#the amount of countries that elected far right parties is absolutely terrifying

[winryrockbellwannabe]

... the european elections results are making me lose hope in the future of europe. how tf did we get like this?

[allbeendonebefore]

Hey hapo what's with the sea of blue in sask and Alberta during the election like did Sheer make that good of an impression on Sask voters??? NDP is option??

sea of blue you say? obviously we created our own blue sea since we’re not allowed access to tidewater JKJKJKJK

this is a really complicated question and I’m trying to think about how best to explain it. my feelings on the issue are very mixed because i feel like i have a foot or a hand in several camps like some convoluted twister game. it’s something that a lot of identity and emotion is tied up in for a lot of people and it’s rooted very firmly in inequalities that have existed for over a century and get expressed differently in different regions. It’s something that I grew up saturated in and I’ve done a lot of reading about (and of course there’s always more on my reading list) but I’ll try and highlight a few reasons that I’ve been musing about so as not to be too overwhelming. 

it’s something that is really hard to explain to people from outside the province because we’re quick to be written off (sometimes rightfully so, others not) but it’s something that’s equally hard to explain to people inside the province. As I said it’s something we’re all saturated in, we are born into it or we grow up in it and it’s really hard to confront a lot of things surrounding it. And I definitely have my own biases and background and relation to this issue and I must stress that as furious as I am with people in large groups making dumb ass decisions, I can’t be angry at individuals because I get a lot of why this happens even though I find it personally misguided or ignorant at best and actively harmful, selfish, and self-sabotaging at worst. But when I explain this I hope it makes sense why for a lot of people it feels like the only option.

And my last preface is that I am speaking from an Alberta perspective, if my followers in Saskatchewan want to add on to this please feel free. I’m glossing over a lot here because I’m trying to keep this short and understandable… but when have I ever done that lol.

Yeah, it got long.

so why does the west go conservative. it’s not scheer, and if you remember harper you’ll remember personality is never high on our list of priorities. [insert gif of harper explaining how he too is a human who watches netflix here] 

1. History 

To sum up two hundred years: Alberta and Saskatchewan were never equal partners in confederation with other provinces. They were purchased and carved up by the Canadian government which then imposed the two party system on the provinces, which prior had consensus government which (i believe) was similar to how NWT and Nunavut continue to operate. They were not given the rights to their own resources until decades after joining confederation. They were given Liberal governments because the Liberals were and are considered the “natural” governing party of Canada, and while Saskatchewan has flopped between Liberal and Conservative governments like many eastern provinces, Alberta has always had a radical streak and has NEVER re-elected an unseated party in its history. And no, I don’t consider the UCP a continuation of the previous 4 decades of conservative rule, even though they imagine themselves to be the inheritors of that legacy. 

Fast forward to the direct impacts: in the 70s, world events that severely impacted oil production caused Eastern Canada to absolutely panic and force Alberta and Saskatchewan (yet again) into providing discounts on their production to soften the blow in Ontario and Quebec of rising prices, forbidding them to sell for a profit to the United States. This included both oil products and potash, hugely lucrative products in AB and SK. It was a continuation of Eastern Canada imagining and treating the prairies as property, as chattel, where provinces like Quebec and BC would never be asked to undersell to benefit the rest of the country. 

The current federal conservative party is an amalgamation of reactions to this situation and related ones: the Progressive party (which was a complete misnomer) originated in Manitoba, the Reform party emerged from what I understand as the “first wave” of western separatism, and even though Reform was defeated federally it is still a direct ancestor to Stephen Harper and by extension Andrew Scheer. Harper’s policies are the natural product of decades of conservative governments dating back to Preston and Earnest Manning’s Social Credit party in Alberta.

That said, people from both inside and outside the provinces completely misunderstand Harper’s (and Kenney’s) “Western-ness” or “Albertan-ness”. Both of them ran on western issues and appear to speak up for western interests, but those issues and interests only go as far as the CEOs of the oil companies are concerned, not the working class in the industry. Harper and Kenney actively undermined the equalization formula for the west and had the gall to campaign on striking a good deal for the west. Federal politicians do not have to ever strike a good deal for the west, they will ALWAYS prioritize voters in Ontario and Quebec so long as our voting system remains this way. 

2. Identity

My next point in the long agonizing question of Why This is a sensitive one. In Alberta we have my parent’s generation who were voting age at the toppling of Social Credit by Lougheed’s Conservatives. For Alberta this was a monumental shift in taking no shit from Ottawa that people still look back on. Lougheed was a hero for demanding a fair price from Canada for Alberta, and he was incredibly concerned with managing the resource and the profits wisely. While conservative governments were natural and long standing in eastern Canada, this was the first time they had taken power in Alberta and they made a dramatic and revolutionary impression, which is not a thing that conservative governments are usually known to do. 

My parent’s generation remembers this time of intense prosperity. My parent’s generation raised their children in this boom-bust cycle and my parent’s generation watched as Lougheed’s heritage fund was spent out from under us. I grew up under Ralph Klein’s government- intensely popular for a premier and who’s legacy was as powerful as Lougheed’s, but incredibly polarizing. He gave $300 to every man, woman and child in the province (except my fam because we had just moved back and didn’t have residency, lol) which was memorable if irresponsible. But it was men like Klein who had the charisma and the presence to make people really take pride in the industry, to worship the boom-bust, and to consider all problems solved. Klein did not give a shit about the part of Alberta I grew up in, and friends who lived in the far north of the province fared even worse. It’s absolutely no wonder that the Edmonton area consistently votes “against” the rest of the province when we were left isolated and broken during the bust of the 90s and ignored repeatedly in the mid to late 2000s. 

I have a deep seated and extreme resentment for Ralph Klein’s government and it’s not because I missed out on my 300 Ralph Bucks or because I don’t have connections to the industry, it’s because I grew up with a deep seated fear that I wouldn’t be able to complete my education or that if I got sick something horrible would happen. I was legitimately terrified I would not be able to make it to secondary school because of the cuts his government made on rural schools, and for friends of mine who were not as lucky and well supported as I was, it was even worse. I won’t drag their personal stories onto the internet to make my point, but know 

But the point of this all is that the people alive today who vote are people who remember this time of prosperity, of fighting Ottawa, and of relative ‘freedom’ from taxation and so on and so forth are constantly trying to hold onto that time. The kids in my generation who I went to school with did not have to graduate high school - my school had a 70% drop out rate because people would go straight to the patch or into a related industry. In Alberta, every industry is a related industry. There is not an aspect of living in Alberta that the patch doesn’t touch. This is hard to understand for people outside the province. It was actual culture shock to me to come to Ontario where funders of schools and businesses are families that date back to confederation rather than Enbridge or Suncor. 

Moreover, the people who work in the patch do an incredibly difficult and dangerous job for incredible amounts of money and it’s no wonder they are so valourized. The people who work in the patch are more dependent on the companies than they are on the government. During the fire of 2016, it may have been the government providing evacuation stations, but it was the companies who got people out. Working class people feel seriously undervalued and are obviously seriously defensive about the industry for real, concrete reasons. 

The past four decades have shaped generations of people in this way. This is not something easily reversed. Voting conservative is almost inextricable from Albertan identity and it’s impossible to explain concisely. We all grow up with the same arguments and talking points, we are all imbued with anger and defensive remarks from birth, and to people outside the province our arguments can sound rehearsed to the point of sounding cult-like. Stop Using Plastic If You Don’t Like It. Stop Driving and Flying. Stop Importing from Dictatorships. Stop Being a Hypocrite. They are easy, simple mantras to absolve anyone related to the industry (which is everyone) of any guilt because they don’t have to be a hypocrite if they just embrace the reality. There is no room for any critical thought in this identity, there is no room for discussion, there is nothing beyond Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Don’t Ever Criticize What Keeps Everything Running. It’s normal and natural to feel upset when people who don’t grow up with this line of thinking find it strange.

3. Alienation

So why doesn’t our valourization of the working class translate directly into NDP votes? Why does Rachel Notley become vilified for speaking and acting as Peter Lougheed did in the 1970s? Why do we continue voting conservative and say thank you when they betray us and kick us in the balls every single time? Why do we cover up our oh-so-shameful history of birthing the CCF/NDP out of the desperation and destitution of the Great Depression? 

As I’ve been saying it’s complicated, but it’s also really simple. No federal party ever speaks to us. Not a single one. The conservatives barely have to because they know our identity as conservative dates back to before a time when we even had a provincial upper-case Conservative government ourselves. Scheer can parade up and down parliament hill with his appeals to free speech and his pro life base and his white supremacist dogwhistles all he likes because he knows keeping Alberta and Saskatchewan “happy” (read: angry) is easy. This is a man who said himself that he doesn’t need ‘indian votes’ to win and he certainly was far more worried about keeping Doug Ford out of the spotlight during his campaign and pissing off Ontario than he was about us, and premier kenney spent all his time in office campaigning for scheer instead of running the goddamn province, including preparing us for an emergency. And we lap it up while screaming bloody murder if rachel notley is not personally handing out waterbottles on the side of the highway of death. 

No party, not even the conservatives, truly speaks to Albertans. We get hated on constantly by the rest of the country because we appear to be full of climate change deniers, but even the CEO of SUNCOR condemns deniers and politicians who cater to them. A lot of Albertans do acknowledge climate change is a reality despite how we’re painted, but because of the misunderstanding we feel directed at us constantly we tend to react badly and would rather hole up in our bunkers and let the rest of the country freeze in the dark - or melt in the sun as it were. No party speaks to working class rural people. No party makes the attempt to speak to people who are still only grappling with already outdated terminology like “global warming” while they are shoveling snow in August or September. No party is talking about actual grievances that working class people in Alberta face, such as long hours away from home and family or intense isolation that leads to addiction and death, that matter more to people than seemingly hypothetical change in climate that happens Elsewhere, not Here. Parties need to start coming up with concrete solutions that will make the inevitable transition more than just necessary but inclusive and beneficial. No one wants to feel like they have to start from scratch, no one wants to worry about what to do or how it will help. We aren’t used to thinking about solving problems, and we keep putting it on the next generation while we make it even harder for them.  

The more we are criticized the more militaristic the vocabulary becomes, and that’s why we provincially voted for a war room and tax cuts while taking the money from school lunch programs. We rest on our laurels of having the lowest child poverty rate in the country while stealing money from children and blaming their parents for them going hungry. It’s abominable. And a lot of us realize it. And a lot of us still feel as if we have no choice. A lot of progressive voices get drowned out in stifling silence and any change feels like an existential threat. We got ourselves into this mess, but we all need to work together to get out of it. And that means listening to the strongest opposition we’ve had in nearly a half century. That means being grown ups and sitting at the table with the rest of the country. That means fighting the gut reaction to sputter out talking points you were taught to say because it meant protecting your family. That also means that we need to be listened to in return without smugness or patronizing attitudes from politicians or the rest of the country. 

If you want us to switch to alternative energy, you all need to step up and start helping us do that. As long as we feel as if it’s being imposed on us we will struggle and we will fight, but it’s exactly why it’s so important to change the tone of the conversation. Listen to us. Help us. Make us feel like we’re part of the country. Give us the tools we need to be better. Encourage us to be leaders in the energy industry because we love being the best and thrive off healthy competition. Appeal to real, concrete issues for working class people with real concrete solutions. 

yeah. uh. [places mic shakily back on the stand] peace im going to bed, fight me or whatever. 

[evilelitest2]

Letters to my Grandmother: The Republican Bubble and Party Asymmetry

The Republican Bubble

So everybody knows that the US is a two party system, our politics are filtered through the democratic or republican perspective, those two parties control the political narrative, and all power is confined to these two parties.  And in many ways, the leaders of the two parties fundamentally agree on many issues, both parties are ok with campaign contributions, both parties are ok with Gerrymandering (until very recently) both parties are very close to the corporate class etc etc.  From about the late 70s onwards, there is a general consensus of what the parties will tacitly agree on (money in politics, interventionist foreign policy, neoliberal economics, free trade, socialism=bad, don’t address wages, deregulations etc) with a small area of fierce disagreement (Abortion, gun laws, taxes, gay marriage, prayer in school, Obamacare).  This has broken down in recent years, but for twice my life type, that was the default of American politics.  This is why people get disillusioned with the two party system, after all if you’re top priority is getting money out of politics, BIll Clinton and Obama aren’t going to do you any favors in that department.  

But it is important to understand that just because the two parties are opposed and share many similarities, they aren’t mirror images of each other, this isn’t the Capulet and Montague where they are both basically the same people but wearing slightly different colored outfits, these are fundamentally asymmetrical organizations, their fundamental build up is radically different and beyond a few basic elements, they are really quite distinct. I understand the temptation to see them as just the Right and Left wing mirrors of each other, like the factions in Princess Monokee, but I think this is a very...limited way of understanding these groups.

There is a great book called “Party Asymmetry” which talks about how the parties are fundamentally organized in an entirely unique way, their very makeup is distinct from each other, they are organized in fundamentally different ways.  Let me break some of these differences down

Firstly, the Democrats are significantly larger than the Republican Party, you might be tempted to think that they are each 50% of the population, but that frankly isn’t true.  You know that map of the US which shows the majority of the states as red with mostly the coasts as blue?  Yeah, well….most of the population live in those blue states.  Remember in 2016, the Democrats had surprisingly low democratic turnout, and the Republicans had shockingly high voter turn out and despite that, the Dems still got 3 million more votes.  The Republicans are a minority party, it’s just that the 18th century set up of the US political system means that parties are rewarded for having the most land rather than the most people.  And this is important to understand for the Republican psychology, they know full well that if democratic reforms are ever issued, then they are going to lose.  Like if you abolish the Electoral College, then the GOP will likely never win a presidential election, hence why they are so absolutely terrified of ever letting the democrats win.

Secondly, the Republican base is extremely….monolithic.  It is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Christian, majority male, and most importantly for our purposes, overwhelmingly old.  The Republicans are a primarily the party of old white people though not exclusively (Hi Grandma I love you very much), and when your party is well...dying that puts them in a very unusual position.  Every year, elections get harder and harder for Republicans because more and more GOP voters die and more and more Democratic voters come of age, but here is the thing.  Elderly people are the most consistent voters, they will vote more than any other group in the US, while young people are the least reliable voters.  I’ll get into the reasons for another time, but just remember this, Elderly people vote consistently, young people vote inconsistently.  Actually elderly people are the best voters because they don’t just vote in the presidential election, they vote in the mid term elections, they vote for the governors, they vote for Senators, Representative, they even vote in the state legislature, I mean when was the last time you voted for your state representative.  However the downside is that appealing to old people usually comes at the expense of leaving anybody else.  Except my grandparents of course (I love you very much Grandmother).

Thirdly, the Democrats actually are a governing party, the Republicans are not.  What do I mean by that?  Well the democratic party, as a collective whole, wants to live in a multi plural democracy where decisions are made via compromise and the 4th estate is a major check on power.  There have been numerous reports that show that democratic voters approve of politicians who make compromises in order to produce progress or support the party most when it makes the country function day to day, and care what the mainstream news has to say. Imagine for a moment, that Obama was able to get a partial gun law passed that only banned a certain class of weapons with the help of some republicans, or if he was able to pass a major climate change initiative in exchange for allowing massive corporations to make huge amounts of money off of it.  Most democrats would be ok with that, and would applaud it as a victory.  If the NYT or the Washington Post, or CNN came out strongly against Obama calling him a dangerous liar, democrats would care, and listen, even those who don’t value those reporters would at least consider what they have to say.  If Obama insulted the Prime Minister of Australia on a phone call, most democrats would be upset.  In all of these instances they might mute how upset they are or reduce it if they felt it would give the Republicans a win, but there would still be effect.  This is not true of the Republican Party, because they don’t care about governance, at least the base doesn’t, not anymore.  They approve of their political leaders who don’t make compromise, who have the most inflammatory rhetoric, and who treat the Democrats as an opposing side in a war rather than simply an opposing party.  

   What does this add up to?  Well the Republican Party is...well it’s a culture.  Democrats are notoriously disunified compared to the far more organized Republican unity, and that is because being a Republican is an identity in a way that being a democrat is not.  Democrats are primarily unified by ‘OMG the right are completely insane we need to stop them before they destroy the country” but beyond that there isn’t much of a unifier, because being a democrat basically means “being interested in actually governance”.  It’s not just that Clinton, Obama, and Warren are all radically different politicians, they isn’t even much of an attempt to unify them except against a common enemy.  

Republicans meanwhile have a full identity, they have a subculture, they effectively are their own nation using the European sense of the term.  Republicans watch their own TV, listen to their own radio, they read their own exclusive newspapers, they have their own media, their own music, they have their own entirely exclusive world view.  The only voices who Republicans care about are those of...other Republicans.  If you ever meet “lifetime republicans”, you will notice how all encompassing the experience is, everything they do is either “Republican Approved” or its the so called “Apolitical Media”, aka stuff which works hard to not show much in the way of overt political bias.  Imagine the Republican base like an insular subculture, there is a lot of room for disagreement and alternative opinions within that group, but all of them rally together against any sort of outsider.  They don’t care about the mainstream press because they have their own alternative press, they have their alternative culture, they have their alternative understanding of politics, they have an entirely distinct world view and psychology, and one which means they only trust are others of their community.  Notice how frequent the claim of “Rhino” or “Cuckservative” is among mainstream Republican pundits, while only the far left has the whole “This person isn’t a Democrat”.  When Obama faced off against Clinton, neither was like “oh this person isn’t a real leftist”, they were instead like “I respect my opponent, but they are wrong”.  Meanwhile even before Trump showed up, Huckabee, Ryan, and Romney were all implying the other was a traitor who was secretly trying to destroy conservatism.  And there is no single kingmaker on the left the awy you have for the Right.  

The left and the right share a lot of traits, but their is no singular figure on the left who demands as much power as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on the right, there is no network that is the left wing Fox News, and the left doesn’t have an entire alternative unifying subculture that binds them together.  So why did the right go this way while the left did not?  Well I will explain that...next time.

Oh that was a great ending note, but I love running things, so this is my last notice on the difference between the two groups.  Republicans know full well that their way of life is dying out, that if the democrats can win like...two elections, that's it.  They are fighting for a way of life which is on the verge of coming to an end at any point, so they are always going to be more committed to this than we are, and that is why republicans need voter fervor so much, they know that their base will do everything you want voters to do as long as they can protect them from gay people getting married, black people not being shot on police whim, or poor people being able to live comfortable lives.  

[menfenced]

OK, look, as far as the Nuclear option for SCOTUS nominees I think we can all agree on a few things. 

It’s not a good idea. The more polarized the country gets, the more of a not good idea this becomes, as it will basically only result in a polarized court that is unable to do its job just about as much, if not more, than how much Congress is unable to do their job most of the time. 

Both Republicans and Democrats hold responsibility for this outcome. The Democrats invented the Nuclear option, which is what is giving Republicans the ability to use that against them. 

The last point is exactly why this option hurts EVERYONE. Anyone can be the party out of power. Republicans have been in that position for a significant amount of time and they can be there again. If the Nuclear option goes through, they will be hurt by this policy the next time they’re the party that’s not in power. 

What happened with Merrik Garland was absolute bullshit and Democrats have every right to still be pissed off about it. 

With all their failures to do anything substantive lately, it’s easy to see why the GOP would be willing to risk all of the shitty things that come with this option just to prove that they hold the power, they are in charge of governance for at least the next two years, and they have a responsibility to their voters to do just that. Furthermore, if the roles were switched, we would say the same thing about the Democrats. 

Now, all that being said... 

I don’t see how anyone can NOT be concerned with Mitch Mcconell saying that Gorsuch will be a Supreme Court Nominee no matter what. That kind of absolutism and refusal to compromise or even open the floor to the possibility of another option is a terrifying thing for any elected official to say. The willingness to do whatever is necessary to get your way, to win, is not something that we should support, encourage, or be proud of when it comes to the politics of a democratic republic. That sort of sentiment is not acceptable, no matter who it is coming from, and if it doesn’t make you uneasy at the very least, then you’re not really paying attention to what’s happening here. 

[tumblunni]

I wish I could hug y'all!

In fact I think I will make it A LIFE GOAL I really really wanna someday be able to visit all my friends who live in different countries! Its something good to save up for, even if it'll probably take years. So.. lets randomly ramble in a journal about Plans!! IDEA THE FIRST TRIP THE FIRST FIRST THE FIRST: THE SEQUEL I think it'd probably make sense to go to america first, since i have a lot of close friends living there and I don't need to learn another language. (I am notoriously dumb...) But then afterwards I could set another goal to save up and visit another friend in another country! IT WILL NEVER ENDDDDD, THATS WHY ITS CALLED FRIENNNNDDDDD So far all I have confirmed is that two of my friends would be happy to see me if I was able to visit america, @darkeiya and @summon-daze But its not like I've exactly asked everyone else, so I dunno really how many people I might be able to visit. And it depends on time constraints too, i might only be able to spend a full day or two with the closest friends and maybe then if there's more than three of us we could all meet up together and hang out en masse? Depends on how tricky it'd be for everyone to get to the same place! SO! PLANS AND THINGS I NEED TO PREPARE! workin to figure out a precise money goal im gonna save for * Become Fab * no but srsly i wanna look my best if im meeting friends in person for the first ever time. need to acquire Cool T-Shirts * figure out what exactly you can and cannot take on an aeroplane, and how to deal with anxiety if i cant take electronics. Nothing's as distracting as videogames when you're freakin out! * DO NOT SCHEDULE ANYTHING ON THE 11th-14th OF THE MONTH. i have a bad history of my period landing on these days ONLY when i have to do something important. Or when its my birthday :P I dont need even more reason to feel nauseous on a plane! * figure out how many days the stay will be, and how many clothes etc I need to bring. probably a basic thing, but this is my first time going on a holiday alone so i need to write stuff down to make sure i remember! * figure out how long exactly I want to spend with each friend, and how long I can afford in hotel fees. And does a plane ticket cos more if you're staying for longer? * find out what kind of luggages are easiest to carry and how to carry three luggages when i have two hands. Can you tie them together and make a luggages train??? * Find some sort of secure way to carry large amounts of money. I'm gonna have to do that since I need to get all my currency converted before I go. I was thinking maybe a little matchbox tin chained to the inside of my coat or around my neck? Something where you couldnt get it without roughhousing with me, and it'd still be hard to pull it off the chain. Gives me a precious few extra minutes to yell for help/possibly bludgeon a guy with a suitcase * Figure out hotel(s) in different areas of america, depending on how far I'll have to travel. And figure out affordable ways to travel the difference if its not a situation where the friend can pick me up. And make sure they are cool hotels, not just the absolute minimum! i wanna make a fun tourist experience of the hotels!! I havent been in a hotel since I was a kid! * Possibly schedule it like a 'safehouse' thing? Returning to home base! I need to make sure I schedule around the potential anxiety of doing so much travel in a new place. So maybe schedule it out so I have a period of me-time in between visiting each friend? Itd probably cost too much to rent a hotel room for an entire day in between so maybe just schedule it out so I have half a day at least. I dunno if hotels allow you to sleep in all day tho, are there rules about what time you need to be up and out? * I'm kinda looking forward to using hotel beds and showers cos theyre like luxury compared to my house XD man, I wonder if I could get a place with a hot tub?? or the fabled mini-bar?? (which i would drink nothing of, but it would be fun to take photos!) And it'd be so cool to see what american breakfasts are like! And lol all my friends have just been like 'YOU NEED TO SEE OUR LOCAL RESTAURANTS' and im like... dude, i dont need to get fatter XD lets limit it to ONE! * I dunno if my friends would just wanna hang out in their local mall or something, or if I could visit their house and say hi to their family? that might be going too far. i'll still bring gifts they can give to their family tho, i wanna show my appreciation to everyone!! * are you allowed to bring extra empty suitcases onto the plane with you? I'm anticipating that knowing myself im probably gonna buy enough souveniers to need one. I'm planning to basically have half the money be for travel and then half again is just for buying NOVELTY HATS! * need to make sure to finally get a passport, and also consult heavily with my support worker and friends to make sure i have every form of travel documentation in order. I know stuff is... not good, in america right now. Thats probably why it'd be good that it'd take me years to save up for a visit, hopefully i'd be there after the next election. But I need to prepare anyway, in case border control is even more stringent. * Prepare the 'ol misgendering, because getting strip searched and treated as a suspicious threat is a very big reality for trans people. Having the wrong gender marker on your birth certificate is treated as 'this passport must be a forgery' rather than.. yknow.. transgender people exist. And then you need to be invasively handled by the guards to make sure you aren't packing explosives down your goddamn pants, they have to inspect the parts of you that you're most self concious about. *shudder* I've heard a lot of horror stories. I dunno if america is any better about it. But yeah I'm probably gonna have to just pass as female during boarding and hotels and stuff, and not wear my binder til i get to meet my friends. Saves trouble... Man, I might have to even go buy some more cliche feminine outfits or something, to make sure. Itd be fun burning them afterwards, I guess... * BRING GIFTS FOR FRIENDS N FAMILY! Figure out what is and isnt allowed to be transferred between countries. As far as I know I cant bring any form of food or drink right? I'm only allowed to eat the in-flight meals? Thats a shame cos I wanted to bring welsh cakes, theyre the only one of our local delicacies that's not a super acquired taste. (I tried bara bryth for the first time and DIED) And I dunno if anyone would be interested in silly souveniers of my country but I could get a pile of em if you are! Want an eight foot tall lovespoon? Want a giant inflatable daffodil? Want a bazillion ceramic dragons? * I am determined to bring at least one personalized super awesome gift for each person! It might just be an expensive merchandise of their fave show, it might be some form of handmade handicraft of one of their ocs! whatever I'm able to do! ^_^ * BRING SKETCHBOOKS SO WE CAN DRAW TOGETHER. LEARN THE WAYS OF THE AMERICAN MASTERS. * hey does anyone wanna trade trading cards yo. They'd be like the single easiest thing to bring with me, but I only have a handful of pokemon ones and i only really have one friend that I know likes yugioh. (And she's in england) * WE CAN FOOL AROUND LIKE DOOFS. God willing, if anyone wants to join me I will play water balloon tennis or jalapeno roulette or any sort of insane friend activity you can think of!! Gotta make up for the fact im a boring teetotaler. Tho lol I probably already act more drunk than the real drunks at a party XD * TAKE A LOT OF PHOTOS!! And possibly try and acquire a portable video camera? I'd only photo/video anyone if they gave me permission, and I wouldnt post it online unless I also had permission for that. I just wanna make a lot of memories and record them forever! Whenever I feel down, I can remember this amazing trip!!! * remember to get one of those plug adaptor thingies cos american plugs have one less prong. Gotta trade the pokeymons!! I know I can already do that easily online but BATTLING IN PERSON WOULD BE EPIC * ...bring an Ash cosplay? XD * no but seriously if i could schedule this right to coincide with an american convention or something that'd be awesome! EVEN MORE SOUVENIERS! And I could actually try cosplaying!! I'd have to find a character that suits me tho, I dont wanna get laughed at like everyone always does with fat people cosplaying thin characters. (Like... almost every character is thin, yo. let people do what they want) * possible idea: magma admin tabitha from pokemon? he's like the only fave I have who's chubby but not like... inherantly a comic relief ugly guy or a seventy year old grandpa. I wanted to do quina quen from final fantasy 9 but I dont think I have the charisma to pull it off. I'd get paranoid if people just treated the character how they treat the character, my brain would twist everything into an insult on my costume or myself XD also I kinda already look like tabitha, tho I'd either have to go without hairdye or like... wear a wig in my natural hair colour. Also his costume is super heavy and sweaty in a convention setting, according to what I;ve heard from other team magma cosplayers. (Makes you wonder how on earth they all wore it on a volcano!) * WHAT IS AN AMERICAN BISCUIT. They look like savoury welshcakes??? Learn about all the language differences! Man I wish I could bring food souveniers back with me, I'd never be able to try every single different foodstuff in america in one day without DYING. AND DYING AGAIN. * Collect product wrappers and advertisements! Its always really interesting to me to see the differences between countries! A friend mailed me an american cola once and the bottle was a whole different shape??? (he also mailed me a bunch of spent shotgun shells, which was kinda terrifying cos I was currently in a christian homeless shelter and I didnt exactly wanna cause trouble XD Apparantly it is totally legal to own unuseable bullets tho, as long as you dont have a gun.) * I dunno if any of my friends would be equally interested in similar things? i could take requests for weird british stuff to bring with me! * for summon-daze specifically: since we are both cuddly honest goofballs of childlike joy, maybe bring some of my plushie collection to show her? I'd usually just bring one as an emergency anti-anxiety measure. Tho the embarassment from having a full on meltdown in public and having to be seen hugging a plush toy to keep from crying means its not 100% effective. Only works good when I'm with people who arent judgmental. Secret pocket gengar plush is good for other times! (I've been squeezing that thing during doctors appointments and nobody noticed!) * extra reason why I'd love to visit my friends: visiting my friends's pets. I have been absolutely blessed by images of dazy's pet cat Pam, and apparantly her family has a few other cats and a dog! O_O WHAT AN AMAZING LIFE YOU LIVE. I always tell her to give pam a hug from me, and I know pam probably wouldnt like me very much when we first meet cos she's shy, but still I'd love to at least see her. I wish cats could somehow know that they give joy to people through the internet! * ...are you allowed to bring medications across the border? is there a procedure I need to go through to be allowed to bring my antidepressants? Would painkillers be allowed too? If not, is there anywhere I could buy plane-bring-onnable headache meds in the lobby or something? Just anticipating that I might get a stress migraine on the plane, cos it'd be my first time ever flying. * are you allowed to take photos out the plane window, if you use a non electronic camera? i know you cant really see anything but panning landscapes but it still sounds awesome!

[crogerswrites]

The Dark Door

    I do not think there is going to be a more pivotal moment in the collapse of the American Golden Era than the rejection of Bernie Sanders. The american people, but maybe more accurately the Democratic Party, rejected the view of the world that Bernie Sanders campaigned on. At the center of the campaign was the push for Medicare for All, meaning a single-payer healthcare system that covered everyone (not the bastardized version of part public, part private that every other candidate was running on). We heard stories from people who had lost loved ones due to rationing of their insulin supply, because of the insanely high price Americans pay for the medicine. We heard tales of people losing loved ones only to be saddled with the insurmountable medical debt. There were so many tales of suffering, and the idea of people profiting off it was always at the center. It was the cornerstone policy of the Bernie campaign that if he was elected they would create a single-payer system that stopped the profiteering off the sick, and covered everyone despite their financial situation. Along with Medicare for All was the proposal to eliminate student debt and provide free tuition to public colleges, better wages for our most vulnerable people in the workforce, a serious step back from foreign intervention, and rolling back the influence of corporate money in politics just to name a few. I believe in all of those things, and I believe that a Bernie Sanders administration would have fought for that full heartedly. If you look at Bernie’s voting record, it is hard not to see anything but a political outsider who has fought his whole career for what he believes in, and has been on the right side of every disastrous American policy. Something none of his opponents can claim for themselves. The Bernie camp knew that enacting these policies would be an uphill battle, but the strategy of the campaign was to create a mass movement of people who believed in these policies that could continue to apply political pressure to achieve them. The idea was to finally create a base of people that could fight the class war on behalf of the working class. Bernie's slogan "not me, us" was a perfect example of the strategy.

    That view of the world was rejected though. Single payer was never possible, education is a privilege not a right, labor is not an issue the Democratic party cares about, the American Empire must always play world police, and billionaires work hard to buy our politicians. We had won so many people over to the Bernie movement since it began in 2016, but in the end the Democratic Party decided to go with business as usual. Just as they were putting the finishing touches on derailing that movement, the United States of America fell into the corona virus pit. The market was already stuttering before the virus hit mainland USA. Capital very quickly abandoned their leading role of the ‘perfect’ system. They massively laid off and fired workers, pulled mass amounts of money out of the market, and liquified as many assets as possible to have hard cash in case this was really the end. Capital abandoned us and left the state to step in (while also asking the governemnt for a bailout, which they so generously received). The state has been hollowed out by capital over the past 40 years, and is nowhere close to being able to handle this type of crisis. Now hospitals are understaffed, overfull, under prepared, and hardly holding on. Hospital staff are begging for more help and proper resources. Imagine living and working through that horrific reality, and the only thing we are willing to do for our healthcare system is to clap during the shift change. When capital dumped their workers without a second thought, there were only fragments of a social security net to catch people. Now state governments and the federal government are trying to scrounge together something that will try and patch up a workforce that currently sits around 20% unemployment. All the critiques of the current state apparatus and capital that came from the Bernie campaign are now ringing true in the most horrific and terrifying way. 

    That is not something to gloat over to make a political point. Although, you would be ignorant to not look at the rejection of the Sanders campaign as a massive turning point for the United States. Finally there was an offer on the table for the Democratic Party to offer real change, a politics that unites us over common goals to provide a better quality of life for all our fellow citizens, to offer something finally good from the party who doesn’t have much to hang their hat on other than not being the Republicans. They did not want to offer it though. A single payer system in the United States would never work. How would we pay for it? The eternally ringing question. Always asked in relation to a social program that helps people. One that will not be uttered once about the federal bailout money going to corporations who pay their CEOs millions and their workers minimum wage. A massive bailout that will make sure the CEOs can keep those extravagant salaries and shareholders can still receive massive payouts. I find it hard to swallow that any movement making an attempt for a better world meets so much scrutiny, and the most obvious, craven corruption is met with a smile and a thumbs up. 

    We treated this fight as do or die, as it was our only good chance at making a positive change in the world. It was not about winning for the sake of being triumphant, it was about fighting the material realities the vast majority of people face. We knew that a lot of people’s lives depended on a single payer healthcare system. We fought hard, and we failed. This seemed like our last chance, because of all the failures of leftist politics we have had in the last 4 years. Since 2016 leftist politics has been resurgent, and we were riding a wave of new found popularity for a bit afterwards. Yet, Corbyn was rejected in the United Kingdom. The NDP had an absolutely abysmal result in Canada’s 2019 election. Both offered a radically different politics from the status quo, both could have given their governments the much needed shot in the arm, but both were heavily rejected by voters despite having their policies be widely approved. Bernie was our last chance, and we failed. We have no choice but to wear that failure, and as much as I am sickened by people’s adverse reaction to these campaigns, I know the failure is also our own. I do not know what needed to be done differently in any of these cases, but I accept that we failed in our mission. 

    The Bernie movement was an attempt by the left wing of the party to take control of the Democratic Party. We came extremely close, we won the first three primaries, and looked to be the strongest among the split field. The Party got smart though; after Biden’s South Carolina win they cleared the deck    so Joe was the only centrist candidate running. Candidates who had been viable and popular up until Super Tuesday dropped out suddenly. Oddly enough Elizabeth Warren, who apparently held a base that somewhat overlapped with Bernie’s, stayed in the race despite not being a viable candidate at all. From there, the movement lost its momentum, corona virus basically made campaigning impossible, and eventually we had to concede that we lost. 

    So the Democrats successfully fought off our insurgency, and the establishment is still very much in charge of the party’s direction. They rejected our vision of politics, so what will they be offering come November’s election? Well, that is why I think this is a pivotal moment in the collapse of the American Golden Age; because they really are not offering a change at all. 

   Obama was elected on the platform of change, his slogan was hope. The only change that came from the Obama years was Obamacare, a doomed policy that was always more of a capitulation to the medical insurance companies and the Republican party than a truly radical policy. Trump has somewhat dismantled it, but the horrible failures I listed above about the American medical system are just as much failures of Obamacare. Obama’s legacy is simply the continuation of the status quo. That is what Hillary ran on in 2016, she was the establishment candidate. She offered no real change at all but a steady hand on the wheel that could keep the country in the same direction. The idea being that she would pick up all the disgusted Republican voters Trump turned away. Wrong. Part of the reason she lost so badly was because people did not like that she embodied the establishment (she also embodied the worst part of the establishment, and could be tied to way too many shady events). Trump successfully pitched himself as a political outsider, someone who was going to bring change to the White House. You can argue about the reality of his pitch, but you can not argue that it helped him cobble together a base that won 2016 and is going to be hard to beat in 2020. 

    Currently the Democratic Party controls the House of Representatives. It was considered a big moment, as now the party had a position to negotiate from with the Trump administration. They have not been able to do much negotiating though, the list of capitulations they have made with no pushback far outweighs anything they have done with their control of the House. Nothing shows the impotence of the Democratic party like their handling of the Trump Corona virus Bailout. Democratic party leaders did nothing to stop the worst parts of the bailout. They did not push back against the massive tax cut that is buried in the bailout. They did not push back against corporations being able to layoff their employees, receive a corporate bailout, and still pay dividends to their shareholders (meaning those who actually do the labor and provide the profit are dumped, while shareholders continue to get paid and receive a bailout). Nancy Pelosi did push back on something though, remote voting for the House of Representatives, which allowed the Republican controlled Senate to be really the only effective body in Congress. Let us be honest though, the Democratic establishment did not want to push back on these things, they were also pushing these measures themselves. 

    After Bernie suspended his campaign, the narrative immediately shifted to whether the Bernie movement would rally behind Biden. Bernie endorsed Biden quickly, and he will do what he can to campaign for him and convince his base to jump over. Whether it will work, or whether we should, is a very long and arduous argument in itself that I am not taking up here. I think the important choice has already been made; there is no real option for change on the table. There may be a difference between Trump and Biden, and a Biden administration would have tangible differences over the next four years undoubtedly. In the long run though I do not think either party is able to execute the radical change that is needed to heed off what seems like the now inevitable downfall of the American state. The legacy of the Democratic party over the last 30 years has been nothing but failure, broken promises, and complete subservience to capital. At every opportunity the Democratic party has had to institute change for the positive, they have not just balked, but continued to protect the interest of global capital at the expense of the most vulnerable. I do not think we have time to give them another chance, there has never been a more crucial time for left-wing radical change than right now. The corona virus has shown the frailty of our current system and its inability to properly handle the crisis, but let us remember we seem to be balancing on the edge of a few crises. Our environment continues to become more and more hostile to human habitation, and natural disasters are not just more common now but fully expected. People have been predicting an economic downturn for some time now, and the markets were limping into the pandemic already. People continue to lose more faith in their public institutions, and that only leads down a dark hole. These are not just boogeymen, they are real existential threats. I know the Democratic party is not offering anything substantial to combat these issues, look at the party establishment’s complete disdain for the Green New Deal.  So when it comes time, how am I supposed to believe that the Democratic establishment won’t throw people to the wolves to save those who they are truly beholden to? 

    The Bernie movement offered something more than just material improvement to people’s lives, it offered social cohesion. Another slogan of the Bernie campaign was “Are you willing to fight for someone you don’t know?”. Bernie’s platform was one of serious material change, but it was also a serious pitch to those outside of the Democratic party as well. Capital and the neoliberal policies it puts forward have been hollowing out social cohesion for the last 40 years, and anyone looking at the state of the world’s politics would see an extremely divided political landscape. Neoliberalism has not only put the emphasis on the individual, but it has turned every interaction into a transaction. Friendships, careers, even family are all looked at as something to get the most out of for your investment. There are a million books detailing how to optimize your life, and get the most production out of your day. Capital has successfully convinced us that turning yourself into a robot soley possessed by maximum production is a noble pursuit. Bernie’s movement offered something counter to that; the idea that you would fight to improve someone’s life you didn’t know, not because you would get something in return, but that it was the ethical way to treat people. The foundation of socialism is building a tight knit social cohesion that looks to provide for all. The right is offering the exact opposite of that. The Democratic Party says they are offering that, but if you look at the policies on the table, their voting record over the past 40 years, and who they really have gone to bat for over and over again, it is apparent they do not have the ability to create a movement that offers a greater idea of social connectivity. 

    I am not saying the failure of the Bernie campaign now means that a movement like his couldn’t be on the table again in the future. What I am saying is that it very well may be a serious turning point in American history. The crises that continue to plague the world only seem to grow worse, social cohesion only seems to diminish, and the liberal left continues to fail to stop our political rightward drift. How much time is left to offer a viable alternative and solution before it is too late? Ask a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley if they think the American Golden Era will ever end, and they will probably laugh at you for thinking such a thing. Ask someone in Flint, Michigan the same question and they will tell you it already has.