” Thomas explained, “but when colored men are assailed they have a perfect right to stand their ground. If they run away like cowards they will be regarded as inferior and worthy to be shot; but if they stand their ground manfully, and do their own a share of the shooting they will be respected and by doing so they will lessen the propensity of white roughs to incite to riot.”

He used state funds to provide guns and ammunition to people who were under threat of attack.

“Medgar was nonviolent, but he had six guns in the kitchen and living room.”

“The weapons that you have are not to kill people with — killing is wrong. Your guns are to protect your families — to stop them from being killed. Let the Klan ride, but if they try to do wrong against you, stop them. If we’re ever going to win this fight we got to have a clean record. Stay here, my friends, you are needed most here, stay and protect your homes.”

In 2008 and 2010, the NAACP filed amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court, supporting blanket gun bans in Washington, DC, and Chicago. Losing those arguments, one of the association’s lawyers wrote in a prominent journal that recrafting the constitutional right to arms to allow targeted gun prohibition in black enclaves should be a core plank of the modern civil-rights agenda.

Wilkins viewed the failure to pursue black criminals as overt state malevolence and evidence of an attitude that “there’s one more Negro killed — the more of ’em dead, the less to bother us. Don’t spend too much money running down the killer — he may kill another.”

But it puts things in perspective to note that swimming pool accidents account for more deaths of minors than all forms of death by firearm (accident, homicide, and suicide).

The correlation of very high murder rates with low gun ownership in African American communities simply does not bear out the notion that disarming the populace as a whole will disarm and prevent murder by potential murderers.

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated 1,900,000 annual episodes where someone in the home retrieved a firearm in response to a suspected illegal entry. There were roughly half a million instances where the armed householder confronted and chased off the intruder.

A study of active burglars found that one of the greatest risks faced by residential burglars is being injured or killed by occupants of a targeted dwelling. Many reported that this was their greatest fear and a far greater worry than being caught by police.48 The data bear out the instinct. Home invaders in the United States are more at risk of being shot in the act than of going to prison.49 Because burglars do not know which homes have a gun, people who do not own guns enjoy free-rider benefits because of the deterrent effect of others owning guns. In a survey of convicted felons conducted for the National Institute of Justice, 34 percent of them reported being “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim.” Nearly 40 percent had refrained from attempting a crime because they worried the target was armed. Fifty-six percent said that they would not attack someone they knew was armed and 74 percent agreed that “one reason burglars avoid houses where people are at home is that they fear being shot.”

In the period before Florida adopted its “shall issue” concealed-carry laws, the Orlando Police Department conducted a widely advertised program of firearms training for women. The program was started in response to reports that women in the city were buying guns at an increased rate after an uptick in sexual assaults. The program aimed to help women gun owners become safe and proficient. Over the next year, rape declined by 88 percent. Burglary fell by 25 percent. Nationally these rates were increasing and no other city with a population over 100,000 experienced similar decreases during the period.55 Rape increased by 7 percent nationally and by 5 percent elsewhere in Florida.

As you can see, Negroes and the Gun progresses more or less chronologically, spending the last portion of the book discussing modern-day gun control. It’s an invaluable source of ammunition (if you’ll pardon the expression) against the fallacies of the pro-gun-control platform. It sheds light on a little-known (if not purposefully obfuscated), critical factor in the history of African Americans: firearms.

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I highly recommend you — yes, you — read Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms.

And I’ll wrap this up with a quote in a Huffington Post article given by Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter:

https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/huffpo-maj-toure.jpg”

#books #black history #history #american history #Guns #civil rights #constitution #supreme court #gun control #martin luther king jr.#dread scott #concealed carry #concealedcarry #everydaycarry #gun confiscation

288 notes · View notes

cake-apostate · 3 years ago

Text

In SMT4, you meet and help two different versions of Akira. Since this is in-universe a lesson about Neutrality and the extremes of Law and Chaos, you see worlds ravaged by the respective alignments, but each time Akira is there to counterbalance their excesses. The Tokyo of the glassed desert was scorched clean by Law, and so Akira’s solution is to bring back the demons and harness their power to rebuild. The Tokyo of the flames is a Chaotic gangster’s paradise where the strong rule the weak, and the cowardly Akira wants nothing more than to improve the lot of the downtrodden.

So then I wondered, “Would the Akira of the Desert make a better Demonoid than Demonoid Akira?” Almost definitely. He’d make an excellent Demonoid--but not a good king. Akira of the Desert would be just another gang leader. He might turn out smarter and saner than the others, but his ambition to rebuild his country doesn’t seem to change much for the Neurishers.

Similarly, would Demonoid Akira thrive in the desert? Probably. He’s willing to put up with anything for the sake of survival, even dig through trash and degrade himself. But even though he’s as ambitious as Akira of the Desert, Demonoid Akira is happy just making people’s lives better and couldn’t build the Kingdom of Mikado. They’d probably have little desert enclaves instead of a great city.

The Akiras you meet might not fit in their environments, but they’re what their worlds need. Which also leads me to wonder, “What about King Aquila? And what about Nanashi?”

From what we hear about King Aquila, he founded almost everything in Mikado, turning it from a backwater village to a functional medieval country. He also went against everything Mikado stood for; he was from Tokyo, he summoned demons, he flouted the authority of the Monastery, and yet everyone loved him. Akira was a firebrand in a country where deviation from the norm is heresy.

The case of Nanashi is a bit complicated since he’s a blank slate player character, but here’s how I see him. How does he makes things better by being abnormal?

Nobody but Dagda and Nanashi wanted Anarchy. I unironically like the Anarchy ending; rejecting the world as it is and building something new is the ultimate expression of Akira’s independent thought. I will admit that Anarchy choices are just Nanashi being a jerk, so I don’t support them.

Bonds is Nanashi trusting and uniting the myriad factions rather than upholding the status quo of mutual disdain. His party consists of Hunters, Samurai, Ashura-Kai, and Ring of Gaea. Even when they’re all officially enemies, he urges them to stay and fight alongside him, and they do.

My favored version of Nanashi is one who made all the Bonds choices but went for Anarchy because he genuinely thought it was the right thing. I find the dissonance interesting; how can someone murder his friends and still mourn their deaths? It also fits the theme of Akira as a wild card.

On another note, I sometimes write the polar opposite: an Anarchy Nanashi who went for Bonds purely to spite Dagda. He’s fun to let out every once in a while, but I don’t like him and neither do the characters.

#Shin Megami Tensei #shin megami tensei 4 #Shin Megami Tensei IV #SMT Akira #akira smt #shin megami tensei iv apocalypse #smt4 #smt4a #Nanashi smt #smt nanashi #shin megami tensei apocalypse

5 notes · View notes

historic-old-guard-lover · 4 years ago

Note

Hi, I started following you because you provide or reblog historical perspectives that I, as a white midwestern American, was not exposed to. I was thinking recently of the American “ melting pot” of culture, and how that Nile would probably have been taught how “wonderful” it was, but then also been aware of the erasure involved in a “melting pot”, and how that would affect her interactions with TOG (food!) Do you have any thoughts on this, or know of a blog that could discuss the implications?

I��m glad I’ve been widening your horizons, Anon. The American “melting pot” is a tricky concept, even before we add in how immigrants are actually treated in the US. I think the biggest factor that plays into it is that Americans don’t like to acknowledge that there very much is an American mainstream culture and various subcultures. The melting pot is used most often to denote a cultural homogeneity that “immigrants” contribute to...but ignores that this is not true for all immigrant groups, that those who contribute were originally (and may continue to be) rejected and forced into immigrant enclaves, and that the pieces that integrate change as part of the process to the point where they may not be recognizable to the “original” culture. Let’s take an all-American example: pizza.

99 out of 100 Americans will say that pizza is Italian food. 99 out of 100 Italians would look at pizza made in America and call it American food. For something so simple, there’s actually a lot of differences between Italian pizza and American pizza including the crust, sauce, and toppings. So yeah, pretty much the whole thing is different besides being tomatoes on bread. The first pizzeria was opened by an Italian immigrant in the Little Italy neighborhood of NYC in 1905. It was sold by the slice because the Italian immigrants Lombardi was trying to sell to couldn’t afford to buy a whole pie. That’s why so many Italian immigrants lived in Little Italy: they were mostly poor Catholic laborers in a Protestant nation who got called ethnic slurs like “guineas” and “dagoes”. In the South, there were multiple cases of Italian immigrants being lynched and targeted by the KKK. Now that Italians are considered “white,” it’s easy to forget that they weren’t always considered that way.

(Note: this is not me trying to compare the Italian-American and African-American experience or engage in oppression Olympics. While Italians were never grouped in the same category as blacks and some of them contributed to anti-black racism, they were violently attacked in a different way than Northern European whites for not respecting the racial hierarchy. They were also targeted as a religious group, the vast majority being Roman Catholic. If these things were happening in our modern era, we might consider these Italian immigrants “brown” like some white-passing Hispanic sub-populations and likened them to the Muslim-American experience complete with reputations as terrorists. There are major differences with these three experiences, of course, but I mention them to remind us that race is socially constructed and changes over time. I’d be happy to discuss what it means that race is a social construct if people are interested.)

The story of Italian-American immigrants is one of eventual integration into the “melting pot,” but that’s not the case for all immigrant waves as you probably know. The other archetype, at least in my mind, is characterized by the Chinese immigrant experience. In the 1850s, Chinese immigration was encouraged as a cheap and exploitable labor source for unpleasant jobs including the construction of the trans-continental railroad where an estimated 15,000-20,000 Chinese immigrants died (which, you’ll notice is a ridiculous range because they obviously weren’t keeping track). Of course, cheap labor source is a wave of racism waiting to happen and white Americans began HATING the Chinese-Americans. by the 1860s you see state and attempted federal legislation to restrict immigration and segregate Chinese-Americans to second-class citizen status (such as requiring them to have a special license to run a business that white Americans did not need). By 1880, an American diplomat was tasked we renegotiating a treaty with China to allow for the restriction of immigration. When that only kinda-sorta worked, Congress passed a series of laws we now call the Chinese Exclusion Acts, which were not repealed until 1943 because of pressure from WW2. Though some parts of Chinese-American culture have become mainstream (eg. Chinese(-American) take-out food), Chinese-Americans and East Asian-Americans broadly have not been assimilated into whiteness. Kept at a distance from being “just American”, there are often immigrant enclaves (ie. Chinatowns) in major areas. This isn’t even touching the “Model Minority” mythos that Chinese-Americans need to grapple with as well.

I think what you’re referencing in your comment is mostly that being accepted into (white mainstream) American culture means intentionally obscuring those immigrant links. Nile may or may not be aware of the history of immigrant experiences in America, but Chicago does have immigrant enclaves both past and present from pretty much everywhere. I’d like to think of Nile as self-aware enough to have picked up on this. And uh, since you probably were also just looking for something light-hearted, nothing is more American that fusion cuisine! I think it’d be funny to have the Old Guard what Nile put like barbeque sauce on paneer as they all silently scream in horror and Nile is just like “what? don’t hate it till you’ve tried it” and then somehow after millennia on this earth Andy tries food combinations she’s never considered

#asks #lovely anon #the old guard #meta #nile freeman #america #melting pot #italian american #race is socially constructed #white #chinese american #chinese exclusion act #discourse #but lowkey #also some fun headcannons at the end #fusion food: americas legacy #asks so old theyve grown cobwebs #but i really wanted to take my time on this one

51 notes · View notes

useless-catalanfacts · 4 years ago

Note

Hello, I've been trying to educate myself about Catalonia (currently watching Two Catalonias in Netflix, glad to have found your blog!). There's a lot of questions that Im desperate to have an answer for. Sorry bc I havent gone all of the timetable yet. I saw that October 2017 was when it became independent. But what is it independent for? Is it politics? Why is it still part of Spain now? Is there a different government body? I hope u dont take this the wrong way. Thanks in advance. <3

Hello, thank you for your interest 😄

It’s all pretty complicated but I’ll try to sum up the timeline and hope it makes sense.

A lot has happened since 2017 and it was... intense. This is going to be a very long post, so I’ll put it under the cut.

October 1st 2017: the referendum, considered illegal by Spain, police brutality against the voters, etc. That’s been talked about extensively so I’ll skip it. Anyway, the result of the referendum is 90.18% of votes for YES to independence (2,044,038 votes), 7.83% of votes for NO (177,547 votes), and 1.98% votes in BLANK (44,913 votes). The participation rate that could be counted was 43.03% of the population of Catalonia who legally can vote in normal elections. Actually, more people had voted but their votes were kidnapped by the Spanish military police when they stormed voting centers, so those votes were not counted. Other people wanted to vote but couldn’t because they the police attacked and closed their voting center, or because they’re not eligible to vote in elections because they live here but don’t have documents.

So we consider that a victory for YES.

October 3rd 2017: general strike. Ready to take control of the territory, a general strike is called and it is massively followed. The economy is shut down, highways and trains are blocked, etc. Here’s a post from that day. And another one.

October 10th 2017: president of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont declares independence and suspends it 8 seconds later. This was my post at the time:

(Spoiler alert: obviously Spain refused to negotiate. Not only that but they went further in the repression. You’ll see.)

October 16th 2017: activists Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez (the elected presidents of the two most important pro-independence organizations, Òmnium Cultural and ANC respectively) are arrested and put in pre-trial jail. Many demonstrations around Catalonia the next days and weeks and months.

October 27th 2017: following Puigdemont’s words, since the Spanish government has explicitly refused to negotiate, the suspension on the declaration of independence is lifted. The Parliament of Catalonia declares independence (DUI = Declaració Unilateral d’Independència = unilateral declaration of independence). Thousands and thousands of people came to the streets to celebrate, and then in filled Plaça Sant Jaume in Barcelona (the square where the Seat of the Government of Catalonia is) and all the nearby streets and avenues. It was so packed that it was impossible to move, and there was music and singing all the time. We did this to protect the building, because we knew our government was inside signing papers and doing what was necessary to start to implement the Catalan Republic, and to make it absolutely impossible for the Spanish police and/or army to get to the Seat of the Catalan Government and arrest them.

Spain considered the Catalan government criminals and searched for them to jail them, but the following day they were outside of the country and nowhere to be found. The plan was to move to a more democratic European country and create a government on exile there which could effectively coordinate the culmination of the independence process and make independence effective. The reason they couldn’t stay in Catalonia was that they would all get jailed and would not be able to work from jail, so Catalonia would not have a government who could negotiate with the EU, Spain, or whoever was necessary, and who could continue the normal functions of a government to ensure the people of the country can still work and live, while coordinating the participative processes to create our own Constitution, tax collection, etc. But only half of the government made it outside... I’ll expand on this later.

Now let’s see what Spain was up to. The Spanish government applied the article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to Catalonia. This articles deletes the regional government and that comunidad autónoma (region) is ruled directly by the central Spanish government. In practice, what this means is that the whole Catalan government (elected democratically in legal elections recognized by Spain) stops existing, and it is replaced by politicians from the ruling Spanish party, which at the time was PP, a right-wing Catalanophobic party that had only reached 8.5% of votes in the previous Spanish elections in Catalonia. It was like a dictatorship. They controlled the public TV (read this) and banned the use of certain words, they fired people who had affinities with the independentist government, a lot of people went to trial (including even teachers) at the slightest suspicions...

And everything had to stop. Even things you wouldn’t expect to be affected. Everything was affected and the Spanish government’s presence. For example, my mother is a teacher of Catalan language in a public school for adults, and she had to ask permission to the Spanish government directly every time she wanted to use a printer (they were threatened that otherwise they could be sued for wasting public money). Sometimes they even refused her to print class exercises for the students. My department in university also had to stop all the research projects for the following year since they depend on the funds given by the Catalan government. etc.

(You can see the whole post that screenshot is part of here)

Obviously, there were protests. During those days, we were busy with demonstrations and strikes, and then learnt that president Puigdemont and others were on exile in Belgium. There were some problems with Spain sending international orders of arrest against them but the crimes they’re accused of don’t exist outside of Spain so they were arrested and temporarily jailed in Germany but not deported. I won’t get in detail because it happened more than once and it would be long.

But half of the Government of Catalonia did NOT cross the border. The whole government, which was a coalition of the PDeCat and ERC parties, met in secret in Llívia (an enclave surrounded by French territory), and then the ERC politicians decided not to follow the plan. There are different reasons behind this change in strategy:

The need for political prisoners to prove that we are not exaggerating. The EU was not taking seriously how repressive Spain could be. They saw the police brutality on the referendum’s voters and shrugged as if nothing happened because nobody had died (though one man almost did). So some of the consellers (equivalent of ministers in the Catalan government) said that they would remain in Catalonia, and they were sure they would be jailed and this would show other countries that there was a reason for the Catalan Government to be on exile, it wasn’t just that they had left because they’re dramatic and don’t want to follow the law.

Jail as a loudspeaker. These same consellers said that being in jail would give them attention from international media that otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten, so they would use their time in jail to explain to the world what was going on and why their countries should show support to Catalonia. Political prisoner Jordi Cuixart later said that this has been the case for him, and he has met with important activists from around the world who came to visit him in jail, so it makes sense.

Aaaand whatever the hell vicepresident Junqueras was talking about. I still don’t understand. He should’ve gone to Belgium in my opinion. He’s just rotting in jail for no reason now.

So we have half of the Catalan Government in Spanish jails and the other half in Belgium. They still remain like that nowadays.

The two parties of the coalition that formed the previous Catalan Government (the one that Spain had dismantled) continued to fight among them. They later explained that Spain threatened that they would send the army to Catalonia and there would be a bloodbath. In phone calls, the delegates of the Spanish government made it clear that they were going to kill people and frame it as it was the fault of the Government of Catalonia. The Government of Catalonia did not want people dead, so they stopped calling on citizens to take control of the territory, the administration, etc. At the time, we did not know why they were suddenly silent, all they said was they were waiting for Spain to negotiate (and everybody was angry because we knew Spain would never negotiate, as Spanish politicians have been saying the whole time).

Then, the Spanish government forced Catalonia to have elections, since it considered that the democratically-elected Government of Catalonia was not in power anymore because Spain had fired them. There was a lot of discussion on what independentist parties should do. These were the different positions:

Catalonia has declared independence and we need to focus all our energy on making it real. All independentist parties have to be working on taking full control of the taxes, administration, and services. We cannot be a candidate to the elections of the Spanish region of Catalonia, because that doesn’t exist anymore and we are in the Republic of Catalonia now. The result of participating in these elections would be legitimizing Spanish rule. But if we don’t participate, only the unionists will vote and the whole Government of the Spanish region of Catalonia (the one that has the real power by now and is recognized by other countries) will be 100% composed of unionist politicians who will make our lives hell (like they did during 155). And the world might take this as “unionists won the elections, so that’s the only legitimate representatives of Catalonia to negotiate with”.

Independentist parties should participate and make the Government of the Spanish region of Catalonia be the Government of the Republic of Catalonia. It’s good that it’s an official legal election accepted by everyone, and there will be representation of all the inhabitants (whether they are unionist or independentist). Problem: this leads us back to where we started, with a Parliament that has a majority of seats for independentist parties but is still the Parliament of a region of Spain.

Independentist parties should participate in the elections of the Spanish region of Catalonia in order to boycott it. Basically, all independentists would be called to vote for their preferred independentist party (PDeCat, ERC or CUP), and once the Parliament of the Spanish region of Catalonia is formed, they never show up. More than half of the Parliament would be empty, so it would be blocked from being efficient. Meanwhile they would be at the real Parliament of the Republic of Catalonia.

After a lot of talk, they choose the 3rd. In theory.

Elections happen, with pretty much the same results from the previous elections so PDeCat and ERC form a coalition government with support from CUP. But the politicians who are in jail or exile are outlawed by Spain and could not participate in elections, so they do a “symbolic” president, Quim Torra, who is like a spokesman for the real president Puigdemont in exile.

So with the leaders of the two bigger independentist parties and civil organizations in jail or on exile, media still banned from using certain words, people getting arrested for taking part in the general strikes, and a general feeling of uncertainess, things started to go very badly.

Suddenly ERC (social-democrat independentist party) decided that we had already failed, and that this showed that the DUI (unilateral declaration of independence) was always going to fail because so many important elements of an independent state work automatically (for example, taxes of Catalan people are automatically sent to Spain, they don’t pass through the Catalan gov, and it’s all informatic so it’s not like we can just stop the caravan that is transporting the money because there is no such a thing) or other mechanisms needed for a country really become independent unilaterally (aka without Spain agreeing) are just impossible for us to create without the support of other independent countries or organizations like the EU or UN. From then on, ERC has defended that we need to find a way to negotiate with Spain and do a referendum that Spain recognizes as legally binding, but Spain has shown they don’t want to let us vote, so we need to be strong enough to force them to have to agree with us. “Strong enough” meaning to have the huge majority of Catalonia be in favour of independence, have the Parliament and other representative bodies be almost absolutely pro-independence, have the councils of all major unions be in favour of constant mobilization for independence, etc. So the most repeated sentence by ERC is, to this day, “enxamplar la base” (make the base/grassroots wider), and that’s what they dedicate most of their efforts towards, trying to convince undecided people or Spanish leftists or left-leaning people who they think can be convinced.

CUP (anti-capitalist independence party) said that the important thing to become independent is the support of the masses and constant mobilization. We already had a majority of the population in favour of independence and they showed to be ready for constant mobilization. General strikes had been successful, so what we needed was to do an indefinite strike (so, instead of just striking a couple of days, declare a strike that would not end until our demands -independence and freedom of political prisoners- are met). This is difficult because most people cannot afford to stop showing up to work for such a long time as would be needed, and the solidarity funds (the collections of funds used to aid workers who need it during strikes and to help pay for lawyers or whatever the repressed protestors need) could never be enough for a whole country. Nevertheless, lots of people are ready to make sacrifices.

And the other party, president Puigdemont’s PDeCat (the liberal independentist party). They said that we had to work harder on having all the state structures (“estructures d’estat”, those words are used a lot). State structures would be all the things necessary for a country to function independently. It includes the tax collection system, ambassies, administration system, justice system, police force (I know this is debated but at least we all can agree that we do NOT need Spanish cops imposing Spanish laws), postal service, etc. PDeCat’s efforts are centered on this, especially on economical aspects. They are still now working in this direction, with the idea that Spain will never agree to negotiate and so our only way of becoming independent is behaving like we’re independent: when we have our own tax collection, state services, citizenship, ambassies, etc. we will be independent whether or not Spain recognizes it, because we will be behaving independently and will not depend on Spain.

After that a lot of important things happened to, but basically the coalition government (PDeCat and ERC) fought all the time. As I just explained, their strategies are opposed, and ERC accuses PDeCat of being too radical and “scaring away” the Spanish left who could maybe one day let us have a referendum agreeded on with Spain, while PDeCat and CUP accuse ERC of having turned independence in a long-term goal instead of a short-term goal like it was until 2017.

So basically, we failed and did not achieve independence. We declared it but were not able to keep it going. Most people feel like the political class ruined it, because the people were ready to do what was needed (as proved in the strikes like October 3rd 2017, the occupation of the Barcelona airport on 4th October 2019, the so-called Battle of Orquinaona, etc). There’s been great protests until the covid-19 lockdown, it’s not like we ever really stopped. But most politicians seem too focused in fighting each other for the best strategy, especially ERC who is not participating in the meetings with the other parties any more. It’s all very confusing for the people, and it seems that we don’t know everything that happened in late 2017.

That’s pretty much it. I hope it was more or less understandable, and if you’re still confused, don’t worry, we are confused too. Now, seriously, if you want more clarification on any point you can send me another ask and I’ll be happy to answer. Meanwhile, after remembering all of this, I will be crying in my room ✌️ (jk)

#ask #anonymous #actualitat

25 notes · View notes

berniesrevolution · 5 years ago

Link

Americans believe a lot of lies about the police. In fact, most people can agree on this. They just disagree about what those lies are. Is the typical cop a cold-eyed executioner with a brutal disregard for human rights, or a selfless hero who risks his life to protect the community? Depending on who you are, you probably think one of those descriptions sounds utterly ridiculous. And you’re right. You recognize an obvious caricature when you see it. Just as the average Trump voter is neither a cross-burning Klansman nor an amiable unemployed plumber who just wants his job back, the average police officer is also a more complicated creature, a “sausage of angel and beast,” in the words of poet Nicanor Parra.

But “complicated” does not necessarily mean “good,” or “righteous,” or even “defensible.” After a certain number of rapes and murders by police, it becomes much more difficult to believe that “a few bad apples” are responsible for the flood of dead bodies and terrible headlines. The cases come from every part of the country—huge East Coast metropolises, laid-back liberal enclaves on the Pacific seaside, and even the sleepy small towns of the Midwest. Isolated incidents stop being isolated when they happen every week. Something is clearly wrong with America’s law enforcement.

Is this because cruel people become cops, or because becoming a cop makes people cruel? I used to think the answer was obvious, until I watched my friend kill a man on Facebook Live.

Jeronimo Yanez, better known as the cop who shot Philando Castile, was one of my best friends in high school. We played on the same baseball team and hung out in the same Chipotle parking lot. We went to senior prom together. On graduation day, we rolled our eyes and laughed while our parents took ten thousand pictures.

We drifted apart in the years that followed, as high school friends usually do, though once in a while he’d pop up in my newsfeed. My eyes would linger for a second over this CliffsNotes version of his life. Went on a fishing trip—cool. Got married—good for him. Graduated from the police academy—wait, he’s a cop now?

Huh. Weird. What else?

Oh, here’s a photo of Jeronimo holding his baby daughter. Here’s one of him with a classroom full of smiling third-graders. Here are a dozen generic snapshots of an ordinary human enjoying some small and unremarkable pleasure. Five minutes with Photoshop, and that could be your face blowing out birthday candles.

Then, one day, my feed became an endless stream of articles saying that Jeronimo was a murderer.

The people who shared these stories were outraged and heartbroken. Some of them said that Jeronimo was a heartless racist who killed a man and deserved to burn in hell. Many agreed that his acquittal on all charges was yet another mockery of justice in an America that has become a brutal police state where government-sanctioned killers are all but immune from legal consequences, even when they execute an old man eating chicken in his own backyard.

To these people, I would say one thing:

You’re right about the police, and you’re wrong about Jeronimo.

Before we continue, I have to make an apology of sorts. There are inherent problems in telling a story like this one, not the least of which is: why spend thousands of words talking about a cop who killed a human being and then walked free? Don’t “writers of conscience” have a moral obligation to elevate the stories of the oppressed above those of the oppressors? Isn’t Philando Castile, the man who was killed, the person whose story we really ought to be telling? Isn’t profiling his killer a waste of time, at best, and an implicit rationalization of police brutality, at worst?

These are all valid points, but they’re not the only valid points. Our first duty is to mourn the death—and celebrate the life—of Philando Castile. But we should seek to understand why Jeronimo Yanez pulled the trigger. We need to do the difficult and uncomfortable work of exploring how this particular “sausage of angel and beast” was made. Was Jeronimo rotten from the start, or did he become contaminated by a toxic environment? We can’t respond to this tragedy, or the broader tragedy of police violence in America, without a good answer to the question. Understanding what made Jeronimo shoot Philando Castile is not an act of indulgence. It’s a tactic for preventing future violence.

Although I never met him, I have to think that’s something Philando Castile would want. Before his life was snatched away, he made a reputation as a man of incredible kindness and compassion. His family and friends have spoken about him far more eloquently than I could. His pastor, Danny Givens, said, “you felt seen by him…. you felt like you mattered, like you meant something to him at that moment.” His friend and co-worker, John Thompson, recalls that “if kids couldn’t afford lunch, he would pay for their lunch out of his own pocket. And that was against school policy. And I mean kids can’t afford lunch right now. They miss Mr. Phil at that school. They miss him. I miss my friend.” Another colleague, Joan Edman, put it simply: “this man mattered.”

I believe that Castile’s death was a violation of the fundamental agreement that underpins any society—namely, that its members agree to not slaughter each other—and therefore that it is what most people would consider “a crime.” By definition, that makes Jeronimo Yanez a criminal. Critics of the criminal justice system are fierce and convincing in their call for criminals to be treated as human beings. I draw certain conclusions from that, but I understand that others will draw their own. You’d have a point if you said, “but Yanez isn’t actually a criminal—he’s already been humanized by a system that literally let him get away with murder because he was scared.” This is true, and it is terrible. Yet even if you believe that he’s an inhuman monster, and you hate everything that he represents, it’s still generally a good idea to know your enemy, if only to fight him more effectively.

It is neither my intention nor desire to portray Jeronimo as a sympathetic figure. I just want to give a truthful description of the person I knew, because I believe that his story can help us understand why America’s police problems cannot be solved by “smarter” or “nicer” cops. This is the most dangerous lie about the police. If they could turn my friend into a killer, there is a deeper evil at work.

I met Jeronimo Yanez on the first day of our sophomore year. It was September 2004 and I had just transferred to South St. Paul, proud home of the South St. Paul Packers. The school took its name from the historic Union Stockyards just down the street. Its slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants were slowly being replaced by respectably bland business centers, but a faint odor of boiling fat still wafted up from the riverside when the wind blew just right.

South St. Paul was the kind of blue-collar town that inspires entire Bruce Springsteen albums. Many families had lived there for over a hundred years. They traced their roots from the Eastern European immigrants who came to work in the stockyards, and who had built venerable social institutions (i.e. drinking establishments) with names like “Croatian Hall” and “Polish National Association.” Polka music was enjoyed, meat raffles were held, bowling leagues were well-attended.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #current affairs #police state #police brutality #criminal justice reform

157 notes · View notes

schraubd · 5 years ago

Text

Lori Lightfoot Goes Orthodox

I just wanted to flag this nice little story about the new Chicago Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, who took a trip to visit the small Orthodox Jewish enclave in West Rogers Park and apparently blew away the locals.

[Rabbi Shlomo] Soroka said that Lightfoot herself pitched the visit to West Rogers Park, the city’s biggest Orthodox enclave, after the Poway synagogue attack in April.

“It was her idea – ‘What do you think about me coming to visit on a Shabbos and seeing firsthand what you’re describing, and impart to the people a sense that the mayor cares,’” Soroka recounted.

[...]

Lightfoot spent part of the Sabbath afternoon after synagogue services concluded walking the streets of neighborhood, meeting with leaders and talking with passers-by, learning about their security concerns and some of the particular needs of Orthodox communities, like eruv wires.

The visit was not publicly announced by City Hall; there are no pictures of the visit on the mayor’s social media pages, and the mayor’s press office did not respond to a request for comment.

But Soroka said the lack of a photographer on Shabbat showed Lightfoot’s sensitivity to community concerns, as well as proving that this was a genuine concern to her and not just for show.

“In advance of the visit, we requested that we shouldn’t have photographers on the Sabbath, to keep with the sanctity of the day – it may not violate the letter of the law, but the spirit of what it’s supposed to be,” Soroka said. “And that’s a tall order….Pictures are important and messaging is important. And the message I got back is, ‘She’s not coming for the photo op, and if this is something that’s a cultural sensitivity, she would like to respect that.’”

People who were there told the Forward that Lightfoot was a big hit with the crowd. A rabbi gave her a blessing that God should grant her wisdom; people on the street offered her water bottles; someone else gave her two challahs, a bottle of wine, and a saltshaker “because she’s going to shake things up,” Soroka said.

The story also notes that no Chicago mayor had done such a visit in decades, including its recent Jewish mayor Rahm Emanuel. I'm neither Rahm's biggest fan nor his biggest detractor, and I do think that some of Rahm's absence is attributable to (as the article notes) the suggestion the members of ethnic minorities sometimes don't feel the specific need to reach out to their own community. That said, I do think Lightfoot is demonstrating a distinct shift in style here, particularly her decision to avoid doing it is a photo-op or a big press flaunt. She's just quietly going about her business, listening to constituents, and apparently blowing crowds away. Good on her. And it's nice to see a story about politics that really is just ... nice, in a completely uncomplicated way. via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2IEgYBw

#Chicago #Jews #Lori Lightfoot #Rahm Emanuel

55 notes · View notes

spectraspecs-writes · 5 years ago

Text

Dantooine - Chapter 47 (Bastila)

Link to the masterpost. Chapter 46. Chapter 48.

I know I’d be welcome, and so would everyone else, if I wanted to get dinner at the Enclave, but frankly I’m so tired of being in there and eating their food. I honestly miss synthesized food. Even the crap that comes out of the synthesizer on the Hawk. I can’t believe Davik never cleaned it or checked it out.

Evidently Bastila feels the same way, because will Mission, Zaalbar, and Canderous went out looking for some real food, she elected to stay in the Hawk and hang out with me. She comes into the main hold with a bowl of greens covered in a pale yellow honey sauce. Hardly good looking next to the slab of steak I wanted. (I wonder if vegetarianism is a Jedi thing, a Bastila thing, or if she just wanted a salad, because there weren’t a lot of meat options at the Enclave. Just iriaz, and I’m sick of iriaz, too. They only boil it. Can’t you smoke it sometime, or barbecue? Must it be boiled?) She sits next to me and takes a bite. Then her face contorts into an obviously disgusted expression. “I shall have to speak to Teethree about maintaining the synthesizer,” she says.

“No need,” I say, “I plan on looking at it.”

“It’s a simple repair task. I see no reason you have to look into it.”

“I like fixing things.” Plus the implication that maintenance tasks should be left to droids is a bit… “racist” isn’t the right word, but it’s something like that. “Hey, can I talk to you about something? The dream we had?”

She sets her fork down. “It was less of a dream and more of a vision... a vision the two of us shared,” she says, “But I am certainly willing to answer any questions the Jedi Council did not.”

“They didn’t do much answering at all, frankly,” I say, pushing food around on my plate, “I still don’t understand why we shared this ‘vision’ in the first place.”

“Are you wondering why we shared the vision? Or why we even received it in the first place?” she asks rhetorically, then she shrugs. “To the first I can only repeat the answer that the Council gave us. Our fates are linked, and for two as strong as we are in the Force that amounts to a near-physical bond. As to the second, I don't truly have an answer for you.” She shrugs again, gesturing with her work and forcing some more of the gross salad down her throat. “The Force works as it will, and perhaps we should be grateful for what we have been given.”

“But how did our fates become linked?” I ask, “We’ve only known each other for, like, a month, and we had the vision maybe three days after we met.”

“I... I don't know,” she says, sounding a bit perplexed herself, “Believe me, I certainly don't find the prospect of being joined to you enjoyable in any fashion.”

“And here I thought I was growing on you,” I say, trying not to feel insulted, “It’s my dreams, isn’t it? They throw you off.”

“That’s enough of that,” she says, stopping me, before finishing her thoughts, “Please forgive me. I did not mean to imply that you were repulsive in any sense of the word. That we shared something so personal is just not something I'm used to.”

“Oh, believe me, it’s definitely a bit uncomfortable. It’s like having an audience all the time for my thoughts. It just seems a little convenient, is all.”

“The Force often seems to cause events that bend the laws of probability, especially with those that are strongly affiliated with it,” she says, “In this respect, you and I will simply have to become accustomed to such 'convenience'. We are the tools of the Force and we will do as it wills.”

“You make it sound like it’s alive,” I say, taking a bite of my own food.

“There is no evidence one way or the other,” she says, “What you believe the Force to be ultimately will decide who you are.”

Fair enough. “Let me ask you something else, why do you think we dreamed about Revan and Malak? Seems a bit convenient to me to dream about our enemies.”

“And what else should we dream about except that which is most important to our fate?”

“I don’t know, sword battles in space and dancing with Wookiees,” I say, shrugging, “I’d like some refuge in sleep.”

“I can understand that, I suppose,” she says, “Perhaps we dreamed of them because we desired to. Perhaps because they came to this planet and were strong enough in the Force to leave a... a trace.”

“I guarantee you, I did not want to dream about them.” That dream I had about Malak and Carth alone was terrifying, and I never want to feel that or see that again.

“That would not be my first choice, either,” she says, “but choice appears to be irrelevant in this matter. We dreamed about Revan and Malak either because we were meant to or because we needed to. There is no other way to look at it.”

“What do you think they were doing, anyway? It didn’t look quite like exploring.”

“I have no idea, but I suspect you’re right. It was obviously important.”

“Obviously,” I add, “Well, that’s all I wanted to know. Just promise me you’ll stay out of my dreams if it’s not about Revan and Malak.”

“Oh really?” she says incredulously, “And are you so certain that it is not you in my dreams?”

“Pretty certain. It sure feels like my head.”

“I see,” she says in that tone that says, “I don’t buy it.” “That is most likely vanity speaking, for I am not certain, myself.”

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal - I’ll stay out of your dreams and you stay out of mine.”

“I’ll do my best,” she says, acknowledging the joke for once, “Regardless, our fates are linked. The vision was no doubt meant for us both.”

“Well,” I say, “that’s really all I wanted to know.” And she goes back to her salad. But there’s something about her face. “Is something bothering you? Besides the salad, I mean.”

She smiles at the joke. “No, not bothering me. Not exactly. I've been thinking about what the Jedi Council said about the two of us, just as you have,” she says, “There is a bond between us, I do not dispute that. I can feel it, as I'm sure you can. The nature of that bond and its effect on our mission remain in question.”

“Doesn’t it mean my presence is necessary?”

“You say that as though if it didn’t I would leave you behind at the first possible moment. That is simply not true.”

“See, I knew I was growing on you.”

“Honestly, Rena,” she says, shaking her head, “In any event, I saw your service records when you were transferred aboard the Endar Spire, but nothing beyond that. I know very little about you. I'd like to ask you some questions, given our relationship.”

“Sounds fair enough, I just asked you a bunch of questions,” I say with a shrug, “Fire away.”

“Excellent. Don’t worry, these are simple questions. Nothing too intrusive.”

“Do I look worried?”

“What sort of background do you have?”

“I’m a scout. I’ve mentioned that. The Republic recruited me for my skills.”

“Good. On which planet were you born?”

“Deralia. It’s a remote system. Nice cave systems. Why?”

“Excellent. Your current age is?”

“Somewhere between 200 and 3000, I lost count.”

“Rena…”

“Come on, Bastila, all of this was in my service records. Do you have any actual questions?”

“Yes, well…” she starts to say, “The truth is I was studying how you responded to my questions. Your reactions help me judge you; this was a test for me to learn more about your character.”

“Oh, really?” Why couldn’t she just ask me actual questions? “Learn anything interesting?”

“You were honest, which is good,” she says, “But I don’t understand why you insist on joking about everything.”

“It’s quite simple - I just like to laugh.”

She sighs at me. “This bond we share will shape both our destinies, it is not to be taken lightly.”

“Well, hey, you did learn something about my character.”

“I suppose,” she says, sighing again, “But I imagine you've had enough questions for a while. So many things have happened to you since Taris. It's probably a lot for you to absorb.” She stands up, apparently having eaten all of the salad that she wanted. “I’m going to go meditate. We can speak again later, after you’ve had time to think about all of this.”

“Yeah, I think I want to take a look at the synthesizer anyway,” I say, standing up myself, “See you in the morning.” Time to find my spanner. She's right, I do need to think about things. There’s something weird happening, under the surface. And I doubt I have all the pieces yet to figure it out, but that’s not going to stop me from piecing together what I do have.

#star wars #knights of the old republic #star wars knights of the old republic #writing #fiction #kotor fic #kotor #specs writes stuff #dantooine #chapter 47 #rena visz #oc #fem!revan #ls!revan #bastila shan

5 notes · View notes

cactusnotes · 5 years ago

Text

Cultural Globalisation

Cultures and traditions, through globalisation, have been intermingling, creasing a whole array of good and bad impacts, the base for striking debates, and for me importantly: a chunk of what my exams are probably going to be on. Well, here are my notes and case studies:

In 1959, Fidel Castro declared Cuba to be a communist country, separated from Western capitalism. It remained isolated for 50 years, relying on subsidies from communist USSR until 1991, when it collapsed. Cuba seemed to have no other option but to allow in tourism to develop its economy, resulting in increasing awareness of other cultures.

In 2008, Fidel Castro resigned, and his brother took over, and decided to weaken communism. Free enterprise businesses were allowed to set up, in a relaxed communism that somewhat reflected China’s. Since 2012, Cubans could buy and sell houses, take out loans and start businesses, at the loss of state-employment guarantees and state-owned farmland was sold. This allowed USA-Cuban relations to improve. However, it has increased divisions, with some wealthy Cuban entrepreneurs living in luxury, while some live in tumble-down houses, with no variety in their simple diet--bread, eggs and plantain and state rations. This is as differences in wealth, and person leads to different chances of success. From then, it’s positive feedback, as the poor cannot help their kids do better. Capitalists too, don’t have such incentive to help their workers.

Today, Cuba is in a state of change. Tourists, TV and the internet have allowed Cubans to broaden their knowledge of the wider world, and learn about the challenges to their values and traditions, so globalisation is diluting Cuban culture. This cultural erosion has also led to a detriment in the environment, with the coral reefs at risk as beach-side tourist resorts are erupted. This process is called cultural diffusion: Western attitudes and values have spread to Cuba, and also to around the world. Maintaining a strong Cuban identity is very difficult.

The economy changes, ways of life changes, attitudes and values change. Global changes are impacting how people view the world, and these global changes can be seen on a local level: called glocal cultures. British cities have been transformed by inwards migration to hubs of cultural diversity, with its own new character, new identity, compared to just a mix of others. These areas are called ethnic enclaves, with some examples being Indian populations in London, South East, and East of England.

There are several key ideas surrounding this concept of globalisation of society: culture is the ideas, customs and social practices of a particular people or society; cultural diffusion is the spread of cultural beliefs and activities from one group (ethnicities, religions, nationalities) to another through communication, transport and technology; cultural erosion is when cultural diversity is reduced through popularisation; cultural imperialism is when one culture of a nation is promoted over another, otherwise known as westernisation.

The main culprits of cultural imperialism, westernisation and americanisation are, of course, Europe and North America, turning western culture into a global culture. The factors amplifying this today include TNCs, tourism, global media and migration. The main protector of individual cultures is language: things don’t translate straight into each other, something is lost in translation. But as the same groups control global media, which impacts language, there is increasingly common vocabulary. Global homogenisation is the process of culture everywhere becoming one.

News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch, impacts political and cultural thinking worldwide. They have 101 newspapers in Australia (national and suburban); four in the Uk including The Times and The Sun; over 25 papers in the USA including The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal and a 33% share in Russia’s leading financial times paper. Television wise: Fox is theirs; My Network TV; channels in Eastern Europe, Israel, Indonesia and NZ. Their satellites are: BSkyB in the UK, Foxtel in Aus, SKY in NZ/Ita/Ger and StarTV in Asia. Politically, Fox TV in the USA openly supports the Republican Party, while every winning party in the UK since 1979 has been promoted by the Sun (EW, WHY UK?).

IT and digital communication means that the rate and desire of consumption has changed, and the products themselves have changed, as hybrid products are on the rise, where global TNCs create a cultural mix. What we consume generally is based on the work of small groups of big TNCs. 90% of the music market is owned by five companies: EMI, Universal, AOL, Time Warner, SonyBMG. They’ve focused on cutting the range of successful artists: it’s easier to promote one than promote several. This one becomes universal, rather than having different, local artists, contributing to homogenisation in the music world. Globalisation is the new term for cultural imperialism, and helps this musical homogenisation as it promotes the spread of TNCs due to easier connections to promote one thing worldwide, and distribute one product rather than just producing local music.

Some may consider the change of value as a good thing (the fact that the textbook author portrays this as good literally demonstrates this westernisation, as he proposes that these values are right. Don’t get me wrong, I 100% agree that these values are good, but the fact that he’s portraying them positively is literally proof of what he’s saying and it’s funny. Or is that just me? Just me, sorry, ignore this). One of these is the attitude to disability. In China, 2011, official data reported that only 25% of disabled people could find employment. They were stigmatised, marginalised, abused. Yet, in 2012, they won the paralympics. This helps to destigmatize disability (but boy, have we got far to go!) as described by disabled Australian TV presenter Adam Hills: “Sydney was the first Paralympics to treat Paralympians as equals. London was the first to treat them as heros”. The West is adopting more liberal ideas on ethical issues, such as gay rights (gay rights!), and we can see that homogenisation is far off from total control, with how this contrasts with attitudes in places like Russia and the Middle East.

There is obviously resistance to globalisation. I personally feel like these notes do portray it as negative until the last few paragraphs. It’s perceived to be exploitation of people and the environment. The general criticisms link to: the environment, third world debt, animal rights, child-labour, anarchism, and mostly anti-capitalism and opposition to TNCs. There are many anti-globalisation and environmental pressure groups rejecting globalised culture and TNCs especially (like tax avoidance). The Occupy is one such group, and held demonstrations in cities like London and New York (now that is ironic). The main targets for anti-globalisation movements are the WTO, IMF and World Bank, as well as large US TNCs like McDonald and Starbucks, on the exploitation of the workers, and environment, making it easier for the rich to get away with wrong, and erasing cultures (Americanisation).

Anti-globalisation and rejection of cultural diffusion can even occur on a governmental level. Iran confiscated Barbie Dolls for being un-islamic in the 2000s, but ended up liberalised due to a need for international assistance in dealing with radicalism, and the youth still accessing banned social media, like Twitter and Facebook. Until the 2000s, France led the anti-globalisation movement, limiting broadcasting of foreign material--40% of broadcasts had to be French and no more than 55% American film imports--but has had to liberalise this due to internet downloading of media and due to successful TNCs from France, like EDF energy.

In Norway, for hundreds of years, local fishermen have hunted whales and the food source was considered part of their tradition and culture. The Norwegian representatives claimed that their northern coastal villages depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. Although whaling is not a big part of the Norwegian national budget, it is still considered a crucial source of income for those fishermen who need it. They also argued that the global effort to prohibit the hunting of whales amounted to an imposition of other countries' cultural values that contradicted their own, since it cannot be environmental concerns, for the whales they hunted were not endangered--it’s all based on values. The US Department of Commerce has even suggested that trade restrictions be imposed upon Norway, because it was violating the International Whaling Commission's ban on these kinds of whaling activities. Here, the environment, different values and nationalism clash.

Papua New Guinea has over 7000 cultural groups, with different languages, diets, etc. living in different villages or hamlets, and generally sustained by subsidence farming, fishing and collection. People who are skilled and also generous in getting food are well respected. Then, colonisation meant tribal tensions were crushed, and people were used on plantations and integrated into a new economic and political system. Christianity and western ideals have come forth, with value being placed in well-educated and successful workers, and intermarriage between tribes has lead to losses of languages and direct cultural conflict. Mining took place in one tribal area, meant to benefit all, but the local tribe was doubtful, and resented those on the mainland for allowing the Aussies and Brits to come in and mine. They developed into a revolutionary army, causing conflict in the 1990s, fighting between citizens, youth gangs, riots, looting, returning tribal warfare and huge law and order problems.

The USA and UK have faced increasing nationalisation as a political movement. These are potentially seen in things like the Brexit vote, and election of Trump. Some follow it due to the dilution of their native culture and loss of sovereignty, others due to the low-income and low-level education people in HICs feel as though they have been left out of the benefits of globalisation. While it has the same benefits of protectionism, nationalism can lead to negative impacts, most notably through marginalisation/persecution of ethnic minority groups, ironically emphasising the whole trope and reason for cultural imperialism in the first place.

#Geography / Cactus #Human Geography / Cactus #Globalisation / Cactus #Globalisation #Culture #Capitalism #Cultural erosion #Cultural diffusion #TNCs

1 note · View note

collapsedsquid · 5 years ago

Link

As the WASPs declined, the topic spawned a mini-genre all its own. Peter Schrag’s 1971 contribution (an early version of which appeared as an essay in the April 1970 issue of this magazine) quotes H. L. Mencken dating the decline to 1924, which Schrag deemed premature (recall that Baltzell had dated the beginning of the decline just five years later, with the stock market crash). Schrag catalogues some of the prominent artists and intellectuals of the time—most were Jewish, a few were immigrants, and some were even black people and American Indians. Foreign Affairs remained soundly Waspish, but gone was the day when “American” meant “WASP” (forgetting enslaved people and their descendants); the native stock had gotten complacent and outnumbered. Sounding like a contemporary celebrant of the internet-driven demise of the cultural and political gatekeepers, Schrag cheered “the vacuum left by the old arbiters of the single standard—Establishment intellectuals, literary critics, English professors, museum directors, and all the rest” as “a sort of cultural prison break.” He did, however, worry that if “the WASP’s mediating function . . . were to be seriously eroded,” chaos could ensue.

Almost two decades later, Robert Christopher’s Crashing the Gates noted all the non-Anglo-Saxons penetrating the corporate elite, some of whom affected the WASP manner—such as Pete Peterson, the private equity mogul who made a second career of trying to eviscerate Social Security and Medicare—and others who didn’t, such as Lee Iacocca, who rescued Chrysler in the 1980s. (Both were sons of immigrant restaurant owners—Peterson of Greeks who owned a diner in Nebraska, Iacocca of Italians who owned a hot dog joint in Pennsylvania.) The gatekeepers didn’t give up without a fight, though. A friend of mine who grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, home to the Fords and other old-line auto execs, told me that when Iacocca tried to buy a house in an über-Waspy enclave of the town, it was taken off the market. When he made an offer on another, it, too, was taken off the market. That is caste discipline.

The Decline of the WASP and Crashing the Gates were serious chronicles that largely approved of WASP decline in the name of diversity, but 1991 brought a lament from the right: Richard Brookhiser’s The Way of the WASP: How It Made America, and How It Can Save It . . . So to Speak. (“So to speak” is admittedly a nice touch.) Brookhiser found no virtue in diversification. To him, what came after WASPdom was not a culture but a product of decay. Gone were the days when virtues like conscience, industry, civic-mindedness, and anti-sensuality commanded respect and deference. (Anti-sensuality indeed: comfort is scorned. Thermostats are kept low in the winter, and when I suggested to my WASP mother-in-law that I might get an air conditioner for the room we sleep in at the family summer retreat, I got a look like I’d proposed turning the place into a bordello.) For Brookhiser, part of what killed the old order was modernism—meaning characters like Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, the instigators of what the French philosopher Paul Ricœur called the hermeneutics of suspicion. In the case of the WASPs, one might suspiciously regard their high-mindedness as a cover for self-interest. But what really did them in, in Brookhiser’s eyes, was not history, not immigration, not their insularity, not massive economic transformations, but a loss of nerve. They got liberal and soft and lost all self-discipline. And that has deprived society of its “immune system” against bad thoughts, bad politics, and bad behavior. If only the WASPs would recover their lost virtues and offer themselves as leaders, “they will be accepted” by a society craving proper leadership.

That seems a stretch, but he has a point about the loss of nerve. In tracing the history of the right’s takeover of the G.O.P., Geoffrey Kabaservice pointed to John Hay Whitney’s shutting down the New York Herald Tribune, a voice of posh, liberal Republicanism, in 1966, because it was losing around $5 million a year (the equivalent of almost $40 million today). Right-wing plutocrats have endured far greater losses to promote their cause: the Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff estimates that the Rupe has lost over a billion in the nearly four decades he’s owned the New York Post. Kabaservice concludes, “The Tribune’s disappearance was further testimony that moderates were simply less willing than conservatives to suffer and sacrifice for their cause.” Those WASP virtues of discretion and thrift don’t equip you for an ideological war—especially if you don’t think of yourself as having an ideology.

Contrary to Baltzell’s fears that they were hardening into a caste, unable to admit fresh blood, the WASPs encouraged their own supplanting. In the 1960s, the Ivies began opening up to the products of public schools. Under President Kingman Brewster Jr. and the admissions director R. Inslee “Inky” Clark, also a junior, Yale began rejecting legacy WASP applicants in favor of the upwardly mobile. In 1966, the university’s governing body, the Yale Corporation, summoned Clark to explain the sorts he was admitting to the class of 1970. He argued that in a changing America, Jews, minorities, even women might be appropriate Yale material. This didn’t sit well with one corporation member, who pointed to his posh colleagues and said, “You’re talking about Jews and public school graduates as leaders. Look around you at this table. These are America’s leaders. There are no Jews here. There are no public school graduates here.” Inky won that battle, which is why I found myself at Yale five years later—and the same is likely true for Brookhiser, right after me, given his modest origins in suburban Rochester. The transformation of Yale, along with the other Ivies and the prep schools, marked the ceding of power from a hereditary aristocracy to something that likes to think of itself as a meritocracy.

6 notes · View notes

lukes-writing · 5 years ago

Text

Prologue: The Last Mission

Project introduction | Next chapter

Word count: 6800 Warnings: Violence, gun violence, head damage, mild language Note: The prologue is longer than an average chapter of this story, so please don’t get discouraged :) The other chapters have a standard length of 3-4K on average.

September 12th, 9:41 PM, the Trinity Gate inhuman enclave

“Holy Hell,” Vlade mutters as he grabs the greasy, sleazy handle of rusty metal door. The damaged, flickering solar-powered lamps illuminate the letters written in black paint - INHUMANS ONLY. The smaller letters below them, sprayed there using a red spray paint, elaborate the message: Pinks will be eaten alive, or some other nasty shit.

An old neon sign, as faulty as the lamps, shines above the door: HERRING’S inhuman pub. Vlade would never voluntarily visit such place. However, now he has an important task to complete and it requires him to enter this nasty place. Vlade started to reconsider his job choice for the hundredth time this week.

He takes a deep breath and steps inside. He is immediately struck by loud trance music and hot, stuffy air. The smell is impossible to describe. Besides alcohol and greasy junk food, there are smells of various unconventional foods and drinks favored by different inhuman races.

Vlade closes the door. The interior is similar to any underground club found at every corner of the human part of the city - gloom interrupted by psychedelic flashing lights from the dance floor, wooden tables of various sizes, a large bar, several casino games and gambling machines.

It is the dwellers of this club that are making Vlade uncomfortable. There are inhumans of all shapes and sizes. About half of them look like humans, maybe except for several oddities. But then, there are straightforward monsters. Vlade passes by some kind of burly creature with gray skin loudly slurping on something which looks and smells like a still full animal stomach.

Just go and never look anyone in the eyes. Vlade carefully seeks the man he’s looking for, avoiding any eye contact. He is scared, even though he is usually the one who invokes respect. He is about two meters tall, with broad shoulders and a muscular figure. His leather jacket, heavy boots, long hair, and stubble completes the image of a guy not worth to be messed with.

Finally, after a nervous walk through the pub, Vlade notices his contact. He is already sitting by the table with a shot of clear liquid in front of him. He is tall and burly just like Vlade, but his head is shaven and the right side of his face is covered by a complex dark tattoo.

Vlade takes a deep breath and gives the man a firm gaze of his dark eyes. “Jaromir?” he asks.

The tattooed man nods and Vlade sits on the chair across from him. “And you must be Vladislav,” he says with a rasping, breathy voice. Vlade also confirms it with a nod.

At that moment, Jaromir reaches under his chair and pulls out an old, sawn-off shotgun. Without hesitation, he points both barrels at Vlade’s face at point-blank range and pulls the trigger.

A loud gunshot echoes through the pub. Several guests apathetically look in the sound’s direction, but they immediately return to their business. They are either too drunk, drugged or careful to poke their nose into someone else’s business. Besides that, violence isn’t an uncommon sight in inhuman enclaves.

“Man, was that really necessary?” Vlade utters, wiping the pellets and soot off his face.

Jaromir grins. “I just had to make sure you’re not a Pink, y’know.”

Vlade raises his eyebrows. “What if I was a human?”

“Then, the Slurpers over there would probably get a free meal,” he gestures towards a group of three naked inhumans hunched up on the floor. They have roughly humanoid shape, pallid skin, gaunt figure and long, scraggy limbs with long fingers on both hands and feet.

They are already looking at the duo with their tiny, dull eyes in their wrinkly, oblong faces. At the end of the muzzle, they have tiny circular mouths lined by needle-like teeth. A thin, flexible tongue keeps emerging from the mouth, making a loud, slurping sound.

As soon as the savage inhumans realize the gunshot killed nobody, they continue sticking their tongues into wide jugs containing animal blood.

Jaromir continues in a different tone. “Sorry about it, but it was the quickest way to make sure you’re really a Fext. I know most of the local Fexti and this is the first time I’ve seen you around.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Vlade replies. “You know, I’m something like a nomad. I’m on the run from The Society, so I have to move often. This is the first time I’ve been at the Trinity Gate enclave.”

Jaromir laughs. “What did you do to deserve the attention of these sons of bitches?”

“A bit of this, a bit of that,” Vlade says. “They call themselves Supernatural law enforcement, but it seems they’re not used to prosecuting Fexti as they tend to be mostly peaceful.” He pulls out his phone and browses it for a moment. Then, he shows Jaromir a page containing his photo:

The Society is looking for VLADISLAV KOVAR

Race: Inhuman / Fext

Prosecuted for: Manslaughter / Heist / Rioting

Eyes: Dark brown / Height: 203 cm / Hair: Light brown / Figure: Slim, muscular

Jaromir smiles and nods in satisfaction. “So it seems you’re a brother who understood what it means to be a Fext. Damn. We have bulletproof skins, great strength, we are almost invulnerable, and yet most of the Fexti choose to sit on their asses or even… cooperate with these suckers.”

“Unbelievable,” Vlade utters. “An inhuman who cooperates with The Society is the worst kind of scum.”

“You tell me,” Jaromir finishes the glass in front of him and waves at the waitress who looks like a human girl in a black cropped top and skirt - Vlade doesn’t know what kind of inhuman she is as many races, including the Fexti, look and act exactly like humans.

“Anything to drink?” the tattooed man asks.

“Just a glass of water,” Vlade replies.

Jaromir raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. The inhuman girl soon brings the water for Vlade and another shot of clear liquid for his companion. For a moment, the two Fexti just enjoy their drinks and listen to the omnipresent numbing music.

Then, Vlade finally makes the first move. “Okay, now about the ‘friendly talk’ you promised me.”

Jaromir leans towards Vlade in a conspiratorial gesture. “So, I see you are a Fext outlaw. One of these not afraid to use our powers. But how do I know I can trust you?”

Vlade laughs. “Man, do you think I am some kind of Society’s snooper? I’ve already shown you that The Society wants me dead or alive… or anything in between. My family disowned me. I can’t stay in one place for longer than two weeks. I think I no longer want to be alone. I need… guidance.”

“Then guidance is what you can get,” Jaromir smiles.

“So as I understand it, you are a leader of some kind of Fext gang?”

“It can be said like that. We take advantage of the fact we look like humans, so we can freely move, even outside the enclave, unlike our brothers there,” he looks at the hungry Slurpers nearby; the blood in the jug has run out, so the creatures have started to fight each other. “The cops aren’t equipped for robbers with bulletproof skin. And they’re far from discovering the Fexti’s weakness,” Jaromir chuckles.

“Sounds good,” Vlade returns him the smirk. “I’m already kind of tired of endless roaming. I guess you have some sort of hideout, don’t you?”

“You bet we do. I’ll take you there if you want.”

“That means we can seal the deal?”

“Of course. If we gather enough promising Fexti, we can take control over Trinity Gate in no time. With humans and their laughable politics… we, the inhumans, would have taken over the world if that goddamn Society didn’t constantly try to stop us.”

Vlade takes a sip of the water, listening to Jaromir’s words. The older Fext nods in satisfaction as he sees his younger companion holding onto every word he says.

“You know, humans are ridiculous. We, the inhumans, usually don’t have any quarrel with each other even though we come in all shapes and sizes. Look at that fella over there. He is a half fish, yet I just let him live his life. Actually, the Gillscalys are great business partners. Even Herring, this pub’s owner, is a Gillscaly. And humans? They can hate each other to death because of different skin color. Skin color. Do you understand it? And we are the ones who must live in ghettos.”

“You have a point,” Vlade nods.

“We can just wait until the humans destroy themselves,” Jaromir continues. “Or… we can speed it up a little. The humans are defenseless against Fexti. They are so cute and squishy. Actually… if you aren’t scared, we can take it as your initiation. But once you go… you’re in this with us. Understood?”

“Of course. I didn’t expect anything else.”

“Very well, Vladislav. Now listen closely. You probably know about the three territories the United States split into after the second civil war, right? I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

“The three territories,” Vlade nods. “The Central Confederation, the Republic of Northeast and the Commonwealth of Great Moors. The territories, which perfectly complement each other, are still plagued by skirmishes, riots and sabotages without any hope for uniting any time soon. It’s like the civil war never ended. Do you want to… do something about it?”

“Of course I do,” Jaromir’s eyes flash with zealous malevolence. “If we just assassinate the leaders of all three territories at once, with a bit of luck, we would be able to appoint a Fext in their place. That way, we would basically take control of the former United States… to the favor of inhumans.”

Vlade can hardly contain his excitement. Not because he’s so excited about Jaromir’s plan, but because his mission is successful. Thanks to a tiny microphone hidden in his clothes, The Society already knows about the malicious plans of the rogue Fexti.

Now let’s finally leave this place…

“You look scared, Vladislav. Is something wrong?” Jaromir smiles. “Is it too much for you? You don’t need to take part if you don’t want to, but I would honestly be disappointed. I’d expect something more from a Fext who has a file in The Society’s database.”

“Of course I’m in.”

Jaromir offers Vlade a handshake. However, before their hands can touch, they’re approached by another Fext. “Jaro, before you start planning stuff with this guy, maybe you should know that he works for The Society. Thanks to him, I spent two years in detention.”

Jaromir yanks his hand back and gives Vlade a hateful look. “Is that true?” he barks. “Are you a filthy snitch of The Society? Damn, I knew I should examine new recruits more closely. Your file in The Society’s database… they arranged it for you, right? You sneaky son of a bitch.”

Vlade doesn’t even try to deny it. The Fext who revealed his identity was Karel, a rogue inhuman he arrested two years ago for rioting. Wiccan made a mistake here. The team should’ve made sure there are none of their past cases present in the pub. Now, the Fext convict ruined everything.

“Hey!” Karel shouts with a high-pitched voice. “This long-haired Fext over here is an undercover Enforcer! GET HIM BEFORE HE ESCAPES!”

The members of The Society, or Enforcers, have a mixed reputation among the inhumans. Those who live according to the law are glad the secret association of humans and inhumans with special talent watches over them, ready to punish all offenders. On the other hand, the underground inhuman communities like this usually aren’t fond of having Enforcers this close.

While most inhumans don’t find the presence of an Enforcer worth interrupting their business, a few of them actually stand up and attack him. Vlade turns tail and runs towards the door, but is stopped by a tenacious-looking humanlike inhuman.

Vlade punches him, hoping it’s not a Volatile, an inhuman with acidic body fluids. Luckily, he collapses to the ground with a gasp - a Fext punch is one of the most feared things among those familiar with inhumans. However, this short delay is enough for Jaromir to catch up and attack Vlade from the back.

The Fext Enforcer stumbles forward, but doesn’t fall. He turns around and catches Jaromir’s incoming fist. Vlade strikes back, punching the outlaw in the face; the Fext punch is so powerful it even nullifies the hardness of another Fext’s skin. In other words, two Fexti can get into a fist fight just like humans.

Jaromir curses and spits out blood.

Even though Vlade is a well-trained, skilled Enforcer, he still gulps as he sees two figures appearing behind Jaromir. Two other Fexti. Tall, muscular and good-looking - three main appearance traits of all members of this inhuman race. A man even larger than Jaromir with a butch cut and aggressive, weather-beaten face and a lean, fair-haired woman whose cropped top reveals her stone-hard midriff.

“Oh, geez,” Vlade utters and evaluates his possibilities.

He sees Herring, the pub’s owner, just a few steps away from him. As Jaromir mentioned, Herring is a Gillscaly, a fish-like inhuman with a humanoid figure, shiny scales all over his body, webbed hands, gills on his neck and bulging eyes.

Vlade makes a long step towards the Gillscaly, grabs him and holds him in a chokehold; he smells a faint fishy smell typical for all the Gillscalys. Jaromir and his henchmen step back. Right now, eliminating Vlade is more important for them than Herring’s life, but they also knew that if Herring died, they would have to face the ire of the local habitués. After all, Herring was the one who built this place and established this small community of inhuman outcasts.

“Let me go…!” Herring, dressed in a black shirt, pants and apron with the pub’s logo, gasps with a croaky voice typical for Gillscalys. “Goddamn Enforcers!”

“I don’t want to hurt ya,” Vlade hisses. “Just keep calm and play along.”

Jaromir stops moving, his shotgun aimed at Vlade and his hostage. His henchmen also stay back. The other inhumans stay out of Vlade’s way as they don’t want Herring to get hurt.

That way, Vlade makes his way to the door. He opens it, using his elbow to press the handle. The cold outside air touches him, providing a nice relief from the atmosphere inside the pub. Then, he pushes Herring forward into the pub, turns tail and runs on the street.

“Wiccan! WICCAN!” he shouts. “We have a problem!”

The things got out of hand and now, Vlade will need his team’s support. The original plan was to peacefully gather the intel, then disappear and foil the Fexti’s scheme. But, thanks to Karel, the plan changed. However, Vlade’s team was ready for every eventuality.

“Vlade, right here!” the Fext hears from behind one of the large dustbins. A second later, the leader of Team Menhir shows himself in the electric lighting.

Wiccan Salisbury is not very tall, wiry man in his middle forties with the first signs of wrinkles appearing on his face. However, that’s the only sign of his age. He wears long dreadlocks, a black polo shirt, jeans and a denim jacket. His youth also reflects in tenacious blue eyes and tomboyish smile.

“We have a problem,” Vlade repeats.

“Fexti?” Wiccan asks.

“Yeah.”

“Hey, everyone!” Wiccan shouts. “Start the battleplan ‘To Kill a Fext’. We have been exposed.”

After hearing this call, the remaining human members of the team appear on the street.

First, Vlade notices Ophelia Salisbury, Wiccan’s wife. She is a tall, lean woman with light brown skin. She has hypnotic black eyes, prominent swan neck and long hair tied into a top bun. Her attire consists of a blouse in the color of galaxy purple and a long, hippie-style skirt accompanied by excessive jewelry on her neck, wrists and ears.

Both partners are armed - Wiccan with a carbine rifle with laser sights, Ophelia with a 10mm semi-automatic pistol. Both of these are capable of stopping almost any inhuman, but the Fexti require a different strategy.

Finally, Gerard Skellinger shows up. Slim, average height, in his late twenties, dressed like a cowboy including the hat, long, wavy hair, good-looking face, reckless personality. Gerard enjoys two things - the presence of pretty girls and a good fight with the inhumans. Fortunately for him, he has plenty of both. First because of his looks, second thanks to his job.

They all knew the fifth member of the team, second inhuman besides Vlade, is somewhere around them.

“I hoped Vlade would screw up!” Gerard smirks. “Who we fighting?”

At that moment, Jaromir bursts out through the pub’s door, accompanied by his two Fext henchmen and several other inhumans brave enough to oppose the whole team of Enforcers. The tattooed Fext pauses upon seeing four combat-ready figures, but then just smirks and fires his shotgun. The blast is aimed at Wiccan, but Vlade jumps in front of him like a living shield, pellets ricocheting from his Fext skin.

The Society members take cover behind anything possible - a low wall, a large dustbin, over the corner of a building across from the pub. The armed inhumans open fire and Wiccan and Ophelia return it. Vlade doesn’t have to care about the bullets, so he can just smash them with his powerful fists.

Gerard doesn’t use any firearm. However, he has his faithful set of Artifacts.

During the time spent in South America, Gerard discovered the so-called Mind stones which can resonate with powerful minds and move, even levitate, at its will. Gerard just stole six of them from the local shaman and ran away. At home, he attached various technologies, gadgets and weapons to the stones and started to use them as his “Artifacts”, one for every situation.

Gerard reaches into one of the six pockets on his vest and deploys an Artifact marked with a red diode. He feels the Mind stone inside it connecting with his brain, levitating in the air like a drone. He sends the Artifact towards the group of inhumans, then activates the weapon attached to it - a small, yet powerful laser rifle.

The red beam hits one of the hostile Gillscalys, immediately piercing through the inhuman’s shoulders. The fishman screeches in pain, drops his gun and stumbles back inside the pub. Then, Gerard notices a human-like inhuman with a revolver aiming towards Wiccan’s cover. The beam goes through his head, killing the inhuman on the spot. Moreover, his acidic blood ignites and sets his head ablaze, revealing the inhuman was a Volatile.

Vlade tries hard to fight off the two Fext thugs. The woman is agile, the man is strong. However, Vlade has better training and technique. Jaromir watches it all with his shotgun ready.

“You don’t stand a chance, Enforcer scum,” Jaromir taunts him.

Together, the Team Menhir members manage to reduce the numbers of aggressive inhumans to an acceptable minimum. “Okay, it’s time to deal with these Fexti,” Wiccan utters.

Vlade rushes forward and tackles down the female Fext. Then, he rains several punches on her face. The amount of damage would incapacitate any other being, but the Fexti are far more durable. She just endures Vlade’s attack while trying to fight back.

However, Vlade is a skilled melee combatant and already knows all the dirty tricks. And also how to counter them. He doesn’t let the woman stand up, allowing the others to deal with the male Fext thug.

“Kirlian! Now!” Wiccan commands.

“I’m on it!” a voice sounds, coming seemingly from the neon sign above the door. Then, the sign, attached using two rusty chains, starts to tremble and jump up and down. Shortly, one of the chains breaks. The sign swings like a pendulum and hits the male Fext straight in the face.

The sign shatters and a loud crack of electricity follows. The Fext groans and stumbles backwards. An uneducated person would think this is only a minor, barely appreciable injury, but in fact, the electric crack sealed the Fext’s fate.

“Ouch, that hurt,” the voice still coming from the broken sign says. “Gerard, your turn!”

Gerard leaves his cover and runs towards the Fext, dazed by the attack. Several remaining armed inhumans open fire on him, but Gerard has his own line of defense - an Artifact marked with a yellow light with a gadget which allows it to create force fields. The parapsychological drone hovers around Gerard and deflects incoming bullets using a hi-tech shield which looks like flickering air above a hot highway.

The man draws his weapon - a long two-handed sword with a thin, double-edged blade. With a battle cry, he swings the sword at the Fext who has no hope of deflecting the attack. The blade slices through his skin, muscles, tendons and bone, just like it would do if used at a regular human.

“Sayonara, my friend,” Gerard smirks and steps back.

The Fext’s head disconnects from his shoulders and hits the ground with a tubby thump. The decapitated body makes a few steps towards Gerard, but it soon stumbles and collapses, bleeding from the stump of its neck. The head’s glazed eyes stare at the night sky with an empty expression.

There aren’t many ways how to kill a Fext, but using electricity is one of them. The electric shock burns the layer of flexible, yet stone-hard substance similar to the insects’ chitin exoskeleton growing under their epidermis and on the surface of their bones, responsible for their apparent invincibility. Their body immediately starts to regenerate the layer, but in the meantime, the Fext is vulnerable to physical injuries.

“Good job,” Wiccan says. “One down.”

As soon as the first Fext falls, Jaromir turns tail and runs away. Vlade, still brawling with the Fext woman, notices it. At that moment, he knocks his opponent down with a powerful punch, stands up and starts to pursue the Fext gang leader. “Hey, stay right here!” Vlade shouts. “In the name of The Society!”

Jaromir ignores him and continues running through the narrow backstreet.

The Fext woman recovers from Vlade’s beating and joins the chase.

“Kirlian! Stop her!” Ophelia shouts.

This time, the voice comes from the nearby dustbin: “Understood.” As soon as it starts to talk and move, two nearby Slurpers feasting on some kind of half-rotten carcass run away with startled, throaty sounds. The dustbin falls down and starts to roll toward the running female Fext.

Unaware of the danger, she trips over the dustbin and falls on the ground. She starts to get up, but Gerard already deployed another one of his Artifacts. This time, a sound similar to a dentist drill breaks the silence. The Artifact marked with a black brand has a small buzzsaw attached to the Mind stone.

However, instead of attacking the Fext directly, Gerard guides the Artifact to the rusty lamp illuminating the woman’s laying body. With a loud screech, the saw starts to cut through the pole the lamp is attached to. The blade is small, yet powerful. The job is done within seconds.

The lamp collapses on the Fext’s head like a cut-down tree. Another crack of electricity sounds through the night as the solar-powered lamp shatters on her head, knocking her down again. The Fext woman shoves the fallen lamppost away and makes another attempt to stand up.

However, she is immediately stopped by three gunshots coming from Ophelia’s firearm. The bullets end up in her forehead and the Fext woman collapses again, this time with no chance of recovering.

After hearing the gunshots, Vlade, while still running, turns over his shoulder to see the Fext woman with three holes in her forehead falling on the ground. Good, his team is watching his back. That means he can focus on pursuing Jaromir, running a few meters ahead of him.

The two Fexti run through the inhuman enclave, watching the filthy backstreets slowly change into more decent parts of the inhuman part of the city. The inhuman bystanders observe the chase, preferring to step out of their way. They run through a neat park, the marketplace and a trade district.

The chase is long; the Fexti can run for a long time without getting tired thanks to their massive amounts of stamina. However, Vlade is faster and younger. On a small town square, Jaromir slowly starts to lose his lead. Then, Vlade jumps forward and tackles Jaromir down, chaining into a powerful punch into the outlaw’s face.

The Fexti face each other and circle around like boxers. Jaromir is the one who attacks first and the two end up in a furious fistfight. Vlade is quicker and has better technique, but Jaromir is stronger. Every hit that successfully connects with Vlade’s face blurs the Enforcer’s vision and causes him to stagger.

Vlade responds with quicker jabs and precise strikes from various martial arts. As the fight continues, Vlade starts to get the upper hand. An inhuman in the ranks of The Society is always more than welcome, but Fexti are especially valued for their strength, endurance and stamina. They are intensely trained in martial arts and survival tactics which basically turn them into walking tanks.

Vlade, with a trickle of blood emerging from the corner of his mouth and numerous bruises on his face, finally strikes Jaromir down with a precise hook punch. The outlaw’s right eye can barely open because of the swelling around it. The left eye stares at Vlade with hatred.

“I think it’s a good time to surrender, don’t you think?” Vlade says. “The members of your gang are dead and my teammates will be here in a minute. It’s over.”

Jaromir responds with a condescending smile. “An inhuman… working for The Society. Supporting human supremacy. You can do more than this, kid. If you just let me go now, I’ll forget about you. I’ll move to a different city and I won’t bother you and your team anymore.”

Vlade hesitates. “No,” he says in the end. “My teammates are counting on me.”

“So your allegiance to Pinks is stronger than allegiance to your own kind?”

“I just want both humans and inhumans to live in peace.”

“Locked up in filthy ghettos.”

Vlade lets his guard down - exactly as Jaromir predicted. The outlaw lashes out, thrusting his knee into Vlade’s stomach. Vlade gasps and doubles over. He tries to counterattack, but Jaromir disorients him with a powerful punch before he firmly grabs his shoulders and shoves him away. The younger Fext staggers backward, falling into a shop window of a small general store. The sound of shattering glass wakes up the sleeping residents of the small district. Jaromir lets out a grin as Vlade breaks the strip lights illuminating the window and the sparks land on him.

The Fext skin is, unfortunately for them, a great electricity conductor. Vlade groans in pain as the sparks change into a current engulfing his whole body. He has been struck by electricity several times before and, like always, he feels a strange, empty feeling on his whole body as the skin layer which makes him invincible briefly disappears. He feels weak. So… human.

“Do you adore Pinks so much? Now you are one,” Jaromir smirks. He takes his time as he slowly approaches dazed Vlade. The young Fext just keeps his eyes on his enemy, aware he’s at his mercy now. However, he doesn’t start to beg for mercy. He will keep his Fext dignity until the end.

Vlade hears hasty footsteps on the concrete accompanied by voices. His teammates.

But it seems this is exactly what was Jaromir waiting for.

He raises his shotgun and points it at Vlade’s head with a grin. “This time, it should work better,” he says as he pulls the trigger just as the rest of Team Menhir arrives to witness it.

“VLADE!” Gerard shouts.

“OH NO!” Ophelia screams.

“Shit…” Wiccan utters.

Vlade’s head literally exploded. His blood, brain tissue and bone fragments splatter all over the store - its owner, a Gillscaly, falls on his knees and wails loudly.

The Enforcer’s body collapses, blood gushing from the frayed stump of his neck. Jaromir observes it with a smile, then gives a look to the remaining Enforcers standing nearby, shocked and unable to move. “See? It’s not that hard to get rid of The Society’s scum,” he cackles. “Are you gonna miss your Fext friend? Don’t worry. I’ll send you to him in a minute or two.”

Wiccan and Ophelia are shaken by their teammate and friend’s death, but they don’t lose their temper. Just as their training says. They have been members of The Society for about twenty years already and they have witnessed their teammates dying. It was just a part of their job from time to time.

However, the same can’t be said about Gerard who joined Team Menhir seven years ago after a member of the team was KIA - killed in action. Since then, the team successfully avoided tragedies and the composition of the team stayed at Wiccan, Ophelia, Gerard, Vlade and Kirlian for quite some time.

“You son… son of a bitch!” Gerard screams and rushes towards Jaromir, not minding the warnings of his older teammates. The Fext raises his shotgun again and fires, but Gerard’s shield Artifact is already there to block the pellets. However, Gerard alone can’t stand a chance against a powerful Fext.

At least that’s what Jaromir thought.

Gerard faces Jaromir, who is at least thirty centimeters taller than him, with his sword. The Fext doesn’t need any weapons even though he still has his shotgun. He takes a swing at Gerard with his fist, but the Artifact blocks it, absorbing the energy of the impact. It wobbles in the air, but protects Gerard from Jaromir’s wrath.

Suddenly, Jaromir’s eyes open wide. “What the…?” he whispers.

Gerard smiles. His plan came together.

The man rapidly swings his sword from above, giving all his strength into the strike. The blade splits Jaromir’s head in two and continues until it stops somewhere at the collarbone area. Gerard then pulls out his blood-drenched sword and removes the red fluid from the blade using an elegant swing.

Unlike Vlade, Jaromir doesn’t die immediately - the Fext endurance is still present. He tries to take a few steps forward, but since his brain has been split in two, his legs can’t coordinate their movements and the Fext falls on the ground soon.

Gerard stands above the wriggling body. Instead of showing mercy by finishing off the Fext quickly, he just watches Jaromir’s struggle. His eyes move in opposite directions, both halves of his mouth try to speak - each half seemingly tries to say different words. Blood is pouring from the crevice in Jaromir’s head, but not fast enough to make him bleed to death quickly.

Another Artifact hovers close to the body, marked with blue diode. There are two spikes on the front side of the device, small lightnings flashing between its tips. Gerard guided the electric Artifact to sneak towards Jaromir from behind and electrocute him, making him vulnerable.

“Gerard! Oh God, what have you done?” Wiccan shouts at his teammate with an angry expression in his face. “Did I give you a command to kill him? Damn you! We needed to know if there are more members of his Fext gang hiding somewhere. Now, the chance is gone.”

“He killed Vlade,” Gerard mutters.

Wiccan controls his temper; he remembers Gerard and Vlade became close friends, almost like brothers, and Gerard had to lose control over himself when he saw his friend fall. “I know. But in this job, people die, Gerard. Vlade is the third teammate I lost. I know it’s hard, but such reckless things… you just can’t.”

“Please, Wiccan, you can scold me as much as you want, but do it later,” Gerard says with an emotionless voice. “Now… let’s just leave this place. I guess our job is done here anyway.”

October 14th, 2:23 PM, The Society headquarters at Trinity Gate

The remaining members of Team Menhir gather around the urn containing Vlade’s ashes. The room, called “Hall of Heroes”, holds approximately fifty urns. Fifty Enforcers of The Society who died while serving in Trinity Gate. Every headquarters has its own Hall and some of them hold much more urns since Trinity Gate is one of the newer territories.

The Hall of Heroes is a bright room with marble walls holding numerous shelves made of stone. The urns are placed on the shelves. A big part of the room is still unused, indicating that The Society has still a lot of things ahead - both pleasant and unpleasant.

Vlade’s urn is placed next to the urns of two other Enforcers who served in Team Menhir. Wiccan, Ophelia and Kirlian are the founding members, Gerard and Vlade joined later, after they needed new blood. The first deceased member was a human girl named Tara with pyrokinetic powers who, ironically, died in a fire she started and couldn’t control. After she died, Vlade took her place.

Gerard joined the team after the death of Kazuki who was a Tengu, Asian inhuman resembling a humanoid crow with large wings. Tengus are related to Shriekers, much more common (and more troublesome) feathered inhumans who lost their wings throughout their evolution. Actually, the Shriekers were responsible for Kazuki’s death as one of them used a stolen rocket launcher with heat-seeking missiles to bring the Tengu out of sky.

The team mourns in silence. There seems to be nothing left to say.

“I miss him,” Ophelia finally says while wiping off a tear. “He truly was proof to that cheesy saying that ‘the Fexti have impenetrable skin, but soft heart’. He was… such a great friend.”

“You tell me,” Gerard sighs. “He was like a brother to me.”

“It doesn’t feel good, being the only inhuman in the team,” Kirlian’s voice sounds seemingly from nowhere. “He understood me. Don’t get me wrong, but now I feel… alone.”

“Vlade’s death was a tragedy,” Wiccan speaks. “Both for our team and The Society. He was one of the Fexti who refused to be passive. After I got to know Vlade, I’d personally slap anyone who’d say Fexti are cowards. Vlade was braver than all of us combined.”

“And also, he had the best sense of humor,” Ophelia says. “Remember how we used to sing…”

“Vladislav, baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more,” Gerard sings.

For Ophelia, this silly song parody was the last straw. She bursts into tears, hugging Wiccan tightly.

The man lets his wife calm down. There is one more thing to be discussed and Wiccan needed to weaken the influence of emotions at least as much as possible. “Alright, guys,” he speaks. “Now, when Vlade is gone, we need to discuss the future of Team Menhir.”

The team picked its name after a large monolith located in the Great Moors district of the city. Wiccan, Ophelia, Kirlian, Tara and Kazuki used to meet there, even though it was sometimes hard to keep the Tengu out of everyone’s sight. After Vlade and Gerard joined, they jokingly talked about renaming to “Team Hair” as all of them had long hair, but the name based on their favorite place was just too hard-wired to be changed.

“I doubt we have anything to discuss,” Kirlian says. “We just have to get a new member. That’s how The Society works, like it or not.”

“Members,” Gerard corrects him.

Wiccan raises his eyebrows at him. “What do you mean?”

“I quit,” Gerard says. “You can call me weak, oversensitive, whatever you want, but I just… can’t do it any longer. I’ve always had a feeling that working for The Society is too much for me and now, when I lost my best friend, I’m certain about it. I’m sorry.”

“Gerard… are you sure about this?” Ophelia asks.

The man nods. “The Society changed me for the better. Remember? I started as one of the convicts you were after, but instead of imprisoning me, you decided to make me a part of your team after Kazuki died. I know, I work here for only seven years and I don’t even qualify for the retirement benefits, but I just need to quit.”

“You’ll need to give up your Artifacts. Are you ready for it?” Wiccan says.

“Yeah, whatever. Peace is all I need now.”

Wiccan, Ophelia and Kirlian look at Gerard in silence. They remember when they saw him for the first time. Almost twenty at that time, robbing anything in his sight using his Artifacts. He didn’t give up easily and it was his persistence that impressed the team.

It happens more often that one would think - some of the convicts captured by The Society have a chance to redeem themselves by joining the law enforcement unit. And Gerard had all the requirements to become an Enforcer. Life in The Society changed his life. First for better, now for worse.

Wiccan nods. “Of course. We can’t force you to stay here if you really want to go. You just have to contact the Capital Branch which will officially release you and tell you the conditions. You know, never tell anyone about what you saw and stuff.”

“We’ll miss you, Gerard,” Ophelia hugs him. The man had become something like her son. She was the one who persuaded him to give up the petty criminal life and join The Society. She’d secretly hoped Gerard would lead the team once she and Wiccan retire. But now…

“Should I say it, or…?” Wiccan says.

“Go on,” Ophelia replies. She already knows what her husband is about to say.

Wiccan sighs. “Ophelia, Kirlian, I think we’re in this for too long now. Twenty years while ten is enough to retire officially. I think Team Menhir should be disbanded. Vlade’s death and Gerard’s departure confirmed it for me. The new blood should receive a chance. Trinity Gate needs a new team.”

“I agree,” Ophelia nods. “It’s sad to just… throw away everything we’ve been through. But I also see no point in dragging it out. Initiating the new team will be the last thing we’ll do as The Society members. And then… we’ll finally have some time for ourselves.”

“What about you, Kirlian?” Wiccan asks.

“I can’t say I’m happy about it,” Kirlian’s disembodied voice says, “but it seems I’ve been outvoted.”

“So… okay,” Wiccan doesn’t seem to know what to say. “I officially disband the Team Menhir here and now. We have to announce it to the Capital Branch as soon as possible, before another case breaks loose. ELIPSA will then find and initiate new Enforcers.”

ELIPSA is an agency which belongs to The Society. The acronym means Entries and Locations of Individuals Possessing Special Abilities. This agency keeps track of people with special talents or supernatural abilities and the inhumans who are suitable for the Enforcer career.

Ophelia takes Wiccan’s hand. “I have mixed feelings about this,” she says. “Finally being able to live peacefully… but without the thrill.”

“We deserve it, darling. After twenty years of risking our lives.”

During the following days, Team Menhir is officially disbanded and the remaining members receive the veteran status. Gerard was allowed to leave freely after he handed over his Artifacts to Wiccan. ELIPSA immediately started to seek new Society members near Trinity Gate.

The Society members are carefully chosen by ELIPSA members, veterans with a lot of experience who seek people displaying abilities other people would find unnatural or genius knowledge of a useful subject such as technology or science. The team also has to be balanced, a fair amount of muscles, brains and special abilities. Piecing together a new team isn’t an easy job.

However, after a few days, ELIPSA finally came with the first results.

“Looks promising,” Wiccan says after he took a look at the files of the possible new team members at home. He picked one of them personally and ELIPSA approved his choice.

“Such nostalgia,” Ophelia smiles. “Remember when we were new recruits?”

“Yeah,” Wiccan returns the smile. “Now let’s go to sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll have to deliver this to the Capital Branch.” He points at the wooden casket containing Gerard’s Artifacts. He opens the casket and looks at the devices connected to Mind stones, small parapsychological drones.

Red, blue, yellow, black, purple and green. Each one with different usage.

But then…

“Hold on a second,” Wiccan barks. He closely examines one of the drones, then another. Then he curses so loudly Ophelia shrinks back. “These are fake!” Wiccan announces. “Damn. I was wondering why is Gerard handing them to me without any sorrow!”

“What does that mean?” Ophelia asks.

“Gerard still has the real ones.”

Author’s Note

So that was the first part of the story I’m working on. Sorry if it looked too much like some splatter, the rest of the story is more sophisticated... a little ;) Don’t hesitate to let me know what you did and didn’t like, just hit the Comment button or send me a message. If you want to stay updated, follow @lukes-writing and if you have friends who you think might like this story, let them know!

Thank you for reading!

@notquitenovelist

#writeblr #writers #my writing #urban fantasy #original fiction #TeamDreamcatcher

2 notes · View notes

grandzealot · 6 years ago

Text

CHARACTER SHEET. / repost, don’t reblog

BASICS.

FULL NAME. brian richter PRONUNCIATION. the richter is like ‘ rick - tur ’ NICKNAME. n / a GENDER. cis male HEIGHT. 6′2″ AGE. mainverse: 40s or 50s depending ZODIAC. virgo ( aug 28 ) SPOKEN LANGUAGES. english

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

HAIR COLOR. dark blond EYE COLOR. dark hazel blue SKIN TONE. light but ruddy / tanned BODY TYPE. long limbs but built sturdy. solid chest. someone whos done a lot of practical physical work over his life ACCENT. sorta general american but sounds more east than west if anything is noticable. VOICE. soft and young sounding. gentle DOMINANT HAND. right POSTURE. stern SCARS. plenty. noticable ones on his face is one on the bridge of his nose and one on his left eyebrow TATTOOS. a faded enclave tattoo on his upper right arm. coa circles all over that shoulder down his chest ( the mark over his eye is a semipermanent paint/stain ) BIRTHMARKS. minor ones on his body. nothing striking. MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). aside from the militant coa attire and the striking face paint over his right eye, a sense of rough austerity. tends to keep the hair on his head in neater condition than those around him

CHILDHOOD.

PLACE OF BIRTH. somewhere enclave-y in ohio HOMETOWN. same tho his family soon moved to the capital region BIRTH WEIGHT. average BIRTH HEIGHT. slightly above average MANNER OF BIRTH. normal birth FIRST WORDS. ‘ mamamama ’ for his mom SIBLINGS. one older brother. deceased PARENTS. an enclave botanist / officer and a quiet enclave tech guy PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. both were loving & generally good ( aside from the usual enclave faults. ) his older brother took more after his charismatic mother while he took more after his withdrawn father. his mother died when he was eleven however and both richter and his father grew more quiet after that

ADULT LIFE.

OCCUPATION. enclave lieutenant who went into recon CURRENT RESIDENCE. the nucleus of far harbor CLOSE FRIENDS. he considers tektus one but theyre not that close. others would call him a friend but he doesnt really confide in anyone RELATIONSHIP STATUS. single. more focused on duty FINANCIAL STATUS. hes pretty good with caps but he doesnt need that much to live his life. probably has a couple hundred tucked away and is entrusted with handling more for the children DRIVER’S LICENSE. if it were still a thing he would have had one lmao CRIMINAL RECORD. none solely bc the wicked things hes done are usu in the name of ‘ law enforcement ’ VICES. sadism. wrath

SEX & ROMANCE.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. bi / pan ROMANTIC ORIENTATION. hes a shade aro but he can come to love anyone hes fucking PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch. idk how to answer this — he can be a pushover in lots of situations but hes also immensely stubborn in other ways PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch. LIBIDO. a shade above average? he doesnt act on it tho TURN ON’S. lingerie, aggression toward common enemies, capable ‘respectable’ partners, murder, pleasing his partner, ‘kindness’ TURN OFF’S. people who come on too strong ( he mistrusts them, ) bragging, someone trying to get him to dirty talk, excessive dirty talk, romance if he hasnt actually fallen in love with someone, gore, robots, immaturity, disrespect, blasphemy, lasciviousness, someone who cant keep a secret, cruelty to animals or children, disobedience, rudeness, being teased, unreliability, the chance of being found out by other children, the chance of anyone knowing physical relations are taking place at all, inebriation or anything else that would reduce someones ability to consent, sharing partners, the other participant not wanting to be there LOVE LANGUAGE. wants to kill their enemies. offers to kill their enemies. protectiveness but also practical means of making them more comfortable. hell straight up ask if theres a problem if hes concerned. hes self sacrificing to a fault when it comes to close relationships of any kind RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. he tends to not have them ._.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. tool — jimmy HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. weapon care. listening to coa talk MENTAL ILLNESSES. idk im not a psychologist PHYSICAL ILLNESSES. he has some aches he hides ( esp in his fingers ) but overall hes pretty healthy LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. the analytical / methodical one PHOBIAS. he gets a little nervous at potentially getting locked into places away from the family. the sound of alarms sort of stress him as well as architecture that reminds him of the containment cellar but hes generally good at stifling all that SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. 8-10 when it comes to murder and doing his job. more like a 3 when it comes to interpersonal relations but he hides it with coldness. 4-6 about his own morals VULNERABILITIES. loyal to a fault. doesnt rly think for himself

TAGGED BY. @icarianrise * [ [ thank youuuu ! ] ] TAGGING. [ [ ...anyone who wants to do it lmao it long ] ]

#about richter #long post cw #mainverse #[ [ i might do this for fc5 too... ] ]

11 notes · View notes

garden-ghoul · 6 years ago

Link

it’s Jingo! a book about xenophobia, racism, imperialism, and how being a cop makes you immune to the rules. here’s the article I reference at the end, about the 1914 Christmas Truce.

transcript under the cut.

Hello and WELCOME to episode 3 of my newly named podcast, It’s Critical Analysis All The Way Down. This time I pulled the number 21, so we’re reading Jingo. The title is a reference to ‘jingoism,’ which is sort of patriotic bullying on the national scale. I’ll go ahead and sing you the chorus of the 1877 pop song it came from, which is actually directly referenced verbatim in the book:

We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too We've fought the Bear before, and while we're Britons true The Russians shall not have Constantinople.

Anyway, I don’t remember this book very well because I never liked it much. As I recall it has a lot of tongue-in-cheek racism that’s still… well, it’s still racist. So if you’re not interested in hearing a LOT about racism, this isn’t the book for you! But let’s take a look.

Before we start, I’ll briefly explain Ankh-Morpork, which is sort of a cross between 1800s London and New York City, but rather than being the capital of anywhere it’s just a citystate. They own a lot of people’s debts. Then there’s Klatch, which seems to be an entire continent loosely representing the Middle East, originally named for a joke about coffee klatches, so the name is a German word weirdly enough. There’s also a place called Klatchistan, and I don’t know what that’s about.

We start off in the classic Pratchett style with a bit of a mystery. This one involves squid. We have a squid fisher and his son having a bad time in the sea precisely halfway between Klatch and Ankh-Morpork because it feels like a storm is coming though there’s not a cloud in the sky. Then that damned foreign bastard shows up, who we gather is a functionally identical squid fisher from Klatch. Note that although they’re equally mean to each other, we are solidly in the point of view of the white guy. Anyway the lost island of Atlantis rises up out of the sea and the two fishermen immediately start trying to claim it for their respective citystates. Their two sons would like to de-escalate, and seem to regard this as normal embarrassing dad behavior (?!) but their fathers aren’t listening. They both want to be the first back to land to declare to everyone that they own an island.

Now it’s time for a bunch of jump cuts that introduce our main cast.

First: back to Ankh-Morpork, where we find our protagonist, Sam Vimes, commander of the city Watch, striking a match on one of his sergeants. Yeah, his introduction is him being lowkey racist to a troll, although Sergeant Detritus makes nothing of it because it really isn’t worth the effort it would be to try to change his commander’s mind. Vimes and Detritus are listening to a ship captain yelling about how Klatchian pirates made off with his cargo (which he’s clearly lying about). Vimes knows everything and everyone in the city, so he quickly demolishes the guy’s argument, and he slinks off in embarrassment having been revealed as a liar. But this doesn’t change the fact that everyone on the street wanted to believe him. As Vimes and Detritus walk they see a lot more people doing street harangues about the same thing.

Second, the city Patrician, Vetinari, is having a meeting with some heads of guild, which Vimes drops in on ‘cos I guess the Watch is also a sort of guild. They’re all having a good old being racist party, except Vetinari is being ironic about it. Vetinari patiently explains that Ankh-Morpork’s history of slaughter and imperialism means they don’t really have any foreign allies and thus it would be pretty stupid to go to war. Also they don’t have a standing army. And absolutely none of the rich pay their taxes so the entire citystate is bankrupt. ‘We’ve got no ships, we’ve got no men, we’ve got no money too,’ Vetinari says. He can’t prevent the peerage from forming private militias, but his official stance it that he’s going to rely on diplomacy.

Third, Captain Carrot of the Watch playing some wholesome street football with a couple of urchin gangs who despise each other, in a clear metaphor for Klatch and Ankh-Morpork that foreshadows the finale. And under Carrot’s watchful eye they get along! Carrot’s brand of diplomacy relies on supernatural earnestness and narrative armor that causes people not to want to disappoint him. We follow him to a hostage situation that seems only to have the purpose of introducing Corporal Angua, who is a werewolf (both of them are foreign, in case you were interested, although the story doesn’t treat them as such because they’re assumed to be white).

Fourth, we have Vimes and Carrot skulking around in the rain at 3AM when they hear screaming and find that a Klatchian family’s house has been firebombed. Vimes reflects on the fact that he’s picked up quite a bit of dwarf and troll language but zero Klatchian and knows Mr. Goriff’s family only as food service people. In fact, in gratitude for saving them Goriff brings a bunch of food to the Watch, which is RIGHT nice of him, and someone does the old “oh no they’re the good sort of Klatchians” thing.

And finally, Vimes has got to go to a big fancy do the wizards are throwing and meet the Klatchian ambassador. The ambassador is Prince Khufurah, who is in the way of all ambassadors ready to play some mind games. He’s experienced quite enough racism already since he arrived in Ankh-Morpork and keeps pretending to try to buy people’s wives. I’m not sure it’s really a good joke if no-one else gets it. He also has a bodyguard named 71-hour Ahmed who is JUST a gross Arab murderer stereotype, but we find out later that this is a façade he likes to project to put people off.

And then we have the wizard parade, where the wizards remind everyone that they COULD turn them all into clams if they wanted, but don’t. The wizards basically have their own private enclave in the city, don’t pay taxes, and do absolutely whatever they want, and it’s yet another in the long list of parallels this book has for international politics.

During the parade someone is seen in an off-limits zone trying to snipe the Prince and Vimes has to go chase them because of course he does, he is rightly referred to as a terrier throughout the book. And when they get there they find a single clove, such as 71-hour Ahmed likes to chew. At this point in the book I didn’t actually remember the resolution of this plotline but I assumed someone was using racial stereotypes to try to frame him. But in fact we later find out that this is an intentional clue Ahmed has left to keep Vimes interested in him. No, I don’t know why he needed that. Maybe he’s just having fun.

But then they discover a Morporkian bowman who is being framed for taking Klatchian bribes to kill the Klatchian ambassador so Klatch has an excuse to go to war with Ankh-Morpork.

Meanwhile there’s a mob, supposedly because Klatchians have been killing people. Someone did get hurt, because Mr. Goriff’s family are really paranoid after the attack. Vimes escorts them to the watchhouse for their own safety, which is a little bit like arresting them. Some people come round to the watchhouse demanding the family’s release but it turns out Klatch is enormous and the rescuers are a different ethnic group and they get into a huge blazing row. In summary, everything continues to be extremely complicated and political.

SPEAKING of complicated and political, the Patrician has resigned and Ankh-Morpork is officially under military law. The entire command of the Watch quits because they don’t want to have to act as soldiers under the idiot aristocrats like Lord Rust who are forming private militias. And we get a little war gossip from Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs, who apparently very much enjoyed being soldiers in the low-stakes wars of Western Europe—I mean the Sto Plains.

I think it’s interesting that both of them seem to have served in multiple wars—they aren’t that old, probably not too much over forty, which means that the peace we see in Ankh-Morpork in the Watch books is VERY recent. Overall there are constant mentions of other wars in this book; Vimes’ wife Sybil also talks about how her aristocratic ancestors made sure to ALWAYS be fighting someone. And yet this is the only book where we see Ankh-Morpork actually at war, presumably because Sir Terry wasn’t as interested in writing about it as he was in writing about civic development.

This book also wants to emphasize that the peerage would rather most of their soldiers get killed, and that fighting is mostly carried out to engender patriotism. I don’t know that in real life commanders want their people to die, but I certainly agree with the second part.

And I want to read this good bit about Vimes thinking like a cop to avoid having a bad opinion of humanity, which is one of the main themes of the book:

Someone's behind this. Someone wants to see a war. Someone paid to have Ossie and Snowy killed. Someone wanted the Prince dead. I've got to remember that. This isn't a war. This is a crime. And then he realized he was wondering if the attack on Goriffs shop had been organized by the same people, and whether those same people had set fire to the embassy. And then he realized why he was thinking like this. It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people.

There’s a subplot where Angua does some inadvisable spying and gets stuck on a ship headed for Klatch, which I mostly mention because I want to tell Vimes off for stealing someone’s fucking boat to follow her. He is, really, SUCH a cop all the time. He tells the guy “oh the city’s under martial law and I have a militia so I can do whatever I like.” Yeah he threatens to drum up a mob and stone this boat captain to death if he doesn’t donate his ship and the weapons he was shipping. Sorry SIR what happened to serve and protect? Yes, he throws ALL of the captain’s cargo overboard and completely destroys his ship in a storm because he refuses to take precautions. I am really starting to dislike Commander Sam “Copaganda” Vimes!!

Due to a bunch of shenanigans he and his men end up being taken as prisoners-slash-guests by some D’regs, an ethnic group that is violently opposed to the idea of a united Klatch. And we get some fun Klatchian politics, which is all I have really been craving.

The D’regs release Vimes to the care of 71-hour Ahmed, who is famous for violating the three-day hospitality rule one hour before time to execute a person who poisoned an entire village, and turns out to have been educated at the Ankh-Morpork Assassins’ Guild. He and Vimes have kind of a cool conversation about being officers of justice:

Your beat is a city you can walk across in half an hour. Mine is two million square miles of desert and mountain. Oh, the towns and cities have their guards, of a sort. They are uncomplicated thinkers. But it is my job to go into the waste places and chase bandits and murderers, five hundred miles from anyone who would be on my side, so I must inspire dread and strike the first blow because I will not have a chance to strike a second one.

And Ahmed reveals that Prince Khufurah’s brother is the one who tried to have him killed: there is nothing that unites people like having a common enemy, and he thinks it will be easier than trying to ‘pacify’ outlying areas of Klatch. Vimes is being a bit of a hypocrite here about how awful it is to kill people as an officer of justice, just because he personally doesn’t have the stomach for it—he beats a lot of people up and threatens to kill people all the time.

Let’s take stock of how things stand, because this book has actually been extraordinarily complicated and I’ve been leaving out a lot of what seemed at the time to be fragmentary comic relief.

Lord Rust saw that Vimes was launching an expeditionary force and he has established an extremely ill-advised beachhead. His soldiers are about to start fighting a Klatchian force six times their number. Lord Rust is sure songs will be written about this. What? Everyone will die? But we shall have songs, so who cares!

Vimes is now allied with a small company of Ankh-Morpork soldiers led by his butler and a company of D’regs who are friendly with 71-hour Ahmed. For some reason this is presented as Carrot being in command of the D’regs through force of charisma, even though the books makes fun of “they’re fine men as long as they have a white commander.”

The Patrician (who has stepped down to make way for military rule of Ankh-Morpork) asked some of the more incompetent watchmen to help him get to Klatch for diplomatic reasons, and they have been posing as street performers. The Patrician is a very good juggler.

And so we’re up to date. Prince Khufurah’s murderous politicking brother is having a polite breakfast with Lord Rust before he totally destroys his forces, when up come Ahmed and Vimes to arrest the Prince. Vimes decides to round it out by declaring his intent to arrest the entire Morporkian army for behavior likely to cause a breach of the peace. VERY cute of Sir Terry to be so glib about the fact that in any reasonable legal system war is one of the worst possible crimes. I aaaalmost had some respect for him and then he turned right around and said that if he killed the Prince it wouldn’t be murder because their countries are at war. The sheer HYPOCRISY.

Captain Carrot goes outside to read the arrested armies their rights and, yes, in a lovely little callback he starts a football match. I think this is also pretty clearly a reference to the possibly apocryphal Christmas football match between German and British soldiers during WWI.

Anyway at this point the Patrician shows up with a treaty of surrender and sends Vimes outside to the kids’ table while the grownups commit complicated legal crimes. Vimes sulks and Ahmed gives him a bit of a pat on the shoulder as they commiserate about their inability to stop the government from committing crimes.

Lord Rust apparently considers the Patrician’s surrender to Klatch a crime as well, because when everyone gets back to Ankh-Morpork he’s apparently to be tried for treason. At the trial, however, it comes out that the Prince traded a valuable military installation for Atlantis, which has since sunk under the sea again. This is portrayed as something the Patrician arranged specifically to effect a coup against the Prince rather than something that will bring Ankh-Morpork future military advantage for some baffling reason. Anyway, now central Klatch has a leader the Patrician is happier to deal with. Sorry, what? Deposing heads of government in desert countries to install governments we prefer is one of the most classic imperialist tactics?

And that’s the plot. Now, because this podcast isn’t just ‘I tell you the plot of a Discworld book and you go oh good that saves me the trouble of reading it,’ I have another thing I want to discuss here, which is the Nobby-has-to-disguise-himself-as-a-woman subplot. It’s intended to be nothing but comic relief: Nobby is so ugly people always add a caveat that they’re not sure he’s human, and throughout the book we hear about him trying to figure out why girls aren’t into him. The moment he experiences gendered ill-treatment he begins to fully inhabit the role of a woman, going so far as to say that men can’t understand what he’s going through. He hangs out with a bunch of Klatchian women who like him a lot, mostly because his being foreign allows him to express opinions they’re too polite to express. I find it difficult to interpret this as the transmisogynistic joke it is probably intended to be, only because I so earnestly like the idea of Nobby as trans, relating to women as a woman. We see Nobby’s male perspective bundled into the foreignness of being from another country: this willingness to speak your mind and attack men in defense of other women. I’ll always be wistfully thinking, what if Nobby just hung out with the ladies forever instead of going back to being a watchman? Probably be more likely to finally get a girlfriend, too.

SO. Themes of Jingo.

Nationalism is bad. I can agree with this one.

Racism is bad… but ooooonly racism against humans. Sir Terry definitely does have certain kinds of racism he considers acceptable.

Brown people aren’t stupid, they have their own politics, and they’re just as capable as anyone else of being real fucked up bastards.

BUT… if the right circumstances present themselves, people of very different cultural backgrounds can get along.

I actually want to go on one last little diversion because I was just reading a very cute article on the 1914 Christmas Truce, which I’ll link in the notes. According to this article, the high command of both the German and British armies was desperate to keep the fighting going on Christmas because they were aware that men from two Christian nations would find common ground in their most important holiday and they did NOT want soldiers to start to think of the opposite side as human. So that declaring a truce on that day was actually an act of insubordination. There’s an account in the article of one location where Germans started singing Christmas songs to signal that they didn’t want to fight, and then met the British in no-man’s land to offer to give them some beer as a gift. The Brits reciprocated with plum pudding. No, I have no idea why they had plum pudding in the trenches. But what this story illustrates is the contrived nature of animosity in war, and the fact that putting in the effort to see all humans as people is a radical act when jingoism is king.

That’s all I have for you tonight. Be well, and remember to consider the humanity of your neighbor. Bye.

#is the telegraph 'a trustworthy source'?#well whatev #discworld #audio #it's yelling all the way down

26 notes · View notes

cassandraclare · 7 years ago

Text

q&a prejudice and Shadowhunters

nevergonnagiveyouuporletyoudown said: Hi Ms. Clare! I was just curious as to why the kids at the Academy were mean to Alastair. Shouldn't Shadowhunters be less racist? They travel and see people of all different backgrounds, and if Idris is a center for Shadowhunters then shouldn't there be people of color there too? They have to work together so why wouldn't they accept each other?

katy-krazy-xoxo said: Hi Cassie! I want to ask about Alastair and Jem. Alastair was treated poorly in the Shadowhunter Academy due to his Persian heritage. So how was that Jem, with his Chinese heritage, wasn't being discriminated against in TID?

galbinuscarnation said: I was wondering, why was Alistair made fun of for being of Persian descent? I was under the impression that he was a Shadowhunter first, although as we've seen many Shadowhunters adopt their local customs from whence they came. It could be a product of the times, or maybe related to his parents, but I have been wondering this for quite a while. Thank you!

I see this question is on people's minds! Yes, Jem’s experience was different than Alastair’s — because there is no one monolithic experience for people of color in any situation, and we’re talking about an entire spectrum of behavior. Shadowhunters are generally less racist than mundanes, because their prejudice against mundanes and Downworlders trumps their prejudice against other Shadowhunters. They’re already banded into a subgroup — Shadowhunters — by which they identify themselves. That doesn’t mean there’s never any prejudice within the subgroup: that’s sadly not usually how these things work.

As we’ve seen, Idris is indeed full of people from all over the world, but so is New York, and that hasn’t erased racism from existing there. And while being a Shadowhunter is the most important thing to them--the first, essential thing--it isn't the only thing. Since we’re looking at 1903 — Shadowhunter society would have involved somewhat less of the systemic and structural racism of the time, because racism wasn’t encoded into their Laws the way it was into the laws of the US and England: what we see is more of a pattern of microaggressions and offensive assumptions and beliefs.

To look at another issue: Shadowhunters in 1903 were also generally less sexist than mundanes — women had a vote in the Council in 1878 when they didn’t have a vote in mundane government. But that doesn’t mean they’re not sexist at all.

“I never meant to hurt Charlotte.”

“Charlotte is very sensitive about the way the Institute is run. As a woman, she must fight to be heard, and even then her decisions are second-guessed. You heard Benedict Lightwood at the Enclave meeting. She feels she has no freedom to make a mistake.” — Clockwork Angel

Shadowhunter society is folded into ours, never entirely independent of ours--though invisible to us, they walk among us, and are necessarily influenced by our world. Portals are a new invention in TID, and still recent in TLH, and so before that it was easier for Shadowhunters--as it was for everybody in the past--to think of the world as just the people immediately around them, who often looked and acted like them, because travel and seeing different places and people was immeasurably more difficult. (In part, the whole idea of the “travel year” was meant to ameliorate that, and we can see that in some cases it did help, but it wasn’t enough on its own!)

Moreover, Shadowhunter Academy, as we saw in 1899, was populated overwhelmingly by white boys--who were also presumed to be straight--being brought up in what was thought of as Shadowhunter Tradition, capital letters. The Victorian Era was a time of travel and an expanded world, but also a time when the British Empire —which stretched over vast portions of the globe — uplifted white men as the default, the natural ones to have power, and the Clave is influenced by that as they are always influenced by the bleed of mundane culture into theirs. Boys at the Academy make connections that turn into them being comrades with political influence later in life, in the same way old boys' networks of politicians exist now. Josiah Wayland, Consul during TID, was a white guy. and Victor Whitelaw, Inquisitor during TID, was a white guy--and that wasn't an accident. Inquisitor Bridgestock in TLH is a white guy, and very powerful because conservative Shadowhunters are edging away from their female Consul, and that isn't an accident either. There are people of color, there are women of color, who would've been amazing Consuls and Inquisitors in the 1870s, but they didn't get the chance. Women were rarely sent to the Academy; we know this from Nothing But Shadows. Charlotte was the first female Consul, and she didn’t have an easy time of it: women in the next generation were still less likely to be warriors or politicians. Most, though not all, of the Consuls have been white. Also, PoC Shadowhunters just weren't sent to the Academy as often, because the Shadowhunters are aware of how the world works and the parents of those children didn’t want to do that to their kids. James with his Downworlder heritage went because he wanted to go, because he wanted to find friends his own age (which he did) and look how that turned out.

Racism is varied in different times and places and situations, and all circumstances and experiences or racism are not monolithic. I think it's fairly clear that Alastair attended the Academy at a time when there was a pretty rotten bunch of kids in his class. That sucks. It happens, in real life and in fiction: in the Narnia series, one brother (Edmund) has a horrible character-altering time of it at school, and his older brother Peter is just fine. Alastair was sent by his father Elias, who is white, and thus being white was able to tell himself that racism doesn't exist among Shadowhunters, that there are no microaggressions (I mean, none of them would know that word, but microaggressions still exist in TLH: we see Mrs Bridgestock call Alastair “that Persian boy” and Mrs Bridgestock, who loves her PoC daughter, thinks of herself as just describing Alastair, but Alastair and Cordelia both know what's up, and react accordingly.). Elias had the privilege of not really thinking about it. Alastair paid the price.

Jem didn't go to Shadowhunter Academy--neither he nor Will ever went, and neither of them knew what the Academy was like: Jem lived in London with the very accepting Charlotte and Henry. And Jem was the son of two well-respected Shadowhunters who died hero's deaths, and so he got some slack. Alastair, the son of a suspected murderess and a disgraced and despised Shadowhunter (we'll see what's up with Elias in TLH!), does not. These things are never simple! But Jem did have to deal with racism. Benedict Lightwood and Tatiana and--I'm sorry to say--Gideon and Gabriel's attitude to Jem is definitely informed by racism. Will has behaved badly to the Lightwoods (for understandable curse reasons) but Jem has done nothing to them, and Gabriel definitely prefers Jem to Will, but Gabriel isn't exactly a peach to Jem either. In Clockwork Angel Gabriel references Jem's “disability”—which Will understandably takes extreme issue with!--and equates Jem being tortured by yin fen with an opium addiction--the fact Jem is half Chinese, and that Gabriel's mind jumped to opium addiction, is no mistake, and Will understands and is insulted on Jem's behalf. Even though Gabriel, like Mrs Bridgestock, doesn't intend to be racist, microaggressions are often unintentional.

(From Wikipedia: “There was much prejudice against the East End Chinese community, with much of it initiated by the writings of Thomas Burke and Sax Rohmer. Both of these men wrote about the Chinese community. Burke and Rohmer exaggerated the Chinese community's true size and made much mention of gambling, opium dens, and "unholy things" in the shadows.”)

I don't say this to be down on Gabriel. Benedict raised his kids horribly, in bad harmful beliefs! They needed space to learn, and grow away from him — and they did! Gideon and Gabriel changed for the better. I don't want to portray a perfect society, or perfect characters, but complicated ones, with complicated attitudes that can hopefully change. Jem didn't have the same experience as Alastair; he had his own experience and both are valid. So has Magnus, and Lily, and Jia, and Aline, and Raphael, and Diego, and Cristina, and Jaime, all in their different ways. Shadowhunters are urban fantasy books, not high fantasy books: they do take place in part in our real world, and though prejudice in the Shadowhunter culture is complicated by prejudices we don’t have (Downworlder prejudice, prejudice against folks with demon blood!) they also experience the prejudices we do have.

“They have to work together, so why wouldn't they accept each other” is really true, but also applies to the real world. We all have to work together, so why don't we accept each other? I wish we would. The world would be better, and work better, if we did. But we don't. I hope someday we will.

#tlh #alastair carstairs #jem carstairs

984 notes · View notes