#especially with darwin being adopted and them treating him as an important part of the family like the rest of them

[gremlin-pattie]

man i forgot what a good show tawog is

[beautyofendlessforms]

Ramble about the current mess in brazillian politics, evangelical take over and the crazy flat-earthers...

To begin with, I don’t think most people in charge believe flat earth and other such nonsense ideas, they are just manipulating the population. Perhaps some of them like Damares Alves are truly faithful to their beliefs, but most of them don’t care about it at all, they’re just going in that direction as that benefits them immensely.

The fact is that Bolsonaro owes a lot the evangelical community and mainly the pastors who campaigned for him, such as Silas Malafaia and Edir Macedo, so he’s allied and attuned his discourse, now its time to satisfy their whims. Whats better than putting someone like Damares there, who is an artifact from the middle ages and a highly controversial figure which does two things at the same time:

She satisfy evangelicals and caters to their interests

She also serves as a smokescreen as her shocking ideas keeps us busy

While we’re busy and shocked by her medieval declarations, the Bolso government can advance on the matters of true importance such as selling the entire state and enslaving the population by taking away their rights one by one. Soon there will be nothing left while we’re worried by those declarations, which are horrifying nonetheless but I don’t thing these are the true goal of the new system.

All is about money and control, so if the evangelical narrative serves it well, they adopted it. That’s why people like me have been warning others about the dangers of this new theology of prosperity which took over, because:

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.— Voltaire

In fact, evangelicals have been rising to positions of power in the last few decades and their population had increased immensely, while the catholic population is dying out as we speak.

Evangelicals have been successfully integrated in br politics a long time ago and they managed to form a political block called the Evangelic congressional bloc which has started roughly in 2002 elections and has grown expressively both in size and influence since them.

Catholics were once in power and had great influence, as my grandparents told me how the population used to look up and ask the priest what politics to vote for, etc.. but this has largely fallen out of fashion and the catholic population became increasingly secular, and usually more tame as they rarely take the bible as law nowadays (at least for what I know of).

While these people are in decline, the evangelical movements have attracted more and more people and they have fundamentalist facets, they mostly follow the doctrine of prosperity so this ideology served perfectly in the new ultra-capitalist paradigm.

This all brought a change in the scenario and prepared the population for what is happening right now, this wasn’t a sudden change. The traps were already settled and the population was becoming increasingly fundamentalist in the past few years and I started noticing it clearly on my own life as they started demeaning more and more power and control over laws, schools, etc..

So, imo even if most people in this new government never wanted a religious take over, personally, they owe these people. This is coming one way or another.

The fact that brazil has become a right wing ultra capitalist country is not what worries me the most, its the way they glued those ideals to conservative morals and that worked to well… exactly because it goes very well with the predominant ideology I mentioned (prosperity theology), it just works wonders.

The fact that this is all happening reflects the nature of brazillian population and its ignorance, also this place has historically a very bad educational system which affected the capacity of decision and rational thinking of the population. The groundwork was mostly done by an insufficient educational system and pastors in the last decade have absorbed most of the population under the wings.

However not only evangelicals have been following these ideas, and recently a nice portion of the catholics have joined in this holy crusade, and they openly say science is not necessary, they laugh at intellectuality.

This haunts me every single minute of my life.

This kind of thinking is dragging us to all the problems we have right now but especially the denial of global warming among other problems.

All of those ideas had some root planted here but now they are mainstream and even criticizing them leads to stares and questions. This wouldn’t be possible if the groundwork wasn’t there already. If these ideas had no acceptance in the population they wouldn’t be used as bait like now, the population has to be extremely ignorant and deeply problematic for something like this to word. I doubt such thing would happen somewhere else or on a country which has a good basis of education.

This is why whats happening here is so much more scary than what is going in most right wing governments, its resembling more a theocratic new order. Its not fair to compare what happened here to Trump imo, while there are certainly similarities, this movement took us to a direction which has far darker implications. We are literally tearing apart all that happened in the last century and reversing back to a colonial state, both on the way the state is functioning but also on mindset.

I used to say we were turning back to the dictatorship era (1964) but now you can clearly see facets of far older eras, some say we’re close now to 1930′s but I see the way the clergy and fear of science is taking over reminiscent of the pre-Renascence era. The major proof of this is that we’re right now undermining the very basis of the age of reason, all that scientists and philosophers and thinkers in general have worked so hard to achieve, to free us from ignorance, its all being treated like shit and undermined.

Enlightenment values are being attacked from all sides.

The foundation of modern values is being systematically undermined in a way that no one takes it seriously anymore, womens issues are moaning, racism doesn’t exist, science and arts need surveillance under the clergy,

They did this successfully with undermining human rights, them they proceed to attack the basis of the law/rights system and now they attacking even science and empiricism and I wonder what will be left after that…

“This Brazil, stitched from a patchwork of dogmas, might be a fascinating topic of study if it didn’t put the whole planet at risk. Ideological discourse serves to instil the notion of destiny and to ensure cohesion within a population frightened about everything it might lose, from salaries and jobs to symbolic positions in the realms of race, gender, and sexual orientation. When Bolsonaro says he’s going to “free Brazil from political correctness”, he’s pledging to break both the “chains” that force people to respect minorities and those that curtail devastation of the Amazon forest…..

Without the world’s biggest tropical forest, there is no way to control global warming. If Bolsonaro’s messianic capitalism is not stopped, life on this planet will be much worse for everyone. For a contingent of neo-Pentecostal evangelicals, this may be welcomed as an apocalypse preceding the final salvation of “true believers”. For most of humanity, it will bring nothing but horror and suffering – perpetuated by the stupidity of a species with delusions of grandeur. “

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/10/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-minorities-rainforest

This is one of the best texts I recently found which sums up the feeling. The feeling that we are being dragged to the mud by other people’s beliefs, its horrifying. I don’t want to be part of this new future.

The summed up version is: I don’t think the governments goal is flat earth and taking Darwin out of schools, its actually something related to the resources found there. They don’t give a damn about the whole evangelical narrative, but since it this goes well with their plans, why not?

However we have some very good texts pointing to the opposite, that this was all planned.. such as:

“What he calls Communism are values such as human rights, the importance of science, or freedom of speech. Bolsonaro’s fight is not against marxist thought; it is against Enlightenment values.

One of the main arenas where the fight against takes place is academia and schools, where Bolsonarista thought hopes to replace the current curriculum with a far-right approved version. Under the pretense of impartiality, Bolsonaro’s followers are trying to police students and professors. Through a campaign of paranoia, everything can become subversive or biased. Calls for more racial justice in a deeply racist country become “moaning” and “an attempt to divide the nation”. History lessons on the dictatorship become “leftist brainwashing”. Sex education and anti-homophobic bullying lectures should be banned from classrooms, as being in contact with such themes might give students strange ideas.

Scientific evidence on global warming is classified as globalist dogma.The main problem for Brazil is that Bolsonaro has every chance of winning this battle. The average Brazilian person does not read more than one book a year; they believe WhatsApp chains to be as truthful as newspapers, and the public school education is at a constant crisis. Brazilians have no regard for their history, and they were deliberately kept ignorant for years.”

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/11/brazil-bolsonaro-s-fight-not-against-marxism-against-enlightenment-values

TL;DR: This is all a backstage so the true plan can unfold:

Either way we’re damned. I see a clear picture forming in the horizon and its not something I want to be a part of.

[regal-swagg]

Professor Leo Eric Ochoa

i never wanted to be a wizard. it isn't something that i've ever said to anyone but my mother, but it's true. i don't know what about my parent's genetics lead to me being born with magical abilities, but somehow this incredibly odd gene was passed on to me and here i am. my parent's were both muggles, and i say were because they are both dead, but i will get to that later. my parent's were fifteen when i was born, just kid's growing up poor in lambeth. the first couple of years of my life were lived in my grandmother's house who loved me like i was her own, but was disgusted with my mother for having me. i was happy living with my grandmother, and when my mom went of to uni i continued living with my grandmother. my father would visit me every once in a while, but never stayed for long. he would drop off some cash to my grandmother, ask how my mom was doing in school, and then he would leave. when i was six years old he got arrested for selling drugs, and three years later he died in prison from some injuries to his skull. despite the lack of involvement from my parents, i remember being happy at that time. honestly i thought of them both more like older siblings, my grandmother was my mom back then. i was nine years old when my mom moved back in with me and my grandmother, she had a graduate degree and a good job and she was ready to play the part of full time mom. if it sounds like i'm bitter about it, i'm not. even though i did not understand at the time i am actually really proud of my mom for going off to college and of my grandmother for raising me while she did it. they always told me that no matter how much they argued, which was a ton, family came first. my grandmother knew that my mother would be able to provide a better life for us if she went to college and she was prepared to sacrifice anything for that, even if she didn't like it. i've always remembered that, taken it to heart, family comes first for me too. living with my mom and grandmother was awesome. we had a lot more money now so i went to a better school and they bought me all the toys, games, and clothes i want because i always got great grades. i loved school, especially science, and that made my family happy. when i was ten i was in every science related activity you could thing of, and realized i wanted to be a geneticist. can you imagine a ten year old black boy walking around ranting about being genetics and molecular biology? but a wrench was thrown into my life plans when an owl showed up my our house from hogwarts, saying that i was a wizard. to be clear, i wasn't upset about that news back then. i was excited, but i also told my mother to politely decline the offer to attend hogwarts because i had also been offered a scholarship to one of the best private school's in the city. my mother did so, understanding my wishes, but neither of us quite understood that i didn't really have a choice.the international statute of secrecy still existed back then, and of course being the little scientist i was i began to experiment with my magical abilities. i discovered that i could make plants grow faster, convince animals to do odd things, and heal minor cuts on my body. when i showed everyone in my animal science club but healing an injured kitten, the ministry of magic quickly intervened. all of my friends and my teacher had their minds erased by obliviators and minerva mcgonnagal, the former headmistress of hogwarts, showed up at my house. she spoke for about an hour with my grandmother and mother about why it was important for me to receive a proper magical education. she explained the law of secrecy and how untrained wizards and witches often lost control of their magic to the detriment of their environment. when i realized the gist of this conversation was that i had no choice but to attend hogwarts i began crying. my mother explained my ambition to be a geneticist, and mcgonnagal was able to peak my interest somewhat by explaining herbology, transfiguration, and care of magical creatures to use. she told me all about her own academic pursuits in the field of transfigurations, assured me that there was a science to magic, and created a plan with my mother to make sure that i would simultaneously receive tutoring in muggle science and mathematics. this convinced my family, but it wasn't until wise minerva mcgonnagal looked me in the eye and challenged me to be the first wizard to find the connections between magic and science that i accepted my fate. when my mother and i went to diagon alley for first time my curiosity with everything magical renewed my excitement about being a wizard. i received my wand from ollivanders, adopted a kitten i named darwin, after charles darwin, and purchased far more books than was on my list. my mother and i spent that summer reading all that we could, while my grandmother pretended to understand. when it was time for me to leave them and go off to hogwarts i cried a lot knowing that i would miss them, but i was also excited to learn. i sat in a corner on the train surrounded by older students reading fantastic beast and where to find them. the sorting hat took very little time to place into ravenclaw, and eventually i settled in. classes were easy at hogwarts, i only got two exceeds expectations my entire time at hogwarts and both were in potions which was discouraging because i have always been great at chemistry which is kind of the muggle equivalent. i particularly loved care of magical creatures, herbology, and transfigurations. i made very good friends with my teachers and headmistress mcgonnagal frequently checked in one me, making sure that i was also receiving my texts in mathematics and science. i made a few good friends while at hogwarts, but was never popular, and i graduated top of my class. i know a lot of people have more to say about their time at school, but it honestly was one of the least eventful times of my life. for the most part i never felt challenged academically and there was always part of me that missed muggle education. before returning to school for my second year my mother my my stepfather while purchasing my potions supplies in diagon alley. he was a lackluster potioneer, i way was because he is also dead now, but he was very handsome and he managed to charm my mother without any magic. they married while i was at school that year and when i returned for the summer i had a stepfather and we no longer lived with my grandmother in lambeth but in gordric's hollow. i was incredibly displeased by this, it meant that even in my summer's it was difficult to spend time with muggle's. my stepfather was never unpleasant toward me, but it was always awkward between us. he did not quire understand how to be a parent so he never tried, and i am sure it was hard to learn with me spending most of my time at hogwarts or summer school. i was sixteen when my little brother was born, when my stepfather learned what it meant to be a parent, but it was too late for him to be anything like a father to me. i graduated from hogwarts top of my class, my mother had another baby, and i went of to oxford to study biology. it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders when i got to college and for the most part i blended into muggle society. of course i kept up-to-date with all of the most recent research in herbology, magizoology, and biological transfigurations, but i lost contact with my hogwarts friends and really only communicated with magical people in letters to mcgonnagal or when visiting my family in godric's hollow. i hit my stride in college! i began dating, both women and men to my surprise, and received undergraduate degrees in biology and biochemistry. i went on to attain phds in genetics and veterinary science, determined to find biological explanations for magic and magical creatures. my family was proud, mcgonnagal was proud, and i was happy. although i have had many good friends since graduating hogwarts i have been unable to have successful romantic relationships. i have been told by several people that i have dated that i am often to cold, that i obsess about science to much, and that i don't express my feelings enough. they are right, and to be honest my academic ambitions have always been more important to me than getting married or having children. on top of that everyone i dates was a muggle, and i was always anxious about the idea of inviting someone home to my mostly magical family. in 2021 my grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. i petitioned the ministry of magic to gain permission to seek a cure that combined magic and science, which was granted, but it was too late. my grandmother died that year, but i was able to identify away to treat cancer with magic. i continued to work on the cure with the help of my stepfather who had become more adept at potions and by this time i had become quite average int he field. we published our results which we believe have great potential, but the international statute of secrecy kept of from moving forward with trials. in 2022 my parent's died in a fire that was caused by a potion my stepfather was attempting to create in our basement. he was killed instantly, and my mother died of smoke inhalation before our neighbors could put out the fire. i was in kenya at the time, researching lions and leopards as a muggle scientist and nundus as a wizard. when i got the owl that night i remembered everything that my grandmother had said about raising me, and knew that i would have to do the same for my siblings. i was surprised at my immediate resolve. i had always but my education and research before everything, but i realized then that i did that because my family was healthy and happy. i returned home to bury my parents and comfort my siblings. i was never very close to them, but i always loved them and had fun with them when i visited. i kept them out of school for two weeks and we quickly became close. the only person who comforted me was mcgonnagal. she and i discussed how i planned to leave my research position in kenya to care for my siblings, and she did what any great mentor would do, what i hope to do for some student one day. she offered me a consolation prize just as she had done when i was a kid, she asked me become the care of magical creatures professor and i accepted. i returned to kenya for a couple months while my siblings finished the year at hogwarts, then i returned. i bought us a small home in hogsmeade and we slowly settled into our new life. my brother looks up to me in the way that brothers are supposed to, we talk about everything and even though he is so young he has become my bestfriend. honestly it seems like he only needs me for financial and emotional support, most of the time he seems so mature. my sister is different. she is only fourteen now, and she was eleven when my parents died. while my brother feels like a typical brother, my sister is more like my daughter. i sometimes feel guilty about how different the relationships feel. i've had to be the one to teach her about puberty, discipline her, comfort her, help her understand loss and depression. sometimes she slips up and calls me dad. when she is sad she likes to lay on my chest and tell me in mad detail about everything that is going on in her life and it fills me with this sense of love, belonging, and protectiveness that i have never felt before. she also likes to ask invasive questions about my love life and when i plan to have children. because of her that is now something i want to figure out. being a professor at hogwarts was not my first choice in career but now that the international statute of secrecy has been repealed it doesn't seem so bad. because of my traditional muggle education and the title professor at a magical institution i am respected by both communities and i am the leading scholar in the developing biology/magizoology hybrid field. i love being close to my siblings, most of my students are amazing, and teaching gives me a chance to raise some pretty adorable magical creatures. before mcgonnagal died she asked me if i would continue on even after my brother and sister graduated, and i doubt that i will. but right now hogwarts is exactly where i want to be.

http://allwaswellxo.proboards.com/thread/418/ochoa-leo-eric