#if the democrats had picked a better fucking platform they did stand a chance. fucking christ.........

[homoerotictext]

ooooooh i fucking HATE democrats who "hate" the """"bernie or bust people"""" ..... you mean the people who just want universal health coverage? period and that's it? YOU are the reason nobody knows what the left even fucking wants. y'all just want to "make things better" well be fucking specific. i don't think one single fucking human should have to pay exorbitant amounts of money out-of-pocket for necessary medical care. do you want that? or do you just want to tell republicans they're wrong? BE FUCKING SPECIFIC! GROW A SPINE! make this healthcare shit less complicated and you will WIN sooooooo easily it's insaaaane...... but they are in the pockets of the 1% :D YOU CAN'T FORCE ME TO VOTE FOR 1% JOE BIDEN! AND I'M NOT SORRY! stop taking shady money you fucking spineless faggots

[venividiviciversace]

“feel you”

thinking about race today can be very overwhelming. but i ask you kindly - do not make something an issue just because it's trendy to take a side. don't come to the cause of colored people just because the stars look pretty outside tonight and now your fleeting thoughts are concerned with how strange it is to feel like things are moving backwards. donate to the aclu if you want to make a change. if you really wanted to make a change that would have already crossed your mind, because your platform almost certainly isn't enough to start a national dialogue, just a circular conversation with someone that doesn't think you have enough credibility to change their mind. i think it's foolish that pence left the game to make a statement, not from a strategic point of view - even though twitter already pointed out how *obvious* of a move it was to increase racial division and reacquaint everyone with a man who maybe wants a little more of that sweet joe biden groupie love - but from the point of view that i don't empathize with the way he feels because i don't feel what he feels. but WOW, do people like to say that they feel you but make no effort at all to broaden their limited perspective. 

girls and boys alike, democrats and republicans alike, conservatives and liberals alike. 

are you a young college student with a background that ranges anywhere from extremely liberal to slightly conservative, placed in an environment where you lose your credibility if you base your decisions on your feelings? 

it's quite obvious, in the midst of a social dialogue, to pick the objectively noble side. but let me tell you something: you didn't know that the national anthem was adopted as a recruitment tool for the military in 2003 before you read it in a 'the Guardian' article last week. you weren't there when a near-death drew bledsoe was replaced on the football field by the greatest quarterback in NFL history after a blood vessel sheared in his chest thinking, "it's important to acknowledge the historicity of the national anthem as well as consider its current context to understand what kind of meaning it once held, what kind of meaning it holds, and how future generations will think about it." if you're vomiting out words and ideas regarding issues serious enough change the course of human history that aren't based on the way you feel about something through your experiences, then consider that you may not be as noble as you're fooling your validation-seeking self to be. based on generation time and changes in the environment, our species doesn't evolve that quickly, and looking at how effortlessly and remorselessly white folk used all kinds of colored folk as a stepladder for their own achievement for hundreds of years, i'm pretty sure there wouldn't be more than 10% of white folk today living in the 1700's willing to walk behind a martin luther king jr archetype in a time where your favorite cook made fish fry to die for and you got to own her once your daddy passed. 

a decade passed between the gulf war and the afghanistani war, or the war on terror. we were kids. i was 4. maybe they needed soldiers and the insane people that actually volunteered and fought for a chance that they could make a difference in the lives of innocent middle easterns and americans alike needed help. how sick should do really consider it, in a world where our press secretary blatantly lies about something as benign as the size of an inauguration crowd because his boss is a bit insecure, that uncle sam whispered to the NFL that they should emphasize the national anthem as a way, not to tell the people, but to make them feel in their hearts, that we need help. we are fighting forces unknown to us for results we can't predict except for the "thank you for your service" clockwork we hear at the airport and the lifetime of reaching for your gun and hyperventilating while we walk past the freezer in the supermarket because the buzzing sound in the waffle section reminds us of the sound we heard just before a live grenade exploded outside our bunker, killing a couple of people we didn't know but either of whom we could have easily been. these old politician folk - many of whoms daddy’s and daddy’s daddy’s fought in the military - were on standby, surely out of harms way, but nonetheless facilitating a war against a group they thought was america’s most dangerous enemy. and yes, most of these old politician folk are white, because it's 2017 and change takes time. they don't have friends being killed by white cops or lifelong neighbors being threatened with deportation. it's so clear and obvious to me that protesting the flag is an excellent model for getting a point across that police brutality against black people and colored people is heinous, and the general treatment of all colored folk by police officers is unjustified compared to the way whites are treated by police in 2017. 

at the same time, i wasn't fighting in a war in which i wasn't quite sure what i was fighting for or who my enemy was. 

at the time, however, perhaps i know that i was fighting for those that called themselves american, whatever their skin color may be, because it's the early 2000's and the general acceptance of colored folk is becoming a social norm. i didn't give my life just to make it feel like the fight i caused was worthless. the decisions conservatives make about abortions, the way they embrace religion, whatever it may be. it's just based on a feeling, a feeling that i can't understand. the unmistakable feeling of being scared in 2003 and giving your thanks by pledging allegiance to your flag. the same grateful and proud feeling when your friends come home safe; the same awful but proud feeling when they don't. you must be proud because you cannot feel like they died in vain, whether they were your friends, your subordinates, your doctor, your wife, your children, whomever. they certainly fought for your right to stand or sit - that's the way i feel as a colored person who feels worthless when his voice is dismissed and forgotten. the way another person, with a different perspective and inseparable feeling, feels when the kneeler hit them where it hurts: the flag. their ultimate symbol. what many they knew died protecting, because they didn't die holding an infant above a flood in a hurricane, but instead they died hoping they made the world more a better place for a bunch of numbers in their telephone book. the problem with establishing feelings based on those who died for a symbol is that symbols are changing, similar to how there’s nothing about the word “horse” that signifies a horse, but it still pops into our head. the difference is symbols outside of language are purposefully malleable to help us understand something we had trouble understanding before we made that comparison. our flag was symbolic of freedom. now it's symbolic of division. the kneeler shits on something intangible that holds meaning forever to the conservative. i may as well be telling that conservative their father is a child molester. that’s just kneeling in front of the flag. but allowing them to make sense of it is the trick. like telling that same conservative that their younger sister was a victim of his father during her adolescence. for a liberal, the murders of innocent blacks and every racial injustice that we accept is the status quo is enough to change our somewhat neutral, if not already negative (based on common liberal feelings regarding unrightful seizure of land from natives, the genocides our forefathers committed, etc.) feelings about the flag to very negative. it’s not as easy when you’re being told that the man you played catch with, let you stay out past curfew, took you to vegas for your 21st, died of emphysema with you next to his hospital bed and left you half of his belongings in his will... it’s not easy to change the way you feel about him. it will happen as the individual naturally adapts and accepts the truth of the world, as it’s too difficult living without accepting truth, but it’s certainly not something that will be dealt with through the passage of logic.

understanding how someone feels when what they think is completely obvious to them when it makes absolutely no sense to you - like why these fucking old conservatives are so closed-minded about the flag - isn't just hard, it's impossible. feelings can't be replicated because feelings are a result of all of your unique thoughts you've had up to a particular moment, every single way you've felt about those thoughts, and all the meta-analyses you did interpreting how you felt about your thoughts. that's what guides your behavior. that's what shapes your values. if you value acknowledging the specific divisiveness of NFL pregames and strategically leave in order to win political points and aggravate the state of our upcoming race war, then i can't say we value the same thing. your feelings are irrational, but so are mine. the flag meant nothing to some in 2003 and it meant everything to others in 2003. now, in 2017, most of the people who couldn't tell you how many stripes are on the flag kneel before it, pleading the rest to do the same, giving the flag a new meaning. but those who already feel the way they feel about what it means... it's not just disrespectful that i kneel, it's appalling that i didn't care then and i do care now. liberals didn't generally support the war on terror. conservatives did. their symbolism was solidified in concrete. they believe the concrete is dry as an act of desperation to give meaning to those who were at biggest risk of dying meaningless. but the concrete never dries. we continue pushing forward by holding on tight to what we know, but also by loosening our grip when we're confronted with something we don't understand, rather than clenching our fist when something challenges the way we feel. because my feelings aren't all rational. and neither are yours. they aren't supposed to be. they’re just genuine. they’re just a result of every process we’ve put ourselves through. and they’re not entirely logical. meaning someone out there will have a more logical perspective on something than you. it’s just up to you to loosen your grip and separate your feelings from your rationale in order to understand the thoughts of another. if you can achieve that, you can see how you feel about adopting their rationale. once you can interpret those feelings, you’ll finally feel what they feel. you’ll have done the impossible.