#the first post about her past has a number of falsehoods

[foldername--s0mbr4-l0r3-wdg]

filename: embers-first-hypnosis-LatEotW-wdg.txt

She's cornered by three men claiming to be survivors looking for sacrifices to their gods to try and end the apocalypse. Her eyes scan the men for any weaknesses...

Ah, there's one.

She teleports two of them into a flame cage and begins flirting with the last one.

It doesn't take long to seduce him.

Once that's done, Ember reveals her right eye and stares into the eyes of the man in front of her.

Her left eye mirrors her right... and her hair flows as if she was underwater...

It doesn't take long for the man to be hypnotized.

"Alright, honey. I need you to... dispose... of the other two men."

The other two men are released and are almost immediately attacked by the hypnotized one.

"Good job," she says after the two men are killed. "Now, go find the tallest cliff you can and jump off. Don't worry, I'll be there to catch you."

Except she wasn't there to catch him. Now that there's no one after her, Ember begins her trek to Colorado. A little birdie told her there's a society of supernatural people there.

[defaultfelix]

Returning online

My name is Felix Kramer, and I'm the creator of Goodbye Strangers. I haven't been active online for quite some time, and I wanted to address this. There was a major falling out with the former collaborative team, and later on, a public "callout" was made against me. Due to the number of falsehoods in the post against me, I don't feel that it is appropriate to comment on the post in full – and as the circumstances leading to the split were personal and not public, I do not feel comfortable disclosing any information that would violate another person's privacy.

I wanted to specifically comment upon the following two points, however. First, I can confirm my former collaborator's statement that she did not approach me at any time with any of her concerns.

This second point is one that cannot be emphasized enough: I absolutely do not share my former collaborator's interpretation of my work, and fully disavow such a hateful interpretation. If discrimination and hate are the values that you see when you look into my work, you are not my audience. A deliberate theme of the project as a whole is the idea that whether it's because of race, sexuality, gender, body type, mental illness, or something else - every person on earth knows what it feels like to be "left out", or like they don't belong. That is what it means to be a "sensitive", and why members of minority groups are more likely to be able to see the strangers.

I understand that there are people who may have questions or concerns about myself or my actions, and in this regard, anyone is welcome to email me with any questions or concerns. Please consider me an open book, as I am happy to discuss anything that does not violate another person's privacy. I don't plan to give any further statement regarding these individuals, other than to wish them the best.

In terms of what I've been doing the past few years, I will admit that this has been a very, very difficult period for my mental health. My mental state had been gradually worsening prior to the split with the team, and the mass public shaming/ostracism triggered a psychotic break from reality. Recovering has been gradual; this incident was the single most traumatic event I've ever endured, and it has taken countless hours of self-reflection, therapy, and outside support to pick myself back up again. I've talked about my experiences here, and am happy to engage privately with anyone who might benefit from talking further, but otherwise, I would rather look towards the future.

I wanted to end this post with one final note about my mental health and general status. I've been living with psychotic/delusional mental health symptoms for many, many years, and these have had a significant impact on much of my behaviour. Though I've talked to some extent about things like synesthesia and audio hallucinations, the full extent of psychotic states and delusional thought patterns is something that I am only very recently opening up about and addressing more directly.

These symptoms have been a major obstacle in returning online. The voices that I hear are cruel and endlessly critical; the abusive language used in the callout post became a constant internal dialog. In the years following the break from the team, I've drafted countless public statements and responses – and, it has taken this long to be able to 'quiet down' my mind enough to write this without hearing snarling insults and rebuttals to every single line.

I acknowledge that my behaviour prior to the split was erratic, self-destructive, and alienated those close to me. I made poor judgments, my expectations of both myself and others were not realistic, and I was grossly unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. I live with debilitating, lifelong mental illness that includes psychotic and dissociative symptoms. This isn't an 'excuse' for erratic behaviour, and I sincerely apologize to those people made uncomfortable by my actions, or hurt by the fallout of the project, and am happy to answer any further questions via private correspondence.

It will always be an ongoing process to address my mental health challenges and to develop healthier coping mechanisms. This is exactly why I want to do what I can to better live up to my own values of personal responsibility – as well as fight past my own fears in order to share my work with others and contribute my value to the world.

I don't know what the future holds, but I know that I'm not the person I was three years ago – the person I was three years ago would never have been able to write this post.

Thank you so much for reading my words. Please take care of yourself and those around you, and don't ever give up on your dreams.

[mariacallous]

Marianna Spring is the BBC’s first disinformation and social media correspondent, a post best described as prolonged recumbence on a bed of very sharp nails. She is also a plucky and dogged investigative reporter who has repeatedly dived into the cesspit of online hatred and misinformation with the aim of trying to understand, rather than merely ridicule or condemn it. For her pains, Spring has already received – and deserved – some professional awards. But she has also been the target of some of the most vicious targeted attacks that any journalist has had to face: of the 14,488 social media posts targeting staff that the BBC logged between January and June 2023, for example, 11,771 related to her. Any journalist who can endure such an onslaught and remain sane deserves respect.

Among the Trolls is her compelling account of what the dark underbelly of contemporary liberal democracies looks like now. Much of it involves conspiracy theories – those who believe them and those who profit from them. But Spring’s gaze widens into an exploration of the collateral damage such theories cause, not only to individual believers and their families but in the way they undermine the deliberative capacity of democracies. She looks at the way technology has created a world in which, as Jonathan Swift famously put it, “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it” – but one in which even blatant falsehoods endure long past their sell-by date because the internet never forgets. And she recounts, in graphic and depressing detail, the unspeakable things that people do and say online. But she also makes some heroic attempts to contact the trolls behind the slurs, sometimes with really interesting results.

All in all, this is a compelling guided tour of a dystopian underworld that most sensible people would prefer to ignore. It also suggests why such wilful blindness would be terminally unwise. If we needed a case study in the dangers that online-fuelled conspiracy theories can pose to society, then Covid-19 would be hard to beat. It was, Spring writes, “a gateway to more sinister conspiracies”: a third of respondents to a research survey said that the pandemic had made them more suspicious of official explanations of terrorist attacks. The number of avoidable deaths resulting from misinformation and anti-vaccination campaigning, for example, is uncountable, but it’s significant. Misinformation costs lives. And even today we are having to cope with outbreaks of diseases such as measles that were until recently avoidable.

The temptation du jour is to conclude that many of the ills of the modern world can be ascribed to social media. HL Mencken long ago nailed that misconception. “For every complex problem,” he wrote, “there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.” Close reading of Spring’s conversations with believers in conspiracy theories and trolls gives a hint of what underpins their behaviour and convictions. Many of them felt threatened or insecure because of what had happened to them in life. They felt undervalued or unappreciated by their peers, patronised by those in power and baffled by the inexplicable things that were happening in wider society.

What’s striking about Spring’s approach is her empathic capacity to try to understand what the legal scholar Cass Sunstein disdainfully called the “crippled epistemology” of conspiracy theorists. Given the abuse to which she has been subjected, this is remarkable. But, although Spring doesn’t spell this out, it also provides a clue to why liberal democracies are being undermined by conspiracy theories. The people she has been talking to are often living proof of what it’s like trying to get by in a society increasingly shaped by an economic ideology in which inequality is a feature, not a bug: it’s what neoliberalism is designed to do. The terrifying levels of social exclusion in modern “prosperous” democracies bear testimony to that. And the widespread popularity of conspiracy theories is a symptom of it.

What this means is that we need to acknowledge that networked technology is not the cause of our current ills. It’s a necessary factor but not a sufficient explanation for the mess democracies are in. And tackling it requires a frank admission that our politics are probably the main driving force of public disaffection. Which is the last thing that politicians fixated on the next election are likely to concede.

So our current reflex reactions to the problem – incredulity or disdain – won’t work. If people’s sense of identity is tied up with their beliefs, then they’re unlikely to be persuaded that most vaccines are not dangerous. Just as (Mencken again) it’s impossible to get someone to understand a proposition if his or her wealth depends on not understanding it. Many conspiracy theories are “self-sealing” – ie, impervious to facts. If there is a single cheery thought to emerge from this fine piece of journalism it is that, sometimes, empathy works. Instead of browbeating a supposedly deluded believer with facts, why not try understanding how they came to believe the things they do? Which is what Marianna Spring has tried to do. And it needn’t be futile. The pity is that, as they say in Silicon Valley, empathy doesn’t scale.

[thebmatt]

FFXIV Write 2021 Prompt #24: Illustrious

Illustrious - well known, respected, and admired for past achievements.

This takes place soon after the events written in Prompt 3: Scale

Magnai sat on the dawn throne, groaning at the pain the action caused him.

Over at his usual post, he saw Daidukul limping and clutching hurt ribs.

He swore under his breath. He'd been humiliated by the khan, again. Word had reached him that he and that witch, Sadu, were once again engaged in a duel. Over what, his scouts had not been able to determine, but their fighting had been just as fierce as the last time they had dueled, so it must have been important. Important issues that concerned the Steppe were his to decide, the gods had spoken as much! He had grabbed his best warriors and mounted their yols to intervene.

What he had found was a trap. Their "duel" had been staged. As soon as he demanded they cease, they had both turned to him and issued a challenge to him. He'd let anger blind him into accepting, and as he and Daidukul lept into battle, he had not seen that they had been expecting him until after it was already over.

Sadu , though strong in her spellcasting, had not noticeably improved since they had last battled. The khan, however....the khan had wielded magics of earth and air, water and light, with deadly ease. He had no idea the Khan was so skilled in such magicks. What was it, some form of geomancy? Before they had only ever seen him wielding that massive slab of metal he called a sword, clad head to toe in black and red armor. This time he wore garb that was common enough among the Xaela of the drier parts of the steppe, though not in any tribal color he'd recognized. And that weapon....it seemed like a living tree branch, glowing with energy.

He'd underestimated the khan, again, and somehow seemed to be falling behind him. This would not stand.

Almost as if on cue, the doors to the Dawn Throne opened and in walked the very man who'd put him in this sorry state. He sat upright, trying to suppress the wince that his injured ribs induced. "Well, if it isn't our illustrious khan? Come to gloat, have you? To rub your tainted victory in my face? The Sun will not hear it. You lured him in with trickery and falsehood, you and that witch, do not deny it."

Dahkar barked a laugh. "First with Sadu, it's glorious khan, and now I'm the illustrious khan with you. I'd almost think you two were coordinating which backhanded compliments you're going to use on me."

"You dare accuse me of collusion when you are the one who-"

"Oh calm your spikey-haired arse down, Magnai. It was a joke." Dahkar interrupted. "As to our supposed 'collusion', yes we faked a fight to lure you out, but one: you could have simply said 'no', and two: it's not like we ambushed you, you came prepared to fight and we let you make the first move. Don't make excuses, it's beneath you.'

Magnai sneered as he stood, still clutching his ribs. "And what is your excuse for your continued disrespect of the rightful stewards of the Xaela, hrmm? Every week, without fail, you come here to the Steppe and speak with the Qestir, the Mol, even the Dotharl, but do you present yourself to the Dawn Throne? Do you show the Sun the respect he is owned? No. Thus are we shown to be last among the Xaela in your eyes! "

Dahkar crosses his arms. "I respect the Oronir plenty, Magnai. Or has it escaped the Sun's notice that one of his own just conveniently happens to be in Reunion at the same time I arrive there every week?

Shock registered on Magnai's face. He looked over to Daidukul, who shook his head, confusion in his own expression.

"I've made more than a few friends among the Oronir, Magnai. Or did you think I only did what you asked of me when you had us do your chores before the last Naadam. They let me know how the Oronir are doing. I bring them things the tribe needs, provide advice when they have problems. So  you see, brother Magnai, I respect your tribe perfectly well. I just don't like you."

"You dare-" Rage enveloped his countenance, but again the khan interrupted him.

"And don't get this wrong, I absolutely respect you. You're a great warrior. You're even a pretty good leader of the Oronir, most of the time. But this delusion you're under that you're somehow divine, calling yourself 'the Sun' and demanding tribute from everyone, that gets annoying real fast. So it's hardly a surprise that I'd rather deal with frankly any other Oronir than you. Take your ego down a few dozen notches and we can talk like two leaders who just want what's best for our people. Or don't, and I keep on as I have been. Your choice. Now, I actually do have a matter I need to discuss with you directly. Do you want to talk about it or do you still want to hurl accusations and threats at me?"

Magnai worked his jaw, glaring at Dahkar, before he finally exhaled and simply said "Speak."

"All right, then. I take it word has made it to you of these metal towers that have emerged seemingly out of nowhere. Nearest one to the Steppe is to the South, near Yangxia."

Magnai's expression changed to concern. "I have beheld it, yes. There are others?"

Dahkar nodded. "Dozens. They've appeared all over the star. Built by the Garleans, though not willingly. They emit some kind of magic that enslaves the minds of any who get near it, forcing them to worship Garlemald itself. They've been spitting out some powerful monsters that have required large numbers to kill."

"I have seen no signs of one in the Steppe. Nor has this 'Othard Alliance' asked for our aid against any such foes." Magnai offered.

"For the moment, the bulk of the activity involving them has been in Eorzea. The ones in Othard have been mostly quiet. I don't expect that to last, though. RIght now we're in a calm before a storm,  and when that storm hits, the people behind this...they're gonna strike all over the star.  So my question is this: when that happens, are you prepared to fight alongside not only all the tribes of the Steppe, but also the rest of the Othard Alliance?"

Magnai looked to Daidukul;. who asked "And you truly believe this threat will come all the way here?"

Dahkar nodded. "I truly do. The madman behind this has shown no hint of any kind of restraint. Myself and the other Warriors of Light are going to do our best to track him down, but we have no idea how long that will take nor what he'll do before we can get to him. So? What is your answer?"

Magnai considered, then nodded. "The Sun acknowledges that the Steppe can live apart no longer, and thanks to you, khan, we are in a better position to defend ourselves than before. We will stand together, as one people and with the Othard Alliance. This the Sun vows."

Dahkar nodded. He drew the cane from his back and weaved a wave of healing light that emanated from him. Magnai felt the wounds under his bandages close, the ache of his bruises fading. He saw Daidukul's own bruises fade as he stretched and tested his own limbs.

Dahkar grinned. "Rest well, khatuns. You'll need it. I'll see you both soon."

With that, he turned and walked out of the Dawn Throne, leaving both men to ponder their uncertain future.

[atltexts]

STALKING & NO CONTACT ORDER (NCO) VIOLATIONS

TRIGGER WARNING: circuses & clowns

NCO: On the last week of August, the tile IX office increased the sanctions on BVH at ATL’s request. The medical school sent an e-mail with a serious tone to both BVH & ATL setting a new set of rules. BVH was assigned to one side of the school & one side of the classroom, while ATL was instructed to remain on the opposite side. This was a command to stay as far from one another as possible, not a suggestion. If the rules were to be broken, as the e-mail states, there would be “serious consequences”, including being tried, undergoing yet another Title IX trial which would have undoubtedly led to expulsion. That would mean a 5th trial for BVH, even though BVH was cleared of all other charges.

SOCIAL MEDIA: In the same e-mail, they request that they cease all social media posts regarding the situation. BVH had never taken the opportunity to defend himself online, let alone post about it (closest thing would be his expression of relief: the 1-0 narrative).

BVH’S MOTHER FALSELY ACCUSED BY ATL: ATL on the other hand had already been posting a series of tweets and instagram posts, some of which she even falsely accused BVH’s mother of intimidating her! BVH’s mother does not know anything about ALT’s identity (including her name or what she looks like), but ATL stared them both down as she walked towards & past them during a lecture of some sort. BVH brought his mother to class because he was terrified of going by himself after summer break. BVH’s mother did not notice the girl. When he dropped his mother off at the airport, she asked “by the way, was that girl there?”

CLAIMS BVH HAS IT BEST: In other tweets, she speaks about how the school does not support her because BVH has yet to be expelled (they want him expelled, trust me — staff stands in the doorways to watch his every move, and the campus security checks on his IQ room after every break. It is a circus) and writes as though she is not receiving the praise she is receiving, and as though BVH is not the scapegoat in this situation.

THREATS TO PHYSICAL SAFETY: In a tweet that is a threat to BVH’s safety, ATL wrote that she “has to” bring pepper spray to school (confusing — you’d think someone who is afraid of him would maybe NOT stalk him, trying to make themselves as visible as possible?). Understandably, this makes BVH feel extremely uneasy and on edge, especially when she follows his footsteps. As anyone would, he fears that if she continues to linger around his personal bubble, she will eventually find any excuse to pepper spray him & potentially cause his eyes some serious damage. The school was informed of this serious threat with a screenshot of the tweet attached. They didn’t care.

PRECURSOR: Prior to these new sanctions, BVH avoided to be seated near ATL as he’d rather focus on his studies and not be distracted. He almost always finds a seat before ATL decides which seat she wants to take. He has kept his distance, but ATL would deliberately sit unreasonably close to him nearly every day in class. On top of that, she sends most of her mass e-mails about a health group she’s in only while they are in the same classroom. Since she has sent these e-mails while sitting directly behind him a number of times, I can’t see how she could possibly forget to omit his name. BVH, knowing there’s a good possibility that she is looking at his phone, would delete these on the spot (obviously other students can corroborate the timing of these e-mails). I don’t think it’s just coincidence that she waits for class to hit the send button on these elaborate e-mails that seem to be pre-written. ATL has tweeted on several different occasions about how BVH has been trying to intimidate her, when in reality it was the other way around. He has not given her or the smear campaign any attention from day 1. Seriously, he minds his own business. Being in a class with the spotlight on him, it is not enjoyable, but he goes anyway with one focus in mind: his education and avoiding further harassment. Not only does ATL try to sit near him, but she also stares him down during class, making it difficult for him to concentrate. When BVH leaves class, ATL is usually found at the bottom of the stairs (nearest to his IQ room and furthest from her IQ room) waiting among a group of her friends. As he steps down these stairs to exit the school, ATL & these friends will stare him down in a way that is very unsettling (some of these friends are part of the class leadership who circulated the petition with inaccurate and unecessary accusations — see previous posts). In these moments, he is purposefully reminded of how isolated he is, that he is not welcomed by his peers & that some people really believe he has committed these terrible crimes that he would never stand for.

This is where it gets even more ridiculous…

NCO VIOLATION #1: The very next day (Friday), after the New Contact rules were established, BVH couldn’t believe his eyes. He caught ATL slowly pacing around the campus on his side of the school. He discretely snapped a photo from the balcony for obvious reasons (he is never taken seriously, therefore he has no choice but to collect more and more mountains of evidence) & reported her immediately.

The administrator who sent the e-mail responded promptly & assured BVH that it would be taken care of. The weekend passed without any updates.

NCO VIOLATION #2: The following Monday, ATL was again seated an the area that she was commanded to not sit in. BVH, following the “serious” NCO, sat far back in the class all by himself. While the rest of the classroom was in a cluster, ATL sat in the same cluster with students but in a seat that would be closest to BVH in the dead middle of the classroom. She was drinking a soup casually as though she can get away with anything she desires (I wonder why), and BVH snuck out his phone to collect more photo evidence.

BVH sent yet another e-mail to report ATL’s second violation, also asking for an update for Friday’s incident as well.

MORE FALSEHOODS: The administrator responded with even more false accusations that BVH had actually broken the NCO rules, as reported by ATL. It was reported the he stalked her, when in reality she was shamelessly & openly stalking him. They know how cordial BVH is — he would not break the NCO. Either they hoped they would, or they took this as another opportunity to wrongfully frame him.

HOW DID BVH BREAK THE NCO? Well, first of all he didn’t. When asked, they refused to tell him how, when & where. Fair, considering how much they truly & sincerely care…. about sabotaging every area of his goddamn life.

SHOCKING!: Even though school cameras can prove that BVH did not break the rules & that it was, in fact, ATL, the school decided to drop the new NCO rules. Their reason was “you both broke the rules, so it doesn’t matter. We’re not going to investigate it” This is something that could have easily been investigated, but since it does not benefit ATL, it doesn’t really interest them. In other words, I am just going to assume the rules only applied to BVH & I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew ATL was lying, but saw it as another opportunity to frame him.

The school, in their signature fashion, made excuses for ATL. For the first violation, they said “it must have been an accident.” For the second, they basically said in a more ‘professional’ set of words: “never mind. This is not working out in our favour.” Of course, the administrator made sure to CC the Puppet Master MD in all these e-mails. You know, the one who decided to ‘step out of the situation’.

Had BVH been the one really violating the rules & not ATL, he would have most likely been penalized. Surely, the school must have had a reason to establish these new rules to begin with, especially given how adamant they were about the repercussions. Again, it seems as though they have no interest in keeping BVH in a safe environment.

BVH just wants to stay civil & get through his studies in peace. He is not entertaining any of the drama and is doing everything in his power to avoid further conflict. It's unbelievably absurd and devastating. They even demanded that he take the “Martin Luther King approach” (as though he isn’t already), so I am going to take the Martin Luther approach and post all their egregious crimes.

ATL, again, has stood at the bottom of the stairs with a group of friends and waited until BVH would walk down those same stairs so that she could stare him down. I am not sure what she was trying to do here, given her claims that she fears him.

SUMMARY: The Title IX office increased the sanctions on BVH at ATL’s request, even though BVH was exonerated for the accusations made against him. After the sanctions were increased, ATL broke the NCO on multiple occasions and the Title IX office refused to investigate it, despite photo evidence. BVH was accused of breaking it and was reported. His reports on ATL breaking the rules were passed as “accidents” even though she broke them on a daily basis. There is not excuse on ATL’s part, nor the administrators. They only dropped the No Contact Order once they realized it would only benefit BVH and not ATL. Again, seems like another booby trap to get BVH kicked out.

MORE EXCUSES, MORE “ACCIDENTS”: This is, despite ATL breaking the no contact directive back in February when she tried to FaceTime BVH, let it ring for a while, and cancelled before it went to voicemail. After the Title IX office “investigated this claim,” they determined it was also an “accident.” They also determined that all other No Contact Order violations were “accidents” even without investigation, again, despite photo evidence.

TO BE CONTINUED The next postwill be about what happens after the no contact order, how the subordinates of the Puppet Master MD proceeded to coerce and intimidate BVH into dropping out of medical school & to drop his Title IX complaints against ATL for the weeks of harassment from the text messages I have shown in previous posts (for ATL’s sake, I did not post the most vulgar ones, even though they are the most telling & revealing ones), even though BVH filed it back in November (before ATL ever filed anything!), and also his complaints against the Puppet Master MD.

& POSSIBLE PREJUDICE: Given the fact that BVH is a Filipino male, I do seriously wonder whether discrimination plays a role in this decision.

[joachimnapoleon]

“Perhaps you love me still in the depths of your heart.”

Finally finished translating the Murat letter I mentioned in this post. I was just going to post some snippets of it, but decided I’d rather put it up in all its unabridged, rambling glory, because the totally random campaign details and assorted minutiae Murat starts throwing in through his alternately sarcastic, bitter, and angsty tirade are a nice glimpse into his (admittedly chaotic) thought process; they’re his way of trying to convince Napoleon that Murat’s Sicilian campaign is actually going quite well and is perfectly winnable if only Napoleon would just let him carry on with his business without further interference (which Napoleon won’t).

Some brief context: Murat, in the summer of 1810, is attempting to wrest Sicily from the Bourbons and reunite it with Naples. Or so he thinks; the reality is that Napoleon’s primary motive for sanctioning this campaign--though Murat is apparently oblivious to this--is to keep the British troops in Sicily distracted as long as possible so they don’t go reinforce those fighting the French in Spain. While this is going on, Caroline Murat is in Paris, alternately helping Napoleon’s new Empress to get her household up and running, and trying to keep her husband’s relationship with Napoleon from unraveling any further than it already has been for over a year now (and very likely beginning an affair with Metternich as well). Louis Bonaparte, who has been quarreling with Napoleon, is on the brink of losing his throne in Holland (he will be forced to abdicate by his brother less than a month after Murat writes this letter); Caroline is afraid of Napoleon’s wrath coming down on them in a similar manner. Napoleon begins interfering with Murat’s ongoing preparations for the Sicilian expedition; a letter from the Minister of War is sent to Murat instructing him that “the Emperor regards the enterprise as impossible, unless there are the means of transporting 15,000 men at the same time.” (Murat has the men, but not the means to transport them all simultaneously.) Additionally, Napoleon has the Minister “remind you that the French troops are to be commanded by French generals”--meaning, if it came to it, that they could refuse to obey Murat’s orders if they view those orders as contrary to Napoleon’s. Lastly, an aide-de-camp of the Minister--and a mere colonel, compounding the insults to Murat yet further--has been sent to Naples to inspect Murat’s fortifications and report back to Napoleon personally on any potential inadequacies. 

At which point Murat has a bit of a meltdown (neither his first nor his last of the year) and writes Napoleon the following letter. (From Lettres et Documents Pour Servir à l'Histoire de Joachim Murat, Vol. 8.) (Any translation errors are my own.) 

***

Joachim Murat to Napoleon Scilla, 11 June 1810

Sire,

I just received a letter from Your Majesty's Minister of War, which announces to me your will relative to the expedition of Sicily. Your orders are going to be executed, and I regret not being in Naples in order to support the mission of the aide-de-camp of the minister whom you sent there to take secret information. Sire, no one will ever provide you truer information than me. The minister, speaking to me of the expedition, explains in these terms: "The Emperor orders that you only attempt the expedition with the certitude of success, and only if you can cross fifteen thousand men at the same time." Sire, when I possessed your confidence; when I could count on your kindness, this double condition would not have stopped me, but today everything announces to me that everything is changed for me and I foresee what must await me, if Fortune were to abandon me in this circumstance.

Sire, the expedition will not be attempted, because there is always some uncertainty to face, and no maritime expedition especially is exempt from this. The plaza of Gaeta and the forts of Naples will be armed and provisioned. I think that there will be very little to do in this regard, Y.M. might have convinced himself of this, if the state of this place had been brought to your attention by your Minister of War. All the French soldiers that Y.M. order returned from my guard are going to receive the order to return to their former corps. The convention passed with Broadwent never had its effect, and this American was not able to introduce muslin into the Kingdom; it would be very cruel to have exposed such falsehoods. Would I have written to Y.M., if I had wanted to leave you unaware of what I might have done with this man? Everything that you ask for my navy will be executed, and, in a word, command in Naples and you will be obeyed, perhaps better than in Paris.

As to the secret mission of M. the colonel Leclerc, I regret not being in Naples in order to facilitate for him the means of fulfilling it, but I dare to assure that my ministers who know my sentiments for everything that comes from Y.M. will procure for this officer all the information he will need. May he consult public opinion, I don't fear judgement!

At Compiègne, I begged Y.M. to tell me if he wanted me to make the Sicilian expedition; I presented it to him as necessary for the repose of Italy and to prevent English contraband, and a plan was given and approved, because the Duke of Feltre wrote me in these terms: "The Emperor approves your plan of operation against Sicily in all its extent." I had thus to prepare the means of its execution, the paranzella barques* from nearly all the Kingdom were required, gathered at different points and loaded with everything that might contribute to the expedition, and the convoys have followed one another since 8 May, so that as I write, everything that should've been part of it has left Naples and is in the moorings of Pizzo, Tropea, Bagnara, and Scilla. The convoys of the siege artillery have not advanced, I think they are in the golfs of Policastro or at Palinuro; all the troops are cantoned or encamped from Monteleone to Reggio; all the batteries are armed to be able to protect them; and I await only my siege artillery in order to attempt the passage, the success of which no one doubts, not even the English. Such is my position, Sire, at the moment when I received the letter from the Duke of Feltre, and I am going to make arrangements accordingly.

However, Sire, who was able to bring about a change that makes me so unhappy? What have I done to be able to lose in an instant so many rights to your kindness? How did my enemies, who still number more than yours, manage to break an instrument that has never ceased to loyally serve you, and what are my wrongs? I am unaware of them and you will only ever find in me the one whom you have cherished like a father, like my benefactor. Am I not your creation, your pupil, are you not the author of my elevation? Have they hoped, my enemies, to make me revolt against Y.M. and to succeed in making of Italy a new Spain and in reversing your vast projects? Ah! sooner perish my fortune and my happiness, and your brilliant destinies be accomplished! Sire, there, there are my feelings; they are immutable, they are sincere, and you would have no trouble believing them, if only you would recall all my past conduct. Have you ever seen me change? Have I not heard you say: Murat is the only one of my family who has never given me cause to complain of him? Hasn't general opinion always shown me to be your minion, and do I not still have that reputation? And which of my actions could have bred suspicions about my loyalty? About my gratitude? There is only one: my opinion on your marriage; yet this was dictated by my attachment, I could be mistaken, but my heart alone was culpable, because it thought it was acting in your interests. What was it to me if Y.M. married a Russian or an Austrian? What did I want? Your happiness and some children, and I hope and I am sure that the current Empress shall give you the one and the other; so I was fully reassured when I was able to to appreciate her brilliant qualities. So I had nothing more to desire than the conservation of your kindness and some occasions to be able to prove to you my zeal, and I've lost these, and I have no more hope of being happy, since a letter from an ambassador who wanted to pay court to his master has rendered me suspect and has made me lose your friendship forever. Yet you loved me, I am sure of it, and perhaps you love me still in the depths of your heart. Sire, was it not in spite of myself that I came and returned to Naples? Did I not write you in Vienna that if you wanted to reunite the Kingdom of Naples, I would demand it and work for it accordingly? Didn't I beg you in grace during my second-to-last journey to keep me with you? And why is Naples not reunited today? Recall me to you. You spoke to me at Compiègne of a dignity of general of the cavalry of the Empire; create that for me; Sire, at the first battle, under your eyes, I will justify such a kindness, I will regain your friendship, your affection of which I am still worthy. Sire, why do you want to dishonor me in the eyes of the people you have destined me to command? Why do you send junior officers to my capital where it has begun to be said: "The Emperor doesn't want the expedition." Some particular letters are soon going to tell this to the army and to Sicily, and Stuart, whom I see very embarrassed from here, will resume his original attitude. How to palliate the abandonment of the enterprise? Since I can wait a while longer in my position and no one is master of the secret, I will see later what it will be better to do. Yet a great result has been obtained: Corfu is free and resupplied and I have the certitude that the English troops who occupy the islands of Cephalonia, Zakinthos, and Saint Maure, have returned to Messina. Yesterday still around 400 arrived, among other the cannoneers, all the batteries of the coasts have been rearmed and I could bring from Puglia all the oil, without fearing the crossing of the strait, which I am going to secure and complete its armament. The provinces of Calabria will be purged of the brigandage and I will ensure the progress of their administration. There is work night and day on the opposite shore, there are movements every instant; we are assured that Stuart has lost his head, since three days ago, that is to say since he was convinced by his attempt on Bagnara that he would neither be able to prevent the union of my resources, nor destroy them. This morning I saw the raising of some tents and the arrival of new troops in Faro. Since the taking of the gunboat, the removal of all the Neapolitans from the command by the English is assured, because they don't trust them, and I know they are not wrong. The Duke d'Orleans left on the 23rd of May for Spain where he has been called to command; the Sicilian troops aren't moving, they are still in Palermo. Yesterday I saw a vessel, three frigates, and a corvette enter into the port of Messina, later two empty transports, and today another. In several days I will know positively what is happening. I am assured that the Sicilians desire us very much; a pound of meat sells for fifteen sols in Messina and bread in proportion.

I just wrote at great length to Your Majesty. I wish that he may read me, I wish above all that he will give me his kindness and friendship. I present my homages to Her Majesty the Empress.

I am...

Joachim NAPOLÉON

***

[Murat’s Sicilian expedition will continue into the fall of 1810 and will ultimately fail, considerably widening the rift between Murat and Napoleon. In my view this is the real turning point in their relationship; but that’s another post for another day.]

[olicitysecretsanta]

uncanny valley (pg, 1972 words, Bratva AU)

A very happy and hearty post-finale (because I refuse to say “farewell”) Olicity wish to this wonderful fandom, and especially @nikscaroline​, who asked for jealous/possessive Bratva!Oliver. I haven’t written a lot of him in that space, so welcome to this AU (inspired in part by this image, which I’ve been hanging onto for, oh, a year or so? Thanks for the great prompt to finally use it, Irvane!)

By @effie214​

Summary: In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is the relationship between the degree of an object’s resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to such an object.

© Pawel Piotrowski

  The bite of the Boston winter is not unlike that of Russia. 

What’s unfamiliar to him, however, is the light he sees when he lays eyes on her for the first time. It’s not from the waning colors of the mid-December sun as it sets, nor even the light emanating from behind her in the room in the second house from the right in Fall River. He doesn’t see the blonde hair that he’ll catch wisps of in the corner of his eye as she eliminates his blind spot entirely; doesn’t see the blue eyes that will look up at him at first in fear, then in meditation, and finally in a trust that shakes him to his core with a chill more biting than any snow could ever muster. 

He does not see the hands that the Bratva have tracked here, to Felicity Smoak and her ridiculous boyfriend, as they nearly – and, he’s sure, unintentionally, but if there’s anyone who knows that all roads to each hell, for there are many, and their devils multifaceted, it’s Oliver Queen – brought down one of the outfit’s most brilliant money laundering schemes through fake student loan payments and “donations” to various colleges and universities. He does not see the fingers that will shake first as he enters her house unannounced, the ones that will scratch and claw and tear at him the way fear will do the same to the soul he thought he’d buried in the South China Sea when she stupidly – brilliantly, for even in her folly, she will be his guiding genius – pushes him out of the way of a bullet aimed for a heart that, were it still there, would by that point belong to her. He does not hear the voice screaming into the silence for help, the one that sounds like his from so many last chances ago, lost in the echo of the waves and a recoiling gunshot. He sees nothing, feels nothing, hears nothing of this place; only knows the emptiness Anatoly has trained him to be in order to survive. He is as empty as a valley, but as he stands in the darkness that knows his name better than he does, he looks up to that light, and the shades of grey fall from his eyes as he sees the stars that he will come to understand reside in hers – not of fancy or fantasy, but of unshakeable strength even the hardest men he knows will cower beneath. He sees a precipice, a choice he’s somehow going to be given even as he plans to take away hers. He somehow sees something that shakes him from his stone: she in her uncanny nature will breathe him back to life, and he gasps against it; not the salvation, for no person – even as important as she will become to him – will ever give him that, even in the wee small hours and the tiniest sighs of hope. No, he does it because he knows – somehow he just knows – she will make him man again, instead of the many mistakes he is built of. In his old life, the one built on so much promise and so easily parted with, it had been easy to turn Judas; run from the things he was too small for. Even as he’s been warped and weathered like storm season on the island, even as he has been laid bare and barren as the Siberian winter, alone because there is no strength found in numbers, only vulnerability, somehow he looks upon her and see the Atlas to his Sisyphys, the one who will roll his truth and all their consequences up a hill of his own making. 

He cowers in that already towering presence, palms burning not from frigid temperature but from the feel of her waist in his hand as they work undercover, the pink silk of her dress crinkling easily beneath his possessive hand as she tries to charm their latest mark to get her into his study, when the jealousy becomes too much and he gives into the basest of instincts to tell the world she’s his. His ears sing not in the winter wind but with the forgotten feeling of calmness that slides down his being with her voice in his ear, the only one he trusts – a partner, even if he cannot say the word. It will start first with short, angry reminders of her nut allergy, then with clipped efficiency as she talks him through his missions. A surprised, soft “thank you” that will come when he brings her a cup of coffee every time he refills his own mug as she runs search programs and he reads the results; the adorably offended laugh that unintentionally escapes her when he effortlessly makes an omelette for her at three in the morning after she goes through almost an entire dozen trying to do it herself; the gentle, soothing words as she prays in Hebrew that he doesn’t know but understands all the same – even if it terrifies him to realize one night during Passover that he’d kept his eyes open and on her the entire time, enchanted by her face lit by flames of her belief instead of the ashes of his own aftermaths. 

  His eyes tear not because of the plea he’ll see in hers when the Bratva captains try to make him think Interpol has struck a deal with her so he’ll banish her long and far enough that they can take her out, because they don’t trust her as Oliver does – with the life he only thinks might be worth saving when he hears her tiny sigh of relief when he returns each time from wherever he’s been, to that place called home that he hadn’t even realized was there until he walks into her upstairs office and she does the same to his life, changing everything – and she stands toe to toe with him, manicured, brightly colored fingernails poking him hard in his chest as she screams with as much volume as she’ll do in mere minutes when she calls out for help that will not come that she’d never give up on him, no matter how much he’d already given up on himself. “You are not alone,” she’ll spit vehemently, “And I believe in you.”

His lips are chapped not from the night as it settles itself in navy over him, but of the future memory of finally pressing his mouth against hers in a hungry revolution, a shot across the bow and the one that will restart that heart she saved, a resolution that they are in this together, even if they have no goddamn idea what this even is. 

No, by then they’ll know: by then, he’ll have told her to go, in as quiet and heartbreaking and shaky voice as she’ll ever hear from him, that he refuses to make her a regret. Coward that he’ll be until she reminds him that the only easy day is yesterday, words that will propel him forward into a future as unknown as the destination has always been, he won’t be able to look at her when he tells her he’s sorry, that he’ll get her out, that this was a mistake. He’ll turn only when her hand finds his face, not in the slap she’ll give him when he tells her to stop getting in his way, but instead bringing him forward; bringing him to her light. “You may have forced me to leave, Oliver, but I’m choosing to stay.” She’ll shrug, those slim shoulders that hold up his world moving so easily as his lungs cannot in that moment. “There’s really no choice to make.” 

(He’ll want to fall into bed with her then, claim her and let her know he’s hers as much as she’s ever been his, but then he spots the red dress and heels she buys during a girls’ day out with the medic called Sasha – because Felicity Megan Smoak not only ends up getting the Bratva to do her bidding rather than the other way around, but makes sure to prove time and again to anyone in her sphere that she’s both hellbent and heaven-sent – and though he’s sure to the very heart she put the beat back in that the evening will end up with a grenade launched from a rooftop across the street from the restaurant, the only explosions that happen are in those wee small hours he looks so forward to now are the best ones either of them can even fathom.

They’ll fall into bed time and time after that, fall into each other and three words that should be so easy to say, especially given his increased time around her verbosity, but they don’t come until she’s elbow deep in flour, has butter on her nose and there’s what’s supposed to be fondant on the ceiling when he walks in on her in the kitchen where she’s told him about her bubbe’s latkes and he about Tommy and Thea and where they’ve hashed out his moving from an enforcer to a kapitan – as they try to relive and also rewrite the narrative of the story they’ve both found themselves and the best parts of each other in – trying to make him a birthday cake. 

They’re not so hard to say after that; in a world of fools and falsehoods, she truly is his felicity. When she looks at him in utter disblief, instinct driving her “you don’t…”, this time it is he who finds the words quickest: “Don’t ask me to say that I don’t love you.”)

He stands still against the New England quiet, the same kind that will not just echo but follow as they run from their pasts but with each other, hiding from the outfit and her father and Cooper Seldon; as she pretends to be someone else, working in a Tech Village under a carefully built and maintained identity, only herself when they are together; when they share a tiny last egg over a candle on its last millimeter of wick, and when they cuddle together under a blanket on a mattress on the floor as they disappear into a dingy Hong Kong walkup and the only thing that has ever felt like safety. He is unmoving against it, the way they’ll both be in the darkest hours, first when her tears belie her loneliness, and when his deeds catch up to him in his dreams.  When she forgets who they are, or supposed to be, or something in the middle, he’ll kiss the top of her head and say, “I know who you are. Whether you’re in a ponytail or those terrible khaki pants, you’re the one thing I believe in.”

When they sit on a plane on their final forged passports, hand in hand with fingers adorned with rings bought with cash in suburban Vancouver, slipped over still-brightly colored nails and now healed knuckles and with whispered “for better or for worse” and “I’ll go anywhere with you” inscribed in the metal as the flight attendant welcomes them to Starling City, because they have decided – chosen, that holiest of holies – this mission to save his city in the same way they’ve saved each other. “Because this is what we do,” she whispers as they touch down and she presses a kiss against his shoulder. “Because this is who we are.”

He’s not met her yet, but she’s already under his skin; more a part of him than anyone or anything else. 

He knows going in he’s not ever going to let her go again.

The beauty of it is, as he takes that first and ultimately final step, toward her door and their shared destiny, he also knows she won’t, either. 

fin 

[oftripps]

“ –– wow. ”  it’s not so much a critique as it is a g-rated expletive. tripp forces a smile mid-chew and blinks. “ my tastebuds are screaming. gah–– uh, singing. singing. ”  he avoids swallowing and as ring-decorated fingers snag a napkin, wide eyes drifting to the tabletop as a small jingle breezes past tensed lips. “ ~ allergic to mushrooms ~ ”

or, alternatively: this is somethin’ new! the caspar slide pt. 2 !! & this time, it’s ‘bout to get funky !!  so i’m linc and this is tripp and he’s........ a trip, honestly, so let’s just... yeet on into this ––

( joe keery + 22 + muse 12 ) isn’t that phillip joel “tripp” goodman over there? i heard he joined faction: one after they got back to west ham. it’s funny, ‘cause they were only on the service trip because HIS BANDMATES DUPED HIM INTO THINKING THE SIGN-UP WAS FOR A WOODS-THEMED OPEN MIC GIG. hopefully they fit in there – they’re JAUNTY but also OUTRÉ. oh, i’m sure they’ll be fine.

out the door !  ( tripp goodman: a roadmap )

look up townie family in the dictionary and you’ll find a portrait of the goodmans directly beside. these folks have a looooong flippin’ legacy here in lil’ ole west ham, kansas. it all started with montgomery goodman, a good man, who helped west ham’s founders break ground on this midwestern charmer several centuries ago. and now, the goodmans still live on the same property –– a refurbished farmhouse ( now closer to mcmansion ) surrounded by five acres of roooooollin’ hills. once upon a time, they were farming folk. now, theresa and joel goodman run the town’s one and only veterinary clinic. 

honestly, growing up? tripp was a problematic kid. he’d take in frogs from the woods and start his own frog hotels. he’d sneak pets from the clinic to school who “ needed help learning their numbers ”. in class, he’d flick sunflower seeds at the backs of his peers’ heads and, when threatened with discipline, claim he simply “ wanted to see if they’d grow  ” .  so no, to answer your question–– tripp never really saw the real wrath warranted by his rulebreaking.

in fourth grade, he chose the saxophone as his required instrument. he caused such a commotion in his house, that his parents asked his teachers to suggest something quieter. the viola. the flute. the clarinet. the piano. instruments came and went,;instruments were quickly mastered and abandoned. because dear lord, how many times could they listen to the spongebob theme song played on woodwind ?!  on strings ?!  once middle school rolled around, little phillip joel knew his way around a whopping total of six instruments, a tally that would only grow in the coming years. eventually, his parents caved and allowed him to keep playing, so long as he respected instrument curfews. they gave song requests to avoid hearing the same pieces on repeat: the goodman household was probably the only one blessed with an oboe-and-beatbox rendition of under the sea. young phillip joel’s take on the issue was simple: not all heroes wore capes.

( tw: domestic unrest, mentions of violence ) theresa and joel split when tripp was 9. just seven months later, tripp’s mother moved in with her girlfriend: tripp’s guitar teacher, ms. lillith. tripp didn’t mind ms. lillith. she was chill. he came to find out she could knock back a chocolate milk almost as fast as he could, and she liked her grilled cheeses with swiss only. his best friend became a thirty-six year old woman who happened to be his mother’s girlfriend. and that was fine. he could dig it. but joel goodman? oh no. his family name was tarnished. the scandal was too much to bear. joel sued for full custody and nearly made it, thanks to hometown politics and loyalties. but then he made one fatal mistake: he crossed his own son.

at 10 years old, fifth grade phillip joel returned home to his father’s after school with three fingernails painted effervescent blue. sidney frasier made me so cool, he gushed as he put his colored nails on proud display. dad, aren’t i so cool?  the next day, his dad enrolled him in the town’s peewee football program. he returned home from his first practice with a black eye and a split lip. from a ball, the coach insisted. hit the poor fella square in the face, real strong. phillip joel put up a fight against football; it wasn’t for him. it conflicted with music practice. couldn’t he just play music with ms. lillith instead?

the custody battle persisted. they settled on a parenting schedule. joel contested, consistently, months later. and so the cycle persisted up until phillip joel’s 12th year, when he was knocked out cold on the football field. the broken ribs came from hefty tackles. bruises from the fall. concussion from the impact. but theresa spun it to her advantage: joel had since started coaching the middle school team. this was an instance of parental neglect. and, when the courts didn’t comply, she instructed her son to jump down the stairs. one broken ankle later, and joel goodman was accused of child abuse. his word against his injured son’s. the maneuver won theresa full custody. phillip joel has yet to forgive himself.

after the custody battle’s conclusion, joel stayed in town: but phillip joel didn’t want a thing to do with sharing his name. his mother still scolds him as phillip joel, but to everyone else, he became tripp –– inspired by his knack for, you guessed it!, tumbling over his own two feet.

in high school, tripp was the class clown. always smirking, always grinning, always ready to catch someone off guard. he became a pivotal part of west ham high’s jazz band, and even formed a small group with a few buds: face. they played some school events: homecoming, pep rallies, prom. garage-baked young rock, their songs often preached meetings under bleachers and high school never ending. 

in senior year, the band saw a reboot: and after assuming a more indie, spacey sound and a nifty new name –– 1757. –– they saw a rise in local celebrity. coffee shops commissioned them for jam nights. they played on the local radio. so they collectively decided to stick around and see how far they could ride this west ham fame train. with tripp as their frontman, they always leave a memorable impression: he’s not exactly the most run-of-the-mill performer.

1757.’s sound is reminiscent of LANY: i’ve reblogged a few tunes onto tripp’s blog for reference. he’s v much a paul klein / matty healy vibe. big into music. big into losing himself in it.

so what was he up to before the service trip? playin’ tunes. working part-time as a waiter. and brainstorming ways to get out of going on this trip, as soon as he realized his stupid bandmates lied about the form he signed. an open mic in the woods ! pah !  he should have known. but the concept sounded pretty flippin’ cool.

wear our shades on our nose, 'cause we're cool like that ( tripp goodman: the man, the myth, the ledge )

oh god, he’s  w e i r d .  he believes in goblins and ghosts and aliens ( oh my )!

still VERY VERY close with his mother. v broken up about not being able to get through to her, because it was about to be his parents’ wedding anniversary and they were going to anti-celebrate it with big slices of oreo cheesecake and setting things on fire.

how he feels about coming home to west ham: post apocalyptic version.

uhhhh... can he please get a waffle? specifically a cinnamon raisin waffle with extra cinnamon and a shit ton of syrup? actually. syrup with a side of waffles?

why he was banned from his personal twitter.

“ do you even lift, bruv? ”  * proceeds to pick up a teacup & lift his pinkie like a true knock-off british monarch, shitty accent included *

listens to wham! and glam rock. unironically.bluetooth speaker mounted on his bike. no helmet! like an absolute boss. he knows!! wild!! shades on. it’s 2am. it’s dark. but true swag obeys no clock.

catch him biking everywhere stranger things style, actually. his bike’s name is milo because he can roll on for miles. mess with milo and he’ll fuck u up. aka find out if you’re lactose intolerant and slip heavy cream into your meal.

has a strong vendetta against blue doritos. which might take root in some horrific experiences involving cheez wiz, cool ranch, weed, and the new york subway system at 4am on a tuesday. spring break freshman year of college. oof.

he has a lil drawwwwl. tease him about it. he’ll probably blush.

stress-hums chili’s babyback ribs without realizing. catch him singin’ that about to be murdered.

weapon of choice: kindness.

actual weapon of choice: baseball bat.

he will write little jingles to keep morale up. “ so we’re trapped / cash us inside / how bou’ dat ? ”

has a passion for introspective literary quotes. but... has somehow managed to learn each and every one wrong.

friggin’ loves superheroes even though he can’t be bothered to watch the films? he just… always used to get made fun of for liking comic books even though he never read them? “ arachnid man is uh...  heh. he’s pretty dope, huh? ” he embraces the falsehood. someone call him on it.

9/10 times if he’s in the gym, it’s just to eat his donut and watch pay-per-view movies on the bike for free.

apple pie can absolutely be breakfast if you try hard enough. jeez. get with the times, man!

he had a legitimate pet rock before going on this service trip. but has no idea where that bugger’s gone. probably got fed up with tripp serenading him with “ we will rock you ” at all hours of the night.

lawful good. will wave other drivers on forever.

got into an accident on his bike once. bitch broke his arm and he just kept on smiling.  “ no you have a nice day! and uh.... hey. mind if we like... call an ambulance? ”

low key feels like he’s the reason his parents’ marriage crumbled. low key guilty about it. low key wonders if maybe he lived up to his father’s expectations, he might have saved them a lot of grief.

give benny goodman by saint motel a listen and tell me that’s not his soul in audio form.

known for slightly hyperbolic storytelling.

pansexual as heck. falls in love. hard. it’s a mess. he can’t hide it. hence the shades.

he has brilliant hair. and it’s immortalized in his high school yearbook.

is hellbent on being a source of positivity in this terrible situation. can he interest you in a meme in these trying times? how ‘bout a granola bar? maybe a good ole game of mash?

he’s convinced this is an elaborate prank. or a social experiment. maybe aliens. but let’s not question it too much, let’s just.... have a good time? hakuna matata? no worries? lol where the twizzlers at?!

leaves a voicemail for his mother every morning and every night. maybe he cries. maybe.

he has one ear pierced because like.......... senior year of high school, he wanted to feel more cool.

allergic to mushrooms, shellfish, eggs, and harbingers of doom.

he truly boggles minds. just.... v out there? v spacey. he closes his eyes and drifts about on stage, fingers dancing on the keys, body moving in eclectic ways. he says “groovy” and fuckin’ means it. he dresses in prints inspired by grandma’s carpet. lots of half-buttoned flowy shirts, boots, tailored statement pants, dangly necklaces. he’s got his hands full of rings –– they symbolize milestones. and some are just, like... pretty. and one’s his mother’s old wedding band.

where the hell are my friends !  ( wanted connectz. )

i was gonna do a whole section on this and got lazy but like.... anything. all the things. good, bad, ugly, beautiful. hurt him. make him suffer. but also support him a bit.

i imagine he’s got a solid squad goin’. he’s in faction one too, so... hmu for those.

i feel like he’d be pretty chill with the greeks? yeah bro, he parties. he’ll chill. he’ll crack open a cold one and pretend to understand what those letters on your jacket mean! pie-apple-fate-uh? cool stuff !

ride or dies. pls.

he needs someone to like....... melt his heart. maybe someone unexpected.

thisssss got long & disorganized but yes! let’s plot! let’s do this thang! #hype!!

[skyhooks-notebook]

My John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made

(Bourne, of course, is a brutally disillusioned idealist. He had no idea he was signing away his soul. Wick likely sold his soul with his eyes wide open, though he probably only understood the ultimate cost later on - a naive pragmatist.)

I don’t post much at all, but here is a thing that happened on my computer. I was thinking about how John Wick and Jason Bourne could be brought together. My thoughts became long, and I started writing it down. This isn’t a story, just a sketch of how I think such a movie could be made. It’s not really edited either, this is all off-the-cuff.

[I only know what’s in the movies. I don’t know other canon from either ‘verse.]

So, if I were making a movie…

The universes of John Wick and Jason Bourne have very different styles, creating a problem.

Problem: - Bourne lives in a Universe where government is large, powerful, knowledgeable and nearly competent. - Wick lives in a Universe where a vast and elaborate criminal underworld exists, where we’ve never seen those major criminal figures worry about law enforcement or government.

The discrepancy must be resolved.

Simple.

Jason Bourne has never dealt with crime. Everything has been political and confined to the intelligence community.

Wick has never dealt with politics or the intelligence community.

So.

We must assume that the intelligence community is perfectly happy to leave common crime in the hands of law enforcement.

- Law enforcement has an unwritten and fatalistic attitude that there will always be some level of crime no matter what you do because it’s innate to human nature. And if you’re going to have crime, it might as well be organized. Let the strongest and most dangerous criminals accumulate power and influence, because they will go a long way to controlling the stupid, the excessive and the disruptive crooks. Better to have one major weapons trafficker controlling the traffic than have a thousand slightly smaller and more disruptive dealers completely out of control. (You can strongly hint that there’s an uneasy, unwritten and largely unspoken agreement between crime and law enforcement, and that it’s often a two-way street.) And if the big crime gets too big, it’s easier to knock it back down to “acceptable” levels because you’ve got bigger targets, which are easier to hit and which make a large and impressive splash across the front page when you throw RICO charges at them.

Plus it would also illustrate that Wickian Law Enforcement at its highest levels is just as dirty, amoral and underhanded as the Bournite Intelligence community.

- So, with a little work and willing suspension of disbelief (which wouldn’t be hard, because who wouldn’t want to see Wick and Bourne on the same screen provided it’s done with at least half an ass), it’s possible to bring the two Universes together.

- We start with Bourne. Someone else, like an hard ass, experienced reporter, is snooping into the government’s history of creating conditioned assassins. Maybe because a public face, like a former intelligence director, has left the shade to become a politician. And many strongly suspect that he’s dirty as fuck, but our snoopy reporter is just figuring out how deep the rabbit hole goes. Our politician was, of course, instrumental in developing programs like Treadstone, Blackbriar, et al.

- The Snoop finds out, one way or another, that one of the earliest failures of these programs was an “asset” who experienced a psychological break, went “off the res”, starting killing people and still turns up now and then to kill more people. To our Snoop, it appears that the government has created an uncontrollable monster who is still on the loose and possibly lurking right outside the White House, dear reader, are you scared now?

- The story, scanty, incorrect and harshly spun, gets printed as above. A few names are named, but mostly dead people (and maybe someone who has already been publicly discredited.) Our politician is not named because our Snoop doesn’t yet have absolute proof linking Mr. Politician to the Treadstone/Blackbriar/etc. machine.

- The evidence still exists. Witnesses still live, in numbers too great to be cleanly eliminated.

- Mr. Politician is sweating bullets.

- The Snoop isn’t done. He wants to find Bourne so he can say, “Here’s your monster, where’s my Pulitzer?” As investigation continues, the story becomes clearer to the Snoop, and the monster starts to look like little less monstrous and little more victimized. Which is an even better story.

- Now Mr. Politician is not only worried that he will be named, he’s worried that if Snoop makes contact with Bourne, or simply as a consequence of Snoop stirring the shit, Bourne will find out who our Politician is and how complicit he was in the program that destroyed David Webb. Mr. Pol knows this is likely to be a death sentence.

- It has become obvious to everyone who isn’t deeply deluded that Jason Bourne is practically indestructible and that sending more valuable and increasingly scarce ‘assets’ against him is just going to result in the loss of those assets. Agents available may be trained and conditioned to within an inch of their lives, but Bourne’s psychological break caused him to exceed his limits, training and conditioning in a way Black Ops programs haven’t been able to replicate. Those with a pragmatic attitude believe that they have no agent who can measure up to Bourne. Politician believes this as well.

- But Mr. Politician knows some things that the intelligence community has never concerned itself with. In his many years of government service, Mr. Pol was also involved with Law Enforcement at various times. Maybe he did a stint with the effa-bee-eye. Whatever. He knows about the Criminal Underworld, he knows that to maintain the ugly equilibrium, the Underworld may be influenced to comply with certain requests. And he knows a name. John Wick.

- Mr. Politician is also savvy about recent developments in the Underworld. He’s got a friend who’s still in the business of monitoring organized crime and keeping tabs on what’s going on down there. Mr. Pol has listened to recent stories with fascination because of certain similarities to a well known government failure who has haunted his dreams for decades. It has become a fact in Mr. Pol’s mind that the CIA will never be able to take down Bourne, but maybe there’s another way.

- Mr. Politician approaches a major Crime Lord and tells him point blank to activate John Wick by any means necessary and set him on the trail of one Jason Bourne. If Wick can’t be activated, Crime Lord will receive his own personal set of extensive criminal and RICO charges, delivered to his doorstep by the entire FBI

- Crime Lord knows if he gets charged, he probably won’t survive because other crime lords are going to want to make sure he doesn’t talk - about them. Also, his family will be endangered no matter which way the sword swings; either the FBI will be targeting them or his fellow criminals will be.

- Crime Lord knows John Wick. They’re old friends. Crime Lord feels a bit conflicted about it, but his first loyalties are to his family and his own hide. So he swallows his fondness for John Wick and commits falsehood, deception, a calling in of favors, maybe a little blackmail and the old Rock-And-A-Hard-Fuck-You-Up-Place on Wick. An elaborate, manipulative lie, that sets a misinformed John Wick on the trail of a man potentially as dangerous as himself.

- Now, we’ve got Jason Bourne being hunted by the Snoop, which has him on alert. We have John Wick hunting Bourne because he believes, once again, that he has no choice.

- We also have a Jason Bourne who is somewhat confounded. We need the scene where Bourne finds out, before contact ever takes place, that someone has taken out a contract on him with an Underworld assassin. Bourne doesn’t know much more about the Criminal Underworld than Joe Schmoe from Kokomo, just what he’s seen in the news and largely ignored, because it never had anything to do with him. Even in all that training years and years ago, there was this gap, because organized crime wasn’t the CIA’s beat. Maybe at first, Bourne even assumes that this Wick character isn’t a threat because he’s just a murderer, a thug, and not a highly trained government operative like himself.

- So in a riveting scene where Bourne and Wick first come into contact, we see Bourne - under the influence of his ignorant assumption - nearly getting killed by Wick and making an extremely narrow escape by use of desperate measures. We also have Mr. Wick limping away, suitably impressed with the skills of his opponent.

- Now we have that stretch of the story where Wick is on the hunt, Bourne is on the run and Bourne is trying to uncover any information he can find about this assassin. Wick doesn’t research much, though, because that’s not how he works. Bourne is a machine; the gears must grind. Wick is a force of nature, like a tornado; most of the info he gets he just picks up along the way, either paying for it or having it given to him by friends.

- Bourne discovers that Wick had a military past, Special Forces, maybe he was fucked over by the military/government in his own way. Or Bourne sees it that way. Bourne finds out about Helen and her death, and maybe not the whole story, but quite a bit about how John cut through a small army of Russian mob mooks for vengeance. He identifies with Wick’s grief and anger. He sees something of himself in John Wick. He sympathizes with the devil.

- John hasn’t done the heavy research. He understands that Bourne is dangerous, perhaps more dangerous than anyone he’s ever met. He consolidates his resources and finds someone else to do his research. He is awaiting a report on Jason Bourne when…

- Bourne stops running, goes to confront Wick and ends up trying to explain, while fighting of course, what he knows about the Dirty Politician and the Crime Lord who has called John out of his troubled retirement yet again, and how Wick has been used and betrayed (this time) until he says something that causes Wick to call truce long enough to hear it all.

- Bourne can see the beginning of a way to solve the whole mess. After some persuasion, Wick is on board and has some ideas of his own.

- Now we’ve got our boys on the same side and it’s only left to decide whether the war will be conventional or nuclear.

- There are two victories we need to see. We must see the destruction of Mr. Politician and Mr. Crime Lord.

- You might-could send Bourne, who doesn’t really give a shit about the covenants and conventions of the criminal world, to the Continental - probably breaking in, instead of checking in. Luring the Crime Lord out into the open, perhaps on the intimation that Mr. Politician is about to take up backstabbing. Draw the Crime Lord out to confront the Politician. Bourne’s plan, reluctantly agreed to by Wick, is to draw the Politician and the Crime Lord together, get evidence and even a full recording of the meeting and expose them both to the world.

Or course, this backfires. Bourne finds himself in a position where he has to kill either Crime Lord or Mr. Politician in self-defense. Probably the Crime Lord.

- It would also be immensely satisfying to see Wick take out the dirty politician with a head shot. Bourne would, of course, be stoically pissed about it all, but it also illustrates the difference. Bourne is willing to let even unrepentant bastards live because he’s tired of having blood on his hands. Wick doesn’t let anybody live who’s fucked him over. Bourne is still conflicted about who and what he is. Wick has come to terms with himself. Bourne believes in atonement. Wick believes in damnation. Bourne still cares. Wick doesn’t give a fuck. Bourne still dreams of inner peace. Wick would settle for a little peace and quiet, would you motherfuckers just leave me the fuck alone already. Get off my lawn. And stop teasing my dog, you bastards.

(Bourne, of course, is a brutally disillusioned idealist. He had no idea he was signing away his soul. Wick likely sold his soul with his eyes wide open, though he probably only understood the ultimate cost later on - a naive pragmatist.)

- You must also show Wick taking an active role in planning, because if Bourne does all of it and says here’s what we’re going to do, then 1) he’s just using Wick as a tool or weapon, instead of treating him like a person and an equal and 2) Wick once again is being controlled by someone else instead of doing what he does best, which is take matters into his own hands (shooting Santino may have looked like a misstep, but who in the audience didn’t love it?)

- I’ve forgotten our Snoop reporter.

We could let Bourne track him down, in which case he will almost certainly die, because going by canon everybody who sympathizes with Jason Bourne must die.

We could let Wick find him, in which case he probably has a much better chance of surviving to publish his Pulitzer Prize winning story provided he’s not armed when he meets Mr. Wick. Hell, Wick could give him a coin, which could buy him entrance and protection at the Continental (even the government doesn’t want to mess with that bunch - like stirring a hornet’s nest with a stick; you might survive, but it will be excruciatingly painful and you’ll look like an idiot the whole time with all the screaming and flailing and jumping around in a panic.)

John Wick’s name will not appear in the story. Only a vaguely defined “other sources”.

- And after all is said and done, Bourne and Wick part company, with mutual respect and recognition. Though they really don’t like each other very much.

So that’s my John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made. But I had fun.

P.S. Please excuse crappy photoshop, I just wanted something there.

[beinglibertarian]

Top 20 Being Libertarian Articles of 2018

It’s been an amazing year overall for us here at Being Libertarian LLC, and we wanted to wrap the year up with a list of our top articles from 2018. We definitely want to thank each and every author for their contributions throughout the year. Here they are for your reading pleasure, and definitely keep your eyes out for all of the great content we have planned for you in the year ahead. Enjoy!

1. ‘Rampant Voter Fraud’, Florida Gov. Scott Files Lawsuits After Uncovering 100,000 New Ballots

Author: Alex Croft

“Broward County stated on election night that there were 634,000 votes cast that day. As of 1 pm Thursday, that number was corrected to 695,700 and again later that day at 2:30 pm to 707,223. Thursday evening saw that number jump further to 712,840, as Palm Beach County claimed to find over 15,000 previously untallied votes.”

2. Want A Gun For ‘Self-Defense’? That Will Soon Be Illegal In South Africa

Author: Martin van Staden

“If this bill is passed into law in its current form, it will likely make it impossible for those who acquired their licences for the purpose of self-defense unable to renew those licences, which is required on a periodic basis. Aspirant firearm owners would be barred completely from using guns as a tool to defend themselves going forward.”

3. JuSt cAlL ThE PoLicE

Author: Mike Ursery

“Bloom ruled that the school district and the sheriff’s office had no constitutional duty to protect students not in custody. She wrote in her ruling that Cruz was a third party and not a state actor and that for the duty of protecting plaintiffs to exist, they would have to be in custody, such as prisoners or patients at a mental hospital.”

4. The Truth About Gun Violence

Author: Vinny Marshall

“Historically, what we can learn from past attempts to remove or regulate ownership rights of firearms from citizens is that it doesn’t do a whole lot to actually affect the rates of violence that exist, only the rates of violence with the weapon that you had set out to ban.”

5. Misconceptions of the Libertarian View of Abortion

Author: Nathan Kreider

“Block and Whitehead argue that a woman has the right to evict the fetus, but not to terminate it if it’s possible for the fetus to exist outside the womb with the help of medical technology. They point out that as technology advances, the point at which a fetus can exist outside the womb will inch closer to earlier stages of development, and thus the earlier the limit on abortions will be placed.”

6. The Dangers of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Author: Jenny Grimberg

“We examine three of her policy proposals to show that not only are they incorrect, but also to remind everyone that capitalism has helped millions of people, and we should not be taken in by the socialist tendencies of politicians like Ocasio-Cortez.”

7. The March for Our Tyranny – The Lowdown on Liberty

Author: Thomas J. Eckert

“And therein lies the problem: the anti-gun crowd wants solutions to their perceived problems, but how can we begin a discussion with a group so disingenuous about their intentions? It’s like trying to speak to a pickpocket as they reach for your wallet. As you ask them what they’re up to, they may reassure you they mean no harm and accuse you of being paranoid, but the truth is that in the end they want your wallet, regardless of what they say.”

8. Why People Are Left Wing – Freedom Philosophy

Author: Brandon Kirby

“I believe something similar has happened to the left. They very passionately want to abolish poverty, perhaps in some cases even more so than the right. Just as the greediest investor is not the most successful investor, the most passionate people aren’t the ones with the best ideas on how to accomplish this goal.”

9. The Rise of Jordan Peterson – What It Says About Us

Author: Adam Barsouk

“I believe Peterson’s claim to ideological fame is his seeming lack of interest in it. Most political pundits start and end their careers in politics. And yet, politics inherently do not produce any economic value—the entire essence of the job is to steal another’s earning while convincing that person it is for their own good.”

10. No, Vaccines Should Never Be Mandatory

Author: JSB Morse

“As with any medication or pharmaceutical, there are health risks that come with the benefits of vaccines. It is irresponsible to suggest that all people should get all such pharmaceuticals and it is illegitimate use of governmental authority to require it in order to receive benefits or other privileges.”

11. Jordan B. Peterson’s Twelve Rules is a Wakeup Call for a Nightmare Society

Author: JSB Morse

“We have collectively been lulled into an unnatural and inhumane philosophy of life through various diabolical agents. Twelve Rules is an urgently needed wake-up call for us to stand up and take responsibility for one’s life—not 50% or “just enough to get by,” but everything you can muster—100%.”

12. GM Cuts Over 10,000 Jobs, & No, It’s Not All Due To Tariffs

Author: Vinny Marshall

“While those who take issue with tariffs will be quick to point out the economic policy handed down by the Trump administration as the primary cause of the downsizing currently being undertaken by American automakers, tariffs seem to only be a portion of the issue at hand. Yes, the tariffs play a role as GM and Ford have both stated tariffs on steel have cost the company upwards of $1 Billion, and Toyota claims the tariffs will raise the cost of popular models by $1-3k dollars. However, tariffs do not seem to be the primary issue in this case.”

13. It’s Time to Focus on the ‘School’ in ‘School Shooting’ – The Lowdown on Liberty

Author: Thomas J. Eckert

“No matter how you slice it, it’s impossible to examine what we know about school shootings with any objective measure and not conclude that public schools may be a large contributing factor. The only problem is that new solutions seem to be unwelcome in – what feels like – a never-ending conversation.”

14. Liberty at Sea – Red Dirt Liberty Report

Author: Danny Chabino

“Many people are looking to the concept of “seasteading” as a new bold adventure into free societies that exist outside the hands of existing governing bodies. Seasteading is as it sounds – making a home on the open seas, sometimes in international waters, where no particular government is in charge, and sometimes by negotiated means in a free economic zone that has been established.”

15. FCC Lied About DDoS Attack to Downplay Opposition of Net Neutrality Repeal

Author: Alon Ganon

“Unfortunately, it appears that the Pai led FCC is sounding like they have no plans to tell the public what truly happened or whether they had lied, as it appears the FCC has gone silent about the issue.”

16. Why Only Stupid People Propose Taxing Churches – Freedom Philosophy

Author: Brandon Kirby

“Governments tax profits. They tax income. When a pastor takes out an income from the church they must pay taxes on it. Canada has decided that money going to a non-profit organization is not considered income, for the organization and the one giving the money, so donations are a tax deduction. Religious ministers, unless they’ve taken a vow of poverty, aren’t being given a free ride on taxation, the ones whose tax returns I’ve filled out seem to be as aggravated as the rest of us on tax day.”

17. Sexualized Content: Revival of Puritanism

Author: Killian Hobbs

“With Facebook joining this decision despite having no such issues themselves in recent history it seems like little more than the revival of Puritan thinking. Once again, the social media platforms we frequent daily are deciding for us what is an is not appropriate content. This is a decision that shouldn’t be left in the hands of a small handful of companies, but rather in the hands of the users.”

18. Before You Go To University: Top 10 Logical Fallacies

Author: Brandon Kirby

“The wonderful thing about logic is that when practiced properly it finds falsehood against which there is no response. People who are found guilty of these fallacies have false arguments. Professors, scientists, economists, politicians, pastors, even philosophers, who make such fallacies can have their arguments that take this form immediately dismissed without further discussion.”

19. The Self-Destructive Nature of the Libertarian Party

Author: Jake Dorsch

“If you pay any attention to Libertarian Party politics, you would know there are far more gaffes than this that I could mention just from Gary Johnson alone. That said, I like the people I mentioned here and I think the named people would make excellent governors and senators.”

20. GoFundMe For Trump’s Border Wall. Sadly, It’s True.

Author: Killian Hobbs

“In my personal opinion, this is both a good and a bad thing. It raises many questions about the mindsets of the average American that is donating the funds directly out of their own pocket towards this campaign. Despite the general uselessness such a wall would actually have compared to say additional border staff or the like (if their intention is to truly increase border defense) they still are making large donations. The one upside to this, however, is that if it does work it will open the American public’s eyes to a notion that we Libertarians have been espousing for years: fund these things yourself rather than using our tax dollars towards it.”

The post Top 20 Being Libertarian Articles of 2018 appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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[phroyd]

It is incredibly frightening how these people utilize all their power of thought in a reductionistic process limited by one old book, the Bible. These folks have never evolved! - Phroyd

Clay Crum opened his Bible to Exodus Chapter 20 and read verse 14 one more time.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” it said.

He prayed about what he was going to do. He was the pastor of First Baptist Church in the town of Luverne, Ala., which meant he was the moral leader of a congregation that overwhelmingly supported a president who was an alleged adulterer. For the past six weeks, Crum had been preaching a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments, and now it was time for number seven.

It was summer, and all over the Bible Belt, support for President Trump was rising among voters who had traditionally proclaimed the importance of Christian character in leaders and warned of the slippery slope of moral compromise. In Crenshaw County, where Luverne is located, Trump had won 72 percent of the vote. Recent national polls showed the president’s approval among white evangelical Christians at a high of 77 percent. One survey indicated that his support among Southern Baptists was even higher, surpassing 80 percent, and these were the people arriving on Sunday morning to hear what their pastor had to say.

By 10:30 a.m., the street alongside First Baptist was full of slant-parked cars, and the 80 percenters were walking across the green lawn in the sun, up the stairs, past the four freshly painted white columns and into the church.

“Good to see you this morning,” Crum said, shaking hands as the regulars took their usual places in the wooden pews, and soon, he walked up to the pulpit and opened his King James.

“Today we’re going to be looking at the Seventh Commandment,” Crum began. “Exodus 20:14, the Seventh Commandment, simply says, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ ”

The people settled in. There was the sound of hard candy unwrapping and thin pages of Bibles turning.

The presidency of Donald Trump has created unavoidable moral dilemmas not just for the members of First Baptist in Luverne but for a distinct subset of Christians who are overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly evangelical and more uniformly pro-Trump than any other part of the American electorate.

In poll after poll, they have said that Trump has kept his promises to appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, fight for religious liberty, adopt pro-life policies and deliver on other issues that are high priorities for them.

At the same time, many have acknowledged the awkwardness of being both self-proclaimed followers of Jesus and the No. 1 champions of a president whose character has been defined not just by alleged infidelity but accusations of sexual harassment, advancing conspiracy theories popular with white supremacists, using language that swaths of Americans find racist, routinely spreading falsehoods and an array of casual cruelties and immoderate behaviors that amount to a roll call of the seven deadly sins.

The predicament has led to all kinds of reactions within the evangelical community, from a gathering of pastors in Illinois described as a “call to self-reflection,” to prayer meetings with Trump in Washington, to hours of cable news reckoning in which Southern Baptists have taken the lead.

The megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress has declared that Trump is “on the right side of God” and that “evangelicals know they are not compromising their beliefs in order to support this great president.” Franklin Graham, son of the evangelist Billy Graham, said the only explanation for Trump being in the White House was that “God put him there.”

A few leaders have publicly dissented from such views, aware of the Southern Baptist history of whiffing on the big moral questions of the day — such as during the civil rights era, when most pastors either defended segregation or remained silent. The president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics commission, Russell Moore, asked whether Christians were “really ready to trade unity with our black and brown brothers and sisters for this angry politician?” One prominent black pastor, Lawrence Ware, left the denomination altogether, writing that the widespread reluctance to criticize Trump on racial issues revealed a “deep commitment to white supremacy.” The new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greear, said church culture had “grown too comfortable with power and the dangers that power brings.”

But all those discussions were taking place far from the rank-and-file. The Southern Baptists who filled the pews every Sunday were making their own moral calculations about Trump in the privacy of a thousand church sanctuaries in cities and towns such as Luverne, population 2,700, an hour south of the state capital of Montgomery.

It was a place where it was hard to drive a mile in any direction without passing some church or sign about the wages of sin, where conversations about politics happened in nodding circles before Sunday school, or at the Chicken Shack after, and few people paid attention to some national Southern Baptist leader.

What mattered in Luverne was the redbrick church with the tall white steeple that hovered over the tidy green lawns and gardens of town. First Baptist was situated along Luverne’s main street, next to the post office and across from the county courthouse, a civic position that had always conferred on its pastors a moral authority now vested in Clay Crum.

“A fine Christian man,” was how the mayor referred to him.

“He just makes everybody feel like he loves ’em,” said a member of First Baptist.

And the members of First Baptist loved their pastor back. They had hired him in July 2015, a month after Trump began campaigning for president and courting evangelicals by declaring that Christianity is “under siege” and “the Bible is the best.” A church committee had sifted through dozens of résumés from Florida and Missouri and as far away as Michigan and out of all of them they had picked Crum, a former truck driver from right down the road in Georgiana.

“As Southern Baptists in this small town, we want our leader to believe like we do,” said Terry Drew, who had chaired the search committee, and three years later, Crum was meeting their highest expectations of what a good Southern Baptist pastor should be.

He kept up with the prayer list. He did all his visits, the nursing homes and the shut-ins. He wore a lapel pin in the shape of two tiny baby feet as a reminder of what he saw as the pure evil of abortion. And when Sunday morning came, he delivered his sermons straight out of an open Bible, no notes, and it wasn’t unusual for him to cry.

“He is just really sincere,” said Jewell Killough, who had been a member of First Baptist for four decades, and as Crum stood at the front of the congregation now and looked out, hers was one of the faces looking back.

She always sat in the center row, fifth pew from the front, right in line with the pulpit. Jewell Killough was 82, and as Crum had gone through the first six commandments Sunday after Sunday, she had not yet heard anything to dissuade her from believing that Trump was being used by God to save America.

“Oh, I feel like the Lord heard our prayers and gave us a second chance before the end times,” she had said a few days before, when she was working at the food pantry of the Alabama Crenshaw Baptist Association.

It was a low-brick house where the Baptists kept stacks of pamphlets about abstaining from premarital sex, alcohol, smoking and other behaviors they felt corrupted Christian character, which was not something Jewell worried about with Trump.

“I think they are trying to frame him,” she said, referring to the unflattering stories about the president.

By “they,” she meant liberals and others she believed were not only trying to undermine Trump’s agenda, but God’s agenda for America, which she believed was engaged in a great spiritual contest between good and evil, God and Satan, the saved and the unsaved, for whom God had prepared two places.

There was Heaven: “Most say it’s gonna be 15,000 miles wide and that high,” Jewell said. “We don’t know whether when it comes down how far it will come, if it’s gonna come all the way or if there will be stairs. We don’t know that. But it’s gonna be suitable to each person. You know that old song, ‘Lord, build me a cabin in the corner of Gloryland?’ See, that’s not right. It’s not gonna be you have a cabin over here and I have one over there. It’s gonna be suitable to each person. So, whatever makes me happy. I like birds. So outside my window, there will be birds.”

And there was Hell: “Each person is gonna be on an islandlike place, and fire all around it. And they’re gonna be in complete darkness, and over time, your eyes will go. And worms’ll eat on you. It’s a terrible place, the way the Bible describes it.”

It was a binary world, not just for Jewell Killough but for everyone sitting inside the sanctuary of First Baptist Church, who prayed all the time about how to navigate it.

There were Brett and Misty Green, who sat a few rows behind Jewell, and said that besides reading the Bible or listening to Pastor Crum, prayer was the only way to sort out what was godly and what was satanic.

“Satan is the master magician,” said Misty, 32, a federal court worker.

“The father of lies,” said Brett, 33, a land surveyor, who was sitting with his wife and his Bible one evening in the church’s fellowship hall, a large beige room with accordion partitions that separated the men’s and ladies’ Sunday school classes.

“That’s why we have the Holy Spirit,” Brett said, explaining it was “like a gut feeling” that told him what to do in morally confusing situations, which had included the election, when the spirit had told him to vote for Trump, even though something the president allegedly said since then had given Brett pause. It was when Trump was discussing immigration, and reportedly asked, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries coming here?”

“Jesus Christ was born in Nazareth, and Nazareth was a shithole at that time,” Brett said. “Someone might say, ‘How could anything good come out of a place like that?’ Well, Jesus came out of a place like that.”

Other things bothered Misty. Crum had preached a few Sundays before about the Third Commandment — “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain” — but as Misty saw it, Trump belittled God and all of God’s creation when he called people names like “loser” and “stupid.”

“A lot of his actions I don’t agree with,” Misty said. “But we are not to judge.”

What a good Christian was supposed to do was pray for God to work on Trump, who was after all pro-life, and pro-Israel, and pro-all the positions they felt a Christian nation should be taking. And if they were somehow wrong about Trump, said Misty, “in the end it doesn’t really matter.”

“A true Christian doesn’t have to worry about that,” said Brett, explaining what any good Southern Baptist heard at church every Sunday, which was that Jesus had died on the cross to wash away their sins, defeat death and provide them with eternal life in heaven.

“I think about it all the time, what it’s gonna be like,” she said.

“I know we’ll have new bodies,” said Brett. “We’ll be like Christ, it says.”

There was Jack Jones, who sat behind the pulpit in the choir, and was chairman of the deacons, the church leaders who tried to set a Christian example by mowing lawns for the homebound, building front door ramps for the elderly and maintaining standards in their own ranks.

“We stick strictly to the Bible that a divorced man is not able to be a deacon,” said Jack, who said it was uncomfortable being such a Bible stickler and supporting a president alleged to have committed adultery with a porn star.

“It’s difficult, that’s for sure,” he said, sitting with his wife in the church basement.

The way he and Linda had come to think of it, Trump was no worse than a long list of other American presidents from the Founding Fathers on.

“George Washington had a mistress,” Linda said. “Thomas Jefferson did, too. Roosevelt had a mistress with him when he died. Eisenhower. Kennedy.”

“None of ’em are lily white,” said Jack.

What was important was not the character of the president but his positions, they said, and one mattered more than all the others.

“Abortion,” said Linda, whose eyes teared up when she talked about it.

Trump was against it. It didn’t matter that two decades ago he had declared himself to be “very pro-choice.” He was now saying “every life totally matters,” appointing antiabortion judges and adopting so many antiabortion policies that one group called him “the most pro-life president in history.”

It was the one political issue on which First Baptist had taken a stand, a sin one member described as “straight from the pits of Hell,” and which Crum had called out when he preached on “Thou shalt not kill” the Sunday before, reminding the congregation about the meaning of his tiny lapel pin. “It’s the size of a baby’s feet at ten weeks,” he had said.

There was Terry Drew, who sat in the seventh pew on the left side, who knew and agreed with Trump’s position, and knew that supporting him involved a blatant moral compromise.

“I hate it,” he said. “My wife and I talk about it all the time. We rationalize the immoral things away. We don’t like it, but we look at the alternative, and think it could be worse than this.”

The only way to understand how a Christian like him could support a man who boasted about grabbing women’s crotches, Terry said, was to understand how he felt about the person Trump was still constantly bringing up in his speeches and who loomed large in Terry’s thoughts: Hillary Clinton, whom Terry saw as “sinister” and “evil” and “I’d say, of Satan.”

“She hates me,” Terry said, sitting in Crum’s office one day. “She has contempt for people like me, and Clay, and people who love God and believe in the Second Amendment. I think if she had her way it would be a dangerous country for the likes of me.”

As he saw it, there was the issue of Trump’s character, and there was the issue of Terry’s own extinction, and the choice was clear.

“He’s going to stick to me,” Terry said.

So many members of First Baptist saw it that way.

There was Jan Carter, who sat in the 10th pew center, who said that supporting Trump was the only moral thing to do.

“You can say righteously I do not support him because of his moral character but you are washing your hands of what is happening in this country,” she said, explaining that in her view America was slipping toward “a civil war on our shores.”

There was her friend Suzette, who sat in the fifth pew on the right side, and who said Trump might be abrasive “but we need abrasive right now.”

And there was Sheila Butler, who sat on the sixth pew on the right side, who said “we’re moving toward the annihilation of Christians.”

She was 67, a Sunday school teacher who said this was the only way to understand how Christians like her supported Trump.

“Obama was acting at the behest of the Islamic nation,” she began one afternoon when she was getting her nails done with her friend Linda. She was referring to allegations that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, not a Christian — allegations that are false. “He carried a Koran and it was not for literary purposes. If you look at it, the number of Christians is decreasing, the number of Muslims has grown. We allowed them to come in.”

“Obama woke a sleeping nation,” said Linda.

“He woke a sleeping Christian nation,” Sheila corrected.

Linda nodded. It wasn’t just Muslims that posed a threat, she said, but all kinds of immigrants coming into the country.

“Unpapered people,” Sheila said, adding that she had seen them in the county emergency room and they got treated before her. “And then the Americans are not served.”

Love thy neighbor, she said, meant “love thy American neighbor.”

Welcome the stranger, she said, meant the “legal immigrant stranger.”

“The Bible says, ‘If you do this to the least of these, you do it to me,’ ” Sheila said, quoting Jesus. “But the least of these are Americans, not the ones crossing the border.”

To her, this was a moral threat far greater than any character flaw Trump might have, as was what she called “the racial divide,” which she believed was getting worse. The evidence was all the black people protesting about the police, and all the talk about the legacy of slavery, which Sheila never believed was as bad as people said it was. “Slaves were valued,” she said. “They got housing. They got fed. They got medical care.”

She was suspicious of what she saw as the constant agitation of blacks against whites, the taking down of Confederate memorials and the raising of others, such as the new memorial to the victims of lynching, just up the highway in Montgomery.

“I think they are promoting violence,” Sheila said, thinking about the 800 weathered, steel monoliths hanging from a roof to evoke the lynchings, one for each American county where the violence was carried out, including Crenshaw County, where a man named Jesse Thornton was lynched in 1940 in downtown Luverne.

“How do you think a young black man would feel looking at that?” Linda asked. “Wouldn’t you feel a sickness in your stomach?”

“I think it would only make you have more violent feelings — feelings of revenge,” said Sheila.

It reminded her of a time when she was a girl in Montgomery, when the now-famous civil rights march from Selma was heading to town and her parents, fearing violence, had sent her to the country to stay with relatives.

“It’s almost like we’re going to live that Rosa Parks time again,” she said, referring to the civil rights activist. “It was just a scary time, having lived through it.”

She thought an all-out race war was now in the realm of possibility. And that was where she had feared things were heading, right up until election night, when she and Linda and everyone they knew were praying for God to save them. And God sent them Donald Trump.

“I believe God put him there,” Sheila said. “He put a sinner in there.”

God was using Trump just like he had used the Apostle Paul, she said.

“Paul had murdered Christians and he went on to minister to many, many people,” Sheila said. “I think he’s being molded by God for the role. I think he’s the right man for the right time. It’s about the survival of the Christian nation.”

“We are in mortal danger,” Linda said.

“We are in a religious war,” Sheila said.

Linda nodded.

“We may have to fight and die for our faith,” Sheila said. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, we will.”

She rubbed her sore knee, which was caked with an analgesic.

“In heaven, I won’t have any pain,” Sheila said.

“No tears,” said Linda.

“I think it’ll be beautiful — I love plants, and I think it’ll be like walking in a beautiful garden,” said Sheila.

“Have you ever been out at night and looked at the stars?” said Linda. “That’s the floor of heaven, and heaven is going to be so much more beautiful than the floor.”

“I’m going to be in my kitchen,” Sheila said, imagining heaven would have one. “I think it’s going to be beautiful to see all the appliances.”

It was hard to know what a good Christian should do in the meantime, Sheila said, and that was why Clay Crum was so important. He had been inspiring her with sermons all summer, including the Sunday before Memorial Day, when he had everybody stand up and not only pledge allegiance to the American flag but to the Christian flag and the Bible.

“I see Clay as my leader,” Sheila said. “Clay just knows what we need on any given day.”

He had gotten through “Thou shalt not kill” the Sunday before. It was not easy. There were veterans in the congregation. Crum had to explain how God could command people not to kill in one part of the Bible, yet demand a massacre in another.

“God does not want you to kill on your terms, he wants you to kill on his terms,” he had concluded in his sermon. “So let’s promote Jesus in life. Let’s not kill. Unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Now he sat in his office, where there was a metal cross on the wall and three Bibles on his desk and prayed about what the Lord wanted him to say.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” he read again.

“How can I get people to see the whole picture?” he asked himself.

What was the whole picture?

There had been a time before he became a pastor when Crum saw things differently. He saw the pastor of his childhood church stealing money, and as he got older, he saw deacons having affairs, Christians behaving in hateful ways and finally he came to see it all as a big sham.

“I thought it was very hypocritical,” he said. “That they pretend. That it’s all a show.”

He gave up on church. He started drinking some and went a little wild, dabbling in world religions and having his own thoughts about the meaning of life until one day when he was listening to Christian radio on a truck haul. He remembered the preacher talking about salvation and suddenly feeling unsure of his own.

“So I just prayed to the Lord while I was driving,” he said. “I want to be sure.”

The next Sunday, he began attending a Southern Baptist church near Luverne, where he was asked one Wednesday night to step in for the absent pastor and deliver a prayer.

He had just gotten off work. His back hurt. His feet hurt. He was exhausted and as he began to pray, something came over him. He started crying and begging God to forgive him for his rebellion, and by the end of it, Clay Crum had found a new profession. He felt God was telling him to go into the ministry, and 10 years later, here he was, the pastor of First Baptist church who had gotten to where he could discern the voice of God all the time.

“It’s not an audible voice,” Crum said. “We all have a million thoughts that come in our head every day. You got to know which are from God.”

He was sure that it had been the voice of God that told him to preach on the Ten Commandments. It would be a series on “the seriousness of morality,” Crum decided, because to him, the biggest problem in society was that “people do not want to own the wrong they do.”

“They want to excuse their actions by explaining them away,” he said. “They want to talk generally: ‘I know I’m a sinner.’ Well, what is the sin?”

And it was the same voice of God that had led Crum to vote the same way most of his congregation had voted in one of the most morally confusing elections of his lifetime.

“A crossroads time,” Crum called it.

He did not feel great about voting for Trump, who had called the holy communion wafer “my little cracker,” who had said his “favorite book” was the Bible, that his favorite biblical teaching was “an eye for an eye,” and who had courted evangelical Christians by saying, “I love them. They love me.”

“It’s a hard thing to reconcile,” Crum said. “I really do struggle with it.”

He knew what the Bible had to say about Trump’s behavior.

“You’re committing adultery, that’s sinful. You’re being sexually abusive to women, that’s wrong. Any of those things. You can go on and on,” Crum said. “All those things are immoral.”

He thought about whether Trump could do anything that might require the moral leader of Luverne to abandon his support, or criticize the president publicly.

“There are times when Christians have to stand up,” said Crum.

The dilemma was that Trump was an immoral person doing what Crum considered to be moral things. The conservative judges. The antiabortion policies. And something else even more important to a small Southern Baptist congregation worried about their own annihilation.

“It encouraged them that we do still have some political power in this country,” said Crum.

When he prayed about it, that was what the voice of God had told him. The voice reminded Crum that God always had a hand in elections. The voice told him that God used all kinds of people to do his will.

“Nebuchadnezzar,” Crum said, citing the pagan king of Babylon who was advised by godly men to tear down an old corrupt order. “Even sometimes bad leaders are used by God.”

He had wondered at times about the idea that God had chosen Trump, and the opposite, the possibility that God had nothing to do with Trump at all. He wondered about it again now, his Bible bookmarked to the 14th verse of Exodus Chapter 20 for the sermon.

“It’s a hard thing to reconcile,” he said. “I think ultimately God allowed him to become president for reasons we don’t fully know yet.”

Sunday came, and the followers of Donald Trump took their usual seats in the sanctuary.

“Hey, sugarfoot,” Sheila Butler said to one of her Sunday school ladies.

“Morning,” Crum said, welcoming the regulars.

They settled into the seafoam-green cushions along the wooden pews, some of which also had back cushions to make them more comfortable. They opened old Bibles bookmarked with birthday cards and photos of grandchildren, and after they all sang “I was sinking deep into sin, far from the peaceful shore,” Crum walked up to the podium to deliver the sermon God had told him to deliver.

“What is adultery?” Crum began.

Jewell Killough was listening.

“Adultery, simply stated, is a breach of commitment,” Crum said. “When one person turns their back on a commitment that they made and seeks out something else to fulfill themselves.”

He talked about the dangers of temporary satisfaction, of looking at “anything unclean,” and in the choir behind him, Jack Jones nodded. He talked about other kinds of adultery, such as “hardheartedness” and avoiding personal responsibility.

“See, we don’t want to look at ourselves,” Crum said. “We don’t want to say, ‘I’m part of the problem.’”

Someone in the congregation coughed. Someone unwrapped a caramel candy.

“The purpose of the commandment is so we can see the sin, so we can repent of the sin and then fully experience the complete grace of god,” he said. “But only when we admit it. Only when we repent of it. And only when we return to him by faith.”

He was at the end of his sermon. If he was going to say anything about Trump, or presidents, or politicians, or how having a Christian character was important for the leader of the United States, now was the time. His Bible was open. He was preaching without notes.

He looked out at all the faces of people who felt threatened and despised in a changing America, who thought Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were sent by Satan to destroy them, and that Donald Trump was sent by God to protect them, and who could always count on Clay Crum to remind them of what they all believed to be the true meaning of Jesus Christ — that he died to forgive all of their sins, to save them from death and secure their salvation in a place that was 15,000 miles wide, full of gardens, appliances, and a floor of stars.

Not now, he decided. Not yet. He closed his Bible. He had one last thing to say to them before the sermon was over.

“Let us pray.”

“Amen,” someone in the congregation said.

Phroyd

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Rebirth of Kaiser:  Chapter 11

Juudai stepped out of the shadows, looked around, blinked, and waved at the three people, two dogs, and a bird staring at him.

“Hi! I didn’t interrupt anything did I?”

Juudai didn’t wait for an answer. He just strolled off down the street, knowing they would wave off what they’d seen. People usually did.

They won’t always.

He smiled toward Yubel. They will for now. People don’t come out of shadows, do they? Normally, I mean. So they’ll decide they saw something else or pretend they never saw it at all.

Yubel didn’t answer. They’d had this argument before. He really did prefer coming out where most people couldn’t see him, but even after all these years, he couldn’t pinpoint it as well as he would have liked to.

But now he had something else to think about as he headed down, working on getting himself oriented. Once he’d decided he’d arrived in Domino City – not all that far from the Kame Game Shop, really, he would have to drop in and see if Yuugi-san was there – he dug his phone out of his pocket and checked his messages.

Most of them he expected. A few wrong numbers, Manjoume blistering him out because he hadn’t shown up to a duel – Jim reminding him that he’d promised to come and visit over the next holidays – then Shou.

Juudai listened to the message once and then again, his heart pattering faster before he breathed in enough to relax.

“I should have known,” he muttered, carefully putting the phone away.

You’ll have to tell him. Yubel advised. Juudai could feel something that might have been the edges of a smile tugging on his lips. The first year or so after Kaiser’s… departure… Yubel insisted on not letting anyone know about where he lived now. They’d mellowed on that some with the passage of time.

He glanced around again. He knew the main reason he’d come back here today had been to talk to Johan, to tell him what Yubel already told him about what they’d picked up in the village.

“We can take another trip, can’t we?” Juudai asked, eyes darting about as he searched for a patch of shadow thick enough to do what he needed to do.

He couldn’t see Yubel roll their eyes but he could feel it all the same.

Of course we can. But Johan needs to know this as well.

Juudai wondered for a moment how many secrets he actually kept from people. There were far more than he could really think about, and some he wouldn’t ever let on to anyone, no matter what.

But at least he could pass these on and that would be a little less that he had to worry about. Or more, just in a different way.

The biggest, deepest patch of shadow that he saw turned out to be cast by the Kame Game Shop itself. Juudai observed it for a few moments, still wishing that he had the time to go inside and say hello. It had been months since he’d visited Yuugi-san and he missed his friend.

Another time.

Yubel was right. As much as he wished they weren’t at times.

I’m always right.

Of course they were. He stuck his mental tongue out at them, stepped into the shadow of the store, and stepped out again two doors down from Shou’s apartment, a trip that would have taken a day and a half by foot and an hour or so if he’d bothered with trains.

Being him had some fun advantages, really.

Juudai made his way to the door. He could have emerged inside of it, but when it came to his friends, he preferred knocking sometimes. Unless he had something else on his mind and just didn’t bother to observe the niceties.

He didn’t have a chance to knock this time. The door swung open and Shou stood there. He’d grown several inches after graduation. He wouldn’t ever be as tall as his brother, but he hovered around average height. Sometimes Juudai couldn’t help but be surprised that his old friend looked like he’d just gotten repackaged a little bigger.

Shou blinked at him for a heartbeat or two before he flung his arms around Juudai and hugged him.

“Aniki! You came!”

“Of course I did!” Juudai ruffled Shou’s hair, not failing to grin, that old friendship warming him from the inside out. “Did you really think I wouldn’t?”

“I wasn’t expecting you this soon.” Shou stepped back enough to give him a stern look. “I thought you might stay away for another month or so.”

It wouldn’t have been the first time if he did, and Juudai knew it. His travels took him wherever he was needed. Sometimes he didn’t set foot back on Earth soil for weeks or months at a time.

Once he hadn’t been able to make it home for a month shy of a year. His voicemail box had been stuffed to the gills.

Shou tugged him towards the apartment door. “We should probably talk inside,” he said, casting a glance around. Juudai didn’t protest, though he was a touch curious now.

“Were you going out?” He indicated the jacket Shou had on. Shou shook his head.

“Nothing that I can’t postpone.” He didn’t quite push Juudai inside, but he shifted from foot to foot, glancing up and down and all around as if worried someone might step out of thin air – someone who wasn’t Juudai.

No sooner had Juudai crossed the threshold and Shou shut the door, his former roommate turned to look him directly in the eyes. Juudai didn’t think that he’d ever seen Shou looking so serious or so hopeful before.

All Shou’s message said was that there was something they should talk about. Only one thing came to mind that Juudai thought Shou would really want to talk about with such urgency.

“My brother’s alive, isn’t he? Somehow? And you know where he is.”

One thing Juudai could say for Shou right now, he got down to the absolute point. He managed a small smile. He wasn’t sure where it came from, only that it was there when he needed it.

“You’re right. We do need to talk.”

High above the plains she circled, metallic wings gleaming in the brilliant light of the sun. She couldn’t hear what they talked about down there, but she didn’t need to. She just wanted to know where they were.

There’d never been a harpy born who couldn’t find their prey, and once found, never lost again.

Her claws flexed. She wanted to swoop down and take him away, drag him to the others, let them all rejoice in him having been found. But that wasn’t possible. Not yet, at any rate.

She spun and darted ahead, too quick for the eye to follow, too high to resemble anything but a bird crossing the noon sky. It would take someone else in the air to recognize her for what she was, and those below stood no chance at all.

When she dropped down again, it was to stand in front of a group of warriors, each clad in identical armor, but one standing in the front, the marks of a captain on her helmet.

“Cyber Harpie. Report.” She spoke as soon as the harpy’s talons gripped onto the rock she’d chosen for a perch. Not the best of perches, but the trees here were too thick for her purposes right now. They could be useful later, though.

“I saw him,” Cyber Harpie declared, eyes burning bright at the memory. “I saw him.”

“Where was he?” The questions rose up from the gathered warriors rapidly. “What’s he like? Are you sure?”

The captain gestured and the questions died at once. Cyber Harpie gathered herself.

“I couldn’t get close enough to see his face, but he and a traveling companion are on the way to the market town this way.” She tilted her head towards the road they stood in formation near. “I didn’t dare get close enough to hear them or to feel his effect.”

Soft murmurs of disappointment whispered among them, which were dispelled at once by another abrupt gesture from the captain.

“You’re certain it’s him, though?”

Cyber Harpie nodded, talons slicing at the stone beneath her. “You’ll see it for yourself and you can get closer than I can.”

“How can you be so certain?” One of the sergeants wanted to know. “If you couldn’t get close enough to feel his effect or even see his face, are you sure it’s him? We don’t dare make a mistake.”

Cyber Harpie snarled, loathing being accused of falsehood. “He’s the one we’re searching for. The Kaiser who will bring us strength.”

The captain cleared her throat. “We’ll know for certain when we cross paths with him. If he’s not, we’ll search again.”

“We don’t have that much time, captain,” the sergeant pointed out. “If we make a mistake with him, we’ll not have enough time to find the true one.”

“We have time. Not much of it, but enough.” The captain drew herself up, turning to look down the winding trail. “We wait until they return, however.”

Protests at once sprang up, the sergeant’s voice chief among them. But the captain again silenced them with a look.

“They may be alert now, but when they return, they’ll be tired and more likely to let the guard down. Then we’ll take them.”

“Why both of them” The sergeant asked, frowning. “We only need the Kaiser.”

Cyber Harpie raised a claw. “I wasn’t close enough to see much, but I could feel something. His companion is a shadow mage.”

The captain nodded, as if she’d expected that all along. “Because a shadow mage’s help could be very useful in this war. Now, clear off and get marching. We’re going to set up camp back there.” She nodded towards the mountains before she turned back to Cyber Harpie. “Go to the market town. See if you can keep tracking them there and alert me if anything else we should know turns up.”

Cyber Harpie took to the skies without another word. When her captain ordered, she obeyed. Plus, she looked forward to exploring the market town and seeing what could be found there. She had a few connections there: there were Amazons who she’d chatted with on previous visits who would gladly trade news for interesting items she possessed.

That would require a bit of backflying, though. Her precious cache of gems lay hidden where only she could find it. But she had time. The Kaiser and the magician wouldn’t get to the town until the following day and she could make the trip ever so much faster.

He scrambled along after them, keeping himself as closely pressed to the ground as he could, keeping upwind to ensure they neither saw nor heard or scented him. He’d spent a great deal of his life spying and surviving and he wasn’t going to fail because of humans.

Or a human and a spirit. They couldn’t scent him – dull human senses the lot of them, even the spirit – but he could pick up a great deal from their scents, and he could tell the difference between the two easily enough.

Dark Familiar made certain that he wouldn’t be seen, as he did every time he watched them, and peeked up out of the tall grass. He’d done this many times since he’d caught up to them and even when they’d looked in his direction he hadn’t been seen.

Silly, useless things. He knew the stories; he’d known that this one called the Kaiser carried the reputation of having killed Haou in the old days. Even if he hadn’t done it – and he hadn’t, Dark Familiar had seen that duel and he knew the human who did the deed died in the doing – he was still a formidable warrior and not one that Dark Familiar wanted to face.

Why can’t she just let things go? It’s been years. Mourn the dead and move on. Find a new path. That’s what he’d done. But Chaos Hunter insisted on her revenge and she’d dragged him into this.

She’d regret it all. He didn’t doubt that for a moment. All he could do was hope that he wouldn’t end up regretting it too.

To Be Continued

Notes: Do you know how hard it is to find cards that involve ‘Cyber’ in the title and yet Ryou or Asuka didn’t play them?

[skyhook-sly]

My John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made

(Bourne, of course, is a brutally disillusioned idealist. He had no idea he was signing away his soul. Wick likely sold his soul with his eyes wide open, though he probably only understood the ultimate cost later on - a naive pragmatist.)

I don’t post much at all, but here is a thing that happened on my computer. I was thinking about how John Wick and Jason Bourne could be brought together. My thoughts became long, and I started writing it down. This isn’t a story, just a sketch of how I think such a movie could be made. It’s not really edited either, this is all off-the-cuff.

[I only know what’s in the movies. I don’t know other canon from either ‘verse.]

So, if I were making a movie…

The universes of John Wick and Jason Bourne have very different styles, creating a problem.

Problem: - Bourne lives in a Universe where government is large, powerful, knowledgeable and nearly competent. - Wick lives in a Universe where a vast and elaborate criminal underworld exists, where we’ve never seen those major criminal figures worry about law enforcement or government.

The discrepancy must be resolved.

Simple.

Jason Bourne has never dealt with crime. Everything has been political and confined to the intelligence community.

Wick has never dealt with politics or the intelligence community.

So.

We must assume that the intelligence community is perfectly happy to leave common crime in the hands of law enforcement.

- Law enforcement has an unwritten and fatalistic attitude that there will always be some level of crime no matter what you do because it’s innate to human nature. And if you’re going to have crime, it might as well be organized. Let the strongest and most dangerous criminals accumulate power and influence, because they will go a long way to controlling the stupid, the excessive and the disruptive crooks. Better to have one major weapons trafficker controlling the traffic than have a thousand slightly smaller and more disruptive dealers completely out of control. (You can strongly hint that there’s an uneasy, unwritten and largely unspoken agreement between crime and law enforcement, and that it’s often a two-way street.) And if the big crime gets too big, it’s easier to knock it back down to “acceptable” levels because you’ve got bigger targets, which are easier to hit and which make a large and impressive splash across the front page when you throw RICO charges at them.

Plus it would also illustrate that Wickian Law Enforcement at its highest levels is just as dirty, amoral and underhanded as the Bournite Intelligence community.

- So, with a little work and willing suspension of disbelief (which wouldn’t be hard, because who wouldn’t want to see Wick and Bourne on the same screen provided it’s done with at least half an ass), it’s possible to bring the two Universes together.

- We start with Bourne. Someone else, like an hard ass, experienced reporter, is snooping into the government’s history of creating conditioned assassins. Maybe because a public face, like a former intelligence director, has left the shade to become a politician. And many strongly suspect that he’s dirty as fuck, but our snoopy reporter is just figuring out how deep the rabbit hole goes. Our politician was, of course, instrumental in developing programs like Treadstone, Blackbriar, et al.

- The Snoop finds out, one way or another, that one of the earliest failures of these programs was an “asset” who experienced a psychological break, went “off the res”, starting killing people and still turns up now and then to kill more people. To our Snoop, it appears that the government has created an uncontrollable monster who is still on the loose and possibly lurking right outside the White House, dear reader, are you scared now?

- The story, scanty, incorrect and harshly spun, gets printed as above. A few names are named, but mostly dead people (and maybe someone who has already been publicly discredited.) Our politician is not named because our Snoop doesn’t yet have absolute proof linking Mr. Politician to the Treadstone/Blackbriar/etc. machine.

- The evidence still exists. Witnesses still live, in numbers too great to be cleanly eliminated.

- Mr. Politician is sweating bullets.

- The Snoop isn’t done. He wants to find Bourne so he can say, “Here’s your monster, where’s my Pulitzer?” As investigation continues, the story becomes clearer to the Snoop, and the monster starts to look like little less monstrous and little more victimized. Which is an even better story.

- Now Mr. Politician is not only worried that he will be named, he’s worried that if Snoop makes contact with Bourne, or simply as a consequence of Snoop stirring the shit, Bourne will find out who our Politician is and how complicit he was in the program that destroyed David Webb. Mr. Pol knows this is likely to be a death sentence.

- It has become obvious to everyone who isn’t deeply deluded that Jason Bourne is practically indestructible and that sending more valuable and increasingly scarce 'assets’ against him is just going to result in the loss of those assets. Agents available may be trained and conditioned to within an inch of their lives, but Bourne’s psychological break caused him to exceed his limits, training and conditioning in a way Black Ops programs haven’t been able to replicate. Those with a pragmatic attitude believe that they have no agent who can measure up to Bourne. Politician believes this as well.

- But Mr. Politician knows some things that the intelligence community has never concerned itself with. In his many years of government service, Mr. Pol was also involved with Law Enforcement at various times. Maybe he did a stint with the effa-bee-eye. Whatever. He knows about the Criminal Underworld, he knows that to maintain the ugly equilibrium, the Underworld may be influenced to comply with certain requests. And he knows a name. John Wick.

- Mr. Politician is also savvy about recent developments in the Underworld. He’s got a friend who’s still in the business of monitoring organized crime and keeping tabs on what’s going on down there. Mr. Pol has listened to recent stories with fascination because of certain similarities to a well known government failure who has haunted his dreams for decades. It has become a fact in Mr. Pol’s mind that the CIA will never be able to take down Bourne, but maybe there’s another way.

- Mr. Politician approaches a major Crime Lord and tells him point blank to activate John Wick by any means necessary and set him on the trail of one Jason Bourne. If Wick can’t be activated, Crime Lord will receive his own personal set of extensive criminal and RICO charges, delivered to his doorstep by the entire FBI

- Crime Lord knows if he gets charged, he probably won’t survive because other crime lords are going to want to make sure he doesn’t talk - about them. Also, his family will be endangered no matter which way the sword swings; either the FBI will be targeting them or his fellow criminals will be.

- Crime Lord knows John Wick. They’re old friends. Crime Lord feels a bit conflicted about it, but his first loyalties are to his family and his own hide. So he swallows his fondness for John Wick and commits falsehood, deception, a calling in of favors, maybe a little blackmail and the old Rock-And-A-Hard-Fuck-You-Up-Place on Wick. An elaborate, manipulative lie, that sets a misinformed John Wick on the trail of a man potentially as dangerous as himself.

- Now, we’ve got Jason Bourne being hunted by the Snoop, which has him on alert. We have John Wick hunting Bourne because he believes, once again, that he has no choice.

- We also have a Jason Bourne who is somewhat confounded. We need the scene where Bourne finds out, before contact ever takes place, that someone has taken out a contract on him with an Underworld assassin. Bourne doesn’t know much more about the Criminal Underworld than Joe Schmoe from Kokomo, just what he’s seen in the news and largely ignored, because it never had anything to do with him. Even in all that training years and years ago, there was this gap, because organized crime wasn’t the CIA’s beat. Maybe at first, Bourne even assumes that this Wick character isn’t a threat because he’s just a murderer, a thug, and not a highly trained government operative like himself.

- So in a riveting scene where Bourne and Wick first come into contact, we see Bourne - under the influence of his ignorant assumption - nearly getting killed by Wick and making an extremely narrow escape by use of desperate measures. We also have Mr. Wick limping away, suitably impressed with the skills of his opponent.

- Now we have that stretch of the story where Wick is on the hunt, Bourne is on the run and Bourne is trying to uncover any information he can find about this assassin. Wick doesn’t research much, though, because that’s not how he works. Bourne is a machine; the gears must grind. Wick is a force of nature, like a tornado; most of the info he gets he just picks up along the way, either paying for it or having it given to him by friends.

- Bourne discovers that Wick had a military past, Special Forces, maybe he was fucked over by the military/government in his own way. Or Bourne sees it that way. Bourne finds out about Helen and her death, and maybe not the whole story, but quite a bit about how John cut through a small army of Russian mob mooks for vengeance. He identifies with Wick’s grief and anger. He sees something of himself in John Wick. He sympathizes with the devil.

- John hasn’t done the heavy research. He understands that Bourne is dangerous, perhaps more dangerous than anyone he’s ever met. He consolidates his resources and finds someone else to do his research. He is awaiting a report on Jason Bourne when…

- Bourne stops running, goes to confront Wick and ends up trying to explain, while fighting of course, what he knows about the Dirty Politician and the Crime Lord who has called John out of his troubled retirement yet again, and how Wick has been used and betrayed (this time) until he says something that causes Wick to call truce long enough to hear it all.

- Bourne can see the beginning of a way to solve the whole mess. After some persuasion, Wick is on board and has some ideas of his own.

- Now we’ve got our boys on the same side and it’s only left to decide whether the war will be conventional or nuclear.

- There are two victories we need to see. We must see the destruction of Mr. Politician and Mr. Crime Lord.

- You might-could send Bourne, who doesn’t really give a shit about the covenants and conventions of the criminal world, to the Continental - probably breaking in, instead of checking in. Luring the Crime Lord out into the open, perhaps on the intimation that Mr. Politician is about to take up backstabbing. Draw the Crime Lord out to confront the Politician. Bourne’s plan, reluctantly agreed to by Wick, is to draw the Politician and the Crime Lord together, get evidence and even a full recording of the meeting and expose them both to the world.

Or course, this backfires. Bourne finds himself in a position where he has to kill either Crime Lord or Mr. Politician in self-defense. Probably the Crime Lord.

- It would also be immensely satisfying to see Wick take out the dirty politician with a head shot. Bourne would, of course, be stoically pissed about it all, but it also illustrates the difference. Bourne is willing to let even unrepentant bastards live because he’s tired of having blood on his hands. Wick doesn’t let anybody live who’s fucked him over. Bourne is still conflicted about who and what he is. Wick has come to terms with himself. Bourne believes in atonement. Wick believes in damnation. Bourne still cares. Wick doesn’t give a fuck. Bourne still dreams of inner peace. Wick would settle for a little peace and quiet, would you motherfuckers just leave me the fuck alone already. Get off my lawn. And stop teasing my dog, you bastards.

(Bourne, of course, is a brutally disillusioned idealist. He had no idea he was signing away his soul. Wick likely sold his soul with his eyes wide open, though he probably only understood the ultimate cost later on - a naive pragmatist.)

- You must also show Wick taking an active role in planning, because if Bourne does all of it and says here’s what we’re going to do, then 1) he’s just using Wick as a tool or weapon, instead of treating him like a person and an equal and 2) Wick once again is being controlled by someone else instead of doing what he does best, which is take matters into his own hands (shooting Santino may have looked like a misstep, but who in the audience didn’t love it?)

- I’ve forgotten our Snoop reporter.

We could let Bourne track him down, in which case he will almost certainly die, because going by canon everybody who sympathizes with Jason Bourne must die.

We could let Wick find him, in which case he probably has a much better chance of surviving to publish his Pulitzer Prize winning story provided he’s not armed when he meets Mr. Wick. Hell, Wick could give him a coin, which could buy him entrance and protection at the Continental (even the government doesn’t want to mess with that bunch - like stirring a hornet’s nest with a stick; you might survive, but it will be excruciatingly painful and you’ll look like an idiot the whole time with all the screaming and flailing and jumping around in a panic.)

John Wick’s name will not appear in the story. Only a vaguely defined “other sources”.

- And after all is said and done, Bourne and Wick part company, with mutual respect and recognition. Though they really don’t like each other very much.

So that’s my John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made. But I had fun.

P.S. Please excuse crappy photoshop, I just wanted something there.

[patriotsnet]

Did Any Republicans Vote For Witnesses

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-any-republicans-vote-for-witnesses/

Did Any Republicans Vote For Witnesses

Sen Whitehouse: Congress Examining Role Of Some Gop Officials In Capitol Riot

BREAKING: Republicans Don’t Have Votes to Block Impeachment Witnesses

If these shocking allegations are true, then taken together, prosecutors may be able to link rioters to GOP senators and link GOP senators to the president, a pattern that would place them all in the same, massive conspiracy. Such a plot to overthrow the U.S. government by American citizens would suggest that our democracy is facing a peril graver than any we have seen since the Civil War.

Impeachment, of course, does not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. For most senators watching, more proof that Trump incited a violent riot is not needed. For others, notably the 44 GOP senators who have indicated they will vote to acquit, the question of causation phrased as whether there was indeed incitement still offers an off-ramp.

As one of us urged with the last impeachment, given the critical importance to the country of the outcome of the trial, the Senate should not be in a hurry. Calling witnesses would likely require issuing subpoenas and then having the patience to enforce them. But given that the Democrats hold the bare majority needed to make that call, the choice is theirs.

Republicans Block Impeachment Witnesses Clearing Path For Trump Acquittal

The narrow vote came after Republican senators said they did not need to hear more evidence, and pressed toward acquitting President Trump next week.

By Michael D. Shear and Nicholas Fandos

WASHINGTON The Senate brought President Trump to the brink of acquittal on Friday of charges that he abused his power and obstructed Congress, as Republicans voted to block consideration of new witnesses and documents in his impeachment trial and shut down a final push by Democrats to bolster their case for the presidents removal.

In a nearly party-line vote after a bitter debate, Democrats failed to win support from the four Republicans they needed. With Mr. Trumps acquittal virtually certain, the presidents allies rallied to his defense, though some conceded he was guilty of the central allegations against him.

The Democrats push for more witnesses and documents failed 49 to 51, with only two Republicans, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, joining Democrats in favor. A vote on the verdict is planned for Wednesday.

As they approached the final stage of the third presidential impeachment proceeding in United States history, Democrats condemned the witness vote and said it would render Mr. Trumps trial illegitimate and his acquittal meaningless.

Still, those Republicans said, they were unwilling to remove a president fewer than 10 months before he is to face voters.

You dont apply capital punishment for every offense, Mr. Alexander added.

transcript

Louisiana Gop Votes To Censure Sen Cassidy

Literally minutes after Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., voted to convict President Donald Trump the Louisiana GOP voted to censure him. Cassidy was one of seven Republicans to cross party lines.

“The Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Louisiana has unanimously voted to censure Senator Bill Cassidy for his vote cast earlier today to convict former President Donald J. Trump on the impeachment charge,” the Republican Party of Louisiana said in a statement.

Cassidy, who vacillated between convicting and acquitting the president this week, has been a senator since 2014. He was previously a congressman from the state. A censure officially condemns a politician, but does not carry any further power, such as removal from office.

“Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person,” Cassidy said in a statement. “I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.”

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

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Republicans Are Open To Impeachment Witnesses But Democrats Need A 4th

Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney seem open to witnesses in President Trumps impeachment trial. With one more Republican, Democrats could commandeer the proceedings.

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

WASHINGTON The Capitol math is clear: Democrats need only four Republican votes to force the Senate to subpoena witnesses like John R. Bolton, the former White House national security adviser, to testify in President Trumps impeachment trial. Three have signaled they may be open to doing so: Senators Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.

That leaves Democrats searching for an elusive fourth vote.

The question of whether four Republicans will defect and if so, who looms large in the Capitol as the Senate prepares to receive articles of impeachment from the House on Wednesday, prompting the third presidential impeachment trial in American history. If they did, Democrats could effectively commandeer the Senate floor during the proceeding and defy Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, by moving to call witnesses.

That could derail Mr. McConnells hopes to secure a quick acquittal of Mr. Trump with little debate, drastically altering the course of the trial and potentially, of Mr. Trumps presidency.

Am I curious about what Ambassador Bolton would have to say? Yes, I am, Ms. Murkowski told reporters, according to Alaska Public Radio. But she said she would not prejudge the need for him to testify until after the cases are presented.

Sen Mcconnell Who Voted To Acquit Trump Says Former President Is Practically And Morally Responsible For Provoking Attack On Capitol

In remarks on the Senate floor after he voted to acquit Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday that the former president is practically and morally responsible for provoking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol but that the Senate was upholding the Constitution by acquitting him.

The Senates decision today does not condone anything that happened on or before that terrible day, McConnell said. It simply shows that senators did what the former president failed to do: We put our constitutional duty first.

Trump, by contrast, appeared to take his acquittal as a vindication of his actions before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack. In a statement, Trump called his second impeachment by the House another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country and hinted at a return to national politics.

McConnell spent much of his remarks condemning Trumps actions and directly linking them to the Jan. 6 insurrection. The former presidents supporters, he argued, launched their violent attack because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth, because he was angry he lost an election.

Theres no question none that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day, McConnell said at one point. No question about it.

He argued, however, that it was beyond the power of the Senate to hold Trump accountable for those actions.

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Impeachment Trial Highlights: A Showdown Over Calling Witnesses

Senators rejected a call for additional witnesses in President Trumps impeachment trial, dealing a fatal blow to efforts by Democrats to bring about new evidence.

Mr. Blunt? No. No. Mr. Booker? Yes. Aye. Mr. Boozman? No. No. Are there any senators in the chamber wishing to change his or her vote? If not, the yeas are 49, the nays are 51. The motion is not agreed to. This will set a new precedent. This will be cited in impeachment trials from this point to the end of history. The documents the president is hiding will come out. The witnesses the president is concealing will tell their stories. And we will be asked why we didnt want to hear that information when we had the chance. There is a way to decide right up front in some quick way whether theres really a triable issue, whether you really need to go to all the trouble of calling in new witnesses and having more evidence in something like that. Its not just about hearing from witnesses. You need documents. The documents dont lie. The question here before this body is, what do you want your place in history to be? Do you want your place in history to be, lets hear the truth? Or that we dont want to hear it? You did hear evidence. You heard evidence from 13 different witnesses, 192 video clips, and as my colleague the deputy White House counsel said, over 28,000 pages of documents.

It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed, Ms. Murkowski added

Democrats Hopeful To Convict Trump

The ball is in the court of the Republicans as a minimum of 17 GOP senators would have to join all the Democrats to reach the two-thirds majority required to find Trump guilty of “incitement of insurrection.”

While the Republican vote seems like an unlikely scenario, Democrats hope;they can win over enough Republican senators to convict Trump for his role in January’s Capitol riots.

Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Susan Collins of Maine;are some of the names the Democrats could seek to persuade.;

These four;are frequent critics of Trump and have said in the past that he incited the insurrection. They have also joined with Democrats twice to vote against the Republican efforts to dismiss the impeachment trial.

But in what appears to be a shock for the Democrats, Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell said Saturday he will vote against convicting the former president.

While describing the vote on whether to convict as a “close call,” McConnell told colleagues in a letter that “I am persuaded that impeachments are a tool primarily of removal and we, therefore, lack jurisdiction.”

“I will vote to acquit,” McConnell added, leaving it highly likely that the Senate will fail to reach the two-thirds majority necessary to convict Trump.

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Trump Attorney Blames Senate For Not Trying Trump In January Does Not Mention Sen Mcconnell Blocked Trial

Trump attorney Michael van der Veen on Saturday blamed the Senate for not holding the impeachment trial in January, without mentioning that then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the chamber from doing so.

The January exception argument is a creation of the House managers own conduct by delaying they sat on the article, van der Veen said. They could have tried the president while he was still in office if they really believed he was an imminent threat. They didnt.

After last months bipartisan impeachment vote in the House, McConnell said Trump had simply no chance of a fair or serious trial before Bidens inauguration Jan. 20.

McConnells office informed aides to then-Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer that he would not agree to immediately reconvene the Senate that week, according to a person familiar with the matter, despite pressure from Schumer to invoke rarely used emergency powers that allow the two Senate leaders to unilaterally reconvene.

Van der Veen also on Saturday falsely claimed the House impeachment managers had not referenced the Constitution or due process in making their closing arguments.

Several of the managers had done just that. Just minutes earlier, Rep. Joe Neguse had called out Trumps defense team for not allowing the former president to be a witness.

You cant claim theres no due process when you wont participate in the process, Neguse said.

Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.

Vote Comes After Surprise Call For Witnesses

Senate Republicans Reject Democrats Demand For New Witnesses | NBC Nightly News

Closing the House managers’ argument, Raskin played to senators’ sense of history in urging them to convict the former President for inciting the rioters to attack the Capitol and failing to stop them after the violence unfolded.

“This is almost certainly how you will be remembered by history,” Raskin said. “That might not be fair. It really might not be fair. But none of us can escape the demands of history and destiny right now. Our reputations and our legacy will be inextricably intertwined with what we do here, and with how you exercise your oath to do impartial justice.”

Van der Veen argued that Trump did not incite a riot that had been preplanned, again repeating the falsehood that the rioters represented both left and right fringe groups, when video evidence and court documents conclusively show that the riot was perpetrated by Trump supporters.

The final vote came quickly on the fifth day of the Senate trial after a surprise Democratic request for witnesses earlier Saturday threw the trial briefly into chaos.

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Impeachment Trial: Trump Lawyers Wrap Up Defense

Closing arguments in former US President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial;started Saturday after the;Senate reached a deal to skip witness testimony.

US senators had been;close to concluding the trial;, when proceedings were briefly halted as Democrats, along with five Republicans, initially won a vote to call witnesses.

The trial rules say that if senators agree to hear witnesses, votes to hear additional testimony would be allowed.

Hours later, senators agreed;to accept new information from a Republican congresswoman about Trump’s actions on the day of the deadly Capitol siege on January 6 and proceed from there without calling witnesses.

The ex-president stands accused of;inciting;the deadly;insurrection when he;called on a crowd of supporters to march on Congress, which was in the process of certifying Joe Biden’s victory.

White House Expects Gop Defections On Calling Witnesses In Senate Impeachment Trial

Washington ;The White House is preparing for some Republican senators to join Democrats in voting to call witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial, which could get underway in the coming days.

Senior White House officials tell CBS News they increasingly believe that at least four Republicans, and likely more, will vote to call witnesses. In addition to Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and possibly Cory Gardner of Colorado, the White House also views Rand Paul of Kentucky as a “wild card” and Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee as an “institutionalist” who might vote to call witnesses, as one official put it.;

Last week, Collins said she was working with a “fairly small group” of GOP senators to allow new testimony, adding that her colleagues “should be completely open to calling witnesses.” Romney has expressed an interest in hearing from former national security adviser John Bolton, who has said he would testify under subpoena. Murkowski said last week that the Senate should proceed as it did during the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial.;

Gardner and Alexander have both said the Senate trial should be fair and impartial. Paul has said the president should be able to call his own witnesses, including the whistleblower whose complaint about Ukraine sparked the impeachment inquiry in the first place.

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Takeaways From The Trump Impeachment Trial After Defense Wraps Up

Raskin suggested deposing Herrera Beutler by Zoom for an hour. Trump attorney Michael van der Veen responded that if the Democratic House managers wish to call witnesses, he will need “over 100 depositions.”

Five Republicans voted with Democrats Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who changed his vote to yes after initially voting no.

Van der Veen said he would oppose holding any depositions by Zoom, saying they should be “in person in my office in Philadelphia,” drawing laughter from the Senate. “I haven’t laughed at any of you,” van der Veen responded.

Confusion on the floor

After the vote, the Senate ground to a halt, amid general confusion among senators about how to proceed from here.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., when asked whether he was expecting this, threw up his hands. “Shelby says he’s seen three of these and this is the craziest,” referring to Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby.

Before the deal was reached to avoid witnesses, an informal adviser to the Trump defense team dismissed the Democrats’ move, saying there was a risk that it would drag out the trial for weeks, all so that they can depose a witness whose contribution was already made public in a press release.

Trump attorney Bruce Castor said his side would call “lots” of witnesses. Van der Veen threatened to call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Vice President Harris as witnesses.

Trump Impeachment Trial Live Updates: Biden Says Charge ‘not In Dispute’ In 1st Comments On Acquittal

Biden remembered those who were killed and called for unity going forward.

Senate votes to acquit former President Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial ended with a 57-43 vote to acquit in the Senate. He faced a single charge of incitement of insurrection over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

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Here Are The Republicans Who Voted To Hear Witnesses At Trump’s Impeachment Trial

By Clare Foran and Ali Zaslav, CNN

Five Republicans voted with Democrats on Saturday in favor of allowing witnesses during former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, a move that now means it is unclear when the trial will conclude. The final vote tally in the Senate was 55-45.

Susan Collins of Maine

Ben Sasse of Nebraska

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Kristin Wilson contributed to this report.

Republicans Vote To Silence Impeachment Witnesses Fast

To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories.

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To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories.

On Friday night, lawmakers voted on the issue of allowing further evidence in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. As there were no doctors on hand to perform emergency spinal cord transplants, Republicans defeated the attempt to introduce relevant witnesses and documents 5149, with just Mitt Romney and Susan Collins voting with Democrats. Thats obviously a sad and depressing outcome but, in the long run, probably just sped up the inevitable, i.e., Republicans acquitting the president and paving the way for him to continue abusing his power for the next one to five years. And rather than attempt to make the case that Trump did nothing wrong and thats why theyre trying to wrap this thing up ASAP, GOP lawmakers are just coming out and saying it: He did it and we dont care. And thats not some biased liberal-media interpretation of what theyve saidthose are the actual words coming out of their mouths.

In a Medium post entitled My Statement on the Presidents Impeachment Trial, writes:

Rubio doesnt note that, as of March of 2019, we didnt know about the presidents alleged attempt to extort Ukraine for his personal gain, but we digress. He continues:

Twitter content

But apparently that information is neither here nor there.

If you would like to receive the Levin Report in your inbox daily, to subscribe.

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[statetalks]

Where Are Republicans On The Political Spectrum

Republicans Have More Friends Across The Political Divide Than Democrats Study Finds

When David Huzzards friend posted some QAnon conspiracy theories on Facebook in the fall, Huzzard first assumed the best of intentions. He recalls thinking: Maybe they just got tricked.

Huzzard, a 40-year-old pet store owner in Virginia Beach, is well-versed in the art of maintaining friendships with people who dont vote like he does. Huzzard is a Democrat in a city that narrowly went for President Biden in the 2020 election.

Then his friends rhetoric got stronger. Shortly before the election, Huzzards friend posted on Facebook again, this time sharing falsehoods about how mail-in ballots were subject to fraud. Huzzard and his wife were taking extra caution to avoid covid-19 as they were expecting a baby in November and planned to vote absentee. Huzzarddidnt address the issue with his friend directly, instead publishing his own Facebook post saying: If youre against mail-in voting, youre against my voting rights and youre no longer my friend.

Still, Huzzard and his friend remained cordial whenever they saw one another in person. He considered inviting this friend and her husband over for dinner. But as the other couple continued sharing online disinformation about the efficacy of masks and the vaccines, Huzzard and his wife decided that for the safety of their family and their unvaccinated children, they would no longer socialize with them.

Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

READ MORE:

Partisan Ideological Leanings Unchanged

Although Americans as a whole are a mix of ideological viewpoints, the two major political parties have become increasingly polarized over the years in their tenor.

The 51% of Democrats identifying as liberal matches the prior high from 2018, but it has been near this high-water mark for the past five years. The next-largest group of Democrats are ideological moderates, at 35%, followed by conservatives, at 12%.

While the conservative share of the Democratic Party is not insignificant, it has shrunk by more than half over the past quarter-century, falling 13 points since 1994. Moderates have seen similar shrinkage, down 13 points, while the percentage liberal has about doubled.

Line graph. Annual trend from 1994 to 2020 in Democrats’ ideology, with 51% in 2020 identifying as liberal, 35% as moderate and 12% as conservative. This marks a sharp change since 1994, when 48% were moderate, 25% liberal and 25% conservative.

Ideological uniformity is much higher among Republicans, 75% of whom now consider themselves conservative, up slightly from 73% in 2019 and the highest proportion yet in Gallup’s trend since 1994.

Meanwhile, one in five Republicans describe their views as moderate, down from 33% in 1994, while just 4% say they are liberal, similar to most years.

Line graph. Annual trend from 1994 to 2020 in independents’ ideological views, with 48% in 2020 identifying as moderate, 29% as conservative and 20% as liberal. This is consistent with the broad pattern since 1994.

How We Got Here

California is now all but synonymous with the Democratic Party, but for decades it leaned to the right. Republicans won the state in all but one presidential election between 1952 and 1988, and California had both Democratic and Republican governors during that period.

Republican recall hopefuls seek to differentiate themselves in San Francisco debate

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Rancho Santa Fe businessman John Cox and Assemblyman Kevin Kiley of Rocklin traded views on issues such as homelessness, the minimum wage and Gavin Newsoms zero car emissions executive order.

The state was once known for producing moderate Republicans who tended to hold more liberal or at least libertarian positions on social issues than the national party. But as the state grew more blue overall, its shrinking GOP contingent became decidedly more conservative.

Consider Californias last two Republican governors, Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The whole way both men conducted their administrations, it was generally pro-choice, fiscally conservative, pro-environment, said Joe Rodota, an author and political consultant who worked for both Wilson and Schwarzenegger.

Experts say Wilson and Schwarzenegger embodied a more moderate California Republican ethos than the positions taken by most of the 2021 Republican gubernatorial field.

Party concentration has also moved inland, with Republican votes in Los Angeles and the Bay Area starkly declining.

What Is The Difference Between Republicans And Democrats

Republicans and Democrats are the two main and historically the largest political parties in the US and, after every election, hold the majority seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the highest number of Governors. Though both the parties mean well for the US citizens, they have distinct differences that manifest in their comments, decisions, and history. These differences are mainly ideological, political, social, and economic paths to making the US successful and the world a better place for all. Differences between the two parties that are covered in this article rely on the majority position though individual politicians may have varied preferences.

Climate Change And Pollution

Pollution in the United StatesClimate changeClimate change denial

Trump rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, repeatedly contending that global warming is a “hoax.” He has said that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” a statement which Trump later said was a joke. However, it was also pointed out that he often conflates weather with climate change.

Although “not a believer in climate change,” Trump has stated that “clean air is a pressing problem” and has said: “There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of climate change. Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water.”

In May 2016, during his presidential campaign, Trump issued an energy plan focused on promoting fossil fuels and weakening environmental regulation. Trump promised to “rescind” in his first 100 days in office a variety of Environmental Protection Agency regulations established during the Obama administration to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, which contribute to a warming global climate. Trump has specifically pledged to revoke the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the United States rule, which he characterizes as two “job-destroying Obama executive actions.”

Trump wrote in his 2011 book that he opposed a system to control carbon emissions.

Parties Favouring Populist Rhetoric Are More Likely To Be Nationalistic

What do we know of populism? Populist movements are typically nationalistic, critical towards immigration and cynical about liberal democratic principles.

The above chart illustrates a pretty clear trend: the more multilateralist you are, the less populist you will be. There are, however, some quite clear outliers. Both Syriza and New Zealands National Party are classed as multilateralist populists. And then,of course, there are Denmarks Social Democrats. Sensitive to the collapsing support for the hard-right Danish Peoples Party, the Social Democrats tacked right on migrants issues in their 2019 election campaign as they sought to tempt voters to their side. Party leader Mette Frederiksen told one televised debate: You are not a bad person just because you are worried about immigration. The party topped the poll – albeit with a reduced vote share – and Frederiksen became prime minister.

Since this is the first year the survey has been carried out, we cannot measure change. We cannot say, for example, to what extent Trump has changed the way the Republicans are positioned. We can only say that – right now – the world sees his party as highly populist, poor on ethnic minority rights, and prone to undermining basic democratic principles. That might be a concern for us, but its probably not for him: insular populists tend not to care what the rest of the world thinks.

Confidence In Scientists And Other Groups To Act In The Public Interest

Though the survey finds that climate scientists are viewed with skepticism by relatively large shares of Americans, scientists overall and in particular, medical scientists are viewed as relatively trustworthy by the general public. Asked about a wide range of leaders and institutions, the military, medical scientists, and scientists in general received the most votes of confidence when it comes to acting in the best interests of the public.

On the flip side, majorities of the public have little confidence in the news media, business leaders and elected officials. Public confidence in K-12 school leaders and religious leaders to act in the publics best interest falls in the middle.

Fully 79% of Americans express a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in the military to act in the best interests of the public. The relatively high regard for the military compared with other institutions is consistent with a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, which found 78% of the public saying the military contributes a lot to societys well-being.

Confidence in the news media, business leaders and elected officials is considerably lower; public views about school and religious leaders fall in the middle.

More Negative Views Of The Opposing Party

Beyond the rise in ideological consistency, another major element in polarization has been the growing contempt that many Republicans and Democrats have for the opposing party. To be sure, disliking the other party is nothing new in politics. But today, these sentiments are broader and deeper than in the recent past.

In 1994, hardly a time of amicable partisan relations, a majority of Republicans had unfavorable impressions of the Democratic Party, but just 17% had very unfavorable opinions. Similarly, while most Democrats viewed the GOP unfavorably, just 16% had very unfavorable views. Since then, highly negative views have more than doubled: 43% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats now view the opposite party in strongly negative terms.

Among all Democrats, 27% say GOP policies are a threat to the well-being of the country; among all Republicans, more than a third think Democratic policies threaten the nation.

Even these numbers tell only part of the story. Those who have a very unfavorable impression of each party were asked: Would you say the partys policies are so misguided that they threaten the nations well-being, or wouldnt you go that far? Most who were asked the question said yes, they would go that far. Among all Democrats, 27% say the GOP is a threat to the well-being of the country. That figure is even higher among Republicans, 36% of whom think Democratic policies threaten the nation.

Foreign Policy And National Defense

Republicans supported Woodrow Wilson‘s call for American entry into World War I in 1917, complaining only that he was too slow to go to war. Republicans in 1919 opposed his call for entry into the League of Nations. A majority supported the League with reservations; a minority opposed membership on any terms. Republicans sponsored world disarmament in the 1920s, and isolationism in the 1930s. Most Republicans staunchly opposed intervention in World War II until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. By 1945, however, internationalists became dominant in the party which supported the Cold War policies such as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO.

Issues For Which Location Plays Some Role

Though taxes and concern about the budget show relatively little geographic variation, one topic that touches on similar issues of government size and scopeopinions of Obamacareshows more . Support is strongestbetween 60 and 70 percentin the Bay Area and central and coastal LA, and weakestless than 40 percentin the rural far north and east of the state. Yet most of our places remain lukewarm toward the law, with support between about 40 and 60 percent. This includes most of the Central Valley and most of the coast outside of central and coastal LA and the Bay Area.

Where Do Trump And Biden Stand On Key Issues

Reuters: Brian Snyder/AP: Julio Cortez

The key issues grappling the country can be broken down into five main categories: coronavirus, health care, foreign policy, immigration and criminal justice.

This year, a big focus of the election has been the coronavirus pandemic, which could be a deciding factor in how people vote, as the country’s contentious healthcare system struggles to cope.

The average healthcare costs for COVID-19 treatment is up to $US30,000 , an Americas Health Insurance Plans 2020 study has found.

Inglehart: Traditionalistsecular And Self Expressionistsurvivalist

World Values Survey

In its 4 January 2003 issue, The Economist discussed a chart, proposed by Ronald Inglehart and supported by the World Values Survey , to plot cultural ideology onto two dimensions. On the y-axis it covered issues of tradition and religion, like , , and the importance of the law and authority figures. At the bottom of the chart is the traditionalist position on issues like these , while at the top is the secular position. The x-axis deals with self-expression, issues like everyday conduct and dress, acceptance of and , and attitudes towards people with specific controversial lifestyles such as , as well as willingness to engage in political . At the right of the chart is the open position, while at the left is its opposite position, which Inglehart calls survivalist. This chart not only has the power to map the values of individuals, but also to compare the values of people in different countries. Placed on this chart, European Union countries in continental Europe come out on the top right, Anglophone countries on the middle right, Latin American countries on the bottom right, African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries on the bottom left and ex-Communist countries on the top left.

The Republican Party General Policy And Political Values

The Republican Party is often referred to as the GOP. This abbreviation stands for Grand Old Party. Its logo is an elephant. The Republican Party is known to support right-leaning ideologies of conservatism, social conservatism, and economic libertarianism, among other -isms. Thus, Republicans broadly advocate for traditional values, a low degree of government interference, and large support of the private sector.

One main standpoint of the Republican Party platform is a strong focus on the family and individual freedom. Generally, the Republican Party therefore often tends to promote states and local rights. That means that they often wish for federal regulations to play a lesser role in policymaking. Furthermore, the GOP has a pro-business-oriented platform. Thus, the party advocates for businesses to exist in a free market instead of being impacted by tight government regulations.

Actions While In Office

American Health Care Act2017 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act replacement proposals

President Trump advocated repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act . The Republican-controlled House passed the American Health Care Act in May 2017, handing it to the Senate, which decided to write its own version of the bill rather than voting on the AHCA. The Senate bill, called the “Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017” , failed on a vote of 4555 in the Senate during July 2017. Other variations also failed to gather the required support, facing unanimous Democratic Party opposition and some Republican opposition. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bills would increase the number of uninsured by over 20 million persons, while reducing the budget deficit marginally.

Actions to hinder implementation of ACA

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

President Trump continued Republican attacks on the ACA while in office, including steps such as:

Ending cost-sharing reduction payments

Cost sharing reductions subsidy

President Trump’s argument that the CSR payments were a “bailout” for insurance companies and therefore should be stopped, actually results in the government paying more to insurance companies due to increases in the premium tax credit subsidies. Journalist Sarah Kliff therefore described Trump’s argument as “completely incoherent.”

Religion And Marital Status

Ideological groups are distinguished by certain societal attributes, such as , marital status, and gun ownership, yet are relatively similar in terms of race and ethnicity. Generally, liberals were more likely to be secular, single and in possession of a college degree while less likely to own a gun. Conservatives, most of whom adhere to as well as fiscal conservatism, tended to be more religious and more likely to be married, employed and own firearms.

The majority of Social Conservatives and Pro-Government Conservatives attended church services once a week. Weekly churchgoers were also in the plurality among the general population and all ideological demographics, except liberals. Of liberals, a plurality, 43% attended church services “seldom or never”, compared to 25% of respondents overall. Conservatives were also more likely to be married than Liberals or the Democratic voter base in general. Finally, 77% of Enterprisers were married, compared to 44% of Liberals.

Disadvantaged and Conservative Democrats had the highest union membership rates at 23% and 18% as well as the highest percentage of minorities . In terms of gun ownership, the majority of Enterprisers and Social Conservatives had a gun at home, compared to just 23% of Liberals. Liberals were the most educated group with 49% being college graduates compared to an average of 26.5% among all the conservative groups . Disadvantaged Democrats were the least educated, with only 13% having a college degree.

Nolan: Economic Freedom Personal Freedom

Nolan Chart

The Nolan Chart was created by libertarian David Nolan. This chart shows what he considers as “economic freedom” on the horizontal axis and what he considers as “personal freedom” on the vertical axis. This puts in the left quadrant, in the top, in the middle, in the right and what Nolan originally named in the bottom. Several popular online tests, where individuals can self-identify their political values, utilize the same two axes as the Nolan Chart, including The Political Compass and iSideWith.com.

The Us Presidential Election 2020: Last Lap Reflections

27 October 2020

For the vast majorority of voters, this extraordinary election is more like a referendum on the incumbent. Youre either for Trump or against him.

Being against Trump is a whole lot easier than being for Biden. Joes lacklustre persona was painfully evident during the last debate, when he scrambled an alarming number of his words, and recited the Covid-19 death toll as if he were memorising a shopping list.

The truth is that he has difficulty thinking on his feet. When the President ludicrously equated himself with Lincoln in anti-racist achievement, Biden didnt think of reminding him of LBJs Great Society. When Trump chanted his mantra against socialised medicine, Biden might have mentioned that when Roosevelt introduced social security, Republicans hurled the same S word. You could be forgiven for wondering whether, in the top offices of Democratic Party HQ, theres actually a real appetite for winning this election.

Americans tend to like their Presidents to be assertive, positive and with an energetic presence. Alas, they also almost always elect the taller candidate. Trump, in all his awfulness, ticks those boxes.

Even Obamas vigorous campaigning for Biden may backfire. It seems to underline the comparative inadequacy of the carry-over from the previous administration.

Two questions should be foremost in the voters minds, regardless of whether they opt for orange or beige.

Figure 11 Views On Gun Control Display A Strong Urban

NOTES: Question wording is In general, do you think laws covering the sale of guns should be more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now? Shading represents the share of Californians who say laws should be more strict. Estimates come from a multilevel regression and poststratification model as described in Technical Appendix A. Full model results can be found in Technical Appendix B.

Wildlife Conservation And Animal Welfare

In October 2016, the Humane Society denounced Trump’s campaign, saying that a “Trump presidency would be a threat to animals everywhere” and that he has “a team of advisors and financial supporters tied in with trophy hunting, puppy mills, factory farming, horse slaughter, and other abusive industries.”

In February 2017, under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture unexpectedly removed from its public website “all enforcement records related to horse soring and to animal welfare at dog breeding operations and other facilities.” The decision prompted criticism from animal welfare advocates , investigative journalists, and some of the regulated industries .

Democratic Candidate Joe Biden

Reuters: Carlos Barria

The Democrats are the liberal political party and their candidate is Joe Biden, who has run for president twice before.

A former senator for Delaware who served six terms, Biden is best known as Barack Obama’s vice-president.

He held that role for eight years, and it has helped make him a major contender for many Democrat supporters.

Earlier this year, Biden chose California Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate.

The 77-year-old has built his campaign on the Obama legacy, and tackling the country’s staggering health care issues.

He is known for his down-to-earth personality and his ability to connect with working-class voters. He would be the oldest first-term president in history if elected.

According to 2017 Pew Research Centre data, a vast majority of the African American population supports the Democratic party, with 88 per cent voting for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections.

Why Are Democrats Left And Republicans Right The Surprising History Of Political Affiliations

The terms right and left refer to political affiliations that originated late in the eighteenth century in relation to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France. During the French Revolution of 1789, the members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king and supporters of the revolution.

The aristocracy sat on the right side of the Speaker, which was traditionally the seat of honor, and the commoners sat on the left. This gave birth to the terms right-wing and left-wing politics. The Left had been called the party of movement and the Right the party of order.

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly was divided into supporters of the king and supporters of the revolution. Lamartine in front of the Town Hall of Paris rejects the red flag on 25 February 1848

However, it was during the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871 that the political parties formally adopted the terms left and right to define their political beliefs.

The Representatives of Foreign Powers Coming to Greet the Republic as a Sign of Peace

According to the simplest Left and Right distinction, communism and socialism are usually regarded internationally as being on the left, opposite fascism and conservatism on the right.

In British politics the terms right and left came into common use for the first time in the late 1930s in debates over the Spanish Civil War.

Homosexuals Do Not Deserve Equal Rights

This comes from their religious beliefs, which form the basis for a lot of policy. Republicans believe that homosexuality is a choice and, as such, gay people should not be acknowledged in the same way as other groups. Therefore, according to a Republican, homosexuals should not be allowed to marry, nor should they be allowed to adopt children.

Popular Political Views In The Us

One thing that you will notice right away is that most popular political parties and political philosophies in the U.S. are located at the top half the of the diagram. The makes sense because in the U.S. most Americans value freedom . 

While there may be some outliers on the more authoritarian fringe, they have never received popular support in the U.S., although sometimes these groups will try to stir up support or try to trick the local population into voting for them by hiding their true motives.

Greenberg And Jonas: Leftright Ideological Rigidity

In a 2003 Psychological Bulletin paper,Jeff Greenberg and Eva Jonas posit a model comprising the standard leftright axis and an axis representing ideological rigidity. For Greenberg and Jonas, ideological rigidity has “much in common with the related concepts of dogmatism and authoritarianism” and is characterized by “believing in strong leaders and submission, preferring ones own in-group, ethnocentrism and nationalism, aggression against dissidents, and control with the help of police and military”. Greenberg and Jonas posit that high ideological rigidity can be motivated by “particularly strong needs to reduce fear and uncertainty” and is a primary shared characteristic of “people who subscribe to any extreme government or ideology, whether it is right-wing or left-wing”.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/where-are-republicans-on-the-political-spectrum/

[uni-tierra-califas]

[Unitierracalifas] UT Califas Demo Ateneo, 5-26-18, 2.00-5.00 p.m.

Compañerxs: We will convene the Universidad de la Tierra Democracy Ateneo this coming Saturday, May 26, 2018 in San Jose at Casa de Vicky (792 E. Julian St., San Jose) from 2.00-5.00 p.m. to resume our regularly scheduled reflection and action space and to explore some of the questions and struggles mentioned below that are raised by the current conjuncture in which we find ourselves. 

Ghada Karmi informs us that "between 30 March and 11 May Israeli forces shot dead more than 40 unarmed Palestinians and wounded over 2,000 during the Great March of Return series of protests in Gaza. On 14 May alone, in protests coinciding with the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers killed a further 58 Palestinians and wounded nearly 2,800." (see, G. Karmi, "At 70 Israel is a Bellicose Giant.") She also highlights how Israel continues its bullying attacks against other sovereign nations including calling for the assassination of leaders in the region. This, of course, is only possible through the backing of the U.S. and other western nations. The relationship between the U.S. and Israel is more than simply an alliance between two sovereign powers. Israel's connection with the U.S. is such that the one nation can orchestrate a falsehood that can then become the dominant story repeated by the the other, circulated by the U.S. political class, pundits, and mainstream media supported by think tanks, lobby groups, and media manipulators, such as pollsters and communication strategists, and, increasingly, by universities and academic institutions that have marginalized pro-Palestinian faculty. In this instance, the orchestrated falsehood is that the rebellion organized in conjunction with the recognition of the Nakba of 1948 is nothing more than attacks by Hamas. More than one critical media analyst recognizes this as nothing less than propaganda, the propaganda common to fascism. The resistance of the people is framed as terrorist violence. Yet not everyone was so ready to buy the well orchestrated lies as solidarity actions and resistances erupted across the globe in support of Palestine —Tel Aviv, South Africa, Brussels, New York. In San Francisco, chants of Palestine will be free! rose up from the streets as people marched from the Israeli Consulate in the city's Financial District to Federal Building in Civic Center (See, Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, "Hundreds in Israel and Beyond Protest Killings of Palestinians on Gaza Border.") The following day also in San Francisco, the disruption of a planned book talk by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak resulted in eighteen arrests as those present interrupted and drowned out Barak's talk repeatedly, condemned him as a war criminal (see, Palestine Action Network, "Eighteen Arrested as Activists Shout Down Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in San Francisco for War Crimes.")

We are reminded of Aimee Cesaire's observation when examining the brutality of colonization, and that in the context of discussions about the rise of fascism and the Second World War. According to Cesaire: "They [the atrocities of colonization] prove that colonization, I repeat, dehumanizes even the most civilized man; that colonial activity, colonial enterprise, colonial conquest, which is based on contempt for the native and justified by that contempt, inevitably tends to change him who undertakes it; that the colonizer, who in order to ease his conscience gets into the habit of seeing the other man as an animal, accustoms himself to treating him like an animal, and tends objectively to transform himself into an animal. It is this result, this boomerang effect of colonization that I wanted to point out." (see, A. Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism, p.41) Israel's settler colonialism project has reached its apex, that is, the level of barbarity that is the natural evolution of colonial occupation. The colonizer loses his or her humanity and is capable of all manner of atrocities blinded by their own righteousness. And it is no wonder that Israel basks in the support of the U.S. Americans, if they are even aware of the violence may be momentarily appalled by the atrocities they witnessed these past few weeks in Gaza. Yet, they, "the respectable bourgeois," nonetheless maintain a system where the state apparatus, all of the elements of it, become an echo chamber for Israel's justification of a genocidal project they have been executing with impunity for seventy years, building on a settler colonial logic and program stretching back to the First Zionist Conference and the Basel Program of August 1897. Colonial and imperial powers, including the U.S. in the post World War II era, continue to rely on Israel for their purposes, that is for their own geopolitical designs for the region. And it is this moment, the moment that W.E.B Du Bois named democratic despotism that is the fundamental cause of all wars. It is the bargain the white working class makes with capital. The bargain is based on the quid pro quo that capital gets a compliant workforce and white labor enjoys a somewhat slightly higher wage, safer working conditions, more leisure time, and the few toys and trinkets of a bourgeois lifestyle, and all of that at the expense of Black and Brown labor and lives at home and abroad. In other words, the bargain can only be fulfilled through, according to Du Bois, colonialism which is to say war. (see, Du Bois, "African Roots of War.") The ethnic Mexican community shares an awareness of the nature of democratic despotism and its ties to war. We have resisted the imposition of the "Mexican wage" as well as fought for access and inclusion in all of America's dominant institutions since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 that articulated the expanded borders of the settler colony. Rather than marking the end of the war, the treaty also articulated the promise of a continuous social war organized around the criminalization of resistance. This has been our plight as Chicanxs and Latinxs in the U.S. —to confront successive strategies of criminalization intertwined with militarization. It is a long standing process that has its most recent articulation in the attack on the immigrant community orchestrated through the elimination of TSP (Temporary Protected Status), DACA, and the deliberately orchestrated home, work, and street invasions and sweeps conducted by ICE, INS, and the Border Patrol, working in conjunction with local law enforcement and private prisons. All of this occurs against the backdrop of increased levels of border militarization that continue to produce numbers of deaths despite the drop in immigration as a whole. And, of course, the violence on one side of the border is linked to the violence on the other side —a violence of kidnappings, assassinations, disappearances, feminicides, and massacres. The colonist's disdain for the ethnic Mexican community of Greater Mexico was on display this week when New York Attorney Aaron Schlossberg excoriated patrons and staff at a Midtown Fresh Kitchen for speaking Spanish and a barrista at a Starbucks in La Cañada Flintridge on the outskirts of Los Angeles wrote "beaner" on the coffee cup of an order placed by a cook only identified as Pedro. (see, Y. Simón, "After Racist Lawyer Goes Viral" and A. Cataño, California Starbucks Employee Writes Racial Slur") Both moments may seem trivial compared to the levels of violence throughout Mexico, across the border, and in the neighborhood, but each also reflects a level of dehumanization common to racial capitalism, settler colonial states, and the fascism that defines them. What connects these locuses of violence besides the trajectories of settler colonialism outlined by Cesaire? It's war. "War, money, and the State are constitutive or constituent forces, in other words the ontological forces of capitalism," explain Éric Alliez and Maurizio Lazzarato. To this they add, "the critique of political economy is insufficient to the extent that the economy does not replace war but continues it by other means, ones that go necessarily through the State: monetary regulation and the legitimate monopoly on force for internal and external wars. To produce the genealogy of capitalism and reconstruct its 'development,' we must always engage and articulate together the critique of political economy, critique of war, and critique of the State." (see, E. Alliez and M. Lazzarato, Wars and Capital, p. 15.) It’s total war. But, the total war is not new. It’s colonial war directed everywhere, no longer confined to the colony. Alliez and Lazzarato reclaim primitive accumulation to advance the analysis by not limiting it to a specific historical moment but rather, recognizing it as an ongoing process. It is worth quoting them at length: "It is therefore not surprising that the authors associated with research on the world-economy are completing and enriching analysis of the transformations of war and the ways it is waged in direct relationship with nascent capitalism and the colonies. And in fact, 'primitive accumulation' provides the crucible for all the functions that war would later develop: establishment of disciplinary apparatuses (dispositifs) of power, rationalization and acceleration of production, terrain for testing and perfecting new technologies, and biopolitical management of productive force itself. Most of all, war plays a leading role in the 'governmentality' of the multiplicity of modes of production, social formations, and apparatuses of power that coexist in capitalism at the global scale. It is not limited to being the continuation on the strategic level of the (foreign) policy of states. It contributes to producing and holding together the differentials that define the divisions of labor, sexes, and races without which capitalism could not feed on the inequalities it unleashes." (see, E. Alliez and M. Lazzarato, Wars and Capital, p. 76) 

Thus, it’s war that is based on controlling populations. In specific circumstances, that is when it is applied to “troubled areas,” it is organized as low intensity war, warfare that is not about taking of territory but a complex strategy of military and paramilitary violence, targeted aid, and specific policing powers all designed to disrupt the cohesion of a community so that specific populations can be more easily controlled. It is the Fourth World War as the Zapatistas have warned us, but it's also the longstanding, ongoing war of racial capitalism. The argument made in theorizations of racial capitalism is that race is not simply surplus but constitutive. Racial animus, organized through various strategies of criminalization and dehumanization that make possible dispossession, displacement, and dislocation, escalates with capitalism's collapse. Racial capitalism, as many have come to believe about capitalism in general, is both a mode of production and a mode of destruction. Race and racial belonging become the markers to determine what bodies must be controlled and therefore can be produced as disposable. Our resistances are critical to decolonial practice. Aimed at the architecture of control that checkpoints and borders represent, these are at the same time resistances against dehumanization.

New projects and a vision for research moving forward that begin to articulate new theorizations about the current race situation must take seriously how combined research efforts can contribute significantly to the de-criminalization of our communities, especially confronting the socially, politically, and economically constructed disposability associated with black wage-less life, illegal immigrant labor, third world “narco-terrorists,” and Indigenous autonomous communities. It must also engage in the de-militarization of our communities by exposing how capitalist extractivist strategies advance practices and strategies of dispossessing by de-humanizing, displacing by criminalizing, and dislocating through policing, especially pre-emptive policing executed by combined forces of police, military, and increasingly state bureaucracies once designed to administer a social wage. Successful research can be mapped out in cartographies of struggle confronting the spread of low intensity war and its manifestation in various moments of state and state manufactured violences across communities. These maps can include a variety of systems of information generated from the local, situated, and poetic knowledges that can shift the dominant frames of an increasingly complex media landscape and tell a different story about social justice. Such an effort can, for example, map fierce care, a category of struggle, or convivial tool, that emerged out of and was articulated through the efforts of mothers who re-directed their grief and rage at the injustice dealt them and their family into strategic moments of care to consciously reclaim community spaces while also raising awareness about the specific injustice suffered by often targeted families and the community as a whole. The collective construction of convivial tools emerges organically and is articulated in performances and practices that address inequality, especially the violences produced as capitalism reaches its internal and external limits as a result of the exhaustion of “cheap nature,” contradictions of commodity fetishism, and the advances of grassroots struggle. It is therefore a research that must approach the topic genealogically, that is to say, by uncovering how our present has come to be defined by racial inequality and a persistent racial animus organized through successive modes of criminalization, including the epistemological dimensions of settler colonial dominance. That is to say we must map out how knowledge is produced in such a way as to legitimize the criminalization of certain groups, i.e. those targeted for “premature death.” 

South Bay and North Bay crew