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randomrainman · 3 years

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american conservatism and the minds of people: a black man’s perspective.

Hi, it is I.

I often think long and hard about the mind states of the people around me, and my inevitable conclusion is that the vast majority of people are monumentally and irrevocably fucking stupid. As it turns out, people have a really hard time letting go of things with which they have grown familiar or fond, and therein lies the basic principle of conservative thought.

“But aren’t some things okay to keep?”

Well, obviously, not everything needs to be thrown out in order for improvement to occur. In the Army, we have things labelled “sustains” and “improves”. The two terms are pretty self-explanatory (as are most things in the military): sustains are the things that work, and the improves are the things you either completely nix or need to, erm, improve. Of course, this begs a question: as it relates to a society of living, (mostly) breathing human beings, how does this apply?

"Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water,” it is commonly said. I am not entirely sure who was throwing away bathing children, but that’s a discussion for a different time. The baby in this idiomatic expression is whatever it is we are supposed to be maintaining. Let’s start with an example: police.

Obviously, it is entirely infeasible to literally abolish police. We absolutely need the police force as an institution, and good and effective policing is a pillar to a modern, functional society. However, we can abolish unprofessional, unnecessarily violent, racist, or otherwise unbecoming behaviour from police departments, and also demonstrate that such things are intolerable and met with appropriate punishments every time these rules are broken. NWA didn’t make “Fuck The Police” because they wanted to express interest in having thoroughly arresting cop sex; it exists because they don’t trust the police.

youtube

Above: An Autistic Swedish dude spitting shockingly accurate commentary-by-proxy about American society. Flames!

Due possibly in part to dubiously worded slogans such as “defund the police”, modern conservatives balk at the thought of changing anything of significance about how policing in many communities in the United States is conducted, even going as far as to label the reform for which we call as an attack on the very idea of police.

That said, historically, the very pillars of police forces in the United States have their foundations in slavery and post-slavery racist institutions, which means that, while much has changed on the surface, the way police implement policy reflects structural and societal racism. As a result, simply attacking individual instances of misconduct will almost always fail to elicit any meaningful progress, which is why some do seek to dismantle police departments (an option I cannot fathom as being realistic, especially not in the short term).

The lack of a centralised police organisation from which to implement policy certainly does not help, and while some police departments, to include the Department of Justice itself, have introduced implicit bias training, it would appear that change was difficult to measure. Additionally, many police departments have not addressed the more overt problem of explicit racism in law enforcement, which is a nigh-impossible thing to tackle expeditiously without a top-down structure to deal with it. It has improved steadily overall, however, but not without significant disapproval...

Pictured: “disapproval”. A civil rights demonstrator is attacked by a police dog in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. (Photo credit: AP)

The Origins

As I noted earlier, there is plenty of shit people want to keep, and most for relatively understandable reasons -- after all, those things provide a sense of familiarity. “It’s always been this way -- why change it?” they ask. One needs only to look at our, um, flowery history to see countless examples of things that required change...

The transatlantic slave trade transported up to 12 million forcibly enslaved Africans to the Americas, many of whom arrived in what is now the United States. As unspeakably horrifying as the actual journey was, this was only the beginning of the tribulations that would befall the slaves and their descendants in the future.

While Europeans played a large part in introducing the idea of race-based caste systems into colonised lands, the American brand of discrimination is different in the fact that the idea that Blacks and Native Americans were genetically inferior to whites was endemic to our inception, and thus, formed the basis of the things enshrined into American democracy.

Photo credit: Alexander Gardner / Wikimedia Commons

Abraham Lincoln entered the chat.

Naturally, having someone even so much as threaten the idea of racial dominance after literal fucking centuries of treating Black people as property did not sit well with the slave-owning populace (even if Lincoln’s motives were not exactly altruistic). While the Southern states did in fact operate an agrarian economy heavily dependent on chattel slavery, it was that notion of superiority combined with societal comfort they felt that ultimately catalysed the secession of the Southern states from the Union...

Pictured: Civil War reenactors (from the Confederate side) simulate the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest battle in US history. Also, why the fuck is Civil War reenactment a popular thing to do? It’s deeply weird. (Photo credit: MPRNews.org)

...and then they decided to have the deadliest fucking war in American history over that comfort. Spoiler alert: the Confederates lost both the war and their precious bullshit institution of slavery -- but even after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, many Southern slave owners did not even pass the news of freedom to their slaves for months.

In keeping with the preservationist and racist mindset which occupied most Southerners’ brains, any attempt to integrate Black people into society during the Reconstruction period was stymied at every turn. To them, despite Black people being de jure full citizens in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1866, we were still subhuman. Due to Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan terrorism, and other assorted nonsense, we made virtually no progress toward equality until the Civil Rights Movement and resulting laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

“Well, you got what you wanted! YOU’RE EQUAL! Quit yer bitchin’!”

Ah, if only things worked that way in real life. As previously noted, even if things are codified into law as changes, there are still people who try really hard to keep everything exactly the fucking same, so it does not end up happening in practice. Things such as residual effects of redlining and continuing disproportionate and excessive imprisonment of minorities, amongst other issues, still affect people in the present day. In other areas, people exploit loopholes in order to lawfully discriminate against others they might deem “undeserving”.

Lots of things, especially when it comes to role of minorities in society, have historical precedents. When arguing said precedents with conservative types, the conversation almost always leads to one of several (predictable) conclusions: the person believes that 1) negative historical events (e.g., slavery, Native American genocide, etc.) were not that bad; 2) those things did not happen at all; or 3) those things were bad, but somehow do not affect modern society.

Obviously, all three are emphatically wrong. This is why typical conservative behaviour, even in this modern era in which information sharing is instantaneous, does not surprise me: often, the rhetoric is not rooted in reality, and often resorts to appeals to emotions to elicit a knee-jerk response. This is not to say that this does not occur on liberal ends of the spectrum, but modern conservative rhetoric is rooted primarily in unjustified fear of change and anti-intellectualism.

Pictured: A screenshot I took of someone on a pro-President Biden post desperately trying to be oppressed.

This kind of shit is utterly exhausting. Neoconservatism, in a nutshell, is people literally inventing problems and subsequently getting angry at their own creations. It is the equivalent of setting up a bear trap, immediately stepping in it, and wondering why the fuck you’re stuck in said bear trap and your foot doesn’t work anymore. During the Obama administration, the only thing I would witness is people insisting (without any evidence, of course) that President Obama was the Antichrist and that he would usher in the New World Order and take everyone’s guns. All zero of those things happened, of course, but when Donald Trump assumed the presidency, the rhetoric completely reversed, and he was named “God’s chosen" by evangelical figures, despite him having broken perhaps all of the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments. Of course, as you can see with the above screenshot, clearly, they have returned to the Obama bitching method, but diminished, partially because President Biden is also an old, white male, and they don’t need to ask where he was born.

Pictured: what happens when you fuel millions of self-victimising people with QAnon conspiracy theories and possibly loads of Bang energy drinks. Photo credit: ABC News

The hypocrisy is absolutely palpable amongst these types of people, and if I tried to sit here and continued to provide examples of conservative figures contradicting themselves, I would die either of old age or myocardial infarction, whichever happened first. The difference in the reaction to Black Lives Matter protests versus the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 makes the double standard quite transparent: justice and equality, while technically codified into law, are clearly are not administered equally in modern-day America. We’re still not like the others.

Our brand of conservatism, by and large, is the enemy of those two very important American ideals.

|the kid|

#conservatism #conservative #liberal #Donald Trump #Joe Biden #President of the United States #creative writing #article #political ideology #critical thinking

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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People capable of feeling shame would not have immediately followed up the Russiagate hoax fiasco with another transparently phony—and in “substance” nearly identical—attempt to remove President Trump from office, overturn the 2016 election, and shower deplorable-Americans with contempt and hatred. But our ruling elites have no shame.

That is not to say, however, that they are entirely cynical. The means by which they’ve so far tried to crush the Trump presidency may be nasty and illegitimate, but our overlords are 100% convinced of the righteousness of their cause, and of themselves. Hence they do not even need recourse to the cliché that the ends justify the means. The means are good because the end is sacred; they cannot countenance even the thought that the means might be suspect or (ahem) trumped up.

Near the beginning of his epic history of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides distinguishes the “publicly voiced” causes of that conflict from the war’s “truest cause, though least in speech.” We may—indeed, must—subject the “impeachment” coup to the same bifurcated analysis.

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But let’s drill down a bit. If we are to take the current “publicly voiced” cause at face value, then we may say that the entire Washington establishment, plus most of the country’s elites, are trying to remove the president from office on the basis of an anonymous individual’s private opinion of the content of one phone call he heard about second or possibly even thirdhand. A phone call, let’s remember, of which we have extensive notes that almost, but not quite, constitute a transcript—in other words, whose content everyone in the country can examine for himself.

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Back to the Ukraine call. The second question President Trump asked the Ukrainian president is another “publicly voiced” cause to seek his removal. That question regarded a specific instance of a well-known Washington-insider phenomenon. It is a measure of how insouciantly our elites accept and even welcome the immense corruption of our government that they raise not a single eyebrow at the phenomenon that underlay the president’s question: exactly how is it that well-connected Americans with no particular or relevant skill sets can “earn” enormous sums of money for doing, essentially, nothing?

We all know how, of course. They’re not, exactly, doing “nothing.” They’re providing access—in some instances directly, in others prospectively. When a company or bank or hedge fund or real estate developer or foreign government slides big payments over to someone close to someone who might soon be president, they know what they’re doing, and they know—from experience—that the investment is sound. Tom Wolfe coined the term “favor bank” to explain how “the law” really works in the Bronx County criminal justice system. You do favors expecting to have favors done in return. There are no written contracts or enforcement mechanisms, but the system “works” because people know it’s in their interest to honor it. In modern international politics, to pay someone a few million to do “nothing” is to expect to be paid back somehow. The payees know this, and endeavor to make good, lest they risk future payments.

Understand this plainly: Trump may well be impeached, ostensibly, for asking about this corrupt arrangement. But no one is ever impeached for engaging in it. Nor can our elites, who almost all benefit from this system one way or another, muster the integrity to do, or even say, anything against it.

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Another, deeper cause for the current show trial is less “publicly voiced” than beclouded with pretentious misdirection, because the president’s enemies know that, were they to state it clearly, the American people would scoff in their faces. Our foreign policy priesthood is 100% certain that the United States must take the side of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. President Trump has expressed skepticism about the wisdom of such a commitment. He wonders why the conflict is our problem, when a not-inconsiderable number of European countries closer to the issue demand action from us but do very little themselves. He worries about the possibility of the United States getting drawn into war with Russia. And he’s concerned that, given historic corruption in Ukraine, American aid there may not be well spent.

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This may be true, though—nothing against Ukraine—I don’t think so. The country just isn’t that important to us for the same reason that Canada and Mexico are not that important to Russia. But even if I’m wrong about that, the above statement is still fundamentally an opinion—the opinion of someone not entitled to make policy. He is surely welcome to state his opinion, when appropriate to do so as part of his official duties and within the chain of command, but that’s it as far as his opinion goes. Actual policy—the question of whether “a strong and independent Ukraine is critical to U.S. national security interests”—is well above his paygrade, properly decided by the president, his cabinet and senior advisors, and members of the Senate who advise and consent on cabinet secretaries and treaties. At least, that’s how the parchment on which the charter of our liberties is written says it’s supposed to work.

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What on earth is “[t]he U.S. government policy community”? This is not made clear in the statement, but from the context it would appear to be something like the “deep state” we are elsewhere told does not exist except in the minds of fevered “conspiracy theorists.” Elite conventional wisdom appears to have evolved into: “The deep state is not a thing—and thank God it’s there to save our democracy!”

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But whether epistemologically unassailable or complete madness (in the real world, it’s more likely than not to be incoherent mush), “interagency consensus” is not policy—or at least it’s not supposed to be. It may help inform policy, but elected and appointed officials—and in a unitary executive, that ultimately means the president—alone get to make policy. The presupposition of our country director—and his like-minded peers in the deep state—is the opposite: policy is made in and by the “interagency,” whose decrees are holy writ that it is illegitimate for the president to challenge.

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If this isn’t proof positive that the “deep state” is real, then what would be? Here we have an unelected cabal trying to take down the elected president, ostensibly over an issue that the American people have never voted on and don’t care about but which the “the U.S. government policy community” insists is so important that a democratic election must be overturned for its sake. Actually, to the extent that the American people have voted on this issue, in electing a man who very clearly promised to reduce American commitments abroad, they voted against the “U.S. government policy community consensus.”

Yet the “interagency” somehow believes that its decrees are democracy and that it’s somehow “undemocratic” to question them. This is how it’s possible for so many of Trump’s enemies to impugn him as an enemy of “democracy,” sanctify their patently undemocratic attempts to unseat him, and portray themselves as democracy’s saviors. As Christopher Caldwell put it recently in these pages, according to this understanding

democracy [is] a set of progressive outcomes that democracies tend to choose, and may even have chosen at some time in the past. If a progressive law or judicial ruling or executive order coincides with the “values” of experts, a kind of mystical ratification results, and the outcome is what the builders of the European Union call an acquis—something permanent, unassailable, and constitutional-seeming. [“What Is Populism?” Fall 2018]

Aid to Ukraine has been decided! Debate over! No more votes and no changes! That would be “undemocratic”!

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It is no accident or coincidence that the only three presidents who have fundamentally challenged the administrative state—and questioned its song sheet, the “U.S. government policy community consensus”—have been dogged by “scandal” and threatened with impeachment: Richard Nixon by Watergate, Ronald Reagan by Iran Contra, and now Trump. (Whatever you think of Bill Clinton’s impeachment, it was emphatically not driven or supported by the administrative state, which protected him at every turn.) Trump would likely take this as small consolation, but it’s a measure of how much he’s feared that his enemies are running this play against him now, rather than simply trying to defeat him next year. Which more than suggests they doubt they can.

Simply based on what we know so far, the whole thing looks engineered, like those “lawfare” cases in which clever lawyers and activists find sympathetic plaintiffs, carefully choose friendly venues, and file lawsuits not to redress specific, genuine injustices but to force changes in policy—anti-democratically, it goes without saying. That’s the real reason nobody with firsthand knowledge came forward but left it to a distant “whistleblower” to get this train started: because those driving it understand that, by pitching the matter out to an agency covered by a whistleblower statute, with a formal whistleblower process, they could begin the transformation of this inherently political process into a technical, legal matter. This supposition only gains support from reports of “collusion” (what else can one call it?) between the “whistleblower” and Democratic congressional staff. The parade of witnesses in secret testimony also looks carefully orchestrated.

The secrecy has partly ended—but only after the Democrats gathered its fruits and shaped them into a “narrative” to spoon-feed to the public. The playbook is the same one that failed with the Russia hoax: selectively leak to create a fog, a miasma of vaguely negative-sounding “facts” or allegations that seem ominous but also too complex and in-the-weeds for ordinary folk to follow. Then publicly “confirm” those leaks as the authoritative account of the “scandal.” None of the actual facts adds up to any actual wrongdoing, but the hope is that regular people won’t notice and won’t listen to those who do. Leave it to us experts: we know wrongdoing when we see it! If the actual specifics of what we’re alleging don’t actually appear to you to amount to “treason, bribery, [or] other high crimes and misdemeanors,” as the Constitution’s Article II, section 4 requires, that’s only because you’re not an expert.

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It worked against Nixon. It almost worked against Reagan. But let’s be clear: if it works this time, there are only three possible outcomes:

First, deplorable-Americans will meekly accept President Trump’s removal, in which case the country as a self-governing republic will be finished; the elite coup will have succeeded, their grip on power cemented. With all due respect to the vice president, this is not the way—these are not the people on the backs of whom—he should wish to enter the Oval Office. And I am confident he will not.

Second, deplorable-Americans will revolt at the ballot box and punish the elites in a series of elections that put in power serious statesmen intent on rooting out corruption and reestablishing democratic accountability.

Or, third, deplorable-Americans’ attempt to set their government aright via ballots will not avail, as it has not so often in the past; they will realize that it has not, conclude that it never will, and resolve by any means necessary to get out from under the thumbs of people who so obviously hate them and wish to rule them without their consent.

Only one of these possibilities is healthy for the continued survival of republican government as currently constituted.

Oh, and let’s also be clear about something else: if the Republicans “collude” with this sham and force the removal of a president whose approval rating within his party hovers north of 90%, and whose voters scarcely understand—much less agree with—the “case” against him, they will destroy the party forever. I don’t often make predictions, because I’m not good at it, but this one is easy. They will have removed all doubt that they are anything but ruling class apparatchiks, adjuncts, and flunkies of the administrative state from which they take orders.

#claremont review of books #michael anton #read the whole thing

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berniesrevolution · 5 years

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You have lived in the U.S. for 30 years. You’re speeding a little to get to work when you’re pulled over. First they realize you have no license. Then they realize you have no papers. You get thrown in jail. You need your wife, a U.S. citizen, to gather documents for you. But she is undergoing chemotherapy and her memory isn’t working right. After a few weeks, her phone number goes dead. Is she in intensive care? Was she evicted? You don’t know. You are trapped in prison and have no one else to call. You explain the situation to the judge and he gives you a few extensions. Then, finally, he says his hands are tied. You’ve presented him with no evidence. You are deported back to a country you haven’t seen since you were 10. You still don’t know if your wife is alive or dead.

You work in a factory where the boss won’t turn on the heat in the wintertime, where you aren’t allowed to use the bathroom, where you get paid less than the documented workers for the same labor. You and your colleagues take a list of complaints to your boss’s office one day. He greets you with a loaded gun. You are afraid to complain again after that. Then a SWAT team raids the factory and rounds you all up. You have young U.S. citizen children, so they don’t want to deport you immediately, because your children would become burdens on the state. But every day from now on, immigration is watching you. When they call you on the phone, you must answer. When they summon you to see them, you must go. Every few years, they slap an ankle monitor on you, and then take it off again, and then put it back on you, without explanation. Every so often, they threaten to make you buy plane tickets. They tell you they can deport you whenever they want. They have already deported several of your former coworkers who are in the same situation. You are always one slip-up away from being ripped away from your family. You can’t sleep at night. When you try to picture your future, all you see is a blind fog.

When we talk about enforcing immigration laws, it’s important to be quite specific about what we mean. Immigration enforcement is not words on paper. It is a constant, daily sequence of concrete acts. It is kicking down people’s doors, it is putting people in handcuffs, it is taking people’s photographs and fingerprints, it is locking people in cages, it is forcing people into cars and buses and planes. Some of these acts happen at the border, when the government tries to block people from entering. Some of them happen inside the country, when the government hunts down those with irregular status. Sometimes, this immigration enforcement is explicitly violent, like when Border Patrol officials unleash teargas (a chemical weapon banned in warfare) on toddlers, when they rip children from their mothers’ arms, when they kick women huddled on the concrete floors of border cells and scream at them that they are animals. Other times it’s something humdrum and largely invisible: the border guard who calmly tells an asylum seeker at a port of entry that there is “no more room” in the U.S., the judge who silently decides that the terrified person in front of them hasn’t done quite enough to deserve a favorable exercise of discretion, the police officer who has a funny habit of always stopping cars with Hispanic-looking drivers, the countless bureaucrats who review immigration applications and deny them without explanation. All of these acts, from the monstrous to the mundane, have real-world effects on individual people. They mean families separated, whether by deportation or by the hard border that keeps an undocumented breadwinner from ever again visiting the children he had to leave behind. They mean people dying horribly, because they are forced to return to life-threatening danger, or because they become ill in the U.S. and are scared to go the hospital for fear their lack of status will be discovered. They mean workers exploited, because the threat of deportation keeps them under the thumb of their boss, or because arbitrary territorial lines prevent them from seeking better employment conditions in another place.

Immigration policy in the United States cannot be discussed in the abstract. Unless we talk about what our immigration laws actually mean for people’s lives, we’ll have no way to sensibly evaluate them. There are about 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States, and several hundred thousand arrested and deported annually. Beneath the statistics, there is fear and pain. Every choice of what laws to have and how to enforce them produces consequences: workplaces raided, kids pulled out of school, women being turned back to face domestic violence.

This context is important when we turn to Angela Nagle’s “The Left Case Against Open Borders,” recently published in American Affairs (formerly the explicitly pro-Trump Journal of American Greatness). Nagle confidently informs us that all mass migration is inherently tragic, and that incentivizing it with overly liberal immigration policies, although it seems kind, is actually cruel. The “open borders left,” Nagle declares, by embracing unrestricted immigration, is hurting the very people they are trying to help, and undermining the prospects for successful labor organizing and a restructuring of the global economic system. She goes so far as to argue that advocates of unrestricted free movement are the “useful idiots of big business,” because they are sanctioning the exploitation of imported laborers. Instead of addressing the root causes of economic migration, they have allied with the Koch Brothers in advocating “open borders.” This “open borders left” has a radically ignorant set of priorities, reacting to Trumpism by embracing Koch-ism, and ignoring the way that unrestricted migration serves the interests of the capitalist class by dividing workers and depressing wages.

ABOVE PHOTO: A U.S. Border Patrol agent patrols along a section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence on July 16, 2018 in San Diego, California. Getty Images/Mario Tama MAIN PHOTO: Government agents apprehend a landscaper during an immigration sting at Corso’s Flower and Garden Center, Tuesday, June 5, 2018, in Castalia, Ohio. Associated Press/John Minchillo

Now, because Nagle (supposedly) cares about immigrants, she doesn’t want to see them teargassed at the border or hunted down by immigration police. What she doeswant to see is employers who employ undocumented workers being punished by the state, so that they don’t hire undocumented workers anymore. This is the only concrete policy proposal in Nagle’s entire piece, and at no point does she discuss what its enforcement would actually look like. That’s because the enforcement of this policy proposal would look pretty fucking monstrous. In fact, the “E-Verify” system Nagle touts as a humane alternative to ICE is a system that people like Ann Coulterand Kris Kobach have long been putting forward as the ideal immigration restrictionist policy. (Given such political bedfellows, by Angela Nagle’s logic we might accuse her of being the useful idiot of white nationalism. Then again, Angela Nagle’s logic is terrible.) E-Verify is the central piece of a slate of an anti-immigrant policies designed to encourage “self-deportation”: that is, making life so miserable for undocumented people in the U.S., making them so poor and desperate and demoralized and afraid, that they decide to leave the country of their own accord. As the anti-immigrant Center for Immigrant Studies describes, the goal of self-deportation is to “create ‘virtual choke points’—events that are necessary for life in a modern society but are infrequent enough not to bog down everyone’s daily business. Another analogy for this concept to firewalls in computer systems, that people could pass through only if their legal status is verified. The objective is not mainly to identify illegal aliens for arrest (though that will always be a possibility) but rather to make it as difficult as possible for illegal aliens to live a normal life here.”

The fact that a self-described leftist like Nagle would openly support E-Verify shows that she is, at best, so grossly uninformed about immigration policy that it was irresponsible for her to commentate on it. At worst, it might be that she genuinely does not give a shit about the suffering of immigrants and is perfectly happy to sacrifice them to political expediency. Either way, she is not a credible exponent of what “the left” ought to think about anything.

However, ideas like Nagle’s have proven persuasive to a number of people over the years, so it’s worth going through her essay and dissecting each of her claims. First, Nagle argues that “the left” has historically (and wisely) opposed mass immigration as detrimental to worker interests. Secondly, she argues that there are no compelling arguments in favor of open borders or free movement other than those put forward by “big business,” whose only desire to exploit cheap labor. Thirdly, she argues that using the E-verify system to target employers of undocumented workers, rather than the workers themselves, is a humane way to keep undocumented people out of the workforce. Finally, she argues that immigrants don’t truly want to migrate anyway, so we should block them from doing so, and in the meantime just go about fixing all the problems that caused them to feel they needed to migrate in the first place.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #current affairs #immigration #immigrant rights #immigration reform #progressive #progressive movement

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fletchergames · 6 years

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Lightspeak

Lightspeak:

Lightspeak (said lights-peak) is a large city-state locked in inner political war. Three factions battle for control of the economic and religious hotspot.

Lightspeak is a temperate port city-state with an extremely high trade volume. It has very valuable trade routes by land and sea. Merchants come to Lightspeak from the world over to trade.

At the center of Lightspeak is the Ashhuld. The Ashhuld is a small hill with a spring on top; due to the divine power there, the waters of the spring have healing powers. There is a small house on top of the hill. A young god once lived there before he truly ascended; this god is Astinous, a neutral god of healing and protection. A large wall has been built around the Ashhuld by the Guardians.

Lightspeak is technically a democracy, run by an elected council of the Premier and 30 Councillors. All legislative matters are handled by majority vote of the council, with the Premier's vote counting triple. The Premier also holds executive power within Lightspeak and controls the military.

In most matters, the council acts as a rubber stamp for whatever the Guardians or the Golden Road wanted to do anyway. However, if one of these factions tries to step too far out of bounds, the Premier usually uses their influence to put a stop to it.

Magic is near totally banned within Lightspeak, except for divine magic granted by Astinous. The Guardians have managed to get arcane magic completely banned to protect their monopoly on magic and its power. By no means has this stopped magic from being tought and used, however; it has just driven such people underground. It is worth noting that Astinous himself has nothing against magic.

Factions: The three factions of Lightspeak are the Guardians, the Underground and the Golden Road.

The Guardians are, at their core, a church of Astinous. They first founded Lightspeak back when Astinous still lived there. They have massive influence over Lightspeak. They have several churches around the city. Until recently, they had total control over the Ashhuld; only members of the church were allowed in. When Lightspeak was founded, the Guardian's focus was on helping people and following Astinous; these days, their primary goal is to retain their control over Lightspeak.

The Underground was, at first, a guild of thieves and criminals. However, the Guardian's anti-magic laws have caused a strange alliance to form between the theives and the mages; these two groups together form the modern Underground. The goal of the Underground is to reduce the control the Guardians have over the city and to lift the restrictions on magic.

The Golden Road is the informal alliance of traders, merchants and craftsmen who give the city most of its value. They don't actually care who is in control of Lightspeak, as long as the gold continues to flow. The Golden Road has nothing against magic; they do avoid it, but just to keep the Guardians pacified.

There is also a fourth pseudo-faction, the Vox Populi. The Vox Populi is the will of the people as a whole. They want the city to remain as stable as possible. Not being an actual organization, they have no actual power; however, their sheer numbers grant them large control.

International Affairs: Lightspeak has two land neighbors: Cherrytree and Wolfram. Cherrytree is to the south of Lightspeak while Wolfram is to the north and east.

Lightspeak and Cherrytree have a long series of treaties going back hundreds of years. The two nations share strong trade and military ties. Cherrytree has one of the strongest militaries in the region, granting Lightspeak a valuble ally.

Lightspeak and Wolfram have had a series of border battles over time. In modern times, the two nations are in an age of technical peace. Lightspeak's army isn't up to a war with a larger nation; Wolfram's isn't up for a war with Cherrytree. As a result, no one dares make the first move. However, Wolfram is attempting subterfuge to tilt the balance in their favor.

Important Faces in Lightspeak:

These characters serve as the "faces" of the various factions in Lightspeak.

High Guard Zendaris: Zendaris is the leader of the Guardians. He seeks to exploit the city to give himself more power. Over time, he and his predecessors have shifted the focus of the Guardians from helping people and worshiping Astinous to helping themselves grow more powerful and paying lip service to Astinous.

Priestess Mia: Mia is a young priest of Astinous. She truly believes the Guardians do good things for the people and for the city. A bit naive, she does what she can to help those around her. Ironically enough, this makes her more like Astinous than the Guardians as a whole.

Shadow Lord Batan: Batan is the leader of the Underground. He keeps the flow of dirty money clipping along through the city. If it's unlawful, he likely has a hand in it. While he doesn't know magic, he owns an unlawful ring of invisibility. He also sits on the council as a Councillor; for obivous reasons, the rest of the council does not know about his criminal actions.

Archmage Lysander: Lysander is one of the most powerful mages in Lightspeak. It was he who first proposed the alliance between the mages and the thieves. Despite looking to be in his late-fifties, he is actually over two hundred years old due to possessing magic that can reverse his age. He is currently training several apprentices to pass on his knowledge.

Merchant Phineas: Phineas is, technically, just a very successful merchant. In reality, he is one of the three Golden Kings, the three richest and most powerful merchants in Lightspeak. They control almost everything that enters or leaves the city. If they don't want something, it's not getting in; if they do, it will arrive. He doesn't so much care about the laws against magic; he'll sell it either way.

Master Stone: Stone is a legendary craftsman living within Lightspeak. He can do with skill and alchemy what most would find impossible even with the aid of magic. Adventurers and armies the world over come to buy his weapons and equipment; the prices are high, but well worth it.

Premier Natalie: Natalie is the Premier of the Lightspeak council. She has no loyalty to any of the factions; her loyalty is to Lightspeak itself. If any faction generates too much disruption and chaos, she will use military force to bring them back into line. The factions don't much like her, but the people of the city do. None of the factions dares try and replace her; too much risk that another faction would land one of their allies in the spot.

Ambassador Ryu: Ambassador Ryu is an ambassador from Cherrytree. He stays in the area to assist communication between the nations. As an ambassador, he is immune to many laws, including the restrictions on magic; he actually wields nature magic.

Agent Ruby: Ruby appears to be a member of the city guard. In reality, she is an agent of Wolfram, sent to collect information and drive up tension between the factions. Ideally, she can plunge the city into anarchy so Wolfram can swoop in and take control before Cherrytree can react.

Bard Trisha: Trisha is a bard who has traveled here from a distant land. To all appearances, she is a humble bard. Truthfully, she is a political mercenary; a social warrior of negotiable loyalty hired to influence the situation in Lightspeak. None but her employer knows her true goals here in Lightspeak.

Prophetess Alexandria: Alexandria is a follower of Astinous with powerful healing abilities. She is not a Guardian; however, she currently lives in the Ashhuld on the request of Astinous himself. The Guardians can not directly harm her; however, they are trying to make her leave. She is trying to bring the Guardians back in line with the will of Astinous. It is under her command that the Ashhuld has been opened to outsiders. The disturbance she creates threatens to destroy the status quo and change the city forever.

Important Places in Lightspeak:

These locations act as the focal points around the city.

The Ashhuld: The Ashhuld is right at the center of the city. It consists of a grassy hill with a small spring and a small house built next to it. Astinous himself used to live here before he ascended to godhood. As a result of his presence, the location is of great religous importance. Until recently, the Guardians held the site and shut out others; since Alexandria moved in, it has been opened up to outsiders.

Unmance Temple: Unmance Temple is the largest church in the city; it is found in the northern quarter. Built to hold thousands of people at a time, behind the massive service room is what amounts to a mansion for the highest ranking Guardians and a fine mansion at that. While some may think it excessive, none dare voice that opinion too loudly.

Yellow Path: The Yellow Path is a large road running down the Trade district. Along it are shops of all kinds; if you want it, it can likely be found here... for the right price. Merchants from all over the city gather here to make their profits. It is said that nothing's free on the Yellow Path.

Heartsoar's Pub: At first glance, Heartsoar's Pub is just a regular old pub by the port. However, nothing is truly as it appears in Lightspeak. Truthfully, this pub is the unoffical home of the Underground. In the basement, you can buy and sell all matters of unlawful goods and services. By night, the storeroom finds itself turned into classroom of the arcane arts.

The Council Summit: The Council Summit is a large building that serves as the home of the Lightspeak council. They meet here to discuss matters that impact the city as a whole and to determine the path the city will take. The Premier commands the guard and army from here as well.

The Wall: Surrounding the city is the Wall, a large stone wall around the city to protect it from ground-based attack. The city guard patrols the wall and watches the surrounding area.

Lightspeak Harbor: Simply known as the Harbor to locals, the Lightspeak Harbor is the beating heart of the city. Ships, cargo and money are constantly flowing in and out.

#Gaming Fun #campaign setting #RPG #TTRPG #lightspeak

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rulystuff · 4 years

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https://servicemeltdown.com/germany-has-welched-on-its-moral-obligations-before/

New Post has been published on https://servicemeltdown.com/germany-has-welched-on-its-moral-obligations-before/

GERMANY HAS WELCHED ON ITS MORAL OBLIGATIONS BEFORE

Editor’s note: Having traveled on business throughout Germany deploying complex information technology projects, I can vouch for the German predilection with rules, process, programs, and structures. In the end, everything we set out to accomplish as part of our project rollouts we did so on time and on budget thanks to the hard work of our German team members. A nagging irritant that we had to endure, however, was an unflagging emphasis on frugality. This quality of the German character borders on the religious and we are seeing it play out on the international stage. Lest there be any doubt how foundational the belief in frugality is for the German nation, no less a luminary than the great philosopher Immanuel Kant stated in his tome on metaphysical morals that, “Frugality in all things is the reasonable behavior of an honorable person.”

President Trump and several of his administration’s officials have repeatedly pointed out that Germany has been shirking its 2% of GDP defense budget target agreed to as recently as 2014. This is the case despite the fact that the United States keeps over 34,000 troops stationed in Germany at a cost of nearly $6 billion and to which Germany contributes only about 18% in the form of in-kind services. In addition to the troop levels stationed in Germany, the Department of Defense has something in excess of 17,000 civilians in country. Germany’s economy, of course, is the direct beneficiary of so many Americans spending their hard-earned dollars domestically.

To be sure, Germany is not the only nation which chooses to finance national defense on the cheap. But as the largest economy on the continent – at $3.7 trillion, Germany’s GDP is roughly 50% greater than either the United Kingdom’s or France’s – one might expect a less tightfisted commitment than the current 1.3% of GDP which Germany spends on defense. This is a puny sum indeed. In fact, on a per capita basis, Germany spends no more on defense than does the economic basket case that is Greece. Incidentally, as impoverished as the nation of Greece is, it is one of only nine countries of the twenty-nine NATO alliance that does meet its 2% obligation.

Clearly, it is a great comfort to the Europeans that the United States watches their backs, while picking up the tab on roughly 22% of NATO’s expense budget.

The niggardly German defense budget has onerous security consequences for the country and the continent yet there is a new-found outrage at President Trump’s plan to redeploy approximately 9,500 troops stationed in Germany to other theaters such as Poland. That the United States threatens to weaken NATO by its action to remove approximately 25% of its troops from Germany is a spurious claim.

Consider that fewer than half of Germany’s fighter jets are able to fly their missions for lack of parts, and German soldiers are moved to hide their army’s lack of materiel by using broomsticks in lieu of non-existing heavy machine guns during war games. The German argument for its lack of financial commitment to NATO’s defense is as specious as it is creative. It goes something like this: national defense goes beyond military spending. Some types of development aid, the German government says, should count as defense spending. In a nutshell, this is a way of saying that the harboring of more than a million Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees is tantamount to protecting Europe’s borders from aggressors!

DOES DEVELOPMENT AID INCLUDE WORLD WAR II REPARATIONS?

It is curious that Germany’s apparent magnanimity does not extend to owning up to the disaster and carnage it caused with its aggressive militarism during the better part of the twentieth century. Greece represents a tragic case in point.

During WW II, Greece lost more lives than the United States and the United Kingdom combined. Roughly, ten percent of the population of Greece – in excess of 500,000 souls – perished at the hands of the Butchers of Berlin largely through executions or the famine caused by the destruction of crop fields and animal stock. What is more, the Nazis looted Greek banks, took out sham loans, and confiscated all of the available gold, silver, nickel, and copper in the nation.

The Nazis destroyed houses, farms, public buildings, schools, hospitals, ports, canals, roads, train tracks, and bridges. Similarly, most Greek shipping and all telephone communications were destroyed. In addition, over 1,700 villages were burned to the ground many with the elderly, women, and children hunkered down in their infernal dwellings unable to escape. The Nazi savagery outdid itself in the small village of Distomo located northwest of Athens. In 1944, following an ambush of a Nazi unit by Greek irregulars the Waffen SS returned to massacre 228 men, women and children. The carnage was severe as women were raped before being murdered, infants were bayoneted, the village priest beheaded, and the town burned to the ground. Beyond these atrocities, the Nazis appropriated much of Greece’s antiquities from a number of public and private museum collections as well as from archeological sites. German officers, and before them Italian soldiers of one stripe or another, had a field day boxing and crating antiquities which they then shipped back to their countries of origin. Antiquities which could not be carted off, were wantonly destroyed as to preclude any possible restoration.

The German devastation was so complete that Greece became devoid of the infrastructure, the institutions, and the systems, essential to properly function as a modern nation. In the aftermath of the war, Greece predictably descended into civil war, chaos, and more death. The de-Hellinization of the country was now complete.

WHO OWES WHAT TO WHOM?

It is clever double-dealing that Germany, in league with the Troika – the triumvirate of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank – dishes out a crippling dose of austerity and browbeats the small nation of Greece on the international stage to meet its loan commitments while it steadfastly refuses to acknowledge its own obligations. We have seen this movie before: Germany made its last payment to American claimants of WW I reparations in 2010.

In 2015, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Dimitris Mardas, announced that Greece was owed roughly $305 billion according to calculations made by the country’s general accounting office. This is a sum that includes actual damages, interest, and inflation. This marks the first time the reparations claim has been formalized with such precision and it’s entirely credible. The Germans, of course, have scoffed at the notion that any monies are due inasmuch as there is no strict legal basis on which Greece can press its claim. This is another German cultural trait at work known as besserwisser or knowing better.

The key, however, is whether the Holocaust visited on the Greeks by its Nazi occupiers hinges on legal niceties or on the moral and ethical behaviors expected of civilized nations. Ironically, Germany was the principal beneficiary of our moral largesse as approximately two-thirds of its war indebtedness, much of it provided by the Marshall Plan, was forgiven. If ever you wondered what explains the German economic “miracle” in the aftermath of the war this is a good place to start looking. The other place to look is at the current roster of household names of German industrial might, names such as Audi, BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Daimler, VW, Siemens, and Bosch, and wonder how these companies were able to make such a swift recovery after Hitler’s defeat. The answer is indisputable and yet shameful: Germany’s industrial might was built on the backs of over 300,000 slave laborers.

President Trump and his administration should not fall prey to Germany’s dilatory approach to meeting its financial commitments to NATO. Germany has stated that it will meet its 2% target by 2031. It’s reasonable to assume, therefore, that If the Germans are not alarmed about Russian tanks racing down the Autobahn before 2031 then neither should the United States.

GERMANY PLAYS BOTH ENDS AGAINST THE MIDDLE

Maybe our concern with Germany’s well-being is overblown as the nation is a deft double-dealer. Two examples should make the point: 1) Germany’s sermonizing to America about staying in the Iran Nuclear deal has little to do with mitigating Iran’s threat as a nuclear power. What it has more to do with is the fact that Germany is Iran’s largest trading partner. In 2017, hundreds of German firms traded in excess of $4.0 billion with Iran. The export-based German economy has no scruples. 2) Germany and Russia are schmoozing about a gas pipeline that would run under the Baltic Sea and double the existing supply of gas to Germany. The geopolitical consequences of such a move would result in increasing Russia’s leverage over the continent’s smaller states, and box Poland out of the gas transit business. And, maybe all of that figures into Germany’s calculus.

When it comes to Poland, especially, the United States cannot welch as Germany has done to nations so many times before. Poland is a staunch United States ally whose recently deployed Patriot missile defense system is meant to counterbalance Russian cruise missiles stationed along the Polish border. The nation is stable, democratic, with a strong and growing free market economy, and always wary of the antics of Germany – and, for all practical purposes its agent the European Union. As I point out in my essay, Globalization: An Anti-Democratic Nightmare in the Making, Germany casts a long shadow over Poland. One can only hope that the first line of the Polish national anthem, “Poland has not yet perished”, will hold true to form.

If German arrogance knows no bounds neither should our vigilance. Consider that a member of the Bundestag – the German parliament – and leader of the third largest political party, the (AfD), Alexander Gauland, said recently that “Hitler and the Nazis were a speck of bird s— in over 1,000 years of successful German history.” Clearly, Germany’s looming political and economic despotism throughout all of Europe must be held in check.

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healthnotion · 5 years

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How to Survive (and Prevent) a Carjacking

You’re sitting in your car at an intersection listening to the Blend on Sirius XM. Suddenly your door swings open and a gun is shoved in your face.

“Out of the car!” a voice yells.

You’re getting carjacked.

While rare, carjackings have been on the rise in recent years in cities across the United States (more on why in a bit). So it pays to have a plan for how to avoid becoming the victim of this crime, and what to do if you can’t.

To put together both prongs of said plan, I researched this area of tactical know-how, including talking with my buddy Mike Seeklander, owner of the American Warrior Society and a self-protection and tactical training expert, and share key insights on preventing and dealing with carjackings below.

Carjackings on the Rise

Before I started researching this article, I thought carjackings were mostly a trope from 1970s action movies. The news didn’t seem to cover many reports on this crime.

But statistics indicate that carjackings have actually been on the rise in many U.S. cities for the past decade. Chicago, Memphis, Nashville, Baltimore, and New Orleans are just some of the cities that have reported a dramatic increase in carjackings in recent years.

Criminologists have a theory as to why the prevalence of carjackings has been going up: Cars today are simply harder to steal without a driver already at the wheel. The fact that modern cars come equipped with anti-theft technology, and will only start when a keyfob is in the vehicle, has made stealing parked cars much more difficult, time-consuming, and dangerous for would-be thieves than it was in the days of simple hot-wiring. So instead of stealing parked, unoccupied vehicles, criminals are taking already running cars from drivers at gunpoint. It’s a lot faster and easier than stealing a car the old-fashioned way.

Understanding the World of Carjacking

So carjackings are up. What can you do to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of this crime?

Step one is to educate yourself about the world of carjacking. You need to know where carjackings are most likely to occur and how they typically go down so that you can formulate a plan on how to avoid this situation in the first place. So here’s your dossier on the criminal world of carjacking:

Most carjackings occur in high crime areas (duh), but Mike says they’re also increasingly happening in the safer, wealthier parts of town too: “That’s typically where the nicer cars filled with nice things are at so that’s where criminals go.”

Carjacking is a crime of opportunity. Carjackers prefer to work at night and in dark areas. Parking lots and intersections with poor lighting are favorite spots. Carjackings do occur, however, in driveways or near the entrances into gated communities.

Carjackers typically strike when the person is getting into their vehicle.

92% of carjackings happen when the victim is alone in the car.

90% of carjackings involved the use of a weapon, typically a firearm.

Carjackers generally are under the age of 21.

Below we discuss how to counteract the factors that make someone more vulnerable to this crime, in order to make yourself far less so.

Don’t Be a Carjacking Victim

Maintain situational awareness. We’ve written extensively about situational awareness here. The key points are 1) paying attention to your surroundings (get off your phone!), 2) look for anomalies in your environment, and 3) have a plan for if something goes wrong.

Situational awareness doesn’t mean being paranoid, just staying in a state of calm attentiveness.

Park in well-lit and well-populated areas. As mentioned above, carjackings are crimes of opportunity. Carjackers will steal a car if they think they’re more likely to get away with it, and they’re more likely to get away with it, if there’s no one around and it’s dark. Don’t give carjackers the opportunity. Park your car in well-lit and well-populated areas. Avoid parking next to big vans or other objects that will obscure the view of witnesses. The goal is to park in a place where lots of people can see you, and your own visibility is high.

Get in and out of your car with purpose. Carjackers typically prey on drivers that appear weak or are distracted. So don’t look weak or distracted. Get in and out of your car with purpose. When you’re walking to your car, keep your head on a swivel. Before you get in the car, look inside it—scanning both the front and back seats. As soon as you climb in the driver’s seat, lock the doors, and get moving. Don’t fiddle on your phone or the radio. Same goes for when you’re getting out of the car. As soon as you stop, get out, and get moving to your destination. The more time you sit in your car looking at your phone, the more time you give a carjacker to stick you up.

Keep your doors locked, and your windows rolled up. Your goal is to make it as hard as possible for someone to carjack you. Leaving your doors unlocked and windows down makes you an easy victim. As soon as you get into your car, make it a habit to lock the doors. And as great as it would be to roll the windows down on a beautiful spring day and crank up “Santeria” by Sublime while sipping a Surge, keep your windows rolled up in high-crime areas of town. You don’t want to provide easy access to thieves.

Many new cars have a feature that locks the doors automatically when you start the car. Mike recommends turning that feature on so that you don’t have to think about locking your doors when you get in your vehicle.

Don’t travel solo when driving in a dangerous part of town. 92% of carjacking victims were alone in their car at the time of the crime. While it’s not possible to have a buddy with you every time you get in the car, if you know you’ll be driving in a dangerous part of town, take a co-pilot along. Again, carjackers are criminals of opportunity: if you’ve got a friend with you, it means the carjacker is likely outnumbered, diminishing his chances of success, and making him think twice about targeting your vehicle.

When stopped in your vehicle (like at a stoplight), be sure you can see the tires of the car in front of you. This will put enough space between you and the car in front of you to allow you to steer and drive away if some bad dude tries to jack your car. “Also, have a plan every time you’re at a stop light. If you had to drive away, have an idea of where you’d go,” says Mike. “[And] don’t be afraid to ignore sidewalks and traffic lines or hit a traffic sign. In a life or death situation, all surfaces become drivable.”

Be on the Lookout for Bump and Runs

One underhanded tactic that some criminals use to carjack is called the “bump and run.” The carjacker and an accomplice will intentionally bump their vehicle into the rear of the victim’s car. Thinking he’s been involved in a fender bender, the victim will get out of his car to assess the damage and exchange insurance information. That’s when the carjacker will threaten the victim and steal his car. The carjacker zooms away in your vehicle, his accomplice drives away in his, and the victim is left stranded.

If you do get rear-ended, pull your car over into a well-lit and populated area. You want as many people as you can to see you. If there isn’t a good place to pull over, keep driving (with your flashers on, so if the person who bumped you is an average citizen, they know you’ll be stopping) until you find one. If you suspect the bumper is likely a car thief, call the police, and stay in your car with doors locked and windows rolled up until the police arrive.

You’re Getting Carjacked: What Do You Do?

Despite all the precautions you’ve taken, you’ve got some rando pointing a gun at your head and telling you to get out of the car. What do you do?

Just give them your car. Most carjackers just want your car. So give it to them. Your life is more important than your Honda Civic. Cars are replaceable; you aren’t.

Get kids out of the car first. If you have kids in the car, make sure the kids get out before you do. “Don’t let some bad guy get behind the wheel of the car if your kids are still in the car. Just tell the carjacker that they can take the car, but that your kids have to get out first,” says Mike. If the kids are old enough to get out by themselves, tell them to get out and as far away from the car and the criminal as possible. If they can’t get out of the car by themselves (e.g., a toddler or an infant), turn around to the backseat and get them out. Again, children should never be in the car without you.

Do NOT get in the car with them. If your carjacker tells you to move over and stay in the car with them, or demands that you get back in after he’s taken over the driver’s seat, do whatever is needed to avoid complying. Your attacker is likely taking you to a “second crime scene.” You don’t want to go to a second crime scene. These are places that are entirely hidden from public view where violent criminals kill/rape/beat their victims. Crime studies show that a victim’s chances of survival go down once they get to a second crime scene. So if you’re told to get into/stay in a carjacked vehicle, fight to resist like your life depends on it — because it probably does.

Control whatever weapon your attacker is using and unleash violence on them. Mike recommends keeping a pepper gel or foam as a first line of defense. “You want to avoid a pepper spray because it could mist back on you. You want something that shoots directly on the criminal and stays on them,” he explains.

Use improvised weapons. Gouge eyes, stomp feet, knee nuts.

If you’re armed, Mike recommends practicing how to handle your firearm in your vehicle. “Handling a firearm in a closed environment like a car seat poses some challenges,” he says. “You’ll need to practice how to get access to your firearm and how to aim and fire it. You’ll also need to practice how to manage your firearm if you have passengers in your vehicle so that they don’t get injured. They need to know what to do in the event you have to use a gun in your vehicle. And this takes practice.”

Many firearm training centers offer classes on how to handle a firearm in a car. If you carry a weapon, Mike recommends taking a class. Also, just practice with a “red gun” or other type of training gun.

If your defenses fail and the carjacker puts you into the trunk, you know how to get out.

As mentioned above, carjackings are rare but rising. Using some common-sense rules, you can avoid being a victim. But if you do get carjacked, you’ll know how to handle it.

The post How to Survive (and Prevent) a Carjacking appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

How to Survive (and Prevent) a Carjacking published first on https://mensproblem.tumblr.com

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anestheticx · 7 years

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What Exactly is Trump Doing?

What Exactly is Donald Trump Doing? It's been months, and many are asking what in the world is Trump truly doing? Better yet, what, if anything, has he accomplished? Is America now magically "great?" Are the claims of job creation and a "better" economy true or simply fluffed up garbage? Is he fighting for the everyday person, or against them? Is he draining the swamp, or filling it? Does he believe in climate change, or is it a Chinese "hoax"? Some of Trump's advisers aren't even certain of what Trump actually means, thinks, or does - this much is obvious in their continuously undermined remarks by Trump himself. An adviser will publicly say one thing, and yet, Trump will say another, disagreeing with them entirely. For all we know, Trump makes decisions on a total, uneducated, emotionally charged whim during late night hours while he skims twitter, alone in his bedroom. Let's look at what Trump HAS done. Trump Has: 1.) A Record Low Approval Rating. Trump's approval rating is the lowest of any new president since Gallup began tracking approval ratings in 1953. New presidents have typically experienced a "honeymoon" period in approval ratings during their first few months, however, Donald Trump has not. His approval rating stands at about 37% consistently. Presidents have slumped low before. George W. Bush fell to 25%, Clinton fell to 37%, Obama fell to 38%, and Reagan fell to 35%. However, these presidents did not lose support so intensely so early in their presidency, and had higher approval ratings from both sides of the political spectrum during the beginning of their terms. If Trump's approval ratings are the highest they'll ever be now, and if they get any lower, he may be the most unpopular president of all time... 2.) Done a lot of Mar-a-Lago Golfing. Since taking office, Trump has spent nearly half of his weekends in Florida. This adds up to a total of 25 days, and the costs are mind numbing. These trips have costed tax-payers about $20 million in 100 days, while Obama's costs for personal travel were at about $97 million in eight years. The costs are historic, but why exactly is the president taking so much time off, so early on. Shouldn't he be working? 3.) Pushed Anti Environmental Legislation. From pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement ( which was a voluntary agreement to consciously cut back on environment destroying carbon emitters ), budget cuts to the EPA, dismissing EPA scientists, scrubbing the EPA's climate change website, expanding offshore drilling, denying climate science, and ordering a review of national monuments to the Dakota Access Pipeline approval - Donald Trump has denied, destroyed, and thrown to the side what we know about climate science completely. Obama's Methane Regulation law was something Trump attempted to ban as well, however, surprisingly the Senate voted not to repeal it. Donald Trump refuses to push towards modernized, cheaper, cleaner energy such as solar, wind and hydro powered technologies, and in doing so has put the U.S.A behind other major countries putting the health of their citizens and this planet before profit. As usual, Trump sees profit as more important than people. The scariest part may be that our water, land, air and general environment will suffer long after Trump, oil and coal are gone. The course he's set on is one that will harm millions if not billions of people if continued without review. With or without the support of Trump and the fossil fuel industry, many states have decided that they must transition rapidly away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Clean energy employs 6x more people than coal, and again coal and oil are finite anyway. 4.) Rolled Back Protections Against Transgender Students. During his campaign, Trump claimed he "loved the gays", and even held up a rainbow flag at an event. However, actions speak louder than words, and he quickly decided that his campaign rhetoric, though apparently good for snagging votes, was no longer useful in his real life legislative decisions. In February 2017, Trump ended federal protections for transgender students that allowed them to utilize the bathroom that suited their gender identity. This move against transgender students allows each individual state to decide whether or not they wish to, basically, discriminate against trans students. Conservatives claim this decision isn't harmful, and that trans students just have to "use the bathroom of their 'true' gender" ( which is transphobic in itself ), but obviously transgender students will be faced with bullying, and various forms of aggression while attending class due to this. Trump also has stated that he wants to give bosses and landlords a "right to discriminate" against LGBT Americans. He is expected to sign an executive order so religious groups, individuals and businesses can do so. 5.) Created a slew of failed Muslim bans. Donald Trump is still engrossed in a battle that seems to inevitably be headed to the Supreme Court over his "travel band" which, if we're being honest here, is really just a ban on seven predominantly Muslim nations. Trump and the alt-right are obsessed with blaming the entire Muslim world for extremist terrorist actions. Due to this, Trump has repetitively tried to enact travel bans on predominantly Muslim nations, and has been struck down due to this sort of wide spread generalization not only being xenophobic but against our Constitution. Trump claims this action is one that is necessary to, "Keep America Safe," yet when one looks closer, the ban actually excludes countries that Trump has business ties with such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Sketchy..... 6.) Embarrassed the USA. Trump officially embarrassed the USA during his first trip abroad for a multitude of reasons, the biggest being angering our international allies which he seems to continuously take for granted. From enraging the intelligence community in Israel and Europe by publicly confirming sensitive material they told him NOT to leak to dragging out his confirmation of alliance to NATO forces - Trump has repetitively agitated our closest allies including France, Germany, the U.K. and Canada with patronizing commentary, overtly aggressive hand shakes, off-hand remarks and a basic, "I'm not working with you" attitude. Not to mention, can we talk about the glowing orb situation in Saudi Arabia? No biggie, right? 7.) Took to Twitter Continuously. You would think that the president had better things to do, but, apparently not. #Covfefe got more press than a Delaware-sized iceberg breaking off Antarctica, symbolizing a climate crisis that threatens all life on Earth. Needless to say, Trump is obsessed with the social media platform, and has not only embarrassed himself continuously on it but never seems to quit tweeting no matter what hour of the day or night it is. If Obama had tweeted "Covfefe", Fox News would have had 24x7 coverage trying to prove it was a code word for Muslims to overthrow the government. What does covfefe mean, after-all? Incompetence, classism, corruption, and nepotism all in one, of course. 8.) Refused to release his taxes. Donald Trump has said he has absolutely no intention of releasing his tax information. But, why? Trump would be the first president in more than 40 years not to do so, and one can only wonder why that would be. What does he have to hide, other than his claimed "large sums of income." Pieces of Trump's tax return reportedly obtained by the New York Times showed a net loss of about $916 million, which Trump has admitted he used to avoid paying some federal income tax. The story just gets thicker, and thicker doesn't it? 9.) Attacked Net Neutrality. The internet is one of the last, large, fairly accessible communication platforms not yet entirely destroyed by corporate influence. Net Neutrality basically protects all internet entities by ensuring that they all get equal representation, not influenced by money or advertising sums for the most part. For instance, your internet provider doesn't dictate what you do and do not see. However, unsurprisingly, Trump wants to put an end to that, and allow your service provider to do just that - dictate what is and isn't easily and readily available via their own personal interests. Imagine going to the book store, and wanting to read a book on gardening. Yet, the books on drilling for oil are free, and the books on gardening are $50.00. Now shove that analogy into internet terms. Ah, yes, censorship. Smells like typical Trump erasure and suppression of opposition voices. What I love is that the American public blatantly and unabashedly voiced its interest in keeping net neutrality yet, this administration plowed over our insistence and stripped away our right to fair and affordable internet in order to cater to their own egotistical desire to deepen their already bloated and overflowing pockets...some Oligarchy *cough* uh, democracy we live in. Basically, what this means is that they will also lift up content that pays large sums and essentially censor others. Also - want to watch Netflix? Just add on $29.99 a month to enjoy up to 300gbs of streaming data at just $10 for every 100gbs afterwards! Enjoy YouTube? Add another $5! Get the Youtube/Netflix/Hulu Triple Play for just an additional $50 a month! (Throttling fees still apply). Congrats Trump Voters, this is literally what you voted for and literally what ISPs will be able to legally do. 10.) Created a Sea of Nepotism. From Kushner's influence to Ivanka's when did children of a public figure with no government experience himself, magically become political experts, and been allowed to interfere with serious government affairs? Monarchies don't seem to be the kind of system American's typically go for, but with Trump fusing his family and business into his dealings politically, it's unfortunately, comparable. 11.) Filled The Swamp with Raw Sewage by Appointing Billionaires to his cabinet. How exactly do men with vast sums of money legislate in favor on the everyday person when the everyday person has no ties to them personally? Apparently to Donald Trump, filling his cabinet with billionaires equates somehow to "draining the swamp" aka making it "everyday Joe" friendly. How can corporate lobbyists truly be concerned with the well-being of typical citizens, both working-class and marginalized - when they still have ties to their own money making agendas? Trump has officially surrounded himself with like-minded individuals who are all about self-preservation, self-interest and of course, profit. 12.) Favored Tax Cuts for the Rich. After his cabinet appointees came out, who can be surprised? Trump released a one page piece of paper that resembled a flea-market flyer in April, void of any legislative or outlined text. In it, briefly, it stated that Trump, "planned to revamp the tax code." At a closer look, the plan would slash corporate tax rates, repeal a fee on wealthy taxpayer investments, repeal the estate tax for millionaires. Doesn't seem too lucrative for the everyday person, but in reality, it could benefit Trump himself "bigly" - in his own descriptive terminology. 13.) Favored A Healthcare and Budget Revamp that will Hurt the most Vulnerable. From cutting aid programs like Meals on Wheels, to creating a healthcare system that would make almost everything a pre-existing condition, Trump has made it clear that his priorities are to benefit the most comfortable Americans, and stick it to the most vulnerable. Democrats wanted to save 6 billion dollars by cutting federal handouts to oil companies and firms with private jets, but the GOP thought cutting food stamps to over 900,000 veterans and their families was a better way to save money. Trump's budget plan hasn't passed yet, and for this reason, hopefully it's dead on arrival. Now, let's get to the, "AHCA". If passed by the Senate, how will Trumpcare aka the AHCA function? Sure, there will be no requirement/tax if you decide not to get healthcare. However, Medicare will be slashed, leaving those in poverty possibly without any healthcare at all. Rich Americans will receive tax breaks. Younger Americans may pay less due to older, more vulnerable Americans paying 5x more simply due to their age. Under current rules, insurers cannot charge older adults more than three times what they charge young adults for the same coverage. The House bill that was passed would allow them to charge five times as much. FIVE. TIMES. If grandma can't afford her insurance now, just wait. Also, the states would decide what pre-existing conditions they would and would not cover. The list of what the GOP considers as pre-existing conditions is lengthy, including everything from pregnancy and rape to mental health, cancer, and acne. What this means, is if your state decides any or all of these GOP mandated pre-existing conditions isn't eligible for coverage, you won't be covered under any insurance and probably won't be able to afford coverage for care you need. This bill is classist, misogynistic, dangerous, selfish, lacking any empathy, and downright pathetic. Call your Senators, tell them to ensure this bill becomes dead on arrival. Here is the comprehensive list of which pre-existing conditions will get you denied health insurance under the GOP plan that just passed in the House. AIDS/HIV, acid reflux, acne, ADD, addiction, Alzheimer's/dementia, anemia, aneurysm, angioplasty, anorexia, anxiety, arrhythmia, arthritis, asthma, atrial fibrillation, autism, bariatric surgery, basal cell carcinoma, bipolar disorder, blood clot, breast cancer, bulimia, bypass surgery, celiac disease, cerebral aneurysm, cerebral embolism, cerebral palsy, cerebral thrombosis, cervical cancer, colon cancer, colon polyps, congestive heart failure, COPD, Crohn's disease, cystic fibrosis, DMD, depression, diabetes, disabilities, Down syndrome, eating disorder, enlarged prostate, epilepsy, glaucoma, gout, heart disease, heart murmur, heartburn, hemophilia, hepatitis C, herpes, high cholesterol, hypertension, hysterectomy, kidney disease, kidney stones, kidney transplant, leukemia, lung cancer, lupus, lymphoma, mental health issues, migraines, MS, muscular dystrophy, narcolepsy, nasal polyps, obesity, OCD, organ transplant, osteoporosis, pacemaker, panic disorder, paralysis, paraplegia, Parkinson's disease, pregnancy, rape, restless leg syndrome, schizophrenia, seasonal affective disorder, seizures, sickle cell disease, skin cancer, sleep apnea, sleep disorders, stent, stroke, thyroid issues, tooth disease, tuberculosis, and ulcers. 14.) Invited Racist clowns like Nugent, Kid Rock and Palin to the Whitehouse. Trump invited the three to the White House to apparently pose in front of portraits of Hillary Clinton. Palin has repetitively spewed elitist, classist garbage, Kid Rock is a vehement confederate flag supporter, and Nugent has openly stated that he wanted to shoot Obama and Clinton. Which leads us to Kathy Griffin.... 15.) Freaked out over Kathy Griffin. When Griffin created imagery of herself holding up Trump's fake, bloody severed head, the internet exploded. Trump cried foul play as he claimed his son was traumatized from seeing such a thing. When did we decide to hold a comedian to higher regards than a "president"? Trump can endanger generations to come in one day, with one pen stroke, and Kathy Griffin can post a photo decapitating Trump, and yet the photo seemed to matter more? Apparently, to Trump, it's alright to body slam a reporter, and talk about how you sexually abuse women with NO consequences, decide to openly destroy our environment and basic human rights with NO consequences - yet a photo is beyond unacceptable to the far right? People created effigies of Obama, burned and lynched them during his presidency. Sasha Obama was nine years old when the birther conspiracy started on top of it all. The ridiculous outrage over the image was palpably hilarious. Would it be more acceptable if we "grabbed some pussy?" while Nugent hailed for the murder of Obama and Clinton? 16.) Watched Himself on TV, and TV In General Nonstop. From NBC's Chuck Todd to White House staffers we've heard continuous mutterings of Trump's TV addiction. Apparently, Trump closely analyzes every interview after its been taped, often on mute, and focuses on...you guessed it, himself. When he's not doing that, and seemingly infuriating 70% of the planet, he's watching cable TV. Seems, "productive." 17.) RUSSIAGATE. Where to even begin? Trump's administration is submerged in seemingly sketchy secret contacts with the Russians, yet, Trump "isn't" involved? US, European and Australian intelligence knows the 2016 election was hacked by Russia, but how far did it go? Trump wasn't under investigation when he fired Comey, but most likely is now. Trump asked an FBI director for loyalty, as if to, "shove the matter" under the rug, but it's acceptable because he doesn't know what he's doing yet? This matter is one that could go on indefinitely, and with Trump claiming he'll take the stand under oath, it can only get juicier, more ridiculous and more awful. One thing is certain, the ex-FBI Director and Trump can't both be telling the truth. 18.) Attempted to segregate schools with voucher programs. The Washington Post has obtained the details of Trump and Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos’ first education budget proposal, and it spells disaster. The pair of billionaires are planning to gut the education budget by $9.2 billion dollars – 13.6% of the entire department’s funding – and reduce total federal education expenditures by $10.6 billion. Charter school crusader and religious extremist Betsy DeVos, who has pledged to use her position to “advance God’s Kingdom,” has budgeted $400 million for school “choice” vouchers and another $1 billion to “push public schools to adopt choice-friendly policies.” By “school choice,” of course, DeVos and Trump mean “allowing affluent white families to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private religious schools with questionable approaches to scientific education” and deprive schools serving low-income students of desperately needed resources. School “choice” programs originally began as a way for racists to get around desegregation rules in the South, as governors closed public schools and allowed white parents to send their kids to whites-only academies while black children were left with no schools. There is only one federally funded school choice voucher program, in Washington D.C., and a recent Department of Education analysis found that the students in those charter schools performed worse on testing than children who attended public schools. The budget proposal cuts nearly two dozen vital programs, including: - $1.2 billion for after-school -$2.1 billion for teacher training and class-size reduction - $15 million program that provides child care for low-income parents in college - $27 million arts education program two programs targeting Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian students, totaling $65 million - $72 million for two international education and foreign language programs - $12 million program for gifted students - $12 million for Special Olympics education programs - $168 million from career and technical education grants - $96 million from adult basic literacy instruction - $13 million from President Obama’s community-building Promise Neighborhoods programs - the entire $1.65 billion fund for “student support and academic enrichment that is meant to help schools pay for, among other things, mental-health services, anti-bullying initiatives, physical education, Advanced Placement courses and science and engineering instruction.” - $700 million in Perkins loans for disadvantaged students - $490 million from a federal work-study program - His plan would also end loan forgiveness for 552,931 people for public servants in rural areas. The United States remains far behind many industrialized nations in academic achievement. Our schools need more funding, not less. Our public school system could use reform, yes, but from skilled educators with decades of experience managing education systems – not an enormously incompetent ideologue like DeVos, whose sole achievement is her role in the Detroit charter school program, which is considered “the biggest school reform disaster in the country.” The children of America cannot afford to let an unqualified religious zealot upend the public school system so she can achieve her lifelong dream of turning America’s schools into Christian camps. The future of our nation depends on it. 19.) Inspired White Supremacists. Hate crimes against people of color have risen since the election of Donald Trump. So has the re-emergence of white supremacist groups in public. From clashes with alt right, and KKK groups that have lead to violence, to the two brave people who stepped in to protect two Muslim women against a man spewing hate speech in Portland and were murdered - when people in power normalize racism and xenophobia it emboldens those with similar beliefs. This is why Trump and this entire xenophobic, hate filled racist "conservative" movement ( among many other reasons ) needs eradicated. 20.) Refused to Listen to the Pope. During their meeting, the Pope not only donned a somber face but a written letter to Trump, telling him why he should not dip out of the Paris Agreement. Trump obviously used the letter as toilet paper, because we now know what his final decision was. 21.) Refused to discuss a livable wage. In his first 100 days, Trump has done nothing to address the issue of wage stagnation. I know a $15 minimum wage seems radical to republicans. You know what's radical? That people working 40+ hours a week are living in poverty, and that those unable to find suitable work are considered unworthy of basic necessities. 22.) Been Involved in Scam, after Scam....Fake for profit university, settled with a fine. Rape allegations, pushed under the rug with settling out of court. Tax Return absurdity. Involving family in serious political decisions. Leaking information about ally intelligence. Tweeting offensive garbage. Fighting with people on twitter due to said garbage. Russiagate, Russiagate, Russiagate - when will it end? Hopefully soon...... 23.) Claimed EVERYTHING EVER was "FAKE NEWS." Removing information and claiming legitimate news to be "fake" while propagating actual propaganda is an Orwellian technique to keep the public in the dark. How much evidence is needed that Trump obstructed justice? When will Republicans put the well-being of others and even themselves above loyalty to their party? It's clear that Donald Trump hasn't fought for the working class, struggling Americans, everyday Americans, veterans or even small business owners. If anything, he's fought to pass legislation for the wealthy, for those that benefit him, those with ties to his business, and legislation with classist, close-minded leanings. It's notable, that Trump views the world as a zero-sum game in which either you "win" and they lose or they win and you lose. It's the personality of a sociopath. As scary as Trump is, this reality show disaster is being used to distract us from the true depth of an economic system built to exploit working, and marginalized people. As stated before, Trump has made it clear that his priorities are to benefit the most comfortable Americans, and stick it to the most vulnerable - all while he destroys our foreign affiliates. What I really, really love - is how anyone speaking out against this country's current capitalist Oligarchical structure is a "snowflake". Over reacting. A "baby." Yet, these ultra conservatives are offended that not everyone is Christian, white, straight, rich, and subordinate to them. When did fighting for universal healthcare, livable wages, social equality, workers well-being, legitimate and affordable education, women's rights and environmental protection become so "unreasonable" to these people? When did logic become radical? When did voting against your own self-interests to better those with wealth become "patriotic"? I see so many extremist, Trump-esc supporters attacking others for speaking out with slurs, xenophobic hatred, gender-based hatred, and pure propaganda fed ignorance. Aside from the fact that they can't formulate an articulated argument without straying from the subject at hand, they'll immediately attack individuals for their appearance, gender, or for striving for working and marginalized people's well-being. Conservatives will spend hours attempting to defend their oppressive corporatist government that doesn't even benefit them, AND even after this detailed list of the awful things that Trump HAS ACTUALLY done or plans to do, they'll still try to defend him.

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awesomenell65 · 7 years

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Part II (A little late) of my thoughts about my participation in the Women’s March on January 21, 2017, in Washington DC. This part address my reflections about race, identity, whiteness and state violence (or the lack thereof).

The security presence – state or private – at the March, though on their webpage the organizers insisted would be there, was nearly invisible. I am sure the numbers simply overwhelmed whatever provisions had been made. One thousand march marshals – however zealous – were a drop in a very large sea. If, as announced beforehand, there were also private security present, many dressed to blend rather than stand out, they too were overmatched by the crowds.

As for the cops – I saw one cop directing traffic early on. I saw one National Guard truck with two guys, who had moved in to separate a bunch of noisy god-botherers from marchers who found them increasingly irritating.

And then I didn’t see another cop until the end, as they arrived to push back the barricades to block car traffic to allow the marchers to disperse. The DC cops seemed friendly and supportive, I even saw one guy in a pink hat, all of them giving directions and assisting with elderly marchers who had been overwhelmed by the crowds (this was common. There were ambulances throughout the day picking up marchers who were undone by the press of humanity). We passed a bunch of firemen sitting outside their firehouse, who also seemed generally cheerful – if as amazed as the rest of us – by the scope of the event.

This was lovely. It was equally clearly a response to the general perception – though not uniform or monolithic by any stretch of the imagination – of whiteness, and of middle-classness, dominating the feel of the March. This perception emerged in the days leading up to the event, and has been strengthened in the days since, despite the huge diversity among the actual marchers, the march organizers, and the rally speakers and performers.

There was – as has been widely reported – no violence, no smashing of windows or cars. As a result, there was no basis for arrests. Equally important of course, perhaps even vital to this peacefullness, there was no action on the part of the state security forces to provoke resistance, violence, smashing or burning.

In fact, as we walked towards our bus late in the day, my sister commented that she was finding it increasingly eerie, even vaguely sinister, this absence of policing by the state.

We had all mentally prepared for worse. The website itself has instructions for what to do if you are arrested. Tumblr and other social media were full of regular reminders to white allies (or hope-to-be allies) to stand with, not just for, marchers of color who might face greater vigilance or active interference from police. A handful of our husbands and sons had given us reminders of what to do if the event turned into a riot, one of my more intensely organized aunts had printed up wallet-sized cards with relevant contact information, including the lawyers in the family. One among us dutifully wrote all her information on her arm with a sharpie as her middle-twenty-something son had begged her to do, and sent him a picture as proof.

In short – we all had, I had expected a hell of a lot more cops. And potentially hostile cops at that.

That there were none was shocking, and ultimately very disheartening to me. It suggested two overlapping issues for our consideration as we walked, and for me in the days since then as I continue to reflect on the experience, and read the reflections of others. And ponder how I proceed in the months and years ahead.

First, it seems obvious to me that the forces of the state continue to find white women and their concerns utterly trivial, and by definition, wholly unthreatening. Millions of women around the nation and the world came together and – in the eyes of leaders, and of the state, and of too many observers – made only vague, empty, meaningless sounds easily dismissed as mere womanish carping.

This is – not comforting or uplifting.

We – my white feminist sisters and I – do not (yet?) rise to the level of threat, only, at best, to minor puzzlement. (Witness the reaction on the conservanews sites: “What were they even there for, Ron? Do they even know?” Because reading the damn signs was clearly too much to expect or ask.)

I could append links here to the news in the days after the March, full of pundits and ‘thinkers’ and chatting heads, all of them busy reconfiguring the marches, the marchers, their goals, their agendas, as wrong, silly, immaterial, non-political, un-serious, off base and wholly inconsequential. And White. So so white. All in their silly little pink hats. (I won’t link because I don’t feel like throwing up in my mouth any more than necessary.)

Some have also picked up the language of the alt-right women’s groups, of modern anti-feminists with skater-colored hair, berating us for our many failures of white womanhood. For our failures of tolerance, of inclusion, of not loving our enemies more than we love ourselves, of loving our own pussies to the exclusion of others, with and without them.

Scolding us for being simultaneously too white and too female to accomplish anything meaningful, and yet, clearly not very good at white womanhood, having failed in our first duty to be quiet, self-effacing, and charming to our oppressors, to the oppressed, to the scolds, the cheerleaders, the critics, in short, to everyone but ourselves.

So. Yes. Despite the actual, real, lived diversity of the organizers and the program and the crowds, (Oh the crowds! it was beautiful and intense and a vision of the very best of all our hopes of the promises of our shared political experiment – people from all over the US from all kinds of backgrounds, races, ethnicities, genders, ages, and abilities), as the March has entered into the public dialogue, it has carried with it pervasive, inescapable whiteness at all levels.

I believe the state did not police us because they do not (yet…?) find groups of white women threatening, our concerns to be legitimate, or our demands worthy of even the slightest pretense at consideration. They certainly know they have trained us well not to fight back. They can silence us, therefore, without much strain at all. Simply by using deflection, denial, and denigration they can shut us down. They can let our own movement critics take up the challenge of dismissing our efforts as too little, too late, insulting and without meaning.

So we shrink and shrink and shrink until it is as though we were never there at all.

This affords white women and ‘white’ groups a certain privilege, a protection, for a time, from state violence. Yes it absolutely does.

At the price of trivializing and dismissing every single issue that brought us all out to march, in DC and all over the world, just through association with our foolish, silly, confusing and confused white-women selves.

At the price of dismissing reclaiming the pussy as a sign of power and self, instead framing it as gross and unseemly, as exclusionary and disgusting.

At the price of erasing the participation of all the tens and hundreds of thousands people of color, women and men, who attended the marches in DC and elsewhere.

At the price of erasing those women of color who actually organized the marches, spoke and performed at the marches, and led the way.

Eliminating in a series of tweets and think pieces all these amazing women of color from the history of the March, the meaning of the March just like that…

Again. Same old song. New verse same as the first.

This aspect of white womanhood is not a privilege.

This is an infuriating curse we carry with us wherever we go, whether we wish to or not.

We undermine professions as soon as we enter them in large numbers. We get forced out once they are perceived (again or for the first time) to be important. It renders homemaking invisible unpaid labor unless we sing its joys (and we still don’t get paid).

It mutes and denies our multitude of calls for women’s healthcare, reproductive justice, affordable childcare, prison reform, saving the environment and the planet, ending/stopping the Dakota Pipeline, ending fracking, clean air, affordable colleges and universities and better housing.

Any of these issues, all of them, are being denigrated and made small, dismissed as ‘side’ issues, and not ‘real politics’ and all because white women are elevated to leadership by their critics (whether they are doing the work or not), and then by the curse in their touch, contaminating the whole.

The process is unfolding right now, as I watch my Tumblr feed while I work.

This safe pedestal of trivial, useless, wrongheaded white womanhood is also deceiving. Because once white women do finally step off it (leap off it, blow it up and burn it down) we become just as much a target of state violence as any other perceived threat to the existence the world-as-it-is. Our bodies are not, in fact, bullet proof, fist proof, arrest proof.

Especially those white women who actively continue to make common cause with women and people of color, immigrants, transwomen and transmen, queer groups in general. They will be arrested, assaulted, and shot.

Our preparations were serious over-kill this time. If we continue, as we most definitely should, they won’t always be.

Second, and this was the eerie rather than the infuriating and infantilizing aspect, what if something had happened?

If the Haymarket bomb (or some more modern equivalent) had been thrown, in DC or any of the hundreds of other spaces around the nation and the world, the chaos and damage and danger to the marches and to the marchers, to their causes and their demands, and yes, the accompanying injuries and death, would have been absolutely horrific.

We were so jam packed, so close together, for block upon block upon block, with no where to go, no where to take cover, no where to run, and absolutely no visible security or other official leadership presence. The elderly, the frail, the small, the unlucky, would surely have gone down under the feet of the younger, stronger and larger.

I sincerely believe the marches were not so targeted because of the above perception of triviality, and the protections of whiteness that triviality bestowed.

I also fear that the very visible lack of state security forces was an invitation.

One that now…. by virtue of the marches previously unimaginable visibility and success, will surely be taken up. Future marches will be targeted by hate and haters, by those seeking to damage, to maim, to eliminate the threats being posed to their power, to their perception of self.

The state has dramatically signaled that they will not be there.

Make of that what you will.

#women march 2017

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alexamartin1992 · 4 years

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#Cat Sprayed In The Face By A Skunk Surprising Cool Ideas #Glen 20 Cat Urine

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arcticdementor · 5 years

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Trump cannot get stuff done, because he is merely president, and the permanent government is full of people that hate him.

But it is not just the permanent government. His political appointees are in bed with his enemies, and are subverting his agenda. Two years after Hitler was elected, Hitler had a Nazi running ever boy scout troop and every trade union chapter. Trump cannot even get a Trumpist running border security.

The one area where Trump has been successful is putting his people in the judiciary. Trumpist judges, though still massively outnumbered, are coming in at every level. Trump has been effective in appointing judges, because he has a big bench he can draw upon, which bench knows who whom, which bench is self policing, which bench can be relied upon to carry out his program without him needing to be on their back. Personnel is policy, and the Federalist society has a supply.

…

To govern, you need a synthetic tribe, which Hitler had, which Constantine adopted, and which Trump lacks, except for the federalist society which is narrowly focused on judicial process.

The Federalist article of faith (Original Intent) that provides unity and cohesion is also an effective antibody against enemy outgroups. It is something no leftist can admit is even thinkable – to them, just words with no meaning that they dare conceive of. So when leftist entryists attempt to infiltrate the Federalists, they use their shibboleths incorrectly, like a Marxist purporting to be channeling Adam Smith, and wind up babbling random nonsensical meaningless scripted formulaic NPC gibberish.

We, on the other hand, agree with the leftists, that original intent is not really going to fly, while we agree with the Federalists that judges exercising executive, legislative, budgetary authority is intolerable. One emperor is a stationary bandit. A thousand little emperors is mobile banditry and anarcho tyranny. We, however, propose a solution far more radical than that of the federalists – that the final court of appeal should be the Sovereign, should be Moses, the King, or the President, and he should be able to intervene in any case, and fire any judge. We also propose William the Conqueror’s “forms of action”, meaning that judges should be reduced to data entry clerks filling out forms that result in remote procedure calls to a system of central databases, similar to the system used by Australia’s border control force for dealing with “Illegal persons”. (Australian Border Force is Judge Dredd with more typing required than Judge Dredd had to do, but the same refreshing speed, efficiency, and absence of lawyers and priestly robes as with Judge Dredd.) William the Conqueror’s “Forms of action” kept judges in line for seven hundred years, and modern databases and remote procedure calls make William the Conqueror’s solution lightning fast, so that it can be applied by a cop on the beat, after the fashion of Judge Dredd and the Australian Border Force.

…

We are the reaction. Our program is to rectify social decay by reviving ancient and lost social technologies, among them Pauline marriage. These ancient social technologies tend, for the most part, to be social technologies preserved by Christianity through the Dark Age following the collapse of the Roman Empire, and by the Children of Israel through the dark age following the collapse of Bronze Age civilization, thus our program is Christian – old type Christian. Modern type Christians tend to assimilate to progressivism and worship demons.

…

So: here are the articles of the Canon:

1. Throne 2. Altar 3. Freehold 4. Family 5. Property

Throne

Division of powers, divided sovereignty does not work, more rulers means mobile banditry and anarcho tyranny. A stationary bandit has better incentives than a mobile bandit.

Altar

You cannot separate state and church. The church will undermine the state and take state power for itself, or the state subvert the church, or both at once. Harvard is our high holy Cathedral. A holiness spiral ensues as the priestly classes, the professoriat, the judiciary, and the media, pursue power by each being holier than the next. Obviously we have a state religion a state religion that every day becomes crazier, more dogmatic, and more intrusive, and that state religion needs to be formalized and made official so that the high priest and grand inquisitor can stop holiness spirals.

When Charles the Second was restored, the people of England held pagan celebrations, in the correct expectation that an officially official religion would be less repressive than an unofficially official religion.

…

Freehold

Freehold necessarily involves and requires rejection of the principle of equality before the law, and property rejection of equality of outcomes. Not all men were created equal, nor are women equal to men, nor is one group or category of men equal to another. Stereotypes are stereotypical, because the stereotype is usually true for most individual members of the group or category.

…

State building is coalition building to rule. We need a coalition of the smart, the cooperative, and the productive, ruling the stupid, the disruptive, and the destructive. The doctrine of equality means you cannot reward the elite with status? What! Of course the ruling elite is going to be rewarded with status, and that is exactly what is happening.

The ruling elite always gets rewarded, the ruling coalition always gets rewarded. Members of the ruling coalition always get a superior right to use violence, and a superior right to not be insulted. That is the way it is, and that is what we saw when white people were ethnically cleansed out of Detroit. The doctrine of equality before the law was always a lie intended to destroy the coalition of the smart, the cooperative, and the productive, to guilt the best people into surrender, so that they could be destroyed by a coalition of the worst.

Freehold means that we acknowledge that some state power is in fact private property, and the sovereign lets his loyal vassals enjoy their privilege, because if he tries to meddle, he will be overwhelmed by detail and complexity, so best to formalize that privilege and make it official. If we don’t have the aristocracy that so offended the founding fathers, we find ourselves with blacks exercising aristocratic privilege over whites. Equality before the law is an unworkable ideal, hypocritically betrayed in actual practice. Some people are going to be unjustly privileged. Let us try to make it the best people rather than the worst people, and try to make it the people that the state draws is wealth and coercive power from, rather than the people who sponge off the state.

Family

The immense biological and reproductive differences between men and women means that they can only cooperate for family formation on asymmetric, unequal terms. The wife has a duty to honor and obey, the husband to love and cherish. To ensure cooperation between men and women, the state, the family, society, and religion have to force men and women who sleep together to stick together, to force them to perform their marital duties, to force the man to cherish and the woman to obey, otherwise you get defect/defect, and reproduction and family become difficult for both men and woman.

…

Property

Anti discrimination law violates people’s property rights. Google hates us, but the problem is not primarily too much capitalism, but too little. In the James Damore affair, Google’s Human Resources Department (the Human Resources department being a tentacle of the state inserted into every corporation) threatened the board and the management of Google with a lawsuit for not hating us enough, issuing an official opinion that thinking forbidden thoughts constituted a “hostile environment for women”. Because stereotypes are usually true, private individuals and corporations should be free to make use of the information expressed by stereotyping. The trouble with libertarians and libertarianism is that they support every socialist intervention that is destroying our lives and our economy.

Family law and anti discrimination law violates the fourth amendment and the seventh, eighth, and final commandments

…

Technological advance and industrialization comes from Ayn Rand’s heroic engineer CEO, mobilizing other people’s capital and other people’s labor. We first see this archetype appear immediately after the restoration, when Charles the Second made it OK to use the corporate form to get rich. Unfortunately, Ayn Rand’s hero is not heroically on our side, contrary to what Ayn Rand promised.. He unheroically endorses the official religion, knowing his property could be attacked if he does not. But we should keep in mind that this makes him merely the instrument of power, not power. When we are in charge he will support our official religion and scarcely notice the change in the slogans posted in the rec room, which formerly endorsed coveting what belonged to others and females adopting male clothing and roles, but will then condemn coveting and endorse males performing male roles and females performing female roles.

Rand’s superman is not on our side. But he is not on the progs side. He is his own side, and this makes him largely irrelevant for political power, which requires cohesion.

The state can facilitate science by being a customer and buying high tech stuff. Indeed, a great deal of advance has come from the state seeking means to hurt people and break their toys, but when the state tries to itself advance technology, it usually turns out badly: Nasa could not build rockets. Kidnapped Wernher von Braun. Asked him how to build rockets. Still could not build rockets.

Nasa puts Wernher von Braun in charge. Now it can build rockets. Puts a man on the moon

.Wernher von Braun retires. New types of rockets don’t work. Old types of rockets gradually stop working no matter how much government money is poured down the toilet.

Where did Nasa find Wernher von Braun?

Nazis kidnapped him from the German rocket club which they shut down.

Seems obvious that we would have wound up with a whole lot better rocket technology if the rocket club became, or spawned, a bunch of startups, one of them led by Wernher von Braun, and governments outsourced rockets. Which is what gave us the reusable booster that lands as a rocket should land.

#james a donald #reaction

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theadmiringbog · 6 years

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Mike Flynn, Trump’s future national security advisor, who became Trump’s opening act at campaign rallies and whom Trump loved to hear complain about the CIA and the haplessness of American spies, had been told by his friends that it had not been a good idea to take $45,000 from the Russians for a speech. “Well, it would only be a problem if we won,” he assured them, knowing that it would therefore not be a problem.

Trump refused to spend any time considering, however hypothetically, transition matters, saying it was “bad luck”—but really meaning it was a waste of time.

Shortly after eight o’clock that evening, when the unexpected trend—Trump might actually win—seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he called him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania, to whom Donald Trump had made his solemn guarantee, was in tears—and not of joy. There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon’s not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a quite horrified Trump. But still to come was the final transformation: suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be and was wholly capable of being the president of the United States.

Up close, Trump was not the bombastic and pugilistic man who had stirred rabid crowds on the campaign trail. He was neither angry nor combative. He may have been the most threatening and frightening and menacing presidential candidate in modern history, but in person he could seem almost soothing. His extreme self-satisfaction rubbed off. Life was sunny. Trump was an optimist—at least about himself. He was charming and full of flattery; he focused on you. He was funny—self-deprecating even. And incredibly energetic—Let’s do it whatever it is, let’s do it.

Almost all the professionals who were now set to join him were coming face to face with the fact that it appeared he knew nothing.

There was simply no subject, other than perhaps building construction, that he had substantially mastered. Everything with him was off the cuff. Whatever he knew he seemed to have learned an hour before.

He was a rebel, a disruptor, and, living outside the rules, contemptuous of them. A close Trump friend who was also a good Bill Clinton friend found them eerily similar—except that Clinton had a respectable front and Trump did not.

Reince Priebus, getting ready to shift over from the RNC to the White House, noted, with alarm, how often Trump offered people jobs on the spot, many of whom he had never met before, for positions whose importance Trump did not particularly understand.

Tthe same people—that is, the media—who had violently criticized him for saying he might dispute the election result were now calling him illegitimate.

Trump’s view was that he’d been elected because of those conflicts—his business savvy, connections, experience, and brand—not in spite of them, and that it was ludicrous for anyone to think he could untangle himself even if he wanted.

Mark Hemingway, in the conservative, but anti-Trump, Weekly Standard, argued the novel paradox of two unreliable narrators dominating American public life: the president-elect spoke with little information and frequently no factual basis, while “the frame the media has chosen to embrace is that everything the man does is, by default, unconstitutional or an abuse of power.”

On the afternoon of January 11, these two opposing perceptions faced off in the lobby of Trump Tower: the political antichrist, a figure of dark but buffoonish scandal, in the pocket of America’s epochal adversary, versus the would-be revolutionary-mob media, drunk on virtue, certainty, and conspiracy theories. Each represented, for the other side, a wholly discredited “fake” version of reality.

When he came off the podium after delivering his address, he kept repeating, “Nobody will forget this speech.” George W. Bush, on the dais, supplied what seemed likely to become the historic footnote to the Trump address: “That’s some weird s***.”

This had led increasingly to the two-different-realities theory of Trump politics.

In the one reality, which encompassed most of Trump’s supporters, his nature was understood and appreciated. He was the antiwonk. He was the counterexpert. His was the gut call. He was the everyman. He was jazz (some, in the telling, made it rap), everybody else an earnest folk music.

In the other reality, in which resided most of his antagonists, his virtues were grievous if not mental and criminal flaws. In this reality lived the media, which, with its conclusion of a misbegotten and bastard presidency, believed it could diminish him and wound him (and wind him up) and rob him of all credibility by relentlessly pointing out how literally wrong he was. The media, adopting a “shocked, shocked” morality, could not fathom how being factually wrong was not an absolute ending in itself. How could this not utterly shame him? How could his staff defend him? The facts were the facts! Defying them, or ignoring them, or subverting them made you a liar—intending to deceive, bearing false witness. (A minor journalism controversy broke out about whether these untruths should be called inaccuracies or lies.)

In most White Houses, policy and action flow down, with staff trying to implement what the president wants—or, at the very least, what the chief of staff says the president wants. In the Trump White House, policy making, from the very first instance of Bannon’s immigration EO, flowed up. It was a process of suggesting, in throw-it-against-the-wall style, what the president might want, and hoping he might then think that he had thought of this himself (a result that was often helped along with the suggestion that he had in fact already had the thought).

The president couldn’t stop talking. He was plaintive and self-pitying, and it was obvious to everyone that if he had a north star, it was just to be liked.

There was, he suggested, the possibility that the British had had the Trump campaign staff under surveillance, monitoring its telephone calls and other communications and possibly even Trump himself. This was, as Kushner might understand, the Sabbath goy theory of intelligence. On the Sabbath, observant Jews could not turn on the lights, nor ask someone else to turn on the lights. But if they expressed the view that it would be much easier to see with light, and if a non-Jew then happened to turn them on, that would be fine. So although the Obama administration would not have asked the British to spy on the Trump campaign, the Brits would have been led to understand how helpful it might be if they did.

It was another one of his counterintuitive connections to many voters: Obama and Hillary Clinton seemed actually to want to talk about health care plans, whereas Trump, like most everybody else, absolutely did not.

The burden of the White House is the boredom of bureaucracy. All White Houses struggle to rise above that, and they succeed only on occasion. In the age of hypermedia, this has not gotten easier for the White House, it’s gotten harder. It’s a distracted nation, fragmented and preoccupied. It was, arguably, the peculiar tragedy of Barack Obama that even as a transformational figure—and inspirational communicator—he couldn’t really command much interest. As well, it might be a central tragedy of the news media that its old-fashioned and even benighted civic-minded belief that politics is the highest form of news has helped transform it from a mass business to a narrow-cast one. Alas, politics itself has more and more become a discrete business. Its appeal is B-to-B—business-to-business. The real swamp is the swamp of insular, inbred, incestuous interests. This isn’t corruption so much as overspecialization. It’s a wonk’s life. Politics has gone one way, the culture another. The left-right junkies might pretend otherwise, but the great middle doesn’t put political concerns at the top of their minds.

Donald Trump produced on a daily basis an astonishing, can’t-stop-following-it narrative. And this was not even because he was changing or upsetting the fundamentals of American life. In six months as president, failing to master almost any aspect of the bureaucratic process, he had, beyond placing his nominee on the Supreme Court, accomplished, practically speaking, nothing. And yet, OMG!!! There almost was no other story in America—and in much of the world. That was the radical and transformational nature of the Trump presidency: it held everybody’s attention.

Every development cannot be climactic. The fact that yesterday’s climax would soon, compared to the next climax, be piddling, rather bore out the disproportion. The media was failing to judge the relative importance of Trump events: most Trump events came to naught (arguably all of them did), and yet all were greeted with equal shock and horror. The White House staff believed that the media’s Trump coverage lacked “context”—by this, they meant that people ought to realize that Trump was mostly just huffing and puffing.

#Fire and Fury #books

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amieseton448-blog · 6 years

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ROMAN COSTUMES Related Contents.

Old Classical disguises were actually as engaging and also intriguing as the culture from old Greece itself. Whether it is actually the new bride of early time carrying herbs to prevent ghouls or even today's contemporary bride-to-be bring a brilliantly colour as well as intricate created arrangement, the wedding arrangement is actually one wedding celebration heritage that is destined to stay an aspect of our wedding celebration tradition. Find out about lifestyle in metropolitan locations and also neighborhoods of various societies from the world at a variety of attend their past history. Similar to old opportunities, today's pottery is additionally created by excavating clay from the ground then mixing it along with water to make it supple and supple. I want my account to bring to life the recuperation as well as religious side of these ancient individuals and also express how much they werw in touch along with their globe as well as with nature. 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Also while as distant in history as the Classical world, individuals have actually taken notice of beauty as well as personal hygiene. Cannabis have actually been utilized considering that historical times to quit nightfall, sexual weak point and exhaustion efficiently and without any negative effects on general wellness. Much like early opportunities, today's pottery is additionally helped make through digging clay coming from the ground and after that blending it along with water to create this supple as well as supple. I want my account to bring to life the healing and religious edge of these ancient folks and show how much they werw in touch along with their planet as well as along with attribute. The expression, probably from homing pigeons, suggests to relocate in the direction of an aim at, yet this does not create a bunch of feeling so you could view why a comparable phrase, polish", indicating to refine or hone, is actually usually swapped. Now you may see different interpretations this historical layout grace outdoor patios, pool, platforms, backyards, decks, and patios throughout the nation. The Ace from Diamonds on its own anticipates cash or a communication for the customer. Undoubtedly, the Plague suddenly vanished the moment his term escalate (though some advise since beer was steamed in the brewing procedure, that would possess been more secure compared to water, which had actually earlier dispersed the disease.) When St Arnold died in 640, the residents from his home town held his physical body from Remiremont to Metz for reburial in their religion. Sir Francis Bacon in 1592 filled in a letter that his 'extensive reflective ends' conveyed his 'philanthropia' and his 1608 essay, On Benefits, defined his target as 'the affecting of the weale of males ... exactly what the Grecians call philanthropia.' Holly Cockeram, in his British dictionary (1623), mentioned 'philanthropie' as a word for 'humanitie' (in Latin, humanitas) - thus renewing the Timeless formulation. Furthermore, the flowers as well as leaves behind that were actually made use of to create container setups were very carefully chosen based upon their symbolic significance. The true definition from the tale is associated with the stars having the exact same name from the boys which are actually the 1st to rise early in the morning at dawn. If you liked this write-up and you would certainly such as to get even more info pertaining to yellow pages online malaysia (poradnik-anty-otylosc.pl) kindly browse through our web site. It was actually composed as a spiritual manual as well as consisted of thorough writings of affection producing procedures and also insight. Popular murals of the historical days are the landscapes from Buddhist monks and by Michelangelo in the course of the revival period. SAMSON the kid from MANOAH (c) 11OO BC possesses his full story informed in the BOOK FROM JUDGES in the OLD TESTIMONY asserting he was actually talented through THE LORD along with massive stamina made use of in the main to pay a one male battle against his opponents the PHILISTINES. In the Greek society, the hedonistic sex-related free-for all depicted in flicks and also numerous university class was actually not the standard in the days of the free as well as autonomous Classical society.

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neptunecreek · 6 years

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EFF to Court: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

EFF is fighting another attempt by a giant corporation to take advantage of our poorly drafted federal computer crime statute for commercial advantage—without any regard for the impact on the rest of us. This time the culprit is LinkedIn. The social networking giant wants violations of its corporate policy against using automated scripts to access public information on its website to count as felony “hacking” under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 federal law meant to criminalize breaking into private computer systems to access non-public information.

EFF, together with our friends DuckDuckGo and the Internet Archive, have urged the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reject LinkedIn’s request to transform the CFAA from a law meant to target “hacking” into a tool for enforcing its computer use policies. Using automated scripts to access publicly available data is not “hacking,” and neither is violating a website’s terms of use. LinkedIn would have the court believe that all “bots” are bad, but they’re actually a common and necessary part of the Internet. “Good bots” were responsible for 23 percent of Web traffic in 2016. Using them to access publicly available information on the open Internet should not be punishable by years in federal prison.

LinkedIn’s position would undermine open access to information online, a hallmark of today’s Internet, and threaten socially valuable bots that journalists, researchers, and Internet users around the world rely on every day—all in the name of preserving LinkedIn’s advantage over a competing service. The Ninth Circuit should make sure that doesn’t happen.

Background: Bad Court Decisions Open Door to Abuse

The CFAA makes it illegal to engage in “unauthorized access” to a computer connected to the Internet, but the statute doesn’t tells us what “authorization” or “without authorization” means. This vague language might have seemed innocuous to some back in 1986 when the statute was passed, but in today’s networked world, where we all regularly connect to and use computers owned by others, this pre-Web law is causing serious problems.

In some jurisdictions, the CFAA has metastasized into a tool for companies and websites to enforce their computer use policies, like terms of service (which no one reads) or corporate computer policies. But other courts—including the Ninth Circuit back in 2012—have rejected turning the CFAA “into a sweeping Internet-policing mandate.” The Ninth Circuit instead chose to “maintain[] the CFAA’s focus on hacking,” holding that violating a company’s or website’s terms of use cannot give rise to liability. The court recognized that basing criminal liability on violations of computer use policies would turn innocuous activities like checking the score of a baseball game at work or fudging your age on your social media profile into a felony offenses—and make criminals out of all of us.

Then in 2016, the Ninth Circuit reversed course and delivered two dangerously expansive interpretations of the CFAA in cases involving password sharing. Despite our warnings that the decisions would be easily misused, the court refused to reconsider either case, stressing that the decisions would be limited to their “stark” facts.

Within weeks after the decisions were reached, LinkedIn began using these two decisions in an attempt to get around the Ninth Circuit’s 2012 ruling—and to use the CFAA to enforce its terms of service prohibition on scraping and thereby block competing services from perfectly legal uses of publicly available data on its website.

One company targeted by LinkedIn was hiQ Labs, which provides analysis of data on LinkedIn users’ publicly available profiles. LinkedIn sent hiQ cease and desist letters warning that any future access of its website, even the public portions, were “without permission and without authorization” and thus violations of the CFAA. hiQ challenged LinkedIn’s attempt to use the CFAA as a tool to enforce its terms of use in court. hiQ won a preliminary injunction against LinkedIn in district court, and LinkedIn appealed.

The Problems with LinkedIn’s Position

As we told the court in our amicus brief, Linkedin’s interpretation of the CFAA is problematic for a number of reasons.

First, allowing a website to use the CFAA as a terms of service enforcement mechanism would do precisely what the Ninth Circuit in 2012 sought to avoid: it would “transform the CFAA from an anti- hacking statute into an expansive misappropriation statute” for enforcing the use of publicly available information across the Web. Accessing public information on the open Internet cannot—and should not—give rise to liability under a law meant to target breaking into private computers to access non-public information.

Second, imposing CFAA liability for accessing publicly available information via automated scripts would potentially criminalize all automated “scraping” tools—including a wide range of valuable tools and services that Internet users, journalists, and researchers around the world rely on every day. Automated scraping is the process of using Internet “bots”—software applications that runs automated tasks over the Internet—to extract content and data from a website. LinkedIn tried to paint all bots as bad, but as we explained to the Ninth Circuit, bots are an essential and socially valuable component of the Internet. The Web crawlers that power tools we all rely on every day, including Google Search and Amici DuckDuckGo and Internet Archive, are Internet bots. News aggregation tools, including Google’s Crisis Map, which aggregated critical information about the California’s October 2016 wildfires, are Internet bots. ProPublica journalists used automated scrappers to investigate Amazon’s algorithm for ranking products by price and uncovered that Amazon’s pricing algorithm was hiding the best deals from many of its customers. The researchers who studied racial discrimination on Airbnb also used bots, and found that distinctively African American names were 16 percent less likely to be accepted relative to identical guests with distinctively white names.

Third, by potentially criminalizing what are in fact everyday online tools, LinkedIn’s position violates the long held “Rule of Lenity,” which requires that criminal statutes be interpreted to give clear notice of what conduct is criminal.

Old Laws Can’t Do New Tricks

The CFAA is an old, blunt instrument, and trying to use it to solve a modern, complicated dispute between two companies will undermine open access to information on the Internet for everyone. As we said in our amicus brief:

The power to limit access to publicly available information on the Internet under color of the law should be dictated by carefully considered rules that balance the various competing policy interests. These rules should not allow the handful of companies that collect massive amounts of user data to reap the benefits of making that information publicly available online—i.e., more Internet traffic and thus more data and more eyes for advertisers—while at the same time limiting use of that public information via the force of criminal law.

LinkedIn’s Position Won’t Actually Protect Privacy

Both LinkedIn and the Electronic Privacy Information Center argue that imposing criminal liability for automated access of publicly available LinkedIn data would protect the privacy interests of LinkedIn users who decide to publish their information publicly, but that’s just not true. LinkedIn still wouldn’t have any meaningful control over who accesses the data and how they use it, because the data will still be freely available on the open Internet for malicious actors and anyone not within the jurisdiction of the United States to access and use however they wish. LinkedIn’s contractual use restrictions on automated access may provide an illusion of privacy—and deter law-abiding individuals and U.S.-based companies from using automated tools to access that data—but nothing more.

LinkedIn knows this. Its privacy policy acknowledges the inherent lack of privacy in data posted publicly and makes no promises to users about LinkedIn’s ability to protect it: “Please do not post or add personal data to your profile that you would not want to be publicly available.” LinkedIn shouldn’t be spreading misconceptions about the “privacy” of publicly posted data in court pleadings to advance its corporate interests.

LinkedIn Can’t Have Its Cake and Eat It, Too

The only way for LinkedIn to truly protect the privacy of its users’ is to make their profiles non-public—i.e., to put their information behind a username and password barrier. But instead its profiles are public by default. As LinkedIn itself admits, it benefits from that data remaining public and freely accessible on the Internet: open access on its platforms means more Internet traffic (and thus more data and more eyes for advertisers). As we told the court, “LinkedIn wants to ‘participate in the open Web’ but at the same time abuse the CFAA to avoid ‘accept[ing] the open trespass norms of the Web.’” We hope the court does not allow it.

Related Cases:

United States v. David Nosal

Facebook v. Power Ventures

from Deeplinks http://ift.tt/2B5shzm

#Deeplinks

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benrleeusa · 7 years

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[Jane Bambauer] The untestable marketplace of ideas

This post will summarize my essay, “The Empirical First Amendment,” forthcoming in the Ohio State Law Journal as part of a symposium on “the Expanding First Amendment.” The essay argues that the First Amendment’s protections are surprisingly shallow when it comes to scientific discovery.

I say “surprisingly” because free speech law aspires to be scientific. The Founders were influenced by the ideas coming out of the scientific revolution. In the modern era, the Supreme Court has consistently placed its bets on the “marketplace of ideas” theory that truth will emerge from competition between factual claims, much like scientific progress itself. Fortunately, the scientific approach to the creation of knowledge is extraordinarily good, at least compared to its alternatives.

As Jonathan Rauch neatly explains, it requires adherence to just two simple rules: First, no claim, no matter how absurd, unconventional, or unpopular, can be removed from consideration. That is, there is no final say, by the government or any other institution, about what is and is not true. I will call this “Claim Liberty” for shorthand. This is the familiar freedom to speak. Second, every person should be able to test the claim for himself to ensure that he gets the same results. That is, nobody should have to rely on the personal authority of the speaker making a claim if they would prefer to verify its accuracy themselves. I refer to this as “Empirical Liberty,” but it can also be understood as a freedom to test. Empirical liberty often (though not always) requires people to have the means to collect information, observe evidence, or experience things directly from the world.

First Amendment law gives full and unabashed support to Claim Liberty. Even verifiable lies and hateful claims are protected from official suppression in order to avoid the problems that arise if the state has final authority over what is and is not true. The First Amendment “presupposes that there are no orthodoxies—religious, political, economic, or scientific—which are immune from debate and dispute.”

But the First Amendment does not and cannot give that type of support to Empirical Liberty. To see why it does not, consider the claim that the iPhone is water-proof. Nearly every part of an empirical test, from the purchase of the phone, its transport and its submersion into water involves non-communicative conduct that can be regulated on the basis of its non-communicative effects. To see why the First Amendment cannot give full support to Empirical Liberty, one needs only a brief tour through the broad range of descriptive claims that are theoretically testable, but not without severely interfering with the autonomy of others.

Thus, the First Amendment’s support for the scientific process of truth-seeking is incomplete. It permits every claim to be submitted to the “marketplace of ideas,” (Claim Liberty), allowing a cacophony of proposed hypotheses, many of them wrong, many provably wrong. But First Amendment case law and theory has done much less to give listeners the means to rationally choose between those competing theories.

This is not entirely surprising because Empirical Liberty is a modern fixture in the philosophy of science. During the time of the Founding Fathers, a commitment to Claim Liberty was revolutionary enough by taking control over the claims that can and cannot be put forward out of the hands of religious or government decision-makers. It left the decision about which claim is acceptable, and why, up to the individual listeners.

The scientific community did not fully flesh out and appreciate the importance of empirical methods until the early 20th century, when Karl Popper formalized the requirement that a claim must be testable and falsifiable in order to be valid. This requirement advances human knowledge by assuring all participants that they can see for themselves whether a claim gives an accurate account of the world, and therefore helps kill off the theories that do not match the evidence.

The value of Popper’s contribution was also illustrated in real time by Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity. The theory caused an uproar. The scientific community mobilized to publish a collection of essays titled “One Hundred Authors Against Einstein.” Though it may be apocryphal, I would like to believe that Einstein really did have a doozy of a retort: “If I were wrong, one would have been enough.” If his theory were wrong, any one person could go collect astronomical data that would disprove all or part of the theory.

Popper helped elucidate the importance of Empirical Liberty to scientists, but jurists and free speech theorists have not caught up. Without Empirical Liberty, people do not have the means to gather data and test competing propositions for themselves. A First Amendment that promotes Claim Liberty without protecting Empirical Liberty may not actually facilitate knowledge if the laws leave few opportunities for testing. Instead, it trades one monolithic, governmental or religious authority over claims for millions of individual kings-popes who must resort to unscientific hunches or blind faith in the reports of others since they cannot gather corroborating or disproving evidence about any of the competing claims.

I am not the first to observe that the First Amendment is an imperfect vehicle for generating factual truth, particularly since its design permits false claims to fester. Robert Post, Vincent Blasi and Fred Schauer have made similar critiques. But the scholars who have tackled the epistemic problems in First Amendment theory have advanced corrections that abandon Empirical Liberty (and even Claim Liberty in some contexts) and encourage reliance on experts.

These are serious concessions to the ideal of building a First Amendment in the image of the scientific method. But they are also so practical that they seem to cause no major loss. After all, the best scientists rely on expert opinions in fields outside their own. Even if we had access to very good evidence or had unlimited opportunities to run experiments, no single person could test and verify every plausible claim that interests him or has importance to his life. It will, therefore, always be necessary to rely on other people’s expert opinions in order to choose among claims. For the foreseeable future, the law will play some role in that process in some contexts where health or safety are at stake.

However, without sufficient attention on the protection of Empirical Liberties, the legal rules that optimize collective knowledge for the short term, under assumptions of static or slow-moving access to empirical evidence, will not be optimal in the long term. Over time, they may require a person to remain reliant on the purported expertise of others even if there is no impediment to empirical inquiry. If the state directly restricts a person’s ability to test and verify competing claims, or if the state indirectly and unnecessarily restricts his ability to do so, then any claim that the law must treat listeners as dependents on (state-selected) experts rings hollow. More importantly, it raises legitimate questions about what value strong Claim Liberty can have if our Empirical Liberty is anemic by design.

Can the First Amendment protect the people’s right to test proposed claims for themselves, either through experimentation or through access to relevant information? The courts have not explored the logical implications or necessary limitations of Empirical Liberty. But if we are committed to a scientific approach for First Amendment theory, and I hope we are, then Empirical Liberty must receive more consideration and protection.

A limited interest in Empirical Liberty does not have to threaten the fundamental distinction between speech and conduct that keeps the First Amendment within bounds. There are at least two areas of low-hanging fruit where Empirical Liberty can be protected without risking serious detriment to the government’s ability to regulate more generally.

First, the First Amendment should scrutinize legal restrictions on research. Philip Hamburger has written about the constitutional flaws in human subjects research (as have I.) Federal research restrictions apply any time a researcher has the intent to produce generalizable knowledge, even if the acts in which he engages are otherwise perfectly legal. Since these restrictions target research qua research, any level of commitment to Empirical Liberty should trigger some form of constitutional scrutiny of these laws.

The second area ripe for reform is regulation that directly and purposefully restricts access to private information. These laws include civil and criminal trade secrets laws, privacy laws and anti-hacking laws (including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act). These laws differ from conduct regulations of general applicability because they are designed to target and obstruct information-gathering activity. However, they also serve concrete and important state interests. Trade secrets can help foster innovation. Anti-hacking laws prevent espionage, denial-of-service attacks and downstream identity theft. Wiretapping laws and legal duties of confidentiality provide a healthy and necessary respite from the pressure of social judgment. Many of the laws designed to manage information flows have a sufficiently compelling explanation at their center that they should withstand facial challenges and avoid wholesale razing.

Nevertheless, First Amendment interests in Empirical Liberty should give litigants an opportunity to challenge the edges of information-gathering prohibitions through as-applied challenges when the laws are used to obstruct harmless and socially beneficial empirical inquiry.

For example, as Orin Kerr has written about extensively, the CFAA has been interpreted in some jurisdictions to apply serious civil and criminal penalties to anybody who accesses a website for a purpose that violates the website’s terms of service. Both the criminal and civil remedies in the CFAA expose violators to much more liability than an ordinary contract claim would. In theory, a website’s terms of service could restrict access to users who prefer dogs to cats, and unsuspecting cat-lovers would become criminally liable by continuing to engage the website. Of course, websites do not have these sorts of wacky terms, but they do have terms that forbid scraping publicly available information or the use of fake identities to make online accounts.

The CFAA is a big threat to researchers who test online services for evidence of racial bias or who scrape publicly displayed information in order to put it in a more usable form for sociologists. The ACLU is currently representing a group of researchers to challenge the CFAA on First Amendment grounds using a theory quite consistent with Empirical Liberty, and I wish them luck.

Of course, courts cannot give the robust constitutional protection to Empirical Liberty that they currently apply to Claim Liberty. Unbridled experimentation and information-gathering would run roughshod over the rights and interests of other people. But courts can and should recognize a constitutional interest when the law cuts off empirical inquiry that poses little or no social harm.

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rulystuff · 4 years

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https://servicemeltdown.com/germany-has-welched-on-its-moral-obligations-before/

New Post has been published on https://servicemeltdown.com/germany-has-welched-on-its-moral-obligations-before/

GERMANY HAS WELCHED ON ITS MORAL OBLIGATIONS BEFORE

Clearly, it is a great comfort to the Europeans that the United States watches their backs, while picking up the tab on roughly 22% of NATO’s expense budget.

DOES DEVELOPMENT AID INCLUDE WORLD WAR II REPARATIONS?

WHO OWES WHAT TO WHOM?

GERMANY PLAYS BOTH ENDS AGAINST THE MIDDLE

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