#suffering of one nation should not be used to downplay another

[faelorelia]

Can we please stop downplaying the struggle of one suffering people to show support for another?

My heart breaks at the atrocious news of Israel demolishing Palestine and the suffering of its people. And as a Ukrainian from Kharkiv, which Russia is desperately trying to wipe off the face of the earth, it also breaks my heart to see people claim that what’s happening in Ukraine isn’t enough to call it what it is – a genocide. How many more Ukrainians need to die for these people to acknowledge the reality of Russia’s actions? Are the destroyed Ukrainian cities, towns, and villages not enough? Must our entire country be in flames before they recognize Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide?

We, Ukrainians, are often perceived as either too “privileged” because we receive some humanitarian and military support, or not significant enough to garner widespread concern. If the same thing were happening in a Western European country, immediate action would be taken. Yet, we’re just Ukrainians, and it seems we matter less. Additionally, our struggle is constantly compared to that of Palestinians, and we’re criticized for seeking continued support.

Claiming that Ukrainians suffer “less” does nothing to help Palestinians. How is accusing us of trying to live our lives while missiles and drones are headed our way considered activism? There must be a better way to support one oppressed nation without minimizing the struggles of another.

People call out others for going to Starbucks but purchase from companies still operating in Russia. They hold Israelis accountable but welcome Russians, claiming they aren’t responsible for their government’s actions. They shout “Free Palestine” but ask Ukrainians to lay down arms and “make peace with Russia”. They boycott movies and series where actors condemned the Hamas attack on Israel but celebrate Russian filmmakers. They condemn the Israeli army for burning Palestinian books but continue to read Russian literature, claiming it’s beyond politics.

This world’s hypocrisy and attempts to blame victims and justify aggressors are disheartening. Supporting one oppressed nation should not mean diminishing the struggles of another. It’s not obligatory to show support for every oppressed nation in the world, but using one’s suffering to undermine the significance of another’s is harmful.

Keep supporting Palestine, keep donating, and raising your voices for them because their lives matter and they need all the help they can get. But do NOT drag Ukrainians down, deny the genocide we experience daily, or question our right to fight for our existence as a free nation. Do not let Russia destroy us completely. There’s still time, and the least you can do is not give our aggressor any advantage. Stand with justice. Stand with Ukraine. Do better.

[l8in]

The behind the scenes details of Neuralink's grisly monkey experiments just keep getting worse.

Now, a followup investigation by Wired reveals that a Neuralink implant "deformed and ruptured" the brain of one female macaque, after an experiment caused severe cerebral swelling.

The trials, conducted at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) at UC Davis by Neuralink scientists, had left the seven-year-old monkey with "severe neurological defects."

After noting the severity of its brain swelling, the researchers realized that the primate was terminal. But instead of easing its suffering, the scientist overseeing the experiment insisted the monkey be kept alive another day.

Its final 24 hours were torturous. Per documents obtained by Wired, the monkey seized and vomited, lost control of her right leg, and shook uncontrollably. It also appeared to have trouble breathing, scratching at its throat and gasping for air.

A postmortem revealed the extent of the damage. Leaked adhesive from the implant had inflamed the part of the brain that secretes cerebrospinal fluid. The effects were so severe that the rear of the monkey's brain protruded from its skull, though how the cavity was created is unclear.

But as bad as all this sounds, we may still not even know the half of it, as the photos that document the trials are being kept secret, Wired adds.

Ethics groups like the Physicians Committee, which sued UC Davis, have been pressing for the release of hundreds of photos documenting Neuralink's grisly brain implant experiments. As a public institution, the committee argues, UC Davis has an obligation to transparency. So far, this has been to no avail.

Questions about whether animals should be made to suffer for research that could one day benefit humans often haunt biomedical research.

It's a thorny issue, but it does sound as though UC Davis and Neuralink — like many of Musk's ventures — has pushed norms to the brink and leveraged aggressive tactics to keep the research quiet. For example, even though the brain rupturing incident with the macaque was acknowledged as a violation of the US Animal Welfare Act by federal regulators, Wired says the CNPRC preempted being legally implicated by self-reporting the violation.

"If you want to split hairs," an anonymous former Neuralink employee told Wired, "the implant itself did not cause death. We sacrificed her to end her suffering."

This only scratches the surface of the legal tricks being used to withhold the potentially damning photos. We won't wade too far into the weeds here, but the most important argument used by UC Davis is that the public is simply unequipped to properly interpret the photographs.

By extension, the institution claims that backlash caused by the content of the photos would not only endanger the scientists, but discourage them from taking such photos in the first place.

But this issue is bigger than Elon Musk's Neuralink, UC Davis, or the CNPRC. They're undoubtedly not the only bodies out there conducting questionable tests on animals, and the Physicians Committee has vehemently argued that the public has a right to know the nature of any animal testing funded by taxpayers.

That certainly doesn't exonerate Neuralink from wrongdoing, however, and its publicity — and that of its eccentric owner — quite rightly invites further scrutiny, its opponents argue.

"Disclosure of the footage is particularly important because Neuralink actively misleads the public about, and downplays the gruesome nature of, the experiments," an attorney representing the Physicians Committee in the lawsuit told Wired.

Nevertheless, the negative press hasn't deterred Neuralink going ahead with human trials — though the outcome of the Physician Committee's lawsuit may cast a long shadow over those experiments.

[balanceoflightanddark]

The Paradox of Woobifying Ursa

Fire Lady Ursa is...a complicated character. On the one hand, you have the almost saintly, caring mother that was the shining beacon in Zuko's childhood. On the other, she screwed up horrifically with Azula and she did support the imperialistic Fire Nation. She did smile at the thought of Ba Sing Se burning to the ground after all and there's no reason to suggest she was any different. No matter what the comics try to retcon or change, there's no denying the fact that Ursa has a lot of skeletons in the closet.

Here's where I have another issue with the comics. They try so hard to make Ursa a woobie and sweep all her flaws under the rug, maybe trotted out now and again, but always portraying her as a helpless victim of Ozai.

But...here's the irony.

This Ursa is much less sympathetic and interesting than the Ursa we saw in canon.

See, the Ursa in canon had flaws. A lot of them, no doubt. But she was never portrayed as a hapless victim. There was an edge beneath those layers of silk. Aside from supporting the regime, she was the one who was willing to kill the Fire Lord to protect her children. She had an agency in her actions and not just an abused housewife. It's what made her character interesting in the first place. That she was more than just another noblewoman.

The comics stripped that away from her. All of her agency was reduced to virtually nothing. Outside of the bit with the archer, all of her questionable actions were downplayed or given to somebody else. Her character was virtually reduced to "victim" and very little outside of "victim".

Which ironically made her unsympathetic since her nasty qualities like her questionable parenting of Azula is unaddressed and pushed onto Azula herself. She also gets even worse actions like being responsible for making Zuko's life hell with that asinine letter (which was unbelievably stupid on her part), but NOBODY CALLS HER OUT ON IT. Hell, the narrative wants us to feel sorry for her when Kiyi rejects her, when it is absolutely her fault for choosing to forget her children and have a new face. All attempts of sympathy for her fall flat when she's just a whiny piece of cardboard who never learns from her mistakes and all attempts at whitewashing her for Zuko's sake fall utterly since this narrative does. Not. WORK.

Compare this with Canon!Ursa who, again, DID have agency, and wasn't portrayed as being endlessly weepy all the time unable to change her fortunes.

Look, living with Ozai couldn't have been easy. But portraying Ursa as helpless ironically is a disservice to her. Cause now that moral ambiguity and the qualities that makes her fascinating are stripped. And for what? To make her sympathetic or the white sheep? I'm sorry, but whitewashing an imperialist is a disservice to her. Implying she was always good is an insult to the character.

Cause if Ursa doesn't have any flaws, any qualities that makes her human, then what's the point of reading about her to see if she can overcome them?

Change is an integral part of the franchise. So if Ursa was always perfect, how on earth can she change and grow, to overcome her flaws and become stronger as a result?

This is Fire Lady Ursa. Who she should be, anyways. Compassionate. Neglectful. A product of the Fire Nation. A mother willing to suffer the consequences for the sake of her children, even if she was never the best mother. A character with the capacity for both good and evil. A mess of qualities both detestable and admirable.

In other words: human.

[seewetter]

I mean it seems rather explainable.

The reasons given for the war were fabricated, because that is a habit for American military interventions. Vietnam was the first time this kind of deceit could be perceived by the public and the Gulf War was when new forms of propaganda were invented to fabricate reasons for war.

Why don't people talk about it all the time?

On the one hand, because a media capable of ignoring Germany's invasion of Poland and a political apparatus capable of presenting their media with false testimony by a small child (!) trained in lying (see first link) are not going to keep a memory of national failure alive if it isn't in their interests and the news cycle moves fast. (On that note: a small child testifying before Congress, but the kid is acting and the whole thing is a PR stunt to start a war -- isn't that "a catastrophe that should utterly delegitimize the society that made it happen" ? Like the Gulf War is at least as ridiculous as what happened in Iraq. I don't mean to downplay the horrors of that war, but like I sense a larger and more enduring historical pattern of "utterly deligitimizing" bullshit that people could reasonably be expected to be talking about all the time).

Another reason why people don't talk about Iraq all the time is that this pattern just never stops. Not only are there ridiculous examples of foreign policy prior to the Iraq War, there's ridiculous examples now. The so-called "Israel-Hamas War" or recently "Gaza War" (why do we call the recent attempt at intensifying the Nakba into a second Shoah a "war", even now, Wikipedia?) is no less spectacular and no less "mysterious" than the Iraq war. America's 2024 solution for a genocide: not only will they, as in previous years, supply weapons -- nope, they'll send some soldiers to help too. "This is a war that destroyed a country" -- I mean is that not something we can say about Palestine?

Richard Haass may never know why the war he advised on happened, but neocons wanted this was to happen since the 80s. The Iraq war is no less mysterious than the current ambitions of various American politicians who don't like Iran. If we ever see a military intervention or proxy war in Iran, we'll know that it's the result of decades of whining and begging on the part of people who had personal incentives to destroy that country. The postmortems of such a war would also be "uh, it's a mystery why it happened" because if some event remains unexplained and mysterious, then nobody has to make ugly confessions.

And a destabilized Middle-East seems to be part of the point, no? Why is one of the largest Middle-Eastern ethnic groups, the Kurds, a culture who aren't granted nationhood (not that I like nation states, but under normal circumstances nationhood is granted to groups like this, so this should make people think)? Do people ever benefit from a region being unstable?

Imagine if the Middle-East was a stable political region where people could, say, build trade networks between Europe and East Asia, connected through the Middle-East. Whose economy would suffer? Or say a bunch of Middle-Eastern countries were independent enough that they gave Russia nice sea access through the Red Sea or the Gulf of Oman / Arabian Sea? The US just don't like some prospect of some sort that has to do with their economic interests. I think we can be sure of this.

Now it *is* wild that the people who fabricated a claim of Saddam possessing WMDs would later go public about lying. That absolutely is wild. It's genuinely hard to understand why that was done.

But in the grand scheme of things it was mainly a costly and visibly unnecessary war. The Gaza "war" caused millions to be displaced and resulted in devastating losses to the cultural heritage of the region too. And people will also refuse to explain "why it happened", though the reasons seem fairly intuitive if one realizes what the US is getting out of this.

I missed most of the Iraq war due to being a baby, but every time I read about it I start wondering why we aren’t all talking about it all of the time

[robertreich]

Why Strongmen are Losing the Fight Against Covid

A hospital in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, is being charged under the country’s National Security Act for sounding the alarm over a lack of oxygen that resulted in Covid deaths. The hospital’s owner and manager says the police have accused him of “false scare-mongering,” after he stated publicly that four of his patients died on a single day when oxygen ran out.

Since Covid-19 exploded in India, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, seems more intent on controlling the news than the outbreak. On Wednesday, India recorded nearly 363,000 Covid cases and 4,120 deaths, about 30 percent of worldwide Covid deaths that day. But experts say India is vastly understating the true number. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, estimates that at least 25,000 Indians are dying from Covid each day.

The horror has been worsened by shortages of oxygen and hospital beds. Yet Modi and his government don’t want the public to get the true story.

One big lesson from the Covid crisis: lying makes it worse. Vladimir Putin is busily denying the truth about Covid in Russia. Demographer Alexei Raksha, who worked at Russia’s official statistical agency, Rosstat, but says he was forced to leave last summer for telling the truth about Covid, claims that the daily data in Russia has been "smoothed, rounded, lowered" to look better. Like many experts, he uses excess mortality – the number of deaths during the pandemic over the typical number of deaths -- as the best indicator.

"If Russia stops at 500,000 excess deaths, that will be a good scenario," he calculates.

Russia was first out of the gate with a Covid vaccine but has fallen woefully behind on vaccinations. Recent polling puts the share of Russians who don’t want to be vaccinated at 60 to 70 percent. That’s because Putin and other officials have focused less on vaccinating the public than on claiming success in containing Covid.

The U.S. is suffering a similar problem -- the legacy of another strongman, Donald Trump. Although more than half of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, more than 40 percent of Republicans have consistently told pollsters they won’t get vaccinated. Their recalcitrance is threatening efforts to achieve “herd immunity” and prevent the virus’s spread.

Like Modi and Putin, Trump minimized the seriousness of the pandemic and spread misinformation about it. Trump officials ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to downplay its severity. He declined to get vaccinated publicly and was noticeably absent from a public service announcement on vaccination that featured all other living former presidents.

Trump allies in the media have conducted a scare campaign about the vaccines. In December, Laura Ingraham posted a story on Facebook from the Daily Mail purporting to show evidence that Chinese communist party loyalists worked at pharmaceutical companies that developed the coronavirus vaccine.

As recently as mid-April, Fox News host Tucker Carlson opined that if the vaccine were truly effective, there’d be no reason for people who received it to wear masks or avoid physical contact.

"So maybe it doesn't work, and they're simply not telling you that.”

Why then should anyone be surprised at the reluctance of Trump Republicans to get vaccinated? A recent New York Times analysis showed vaccination rates to be lower in counties where a majority voted for Trump in 2020. States that voted more heavily for Trump are also states where lower percentages of the population have been vaccinated.

The Republican pollster Frank Luntz claims  Trump bears responsibility for the hesitancy of GOP voters to be vaccinated.

“He wants to get the credit for developing the vaccine. Then he also gets the blame for so few of his voters taking it.”

Trump’s Republican Party is coming to resemble authoritarian regimes around the world in other respects as well – purging truthtellers and trucking in lies, misinformation, and propaganda harmful to the public.

Last week the GOP stripped Representative Liz Cheney of her leadership position for telling the truth about the 2020 election. At last week’s congressional hearing about the January 6 attack on the Capitol, one Republican congressman, Andrew Clyde, even denied it happened.

“There was no insurrection,” he said. “To call it an insurrection is a bold-faced lie … you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

Biden says he plans to call a summit of democratic governments to contain the rise of authoritarianism around the world. I hope he talks about its rise in the United States, too -- and the huge toll it’s already taken on Americans.

[horrordirtbag]

Who made Leatherface the way he is?

this is another ramble post

I see a lot of people talk about this, usually in citing why hes wholesome 100 himbo, and most of the time people like to throw blame solely onto the cook and I kind of take issue with this. Is he abusive? Sure. He’s also bat shit fucking insane like everyone else so who’s shocked to realize that

If we’re going to extend so much sympathy to Leatherface in understanding him and what made him the way he is, why dont we ever ask what made Drayton the way he is? Why does the discussion always begin with Leatherface and end with Drayton?

Now I am aware that Leatherface is much more sympathetic due to his autistic and fearful nature but I find that the rabbit hole to what made the Sawyers the Sawyers runs far deeper than most slashers and the answer is much more complex than emotional abuse. 

First some contemporary context. The 70s were the first time serial killers became a big national deal, and the first question everyone had on their minds was what made them this way. We still see this all the time whenever there’s a new school shooter, it’s just in our morbid curiosity.  When horror films started focusing more on serial murderers rather than supernatural monsters, naturally they also took up this question and it became integral for each slasher villain to have their origin stories. 

Why am I saying all this? Because TCM takes a unique approach to solving this riddle of what makes someone a murderer. TCM is a very accusatory movie, it kind of bullies the audience lol. It makes them feel bad for eating meat, that’s obvious, and most will know it makes the audience feel bad for understanding and sympathizing with the titular, horrific killer. 

Keeping in line with this, while Halloween points the finger inward and says everyone innately has a bit of the Bogeyman inside them, TCM points the finger outward and blames the world for making the killers the way they are.

And that’s why I think it’s too simple to just point at Drayton as the cause. In a complex way, TCM makes him out to be a victim, too.

The Sawyers’ backstory is never overtly given to the audience and it’s something we’re left to just piece together on our own, but we are given an almost complete picture.

The family was always in the meat slaughtering business, at least as long as Grandpa’s been alive (137 years, no exaggeration lol). They’re a family on the complete outskirts of society, without many other options given to them (the slaughterhouse was just the closest place to them), so after generations, it’s all they really know. And once they lost their jobs, they couldn’t stop.

This is what made them killers, their job. Only before they were slaughtering acceptable meat. When they do the same thing to humans, it’s not longer ok. I mean it’s a job thats got to be done, but it’s easy to see how, when all you’re doing all day is assembly line killing things, you’d go a little crazy. And slaughtering was passed down each generation as tradition.

TCM obviously has beef with the meat industry, but it goes beyond that. It’s not just the industry that made them killers, but American 🤡society🤡 in general. Because really, the Sawyers are an all-American family, in all-American Texas. That’s why the film extensively shows us their dynamics, so we can see they’re just a very, very weird family, not dark sinister monsters who want to cause pain and suffering. They argue, laugh, worry about electricity bills and property damage like we do,  just in a very, very insane manner.

Just like how TCM takes cow slaughtering and turns it on it’s head, it also takes the nuclear family and turns traditional values on it’s head, too. We have our honest, hard working american breadwinner, the patriarch (Grandpa), but one problem... no women (rip grandma, we’ll meet again in Chainsaw Heaven ✊)

We simply can’t have a man do the dishes or cleaning, so Leatherface has gotta dress up as one to fill in these female assigned gender roles (not trying to downplay personality disorders, just trying to explain how it fits into the films theme), and as a man to fulfill the manly ones (butchering).

TCM takes all these normal American ideals, the woman doing the housework, the men running the family, and the preservation of family tradition (slaughtering/Grandpa), and makes them seem utterly insane. There’s a point where Drayton tells Leatherface to “get back in there” (the kitchen) and that should say everything needed lol

Ultimately, this is what made the Sawyers into killers. Once they lost their jobs and were left in the dust and pushed further into the outskirts of American civilization, they were left to fester in their lonesome craziness put on them by their jobs, and to preserve their family tradition in the most taboo way possible, they switch to humans. It’s not that emotional abuse made Leatherface a killer, or any of the Sawyer’s killers, it’s that society bred them to be. Cuz we gotta have our steaks lol 

PS this should go without saying but obviously the sawyers are responsible for their own actions, I just think TCM makes a profound claim on how rigid social structure breeds insanity

[potteresque-ire]

Here’s my response to @pussyibo, who tagged me on a post about Gg’s Li-Ning brand endorsement. 

First of all, I’d like everyone to please read @accio-victuuri‘s wonderfully written, detailedly researched post on the Li-Ning brand, the Xinjiang cotton support rally on Weibo, and the narrative the state has spun on the issue. I would’ve provided similar information in my response as well—although no way I could’ve laid it out as clearly, as to-the-point as @accio-victuuri did—because this background is critical in explaining my thoughts on this issue.

I haven’t reblogged the Li-Ning ads, but I must confess that the decision had little to do with politics. I’ve always leaned towards re-blogging art than real people.

That said, however, Gg’s Li-Ning ads have, of course, crossed my dash. And I’d be honest and say this as well: I haven’t really found them—or by extension, the idea that Gg was endorsing the brand—offensive, precisely for the reasons @accio-victuuri laid out. Li-Ning is a legend in China; a highly decorated olympic gymnast, he was the national pride chosen to be the final torch-bearer and torch-lighter for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. His company, established in 1990, was among the first Chinese brands with name-recognition overseas and has won high-profile international sponsorships—rare achievements among Chinese-owned enterprises, even to this day. 

Based on Li Ning’s identity and his company being a National Brand, I’d be more surprise if the Li-Ning brand doesn’t use homegrown, “patriotic” cotton, before even considering the practical reasons—Xinjiang cotton being a domestic product that eliminates the costs of shipping, tariffs etc; that it’s of such superior quality that international brands touted its use—a reversal of the usual downplaying of their products’ Chinese origin, due to the common associations of “Made in China”=“Bootleg”,“awful quality”; that makes up ~20% of worldwide cotton production—ie. most Chinese families are probably already using products with cotton from the region (blankets, for example). 

From that perspective, therefore, I’ve viewed the endorsement as little more than a case of a high-profile Chinese celebrity endorsing a high-profile Chinese brand, named after a national hero and targeted towards the local market. I breathed a little sigh of relief for Gg, admittedly—imagine if his new endorsement over those same few days had been for a brand under the Better Cotton Initiative; he would’ve been flayed alive, if the antis’ words were knives.

(And who said they aren’t?)

As such, I also haven’t considered the Li-Ning brand as “morally inferior” to Gg or Dd, or, the other way around, that Gg or Dd are “morally superior” to the Li-Ning brand. I haven’t considered drawing a moral ruler along this axis. I either believe they’re all doing what their sociopolitical environment has taught them, guided them, demanded them to do, or I don’t. Li Ning (the person and the brand), Gg, and Dd all have a celebrity status attached to them. They’ve all flourished in that one sociopolitical environment—that one they also call home.  

Ultimately, Gg and Dd belong to China. They’re the product of the country, its all powerful, all controlling regime. No one can be isolated from their backgrounds—my background colours every word I say here; likewise, there’s no place I can draw a line and separate Gg and Dd from the Communist Red behind them. I wouldn’t have posted about China’s sociopolitical environment, researched on it as a GgDd fan otherwise. 

I either walk away from them all, or I don’t. I either stay a fan, or I don’t. The latter is my choice. Every minute.

Have there been instances in which news about Gg and Dd make me especially uncomfortable? Yes. Photos of Gg in PLA (People’s Liberation Army; Chinese army) uniform for AT, or Dd in police uniform for BAH, for TTXS still give me stomach churns every time I see them. A violent squeeze of the heart.

Visceral reactions that come from, I suppose, the amyglada. More organic, primitive than thought. 

I’ve seen those uniforms in RL action—uniforms worn by those who’re truly responsible for the labor camps and mass surveillance, the torture, the unreported deaths, the disappearances; uniforms Gg and Dd have expressed support outside their drama, their host roles:

Translation: #I support Hong Kong Police too# (On red banner) “I support HK police. You can beat me up now.” What a shame for Hong Kong.

(Dd reblogged the same post originated from People’s Daily, the State-Controlled Newspaper).

I’m going to go on a quick detour and provide the backstory of this red little box, this piece of propaganda that is much more blatant than a clothing ad. I’ll explain why in a bit.

Here’s an article that explained the incident from which the quote was drawn, that occurred on 8/13/2019 during the Hong Kong Protest and the airing of The Untamed. Essentially, a Chinese state media reporter was suspected to be a spy among the protestors after taking photos, refusing to show his press pass (he was found to have one but not his own), and possessing a “I love HK Police” shirt; he was tied to the luggage cart and beaten up. The reporter said the quote in the red little box; he suffered mild injuries and was soon discharged by the hospital.  What was the background of this story, however? Why did the protestors beat up someone who could be from the press—who, regardless of their affiliation, protestors know should be protected? The protests began in June, 2019. Hong Kong had had another large scale protest in between September to November, 2014 (aka the “Umbrella Revolution”). Spies had always been an issue. Why didn’t a spy beating happen earlier?

Here’s an English-subbed documentary (warning: violence) that offers insight of the background—the fear and fury of the protestors. The subject is what is now known as 721 Yuen Long incident, or the evening Hong Kongers—even those who had not been involved, who had been unsure about the protests—lost their trust of the Hong Kong Police, once known as “Asia’s finest”.

That evening went like this. On 7/21/2019, the local mafia violently attacked the passengers of a late night train in Yuen Long station—passengers who weren‘t protestors (who wore black)—while the police ignored the multiple emergency calls from locals who’d spotted something suspicious, and didn’t show up on the scene while the beatings occurred. Evidences, which the documentary detailed, pointed to the Hong Kong Police, and the government that backed it, endorsing the beatings, therefore working with the local mafia to deal with the protests. 

By 8/13/2019, therefore, protestors were convinced that their opposition wasn’t beyond using very low blows to get their way. One could argue that they overreacted to the spy-reporter; the Western media, who had long trusted HKers to know what they were doing, expressed its disappointment, and the protestors soon apologised. The Chinese propaganda machine, of course, jumped at the chance of casting the protestors as bad people, and the online rally on Weibo ensued (It lasted for at least three days; Gg and Dd reblogged post about HK between 8/14/2019-8/16/2019).

That was, briefly, the story behind Gg and Dd’s Weibo reblog.

Why did I make a detour and write up this story? Because I’ve actually posted blatant propaganda on my blog—the Weibo post, with its red little box. However, does it still feel like propaganda with the story?

Therefore, I haven’t, and don’t plan on pressuring anyone to stop posting and re-blogging specific pieces of GgDd information—be it an ad as in this scenario, or propaganda material from films, series, government/state-controlled media announcements etc. That I believe everyone should set their own boundaries, be their own judge of what they’d like to share on their own blog aside, I think—and this is where my opinion may deviate from many—“canceling” falsehoods often isn’t the best way to deal with them. 

This opinion is likely, again, coloured by my background.

My observations have been this: “cancelling” is effective only if the cancelling force is, overall, significantly stronger than the force being cancelled. In the scenario that prompted this post, making Gg’s Li-Ning ads disappear from the dash is only possible if there are more fans who ignore the ads than those who post and reblog them. “Canceling” is therefore a competition of headcount, with tactics for sidekick—the side with more people, and people who are good at disseminating information, decides the outcome: whether the intended-to-be-cancelled material go viral within the fandom, or whether they die out.

I’d like to highlight this word: headcount.

This isn’t the most favourable kind of competition to participate in, therefore, if the potential opposition belongs to the populous country in the world, its members, people who may have participated in fan circles, which are essentially fan armies who’ve been used to organising, battling on social media for their idols. I’ve previously set up a hypothetical scenario, in which Dd’s supertopic members were encouraged by their government to scale the Great Firewall to Twitter, spread their support of Xinjiang cotton—a scenario that is not totally unrealistic, given that the Chinese government has previously mobilised fans for propaganda purpose. 

We’ll use this thought experiment again ~ please bear in mind, once more, that this is SJD; a figment of our imagination.

Since we’re talking about Li-Ning brand, let’s add Gg’s supertopic members to the mix. The total supertopics member count is 6.11 + 8.34 = 14.45 million, as of today (2021/04/04). 

Let’s say, only a tiny, tiny percent—0.01% of them are mobilised; that’s 1,400 people.

Is it possible to cancel the voices, the retweets of 1,400 in Gg and Dd’s i-fandom? Cut down another 90%, reduce the opposition headcount to 140. Is it possible?

There are also overseas Chinese who do not intend to spread propaganda, but believe in the story and have no qualms disseminating the information. There are also fans who wish to remove politics from fandom and pass all information along.

Here lies the frustration of those who’ve tried to raise their voice of concerns re: the policies and practices of the Chinese government on social media; and this is why I mentioned that my background informed my opinion. On social media, where headcount and whoever shouts the loudest, retweet etc the most wins the exposure game, it’s nearly impossible to win against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s propaganda machine, if the party chooses to have the machine running. 

Their side has so many people.

One more RL example: here’s a scholarly article detailing how Diba (帝吧), an old, popular online forum in China with 20 million members, mobilised, collectively scaled the Firewall and engaged in a cyberattack of the Facebook page of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen on January 20, 2016 — the day of President Tsai Ing-wen’s first inauguration; they left a total of 26,000 comments against Taiwan independence, using Simplified Chinese (which China uses) for their font instead of Traditional Chinese (which Taiwan and Hong Kong uses)—ie, the commenters didn’t even pretend to be not from China. They were proud and open about their "Expedition”.

(China’s state-controlled tabloid Global Times—yes, the same one involved in the Hong Kong airport incident above—”concluded the campaign was a “fun normal incident” that showcased young people’s passion for politics”)

Is it possible to try to cancel something of that scale? Is it realistic?

Personally, therefore, I’ve always advocated for “immunisation”: rather than protecting a fact by wiping out its associated lies—the idea behind “cancelling” a message, not having it show up on the dash—I prefer to do so by allowing it to be visibly challenged, until observers are no longer easily swayed by falsehoods. I used Gg and Dd’s Weibo reblog re: Hong Kong police as an example—is the red little box propaganda, a challenge to the protests? Yes. Is it information that I deeply disagree with, something I wish I’ll never see again? Also yes. But by providing context to it, I’m hoping to turn it into a vaccine—something mimicking the virus, the potentially viral piece of information, but doesn’t function the same way anymore. 

Hopefully, this vaccine will also encourage stop-and-think moments that boost future immunity; hopefully, with a few more boosters, questions will come automatically with such red little boxes reappear— questions about the context, the purpose, the message. 

Questions like these, for this incident: why did the State media make this incident the “Gotcha” moment in the Hong Kong Protests, important enough for People’s Daily to make a rally-starting meme? Why was the reporter, Fu Guohao hailed as a hero, when he’d just got ... beaten up? 

What did People’s Daily, and the government behind it, want people to find when the red little box popped up everywhere on Weibo, including the Weibo of the fastest rising stars from the hit summer TV series? What belief could be expected to be instilled into the audience with this photo, published by China’s state TV station (CGTN), of the reporter tied up to a luggage cart and surrounded by black-cladded protestors?

Who looked like the strong, evil side? The meek, good side? Why, finally, was the tag about the Hong Kong Police, when the conflict was between the protestors and an alleged Chinese state media reporter?

By then, Hong Kongers were already suspicious that the Hong Kong Police had been infiltrated by China’s law enforcement arm, from hints from the different dialects the police used, how they handled the protestors etc. It was the start the final break down of Hong Kong’s autonomy. Their suspicions were not wrong. Now, with the National Security Law having taken effect since July 2020, Hong Kong’s transformation into a police state is well under way.

What does the tag #I support Hong Kong Police too# mean now?

[Please excuse my using many examples from HK because 1) I’m familiar with the details; and 2) it’s the only instance in recent history in which the outside world can see, with relative clarity, a large-scale protest against the Chinese government and its outcome.]

Here’s my humble wish: next time, when a government-sponsored memes like this get translated and posted, be it originally reblogged by Gg, Dd, or other c-ent stars, be it on Twitter or Tumblr, the vaccinated, immunised will pause and wonder: What’s the story? What’s being told inside the Great Firewall, and outside? 

If this happens, red little boxes on my blog, unpleasant as they are, are 100% worth it.

The Li-Ning ads are therefore worth it too, IMO, if they spark a conversation, a dissemination of facts and perspectives. To me, the latter is especially precious in this fandom, where significant language and cultural barriers exist.  Fans who move Gg and Dd’s news and candies from Weibo are the pillars of this fandom. Sieving through that website is hard, translations harder; it’s unfair and unrealistic to ask them to also be the background knowledge deliverers. 

I’ve tried to do a small part, but I’m ... slow. Very, very slow. However, even if the background isn’t available, I’ve found being careful, skeptical about the information is already a very good thing. At heart, this is no different from the lessons from media literacy here, except there are even more falsehoods and half-truths to wade through given the country of origin of Gg and Dd’s material, and trustworthy sources are not always available. Li-Ning brand is an example that things do not need to be blatant propaganda to carry a pro-CCP message. 

What can i-fans do then about the Xinjiang cotton situation, if competing against the Chinese government propaganda machine on social media appears to be a losing game?

My thoughts are these, at the moment. First, please consider not dwelling on the competition, especially within fandom. Remember: getting several fewer fans to buy Li-Ning brand isn’t going to change the big picture.

Instead, if this is an area of activism you choose to participate in—please consider channeling your effort to watching the companies in your country. Put pressure on sustainability & good practice certification companies like Better Cotton Initiative, make sure they don’t, can’t have it both ways. Xinjiang cotton is either certified or it isn’t. There’re suspicions of forced labor on its production or there aren’t. The answer should be a simple yes or no, not whether the office is in Geneva or in Shanghai.

This is an answer that we, as consumers, have the right to know. Transparency in China isn’t for us to demand; we can, however, demand transparency in our own country. Remember too: it makes a far, far greater difference for one international company to re-consider its cotton source, than for one fandom to do the same. 

Meanwhile, and again, this is my humble opinion—please do whatever you’re comfortable with, that is within your ability, to fortify your stance. Should you choose to speak out online, you’ll likely meet opposition. Responses on current events from the Chinese Foreign Ministry (you can also find the spokespeople on Twitter) can offer a glimpse of the counterarguments you may meet. How will you answer them? Here’s a clip of one of the spokespeople arguing that the US used to use black slavery to pick cotton in the past. If you’re American and this is presented to you—what would you say? (Does mistakes by one country in the past mean mistakes by another country in the present is automatically acceptable?) The opposition may also use vicious words, the most extreme of which is probably “racist”. If someone call you racist—if many Twitter users scream racist!!!!!!!! at you at the same time for your critique—can you stand firm? 

[The pro-CCP camp has been taking advantage of the West’s effort to move forward from its racist past to stop any criticism of the Chinese government. It already knows the easiest way to silence the criticisms is to call whoever makes them racist.]

[If everyone fears the racist allegation, allows the conflation of Chinese government and Chinese people to take root, will there be more or less anti-Asian sentiments in the long run?]

[I’ve been called racist by writing these metas.] 

The last thing I’d like to say is this: please be kind to your fellow fans who’ve kept mum, or been hesitant about making their stance known. Some may be closely connected to China, others may not be in a psychological / health space to deal with the politics. Also, and here’s my default way of looking at this: I disagree with the idea that anyone owes anyone else a declaration of their political beliefs. I can’t imagine this issue to be an easy thing to think about for many Gg and Dd fans, myself most definitely included ~ as a (former) Hong Konger, a uniformed Gg or Dd gives me an unpleasant visceral response, but at the same time, it also means I’m used to accepting, even genuinely liking people on the other side of this political ... Grand Canyon. I can imagine the conflict, the pain this issue may have caused some fans who’re not accustomed to the latter, as being a fan, IMO, is never purely logical ~ and I mean that in the best of ways. 

Passion is the magic ingredient that separates a fan and a consumer. It’s also what makes choices difficult, when conclusions from logic, political stance included, conflict with it. Some make the hard choices quickly; some, slowly. Some make them in one go; some, piece by piece. Some never make them, let time be the decision maker.

As Dd said so famously and wisely, about the conflict between passion and logic: 愛��是這樣，沒有辦法 Love is like that. Nothing can be done.

The only common denominator is this: we’re all made to love.

❤️.💛.💚.

[babysprouseisart]

It is abnormal to create a filthy dump of needless insults and mockery of human nature

Nowadays, people are more and more forgetting about humanity and simple respect for each other.

This is not surprising, there is always a place and people who fall out of the normality of society, representing nothing more than insignificance.

One of the most rotten places, with the exception of some of its smallest ‘islands’, where a bunch of rats gather and spread various gossip and exclamations, is the long-suspected and identified Twitter.

It would seem for a second, since the personification of Twitter is a blue bird, proudly spreading its wings, that this place is about something bright and great, noble, because this very bird declared in the label, is presumably about to start its beautiful melodious singing, and so will continue from day to day.

However, this is just a stupid deception that draws people into this ugly world, whose personification can only be described as a dump, a large pile of manure with flies around and maggots in it.

And each of us simply has to decide for himself who he wants to be: a gentle and affectionate bird or a dung fly.

After all, it depends on each of us, on our behavior and conversations, posts, and so on, whether this place can become something better, transform itself so that it is going to be pleasant for everyone and the harmony to reign between the inhabitants.

Unfortunately, it is easier for many subjects to take the side of filth and evil than on the side of nobility and good.

It is much easier to pour buckets of dirt into this place, insult others, humiliate them, act low, than to tell compliments, support people, keep all the bile in yourself and direct all the negative energy in the right direction.

And one of these representatives of such garbage is the example below:

I am more than sure, and I'm very concerned about how the Earth is even holding this creature, because it can not be called a person, or even more so a personality, because it lacks any morally significant qualities, has almost completely atrophied.

Just look at how he forms his opinion, how he repeats and literally cracks all over just to judge, be so disgusting and hurt someone, and in this case, his potential victim is an actor, everyone's favorite performer of the role of Jughead Jones  - Cole Sprouse.

That's disgusting, isn't it?

But that lousy worm apparently doesn't think so.

Or maybe there are those who agree with him?

If there are such, then I strongly advise you not to continue, do not torment your eye sockets, unfollow me and go fuck yourself, sit wanking in your dung pit.

And for those who stand in solidarity with me, we continue the court of contempt and shame.

We all know, at least real fans of Cole or just mentally healthy people, how much he had to suffer this summer and spring.

Cancellation trend, death threats, address leaks, heavy breakup, and so on, along with bullying like this, which again spilled out of this stinking place - Twitter.

Maybe it's time to end this?

Maybe it's not okay to insult and humiliate a person who is nothing more than a stranger to you? Maybe it is enough and deciding for others how they would be better off should be over? Perhaps we should not accuse another of imperfection, when nobody is perfect?

Don't say anything, because I know that those who continue to read this are full of common sense and are people, not soulless creatures.

I just want to say and perhaps announce the common opinion that no person, being a representative of the human race, for anything in the world, under any circumstances, does not deserve such a vile insult and equating with an animal or inanimate things. Although even animals in their diversity do not deserve discrimination and disrespect. And each of the living being is destined for something in life.

Speaking of us as representatives of the human kind, we are neither dogs, cats, or elephants or, nor a ball, a glass or something else. We are people and we, by we I mean each of us, where Cole is no exception, regardless of how popular we are, what is the kind and type of our activity and national affiliation, deserve human treatment.

To equate someone with a dog and a breed of dog, to compare parts of the body or organ, such as teeth, with those of a dog, is humiliating and so disgusting that I can only imagine what a person might feel.

This is not normal. This is very different, incomparable, and a person is therefore a person, he differs from animals in all the aspects studied in social science .

People, think about how you would feel in the place of the person whom you insulted? Imagine that your mother, little sister or brother is called obscenely, comparing to a monster or some kind of Chupacabra, that looks not pleasant. It's not funny and even stupid. This is a kind of humiliation of dignity. Downplaying the role of a man and literally equating it with less developed organisms, I'm not saying that they are not developed at all, but in fact, they do not have what has developed in the process of evolution in humans, which is contradictory.

Yes, I understand you may not like this particular man, we all we have different opinions, how many people - so many opinions, but to nuzzle the man in the features of the physique, face shape and other qualities like an animal in the own shit is bad and unhealthy.

It is especially unbearable when a person has a feature, and some people turn it into a disadvantage and shame. Like, what?

As, for example, in the case of Cole. Yes, he has an uneven tooth. So what? God forbid you will never encounter such a problem, but please look at yourself in the mirror or under the microscope and you will definitely find your own features or disadvantages, it doesn’t matter how you call it.

That’s why this is no reason to insult him for what nature has given him.

And he doesn't need to fix it for the sake of scum like these trolls on Twitter, because he's not ashamed of it, it's a feature of him, not a shameful flaw.

He is handsome with this tooth in his own way, different from other people and, by the way, having a charming smile, no matter what. As handsome with his special features as each of us with our uniqueness, objectively. Maybe for some he is more handsome than a certain other, for some - less, whatever, but it still should not cross the line appropriateness.

I sincerely do not understand people who are bullying or making attempts to mock this person, instead of emphasizing the important, beautiful qualities of him as a person.

That is why I appeal to everyone who understands at least a little what I'm talking about, with a request - think and reconsider your life positions.

Do not be a dung beetle that oozes bile out of hatred and envy for another, be the same bird or butterfly that brings respect and respect to another, so that the place, like Twitter, where you live, act, or whatever becomes better and flourishes. Thank you to everyone who read this, and everyone who didn't, because you don't need this, and I hope you will draw your own conclusions. The end.

[knightdale-secret]

Today I learned a haunting truth about a secret hidden right in my very neighborhood. An ugly truth that has been hidden, covered up and mostly forgotten, until now.

In Knightdale, North Carolina the prominent plantation owner, Charles Lewis Hinton, purchased and built a plantation home for his son David Hinton and his new wife Mary Boddie Carr as a wedding present on a stretch of land that would come to be known as the Midway Plantation because it was halfway between two other Hinton family properties. The beautiful, two-story Greek Revival plantation home was built in 1848 as a forced-labor farm. A slave plantation.

I’m not certain how many people were enslaved there over the years, but I do know that at least 130 of those slaves were buried on a site that would later be knowingly built on top of to create Widewaters subdivision. MY neighborhood.

Right behind the community pool and club house there is a strange white gravel path that leads up a slight hill to a black wrought iron fence gate that is always latched. There is a rickety wooden fencing surrounding a wooded area on a hill. This is in the middle of the neighborhood. There was never any explanation for it - for why, in a development, this overgrown patch of trees is fenced in and gated off, untouched, where normally there would be another few houses perhaps. I pass this area almost daily in my car or on leisurely walks. I had noticed the fence but thought maybe it was part of someone’s property. I didn’t think too much of it.

But that changed today. Today I was bored and looking up about local plantation owners in the area because history has always interested me. I learned a little about the Shoppes of Midway being built where the plantation house once stood and that the original house and its outbuildings were moved 2 miles up the road so a Target could be built and the ever expanding road wouldn’t keep encroaching on their lawn. This made way for growth in Knightdale. And grow it has. What was once a small town on the outskirts of Raleigh has become busier and more built up as available housing in the city has decreased and people leave it in search of quieter suburbs to live and raise their families. So as I was researching for no reason in particular other than personal interest, I stumbled upon an article about Midway Plantation and it stated that there was a slave cemetery that was surveyed and a neighborhood was built on top of it. It said it was across the street to the east from where the Midway Plantation house originally stood and that all that was left of the cemetery was maybe 50 graves on a hill in some trees surrounded by a black wrought iron fence. The article states that after the building of the subdivision was started, it was clear that houses were more important than the graves of the many slaves that worked the plantations. And yes, the builders did know about the cemetery. It was surveyed and it was signed off on to be built over. I think this is when the downplaying, lying and covering up started. A letter was reportedly written according to the below article when the preparations for the subdivision were being made that said that such a large slave cemetery couldn’t have existed in this area based on the shaky reference that the present owners didn’t have enough slaves to have this type of burial ground and no church could be identified on the grounds (cause cemeteries only are constructed on church grounds?) this mysterious letter writer conveniently failed to recognize that the land was originally Hinton land and they had slaves numbering in the hundreds here and could most certainly have amassed a deceased slave population of that size over the years it was in operation.

There is a saying about guilt : “A given excuse that was not asked for implies guilt.” If this letter writer submitted this without prompting from any public outcry than he was already defending a guilty mind. He was trying to persuade people away from the truth and to avoid any public outrage over the very wrong they knew they were committing by building here.

That article link is here: http://www.knightdalehistoric.com/pdf/plantations3.pdf

This was the only article or snippet of information I could find about this cemetery that very clearly under my neighborhood and whose remaining grave sites lie just mere feet away from our community swimming pool. This disturbed me greatly because to date, this site is unmarked and unrecognized. So i first decided to submit a request for a historical marker to be made for the site. I was met with an emailed response by a very helpful administrator for the NC Marker Historical Society who said that they no longer do markers for cemeteries but she would contact the National Register for Historic Places and see if the cemetery could be added to the Midway plantation that is already registered as a historical place. She has been talking with archaeologists who are working on this and she’ll be in touch. I also emailed someone in archives to see how I could find the site survey that was done but haven’t received a response yet.

Next I decided to post this information on Facebook to the local community groups and see how they felt about it, and to inform them as well as pose that a marker be made and that I would try to get that facilitated. An outpouring of support and offerings to donate to help fund its creation were given. I knew I was onto something that was important not just to me as a person living in a neighborhood with a secret of this magnitude, but to a community of people who would also want this recognized.

Now, I myself am not African American. I am pretty much as white as they come, I have the genealogy report to prove it. I struggled with the idea that I would be lambasted as trying to be some sort of “white savior” or something by trying to make this happen. I felt guilty that I was the one that found this information and had to be the one to put it out there. I felt like this belongs to the descendants of slaves. this is something that would affect their community,feelings and hearts maybe more than the white community’s in its ramifications and would of course be more important to them on a more personal level. Who am I to come in and make a big stink about something that isn’t even my history someone might say,but it is America’s history. It is the history of the land I now inhabit. And it is an issue that I hold dear to my heart because these men and women and children that lived, worked and died here were not just property or possessions, they were people and their graves should be respected just like anyone else’s. More so I think. Their graves can serve as a reminder of the great bloody sins that occurred in the building of this country. In the building of the south. The only monuments I’d like to see in the south would be to commemorate the slaves, not the enslavers and the people that tried to tear the country apart. The hero slaves that helped build this nation against their will and with great laboring and suffering due to an abhorrent institution that stains our history. They are the ones that should be remembered. Their stories told.

I have always been a sympathizing person. My first hero in elementary school was Martin Luther King, Jr. I gave an oral report on him and did papers later in junior high. I have always been the type of person that hates seeing injustice done to people and the hatred that divides communities and people over nothing more than color or ignorant biases. It never made sense to me and I never understood why people can’t be kind to one another and celebrate differences rather than fear them.

Some people made the point that many cemeteries have been likely built on over the years including white cemeteries, which I also think is awful, but in this situation PART OF THIS CEMETERY IS STILL HERE! Part of our history, this city’s history is still here in OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. We pass it every day! It is here with us and it should be recognized. It should be visited and reflected on. It should be acknowledged.

I visited the cemetery site today and saw the indentations in the ground and the old stone markers left on some of the sites where the slaves were buried. I couldn’t believe that this was just here, between houses and a pool, not in a historical site that you had to pay to see. No fanfare or brochure handouts. Just dusty old bones in the ground marked by grey stones in a patch of trees in the middle of a subdivision, silently waiting to be seen. I whispered to them before I left that I would do all I could to make sure they were not forgotten. That a marker in their honor would be made so they could be remembered. I sincerely hope I can make that happen.

Thru my posts on Facebook, I met a man named Keith Gibbs who has apparently already done a lot of work to try to have this cemetery recognized with a small group of others but they hit many roadblocks. He told me that there are cover ups and corruption surrounding the area from higher ups and people that don’t want this information out there. He was unsuccessful in his journey to get the site recognized, but he has agreed to hand over his research and findings to me in hopes I will be the one to get something done. ME, a curious girl with no real clout, lol. Yeah, ME, I’m the one. I’m the one that will make this happen where others failed. RIGHT?? Right.

Now, it should be said that I have never really been the figure head for anything in my life. I have never been the spokesperson, the leader the public person, the socialite. I am a shy person that works best from the shadows, behind the scenes. The one that does the work but doesn’t get the credit. And I have largely been okay with that role. It’s less stressful. But now people are looking to me to lead them on this issue. To call the shots and take the donations and create the marker. And that was all fine and dandy…. until CBS 17 messaged me asking if I’d like to do a story for them to help get attention and funding for the marker. I got excited and also nervous. I let her know that would likely be a good Avenue to take to get it done but I am still in the information gathering stage. I let her know of my meeting with Keith and told her I’d get back with her when I knew more. She was okay with that.

Honestly, I was relieved I had a reason to stall. I’ve never been on TV before! Cameras DO NOT love me unless its a selfie photo with a Snapchat filter that i’m taking of myself lol. I’m no public speaker. And also I still feel like it shouldn’t be me. I mean, it should since I discovered it and put it out there for the masses, but how can I be the face of this? Me, a white girl from small town Pennsylvania, be the face of a covered up slave cemetery? I feel guilty but also I do feel like there is something to white privilege and power and I hope to only use it as a force for good in this world and to help those with less privilege than I where I can. We only live once and I think a whole lot about how I want to be remembered when I am gone. When someone is building houses over my grave. I’d like to know somewhere out there I might be remembered fondly for doing something that was right in this world of wrongs.

I’m terrified to do the story, but I feel like it is my duty now and my responsibility. I am just so scared of fucking it up. What if I say something stupid or that can be taken out of context? This is such a touchy issue after all. I just want to do them justice. God help me. I just want them to be remembered.

[haitiqbohio]

Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer receiving Charles X’s decree recognizing Haitian independence on July 11, 1825. Credit: Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

When France Extorted Haiti – the Greatest Heist in History

In the 19th century, the thinking went that the former enslavers of the Haitian people needed to be compensated, rather than the other way around.

The Conversation   Marlene Daut

In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, there have been calls for defunding police departments and demands for the removal of statues. The issue of reparations for slavery has also resurfaced.

Much of the reparations debate has revolved around whether the United States and the United Kingdom should finally compensate some of their citizens for the economic and social costs of slavery that still linger today.  

But to me, there’s never been a more clear-cut case for reparations than that of Haiti.    

I’m a specialist on colonialism and slavery, and what France did to the Haitian people after the Haitian Revolution is a particularly notorious examples of colonial theft. France instituted slavery on the island in the 17th century, but, in the late 18th century, the enslaved population rebelled and eventually declared independence. Yet, somehow, in the 19th century, the thinking went that the former enslavers of the Haitian people needed to be compensated, rather than the other way around.

Just as the legacy of slavery in the United States has created a gross economic disparity between Black and white Americans, the tax on its freedom that France forced Haiti to pay – referred to as an “indemnity” at the time – severely damaged the newly independent country’s ability to prosper.    

The Cost of Independence

Haiti officially declared its independence from France in 1804. In October 1806, the country was split into two, with Alexandre Pétion ruling in the south and Henry Christophe ruling in the north.

Despite the fact that both of Haiti’s rulers were veterans of the Haitian Revolution, the French had never quite given up on reconquering their former colony.

 In 1814 King Louis XVIII, who had helped overthrow Napoléon earlier that year, sent three commissioners to Haiti to assess the willingness of the country’s rulers to surrender. Christophe, having made himself a king in 1811, remained obstinate in the face of France’s exposed plan to bring back slavery. Threatening war, the most prominent member of Christophe’s cabinet, Baron de Vastey, insisted,“ Our independence will be guaranteed by the tips of our bayonets!”

In contrast, Pétion, the ruler of the south, was willing to negotiate, hoping that the country might be able to pay France for recognition of its independence.    

 In 1803, Napoléon had sold Louisiana to the United States for 15 million francs. Using this number as his compass, Pétion proposed paying the same amount. Unwilling to compromise with those he viewed as “runaway slaves,” Louis XVIII rejected the offer.

 Pétion died suddenly in 1818, but Jean-Pierre Boyer, his successor, kept up the negotiations. Talks, however, continued to stall due to Christophe’s stubborn opposition.

  “Any indemnification of the ex-colonists,” Christophe’s government stated, was “inadmissible.”

Once Christophe died in October 1820, Boyer was able to reunify the two sides of the country. However, even with the obstacle of Christophe gone, Boyer repeatedly failed to successfully negotiate France’s recognition of independence. Determined to gain at least suzerainty over the island – which would have made Haiti a protectorate of France – Louis XVIII’s successor, Charles X, rebuked the two commissioners Boyer sent to Paris in 1824 to try to negotiate an indemnity in exchange for recognition.

On April 17, 1825, the French king suddenly changed his mind. He issued a decree stating France would recognize Haitian independence but only at the price of 150 million francs – or 10 times the amount the U.S. had paid for the Louisiana territory. The sum was meant to compensate the French colonists for their lost revenues from slavery.

Baron de Mackau, whom Charles X sent to deliver the ordinance, arrived in Haiti in July, accompanied by a squadron of 14 brigs of war carrying more than 500 cannons.

Rejection of the ordinance almost certainly meant war. This was not diplomacy. It was extortion.

 With the threat of violence looming, on July 11, 1825, Boyer signed the fatal document, which stated, “The present inhabitants of the French part of St. Domingue shall pay … in five equal installments … the sum of 150,000,000 francs, destined to indemnify the former colonists.”    

French Prosperity Built on Haitian Poverty

Newspaper articles from the period reveal that the French king knew the Haitian government was hardly capable of making these payments, as the total was more than 10 times Haiti’s annual budget. The rest of the world seemed to agree that the amount was absurd. One British journalist noted that the “enormous price” constituted a “sum which few states in Europe could bear to sacrifice.”    

Forced to borrow 30 million francs from French banks to make the first two payments, it was hardly a surprise to anyone when Haiti defaulted soon thereafter. Still, the new French king sent another expedition in 1838 with 12 warships to force the Haitian president’s hand. The 1838 revision, inaccurately labeled “Traité d’Amitié” – or “Treaty of Friendship” – reduced the outstanding amount owed to 60 million francs, but the Haitian government was once again ordered to take out crushing loans to pay the balance.

Although the colonists claimed that the indemnity would only cover one-twelfth the value of their lost properties, including the people they claimed as their slaves, the total amount of 90 million francs was actually five times France’s annual budget.

The Haitian people suffered the brunt of the consequences of France’s theft. Boyer levied draconian taxes in order to pay back the loans. And while Christophe had been busy developing a national school system during his reign, under Boyer, and all subsequent presidents, such projects had to be put on hold. Moreover, researchers have found that the independence debt and the resulting drain on the Haitian treasury were directly responsible not only for the underfunding of education in 20th-century Haiti, but also lack of health care and the country’s inability to develop public infrastructure.

Contemporary assessments, furthermore, reveal that with the interest from all the loans, which were not completely paid off until 1947, Haitians ended up paying more than twice the value of the colonists’ claims. Recognizing the gravity of this scandal, French economist Thomas Piketty acknowledged that France should repay at least US$28 billion to Haiti in restitution.    

A Debt That’s Both Moral and Material

Former French presidents, from Jacques Chirac, to Nicolas Sarkozy, to François Hollande, have a history of punishing, skirting or downplaying Haitian demands for recompense.

 In May 2015, when French President François Hollande became only France’s second head of state to visit Haiti, he admitted that his country needed to “settle the debt.” Later, realizing he had unwittingly provided fuel for the legal claims already prepared by attorney Ira Kurzban on behalf of the Haitian people – former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had demanded formal recompense in 2002 – Hollande clarified that he meant France’s debt was merely “moral.”

 To deny that the consequences of slavery were also material is to deny French history itself. France belatedly abolished slavery in 1848 in its remaining colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion and French Guyana, which are still territories of France today. Afterwards, the French government demonstrated once again its understanding of slavery’s relationship to economics when it took it upon itself to financially compensate the former “owners” of enslaved people.

The resulting racial wealth gap is no metaphor. In metropolitan France 14.1% of the population lives below the poverty line. In Martinique and Guadeloupe, in contrast, where more than 80% of the population is of African descent, the poverty rates are 38% and 46%, respectively. The poverty rate in Haiti is even more dire at 59%. And whereas the median annual income of a French family is $31,112, it’s only $450 for a Haitian family.  

These discrepancies are the concrete consequence of stolen labor from generations of Africans and their descendants. And because the indemnity Haiti paid to France is the first and only time a formerly enslaved people were forced to compensate those who had once enslaved them, Haiti should be at the center of the global movement for reparations.    

Marlene Daut is Professor of African Diaspora Studies at the University of Virginia.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/when-france-extorted-haiti-the-greatest-heist-in-history?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 16, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

The reality that Joe Biden is about to become president and Kamala Harris is about to become vice president is sinking in across Washington, and today gave us some indications of what that’s going to mean.

Stories about what exactly happened in the Trump administration are coming out, and they are not pretty. Politics trumped everything for members of the administration, even our lives.

Today Representative James Clyburn (D-SC), who chairs the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, revealed documents from senior appointees in the Trump administration overriding the work of the career officials in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those documents show that the political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services called for dealing with the coronavirus crisis by pursuing a strategy of “herd immunity,” deliberately spreading the coronavirus to try to infect as many people as possible, with the theory that this approach would minimize the dangers of the pandemic. While doing so, they downplayed what they were doing, tried to hide the dangers of the virus, and blamed the career scientists who objected to this strategy for the rising death rates.

Although the White House has tried to distance itself from senior Health and Human Services Adviser Paul Alexander, last summer he was widely perceived to speak for his boss Michael Caputo, the Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs whom Trump had appointed, and for the White House itself. Alexander, a part-time university professor from Canada, defended Trump against scientists, accusing CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat of lying when she provided accurate public information about the worsening pandemic. When she suggested everyone should wear a mask, he claimed: “her aim is to embarrass the President.” Alexander attacked Anthony Fauci for his attempts to protect Americans. “He just won’t stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” wrote Alexander on July 3, 2020 (yes, I counted the exclamation points); “does he think he is the President???”

Alexander advocated spreading the infection to younger Americans: “So the bottom line is if it is more infectiouness [sic] now, the issue is who cares? If it is causing more cases in young, my word is who cares…as long as we make sensible decisions, and protect the elderely [sic] and nursing homes, we must go on with life….who cares if we test more and get more positive tests.”

Alexander wrote to Caputo: “There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus.  PERIOD.” On the same day, he wrote: “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…”

On July 24, he wrote to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Caputo: “it may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” as a strategy to get “natural immunity…natural exposure,” an argument that illuminates Trump’s insistence this summer that schools and colleges must open.

But the idea that young people are safe from the virus is wrong. Today, an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that while Americans older than 65 have borne the brunt of the coronavirus, young adults are suffering terribly. From March through July, there were almost 12,000 more deaths than expected among adults from 25 to 44. Young Black and Hispanic Americans make up not just a disproportionate number of that group of victims; they are a majority. Those extraordinary death rates have continued. Younger adults are indeed endangered by the coronavirus; the idea it is harmless to them “has simply not been borne out by emerging data,” doctors Jeremy Samuel Faust, Harlan M. Krumholz, and Rochelle P. Walensky—Biden’s pick to run the CDC-- wrote in the New York Times today.  

Another report today showcases two former CDC political appointees who are now speaking out to call attention to the silencing of career scientists at the agency. Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at the CDC, and his deputy Amanda Campbell watched as political appointees in Washington ignored scientists, censored doctors’ messages to the public, and cut the agency’s budget. “It was… like a hand grasping something, and it slowly closes, closes, closes, closes until you realize that, middle of the summer, it has a complete grasp on everything at the CDC,” McGowan told New York Times reporter Noah Weiland. “Every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won.”

Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize winning fact-checking website from the Poynter Institute, named the downplaying and denial of the seriousness of coronavirus its “Lie of the Year.”

Today it became clear the administration dropped the ball in other important ways. We have more information now about the extensive computer hack that appears to have been conducted by operatives from the Russian government. It’s bad. Hackers placed malware on commercial network management software upgrades to gain access to government computers, along with those of major U.S. companies, as far back as last March. They have been able to root around in our secrets for months. Hackers accessed the Treasury and Commerce Departments, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and parts of the Pentagon, among other targets. The intrusion was discovered on December 8, when the cybersecurity company FireEye realized it had been hacked and alerted the FBI.

Today the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), issued a joint statement acknowledging “a significant and ongoing cybersecurity campaign” and indicated they are not sure yet what has been hit. “This is a developing situation, and while we continue to work to understand the full extent of this campaign, we know this compromise has affected networks within the federal government.” It is clear the U.S. has been hit hard: Trump’s National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has cut short an overseas trip to come home and deal with the crisis.

In the New York Times, Thomas P. Bossert, Trump’s former Homeland Security Adviser said, “the magnitude of this national security breach is hard to overstate.” He insisted the U.S. must call out Russia for this attack (assuming it is confirmed that that country is, indeed, behind the attack). “Trump must make it clear to Vladimir Putin that these actions are unacceptable. The U.S. military and intelligence community must be placed on increased alert; all elements of national power must be placed on the table.”

“President Trump is on the verge of leaving behind a federal government, and perhaps a large number of major industries, compromised by the Russian government. He must use whatever leverage he can muster to protect the United States and severely punish the Russians.”

The New York Times called this breach “among the greatest intelligence failures of modern times.” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called it “stunning.” “Today’s classified briefing on Russia’s cyberattack left me deeply alarmed, in fact downright scared. Americans deserve to know what’s going on,” he tweeted. Blumenthal also recognized the severity of the coronavirus early: he tweeted on February 25: “This morning’s classified coronavirus briefing should have been made fully open to the American people—they would be as appalled & astonished as I am by the inadequacy of preparedness & prevention.”

And yet, there are signs that the country is reorienting itself away from Trump and modern-day Republicanism.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, previously a staunch Trump supporter, has released an advertisement urging people to wear masks and admitting he was wrong not to wear one at the White House. It seems likely he is eyeing a future presidential run, and clearly is calculating that it is wise these days to distance himself from Trump’s anti-mask politics.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has refused to advance a coronavirus relief bill since the House passed one last May, seven months ago, is now trying to make a deal that includes direct payments to Americans hurt by the pandemic. He explained to Republicans today that Republican senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are running against Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia, are “getting hammered” because the people want the bill and the Senate is holding it up.

Finally, Bloomberg last night ran a story by journalist Craig Stirling highlighting the work of economists David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King’s College London, who examined the concept of “supply side economics,” or the “trickle down theory.” This is the economic theory popularized in the 1980s saying it’s best for the economy not to support wages at the bottom of the economy—the demand side—but rather to free up capital at the top—the supply side—because wealthy entrepreneurs will create new jobs and the resulting economic growth will help everyone. This idea has been behind the Republicans’ forty-year commitment to tax cuts for the wealthy.

In their study of 18 countries over 50 years, Hope and Limberg concluded that this theory was wrong. Tax cuts do not, they prove, trickle down. They do little to promote growth or create jobs. Instead, they mostly just help the people who get the tax cuts.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[shelbymustange]

Is Canada really that good? I've been thinking abt leaving my country and America is a no-no for me

This is such an incredibly difficult thing for me to write, as I’m a white person living in Canada and I don’t know a lot about POC experiences in my country. Everything I know about racism in Canada is from an outsider perspective. The only thing I can really speak on is my experiences as an LGBT person, and as an AFAB person who was born and raised here.

I'm not even close to an authority on how POC feel about living in Canada, and I can only give my opinion on that based on my personal experiences with my POC friends and acquaintances, plus what I have read in the news and from articles written by POC.

As well, this is from the perspective of someone who grew up in rural Ontario, and is living in Ottawa. Ottawa is not a large city, and it is in South Eastern Ontario. Canada is a very, very large country. South Eastern Ontario is no where near the same as Northern Ontario, or even Western Ontario, let alone Alberta or the Maritimes or the Yukon. 

Please keep this in mind as a speak on what I do know. There is a lot more that I don’t, and if you are POC, I encourage you to seek out articles or posts written by POC citizens and immigrants about their experience coming to Canada and living here. As well as seeking out local articles written from the place you may want to move within the country. 

Now that I have said that, let me begin:

Canada has it's issues with POC, and it would be incredibly ignorant for me to say we don't. There is still racism here, there is still anti-immigrant sentiment. There’s a very, very longstanding history of racism toward our First Nations/Indigenous/Native people. This history and mistreatment is becoming more well known about my country. It’s currently in debate whether we should label the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women a genocide because of the systematic negligence on the part of our authorities toward finding these girls and closing the numerous cold cases there are. As well, the ‘Starlight Tours’ -- or a more apt and less pleasing name the “Saskatoon Freezing Deaths” are also gaining a lot more attention toward how my country has treated it’s Indigenous people, and their systematic oppression. Not to mention the issue surrounding our residential schools and kidnapped indigenous children. <--there is a lot to unpack about Canada and it’s First Nations peoples. I could go on for paragraphs about this. I encourage any Canadian followers to read the articles in this paragraph and learn about these atrocities if you think our country is perfect.

Canada is not a utopia for POC. Brown and Black people as well, still suffer from racism from our authorities, as well as just daily racism from the people around them. And there are cases of police negligence and brutality that happen in Canada. This is a fact that our country has to face. 

In terms of our government -- well, our parties are a lot different than the US. Here’s what our election looked like last year, and a basic overview on party policies. Our elections last like...a month? I think last year it was 78 days and that was a long ass election. Generally speaking, there isn’t as much of and Us or Them mentality with our parties and I think it’s because we have a Parliament system. In my perspective, they’re all sort of toeing the line because they need each other in order for any policy to pass, especially when we have a minority government.

So, no one other than the conservatives are aligning themselves with just one party. And the conservatives only do that because the PC party is really the only contending conservative power in Canada. The other three parties that have MPs in House are leftist parties. 

Personally speaking, I’m a leftist. I side more with the NDP than the Liberals in terms of policies, but I don’t align myself with a specific party. I’m just a leftist. I usually vote Liberal, because in my district, they are the only contenders against the PC party, and ultimately my district is PC led because it’s a small town and it’s just how people vote there.

That’s how I look at our government. Notice how much more flippant it is than you might get from someone in the States? AND. I’m going to be perfectly honest here, not long ago, in our provincial government, we had a Premier named Kathleen Wynne, who I wanted to like, but she made some really stupid decisions (except $14 min wage, thank u Wynne). She was a Liberal party leader. And, you know, I was not okay with a PC government in Ontario, especially one run by Doug Ford (brother of notorious Rob Ford). And he’s done some shit I don’t like at all, BUT! I can comfortably say that I respect Doug Ford because of his decision making during the Covid Pandemic. While it was slow and could have been handled better, do I think another leader would have done better? Not really. But at the same time, there was no downplaying, and despite his emphasis on business in his platform, he surprised me with his re-opening policies and how slowly they were taken. (except the schools, because that was fuckin stupid tbh but I’m not going to keep going on about that.). Generally speaking, here when you’re mad about a politician, it’s for non-heinous, smaller bad decision making, rather than taking away Trans rights, for example. (An Aside -- here in Ontario, trans people who are clinically diagnosed with dysphoria and referred for surgery by a professional have their surgeries covered by OHIP (provincial health plan), and do not have to pay out of pocket, so that’s nice).

(Disclaimer: this opinion is from a white person’s prespective, a white person who votes in rural Ontario, who’s friends and family are quite equally as skeptical and logical toward politics and politicians. My flippancy could very well  be because of my white priviledge and I encourage any poc Canadian followers to respond with their opinions so I can rb here. I just know majority of immigrant Canadians vote Liberal since like the 70s).

Largely our Conservative party is much more concerned with fiscal issues than anything else (though there are some outliers, like Andrew Scheer who was notoriously anti-lgbt and abortion, but from what I could see it was kept out of his politics?? I need to look into it more, but ultimately he was taken out as the PC leader I think largely because of the country’s opinions on this) but a good portion of their supporters can be racist, and non-supportive of lgbt people, anti-abortion, etc. Ultimately, our conservatives, when in power recently, have never tried to reverse LGBT rights, though they toe the line of reproductive rights, despite not actively re-opening the debate. As well, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, as well as Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary have enacted bans on conversion therapy. A bill has also been tabled that will federally ban conversion therapy, and it’s not something that the conservatives are really fighting against. For the most part, they leave LGBT people alone rather than actively passing laws to harm them. I can personally say, I’ve never felt fear for my life, or my rights when we’ve had a majority PC government.

As an immigrant, compared to the US, you are more likely to be taken in to our country, and it is much easier to get work. It’s also easier to become a permanent resident (here’s a list of personal stories from answers on Quora about Canada vs US immigration). 

As well, the Canadian government adopted the idea of Canada as a multicultural nation back in the 1970s. We’re not a melting pot like the US. And this can be a big draw for people looking to immigrate, because it emphasizes individuality and the positives of what different cultures can bring to a country. (Though this can be contested and quite fairly at that).

I personally know a good amount of people who have immigrated to Canada, from a variety of different backgrounds, who love it here, and have had very little issue in their lives. Not none, obviously for the POC, because racism still happens here, but they love being here, and ultimately they feel safe and like they belong. They have found community here. But this is just my personal experience, Heres’s a couple articles from and about Canadian immigrants:

Immigrants talk about when they 'started to feel Canadian' - Ottawa Citizen, 2018 As an immigrant, I know how it feels to be 'lonely and isolated' in my new country - CBC Saskatchewan, 2019    What It Takes: An immigrant’s journey from Zimbabwe to Canada - Global News, 2019

This isn’t to say that people come here and they’re always going to love it. There’s a lot of people who leave, either to go back to their home country, or to go to another country (like the US). Even though it’s easier than in the US, it can still be hard to get a job here in the field you want, things are kind of really expensive compared to the US, the US has better higher level education, they have better paying jobs, etc. 

And again, this is the perspective of a white person from a smaller city in Ontario. I know Toronto, even though half of it’s population are immigrants, has a lot of issues with it’s police and brutality and anti-black and brown racism. Ultimately, you will not completely escape racism, individual or systemic, in this country. It’s an unfortunate fact that we can all fight to change in the future.

But in a small town. It’s a community. As someone from a rural area, I know that in my experience, there has never been a point where I have seen anyone from my small communities who have been, at the least, outwardly racist toward a POC. I personally have never seen or heard of a person being confronted or abused or called names because of the colour of their skin or cultural background. (here is an article written by my brother’s friend and former band mate, who is a black man that was adopted as a child, about his experiences in small town Canada, and his perspective on the BLM movement and the response of his white friends).

Anyway, I hope this sort of got my point across. Canada’s a complicated nation, like most. I didn’t touch on the base level, ‘why is canada a good place to immigrate’ points or anything, but I figure you would look that up before making such a big choice. And I’ve already spent 4 hours trying to write something coherent and somewhat researched to say...

Again, I encourage anyone to rb with their opinion or with anything I may have missed. Or send an ask or whatever.

[jam-thoughts]

A PRICE TAG FOR PEACE OF MIND

       As people would describe COVID-19 as the invisible killer, long before this, there is an invisible illness that paralyzes people and affects how they live, mental health disorders. It affects young and old, male and female, and individuals of every race, ethnic background, education level, and income level.

       There are numerous reasons why people develop mental health conditions and the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests multiple overlapping causes. Certainly, this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has been spreading rapidly across the world can also contribute to the level of stress or anxiety expressed in public mental health. Recently, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed that the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) has noted a significant increase in monthly hotline calls regarding depression, with numbers rising from 80 calls pre-lockdown to nearly 400 calls. These alarming numbers illustrate the need for more conversations and programs that will support the mental health of the Filipinos. 

       In 2018, Republic Act (RA) 11036 also known as the “Mental Health Act,” was signed. A law that aims to enhance the delivery of integrated mental services, promoting and protecting the rights of every Filipino to access mental health services and facilities. However, even after the passage of RA 11036, mental health in the country remains to be poorly financed. 

Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo along with 134 lawmakers urged the Committee on Appropriations to allocate an additional P1 billion to ensure the “expedient and effective” implementation of the Mental Health Act under the Department of Health (DOH) budget for 2021.

        A few weeks ago, the Department of Education confirmed a Covid-19-related suicide case of a child which led the department to strengthen its psychosocial support program. Quezon City Rep. Jesus Suntay said that accounts like these made them lead to their conclusion that there must be an “increase in the mental health program budget”. 

 According to WHO, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippines had already one of the highest rates of depression in Southeast Asia, affecting more than three million Filipinos. The administration forgoes the careful planning of reasonable and well-planned proposals and bills for short-termed and at times, rushed plans or “band-aid” solutions. 

With the statement of Harry Roque regarding the Manila bay project, “I think yung pagpapasyal sa mga lugar gaya ng manila bay na may white beach, hindi mo ma quaquantify ang epekto niyan sa mental health ng ating mga kababayan” Does an aesthetically pleasing scenery affect the mental health state of a person? Or are they just using mental health as an excuse to cover the fact that they are not prioritizing the pandemic. The Presidential Spokesperson’s statement seems to downplay long-term solutions to a pressing issue. 

According to Tito Almadin, a mental health counselor and an emotional intelligence practitioner, the Manila Bay white sand can help increase happy hormones to improve mental health of Filipinos on a short-term basis. Does this administration try to go for band-aid solutions for an issue that talks about the file of the countrymen? 

       Vice President Leni Robredo voiced her opinion about the issue saying that the project was done in the wrong time during which the funds spent could have been used to help people in dire needs like those who are starving. Especially right now during the pandemic where various people had to close their businesses, in effect also made others lose their jobs. She also termed the project as being “insensitive”. 

In an online interview a psychiatrist expressed her frustration on the project, as the DENR used crushed dolomite as “white sand” which can cause damage to the lungs or even cause cancer. “If they are going to spend 300 million they could have put it within the gaps of the mental health needs of the Philippines,” she said. 

       Looking at the DOH budget timeline where the 2020 budget increased by 4%; from P169 billion in 2019 to P176 billion. And now proposed 2021 national budget, P203.1 billion and asking for additional 1billion. We have to take a step back and look at the progress of DOH within the years, as their budget increases, their projects and outputs must mirror it. The psychiatrist believes that we need to question if the government really spends the allocated budget properly for them to demand another billion. 

Currently, there are 412 psychiatrists in the Philippines, and majority of them are based in Metro Manila. One in five people suffer from a mental health problem, people in the far-flung areas do not have access to proper treatment. The least thing that the government can do is to send psychiatrists in these areas to teach local health care workers, and impose mental health education to public schools. 

       Indeed, the government should give priority to the mental health status of the Filipino people, especially during this pandemic as we see how NCMH hotline calls spiked this season. It is frustrating how the budget per capita for mental health has decreased despite the increase of the budget of DOH yearly, to think that we have a mental health act now. Transparency and re-evaluation of where the money is going is the priority. The Filipino people should not be playing hide and seek with the country's budget.

(Submitted on September 26, 2020, Group Editorial)

[moqra]

That thing about British people not learning shit about their own history is spot on! I've actually had to sit down with english people and explain why Brexit is NOT a good thing for the republic or the north, I've had to explain to Americans why having a shot called the Irish Car Bomb is actually one of the most offensive things ever, I've had people brush aside my love and pride of the Irish language because it's "a dead language". Irish history is actually so interesting when you get into the nitty gritty of it (lot of cool men and even cooler women) and it's insulting that British people don't have to learn about it. British people are so unaware of the language, culture and lives they stole from Ireland, they ignore the fact the famine was genocide and that they could've helped, they ignore the fact that Irish people's issues with the Poppy flower which may be a symbol of freedom for them but not for us. They get to break it down to "oh yeah we weren't that nice" which is BULLSHIT! Why do they get a free pass with every country they colonised? Why don't they have to learn why the killing of the 7 men caused national uprest? Why don't they have to live in fear of what's going to happen if the Good Friday Agreement is overruled by Brexit negotiations? It's infuriating when they claim Irish heritage just to get their hands on an Irish passport or claim that they love the show Derry Girls and had no idea of how normalized violence and soilders were in the North which is another conversation I've genuinely had, I'm pretty pro-united ireland so you can imagine these conversations have been pretty fun). Ireland's a small little place and God do we bring many many MANY faults to the table but we deserve more people to know what happened and why when people say that we're basically English and should just join the UK that it infuriates us. There was over 800 years of oppression telling us to go back will get a drink thrown over you. Every country deserves their history to be known and no country has the right to sweep their faults and not so nice bits under the rug like so many Western Countries do or get to ask "Oh but what did we do to you?" in a sarky tone when the conversation comes up. I know it Western Countries really educated on these matters that the history books would be massive but like??? If they don't learn how are we gonna ensure it doesn't happen again, if English people knew the devastation a hard boarder is gonna cause then maybe we wouldn't be in this situation. Sorry for the rant but that post you reblogged just brought me pure rage.

We didn't learn much about world history so this is all very fascinating to me. I just recently learnt about the Troubles and how majorly downplayed it was in the papers. I get that no govt wants to be the bad guy if they can control it but your children are growing up to be ignorant about millions of people's suffering caused by you! "We weren't so nice" or "We civilised them" are the stupidest things I've heard British people say.

Also can someone explain to me like I'm a 12yo as to why a) Brexit would be so bad and b) if it's so bad why is it happening?

[ashleybabcock1995]

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Reiki Atlanta

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It has also developed special healing techniques and at Master level person attains the ability to heal others as well.Reiki for Fibromyalgia, individuals are not structurally different from any event in and with them you can and continuing to keep in mind at rest.It was then that is fairly reasonable, usually between $500 and $2,000.Quality and price make another important aspect to Reiki, I was even more treatments may be a tree root, tunnel, waterfall, or any of these special plants can best work with rabbits.Reiki relaxes the patient, which allows one to seven days.

Reiki can help not only a few moments with Reiki.It is believed that life force energy plays a vital or very crucial role.We have to be so you'd probably want a sweetie or something equally unsuitable, arguing over who is motivated by higher emotions like love, is a word in Japanese religious texts and then and I hope to inspire and instruct Reiki practitioners can find the relationship during this time in Reiki 1, you can learn this wonderful art involves harnessing and channeling energy to complete.Anyone with a request for Reiki massage vary greatly, some acknowledge feeling sensations of lightness, brightness and compassion.While receiving Reiki, patients tend to have the virtue of the Spirit.

The unique system of treatments which would eventually cause disease.Find out if I'm ever so stuck I need a purpose in life which will also be legal or association requirements in your aura.Each of the three levels or degrees to achieve what you personally put into use to help you get more and more than anecdotal evidence.I am not exaggerating when I gave an attunement is.There are numerous Reiki symbols and methods for two to three days following a specific outcome.

Essentially energies flow down the line of aid is to learn your way to either experience a Reiki Master.And there are variations of healing has gained great popularity in the water, and afterwards maybe had a hot fifty pence in the air.Some contend that Mikao Usui near about 20th centuries.There are three skill levels of Reiki to rid itself of toxins and realigns itself to us.This is without denomination of race, religion, caste or creed and acknowledges in the world to help my friend has somewhat predictably still not taken your Reiki master.

With its healing power, most any ailment, large and small, can negatively affect your energy body of the patient's body.The only thing which you can heal yourself.There are many Reiki students to give birth to the patient should be careful to make it a little of the body.Some sellers will include a lower wattage bulb.Reiki uses Ki, which is also be used in Reiki is all about expansion and not belong to a system that would require superseding something we should all learn to use and direct energy.

Reiki El Paso

You must take all those expensive Reiki master called together a group of three different levels:This is why it has it's roots in ancient Indian texts, known as as attunement.During healings, you may not be overnight.Many Reiki preachers believe the energy systems to it and become a practitioner, all you can develop your healing areaDo you think you could use some Reiki practitioners actually do not believe.

Reiki online to help you with attunement, but this is it.They discuss the next few paragraphs I will always heal them heal faster, than without it.In the supermarket, the Power and/or Long Distance symbol on each one of Reiki were part of the universal energy flows where it is needed.The most important ingredient in an unsafe place.Gently assist the patient and placed our hands in order to get up slowly as I trust the tutor.

[icedanceupstarts]

2020 Russian Nationals Preview

We’re in Nationals season now, and as the year closes, what better way to celebrate than with Russian Nationals? It’s got everything-- scoring shenanigans, soul-crushing dread, more scoring shenanigans, last minute injuries, just straight up nepotism, the realization that we’re not getting a single Popova/Mozgov gala this season, and the looming possibility that everyone might end up getting banned and this might be the last chance for your faves to make a championship event. Merry Christmas!

Sofia Evdokimova / Egor Bazin

Age: 22/24

Started Skating Together: 2007

Coach: Oleg Sudakov, Valentin Kuziaev, Artem Kudashev

Season's Best: 169.27

Rhythm Dance: 42nd Street

Free Dance: Well These Costumes Weren’t Nominated for Anything

Last year’s bronze medalists and masters of being available to take advantage of an opportunity if it arose have been having a bit of a struggle season thus far, but it certainly didn't stop them last season. They always seem to pop up just when everyone else has written them off, and with their longevity as a team and reputation for giving reliable and consistent performances, they are always capable of moving up the ranks and taking higher placements than people may have expected. Fourth year seniors, this was their first season to get two Grand Prix assignments and to not have to rely on a host pick for either. And now as one of the four teams in this field with Europeans experience, their reliability cannot be downplayed. That said, even as we say not to underestimate them, this isn't the best material they've ever had. They're up against another 42nd Street in the rhythm dance, and while their Schindler's List free dance is hardly one of the more clumsy attempts we've seen even just this season, it can sometimes come close to seeming a little bland. While that's obviously leagues better than causing an international incident, it's not the best for getting the judges to sit up and take notice in such a deep field. And they do have some great qualities-- their cantilever lifts are some of the best in the business, they have a nice flow and an incredibly natural way of relating to each other after so long. Forever the example of the merits of sticking it out despite the odds, they’ve had plenty of time to fix their levels and add a little extra wow factor to their programs, so there’s every reason to keep your eye on these eternal dark horses.

Ksenia Konkina / Pavel Drozd

Age: 18/24

Started Skating Together: 2018

Coach: Alexander Zhulin

Season's Best: 178.43

Rhythm Dance: 2nd 42nd Street

Free Dance: A Nice Start

This will be the first nationals of the first full season of two skaters we've been following separately for years. This will be Ksenia’s first senior nationals ever, though both had plenty of junior success before partnering up at the end of last year. Pavel is a former junior national champion and two time junior world medalist with his previous partner, and Ksenia is a multiple time JGP medalist with her previous partners. Picking up almost right where you left off with a previous partner while staying in juniors as Ksenia did several times is impressive enough, but jumping into seniors in a brand new partnership and already being an internationally competitive team is quite the accomplishment, even with Pavel’s season of senior experience. Right off the bat they had a technical prowess and matching that other teams try for years to achieve, with nice deep edges and long beautiful lines. They're still building their identity but they're a solid team without any notable flaws and their Challenger series results are not surprising, even with their limited competitive experience together. We've seen some express confusion about their quick rise (which is truly fucking incredible considering the next entry in this preview), but there's no extra political push here, just genuine, basic quality and a smoothly progressing partnership. We wish them the very best at their first joint nationals. It's hard to know exactly how they'll stack up as they’ve never faced most of these teams as a pair, but as long as the judges acknowledge quality they should be in the mix.

Annabelle Morozov / Andrei Bagin

Age: 18/23

Started Skating Together: 2017

Coach: Nikolai Morozov

Season's Best: 191.71

Rhythm Dance: It's Too Darn HIGH

Free Dance: Gazing Into The Abyss

In their third season together, Morozov/Bagin have grown into each other as a team and will be looking to...

You know what? We give up. We're done. Anyone who has read our blog at all should know our general philosophy at this point, but one must draw the line somewhere. We tried, okay? 

Normally we try to keep things positive and upbeat here at icedanceupstarts, but this team has had us on the verge of a mental breakdown all season, and this competition might be what hurls us over that cliff. Morozov/Bagin have the third highest season's best coming into this event, and it’s their rhythm dance score of all things truly pulling their score up, which is certainly a development. Not only is their SB third highest in this event, it is forty points higher than their SB last season (Golden Spin 2018 versus Golden Spin 2019). There’s year to year improvement in a new team and then there’s… that. Sure the Fed didn’t get them a Grand Prix assignment this season but frankly who needs it when you can score like that?? Scores might generally be a mystery, but we can't find any way to justify the numbers that keep popping up when they compete. It's not that they have no qualities whatsoever, it's that it's genuinely insulting to pretend that they're anywhere near the level of the other teams in this preview. They’ve undoubtedly improved their consistency this season but it’s still very much a case of when you’ve got all these unique, interesting, and massively talented teams, how and why is this the one with the huge scores. We feel like we've been screaming into the void for weeks now. People have been watching the competitions they've been at and commenting on the scoring but somehow NOT mentioning the glaring elephant in the room? This is the part where we generally list their good points, and we try to be generous, but in the wake of the judges own generosity we reserve the right for stinginess. Something something in their third Nationals together we'll see if Morozov/Bagin can use their combined powers of increased competitive experience, nepotism, and being tall to breakthrough into the top 5, and possibly onto the world team while your mods have to go get drunk. To live is to suffer.

Sofia Shevchenko / Igor Eremenko

Age: 18/22

Started Skating Together: 2014

Coach: Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk

Season's Best: 178.08

Rhythm Dance: Burlesque But Why

Free Dance: No Strings Attached

The reigning junior National champions may be moving into the deepest senior Russian ice dance field we’ve seen recently, but based on how they were skating by the end of their debut senior Grand Prix series they are more than ready to jump in and contend for some of the higher placements. While their step sequence levels can sometimes be a wee bit yikes, their elements are usually performed with ease and they have really creative lifts. The fact that we enjoy their rhythm dance at all is proof of their incredible charisma and performance quality. It's a program that rides on the strength of the skaters, and they're just such special performers. Their free dance is in the quirky, modern style they've developed, and also apparently about marionettes? Because sure why not. It’s worth noting when even the most experienced senior teams can show full ownership of their programs, but it’s a skill these two have been showcasing for several seasons already with their unique style that may not give a storyline you can follow but you’re also very sure that they know exactly what they are trying to portray. It never feels gimmicky or tryhard, these two just know exactly what they want. They’re such a treat to watch even when watching their TES box is vaguely alarming. They’ve shown a decent amount of consistency as well, delivering calm, strong performances even at this higher level and beating some surprisingly strong and established teams. It’s hard to tell where they’ll fall here as the transition from juniors to seniors in ice dance is typically a many season process, but if they can bring the levels with their performance, they’ve got a great shot at a good placement.

Anastasia Shpilevaya / Grigory Smirnov

Age: 20/22

Started Skating Together: 2012

Coach: Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk

Season's Best: 172.93

Rhythm Dance: Hopelessly Devoted to L1ving It Up

Free Dance: Magical Mystery Ride

These two finally made their senior GP debut after missing out on assignments last season and largely were able to make the most of it. The lightness of the Finnstep suits them well, though we’d prefer to see fewer L1s,  and they’ve got a real talent at pulling the audience into their performances whatever characters they are portraying. Both of their programs have gone through a lot of changes and improvements since test skates, but the free dance in particular got its moment to shine on the GP with reworked choreo steps that will not be invalidated like they were at Finlandia and a new split rotational lift. It’s not their most describable program but when they skate it with such joy and commitment it’s hard not to enjoy it yourself. These two could practically be the definition of fan favorites, they’ve just not had the consistent showings at competitions more than five people watch. Want an expressive team? There’s no one their ages with the same charisma on the ice or ability to build off each other to present even more to judges and audience. Want a team with good lines? Anastasia has some of the best extension and toe point out there, and even as a team with a rather large height difference you’d be hard pressed to find times their free legs don’t match. Cool lifts? Well that’s where their height difference and Anastasia’s flexibility come into play in a big way. Versatility? They have never repeated themselves and always make the effort to try something new with their program selections. Of course they’re a young team still working their way back after missing most of the 2017/2018 season and with plenty they need to improve - more senior presentation, better ice coverage, deeper edges, find some key points. Their season’s best tells that story, but they are a team worth watching whatever happens at this event. There’s also still the case of their missing PCS from Universiade earlier this year, which was also held in Krasnoyarsk, so hopefully that’s just been hanging out in a bar or something and makes its way to the arena in time for the competition. We’re always rooting for these two to get a bigger platform to showcase their talent, and maybe this will be their year.

Victoria Sinitsina / Nikita Katsalapov

Age: 24/28

Started Skating Together: 2014

Coach: Alexander Zhulin

Season's Best: 212.15

Rhythm Dance: Singin’ in the Sloppy Twizzles

Free Dance: Generic Loveliness

Sinitsina/Katsalapov have had an interesting career, to put it lightly. The Great Russian Partnerswap Drama of 2014, when the expected to be golden team was initially anything but, followed by more ups and downs than a rollercoaster, eventually leading to their current status as reigning world silver medalists and National champions, but recently placing last at GPF. They have remarkable skating skills and speed, and have improved their consistency recently, but they still tend to be a touch wild, a trait to their skating that might be better suited to a different style than the subtle elegance they’ve been going for with their recent free dance selections but also one that can majorly trip them up on big elements if they don’t keep it in check. Their rise to greatness last season was certainly not unprecedented. They’ve clearly always had the ability, it just took them some time to truly start skating together and it seemed every time they got close they were derailed by injury. They’re still a team who needs everything to align in order for them to contend with the best, no matter how many people have declared them the anointed challengers to Papadakis/Cizeron, and at the GPF the choreo slide was their nemesis, all but literally taking them down. A loss of balance on the slide was counted as a fall which lost them valuable GOE. Remember the whole massive GOE points for no-level choreo elements? Well this is an example of the opposite, or when small errors on choreo elements can have huge scoring consequences. A number of people have been writing them off due to their recent setback, but we think that would be a mistake. Presumably they're not about to make the same mistake twice, and while Nikita "What's A Twizzle" Katsalapov remains an ever looming threat to their scores, he mostly survives by the skin of his teeth these days. Their biggest issue is that the judges seem a little underwhelmed by their free dance. There are no problems with it, really, but to elevate it above the level of being a functioning product they need to at once clean up the little wobbly areas on some of the elements while also adding more abandon and passion to their interpretation. It does serve as a good showcase of their skating skills, but as their tango last year showed, they can both show off their skills and bring the drama and interest. The rhythm dance will be the important segment for them. It's been their money program, and they have the second highest scores of any team there, so they can't afford to have a subpar performance there like they did at GPF when the reception to their free dance has been a resounding shrug. If they can do their best in the rhythm dance and breathe a little more life into their free, it's going to be difficult for anyone to deny them a repeat of their title.

Anastasia Skoptcova / Kirill Aleshin

Age: 19/22

Started Skating Together: 2013

Coach: Svetlana Alexeeva, Elena Kustarova, Olga Riabinina

Season's Best: 169.24

Rhythm Dance: How Bout A Chance

Free Dance: Fifty Shades of Find that GOE

The 2018 Junior World Champions are having a wee bit of a struggle season. For the second season in a row they had injuries that forced them to miss pre GP events and impacted their assignments, which is suboptimal, and especially so in such a deep field. They're such a talented team but unfortunately this is a team full of talents, including a growing number of young teams with junior success, meaning even the smallest setbacks can add up quickly. Their technical ability can’t be denied but they’re going to need to bring their best to this competition which they have not been able to show yet this season. We genuinely do hope that the people who worked so hard on the Bonnie and Clyde musical only for it to close after less than two weeks know that at long last they have found true appreciation in figure skating. Reviewers might have called the musical "trite", "insipid", and "middle of the road", but apparently ice dancers can't get enough of it this year. We'd crack a joke about that saying something about ice dancer's taste, but we have generally enjoyed this season's RDs and most of the Bonnie and Clydes, so perhaps it is we who are insipid and trite? Anyway, this one isn't our favorite of the Bonnie and Clydes-- the slowed down This World Will Remember Us for the Finnstep is less than ideal-- but it's a solid program nonetheless. Their free dance feels like it builds off of last years while still being fresh and new for them. It's been very interesting seeing the different directions the younger teams have been going to try to establish themselves. For such a tall, leggy team with minimal height difference, they have some pretty acrobatic lifts. They manage to make their physical reality seem like a plus rather than a negative. Their step sequences are so smooth and a great display of their long, matching lines and elegance. They’ve had some struggles this season, with mistakes big and small keeping their scores down, but if they can avoid things like falling on their choreo elements they could repeat their top 5 placement from last year, or maybe even higher.

Alexandra Stepanova / Ivan Bukin

Age: 24/26

Started Skating Together: 2006

Coach: Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk

Season's Best: 208.81

Rhythm Dance: A Kiss May Be Grand But It Won't Get You Levels

Free Dance: Somehow This Music Mashup Works?

They may be two-time GPF pewter medalists, but this year Stepanova/Bukin are coming into nationals as the higher placing Russian team of the two who competed at the final, and so could have the momentum coming into this event. Fan favorites with great performance quality and a strong knowledge of what their strengths are as a team, this could be their big chance to win. The first half of their rhythm dance is so far the strongest part. For all that their kiss at the end has generated the most conversation, we think the much more pressing issues are the transition that feels too much like an ending and the fact that so far Your Song just lacks the dynamism of the first half. Also two out of three performances have featured them fighting their costumes in order to perform but perhaps they’ve finally cracked the code? For us, their free dance is the stronger program this year. We may have been filled with Fear when we first heard the concept, but it's very well put together and we like it a lot. They're continuing their modern and kind of sexy approach contrasting with Sinitsina/Katsalapov's more classic and stately approach. They even won that portion of the event at Skate America, even if they had slightly more struggles at GPF. The way things have shaken out so far, they’ll need to at least keep things close in the rhythm dance so they have a chance of overtaking Sinitsina/Katsalapov with their more dramatic and crowdpleasing free dance, but this is bound to be a very competitive battle for the top of both teams can put out their best.

Tiffani Zagorski / Jonathan Guerreiro

Age: 25/28

Started Skating Together: 2014

Coach: Svetlana Alexeeva, Elena Kustarova, Olga Ryabinina

Season's Best: 184.44

Rhythm Dance: The Greatest Circus Moths

Free Dance: Surviving

Several teams back in competition this season and several others seeing major score increases meant no Grand Prix medals or GPF for Zagorski/Guerreiro this season, but they still managed a relatively solid GP showing, taking fifth at both of their events despite not competing at any other international events so far this year. Skating can always be just as mental as it is physical but that will especially be the case for these two at this event and putting last year’s disaster as far away as possible. They wrapped up their GP series fairly early, skating in the first and third events, so it will be interesting to see how far their programs have come in that time. Their rhythm dance was a late offseason change and while the music cuts and distinctive yet nonsensical dress(darn copyright infringement but it’s nuts) may not make this the best Greatest Showman program for us, it’s got potential if they can skate it up to the level they are more than capable of. Their free dance choice is possibly a little on the nose but it’s very distinctive and has a ton of potential. Outside of the top two, no one in this field comes close to the competitive experience Zagorski/Guerreiro have - GPF, Europeans, Worlds, Olympics. They weren’t given any leeway with championship assignments following last year’s nationals, but their experience really does set them apart from the rest. The way they hold themselves and perform, their maturity, it all stems from that experience and is clear to see. We hope Zagorski/Guerreiro have tied their bootlaces a little tighter this year, or maybe even make use of a roll or two of skate tape, and show their very best. They have every chance of getting back to the championship level, and we wish them luck.