#no people had any real choice in which candidates made it to the election

[fairy-ganj-mother]

the billionaires paying off the government to shape it to suit them will not voluntarily give up power, the working class must seize this power. trump does not stand for the average american but rather only serves to further divide the working class, by appealing overwhelmingly to folks that share his views of hatred and feeding them lies to make them believe their neighbor is the enemy instead of elon musk or jeff bezos. this distraction of in-fighting in the working class then diminishes the ability to organize and allows the mega-rich to do whatever they want behind the scenes. folks don't notice that these people are infringing on their rights because they're too concerned with harboring hate towards their immigrant neighbor or their liberal kids, who were never their enemy until trump told them so. it's all part of the plan to increase the divide between rich and poor and increase the power of the rich.

[hero-israel]

Hi, if you don't mind answering, I have a question regarding Israel. I figured any Jewish person in Israel or not probably knows better than I could guess after occasionally reading Tumblr for a couple of months. What do you think is right/wrong about the Israel government, what should it be like and what should it do now? I would be thankful if you could answer.

Some context, if it makes any difference why I'm asking: I'm Ukrainian, and I was surprised first time I saw people comparing Israel with russia. It felt wrong to me from the start, cause it made more sense to compare terrorists with terrorists instead. Western leftists seem ignorant and delusional to argue with them, but I also saw this opinion from some Ukrainians on twitter, so I got interested to learn a bit more to get proper arguments against this comparison. Then I learned that quite a lot of Jewish people here are against current actions of the Israel government in Gaza, which at first looked strange to me cause it's a very different situation from what we have in Ukraine. I figured that Jewish people are the best source to learn "what's wrong with Israel government" without being flooded by conspiracy theories. I support Israel, but I don't want to support things that most of you guys actually disagree with. And another thing, personally I don't see how it's possible to get rid of hamas without harming civilians in Gaza, but I saw here Jewish people arguing that both Palestinian and Israeli civilians shouldn't be harmed. That's why I asked a few people on Tumblr what they think Israel should do to get some opinions, though perhaps my question among attacks was seen as an attack too. So this time I add this long clarification, sorry about that 😅

Thank you for the insight - I particularly appreciate hearing what this sounds like from Ukrainians as they face their own crisis.

I support actions that protect Jewish lives and Jewish rights, everywhere in the world, including in Israel. I want governments moral enough and strong enough to do that, everywhere, including in Israel. Sadly, Israel is really fucking it up for the last year.

No one should be happy with what is happening in Gaza. It is an appalling humanitarian disaster, exactly as Hamas planned it would be. Once they were able to stage their attack, Israel had no choice but to invade; to have done anything other than invade would have sent a message to all their enemies that they would just lie back and take it, and that is a message they cannot afford to send.

The current Israeli government is one of the most ultra-right-wing, revolting, criminal, and incompetent out of any democratic nation in the world. Their stupidity made the Hamas attack possible. Benjamin Netanyahu has been PM forever and kept winning elections because despite his ugly, crooked personality, he was good at the job, good from economic and diplomatic perspectives, and avoided major change with the Palestinians. As he stayed in office longer and got more crooked with age, his scandals and campaign crimes piled up until it really looked like he could face prison for it. For a cruelly, tantalizingly brief period, the more forward-thinking elements of Israeli society were able to oust the far-right parties, but eventually that fell apart for the dumbest and most aggravating reason ever and Netanyahu was able to come back. This time he boosted up fringe ultra-right-wing candidates who were too extreme to function in a "real" government but who promised to help him change laws so he wouldn't go to jail. The actual process of changing those laws - transparently to end the investigations of the MULTIPLE indicted or convicted criminals in this government - tore Israeli society apart. People were warning for MONTHS that military readiness was plummeting. The Hamas attack plan had been known since around 2015 and an even more detailed version surfaced last year. They were all just too busy working to legalize crime and settle old scores than on watching the border where the genocidal fascist militia lives.

I don't know what the proper plan at this point is. After 3 months, I'm still very much emotionally stuck on "what you are supposed to do is PREVENT THIS, YOU IDIOTS, THAT IS YOUR JOB, AND NOT A HARD ONE." I don't think I will ever get past that, it was so obvious and I had been losing sleep all year fully expecting something like this to happen. Within the first few weeks after the attack, I saw a message from former PM Naftali Bennett about how it would be relatively quick and easy to flood all the Gaza tunnels with seawater and that would solve the problem; kill off Hamas troops, destroy their weapons, collapse their bases. Clearly they haven't done that yet. Does that mean it can't be done? If it can be done, then I lean towards thinking the current campaign should go on until it is done. If it can't be done, then I'd like to hear exactly what the goal of this incursion is and how long they expect it to last. Are they going to kill 30,000 people in the course of disarming and expelling Hamas? Or are they going to kill 30,000 people and Hamas will still be a recognizable threat anyway? If it's the latter, why kill all those people, why not stop now? When do they stop? Those are fair questions.

Basically all Jews "support Israel," insofar as they want it to keep existing as a Jewish state. Basically all Jews who support Israel also truly have no ill will toward Palestinians. They see Palestinians' problems as being less severe than the problems Jews have faced, historically and recently, and not worth the risks to Jews if an Israel did not exist. They believe in peace and want there to be a two-state solution, either because they really want a better life for Palestinians or because they want to stop feeling vaguely guilty about the occupation, or a mix of both.

I hope this was in any way helpful and regret that I couldn't be more precise about what the future plan should be.

[captaincarriekathryncoffee]

This will be the one and only time I talk about politics on this platform. People of all walks are free to follow or unfollow as they wish.

I was never very invested in politics, always tried to see both sides of an issue, and never even voted until this election.

But it’s because I’ve educated myself, and because I really believed in a candidate that I thought had a chance that I decided to.

I know a lot of very divisive policies were on the line here.

Take a particularly divisive one-for example I would not choose get an abortion myself. But I do consider myself pro choice, because I don’t think it should be up to ‘state’s decisions’ if a 10 year old girl is raped and gets pregnant, or if someone desperately wants a child but the pregnancy isn’t viable and the only option is pregnancy termination or to die from sepsis, and a doctor faces jail for providing care.

And yes these cases sadly have already happened, they’re no longer hyperbole.

I’m in a pretty privileged place where yes things maybe won’t affect me that much.

But I also work in a Medicare funded field. If Medicare funding is cut well then what happens to my job down the line?

My partner works in a state funded special education program.

If the department of education is eradicated-which is a promise Trump has made in project 2025-then what happens to his job that he’s gotten a degree and worked for years for?

I have Hispanic family members.

What happens if/when the proposed ‘mass deportations’ happen? Doesn’t matter if you’re legal, illegal, 1st or 10th generation per his opinions. Someone could say ‘hey you don’t look like you should live in America’ and that’s that.

Is that taking it to the extreme? Perhaps. But it’s still unfortunately a real possibility.

At his last rally his supporters fully called Puerto Rico ‘a floating pile of garbage’. He is talking about people.

Also, this is a man who literally has substantiated felony and abuse charges against him. He would not be allowed to get a job in a McDonald’s in America but he can be president.

I see something wrong with that.

The way I see it is under a liberal government, you’re free to disagree on things.

No one is forcing anyone to be gay, or trans, or to get an abortion if you don’t want it. Just… don’t “approve” of these things, whatever, that’s fine. No one is forcing you to be religious or not to be, to agree or disagree with anything you don’t wish to.

People can be angry, sure, but your fundamental rights remain the same.

But under a conservative government, a choice can quickly become a crime. And that’s what I think is deeply unfair.

I don’t think this is the end of the world by any means.

I hope to god it’s all talk and that nothing earth shattering will actually happen.

But I’m frankly disturbed that so many people don’t see the warning signs of a nation that is about to get even more divided by hate.

Ultimately I will never hate an individual because of the choice of candidate they made.

Can I be disappointed? Yes. Deeply.

I don’t understand how people chose him now and I never will. But ultimately everyone does what they think is right.

We will simply have to see how this all plays out for America.

[bonyfish]

Hey do you guys want to hear the pawn shop story I don't tell because it sounds so fuckin fake? It is, regrettably, the season for it and I've been thinking of it again.

To preface this story with a defense of my honor, this is neither the weirdest nor the most upsetting thing to happen to me while working at the pawn shop. (The clown mask fake robbery probably takes the cake on both counts.) That is to say that in isolation, all elements of this tale are quite mundane to the reality of working at a pawn shop in southern Indiana.

Anyway.

CW: antisemitism, the 2016 election, customer service work

The year is 2016. I'm a couple years out of art school and have been working at a pawn shop in my small city for most of that time. I am a few months out from the event that will mark, in addition to calamity on a national and global scale, the beginning of the dissolution of my relationship with my parents: the election of Donald Trump. I am also beginning to suspect my new coworker Brian (not his real name) might be kind of a sleeper asshole.

Brian and I were at the jewelry counter this day, when this German couple in maybe their mid-40s walked in. They were friendly and in good spirits, and we chatted a bit while they tried on rings. My grandfather was German, and between that and growing up on Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, German and Austrian accents kind of put me at ease. So I liked these two, up until the fellow tried to negotiate the price of a ring down and the lady said, "He's not Jewish, if that's what you're thinking!"

Now this was far from the first time I'd encountered the greedy/thrifty Jew stereotype while working at the pawn shop. As with many unpleasant interactions, my default reaction was to pretend I hadn't noticed the negativity and forge on ahead. So I said something like, "That's too bad, since I'm Jewish and we would've had that in common."

To which the woman replied, laughing, "See, the joke is you're all greedy!"

Typically when I responded to this sort of thing by revealing that I'm Jewish, the other person would become embarrassed and apologize or otherwise end the interaction. Once or twice someone had covered up the awkwardness of the moment by making as many offensive jokes as possible before one of my coworkers took over, but this blithe statement of perceived fact was new. I did not know how to deal with this.

I said, "That is the stereotype, yes."

I'm not sure how she did it conversationally, but from there she segued quite abruptly into talking about how she really likes that Trump fellow, because he "tells it like it is." My coworker was just nodding along, agreeing with her and chatting, while I stood there wondering how I had ended up in this situation and how quickly I could exit it. Even at the time I was marveling at how hamfisted the moment would have been from a narrative perspective, were this a story and not my own wretched weekday morning. I mean, they were even German, for fuckssake. I hate the punchline/stereotype of all Germans being Nazis because, as I mentioned, my grandfather and his family were German Jews, and I feel like that stereotype erases those people while simultaneously letting actual Nazi Germans off the hook for their own choices. But here I am listening to this conversation and realizing that now I have this story I can't tell because it's too damn stupid.

Presently they left, and I tried to see if Brian had made any sort of connection between these people insulting me to my face and then endorsing this particular candidate, but of course he saw nothing wrong with the interaction. This marked the decline of any fellow-feeling I had towards him as a coworker. Another coworker later told me that Brian "didnt believe" in gay people, which explained why he couldn't work the register-- I trained him, and since I don't actually exist, there's no way he could've learned to do his job properly.

Anyway that's my story. A year or so later I quit with no prospects because having to play nice with people who I knew voted for Trump was making me crazy. Next time I'll tell a more fun story, like the one about all the cockroaches, or the other one about all the cockroaches.

[gentil-minou]

hi! I hope you’re doing ok! I’ve never written an ask before so I have no idea how to do this, but you’re one of the only people I follow who is posting about Palestine, so I wanted to ask. And as a brown person I’m really worried rn.

Elections are next year and I’ve seen so many saying that people should vote for Biden because he’s at least better than Trump which is… I don’t know what to say, but it’s completely absurd. This is going to be my first time voting and all I get from people is the same “lesser of two evils” rhetoric. It’s genuinely disheartening to see that these are the only options that are shown to people. I was wondering about what you think of what’s happening, and whether voting third party seems possible

I’m sorry if this was rude to ask you, but thanks for taking the time to read this!

It's not rude, I'm glad I made you feel safe enough to ask this!

I only have one answer for you: Do not let anyone tell you who to vote for or make you feel like an evil person if you choose not to vote for the person they want you to.

Vote, definitely vote!!! Especially in local elections, those are the best ways to get people you want in power and they are in charge of a lot of important changes.

As for the presidential elections, I've had so many people I thought I admired or at least felt comfortable around attack me for my choice not to vote for Biden. I've had people claim I was spreading "pro-Trump propaganda" (which is just ridiculously bad faith in all ways), tell me that I—a queer POC—am anti-LGBTQ, and tell me I'll be deported.

They do this all while ignoring and invalidating the very real anger and hurt the Muslim and Brown populations of the US are dealing with, all because their comfort is being threatened. And instead of pressuring the party that's doing that harm and try to listen to why we feel so betrayed by Biden, they double down and attack us. In fact, they are showing their true colors. They, like Biden, only ever pretended to care about us. So I am going to vote for people who actually do care about me, even if they say I'm going to "waste my vote"

Here's the thing; as long as you vote for who you feel the most supported by, as long as you go into that voting booth and step out feeling good about your vote, then you are not wasting it.

Putting this under a read more cause it's getting long

Personally, I'm voting third party. I've had my eye on the Socialist Party but am also keeping an eye out for the others and whether or not they stand out to me

At this point, unless the DNC decides to put another candidate forward, which they most definitely won't, the Democratic party has lost me forever. I'm lucky that my Dem representative has at least shown they're on the right side of history, but I don't think I will ever vote for the Dem party again. I've forced myself to do it for the last decade and I've been disappointed or betrayed every time, so no more.

I agree this two party system is a joke and we are all being made to be a part of it when no other democratic nation has something like this. Even other countries say our "progressive" party is just centrist. And that just doesn't reflect my values.

Liberals and "vote blue no matter who" are going to tell you that you're wasting your vote by voting third party, but in actuality they are the ones supporting a flawed system that only benefits itself, not the people. The more people who vote third party, the more the dems will be pressured to put forth progressive candidates like AOC or Rashida who are actually on the left. By voting third party, you are saying you won't stand by a broken system any longer

does this mean Republicans might win and we get another trump administration? Yes, probably, but here's the thing: when you look at the last 3 years, and I mean really look at it, have things improved all that much under biden? I, as a queer poc can't say that it has. Both are evil, one just pretends not to be. At this point I see no difference between Trump and Biden. Both don't give a shit about me.

The lesser of 2 evils is still evil, why vote for them? Why would I vote for either of them?

Why would I reward anyone who support genocide and cheers for it? Both Trump and Biden openly do. Their only difference is Biden is a better actor.

If my people were the ones being slaughtered (and they were. For a long long time they were), would I be okay with sitting back and letting these parties walk all over me? No, I don't think I would be.

The fact of the matter is that change does not come fast or easy. These things take time and pressure and a refusal to give in. Voting for Biden after all the horrible things he's done the past couple years is just rewarding a system that is fundamentally broken. You can keep trying to chug along on a broken wheel hurtling you towards doom, or you can take the time to force it to change.

I do believe the younger vote has a big chance to change things, to pressure our government to actually support its people, not just the white ones with money.

Ultimately you get to decide who to vote for. Use your right to vote, don't ignore it and don't waste it by voting for someone you don't actually believe in.

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Donald John Trump

Retired and unemployed, most mornings I enjoy the privilege of watching C-SPAN’s Washington Journal along with a good cup of coffee. All too frequently, I hear people, calling into the program saying, in effect, “Quit picking on our President, Donald Trump. Give him a chance. He’s doing a great job. He’s getting things done. He ‘tells it like it is’, etc.” I’m writing this in response to say, “Hogwash”! It may be true that he is being “picked on”, especially by the news media, about which I will talk another day, but the other complaints are downright inaccurate—wrong.

Before going one step further, let’s agree on one very basic and important fact—a fact which I sincerely believe is grossly overlooked by most of us and never discussed. The Presidency of The United States of America is one of, if not the most, important and responsible positions of leadership in the world today—more than any international corporation, more than, arguably, any other country, the incumbency of which demands the very utmost of personal and professional skills, including but not limited to honesty, integrity, intelligence, knowledge and character, in conjunction with the requisite diplomatic, management and leadership abilities enabling one to successfully lead and manage such a vast organization. Our government, The United States of America is no small organization despite the best efforts of some politicians and others (Grover Norquist, for example, wanting to “shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”) to the contrary. If anyone wants to discuss our presidency, they must recognize its immense responsibility. It is no grocery store or shop on the corner.

Donald Trump is not being picked on. One does not have to accuse him of anything or listen to anyone else who does—especially the news media. All one has to do is stop, look, and listen to him in order to comprehend who and what he is. As they say, “It’s a ‘No Brainer’”. Let’s face it. We made a mistake in electing him to office. It is patently obvious that Donald Trump does not have the necessary qualifications indicated above to hold office. He is not a leader; he is not a manager; he is not a diplomat; he is not knowledgeable; and, for that matter, he is not a businessman—not a successful one at least. His many legal encounters and bankruptcies of record documents this; and when all this “shakes out”, I think we will find he and his various organizations are “over their heads” in debt, if not bankrupt. If our president, Donald John Trump, is being “picked on”, he is doing it to himself. If he is continually being shot in the foot, it is he who is holding the gun.

Before closing this, I want to briefly discuss the election, November, 2016. I submit to you: The people of this country didn’t have a chance. They (We) didn’t have the chance of a gasoline dog trying to go thru hell of electing a candidate who would represent the best interests of “We the People”. As I wrote back then, our election of Hillary Clinton would be a disaster; our election of Donald Trump would be a catastrophy. What we have wrought is before us. We are in the midst of a catastrophy. We only had two choices—and very poor ones at that. I’ll tell you. I voted for Hillary. Come hell or high water, we can wade through a disaster. Our nation has done so many times before, but only time will tell on this one—a catastrophy is another matter. 

One last thing: Our people elected Donald Trump because they viewed him as “one of us”. He talked like us; he “told it like it is”. But they were mistaken. Real leaders in a huge complex world such as the one in which we live cannot be like us. They don’t necessarily think like us; they don’t always talk like us; and we cannot always talk like them. If we had their qualifications, well, we would be one of them—you think? Donald Trump is not one of them either. Neither do I think he is one of us; but only time will tell who and what he really is; and only time will tell if and when we can survive this mess in which we find ourselves.

These are my views. I’m interested in yours.

[xtruss]

Imran Khan Warns That Pakistan’s Election Could Be A Farce

His Party is Being Unfairly Muzzled, the Former Prime Minister Writes From Prison

— January 4th, 2024 | The Economist

Imran Khan, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan. Image: Dan Williams

Today pakistan is being ruled by caretaker governments at both the federal level and provincial level. These administrations are constitutionally illegal because elections were not held within 90 days of parliamentary assemblies being dissolved.

The public is hearing that elections will supposedly be held on February 8th. But having been denied the same in two provinces, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, over the past year—despite a Supreme Court order last March that those votes should be held within three months—they are right to be sceptical about whether the national vote will take place.

The country’s election commission has been tainted by its bizarre actions. Not only has it defied the top court but it has also rejected my Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (pti) party’s nominations for first-choice candidates, hindered the party’s internal elections and launched contempt cases against me and other pti leaders for simply criticising the commission.

Whether elections happen or not, the manner in which I and my party have been targeted since a farcical vote of no confidence in April 2022 has made one thing clear: the establishment—the army, security agencies and the civil bureaucracy—is not prepared to provide any playing field at all, let alone a level one, for pti.

It was, after all, the establishment that engineered our removal from government under pressure from America, which was becoming agitated with my push for an independent foreign policy and my refusal to provide bases for its armed forces. I was categorical that we would be a friend to all but would not be anyone’s proxy for wars. I did not come to this view lightly. It was shaped by the huge losses Pakistan had incurred collaborating with America’s “war on terror”, not least the 80,000 Pakistani lives lost.

In March 2022 an official from America’s State Department met Pakistan’s then ambassador in Washington, dc. After that meeting the ambassador sent a cipher message to my government. I later saw the message, via the then foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and it was subsequently read out in cabinet.

In view of what the cipher message said, I believe that the American official’s message was to the effect of: pull the plug on Imran Khan’s prime ministership through a vote of no confidence, or else. Within weeks our government was toppled and I discovered that Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, had, through the security agencies, been working on our allies and parliamentary backbenchers for several months to move against us.

People flocked onto the streets to protest against this regime change, and in the next few months pti won 28 out of 37 by-elections and held massive rallies across the country, sending a clear message as to where the public stood. These rallies attracted a level of female participation that we believe was unprecedented in Pakistan’s history. This unnerved the powers that had engineered our government’s removal.

To add to their panic, the administration that replaced us destroyed the economy, bringing about unprecedented inflation and a currency devaluation within 18 months. The contrast was clear for everyone to see: the pti government had not only saved Pakistan from bankruptcy but also won international praise for its handling of the covid-19 pandemic. In addition, despite a spike in commodity prices, we steered the economy to real gdp growth of 5.8% in 2021 and 6.1% in 2022.

Unfortunately, the establishment had decided I could not be allowed to return to power, so all means of removing me from the political landscape were used. There were two assassination attempts on my life. My party’s leaders, workers and social-media activists, along with supportive journalists, were abducted, incarcerated, tortured and pressured to leave pti. Many of them remain locked up, with new charges being thrown at them every time the courts give them bail or set them free. Worse, the current government has gone out of its way to terrorise and intimidate pti’s female leaders and workers in an effort to discourage women from participating in politics.

I face almost 200 legal cases and have been denied a normal trial in an open court. A false-flag operation on May 9th 2023—involving, among other things, arson at military installations falsely blamed on pti—led to several thousand arrests, abductions and criminal charges within 48 hours. The speed showed it was pre-planned.

This was followed by many of our leaders being tortured or their families threatened into giving press conferences and engineered television interviews to state that they were leaving the party. Some were compelled to join other, newly created political parties. Others were made to give false testimony against me under duress.

Despite all this, pti remains popular, with 66% support in a Pattan-Coalition 38 poll held in December; my personal approval rating is even higher. Now the election commission, desperate to deny the party the right to contest elections, is indulging in all manner of unlawful tricks. The courts seem to be losing credibility daily.

Meanwhile, a former prime minister with a conviction for corruption, Nawaz Sharif, has returned from Britain, where he was living as an absconder from Pakistani justice. In November a Pakistani court overturned the conviction (Under United States’ Scrotums Licker Corrupt Army Generals’ Directions).

It is my belief that Corrupt to his Core Mr Sharif has struck a deal with the establishment whereby it will support his acquittal and throw its weight behind him in the upcoming elections. But so far the public has been unrelenting in its support for pti and its rejection of the “selected”.

It is under these circumstances that elections may be held on February 8th. All parties are being allowed to campaign freely except for pti. I remain incarcerated, in solitary confinement, on absurd charges that include treason. Those few of our party’s leaders who remain free and not underground are not allowed to hold even local worker conventions. Where pti workers manage to gather together they face brutal police action.

In this scenario, even if elections were held they would be a disaster and a farce, since pti is being denied its basic right to campaign. Such a joke of an election would only lead to further political instability. This, in turn, would further aggravate an already volatile economy.

The only viable way forward for Pakistan is fair and free elections, which would bring back political stability and rule of law, as well as ushering in desperately needed reforms by a democratic government with a popular mandate. There is no other way for Pakistan to disentangle itself from the crises confronting it. Unfortunately, with democracy under siege, we are heading in the opposite direction on all these fronts. ■

— Imran Khan is the Founder and Former Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and was Prime Minister of Pakistan from 2018 to 2022.

— Editor’s Note: Pakistan’s government and America’s State Department deny Mr Khan’s allegations of American interference in Pakistani politics (Bullshit! Hegemonic War Criminal Conspirator United States and Corrupt Army Generals and Politicians of Pakistan Were Clearly Involved. It’s Social Media’s Modern Era, Not 1970). The government is prosecuting him under the Official Secrets Act.

[delvinanaris]

It is impossible to elect a third-party president in the US currently.

Not merely "unlikely, but you can do it if you try real hard": impossible.

There are third-party candidates who aren't even on the ballot in enough states to add up to 270 electoral votes. For them, it's mathematically impossible to be elected, no matter how well they do.

Even for third-party candidates who are on enough state ballots, approximately no one knows their names, platforms, or parties. The strongest showing a third-party presidential candidate has ever made in modern times was Ross Perot in 1992, with ~19% of the popular vote. He received no electoral votes. Since then, some of the rules have been changed to make it even harder for third-party candidates to get attention.

But it gets worse.

A third party, generally speaking, is going to be moderately well aligned with one of the two major parties on many issues, but either has one particular issue that they champion very strongly (rather than trying to have a broad platform like the major parties), or simply stakes out a position further from the center, but in the same general political direction.

Because of this, and the fact that they cannot win, the better a third-party presidential candidate performs, the more they will harm the cause they seek to support.

To illustrate this, consider a hypothetical presidential election where the major party candidates are Davis and Roberts, and there is a third-party candidate Thompson who is doing historically well. Thompson's politics largely align with Davis's, but skew farther in the same direction. Both Thompson and Davis disagree strongly with Roberts, and do not want to see a Roberts presidency.

If we then consider a hypothetical state where there are 1 million people who will actually vote, let's say that 400k of them support Roberts. The other 600k all agree on opposing Roberts, but 250k of them think that Davis doesn't go far enough, and will vote for Thompson. This means that the final vote tally in that state will be 400k for Roberts, 350k for Davis, and 250k for Thompson.

If Thompson had not been running in that race, Davis would have won handily. All the people who supported Davis and Thompson are disappointed, and Roberts won despite getting a minority of the vote and the political makeup of the state being strongly tilted in Davis' favor.

This is the case because of our voting system: each person only gets a single vote to cast for President. If we had the opportunity to cast multiple votes in any of the various ways that are out there, it would be much, much easier for third parties to be viable, because someone who likes Thompson would be able to vote for both Thompson and Davis—thus guaranteeing that even if their first choice doesn't win, they're still not making it any easier for the candidate they strongly oppose to win.

So anyone who wants third-party candidates to be viable should, in the moment, be voting for the major party candidate that most closely matches their beliefs, while advocating hard and in every way they can for an alternative voting system, such as Ranked Choice Voting (which has some momentum behind it right now).

To bring it back to the current election, everyone who wants Trump to lose, but votes for anyone other than Kamala Harris, is actively working against their own interests.

(Hopefully that was the part you were confused on; if it's more about why voting for Kamala is not a vote for genocide, that's a whole different post, and all I'll say about it here and now is that the notion that she actively supports genocide is unquestionably propaganda, and likely derives from Russian psyops.)

[whenimgoodandready]

Boy we’ve come a long way into this season! A few story arcs that took a few eps to get through only to get hooked on a new one! I mean, there was the grieving process of Marinette/Ladybug losing almost all the miraculouses (“Evolution”-“Illusion”), the reverse love square (“Determination”-“Exaltation”), the “I love you” struggle w/ Adrienette (“The Kwami’s Choice”-“Intuition”) and the Anti-Adrienette Haters Attack (“Protection”-“Pretention”). Is there any left before the big finale!? Oh yeah! The Mean Girl Tyranny! Yeah! That’s the one! We’re gettin’ into that one now! Let’s check into that:

*Revelation-Sometimes good things happen to bad people. Why!? That just pisses people off! Lila Rossi got everything she ever wanted:fame of being the avatar on the alliance rings, the love and adoration of the public and getting special treatment just for being a celebrity. Bleh!🤮 (gasp) Guess what!? There is a God! Gabe had made an upgrade on the alliance rings, so Lila, in the words of an apprentice seeking/former president of the United States, YOU’RE FIRED!🔥😜 Well sweetie! If he didn’t think you were good enough for the Diamond Ball THEN YOU AIN’T GOOD ENOUGH TO BE THE NEW SIRI! HA! :P. Gabe replaced Lila with Kagami as the new avatar so as to manipulate the people that Adrigami has resurfaced!🙄 That and cuz Lila did a sucky job of sinking Adrienette.

Unfortunately, that just pushed her over the edge. Lila wants revenge on Gabe(/Monarch cuz she’s secretly known for awhile now as we found out in “Emotion”, or even longer (“Ladybug”), cuz why would he entrust this important info to a teenage girl!? Especially one who’s a master manipulator!) for losing out on her good life and decides to seek power elsewhere. Where is that? School. Lila suggests holding a re-election for class representative. That way, she can secretly have at least control over something and be respected by it. Current class rep, Marinette, protests this cuz they only have 2wks of school left, so why bother!? But Lila convinces everyone that she can be a great candidate cuz she said she can do the impossible, something that no one, and I mean no one! could do, redeem Chloe Bourgeois! (✨꒰ఎ angelic choir sings໒꒱✨). Marinette (albeit professionally) calls bullsh*t on that cuz if she, the class, the teachers, Ladybug (*grabs megaphone, turns it up to high volume and yells* AND EVEN THE WRITERS OF THE SHOW ITSELF!) couldn’t do that, what makes Lila think she can!? Lila pretends to be offended by this and runs off crying making Marinette look bad. Again!

Although it was faked, her genuine hatred for Marinette was enough to get her akumatized as Hoaxer. A supervillainess, with The Fox Miraculous, that has the power to brainwash people into believing everything she says, no matter how absurd (ex.The dynamic duo are extra terrestrials who flatulate bubbles that destroy the Ozone Layer!), is real! But only through those that wear an alliance ring cuz some people don’t wear ‘em *cough*Myvan*cough*. Her look was okay, it’s just her Volpina look dyed dark red. Her power on the other hand was supes effective cuz it’s her civilian talent turned up to 11! In fact, her whole akumatization and partnership with Chloe was all a big act to get her revenge on Gabe/Monarch/sabotage Marinette and it worked like a charm! Let the Mean Girl Tyranny begin! Don! Don! Don!

If you’re wondering why this ep was called Revelation, it’s cuz we got a lot to reveal over what happened! Lila's has three moms! No! I don’t mean in a lgbtqia sorta way, I mean like she’s conning three women (one of which is deaf) into thinking she’s their daughter who’s always away on celebrity/philanthropist duties! Why’s she doin’ this!? How long has this been goin’ on!? Which ones her real mom!? Are any of ‘em her real mom!? You think the writers realized their mistake on animating a different mom for Lila during “Shadow Moth’s Final Attack Part 1:Risk” and tried to save face by concocting this whole “let’s fix this by making Lila a con girl thing”!? Or did they have this planned beforehand!? Idk!? Ms. Bustier discovers that Sabrina had been doing Chloé's homework this whole entire time! (we knew that of course from “Evillustrator”, but it’s coming to light here) Since Grade School! Whaaaaaaat!? Does Chloe get her comeuppance for it!? F*ck no! She’s got privileges! If someone, like say, oh idk? The teachers were to call her out on this, Chloe would just resort to her connections like her father, the mayor, and complain about it forcing him to fire the teacher and he’ll obviously (and reluctantly) do so just to “win her love” :P. Chloe feels that since she’s rich she doesn’t need to work or pay attention in school cuz she’s entitled that’s why! It’s how the show works for her character! It’s also what aspires Lila to win over everyone for class rep by coercing Chloe to play along the “redemption” lie just to ruin Marinette. Marinettes continued attempts to expose Lila fail, as always, with none of her friends, like Alya, believing her (sigh). I’ve mentioned this before in Season 4’s finale and Alya does make a point. Despite knowing Marinette longer than Lila, Marinette has no evidence to back up her claims. That and even though she knows she’s Ladybug and should’ve realized Lila’s lies when she first said she knew Ladybug (“Volpina”), Marinette does have a big jealousy problem with other girls liking Adrien and always gets paranoid over things. However, Marinettes gone through character development and thus is a “better” person now. Adrien tries to say it’s true that Lila’s deceptive, but DJWifi just think he’s being a “good bf” by agreeing with whatever “nonsense” his gf is saying. Hmm, maybe he should’ve said something earlier, like say, oh idk? Waaaay back in, when was that? Oh yeah! “Chameleon”! And not just “take the high road” bullsh*t! Now look what’s happened! The two meanest and nastiest girls in school got the power! (shrugs) Hey! He’s a sheltered and socially lost rich boy who’s too nice for his own good, whattaya gonna do!? Here’s the worse revelation, Lila now has all the dirt on Gabe/Monarch! Don! Don! Don! All of it! The secrets from the grimoire, his backstory on his humble beginnings when he was just a punk w/ a dream and French Fry suit (“Psycomedian”), his friendship w/ the Bourgeois’s, his expeditions with his wife and Nat, the alliance ring contract and the fact that HE’S KEEPING HIS COMATOSE WIFE IN A SECRET UNDERGROUND LAIR! Don! Don! Don!

[daggryet]

c!quackity and c!dream’s want for power through the last two seasons have been fascinating to watch.

now, i want to start of by saying: there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting power. 

in a sense we all crave power and more than that, we all need power. power comes in many forms: from the power to decide, the power to do, the power to demand, the power to rule, the power to stay in power - just to name a few.

both c!quackity and c!dream start off more or less morally right, but their motivations are at the complete opposite ends of a spectrum. c!quackity fights to gain power while c!dream fights to keep power.

i have to put it under the cut because it got really long

c!quackity starts by wanting power for the people, he wants the people to have the power to have a choice in the election. an election where people only have one option isn’t an election, and it isn’t about choosing who is best qualified.

 once he established himself as a viable candidate for the presidency, it was a fight to actually gain power for himself. that was his goal now, which is also why he refused to combine votes with pog2020 because they'd planned to use him purely for votes and thus wouldn’t give him any power. he piled his votes onto c!schlatt’s because he thought they’d have power together, but schlatt2020 wasn’t any different to pog2020. he was used for votes, but his opinions weren’t actually listened to. he had no real power despite being the vice president. 

when he joined pogtopia, he was joining the fight for power over manberg back; and though they won the war, that power was shortlived, and c!wilbur and c!technoblade made sure that though l’manberg still existed, it would have to re-establish not only its power but its entire foundation.

as a member of the new l’manbergian cabinet, his goal was always that l’manberg had power to resist those who threatened it. he argued against c!tommy’s exile because it meant that c!dream had power over them, that he could decide their political decisions, and that meant l’manberg wasn’t independent at all. he proposed the butcher army to defeat their enemies so they would never be in a position where they would be powerless again. where they’d be controlled by outsiders. it resulted in doomsday where c!quackity said: “the thing we feared losing the most, has been taken from us.” 

el rapids is about having the power to contest their enemies. they wanted political power, and they wanted to undermine the power of their enemies. c!quackity’s entire plan with c!eret was undermining their right to be king and their neutrality by staging that c!eret planned a terrorist attack. this was also the time that he stood up to c!dream, face to face, where he was in charge. and had it only been about political power, then c!quackity and el rapids would have won. but it wasn’t about political power at the end of the day because c!dream’s military power wiped the entire country out.

this theme of wanting power, being so close to gaining it, and then it being taken away from him is reoccuring throughout c!quackity’s story. and each time the stakes have been higher, each time it’s been more and more important to actually gain power, each time c!quackity has been at the forefront of trying to avoid another defeat; and every time c!quackity has lost. each time c!quackity has become more and more unscrupulous in what he’s willing to do in order to gain some semblance of power.

meanwhile c!dream’s character has never fought to gain power, he starts the story in a position of absolute power. everything hereafter in his story has been about keeping that power. and every time he’s lost, he’s rammed up what he wants power of, and every time he’s become more and more unscrupulous as well.

the war against l’manberg where he fought to keep power over land that was ‘rightfully’ his, as it belonged to the lands of the smp, is the first time he’s been properly challenged in our story. this is a war that he ultimately loses as l’manberg gains independence (through opening a new possibility for power) and even after c!wilbur blew it up, l’manberg stood. but not as strong as before.

the next time he tried to keep his absolute power was by figuring out that as long as you can identify what means the most to people, what they don’t want to lose - what they fear to use, then you can control those people. during this arc, he also figures out trust is fundamental to how people act. if you can make someone trust you, value you, depend on you, then you can control them. this, as well, ultimately fails.

the third attempt at keeping his power is trying to get control of life and death. if you can control whether someone lives or dies, you possess the ultimate power. and if you also have the skills to carry your threats out so they’re not just empty, no one can stand against you. but c!dream has hurt so many people at this point, he’s locked in a prison - defenseless - and his jailor hates him, so he has to escape. as he said, “if respect is the only thing keeping you from a knife in the back, respect is nothing.” if the promise of him being able to bring people back to life loses its value, then there’s nothing keeping him alive anymore.

he’s not only become more and more willing to cross moral boundaries to be able to keep some semblance of power, however abstract, but he’s also moved further and further away from his humanity. he doesn’t value people’s attachments, people’s lives; they’re merely tools for him at this point, so he can win the game he’s playing.

the biggest and most important difference in the two characters is that c!quackity has always been forced to punch above him, while c!dream has always punched down. this means that c!quackity has needed to become stronger and stronger, and because he’s bad at pvp his strengths have to come from somewhere else. he needed to become a stronger person. c!dream, on the other side, hasn’t ever been actually challenged by someone who was stronger than him, who was smarter than him.

so that’s why c!dream crumbling in the presence of c!quackity is so interesting. they’ve had parallel arcs, but because of where they started c!quackity holds the upper hand. he’s prepared for c!dream, but c!dream has never been prepared for c!quackity.

[becomingthecrone]

My 18-year-old niece posted that she misses a time when no one asked how you voted and it didn’t matter who you did or didn’t support. She was raised by my sister, which means she’s been inculcated with the same right-wing Christian bullshit I was. I wrote her a long response, and I don’t know if it will get through to her (I hope so), but I wanted to put it here, too, because it might help someone else who is trying to explain to their family.

So, I went and made coffee while thinking about this. And I think I'm getting to a point that makes sense. My kneejerk response was something along the lines of "That time you're missing is a time that didn't ever really exist, at least not in my lifetime and definitely not in yours." And thinking on that, I think it comes down to perspective. My first election, the 2000 election, was momentous. And it was the first time I'd voted, but I didn't understand the full context. I voted as a single-issue voter, like I was raised. And I just did not understand, going back to my dorm that night, why the women on my hall were crying about the results that were being announced (in favor of Bush, who I voted for.) Of course, at the time we had no idea that 9/11 was going to happen, that he would re-start Desert Storm, or any of that. But that moment has sad with me for two decades: Elaine, Megha, and Rachel sitting together and crying. And it's only been in the past few years that I've really been able to understand that. Elaine was queer. Megha was Indian. That election mattered to them. Who I voted for mattered to them. Because I voted for someone who intended to shape federal policies in a way that would hurt them, specifically. It wasn't some "across the nation in Washington" thing for them; they had specific, real fears about how their lives would be impacted. And it's that understanding I've been developing, both as I am just more generally aware of the world and how those policies do impact real people in real ways -and- as I come to understand myself and how I position in terms of intersectionality, that has taught me that it *always* mattered who we, I, you support or don't support. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but it always matters. Because these choices we make have real impacts on real people. And when we make choices that either 1) are good for us but bad for people who are more vulnerable than we are or 2) don't really matter to us but really really matter to the people who might be impacted, then that tells those people how we view our own convenience or interests as being More Than the harm or benefit they might get from the policy changes to come. So my initial reaction, I think, is still accurate. The idea that who you vote for or support doesn't matter can only exist in a space where the policies enacted by those people won't have any impact. But at the same time, it goes deeper. We can't understand WHY the candidates we choose DO matter until we look outside of our own spaces and learn to both understand and empathize with the people who are impacted the most. I don't have to be Hispanic to understand why Trump's policies harm Hispanic communities; I just have to be willing to listen and understand when they tell me why. I've spent a lot of the last twenty years listening. I've spent a lot of the last twenty years thinking about where I fit, about how my actions (intentional or otherwise) have harmed people or allowed harm to happen, and about how culpable I am for those choices and actions. It's not always (often) comfortable to sit with those thoughts, but I do think I become a better person each time I do. By understanding and empathizing with people who aren't Like Me, I become better equipped to help change the world for the better, not just for me or people who look like/believe like/act like me, but for humanity as a whole. I'm not perfect -- no one can be -- but I get closer each time I learn how to break down one of the barriers inside me that is, frankly, based in selfishness and "I want" instead of "we need."

[mariacallous]

Last month’s spectacular raid from across the Ukrainian border brought the Russian region of Belgorod an unaccustomed level of public attention. Having spent some time in 2005-06 as a doctoral student conducting dissertation research in Belgorod and another Russian region bordering Ukraine, Krasnodar Krai, I would like to share a few thoughts on these two provinces and their complex history between Russia and Ukraine. The stories of these two regions shed light on the Kremlin’s success in focusing international attention on the construction of Ukrainian identity, while obscuring the ambiguities in Russia’s construction of its own boundaries.

I spent some months in Belgorod and Krasnodar as a graduate student in political science, working on a dissertation (later a book) about the evolution of freedom of movement and choice of residence in post-Soviet Russia. Russian colleagues in Moscow, where I was based, pointed out that the leaders of these two regions had taken contrasting policies toward migrants from other parts of the Russian Federation and other post-Soviet countries. Whereas Krasnodar’s populist governor used and abused the power of his office to harass newcomers (particularly those who were not ethnically Russian), Belgorod’s leadership affirmatively sought out highly educated and well-off new residents to improve the region’s human capital.

Starting out from Moscow for my field research, I had no idea that either Belgorod or Krasnodar had any historic connections to the neighboring, and to me still unfamiliar, Ukraine.

As I explored Belgorod, it proved to be a region of contradictions. It stood out among Russian regions at the time for its relatively smooth transition from the USSR’s planned economy to a successful capitalist one. Robust mining and agriculture — the province lies in Russia’s fertile “Black Earth” zone, which also extends into Ukraine — were now being supplemented by increased interest in Belgorod as a place to settle among well-off professionals from other parts of the country (particularly people from the far north, who found its warmer climate attractive). The regional capital, Belgorod city, was full of cranes and new apartment buildings. Belgorod also featured a lively civil society and academic community, both of which welcomed me and encouraged my interest in their region.

At the same time, despite the regional government’s supportive policies toward at least some new residents and its suppression of far-right violence against ethnic minorities, it was clear that strong public criticism of policies or officials was unwelcome. In other words, there was no real political opposition.

Belgorod was also the starting point for my first foray into Ukraine. Belgorod city is a short journey from Ukraine’s Kharkiv, and connections between the two have historically been close. Indeed, during the Soviet period, Kharkiv was arguably the local metropolis for Belgorod residents, the place to go for opportunities not available in the smaller regional capital. During my visit to Belgorod oblast, I heard some negative comments about Ukraine’s independence, including complaints about the disruption caused by an international border between neighboring communities and Ukraine’s official language policy. 

When I eventually made it across the border, it was immediately clear that I was in a more pluralistic environment. I happened to arrive in Kharkiv during a parliamentary election campaign and was struck by the prevailing boisterous, open disagreement, and even the slinging of insults between political candidates, all of which contrasted sharply with the buttoned-up political conformism of Belgorod. I also noticed that despite the use of Ukrainian in official contexts, Russian was spoken everywhere — a situation most people I met seemed to regard as normal. 

Yet in view of the political contrasts between Belgorod and Kharkiv, it’s worth reflecting that Belgorod itself has a complex history closely linked to Ukraine. In the early modern period, it was part of the “Wild Field,” a region of fractured sovereignty contested between the Muscovite state, Ukrainian Cossacks, and even the Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate. A significant proportion of the population is of ethnic Ukrainian origin, and early in the history of the USSR, Belgorod was even considered for inclusion in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic before ultimately being assigned to Russia. I was told that some older residents in rural districts spoke a local dialect derived from Ukrainian, which was even modeled for me once or twice by younger people, as an example of local color. 

However, there’s no doubt that the region’s mixed Ukrainian-Russian identity is now mainly a matter of historical curiosity. Ukrainian has no official status and has not been used in public education at least since the 1930s. Whereas Kharkiv is effectively (though not officially) bilingual, Belgorod is monolingual in both law and practice. As far as I could determine, its residents have no interest in Ukraine as a political community that might include them in some way. Rather, they take their Russianness as both desirable and self-evident. Years later, having moved to Toronto, I noticed similar attitudes on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border between Ontario and New York State. The border is taken for granted, and what lies on the other side is familiar but clearly other. 

Many of these observations also apply to another Russian region that I visited during the same doctoral research: Krasnodar Krai, which is also sometimes referred to locally as the Kuban, after its main river. The region is familiar to many Westerners as the home of Sochi, a beach and mountain resort that hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics. 

By a strange coincidence, Krasnodar also figured as one of the case studies in my dissertation, as its governor at the time, Nikolai Kondratenko, had earned a well-deserved reputation as a populist known for using administrative measures to harass newcomers to the region. While even ethnic Russians who moved to Krasnodar were targeted, the worst treatment was reserved for non-Slavs, such as Armenians and a small Turkish community from the Meskheti region of Georgia. Krasnodar clearly had a strong regional identity, rooted as I learned in its unusual and tragic history. Until the 19th century, the Black Sea littoral was the home of the Circassians, an indigenous community with a reputation as skilled horsemen and warriors, whom the advancing Russian Empire dispossessed and slaughtered in an act of calculated ethnic cleansing that resulted in the flight of most of the Circassian population into Turkey and other lands of the Ottoman Empire, where their descendants now live. The settlers who entered the region in the wake of Russian conquest were mainly from what is now Ukraine, and as in Belgorod, some reminders of this past linger in a fading local dialect. 

Governor Kondratrenko emphasized some aspects of this history, as in his support for a local neo-Cossack movement and his tense relations with the Circassian community in Krasnodar and neighboring regions. Yet as in Belgorod, there was no discussion of any link to contemporary Ukraine. Whatever disagreements local residents might have with the Kremlin, Russia was their state, and Russian was the official language, required for official communication and professional advancement.

A few related points with contemporary relevance follow from these vignettes of my travels nearly 20 years ago. One is simply the disparity between, on the one hand, Russia’s insistent focus on the constructed nature of Ukraine’s national identity and its success in imposing that focus on much of the Western media and official discourse, and on the other hand Russia’s unwillingness to acknowledge that its own identity as a state and a civic community is also the result of deliberate construction, which in part involved the suppression of Ukrainian identity in these two regions. It’s noteworthy how little hay the Ukrainian government has tried to make of this past, even though, had history turned out a little differently, both Belgorod and Krasnodar could very easily have been included in Soviet and then independent Ukraine. Kyiv has never claimed them as Ukrainian territory, never denounced the border with Russia or derided it as fake or illegitimate, and never even pressured Russia to accord official status to the Ukrainian history and culture in Belgorod and Krasnodar.

In effect, Ukraine recognizes what should be obvious to every fair-minded observer, that although borders are by their nature political constructs that divide people and communities in artificial ways, the most humane course of action is to try to make the best of them. 

As far as Ukraine is concerned, there is no reason why the people of Belgorod and Krasnodar should not visit, trade with, and otherwise engage with their neighbors in, say, Crimea, Donetsk, or other parts of Ukraine. For that matter, in a democratic Russian state, they would have the right to explore the Ukrainian and Circassian heritage of their regions without incurring official hostility. Although we are sadly far from such a reality, it is incumbent on Western observers of the Russian invasion of Ukraine not to accept at face value the Kremlin’s messaging that the Ukrainian state is artificial and in need of correction, which presumably it is Russia’s role to provide. 

As Professor Louis Römer of Vassar College has pointed out to me, Russia’s focus on Ukraine’s alleged fragility and defects is an intrinsically colonial narrative that treats one political community as necessarily subject to guidance from another. The point is not that Russia’s heritage of conquest is unique: indeed, as a native of the former Mexican territory of Alta California, I am aware of the violent process that resulted in its annexation by the United States. But the Putin regime’s success in crushing alternative voices within Russia should not lead international observers to accept its self-serving historical myths at face value.

And a second, related point: the authoritarian Russian state’s erasure of Ukrainian identity in Belgorod and Krasnodar paradoxically suggests some ways in which Ukraine is stronger than many outside observers believed and indeed stronger than Russia. Contrary to the Kremlin’s narrative, Ukraine’s well-publicized debates about official language policy and other regional differences reflect something highly positive about the country’s political evolution to date: the emergence and acceptance of pluralism over the post-Soviet period. One of my professors in graduate school, Ian Shapiro of Yale University, was known for saying that wherever you are told there is consensus, you should instead look out for hegemony.

Indeed, while I met many good-hearted, humane people in Belgorod and Krasnodar who would flourish in a more open political system, such an opportunity is denied to them by a state that evidently believes it can only survive by silencing all dissenting or even unofficial interpretations of its own history. In contrast, no one would say Ukraine’s politics are characterized by consensus, yet its fractious people have come together to oppose Putin’s invasion with a determination that has amazed the world. It is Ukraine’s good fortune that it has found within itself the strength to construct a civic identity built on the acceptance of difference, and Ukraine’s tragedy that Russia has failed to do so.

[opencommunion]

this is what you said:

backpedaling isn’t cute.

most of the world doesn't have time to waste. the longer privileged "leftists" idle in their comfort, the more people will die in the meatgrinder of capitalism, starting with the most vulnerable — like Gazans, like Congolese, like indigenous Sudanese, like the victims of climate disasters in places this empire has drained of resources, like street homeless migrants in the good old US of A. begging the democratic party for crumbs might keep you alive for longer, but it will only make others die faster. to save not only individual lives but entire cultures, we need to move against the empire, not with it.

you are not talking about taking concrete action that would materially move us closer to liberation for anyone. you're talking about rewarding genociders with promotions. you are talking about making sure the party that orchestrated the extermination phase of the Palestinian genocide still get seats in congress. that's not good. like, idk what else to say at this point. I don't like to rely on the cliche of "the right side of history," because I think we should keep our eyes on what's happening now, and because as a historian I know my field is not immune to genocide denial/minimization. but I can't imagine that decent people in the future will look kindly on those who voted for a genocider and claimed they did it for the sake of the victims. please zoom out from your myopic pov and see how depraved your attitude looks.

"US presidential candidate Kamala Harris has denied she considers Israel's assault on Gaza as a genocide, after she appeared to back this view during a speech over the weekend, leading to a massive Israeli backlash. Harris's campaign responded to Israeli criticism over her perceived backing for a comment made by a pro-Palestine activist over the weekend about the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 'That is not the view of the Biden administration or the Vice President,' a Harris aide told The Jerusalem Post."

that was literally a gaffe that she had to immediately disavow. you're grasping at straws to comfort yourself about your decision to vote for a genocider.

"how on earth is removing trump not the obvious choice"? that's what the op is about.

it's patently absurd to say that Trump would be worse for Palestinians because he wants to eradicate them, when Harris is eradicating them right now. right now. it does not get worse than what's happening in Gaza today, now, as I write this and as you read it.

please listen to what Gazans have to say about this.

when both candidates are genocidal, we must turn to actions other than voting for and ever-so-gently "pushing" these genocidal politicians. it's not credible to me that most Harris voters would take any substantive action to "hold her accountable" after the election, when you failed to even threaten to withhold your votes, which is the most basic and easy way to pressure an elected official. it's our responsibility as human beings to do whatever it takes to stop this as quickly as possible, and I don't understand wtf you're waiting for

looking back on how liberal political analysts talked about donald trump during his 2016 campaign, I notice two very important insights that have vanished from the conversation this time around.

1: the dire warnings about the rise of fascism were really centered on trump's followers, not the man himself. what concerned scholars of fascism in particular was that the already well-established neonazi presence in the US was openly rallying around a presidential candidate. trump's campaign emboldened neonazis, but the neonazis were already there — this is why we saw an astronomical rise in hate crimes against many marginalized groups during trump's campaign, before he was elected. trump himself was understood as an opportunist riding the wave of rising fascist sentiment — the wave itself was a bigger concern than the surfer. trump was replaceable. liberals now seem to have forgotten that trump's followers won't disappear if harris wins. the heritage foundation (originators of 'project 2025,' blue maga's favorite boogeyman) won't disappear if harris wins. extreme right politicians — many of whom I would argue are even further right than trump, and more embedded in the establishment — won't disappear. even if you mistakenly see the republican party as the sole provenance of usamerican fascism, republicans won't disappear if harris is elected.

2: the people centered in the crosshairs of trump's agenda were migrants and asylum seekers; chiefly those from south of the US border and from majority muslim countries. the intensified demonization of these groups led analysts to draw parallels with fascist parties that were on the rise in europe. hatred of migrants and muslims is indisputably the primary driver of 21st century fascism, from the UK to India. so tell me why the conversation in the US has shifted to revolve around white trans people? yes, trump supporters are obviously transphobic, but you have to trace this particular manifestation of transphobia to its source, which still comes down to white supremacy and anti-migrant sentiment. when you actually look at the way fascists talk about trans people, it all comes back to the idea that hostile foreign elements invading the country have degraded white christian values. trans people of color have already been targeted for a long time, because we're seen as a sort of vanguard of non-white perversion; this isn't new to us. white trans people are now experiencing increased persecution because transness is seen as infiltrating white families/communities and corrupting their whiteness. I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about the rise of transphobic policies; of course we should. what disturbs me is that anti-migrant sentiment has been shunted to the sidelines of discussions of 'trumpism,' when it is still very much the center of his platform. and that's the part of his platform that the harris campaign has adopted to try and pull voters from him! that's the part of the republican platform that the biden administration advanced with the excuse of 'reaching across the aisle.' and what more extreme manifestation of an anti-migrant anti-muslim platform is there than committing genocide in gaza and then refusing to let gazan asylum seekers (or even gazans with US citizenship!) into the US?

the entire US government, red and blue, is unified around the anti-migrant, white supremacist crux of so-called 'trumpism.' large swathes of the american public, whether they vote red or blue, are enthusiastic about genocidal foreign and domestic policies. none of this stops when trump is gone

[quakerjoe]

"Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?"

Chris O'Leary:

Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that 1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and 2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethicaly and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than I may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been? "

[kokujin-josei-simmer]

THIS IS A LONG POST NOT RELATED TO THE SIMS, SORRY BUT I JUST NEED AN OUTLET. THIS POST IS ABOUT JAPAN.

1st picture is of Norihisa Tamura, Japan’s Minister of Health, Labor & Welfare on tv with no mask and what’s supposed to be a face shield. That man went on national TV looking that ridiculous.

The other photo is in Kabukicho, Tokyo after 8PM...when all the bars/restaurants are supposed to close but 40% of them are ignoring the request (yes, the government keeps asking them to close because the law limits them) mainly because they can’t afford to close.

More about that here:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210817/p2a/00m/0na/023000c

And the last picture is rush hour in Tokyo, ALL of those people are getting on/off the train and all during Tokyo’s 4th (yes FOUR) State of Emergency. The pictures highlight the incompetence of Japan’s leaders & the slow/ineffective measures they’ve taken to fight the spread of the virus. Allowing The Olympics to go forward was pretty much the point of no return *the 2 photos of the crowds were taken last month, Aug 2021*

I’m talking about Japan because my bf is leaving soon (Saturday) to visit Japan. 

Don’t mistake this post for any sort of travel advice: don’t try to book a trip there if you have no business going there, besides...you’ll be banned from entering the country. Even folks who have business in Japan (foreign students/employees who already have their visas) are still banned from entering the country.

He’s going back because he has a relative in the hospital whose condition was worsening (it seems their condition has slightly improved) and it’s unrelated to COVID-19. He wouldn’t jump on a plane to Japan, during a pandemic, if he had any other choice. He’s fully vaccinated and always wears a mask (double mask) when out in public.

I know a lot of weebs on here who probably think Japan is “doing well” because the numbers are much lower than the US (always the constant comparison to the US but never mind the fact that the US pop is 360M compared to Japan’s 126M) but the reality is: Japan still, to this day, doesn’t have mass testing sites meaning lower number of people are being tested daily. No lockdowns, extremely slow vaccine rollout, and they just threw out over a million doses of Moderna due to contamination.

The hospitals cannot handle the number of infections and many people have been turned away from the hospital which has lead to deadly consequences for some, like the pregnant woman who was forced to give birth at home which resulted in her newborn baby dying. A woman in her 70′s who had diabetes was denied a hospital room, she too died as a result. Now I’m just reading about the actress, Haruka Ayase, who has pneumonia due to COVID-19 yet the hospital made room for her. I’m not saying she deserved to die but Japan is clearly picking & choosing who is more important.

I think the only upside to this is the fact that my bf will have to quarantine at his parents home for 2 weeks in Osaka (not Tokyo, which is good since the biggest outbreak is of course in the largest city, Tokyo) so (hopefully) he won’t be exposed to the virus if he stays at home. Plus he has to quarantine, the government requires anyone returning to Japan to install an app that allows them to call you at home (video-calls) to verify that you are your quarantine location. I read one woman’s account, she’s a permanent resident, about how they video-called her twice in the same day: within 30 minutes actually. They most likely won’t do that to my bf because he isn’t a “scary foreigner” since quite a few Japanese folks (including racist, ultra right-wing politicians) are still lying & blaming foreigners for all the cases in Japan.

Oh and a FYI: from the folks I follow on Twitter (foreigners living in Japan), they’ve stated that lots of folks in Japan, especially Tokyo, are ignoring the State of Emergency. They continue to go out to bars, restaurants which increases the spread and the risk of infecting their loved ones at home/coworkers/classmates/etc.

It’s irritating knowing all this and reading posts from people who have no ties to Japan, don’t know anyone from Japan and can’t even be bothered to read posts from people who actually live there claiming “they defeated the virus” or still denying that it’s actually a hell of a lot worse than they’re letting on.

We can compare cities, we can compare Tokyo to NYC and see how the response to the virus has been. NYC had a lockdown, rent relief for its residents ($2.7B available but the payout has been disastrous, the new Governor is trying to speed it up), workers & students were allowed to work/attend classes from home meaning no crowded mass transit. We had mask mandates & even now NYC requires proof of vaccination to go to most places like restaurants, gyms, etc.

Tokyo is not allowing workers/students to work/attend class from home so their mass transit (a city of 13 MILLION, 37 MILLION in the metro area, quite a few more than here in NYC) is PACKED. There was no real lockdown because the government is limited in its power, they’re just now *over a year later* trying to vote to change that. I haven’t heard anything about any rent relief just the ¥100000 paid out once, that’s about $930 USD, to adults and a one-time stimulus payment to businesses that was less than $20K USD. There’s no mass testing site meaning testing throughout the country is still limited.

Tokyo set up a “lottery” the other day in Shibuya which required people to go the location to try and earn a spot for a vaccine. They could’ve had this lottery online but Japan is so behind the times they clearly didn’t think this was a problem...to have a large number of people moving around during a pandemic. Of course it was a mess and the governor of Tokyo (Koike) had the nerve to try to blame the staff for the large crowds.

My bf has to get a PCR test document (in Japanese) & it has to be SIGNED by someone at the clinic. Fortunately he’s able to get it in one day (day before his flight) but it’s just the fact that Japan is the only country in the world pulling this nonsense. If we didn’t find out about the handwritten/signed document he would’ve flew all the way there and been denied entry into the country.

He’ll be there for 3 weeks, the other positive side of this trip (other than being able to see his family/relative in the hospital & not having to be in Tokyo) is that he is, of course, picking up some stuff for me. But only if it’s safe to do so though, I don’t want him going to jam-packed stores, since he has a week to look around it should be less crowded at the stores during business hours when most people are at work/school.

My list:

Famima socks & imabari towel *I think it’s actually a handkerchief ( ファミリーマート (Family Mart) convenience store has a clothing line)

Some donuts from Mister Donut (I’m not joking, as long as there’s no cream they’ll last outside of the fridge for 2-3 days before getting stale)

Muji cotton headbands (they no longer sell them at the NYC locations)

Baton d’or (fancier alternative to Pocky, they cost almost $10 a box)

Amanatto (look up natto, it’s a candied version of that)

Some little knicknacks from Osaka like fridge magnets, he thinks a hoodie/sweater with Osaka on it might be too cheesy/touristy

Maybe Melano CC, it’s cheaper than ordering online ($11 vs $20+)

Probably some other food/snacks

Etc. - still thinking if I need/want anything else

He’s also giving me a video tour of Osaka (大阪) so I can see places like his parents town Izumi ( 和泉市) & places he used to hang out in like Amemura ( アメリカ村  - full name is Amerikamura Village) so I’m just trying to get into the positive side of this and enjoy seeing Osaka beyond G.Map.

So to wrap this up, it’s already too long but I just wanted folks to know that things aren’t so peachy in Nippon, and it won’t be for a while. Hopefully, with more people getting sick of Suga’s (Prime Minister) inaction over the pandemic they’ll be more motivated to vote out the useless, racist LDP (Liberal Democratic Party: don’t be fooled by the Democratic part, they’re quite right wing and conservative) party. He’s already suffered several embarrassing setbacks from recent elections such as an LDP candidate losing the Yokohama mayoral race to an opponent, very embarrassing since Yokohama is Suga’s hometown.

So I’m hoping for a better future for Japan (for everyone, but I’m actually hoping for the imperialist, oligarchy of the US to collapse) and for safe travels for my bf and anyone else who has to travel during this pandemic.

[revlyncox]

Democracy Is Not a State

Delivered to the Washington Ethical Society on January 10, 2021, by Lyn Cox

Congressman John Lewis reminds us what is possible when we join together, combining our collective action and sense of purpose to keep our country grounded in our best and highest ideals. His final instructions to us were to “walk with the wind,” to stay together and respond to the movement of our time in the spirit of peace and with the power of love. 

That is what is happening in Georgia. This past week, we learned that Georgia will have two new Senators. The Rev. Raphael Warnock will be the first Black Senator from the state, of which about a third of the population is Black. The congregation Rev. Warnock leads, Ebenezer Baptist Church, is the former pulpit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is also a congregation that Rep. Lewis attended. Jon Ossoff will be the first Jewish Senator from Georgia. Ossoff interned for Rep. John Lewis as a young man, after having written him a fan letter when Ossoff was 16 years old. Relationships built over years make a difference.

Regardless of political party, we can agree that democracy depends on the ability of citizens to exercise their right to vote. True democracy rests on free and fair elections, in which obstacles to the right to vote are not placed unfairly and disproportionately in front of voters from marginalized communities. The runoff election in Georgia was historic, not only because of the outcome, but because of the momentous turnout. Overcoming voter suppression was a major task, and one that grassroots organizations in Georgia have been working on for years. Multiracial democracy is a threat to white supremacy, and white supremacy has been trying to prevent the full flowering of multiracial democracy from the beginning.

Yet there is progress. Between 2018 and the November election, 800,000 new people registered to vote in Georgia. Registering and mobilizing new voters is the big story of this election, and that was achieved one conversation at a time, one knocked-on door at a time, one phone call at a time, one relationship at a time. Stacey Abrams is a strategic genius and a focused advocate, having started the New Georgia Project seven years ago and Fair Fight two years ago.

Abrams will be the first to tell you that a wide variety of leaders and grassroots organizations share the credit for voter turnout in this election. For instance, LaTosha Brown has been fighting voter suppression since 1998, and her Black Voters Matter project helped mobilize voters across the South. In a series of tweets on Friday, Abrams named 30 different grassroots organizations that coordinated their efforts to help Georgians exercise their right to vote, noting that the runoff election was a demonstration of “decades of strategy, grit, + building.”

Between Rep. Lewis’ reminder about clasping hands and moving together, and the turnout in Georgia’s runoff election, our takeaway should not be limited to admiration for the most visible leaders, candidates, and public officials. We can and should admire their good character traits and their dedication to service. We can and should thank the movement leaders who made this possible, especially Black women. But we should not elevate these officials and movement leaders to the point where we regard them as something other than human, an example too rarified for us to follow.

The lesson here is that organizing is happening all around us. Coordinated solidarity to enact structural change for liberation is part of how we help bring the full promise of multiracial democracy into being. There may well be someone like Stacey Abrams in the movements you are part of at your workplace or in your neighborhood. Let’s listen. There are definitely organizations in our own communities being led by the people who are most impacted by marginalization. We can follow the example that has been set out for us by supporting power-building and relationship-building that is already happening locally. Grassroots organizing takes a long time. It requires a lot of one-on-one conversations, very little in the way of immediate results, and broad participation. That path is available to any of us, nobody has to be a superstar to participate in repairing the soul of our nation.

We contrast the progress in building multiracial democracy in Georgia with the violent attempt to destroy multiracial democracy that happened on January 6. Because this Platform is being recorded for posterity, I feel that I have to be very clear about the events of this week; please take care of yourself if a reminder of these events is overwhelming for you. On Wednesday, at the urging of their demagogue, white supremacist insurrectionists invaded the Capitol building, threatened the safety of elected leaders and staff, looted the building, and left chaos in their wake for others to clean up, primarily janitors and facilities staff who are People of Color. They were not merely rascals ignoring the rules of orderly protest, they were an armed mob seeking to disrupt the practice of democracy. Computers were stolen, putting our national security at risk. Five people died, including an officer from the Capitol Police.

In our community, I know we are holding intense emotions about this incident. I am particularly mindful of the impact that this has on those who work for the Federal government, for whom the area around the Capitol is an everyday environment, a place full of memories and colleagues. My heart also goes out to those who live near the Capitol, who had to deal with armed white supremacists wandering the neighborhood unimpeded. To anyone who has ever been treated roughly by the Capitol Police for non-violently exercising their first amendment rights, the lack of resistance to the mob may not have been surprising, but it was yet another insult, a reminder that the level of force with which police respond to protestors is a choice. For People of Color, Queer people, Muslim people, Jewish people, immigrants, or anyone who holds an identity targeted for violence by these insurrectionists, Wednesday’s events were a chilling show of power that was precisely intended to make us feel afraid for existing as our whole selves. We cannot let that fear stop us from living fully, nor prevent us from persevering in the work of liberation.

On Wednesday night, I invited the WES community to gather by Zoom to process the day’s events, to overcome the numbness of trauma by feeling our feelings, and to lift up our shared values in a way that only a community like ours can do. It was short notice, and I apologize if you didn’t hear about it in time. Please reach out if you would like to talk to me or to a member of the Pastoral Care Associates about how you are feeling. More than twenty of you were able to attend. Just from that sample, I know that there are feelings of rage, worry, disgust, helplessness, disappointment, and confusion. There are also feelings of readiness, of curiosity about what to do next, relief about the Georgia election, and even optimism that there are long-deferred actions for repair that can take place with the new Congress. Emotions are what they are, and they will be affected by your previous experiences with oppression, trauma, and violence. Feel your feelings. Please know you don’t have to be in those feelings alone.

The violence on January 6 was designed to reinforce white supremacy. It was a reaction to the expansion of multiracial democracy, fed by the shock of racist white people that the votes of people who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color were allowed to have an impact. White people have been told since the moment Europeans arrived on this continent that the land and its abundance and the benefits of government are for ourselves, that white people own this country, and that this is unassailable no matter what happens to the bodies, voices, and lives of those who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. This worldview is gravely harmful and wrong.

The incredulity with which the insurrectionists faced the results of the 2020 election, urged on by politicians who capitalize on their racism, is rooted in the belief that only white votes are legitimate. Their invasion of the People’s House was meant to mark their territory, to show that their ownership remains primary, and that they can and will use violence to maintain that ownership. White supremacist violence as an attempt to derail multiracial democracy is not new, and it has worked before. We all have choices ahead of us to reduce the chances that this tactic will continue to work.

One avenue is to confront and dismantle white supremacy in all of the ways it shows up around us. For those who have been the targets of racism their whole lives, simply living and thriving is an act of resistance. For those of us who were socialized as white, the construction of a wall of ignorance around the machinations of white supremacy is part of how the system operates. For those of us who were raised with barriers to perceiving racism, let’s not wait another moment before removing those barriers and taking action to uproot racism.

We saw again this week how deadly white supremacy can be. It shows up in the minds and hearts of well-meaning people and in the institutional practices of well-meaning communities. It shows up in the decisions of governments from the level of homeowners associations to the U.S. Congress. It shows up in art and music and literature. We don’t have to look far to find a place to begin uprooting racism. For all of us, the outpouring of voter empowerment in Georgia reminds us that there is room for everyone in expanding multiracial democracy.

Another thing we can do is to insist that the threat of violent white supremacy is real, and that we should take it seriously. Perhaps that seems obvious after this week, but we’re already seeing efforts to humanize, sanitize, and excuse the perpetrators of destruction. News articles about insurrectionists who died emphasize their good qualities or accomplishments instead of their criminal records; an obvious departure from the media treatment of racial justice activists and those who have been murdered by police. Jokes about the perpetrators seem to imply that they are too stupid to be held responsible. Calls to understand their pain and excuse their racism rely on stereotypes that are demonstrably untrue. Exhortations to “move on” without practicing accountability reinforce the idea that harm caused by white people should be consequence-free. White supremacy is and always has been a threat to our national security and our national wellbeing, and the sooner we recognize and address that, the better.

Failing to take white supremacy seriously contributed to our vulnerability to Wednesday’s events. Racist militia groups have been allowed to grow and thrive for years when anti-racist groups have been infiltrated, sabotaged, and undermined with outrageous punishments and mysterious deaths. After the Charlottesville event where Heather Heyer was murdered, nothing happened to reduce the potential for future right-wing violence. The Capitol Police knew that the crowds planned for Wednesday were likely to be dangerous. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said:

We all were aware of the danger. Ten days ago, Maxine Waters had raised the issue of our security on a caucus call to the Speaker and asked what the plans would be. And 48 hours before, we had gotten instructions from Capitol police about all the threats: that we had to be on high alert, that we had to get to the Capitol by 9 a.m. before the protesters, that we couldn’t plan on going out, that we should have overnight bags. It was very clear, and everyone understood what the threats were.

Rep. Jayapal points out the discrepancy between what the Members of Congress were told about impending events and how the Capitol Police were prepared on the outside of the building. Whether failing to have adequate staff or backup or hard barriers was a result of underestimating the threat or of deliberate collusion or both, the lack of preparedness is a product of white supremacy.

When we recognize the enormity of the problem, we are led to work on systemic solutions. That means examining laws and policies, and the uneven application of those laws and policies. At a Symposium yesterday, award-winning peacemaker and spiritual care activist Najeeba Syeed spoke about the “myth of interpersonal peacemaking,” and how it can be a distraction and derailment of the systemic justice-making that provides the foundation for authentic, lasting peace. Trying to understand and relate to Nazis does not yield systemic change. Attempting to de-radicalize loved ones is another project, not the same thing as building multiracial democracy or expanding liberation. Professor Syeed reminded us that “Peace is not the absence of violence … Peace is the absence of injustice.”

In a week with so many low points, even as we notice the high points, it is understandable to feel disoriented. I have said before that hope is doing the next right thing, working toward a better world even when the outcome is not assured or even clear. Yet if your sense of reality was turned upside down this week, or you were overwhelmed with an experience or a reminder of trauma, maybe the next right thing is especially elusive right now. In that case, the next right thing is to take care of yourself. Drink water. Eat nourishing food. Maybe go outside at some point during the day. Talk to people who care about you. The movement will still be there when you have regained a sense of the ground underneath you. You are a precious being of worth.

Another next right thing is to check up on each other. Remember your federal employee friends. Follow up on a Caring News email. If you’re reaching out to someone who might be having a hard time, you might ask, “Is it OK if I ask how you are?” Let’s try not to make people feel obligated to re-live negative experiences if they aren’t ready. Just being present is often helpful. Even if we can’t fix anything, we can give people the option not to be alone in their grief.

If you have a little more energy and want to channel your feelings into positive actions, consider something that will have a material impact on your local community. R was telling me about Mutual Aid in Washington, DC, especially in Ward 5. For information about Mutual Aid throughout the District, check the website for Bread for the City or find them on Facebook. I also checked in with D, who is involved with Silver Spring/Takoma Park Mutual Aid. You can find them on their Wordpress site or on Facebook. If you’re involved in Mutual Aid, feel free to mention it during Community Sharing or post in the Facebook group later.

R tells me: “Mutual Aid is a non-hierarchical way for neighbors to help neighbors. Anyone can ask for any kind of assistance, and anyone can offer to help. Some roles require some training and learning codes of ethics/responsible service. It's not a particularly ‘formal’ or ‘organized’ thing - it's all hands on deck, and everyone is just doing their best.” R went on to say that there are short-term and long term roles, and those who are able can donate any time.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with dismantling white supremacy, building relationships with your neighbors both is and is not about a larger goal. Building relationships with neighbors is a primary good; it’s something that is valuable and satisfying to do for its own sake. Similarly, offering care when you can and giving people a chance to practice care when you need it are both good, full stop. Neighbors helping neighbors is a form of resistance to oppressive structures. 

In addition, neighbors who have strong bonds with each other are in a better position to advocate for their communities. If you and your neighbors are working to overcome environmental racism where you live, or redirect funding to basic human services, or update policies in the local school that have a negative impact on students of color, you will have a head start if you already know each other. This could be its whole own Platform, so I’ll pause there and just say that strong, connected, diverse local communities can be a manifestation of multiracial democracy and a home base for even more positive change.

Forming authentic relationships with our neighbors, community organizing, building power, paying attention to local issues, caring for ourselves and each other: these are some of the tools with which we will resist white supremacy and build multiracial democracy. This way is slow, and it is often hard, and it works. Growing multiracial democracy is a constant practice; Rep. Lewis reminded us that “democracy is not a state.”

When white supremacy attempts to use violence to enforce a warped and harmful vision of who we should be and how we should be together, one of our avenues for resistance is renewing our commitments to communities living into a vision of wholeness. That can mean your local mutual aid society, it can mean a project like the Food Justice Initiative, it can mean a coalition like the Washington Interfaith Network or the Congregation Action Network, it can mean a voting rights organization like Fair Fight, it can mean a community like WES. A better world is possible. There are pockets of it already living and moving among us and around us and within us. Clasping hands (figuratively, for now), traveling together with the winds of our time, let us gather our collective strength to stay grounded in a vision of the world that is possible.

May it be so.