#i think the overwhelming swing to the right is happening anyways and my vote cannot do much to stop it

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

honestly i wish i could be the sort of person who believes voting changes anything, but i simply do not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and i'm tired of people trying to guilt-trip me to go vote, it's only making me even less likely to vote

[bounward]

MM TRIAL 2.1 | “ the sword of damocles is swinging ” | WOE. |

It seems like it happens all at once.

Her brain had been a murk -- a stressball of anxiety, of despair, of the knowing of the inevitable end of things-- (she had never thought of ending things -- of the actual goal, of any endplan; to her, her life had always been a journey, a progression.  there was not supposed to be any sort of end to her, to woe, to her people-- -- because that's what it had always been about; her people, the desperation to push them onto the right path, though they had met it only with distrust and snarls; of knowing that her life was not an end, but the beginning of a terrible road for her people -- a road she had prepared, like a martyr, to take the brunt of -- so her children would not have to--)

(her life was transitionary in ways she had never had the time to fathom or count; never feeling quite rooted with her people, with humans -- because the first penguin to jump off the iceberg was not guaranteed to survive the jaws of the leopard seal waiting below; and to make people bond with her in that lasting way had almost always felt cruel -- and they could never understand why she would jump, if no one was in line trying to push her).

ending things -- a certain death. But it was not death that scared her now.

And she had hardly had time to punch her own name in, wearily, as usual for these trials -- before:

PRIX returned.

And part of the fog had lifted, because Chirin was there, and she was safe.

(which was everything to her -- because in the full brunt of it: there had never been a person who understood her like Chirin; there would never be another with the capacity to comprehend what she had been going for -- because Chirin had been the one who had always helped her when she was down; had solved two problems for every ten she caused; an--)

(and she had been her constant.  and it was too overwhelming to bear).

So her fog has dispersed -- but in that strange way; that fog os despair that gives way to the haze of elation -- her movements swifter than they've been in years -- lifting Chirin up, her tail wagging -- she cannot remember being so relieved, so happy, in her time here -- not since their mutual acceptance to Summit; not since--

.... Well.  That didn't matter, right now.

But it contributes to this euphoria -- a euphoria that blocks her from maybe seeing the full scope of anything going on.  Her tail wags lowly throughout the course of the discussion -- even as Chirin looks uneasy -- even as Campion and other slowly circle onto a very difficult topic-- --but when Dola says that some had feared, the mist clears.

...For another.

And Woe's eyes glaze over, her hands going over each other a few times in a desperate move to have something for her mind to focus on, just for now.  The rest of the trial whizzes by her -- a transformation, a yell, consistent squabbling over the book 1984 (...had she read that one...?).

All the while, she's thinking of it. (thinking of ending things -- had she ever? -- there were a few times, with Campion, where they talked too long and her tongue became too casual; where her teeth had shifted to those of wolf and the fae had pointed out something too clearly to her-- -- there were times, looking at the claw marks left in her and her brethern's shared room -- seeing the pain in Lucita's eyes during their scant conversations -- how Dola never treated her quite right again, and perhaps with good reason -- with how suspiciously Smee had treated her -- with how Pan looks at her only with fear -- with how others challenge her only for fighting, as if that is her purpose to being, as if she is a rage that is barely contained, and not--)

(...she's thinking of ending things.)

(what had she wrought to her people, beyond misery.  what had she brought to herself -- how stubborn had she been, and for what purpose).

(in the moment, she had always been running; so busy that she did not comprehend what risks she was incurring, though everyone else had been happy to tell her her faults--)

(this pride, this unwarranted superiority -- what had it ever brought her?)

She checks her claws, tiredly.  She has not recalled ever feeling so tired.

...Before her eyes go over to Berlioz, first; and then O'Malley:

"...What does killing the traitors mean in this context, anyway?  If the executions all lead to that place the... previously deceased have outlined for us... does it matter if we vote for them?  Would we not just be taking care of people aligned with ... Summit, presumably?"

There is no extension of the hand here -- no showing of the palm.  Her eyes are dull, wolven.   An ear flicks.  

"...I do not understand the moral argument at play here.  We are dead people, opting to take our chances with two different potential predators.  Our fates are shared no matter our decision.  It does not matter if we kill the traitors, or permit us all to be executed -- no one becomes more dead than dead.  Perhaps the quandary there is more akin to -- who do we trust more, what lots would we rather draw?"

There is a slow blink.  A small glance to Chirin. Her tone remains steady:

"For me, of course, I... have no qualms, voting for the traitors.  If that is what Chirin would do, I would do so as well.  Even if it is true, and this is a... desire to revive us, or similar, [my people] are not trusting of things that rise from the grave.  I should be an abomination upon my return, depriving those who have already mourned the benefit of their closure and spiritual healing.  It would be shocking.  It would be perverse.  I have no interest in the idea."

Another blink, a pause.

"...."

Before she looks over at Chirin fully, her eyes tired.

"Chirin, my dear.  You should do better in talking to us all as if we were wolves.  I think our brains tire too easily to unwrap such circles...."

Tsking, now.  An ear flicks in sheer exhaustion.

"...Are you meaning to say, then, that you believe that the traitors must share this ... U classification?  With each other?  Very curious a thought indeed... I wonder... why that would be.  And who you are trying to accuse."

[canchewread]

Editor’s note: so as I mentioned in my last post, I’m migrating some content over to this site from Facebook because of Zuckerbergs head-up-his-butt decision to ban antifascist and anarchist accounts. I haven’t been banned yet, but I’m not interested in losing my content if it happens. This journal is a re-post from my Facebook page and originally appeared on March 17th, 2020.

March 17th, 2020 – Debate Fallout (Literally)

Despite my overwhelming reservations, I, like millions of other Americans locked inside their homes to wait out Captain Tripps, spent the better part of my Sunday evening watching the Democratic Party nomination contest debate between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. 

The debate itself was pretty much like all of the previous debates, which is to say, in a word – infuriating. If anyone can really have been said to be the “winner” of this contest, it was unquestionably Sanders but if American democratic socialists were hoping he’d just come out and destroy a completely incoherent Biden, they were undoubtedly disappointed. Bernie fell far short of saying what everyone following this race already knows to be true – that Joe Biden’s brain doesn’t work and his best chance of actually beating Trump in the fall rests on some combination of mass deaths caused by coronavirus and cheap Russian oil crashing the U.S. petrodollar. 

If anything, the debate was most memorable for the simple fact that Joe Biden spent the entire evening demonstrating that while he can’t tell his wife from his sister, he’s still capable of lying his butt off like a champ if the situation requires it. Please understand that I’m not talking about one lie here, or even Palooka Joe’s altogether routine habit of twisting the truth; Joe Biden went on CNN and bald-faced lied over and over while demonstrating the ability to falsify his publicly documented record in government on issues both large and small. Biden lied about his crusade to cut social security, his opposition to abortion rights, his opposition to the New Green Deal and the (late) timing of his conversion from an opponent of gay marriage, to a supporter. Palooka Joe also falsely accused Bernie of having 9 Super Pacs (Sanders has zero), he once again lied about his support for the Iraq war; from the Hyde amendment to Medicare for All, Joe Biden falsified not only his current policy positions, but his entire voting record as a government official – at one point, Joe literally said he hated the Bankruptcy Bill he himself f*cking wrote.

While the naive among us might have expected CNN’s (corporate media) moderators to step in and insist Biden stop selling whoppers like the debate stage is a Burger King take-out line, it will surprise no one who has followed the ongoing media machinations to destroy Bernie that this did not occur. Furthermore, the fact that Joe Biden objectively lied to the viewing audience, about verifiable matters of historical record, on at least twelve occasions during the debate didn’t seem to even rate a mention during the post-debate liberal media news roundtables that gleefully called the debate a win for Biden – a curious position considering the exact same “liberal” news organizations and in most cases the same pundits rated Mike Pence a loser against wooden ventriloquist’s dummy Tim Kaine in 2016, for adopting essentially the same strategy Biden did against Sanders – as soon as the cameras start rolling, Pence started to lie and simply don’t stop lying until the debate was over.

Yes my friends, for the astute observer the actual debate itself was merely a sideshow to the extremely revealing post-debate chatter of our in-pocket, pro-elite, for profit media minions. As I sat back and watched what is ultimately just the latest act in corporate “liberal” media’s efforts to elect a center right establishment Democrat and destroy Bernie Sanders (as well as the democratic socialist movement as a whole), I found myself wondering if the Democratic Party and their elite media allies even understood that with each bald-faced lie, and open act of duplicity, they were moving inexorably closer to becoming the architects of their own demise. You cannot of course fool all of the people, all of the time and anyone who actually watched that debate and thought the big news in the morning was Biden’s flavorless promise to nominate an as of yet unnamed woman for Vice President, and not the fact that Joe lied all night at a rate that would make even Downmarket Mussolini himself blush, is probably already working for CAP anyway. 

As shameful and alarming as the media’s performance on behalf of Biden was however, even *I* wasn’t really ready for the caronavirus subplot that played out after Bernie suggested that it was irresponsible to continue running the primary contests while the CDC is begging Americans to avoid groups larger than fifty people and the President himself is telling folks on TV that even gatherings of ten people aren’t safe. Sanders is of course right and that fact is becoming increasingly more obvious by the hour as the whole western world shifts towards a pandemic-induced lockdown; despite this however, the Democratic Party is going to run four primaries later today, even though doing so will undoubtedly help spread COVID-19 and indeed, cost lives. Perhaps more alarmingly however, the entire Democratic establishment including Joe Biden’s campaign itself, as well as noted liberal luminary influencers like CAP’s Neera Tanden and MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid have responded as if delaying primaries Sanders isn’t  going to win no matter when they are held, represents some kind of plot to steal the nomination from Joe Biden – a nomination that they feel belongs to the center-right establishment now, since they already stole it with rigged primaries and potentially a billion dollars worth of free media smears on Sanders. Grimly enough, the liberal establishment has actually gone so far as to declare wandering out in a pandemic to vote for Joe Biden a moral duty for Democrats in America; one woman even compared doing so to surviving the middle passage - a position that could objectively be described as “insane” if that term didn’t somehow fall to cover how crass all of this is.

As grim as it might be, I think it’s important that we face the facts here – we know how coronavirus spreads, we know that it’s disproportionately dangerous (and even potentially fatal) for people over sixty-five and we know that older voters are overwhelmingly going for Joe Biden in this primary fight. There is absolutely no f*cking way on earth you can tell me that Bernie and the left are trying to steal an already crooked as f*ck race by acting to… save the lives of Joe Biden voters in a nomination contest that Biden is going to win no matter *when* or *how* folks get to vote. Indeed it was initially impossible for me to understand what line of logic the sh*tlibs were pursuing in arguing that it was somehow wrong to ensure senior voters got to cast a ballot without potentially suffocating to death in agony for their troubles; it wasn’t until I waded deep into the comments section and noticed that most of the hired Dem Party online mercenaries couldn’t help but mention they wanted the primaries to end as fast as possible so Bernie would shut the f*ck up, that I was even able to grasp the horrifying endgame being played out here.

Look, I’m not a Harvard graduate but I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that “you should f*cking literally die so your corporate overlords can install Joe Biden and silence the left” isn’t exactly a message that endears you to the base – it’s one thing to lie to people on behalf of a desiccating mummy like Palooka Joe, but it’s entirely another to directly tell them you think grandma is an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of neoliberalism if it means maintaining corporate rule and the supremacy of elite capital.

In other words, expect rain.

- nina illingworth

Update: in the time since this post was written, Ohio has suspended its primary contest today (most likely until July 2nd) – as of yet, Democrats in Illinois, Arizona and Florida are still being encouraged to put their life on the line for Joe Biden’s nomination campaign.

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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”