#the united states healthcare system is a fucking joke

[lycanthre]

Hey capitalist dystopia fans here’s some new fodder for your next writing romp: Every time I call my insulin pump/pump supplies monopoly provider support line I am forced to sit through an unskippable, nearly 30 second advertisement for their newest product delivered by a robotic voice before I can so much as reach a menu that might allow me to connect to a representative, and on one occasion I had this ad play TWO TIMES, BEFORE BEING ABLE TO ACCESS TWO DIFFERENT MENUS, ONLY AFTER WHICH THE SAME VOICE INFORMED ME I HAD CALLED AFTER BUSINESS HOURS AND HUNG UP.

[troythecatfish]

[televisionenjoyer]

I love when united starters are like "making fun of the united states for it's education and health system is so fucked up 😭😭 have you no compassion 🤨" bitch you joke about third world countries all the time and like ur government is spending all the money they could spend on education and healthcare in OPPRESSING THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES AND MAKING WAR AND SHIT NOBODY ELSE WANTS THIS.

[redjennies]

your tooth troubles are so real I hate the way dental care is handled in the US!!!!!! my wisdom teeth have been sawing thru my gums at a weird angle for like a year but I'm uninsured and I straight up cannot do 2k PER TOOOOTH so?? anyway solidarity handshake

it's so fucking bullshit. like they literally know people need to be able to get their wisdom teeth removed to avoid pain like what you're going through but it's apparently a privilege of the wealthy to not live in pain that's going to possibly fuck up your other teeth. I'm not even in the minority of my friends who have lost teeth because it's too expensive to get a filling uninsured, and they make you jump through ridiculous hoops to get insurance that's still fucking expensive. honestly it's fucking criminal too because getting abscesses due to bad teeth can literally fuck up your heart and kill you but once again the American government continues prioritizing bombing families in foreign countries that ain't none of our business being in so the oil companies can stay rich and outlawing abortion so the working class can stay poor and desperate and docile over making sure its citizens have access to basic fucking health care. anyway no love for the United States government as always. no love to insurance companies as always. if there is a just god, all these bastards will rot in hell for their sins of greed and murder. I'm not even joking. I believe that. we have the wealth and knowledge and tools to avoid unnecessary health complications and we don't let our poor and working class access that healthcare because life is a privilege of the wealthy. it's fucking state sanctioned murder and we should consider the healthcare system (and the housing system, at that) just as violent through their inaction as the "justice" system and the military are through their actions.

[cloudsoffire]

the sonic the hedgehog ring metanarrative

alright i'm gonna type some bullshit and you're gonna read it. because fuck you.

there's a very specific idea that's in almost every sonic game to date, yet no one really talks about. specifically the ring mechanic. you can have a billion rings, or just one, and yet you will lose them all the same the second you get injured. so what does this say about society?

well i'm glad you didn't ask.

the first sonic game was released in 1991, but it actually started development a year earlier. now i could go into how sonic's spindash is actually inspired by the pale blue dot photo but that's kinda obvious. we want to talk about the economy. specifically the brief recession in the us during the early 90s.

now you may not asking, why would a japanese game like sonic have anything to do with a recession in the united states? it's well known that sonic's design was somewhat inspired by rubberhose cartoons, but did you know he was also partially inspired by bill clinton? this is not a joke. specifically in 1992 when he was running for president, the creatives behind sonic looked to him for the kind of attitude sonic should have. and what played a big role in getting him elected? the recession. badaboom.

so now we have a weak link to a recession that happened specifically in the us in the 90s. now we need to reinforce it. the 90s were a big time for healthcare in the us, as the period where privatized services came out on top against clinton's attempt at universal health insurance. obviously this is part of the reason why in the modern day just breaking an arm will cost every penny you've got if you aren't insured.

hey wait a minute.

doesn't sonic have the same issue? no matter how many rings he collects, he always loses them all whenever he gets injured. and if he doesn't recuperate fast enough (ie. get back to work), the rings disappear forever, dropping him to zero.

well, how can i go about saying that the ring system in sonic is an allegory for united states healthcare? after all, don't rich people get away with injuries just by nature of being rich? well why don't we turn our attention to the life system?

much like his counterpart mario with coins, when sonic reaches 100 rings, he gains an extra life. a free pass to start over again from a checkpoint. and you can't lose lives just by getting hit unless you're at 0 rings, and at that point it doesn't matter because it's a life you recieved from collecting those rings in the first place. it's a buffer that's harder to lose than a couple rings.

sonic generations even takes this concept a bit further, as displayed in this meme i made at least a year ago, in that it allows you to literally purchase lives in a shop.

sonic loses all his rings from a simple bump, but when he gets rich enough, it no longer matters, because he gets a free do-over.

so there you have it. the sonic the hedgehog gameplay loop is actually a critique of privatized healthcare and the usamerican economy. good night.

[dragonwars2601]

PICK A CURSE (it’s still me I’m just switching up the format)

Despite not being a USAmerican, you will have to say the pledge of allegiance to the United States of America every morning and night. you have to be dressed and you need to purchase a code compliant American flag and pledge to it twice a day every day. if you get married your spouse will have to join you. if you have or adopt children they will, to. and their children’s children. you can however infect 3 people with the curse if you wish to suffer communally in the meantime (or I guess just fuck with them. Idk). at chains at businesses that are originally from America, you get a veteran’s discount. some of your clothes slowly becomes American flag printed. your accent is slowly becoming more and more american. if you leave food in the fridge for too long it becomes a burger. you are under the American healthcare system.

you live on the beach now!! all sand is now quicksand to you (if you walk fast enoug you will be okay), and the ocean seems to be calling you, but you cannot tell if it is violent or just passionate. do you take a swim? whenever you come home with something on your person, seagulls attempt to swoop down and steal it, and they are 100% successful anytime it is a delivery person. all your shoes are flip flops now. all your clothes…swimsuits. when did your house become “beach house” themed? sometimes at night you swear you see mermaids, but they have claws. sometimes they sing. it’s alluring, like sirens. do they want to hurt you? you attempt to sell this house, but everyone who comes to look at it is injured by the violent seagulls. the house is beautiful, though. like the mermaids in the water.

You, slowly, are turning into a clown. Everyone you love, too, turns into a clown. You hear that duhduhduhduhduhdufh circus theme playing in your head, constantly. It gives you headaches and it is louder at night. Every Tuesday every item in your house gets wrapped up in gift wrap and it takes hours to unwrap. Sometimes you don’t even bother, but then there will only be an extra layer coke next Tuesday. Anytime another clown is mad at you a pie is thrown at your face. It is tasty, to be fair, but always the same flavor.!All of your shoes are colorful and way too large. If you try to buy normal shoes they become like that as soon as you put them on. Your car is so tiny that your ability to fit in it defies the laws of physics. Clown makeup is permanently on your face and the face of everyone you love. It changes to different clown makeup archetypes (ie sad clown, scary clown, hapoy clown), depending on your mood. Every joke you make lands, but nobody seems to take you seriously. You can’t work anywhere but where a clown would. Your pets are now balloon animals. Why are all your old pictures of you magically clowns now? Were you always like this?

how long did this take you?

uhh 3 , I like jokes

[touka-the-fallen-angel]

Bernie dropped out of the democratic primary and I am honestly at a loss for words. He was the candidate that made me believe again that perhaps the United States could systematically improve for the better. As an undergrad poli sci major and current law student I lost hope in the US with every backwards step we took since 2016. It seemed like no matter what the US would always be against the health, safety, and best interests of its majority. Watching the news became unbearable. My NGO work equally so. My study in political science became a joke. Until Bernie and AOC and Omar came and presented to the public necessary reform platforms such as: healthcare for all, a redistributed tax system, job security, and social rights. These candidates were like a glimmer of hope in an otherwise stagnated political field that continued to fail the American populace.

But now ...

We are in the middle of a pandemic in an election year and the candidate that argued for healthcare reform and labor reform has dropped out. Leaving us with Biden who continues to deny that fundamental changes are needed during this pandemic and after. Oh and he is likely a sexual predator too. We are well and truly fucked this election cycle.

If Biden loses this election the democratic party has no one to blame but themselves. For pushing an agenda that a significant portion of their base will not benefit from. For pushing a candidate that a significant portion of their base can't ethically accept. For pushing a voter suppression strategy that a significant portion of their base were disenfranchised by. For pushing the same schemes that made a significant portion of their base disaffected voters in the first place.

Not me but us was the way to go.

[smithytw4666]

Oxygen Hydrogen Nobelium

O H No

Bad joke I know, but it reflects how I’m feeling when I take a look at the state of things at the current moment (5/31/2020).

I have not posted anything in ages. I think this is because I just don’t know how to engage with Tumblr very well. I hope to change that though.

I might go through my posts and delete a few things. Mostly things that are just mentally taxing (police brutality, murder, the president, politics, climate change, protests, and other unjust goings on). I am not doing this because these things aren’t important, they’re incredibly important and need attention and action. But the mental strain it has on me to see these things everywhere online is overwhelming. And I want my blog to be safe in the sense that it’s not overwhelming folks with waves and waves of injustice. That doesn’t mean I won’t post or reblog about these things at all, just less often. Less of a flow, and more of a trickle between dry spells.

So yeah expect some posts to go away and expect more posts about worldbuilding and creative stuff and other things I enjoy.

Anyway, here are the bad bad things.

Trump is trying to label antifa as a terrorist organization, which is stupid because antifa is short for anti-fascist and from my understanding antifa isn’t an organization, it’s just an ideology that’s against fascism. Like he’s literally declaring himself a fascist. Not only is it stupid, it’s dangerous, if he got what he wanted the government could label anyone united by an ideology of any kind as terrorists. Given who’s in the oval office now, that power would not be used for good.

Police all across the country are assaulting protesters who are invoking their right to assemble peacefully, but because the police don’t like what they’re assembling over, they feel the need to attack peaceful protesters who just want justice for the countless lives lost to police brutality. Reporters doing their job have been arrested and shot at. People on their front porch have been shot at with paint because they didn’t follow the orders of a group of police officers to go inside. And then you see all the stuff about undercover cops trying to mingle with protesters to rouse violent actions in the protesters so the cops can fight back (cops would fight back regardless) and arrest people.

Not to mention, this is all happening during a fucking pandemic!

Also there’s all the other shit that’s been happening. Trump putting kids in cages. Jeff Bezos existing and slowly making his way toward trillionaire status. The current healthcare system in the US being as dumb and expensive as it is. Climate change is a thing. Pollution. Corporations. Exploitation. Bigotry.

Just a dumpster full of shit set aflame. I hate this country. It just feels hopeless. I am going to stop typing here. Good luck everybody. Stay safe out there.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #6- Rung Has a Friggin’ Day

It’s time for therapy.

Finally.

It turns out that Ratchet didn’t forget about Fortress Maximus’ acts of extreme violence in all the chaos that was last issue, and requested that Fort Max get set up with some mandatory counseling. Of course, because it’s been about a week in Fort Max-time since Garrus 9 went down, he’s not exactly thrilled to talk about what happened. And who can blame him? Garrus 9 sucked big time for everyone involved, even Overlord.

Fort Max claims to not remember what happened- he’s lying, and we’re treated to a flashback that sort of justifies his fib- and Rung suggests they get Chromedome involved, which seems perhaps a bit unethical? To just rip traumatic memories that may or may not be repressed out of a guy’s head? Like, I’m not super well-versed in psychiatry, but that seems a little off.

Rung, in an attempt to make Fort Max feel a little safer, tells him that Overlord- though he doesn’t say his name, because triggering Fort Max could literally get people killed- was neutralized about as efficiently as possible for their species.

I can’t believe Cybertron has a better veteran healthcare system than the United States.

Enough of Fortress Maximus’ impending implosion, it’s time for bar shenanigans!

Over at Swerve’s, Trailbreaker is proving to be completely incapable of keeping his drink in his glass, as Chromedome participates in a game where he has to guess who’s transforming into their alt-mode, based purely on the sound. He gets it in one, and everyone loses their shit. Chromedome, never one to hype himself, takes the opportunity to instead build Rewind up, because he just loves him that much.

Fortress Maximus gets brought up, and while Trailbreaker thinks the guy’s a little overrated, the others have heard about what happened on Delphi, and proceed to learn the wrong lesson from the whole thing. Tailgate enters the scene, after a rousing study session with everyone’s favorite giant neurotic.

Tailgate, you fool! It’ll be another 41 issues before Cyclonus is ready to even acknowledge his feelings!

It’s good to know that Tailgate doesn’t hold any grudges over the info dump Rewind gave him the other day. Also, that table looks like a nightmare to clean.

Ultra Magnus walks in, looking about as cheery as he possibly can considering who he is, promptly arrests Swerve for running the bar without taking bureaucracy into account, and whisks the little jabber jaw away in handcuffs, practically carrying him off by the scruff like a kitten.

Fort Max enters the room, having decided to grab a drink after the ordeal that is mandatory therapy.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a day on the Lost Light without something going just a little screwy.

This is a typical Wednesday for Pipes.

Fort Max proceeds to wreck several robots, seemingly at random, though he somehow manages to not actually kill any of them. Intentional or not? We still have several pages of this issue to get through, hold your horses! All will be revealed in time.

Which brings us to now. Fort Max has locked himself in Rung’s office, alongside Rung and the poor sap who was unlucky enough to have had an appointment when the big guy showed up. Rodimus and Drift are trying to figure out just what the hell to do with this current situation. Magnus enters, having just set Swerve up with his punishment, and berates Rodimus for letting Fort Max run around with a gun, as if 90% of the crew doesn’t also have massive weapons literally built into their bodies.

Blaster gets a video feed from one of the surveillance cameras going, and we get a good look at just how fucked this whole thing has become, because as it turns out, Rung’s appointment for this time slot was none other than Whirl, instigator extraordinaire, and being stabbed by some ship piping has done absolutely nothing to slow his suicidal roll.

That gun is positively ridiculous. Where were you even KEEPING that thing, Max?

It only takes a couple of face-mashings with the barrel of the BFG to get Whirl to back off, accomplishing what Rung simply cannot, because Whirl doesn’t play by the rules of anyone who values their life in any capacity. You’d think it’d take more than that to shut him up, but Whirl’s head is made of plot, so it’s a bit delicate.

Rung spots the camera, and decides to make himself useful by providing audio to this whole debacle, by way of his microphone thumb.

Now, a hostage situation just isn’t complete without some sort of demand in exchange for the safety of said hostages, and Fort Max has quite the doozy for Rodimus: he wants to go back to Cybertron, so he can confront Prowl on the slow response to the hell that was Garrus 9. Max was trapped there for over three years before the Wreckers came along, and it’s still pretty fresh for him because of the coma letting him skip a lot of time he could have spent healing.

Pro-tip: when handling a hostage situation, don’t get into a screaming match with the dude who’s about to shoot the only mental health specialist your race has ever managed to produce. Blaster gets it.

Rung is many things, but is no actor, as is made apparent by him holding his microphone thumb-bound hand in the most fucking conspicuous way possible. Fort Max notices- because how could he not?- and relieves Rung of this terrible burden.

Rung is really regretting not minoring in theatre right about now.

Hours later in the medibay, First Aid is proving to have gone mad with power, as he maintains some dangerously high snark levels while keeping the victims of Fort Max’s spree stable. Ratchet, whose hands are still Pharma-blue, is starting to piece together the reasoning behind who got shot.

That’s right, Fort Max was embarrassed that he showed up with the same color paint as all these guys, and tried to kill them to keep his fashion faux pas to a minimum.

Back in Rung’s office, Whirl’s dropped all pretense due to sheer boredom, and straight-up asks Fort Max to just get it over with and shoot them both. Having his thumb ripped off has made Rung a bit snippy, and he snaps at Whirl for the quip, before Max decides that he’s actually rather interested in just what Whirl’s appointment was going to cover. Rung tries to stymie this line of questioning, but he really ought to know not to get in the way of the plot progression at this point.

Whirl does decide to spill his beans, if only after Rung gets the obscenely large barrel of Max’s obscenely large gun pressed to one whole side of his face.

It turns out Whirl has depths to him, or at least he did, once upon a time. Before he got booted out of the Wreckers, before he was even in the Wreckers, he created as opposed to destroyed. More specifically, he was a watchmaker, good enough to find an audience in the time of Functionist Cybertron. Now, because he’s a helicopter, the guys up top weren’t too jazzed about Whirl not doing what he’d “been born to do,” on top of not giving them any of his sweet watch money, and decided to start fucking up his life to get him back in line. They started with tearing his shop to the ground.

But we’ll get to what the hell empurata is in a few issues.

Also, while Whirl’s been sharing his backstory, Rung managed to grab his model ship from off the floor.

I’m not sure how he managed to get ahold of his model without making a giant clumsy scene either, considering that’s his thumbless hand.

Rung, because he’s a clever man, is staring super hard at the camera and making kind of a weird face as he taps on the little windows of his model ship, signaling to Rodimus and crew to see what they can do with the windows outside of his office. He’s got three real big ones that let you see out- or in- the whole room. Rodimus makes a call, and we get a proper understanding of what Chromedome meant when he said Rewind was outside.

No kidding.

Rewind and Swerve are on rivet replacement duty, using rivet guns nearly as big as they are. Swerve’s passing the time idly chatting, because that’s his whole deal.

Knowing Swerve, that’s probably a joke, but given what we learn a few issues after this, on how exactly Cybertron handles those who don’t fall in line, I can’t help but wonder…

Okay, we know why Swerve’s out here, but what’s Rewind’s deal?

You remember those data discs Red Alert mentioned last issue, the ones Rewind was begging Chromedome to help him find? The ones he got from Swindle at the start of the series? Yeah, turns out those were chock-full of video footage of people dying.

Rodimus didn’t like the fact that Rewind had brought snuff films onto the Lost Light, and now here he is. We don’t get an explanation as to why he wanted the films in the first place, though he does integrate that it isn’t a pleasurable thing to watch. Rodimus calls, interrupting the conversation, and asks Rewind to take a walk.

Returning to the office, we find that Whirl’s really pouring it out now, giving us his whole life story.

Rung’s reaction here is equal parts sweet and sad. It’s like he’s never had a fucking friend in his entire life. Rung seems terribly lonely.

We also get the answer as to what exactly Whirl did to get kicked out of the Wreckers- he tried to mercy-kill Springer. After the events of Last Stand, Fort Max wasn’t the only one in a coma, and Whirl saw the writing on the wall in terms of Springer’s chances of recovery. He tried to put the guy out of his misery, but was caught and kicked to the curb before that could happen.

And that’s about where he stops. You know, if it weren’t for the whole “being held at gunpoint” thing, this would have been an amazing therapy session! Whirl really opened himself up today, I’m proud of him.

Fort Max realizes that the ship hasn’t turned around to head back to Cybertron, and that’s about the point where he decides it’s time to make good on his threat. Whirl volunteers as tribute, as Swerve and Rewind peek through the window, ready to enact the next phase of Rodimus’ plan.

Rung tries to deescalate, with Whirl reescalating in equal measures, because he is actively and violently suicidal at this point, bringing us to a standstill in negotiations as Ratchet finally gets ahold of Rodimus to tell him something very important.

Ratchet’s sussed out the central pin in this pegboard of PTSD, and it’s Overlord. Every guy Fort Max put in the ICU looked at least somewhat like that lippy bastard. Rung comes to a similar conclusion on his end, claiming that Fort Max is acting out because he went through hell at Overlord’s hand, and wants payback.

Outside the office, Rewind is lining up to shoot Fort Max with his rivet gun, though he has his reservations.

It’s a special kind of love that makes you want your husband to support you through sniping a guy five times bigger than you.

Rewind’s lining up the shot, when Fort Max moves behind a pillar. Time for Plan B.

Rodimus, you can’t just SAY that to him, he’s a married man.

Whirl’s egging Fort Max on, his eye flaring out in a way that one might consider to be crying, though if you asked him he’d absolutely deny it. Then Garrus 9 pays everyone a little visit, by way of Rewind’s camera projecting on the wall. This freezes Fort Max in his tracks, because of course it would. That shit’s terrifying. He breaks down, falling to the floor in a heap.

I suppose this is one way to handle a hostage situation. Rodimus, not wanting to take any chances, orders Swerve to take the shot anyway.

Safe to say, Swerve wasn’t top of his class at the military academy.

As Fort Max mourns the loss of Rung, Whirl yanks that pipe that’s been stabbed into his belly for the last several hours out, and returns the favor, getting Max right in the chest.

Shit.

All those fucking therapy appointments are going to have to be rescheduled. There are over 200 robots on this ship.

I sure hope Rung had a secretary to handle all that.

Later on, after the messy stuff’s been dealt with, Rodimus and Drift have a chat about Red Alert, and how he’s developing a potential to be a liability. As they talk, Red Alert is shown to be ripping the drill arm off that guy who got eaten by the quantum engine and using it to dig into the floor where he heard that super-slow voice. What does he find? I hope it’s treasure!

...That’s not treasure.

Hey, Rung?

Rung?

Buddy, I think someone might’ve been fibbing when they said that.

Nobody tell Fort Max about this.

[fellthemarvelous]

Yes. When we say VOTE BLUE, pay attention to what is going to happen in America if Biden loses and Trump wins. This is a fight for the very fabric of our democracy in the United States.

We either go with the guy who is fighting tooth and nail for the United States while trying to deal with the world erupting into chaos or Donald Trump who STOLE AND SOLD classified information about our country to OTHER COUNTRIES!! This is happening for a reason.

But the truth is, the Democrats are the ONLY ONES fighting for our basic human rights in this country at this very moment. Because Democrats are far more diverse and continue to grow more diverse as progressive policies are passed!

The Republicans are literally the ancestors of a racist confederacy who are still pissed off that they no longer have full control over the autonomy of every single person who is not like them after they lost the war back in 1865!!! These are the people who refuse to move on and have their claws digging into our government! They control the money! Look at who all the billionaires align with. Look at who Netanyahu stands with. He WANTS Trump to win because Trump will hand him exactly what he wants.

Biden is stuck in the middle of a fucked up situation, but he is doing more for our country than any president since Roosevelt. He's the one fighting for our unions. He's the one fighting to fix our infrastructure. He's the one fighting to improve life for American citizens as much as he can.

Our healthcare system is a fucking joke, but if Trump wins, a lot of people are getting kicked off their social security. We're losing what healthcare we already barely have.

You NEED to look at Project 2025. It's covered on TikTok. A LOT. That way you can listen to the people who dedicate their videos to informing the public about Project 2025. It is fucking terrible. It is long. It's been in the works for decades. Unless you're wealthy, white, Christian, or male, you're falling into the scrap pile. Your rights? Fucking gone.

I want progress in this country to keep happening, and this election is literally going to determine whether or our country remains a democracy or becomes full on fascist (don't forget that the Nazi party also endorses Trump).

Republicans know that every vote taken away from Joe Biden is a win for Donald Trump. They're counting on it!

We cannot do better for other countries and as a society if we no longer possess the ability to take care of ourselves. We, as a country, are the last line of defense between the rest of the world and Donald Trump.

We either sink or swim.

And if we sink then there will be a lot more genocides happening around the world, including this country.

Project 2025 has it all laid out.

I, for one, would very much like for the government to stay out of my uterus (just to name one example).

This is where we are headed if Trump wins.

Vote for Biden!

Millenials and Gen Z, you guys have heart and drive and power. Use it.

Activate, band together and make sure Tr$mp doesn't come close to winning. Vote Blue

This is a strategic election. This isn't the moment for an independent candidate (I'm saying this as an Independent). This is a time for a massive blue wave to tale out the tyranny and racism and homophobia like a tsunami.

[evilelitest2]

What is going on with Sanders and Cuba?

OH god, this is such a stupid fucking argument.  There are some legitimate critiques you can make of Sanders but this is a joke.  

Ok so super short version.  Cuba, unlike most of Latin America, didn’t manage to win its independence in the Spanish American Revolutions in the early 19th century, and Spain held unto Cuba as a colony until the end of the 19th century, which was a super brutal oppressive racist form of oppression.  In the 1890s, a native Cuban resistance started to fight against Spanish oppression and Spain got even more brutal in response.  Long story short, the United States fought a war with Spain in 1898 and “liberated�� Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico.  Technically speaking Cuba was an independent nation, but for all extent and purpose, Cuba was a colony of the United States in all but Name, as we propped up a series of brutal dictators.   This got worse with the Cold War and the need to fight against “The communist” which is a libel we used for anybody who thought maybe Cuba shouldn’t just be a puppet of the US.  

   Prior to the Cuban Revolution, the military tyrant at the moment was Fulgencio Batista, who had overthrown the democratically elected goverment in 1952, where he rejected the Constitution, outlawed the right to strike, basically ban freedom of speech and instituted an oppressive military regime.  Batista’s goverment basically made Cuba open to American companies and Cuba effectively becomes an example of modern day serfdom, as the wealth gap grew to obscene levels. To stay in power, he enacted some brutal policies that killed up to 20,000 people.   

This as you might imagine was not super popular with the the Cuban people, who overthrew him in a communist revolution in 1959, which allowed Castro to take power.

     Now Castro’s regime….was also a brutal dictatorship which oppressed the political rights of its people, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people (the number is super disputed), and Cuba to this day is an authoritarian dictatorship with a pretty dismal human rights record.  However, Castro’s regime did manage to achieve some policies which secured his own popularity.  Literacy rates in Cuba are quite impressive, they have a pretty good healthcare system, as well as a far higher standard of living than under Batista’s regime.  Which is what Sanders was saying in the 1980s, Cuba’s goverment is still bad but they had some successful social programs.  And remember, this is the 1980s, the United States is supported some full out genocidal regimes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvatore, in some of the darkest chapters of Latin American history since independence.    So Castro’s regime looks pretty good by comparison, I mean look up what is happening in Haiti in the 80s, which Reagan happily supported.  

    Now there is a point to be made that a lot of leftists/socialist types tend to down play the atrocities of Catro’s regime in order to praise its good effects,and you can accuse Sanders of doing that a bit, but its pretty hypocritical coming from Folks like Joe Biden and Bloomberg.  There is a good faith version of the attack on Sanders one could make, namely that hte American left does have a bad tendency to romanticize and downplay the fact the regime which governs Cuba is a still an oppressive dictatorship with a brutal human rights record, but attacking Cuba for its literacy program is…not the take I would make.

Edit: I will say a more nuanced critique of Sanders could have been made regarding the quality of Castro’s regimes education btu that isn’t what is happening here 

[canadianastronaut]

As a Canadian who has lived in the United States for years now- the "haha we have free healthcare loser!" jokes aren't funny.

I see people so often here in need that refuse my care and transport because they know they can't afford it.

I see people constantly making gofundme posts for lifesaving treatments.

I see people lose everything over it.

It's not funny anymore. Believe it or not a lot of Americans want universal healthcare, but the classist system and influence of the wealthy makes it hard to bring that legislation in.

They are trying, and you don't get the end of the joke where people are dying because they can't obtain the money.

Just shut the fuck up and remember the fun issues Canada has because we aren't much far off lmao:) Thank you for reading this PSA.

Tl/dr: Americans are trying to get Healthcare but it's hard because capitalism and people are dying. Haha free healthcare isn't funny bye

[starfleetdoesntfirefirst]

Sunday, March 15 COVID-19 updates: TL;DR this is worse than we thought, people without symptoms can be carriers and infect others, and millions of people’s lives are at risk, but that also means that every act of hygiene + social isolation is both more important and more powerful in flattening the curve and saving lives.

Each source dated; because this situation is changing so quickly, I tried to use sources only from the last few days. (Somewhat, but not entirely, U.S.-centric as I live + am tapped into organizing networks here.)

[id: CNN article headline, March 14: Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized.]

“Several experts interviewed by CNN said while it's unclear exactly what percentage of the transmission in the outbreak is fueled by people who are obviously sick versus those who have no symptoms or very mild symptoms, it's become clear that transmission by people who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic is responsible for more transmission than previously thought.

"We now know that asymptomatic transmission likely [plays] an important role in spreading this virus," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm added that it's "absolutely clear" that asymptomatic infection "surely can fuel a pandemic like this in a way that's going to make it very difficult to control."

+ “Coronavirus is most contagious before and during the first week of symptoms”

In other words, instead of thinking in terms of avoiding getting sick, we need to think in terms of avoiding getting others sick. There’s a real and ever-increasing chance that, without necessarily knowing it, you could be a carrier.

[id: NPR article headline, March 13: Flattening A Pandemic’s Curve: Why Staying Home Now Can Save Lives. Image is of a chart with Number of Cases on the vertical axis and Time Since First Case on the horizontal axis. There’s a straight dotted line labelled Health Care System Capacity running horizontally through the chart. An orange curve labelled Without Protective Measures rises steeply at the beginning of the time axis, showing the number of cases bursting over the Health Care System Capacity line, while a blue curve marked With Protective Measures is spread out over time and and is less steep, staying under the Health Care System Capacity line.]

“As the coronavirus continues to spread in the U.S., more and more businesses are sending employees off to work from home. Public schools are closing, universities are holding classes online, major events are getting canceled, and cultural institutions are shutting their doors. Even Disney World and Disneyland are set to close. The disruption of daily life for many Americans is real and significant — but so are the potential life-saving benefits.

“It's all part of an effort to do what epidemiologists call flattening the curve of the pandemic. The idea is to increase social distancing in order to slow the spread of the virus, so that you don't get a huge spike in the number of people getting sick all at once. If that were to happen, there wouldn't be enough hospital beds or mechanical ventilators for everyone who needs them, and the U.S. hospital system would be overwhelmed. That's already happening in Italy.”

Flattening the curve with hygiene and social distancing isn’t just about the coronavirus. An intensive-care bed is an intensive-care bed, and as people catching a new virus that no one is immune to overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system, more people are going to die more from all causes--heart attacks, tuberculosis, HIV, the flu, pregnancy complications, injuries from car crashes—because the system won’t have intensive-care capacity for them. Flattening the curve is about keeping coronavirus cases under the dotted line of what the healthcare system--and the rest of our infrastructure--can handle.

[id: Tweet by Don Moynihan @donmoyn (verified), Mar 15: Real-time evidence of flattening the curve. Lodi had the first Covid-19 case in Italy, and implemented a shutdown on Feb 23. Bergamo waited until March 8. Look at the difference. Incredible research by @drjenndowd, @melindacmills & co-authors. Image is a graph of daily total number of positive cases over time in the two cities, with Bergamo’s rising extremely steeply (approaching 1,000 on March 7 and 2,500 on March 13) and Lodi’s leveling off (approaching 1,000 on March 7 but at barely over 1,000 on March 13). Link in tweet. end id.]

[id: Tweet by cuddly but deadly! @HikeoftheMenrys, Mar 12: I keep thinking about South Korea’s Patient 31. South Korea was effectively managing the epidemic, and then one person – Patient 31 – infected over 1,000 people over the course of a few days, and caused a national pandemic in that country. Link to article in tweet. end id.]

People are currently using #ShutItDown to encourage U.S. event/bar/restaurant closures, and #StayTheFHome to encourage social distancing.

Stay The Fuck Home website (has many languages, and a SFW ��Stay The F--- Home” option): staythefuckhome.com

[id: Tweet by Andy Slavitt @ASlavitt (verified), Mar 15: COVID-19 March 15Prep update: Every day brings vital new developments and I talked to leading epidemiologists, public health experts about what is happening & coming & what we should be doing. I learned a bunch. 1/ end id.]

Full Twitter thread here—lots of good info, including on the phenomenon of people taking preparation less seriously in a few weeks if the virus takes longer to hit our communities, and an endorsement of #StayHome/#StayTheFHome

[id: Tweet by Amanda Mull @amandamull (verified), Mar 12: i think the impulse for many people is to look at things closing down or events cancelling right now as a sign of doom, but for the most part i think it's cause for optimism—someone in charge of something is taking this seriously, and doing what they can to limit interactions. end id.]

BONUS ROUND: RESOURCES AND STUFF YOU CAN DO TO HELP OTHERS/RESOURCES TO USE IF YOU NEED ‘EM

- Donate to COVID-19 funds, and to the individual fundraisers of people trying to make it through the pandemic.

- Check in with your friends; offer emotional support if you have the capacity to; offer financial help if you have the capacity to. Can you offer to PayPal/Venmo your friends $5, or $20, or the equivalent of their daily or weekly pay so they can take time off? (If it feels awkward, I’ve found a simple acknowledgement “I hope this doesn’t feel awkward, but” can do wonders to allow awkward-feeling conversations to actually happen! I had the capacity to make one of these offers (hint: not the pricey one) to a friend, and he was not remotely offended.)

(And conversely, don’t be hesitant to ask for or accept others’ support! Text/call your friends if you need to talk to someone! In a time of physical isolation, we’ll get through this by staying emotionally connected.)

- Help others find accurate info. Struggling to talk to the older and/or Fox News-watching folks in your life? Buzzfeed has got ya covered.

- There’s organizing by medical schools and other groups to look out for of elderly, isolated and vulnerable people in many communities; check for (or begin) efforts in your own.

- In the U.S. (and UK and other countries, though again I’m only tapped into things here so this part is U.S.-centric, I’m sorry), there is a large population of people who can’t use hygiene or social distancing: people in immigration detention or incarcerated in jails and prisons.

Many people in ICE detention are already sick from medical neglect and hunger strikes, and many people in prisons and jails (which often overlap with ICE detention--there are county jails and other facilities being used as immigration detention centers in every state in the U.S.--are over the age of 60 and are disabled or have serious mental and physical health issues.

Coronavirus inevitable in prison-like US immigration centers, doctors say

Coronavirus: call to release UK immigration centre detainees

Explainer: Prisons And Jails Are Particularly Vulnerable to COVID-19 Outbreaks

Now is a very good time to donate to bail funds, and to look for and support (or begin) national efforts and grassroots efforts in your community to release people from prisons, jails, and immigration detention. “Iran temporarily released 54,000 people from prison in the wake of this global pandemic. The United States must also consider releasing as many people as possible, among other measures, including decreasing the numbers of people being sent into jails and prisons in the first place.” (Slate)

More asks, actions and links to efforts/mutual aid re: incarceration and the pandemic

The Justice Collaborative has a page and the beginnings of a tracker sheet of efforts to help incarcerated people and other vulnerable populations.

[id: Tweet by Kimberly Corban @Kimberly_Corban (verified), Mar 12: All joking aside, for those who are worried about quarantining during #COVID19 in a home where they do not feel safe, live help is available from the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7/365 at @ndvh by chat or by calling their hotline at 1-800-799-7233. end id.]

[id: Tweet by Joanne Starer @JoanneStarer, Mar 9: If you're not plugged into disability twitter, you may not realize that the hoarding of hand sanitizer, wipes, masks is keeping many immunosuppressed people from getting supplies they need. If you have extras, check in with your community to see if anyone could use them. end id.]

[id: Tweet by Clint Smith @ClintSmithIII (verified), Mar 9: A reminder that if public schools shut down, millions of children will lose their access to some of the only meals they receive each day. Food banks will become more important, and I've learned the best way to help is not to donate your spare canned goods, it's to donate money. end id.]

[southern-belle-outcasts]

@bothsidesofaquestion sent: 🎄 (Rogue)

Send 🎄 for a holiday headcanon

Okay soooo Rogue basically hates Fourth of July and sees it as a fucking joke. She’s a mutant. She isn’t blind to the marginalized groups in the United States, it’s fucked up healthcare system, it’s worship of capitalism. She just plain refuses to celebrate it until it’s actually free and equal for ALL. Even if that’s the most anti-redneck notion to ever cross a southerner’s mind, she is so non-patriotic. She’s an idealist, and none of those ideals are met by America. So literally the only thing she celebrates on the fourth is Steve’s birthday. And while yes, she can enjoy a fireworks display, she would much rather see one not associated with the fourth if she’s going to watch one.

[daisylovesatla]

As an American I cannot tell you the number of times I haven’t been able to seek medical care because I can’t afford it. My dad’s dentures broke and he’s going to have to pay $2,500 out of pocket to get a new set. He literally cannot eat anything other than smoothies or blended up food without his dentures and he has to pay $2,500 to get access to fucking teeth. He has to get a surgery for his kidney stones and has to wait until November because he was laid off last year due to Covid-19 and has to start the period over for when his job will give him insurance again...he has type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, COPD, and his lung collapsed about 5 or 6 years ago...and he doesn’t fucking have insurance. He also has horrific eye sight and bifocals as well. He almost went into a diabetic coma when he first got diabetes because he couldn’t afford to go to the doctor and was pushing it off for as long as he could.

I haven’t been to the dentist in well over a year bc I can’t afford it, I can’t get my wisdom teeth out now before it causes me even more problems in the future because whose going to pay for it? I sure as hell can’t. I lost my retainer between moves and my adoptive parents were going to make me pay to replace it myself despite it being upwards of $600 and I was only working 10-15 hours a week at $8.60 an hour plus tips. Now my teeth are going back to being as crooked as they were before the $5,000 my parents spent on my braces slowly but surely and I can’t afford to get even an Invisalign to reverse the damage that...you guessed it...does cause me the occasional toothache bc my teeth are literally moving again.

I can’t afford my therapy, or my medication, or literally any of the healthcare i need so I just straight up ignore my medical bills and let them go into collection bc what else am I supposed to do? If I stop going to college for a medical leave of absence they completely cut me off from any support including insurance...meaning I can’t get medical care to get better to be able to go back to school because I won’t have insurance to pay the exorbitant prices for doctors visits where they basically just refer me out to other doctors with no answers. I’ve been dealing with chronic back pain for well over a year at this point in my tailbone and it’s taken me so long just to get past my own fears about finances and medical trauma as a fat disabled trans AFAB person to even start to seek treatment for it. My doctors have all dismissed me for my mental health struggles even when they’ve almost killed me multiple times...I had a doctor literally mock me and make a joke to my mother about keeping staplers out of my reach while the wounds were still fresh and raw on my arm from self harming...he literally called the people in inpatient crazy to my face and laughed about it.

I haven’t gotten my eyes checked in nearly 2 years despite being certain my prescription has changed because it would have cost me $1,000 out of pocket for additional coverage to see an eye doctor, my school doesn’t provide dental, and makes me go through ridiculously difficult hoops to get it paid for due to my executive dysfunction. I’ve had chronic pain all over my body for at least a decade at this point with no answers and no way I can possibly afford getting them.

The medical system in this country is actually hell on earth. I hate living in the United States. They don’t care if we live or die unless we can pay ridiculous amounts of money to live and most of us can’t.

Don’t even get me started on access to top surgery which I desperately want and need for my dysphoria but because I am fat it is very likely doctors will refuse to perform the surgery on me. So I’m stuck in purgatory in a body that fills me with dysphoria, and I can’t wear binders because of how much worse it makes my back pain I still don’t have answers for. I had to hang up on a receptionist just so I could cry at my frustration over her not listening to me and then demand for her to stop ignoring what I had to tell her about the differences in my pain after she threatened to cancel the appointment because I was being “hostile” even though she was the one yelling at me first. I was scolded for seeking affordable tele health for my migraines despite it taking months and months to get an appointment with a neurologist and I just needed something to stop me from having migraines that made it impossible to work or focus on anything but the pain. Medication i can’t afford, even though it’s only $15 a month.

Sickening. Literally.

AND a race one since the most affected regions will be Africa, Asia and Oceania

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

A Farewell to Tossers (Or ‘Trump is Out: Hooray!’)

TRIGGER WARNING: COVID; Discussion of Racism; ‘It’s the Great Rape Satsuma, Charlie Brown!’

Well then. Trump is no longer President Elect of the United States and the world breathes a sigh of relief. At last, we can all stop worrying that the increasingly unstable leader of the free world is going to blow us all up with nukes because he mistook the big red thermonuclear button for the ‘send’ button on fucking Twitter! It actually feels nice to go back to worrying about more nebulous threats that don’t come with a fuck-ugly face and a dubious web presence attached. This being space-year 2020, we still have to cower in fear of COVID, the collapse of the global economy and a slow, choking death courtesy of a climate and planetary ecology that are frankly sick of our bullshit, but it’s still good to celebrate the fact that there’s one less dangerous, narcissistic prick with serious political power. The last four years have felt like a deeply disturbing docudrama answering the question ‘What if the Annoying Orange Ever Got its Hands on Real Power’, but the nightmare is over now. Well, I say ‘Annoying Orange’. He’s really more of a Rapey Satsuma, but let’s not split hairs of semantics. The tosser’s on his way out and that’s a cause for delight.

Now, obviously, this blog is somewhat overdue. Sorry, humans, but I just haven’t had the time to compose snarky think-pieces on major news items in real time. I’ve been busy being in love with- and making love to- an amazing woman (who’s also my sometime glamorous assistant over on my Youtube channel where I post magic vids), writing four novels, playing through the recent rash of Crash Bandicoot games and trying weed for the first, last and only time in my life (the only effect it had on me was to make me crave Mars Bars, which happens to me on a semi-regular basis anyway). However, don’t mistake my taciturnity for ambiguity! I am overjoyed that America has finally gotten rid of the psychotic Cheesy Whatsit who spent not quite half a decade shitting on the poor and disenfranchised while stumbling disastrously around the international stage like a very stupid, ill-tempered bear that’s suddenly found itself in the middle of a production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Like most of my American readers and probably every sane, right-thinking person outside America, I greeted the news that he was on his way out with a fist-pump and a little dance of happiness. I might have twerked. I can neither confirm nor deny twerking.

But what lessons can we learn from this election and the fact that Trump clawed his way into power in the first place? Surely the last four years weren’t just the result of one nation’s collective brain-fart and their abrupt end nothing more than a spontaneous return to sanity? Well, no. The main reason Trump managed to grab hold of power was because he pretended to care about the American working classes. He didn’t, obviously: as soon as he got into power, he started taking away the social securities on which many of the poorest depend and dismantling their access to healthcare, because he’s a megalomaniacal rich dickhead. But he pretended to care well enough to convince an enormous quantity of people who felt alienated and disenfranchised by modern politics and- in particular- by a version of liberalism that seemed entirely focused on city-dwelling, self-consciously woke hipsters and regarded everyone else as a joke. A large part of the reason Joe Biden was able to wrest power back from the tantrum-throwing saveloy wanker was because he bothered to go out to the most impoverished parts of his country and remind that them that yes, the Democratic party did know they existed and did give a shit. Admittedly, he wasn’t the best candidate for working class voters- that would have been Bernie Sanders- but he was the best guy to get the message across in a way that wouldn’t seem patronising. So, Lesson One: ignore the gargantuan body of unskilled and menial labourers who power your country’s economy only at your own peril.

The second, related lesson should probably be something along the lines of ‘maybe prioritise rigorous analytical thinking as part of your country’s education strategy from a young age’. Seriously, it might seem obvious to you or I that Trump is a dangerous bullshit artist, but he hoodwinked a lot of people. And no, they’re not just naturally, randomly stupid. Okay, some of them are- nature bestows a fresh bounty of total fucking clods on the human race with every new generation, after all. But the point is that natural idiocy doesn’t adequately explain why so many people voted for a twat who clearly didn’t have their best interests at heart. The ability to recognise predatory charlatans is a subset of the ability to think critically about information with which you’re presented. Both the US and the UK education systems fail spectacularly to give people the mental tools they need to do this early on, with a heavier emphasis on learning rote facts and formulas which- while useful- only help to build crystallised intelligence not vital fluid intelligence (one is just stats and dry information, the other is the skills you need to navigate modern civilisation). Because fluid intelligence becomes harder and harder to acquire as one gets older, teaching people critical thinking skills early on is really important. Neither the UK nor US education systems really start to seriously teach it until pupils are almost adolescent, meaning that by the time they get to adulthood, they just don’t have the ability to peer through the miasma of obfuscating horseshit that surrounds most political candidates and accurately assess who is going to fuck them in the gall-bladder least. Biden was able to win this time round partly because he was really good at putting his message in a non-obfuscating way that helped to mobilise people regardless of their level of critical thinking. That’s great for him, and anything that helped oust Trump is a good thing, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem. The underlying problem, of course, is that, so long as education doesn’t take analytical skills seriously, the political system will always favour candidates with big, simple messages over more nuanced politicians with complex and ambiguous views, regardless of who the most qualified person is.

If Lessons One and Two were about understanding why people voted for Trump four years ago and why the didn’t this time, Lesson Three is our big ‘fuck humans’ moment, because one thing the election of Trump made is clear is that racism is alive and well in modern America. Yes, many of his voters were hoodwinked. Yes, many of them were legitimately alienated. But a significant percentage of them were also just xenophobic, racist arseholes who voted for him because they thought he’d get rid of some Mexicans for them. It’s tragic that these attitudes still persist in the modern world, but they do. Worse still, I’m not sure how you could easily address it. Fear and hatred of difference- even if it’s a superficial difference like skin colour or accent- seems to be hardwired into some people. While we can work to build a world where these attitudes aren’t acceptable, so long as we humans think of ourselves as belonging to different nations and groups, it’s almost impossible to extinguish them entirely. We’re just not at the point we need to be at: the point where we think of ourselves as a species with common goals and needs, not a disparate collection of tribes and interest groups. Trump and his election to power were symptomatic of this problem. His recent de-election might help alleviate it for awhile. However, only time and repeated, positive mutual interaction between different groups of people (on both the global and individual level) can ever cure the disease itself. And that shit’s going to take time. There’s years of genocide and exploitation and war and rivalry and mistrust to make up for and, frankly, it’s still going on, which just makes it harder to drag the human race in the right direction.

Fuck, that got deep. This was meant to be a funny, celebratory blog about how we no longer have to put up with that prat Trump, and instead it turned into a lengthy disquisition on the failure of education and the problems inherent in how humans relate to one another through Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (that’s the whole in-group/out-group/fear-and-distrust-among-nations-and-peoples thing I was going on about). Sorry, folks, sometimes life is just like that: you tune in for laughs and get punched in the dick with a dry, depressing polemic on our failings as a species. Happy 2020, everyone! Anyway, tune in soon for a review of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, which I promise not to turn into a didactic on the role of Nietzsche’s hypothetical superman in a civilisation that relies on the suppression of certain, key choices… aaaaaalthough…