#its always the upper middleclass people too

[tiredcrowbrain]

Despite being a trans masc, the girl math survived.

I bought the overpriced bats simply modern cup purely to spite the resellers who already listed it for 250$ before it's even sold out.

if you mark shit something already overpriced from 45$ to 250$ kindly, choke. You make it hard for normal people to enjoy things.

[lillian-nator]

Wallflower AU (aka highschool au made w/ @bellfort3)

V i b e s - hanging on the roof; walking across train tracks; skipping school; Lakes, yes, something with lakes; something with different types of sodas. - My angsty teens are gonna have painted nails - Tommy bleaches his hair; Wilbur dyes his hair black - dramatic fuck. - Wilbur in eyeliner plz - Wilbur wears doc martens; black, yellow, maroon, silver shiny - Tommy's worn the same exact jean jacket for the past 5 years; it's 2 sizes bigger than he is; but he wears it every single day; it has fur on the inside; and its light washed with tears; the tears didn’t come like it; he's just ripped it over the years - He doesn't wash it very often, but he's glued patches on it, and Wilbur's drawn on it in sharpie. He just layers hoodies or flannels under it when it’s cold, but still wears it when it's hot - Tommy's also worn the same shoes for YEARS, they’re duct taped together at this point, they're white converse, they're not white anymore, and he's bleach-washed them SO many times that they permanently smell like chemicals. - The laces are frayed, so bad that he doesn’t even wear the laces most days. - Tommy doesn't shy from going in mud or water though, he'll wear the shoes to their fullest and then some. - I think you can tell by now, that Tommy just doesn’t come from a lot of money. - They live in a kind of run down town, very poor, old, smallish. - Wilbur is middle class, which is very well off in the area he lives in. - Wilbur gives off family disappointment vibes. Where he has to sneak out at night, Tommy can leave through his front door. - Wilbur calls Tommy “sunshine”, but very sarcastically since Tommy is a dick :) - Tommy has one of Wilbur's old beanies; it's black and monster branded, the monster logo is green - Wilbur gave it to Tommy 3 years ago, and Tommy never gave it back - btw Tommy's 17 and Wilbur's 19: Tommy's a junior and Wilbur's a senior - Wilbur only drinks Green Apple Monster - Tommy drinks sugar free redbull, but mostly only when Wilbur buys it for him, because Tommy usually doesn't have pocket change - Wilbur and Tommy bring speakers to the train tracks and dance and by that, its them jumping around and occasionally pushing someone over - Tommy uses his allowance to buy cigarettes; Wilbur vapes - both mentally ill - Wilbur is essentially the modern emo. He has this one yellow and black flannel that's oversized, and he wears it multiple times a week - it’s a problem.

- Dream, Wilbur, Karl, Tommy, Big Q, SapNap, Punz, and Tubbo - That’s the group. - I have just been talking about Tommy and Wilbur but they are the main characters so you can suck it. - A scene with Dream, Wilbur, Karl, Tommy, Big Q, SapNap, Punz, and Tubbo, at a lake, throwing each other in, and Tommy gets his shoes soaked, but he saves his jacket from the fall. Water gun fights, and they drink energy drinks and eat chips. they lay in the grass and contemplate life, Talk abt life yes. Abt existence. Abt how shit it is. Half of them have to wake up early and sneak home, the other half get to stay as long as they like. - Tommy tucks his t-shirts into his pants, which are always very baggy black jeans with just gigantic holes. - Tommy and Dream both have ADHD, however, Tommy's meds are purely from welfare, he cannot afford to give any out. Dream however? From an upper-middleclass family. Basically millionaires in this town. He can afford to lose some of his meds. - He yells in the clearing "COME GET YOUR DRUGS CHILDREN" - Besides, I've learned that there are like so many different ADHD meds, and maybe Tommy is just on something a lot stronger than adderall. He can't partake in the pill popping, but he doesn't mind. He does it every morning. - They don't do it often, maybe once a month, depends on how big Dream's prescription is - not that he regularly takes them like a good boy should - And I won't ever write this, but Gogy hangs out with them every so often, in which Gogy and Wilbur have an on and off again hooking up type relationship - whenever they hang out, Gogy like sits and Wilbur's lap and shit - Tommy and Punz GAG - "EW the fuck - get your hands off eachother. ITS GROSS - NO PDA IN MY BACKYARD"

- They hang out in an abandoned Building. But they don't try to fix it up. They're not fucking VSCO girls. They just want somewhere to hang out - If anything they make it worse - they fucking trash the place - It’s not intentional though - It’s like they can have fun without worrying abt the mess - just, sometimes they spill hawiian punch mixed with vodka everywhere - THEY GHOST HUNT AND OUIJA BOARD AND SHIT - They hang out in cemeteries too. they play manhunt in a cemetery, but like the regular version- like just hide and go seek in the dark. - they've done seances even though almost all of them are atheists - anyways the point of the fact is, is that half of them (excluding the minors you know) I'm looking at you Karl and Q - somethings going on between you two have made out with guys, and I'm not gonna sugar coat it, most modern like takes on religion do not take kindly to that

- they go to prom - and Dream somehow ends up with a ton of weed, because he had just turned old enough, and had the money - and they get fucking high OUT of their minds, like they're never doing it again - like, George and Wilbur definitely hooked up at Wilbur's house, which they aren't supposed to do - because Wilbur's parents will fucking flip that Wilbur is sleeping with a random person. No one is quite sure where SapNap ended up, and Tommy lost one of his shoes. In a panic, they spent the next 3 hours looking for it to find it at the lake by the school - Tommy fucking cradles it to his chest. -  (are wilburs parents homophobic?) (yes maybe a little side of homophobia) (Is wilbur bisexual or gay?) (he is ‘whoever the fuck looks bangable’) (fair enough) (he is ‘gogy my king’) (TRUUUE) - the bleachers - they hang out under the bleachers

- Gogy = Stylish stoner - very popular, but never not high - Karl is like the goody two-shoes of the group, doesn't skip class, and is on the principals list, however, he will NEVER back down from space brownies - its his weakness - Tubbo has a subway pass, and they do that thing where Tubbo swipes it and everyone fucking bolts into the subway, and they take all the trains at like 4am and just hang from the bars and shit - Wilbur still dresses relatively like, nicely and scholarly, which puts everyone off. He wears very loose sweaters with button-ups underneath. with khakis or black jeans and his docs - where his best friend, our Tommy, wears borderline yellow converse, and one bleached two-sizes-too-large jean jacket, and some second-hand-store hoodies, that are always a bit too worn in, but so, incredibly Tommy - Tommy who legit hasn't brushed his hair in years, not with a brush anyways - too frantic to brush his teeth most mornings. but always chewing gum; Tommy's always everywhere at once - ADHD meds only half-working on him, they couldn't afford the good shit - He'll never quite understand Dream handing out his adderall for free, Tommy would kill for the hard shit, but hey, he's never gonna stop his friends from having a good time

- Let's talk about Karl Jacobs - good ole' goody two shoes Jacobs - all of his teachers are constantly trying to get him to stop hanging out with Tommy and gang - every parent teacher conference is "we love your boy, but we are concerned about his friends" - Teachers have meetings with him, about how the people you surround yourself with can change your future - Karl's like, from the good side of town, plays first in the drumline, plays violin on the side, straight a's, clean-white-air-force-ones type of guy. Name brand clothes. Combed hair - Packed lunch every day from his mom; gets dropped off by his mom, kisses her goodbye; Mom is like very involved in school too - PTA parent - it's fucking good kid Jacobs - and he's sneaking off with fucking potheads to go to college parties and abandoned buildings - Does he do drugs? Well, he’s a big fan of treats if you know what I mean :wink wink: - ….you ever see Ted's video about a 500mg edible …. yeah. - big fan of gummy bears and brownies - Karl shows up to Parties and there are shouts of "Fuckin' goody-two-shoes Jacobs is HERE" - a lot of people make fun of him and think they can push him around - He seems like a softie; welcome mat type beat - but fucking watch this man chug 5 cups of whatever you give him, and then still win beer pong - Like his best friend is fucking quackity, he can do the hard shit - its very much a his parents have no clue who he actually is type beat - Look, his parents have no clue where he is ever - And if they even know he’s out, they don’t know where or with who - If his mom is at all involved in the school, she'll hear about Quackity, basically a drug dealer with how much hash weed he hands out on a daily basis. - Tommy has to be contained in order for the school to run smoothly, and Wilbur is a dramatic fuck that sleeps through most of his classes - Tommy has to take frequent breaks - They make him spend 3rd period in the principles office - Like he obviously needs help but he can’t afford it at all. Even the school can’t do anything for him bc he can’t get anything official for himself - like he can't even try to concentrate - He gave up so quickly in high school, bc they don’t have enough time or staff to help him - he tried in middle school - but man, did he give up in highschool - Yeah. He knows it is hopeless. Can't even afford college anyway. he'll just do whatever Wilbur does - here's an idea: Fucking Karl Jacobs showing up to school one morning just absolutely hammered out of his mind - Karl just showing up to first period AP Physics, and he's barely awake, honestly smells so much like weed and booze, and if he breathed anywhere near you, you could just feel the alcohol radiating from his breath - He's extra bubbly, laughs at everything - takes out his notebook to take some sort of notes, and just fucking giggles at the shapes and equations. He is very spacy, he clearly stayed up all night doing something very illegal; he gets up and jumps around. 2nd period band? oh boy - He gets sick at lunch bet - Like everyone got Drunk but Karl got FUCKED up - It was his birthday, bet - He took like 17 shots over the course of like 8 - 12ish hours, and I looked it up, despite karl being super scrawny and probably like 140 - 150ish pounds - which isn't a lot for being 5'11 - will not kill him - BECAUSE, you guessed it, he turned 17 - He didn't sleep, he was awake taking shots and just fucking who knows what until 6am when they stumbled to school - at lunch, 11:30 in the morning - he's head down on the table, miserable - he doesn't have a hangover yet, because it's only been a few hours, but man, is he nauseous - just the smell of food makes his stomach churn - and the thing about fucking Jacobs showing up drunk as hell - is that at least one of his teachers has called his mom about it - SHES PRESIDENT OF THE PTA FOR FUCKS SAKE, ONE OF THEM KNOWS HER - And the teachers aren't stupid, Karl is so obviously drunk - generally Karl is pretty quiet in class; but now he has no distinction between hanging with hs friends and being in class - he's shouting and cracking jokes and is very tempted to kick his chair over - Anyways, Karl fucks himself over, end of story  - ONTO PUNZ’S RELGIEOUS TRAUMA WOOOOOOOOOOOO - It's Punz - fuckin' golden boy Punz; he plays football; and goes to church; and calls his mother "momma"; wears a nice church outfit; and is polite to the bible study mothers that come over on tuesday nights and gets them drinks - just a fuckin' golden boy - A religious family. Go to church every Sunday. Sunday school. Holidays. But. The kid just realizes that they don’t believe in god. Them telling the group like they’re high and he’s like “you know? Some of the shit that’s happened to us proves to me that god rlly isn’t real.” - and Punz like prays every day for Tommy's dad to get his job back; or for Gogy to get better parents; or for Karl to live the life he wants; and NOTHING EVER WORKS. THEY'RE ALL STILL FUCKED. - by the way we will get the the Tommy's dad losing his job later - But Punz's life is controlled by something he doesn't even believe in anymore - because he's still going to the like church breakfasts, and christmas service, and every sunday morning, and helping his mom's ladies bible study, and his parents are talking about sending him to a youth bible camp - - and he doesn't even think he believes in god anymore. - Punz kind of took out his own personal, religious, and family struggles out the way most teenage boys do. Drinking, and lots of sex. - SO I just imagined this like, really dramatic moment, where its the morning after Punz had a one night stand at some sort of party down the street, and he's long past saving his virginity for his wife, but he's buying her the morning after pill, which his church is just so against, and he has like the moment of, "if you do this, you're done." and he does it - he's had a couple of those moments, like, when he first had sex, and when he first smoked weed, or popped a pill, or snuck out at night, or skipped church - but that was the moment of "there is no going back" - like any type of drug or procedure that aborts an embryo, or that blocks fertilization thats already in process in like: the biggest no no in his church community - so once he stepped out of that drug store, he kind of took a breath, and just came to terms with it - "I'm an atheist." - Punz is the pastors son. - he's like, pre-commited to a catholic college - he’s in deep. - so when he first announces it to his friends, one really late night, "I think god might not be my thing." - they just start whistling and say "FINALLY, THE PASTORS SON HAS TURNED AROUND." - Dream just like turns over to him "how many chicks did you fuck to make you realize that?" - Tommy just slings his arm over Punz, "I'm glad you've quit the Jesus shit, Punz. Your better than it." - There’s gotta be this girl ok. He rlly rlly wants to have sex with her but he always backs out. The thing that breaks him. Is that he gets drunk and loses his virginity to someone who is not that girl - like, he likes this girl, and has a good connection with her, and she likes him, and he knows that its gonna be comepletly consentual, and she's like fucking beautiful right? - and she's the one he wants to loose it to and he's a stupid fucking idiot and loses it to some fucking random ass chick that doesn't even go to their school - This triggers a spiral. After that? He slowly starts giving less of a fuck abt everything. He fucked up the one thing you can’t do over and god he’s so painfully aware of it and so painfully aware that he didn’t even fuck up right. - You’re supposed to wait till marriage. Nope. You’re supposed to do it with someone you love and trust. Double nope. He. Fucked. Up. - its just like he wanted to do something bad. he wanted to fuck something up. he was questioning his faith, his like, great and sturdy and always-there faith for the first time, and what better way to test faith than to do something shitty and see what comes of it. and so he was planning and planning and planning how he was gonna do this terrible thing - which is such a good kid thing to do, to put so much thought into your own rebellion - but he wanted this to go perfectly. - Little Pastors Son, Punz, wasn't gonna wait till marriage. - He was gonna have sex with the girl of his dreams before they were even dating - but man did he like her. Did he want her. - And then he fucked some random girl when he was black out drunk. He's fucked everything up - he can't wash this away with confession - he's tainted. He's dirty. - He looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize the heathen staring back. - He hates who he's become. - But he never goes back - he can't. He's dirty. He's wrong. - but the more he goes down the spiral - the more he realizes that one mistake shouldn't have made him feel like that - that if god was real, which he honestly wasn't sure in that department, he wouldn't want Punz to feel like the scum of the earth for doing something wrong. especially when he felt so bad after he did it. This system was fucked. He didn't want to be apart of another cycle - and he's just lying to himself every time he goes to church, and reads a cerse for his mom, and meets with younger kids at the church, and plays flag football with fucking church virgins who are good catholics and follow all their mommas orders - And every night when he says grace he means it less and less. he always does it when his momma asks, but boy does the lords word mean shit to him anymore From Ethan: - A turning point to the others in Punz's breakaway from Catholicism is like - He prays before he eats, usually. Sometimes they wait for him to finish his prayer before eating themselves, just out of politeness. He's a friend, he gets that shred of etiquette - And then one day he just doesn't. They got some fast food for a whole group dinner out at their hangout spot (a warehouse, did you say??) Tommy is staring at it intently but he waits for Punz to pray. Tubbo's already started eating but the rest wait - And Punz just starts eating - Dream nudges him, "No prayer, Pastor's boy?" - "No prayer," Punz mumbles into his food. "I'm trying something new." SO, TOMMYS DAD LOSING HIS JOB ARC W000000000 - it starts with Tommy showing up in a different jacket one day - like you have to understand, he's worn this jean jacket every single day for as long as WIlbur has known him, which is like 6 years - Like Tommy shows up in this giant, khaki work-jacket and it's his dads... - HIS DAD DIDNT DIE - his dad lost his job, which is essentially death to a family who already couldn't sustain themselves - and Tommy shows up to school, face pale and cheeks sunk in and there are visible bags under his eyes - and Wilbur just rushes over immediately and hugs him so tight to his chest - and Tommy just sobs, "pops lost his job -" gasp "I can't - we can't pay the bills this month. everything - its all falling apart Will." - "Hey - hey. Stop. It's gonna be fine. You're gonna be okay. You always are dude." - Tommy does have to get a job - and he probably does drop out of school unofficially, like he just stops going. - he sleeps during the morning classes, and heads into work at 10am - he's a carpenters assistant. it pays well as they need young, able men. but most of the younger citizens in the town go to school - he has to take the day shift because the day shift pays better - he doesn't mind it, he doesn't - it gives him the opportunity to get all of his energy out; but he misses going to school. as much as he hated it, he misses his friends. - and lets be honest, its hard as fuck for his dad to find a new job, he doesn't have a great resume - he didn't graduate from highschool. and he isn;t in top health condition, he definitely doesn't have health insurance - so Tommys stuck with this job for a long time - his dad uses his last paycheck to buy Tommy workboots so tommy feels in debt to him - He’ll get his GED eventually. - I think - The like religious status of the rest of the group brought to you by me - Everyone who I don’t mention is just a hard atheist - Karl and Wilbur are catholic, but to a lesser extent, Wilbur doesn't really go through with lent, and Karl only sometimes does. They go to a different church and go pretty much on holidays only, a sunday a month maybe. - SapNap goes to Punz's church, they've been friends for years. - He goes to sunday school but misses a lot of sermons because of his siblings sports games. - He is involved, but not to the way Punz is - SapNap's mother is in fact in Punz's moms bible group - Punz sometimes doesnt attend the bible group and Sap's mother is all "now you tell that pastor's boy to actually attend next time, got it?" and Sapnap dies a little on the inside - And George is an orthodox christian, but he's pretty much quit due to the blatant homophobia he's seen at his church. 

AND NOW ON WILBUR SOOT AND KARL JACOBS AND BARKING - Wilbur has siblings, fun fact - that we will never talk about or address - but definitely nothing like Wilbur, more the Karl Jacobs type - Wilbur is the oldest. he's always lectured about being 'a good influence on your brother and sister.' - They’re big sports kids. Softball and Basketball (tall genes). Straight Bs; Bed by 10pm; Have never missed school - Parents pride and joy :) - Just good suburban kids, Have friends next door, help the neighbors, attend the cul-de-sac barbecues. - Basically who Wilbur used to be up until highschool (until Wilbur met weed and a good group of stoners) - Sure he was a disappointment and he had no clue what to do with his life - But he was happier - Never really liked being the goody- two-shoes boy next door, he doesn't know how karl does it “Playing good boy like a dog” - Also he used dog terms around Karl - Because he’s “Playing good boy like a dog” - He’ll throw Karl a beer and smile “go fetch” - He laughs so hard when he sees Karl be good in a class or play it up for his parents; Because Wilbur’s so past trying - Wilbur will walk by and just bark at karl. Bet. Just Growls lowly; Walks in a  circle; Anything to make Karl’s parents (or Wilbur’s own) stare at him and scurry away - Karl’s parents push Karl forward and like hold their younger kids close to their chest, whispering “keep close, don’t look at him” - They tell Karl to stay away from kids like him. - And boy do Wilbur’s pa#rents hate it, They push him along and whisper yell at him As he throws his head back and cackles - I mean imagine, like a stereotypical middle class suburban family: House wife, blue collared father, Two kids; in sports jerseys, Girl in braids, boy in khakis - And then there’s Wilbur: Doc Martins, black jeans, collar and sweater, beanie. Definitely high on something - Chains LOTS OF CHAINS - And he's Barking. Fucking Barking At the nice family down the street - And then he takes out his vape right in front of his parents and silently offers Karl a hit with a smirk - Cause Karl’s too busy playing good boy - And as Karl’s family looks back, as Wilbur is corralled by his mom - He flips them off with the biggest smirk uou will ever see - Wilbur's kind of an ass - And Karl really wants a hit of that vape.

[hollyhomburg]

i have a question about nannying just bc ive never met anyone who does it--are the families you nanny for like really wealthy(like, multiple houses, yachts, overpriced vagina candles, etc)? bc in movies its always like uber rich ppl but do like upper middleclass ppl get nannies? obvi you dont have to answer im just curious

no- upper middle class people get nannies, i've nannied for two families, one more wealthy than the other. like- the first one currently has a townhouse in new orleans, the mom was this total powerhouse- like worked for a senator and is still regularly on nbc to talk about the stock market. no wonder why she needed help cuz she was the main breadwinner. she makes about 500 thousand dollars a year. i got paid around 1,500 for every 2-3 weeks of work depending on how many hours she needed me and if she needed me overnight.

it's kinda crazy but my mom actually nannied for her - so it was kinda like- full circle kinda? there's actually an interesting story as to why she stopped nannying for their family too but i digress. the dad was useless like- didn't even know how to tie his 5-year-old daughters hair in a ponytail.

The family i help now is more down-to-earth and runs one of like- the oldest country clubs in the united states. And the dad is the sibling of the mom of the first family i nannied for, so like- at least they liked me enough. Technically I am on the grounds of said country club rn because he lives on the premises, and yeah like- their mom doesn't need to work and their house is full of bougie shit. they always have strawberries in their fridge and that's a real marker of wealth to me. none of the families I've worked for have had secondary houses, yachts, but they have had apartments that they rented out for other people.

it's also worth mentioning that all of the kids I've nannied for had trust funds. the youngest of those being 1 1/2, who already had more money in her bank account than my mom makes in a year.

I get paid like 20-25 dollars an hour though depending on when I work- if it's overnight or not. and that's pretty high in general for a nanny of my age. But I also live in a really high-income bracket area so that makes a difference too. Even though my family is firmly on the edge of the lower middle class. ( and what I mean by that is that like- being out of work for two or three weeks wouldn't kill my mom and I but it would certainly be stressful at the end of those three weeks).

in my opinion, it depends on how much money you make the kind of nanny you have? like you could probably hire a college kid to watch 2-3 kids at 15 bucks an hour if you were a working-class family. but they might not like- make your kids food or clean your house or really be the best influence. But like me- I make the kids dinner, I leave the house cleaner when I leave than it was when I arrived. I'm trained in CPR and certified.

i have a lasting bond with the kids and i genuinely love them- and that's what you kind of pay for when you hire a trained nanny because while they're not my kids I know how to treat them like they're my own within their mom's parameters. I've learned how she wants me to be with her kids and that's how I treat them- different from how I'd treat them if they were my own. unfortunately, because emotional labor has a price tag on it too- rich people can afford to hire people who care.

[flying-elliska]

so i’ve been trying to get more connected with the French wlw scene online (esp on insta because that’s where i found a lot of active people) and wow maybe i just fell on the wrong ones but like the casual biphobia...yikes... throwback to being a baby bi and feeling so out of place and fake and not feeling like i could take my interrogations anywhere and this whole queer imposter syndrome...

i think it’s compounded in France maybe because the culture is so intolerant of any difference expressing itself in the public space, that any group deviating from straight white male upper/middleclass ‘Universalism’ has to have a very militant political reason to be visible ; and has to struggle extra hard to make that ‘legitimate’ place for itself, and not being suspected of being “communautarist”. so i see a lot of political lesbianism and the importance of developping spaces without men, where men aren’t the focus, etc. which ! i totally get in a culture that is so, so deeply machist, sexist, and which has rooted its all important rationality so firmly in maleness and straightness that anyone else trying to speak appears defacto as illegitimate and suspect. (and the spaces i’ve come across don’t seem to be terfs, which is...not really a thing in France, i think, like there is simply too much garden variety transphobia for any feminists being able to claim that they are ‘oppressed’ by trans people. so i feel it’s different from political lesbianism in anglophone countries. but seeing the term employed so freely is still a bit ...not great)

but! as a bi woman i can really see very quickly the limit of such an approach, because it often leads to discourse about how bi women are traitors/second class queers/less close to the struggle/etc...almost as ‘men by proxy’ ; and like biphobia and the question of bi inclusion is annoying/not as radical and valid etc etc ; and it just...it makes me sad. anyway i probably need to do more research and find other people.

but it always makes me think about how so many bi people are so reluctant to seek community, be open about their identities, don’t feel legitimate/supported by the queer community in general, and the impact of those types of discourse in terms of self acceptance, mental health, etc etc. this is not to say that biphobia’s prime origin is in the queer community. i think as an intra-community issue it’s more the product of trauma and is very different from the biphobia that originates in the heteronormative world.

 BUT it makes me even more aware of the importance of intersectionality in my politics and building bridges with people who have other marginalized experiences, even if they are male and/or straight. i’ve come to a place where any politics that is centered on one type of oppression and is blind to all others is really not working for me. (and incidentally i feel like it’s often an excuse for people to ignore the areas of privilege that they DO have)

and i also refuse to go back to this mindspace of feeling less valid as a queer woman, and feeling like i have less of a right to connect to queer history, and how my sexuality is somehow ‘less radical’ because it sometimes includes men.

and yeah it’s very important for lesbians to have a place to talk about a sexuality that doesn’t include men at all, and celebrate it in a world that tends to center everything around men, and i will fight for that. but i also think it’s important to adress the wound created when bisexual women started to be excluded from wlw spaces. as well as having spaces that celebrate and center the experiences of bi people and the deeply radical wonder it can be to love beyond boundaries of gender. and spaces where women who love women can come together without thinking about that sort of stuff, and bi women are actively made to feel welcome without being tacked on as an afterthought. because we have so much in common, and it is good and even vital to be very considerate and tender with each other !

i don’t have a clear point with this except that it’s good to have different spaces for different types of needs ! but that defending the right of those spaces to exist by delegitimizing other needs is. not great. and also that people should have the right to be visibly different without it always having to be about The Struggle TM, because that tends to flatten people’s experience into a political manifesto, and human lives are messier than that.

[poly-losers-club]

I don’t know if you still dO HC’s, but if you ever feel inclined to do so I have a request. Would you please consider doing an HC about the losers’ style of driving? For instance I feel like Eddie would be the safest on of all of them while Bev is that driver that never pays attention to what she’s doing and yet nothing bad happens nor does she ever get caught simply because she’s such a badass 😂 Anyway I’m curious on how you would see the losers club behind the wheel. Have a lovely day/night!

Hiya! Sure, here’s my thoughts (sorry it took so long).

From best driver to worst. 🚗

Eddie is a great driver, but scary. He knows cars. He knows how they work. He knows exactly how fast he can go and still be safe. And he takes advantage of that knowledge. I see Eddie as a bit of an andrenaline junkie so I think he would totally enjoy joy-riding. Music blasting. Middle finger out the window to anyone who gets in his way.

Mike is also a fantastic driver. Every farm kid knows (including myself) that licences don’t mean nothing when you live on a farm. You start driving tractors as soon as your arms are strong enough to handle it (and your feet can touch the pedals ha ha). So he’s been doing it for a long time. He can finesse some moves that leave the Loser’s mouths hanging open.

Bill I reckon would be a pretty good driver. His upper-middleclass upbringing means he’d be one of those kids who got to inherit a “family” car in his highschool years. Also I don’t know why I think he is older than all the others I just do. So yeah, he’s the first to get his licence and a car. It just be how it is. It also means he becomes the main means of transportation for everyone. He doesn’t mind it because he kind of likes being designated Dad-friend.

Ben… if Bill is Dad, then Ben is definitely Mom. Seat belts on. No rough-housing. A first aid kit, blanket & pillow, water and spare snacks all packed neatly into the back. Just in case. Ben doesn’t break road rules. He knows stats about car accidents off the top of his head. Because he’s a nerd like that.

Ok now we’re getting into the not so good drivers. Richie obviously. He’s too careless. Too easily distracted. Plays his music too loud.Never checks his engine so his radiator is always overheating. And his Mazda 1800 is absolutely filthy. Like seriously, Eddie refuses to get in it. Says scientists could grow cultures in there. And he’d be right.

Stan. Oh Stan. Poor Stan. Everyone (including himself) expected him to be a great driver. He’s so careful, he’s so precise. He’s always so good at anything he sets his mind too. But… he just… can’t…. do it! He tries really hard but he’s just… really bad…. Like always scratching against things, misjudging the amount of space he has, forgetting to check his blindspot and almost running into cars while he’s changing lanes constantly. And now its just built up into a neurosis for him. He hates parking and always feels like people are judging him (so he does it about a dozen times before he is happy with it). Nobody likes driving with Stan. He gets crabby and stressed and needs absolute silence.

And Bev. Bev by default is a bad driver because… well she never got her licence. And she like, is in no big hurry to get it. Why would she need it when she’s got her trusty bike and her wonderful boys to pick her up and drive her around??

Agree/disagree? It’s all good. I love hearing peeps HCs. 🙃

[novarose24]

Writings from Offline {Ep.3}

Advertisement Review

The Saravana Stores’ advertisement for the Diwali Season, was the most recent version of ads that followed the long tradition of hilarious ads from the store. It has come up with unoriginal but creative ideas to engage with the common folk. The advertisement makes the viewer subconsciously indulge in its proposition. From the actor, who is the owner himself, to the song and the setting used, everything is carefully constructed to please the audience; explicitly and implicitly making them buy into the idea that they are selling. Which is why it’s logic and knowledge that has gone into the making of the ad should be defended; its irrelevance, not so much.

The irrelevance would be the fact that the ad did very little, in my opinion, to actively endorse the product that it was selling. The tonal balance was off. The plot, that didn’t exactly exist, seemed to suggest the episode in the life of a glorious leader; the central character surrounded by people of all ages who rejoice him, much like Diwali, to which he almost becomes a metaphor to.

There are girls, a sign of validation in the patriarchal society, who are always cast in close proximity to the supposed hero. Towards the end the hero sports a moustache too, an obvious sign of success, masculinity and dominance, and the whole family comes together to celebrate him. This cliché de facto trope of Indian commercial cinema now becomes a familiar subject that the audience can latch on to.

Another familiar strand in woven into the narrative with the upbeat jingle which seems to be inspired by a millennial Tamil song. With easy diction and emphasis on “colour”, “family” and “home”, it even slightly hints on the glory of working hard and tries to moralize the viewers with the motivational message. The mixing of the Tamil and English serves the purpose of portraying modernity and humor eventually becoming pop culture themselves.

As Yamuna Kachri elucidates in her article, the mixing of the native and the foreign language exoticizes the language itself and adds light heartedness to the content.

“…the mixed lyrics that illustrate the playfulness accompanying the convergence of multilingual ingredients.”

She also says that this trend is popular among the middle class and upper-class families, a wide group to whom this ad in study is targeted to too.

“…amuse the audience and exploit for this purpose the meanings that the intersection of multiple languages of India make possible.”

” … portray upper-middleclass or upper-class families, the use of English in dialogs and songs has increased.”

 The music, the happy drum beat, that accompanies the song sets the mood for celebration. The energy of the music is captured by the camera too. The events rapidly succeed each other and the cuts are quick; a technique used to render energy and excitement. This strategy keeps the audience engaged and focused, it doesn’t bore them out.

The engagement is strengthened with the excitement and the joy which are clearly observable in the choice of colour. The dresses are bright to the point of being gaudy and the background is a romantic French café. The advertisement now becomes more engaging to the audience, who closely associate the idea of foreign to progress and the idea of an alluring land that is painted in movie songs. The clothing of the models and dancers, in dresses resembling that of an airhostess and sailors and the frequent costume changes circuitously advocate the same idea, thus drawing on the banal framework of songs.

The foreign elements represented are countered by the inclusion of popular culture propagated by Kollywood films. The towel flipping scene is a characteristic feature of actor Rajinikanth, a pop culture phenomenon, that makes the ad relatable. The moustache is also used for a similar purpose because of its coupling with power, tradition and success. By doing this the ad rings intertextuality and according to the article titled, “What are television advertisements really trying to tell us? A postmodern perspective”, the postmodern age ads sell intertextuality to sell their products. By connecting the emotions of a viewer to the ad, the marketers are able to manipulate the consumers to change their needs to buying the product.

“When a text is read, consciously or unconsciously readers place it in wider frames of reference of language and knowledge, cross-fertilizing a particular reading with other discourses drawn from their own socially, culturally and historically situated experiences.”

The representations that connect with pop culture help the viewer make connections to their own experiences and thus makes the goal of the advertisement approachable to the reader.

“…meaning is activated by the participation of its audience, whose interpretations reflect their own experiences, social situation and concerns.”

By honoring the pop culture that the target audience relate with, the advertisement sells well among the people because it touches the same sentiments.

The advertisement, being pastiche, therefore tries to draw the audience towards it - the object clearly, the relationship that the company desires with the audience. Being well established for a long while now, the company has little responsibility to inform the customers. Its aim is to relate to the audience and the present generation. By combing intertextuality and humor, it elevates the best things about the culture that existed before it. It glorifies the pop culture prevalent and draws inspiration from it to support itself. The use of Rajini’s style would be welcome among the audience. The use of a Tanglish (Tamil and English) song would be relatable to the youth who know both the languages and able to appreciate the mixing.

This is where we get to the explanation for the bad casting, bad acting and bad lip syncing. While most ads strive to achieve perfection, this ad, contrarily, trades off quality for connection. The idea, as I understand is that, the owner has stepped down from his position of wealth and fame to interact with his customers. Though people laugh at the ad and make troll videos and memes on him, they are unconsciously buying into the idea of entertainment that he sells. Humor in advertisements serves a very important purpose according to the article “Impact of humorous advertisements on customers’ behavior”

“The reason why humor has been widely used in advertising is due to its power of create liking towards the advertisement by from the consumer.”

This directs us to the argument of why this ad is bad. An advertisement is expected to sell the product and give customers information on the products. These is a display of the variety of dresses and jewelry available but the ad doesn’t seem to draw attention to the product or it’s aspects. The variety of dresses worn by the dancers and the models can be considered to be the display of the merchandise but there is no mention of price or features of the products. No sales or discounts are intimated. The ad does almost nothing for its primary task at hand. It seems its sole purpose is to advertise the owner and to serve his recognition among the public.

This exclusive focus on the ‘hero’ diverts the audience from the product and leads it down another lane. The ad becomes a phenomenon and ‘trends’ in social media. It becomes popular using the novelty factor. If this is what the team worked on, then they seem to have done a good job. But as an ad it has not reached any mark. Yet in some way, by having an unusual mixture of humor, intertextuality, cast and music in a way that no one has ever attempted, the ad has now become a pop culture phenomenon and truly won’t be forgotten.

  References:

1.    Stella Proctor, Ioanna Papasolomou-Doukakis, Tony Proctor; What are television advertisements really trying to tell us?  A postmodern perspective; Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 1, 3, 246-255; 16th July, 2001

2.    Yamuna Kachru; Mixers lyricing in Hinglish: blending and fusion in Indian pop culture; World Englishes, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 223–233; 2006

3.    Dharmesh Motwani, Khushbu Agarwal; Impact of humorous advertisements on customers’ behaviour; International Journal of Advanced Research in   Management and Social Sciences; October 2013

[wellthatwasaletdown]

Ayy the flat stomach comment!!! See this is the kind of thing you just never hear about if you came into fandom later thru larrie. They never get mentioned even though you feel like you know all the bands early history because every single larrie favourable moment is reblogged constantly. But you're never getting the full picture to decide on, or the full context. Its a trip when things like this come up.

Because whether he's pretending to be straight or not that comment doesn't fit with the mythical character created for him. If he just blurted out his personal preference, ok, but lets face it guys who chase model thinness are never as attractive as the idea of one who just loves women in all their shapes, sizes and ages. Onth if he's pretending to be straight, then thats the way he Choose to do it? Yikesx1000.

Its just crazy how much larrie managed to shape the idea not just that they're gay, but that they're these two uniquely sensitive, deep caring individuals who always will be woke to the marginalised or opprrssed because of their 'struggle'. I mean its some fantasy obviously sticking all that onto two very pretty faces. But when little unheard things like that come up its like waking up from it all over again.

Like, these people are nothing like the curated fantasy of their characters no matter whats true about their orientation. They're actually just very very typical, very very average middle class kids who spent as much time, no, more, being raised by American pop culture than their parents and very little time out there getting raised on 'de Streets', being all workin' class n oppressed, and definitely not sitting up in their rooms feeling all alienated, consuming the kind of alternative culture that larries like to shoehorn into 'clues' and signs. Their early pop tastes show their teenage tribe so clearly. Nickelback and The Script fgs!

They're just these 100% standard lads. Which is probably why they both loved and referenced The Inbetweeners so much. They are the inbetweeners. Not public school upper middleclass, but very comfortable multiple foreign holiday having childhoods. Z and Niall would have been the WC add ons to the group but HL were very much the specky one and the blond one. And just like them, they re not at all above a bit of casual misogyny, alot of navel gazing narcissism but with that very generalized middleclass idea of 'be nice', 'donate to the sick children'.

I mean these are not bad men, but they're probably wouldn't be any more 'woke' than the average insurance salesman if they didn't have a giant international female fanbase to somewhat cater to.

All the casual misogyny of HS1 would fit in fine to the Simon character of the Inbetweeners. 'Slags' are for using or laughing at, tanned blond thin girls are for worshipping and mooning over, girls inbetween that just like be passably polite, but don't spend too long standing near them in case it affects your status with the Kool Kids (ahem, Harry's face in certain fan pictures, ahem). He is literally Simon, except in this episode he has bizarrely blagged his way into a career he doesn't really have the skils for and has in typical Simon fashion, ditched his mates because they were deemed not cool enough. Cue hilarious damage control and flailing, all round.

These are not bad soulless, assholish men. They're just not the Actual Jesus (or for exlarries Actual AntiChrist) and sidekick Marxist Freddie Mercury (working to topple the Machine, from the inside!) that larrie and then wider fandom myth built them up to be. They're just the (possibly not straight) Inbetweeners Win Xfactor. And eveything, literally everything makes a lot more sense i and is alot more enjoyably funny, rather than enraging once thats acknowledged.

[contentbew4re]

Tutorial With Jonathan 21/10/19

I realise I have fallen wayyy behind with my blog over the past few months, mainly as a result of being so consumed with the research paper (against all the advice for us over the summer, but unfortunately I am a slow reader and writer...). I actually didn’t read over my last post prior to the meeting but actually, it seems like its a good place to pick things up in. As is the case in the tutorial, a lot of great ground was covered, and I think by experimenting with little ideas and letting things brew in my head before reconnecting to make new work I feel I am in a reasonably solid place for the year ahead.

I talked a lot to Jonathan about how a lot of my work in the first year, as well as the research paper to an extent, had been about me giving myself permission not to take a photo to make art. I think I managed to achieve that with my book, which was definitely the piece I felt was most successful to my summer show, but I think it felt a little peripheral - a nice idea without context. And I think what I want to do with the year ahead is create that context to ground any future similar projects, but also - primarily - to be a critically considered work in itself. In fact one of the things I kind of reconciled with myself over the summer was to focus more on developing a ‘critical practice’ than on ‘making art’. I think a lot my posts in the last year were kind of alluding to that without particularly knowing how to express it, I guess whenever I get into areas that feel a little less tangibly ‘art’ I start thinking i’ve strayed too far from the road - but I think in this case it could be a good direction to follow. I talked a lot with Jonathan about how I’d been looking a lot at Martin Parr, Lauren Greenfield and Hans Eijkelboom over the summer - references that are always there for me, but really sort of trying to drill into, what it is i relate to/enjoy in the pieces, and I think its the commentary on consumerism. In the cases of Parr and Greenfield the consumerist component of there work influences not just the subject matter but the aesthetic - the saturated flash imagery of their photographs feedback the tantalizing visual style of capitalism. In both of their work there is an uncomfortable ambiguity that isn’t particularly resolved by learning more about them and their intentions. Both have a voyeuristic middleclass eye which is prone to gawping at their subject matter in a way where it becomes extremely ambiguous at times of their relationship to the subject matter. Parr has obviously critical moments, but his work for magazines like Tatler etc is sufficiently straightforward to be mistaken for any other commissioned photographer. In fact, his eye is often, in my experience, far more scathing towards the working and middle classes than the upper classes. So for me, a real wrestling point has been how to deal with this sort of subject matter and visual language without it all seeming like a kitsch celebration/endorsement of consumerism without being so dishonest as to shy away from its obvious appeal. The idea I had in mind was to curate an Instagram themed around ‘the consumerist spectacle’ which would incorporate various rituals and spectacles of consumerism, from crime and waste to the aspirational images of lifestyle celebrities who set the precedents for luxury and consumer trends. I mentioned to Jonathan that initially, my plan was to run a relatively straightforward luxury style blog and make the captions in some way subversive (maybe from a Marxist text or similar - jonathan actually recommended society of the spectacle, which would be a good one - but something about this approach seemed just a little too sloganeery for me - too  self consciously academic). So I think, for now I want to be a little more subtle, and have the images unified by their visual language but incorporate spectacles that are both positive and negative (relative to the perspective of the viewer) and sequence them in such a way as to make the point in a more subtle way, and to challenge/stimulate debate amongst the people following. I guess the goal is not to lead the reading heavy-handedly but rather to hold a deconstructive mirror up to consumerist culture. I think if I have this as a center point for my work it will help better contextualise any future books etc but also set a precedent for future research papers etc. Jonathan mentioned the possibility of collaborating with people outside of the arts fields in the future and this is definitely something I would be excited about -particularly anyone working within sociology or economics. One takeaway I did have from the meeting was whether focusing on ‘consequences’ rather than ‘spectacles’ might be a good idea. To me, consumerism is like a virus which advertising, influencers etc infect us with, as once infected people will do anything to acquire the things they have been told they need - consequences, in this case, being bootlegging, crime etc, but also creative solutions such as making your own custom versions of luxury products, something which Dapper Dan is famous for. This is really the premise of sofia coppola’s ‘bling ring’, how can you blame people for wanting the things they are told they should want? Focusing on the consequences would make for a more obviously critical study, but maybe the agenda would then be too obvious to have any kind of trojan horse effect. Me and Jonathan agreed I’d start drafting up the instagram between now and christmas, working out the categories of image I want to post etc and getting a real feel for exactly what it is im doing before rolling it out in the new year to try and gain some traction ahead of the end of year show.

[furynewsnetwork]

LISTEN TO TLR’S LATEST PODCAST:

By Kitty Testa

As I rode into work Friday morning, I switched on the radio and happened upon The Mike Gallagher Show. I caught him in mid-sentence, complaining about malcontents who criticize the police. He was discussing the fatal shooting of Justine Damond by Minneapolis police officer, Mohamed Noor. Apropos of nothing, Gallagher quickly pivoted to another story in the news, that of Officer Scott Naff of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, who was denied service at a McDonald’s drive-thru while he was in uniform. “This is the kind of thing that police have to put up with every day!” said Gallagher, as if suffering a slight at a McDonald’s drive-thru were the equivalent of losing one’s life to a police bullet. The Police State has its fans.

There is a dangerous hero-worship of police in particular and law enforcement in general, specifically among neoconservatives. The police are always right; the civilian is always wrong. When police kill or injure a civilian, the civilian had it coming, as if the proper role of police is to serve as holy agents of karma. When the actions of a police officer are ridiculously difficult to justify, the actions are excused because “police have a hard job.”

During Donald Trump’s campaign for president, the candidate made clear his affinity for the law-and-order crowd. He praised “our men and women in blue.” He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose treatment of prisoners in his Tent City Jail (which is currently being shuttered) has been inhumane. Using examples like the city of Chicago’s bloody street violence, Trump’s campaign speeches painted a horrific picture of escalating crime in America, despite the fact that, on the whole, violent crime has been decreasing overall.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions was an early Trump supporter, and Trump praised him effusively during his campaign. It was obvious that Sessions would be granted a high-ranking position in Trump’s cabinet. I was hoping he might be named ambassador to Zanzibar or something equally innocuous, where the former senator and Alabama Attorney General could do little harm to the country. When Trump nominated Jeff Sessions as Attorney General I knew that Trump was serious about his unquestioning support for law enforcement, including its excesses.

About 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the United States in federal, state and local jails. About 20% of them have never been convicted of a crime and are simply unable to make bail. 35% of prisoners have been convicted of violent offenses, while 16% have convictions for drug offenses. The remaining 29% or so are split evenly between inmates who have been found guilty of property crimes, and those who were found guilty of public order offenses, including weapons charges. We have no idea how many are actually innocent, but both 2015 and 2016 were record years for proving wrongful convictions, and 2017 is proving to be on track to break those records.

Evidently there aren’t enough prisoners in the United States for Jeff Sessions.

Sessions has made it clear that he believes that many more of his countrymen deserve to be rotting away in prison, and given far longer sentences. As chief law enforcement officer of the United States, Sessions supports policies that will lead to more abuse by law enforcement across the country, more people charged with crimes, and more people in jail for non-violent offenses. Not one of these five policies will make us any safer, and may put innocent people at greater risk as they increase the power of police and threatens individuals’ rights.

  1. Escalating the Failed War on Drugs

If you’re sitting in your living room enjoying a marijuana cigarette or a whiff of hash oil, Jeff Sessions believes you ought to be in prison. Seriously. He would think it perfectly reasonable to send a SWAT team into your home to terrorize you and your family. If they happened to kill you or someone else in your home, well, that would be your fault. Sessions is a drug warrior with a deep-seated hostility towards drug users. At a Senate drug hearing in April 2016, he stated, “good people don’t smoke marijuana.”

I, myself, prefer scotch on the rocks or a classic gin martini, but my particular drug of choice doesn’t bother Mr. Sessions. When my kids were teenagers, I warned them about the dangers of drugs, specifically addictive drugs such as heroin and cocaine that they were certain to encounter. When it came to pot, I warned them about the dangers of the police. While the opioid epidemic was developing, with upper-middleclass teens overdosing on oxycodone and heroin, law enforcement’s response was to go after marijuana with a vengeance, as if picking up every kid with a pipe in his pocket was going to address the health crisis of addiction. Focusing on a non-causal correlation between cannabis users and heroin users, law enforcement determined that to save kids from heroin, we needed to save them from weed. Science does not back up this claim, and it has fallen out of favor with the populace, and now most Americans support decriminalization of marijuana.

The congress was so concerned about the AG’s belief in reefer madness that they specifically adopted a budget amendment that prohibited the Department of Justice from using any of its allocated funds to prevent any state “from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”

In addition to Sessions’ irrational fear of pot, there are other reasons the War on Drugs has been maintained for so long. The myriad of government employees who work in law enforcement are now welcoming the AG’s position. Surely, some of them have good intentions, but many derive income and power from drug criminalization. Prohibition has been very profitable for many stakeholders. More drug laws means we need more cops. More prosecutors and defense attorneys. More judges. More courtrooms. More jails. More lab technicians. More probation and parole officers. More fines. More pharmaceuticals. The participants in the War on Drugs are in some ways no different than a pusher who wants to get you addicted. Both are in it for profit and neither cares if you’re a victim of their enterprise.

  2. Supporting Civil Asset Forfeiture

Civil asset forfeiture may be the most un-American law on the books. First, for the state to lay claim to your assets, the state needn’t even charge you with a crime. Second, in the civil legal procedure, you are tasked to prove that you did not obtain your property through illicit means, i.e., you are presumed guilty. Also, if you cannot afford a lawyer, one will not be provided to you by the state, because the process is—quite cleverly—civil as opposed to criminal.

Civil asset forfeiture has been the Howitzer in the War on Drugs. The idea was simple: take drug money away from drug dealers and use it to fund police departments, who share in the proceeds of the property they lay claim to by mere suspicion. Who knew that a few decades on police departments would end up funneling billions of dollars in seized property to the Department of Justice? While the fight against illegal drugs was initially the rationale for those who supported the program, most certainly it’s been a cash cow, and they don’t want to give that up, including Jeff Sessions. While many states have been reforming their asset forfeiture laws to address abuses, the Attorney General issued a directive aimed to override such reforms.

So now, even if your state has curtailed or eliminated civil asset forfeiture programs, you are not safe from having your cash, car or house stolen by the police just because they happen to think you’re up to no good.

  3. Seeking the Highest Possible Charges Against Suspects

Another of Sessions’ directives instructs US attorneys to pursue the highest charges possible against all indictable suspects. This is an about face from the Obama administration’s policy to avoid mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenders. As a blanket policy, this may result in those who should be charged with manslaughter being charged with first-degree murder, or those who should be charged with assault being charged with battery, or a person who sells cannabis oil in one state to a sick relative in another state would be tried just as if he were a drug king pin.

This policy may, in fact, backfire. The DOJ may find that juries are not likely to concur with severe charges that result in extended, harsh sentences for people whom they feel may have had extenuating circumstances. They can’t count on every juror to be a fan of The Mike Gallagher Show.

Sessions’ directive also deprives prosecutors who are familiar with facts of a case of the ability to make a discretionary call about how to proceed with charges. It is a blanket push to put more people in jail for longer periods of time.

  4. Pushing Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Along with pushing for the most severe criminal charges, Sessions also strongly supports mandatory minimum sentences which were introduced in the 1980s and were codified in 1994 at the federal level.

Mandatory minimum sentences were implemented to undercut judicial discretion as many felt that too many judges were soft on crime. The sentencing rules also include so-called three-strikes laws, where mandatory life sentences were established for those who received three felony convictions. Because many felony convictions are related to drug possession, many non-violent offenders have ended up serving life sentences.

The end result has been a massive increase in prisoners in the United States that is costly to taxpayers and has placed increased economic pressure on already impoverished communities. Despite the fact that crime is decreasing, AG Sessions, along with a lot of Americans, support these punitive policies against non-violent offenders, despite the fact that they don’t affect violent crime rates.

Ironically, neoconservatives who generally support lower taxes do not seem to see the connection between rising taxes and the costs of law enforcement from cops on the beat to housing the prison population.

  5. Rejection of Forensic Science Reforms

The National Commission on Forensic Science was an advisory panel to the DOJ which was chartered in 2013 to address junk science used as forensic evidence, faulty interrogation techniques, and other procedural flaws in law enforcement. Sessions did not renew the commission when its second term expired in April.

It’s quite possible that the people who make up juries across the country have developed an admiration for forensic science from watching TV shows which have glamorized the profession, from the 1970s show Quincy, M.E. to the current iterations of CSI. In reality, forensic science is not fool-proof. Bite mark analysis, firearms identification, hair sampling, and a variety of other forensic methods are not scientifically validated.

According to The Innocence Project, the misapplication of forensic science is the culprit in 46% of wrongful convictions based on DNA evidence.

Still, many people are convicted based on faulty forensic evidence, and law enforcement clings dearly to these methods because it helps them do what they aim to do: put more people in jail.

  Attorney General Jeff Sessions is now the leader of the Prison Industrial Complex. He is hostile to individual rights, states’ powers to reflect their citizens’ views on law enforcement, and to any reforms that would improve our criminal justice system. Recently President Trump has expressed frustration with Sessions, not for the reasons outlined here, but because he did not believe that Sessions should have recused himself from the investigation into Russian influence during the 2016 election. Regardless of Trump’s reasons, Sessions was a poor choice to head the DOJ, and we will all be better served if Trump makes a call to Sessions and says, “You’re fired.”

WATCH TLR’S LATEST VIDEO:

The post Top Five Ways Jeff Sessions is Expanding the Police State appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

via Headline News – The Libertarian Republic