#voices of democracy

[getmanlaw]

Schuyler County Commemorates May 1 as “Law Day”

Law Day is Wednesday (May 1) and the Schuyler County Legislature has recognized as the Law Day 2024 theme, “Voices of Democracy.”

The legislature passed a resolution at its April 8, 2024 meeting, recognizing “Law Day” as an occasion of public acknowledgement of our Nation’s heritage of justice, liberty, and equality under the law. 

The resolution was submitted to the legislature by Schuyler County Attorney Steven Getman.

“In 2024, the United States will hold its 60th presidential election, together with many federal, state and local elections,” Getman wrote. “The ‘Voices of Democracy’ Law Day theme encourages Americans to participate in the 2024 elections by deepening their understanding of the electoral process; discussing issues in honest and civil ways; turning out to vote; and, finally, helping to move the country forward after free and fair elections.”

In passing the resolution, the legislature called upon all Schuyler County residents “to observe this day by lifting their voices to maintain our system of laws and to ensure that our republic endures through free and fair elections.”

The measure was introduced by Legislator Gary Gray (R- District VIII) and seconded by Legislator Michael Lausell (D-District III).  It was supported unanimously by the members present.

May 1, 2024 is the 66th Law Day. In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first Law Day Proclamation to mark our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.   Each year the American Bar Association selects an annual theme for Law Day. 

A copy of Schuyler County’s resolution “Recognizing and Commemorating May 1, 2024 as ‘Law Day’ in Schuyler County” is available here.

[foreingersgod]

america has truly failed its people today. please remember to take care of yourself in these rough and disappointing times, take a deep breathe, it’ll be ok. we can get through this.

[grenade-maid]

Signalis, Authority, and History

There's a level of nuance to how Signalis presents the violence of the authority of the nation that doesn't call attention to itself but which I really appreciate. Which is basically just, all the officers and cops and spies who make life hell for people like the Gestalt mine workers, Ariane, and the Itou family--we get little glimpses into who they are in Adler and Kolibri's diaries and despite the propaganda and the authoritative tone they take in official communications, for the most part they don't seem to actually be particularly invested in the hard line of national ideology. They uphold it though, viciously, both because things were worse under imperial rule (we don't get hard details on what it was like but it's mentioned in passing enough that I believe it) and because they're scared that if they don't they will be decommissioned and easily replaced. They are literally stamped out of a production line after all. There's a subtext of well, if I don't do it my replacement will anyway and I'm not trying to die so what's the point of rocking the boat?

I think Kolibri stands out to me most clearly on this because in communications from the block warden regarding Ariane there is emphasis put on how it is unacceptable and suspicious that she should be so interested and invested in art and literature that does not serve the purpose of furthering the goals of the nation. But we know that Kolibris themselves are bookworms, Adlers are fiends for stimulating experiences, and both get miserable FAST when deprived of art and puzzles and entertainment and hobbies. Y'know, just like anyone. Far be it from being a paragon of The Nation only interested in productive labor, we are reminded that the block warden, too, hates this shitty town and wants to transfer but is denied. They're hypocrites, but not monsters, nor brainwashed puppets of the state.

The monstrousness at play is not contained within any particular subset of evil individuals, or even an inherent universal force of evil contained in the broad notion of The Nation. There is no cosmic evil force that makes them all do these things to each other. The monstrousness is within the social systems, the mechanisms of how authority perpetuates on a structural procedural level, held in place by fear and tangible threats of violence, each link in the chain restraining the next through those threats out of fear that if they don't, then they'll be next. Regardless how many, if any, of those people in this chain are true dogmatic hardliners, they must act as such because failing to do so opens them up to danger.

Here then I think of the quote that is so prominent, "Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl", from Lovecraft's The Festival. This is not just a chilling abstract visual that conveniently evokes a mineshaft-- in Lovecraft's story, this line refers to worms which ate the decomposing bodies of wizards whose wretched souls had remained after death, complete with the terrible powers they gained through contracts with demons. Those worms inherited both their power, and also the evil. The Nation, despite having overthrown the Empire, is built on imperial technology, in particular Replikas and bioresonance. So too, then, we can imply that The Nation inherited with those things some of the monstrousness of The Empire as well. There is no end of history, nor clean break with the past, no matter how violently it may seem to be rejected. That which remains from the past--and something inevitably always does--creates the present.

This is a game that is not shy about evoking East Germany. And I think all of this provides a sophisticated picture of repressive authority that we rarely see in fiction of the English speaking world, especially in games. The year the S23 incident takes place is notably 84, but, frankly, I find this to be more compelling and illustrative than 1984 (and I'm a librarian and have taught English classes so I get to say that). Orwell, let's be honest, presents a fairly one dimensional picture of authority, where people seize power and wield it against others out of seeming mustache twirling evil or malice.

Here though we get a more humanistic view. Authority did not come from nowhere and is not wielded arbitrarily out of gleeful cruelty or mindless brainwashed allegiance. People aren't "just following orders". Individuals have rich inner lives. They make decisions, and those decisions are based in the context they're in. Even the decision to carry repressive tools of the past into the present is a decision that was made strategically with the big picture in mind. Nobody woke up and decided to be evil that day. Everyone operates on self interest, and, we must assume, an earnest desire for things to get better. Even the [spoiler] program which served as an inspirational demonstration of The Nation's power, you can imagine the chain of officers and bureaucrats who genuinely wanted the people of the nation to believe in the future, to confidently trust that everyone was working together towards something great and beautiful. And, through a long chain of those people who couldn't say "No" without being decommissioned, we ended up with something unbelievably cruel.

We get to know Adler and Kolibri and the other officers not to say well they're human too, maybe it wasn't so bad that they condemned all those people to agonizing suffering, but to remember that if we keep looking for true monsters we will not find them. There are no monsters and there are no demons. There are only people making decisions. A better world is possible. A better world, where Adler is just a paper pusher who does puzzles after work instead of signing papers to authorize torture, where Kolibris are librarians instead of spies and cops, where EULEs can gossip and play piano and ARARs can do maintenance on facilities that don't contain torture rooms, is one that would not have led to the Ariane and Elster's tragic cycle and ultimate end.

Authority and its attendant cruelty is not contained, radiating forth from The Great Revolutionary and Her Daughter, it is within the social systems of control. When those two women die, that cruelty will continue so long as those social systems continue. Like Lovecraft's worms, no matter how long dead the evil of the past is, so long as it continues to be fed upon, that evil will not only remain, but evolve into something new in the present. A better world can't be achieved through the death of the old world alone, even if violent overthrow is warranted. There is no end of history. There is no clean break from the past.

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."

Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

[jesevans]

It’s a Halloween miracle! Stills of Chris with his long hair & beard 🖤🎃🐈‍⬛🧡

Taken from RDJ’s Instagram reel of Avengers stars for Kamala

@evansbby

[freshperfectiondazed]

The story goes during a neighborly hangout (wife and husband) at the neighbors (woman) house the husband (who voted for trump while the women voted for Harris) said to the two ladies while trying to contemplate why someone would vote for Harris, “why are people one issue voters”, (likely due to the fact his wife usually votes republican but voted democrat this election) to which the neighbor gets out of the pool, goes inside her house, and never comes back out so the couple eventually gets out the pool. A few days later the couple wakes up to the this on the neighbors yard facing them.

I, for one, absolutely love this and believe this should be done MORE.

[jasondamien93]

😡😡😡

[djkerr]

💙

"I've got one vote — same as anyone else — and I'm going to use it to move forward. I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris" - Harrison Ford

[thegreatyin]

to put a long story short: at the end of ffxiv's base game, literally Directly before the beginning of its first expansion (heavensward), there is a series of quests and story arcs that eventually snowball into an hour-long cutscene in which the entire thing comes to a head in the literal worst way possible. like, "the hero's plans all go horribly wrong and several major characters die onscreen, with others going missing (presumed dead), eventually culminating in the player character being framed for the murder of the leader of a nation-state and being Literally Forced To Flee The Country" wrong.

heavensward leads directly on from this plotline. you arrive at the major location of the expansion in the midst of seeking asylum whilst being a wanted criminal everywhere else in the world right now. it's like. A Whole Thing. the game makes such a big deal out of it all. the fandom does as well. and for good reason!! it's a really good moment!!!!!!

and then roughly 1/3rds of the way into heavensward you find out that literally none of it mattered. nobody important actually died, no changes were actually made to the status quo, and nothing comes of being literally kicked out of the country for (what is implied to be) several in-universe weeks, if not months. None Of It Mattered. None.

TLDR; the bloody banquet is a major, exciting, and very infamous twist that seems like it's going to segway into a MAJOR upheaval of the status quo and some really intriguing ramifications for the story as a whole... and then heavensward does away with literally all of that and practically writes the entire thing off as a waste of time.

you may be able to see why i'm so salty about it.

[f1amour]

please unfollow me if you disagree with my following opinion;

if you are following me and are from the US please please please go out and vote tomorrow because your voice does matter!!!

i’m voting for a better future and that is why i’m voting tomorrow for kamala harris as the next president of the united states of america. i come from a family of immigrants who came to this country for a better future and who have worked so hard all their life to give me and my siblings a better future. i’m voting for them.

i won’t speak much on the republican candidate because we all know by now what a trash human being he is and has shown us time and time again; he does not care for poc, latinos, and lgbtq+. he especially does not respect women and wants to control their bodies.

vote for democracy!

vote for equality!

vote for harris & walz!

[rosielindy]

My latest action to help get out the vote in Indiana. So many people write to swing states it’s hard to find a way to make an impact where I live. I found this campaign to send letters to voters up in Northwest Indiana, who are likely to vote blue, just to give them a nudge and to encourage them to spread the word so we can get the majority out to vote. I signed up to write 20 letters to start, hoping to do more and get them all sent out this week. My poor arthritic hand shall not fail me. 😂🌊💙

[spnexploration]

Let's not screw this up, eh?

[fwmdks2]

[captkdog]

Patriots Vote.

THE BEST WAY TO SAY "I LOVE AMERICA" IS BY VOTING! THINK OF THE COUNTLESS AMERICANS WHO STRUGGLED, FOUGHT, AND DIED SO THAT YOU COULD LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY -- A LAND IN WHICH WE THE PEOPLE HAVE A VOICE.

THE FOUNDERS CREATED A GOVERNMENT IN WHICH YOUR VOICE MATTERS, BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED THAT *YOU* MATTER.

PLEASE, THANK THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO GAVE YOU A VOICE IN HOW YOU ARE GOVERNED, AND WHO, IN MANY CASES, FOUGHT AND DIED TO GIVE YOU THAT VOICE.

THANK THEM FOR THEIR SACRIFICE BY EXERCISING THE RIGHT ON WHICH EVERY OTHER RIGHT YOU HAVE DEPENDS:

THE RIGHT TO VOTE.

Patriots Vote!

REPOST THIS EVERYWHERE!

vote.org

[feyd-meowtha]

Help me, I'm having a moment

[tenrose]

So you're telling me in the US they put their ballot votes in a box in the streets????

Learnt that because apparently they are being sent on fire which is exactly what I'd expect with that kind of system...

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Edward Helmore at The Guardian:

Progressive groups reacted with disappointment and anger over Jamaal Bowman’s decisive primary loss to a moderate Democrat in New York’s 16th district, calling for the party to cut ties with pro-Israel lobbying groups they blame for the result. In a letter to the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, more than a dozen progressive organizations said they had “dire concerns” over the party’s continued association with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), “the future of the Democratic Party, the future of our multiracial democracy, and the future of our planet”.

Aipac and its affiliates plan to spend $100m across the election cycle, and Bowman’s defeat marks their most significant victory to date. Looking ahead, they have already set their sights set on the Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush, who will face Wesley Bell in her August primary. United Democracy Project, a Super Pac affiliated with Aipac, has already spent nearly $1.9m promoting Bell’s candidacy. The signatories of the letter included the Center for Popular Democracy Action, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, New York Communities for Change and New York City Democratic Socialists of America. In the letter, they said that in the run-up to the vote, UDP had flooded the Westchester county–northern Bronx district with nearly $20m in mailers and ads “funded largely by Republican billionaires, to drown out Jamaal Bowman’s message of humanity, dignity, and a thriving future for all”.

[...] Protect Our Power said in a statement that Bowman’s defeat was a “loss for young people and anyone who cares about our continued movement toward justice, peace, and building a multiracial democracy”. The progressive group blamed “Aipac and the Maga billionaires who recruited and paid for George Latimer’s campaign from start to finish” for the defeat, and vowed “to tell Aipac they have no business creating division in our democracy”. In a separate letter of protest, Jewish Voice for Peace Action said it was “saddened” by the results that had unseated a congressman who “has been one of the few members of Congress committed to defending Palestinian human rights”. “Today is a sad day for American democracy,” said JVP’s political director, Beth Miller. “To protect progressive candidates moving forward it is essential that Democrats reject Aipac,” she added. Bob Herbst, a member of the group and a constituent of NY-16, called Aipac’s multimillion-dollar spend in the district “a dangerous interference in our democracy”.

AIPAC’s influence in American politics is a cancerous rot on America. #RejectAIPAC