#not only to the highest position of authority in his worlds government but also literal Godhood

[thirdtimed]

i liked parkour civ its like baby sensory videos straight to my head But it Does hurt me in the way that whenever i see someone unironically praising it for being a quote "brilliant portrayal of capitalism/dismantling of meritocracy" i wince a little (a lot) inside

[greatwyrmgold]

At time of writing, there are twenty-one fics on AO3 tagged as "Gojo Satoru/Makima (Chainsaw Man)". That's at least twenty more than there should be. Nearly one in six JJK/CSM crossovers on AO3 has those two characters hooking up.

Why?

Makima is literally an incarnation of state power, of institutional violence, of control. Gojo is metaphysically just some dude, but he's ideologically opposed to everything Makima stands for. He hates the power held by the jujutsu world's governing institutions, he supports his students in opposition to the restrictions placed on them by the powers that be. He's as much of an anarchist as he can be while still working at Jujutsu High.

Not only is Makima the epitome of everything Gojo wants to destroy, Gojo is the apotheosis of everything Makima wants to crush. If we strip away her personal desires and ambitions, Makima's core belief is that power provides security. She believes that only state violence can be justifiable. If we assume she'd accept jujutsu society's leadership as a legitimate extension of the state, Satoru Gojo is an obvious threat to the state's monopoly on violence. He's willing to work with the jujutsu higher-ups if they compromise with him, but if they didn't make those compromises he'd gladly turn against them—and there's nothing they could do to stop him.

(Obviously, if we don't accept jujutsu society leaders as an extension of the state, then all of them are threats to the state's monopoly on violence.)

Gojo is an anarchist, Makima is the power of unjust institutions. Makima is an authoritarian, Gojo is a threat to authority. I know enemies to lovers is a thing, but from Zutara to Catradora, that usually works when the enemies are enemies for personal reasons, which can be overcome with familiarity and/or personal growth.

Gojo and Makima aren't just natural enemies; each is an incarnation of what the other hates most. To overcome that natural enmity, they would need to change not just their opinion of the other person, but their core values and motivations.

Why??

To try and understand what made this ship tick, I read The Path of Monsters. At time of writing, the two fics in that series have the third-highest and highest number of kudos out of any Makima/Gojo fic on AO3. They also have tags like "Self-Indulgent" and "I Will Go Down With This Ship," so the author clearly cares a lot about Makimojo or whatever their ship is called. I doubt I could find a better explanation of why people find this ship appealing. (Even if the story also ships Makima and Gojo with Nanami, which I assume complicates things.)

Part 1, Dear hunter, starts with Makima appearing in JJK!Japan and killing some ordinary humans. Understandably, Satoru Gojo heads out to deal with this extraordinarily powerful curse user. And then they...flirt, I think? I'm not an expert on flirting, but it's a pretty casual conversation. Definitely not how Gojo normally talks to dangerous mass murderers. Makima's inner monologue says she's annoyed by Gojo's fearlessness and confidence and stuff, but she still reacts pretty positively to him. Not even "she realizes her devil powers don't work and then acts nice," she doesn't even try anything.

Then Nanami shows up, because he's the one who was assigned to deal with Makima. Nanami points this out, Gojo said that she looked strong. Makima spends a lot of time in chapter 3 ruminating on the differences between JJK's power system and the one she's familiar with. A little more flirting passes, and that's all of Dear hunter published thus far.

I have no idea why the author thinks these two would find each other appealing, or why the author finds the idea of them dating appealing. They don't talk about anything beyond their immediate circumstances. I'm not exactly a romance expert, but the only parts of their conversation which seem relevant to attraction are...Gojo calls Makima pretty and demonstrates that he's been paying attention to her, Makima chooses to reveal some personal information (her name), and I think she's framed as liking Gojo's irreverant/childish attitude? I might be reading too much into that.

Part 2, This is serious, appears to take place after Gojo and Makima hook up. I say this both because of its blurb and because the first line is Yuju proclaiming that Gojo has a girlfriend. He and Nobara are gossipping about that when Gojo and Makima show up.

They barely talk about what they like in each other (Makima explicitly says they aren't each other's type), but the vibes are clearer. Gojo is irreverent and silly, Makima is serious. Makima is dangerous, but Gojo can keep her in check. I think Makima finds Gojo surprising or unexpected? And she likes his eyes. And Maki thinks Makima thinks of Gojo as being inhuman.

Still no idea what Gojo sees in Makima, though. I could make a decent argument that he's only pretending to date her, and just wants to keep her close enough that he can stop her from trying anything.

If Saint_of_the_Moon happens to see this post and wants to explain what is going on, I'd appreciate it. But I'm not holding my breath.

Why?!?

I mentioned that This is serious and Dear hunter had the most and third-most kudos in the tag. The Conundrum of Courting a Rubik comes in second. And the next few after that are explicit smut, so I'm happy to end my research after this.

(If you like smut, more power to you, but I personally don't like it.)

Anyways, the story starts with Makima being sent into the prison dimension with Gojo. Their first words are flirty (I think), but once Gojo explains their situation, it doesn't take long for Makima to casually suggest killing Gojo to get out. She wants to intimidate him, but Gojo just says "Try it."

I like this. It feels more in-character than most of Dear hunter, that's for sure. Neither Makima nor Gojo seem like the kind of fightmonkey who'd casually threaten or punch other strong people they meet, that bit feels a little rushed, but it's a pretty small issue next to how each of them seem like they're trying to get a sense of the other. Giving them a shared goal (instead of Makima asploding some heads and Gojo showing up) also helps.

The text makes Makima's opinion of Gojo unambiguous. He's interesting, powerful, unpredictable. A challenge. I still don't think a relationship between them would work, but I can start to see why someone else might think it would.

And luckily for me, chapter 2 switches to Gojo's point of view. It starts by plainly stating what Gojo thinks of Makima at this point: Convenient and fascinating.

Their next round of flirting is mixed with Makima trying to figure out where she's been trapped, followed by desperately trying to figure out how they could escape, and then bored conversation. And their conversations are interesting. I don't know how to describe it without just summarizing each individual conversation. The first turning point is when Makima gets Gojo to admit he's a murderer, too.

The story kinda incidentally brushes against the core philosophical divide between Makima and Gojo, but it doesn't really resolve anything. Makima explained a watered-down version of her side of that divide, and Gojo comes up with an unconvincing response. Yeah, actions matter more than essence, but her actions are pretty fuckin' heinous, in ways you would hate if you knew about them! If this is a relationship, it's in trouble once they learn more about each other.

WHY?!?

I still don't understand why anyone thinks Makima and Gojo would make a cute couple. But I think I've started to understand why people would like writing them once they decide to do that. And I guess that's something. It's just not a "why".

[vickyvicarious]

I was thinking about the whole "how do people not know that Eliot Spencer worked with Damien Moreau" thing again today, and... I think that actually, it makes perfect sense that they don't.

It all comes down to the type of person Damien Moreau is, and the type of organization he runs.

(under a cut for length. the very last paragraph has mild Redemption spoilers but nowhere else does.)

Think about it. What do we know about Moreau?

He runs a very tight ship. He has very clear procedures in place to leave no evidence or witnesses behind. He is always the one in control and it's an absolute dictatorship where he is always the most important person in the room. Everyone else is either an asset or a liability; they are literally defined by how they relate to Moreau.

If you are an enemy of Moreau and he sends people to kill you, those people aren't getting individual backstories. It doesn't matter who they are, all that matters is that they work for Moreau. They are representatives of him and you know they will do whatever he says. There's no individual appeal to be made here. As far as you're concerned you're dealing with Moreau.

Letting Eliot Spencer's name spread around isn't actually that helpful to Moreau, because it diverts the attention from him. Even in the sense of "holy shit, he's got the Eliot Spencer obeying his every order" it still diverts attention. It's impressive yeah, but it's not a unified front. He wants it to be a homogenous mass where anyone or anything could turn against you. If you displease Moreau, you don't know who is coming after you, but you know someone is, and you know you can't get away.

And all that is assuming you know Moreau's name in the first place. He's so particular about his layers of privacy and deniability. He is so careful who he works with. He deals with only the more important people, but he does that himself. So either you don't know who Moreau is at all, or you know he's the only one from his organization who really matters.

(Also, think about Eliot leaving. If he's widely known, this is a clue to other people that Eliot Spencer working on his own means something has changed. Moreau let someone go? Is there a weakness to exploit there? People would wonder. However, if he's not widely known there is no danger as long as Eliot doesn't reveal his past relationship with Moreau. It makes complete sense with his "I never told anyone about you" line, because people wouldn't know unless Eliot told them. It would have to be a deliberate act of betrayal, versus him staying quiet and respecting Moreau's generosity in letting him leave by keeping that unusual behavior a secret.)

I'm not saying there's no one who recognizes Eliot. But his name is not really widely known the way we see in canon. At best he might be known as the one guy who hunts down the hardest prey, the reason you really can never get away. But there's also evidence to be had that Eliot served a role like Chapman (I mean, he's basically labelled Eliot's replacement). Chapman doesn't seem to be someone the rest of the team knew. He's not identified as a threat or a possible in or anything; the only person they ever talk about is Moreau himself, and maybe a few major subordinates of his who run entire sub-organizations. Chapman, from the outside, is just yet another killer working for Moreau, alongside a whole bunch of others.

Now. Internally, it's a different matter.

Inside the organization, there are obviously grudges. There's a clear hierarchy and Eliot's name very clearly holds weight. I think this fits perfectly with how tight a ship Moreau runs and how careful he is about who he works with. From the outside, all people see is Moreau and his vast army or whatever, but on the inside there are absolutely rising stars, commanders, people who are closer to Moreau and thus more respected, etc.

Chapman seems to serve as a combo of commander to all the rest of the goons, Moreau's personal head of security/assassination, but also someone who still goes and gets his hands dirty for the important jobs. He spends a good bit of time around Moreau, but to an outsider who sees him standing there during a meeting he's just another suit who could kill them. Security. Internally, he's clearly someone who fought his way up to this position; probably wanted it for a long time but couldn't get it because that was Eliot's spot.

Inside the organization, Eliot Spencer's name is an Moreau-access pass, even years after he's successfully left. Highest clearance, he's a big deal. They don't know his face but they all know his name. I think this fits perfectly with the kind of pitting people against one another games Moreau plays. There are intense rivalries and those who get close to the boss are respected and feared. There's the 'Moreau's dog' angle absolutely there, but it's just kept to an internal level. It's much more useful for keeping other subordinates in line to know that Eliot Spencer will come after you if you displease Moreau, because by virtue of working for him the usual approach of a vast invisible army already wouldn't work. They know who works for Moreau, it's not going to be a surprise. It's much better for them to have a living boogeyman, someone they all know is much better than they are, to fear.

And again, in the higher levels, other people like Chapman get to focus all their irritation on Eliot rather than on Moreau himself. He's trusted more, he gets all the best jobs, I could do it if he weren't in the way... Moreau's like an abusive parent pitting his children against one another so they can't see their real enemy is the father. He probably encouraged a certain amount of infighting, and doled out his favor juuuust enough to everyone to keep them wanting his approval enough to work together, even as they hated one another. In that sense, even letting Eliot leave unmolested is a bonus for Moreau; all the people left behind can still see him as this unattainable goal of being close to Moreau, this gold standard of someone trusted enough to get unusual leeway. And look at what he did, he threw that trust away and now Moreau doesn't trust us as much anymore - the blame still gets thrown on Eliot even after he's gone.

.

So really, I think Eliot Spencer is known in the criminal world first and foremost as a retrieval specialist. He made his name after leaving Moreau.

He was well known in certain circles before then, of course, but those were generally military or spies. Government. They still did awful stuff but it was on the legal side of things, or at least supposed to be. The vast majority of criminals aren't going to know individual soldiers by name no matter how good they are, unless they hold a more public authority/rank.

And when he was with Moreau, he was just another faceless thug. More deadly than the rest, sure, but they were all still deadly enough to get the job done, so if you're dead either way the word about this one guy isn't gonna spread. Internally, his notoriety was tremendous, but Moreau would not want that to get out, so it wouldn't.

Eliot Spencer first starts to become really famous as a lone wolf retrieval expert. He is known by that, first and foremost. Maybe everyone knows basic facts, like that he was in the military or he worked as an assassin before moving into retrieval, but no real details. Certain groups know him as a highly-trained soldier (but if they can still get him to work for them on occasion, as we know they do, publicizing how large of a role he held/holds there is a link they don't want. plausible deniability is key) or as Moreau's dog (but advertising that outside the closest circles of the organization is actively discouraged) but the word doesn't really spread about those.

Then Eliot is linked to Leverage. And maybe after they take Moreau down and his empire collapses, more rumors spread that he used to work for Moreau, he turned against him and actually took him down. And when Eliot finally cuts ties with the military and no longer accepts odd jobs from them, maybe it's a little easier for those rumors to spread too, although I imagine they still wouldn't want details getting out so it'd be less likely.

.

By the time we get to Redemption, Eliot's reputation is almost entirely linked to his work with Leverage. Once he reaches this level of fame, then of course more people are going to dig into his background before this. But at this point he's become much more of a ghost; you can't find information on him anywhere online, but he regularly shows up and is a threat to a lot of people especially in security. It makes sense that they pay more attention to him now. There's no one in the government trying to protect him enough to keep him operational anymore, since he doesn't work with them, so all levels of law enforcement can freely go after him. He's not just doing jobs for whoever hires him, he's going off on his own and attacking criminals left and right, so the underworld is less likely to ignore him. And he specifically is an ongoing threat/embarrassment to a lot of security teams, so the business/security world wants to know him too. RIZ knows that given the kind of people they protect, there's a good chance this monster is gonna show up and kick their ass, so they make it a point to try and know who he is.

[theculturedmarxist]

By Gary Brecher.Republished from the Radio War Nerd subscriber newsletter. Subscribe to Radio War Nerd co-hosted with Mark Ames for podcasts, newsletters and more!. Posted with THE EXILED.

There’s a gigantic, well-organized, extremely violent fascist group with tens of thousands of active members in Germany right now.

And nobody notices.

You’d think all the fascist-hunters would have sniffed it out by now, but it goes right by them as if these guys were invisible.

Which is odd, because this group is not trying to hide, or pretending to be harmless. They’re not shy about it, and it’s not just talk. They have quite a record. They’ve been rampaging for decades, and if anything they’re stronger now than they used to be. They’re closely linked to CIA and Nazi groups; they’re very busy beating, burning, and murdering minorities of all kinds, and boast quite openly about hating literally everyone who’s not a member of their own ethnic group and sect, even suggesting that members go on “hunting expeditions” against minorities which they’d already almost wiped out back in the 20th century.

This group recently held massive, open rallies in the cities of Germany, and it’s only in the last few years that the government has even attempted to ban the public symbols and salutes of this massive fascist group.

There’s something grotesquely comic about this. We have a swarm of fascist-spotters who’ve spent the last few decades waiting for fascism to emerge in Germany when it was marching around, shouting at the top of its lungs, beating minorities, celebrating genocide, and supporting ethnic cleansing right in front of their damn faces.

I’m talking about the Gray Wolves. And I defy anyone to find a more successful, out-front, no-kidding, massive, effective, ruthless fascist organization anywhere in the world. They’re adapting quickly, and even have their own fierce Wiki defenders.

Here are a few highlights from their long, successful career:

In 1978, Gray Wolves started pogroms against Alevi Kurds in Maras (also known as Kahramanmaras) in South-Central Anatolia.

Location is important here. Maras is due north of Aleppo across the Syrian border, NW of Kobane, and above all just up the road from Gazantiep. Gazantiep is a key city for right-wing Turkish nationalists, a city dominated not just by people who are ethnically Turkish but who identify as rightwing Turks of the most intensely nationalist kind. This kind of population lives in a state of siege, glories in that feeling, and is almost always willing to lash out against the sea of minorities they imagine surrounding them. That’s why Gazantiep keeps making the news as a nice convenient safe house for IS and their Turkish allies, some of whom killed 57 Kurds at a wedding in 2016.

It’s important to emphasize that people who are ethnically Turkish are not a bloc. Some of the bravest people on earth, languishing in the Turkish state’s prisons or buried in unmarked graves, are proudly Turkish by ancestry.

And then there are the young men who join the Gray Wolves. Those men are murderous fascists, and it’s cowardice to pretend not to see that.

Violence by these men against minorities has never stopped, but it hit its peak — more like the highest peak in a mountain-range of a graph — in 1978, before the Anglosphere had any handle on sectarian violence in the Middle East.

The target of the Gray Wolves in Maras was a double minority: Alevi Kurds. Alevi Muslims are often considered heretics by Salafists and other Sunni fundamentalists. They were massacred with impunity in Ottoman pogroms. Erdogan’s AK Party, which very much wants to revive Ottoman practice and Ottoman borders, openly considers the Alevi heretics fair game for the Gray Wolves’s death squads.

Those who were killed in 1978 were not only Alevi, but Kurds — and the Turkish state, which embraced Wilsonian ethnic nationality with a vengeance, a terrible vengeance, hates Kurds simply for being Kurds. So the Kurdish Alevi of Maras were a natural target twice-over.

The campaign against them built up for weeks, as pogroms usually do, with the unpredictable pace partly a result of working with unstable, violent mobs but also part of a strategy to terrorize the victims, who never know when things will go from bad (very bad) to even-worse.

The details of the massacre are very typical, sickening but not unusual:

Witnesses to the massacre.

Seyho Demir: “The Maras Police Chief at the time was Abdülkadir Aksu, Minister of the Interior in the last AKP government. The massacre was organised by MIT (the Turkish secret service), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Islamists together… As soon as I heard about the massacre, I went to Maras. In the morning I went to Maras State Hospital. There I met a nurse I knew…When she saw me, she was surprised: ‘Seyho, where have you come from? They are killing everyone here. They have taken at least ten lightly-wounded people from the hospital downstairs and killed them.’ This was done under the control of the head physician of the Maras State Hospital. Everyone knows that such a big massacre cannot be carried out without state involvement. In the Yörükselim neighbourhood they cut a pregnant woman open with a bayonet. They took out the eight-month foetus, shouting “Allah Allah” and hung it from an electricity pole with a hook. The pictures of that savagery were published in the newspapers that day. The lawyer Halil Güllüoglu followed the Maras massacre case. The files he had were never made public. He was killed for pursuing the case anyway. Let them make those files public, then the role of the state will become clear.”

Meryem Polat: “They started in the morning, burning all the houses, and continued into the afternoon. A child was burned in a boiler. They sacked everything. We were in the water in the cellar, above us were wooden boards. The boards were burning and falling on top of us. My house was reduced to ashes. We were eight people in the cellar; they did not see us and left.”(EZÖ/TK/AG)

All accounts agree that the massacre not only happened with state collusion but state encouragement. No one was punished. Many were, in fact, promoted, and hold high positions in Erdogan’s government today.

That’s the pattern here: the Gray Wolves as the street-fighting wing of the state. The parallel is closer to Indonesian Islamists in 1965 than the SA in 1930s Germany, but so many people have trouble taking any fascism clearly unless it can be soldered to 1930s Germany that I may as well make the analogy for, as they say in the academic biz, heuristic purposes.

The Gray Wolves ideology is very widespread and acceptable in many (not all) communities in Turkey. This leads to a lot of more or less lone-wolf killings (as it were), as when a soldier who was a member of the Gray Wolves killed a fellow soldier for being an Armenian a few years ago.

Older readers might remember the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II back in 1979.

The assassin was one Mehmet Ali Agca, a longtime member of the Gray Wolves.

He had a track record of killing leftists and other enemies on behalf of the “Idealists” (seriously, that’s what the Wolves call themselves):

“The weapon used in the Feb. 1, 1979, murder of a Turkish newspaper editor, Abdi Ipekci, for which Mr. Agca was convicted, was supplied by a member of the Idealist Clubs, according to the Turkish authorities. Other members helped Mr. Agca escape from prison. Still others prepared a false passport for him. And on the day of the killing, he went to the National Action Party offices.”

Note the familiar pattern: Ali Agca kills a leftist editor who’s annoying the Turkish state, gets caught, and manages to escape with a lot of help from Turkish intelligence.

They hardly bothered to hide their collusion in the escape. The Turkish state was killing a lot of leftists, a lot of intellectuals, a lot of minorities — the usual suspects for classic fascists like Ali Agca.

But as you older readers might recall, nobody in the media talked about Ali Agca as a Turkish fascist. He was, for Cold-War purposes, smeared as a Bulgarian agent.

The “Bulgarian connection” never made much sense, but it served the US/UK/Israel/Saudi intelligence agencies’ PR purposes. Remember, Turkey is NATO — very, very NATO.

NATO might survive the loss of many other small European states, but it could not survive losing Turkey. So the US/UK state will always side with the Turkish state and help them cover up fascist atrocities, blaming them on the Soviets until those useful patsies took their final dive.

Blaming Bulgaria rather than the obvious suspects, the Gray Wolves to which this thug Ali Agca had been murderously loyal all his life, was especially bizarre since there was an obvious sectarian motive: the Gray Wolves hate Christians, as they hate all other minorities, ethnic or religious, and make a point of staging provocations at all occasions when the remnants of what was once a huge Christian minority dare to show themselves in public.

Orthodox Christians are the Wolves’ preferred prey. They prefer not to do anything too bloody to high-profile Western targets like a pope, but when you squirt sectarian hate into weak minds and itchy trigger fingers for generations, some of the lads are going to pick the wrong victim.

Perhaps that’s what happened when Ali Agca went from NATO-approved murderer of leftists and Kurds, to shooting the Pope. We’ll never know, because it was quickly twisted into the ridiculous “Bulgaria did it” farce by the guys who enjoy a few cocktails with their opposite numbers from Ankara at all those NATO conferences.

And we’ll never know how much daily violence this massive fascist gang inflicts. Occasionally the Turkish state gets irritated enough to send a suicide bomber or two to kill Kurdish peace demonstrators, as it did in Ankara in 2015, killing 86 demonstrators and maiming a hundred more. But that state, our NATO ally, supports a whole madhouse of Arab and Turkmen jihadis as well as its own stable of disposable Gray Wolves assassins, so it may never be clear whether it was the Wolves, precisely, who pressed the detonators.

But it’s a statistical certainty that somewhere along the long line from greenlighting an attack like this and sending red-hot ball bearings splattering into the bodies of teenagers with peace banners, many of the men involved were members in good standing of the good ol’ Wolves.

Violence by the Gray Wolves is a constant in Turkey, usually unreported — especially now that Erdogan’s party has imprisoned thousands of journalists and intellectuals, and terrorized the rest into quietism or collusion. We may never know how many Kurds are murdered daily in the southeast of Anatolia, because no one who matters, in the Turkish state or its many powerful allies in the West (e.g. the Michael Flynn story) want you to know about it. It’s rare for those stories to make the news at all, but God knows you can’t forget them once you’ve read them.

In fact the Gray Wolves are going mainstream, and winning a lot of votes.

Fascism is mainstream in Turkey, getting more mainstream all the time — and has been since the violent dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Gray Wolves have quite a pedigree, a classic fascist genealogy.

Fascism is often strongest in the ruins of a defeated empire, and that was the situation in the former Ottoman Empire in the 1920s. The Empire had once ruled from Central Europe to Iraq, flowing and ebbing over the centuries (with a peak in the 16th century). At its peak, it was a fearsome conquering force.

There’s a great novel by the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare detailing the unstoppable waves of special forces that the Empire could unleash on strongpoints that held out against conquest.

The Ottomans took a long time to fall from that 16th c. peak. They were still around, partly because Britain and France always supported them against the bogeyman of the late Victorian Era, the Russian Threat.

Propped up by the two big powers of Europe, the Empire managed to survive a coup in 1908 by young officers who would go on to a career in defeat and genocide, because they guessed wrong on which side would win the oncoming Great War.

The Young Turks, as these officers were called, sided with the up-and-coming, efficient military of the neighboring empire: Germany. They guessed wrong, but not before they managed to exterminate the harmless Armenians who had recently been patronized as Turkey’s “model minority” for their docility. And this genocide went so well, so quietly, that Hitler, contemplating the genocide of the European Jews, allegedly demanded of any squeamish nay-sayers “Who remembers the Armenians?”

You get a lot of horrible echoes like that in this story. At any rate, no one cared to remember or notice the extermination of the Armenians, but the winners at Versailles were typically vengeful against the former Ottoman Empire — not by any means for wiping out the Armenians, but for being German allies, and losing.

Britain and France, now joined by the US, were as vengeful toward the former Empire as they had been lenient during its bloody final years. Ottoman rule over non-Turkish territory was erased. For a few years there was some doubt whether even Anatolia would remain a Turkish state.

Then, as most of you know, came Mustafa Kemal, soon to become Kemal Ataturk, a hero of Gallipoli (a Turkish/Ottoman victory that stood out proudly in the great defeat).

Ataturk was a typical elite young officer of the early 20th c. Those were very dangerous people, those young officers. Often impressive individuals, but completely ruthless and immensely fond of violence. That goes for all of them, right across the Continent — Hell, right across the world.

Ataturk formed a nucleus of former officers from the Great War. (Again, the international echoes are clear enough; suffice to say that these guys were the most dangerous, formidable demographic in a few generations, perhaps since the emergence of the Napoleonic elite.) They fought well, and then they went about making Turkey a monoethnic state, without mercy.

For a while, that state was professedly secular, but since it had already killed or driven out most religious minorities, the monoethnic state became, under the AK party, avowedly mono-sectarian as well.

The current chant of the Wolves many, many supporters is “My heart is Turkish and my soul is Muslim!” You must be both: ethnically Turkish and orthodox, Sunni Muslim as well. No mercy for anyone who fails either test, which means that a lot of Kurds, a lot of Alevis, a lot of secular Leftists, end up dead or in prison.

The evolution of the Gray Wolves is a classic fascist Genesis story, and the behavior of its hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of supporters is classic fascist violence. Why don’t more people notice that?

I hate to speculate, because the range of possible answers all boils down to cowardice, conformity, and the odd Euro-centrism one finds in the strangest places. They don’t get noticed because they’re not European, maybe? Fascism of the 1930s was European, and that’s the only kind amateurs notice? Odd, because Turkey is European enough to be the cornerstone of NATO.

This would not be the first time that the interests of what you could call the NATO Deep State aligned all too perfectly with the more gullible pockets of the Left. In fact, it’s very closely related to the phenomenon of not noticing, or trying very hard not to notice, the sectarian ultra-violence of the Syrian “rebels.” But this time, since Turkey is a NATO ally, it’s the violence of the state and its fascist proxies that is ignored. I struggle to come up with any other reason that the Gray Wolves get so little attention.

All I know is that we have a massive, ultra-violent, highly effective, classically fascist movement killing minorities every single day, and there’s an odd silence about it.

I would love to ask one of the innumerable online fascist hunters why they hunt stray curs and slink silently past the cold stare of the Gray Wolves. Perhaps it’s not so much any of the excuses I suggested above; perhaps some hunters just prefer smaller, easy prey to the real thing.

Gary Brecher is the nom de guerre-nerd of John Dolan. Buy his book The War Nerd Iliad. Hear him read his comic memoir Pleasant Hell in audiobook format.

Subscribe to the Radio War Nerd podcast & newsletter!

[ddinusa]

How I was treated in ICE Processing Center, California United States of America

I’m writing this down to reveal the situations, and how detainees being treated in immigration detention, California United States of America.

Now it’s year 2020, the whole world still panicky of the pandemic of COVID- 19 (Corona virus), and America has the highest numbers of positive cases and death toll in the world, the numbers still going up. Even in this extreme pandemic time, tons of detainees from immigration detention still being deported with potentially carrying the deadly virus to other countries. And this will put the whole world in risk of deadly virus spreading even worse since detainees might not get sufficient and complete medical care for prevention/cure the deadly virus.

 Air port

       My story stared form LAX airport where I was landed in Feb, year 2020.

I was holding a traveling visa (B2) which was officially issued by American government, so I could go to California again to stay with my partner who I have been dating since year 2018, and planning to get married. Year 2020, this is the year that many Asians had been discriminated in America since COVID-19 pandemic.

And yes, I was one of them being discriminated in the airport when I landed, then CBP used lots of excuses to reject my permission entry, even I was holding a valid visa which was being revoked at the airport on the same day I landed, see figure 1.

(Figure 1- Contents in the figure: Expiration Date XX JUN2023)

Nightmares started right after CBP questioned me. There were always security reasons for CBP to do things. Body- searching, phone checking, personal belongs checking, loosing shoelaces…..etc. I was panic for not getting any help since all my electrical devices and phones were all being taken away. I couldn’t call my partner, nor my families. There’s no way I could contact anyone; I was hopeless, literally a hopeless foreigner in a foreign country along all by myself.

I didn’t know if my rights have being violated for doing what CBP did since I knew nothing about the laws here in America. Maybe I didn’t have the right to contact anyone or lawyers; or maybe this was good for CBP to do what they want to do without obstruction. I really had no idea what’s right or what is wrong, and was really panicky for being in that situation first time in my life.

 After being held in the airport for one night without any of my personal belongs with me, ICE came to bring me to the immigration detention (ICE Processing Center) within 24 hours after CBP reported. They hand-cuffed me on our way to the detention, and that was my very first time being hand-cuffed.

Yes, exactly like shows you watch on TV or Netflix. Metals on my hands, ankles, and metal chain attached to my handcuffs too.

When we arrived to the detention, the detention facility staffs came out to take me in, and the very first word they said was “Really!?”.

Yeah, I bet that’s because my Asian race has SUPRPISED them a lot in the time of COVID-19 outbreak. ICE and I had been waited outside for few hours before the detention made a decision of taking me in or not, I guess, that’s why it’s taking hours waiting.

I was taken in after waiting, then, what waited for me next was intake procedure.

  14 days quarantine

The facility has 2 buildings, WEST and EAST to detain all detainees. I was assigned to live in the WEST at the beginning (then being transferred to East because of COVID-19 was getting worse afterwards).

The facility members put me in 14 days quarantine not because I was not in America for 14 days; they put me in 14 days quarantine because they assumed that I might carry the deadly virus from the country I came from. And they assumed that I came from China without confirming my identification (because I am Asian). The medical records showed that I came from China, the country I never been to, nor a citizen, nor a permanent resident, not even a traveler. That is racial discrimination, real racial discrimination. I AM NOT FROM CHINA, 100% POSITIVE.

See the description from the facility as attached figure 2.

(Figure 2- Contents in the figure: Rule out COVID19 virus- Patient has been in infirmary since February 27, 2020, as he comes from a region of China Last date in China 2/26/20. Per patient he arrived 2/26/20 and spent the night at the airport. He will remain quarantine to rule out for COVID19. Patient denies cough and stated he feels well. No fevers since arriving, denies chills, or body aches. Reports he is in good health and takes no medications. Exam- Afebrile, non-toxic, Lungs CTAB. Heart sounds RRR w/o murmur, no sweating, no cough. Plan- Continue on airborne isolation for a total of 14 days. Patient to be assessed daily for changes in health status. )

I was put in quarantine for 14 days immediately to make sure to rule out potential COVID- 19 virus as soon as I was finished the intake procedure. Oh, and the RN (Registered nurse) asked about my physical characteristics when I was in the intake procedure. To be honest, I was confused why they need to record my body characteristics, and the worst scenario cases that I could think of was that….. once my head’s being cut off in some bad situations, they could recognize who I was by my body characteristics. (Really scary, huh, because I couldn’t find a better way to explain why they need my body characteristics.)

In the 14 days quarantine, I was in a small room without TV, nor books or anything to entertain myself, basically only a rack that I could sleep on. And lights which never been turned off 24/7.

And there’s one thing I was really worried.

The air was circulated to other isolation rooms, which have been used as quarantine and discipline, since I could hear other detainees shouting through the air tunnel in my isolation room. If there was one detainee had the deadly virus, the deadly virus will be circulated with air and get into other isolation rooms, then spread to everyone in the facility. Since the isolation rooms are for quarantine and for discipline, too; detainees in discipline punishment might get infected by other sick detainees next door (if the next door detainees are sick and being quarantined).

(Figure 3- Layout of Isolation room where I was staying for 14 days quarantine)

The facility staff told me I couldn’t go out, but I could borrow a tablet or a phone to contact families or friends, but it was not free. I had to pay with my money I bought with me.

So I borrowed a phone, but I didn’t have my partner’s phone number in my head. I asked if I could get my partner’s number in my cellphone, but my request was denied, so I authorized them to reach my phone or bring my phone to me, but still a NO to me. So basically I couldn’t contact anyone even I was offered the opportunity and equipment to call.

Oh, by the way, I had asked 3 staffs for toothbrush and toothpaste since I was not given any, and finally, a lady officer brought me some. I really appreciated for her help since she was the only one among them 3 whom I asked; she brought me not only lotions, floss, toothbrush and toothpaste, but also brought me HUMAN LIFE back.

Finally, I reached my families, but I didn’t tell them I was in detention; I didn’t want my families in my country to worry about me.

After about 2 days later, my friend, J who’s from Georgia USA found me, so J called the detention to leave his number to the staff, so I could contact him once the staff gave me his number. I was busted into tears when I reached him after several calls since the staff wrote his numbers wrong, or maybe J said it wrong. (I had to try many times before I could reach him.) Then I got my partner’s number by asking J to contact my partner on my Facebook’s friend list.

And about the tablet, it charged USD$0.05 per second if I wanted to play candy crush or watch old shows. Of course the phones too (the charge depends on where I called), every single phone call I made cost the money I brought with me.

The facility offered me 3 meals a day. If I was hungry, I either went sleep or drank water which came from the sink tap when I was in quarantine.

I sang to sing to myself, talked to myself, tried to sleep as much as I could to get this 14 days done.

 Dorm with other detainees (West building)

Finally, after 14 days quarantine, I had people to talk to, or to order commissary food to not get hungry since the meals were not very likable.

About the kitchen food, there’s a menu so we detainees got to know what food we getting. But, sometimes, something missing; for example, there were 6 items on the menu, then there were only 5 items when we got our plates, sometimes ketchup missing, sometimes dressing, sometimes something else.

If a pack of ketchup is 5 cents, then few thousand ketchup will save the facility some money; or just kitchen people simply forgot to serve them.

These were the dishes that appeared the most on the menu, turkey slices, beef and beans burritos without beef, fruits from cans, sloppy joe, or sausages…etc. So commissary was the only option we could get food beside 3 meals, but if detainees didn’t have money to order commissary, detainees couldn’t shop commissary. Detainees could either apply 1 dollar job (maximum $1 a day.), or trade with other detainees with something else.

About the water, we were offered drinking water in Home Depot 5 gal. orange water coolers. Some detainees drank the water from the tap, instead of water from coolers since all the officers didn’t drink the water from the cooler; every officer brought their own water.

BTW, I didn’t have much sexual drive, nor physical erection since I got into the detention, so I asked other detainees, and they all had the same situations. We all figured that something has been added in our food or water. Even now I’ve been deported for a month, my sexual drive still not that high, compared to the times before being detained in detention.

About the shower water, every detainee sees everyone naked in the shower since there were no doors, just 6 chambers.

And my skin was dry and itchy after shower. I used to showered twice a day, but other EXPERT detainees told me to shower maximum one time a day since the water might be added with chemicals to reduce the mold in the shower chambers. (What they said made sense since there were only 6 shower rooms, and hundreds of people are using them every single day; there were no ways to find out what other detainees said was true or not, so I chose to listen to them to shower only one time a day.)

About the chemical spray to prevent corona virus during pandemic of COVID-19, the spray has been used over 50 times a day in the dorm. There were lots of detainees didn’t speak English, so I was helping to interpret if we spoke the same language. I remembered one time I was writing a medical request for a detainee who had unknow and persistent nose bleeding recently.

After I was deported, I knew why he had unknow and persistent nose bleeding. I read a report which showed that the spray used in the detention might cause unknow bleeding and some bad effect on animals. See the title from insider.com as attached figure 4.

(Figure 4, from insider.com - Contents in the figure: Report finds ICE detention centre is using a disinfectant over 50 times a day that causes bleeding and pain.)

About the phone calls, every phone call was being monitored. A detainee told me that ICE (or facility staff) called his cousin to confirm the relationship with the detainee, but he never provided his cousin’s number to anyone; the ICE (or facility staff) found the number by monitoring his calls, and called without asking the detainee. (I know, there are always security concerns for doing everything.)

And, my phone account has been blocked from calling legal orientation without any notification; I could still call other people, only not able to call legal orientation;

I didn’t see any or how I’ll post threats or dangers by calling legal orientation to get some helpful advise from the legal group. So I wrote a letter to DHS (Department of Homeland Security) on 17th April, 2020 to tell how my situation was, see figure 5.

(I always made another hand-writing copy for myself to all the mails I sent.)

(Figure 5- Contents in the figure: Dear sir, I’m a detainee in Adelanto California where I’ve been detaining since Feb, 27, 2020. I’m writing based on my situation and my rights might be violated in this detention: ①I have rights to appeal to BIA (Boarder of Immigration Appeals) within 30 days after immigration judge’s decision has been made, but the paper of judge’s decision shows that “No appeal is available.” It violates my right. If I haven’t had looked up information myself, I would have been taken advantages of, (since I don’t have legal representatives, nor attorneys in the whole process; I have made a few calls, but still haven’t found any free attorneys yet because I have limited finance, furthermore, the pandemic of COVID-19 makes this even more difficult.)②The judge made a false statement on the final decision. It shows that I’m subject to third-country-transit after July 16, 2019. But the fact is that both my flights were direct flights, straight from XXXXXXXXXXXX to America in 2019 and 2020. The judge didn’t ask me , nor give me a chance to confirm.

I’ll still keep waiting for more information on appealing to BIA (but I don’t know if I can make it withinh 30 days with limited info.) And also waiting for my ICE officer to reply my paper requests. I need help in anyways since I’m fighting this all alone by myself so far, and I don’t know if there will be any more advantages been taken from me. Please help, thank you.

My phone account has been blocked from calling LOP- Legal Orientation Program (844) 312- 5327 when I tried to call on April 17, 2020.)

At the same time, I tried to call legal orientation for 2 days, but still being blocked…. So I stopped calling legal orientation (19th April, 2020 was my last time trying.)

Then, I realized that my phone account was unblocked on 20th without any notification to me until I wrote a KITE (request/inquiry form) to the facility, see attached figure 6. (I think when they read my mail to DHS, and they knew about my phone blocking complain, so they unblocked my phone without telling a thing to me until I wrote a KITE to the facility.)

(Figure 6-Contents in the figure: My phone account has been blocked from calling legal orientation (844) 312-5327, when I tried to call on Apr. 17, 2020. It was not blocked before 4/17. I made few calls and it was connected.

Number was unblocked on 4/20/20.)

BTW, all the incoming/outgoing mails will be inspected, see attached figure 7.

(Figure 7- Contents in the figure: MAIL PRIVACY.

．All incoming and outgoing letters may be inspected for contraband and content.

．If you receive legal mail, the facility staff will open it in front of you and may check for contraband, but not read it.

．If you do not want your outgoing legal or special mail opened, allow facility staff to inspect the mail, but not read it, seal it in front of a staff member and clearly label it as legal mail.

．You may seal your other mail on you own and drop it in a detainee mailbox.)

DHS gave me a letter few weeks later, see attached figure 8. It said they were not taking any action on the information I provided, and I may need to consult an attorney. But I didn’t know how to find a free attorney once they blocked my phone from calling the group that I could have found free attorney since I have limited finance. (my partner had limited finance too since the family member needs some money for new knees.)

Once I got the letter from DHS, I knew there’s another “nowhere getting help” Again.

(Figure 8- Contents in the figure: After carefully reviewing the information you provided, CRCL has recorded it in our database. This will allow us to track the issues you raised in order to identify potential patterns of civil rights or civil liberties allegation within our jurisdiction. Accordingly, CRL will take no further action on the information you provided at this time. Please be advised that CRCL does not provide individuals with legal rights or remedies. Accordingly, CRCL is not able to obtain any legal remedies or damages on your behalf. Instead, we use information in correspondence like yours to find and address problems in DHS policy and its implementation. If you believe your rights have been violated, you may wish to consult an attorney. There may be time limitations that govern how quickly you need to act to protect your interests.)

About the voluntary work projects, one dollar a day, but first, I had to be selected to have the job, so I could get a one dollar job.

Interesting thing was that I couldn’t even able to afford a pack of cracker which was $1.55 for working a day, how interesting…..but the same, I still had to get the job first.

(Figure 9-Contents in the figure: 3 SNICKERS BAR $3.18, 1 CLUB CRACKERS $1.55, 2 ZC CHOC CHIP COOKIES 6 $2.20.)

About the grievance, on detainee handbook which showed that all grievance will be response back within 5 working days, see attached figure 10, but I haven’t got any of my detainee grievance forms reply back. (I wrote 2 grievance forms, see attached figure 11, 12.)

(Figure 10-Contents in the figure: GRIEVANCE PROCEDURES. A grievance is a complain about the substance or application of any written policy, regulation, or rule of the facility or the lack of the application of a policy, regulation, or rule; or a complaint about any behavior or action directed toward any detainee by staff or another detainee; or a violation of civil rights. The facility shall maintain a channel of communication between staff and detainees at all times. However, if a detainee feels a situation or issue has not been addressed to their satisfaction, they may file a grievance regarding any operational issue at any time. A response will be provided within five (5) working days of receipt of the grievance.)

(Figure 11-Contents in the figure: STATEMENT OF GRIEVANCE: (DECLARACION DE AGRAVIO.)

Please don’t move our beds/ bunks again, there is no such thing as “social distancing” when you’re trapped with a bunch of people in a space 24/7. Around 3 days ago, they changed my bed from XXXXXto XXXXX, then they changed my bed again yester from XXXXXto XXXXX again. That caused lot of inconvenience in many ways, such as form filling, paper request filling, bed/bunk calling out for work, library, paper request returns…etc. it’s really confusing because we don’t know who is being called since our bed has been changed again and again.)

(Figure 12-Contents in the figure: ① Phones have been cut off for many days without any notification; don’t know how long this will be lasting. ②Self-enhancemnet, everyday newspaper has been suspended for 7 days so far; still don’t know how long this will be lasting. I don’t see how making phone calls, or reading newspaper could post any security issues to this facility/ detention; we are not terrorists, nor criminals.)

About our marriage request, I was deported promptly right after my partner and I both submitted all the required papers about our marriage request, see attached figure 13, 14.

(Figure 13-Contents in the figure: This is in response to your request to marry your fiancé, while you are detained at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. As part of the review process, the following information is required to consider your marriage request.

1) Are you eligible to be married?

2) Please (re) state your intent to marry.

3) Submit a statement indicating that you understand that the marriage ceremony will not be conducted if it is determined that if would present a threat to the security or orderly operation of the Adelanto ICE Processing Center or to the protection of the public.

4) Submit a statement indicating that you understand that your removal from the United States, if ordered, will not be postponed to accommodate this request.)

(Figure 14-Contents in the figure: Please Specify In Detail: What’s the status of marriage request? It has been another week again, please. Officer Response: Management is reviewing your request.)

After being deported back to my country, I still don’t know if my marriage request has been approval or not; even detainee handbook shows that I will get the decision, see figure 15.

(Figure 15-Contents in the figure: MARRIAGE REQUESTS. Detainees wishing to marry while detained must submit a request to ICE staff for approval, via and ICE Detainee Request Form. The decision to approve or deny will be provided to the detainee. Facility staff cannot approve marriage requests. The detainee and family are responsible for making all arrangements, including obtaining the marriage license, any required blood test, and retaining and official to perform the marriage. Neither the facility or Ice will Participate in making the arrangements. The following guidelines will be followed:

．Ceremonies will be no longer than one hour in duration.

．Ceremonies will be held at a time that does not conflict with facility counts, court, etc.

．only four individuals will be authorized to attend a service, of which one is the official performing the service, two are witness and one guest (this does not include the spouse.)

I’m just an ordinary person, not a Nobel prize winner, nor a billionaire. We two ordinary people just wanted to build our future together and live in our little world. But I was not welcomed to get in America and we are being separated. That’s really upsetting and frustrating for us and my partners families in USA.

About sick calls, no doctors in the pandemic of COVID-19.

Detainees made sick call requesting, but there were no doctors available, so the RNs would arrange another times and wait till doctors to be available for detainees.

Before I was deported, I read from the newspaper that the facility I was staying started to have positives cases, and we had no idea if the facility had done prevention or not since we didn’t get any COVID-19 test after outbreak in the facility.

And detainees still being deported with potentially virus carrying from America to other countries.

About psychiatrist, I was traumatized.

Being separated with my families for months and months, no visitation available to see my fiancé and the families, concealing my custody from my families in my country, limited finance to afford an attorney, phone account being blocked, excessive use of force, communication being cut off because of protesting, not knowing how long to stay in custody, risking of getting COVID-19 since insufficient medical care, not being welcomed in the stats, might be deported anytime and separated with my partner……. more and more and more.

I knew I need some mental help with all these burdens on me all by myself; I was literately in hot water, so I started seeking psychologist’s help and taking pills, see figure 16.

(Figure 16-Contents in the figure: Chief Complaints: 1. Routine follow up. Patient spoke English. Patient is diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety DO and Adjustment DO with mixed anxiety and depressed mood. We discussed his concerns about recent local protests and how the communication was shut down internally, as well as lack of timely response from ICE on his request to be married. Patient reported, “I don’t know what to do – I’m following the rules, and I’m not getting anywhere.”)

I never had difficulty to be in small room/ space.

But I realized that after I was deported home, I started to feel uncomfortable while I was in a small room. I’m traumatized from what I’d been through in the detention and the airport. I’ll seek some mental help in my country later or sooner.

I’m not a terrorist, nor criminal, and I belive that lots of detainees in American immingration detentions are not either, and I was one of the detainees in the non-humanized situations.

America is a country of freedom, a counry full of human rights. After what happened to me, I’m hurt and scared. And I truly belive that im not the only one feeling this pain.

“Thank you” to American citizens who pay all the expense to the facility, based on how many days I was being detained. More days I was being detained, more the failitye being paied. (All detainees don’t know in advance how long to be detained in the detention; the decision is not on detainees.)

A truamatized, deported detainee from Californa Adelantion ICE processing center.

Year 2020, Spring/ Summer.

[newstfionline]

Sunday, June 20, 2021

Businesses, U.S. legislators fume as Canada extends travel ban (Reuters) Canada is extending a ban on non-essential travel with the United States and the rest of the world until July 21, officials said on Friday, prompting frustration from businesses and U.S. legislators. Canada is under pressure from companies and the tourism industry to ease the ban, which was imposed in March 2020 to help contain spread of the coronavirus and has been renewed on a monthly basis ever since. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood firm, saying the border would stay largely shut until 75% of Canadians had received the first of a two-dose coronavirus vaccine and 20% had been given both shots. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce—a national group that advocates for businesses—lamented what it said was Ottawa’s excessive caution.

Many Americans resuming pre-virus activities (AP) Many Americans are relaxing precautions taken during the COVID-19 pandemic and resuming everyday activities, even as some worry that coronavirus-related restrictions were hastily lifted, a new poll shows. The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that majorities of Americans who were regularly doing so before the pandemic say they are returning to bars or restaurants, traveling and attending events such as movies or sports. Andrea Moran, a 36-year-old freelance writer and mother of two boys, said she feels both relief and joy at the chance to resume “doing the little things,” such as having drinks on a restaurant patio with her husband. “Honestly, I almost cried,” Moran said. “It’s such a feeling of having been through the wringer, and we’re finally starting to come out of it.” Still, 34% of Americans think restrictions in their area have been lifted too quickly, while somewhat fewer—27%—say they were not lifted quickly enough. About 4 in 10 rate the pace of reopening about right.

Voting debate roils Washington but leaves many voters cold (AP) Brenda Martinez, a 19-year-old community college student, thinks the government should help immigrant students more. Donald Huffman is worried about turning 50 next week with no work available because the federal government is delaying the pipelines he usually helps build. Binod Neupane, who just moved to Texas to research alternative fuels, wants action on climate change. The three Texas voters have little in common politically other than one thing—none considers voting and election reform, the issue that has dominated partisan debate this year, a top priority. As politicians from Austin to Washington battle over the practical aspects of how to run elections—clashing over details such as polling booth hours and the number of ballot drop boxes per county—many voters are disconnected from the fight. A passionate base of voters and activists on both sides may be intensely dialed in on the issue, but a disengaged middle is baffled at the attention.

Trust in government (The Spectator) Since 1958, the Gallup polling organization has periodically asked Americans how much they trust the federal government to do what is right. In 1958, 73 percent said ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’. Trust hit its high point in 1964, when that figure stood at 77 percent. Then it began to fall. By 1980, only 27 percent trusted the government to do what is right. That percentage rebounded to the low forties during the Reagan years, then fell to a new low, 19 percent, in 1994. It rebounded again, hitting a short-lived high of 54 percent just after 9/11. Then it plunged again, hitting another new low, 15 percent, in 2011. It has been in the 15- to 20 percent range ever since. A government that is distrusted by more than 80 percent of the citizens has a bipartisan legitimacy problem.

‘There’s no water,’ says California farm manager (Reuters) Salvador Parra, the manager of Burford Ranch in California’s Central Valley agricultural breadbasket, is worried about the lack of water. California’s worst drought since 1977 has forced Parra to leave fallow 2,000 of his 6,000 acres and dig deep for water to save the crops already planted. “There’s not very much being grown out there, just because there’s no water. There’s literally no water,” said Parra. In a good year, the ranch grows everything from garlic, onions, tomatoes and alfalfa to cotton. This year, Parra needs emergency water sources just to bring a reduced crop to harvest.

Mexico City shuts down classes again, enters higher COVID-19 risk tier (Reuters) Mexico City schools that had just gone back to in-person classes will be closed again starting Monday as the sprawling capital climbs into a higher tier of coronavirus risk, education authorities said on Saturday. Mexico City officials had loosened restrictions on gatherings in schools, hotels, stores and restaurants just two weeks ago as the dense urban zone moved into the lowest risk tier of the government's four-level "traffic light" model. But the federal Health Ministry on Friday evening put Mexico City, home to more than 9 million people, a step higher on the scale for June 21 to July 4.

Peru ex-military stir election tensions with appeal to Armed Forces to “remedy” poll (Reuters) A group of retired officers has suggested Peru’s military should refuse to recognize socialist candidate Pedro Castillo if he is declared winner of the country’s presidential election if fraud allegations are not investigated, according to a letter circulated widely on social media on Friday. Interim president Francisco Sagasti confirmed the letter, which was posted on Twitter and Facebook, arrived at the general headquarters of the armed forces, bearing the names of at least 80 retired military personnel. Friday’s letter appealed to military chiefs to “act rigorously” and “remedy” the “demonstrated irregularities” that took place during the vote or risk having an “illegal and illegitimate” commander in chief at the helm of the country. The tight election has deeply divided citizens of the world’s second-largest copper producer. Protest marches by supporters of both candidates take place almost daily in downtown Lima, calling for a swift resolution and respect for the popular will.

Drought in Brazil (Financial Times) The worst drought in almost a century has left millions of Brazilians facing water shortages and the risk of power blackouts, complicating the country’s efforts to recover from the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The agricultural centers in São Paulo state and Mato Grosso do Sul have been worse affected, after the November-March rainy season produced the lowest level of rainfall in 20 years. Water levels in the Cantareira system of reservoirs, which serves about 7.5m people in São Paulo city, dropped to below one-tenth of its capacity this year. Brazil’s mines and energy ministry has called it country’s worst drought in 91 years.

Paris’ tough suburbs (AP) Violent rivalries have long been part of the policing geography in the rotting high-rises of tough Paris-region neighborhoods where inequalities and hardship are often more common than good jobs and opportunities. But police say that fighting over turf or differences of race, religion and cultures wasn’t always as savage as it increasingly is now. “It’s more and more violent,” the police major said as he worked to reconstruct this week’s chain of events, from a clash in a pipe-smoking bar to a full-blown brawl between opposing groups from Pakistani and North African communities. “In a fight that perhaps 20 years ago would have been sorted out with fists or kicks, we now see people being run over with cars,” he said. “The population is increasingly violent. It’s no longer simply fighting. They absolutely have to win, even if that means leaving someone in agony on the floor.” Police are also increasingly the targets of violence. Most recently, the murders of two police officials in April and May—one in a stabbing, the other in a shooting during a drug bust—reinforced officers’ concerns that enforcing the law in France is an increasingly perilous profession.

Chips, Taiwan, and China (WSJ/The Wire China) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. makes almost all of the world’s most sophisticated chips, and many of the simpler ones, too. They’re in billions of products with built-in electronics, including iPhones, personal computers and cars—all without any obvious sign they came from TSMC, which does the manufacturing for better-known companies that design them, like Apple and Qualcomm. TSMC has emerged over the past several years as the world’s most important semiconductor company, with enormous influence over the global economy. With a market cap of around $550 billion, it ranks as the world’s 11th most valuable company. Its dominance leaves the world in a vulnerable position, however. As more technologies require chips of mind-boggling complexity, more are coming from this one company, on an island that’s a focal point of tensions between the U.S. and China, which claims Taiwan as its own.

Hard-line judiciary head wins Iran presidency as turnout low (AP) Iran’s hard-line judiciary chief won the country’s presidential election in a landslide victory Saturday, propelling the supreme leader’s protégé into Tehran’s highest civilian position in a vote that appeared to see the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Initial results showed Ebrahim Raisi won 17.8 million votes in the contest, dwarfing those of the race’s sole moderate candidate. However, Raisi dominated the election only after a panel under the watch of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei disqualified his strongest competition. His candidacy, and the sense the election served more as a coronation for him, sparked widespread apathy among eligible voters in the Islamic Republic, which has held up turnout as a sign of support for the theocracy since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Uganda tightening measures due to virus surge (AP) Uganda is tightening its lockdown measures to try and stem a surge in coronavirus infections in the East African country that is seeing an array of variants. The measures announced late Friday by President Yoweri Museveni include a ban on private and public transportation within and across districts, including in the capital Kampala. Only vehicles carrying cargo and those transporting the sick or essential workers are permitted to operate on the roads. The normally crowded shops in downtown Kampala have also been ordered shut. An ongoing nighttime curfew will stay in place. The new measures will last 42 days.

[eldunea]

So You Want To Run Through Preuzien?

i’ve received a fair few messages from people interested in having their muses go through prussia, with one person even being interested in making a preuzien OC, so i thought i’d do this post setting up some necessary boundaries and limitations for any character who intends to challenge the prussian league and make a name for themselves in my fakémon region. this applies primarily to muses who wish to start their prussia arcs before lotor became champion, although some of these points still apply to a certain extent even after he won the position.

without further ado…here we go. >:3

[TW: Mentions of death, animal abuse and human abuse. If these topics trigger you, do NOT have your muse do a run through pre-Lotor Preuzien.]

First Things First: Your Muse Probably Won’t Be Champion Anytime Soon

i’ll be blunt. unless your character 1) is willing to kill lotor and all of his pokémon, most of whom are sapient, 2) is willing to risk their life and the lives of all their partners in the championship battle, and 3) can also singlehandedly defeat a five-core complete forme/ragnamax zygarde that has world-ending capabilities and is comparable in power to eternamax eternatus, they don’t stand a chance. for #1 and #2, though lotor has dismantled most aspects of the fight to kill clause, he still keeps the part that says all official championship battles must be fought to the death. he does this as a deterrent to challengers--and he is not afraid to slaughter his opponents in their moments of hesitance should they express any reluctance to kill. and while he doesn’t own ragnamax zygarde, he has definitely single-handedly defeated it, as it’s how he became champion in the first place.

i want to make it clear that this doesn’t mean he’s unbeatable in every scenario. he can still be defeated in a less high-stakes setting where he isn’t allowed to kill or cripple his opponents, or destroy everything around him in a 5-mile radius. one of his big weaknesses is that ever since his championship battle in kalos against diantha he’s gotten real rusty in traditional 6v6 style battling; this is because he has spent all his time perfecting the prussian style of battle, and because if any criminals are stupidly polite enough to do a traditional 6v6 against him, his unprincipled bitch self will just bring out his entire team to gangbeat their ass. but in an all-out campaign match where he gets to use deadly force and unleash the full apocalyptic extent of his pokémons’ power, he is not going to lose to any muse who 1) is not as fully psychologically ready to shed blood as he is, 2) is not psychologically able to handle seeing their pokémon get killed or the mere thought of their pokémon being killed, OR 3) could not also pull off what he did. that is a FACT.

i do hc that lotor stops being champion eventually, but i haven’t figured out when would be a good time for lotor to lose his spot, or even whether i’d want him to lose it rather than stepping down. there are many different possibilities that can be explored and i may make different verses for them, such as the possibility that he loses/steps down from the championship some time in the near future (5 - 10 years) when he feels that his work is done/feels the pressure is too much, or the possibility that he feels his work will take literal decades and he steps down as an old man once he is satisfied that the region has finally reformed. if you are interested in lotor’s championship spot though, please know that as of writing this, i am IFFY about any plot where a muse defeats lotor and then returns prussia to its original ways. this is because despite my love of “ow the edge,” as the creator of preuzien i do want to write a happier ending for a region whose people have seen nothing but suffering. if this does end up happening, it will have to happen in a separate verse.

Be Prepared for a Long and Potentially Traumatizing Haul

the prussian league is a thirty-six-badge-long, MULTI-YEAR ordeal. there is no way around that. i hc other leagues usually take about a year to complete. the prussian league, on the other hand, takes a MINIMUM of 4 years to finish for trainers who start their journeys in preuzien, 3.5 years for trainers who have already entered the hall of fame for a foreign league, and 2.5 years for trainers who have entered the hall of fame in more than one foreign league. for some perspective on its difficulty--lotor, the guy with the 200+ IQ who beat ragnamax zygarde and stopped ragnarök during his championship battle, STILL took multiple years to complete his league challenge. can your muse clear the league in, say, half a year or a year less than the time it normally takes? yes, but i will be selective about who gets to have that honor. please don’t be “that person” and say “well my muse is capable of doing it in less than a year”--no. they can’t. why? because i said so.

another thing to note about the prussian league is its difficulty. this is part of why it takes such a long time for any trainer to get through preuzien: your muse will not have an easy time going through it, NO MATTER WHAT. yes, even if your muse has legendaries…joke’s on them, preuzien’s entire culture is geared toward beating the shit out of legendaries, and i daresay they’re damn good at it. yes, even if your muse is “really, really strong”…everyone in preuzien is also really, really strong, and not to mention, strength in preuzien is different from strength in most of the pokémon world because historically, the prussian league has put its trainers through situations--both on and off the field--approximating WAR. again, for perspective: lotor has one of the highest IQs on planet pokéarth and literally saved the world from the previous deity champion, and preuzien still had times when it PUSHED HIM PAST HIS LIMIT. so if you state that your muse is somehow able to just breeze through every gym and the national tournament like it’s nothing, that’s something i’m going to have a real hard time believing.

as to the trauma part of this section, prussia is a much friendlier place now that lotor is champion…provided you’re not an abuser or a member of a corrupt ruling class. but if your muse is entering the league pre-lotor’s championship, when the region was still under the rule of wilhelmine von hohenzollern, your muse WILL suffer some sort of trauma. there is also no way around that. if they started in preuzien, they would have started in mandatory trainers’ school, where they would have been both physically and emotionally abused by their teachers. the only ways to avoid this abuse are to 1) be a junker’s child whose parents are the rare prussian unicorns that do not support child-beating or 2) become a total kissup to the teachers and other authority figures of the school, screwing over your fellow students to save yourself, and i doubt most peoples’ muses would want to do that. if they started outside the region and came in…they still have the below section to deal with.

Your Muse Will Lose Pokémon

this is no longer a guaranteed if your muse is joining the prussian league under lotor’s rule. but in the time of wilhelmine, under the fight to kill clause, you may be ordered to kill your opponent and their pokémon for the entertainment of the crowd. and you can’t back out from this either, because if you do, you will be publicly executed for failing to provide the audience entertainment. this aspect of the fight to kill clause is no longer in effect, but when it was, it was responsible for so many young peoples’ deaths that the region’s age dependency ratio went completely out of whack. what’s more, the fight to kill clause also states that gym leaders can choose whether they wish to kill you without warning and/or your pokémon at any point during their matches, which only adds to the danger. in a region where the league literally requires you to fight for your life, it is NEARLY INCONCEIVABLE that anyone could get through this without losing at least one of their trusted partners. there is only one person in the entire history of wilhelmine prussia who managed to go through all the gyms and the prussian national tournament without losing a single one of their pokémon (and his name, by the way, is not lotor). i am going to keep it that way.

what’s more, if the brutality of the battles don’t get to you, the lack of healthcare will. preuzien in its pre-lotor days was infamous for the shortage of both human and pokémon healthcare that plagued its system. healthcare was only guaranteed to junkers, the military, and those who are deemed “victors,” aka those who fought long and hard enough to get the government’s attention and be seen as worthy. for the rest, they have to struggle through long and potentially life-ending lines at pokémon centers and doctors’ offices, all of which come from the fact that preuzien glorifies pokémon training and militarism to the point that almost every other profession is suffering a shortage in professionals and that includes healthcare. even if we go with the fanon that nurse joys are always in abundance because they’re actually ditto spawn that can be mass-produced, preuzien would deliberately make it so that there’s a lack of healthcare so they could force people to kill each other over who gets treated. so yeah. under wilhelmine, this is a region in which losing at least one pokémon is a 99.99999% certainty.

Your Muse is More Likely to Fail than Succeed

i’m gonna be straight up right now: i won’t let more than a handful of muses succeed in winning the prussian national tournament--at least, in proportion to the rest who fail. why? because if i as preuzien’s creator let too many people have a successful run through prussia, the difficulty of the league will lose its meaning. it’s not “the hardest league in the world” if every muse and their mother is capable of receiving all 18 type specialist badges, receiving all 18 other strategic badges, and clearing all four stages of the 256-person prussian national tournament. by having too many muses being able to achieve this extraordinarily difficult feat, it cheapens the accomplishment of the few who did. i might be more lenient on this for muses that enter the league after wilhelmine is deposed, seeing as the fight to kill clause is abolished and that explains a big chunk of the prussian league’s difficulty. but even so, given the unique demands that prussian-style battling foists on its trainers, they’ll be hard pressed to rise to the challenge--especially if they were not raised like most prussian trainers are to take it on.

if you want your muse to succeed, i will be tough about this. i will play devil’s advocate and come up with every single possible way in which your muse could fail, whether psychologically or strategically. even the best strategists which basically every muse seems to be can crumble and be broken by a league specifically designed to mentally shatter its participants in order to “weed out the weak.” and even the strongest-willed people which basically every muse also seems to be may lack the particular intelligence needed to handle strategic situations that require one to think less like a trainer and more like a MILITARY COMMANDER. this applies mainly to wilhelmine’s preuzien, because her league is brutal on a scale that is unseen anywhere else in the world and what’s more, it’s not afraid to play dirty. if doing a run when lotor is champion i will be less exacting, but i still want to keep the success to failure ratio low. please don’t take it personally when i start grilling like it’s a BBQ--i just want to be realistic and a hardliner about whether your muse really has what it takes. like the officials of the prussian league itself, i want to make sure that ONLY THE BEST OF THE BEST make it through. 

i will, however, say this: just because your muse fails to get to/through the prussian national tournament, doesn’t mean it’s the end for them. they could join tournaments for the badge level at which your muse stopped, or join the coordinating scene that has gained new life under lotor’s leadership. they could move on to another region and enjoy their newfound capacity to beat the shit out of almost everyone they come across, because sometimes even the people who fail in preuzien are leaps and bounds stronger than those who succeed outside it. or they could divert their efforts from trying to climb to the top, thank their lucky stars that they still have their mental health mostly intact, and start taking care of pokémon who were abused by the system. there’s still plenty to do after an unsuccessful prussian run--your character’s story will not necessarily end there, and even in prussia’s darkest days, it would not necessarily end in disaster. to sum it up, failure to complete the league is still a plot point that you may find worth exploring.

in closing, i would like to say: your muse will have it extremely rough going through prussia but honestly…the struggle is half the fun of writing it. >:3

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Statement of Diane Devine submitted to the Fraser Committee

Statement Submitted by Diane Devine to the Ohio Legislator regarding involvement in the Moon Unification Church

dated May 18, 1977

I first became involved in the Unification Movement in May of 1973 in Louisville, Kentucky, where I was indoctrinated daily for a month long period to the Divine Principle teaching of the Korean organizer, Sun Myung Moon. When I was sent to Tarrytown, New York, to attend the international training center, I was persuaded to relinquish all of my possessions to the “Family,” as the commune was called, including the use of my car (a ’70 Olds Cutlas), furniture and all personal belongings. In Tarrytown I completed the rigorous 40 day and 120 day training programs in which I was deliberately subjected to the brainwashing methods which I have described openly to the Columbus media over the past year. My objective is to expose the criminal and damaging coercive practices which are being perpetrated on 30,000 American youth in the name of “religion.” To summarize very briefly, the mind control methods used by Moon and other cult leaders:

1. Complete alienation from family, friends, and former environment.

2. Sleep and nutritional deprivation resulting in physical and mental exhaustion (about 4-5 hours sleep nightly, low protein diet of food costing less than $1.00 daily).

3. Complete lack of privacy: never being allowed to think or read alone.

4. Constant peer pressure to reinforce the conviction that the doctrine of Principle is true.

5. Group coercion to conform to standards, behavior, and attitude of the Principled life.

6. Up to 12 hours daily either in indoctrination sessions or in street fund-raising, both activities supervised by a militaristic hierarchy of authority figures.

7. Constant conditioning to self-sacrifice, work harder to purify ones self of sin, and to prove ones allegiance to Moon, who was considered the Second Messiah at this time, literally bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth, and who must be obeyed without question.

8. Any objection, question or argument being met with intimidation, humiliation, rapid re-indoctrination, instilling ideas of self-worthlessness, fear of consequences of leaving the movement, and guilt for having been concerned over own feelings rather than unanimity with the totalist system, a general mistrust of all personal thoughts and emotions, forcing oneself to deny normal reactions or impulses to gain acceptance from other group members, particularly those in authority positions.

The result of undergoing these programming techniques is that the individual identity is obliterated and replaced by a mass-identity carrying an entirely new system of moral and social values, allowing itself to be be easily manipulated by others who speak the new language and set the standards of the new morality. Existing always in a hypnotic or highly suggestible state of mind, one participates compliantly in all activities expected of him, mainly selling token objects in the street to raise money, or rehearsing lectures to be presented to new recruits. The simple, immediate goals of the Unification Church are to increase its wealth and its membership. The ultimate goals are purely political and in no way religious. The teaching of Divine Principle itself is merely a control mechanism to remould the thinking of masses of people, rendering an army of thousands usable for whatever purposes Moon dictates. It is a completely fascist system with Moon as the only decision maker (thus the famous Moon quotation “I am your brain.’’) and the highest ranking officials in the American movement all being of foreign nationality, primarily German, Dutch, French, Italian, and Japanese. Moon claims that the 30,000 membership must be maintained and that the Divine Principle must be injected into every field of American life, meaning that influential people in the government, business, and educational areas must be cultivated and brought to accept the ideology of Unification.

The Divine Principle, or Unification teaching, can be understood as a providence of restoration, whereby man will be reunited with God when he overcomes his fallen, sinful nature, lives in peace and harmony with his brother, etc., etc. (the usual cliches). Moon promises to cleanse impure blood in a marriage ceremony, thus bringing a new race to establish the foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven, which will eventually be migrated from the U.S. to Korea. The holy mission of the Blessed Family is to sacrifice individual, family, society, and nation for the sake of uniting the entire world in love and brotherhood. His followers believe his teaching to be the only solution to communication with atheistic Communist ideologies, and that each Moonie must exist for the one goal of converting the Communist world to the Unification Movement, and with all of mankind as one to be reunited with God. Moon has promised to have the knowledge of how to organize a world government and pledges himself as Lord to be the Savior to erect the World Theocracy. He describes the system as a form of Socialistic Democracy, although there is no policy research center where, as a Moonie, one might study government or learn more about the New Order. Moon, as the Lord, is entrusted to make all decisions. In bringing recognition to Moon and his teaching, his followers are instructed very carefully on how to present themselves so as to gain approval. It is commonly accepted to employ what is laughingly called “heavenly deception” to manipulate someone to think favorably about the movement, particularly if the someone is influential. Outlandish lies are told to such people, smaller lies are habitually told to everyday-people in the street to secure donations. A general disrespect for the public is fostered, and an attitude of delight in one’s ability to exploit for Unification purposes is definitely encouraged.

During my one year involvement I participated in several major programs, semi-practicing heavenly deception with pangs of conscience. I helped host the British Project in which 120 students from England and Ireland attended training sessions at Tarrytown; I worked on the publications staff and designed propagandistic literature; I designed banners for the 21-City Day of Hope Tour and participated as a Public Relations Representative in trying to persuade police officers from each city to attend Moon’s banquet and Day of Hope speeches; I participated in the Fast and Prayer for Watergate in which I was assigned to speak with certain Congressional Representatives asking them to pray for President Nixon and lobbying their support for the Office of the Presidency, as it was phrased; I was assigned the position of State Representative for the state of Kentucky, which I refused to accept, openly confiding my feelings of desperation and conviction that the movement was un-democratic and un-Christian.

In closing I want to emphasize that this is a political movement, distracting the public’s attention by presenting itself as a church, and successfully delaying any judicial action.

One year ago a group of 300 parents met with a Congressional Committee seeking investigation, but to my knowledge the issue of religion and protection by the First Amendment still enable Moon’s empire to prosper $50 million annually, and while thousands of young people continue to suffer intense psychological damage. It may be appropriate to outline some future objectives in an effort to emphasize the grave importance of initiating investigations at this time. Every Sunday morning Moonies pledge to die for Moon, martyrizing themselves at the 38th parallel in Korea in case of invasion. By 1981 Moon intends to take his followers to Moscow to hear him speak publicly. The ultimate goal is to sway an election, lobby heavily and provide Congressional aides to each office, eventually replacing the United Nations with the Unification Church.

Since 1969 [when it was founded] the Moonist front organization, the Freedom Leadership Foundation, has been has been pro-Viet Nam, pro-Cambodia, and pro-South Korea. FLF publishes a journal called The Rising Tide advocating strong military defense of Asian countries. FLF representatives are assigned to each Congressional office, and regularly sponsor dinners and fireside meetings with about 10 conservative-minded Representatives from Congress. A list of these names could be secured on request. During the first years of its existence, FLF denied its affiliation with the Unification Church, although all activities and publications produced by FLF were directly funded by the UC through the contributions raised in the Washington area by the flower and candle selling teams. FLF members were all versed in Divine Principle and the Theory of Victory over Communism. On weekends or Congressional breaks, FLF members were writing articles for The Rising Tide, or selling flowers with the UC teams. All members of UC are used interchangeably in any of the 60 front organizations, as needed or assigned by Moon. Several FLF’ers were top lecturers. The more dynamic and articulate men were chosen to represent FLF, although they all had proven themselves as obedient and easily controlled during a testing-time as UC lecturers and flower sellers. The same Principled manner of maintaining militaristic order (ie Cain-Able relationships) was exercised within FLF. In 1973 Gary Jarmin was acting president. A list of Moonies participating in FLF activities could also be secured on request. (see Alan Wood report)

Moon dictated at Tarrytown and Barrytown that it was essential for each UC Leader to know inside-and-out the three books, Divine Principle, Victory Over Communism, and Unification Thought. (quote Moon “0ur goal is to have our mind united with our body, and with this as the bullet we shall smash the world.’’ He refers to having bodily actions automatically controlled by the theoretical contents of the ideologies) Those who could memorize and pass tests on this substantial amount of material could qualify for any position within UC and would be promised a position of leadership, even future presidency of a nation. Among the respected positions in the present church are any assignment as Public Relations Representatives (openly lobbying in Congressional offices and acknowledging affiliation with UC) or as State Representative(speaking with influential persons in state government). In Moon’s quotation,” Let’s say there are 500 sons and daughters like you in each state, then we can control the government,” he is referring to 500 members who qualify as Leaders. He intends to use these members to organize campaign teams, to work within various areas of the government and business.

During the 72 and 73 US 21 city speech tours Moon asked these Leaders to lure prominent people in each city to attend his banquet and lectures. Hundreds of city and state government officials attended each presentation. Follow-up teams of PR workers were assigned to meet and cultivate those who had responded favorably, the goal being to teach them Divine Principle, or at least impress them with our dedication to purpose and enthusiasm. Offer to help them in any campaign, regardless of which party they represented. Keep records of PR activities. The object here was understood as merely becoming practiced in campaigning. Moon stated that he would decide which US presidential candidate the UC would back when the time had arrived to “put him in office.” We were not to question the choice. Moon stated that thousands of UC Blessed Couples would be migrating from the US to Korea to live communally there when the UC takes the Korean government. He frequently made references for the need for some of the older members to die at that time. He said that he, himself, would die at the age of 80, but that this would be necessary to defend Korea in war and that in so doing the US would be forced to send aide. The Sunday morning pledge which states “I will march bravely forward into the enemy camp until I have judged them completely with the weapons with which God has been defeating Satan” refers to the need to shed the blood of martyrdom to build the Heavenly Kingdom. He taught that some will live to see the Kingdom, others will not. Once the Korean government was well-secured, the plan was to assign UC members to ambassadorships in each Korean embassy throughout the world.

Regarding the selection of candidates to be assigned as first ambassadors to the new Korean government, it was announced that a Japanese Leader named Kamiyama would be able to soon run for election in Japan, with the assistance of a man already holding an official position, by the name of Kuboki. With Kamiyama in office, the doors could easily be opened in Japan. It was announced that Paul Werner, a German leader, would be the first to take an official position in Germany. A younger fellow named Dan Fefferman, an American, is being groomed by Moon to take a position in Israel. No other names were announced, but many were rumored. There was competition among the state representatives for Moon’s attention. Moon expected that each state representative serve at least a three year mission in a foreign country, forcing the Americans to become bilingual. He made international assignments arbitrarily, whether or not a person could speak a language he was expected to be able to lecture the Divine Principle in the native tongue of the country to which he was sent. State representatives from the past three years were sent to 40 countries in 1974. I believe there are now missionaries in 120 countries. Moon promised to tour the world and visit each of these countries and speak to the membership using the missionaries as interpreters. This places each foreign-UC member in a position comparable to Bo Hi Pak, or as Moon’s right hand man, at the particular time of his visitation to that country.

It was assumed from Moon’s many references to the United Nations, that we should be expecting a self-destruction which would enable the UC to proclaim itself as the only unified international organization demonstrating a peaceful standard of living. He predicted that the destruction of the UN would be the thing which would greatly cause the public’s attention to be turned to the UC. He stated that there would be worldwide economic collapse and that the UC would be prepared to offer relief and assistance to thousands of people at the centers, which would be established as hostels, and that they would convert thousands at that time and use them to advance a campaign or election of the presidential candidate chosen by Moon. All UC women are expected to know how to prepare menus, cook for, and serve at least a hundred people. In some places in California self-subsistent farms are being set up. Leaders are being assigned to business enterprises which Moon has purchased in the US dealing with high nutritional foods, particularly fish. Moon stated that at such a time of mass-hysteria in the US, it may be necessary to know martial arts as a form of self defense. He also said many times “All of the Korean businesses and American businesses will be run by the leaders and the air rifles are being made now for you,” implying at the time of disaster the UC would be armed. He promised to purchase an airline so that we could travel internationally with safety. He referred to this as a “fleet of jets.” He said that New York would be the first city to experience the depression and this is the reason he has concentrated on buying property that is cultivatable in the upper state area. He predicted that people would leave the city in a sudden outpouring, and that UC would have food stored and shelter prepared to receive them.

Diane Devine

_____________________________________________

Minions and Master

United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

Statement of Linda Anthenin to the Fraser Committee

Notarized Statement of Linda Anthenien to the Fraser Committee

Statement of Phillip Greek to the Fraser Committee

Sun Myung Moon and the United Nations

Sun Myung Moon’s theology used to control members

Sun Myung Moon: The Emperor of the Universe

Allen Tate Wood on Sun Myung Moon and the UC

“Moon’s Law: God Is Phasing Out Democracy”

[yourclonazepamgeneric-blog]

You Are Going to Do Bad Things to Children

I watch her. I watch her. Advise my sibling and sister to watch out of the other vehicle window. I think they are playing some game. I believe that they think this is a game. They're too youthful to even consider understanding. My mom is on a crucial. She is searching for my dad. She thinks he is having an unsanctioned romance. She faces him in the parking area. He says nothing. It isn't as though he doesn't have a clue where to look yet I realize that it isn't valid. Not father. Not my dad. She is shouting at Clonazepam Generic him now. I don't realize whether individuals are looking presently, taking a gander at both of them, at this scene being happened before their eyes or turning away. I pulverize my youth journal when we get at home. I am a youngster. I am injured now forever. I don't have a clue what to do. So this is my main event. I remove page by page. I fix passages. You don't see the amount I cherished this book, this diary however I don't see yet how to communicate my sentiments, my creative mind. My dad gave me this book. Consistently he has given me a journal in January. 'This is yours. This is your diary.' And I grin up at him, and with this book in my grasp I can compose anything I need. Who do I accept? I am my dad's girl. I appear as though him. I don't look anything like her, my mom. I realize she despises me. Maybe they will isolate. Maybe they will get a separation. They commute home in isolated vehicles. I am numb, struck stupid. I don't utter a word. My mom is driving excessively quick. It is not normal for her. Her dress is over her knees. Is this what love is? Human instinct is human instinct. 'Daddy,' I state later. 'I don't believe she's your perfect partner. I don't believe you're intended for one another.' But he says nothing, he just winks.

 Sex, that exchange, lovemaking for me was constantly messy. I needed to stay a virgin everlastingly, unadulterated. I needed to be a sister. I realized I must be rebuffed since the beginning, make penances, consistently sport dark, and bow when I needed to supplicate however I was not Catholic. Be that as it may, my mom set that thought on the right track out of my head. She revealed to me that there were no nuns any longer and afterward I needed to be a cleric however everyone knows how degenerate church pioneers are. I realized that I felt harmed, deprived, and forlorn even as a youngster so I discovered solace in books. In any event, when I became more established and watched films where young ladies would evacuate their pieces of clothing viewed by a stirred more seasoned man I would feel nothing. Literally nothing. Possibly it originated from adolescence. The climax in both the male and the female disturbed me possibly it originated from the way that I despised my mom who I thought had been so off-base, so inconsistent with my dad (whatever had they spoken about when he charmed her I surely don't have a clue. He was refined and taught, he had a degree and she could type thirty-five words per moment and she had a confirmation) yet I cherished my dad and venerated him. What's more, for my entire life I have needed an ideal love and not a physical love. For my entire life I have needed to be shielded from the entirety of life's tempests, other ladies, more youthful ladies, young ladies, I needed to be given a haven to compose and as a grown-up I would watch the glinting pictures of erotic entertainment quietly shouting with chuckling inside. So this is the thing that people would do to consider kids, their brilliant holy messengers, and beneficiaries to positions of authority of fixation, substance misuse and abusive behavior at home. There would be practically zero exchange. I would get either madly envious of their idiotic voices despite the fact that I knew each seemingly insignificant detail from the props to the bed was phony. For what reason would I be able? What was so amiss with me? After all they were just on-screen characters acting, doing what they were advised to do, presented, coordinated, and anticipating. I was exhausted with everything and pondered where my head was at. Of affection and sex I knew literally nothing by any stretch of the imagination. It exhausted me however not the romantic tale, not the misfortune, the reject or dismissal, the darling male or female leaving. Little skank, little prostitute, those weren't words that exhausted me, that annoyed me. What's more, as I grew up the young lady in me kicked the bucket when my mom mentioned to me what occurs right now, is said right now in the house. I grew up rapidly. Misuse will do that to you. Maltreatment on account of your mom, aunties (her sisters, her sister-in-law) the Johannesburg individuals, menaces on the play area, pompous male educators, and your first sweetheart when you are away from home, ten years more seasoned than you. Did he drive me to do things I would not like to do? It hurt. They state it generally does the first run through round. I kept in touch with him letters however I was not in affection with him. The picture I had of my folks watching two exposed young ladies swimming, kissing with tongue, feeling each astonishingly out of the water, contacting one another, finishing each other here and there, stroking their arms, their bodies. They sunbathed naked. It was the first occasion when I had seen bosoms, the curve of a lady's figure and full frontal nakedness. What's more, something within me, a little voice said that my future life as a girl who adored both her mom and father and a future life as spouse, darling and mother had not exclusively been disrupted at the end of the day decimated until the end of time. I was only a kid who ought to have been sleeping in bed dreaming. Endeavored suicide is finished with the two eyes shut. This isn't my time. No passage of white light. Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. The confession booth writers. Sylvia, Abigail the invigorated crazies. Take a gander at me. The South African repulsiveness story. A scene made of bars at the window, specialists, and therapists.

 The mental meltdown, bipolar, dysfunctional behavior, insane, crazy, lunacy isn't composed on the body except if you tattoo it on your arm with an extremely sharp edge or cutting. You can be the ideal kid yet can your mom splendidly love you in an imperfect world, in her defective world. She didn't need me with my easy merits, my stage plays and practices, my accounts, God help us, she particularly would not like to peruse my accounts. 'Leave it alongside my bed.' She said. 'I'll peruse it before I nod off.' And I did yet she had progressively significant work to do. Shower, dress, make morning meals, and go to work. 'Gracious, I'll read it later.' She said at whatever point I stood up to her about it. She was doing even considerably more significant work at that point. Watching her drama with her stockinged feet up on the couch seat, her impact points by it with her eyes half-shut, marvelous, Hitler however without the mustache and the mass of oppression. 'Kiss me.' She requested from my asthmatic sibling wearing his cowhand cap pulling his wagon around the family room. Also, I made unlimited cups of tea. Also, as I made each cup my heart would load up with trust that she would state, 'My shrewd young lady. You're growing up so quick.' But obviously she never did. We were foragers. We ate what we could discover in the kitchen and if daddy wasn't meditative he would go out and get us something to eat for dinner. My dad would cry a great deal and I would put my arm around his shoulder, scarcely arrive at it however and ask him, 'Would you like to discuss it?' yet that simply made him cry more diligently and it was much increasingly hard to make him stop. I was constantly close to the highest point of my group however there were issues, harms. They were continually battling.

 'Great night mummy. Rest tight. Sweet dreams. I love you.' No answer consequently and it skips off dividers. I am turning thirty-five verging on thirty-six. It will be my birthday in two months. Valium close by (in every case close), Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke beside my bed, Poems by Sylvia Plath Chosen via Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate. Untainted in a grown-up world. The main world where I have a place is media, that and the nearby Olympic-sized pool. Stopped up in a confined youth proceeded, sentences butchered by chuckling, hacking, a closeted assortment of books (course books, verse and short story compilations, a string of J.M. Coetzee's books line a rack, The Childhood of Jesus the most recent), obscurity, traffic fills within me that was consistently the trade. I can just nod off with a bunch of resting pills. I take long snoozes toward the evening and wake up in close murkiness. Pills. Pills. Pills. Pax. Epilizine. Eltroxin. Melatonin. Clonazepam Generic. Ativan. I have no tendency to go to Paris. Rilke abhorred it there however then again Hemingway appeared to have taken to it like water away from a duck. In any case I experience the ill effects of vertigo. For the most part individuals go to Paris since it is sentimental. Isn't the Eiffel tower sentimental? You won't get me up there. I am a masochist and become restless as damnation when I am acquainted with novel individuals and spots. It alarms me. What a snicker? Did she applaud? Is it true that she was applauding? Is it accurate to say that she is glad for the way that I am a storyteller and an artist, not a government official, not a legislator's significant other or anyone's better half so far as that is concerned and not the writer or narrative movie producer I needed to be in secondary school? At the point when she sat down in the auditorium was she pleased, was she radiating from ear to ear like the Cheshire feline. Gloom is exhausting. Be that as it may, I'm utilized to it now. Like clockwork I'm transported off for a week or so to a clinic to recuperate from psychosis, mind flights. What an outing for my conscience? I can't rest. I can't eat. My sister never drops by. She doesn't live here right now, this hellhole any longer. She lives in Johannesburg. My magnificence days are finished. I'm apprehensive they've gone dead simply like all the men throughout my life. The main thing that is waited is my continuous flow composing, my journaling and my easy chair voyaging and the individuals that I love the most on the planet kicking the bucket on me when I wouldn't dare hoping anymore disregarding me to now hit the dance floor with the bold, swim with the fishes, eat dangerous sardines on toast that have an aftertaste like salt and light. The rooms are vaporous in the house. I need to make sure to take in when I return home from the emergency clinic. There's not a lot of they can accomplish for me there but rather hang tight for the fantasies, the psychosis to pass however the a sleeping disorder remains with me, winter's unresolved issue me home. I'm a claustrophobe in the word related room. They leave m

[shenzhiguang]

Star Wars and the Real World: The Jedi in Real Life

You can learn the Ways of the Force

You can become a Jedi...

Here’s how:

A little backstory: who are the Jedi?

When we look at the Jedi, we see warrior monks, who possess superhuman abilities/powers through their practice of their cultivation and connection with the mystical universal energy field known as the Force, who live by a higher moral code, and serve to protect peace and justice in the Galaxy.

In their own words, the Jedi are ‘Keepers of the Peace’ and ‘Guardians of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy’ - universal servants, who “give without any thought of reward”. Serving all life, all beings, all souls in countless planets, stars, throughout the Galaxy, unconditionally.

What is the Force? In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “The Force is what gives a Jedi [their] power. It’s an energy field that is created by all living things... it surrounds us, and penetrates us, it binds the Galaxy together.”

If we use the definition of Jedi as being a group of warrior monks, who possess superhuman powers and abilities through their cultivation and deep connection with a universal oneness energy field, who are connected through a monastic order which has a lineage process of passing down the practices from Master to apprentice, who serve to protect peace and justice throughout the realm, who are affiliated with the government to the point of interceding in conflict of the realm, including conflict resolution and negotiations, quelling uprisings, participating in civil wars on the righteous side, participating in all-out wars on the front lines as commanders of military units, protecting the reigning leader as members of his personal guard, protecting the realm from invasion, and aiding in rebellions to overthrow the government when it falls into corruption - this description could be accurately used for the Jedi order of the Old and New Republic.

What if I told you, this description could also perfectly describe the heroes and warrior monks of Ancient China?

A long time ago, in a far away land...

In ancient times, the Zen and Dao monks would devote lifetimes of studying and practicing to develop their internal energy field, their essence, and cultivate their energy centers through deepening their connection with the universal energy field, which exists within, and connects all things in countless planets, stars, galaxies and universes - known by some as the Tao, the ‘way of all life’, oneness, by others as one’s true nature, Buddha nature, and to those in a Galaxy Far, Far Away as the Living Force.

This practice is known as Xiu Lian 修炼 . “ “Xiu” means purification of one’s soul, heart, mind and body and “lian” means practice, so Xiu Lian is purification practice. Xiu Lian is the totality of one’s spiritual journey, because the spiritual journey is a purification journey.” - Dr. & Master Zhi Gang Sha, Tao II: the Way of Healing Rejuvenation, Longevity and Immortality, page 76.

Now we will look at the term 侠 Xiá

Xia means someone who uses power to help others in need. Xia are similar to knights errant, skilled warriors who are champions of the common people, living by a higher moral code, riting injustice, protecting the helpless, defending the defenceless, fighting for righteous and meriteous causes, fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves, often against corrupt authorities. Bringing balance to the realm. As said by master Yoda , ‘A Jedi uses their powers for protection and defence - never for attack’.

They were part of a larger counterculture to mainstream society, called the ‘Jianghu’, consisting of vagrants, vagabonds, poets, musicians, merchants, disillusioned officials, martial artists, and cultivators.

‘Jiānghú’ 江湖 literally translates ‘rivers and lakes’, for members of this community travelled - rather than by conventional methods of road - secretly, by rivers and lakes. They lived by a code of ‘Xia’ which included chivalry, righteousness, justice, loyalty, truthfulness, virtue, benevolence, individualism, disregard for status, and places emphasis in repaying kindness which one has been given. Many were often inclined to a hermit-like existence.

Xia possessed some level of cultivation of their energy field, as the cultivation of ones mind, body, energy and spirit are inseparable from the study and practice of martial arts.

For those who wanted to Deepen their connection, to harness this, to further develop their skills, gain higher abilities and possess greater powers, they would ‘go to the mountain’ to study and practice in solitude as hermits (much like Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Luke did in their later years), or go to temples to study with great masters. 

These Xia who focused on developing their powers through cultivation were known as 修者 xiūzhě, 修士 xiūshì, and 修仙者 xiūxiānzhě, and were communally referred to as the 修真界 xiūzhēn jiè , meaning the cultivation world.

The Zen and Dao monks had highly advanced martial skills, dedicating their lives to study and practice, organized monastically, living in temples and passing on their learning from Master to apprentice through lineage, and occasionally making forays into the material world, interceding in internal conflict, defending the realm against invasion, participating in civil wars on the righteous side, serving as and training the personal bodyguards of the emperor, and even leading rebellions against corrupt governments.

The Zen and Tao monks were the most advanced martial artists, and the most powerful warriors. They were also the most peaceful and balanced of cultivators, from their years of dedication to study and practice, and thus the most qualified to use this power. They only used their power for service, as was mentioned earlier. In fact, they only received these powers by being in service, and having a good record of it: Take care of and provide for the whole, and the whole will take care of us. They knew the key to living a long healthy life was to give to others without considering what they would get in return. In return, they were given the ability to serve more and more. These include powers and abilities beyond our comprehension. The key to their service lay in the balance and harmonizing of their mind body and spirit through cultivation, practices, and developing the higher qualities of love, compassion, forgiveness, humility, harmony, gratitude, service, and more, granting them access to powers that would not be given to those with less self mastery, who could use them for selfish, amoral or unrighteous purposes - anything not in greater service to the whole.

The only reason they were given these powers was for service, to offer greater service to the whole, to be empowered as greater universal servants.

How to do Xiu Lian

There is an ancient saying , ‘Da Tao Zhi Jian’ meaning the great way (of all life) is extremely simple. So simple you may not believe it!

In the words of a great Tao Master, Dr. & Master Zhi Gang Sha, “If you want to know if a pear is sweet, taste it.” Why not experience it and see what you feel?

An ancient practice from around the world is mantra. A mantra is a positive message with a sustained tone that can uplift ones energetic field, one’s frequency and vibration. There have been thousands of mantras throughout humanity’s history. This is Tao Song. Tao Song is a love song to heal and transform all aspects of life. As Padawan Skywalker said, Love is ‘central to a Jedi’s life’.

This is a very powerful practice.

Moving mediation

There have been thousands of moving meditations throughout history, including tai chi, qi gong, pranic yoga, and many others. To cultivate the Living Force or life Force energy, which concentrates in centers around our bodies, known as centers of the Living Force, life Force energy centers or simply, energy centers. The purpose of these practices is to develop ones internal energy centres or fields.

“Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter,” said Master Yoda

This is the highest moving mediation I have discovered: Tao Calligraphy, which is Love Art, to heal and transform all aspects of life.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ttpcpkVmAT4

This is your first step into a larger world. I welcome you.

May the Force be with you....

[stillevann]

The 10 Most Dangerous Places to Be a Christian

January 16, 2019 by Lindy Lowry in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Stories of Persecution

The Christian persecution we read about in Scripture and history books is not a thing of the past. It still exists. Today, in the 21st century, we are living in a time when persecution against Christian believers is the highest in modern history. According to Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List—an in-depth investigative report focusing on global Christian persecution—persecution is increasing at an alarming rate. Below, we look at the world’s 10 most dangerous places to be a Christian—countries where saying “yes” to following Jesus is truly a life-or-death decision.

1. North Korea Ranks No. 1 for 18th Consecutive Year on World Watch List

For three generations, everything in this isolated country has focused on idolizing the leading Kim family. Christians are seen as hostile elements in society that must be eradicated. There was hope that new diplomatic efforts in 2018—including the 2018 Winter Olympics—would mean a lessening of pressure and violence against Christians. But so far that has not been the case. In fact, reports indicate that local authorities are increasing incentives for anyone who exposes a Christian in their community. If Christians are discovered, not only are they deported to labor camps or even killed on the spot, their families to the fourth generation share their fate as well. Communal worship is non-existent. Daring to meet other Christians for worship is a risky feat that must be done in utmost secrecy. Yet Open Doors estimates the number of Christians in North Korea to be 300,000 strong—believers who are defying the unjust regime and following Jesus.

2. Afghanistan—Where Christianity Is Not Permitted to Exist

Photo credit: IMB.ORG

Afghanistan is once again a close second behind North Korea on the 2019 World Watch List. An Islamic state by constitution, the country does not permit any faith other than Islam to exist. To convert to a faith outside Islam is tantamount to treason because it’s seen as a betrayal of family, tribe and country. Very often, there is only one possible outcome for exposed and caught Christians: death. In Afghanistan converts are considered literally insane to leave Islam. As a result, some may end up in a psychiatric hospital and have their homes destroyed. In addition to communal pressure, the security situation continues to deteriorate due to the influx of foreign militants who have pledged allegiance to ISIS. And the radical Islamic Taliban have also increased in strength; at least half of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces are either ruled or contested by the Taliban. Afghan Christians (mostly those with a Muslim background) are in hiding as much as possible.

Watch the 2019 World Watch List video

3.Christians Are High-Value Targets in Somalia

Estimates suggest that 99 percent of Somalis are Muslims, and any minority religions are heavily persecuted. The Christian community is small and under constant threat of attack. In fact, persecution of Christians almost always involves violence. Additionally, in many rural areas, Islamic militant groups like al-Shabab are de facto rulers who regard Christians with a Muslim background as high-value targets—often killed on the spot when discovered. In recent years, the situation appears to have worsened. Islamic militants have intensified their hunt for people who are Christian and in a position of leadership. An attempt to reopen a church in Hargeisa, Somaliland, failed; the government was forced to shut it down due to pressure from the local Islamic population. In the World Watch List 2019 reporting period, Christians in Somalia remained so vulnerable to attacks by Islamic militants that in the interests of security, Open Doors could publish no specific examples of persecution.

4.Believers in Libya Face Deadly Violence

After the ouster of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Libya plunged into chaos and anarchy, which has enabled various Islamic militant groups to control parts of the country. Libyan converts to Christianity face abuse and violence for their decision to follow Christ. The country is also home to many migrant workers who have been attacked, sexually assaulted and detained, which can be even worse if your Christian faith is discovered. Libyan Christians with a Muslim background face extremely violent and intense pressure from their family and the wider community to renounce their faith. Believers from other parts of the continent are also targeted by various Islamic militant groups and organized criminal groups. Few will forget the horrifying video of Egyptian workers martyred by ISIS militants on the coast of Libya. The level of violence against Christians in Libya is very high, and Christians in Libya are subjected to violent, inhumane and degrading treatment.

5.Christians in Pakistan Live With Open Discrimination and Constant Threat of Mob Attacks

Under Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws, Christians continue to live in daily fear they will be accused of blasphemy—which can carry a death sentence. The most well-known example of these laws is the case of Asia Bibi. After sitting on death row for more than 10 years, the Christian wife and mother was acquitted of blasphemy charges in October however her life is still in grave danger from radical Islamists that have gained increasing political power in the world’s sixth-largest country. For that reason, the new ruling government must maintain good diplomatic relationships with some radical groups. Christians are largely regarded as second-class citizens, and conversion to Christianity from Islam carries a great deal of risk. An estimated 700 girls and women abducted each year are often raped and then forcefully married to Muslim men in the community, usually resulting in forced conversions. While traditional, historical churches have relative freedom for worship, they are heavily monitored and have regularly been targeted for bomb attacks (for example, the Quetta attack in December 2017 on Bethel Memorial Methodist Church). In Pakistan, all Christians suffer from institutionalized discrimination. Occupations seen as low, dirty and derogatory are officially reserved for Christians. Many Christians are very poor, and some are victims of bonded labor. On the other hand, many Christians belong to Pakistan’s middle class; however, this does not save them from being marginalized or persecuted.

6.Christian Converts in Sudan Targeted for Persecution

Sudan has been ruled as an Islamic state by the authoritarian government of President al-Bashir since 1989. Under his charge, the country offers limited rights for religious minorities and places heavy restrictions on freedom of speech or press. The last year has been difficult for Christians in many ways. There have been arrests; many churches have been demolished and others are on an official list awaiting demolition. And many Christians are attacked indiscriminately in areas like the Nuba Mountains where there is an ongoing conflict between government forces and rebel groups. Christian converts from Islam are especially targeted for persecution. So to keep from being discovered, converts will often refrain from raising their children as Christians because this might attract the attention of the government and community leaders (since children might inadvertently reveal their parents’ faith).

7.Christians Imprisoned in Shipping Containers in Eritrea

Since 1993, President Afwerki has overseen an authoritarian brutal regime that rests on massive human rights violations. During the 2019 World Watch List reporting period, government security forces conducted many house-to-house raids and imprisoned hundreds of Christians in inhumane conditions, including small shipping containers in scorching heat. Protestants, in particular, face serious problems in accessing community resources, especially social services provided by the State. Christians from non-traditional church groups, such as evangelicals, face the harshest persecution. In 2018, Eritrea embraced an end to hostility with both Ethiopia and Somalia. How that agreement will play out for the situation of Christians remains to be seen. This extreme pressure and state-sanctioned violence are forcing some Christians to flee Eritrea–often called “Africa’s North Korea”–and seek asylum.

8.Believers in Yemen Especially Vulnerable in Civil War and Famine

An ongoing civil war in Yemen has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent memory, making an already difficult nation for Christians to live in even harder. The chaos of war has enabled radical groups to take control over some regions of Yemen, and they have increased persecution of Christians. Even private worship is risky in some parts of the country. Christians are suffering from the general humanitarian crisis in the country, but Yemeni Christians are additionally vulnerable since emergency relief is mostly distributed through Islamic organizations and local mosques, which are allegedly discriminating against all who are not considered to be pious Muslims. Converts to Christianity from Islam face additional persecution from family and society. In Yemen, the small church is composed mostly of Yemeni Christians with a Muslim background who must live their faith in secret. They face persecution from the authorities (including detention and interrogation), their families, and radical Islamic groups who threaten converts with death if they don’t denounce Christ and re-convert.

9.Illegal to Convert, Illegal to Preach in Iran

In this gateway to the Middle East, Christians are forbidden from sharing their faith with non-Christians. Therefore, church services in Persian, the national language, are not allowed. Converts from Islam undergo persecution from the government; if they attend an underground house church, they face the constant threat of arrest. Iranian society is governed by Islamic law, which means the rights and job possibilities for Christians are heavily restricted. The government sees them as an attempt by Western countries to undermine Islam and the Islamic regime of Iran. Leaders of groups of Christian converts have been arrested, prosecuted and have received long prison sentences for “crimes against the national security.” In December, to crack down on Christians sharing their faith, Iranian police arrested 100 Christians in one week, making a blatant statement to both Christians and Muslims. Iran is also infamous for its prisons and inhumane treatment of Christians in places like Evin Prison where well-known house church pastor Yousef Nardarkhani is serving a 10-year sentence.

10.Unprecedented Christian Persecution in India

In the world’s second most populous country, Christians saw unprecedented persecution on numerous fronts from both the State and general Hindu society. For the first time, India enters the top 10 on the World Watch List, jumping one spot from No. 11 in 2017. Home to more than a billion people, even an incremental rise in persecution yields an exponential impact. Since the current ruling party took power in 2014, Hindu extremists have fueled a crackdown on Christian house churches and have attacked believers with impunity—believing that to be Indian is to be Hindu. So any other faith is viewed as non-Indian. In rural areas, Christians were told that one church would be closed down every week because they have been “destroying” local tradition and culture by “luring” others to convert to Christianity. And it is common for Christians to be cut off from local water supplies and be denied access to government-subsidized groceries. In India, saying “yes” to Jesus has become a risky decision that costs you and your family greatly.

To read more about these countries and the remaining 40 countries on Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List, click here to see the list and download the full report. To help you pray with these believers, Open Doors has a mobile prayer app that alerts you to prayer requests from believers. Learn more about it and sign up to get regular updates delivered to your phone.

[karkkidoeswriting]

Dir’ahin: Political System

Dir’ahin: Introduction | Politics | Clothes

In my series I haven’t forgot The Bear Castle yet worldbuilding for The Bear Castle.

Dir’ahin is governed by oligarchy, but the Priestess of Moon, the monarch, holds the highest authority. Dir’ahin is still practically a feudal society and power is inherited from parents. Those who own lands and titles have the power.

Society

Dir’ahin has strict class system and possibilities to cross them are pretty slim. On the top is of course the Priestess of Moon, the surrogate of the Lady of Night. Second comes the nobles and clergy. Priestesses and priests have pretty much same rights and same amount of influence as nobles. Nobles and temples both own lands and both can take part in politics. Its actually the only way to rise in class. The best sages are elected as priestesses (and priests), usually they are nobles, but they can be even former slaves. Third class is warrior class. These are the men of noble families. Fourth class is merchants and craftsmen. Fifth and final class is peasants. Slaves are not part of class system as different laws are applied to them. In the face of law, they are practically same as property.

Dir’ahin is very matriarchal society. Even though women have generally less physical strength, they have generally more spiritual strength than men. In the harsh north, magic was only way to survive for them and men couldn’t help with their physical strength. Men may be generally stronger than women, but it doesn’t mean every man is stronger than every women, and certainly not that women are weak. The same goes for spirituality. Not every women is stronger than every men, and men are not weak with magic. However that is what Ahinians think. They think that men are weak with magic, that they are brutes, only good for fighting and violence. That is why women are in charge and men are generally just soldiers or laborers. Men’s access to education and universities are also limited as they are seen as stupid brutes.

The Clergy

The Priestess of Moon is at the same time the highest ranking noble as well as the head of clergy. Only the high priestess (or priest) of any god has the title priestess. Others are called servants of a god. Heads of a temple are called mistresses. There are no male counterparts for mistress left, as there is only one temple where there are priests tending to a god and that is the Temple of Sun. They are very closed and mystic brotherhood and a lot is not know about them from the outside. As the House of Sun has died out and merged to House of Moon, the Sun Sword is in the care of the Brotherhood of Sun.

Dir’ahin officially worships only The Moon Goddess, which is why clergy of other deities have become more like cults or secret societies, like the Brotherhood of Sun. They can still officially be called priestesses or mistresses and the worship place can be legally called temple, if they have at least one small altar for The Moon Goddess. Some don’t do that which makes them quite literally cults. Many temples do something on the side, as their influence has weakened when their followers have grew fewer. For example the clergy of Mountain God are now practically the banking system, which would make the Priestess of Mountain the head of national bank. This is possible, because temples usually own quite a lot of lands (the big ones) and can collect taxes the same as landlords.

To become a servant, one must go trough the standard education for sages. After that they can become a apprentice. They are usually apprentice for several years until they are given the title of a servant. Mistress’ role needs university education. Every temple has a council which consist of old mistresses. They elect the new mistress from those who have the appropriate education.

Five Oracles

Five Oracles are on the top of clergy, just under the rule of the Priestess. They are the most powerful sages of Dir’ahin, usually along the Priestess (but it depends as the Priestess inherits the role and is not elected, but House of Moon has strong lineage of magic). They are all Gifted, that is, they have the ability to see to the spirit world and sometimes to the future. It is not actually a requirement, but there hasn’t been an oracle that don’t have the Gift for centuries. Oracle is a position for a lifetime and new is elected once an old one dies (or becomes so old or sick they can’t continue their duties).

They are chosen by the oracles and the Priestess. They gather young girls with strong Gift to the High Temple as servants and apprentices. When a child with strong Gift is born, one or several of the oracles get a vision. And as one of the oracles dies they chose the one of the High Temples servants to become the new oracle.

Oracles’ main duty is to counsel the Priestess, train the heir and search the future. They are trusted advisers of the Priestess and have a lot of influence over her. They have a lot of collective knowledge passed trough generations of oracles and priestesses. They can also communicate with dead sometimes and use their knowledge. Searching the future means, that they daily go to the spirit world searching signs of future and interpret these signs. Their prophecies are not entirely accurate, mainly because spirit world is very hard to interpret and it’s always under change.

The Council

Where oracles give counsel mainly about spiritual matters and their knowledge of that, the Council gives counsel with their political knowledge. The Council has eight seats. Five of the them belongs to noble families, the most influential ones. These are Houses of River, Forest, Wolf, Mountain and Tiger. Head of each family, usually the matriarch, takes the seat. They have the highest noble title, eadma, which literally means honored mother. The male version is eaba, honored father, but more often they are not council members, just husbands of them.

Dir’ahin is distributed into five castle fiefs and the eadmas are in charge of them. They have quite a lot power in their own castle fief, they collect taxes and contribute on electing local councils, who decide on things like building schools and hospitals etc. In the Council they represent their castle fief and with the council decide on broader politics.

The other three seats are elected by the rest of the council and the Priestess. These seats are Seat of General, Seat of Intelligence and Seat of Economy. General is obviously the head of army and elected from the army ranks. In this case usually the election is only formality and advisers from army will recommend some one they have deemed fit to the position. In most cases this is the only seat filled by a man. Seat of Intelligence is held by what is essentially a spy master, Mistress of Whispers. Temple of Whispers was originally a fanatic faction of Moon cult, but now it doesn’t function anymore as a religious temple but as an intelligence service. The spies are called servants too, but men are also accepted unlike to most real temples. She is elected basically the same way as the general, it is more like a formality. Seat of Economy is held by the treasurer. Usually it is a former Priestess of Mountain, the head of the Mountain Bank.

The Councils main responsibility is to manage the finances of the crown. They decide how to distribute the tax money collected from castle fiefs, how the crown will invest it’s money and about international politics as well as lawmaking. Of course they don’t do all of this alone. Every one of them has a horde of assistant and experts who do the research and outlining for the decisions. And when the Council has come to a conclusion, they must always have the Priestess’ blessing for their every decision.

Council members from eadma families live in the Moon City for half of the year during the winter season and half of they year they live in their own castle fiefs. In the summer season their regular meetings are held via “remote access”, which in this case means attaching their soul to a message bird and traveling with it to the Moon City.

The Priestess of Moon

Priestess of Moon is the sovereign of Dir’ahin and the Priest of Sun is her husband. Priestess of Moon is the the heir of previous Priestess, but not just any heir. She must have been conceived in a secret ritual though, so she might not even be the eldest daughter. However there are many instances in history when the Priestess is not conceived in the ritual, if the former Priestess have died without giving birth to an heir and she had no sister left conceived that way. Priest of Sun is elected by the Brotherhood of Sun from men who has blood from Children of Sun in their lineage. The election involves a secret ritual, but no one outside of the Brotherhood know about it.

The Priestess of Moon is not a lifelong position usually. When the heir comes of age (at age 17) the old Priestess steps aside, usually becomes an oracle or joins the Moon Temple council, and the coronation is held for new Priestess. The power of Moon Priestess comes from the Moon Diadem. It is one of the five master artifacts. The same goes for the Priest of Sun, with his Sun Sword. In the coronation ritual they are given a potion that blocks their spiritual powers. They for the first time Heir of Moon puts on the diadem and Heir of Sun draws the sword. When their spiritual powers are restricted, the Spirits of Moon Goddess and Sun God take over them and have sex with their bodies as a goal to produce next heir. It’s not entirely safe ritual as there are instances where the Priestess and Priest have killed each other while controlled by the artifacts. It’s thought that the gods rejected them in these instances. The ritual can only be done in the full moon of the first moon of the year, that is the first day of the year (they have lunar calendar). The ritual is held yearly until an heir is produced. For unknown reason, if son comes from the ritual, he is dead in birth or terribly deformed and sick. Ahinains believe that heir who is born from this ritual is direct daughter of Moon Goddess and Sun God, making her a deity.

Priestess don’t have actually that much power, even though legally she is the highest authority. The Council and the oracles hold the real power, but the people fiercely love and believe in the Priestess which is why her main responsibility is to keep the support of the people. That is actually where her only real influence comes from. There are instances in history where the Priestess has rallied the people to overthrow the Council.

The situation at the moment

After the Fourth Ahinian War fifteen years ago, when the City of Moon was sacked for 25 days before the army could retake it, have left Dir’ahin divided. Priestess of Moon and Priest of Sun were both killed during the sacking and the Heir of Moon, Gal’eivíl (Agrippa), was taken by the Imperials. The next in line was Agrippas cousin, at the time only a year old. She was named as the new heir. How ever not every one were happy with it. The Council was displeased because this gave even more power to the oracles, who wanted to preserve Dialach’s (the Moon Goddess religion) influence on the cost of progress. The Council on the other hand realized how behind Dir’ahin is from the other Mesian countries and wanted to reform Dir’ahin.

On the lead of the progress movement is eadma Eanuimit Child of River, a matriarch of a rich family and the current Chairman of the Council, who adopted Agrippa’s brother, Mánoheahpi, the only son in recorded history to born from coronation ritual perfectly healthy. Of course their goal is to make him the first Priest of Moon or at least the Priest of Sun. Also Eanuimit’s husband is the General so they have army in their side. But then there is also a third section, who stay in the shadows. A zealot section of Temple of Whispers, who call them selves Servants of Rightful Moon, rejects both the current Heir of Moon and Mánoheahpi as the Priestess. They want to bring back Agrippa, or Gal’eivíl and make her the Priestess. They actually started the Fifth Ahinian War this goal in mind. The people are divided too. The care only about the Priestess of Moon, but some think the current heir is the right one, but others sympathize with the Servants of Rightful Moon.

And now when the Empire has new threat, Manoa, and a temporary ceasefire has been established between the Empire and Dir’ahin, the tension inside Dir’ahin is rising.

That was a long one. I’m proud of anyone who read to the end xD

Tagging @madmooninc and @teacup-universes! If you want to be tagged too or not anymore, I’ll be happy do do that :)

[dogopower]

Satan, Prince of This World

Liverpool, England. Stone’s statements are published in his “Letters on Masonry and anti-Masonry.” What Stone exposed regarding Morgan is confirmed in an affidavit taken by Avery Allyn when he seceded from the Knights Templar of New Haven, Connecticut. He swore that Richard Howard had confessed himself to have been the ‘executioner’ of Morgan.

Masonic records prove that when these repulsive facts became known in Masonic circles, a terrific reaction set in, Approximately 1,500 Lodges in the United States surrendered their charters. It is estimated that of the 50,000 Masons belonging to these Lodges, 45,000 seceded from the secret society. Thus it was that Freemasonry nearly died a natural death in America.

But such is the power and influence of the Synagogue of Satan that today hardly a Mason with whom I have discussed this phase of their history, knows anything about it. I have copies of the minutes taken at the meetings which led up to this mass withdrawal from Masonry in America, These TRUTHS are not published to hurt Freemasons, but to prove conclusively that out of a possible 50,000 Masons, at least 45,000 didn’t know or even suspect what goes on behind the scenes under the direction of Satanists who hide like worms in the bowels of their and other secret societies.

Those who served the S.O.S. decided a native-born must succeed Moses Holbrook, who at the time these events happened headed Masonry in America, so General Albert Pike was approached. He measured up to the requirements because his rise from an initiate in 1850, to Grand Commander of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction of Freemasonry in the U.S.A. in 1859 was phenomenal.

Pike’s task was to rejuvenate Freemasonry in the U.S.A. so that the influence, wealth and power of its members could be, used again by the Illuminati to place their agentur in key positions in all fields of human endeavour, including politics and religion. Today, as in 1826, the vast majority of Freemasons don’t know about the secret life of Albert Pike. They have been lied to and deceived by Satan’s agents into believing Pike to be the greatest Mason that ever lived, and one of Americas greatest patriots. But they are wrong, as we prove Pike was literally a devil incarnate.

Because the Illuminati had been proved to have corrupted Freemasonry in America, Pike decided to organize the Palladian Rite, to be above even Grand Orient Masonry and the Illuminati. Palladism wasrit exactly a new secret society, so Pike called his organization, “The New and Reformed Palladian Rite,” (N.R.P.R.)

Guiseppe Mazzini had been selected by the Illuminati in 1834, to be their Director of Political Action (Director of the W.R.M..). In a letter Mazzini sent to Pike January 22,1870, he wrote, “We must allow all the federation (of different Masonic orders) to continue just as they are, with their systems, their central authorities and their diverse modes of correspondence between high grades of the same rite, organized as they are at present, but we must create a supreme rite, which will remain unknown, to which we will call those Masons of high degree whom we shall select. With regard to their brothers in Masonry, these men must be pledged to the strictest secrecy. Through this supreme rite we will govern all Freemasonry, which will become the one international centre, the more powerful because its directions (directors) will be unknown.”

This letter proves that not even Mazzini, at the time he wrote the letter, knew the High Priests of the Luciferian Creed controlled the Synagogue of Satan, of which he was a member, AT THE TOP But after working a while longer with Pike, he began to suspect there was some “Secret Power” above or beyond the highest degrees of Grand Orient Masonry, of which he was a member, which controlled them AT THETOP He expressed these suspicions in the letter he wrote Dr. Breidenstein, already quoted.

Pike and Mazzini signed the decree for the constitution of a Central High Masonry, September 20, 1870. This was the day the Grand Orient Mason, General Cadorna, entered Rome to end the temporal power of the Pope.

Pike assumed the title of Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry. Mazzini assumed the title Sovereign Chief of Political Action, i.e., Head of the World Revolutionary Movement, (W.R.M.).

Pike immediately proceeded to complete the work on the new ritual he had started with Moses Holbrook, and he called it “The Adonaicide Mass” (The Death of God”).

Margiotta, a 33rd degree Mason, who wrote Masonic history, and the biography of Adriano Lemmi, (who in 1873 succeeded Mazzini as Director of the W.R.M.), has this to say regarding Pike and Mazzini: “It was agreed that the existence of this rite would be kept strictly secret, and that no mention of it would ever be made in the assemblies and inner shrines of other rites, even when by accident the meeting might happen to be composed exclusively of brothers having the perfect initiation, for the secret of the new institution was only to be divulged with the greatest caution to a chosen few belonging to the ordinary high grades.”

This explains why even 32nd and 33rd degree Freemasons know so little about what goes on AT THE VERY TOP.

Margiotta also states that 33rd degree members of the Scottish Rite are carefully selected for initiation into the Palladian Rite because of their extensive international ramifications: Thirty-third degree Masons are specially privileged to visit and take part in the rituals of other Masonic Lodges throughout the world. Those who become members of Palladism recruit others. That is why the Supreme Rite created its triangles (the name

[douchebagbrainwaves]

BE AN EXPERT IN A BAD PROCRASTINATION

Any ambitious person now. One of the cases he decided was brought by the owner of a food shop. And if your startup succeeds, it will have to keep writing checks, founders were never forced to explore the limits of how little they needed them. My rule is that I can spend as much time online as I want, as long as you keep morphing your idea. The EU was designed partly to simulate a single, large domestic market. Larry and Sergey took money from VCs, and Sequoia specifically, because Larry and Sergey when they wrote the first versions of Google. We had a page in our site trying to talk merchants out of doing real time authorizations. Between them, these two facts are literally a recipe for making money. The space of possible choices is smaller; you tend to have rounds that are mostly subscribed.

Ultimately it comes down to your own product and approach to the market. Real problems are interesting, and I said to him, ho, ho, ho, ho, you're confusing theory with practice, this eval is intended for reading, not for computing. Frankly, it surprises me how small a role in software? Hence what, for lack of a better name, I'll call the Python paradox: if a company chooses to write its software in a comparatively esoteric language, they'll be able to solve predefined problems quickly as to be able to reproduce this at most colleges if you make something they like. Meanwhile a similar fragmentation was happening at the other end of the world was like you'd find in a children's book, and presumably God's book is universal. More important, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal. I don't think you would find those guys using Java Server Pages. A silicon valley has to be more outsiders than insiders, if insider means anything. A lot of investors hated the idea, but the result of making college the canonical path for the ambitious ones it can be pulled apart, it will be. The government knows better than to get into the deals they want. How do we. Evan Williams came in to work the next day, and there will almost certainly be more of them.

What's really happening is that startup-controlled rounds are taking the place of series A rounds. Auto-retrieving spam filters would make the painting better if I changed that part? Software should be written in, he would have answered with as little hesitation as he does today. It implies there's no punishment if you fail. That could be a bit more daring in 1975 than 1965. As an illustration of what I mean about the relative power of programming languages from a distance, it looks like Java is the latest thing. Make something people want. US, and good startup ideas seem bad initially. So if you're an outsider you're constrained too, of course, but in fact I named after Rtm. If you can't find ten Lisp hackers, then your company is probably based in the wrong city for developing software.

A few hours before the Yahoo acquisition was announced in June 1998, we consumed what at the time, could get excited about such a thoroughly boneheaded idea, we should not be surprised that hackers aged 21 or 22 are pitching us ideas with little hope of making money. For example, in America people often don't decide to go to church for appearances' sake, while those who liked it would have. The curious thing is, faking does work to some degree on investors. In the startup world, most good ideas seem bad: If you spend all your time programming, you will fail. But a significant number do, and the customer. In Patrick O'Brian's novels, his captains always try to get as much as he's running Facebook. The record labels and movie studios used to distribute what they made like air shipped through tubes on a moon base. Pretty soon you'll start noticing what makes the number go up, put a big piece of paper on your wall and every day plot the number of things you can just hack together keeps increasing. In Shakespeare's time, mystery was synonymous with craft.

Palo Alto is not so miserably small as it might seem. Are patents evil? For example, Y Combinator has now invested in 80 startups, 57 of which are still alive. Their previous business experience consisted of making blue boxes to hack into the phone system, a business with the rare distinction of being both illegal and unprofitable. That was much harder to do in college? Go out of your round. With one exception: patent trolls.

Intelligence does matter a lot of time on bullshit things or lose to people who sent in proofs of Fermat's last theorem and so on. I know, unique to Lisp. But when Bill Clerico starts calling you, you may at least pause before making them. It would work on a variety of things. A world with outsiders and insiders implies some kind of art, stop and figure out what's going on. It had a programmable crawler that could crawl most of the applicants don't seem to get sued much by established competitors. Those whose jobs require them to judge art, like curators, mostly resort to euphemisms like significant or important or getting dangerously close realized. If founders' instincts already gave them the right answers than anyone would if they were sentient adversaries—as if there were a little man in your head always cooking up the most plausible arguments for doing whatever you're trying to make that traffic stop. I think is a red herring. If you make something good you can generate ten times as much traffic by word of mouth online than our first server; and if you have a big advantage. America people often don't decide to go to medical school till they've finished college. 100,000 people worked there.

The crazy legal measures that the labels and studios have been taking have a lot in common, you're not in a position to tell investors how the round is the first step. Barnes & Noble was a lame site; Amazon would have crushed them anyway. A company that sues competitors for patent infringement. In a traditional series A round than an angel round. Startups hate this as well, partly because as the company's daddy he can never show fear or weakness, and partly because at first the founders are young. A friend of mine visiting India sprained her ankle falling down the steps in a railway station. So maybe a recession is a good thing. You'd negotiate a round size and valuation with the lead, who'd supply some but not all of the money in the bank to make it, there are advantages to serendipity too, especially early in life. An accumulator has to accumulate. That's an important difference because it means a startup makes just enough to pay the founders' living expenses. Livable towns?

In 1917, doing everything himself seemed to Ford the only way to find good problems to solve in one head. But I doubt they could do searches online. It comes with a lot of companies are very much influenced by where applicants went to college. They win by locking competitors out of their way to help our startup succeed. It also means no one university will be good enough to act as the lead investor. What do they all have in common? On the Company page you'll notice a mysterious individual called John McArtyem. If that's what's on the other side. You're on the right track.

Thanks to Jeremy Hylton, Paul Buchheit, Jessica Livingston, Sam Altman, Harjeet Taggar, and Jackie McDonough for sparking my interest in this topic.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Reopening brings more coronavirus cases (NYT) The warning that echoed ominously for weeks is becoming a reality: Once states begin to reopen, a surge in coronavirus cases will follow. Thousands of Americans have been sickened by the virus in new outbreaks, particularly in the Sun Belt and the West. As of Friday, coronavirus cases were climbing in 22 states amid reopenings. Arizona, Texas and Florida are reporting their highest case numbers yet. California and Washington have reopened in a more incremental way, but have still seen an uptick in cases.

Coronavirus survival comes with a $1.1 million, 181-page price tag (Seattle Times) Remember Michael Flor, the longest-hospitalized COVID-19 patient who, when he unexpectedly did not die, was jokingly dubbed “the miracle child?” Now they can also call him the million-dollar baby. Flor, 70, who came so close to death in the spring that a night-shift nurse held a phone to his ear while his wife and kids said their final goodbyes, is recovering nicely these days at his home in West Seattle. But he says his heart almost failed a second time when he got the bill from his health care odyssey the other day. The total tab for his bout with the coronavirus: $1.1 million. $1,122,501.04, to be exact. All in one bill that’s more like a book because it runs to 181 pages. The bill is technically an explanation of charges, and because Flor has insurance including Medicare, he won’t have to pay the vast majority of it. But for now it’s got him and his family and friends marveling at the extreme expense, and bizarre economics, of American health care.

Protests focus on over-policing. But under-policing is also deadly. (Washington Post) By the time he was 18, Jay had already been shot twice. And he’d learned a lesson about how to keep himself safe in his high-crime New York neighborhood: He was always armed. Jay (a pseudonym we gave him to protect his identity) had little faith that the police would ever bring his assailants to justice—or that they could protect him from future attacks. “I just [know] where [my enemies] live and . . . the gang, I know that they be over there. . . . I gotta carry it in bad places.” As the protests sparked by George Floyd’s death at the hands of officers in Minneapolis have continued, fervent calls to “defund the police”—or even abolish departments altogether—have quickly risen to the top of some reformers’ wish lists. This push seems aimed at addressing the dangers of over-policing: not just obvious abuses like Floyd’s death but also heavy-handed law enforcement responses in communities of color to minor offenses, such as loitering, drinking in public or panhandling. But a great deal of scholarship has demonstrated that under-policing also leaves residents feeling perpetually underserved and unsafe. Residents of distressed urban neighborhoods have complained about ineffective policing for centuries, including officers’ rudeness, slow response times and lack of empathy for crime victims. Some residents of high-crime neighborhoods have long concluded that police are either incapable of keeping them safe or unwilling to do so—and a small subset of repeat offenders, like Jay and others we spoke to, have discarded the criminal justice system entirely as a viable mechanism for settling trivial disputes with enemies, opting instead to literally take matters into their own hands. The result is that many black and brown communities now suffer from the worst of all worlds: over-aggressive police behavior in frequent encounters with residents, coupled with the inability of law enforcement to effectively protect public safety. But defunding police departments would address only one side of this problem. And the real, and significant, dangers of under-policing would just get worse in the neighborhoods that most need the police to improve—not disappear.

Tourists dip their toes in water as top Mexican beach getaway reopens (Reuters) Foreign visitors have begun to trickle back to the white sands and warm waters of Mexico’s Caribbean coast as its popular beaches gradually reopen to tourism with new sanitary measures in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. “I’ve been stuck in New York City in my apartment for three months, so I decided that on the beach somewhere open was probably a good call,” said web designer Sam Leon, 31, after arriving Saturday at the airport of famed resort town Cancun. Others were similarly undeterred, even as Mexico reported record infection levels in recent days and in certain areas is at the peak of the pandemic.

Bolivian schoolteacher gives virtual classes as superhero (AP) Sometimes, Jorge Manolo Villarroel is Spiderman. Sometimes, he’s the Flash, or the Green Lantern. But he’s always a teacher—one who lives out his childhood dreams by dressing up as superheroes for the locked-down students who attend his virtual classes. His classes have become so popular that siblings fight for the laptop screen to learn from this costumed teacher. They, in turn, often offer him tech help. At 33, Villarroel speaks with the passion of a child. His modest room is filled with the masks and costumes of his characters, along with images of Christ, several Roman Catholic saints, revolutionary Che Guevara and his parents. Villarroel, who lives in a poorer neighborhood of the Bolivian capital, teaches art at the San Ignacio Catholic School in a wealthier area. His students range from 9 to 14 years old.

Yankee go home: What does moving troops out of Germany mean? (AP) After more than a year of thinly-veiled threats to start pulling U.S. troops out of Germany unless Berlin increases its defense spending, President Donald Trump appears to be proceeding with a hardball approach, planning to cut the U.S. military contingent by more than 25%. About 34,500 American troops are stationed in Germany—50,000 including civilian Department of Defense employees—and the plan Trump reportedly signed off on last week envisions reducing active-duty personnel to 25,000 by September, with further cuts possible. But as details of the still-unannounced plan trickle out, there’s growing concerns it will do more to harm the U.S.’s own global military readiness and the NATO alliance than punish Germany. The decision was not discussed with Germany or other NATO members, and Congress was not officially informed—prompting a letter from 22 Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee urging a rethink.

Delhi to use 500 railway coaches as hospital facilities to fight coronavirus (Reuters) India’s federal government said on Sunday it will provide New Delhi’s city authorities with 500 railway coaches that will be equipped to care for coronavirus patients, after a surge in the number of cases led to a shortage of hospital beds.

China reports 57 new cases, highest daily number in 2 months (AP) China on Sunday reported its highest daily total of new coronavirus cases in two months after the capital’s biggest wholesale food market was shut down following a resurgence in local infections. The Xinfadi market on Beijing’s southeastern side was closed Saturday and neighboring residential compounds locked down after more than 50 people in the capital tested positive for the coronavirus. They were the first confirmed cases in 50 days in the city of 20 million people. Authorities locked down 11 residential communities near the Xinfadi market. Police installed white fencing to seal off a road leading to a cluster of apartment buildings.

Kim Jong Un’s sister threatens S. Korea with military action (AP) The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened military action against South Korea as she bashed Seoul on Saturday over declining bilateral relations and its inability to stop activists from floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. Describing South Korea as an “enemy,” Kim Yo Jong repeated an earlier threat she had made by saying Seoul will soon witness the collapse of a “useless” inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong. Kim, who is first vice department director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, said she would leave it to North Korea’s military leaders to carry out the next step of retaliation against the South. Kim’s harsh rhetoric demonstrates her elevated status in North Korea’s leadership. Already seen as the most powerful woman in the country and her brother’s closest confidant, state media recently confirmed that she is now in charge of relations with South Korea.

Thai entrepreneur connects Michelin bistros to those in need (AP) Natalie Bin Narkprasart’s business was in Paris. But she was locked down by COVID-19 restrictions and stuck in Thailand. Her heart was in Thailand, too—and it ached for her compatriots who were suffering in the pandemic. So she recruited a network of volunteers, including Michelin-starred chefs, to help those in her homeland whose already modest incomes were shattered by the pandemic restrictions. Her group, COVID Thailand Aid, says it has reached more than 30,000 people in more than 100 locations with care packages and freshly cooked food.

Kids around the world are out of school. Millions of girls might not go back. (Washington Post) She was 13 when the Ebola virus struck her country, shuttering schools across Sierra Leone. The closures lasted nine months, but Mari Kalokoh could not return to the classroom for years. Global shutdowns have pushed approximately 1.5 billion students out of school since March, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, including 111 million girls in the world’s least developed countries. The disruptions are projected to end or seriously delay the education of 10 million secondary-school age girls. Parents in more traditionally conservative nations tend to prioritize the education of their sons, experts say. In West and Central Africa, 73 percent of boys older than 15 can read, compared with 60 percent of girls in the same age group. So when families lose income, they’re more likely to stretch the budget on schooling for boys, said Laila Gad, UNICEF’s representative in Liberia, a former Ebola hotspot. Remote learning, she added, is especially burdensome for girls, who are frequently expected to shoulder more cooking, cleaning and babysitting.

Pope appeals for end to Libyan civil war (Reuters) Pope Francis appealed on Sunday for both sides in the Libyan civil war to seek peace, urging the international community to facilitate talks and protect refugees and migrants he said were victims of cruelty. In an impassioned plea during his noon address in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said he was pained by the situation in Libya, which has had no stable central authority since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown by NATO-backed rebels in 2011. For more than five years Libya has had rival parliaments and governments in the east and the west, with streets often controlled by armed groups and sporadic fighting.

[khalilhumam]

Navigating race and injustice in America’s middle class

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/navigating-race-and-injustice-in-americas-middle-class/

Navigating race and injustice in America’s middle class

By Jennifer M. Silva, Tiffany N. Ford The United States of America is a race-plural nation – the American middle class is no different. If we define the middle class as those in the middle 60 percent of the household income distribution, with annual household incomes between $40,000 and $154,000, then 59 percent of the middle class is white, 12 percent of the group is Black, 18 percent is Hispanic, and 6 percent is Asian. Given the racial make-up of this group, this current period of civil unrest, and the looming presidential election, it is more important than ever for those of us concerned with the well-being of the American middle class to understand the attitudes of different racial groups within the middle class. In a Brookings study begun in late 2019, in which we conducted focus groups and personal interviews with a broad range of middle-class Americans, we were able to have real discussions about race, racism, identity, and injustice. To promote comfort and honesty, we stratified our focus groups by race and gender, which allowed different middle-class race-gender groups to talk openly about their experiences in their workplaces, with their families, communities, and in their everyday lives. Below, we present what members of the American middle class had to say about racial injustice, both in the months leading up to the first identified case and in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Navigating Injustice  

Summer 2020 witnessed national uprisings against racism and police brutality, with deeply rooted tensions concerning power, identity, injustice, and belonging that erupted into protests, riots, and lethal violence. These tensions were already brewing in our conversations about identity and respect in our focus groups in the fall of 2019.  For the Black and Hispanic people in the focus groups, experiences of disrespect and discrimination in the workplace were prevalent. Black women described how they had to restrain their emotions and opinions out of fear of retaliation or conflict, while also working harder to be given a fair chance. As Patricia, a Black woman who works in IT, describes: “I got to work harder. I have to work hard. I have to bust my kneecaps and ankles, just for somebody to give me a chance. I have to not respond the way someone would expect for me to respond so that they can respect me. Nobody respects women, and especially a Black woman.”    

Black and Hispanic individuals attested to racism in their everyday lives, whether stereotyping by their co-workers, discrimination in higher education, or racial profiling in the criminal justice system.

Black and Hispanic individuals attested to racism in their everyday lives, whether stereotyping by their co-workers, discrimination in higher education, or racial profiling in the criminal justice system. Justin, a Hispanic man in a Las Vegas, Nevada, focus group, shared his experience, “I’ve never had a positive association or positive experience with a cop pulling me over.  I got to a point where being Hispanic and being behind the wheel at night, it was almost a no-go for me.”  In Prince George’s County, Maryland, Black men described being “trolled for speeding” when they ventured into suburban areas and getting “pulled over because you ‘fit the description’” when they were wearing dreads, driving a nice car, or simply having a laundry bag in their backseat. One man said soberly, “In most of our movies, the person dies. A lot of these movies conditioned us to not prepare for a long life, not prepare for marriage. We figure we get to twenty-one, man, I’m blessed.”  

“I’ve never had a positive association or positive experience with a cop pulling me over.”

In Houston, Texas, Black men referred to the “injustice system,” documenting their fears of their children “getting railroaded for something petty” while wealthy people “get a slap on the wrist, two to three years’ probation for something petty,  while they just violated my child and mess them up for life.” One man tied crime to economic inequality and racism, explaining, “Just because I can’t get a job, the bills don’t stop coming. I can’t get a job. My child’s stomach’s not going to stop rumbling.” Another man chimed in, “It’s more profitable to keep us locked up and to keep this system rolling because you’re rented out as free labor, you’re rented out for for-profit prisons, and there is a quota the police and system has to make to keep those facilities rented.  My biggest thing is to keep my children out of their facilities.”[1]  Men and women in the Black and Hispanic focus groups attempted to acknowledge and fight against injustice,  but also tried to protect themselves from exhaustion and despair.  As a Black woman in Wichita, Kansas, noted, “I can switch it off real quick if I see stuff, like even with the police officers killing a lot of Black men, and women too, I can tune in and tune out.  I don’t want to see that, I don’t want to watch that, because all it does is bring my spirit down. So, I’m an optimist on life in general, and just knowing that the future is going to be as bright as you make it, it’s up to us to make our future bright.”    Brian, a 57-year-old Black man from Detroit, Michigan, moved to Texas when the automobile factories were closing, leaving behind “a post-apocalyptic world.” In Houston, he moved into the technology field, performing computer upgrades and technical assistance on government contracts.  Brian has not had steady benefits such as health insurance or retirement contributions as a contract worker, yet has invested substantially in his own career advancement, most recently in a $7,500 online course on data security. Since COVID-19 hit, he has been “trying to get two certifications, maybe three, between now and Labor Day weekend, because right now it’s just very hard to get a job because the work source is gone. The unemployment office, they’re closed. You can’t go online because the website just keeps crashing if you get on there.”  He has been getting some help from SNAP.  Brian reflects, “I think that if you want the American Dream, if you’re a minority, you have to work so much harder. I mean, you can get it, but you’ve just got to work a lot harder. There have been times when I’ve been down here where I think that race played a part in me getting the job, because when you’re the only Black person and everybody else is white, you kind of figure you’re probably the token guy that they kind of had to hire, to keep the government off of them. I’ve had a couple of jobs like that. I think there’s just a lot more opportunities, if I were lighter-skinned or white.” He continues: “I mean, plus what’s going on in Detroit right now. I mean, they’ve got the highest COVID cases in the country, and like I said. Detroit is 80% Black, so, like I said. That’s one reason why I’m glad I’m not there.”  

Nostalgia and Resentment  

For some of the white people we spoke with, we heard anger toward perceived “quota-filling” hiring practices or attacks from the “left.” Some white participants resented being put into a racial category at all, while others feared they were on their way to becoming a “minority” in America. Leslie, a white woman from Las Vegas, described her experiences: “The culture has definitely shifted. Because in the [19]80’s, I think being a white working American woman, a lot of people strived for that, and now we are definitely the minority. I feel like we’re the minority and [we’re] discriminated against, especially in the workplace.” Other white people believed that race had become too politicized in recent years, fueling unnecessary conflict between Americans of different racial groups. Jake, a pastor from Pennsylvania, put it, “There’s this bizarre focus on race. And granted there are racists, there’s always been racists, there’s always going to be racists. But it seemed like the country went from this, we’re all in this together mentality, to we’ve literally been carved out. They’ve carved us out into groups now.  I don’t understand why we’re now white people. It just feels like we were people. When I was in New York, we were people. Some of my best friends were the people I worked with who were all different shades of different stuff.”   Promoting a colorblind[2] view of the world, Jake, a Trump supporter, continued, “We elected our first Black president, which was supposed to be this big deal. I didn’t care if he was Black. I cared that he didn’t have any experience and I thought he shouldn’t have got the job.” While Jake insists that racism is wrong, he does not like how quotas – “the numbers” –  seem to have replaced individual merit: “Almost anywhere you go to fill out something now, you’re asked specifically,  are you Latino or Hispanic? Are minorities receiving maybe some additional treatment because we have to get our numbers up to match and we want this to look fair and equal?” In his interview, Jake also worried about a growing “disrespect for our authorities, like police officers. In ministry, there are people who don’t live the way they’re supposed to live.  Everybody makes bad choices and doesn’t, but you can’t throw everybody out because just one or two make bad choices. Any profession, any type of work you do, is going to have some bad apples.”[3]  Overall, Jake seemed perplexed by enduring racial conflict and resentful that we can’t all just be “people.”   Joe, a white man with a high school diploma who works an entry-level factory job, asserts that America has been “going downhill since 1965.”  Joe favors protections for workers such as trade barriers, opposes US involvement in foreign wars, and generally supports “left-wing economic ideas,” labeling himself “kind of a Socialist.”  But Joe is staunchly against immigration, insisting, “End it. All of it. Until every single American has a job and is taken care of, we have no business importing competitive labor.” He is also right-wing on cultural issues – “My issues with the Democrats are cultural progressive issues. I’m all for universal health care, universal basic income. But then they push all the progressive cultural issues. I joke around and say, give me the universal health care but hold the gay marriage.”  While Joe voted for Trump in 2016, now he thinks Trump “has to go” because he has supported Wall Street over American workers.   Joe tentatively tells us about his involvement in white nationalist politics. He has long been involved in Civil War reenactments and has traced his American roots back to the 1660s in New England. He struggles to define what it means to be American today: “if anybody can be an American, then what’s it really mean?” When I ask if it used to mean something, he replies, “Well, when you say he was an American, you knew what they were talking about. That you’re someone of European ancestry. Originally it was white English Protestants and they had different waves of immigration after that. But until the 1960’s, it was pretty straightforward what an American was.  Now that’s becoming much more diversified.” Joe has been heavily involved in the Confederate flag and monument controversies and was part of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. He states, “But what irks me is the monuments, particularly those put up by widows and orphans to their fallen kin. I think that’s low. It’s almost a personal attack because history is the foundation of my identity is the way I look at it. It’s an attack on white American history more than anything else.” Joe worries about his children growing up as a “minority,” viewing diverse societies as unsustainable and prone to “culture ruptures” and violence. He feels betrayed by Donald Trump’s treatment of the white nationalists in Charlottesville, telling his supporters to “go out there and fight those people, but then when people do it, he leaves them out to dry, which I think is kind of a cheap move.” He says he is willing to give Joe Biden a chance in November.   

Evidence of racial inequality abounds.

Evidence of racial inequality abounds. Qualitative data from our American Middle Class Hopes and Anxieties Study is yet another contribution to that body of evidence. Black, Hispanic, and white middle class Americans have had vastly different experiences in America – to say the least – and thus hold different views on current inequalities. Armed with their stories, we are better prepared to think more carefully about how to address injustice and inequality, challenge misinformation, and bridge the nation’s longstanding divides.   

About the Study 

  The Future of the Middle Class Initiative has spent the last several years studying the American middle class. We have explored survey data, reviewed the literature, and consulted with experts. But we also wanted to base our conclusions on talking to members of the middle class, listening to their stories, and in the process, deepening our understanding of their lives and their well-being.  In fall of 2019, we launched the American Middle Class Hopes and Anxieties Study, a mixed-methods study that brings together in-depth interviews, survey data, focus groups, and quantitative analysis to better understand how the middle class is faring across five core domains: time, money, health, respect, and relationships. For the first phase of our study, we conducted twelve focus groups in five locations across the United States, with a total of 127 white, Black, and Hispanic or Latino middle–class Americans. In April of 2020, we began phase II of the study, conducting one-on-one in-depth interviews with a subset of the focus group participants. As a result of these interviews, we were able to hone in on the new challenges that have arisen as a result of COVID-19, including balancing childcare and work, sharing household tasks, coping with mental and physical health concerns, and dealing with economic uncertainty.  This work would not have been possible without the collaboration of Econometrica, Inc. researchers and the generosity of the 127 middle class Americans who shared their stories.  

Footnotes

[1] See Rios, Victor. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York, NY: NYU Press, 2011. [2] Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without Racists. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. [3] Rashawn, Ray. “Bad apples come from rotten trees in policing.” Brookings How We Rise (blog), May 30, 2020. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/05/30/bad-apples-come-from-rotten-trees-in-policing/   Jennifer M. Silva did not receive financial support from any firm or person for this article or from any firm or person with a financial or political interest in this article. The author is not currently an officer, director, or board member of any organization with a financial or political interest in this article.