#you either vote against fascists or let them take over

[six-paths-of-jeanmarco]

If someone tells you to not vote or to waste your ballot on some pointless protest vote, just take a look at what happened in the eu elections

[mama-qwerty]

As the current fascist regime takes power, and the Cheeto in Chief churns out executive orders like they're going out of style (32 so far and he's only been 'in office' for less than a week), let's keep in mind that executive orders are NOT laws, and there's a very high possibility that many of them will be overturned, either by Congress or by various courts throughout the country.

These are essentially the Cheeto walking into a candy store and saying I want that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that. He may fill his cart to overflowing, but someone is gonna come in and say "WHOA BIG FELLA, you can't have all of those", after which he'll take to whatever social media site he's got in his pocket (spoiler alert, just about all of them now) to whine and pout and throw his tantrum over, likely tossing outrageous claims to shift blame somewhere ridiculous and getting all this suckups clamoring all over themselves to be loudly stupid and distract from all the other illegal things he and his cronies are trying to do.

Don't be discouraged. Don't stop fighting. Don't obey in advance.

And don't get bogged down fighting right-wing idiots that will never see their ignorance. Fighting other average joes isn't going to accomplish anything. They've chosen to be hateful, to be willfully hurtful in an effort to 'own the libs' or whatever it is they tell themselves to justify it. Let them wallow in their own stupidity. There are bigger things to focus on.

Be vigilant. Be calm. Knee jerk reactions aren't helpful. Keep contacting your representatives and tell them you are very much NOT in favor of what the Cheeto's doing or advocating for. Be respectful and mature and professional in your communications with them, but make it very, very clear that his actions do not represent your beliefs or wishes. And maybe a simple sentence like "I do not support the sitting president's policies, nor will I support any other political representative who does, making sure to vote against them--regardless of party--in all upcoming elections" would bring things a little more personal to these politicians.

Our voices are our most valuable asset. Let's use them to very loudly tell those who put this lump of turd in power that we DO NOT CONCEDE, we WILL NOT BEND, and WILL NEVER BOW to this farce of a presidential cabinet.

I know it's hard to see any light right now. I know there's a lot to be afraid of. But we need to keep moving. Keep fighting. Keep pushing back against this darkness.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

I want you all to notice something in the coming days.

Mainstream Media WILL do everything in their power to claim they had nothing to do with this. They will do everything they can to blame "The Right", "White nationalism", "Zionism" or many other things. But they will never actual point the finger where it belongs. As to what I mean let me go over what I believe it likely the cause. And even if I'm wrong, is time others of you on the left take notice.

Dems in the media have said to never give reps a day to rest. To confront them at every turn in person and never let them have peace. Dems have called half the nation, "deplorables" and "Maga extremists". They have called moderates and Republicans Nazis and fascists.

The politicians and the news media ad will add super famous pundits have called people that support either Trump or America First ideals "MAGAts". They have pushed dehumanizing language. Fear. Panic. And most of all, hatred.

If people want to know why we are so divided now a days that answer is simple. The elite globalist class that loves war mostly all joined the Dems, and they started commissioning the news to lie for them, so that they can make you vote for them using fear and lies to control people. Furthering that using the politicians as backup for insane claims. Trump isn't a fascist and he's not anything like Hitler. He's a mouthy business man who's considered running for president for years. And EVERYONE more or less loved this man, until they realized he wasn't on their team. IE: when he ran against war, ran against foreign spending, ran on putting American people first. All things the Dems pretend to be for. Except they aren't.

If the shooter turns out to be a leftist they will do everything in their power to bury this story more than they already are. Headlines like, "Trump rushed off stage after loud noise" or "popping sound heard, Trump ushered off stage" or "Maga angry after commotion in crowd". The Democrats and their aligned media have been calling for this level of violence for years. By programming fear into people. No matter what the cause. No matter who the shooter is? This is the fault of leftists. End of story. They've been begging for this for years now. And it almost happened.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

“Dear Democratic leaders: We need you to take the FIGHT to Donald Trump and the oligarchy he is ushering in to power. Stop being silent--or worse--looking for "common ground" with a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist who attempted a coup and incited the Jan. 6 terrorist attack. If you can’t do that, then step aside because we need fighters, not doormats for the MAGA agenda.” The above is my best effort to sum up the growing anger and frustration I have heard from fellow Democrats since the election—especially now that we are just days from Trump being sworn in. It’s also exactly how I feel.

When Presidents Obama and Biden were about to be sworn in, we didn’t hear Republican leaders declare a desire to find common ground with them. Instead with Biden, GOP leaders of Congress joined with Trump to literally attempt to overturn the 2020 election—and even after the Jan. 6 attack, nearly 150 voted against certifying the results. And with Obama, we heard people like then GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell infamously pledge, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Making the Democrats silence now even more jarring is that leading up to the 2024 election, Democratic leaders literally called Trump a “fascist” and warned he was a “threat to our freedoms and democracy.” So where are the Democratic leaders now about how they will protect our freedoms and democracy from this fascist? Where is the passionate message about the Democratic strategy to stand up to Trump in his second term?! We are not alone in sensing something is deeply wrong with the Democratic leadership. We are seeing a growing number of articles calling out the Democrats silence. Rolling Stone recently featured an article titled, “Democrats are already rolling over Trump,” noting that, “The resistance is over” as many “Democrats signal a new era of enhanced Democratic subservience.”

In Axios, the co-founders of the publication penned an column focusing on, “Trump's ever-expansive power,” noting that “Democratic opposition is weak and largely powerless.” And just a few days ago, former Republican Mona Charen wrote an article for The Bulwark slamming Democratic leaders that began with these two words in all caps: “ENOUGH CAPITULATION!” She continued that Democrats have “responded to the election with acquiescence bordering on servility.”

Yes, there are some Democratic fighters in Congress but what is lacking is a unified strategy! We, Democrats are so desperate for someone to resist that we are overjoyed that Michelle Obama announced this week she refuses to attend Trump’s inauguration. Democrats in Congress shockingly appear to be acting like Trump actually “won in a landslide” and has a “mandate” –a lie Trump and his allies keep peddling. In reality, Trump won less than 50% of the vote (33% of all registered voters to be accurate.) And instead of the GOP gaining seats in the House—which happens in real landslide elections--they had a net loss of one seat meaning they have a three seat margin, which is the smallest majority in nearly 100 years.

One of the worst Democrats in this regard is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman who over the weekend travelled down to Mar-A-Lago to kiss Trump’s ring. It’s one thing for a Senator to meet with Trump in Washington, D.C, but Fetterman made a spectacle of visiting Trump because it helps him politically. (I wish Trump would put Fetterman in his administration, enabling Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro-who is a fighter--to appoint a real Democrat to this Senate seat.) Some of these “let’s give MAGA a chance” Democrats are supporting Trump—or the MAGA agenda on issues like immigration—because they believe it helps them politically. They have put their re-election efforts over protecting us. Please never forget who they are.

[...] But right now, we can each play a role in taking the fight to Trump from getting more involved in grassroots organizations, volunteering on campaigns and even running for office. And for those who want to do something this Saturday, there is the People’s March in Washington, D.C. and in locations across the nation sponsored by a host of groups from The Women’s March to Planned Parenthood to The Sierra Club. Will we see any national Democratic officials speak at these events?! Keith Ellison said something else in our interview that stayed with me about the next few years under Trump: “We're all gonna get tested a little bit.” He’s right. The question is how do each of us respond?! The answer must be: We stand up and fight!

Dean Obeidallah is saying what needs to be said: Democratic leaders and politicians should fight, not coddle, Trump and Trumpism.

[possessesnightshift]

i'm not an eloquent political speech person so im just gonna be direct about this

americans, please please fucking register to vote and vote for joe biden in november

and before you jump to whatever policy thing or weakness of his to counter this plea, just stop. it doesn't actually matter. trump is worse. trump is fucking so much worse

our job from here on out is not only to hold our noses and vote for biden, but also to convince all of our friends family and whoever else to also vote for him in spite of all of his flaws. yes all of them

we need to make the fucking argument that trump is so dangerous, the country would be better off with a drooling old genocide lover whose mental faculties are drying up faster than the sahara desert. we need biden voters to be keenly aware of his shortcomings and refuse to back down. there's no use in pretending biden is still sharp as ever or has this mass grassroots support (he does not). he sucks. he is probably the worst democratic candidate in the party's history.

don't care. trump is worse. he needs to be stopped from taking power by any means necessary. he needs to be STOPPED.

from a non-republican pov, democrats constantly leaning on the "but the other guy is worse" argument is frustrating as all hell. i certainly hate it myself. but what gets lost in the conversation is that the republicans are essentially so beholden to this principle nobody even notices.

i know plenty of small town midwestern republicans who were embarrassed to admit they voted for trump. they voted for him in spite of his nastiness and blatant buffoonery (not in spite of his racism bc they're likely ok with that) because he was on the republican ticket, and to them any republican is better than a woke liberal who wants to take away our gas stoves and force drag queens to read us stories at bedtime

so yeah i kinda don't fucking care at this point

biden is a laughably bad candidate for the election of 2024. any other time he could've run (including 2020) is completely different than now, when he's just too fucking old. so should we just roll over and let him lose? just for trump to finish his term, be biden's current age, and either run for a third term or just stay in power bc the supreme court is on his side and they've been preparing for this for decades? fuck that

actually i think a rotting, pulpy corpse would make a fine president compared to dumbass donald "reality gameshow host" trump. literally if biden dies the day of the election he's still got my vote because it is not for him

the left has to learn to have the tenacity that republicans have. we emulate the right in the worst fucking ways (e.g. closing the southern border for no reason) but we never emulate their pettiness. we never say 'i hate the republicans so much i will willingly vote for someone i kinda hate to spite their smug asses'

remember when trump used to be a joke? remember when he was a giant embarrassment? remember the memes about his illiteracy and his lack of awareness? (see 'covfefe' for more info) trump may have the means to become a brutal dictator, but he relies on people smarter than he is to pull it off

if trump continues to hype up his project 2025 and his fascist ambitions with the swagger and confidence of fdr running against herbert hoover, what does it signal to the rest of the world for that man to LOSE to a corpse with the stamina of a wet flounder? it could stop the fascist momentum in its tracks by associating it with weakness and incompetence (you talk up all this hype and you lose to THAT man?? i guess you must be full of shit huh)

these are fraught times. there's no way to get out of this without letting go of our ideals of a perfect candidate who responds to the political desires of the people. that candidate does not exist and never will

right now we have not just an opportunity to preserve our rotting democracy for a little longer, but something much more special. we can fucking put an end to the trump experiment once and for all. we can make trump wannabes like ron desantis scramble to dissociate their image from the toxicity of the trump administration. we can turn him back into a joke.

at this point im screaming into the wind. no person who isn't already voting for biden is gonna read this far. but i want these words to be here anyway because i think they have value. 2024, 2028, and 2032 are all going to be pivotal election years. we can't wait around. we have to act NOW.

vote rotting fish 2024. i will plug your nose with a clothes pin if you refuse to do so yourself...

[mistprints]

I think people forgot how terrorized we were under Trump 2016 to 2020. This guy was threatening war daily and ruining our alliances. He made all the worst choices for both not-rich Americans and the world: America is like it or not, a major influence on world affairs. He is not a leader.

We don’t need a president who colludes with our enemies, and wastes our money and plays the most important office of the nation like a popularity contest. He only ran for attention and publicity back then. Now he’s running to stay out of jail and turning Americans against one another better than any foreign adversary. If he wins, he will only try to ensure he never leaves. Rules have been twisted and thrown out in his favor. He is a felon. Felons can’t vote, let alone take office in this country. But once again, people in charge are scared to deny him. They just let that slide, as well as the threats and how he wanted to abolish the constitution and how he incited an attack on our capital on false pretenses.

His supporters do not care that he lies to them because he talks a good game, or they are willing to excuse 90% of the bad for one policy they agree with. Loyalists don’t want to be wrong and double down; they don’t want a qualified woman as president, or they just have to vote for their party no matter what, not taking the time to see why people are against him and why it is not in their best interest to select him. They feel like they have no choice but to stick with him even harder because he’s speaking to them at a time where they feel villainized and ostracized. They vote for him to preserve a sense of identity that he’s selling them and will fall into groups negatively affected by his ignorant choices.

Misinformation does not help. Stirring in fighting and mistrust does not help. Rallying around a politician for their party affiliation alone can make people choose arbitrarily. Echo chambers online trap unsuspecting voters into not having an informed opinion. Politicians being allowed to lie and then sit back as that spreads: even once information corrects this, the initial story is just more powerful.

They know Political ads and sensationalist headlines may be the only voting information certain voters will ever see and they’re allowed to lie and twist the truth in their favor with no consequences. They are banking on it sticking in people’s minds long enough and then just denying when it’s fact checked.

Not to mention everything with project 2025. Anyone not rich will be negatively affected by this. There are excuses that it is “over exaggerated and won’t be that bad”. Do not fall victim to this thinking.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them. Don’t make excuses for his insane, fascist, anti-democracy rhetoric. He’s only in it for himself and to save his ass. He does not believe in a fair election and has already decided he has won and if he does not, it’s rigged. That is a major red flag to not accept results as they are. Not trusting the count is the first deception. America has a lot wrong, but you still need to make a good faith effort to try under the system we have.

You don’t have to like either candidate, but right now, this is far more serious than not liking Kamala for single issue policies. Vote to preserve democracy as we know it, because it will not last under Trump.

[savefrog]

Hi! I shouldn't assume that being a longtime follower means I know you but I gotta unfollow anyone engaging in "vote blue no matter who" rhetoric and figured I'd say so on my way out. You have every right to do whatever w electoral politics and I agree there's a level of pragmatism to voting. But like, are you saying that about the USA Dems?? They're bombing Gaza to the point of genocide as we speak! Even if you're not proud of that fact, what would be the aim of such a vote? I doubt anyone of any party committing war crimes can be pushed by freely given votes, no?

You're welcome to unfollow. But essentially I'm entirely on the pragmatism end here.

Me saying vote blue in this case is not going "woohoo ok dems i love everything you do, do whatever!!!!"

it's a matter of "red quite LITERALLY wants to remove all ability to protest and say this shit is wrong".

see summary of Trump on shutting down the ability to protest

blue is not entirely clean on this matter either but i would take getting run over by a motorbike over getting run over by a truck.

I would like to preserve the ability to say the government sucks ass and while I totally get where people are coming from when they don't want to vote dem...I'd say that abstaining from voting to "send a message" is akin to complete silence in this current election climate especially considering the stakes, and there are a lot of other ways to get a message across that isn't passively allowing the literal white supremacist in - who by the way said BIDEN of all people was too soft on Palestine and that he wanted Israel to hurry up and "finish the job":

source (It is also recorded on various other news sources)

Though frankly I agree with this quote here, from an article that is also critical of Harris and Biden:

“Trump would be the worst,” Asmaa Nimilaat, 50, said from a hospital where thousands of people are sheltering in Deir el-Balah, an area in central Gaza. “But any candidate that becomes president will not support Palestinians.”

The USA as an entire machine is so heavily invested in Israel it's hard to imagine a pro-palestinian president ever being elected. That is why I said the election is "picking your opponent".

The ideal situation is a complete rework of the US. As much as not voting FEELS like protest here...it is not going to do anything meaningful in this regard. It is indistinguishable from a non-vote from someone who couldn't get off work or was screwed out of an accessible voting location by red bullshit or just skipped out of apathy.

But we can at least not let the guy in whose ideal is to restructure the government to only allow fascist kiss ups in, heavily criminalize any opposing voices and militarize against them, has already set a new standard to allow the executive branch to do "What the fuck crime ever", and continue to use poc and lgbt in the US as a scapegoat and target of violence to radicalize his people. And then CONTINUE to protest and make pressure.

By all means I'd say no matter someone's plans for the actual voting day, TELL democractic nominees you're undecided and will not vote if they don't call for a ceasefire that lasts more than 10 minutes.

You can do whatever, but im personally not interested in a situation I see as letting conservatives take what is already bad and making it 3000 times worse and 80x less improvable and I guess I would encourage others if they can stomach it to make that same consideration rather than treat the election like a moral pageant. If they truly believe not voting will actually send a message, cool. But I want people to think really hard on whether it will. And then for the love of god don't stop at just voting.

If anything I encourage people to vote dem in state elections if only because there are dems right now trying to make ranked voting a thing, so that we can finally be free from having to vote dem at all and actually make it viable to pressure them in ballots!!!!

[viking369]

Goodbye salvrun. They and I were having a debate on Original Intent (OI) and Strict Construction (SC). Then the following happened. I let this rattle around in my noggin for over a day, and then I decided to take steps. 1) Salvrun wrote, "Constitutional Originalism/Strict Constitutionalism is neutral on/irrelevant to adding or changing the constitution." I'm sorry, but this is bullshit. Both OI and SC were created by lawyers and jurists for the rentier class with the express intent of blocking the use of federal power for the benefit of common citizens, and they have been used almost uniformly for that purpose. To characterize them as "neutral" in any way is either centrist, both-sidesing toolism or rentier class trolling. I ran out of time for both in college, and that was a very long time ago. 2) Salvrun then wrote, "There are provisions for revision in it, after all." Yes, there is an amendment procedure in the Constitution. It was created for emergency situations, and it is next door to impossible. 13, 14, and 15 almost didn't pass, and that was immediately after putting down an insurrection that necessitated them. Then it took another 70 years just to give women the vote. And they still don't have full constitutional rights because the ERA failed (Courtesy religio-fascists like Phyllis Schlafly. And since you're all too young to remember, I'll note she was one of the Reich Wingers who secured the nomination for Goldwater in 1964.), and the only reason they have the rights they have is because the Warren Court decided 14th Amendment due process should count for more than a pinch of pig shit. 3) THEN salvrun wrote, "What it is against is revision of the document outside the process of those provisions. You can’t just one day say that a line in the constitution means or covers something it was never considered to before, let alone by the drafters of the given section." That is Strawman City. NO ONE is saying you can simply flip things over like that. Oh wait, that IS what Grand Inquisitor Alito did in Dobbs and what Don Scalia did in Heller, which just shows OI/SC proponents don't really give a flying, foaming fuck what the Constitution says or what the Founders intended. And salvrun ignores this. 4) Salvrun closed with, "The thing in itself, the idea of the document, is the intent of the law. The written lines themselves is the wood in this metaphor." Oh sweet zombie Jesus on a pogo stick. First, as noted above, OI/SC proponents care not a whit about either the text or the intent. Don Scalia's opinion in Heller is a classic, reading the introductory clause out of the Second Amendment (Think I'm exaggerating? Until the NRA started its gun campaign in the early 70s, no one, and I do mean NO ONE, thought local jurisdictions couldn't regulate open and concealed carry. Want some evidence? Do you know what the proximate cause of the Gunfight at the OK Corral (which wasn't at the OK Corral, but let's put that aside for the moment) was? Tombstone had an ordinance requiring all firearms be checked at the marshal's office. The Cowboys had not done so (quelle surprise), and the Earps and Doc went down to enforce the ordinance. In the roughly three million and twelve pages of comments on that event, no one has alleged the Cowboys' Second Amendment rights were being violated. Because we FUCKING KNEW BETTER!).

Second, and this is important, so pay attention, the flexibility of the Constitution was a big selling point from the start. Let's start with the Federalist Papers (Because everyone starts with the Federalist Papers, although that is just a crock of shit. The Federalist Papers were advocacy, one half of a newspaper op-ed debate. But we never look at the other side. Nor do we ever look at the debates in the state legislatures that actually turned the Constitution into law through ratification. But then OI/SC advocates are not really interested in either OI or SC. Hmm, are you keeping up, salvrun?). Even though Hamilton and Madison ended up despising each other with extreme prejudice, they agreed that one of the big selling points for the Constitution was it could be interpreted flexibly. Not so flexibly as the UK Constitution (Since we had sovereign states, we couldn't have Congress simply dictating what the Constitution was.), but flexible enough that we could make things work. That's why there is judicial review. Hells, without it wouldn't have (have had) Roe. We wouldn't have Griswold. We wouldn't have Loving. We wouldn't have Heart of Atlanta. We wouldn't have Brown. Hells, we wouldn't have judicial review.

So all I can say to salvrun is, "Guess what, you're part of the problem," and

[pickle-the-lad]

Let's face it, nobody is happy with the politics of our world right now. It doesn't matter if you are a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community or a far-right wing fascist or anything in-between those two points. Absolutely nobody who is sane is actually looking forward to voting for either Trump or Kamala in November. What the hell kind of choice is that? Trump claims he created the vaccine that he now campaigns against, while failing to drain the swamp, build the wall or do anything else he said he would do. Kamala is a former cop who falsely sent innocent black men like Jamal Trulove to prison and now she wants to be president by hoping we hate Trump enough to overlook her flaws. Both of these people will continue to cater to big corporations and send money to nations that wage wars on brown people for political points. You can't tell me you really think either of these people deserve to be president!

You are going to say that we have no choice, we must vote for the lesser of two evils. But you are wrong. We do have a choice. We just need to get a grassroots movement going for a write-in candidate. And you and I both know someone famous and deserving enough for the job. That's right! You know the "Tumblr famous" person I'm talking about! r4cs0!

I'm sure you know r4cs0 since he is widely known as the "Tumblr famous" blogger responsible for such memorable posts as the Metal Gear Solid twerking simulator and the post which resulted in the Tumblr developers implementing Tumblr Live! What you may not know is that his real name is Carlos Albuquerque and he has political experience serving on the Idaho Wolf Depredation Control Board (IWDCB)! r4cs0 is the only candidate who cares about the concerns of his fellow Tumblr users!

If elected President of the United States, r4cs0 will implement many immediate reforms! He will end all foreign wars by launching tactical nuclear strikes on their capital cities, effectively ending both sides in every conflict. r4cs0 knows the pain of student debt, as he himself is still trying to pay off his loans from his degree in gender critical anthropology, so he will prevent the government from collecting these loans by personally killing every employee of the department of education. As a Mexican immigrant himself, r4cs0 has a definitive plan to address immigration reform. Every person in the U.S. will lose their citizenship and have to reapply! Most importantly of course, r4cs0 will ensure that every last wolf on earth is finally hunted down and eradicated once and for all!

So in November, remember: r4cs0 for Prez!

No💖

There's no way to get enough write-in using a username for them to win. Please don't spread this all over Tumblr expecting people to vote for a Tumblr user that no one knows about.

Sadly, with how our system is, we have to vote for the lesser of two evils no matter what you say.

I understand the pipe dream, but my goodness, I have no idea who this person is, and you're asking me to write them in!! No one is flawless, even your preferred "candidate".

Add on the fact that you can't just write in a username and expect them to take it!! You literally have no idea how this works. I would be surprised if you're not 13 years old... at the end of the day, your suggestion will just put Trump in office.

[maxisanangrywell]

Okay, so. I've had to delete a ton of asks because of my Leftist Rant post which can be found on my page. A lot of them were rude, from both sides of the aisle, and I want to present you all with the fucking FACTS since people (Tiktok/Online leftists) think I'm making this shit up or being weak or a "nazi sympathizer".

So, let's proceed with the facts, shall we?

Nic Sumners, a 21-year-old cosmetic car repairman from Virginia, says he is pro-choice. But when he voted in the 2024 presidential election, he did so for Donald Trump.

Despite his personal beliefs, he says that Trump talks about the American people in a way that resonates with him, without—in his opinion—faulting him for his gender and sexual orientation.

“I’m a straight white man, and I feel like we take the blame for a lot of things,” Sumners says.

“Of course there are bad guys,” he adds, insisting he’s not one of them just because he voted for Trump. But what appealed to him about Donald Trump was that “his campaign was not coming after us. He was highlighting the American people, which we are. It doesn’t matter what color you are, what you may identify as. Since I wasn’t excluded, I resonated with it.” -- Galmour Article

Wow! Lookie there!! Oh, but there's more!

The macho energy of the Trump presidential run -- eschewing political correctness, "wokeness" or other forms of liberal handwringing -- won over plenty of Black men, despite the campaign's outright racism at times.

As Democrats embark on their postmortem, trying to figure out what went wrong, there won't be one simple explanation.

Among Black men under 45, about three out of 10 voted for Trump -- double the rate of the 2020 vote and blowing yet another hole in the Democrats' traditional base.

But "Black and Latino men could possibly overlook the racism of the Trump campaign because Trump appealed to their sense of machismo," Vigil offered. --

It's almost like what I was saying has truth in it, because surprise!!! I actually am in a very conservative family and talk to these people on a daily basis. Now my household, and immediate family is very left leaning with the exception of my brother. Everyone else, including AROUND ME is either far left or Trump supporters/conservatives.

Unlike you internet lefties, I don't live in an echo chamber and actually try to educate the people around me. While you're over there, complaining about being in a fuckig blue state, I'm here on the ground, talking to people and finding out WHY they didn't vote for Kamala. Each person says the same thing, it's largely not about abortion, or sexism or anything.

Young men felt PUSHED OUT by the Harris-Walz campaign, and Trump like the fascist his party is, picked up on that way to win. And he catered towards those men DESPITE the racism. And it fucking worked, we saw it fucking work in real time.

Am I asking you to grab a neo-nazi's hand and fucking sing kumbaya? No. Of fucking course not. Am I asking you to be kind and have the barest hint, the SEMBLANCE of fucking empathy? Yes. That's it, just be fucking KIND.

I don't know where most of you got this idea in your head that there needs to be a bloody violent revolution. That's not going to happen. If it does we will all be killed. Your glorification of violence will get you killed. Stand your ground in the face of hatred, but be fucking kind and educate those that cannot properly do it themselves.

You leave these people in these groups because they voted for that man, and guess what happens? They go further into it. They start believing it is truly them against the world. They don't break out of that. They go further, get more radicalized. That's when you have mass shooters. That's when you have those guys in ski masks walking down the fucking street waving a nazi flag.

It's not hard to understand, or wrap your mind around. If you did actual reading, if you did ACTUAL ground work, you'd see you can't just fucking cut them off like that and you should have been challenging their beliefs almost every fucking time they opened their mouths about it.

Is it exhausting? Fucking hell yes. It's emotionally and physically taxing. But you know what it does? Saves us from this shit that we're in now. Black women and Indigenous people have been doing this shit for ages. Now it's time for EVERYONE to fucking do it. Stop acting like a revolutionary, you're going to get us all fucking killed.

I'm so sick of this, genuinely. I feel like the smartest fucking person in the room sometimes because Hunger Games and Divergent mixed with the Handmaid's Tale has rotted your fucking brains. Read actual shit, like By any Means Necessary, Malcolm X. Or fucking Martin Luther King Jr. Angela Davis. Fascism in Big Business. Fucking ANYTHING. Read shit that was done by Nazi's, detailing their descent into fascism and how their entire family got swept into it and how they realized later they were the fucking issue.

Read shit from former KKK members, former Neo Nazis. You should be reading EVERYTHING. Not getting breakdowns on radicalization on people who have NEVER been radicalized. It's like someone rapping about being a black guy in compton while they live in Upstate New York as a White girl. They aren't speaking from THEIR lived experience. Of course they're going to fall into misinformation.

It's not fucking hard to be a kind person. You're not the mean girl or bullied nerd in highschool anymore. Grow the fuck up and be kind. Our very fucking humanity depends on it.

[lorbanery]

There is no such thing as a morally pure politician that can get things done.

I'll take that even further: There's no such thing as a "morally pure" politician. Period.

Because there's no such thing as a "morally pure" person.

Because "morally pure" is a philosophical concept that cannot exist in reality where real people have to navigate the real world and have to interact with people and entities they find morally reprehensible, or didn't know they've done something morally reprehensible, or that may do something morally reprehensible in the future.

Sure, it's important to be informed about a politician's career history.

But that's clearly not the intention here. That little "Not to be a debbie downer" opening line makes it really clear from the start that the whole point of the post is to convince people that it's bad to support Walz.

And on top of that, like, none of you all know this man. I don't either, I've only been to MN once in my life. None of us know why he's made the decisions he did in his life or his career. But you sure are making wild conjectures, though, and it shows from the way all of those bullet points are framed. Nevermind that debunked reblog.

So let me ask this: What was the point of this post? Like, yes, to convince people it's bad to support the VP pick. But, like, why? What did you want to happen?

Harris isn't going to pick a different VP just because his popularity takes a dip on Tumblr.

If Walz does make some kind of statement about any of this it'll be because an actual news outlet brings it up.

I'll tell you what will and did happen, though.

It did provide a semi-legitimate-seeming platform for bad-faith actors to jump onto to add completely fabricated receipts, to make him look even worse.

And It will appear on the dashboards of other people with this same simplistic view of morality that any proximity to immoral acts and organizations is unacceptable, no matter the complicated nuance involved, and convince them to not vote, or to vote third party. Instead of the actual thing that will work: Voting for the only candidate that will keep the fascist party from gaining power.

Think before you make these callout posts. Really think, realistically, what it is they're actually going to accomplish, and what you want them to accomplish.

'Cause I'll tell you what, you best believe I am going to blame all of you moral high horse riders right alongside the fascists you're empowering if the fascists take over in the fall and start the process of destroying my family. If they make IVF illegal and destroy my chances of ever giving birth? If they rip our toddler away from our queer, trans asses? If they start endorsing violence against marginalized people?

That will be on your "morally pure" hands. Hope you can live with that.

Not to be a debbie downer but Tim Walz was in the military for 24 years, including during the Iraq war. He called the national guard on protestors following the George Floyd murder. He supports Israel. He's approved an oil pipeline across indigenous lands that break treaties.

It's weird to celebrate a man who goes against all leftist values

[solarbird]

[Original on Twitter] [transcript]

nnnNNGNGH I shouldn't be doing this so late but I keep not doing it so

OKAY. You know what's happening with Pence and the 25th Amendment, right?

Let's go over it real quick.

-----

He keeps (reportedly) going back and forth on yanking Trump via the 25th Amendment.

Really, he _really_ doesn't want to. He's already facing the base's wrath. This would push them even further over the top and so honestly I kinda get it. Shit's gonna be even scarier for him.

-----

But he knows he should. And the Democrats know he should. And this whole impeachment timetable, sure, some of it is legit rules issues.

But some of it is also trying to force him to go ahead and do it. Pull him out via the 25th Amendment - or we'll impeach. Again.

-----

Difference is: this time, the Senate will convict. I'm pretty sure. I think they're pretty sure too. Not sure about removal, definite on the "no more runs for president" part.

The fact that _this_ is happening is the _only_ reason Pence is still thinking about the 25th. As things fall apart, remember how we got here.

-----

If the possibility of imminent impeachment goes away, so will ANY talk of the 25th Amendment solution. The Senate GOP do _not_ want to have to take that vote. Not again, not with what's happened.

-----

It's either political suicide (defend the seditionist fascist) or political suicide _and_ personal danger (convict/disallow future runs for office).

That's the beast they've created.

That's not what it should be about, but it is.

-----

They have to make this choice, and of them, _for them_, the 25th Amendment is the _least_ personally damaging. They need to talk Pence and the remaining cabinet into removing Trump that way, to avoid the fallout from the trial.

-----

And that's the _politics_ reason why the Democrats need to be charging full-steam ahead on impeachment, and why _we_ need to be hammering the Democrats constantly not to let up.

I mean _constantly_. Hi, @RepDelBene - impeachment. NOW.

-----

Because I've seen too much of this crowd working for too long. If they can scuttle their way out of definite action? Most of them will.

This is one of those rare moments when nonstop bombardment - tweets, phone calls, email, whatever - can matter.

Do. Not. Let. Up.

-----

Because Tr*mp cannot be allowed to finish his term. He's got to go. 25th amendment or impeachment - or at least impairment against running again - these HAVE. TO. HAPPEN.

-----

Because either way, we've got a fascist insurgency now. The question is whether their orangefarbener Anführer is involved in 2024, and whether we get to do all this - all _this_ - again.

On top of everything else.

We can't have that.

Impeach. Remove. Now.

[swamp-world]

anyways. if... (1968). how to talk about it. tired ramblings below the cut. again, big TWs for a lot of stuff.

im slowly in the process of rewatching it because i just havent had the time lately. it just...strikes me as such a strange film for what it is. i dont remember much, frankly. i remember the general idea, the general vibe, i think there was a lot i was too young to understand the first watch.

the first thing that comes to mind in this film is the idea of the school shooting. they didnt call it such, no, but that’s what we would call it today. as a film made in 1968, it’s morbid and horrendous that they created an event in an overdramatized film, clearly meant to be divorced from reality, clearly satirical in every way, and that by the end of the century, Columbine would happen, and within the 21st century, school shootings became a regular event in america. a cursory search shows that there certainly were instances of school violence before this (a man shot a student in a dorm; a principal shot colleagues, etc.) but none so sensationalized or arguably senseless as those in Brenda Spencer, as Columbine.

and that’s where this film walks a tightrope. there are multiple ways to see the film and all of them are true in at least part.

1. many will recognize malcolm mcdowell from his role in A Clockwork Orange. many will recognize that as a film that white american men tend to look to aspirationally instead of with horror, as it was designed. same vein as the matrix, fight club, the joker, etc. this movie is where he got a lot of his character inspiration from. and there’s definitely that same idea of the disillusioned loner who, if given a gun, can make enough of a revolutionary difference in a world that has wronged him

2. is this supposed to be a good thing? the film seems conflicted itself at times. the teachers are in the wrong, certainly. oh, that’s without question. it doens’t paint the violence as aspirational, i dont think. i do think that there’s this idea of a fictionalized, sensationalized and glorified revolution, fighting back against the school system and society

3. this was part of a “series” that was satirizing british school, healthcare, and capiatlism. make of that what you will.

4. it predates monty python as well but absolutely demonstrates much of the same humouor and influence and aims. i can’t explain the surrealness of it.

5. the disillusioned students aren’t disillusioned for no reason. the school system strips them of their character, reduces them to family names and no personality, turns a blind eye to abuse at the level of peers, encourages harmful hierarchies within the student body that involve active abuse and corporal punishment, and aims to produce machines instead of people. this is an understandable reason to be upset. it’s something we still grapple with today.

6. the context of the school shooting in the film absolutely must, for my intentions here, be separated as much as possible from our modern conception of the school shooting. the ones that we encounter in the modern world are certainly a product of the issues that the film brings up, but i want to do my best to look at it in its own time, as much as i am able to with my limited knowledge

7. the modern school shooter tends to be a “lone-wolf” domestic terrorist, and i will not hesitate to call them such. they tend to be incels, white, straight, young men who perceive themselves as being rejected by women, or who are motivated by alt-right and fascistic beliefs and goals. these are acts meant to inspire terror in those populations. i would certainly classify these as hate crimes, since that’s their primary motivation. in If... on the other hand, they are very clearly attacking the system of british education itself and the people who perpetuate it. (in a lot of situations, this isn’t inherently much different from the way that a lot of modern school shooters see themselves: important to consider.) rather than being violence deliberately directed at the students, it’s specifically on Speech Day, where parents, administration, faculty, etc. are all present. These are the people in power; these are the ones who send their children to these schools, who fund them, who run them, who allow, encourage, and enact the violence. it is not an aimless violence, nor is it a hate-motivated violence.

8. the shooting in the film is meant to be farcical and satirical. who would have imagined, in 1968, that this scene, meant to be the pinnacle of overdramatized and hyperviolent revolution in a satirical manner, not meant remotely to approach reality, would become something that people avoid watching because it has in fact happened to them? in 1968, who would have predicted Brenda Spencer, Columbine, Stoneman Douglas, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech? there was one significant school shooting in 1966, in Austin, that killed 28 and was the deadliest mass shooting for 18 years. but, and while this doesn’t diminish the violence, i want to emphasize that that took place at a university in america, not at a boarding school in england. the fundamental difference between the concept of adults, former military, gunning down 28 people; and a set of schoolchildren taking over the boarding school’s armoury and shooting at the headmaster, having been taught how to shoot those very guns on that very schoolground, is an extreme difference.

9. so, the shooting is designed to be an act of violence, targeting a system that the film paints as being actively harmful and deserving of a takedown, using the very weapons that the school taught them to use but never anticipated to have turned on them, and created in a farcical light: the idea that “this won’t happen, it’s too outrageous to be real”.

10. how do we take this these days? it seems, in many ways, like very little has changed. oh, corporal punishment isn’t practiced (or at least, not sanctioned, but certainly practiced). students are still molded to machine standard on the basis of class and aspirations spoon-fed to them by their parents. there’s still a significant divide between the working class and the capitalist class. there’s still rage simmering at the way that students have been abused by their schools. the violence that was seen as being overexaggerated at the time became a reality for a completely different set of revolutionary reasons, and the film balances the same tightrope as the matrix, as fight club, etc., between being commentary and satire that violent men will mark as aspirational and true rather than satirical and a warning

11. (that’s not to touch on the misogyny of the film)

this is apparently voted one of the best british films of all time, but that doesn’t mean much a lot of the time. it being a best voted doesn’t mean it’s popular or common or well known among people outside of britain, or outside of that generation; it doesn’t mean it was understood and received as intended.

the other thing i want to bring up about the film is the question of reality. the whole thing is so surreal and strange that the line between reality and imagination begins to blur regularly, but particularly near the end. there’s the question of whether this shooting actually happened in the film, or whether it was merely a twisted fantasy of mcdowell’s character. frankly, i would say that it doesn’t matter if it’s real, according to the movie or not. it genuinely doesn’t. this is what we as the audience see, and the intent is the same: either the boy is so driven to this violence that he actually does it, or he’s so driven to it that he fantasizes vividly about doing it. the point of it is still the same. it isn’t our job to know reality from fantasy; it’s possible that if it’s made up, the character himself isn’t aware of that. of course the film won’t make sense, it’ll be muddled and confusing and unrealistic, it’s satire and meant to bend the rules of reality to make a point. (those rules of reality included: schoolchildren do not use semiautomatic weaponry on their own schools. except for in texas, it does not happen.)

so what’s this to do with dark academia? let me answer that when it’s not 4am.

[dwestfieldblog]

A VERY REMOTE ENGLISH TEACHER

Where meditations, rants, reverie and absent seizures cross over... closer to one gun with one bullet, the rose of ruby and the cross of gold...uff, and MENTACIDE IN THE TIME OF MASQUES. Although I have never suffered from the guilty masochistic torture of ‘pleasure anxiety’, Bacchus hath indeed drowned more men than Neptune.  So I stopped drinking for 18 days to fool myself I was doing something positive and threw away enough things to be minimalist again. Arf. Beauty and/or function uber alles.  

Been treading water for three years and trying not to drown...big round of one hand clapping for the former poet. Meanwhile, in this temporary world and perception I have created of it, I am looking at a very possible exile one way or the other...my ‘plan’...a long phased withdrawal or hasty retreat. My wish is to stay, but once I leave, it might well be very hard to return.  Read as many metaphors as you want into that but in spite of my dislike of the conservatively minded Aristotle’s ‘either/or’ nonsense, there do indeed appear to be only two this time. And appear is the operative word. Appearances can be deceptive and emotions (unless raised and focused) cloud over what should be clear. Pain has a tendency to breed worry and fear too but let’s draw a veil over that for now eh? Suppress, suppress, release comes later...breathe deep and try not to cough, onward we go where the game gets rough...Just like Tom Thumbs Blues 65.  

Remember Roman Protasevich...As Lukasenko himself said...‘Belarus stood at the edge of an abyss and I helped it take a step forward’. Look good on your tombstone that will Al. Fecking outrageous the Indian PM only admitted in May that covid was transmitted in the air. He needs removing... as do two thirds of all the other world leaders East and West. Hello Bollsanaro. People are very easy to manipulate when they’re are scared or angry...and right now the world majority are both. But, ‘there is a crack in everything... that’s how the light gets in’... and ‘things could change’, doesn’t have to be for the worse. It can take decades to realise this as actual truth, but still nice to read and try internalise the following last week.’The odds actually favour the optimists, since dissipate structures are more likely to evolve into more information rich (intelligent?) forms than into primitive or chaotic forms.’ All my friends bar my best one are optimists..Hello you:-)

Ever onward deeper downward with Orban in Hungary and his mission of ‘Christian values’, which involves a familiar routine of arresting, beating and disappearing dissenters in the name of Christ and taking over the universities to replace professors with those who understand on which side their bread is buttered. Decent judges long gone. Nice fascist communism...and ex soldiers in France and the Czech republic warning of civil war...

And now spiraling we go into the black hole vortex of Disaster capitalism, ‘Let the bodies pile high’. There’s gold in them thar ills....ISLAND PARANOIA and PERFIDIOUS ALBION! A country which demands a contract, agrees, signs to it and then refuses to honour it. We look worse than ridiculous, we look deceitful. Gentlemen, your places please. Boris Johnson is a clumsy, inept, disgraceful charlatan, con merchant and LIAR. A blustering master bullshit artist, the only decent thing about his recent secret wedding is that now he legally has one less bastard child.  

Recently I read that British people are displaying signs of Stockholm syndrome...in that they dislike those who hold power over them and make the rules but during the time of pandemic, they are the ones who will release the saviour vaccine and get everything moving again. So rather than rocking the boat and daring to express dissent at the DIABOLICAL handling of the last 18 months, they have mostly kept quiet and voted for the same endlessly failing, corrupt and venal politicians who made a bad situation far worse. (That said, it bears repeating that there are a few million in the UK who didn’t quite understand that that the spread of a highly contagious airborne virus can be slowed by the wearing of masks/applying basic hygiene and even took offence at being told what should have made sense to any adult homo SAPIENS half capable of cogitating for themselves. Morons and scum. Same where you are?

By the way BBC...the colossal dearth of stories about the endless government failures in relation to Covid, death, corruption and the NHS...ever since they blackmailed you with threats of revoking the TV licence fee and got you to change Directors has been noted. Long may Have I Got News For You continue the satire and balance needed in a DEMOCRACY. Obey your public servants? Why, when they do not serve few but themselves? Power OF the people? Which ones...the mob? The same bleating pricks who follow populists?

Four eyed beanpole fop Rees Mogg, with his wonderful line that the benefits of Brexit will be seen ‘over the next fifty years’...well yes, that is why most people vote in democratic elections eh?...So they will be dead or ancient before the change they hoped for comes...and the politicians who lead them now, will have all long moved on to revolving door chairman of the board offshore limited liability company paradise. Bread today jam tomorrow fairytales. What I tell you three times is true.  

O, but the English do so love to be told what to do by dumb posh boys who treat them like dirt. Some are forelock tugging and some are self flagellating middle class upper class wannabes who will never get there but still feel proud they are not street level proles. Doby the house elf alien hamster Michael Gove found guilty of breaking the law. Nothing. Internal inquiries run by those connected to the money changing hands find nothing illegal. Corruption for all to see...and ignore. ‘Well, what can we do?’ The uselessly inept serial failure Dido Harding to be in charge of the National Health Service? (she of the collapsed Woolworths, Talk Talk and the 22 BILLION pound loss of the Covid Track and Trace program where non working consultants/insultants, were paid 1000 pounds a day). American style privatisation is coming where only the wealthy or criminal can afford to be repaired and well. Sick.  

Meanwhile, All our imported nurses out, and all the lobster red fat Spanish costa de la sol criminals back in. Great exchange, fair trade and forward thinking. The Kremlin are manipulating/supporting Scottish independence... I read years ago about their base in Edinburgh for Russia Today (the foul insert in The Daily Telegraph) and they were already encouraging it. Rees Smug has accelerated and supported their freedom with his snobbish utterances on countries in the UK other than England and their ‘foreign languages’. With every patronising, arrogant pronouncement, the Eton trifles fuel the fire in Scotland which has a long bitter history of being tortured, murdered and subjugated by their southern masters. Perhaps the chumocracy in Downing Street believe the Celts to be as easily cowed as the middle and working classes down south. Here’s hoping not. ‘Rebellious Scots to crush’? Not this time pal.

As for the future of Britain? A dystopian open prison where the lower social classes toil only at the pleasure of their masters. The higher caste getting richer and all others cast into a living Hell of debt, crime, and sickness. Serve until you die and be thankful we allow you to exist. Increasing in utter irrelevance to the world, other than as an example of how wrong a former democracy can go. This future started decades ago...its baobab roots truly deep now. Better education and critical thinking for the masses in the UK (or anywhere else) is highly unlikely now. Optimism huh? As long as I am not in England, I will still be able to tap into it, but once enclosed long term in the group mind there...trapped in a grey quagmire. Keep smiling...

Several weeks ago, I watched a video on YT of apparently English protestors running after the police in London, some attacking and throwing things, one pulling off the pandemic mask of an officer and all shouting abuse at the outnumbered cops who had to keep pulling back. As always, to get my caffeine rush of fury going, I read the comments and was surprised to see two or three from Chinese names. Almost all comments were against the government (fair enough) and dumb against the lock down, masks, vaccinations etc. Checking again, I saw the video had been posted by CGTN...a media company owned and run by the communist party in Beijing...and not one author of diatribes had mentioned this, nor speculated with a critical thought as to why such an organisation might enjoy turning people against their own democratically elected government (however mind rippingly foul and corrupt they are).

I copy pasted the Wikipedia paragraph about the company onto the page and hoped someone else would make the connection. I wouldn’t mind so much IF there were a credible and decent alternative other than the diseased populist poison for which the demonstrating goons chant. China really cares about the standard of democracy in Britain eh? Persuade your enemies to weaken themselves. Destroying countries by encouraging their ‘patriots’.

(That was written on the anniversary of Tienanmen Square...a few days later Xi Jinping gave a speech saying ‘...a lovable and respectable’ China must be presented to the world and must ‘expand its circle of friends’. Tell that to your teenage ‘dissidents’, Muslims, Falun Gong and Tibetans being tortured and brainwashed in prisons or being used for organ harvesting. Tell it to Hong Kong and Taiwan.) 

Unholy America...against abortion and the pill, sex education’s not Gods will and in the Name of Christ they kill...if truth be known, we’ve failed the test...but Jesus was a Socialist and Republican conservatives hate them. The founding fathers of America were Very clear about separation of church and state with damn good Reason. Another part time Christian, Mike Pompeo wants to be president. Q Onan deepstorm morons/Kremlin stool pigeons aka POLEZNYYE IDIOTY continue to push for Trump and his Big Lie...He with the brain where ‘In the left, nothing is right and in the right, nothing’s left.’ Arf.

Over the last two decades, the dumb have been finding their voice and are now louder and prouder of their dumbass ignorance. 74 million in the US alone, their egos unable to retreat in the face of endless evidence to the contrary, they all double down. Like children sticking their fingers in their grimy ears sing songing ‘la la la can’t hear you’. 74 million versions of Eric Cartman, loud, proud and wrong. And uuff, Megan Markle,  Majorie Taylor Greene, walking Picasso collage (bad car driver) Caitlin Jenner and Ivana Trump in politics...not exactly holding a proud lantern for women eh? I’d like to buy them for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth. Not very PC?  

That was the point. Could easily been written about all of the men written about here too. Next examples follow...

Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones compete for who can be as mentally ill as trump. The Miami school where the husband and wife directors told teachers not to return if they had HAD their vaccine shots because their proximity to students was interfering with menstrual cycles and uuuufff...The sickness of utter mind buggering stupidity. I had my first shot, now waiting to turn reptilian when the 5G masts triangulate my position. Fnord. Covid appears to be killing more overweight meat eating males than females...perhaps testosterone is not useful for the coming Race of non binary mutant hermaphrodites...and look out for the end of the Y chromosome, coming to a temporary universe near you...in 4.6 million years. Yes, really.  

Glad Netanyahu is out at last, smug corruption is never a good look unless one is a rich criminal. Ha.  The Promised land of Israel...If I was in court for serial murder, breaking, entering and stealing and then defended my actions by saying that God had told me to do it, would the Judge; A. Call for a psychiatric report, B. Disregard the statement as unprovable and pass the appropriate sentence, C, say Ok mate, you’re free to go, good luck to you. ? Moses had a good schtick.

The law is only to punish the poor, do you feel as if you suffer from empathy? Once you know, you no longer need to believe. What does ‘reality’ seem to be? The more certain you are, the stupider you get and belief is the death of intelligence. The machine is running the engineers. What is the definition of rationality...the quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic. 

Nothing is, but thinking makes it so. Epicurus.  

EVERYTHING NOT COMPULSORY IS FORBIDDEN.

The glamour illusion of the mass of pointless hot influencers needs a constant renewing of the Banishing Ritual as much as all the pigslop bile coming from Fox News and Sky. Bloody long haired commie liberal faggot they cry against any not identical to them. Some days I have only flamethrowers of hatred for these idiots. Other days...not exactly self doubt, just questions...most of us seem to believe our opinions are more valid when there are emotions connected to them. Including me. Again, this seems like a very weak version of ‘truth’, unless disciplined, channeled and focused to a certain end.

Life appears to exist in order to become via chaos.

Most of us are working only not to be homeless, some because of the joy in our chosen work regardless of finances. Until ‘reality’ kicks in the door...the bondage gets tighter when you struggle. How much hardship is the individual willing to endure these days by choice? Surrounded by a universe of distraction and destruction, Maya mewling for our attention. Five years of Trump, rampant populism and Brexit doing a Hexagram 23 on democracy, compounded by the pandemic...all on top of ‘normal’ daily life. The ego feeds and the immune system breaks down. Hard to ignore without being on a mountain or in a parallel dimension and emotion free other than compassion. But BY GODDESS IT CAN AND WILL BE DONE. Ladies of Life Nin Khursag, Isis, Kali, Aradia...Love one, Love ALL. At very least have respect for thyself but be not thou proud of thine arrogance nor thy suffering.  

Or just Remember where you came from, what you were, seem to be and will become.

Heal, heal, more work to do, more love to give, more love to feel, Heal. Stay in drugs, eat your school and don’t do vegetables. Impose your own reality upon and through yourself, breathe, exhale, repeat, and continue, LOVE UNDER WILL. Experience and absorb but ‘It’s a house of tricks, ignore the world’’.

Stay well, be seeing you:-)

[duskdaumbreon]

Well. That's *certainly* a way to interpret what I said. Not an accurate one, and certainly not even in good faith, but it's definitely a way to interpret it.

So, let's maybe look at the fucking facts instead of saying that I'm a fascist for... *checks notes* ....not wanting to be a victim of a genocide carried out on US soil by the GOP.

Right off the bat, you're ignoring that the US is a two party system. You have Democrats, and you have Republicans. That's realistically it. Sure, there's the Libertarians and Greens, but they barely get single seats in the House. They will not win an election anytime soon. I'd *like* for Greens or an actual leftist party to win, but, again, that's simply not going to happen as things sit right now. Since that's the case, there are only two relevant ways to vote, and anything else is throwing your vote away. You can try to primary Biden. It's unlikely, sure, but technically possible, and fairly safe to try. But here's the thing - it's either Dems win the next election, or we see the full, evil effects of Project 2025.

Is it technically possible for a third party to win? Sure. It technically is. We're also going on two fucking centuries of the system we have right now with absolutely no fucking sign of that changing. And, quite frankly, I'm not willing to gamble with the lives of over 140 million people, especially with such fucking awful odds.

So, yes. I will fucking advocate for damage control. I'll push for taking the lesser of two evils when no real fucking alternative exists and the alternative is death for hundreds of millions. That's not being a fascist or a liberal (neither of which I am, I'm a fucking leftist), it's called being realistic and not being a fucking dumbass that's willing to get every single person in the US who isn't a cishet white christian killed on the minuscule chance that a third party wins the presidency.

But, maybe I'm just missing something. Maybe there's some actual alternative you're seeing I'm not. So, go ahead, spill it. What's this special secret third option you have? Is it revolution? Is that your big, grand plan? Go ahead and let me know when you've figured out how to deal with the military just leveling a city block. Because it turns out that civilian guns do fuck all against a B-22. Or a tank. Or just about any other piece of heavy military equipment.

If you have an actual, real alternative that avoids the GOP carrying out a genocide, I'd love to hear it. Genuinely. If you can present a real alternative to voting for Dems that isn't just letting the GOP win or a revolution that'll just end with a few city blocks leveled, I'd genuinely love to hear it. Because, yeah. Better things are indeed possible, and we should push for them. But from what I'm seeing, there's only two realistic options in the short term. And I'm sure as fuck not going to just lay down and let the greater evil happen.

...Also, for what it's worth, Biden did at least secure aid to Gaza, even if he's also supporting Israel. That's sure as fuck more than any Republican would ever do. It definitely does not balance the scales at all, but, yet again, mitigating damage is far more important than gambling on a practically nonexistent chance of no damage at all.

Not blurring out this scumbags name because fuck these people. This the naked face of American liberalism. "If the Gazans are going to be slaughtered either way why not vote for the guy who at least won't target you? Lay down like a dog and beg for safety before the DNC because nothing better is possible." Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds and this is a case of exanguination.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 5, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Last night, in a speech to honor Independence Day, President Joe Biden used his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic to defend democracy.

Biden urged people to remember where we were just a year ago, and to “think about how far we’ve come.” “From… silent streets to crowded parade routes lined with people waving American flags; from empty stadiums and arenas to fans back to their seats cheering together again; from families pressing hands against a window to grandparents hugging their grandchildren once again. We’re back traveling again. We’re back seeing one another again. Businesses are opening and hiring again. We’re seeing record job creation and record economic growth—the best in four decades and, I might add, the best in the world.”

The president was referring, in part, to the jobs report that came out on Friday, showing that the nation added a robust 850,000 non-farm jobs in June.

But he was also talking about how the United States of America took on the problem of the pandemic. Coming after two generations of lawmakers who refused to use federal power to help ordinary Americans, Biden used the pandemic to prove to Americans that the federal government could, indeed, work for everyone.

The former president downplayed the pandemic and flip-flopped on basic public health measures like masking and distancing. Unlike most European and Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, the Trump Administration sidelined the country's public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, considered to be the top national public health agency in the world. Trump downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus out of fear of hurting the stock market, and turned over to states the process of dealing with this unprecedented crisis. The U.S. led the world in COVID-19 deaths. More than 603,000 Americans have died so far.

When he took office, Biden had already begun to use the government response to coronavirus as a way to show that democracy could rise to the occasion of protecting its people. The day before his inauguration, President Biden held a memorial for the 400,000 who had, to that date, died of COVID-19. He put Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a renowned infectious disease expert, at the head of the CDC and reinstated the CDC at the head of the public health response to the pandemic. And he made vaccines accessible to all Americans. Fifty-eight percent of American adults have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus; 67% have had at least one shot. The U.S. has one of the highest vaccine rates in the world and is helping to vaccinate those in other countries, as well.

Biden recalled that the United States of America was based not on religion or hereditary monarchy, but on an idea: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We have never lived up to that ideal, of course, but we have never abandoned it, either. Those principles, he said, “continue to animate us, and they remind us what, at our best, we as Americans believe: We, Americans—we believe in honesty and decency, in treating everyone with dignity and respect, giving everyone a fair shot, demonizing no one, giving hate no safe harbor, and leaving no one behind.”

But, he said, democracy isn’t top down. “Each day, we’re reminded there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy, nothing guaranteed about our way of life,” he said. “We have to fight for it, defend it, earn it…. It’s up to all of us to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the right to equal justice under the law; the right to vote and have that vote counted; the right.... to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that our children and grandchildren will be safe on this planet for generations to come… the right to rise in the world as far as your God-given [talent] can take you, unlimited by barriers of privilege or power.”

Biden’s speech recalled that of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 5, 1944, upon the fall of Rome during World War II. It was Italian leader Benito Mussolini who articulated the ideals of fascism after World War I, envisioning a hierarchical world in which economic and political leaders worked together to lead the masses forward by welding them into a nationalistic, militaristic force.

In his 1944 speech, FDR was careful to explain to Americans how they were different from the Italian fascists. He talked about “Nazi overlords” and “fascist puppets.” Then, in contrast to the fascists’ racial hierarchies, FDR made a point of calling Americans’ attention to the fact that the men who defeated the Italian fascists were Americans from every walk of life.

And then he turned to how fascism treated its people. “In Italy, the people have lived so long under the corrupt rule of Mussolini that in spite of the tinsel at the top—you have seen the pictures of it—their economic conditions have grown steadily worse. Our troops have found starvation, malnutrition, disease, a deteriorating education, a lower public health, all byproducts of the fascist misrule.”

To rebuild Italy, FDR said, the troops had to start from the bottom. “[W]e have had to give them bread to replace that which was stolen out of their mouths,” he said. “We have had to make it possible for the Italians to raise and use their local crops. We have had to help them cleanse their schools of fascist trappings….”

He outlined how Americans had anticipated the need to relieve the people starved by the fascists, and had made plans to ship food grown by the “magnificent ability and energy of the American people,” in ships they had constructed, over thousands of miles of water. Some of us may let our thoughts run to the financial cost of it,” he said, but “we hope that this relief will be an investment for the future, an investment that will pay dividends by eliminating fascism, by ending any Italian desires to start another war of aggression in the future….”

FDR was emphasizing the power of the people, of democracy, to combat fascism not only abroad but also at home, where it had attracted Americans frustrated by the seeming inability of democracy to counter the Depression. They longed for a single strong leader to fix everything. Other Americans, horrified by FDR’s use of the government to regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, and promote infrastructure, wanted to take the nation back to the 1920s and in so doing had begun to flirt with fascism as well.

As he celebrated the triumph over democracy in Italy, he was also urging Americans to value and protect it at home.

Biden, too, is focusing on how efficient his administration has been in combating the coronavirus to combat authoritarianism both abroad and at home. With its support for the Big Lie; congress members like Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who openly associates with white nationalists; and its attack on voting rights, the modern-day Republican Party is moving rapidly toward authoritarianism. But the former president botched the most fundamental task of government: protecting its people from death. In contrast, more than 60% of Americans approve of how Biden has managed the coronavirus pandemic, with 95% of Democrats approving but only 33% of Republicans in favor.

Biden’s approach appears to be helping to solidify support for democracy. A recent PBS Newshour/NPR/Marist poll showed that two thirds of Americans believe democracy is under threat, but 47%— the highest number in 12 years—believe the country is moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, that number, too, reflects a difference by party. While 87 percent of Democrats say the country is improving, 87 percent of Republicans say the opposite.

Biden conjured up our success over the coronavirus to celebrate democracy: “[H]istory tells us that when we stand together, when we unite in common cause, when we see ourselves not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, then there’s simply no limit to what we can achieve.”

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Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/05/remarks-by-president-biden-celebrating-independence-day-and-independence-from-covid-19/

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/02/june-jobs-unemployment-shortage/

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/561513-67-percent-of-adults-have-received-at-least-one-shot-of-covid-19-vaccine

https://docs.google.com/document/d/162VvK8TyM_3xNJbZtd0vLcNiLuK1bzpV0zqcD8o0TuM/edit

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/2-out-of-3-americans-believe-u-s-democracy-is-under-threat

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON