#overthrow the government and everything

[wastinawaaay]

US politicians enabling hate crimes and war crimes and still acting like they have the moral high grand is mind blowing

[paopuofhearts]

me looking at people praising reagan for being "pro-palestine" when it's like.

bitch he didn't fucking give a shit about bombing lebanon when the PLO moved there.

he was fucking pissed that it was bad press and it was ruining US negotiations.

y'all really gotta fucking stop and think why you're sitting here praising people like reagan and khameni when you know they're absolute fucking shit people.

[beansnpeets]

Gonna ask my boss for a raise tomorrow I think. I do not make enough money right now. Period. Like I get by okay because Jon is supporting me financially, but if I were to be on my own I'd never get by.

The way prices have been going up on everything is insane. I didn't realize how much I'd been spending on groceries. I'm spending a LOT more than I should have to on just groceries. I'm so beyond frustrated and afraid. I'm tired. I'm anxious. Everything is falling apart and there is nothing I can do.

[87dvhnk]

in a fair world, all israeli-american dual citizens would be stripped of their american citizenship and banned from reapplying for citizenship. every single nation ought to do this with israelis (and americans as well, stripping american-x citizens of x citizenship). it's sickening to imagine the bloodthirsty cunts flooding back into this country for "sanctuary," no different from the sheltering of nazi war criminals in operation paperclip but on a larger scale, by our equally bloodthirsty government when israel is finally torn to shreds. go down with that israel you felt you entitled to that you have the distinction of having commited the best documented genocide in history, you schizo, jewish supremacist cunts. you can't call israel, and god forbid america, pariah states if you don't do the right thing and make them real pariahs in the world. no citizenship, no visas, no trade, no aid. eat shit and die like you deserve, State and citizen.

[icefishin]

HOW are there places in Toronto that are less expensive than where I LIVE. MAKE THAT MAKE SENSE

[divinepriestesskokomi]

We don't talk enough about how goddamn funny Tighnari is. That man is unphased by everything.

Cyno shows up at his doorstep with a small child who is traumatized, illiterate, terminally ill, and has an ancient god sealed away in her body, and asks him to help raise her, and Tighnari's only objection is that he doesn't know how to teach preschool level academics.

He eats a poisonous mushroom, passes out, and has a hallucination and just goes "damn that was crazy. Let me write it down for science."

The dudes in charge of the whole country repeatedly beg him to come work for them and he tells them to fuck off.

The second fatui harbinger, said to be as strong as a god, threatens him and he basically tells him to fuck off too.

The traveler gets possessed by god and then comes back to tell him that the sages are building a false god and he's like "Damn that's fucked up. Anyways I gotta go check on my patient."

Dehya and the Traveler basically say "Hey we are helping Cyno overthrow the government" and he's just like bet.

He get's struck by lightning and is just like "Oof. Anyways gotta go check on my patient, good luck fighting a god".

He finds an illegal sentient robot crab and just adopts it and tells the matra not to worry about it.

He passes out from heat exhaustion in the desert and is just like "Damn. I'll need to bring some sunscreen next time".

Finds out Cyno has a long lost brother/cousin and is just like "Cool. Why don't you come over for dinner, meet the family".

The craziest shit can happen to this man and he's just like "Allright why not. This might as well happen" and I love that about him

[guineapigwitch]

god dammit, god fucking dammit

People are talking about not voting for Biden.

Again.

I'm just so tired of this argument.

I just can't do Trump again.

I can't.

His incompetence killed so many people. A panel estimated 40% of COVID deaths could have been averted.

One of those deaths was my mother.

She was killed because people didn't trust the vaccines and they didn't think masks were worth the inconvenience. That man could have gone on TV and said "This is the Trump vaccine and it is great." He could have sold fucking MAGA masks on his website. He had 100% influence over his dipshit followers and could have used that for the greater good. But he was too vain to wear a mask in public and bungled the vaccine rollout.

And now I worry some of my trans loved ones may not make it through another far right administration. They have this giant target on their back right now and conservatives seem determined to eradicate as many trans lives as possible.

I wrote a whole ass post about how I didn't care for Biden. I still don't. But when I try to imagine what a right wing administration would be doing right now... that seems like it would be a nightmare orders of magnitude worse than the current nightmare.

As someone with an untreatable chronic illness, I know the feeling of being presented with choices where all of them suck. And I have had to survive by choosing the least sucky option over and over.

It feels bad every single time.

I hate it.

And I still fucking choose.

It should be different. There should be better choices. I shouldn't have to choose the least bad thing among all bad things.

But there are people and things in this world I feel are worth sticking around for, so I continue to choose the least sucky thing.

[wilwheaton]

The GOP wonders why young people (and others) don't want to vote for them. Some wise scribe assembled this list.

1.) Your Reagan-era “trickle-down economics” strategy of tax breaks for billionaires that you continue to employ to this day has widened the gap between rich and poor so much that most of them will never be able to own a home, much less earn a living wage.

2.) You refuse to increase the federal minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour (since 2009). Even if it had just kept up with inflation, it would be $27 now. You’re forcing people of all ages but especially young people to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities.

3.) You fundamentally oppose and want to kill democracy; have done everything in your power to restrict access to the ballot box, particularly in areas with demographics that tend to vote Democratic (like young people and POC). You staged a fucking coup the last time you lost.

4.) You have abused your disproportionate senate control over the last three decades to pack the courts with religious extremists and idealogues, including SCOTUS—which has rolled back rights for women in ways that do nothing but kill more women and children and expand poverty.

5.) You refuse to enact common sense gun control laws to curb mass shootings like universal background checks and banning assault weapons; subjecting their entire generation to school shootings and drills that are traumatizing in and of themselves. You are owned by the NRA.

6.) You are unequivocally against combatting climate change to the extent that it’s as if you’ve made it your personal mission to ensure they inherit a planet that is beyond the point of no return in terms of remaining habitable for the human race beyond the next few generations.

7.) You oppose all programs that provide assistance to those who need it most. Your governors refused to expand Medicaid even during A PANDEMIC. You are against free school lunches, despite it being the only meal that millions of children can count on to actually receive each day

8.) You are banning books, defunding libraries, barring subject matter, and whitewashing history even more in a fascistic attempt to keep them ignorant of the systemic racism that this nation was literally founded upon and continues to this day in every action your party takes.

9.) You oppose universal healthcare and are still trying to repeal the ACA and rip healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and replace it with nothing. You are against lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs that millions need simply to LIVE/FUNCTION in society.

10.) You embrace white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other groups that are defined by their intractable racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. You conspired with these groups on January 6th to try to overthrow the U.S. government via domestic terrorism that KILLED PEOPLE.

11.) You oppose every bill aimed at making life better for our nation’s youth; from education to extracurricular and financial/nutritional assistance programs. You say you want to “protect the children” while you elect/nominate pedophiles and attack trans youth and drag queens.

12.) You pretend to be offended by “anti-semitism” while literally supporting, electing, and speaking at events organized by Nazis. You pretend to hate “cancel culture” despite the fact that you invented it and it’s basically all you do.

13.) Every word you utter is a lie. You are the party of treason, hypocrisy, crime, and authoritarianism. You want to entrench rule by your aging minority because you know that you have nothing to offer young voters and they will never support you for all these reasons and more.

14.) You’re so hostile to even the notion of helping us overcome the mountain of debt that millions of us are forced to take on just to pay for our post K-12 education that you are suing to try to prevent a small fraction of us from getting even $10,000 in loan forgiveness.

15.) You opened the floodgates of money into politics via Citizens United; allowing our entire system of government to become a cesspool of corruption, crime, and greed. You are supposed to represent the American people whose taxes pay your salary but instead cater to rich donors.

16.) You respond to elected representatives standing in solidarity with their constituents to protest the ONGOING SLAUGHTER of children in schools via shootings by EXPELLING THEM FROM OFFICE & respond to your lack of popularity among young people by trying to raise the voting age.

17.) You impeach Democratic presidents over lying about a BJ but refuse to impeach (then vote twice to acquit) a guy whose entire “administration” was an international crime syndicate being run out of the WH who incited an insurrection to have you killed.

18.) You steal Supreme Court seats from democrats to prevent the only black POTUS we’ve ever had from appointing one and invent fake precedents that you later ignore all to take fundamental rights from Americans; and even your “legitimate” appointments consist of people like THIS (sub-thread refuting CJ Roberts criticisms of people attacking SCOTUS' legitimacy).

19.) You support mass incarceration even for innocuous offenses or execution by cop for POC while doing nothing but protect rich white criminals who engage in such things as tax fraud, money laundering, sex trafficking, rape/sexual assault, falsifying business records, etc.

20.) You are the reason we can’t pass:—Universal background checks—An assault weapons ban—The ‘For the People/Freedom to vote’ Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act—The ERA & Equality Act—The Climate Action Now Act—The (Stopping) Violence Against Women Act—SCOTUS expansion.

21.) You do not seek office to govern, represent, or serve the American people. You seek power solely for its own sake so you can impose your narrow-minded puritanical will on others at the expense of their most fundamental rights and freedoms like voting and bodily autonomy.

22.) Ok, last one. You are trying to eliminate social security and Medicare that tens of millions of our parents rely on and paid into their entire lives. And you did everything to maximize preventable deaths from COVID leaving millions of us in mourning.

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/e8DBZLH

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Slight note about the system of food.

'cause adding it to the large doc might crash my computer?

I've realized that though historical fiction minds this more when set in pre-industrial times, that often fantasy set in agricultural societies doesn't seem to do this, though it should.

So I'll give you an example...

Almost everything in Korean food is centered and bred for two things: Kimchi and soy sauce.

But what you don't realize in your industrialized state how freaking long it takes to make these things and how much planning is involved and how much you have to mind the seasons in order to make it correctly.

Kimchi:

Baekchu (or other vegetables) that's often harvested in fall.

The salt, which was traditionally sea salt was harvested in the spring and summer months.

Garlic is a spring to mid summer crop.

The sweet rice that goes into winter kimchi takes a ton of work to make and can take from Spring to fall.

The fish sauce that goes into Kimchi that helps preserve it for over a year, takes and ENTIRE YEAR to make. Yes, a year. You really, really have to plan on that. And what do you do if the fishing is poor for that year?

Spring onions are faster to grow, but you still have to time it for the fall kimchi making.

The fish are seasonal. For example, Yellow Corvina is taken in Korea in the spring. Shrimp in the summer (June), and anchovies in early spring to fall.

Your timing has to be impeccable and you need an entire year to plan this one dish.

Meanwhile, you, industrialized person, take for granted that you can get fish sauce any time you like and can pour it over kimchi.

In fantasy this could add flavor to your fantasy make up, if your character can only get this dish once a year. It can add political unrest (What do you mean the salt harvest was poor and we're left with the shitty metallic salt), because your characters in an agricultural society will be subject to weather changes, which you get when reading historical fiction and so on. Three seasons of poor harvest, daaaamnn... the people might overthrow their government. There might be new religions that pop up, there might be uprisings because the King and Queen are eating feasts every day while the peasants are eating things that are empty calories.

What I'm saying is that you can't be too entrenched into industrial mindset if you're not writing an industrial setting.

That orange is seasonal and only comes about in a connected system that has winter and a warmer climate.

Maybe there are key foods for your climate that are highly treasured or sought after. Mandarins once were. Cacao. Think a bit about those things and how it might interact with the larger world. When does your plant mature and when can it be harvested? is it different from different climates? There's wars that have been fought over food. (Tea, famously, at least a few times).

A staple crop failing is going to have devastating consequences.

And yet, often in fantasy, I often see people going, ya know what I can eat in the dead of winter, strawberries. Do we have greenhouses? No. Did we have freezers? No. But you know what my character is eating? A strawberry. Yeah, think about that. Strawberries don't preserve well. So plan out the timing of your dishes a bit (to the climate and subsistence system) and it can give a bit of background worldbuilding to your dishes and food.

I do have to say that the small mentions from Rings of Power on what's in season or not and why kinda made me feel like the world and the traveling was more "real" with the Harfoot. There's small references to fall v. spring crops.

[dalekofchaos]

Doctor Doom gets ruined AND WHITEWASHED AGAIN!

4 attempts to get Doctor Doom right

4

And we STILL can’t get this right

A master of magic and science. A man who rivals Doctor Strange and Reed Richards as the most powerful sorcerer and the smartest man alive. He rules an entire country with an army of Doombots. Considered to be one of the greatest Marvel villains. And they still can't get him right. They have to make him a fucking Tony Stark variant. Tony Stark is not Victor Von Doom and Doom is above Tony Stark.

Victor wearing the mask always is integral to his appeal and aura like Vader's mask. It not only hides his vain scars he caused due to his failures, but it closes him off from humanity and makes him believe he’s beyond it.

As far as I'm concerned Marvel Ultimate Alliance and EMH are the only good adaptations of Doom

Doctor Doom being a romani man with a background CENTERING his family's racial persecution. with his ethnicity at the forefront of his motivations and his tragedy. and they really just brought back Robert Downey Jr.

Being romani is INTEGRAL to doom’s character and without that he’s not doom. he NEEDS to be romani and played by a romani character. full stop, don't believe me? Read Book Of Dooms.

Since 1964 Victor von Doom has been established as a Romani character. His childhood was filled with antiziganism and his parents deaths were caused by it. This later led him to become Doctor Doom and overthrow the Latverian government to protect his people

I am so fucking sick and tired of this whitewashing bullshit and the ethnoerasure of Marvel characters.

The Maximoff Twins, The Ancient One, Moon Knight and now fucking Doom.

God fucking forbid an actual Romani actor PLAYS A ROMANI CHARACTER.

But no they pulled another fucking multiverse shit all so RDJ could return and it all feels like blackface from Tropic Thunder

I DON'T GIVE A FUCKING SHIT ABOUT ANTHONY STARK FROM EARTH-11029 OR INFAMOUS IRON MAN

If you wanted evil Iron Man so fucking bad, why didn't you just do Superior Iron Man?

The LAZIEST, DUMBEST, most CONTRIVED BULLSHIT casting ever, Marvel continues to not beat the whitewashing allegations. Doctor Doom deserved better.

Romani actor Charlie Clapman was right fucking there AND HE ENDORSED IT!

I'd even suggest Romani actor Óscar Jaenada as Doom. Again another Roma actor who's actively interested in playing Doom

And you know what? As bad as the 1994 movie was, Joseph Culp the first actor to play Doom in the Fantastic Four (1994) movie by Oley Sassone & Richard Corman. Culp was also white but he very clearly cared for the comics background of Victor von Doom

and you also know damn well they're going to erase everything about Magneto too that makes him who he is… which is his entire fucking background. how horrible of a person do you have to be to repeatedly disrespect the minorities who created these stories?

Doctor Doom is Roma Romani. He is not white. The MCU loves to whitewash its Roma and Jewish characters and it’s time we called them out for it. Dr Doom is not a white man, he is Roma!

They will never nail down the complexity of Victor Von Doom

Every year Doom goes to hell to fight Mephisto to rescue the soul of his mother. He finally won her soul with the help of Doctor Strange only for her to reject him.

No evil Stark replicant will ever fucking match the complexity of Victor Von Doom.

I don't care if this is a one time thing for RDJ. They specifically chose to do this when the fans were begging for a fucking Romani actor. It also doesn't fucking help that Marvel has erased nearly EVERY fucking ethnic character has been whitewashed.

Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver: Erased Romani heritage and whitewashed. Moon Knight & Wiccan: Casted non-Jewish actors. Sabra: Featured in anything at all, and actress is an IDF soldier to make matters worse.

The MCU is full of ethnic erasure, military propaganda & racism. it’s disgusting this is continuing with Dr Doom’s casting. remember to continue to boycott marvel, because of the genocide they support by casting an iof solider to play a character from the zionist terrorist occupation

Dr Doom is one of those villains that it should be IMPOSSIBLE to fuck up but wasting him on a cheap Iron Man nostalgia casting pop might be the way

[hidinginawell]

The "vulnerable people can die for my ideology" brand of progressivism

(It's also telling how often this particular breed of Tumblr Leftist forgets about disabled people).

People who spend all their time posting the “correct” progressive beliefs but then refuse to vote are so weird.

It feels like that very Christian mentality that Believing the Correct Beliefs is all you have to do, and you don’t actually need to get involved in the world around you, and in fact attempting to Do Anything in the physical world rather than philosophizing endlessly would make you morally impure. It’s the Trolley Problem— doing something that causes less harm means you have to do something, but people don’t like to feel they have any agency.

It’s also weird that people think not voting means not participating in the system or not being complicit in it— like, dude!! If you live in America, you are already complicit. You will continue to be complicit.

Some of these people try to “buy indulgences” via donating to charity or gofundmes— but the reality is that charity is a bandage over wounds that don’t need to exist. you can donate as much as you want but it won’t solve the underlying problems, it��ll just put a bandaid over them. There will always be another gofundme or charity drive as long as the actual government policies creating the environment for them continue to exist.

Tl: Dr: it’s The “Leftists” Who Don’t Do Anything.

I am very confident that you are what you do, not just what you believe. And I have a lot of negative feelings towards people who Believe The Correct Things but don’t actually do anything to help because they treat government as a philosophy game fandom discourse about who is the most Morally Pure. If your leftist group is planning to overthrow the government tomorrow, fine, but otherwise you have a moral obligation to reduce the amount of harm the government causes.

[cartanacia]

Some background on South Korean politics in light of the 12.3 self-coup attempt

At 10:23 PM on 12.3, President Yoon Suk-yeol (Yun Seokyeol) declared martial law. The Korean people and MPs immediately mobilized to stop it. Although a group of special forces stormed the Parliament building and tried to break up legislative activity, 190 MPs made it into the chamber and voted only two hours later to rescind martial law. Soon after that, Yoon agreed to end martial law and the military officially stood down.

This was a bizarre and shocking few hours for everyone in the country and the world, and how Yoon got to the point of making this absurd decision is an interesting story. To tell it, I'll try to explain 1) South Korea's history of military rule, 2) Yoon's prosecutorial and political career, 3) the main opposition Together Democratic Party, and 4) Yoon's presidency. And finally, 5) what the self-coup attempt means for South Korea and the world.

I'll try to be brief as I can, but I'm starting from the assumption that most people know very little about South Korean politics. So, it's a long post.

Military rule

After fascist Japan surrendered at the end of WW2, it handed over power in the occupied Korean peninsula to an indigenous government called the People's Republic of Korea. Unfortunately, the new government was brutally suppressed by the US military in the South and warped into unrecognizable form by the Soviet Union in the North. In the South, the Republic of Korea was established as a US-aligned anticommunist dictatorship. Everything in this summary is extremely simplified, but suffice it to say that the Republic of Korea, or South Korea, more or less remained an anticommunist military dictatorship until 1987.

(One of the less graphic pictures of the Bodo League massacre, where the South Korean police and military killed 200,000 civilians)

Military rule in South Korea was founded on protecting South Korean capitalists, many of which had accumulated their wealth under the Japanese occupation, from the dual threats of leftists in South Korea and North Korean attack. South Korea retained the vast majority of colonial police employed by the occupation government, whose main purpose had been to root out and destroy independence guerillas, and repurposed them to root out and destroy left-wing guerillas (many of which were the same people). This caused an extraordinary level of state violence in early South Korean history. The South Korean prosecution service was similarly used to find and imprison or kill the opposition. Due to their function as part of an authoritarian state, the prosecution service was given broad powers to both investigate and prosecute.

Especially after President Park Chung-hee (Bak Jeonghui) took power (by overthrowing another short-lived democratic government), the South Korean state's purpose became not only to protect capital, but also to direct its expansion. The South Korean state used its control over credit to make companies invest in sectors that it predicted would have great export potential. Once a company established itself in a sector, the state directed it to use the profit it got from exports to invest in another, more capital-intensive sector. Over decades, this strategy led to enormous economic growth for South Korea and a massive rise in living standards. It also caused a few companies in particular to become fantastically wealthy global megacorporations. These are the chaebols (jaebeol), which include Samsung, Hyundai, LG, and others.

By 1987, a series of massive democratic protests and uprisings finally ended the dictatorship. A free election was held, and a general named Noh Tae-woo (No Taeu) was elected president. In the new democratic era, the conservative movement was formed as an alliance of dictatorship figures like Noh, chaebols, small businesses, and white collar workers who wanted to continue the economic policies of the dictatorship. The democratization movement continued as various incarnations of the Democratic Party (South Korean political parties change names and split and merge constantly), made up of unions, civil society activists, and students. Leftists have continued to be a minor force in South Korean politics, but for the purposes of this post I'll mostly set them aside. The main groups we're concerned with are conservatives and democrats, organized into a constantly shifting mush of political parties.

Supreme Prosecutor of the Republic

Before he became president, Yoon Seok-yeol was the Supreme Prosecutor of the prosecution service. To understand the significance of this, we have to take a look at the prosecution service in the democratic era and the political environment that Yoon emerged into.

During the dictatorship, everyone hated the police. So after the dictatorship, South Korea thoroughly reformed and defanged the police. This was a genuine success of the democratization movement. The police were turned from a gang of brutal thugs into an organization that almost never uses guns and is known for getting yelled at and beaten up by random citizens. If you hit a South Korean cop, the cop might be punished for annoying you. (Though the situation is different for ethnic minorities and striking workers.)

On the other hand, the prosecution service was left mostly untouched. While it obviously was no longer used for open political repression, it largely retained its broad investigative powers and personnel.

To put it simply, the prosecution service is an authoritarian holdover inside a democracy. It justifies its powers by being a hammer against the most powerful members of society. In South Korea, it's common for politicians of all parties to have their houses raided or be put in prison. This happens regularly even to former presidents, and even to some of the wealthiest people in the world, the heads of the chaebols. These things are unthinkable in most Western democracies. Whether you think these powers are justified or not, they've led to the prosecution service having far more active influence over politics than prosecutors in most democracies. As far as the prosecutors were concerned, that made them the heroes of this story.

These things came to a head in 2016 with conservative President Park Geun-hye (Bak Geunhye). Due to a series of massive scandals, Park had become extremely unpopular, with her approval rating hovering at 30 percent. What put the nail in the coffin for Park was an investigation by a prosecutor named Yoon Seok-yeol. Yoon exposed bizarre corruption involving President Park, Samsung, and a cult that had been involved with her family since the presidency of her father, Park Chung-hee. This led to massive protests and Park Geun-hye's impeachment.

(2016 Candlelight Protests)

The president who succeeded Park, Moon Jae-in, promoted Yoon within the prosecution service. At his new position, Yoon prosecuted and imprisoned Park, as well as another conservative former president. At this point, he was becoming a major public figure, popular among democrats and hated among conservatives. So President Moon promoted Yoon again, this time to Supreme Prosecutor of the entire service.

And then, Yoon started investigating Moon's own justice minister. This led to a public dispute. Moon's government looked corrupt and hypocritical, and Yoon became more popular than ever. Soon, Yoon resigned his office and entered the conservative presidential primary.

Of course, conservatives welcomed Yoon's entry, and he won the primary and the presidency. But how did they go from hating him for destroying their president to fighting to get him elected? How did Yoon go from prosecuting a corrupt conservative to being one?

The reason for the switch from Park to Yoon lies in their political brands.

Park Geun-hye's brand was built on nostalgia for her authoritarian father. Many older South Koreans associate Park Chung-hee's regime with stability, rational economic management, and anticommunism. At the same time, even most conservative voters hate actual authoritarian behavior. All South Koreans have either lived under military dictatorship or have heard from their family what it was like, and almost nobody is eager to return. Once Park Geun-hye's corruption and inept attempts at election manipulation were revealed, she was finished.

This is why conservatives welcomed Yoon Suk-yeol into their party: they needed him to wash their hands of corruption. He was a rebirth of authoritarian discipline made acceptable by his prosecution of unpopular conservatives. His message was law and order: if we lock up the corrupt, criminals, and communists, the country can be saved from ruin. If we push workers harder (by increasing work hours), economic growth will continue. If we push women harder (by forcing a return to traditional gender roles), the birth rate will return to normal. And, of course, the chaebols should be deregulated and given tax cuts.

Together Democratic Party

Before we pick things back up with Yoon, his main opposition is worth a look. This is the Together Democratic Party, which along with other opposition parties blocked the declaration of martial law and is now pushing for Yoon's impeachment.

We can summarize the Democratic Party's traditional and typical outlook in the figure of President Moon Jae-in (Mun Jaein). This was Park Geun-hye's main rival and the president who promoted Yoon Seok-yeol. He can be considered something like the "Korean Barack Obama". He was liked by democrats and called a dangerous communist by conservatives, but he didn't do all that much in reality other than raising the minimum wage, reducing the workweek, and attempting diplomacy with North Korea. He is now generally liked because things felt normal, he handled the COVID-19 pandemic well, and he didn't make any earth-shattering mistakes. He's the only living president not to be imprisoned after leaving office.

For decades, the Democratic Party was this type of moderate reformist, center-right party. However, in just the past few years, the party has gone through a considerable transformation.

(A 2017 Democratic presidential primary debate, with Lee on the left and Moon on the right.)

The Democratic Party has now unquestionably become the party of a person named Lee Jae-myung (Yi Jaemyeong), who was elected party leader in 2022. He's been called the "Korean Bernie Sanders", and this label is at least somewhat accurate.

Like Bernie Sanders, Lee Jae-myung can be characterized as a radical social democrat. His policies could actually be characterized as more radical than Bernie Sanders'. As the governor of Gyeonggi Province, Lee introduced a youth basic income and experimented with universal basic income. As a national political figure, Lee pushes for what he calls his "Basic Society" policies. These include universal basic income, youth basic income, universal basic housing (by massively expanding public housing), expanding free healthcare coverage to nursing, free meals for seniors, and a four day workweek. In general, Lee criticizes means-tested welfare and advocates for universal programs that guarantee a baseline standard of living by right.

On the other hand, Lee could also be characterized as less radical than his policies would imply. A common criticism, which ironically comes from both conservatives and leftists, is that he doesn't often talk about how to pay for his policies. Conservatives see this as a sign of irresponsible populism and economic illiteracy, while leftists criticize him for not naming the enemy. Unlike Bernie Sanders, Lee doesn't rail against chaebols or inequality or push for taxes on the rich. He also tends to appeal to questionable technology like AI rather than collective action. So although Lee champions some genuinely radical policies, he certainly isn't a socialist.

Lee's public image is also quite different from someone like Bernie Sanders. Lee is generally seen as a figure of questionable morality due to a constant conveyor belt of personal scandals and corruption allegations. He has been accused of, among other things, abusing his staff, having his brother involuntarily committed, illegally sending money to North Korea using an underwear factory, and having connections to organized crime. Lee's personal legal controversies have been the greatest source of instability for him and the Democratic Party since he became its leader.

In fact, Lee was recently convicted of lying while campaigning in one of his trials in November. Due to now having a criminal conviction, he is technically barred from running for office again. However, the conviction could still be overturned on appeal and recent events have really thrown everything up in the air. And even if Lee himself can't run for office, his ideology has taken over the Democratic Party and it's likely that whoever succeeds him will share it.

So, Lee Jae-myung is the nemesis that Yoon Seok-yeol has been fighting for his whole presidency. A criminal versus a prosecutor. Universalism versus austerity. Relief versus discipline.

Yoon Suk-yeol's presidency

Finally, we return to President Yoon. Though even as a prosecutor he was a figure of questionable intelligence, as a politician he's revealed himself to be one of the most inept people in modern history.

Since the beginning of his term, Yoon has been unable to do nearly anything at all domestically. The Democratic Party already had a majority in Parliament at the beginning of his presidency, and so Yoon has been unable to enact literally any part of his legislative agenda. Instead, he was reduced to calling young people lazy, bemoaning the far too short workweek, and wishing he could cut welfare.

In April of 2024, parliamentary elections were held. Lee Jae-myung, Democratic party leader, used the primary process as an opportunity to purge the party of centrists. Despite the Democratic Party's parliamentary candidates being further left than they'd ever been, opposition parties expanded their hold over the Parliament and nearly won a supermajority. After their victory, Lee Jae-myung was reelected as party leader and Basic Society advocates were elected to every seat on the party's supreme council. The Democratic Party emerged more left-wing, more ideologically unified, and more powerful than it ever had been before.

Now that Lee's Basic Society ideology had consolidated its hold on the Democratic Party and the Parliament, the Parliament began trying to pass its agenda in earnest. The Parliament passed bills establishing an experimental UBI, preventing companies from suing workers for striking, and expanding labor protections to subcontractors, among others. Over and over, Yoon vetoed them. Yoon has vetoed 19 bills and pocket-vetoed 4 more, more than every other South Korean president combined.

Both Yoon and the Parliament accused each other of being obstructionists. The problem for Yoon was that the Parliament's policies were popular, while his policies were unpopular. As Yoon issued more and more vetoes, his approval rating only fell.

(A political cartoon by Bak Sunchan depicting Yoon as a lame duck saying "veto")

Without the ability to change domestic policy, Yoon put all of his energy into foreign policy. Due to their history and composition, conservatives want to maintain trading links with other developed countries and developing countries for the chaebols to export to, want to maintain anticommunist alliances with the US and Japan, and are hostile to North Korea. (Participation in this system is what led the South Korean military to commit atrocities in Vietnam.) Democrats are somewhat skeptical of both the US and Japan, and want reconciliation with North Korea. Yoon has been strengthening relations with the US and Japan, sending weapons to Ukraine, and taking a hard line against North Korea.

Although several of these efforts were unpopular, the most significant has probably been Yoon allowing Japan to list the Sado gold mine as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Before Yoon, South Korea had been blocking this because the site failed to mention the thousands of Korean slaves forced to work in the mine during WW2.

So, the two years of Yoon's presidency had so far consisted of Yoon obstructing popular reforms while failing to pass unpopular reforms and engaging in unpopular war crime denialism. He was generally regarded as impotent, laughable, and annoying. And at the same time, allegations of Yoon's own corruption grew louder and louder.

Yoon's wife is accused of taking bribes and meddling in the conservative primary. Yoon's friend, a Marine Corps officer, is accused of negligence that resulted in a young conscript's death. Yoon is accused of using his friends in the prosecution service to interfere with both investigations. As these scandals grew, the Parliament passed bills appointing special prosecutors independent from the prosecution service to investigate them. Many of Yoon's vetoes were of these special prosecutor bills.

Since the parliamentary elections in April, Yoon has been stuck in a vicious cycle. The Parliament passes popular legislation and Yoon vetoes it. Yoon's approval rating falls. The Parliament passes a bill to investigate Yoon and Yoon vetoes it. More information and leaks about Yoon's corruption come out. Yoon's approval rating falls, eventually to 18 percent. Afraid of the public pressure, more conservative MPs distance themselves from Yoon.

It seemed inevitable that eventually, enough conservative MPs would defect to override Yoon's veto and appoint a special prosecutor. A special prosecutor would find evidence of Yoon's corruption. The public would grow only angrier with Yoon. The only road left would be impeachment and imprisonment, just like Park Geun-hye. Yoon bashed his head against the wall, unable to find a way out.

Clearly, somewhere in this pile was the final straw. On 12.3 at 10:23 PM, Yoon Seok-yeol turned on the camera and vomited blood.

So, what does the coup mean?

The declaration of martial law was so bewildering because it felt like it came out of nowhere. But that's not strictly true; the Democratic Party had been warning that Yoon was plotting to declare martial law for months. Most people dismissed this as a conspiracy theory, including myself. It was simply too far-fetched and illogical to contemplate, until it happened.

But the real reason it felt like it came out of nowhere was because, at the same time, it did. Not even Yoon's most devoted supporters were thinking about martial law. Apparently, everyone from the leader of Yoon's party to the Ministry of Defense to his own prime minister was caught totally by surprise. He circulated no conspiracy theories in advance, and not a single news network attempted to justify his actions. He had no cult of personality and no party ready to fall unquestioningly behind him. In short, he acted essentially alone. As soon as people rose up in defiance, he had no choice but to back down.

It's a good sign for South Korean democracy that the people defeated the self-coup attempt so quickly and decisively. But compare the political environment with that of other countries. How normal has authoritarianism become? How many people openly wish for a dictator? How subservient are the cabinet officials and the news networks? How cultlike are the major parties and how acquiescent is the opposition? These conditions make a country much more vulnerable to a ruler with authoritarian instincts. And we should expect authoritarians to act in creative and unprecedented ways.

The self-coup is an explosion of the authoritarian tendencies that have been bubbling under the surface of the conservative movement since the end of military rule. It's a decisive discrediting of Yoon's prosecutorial brand, which had been conservatism's last hope to maintain the people's trust. Yoon's impeachment and imprisonment are all but guaranteed. And the general consensus among both democrats and conservatives now is that Yoon's blunder has killed conservatism in South Korea for at least the next decade.

In fact, the 12.3 declaration of martial law might really have been a successful self-coup. In that the conservatives have removed themselves from power. And the death of the right is a golden opportunity that Korean leftists must seize. If Lee Jae-myung's Democratic Party becomes politically dominant, it must be challenged from the left to properly name the enemy. If the Basic Society policies become normalized, the left should treat them as common sense and demand more. When people become disenchanted with the democrats, the left must be ready as their competitor and obvious alternative, not the right.

Could South Korea see a new era of competition between a socialist left that wants to finally do away with the chaebols, a social democratic center that merely wants UBI, and a nonexistent right?

Maybe. Probably not. But a new world of possibilities has opened up.

[lion-writer]

I’ve seen a lot of headcanons and fics where Viago disapproves of Rook getting together with Lucanis. And ones that focus on how an alliance with the De Rivas benefits House Dellamorte, which is definitely true, and i fucking love them, but consider Viago probably couldn’t possibly ask for a better partner for Rook.

Though to be fair I am obsessed with Viago and his belief that he could restore the royal power of Treviso and that “He will not be satisfied until he sits upon a throne.”

While as a talon, he’s definitely more powerful than the king, and he could probably easily overthrow his father and take the throne. But that's probably not his biggest issue, because as my old history teacher used to say, “Power cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred”, so by restoring the power of the royal family, he’d be taking power away from the merchant princes and the other talons. Which, it’s probably safe to assume they wouldn't be happy about”. (Also as a side note, the quote “It’s not paranoia if they’re out to get you” is applicable here. Viago is a man planning to make A Lot of enemies)

And remember, this man is still the 5th talon, and while he’s allied with Teia, she’s also only the 7th talon. (Though they definitely should have gotten a promotion after the events of 8 little talons). So he’s not really in any position to actually make any power play, not unless he wants to piss off 6 of the other houses. 

Thankfully, depending on the choices you make, by the end of Veilguard, he’s almost certainly up there among the most powerful people in Antiva, given that he was a key player in ending the occupation of a major city by the Antaam, not to mention the killing of a Literal Evil God. The only Antivans that could be more influential than him at this moment is Teia, who he’s dating and let's be honest, will eventually marry, Rook, who’s his protege, 

Among those people, Lucanis is probably the most politically powerful, given that he’s done everything Viago has, in addition to the fact that he actually killed a god, and is now The First Talon. While I feel that he would support Viago in the bid for the throne, he’s also the only one who Viago doesn’t have any sort of formal alliance with. And considering Viago’s general distrust towards basically everyone, he wouldn’t place that much trust in the bonds of friendship, (especially if you believe that he thinks that Lucanis’s attempt at flirting was a threat).

But given the general political upheaval Antiva is probably already in right now, because It’s highly doubtful that Governor Ivenci was the only guy to make deals with the Antaam or Venatori for power, there’s no better time for Viago to make a play for power. With everything so recent it would be so easy for him to step forwards as a figure for people to rally behind, I mean he exposed corruption in the government, he freed Treviso, he trained a god killer, and he’s the son of the king. But If he waits, he kinda does risk somebody else stepping forth.

But after Ivenci’s attempt at getting rid of the crows and the whole Illario debacle, the other Talons would be very suspicious of anyone trying to take power, and while Viago is a Crow, he’s also an infamous curmudgeon who doesn’t really get along with the others. 

Luckily, Lucanis is head over heels for Rook, which cements an alliance with House Dellamorte. And well, there’s quite a historical precedent, especially in Antiva, for alliances and weddings to go hand in hand. Not to mention the message it would send to the other talons for Viago to give away Rook, his protege for whom he has already demonstrated a soft spot for, to The First Talon, arguably The Face of the Crows. In addition, a grand high profile Wedding between two heroes who just saved the world, is the perfect thing for the general public to associate Viago with after everything. 

I mean I’m pretty sure he would still grumble about it and he’d definitely let Lucanis know that if he ever dared to hurt Rook, Lucanis would wish he was still trapped in the Ossuary. But once he’s certain that they’re serious about each other, Teia and him would be the first people to start bugging them about marriage.

[emmashouldbewriting]

13yo went with her dad to work today and spent an hour on the beach alone, minding her own business, going rockpooling, and taking 36 photos of the beach that she whatsapp'ed me at lunchtime... and swindling ice cream from him when he was done.

she came home with a huge smile on her face, more energy, and an aura of peace.

basically, the moral of this story is lie to your kid's school that she has a migraine and let her spend an hour on the beach and the rest of her day in bed. amen.

normalise mental health days for kids.

13yo has been in bed all day sleeping because last week's exams took so much out of her and she finally crumbled today. she has a teacher training day on tuesday so i told her to take tomorrow off if she needs it so she has 4 days to recover from all her anxiety.

will she always be able to do that? no. but she's a child. if she doesn't get that extra day tomorrow, she could be out for an entire week, if not more. one day for the sake of her mental health is not the end of the world. one day could be the difference between autistic burnout and her finishing this school year.

her anxiety is not less worthy of a day off than a stomachache.

[honesty-my-policy]

i'm so infuriated

I'm not Jewish and I'm so infuriated at the world.

I can't imagine how it must feel to be Jewish. Especially as this entire ordeal has made me dive more into educating myself about Jewish history and how the world truly has always blamed everything on the Jews.

How is everything their fault?

Even the crucifixion of Christ has been blamed on the Jews when it was a Roman tradition?

Martin Luther who is known as one of the original reformers in Christianity's history wrote a book called "On the Jews and Their Lies". In which he advocated for burning down synagogues, Jewish homes and if that didn't work, Jewish people!

Apparently, somehow, Jews caused the Black Death despite the fact that the most predominant modern theory is that due to climate change in Asia, rodents began to flee the dried out grasslands to more populated areas which ended up spreading the infected fleas they carried, thus spreading the disease. The fleas infected not just rats but ground rodents in general, so once the rats migrated the fleas could jump to any ground rodent and the infection spread.

Some of the craziest modern stuff though has come mostly from the Middle East (i wonder why)...

Apparently, Israel has remote control sharks that can attack Egyptian civilians and tourists, at least that's what a Governor of Egypt things. source

According to a fundamentalist group of Muslims called the Wahhabis, the Jews have a secret ally they've been conspiring with... the Gharqad tree. A tree, they call it the Jew tree. source Which is identified as either nitre bushes or Lycium which is part of the nightshade family, it's such a thing that the TREE WIKI PAGE TALKS MORE ABOUT THAT THAN THE TREE ITSELF source

Palestine once said that Israel was breeding super rats that could grow twice the size of a normal rat - just to chase Arabs out of Jerusalem, note this was in like 2008, where are these super rats NOW? source

The Nation of Islam (an organization) accused Jews of tricking people into thinking slavery exists??????? Sorry, "still" exists. This was originally in 1996, the gall this motherfucker had in 1996 to say "Where is the proof?" - oh, his name is Louis Farrakhan btw and there is an entire section dedicated to him on the anti-slavery website iabolish.org - his page

Also, Pokémon is a Zionist conspiracy plot to overthrow Saddam Hussein, at least, in 2001 that was what some Iraqi security personal reported. source

listen... I won't lie. I love a good conspiracy theory because to be honest, the amount I trust my government or anyone in authority is so small that just about anything could come out as true and I'd be so un-phased.

but blaming the Jews for everything when they make up an estimated 0.2% of the population versus say the 23% that is Muslim? Which there are approximately 50 Muslim-Majority countries in the world, though depending on sources the exact number differs.

If anything Christianity (32%) and the unaffiliated (16.3%) should be eyed at. Also, how come no one ever gives the folk religion people a hard time? Not that anyone deserves to be given a hard time as long as they aren't hurting anyone, it just boggles my mind to be honest.

sources for numbers cited came from this website: https://worldpopulationreview.com/

anyway, woke up this morning and just wanted to say this cause I'm mad and I want to show my support but also call out stupid people. I'm here to fight for Israel and the Jews, fuck off pro-palestine simps.

[palskippah]

AU where Goldenheart are two butch lesbians and everything else's the same

-Ballister is still called Ballister and the black lipstick is supposed to simulate the man's beard and mustache 😭 gave it my all.

-Ambrosius is called Ambrosia (just the feminine version of the name 😔) and she's literally just Ambrosius but with boobs and no lil' beard. And also very in love with her wifey Ballister 😭 gave it my all too.

-Nimona's still Nimona and she becomes Ballister's sidekick and they overthrow the government and stuff

-Balli using lipstick means she gets to leave kissy stains when she kisses, she sometimes ditches her 24 hours, waterproof lipstick just for this.

>She had to get one of those to begin with because once her and her girlfriend were making out and everyone noticed because Ambrosia's lower face was all stained.

>Same energy as a beard, she gets her lipstick off and Ambrosia's like omg who are you D:? because she always wears it.