#NEARLY 50 YEARS OF CIVIL WAR WHICH COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED IF THE US HAD KEPT THEIR CRUSTY ASSES TO THEMSELVES | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

narrowtriangle33-blog · 3 years

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Conservatives, even when all of the facts are in your face, you still deny the reality of systemic racism.

"I mean really? What in the hell makes a group of people with a history of enslavement , genocide and apartheid in order to achieve what they have belive they have been so sucessful that they can lecture others. Without enslavement, genocide and aparthied, whites in America would have very little, if anything." "People in this forum have the opinion that blacks should do things like whites and if we do so, we can make it in America. So then what we need to do is orchestate a bloody coup, confiscate all property owned by whites, jail all whites who oppose the coup, write a new constitution that declare citizenship and it's protection only for non whites, make whites chattel for the forseeable future, make it illegal for whites to reald, own property or access information and create laws where if whites get out of line they can be beaten and killed." "Because this is how whites have done it." "In another forum, I stated that the root cause of the problems blacks face is white racism. One of the whites there decided to say this: “The root cause of the problems faced by most blacks today are people like you who misidentify or ignore the real problems they face to further their own personal agendas.”" "'This is another of the long, long line of idiotic comments made by right wing whites. White racism was determined to be the problem 53 years ago by the Kerner Commission."

""What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget--is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."" ""White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II."" "But the excuse will be made about how that was 50 years ago, and that stupid ass song will be sung titled, "That was in the Past."" "On February 26, 2018, 50 years after the Kerner Commission findings, the Economic Policy Institute published a report evaluating the progress of the black community since the Kerner Report was released. It was based on a study done by the Economic Policy Institute that compared the progress of the black community in 2018 with the condition of the black community at the time of the Kerner Commission. Titled “50 years after the Kerner Commission,” the study concluded that there had been some improvements in the situation blacks faced but there were still disadvantages blacks faced that were based on race." "Following up on this, Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute wrote an op-ed published in the February 28th edition of the New York Daily News titled, “50 years after the Kerner Commission, minimal racial progress.” It had been 50 years since the commission made their recommendations at that point, yet Rothstein makes this statement: “So little has changed since 1968 that the report remains worth reading as a near-contemporary description of racial inequality.”" "So 3 years ago the same conclusion was made. "The root cause of the problems blacks face is white racism."" "On October 24, 2013, the Kellogg Foundation sent out a press release about a report they had done entitled, “The Business Case for Racial Equity”. This was a study done by the Kellogg Foundation, using information it had studied and assessed from the Center for American Progress, National Urban League Policy Institute, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the U.S. Department of Justice."

“Striving for racial equity – a world where race is no longer a factor in the distribution of opportunity – is a matter of social justice. But moving toward racial equity can generate significant economic returns as well. When people face barriers to achieving their full potential, the loss of talent, creativity, energy, and productivity is a burden not only for those disadvantaged, but for communities, businesses, governments, and the economy as a whole. Initial research on the magnitude of this burden in the United States (U.S.), as highlighted in this brief, reveals impacts in the trillions of dollars in lost earnings, avoidable public expenditures, and lost economic output.” "The Kellogg Foundation and Altarum Institute In 2011, DEMOS did a study named “The Racial Wealth Gap, Why Policy Matters”, which discussed the racial wealth gap, the problems associated with it along with solutions and outcomes if the gap did not exist. In this study DEMOS determined that the racial wealth gap was primarily driven by policy decisions." "“The U.S. racial wealth gap is substantial and is driven by public policy decisions. According to our analysis of the SIPP data, in 2011 the median white household had $111,146 in wealth holdings, compared to just $7,113 for the median Black household and $8,348 for the median Latino household. From the continuing impact of redlining on American homeownership to the retreat from desegregation in public education, public policy has shaped these disparities, leaving them impossible to overcome without racially-aware policy change.”" Harvard. "“Racial inequality in the United States today may, ultimately, be based on slavery, but it is also based on the failure of the country to take effective steps since slavery to undermine the structural racial inequality that slavery put in place. From the latter part of the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century, the Jim Crow system continued to keep Blacks “in their place,” and even during and after the civil rights era no policies were adopted to dismantle the racial hierarchy that already existed.”" "HOUSING DISCRIMINATION AS A BASIS FOR BLACK REPARATIONS, Jonathan Kaplan and Andrew Valls, Public Affairs Quarterly" "Volume 21, Number 3, July 2007" "McKinsey and Co. “It will end up costing the U.S. economy as much as $1 trillion between now and 2028 for the nation to maintain its longstanding black-white racial wealth gap, according to a report released this month from the global consultancy firm McKinsey & Company. That will be roughly 4 percent of the United States GDP in 2028—just the conservative view, assuming that the wealth growth rates of African Americans will outpace white wealth growth at its current clip of 3 percent to .8 percent annually, said McKinsey. If the gap widens, however, with white wealth growing at a faster rate than black wealth instead, it could end up costing the U.S. $1.5 trillion or 6 percent of GDP according to the firm.”" "Citigroup" "Cost Of Racism: U.S. Economy Lost $16 Trillion Because Of Discrimination, Bank Says" "Nationwide protests have cast a spotlight on racism and inequality in the United States. Now a major bank has put a price tag on how much the economy has lost as a result of discrimination against African Americans: $16 trillion." "Since 2000, U.S. gross domestic product lost that much as a result of discriminatory practices in a range of areas, including in education and access to business loans, according to a new study by Citigroup." "Specifically, the study came up with $16 trillion in lost GDP by noting four key racial gaps between African Americans and whites:" "$13 trillion lost in potential business revenue because of discriminatory lending to African American entrepreneurs, with an estimated 6.1 million jobs not generated as a result" "$2.7 trillion in income lost because of disparities in wages suffered by African Americans" "$218 billion lost over the past two decades because of discrimination in providing housing credit" "And $90 billion to $113 billion

in lifetime income lost from discrimination in accessing higher education" "Why this is just a bunch of liberal jibberish to to blacks in order to keep them voting democrat. Those aren't the problems, what we conservatives tell you is the real problem. Why if you just had a father in the home none of this would happen." "Black Workers Still Earn Less than Their White Counterparts"

"As employers in the U.S. tackle issues around racism, fresh attention is being given to the racial wage gap and why black men and women, in particular, still earn substantially less than their white counterparts. Nearly 56 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, "we find equal pay for equal work is still not a reality," noted Jackson Gruver, a data analyst at compensation data and software firm PayScale."

"Last year, PayScale analyzed differences in earnings between white men and men of color using data from a sample of 1.8 million employees surveyed between January 2017 and February 2019." 'Among the findings, Gruver reported: "Even as black or African-American men climb the corporate ladder, they still make less than equally qualified white men. They are the only racial/ethnic group that does not achieve pay parity with white men at some level."' "The study found that black men had the largest "uncontrolled pay gap" relative to white men, when comparing the average earnings of black men and white men in the U.S."

"On average, black men earned 87 cents for every dollar a white man earned. Hispanic workers had the next largest gap, earning 91 cents for every dollar earned by white men."

"To put that in perspective, the median salary of a white man in our sample is $72,900; the controlled median pay for black or African-American men is thus $71,500," Gruver said. "This suggests a $1,400 difference in pay that is likely attributable to race."" "So daddy lives at home and the family still makes less than whites. Because:" "NWLC calculations, based on the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey for 2016, revealed that when comparing all men and women who work full time, year-round in the U.S., women were paid just 80 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. But the wage gap was even larger when looking specifically at black women who work full time, year-round—they were paid only 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men." "Stephen Miller, Black Workers Still Earn Less than Their White Counterparts, www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/racial-wage-gaps-persistence-poses-challenge.aspx" "So a white working couple will make 90 cents on every dollar while a black working couple makes 75 cents. To allow you to understand this reality a white female worker makes 80 cents on every dollar a white man makes. White females are demanding equal pay and rightfully so." "And you black folk really need to start taking education seriously." "Black unemployment is significantly higher than white unemployment regardless of educational attainment" "The black unemployment rate is nearly or more than twice the white unemployment rate regardless of educational attainment. It is, and always has been, about twice the white unemployment rate; however, the depth of this racial inequality in the labor market rarely makes the headlines." "Over the last 12 months, the average unemployment rate for black college graduates has been 4.1 percent—nearly two times the average unemployment rate for white college graduates (2.4 percent) and equivalent to the unemployment rate of whites with an associate’s degree or who have not completed college (4.0 percent). The largest disparity is seen among those with less than a high school diploma: while whites with less than a high school diploma have an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent, the black unemployment rate is 16.6 percent—over two times the white average." "The broader significance of this disparity suggests a race penalty whereby blacks at each level of education have unemployment rates that are the same as or higher than less educated whites." "Valerie Wilson, Black unemployment is significantly higher than white unemployment regardless of educational attainment, www.epi.org/publication/black-unemployment-educational-attainment/" "African Americans are paid less than whites at every education level" "While the economy continues to improve and wages are finally beginning to inch up for most Americans, African Americans are still being paid less than whites at every education level. As you can see from the chart below, while a college education results in higher wages—both for whites and blacks—it does not eliminate the black-white wage gap. African Americans are still earning less than whites at every level of educational attainment. A recent EPI report, Black-white wage gaps expand with rising wage inequality, shows that this gap persists even after controlling for years of experience, region of the country, and whether one lives in an urban or rural area. In fact, since 1979, the gaps between black and white workers have grown the most among workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher—the most educated workers." "Valerie Wilson, African Americans are paid less than whites at every education level, www.epi.org/publication/african-americans-are-paid-less-than-whites-at-every-education-level/"

"But to say white racism is the cause of things no matter how much proof we show your white asses, you have some kind of idiotic ass excuse, like we are blaming whites for our failures or;" "We misdiagnose and ignore the "real" problem to fit an imaginary agenda racists in tha white community invented so they can deny how THEY are the root cause of the problem." "You right wing scrubs are always talking about responsibility." "Take some instead of running your mouths."

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firelord-frowny · 3 years

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I’ve talked a little bit about how at least one ~negative aspect~ of white supremacy/racism that impacts white people is that it can be SO DIFFICULT to avoid being Accidentally Racist over something that really shouldn’t have been that deep, and WOULDN’T have been that deep if not for the pervasiveness of white supremacy in america, and this bit about the lil country band Lady Antebellum and the controversy surrounding their name illustrates that pretty well, I think:

The band members have always said that the band's name was chosen arbitrarily, complaining about the difficulty of choosing a name. Inspired by the "country" style nostalgia of a photo shoot at a mansion from the Antebellum South, they said, "one of us said the word and we all kind of stopped and said, man, that could be a name"[40] and "Man that's a beautiful Antebellum house, and that's cool, maybe there's a haunted ghost or something in there like Lady Antebellum."[41] Haywood concluded, "[We] had a lady in the group, obviously, and threw Lady in the front of it for no reason. I wish we had a great resounding story to remember for the name, but it stuck ever since."[40] The name was always controversial, with a critic in Ms. Magazine writing in 2011 that the band's name "seems to me an example of the way we still — nearly 150 years after the end of the Civil War, nearly 50 years after the Civil Rights Act; and in a supposedly post-racial country led by a biracial president — glorify a culture that was based on the violent oppression of people of color".[41][42]

On June 11, 2020, joining widespread commercial response to the George Floyd protests,[41] the band announced it would abbreviate its name to its existing nickname "Lady A"[43] in an attempt to blunt the name's racist connotations.[1] The band members stated on social media that, never having previously sought the dictionary definition of the word "antebellum", they now consulted their "closest black friends and colleagues" so that their "eyes opened wide to the injustices, inequality and biases black women and men have always faced and continue to face every day. Now, blind spots we didn't even know existed have been revealed."[44] Fan response was mixed, with many decrying virtue signaling or even disparaging the protests.[41]American Songwriter said, "Given that the world knows what that A stands for, to many this change does little more than add extra insult to this ongoing injury."[45]

The next day, it was widely reported that the name "Lady A" had already been in use for more than 20 years by Seattle-based African American activist and blues, soul, funk, and gospel singer Anita White. The band again admitted ignorance of any prior use, which White called "pure privilege". Interviewed by Rolling Stone, White described the band's token acknowledgement of racism while blithely appropriating an African American artist's name: "They're using the name because of a Black Lives Matter incident that, for them, is just a moment in time. If it mattered, it would have mattered to them before. It shouldn't have taken George Floyd to die for them to realize that their name had a slave reference to it. It's an opportunity for them to pretend they're not racist". A veteran music industry lawyer observed that such name clashes are uncommon due to the existence of the Internet.[46][47] The band members contacted White the next week to apologize for having inadvertently co-opted and dominated her name,[48] saying that the Black Lives Matter movement had inspired them to a collaborative attitude. They nonetheless required retaining the same name, though she believed dual-naming is inherently impossible.[49]She said "We talked about attempting to co-exist but didn't discuss what that would look like"[48] because the band members would not directly respond to that explicit question three times during the conversation or in two contract drafts. She soon submitted a counteroffer that either the band would be renamed, or that her act would be renamed for a $5 million fee plus a $5 million donation to be split between Seattle charities, a nationwide legal defense fund for independent artists, and Black Lives Matter.[49]

On July 8, 2020, the band filed a lawsuit against White, asking a Nashville court to affirm its longstanding trademark of the name. The press release read: "Today we are sad to share that our sincere hope to join together with Anita White in unity and common purpose has ended. She and her team have demanded a $10 million payment, so reluctantly we have come to the conclusion that we need to ask a court to affirm our right to continue to use the name Lady A, a trademark we have held for many years."[50]

On September 15, 2020, White filed a counter-suit asserting her claim to the Lady A trademark and rejecting the notion that both artists could operate in the same industry under the same brand identity. She is seeking damages for lost sales and a weakened brand, along with royalties from any income the band receives under the Lady A moniker.[51][52]

Like????????? this REALLY didn’t need to be a thing.

And one thing I think black folks and other poc need to chill out with is dismissing any white person’s attempt at Being Better in how they move through a white supremacist world in a way that seeks to undo or at least not exacerbate white supremacy. I can TOTALLY believe that, in their white ignorant bliss, this band really did choose their name without realizing for a moment that it might leave a fucked up taste in some people’s mouths. Honestly like... antebellum IS a cool sounding word lmfao and if it wasn’t so heavily associated with slavery-era america, i’d wanna name something antebellum, too!

And like, yes, it’s true that it ~shouldn’t have taken george floyd’s death~ for anyone at all to suddenly decide that they want to go a little bit out of their way to denounce or at least not seem to promote racism in some small way. But it did. And it does. And every fucking time there’s a gross act of violence and injustice acted out on a person of color in front of the world, there’s always going to be a brand new white person out there who Sees The Light for the very first time. That doesn’t mean their new perspective isn’t genuine, and it doesn’t mean it happened All Of A Sudden. If anything, it was something they’d been thinking about for a long time, but didn’t know how to address it, or what to say, or who to say it to, or how to talk about it in their own community. OBVIOUSLY that problem is WAY LESS BAD than, ya know, actually experiencing racism, but it’s still a real thing that some white folks go through, and being mad about it isn’t going to make it NOT a real thing. it shouldn’t have taken george floyd’s death. it shouldn’t have taken trayvon martin’s death. it shouldn’t have taken the instatement of one of the most vile human beings to ever assault the face of the earth for This Person or That Person to finally want to make a positive and public change, BUT IT DID. It always does. That, unfortunately, is How It Works.

And so, this band adjusts it’s name in an effort to not seem hostile. OBVIOUSLY it’s not a grand show of solidarity. OBVIOUSLY it’s not meant to convince anyone that they’re Super Amazing White People Who Will Stop At Nothing For Racial Equality. It was literally just a small, simple gesture. They’re just modifying their image, because they were no longer comfortable with knowing how that word makes a lot of people feel. Bc like... let’s be real: probably a solid ZERO of their fanbase would have given a shit if they’d just left the name as it was. Nobody who’s going to a Lady Antebellum concert was pouting about the name. And if anything, they prolly stood a better chance of LOSING fans for ~being politically correct~ than gaining fans for changing their name to something less annoying.

And it JUST SO HAPPENS that the slight lil adjustment they made to their name steps on the toes of an existing artist, and it JUST SO HAPPENS that this artist is black, and is also an ACTIVIST in social and racial justice.

Oops.

And so, obviously people don’t interpret it as an honest mistake. Instead, it’s a result of white privilege. And I mean like??? ok, maybe it is. But I ALSO had never heard of Anita White until I read this fucking wiki page lmfao. So like... my ignorance isn’t due to no white privilege on my part. Maybe it’s a consequence of a white supremacist culture that wouldn’t glorify her and celebrate her and put her name everywhere... but that’s a different thing from privilege.

So now not only are the bands efforts to adjust to a world that’s becoming more aware of racial injustice being dismissed as disingenuous or too-little-too-late, but now they’re ALSO being accused of Using Their White Privilege to trample all over an artist they’d never heard of.

i DO think that after finding out the name was already taken, and after talking with her about it and determining that she wasn’t interested in sharing - as is her right - they should have just said “ok, sorry, thanks for talking with us about it” and picked something different. i think it’s kinda ridiculous that they think they should sue her and i think she’s HELLA right for suing their asses right back, and I hope she gets her damn money.

But I’m also cognizant of how emotionally/psychologically upsetting it can feel to have to just Change Your Name after so many years of living with it. It makes sense that despite their desire to adapt and choose a new name that doesn’t make people cringe, they still want to try to hold on to the feeling that THEY associated with their own name. “Lady A” seemed like a happy medium: They can remain Who They Are while also showing that Who They Are is someone who’s not trying to glorify a disgusting era of history. But if “Lady A” isn’t an option... what’s left? What else could they call themselves that wouldn’t feel like a totally new, alien identity??

So, I understand how, on an emotional level, they want to fight to keep it.

But uh. They really need to just Be Sad about it and let it go. Just consider it one of the small, upsetting sacrifices that white folks may sometimes have to make as we ALL struggle and stumble through this fuckin long-ass road of Making The World Less Terrible For People Of Color, and move on.

But yeah, like.

It’s fucking ridiculous that this was even an issue, and it was only an issue because of racism!!!!! If white supremacists didn’t manufacture a culture that oppresses people of color and glorifies the pre-civil-war era SPECIFICALLY for the good ol slavery, then perhaps people could wax poetic about the artistic and environmental aesthetic of that era without it being assumed that they Must Be Racist. Bc like??? idk if yall know this lmfao but i LOVE????? colonial american music. like, the kind of stuff with that Ashokan Farewell vibe. I think it sounds beautiful. And i really fuckin love the black spiritual music that was developed in that time. and i think so much of the architecture and fashion was so???? Nice. Just pleasant! But I can’t even get myself to fully enjoy it because of all the fuckin connotations that have been stuck to it.

A band should be able to name theirself a name without it being such a goddamn fucking cultural crisis.

But they can’t! And it is!

Thanks, White Supremacy!

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doomonfilm · 3 years

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Ranking : Martin Scorsese (1942-present)

Of all the places in the world that seem to be hubs for creative energy, New York stands high on my personal list of favorites, and when it comes to iconic New York filmmakers, there aren’t many that can hold a candle to the prolific career of Martin Scorsese. His appreciation for films, art and music blasts off the screen with the same energy as his kinetic cinematography and vibrant editing. Once he established himself as a mainstay in the industry, his list of collaborators evolved into a who’s who of acting legends, both old and new. His career spans just over 50 years, and even his latest film (his 25th in his catalog) went head to head with other contenders for the top awards of the year.

To put it bluntly, there is Martin Scorsese, and then there is a long list of imitators and those influenced by his genius. To rank his films is a true test of logic, patience and decision making, but after a few weeks of catching the 7 or so films I had yet to see, I think I can stand behind this list as my definitive ranking (from least to most favorite) of a director I hold in the highest regard.

25. Gangs of New York (2002) An honest attempt at an epic flick, but at the heart of the matter, I simply don’t care about either side in the battle Scorsese presents us. Set in New York City in the mid 19th Century during the Civil War, we are thrown into a generational battle where the two key figures have different goals... Bill the Butcher stands as antagonist in his fight to maintain power and control, while Amsterdam is our protagonist charged with a mission of revenge. In the end, neither side ends up mattering, very much like my personal experience with this all flourish, no foundation exercise in style.

24. Bringing Out the Dead (1999) Nicolas Cage was gearing up for the run that most people know him for now during the release of Bringing Out the Dead : he was coming off of Golden Globe and Academy Award wins for Leaving Las Vegas, but was quickly leaning towards films of a more exploitation-based style. This film marked a refinement of his wild-man persona, while simultaneously being one of the last high-level actor/director combinations he would be involved in before his mad dash to accept every film and avoid bankruptcy. New York is captured in a mid-transition point between the darkness of the 1970s and 1980s versus the Disney aesthetic of the new millennium, and while heavy on the entertainment factor (as well as visually striking), there is ultimately not enough on this plate to push it higher up the list.

23. The Color of Money (1986) If you had to do a quick gander at the Scorsese list and pick the film that, on paper, screams Hollywood, it’d be hard to argue against The Color of Money taking that top spot. A soft sequel to The Hustler, Scorsese picks up the Fast Eddie story in the 1980s (an era that oozes out of each and every frame of this film), and yet, despite this legendary move, the film is ultimately the Tom Cruise show. Scorsese’s trademark dollying and trucking camera shots work beautifully in the context of this film, but in a story that shines bright, the star of Cruise ultimately outshines all that remains.

22. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) After a few exploitation-based projects, it seemed that Martin Scorsese wanted to provide a slightly different change in perspective, albeit one that still dwells in the darker corners of life. Rather than deal with the streets of New York or crime, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is a study on broken homes, single parenthood and domestic violence that oscillates between the view of the titular Alice and her young son. Harvey Keitel gives another strong performance as a Scorsese regular, while Ellen Burstyn shines in a transitional role towards more mature performances. Seeing Scorsese camera movements coopted into a more down to Earth story was refreshing.

21. The Departed (2006) Many people would have assumed that The Departed would be higher on a list of Scorsese films based solely on the cast... pairing Leonardo DiCaprio opposite Matt Damon in a tension-filled triangle with Jack Nicholson is a bold combination in its own right, but surrounding this nucleus with Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Corrigan, Anthony Anderson and supporting actors of that ilk creates a rich showcase of talent. Stylistically, everything you need is there too, as Scorsese proved time and again that films of this nature were his wheelhouse. That being said, the story itself, an adaptation of the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, takes a few liberties in its adaptation that ultimately are to the detriment of the narrative. Kudos to Scorsese for putting this one together, and too bad for him that the choices of William Monahan knocked what could have been a mega-classic way down the list.

20. New York, New York (1977) New York, New York is one of the most unique offerings from the Scorsese canon for a number of reasons. Of all his films, this one is probably the one that can be considered a “style exercise” more than the rest, as it oscillates between obvious sets and real locations before blurring the lines between the two. Long gaps of time are given to fully executed musical numbers (a must when a talent like Liza Minnelli is involved), and traditional methods of songwriting and performance are given their due respect. The exercise portion, however, comes in the newer acting styles that are infused into the old school structure... improvisation and aggressive physicality are used to put a deeper, disturbing red tint on an era often presented through a rose-colored lens. While interesting at times, the nearly three hour run time of the film begins to wear on the limits of the style, which ultimate leaves the film feeling more like a personal indulgence than a statement on changing times. For the iconic title track alone (and the buildup to its release), this film is worth seeing, but in terms of its placement in the realm of other Scorsese films, it may have to grow on me a while to find a higher placement on the list.

19. Boxcar Bertha (1972) Originally, this film was much lower on the list, largely due to its chronological placement between Who’s That Knocking at My Door and Mean Streets seeming odd to me. Upon revisitation, however, it stands clear and present that this film served as an exercise in the process of directing and organizing a shoot. With its period-specific placement, ensemble cast and action sequences, it was bound to be compared to (and ultimately overshadowed by) the formidable Bonnie and Clyde, but Boxcar Bertha has a few key moments in it (including a stellar final action sequence) that places it near the middle of the Scorsese canon, even with it being his second film.

18. Who's That Knocking at My Door? (1967) For all of the refinement that Scorsese found in his second film, his debut film, the stunning Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, stands as testament to the fact that Scorsese brought his many gifts to the table from day one. What started as a student graduate film grew into a speculative project, only to find 25th hour funding that allowed it a festival run and a proper release. The film took many years to complete and release, to the point that keen viewers will notice Harvey Keitel’s boyish, soft good looks morph into the sharper, edgier intense profile we came to recognize in Mean Streets and the films that followed. The energetic cinematography, respect of film as a medium, stellar music choices, defiance of youth, toxic masculinity and realistic look at relationships are all here, making this debut a hidden gem in the Scorsese canon.

17. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) Seeing Scorsese retread old stylistic ground (as opposed to infusing his style into newer projects) is an interesting take, and for what my opinion is worth, The Wolf of Wall Street feels like Goodfellas for white collar criminals. In theory (and, in some aspects of the film, in reality), the experiment does work, but ultimately, this film finds its placement in the middle realms simply because we are given infinite sizzle off of what amounts to a very thin steak. Goodfellas works because it is carried by the weight of omerta, but The Wolf of Wall Street focuses on a culture where status comes from self-appointed importance, which ultimately makes for an attempted redemption story for despicable people.

16. The Irishman (2019) Seeing actors the stature of Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino combine forces for a film is always a major event, but until 2019, those combinations have been limited to duos. When Netflix announced its intention to release The Irishman in 2019, people were not only intrigued on Scorsese’s take on the Jimmy Hoffa story, but seeing De Niro, Pesci and Pacino in the same film for the first time. For what it was worth, the trio lived up to all expectations, with the only bittersweet criticism being wishes that the three could have found a way to work together prior to the twilight of their careers. The historical drama is high quality, with Hoffa’s larger than life persona captured perfectly by Pacino, and bolstered by the dramatic chops brought to the table by De Niro and Pesci. The film is a tad on the long side, and the de-aging process tips into the realm of the uncanny valley due to the older actors’ physicality, but for a 25th film 52 years into an illustrious career, The Irishman must be recognized for the triumph that it is.

15. The Aviator (2004) Much like The Wolf of Wall Street, I avoided The Aviator for years simply because I have no interest or fascination with Howard Hughes. I was very much aware of his financial stature, his innovations as an aviator, his rocky love life and his personal demons that plagued him, but for my money’s worth, I was fine without seeing it presented on the big screen. In an effort to cover all the bases for a director I hold in high esteem, however, I made the decision to finally check out The Aviator, and for every element of the film I previously had no interest in, an element was presented that won me over. Cate Blanchett and Adam Dunn put on two of the strongest performances in the entire realm of Scorsese films, and the XF-11 crash sequence is possibly one of the grandest and well executed in any Scorsese film. Leave it to Martin Scorsese to make a powerful film about an individual I care nothing about and nearly crack the top ten with that effort.

14. Hugo (2011) Up to the point of watching Hugo, I knew nothing about it. About halfway through Hugo, I had to stop and look up how the film was received, as it was simply stunning, and sure enough, it was a monster in terms of award nominations and wins. I never would have pegged Scorsese as the type to direct a kid’s film, but in all honesty, that ‘kid’s film’ title is used as a façade for a love letter to film in general, and the groundbreaking work of Georges Méliès specifically. The look of the film is otherworldly, the energy is light, kinetic and infectious, and even a mostly slapstick performance by Sacha Baron Cohen yields surprising emotional depth when given the opportunity to do so. While just missing the top ten, Hugo easily stands as the number one surprise on this list in terms of pre-viewing expectations (of which there where none) versus post-viewing thoughts (of which there are many). Knowing that Hugo exists lets me know that one day, if I have children, and they want to know why I love film so much, I will have a film on the level of Cinema Paradiso to share with them and (hopefully) help foster a love of film they can call their own.

13. Casino (1995) For a time, this film stood as the last work containing the vibrant combination of Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, a trio of high energy creatives known for putting their all into their projects. Casino felt like a spiritual successor to Goodfellas, focusing on a lavish but secretive lifestyle with high stakes and even higher consequences. An instantly iconic movie, Casino felt like the end of an era in regards to gangster fare for Scorsese, opting instead for more challenging projects, adaptations of other books and films, or personal passion projects. It would be nearly 25 years later before Scorsese would touch similar subject matter or work with these actors again, but had Casino been the last of Scorsese’s so-called “gangster” films, I believe the world would have been happy with that.

12. Kundun (1997) To make one religious-based film in a career is a bold move to some, but I am hard-pressed to think of any director that made films on two different religions who didn’t explicitly make religious films. With that in mind, it is incredibly impressive that Martin Scorsese was able to make a film as moving and objective as Kundun after making such a bold take on religion as The Last Temptation of Christ. The film centers around the discovery, growth and eventual escape to India in light of growing aggression from China. In all honesty, I had my doubts as to whether or not the Scorsese style would work for this story, especially in light of the lack of cooperation from Tibet and China, but somehow, Scorsese’s amazing signature camerawork captures the unique spirit and essence surrounding the Dalai Lama. I’d heard of this film for years, but never got around to it until it was time to make this list, but I will almost certainly try to find a copy to own in the near future.

11. The King of Comedy (1982) What an odd left turn in regards of career trajectory for both Scorsese and De Niro. With three collaborations already under their belt (not to mention The Godfather II already being a well-established classic), it would have been easy to imagine the duo putting another notch on the gangster film genre belt. What we are given, however, is the yang to the yin of Taxi Driver : our protagonist is a statement on personal conviction and the trappings of instant stardom, our antagonist is a statement on star fascination and the high costs of celebrity, and our satellite characters directly reflect the toxicity certain fandoms can be capable of. Scorsese sets aside his normal flourish and camera moves for a mixing of film and video mediums, as well as a completely new sense of freedom in regards to the highly improvised nature of the film. Its influence on recent successful films like Joker is undeniable, but I’d argue that Joker lacks the heart, sincerity and realistic bite present in The King of Comedy.

10. After Hours (1985) Of all the “new to me” Scorsese flicks I finally viewed while preparing this list, After Hours stands as my favorite discovery of the bunch. I was marginally familiar with the film, both from my younger days in video stores and from friend recommendations, but for some reason, when Scorsese time arrived, After Hours seemed to never be on the docket. That oversight, however, will now be a thing of the past. This film feels like a personal challenge to Woody Allen in regards to how one should make a New York-based romantic comedy, and I’d be hard pressed to share any shortcomings or failures present in this comedic masterpiece. One of the few films that can be both a product of its era and a timeless classic, and one that should be much more recognized in the Scorsese canon.

9. Shutter Island (2010) Me hesitating or not getting around to Scorsese films seems to be a bit of a common theme here, but there was literally no excuse for me to take this long to get around to Shutter Island. Despite knowing the premise of the story (and even having the ending somewhat spoiled for me), I still found the impact of the final moments just as powerful as I imagine I would have going into this film blind. Some people will likely argue this statement, but in my opinion, this was the best Leonardo DiCaprio performance captured by Martin Scorsese. The asylum setting is wonderfully bleak, and the psychological horrors it infers create a vibrant playground for some of the most stunning visual symbolism that Scorsese has ever committed to film. Don’t be like me if you’ve not gotten around to Shutter Island yet, because it’s a thrill ride more than worth the price of admission, and a rewarding repeat viewer.

8. Mean Streets (1973) Mean Streets may have been Martin Scorsese’s third film, but for many fans, it was the first true indicator of the brilliance that was to come. A true New York film through and through, it not only presented fans with a stronger Harvey Keitel performance than Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, but it introduced the world to the palatable tandem of Scorsese and De Niro that would go on to lead to years and years of iconic performances. The use of altering aspect ratios is something that I wish Scorsese would have continued to use more often, but in all honesty, Mean Streets has style to spare. This the film that I love to recommend when people start ranting and raving about Goodfellas, and more often than not, it impresses those unfamiliar with it just as much.

7. The Age of Innocence (1993) Martin Scorsese’s love of film is widely known and well documented, but The Age of Innocence goes an additional step further by displaying Scorsese’s love of art. The film also is one of the most touching displays of unrequited love that Scorsese has committed to film, a slight alteration from his normal infusion of love stories trying to sustain in the surrounding chaos of gangs, crime, religion and so on. Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder all give standout performances in this masterfully directed film. If Gangs of New York was meant to be the definitive old school New York film in the Scorsese canon, then The Age of Innocence is the unintended definitive New York film from Scorsese, with some European touches thrown in for good measure.

6. Cape Fear (1991) Of the many, many iconic performances that Robert De Niro has given Martin Scorsese, I’d be hard pressed not to put his characterization of Max Cady at the top by a clear margin. Cape Fear was already a classic film adaptation of The Executioners when it was first released in 1957, but De Niro pulled two fast ones with his update : in terms of casting, especially with the aforementioned De Niro, Scorsese brought the harrowing story into a much darker, recent world, therefore increasing the tension by upping the ante for violent retribution, while at the same time, paying direct homage to the original by having Elmer Bernstein adapt the original Bernard Herrmann score. Juliette Lewis also provided a breakout performance in this modern day classic, and possibly the film that provided the most tense debate in terms of placement, as we will get into with the next film.

5. Silence (2016) Despite being one of the most recent Martin Scorsese films, this one’s limited release meant that I missed it during its initial run, and the lack of streaming service placement essentially erased it from my memory. I was certainly intrigued about watching it for this list, and it ended up being the last film viewed. Going into it, it felt like a sort of religious take on Saving Private Ryan, but it didn’t take long for the film to start dealing out much heavier cards in terms of faith, belief systems and cross-cultural contamination. The Last Temptation of Christ showed that Scorsese could find nuance and secular drama from a holy tale, and Kundun showed that he could make a religious icon a relatable human figure struggling to grasp his divine appointment. Silence is the work of a wise, steady hand, however, like some sort of cinematic parable or testament to faith in the face of crippling doubt and danger. Scorsese is certainly still moved by the idea of faith, and he uses Andrew Garfield to display this in some of the most powerful moments that he has ever created or captured for his films. For those who have not seem the film, this placement may feel a bit high, but I would not be surprised if, given time and proper amounts of reflection, it makes its way higher.

4. Raging Bull (1980) The placement of Raging Bull and Cape Fear was the biggest hurdle I was forced to overcome in the creation of this list. Robert De Niro is powerfully captivating in both films, though I would personally give his performance as Max Cady the nod over his embodiment of Jake LaMotta, but when it comes down to the brass tacks of it all, Raging Bull is ultimately the better of the two films. The raw, black and white look of LaMotta’s life already provides a gritty, unflattering portrait of a savage and uncouth man looking for beauty in the world, but that beauty he searches for appears in the boxing sequences with no apologies. The airy look, mainly caught by dynamic slow motion photography, works in tandem with the abrasive first-person views of the combatants, not to mention the direct nature of the combat itself as the viewer is often placed directly in the line of fire. The involvement of the real LaMotta within the film provides a nice button to the superb acting put on display by De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty and the numerous actors used to portray the opponents of LaMotta.

3. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Call it a trope if you like, but it feels like every great (or aspiring) director has a film in them that is driven by religion in some capacity. The Last Temptation of Christ is unique in this sense because it takes the story of the accusations, betrayal, trial and eventual crucifixion of Jesus and turns it into a deeply faith-based suspense thriller. Many of the familiar beats we know from the Bible are re-contextualized as visions, mystic tests of faith, carnal desires driven by lust, and nihilistic views infringing upon deep indoctrination. Willem Dafoe plays a Jesus that is bitter in his acceptance of his fate, Harvey Keitel plays a wonderfully opportunistic Judas, and Barbara Hershey plays a very modernized version of a woman forced to use her body for survival that is suddenly trapped between necessity and passion. The film hinges on the verge of becoming a soap opera without falling into the trappings that come with such high drama, and the walkup to the film’s amazing final sequence puts you in the emotional passenger's seat while Jesus takes the wheel and steers directly into his fate. A dramatically powerful yet brutally sincere take on an iconic, revered and sensitive subject matter.

2. Goodfellas (1990) Is there any original praise left to bestow upon this movie? To focus on the imperfections of this film is an act of futility, as they are mostly non-existent. Some of Martin Scorsese’s best examples of his iconic camera movement, editing techniques, still frames, writing gleaned from personal experience, soundtrack use, loose historical connections and dark humor are found within the confines of Goodfellas. If you’ve seen in actor in any television show or film that had any connection to the mob prior to Goodfellas or since, it is more than likely that that actor was in Goodfellas, even if only briefly. Using Henry Hill as both an outsider and insider perspective is a brilliant narrative stroke, as he can get close to the top, but can never have it all, making him essentially a fly on the wall bursting with charisma and personality. They highs are as epic as the lows are tragic, and for most people, it is the first film that comes to mind when the name Martin Scorsese is mentioned. This could have very easily been the number one film on my list, but anyone who has been visiting this blog with a keen eye for detail probably figured out my favorite Scorsese film the first time they visited the DOOMonFILM blog.

1. Taxi Driver (1976) Since the day that I started this film blog, there has been one image at the top of the page : Travis Bickle in the porn theater (with his face replaced by my logo) from the iconic Taxi Driver. There’s not a single element that I can put my finger on for this film, but there are certainly a number of elements that do speak to me : the isolation that Travis faces, the journal-like narration that drives the story forward, the hypnotic nature of both Bernard Herrmann score and the repetitive taxi cab shots and the vivid camera movements are all burnt firmly into my brain. Everyone that makes up the main cast for this film kills in their performance, and the ending of the film is not only a brutal one, but an ironic one in regards to where Travis lands in the eyes of those who make up the world of the film. Martin Scorsese has made more amazing films than some directors have made, period (amazing or otherwise), but for my money’s worth, none of them are as powerful or well put together as Taxi Driver.

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 4 years

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Alternate History scenarios I want to see

I’m tired of the same two scenarios, the South wins the Civil War, Nazis win World War II. There’s no more blood to be pulled from those stones, they’re completely dry, completely played up. At best they’re just generic, at worst they’re conservative wish fulfillment. ¡No mas! For the love of God, just give us some scenarios we haven’t seen before, some scenarios that postulate a better world instead of a worse one.

If you have to do the Civil War, let Lincoln survive, let him oversee Reconstruction. Let the South remain under military occupation, get rid of the Compromise of 1877, get rid of Jim Crow laws, enforce the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The Civil Rights movement would have occurred fifty or sixty years earlier.

What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand was never assassinated? Tensions were boiling over in the Balkans, something was bound to happen eventually, his death was just the final straw; if he survived though, the resulting war wouldn’t be nearly as catastrophic, instead being tantamount to a Third Balkan War between Austria and Serbia. Germany and Russia and France probably wouldn’t even get involved, it would be contained to the peninsula and be over by Christmas 1914. The resulting post-war world would be so different from our own it would be near impossible to imagine; no carving up the Middle East, no rise of authoritarianism in Russia and Italy and Germany and China, no Holocaust, no Cold War, no baby boom, etc.

1939, Albert Einstein never signs the Szilard Letter to President Roosevelt, so the Manhattan project never gets off the ground. The Nazis were not developing atom bombs, the American nuclear program was predicated on a lie (as most of our foreign policy decisions are). If we never develop the bomb, there’s no arms race, no Cold War, no crimes against humanity by the US against Japan, no looming threat of nuclear war at all times. Maybe the Soviets would have developed the bomb eventually, but the US wouldn’t be the first, and we wouldn’t be as aggressive over out stockpile as we were through the 20th century.

The arrest and trial of Adolf Hitler; what if the Western Front had reached Berlin before the East? What if we’d been able to capture him alive and try him at Nuremberg with the rest of the Reich? He doesn’t get the satisfaction of a quick ending, his crimes are aired to the world, his few remaining supporters finally see him as a man instead of a god. He’d be hanged, cremated, and disposed of in the Pegnitz River. The Western allies would have been in a stronger position and could probably have maintained control of a united Germany rather than letting the East fall under Russia’s sphere of influence. That’d be a scenario in and of itself; what if Germany was never divided? No Berlin Wall, a smaller Iron Curtain, no far-right parties in the Bundestag, etc.

Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested for trying to assassinate Major General Edwin Walker in April 1963. He never assassinates John F. Kennedy, who wins re-election in 1964. He passes the Civil Rights Act (though it might be harder in this timeline because he’s a northerner; Johnson was able to pass it because he convinced his fellow southerners to stop filibustering it), he oversees and deescalates Vietnam, eases relations with the Soviet Union and China, advancing geopolitics by five or even ten years.

The impeachment of Richard Nixon; he resigned because he had lost all support, even from his own party (something that would never happen today). If he had tried to fight the charges instead, he would have been removed from office and subsequently tried in criminal court. Gerald Ford was chosen as Vice President in part because he was seen as an honest politician at the time, in comparison to the outgoing Agnew who was embroiled in his own scandal; when Ford pardoned Nixon, his credibility tanked. If Nixon was found guilty by Congress, I don’t think Ford would have pardoned him (well, he probably still would have because Republicans are the party of corruption, but a man can dream, can’t he?) This would have finally set the concrete precedent that the president is not above the law, that they can and will face consequences for their actions.

The assassination of Ronald Reagan; what if John Hinckley Jr. had succeeded in killing Reagan in March 1981? Full offense to any and all conservative pieces of shit reading this, but the world would be an infinitely better place. No Reagan means no Iran-Contra Affair and no Reaganomics (no trickle down), which means no tax cuts for the super-wealthy and no trillion dollar monopolies. There would still be a middle class, we’d have higher wages and more benefits, we’d have universal healthcare like every single other developed nation on the planet! In 1980, George H.W. Bush called Reagan’s policies “voodoo economics” because he knew they wouldn’t work; he only got on board after he started cashing his checks. If he became president in ‘81 rather than ‘89, he wouldn’t have continued those policies (he was more concerned with the foreign than the domestic agenda). No Reagan means no AIDS crisis, or at least a substantially reduced one. No Reagan means no Mujahideen in Afghanistan, so no Taliban, no al-Qaeda, no 9/11, no endless War on Terror in the Middle East, no PATRIOT Act, no Orwellian police state. THIS is the biggest change I can imagine in the last 50 years.

What if Glasnost and Perestroika has succeeded in the Soviet Union? What if the USSR had democratized under Gorbachev’s reforms? The Russia that came out of the collapse was corrupt to the core trying to fill the sudden power vacuum, which is how Putin rose to the top. If Gorbachev’s reforms had succeeded, if the Soviet Union had modernized, if a true multi-party democracy had been established, the world would be a better place. The Iron Curtain would still have fallen because Gorbachev got rid of the Brezhnev Doctrine, meaning Eastern Europe would be free of Soviet influence sooner, the Caucuses and Central Asian republics would have more say in how the country was run, and authoritarianism would be on the decline in Russia.

Al Gore wins the 2000 election; if he had become president, we would never have gone to war with Iraq. Hell, we may even have avoided war with Afghanistan; the Taliban claimed they were willing to extradite Osama bin Laden if we could prove his involvement in 9/11, and I think Gore would have taken them up on the offer. Now there’s no saying they actually would have followed through with it, but it’s always better to try diplomacy first. Even if we DID end up going to war with Afghanistan, it would be shorter and less deadly; fewer civilian casualties, an actual exit strategy, and no power vacuum because we’d never topple their government just to secure oil and military contracts. No Iraq War means no Syrian Civil War, which means no ISIS.

If you’re going through the trouble of researching and writing an alternate history scenario, why one Earth would you would you just fart out the same story we’ve heard a million times before? Give us some obscure changes, something small, something niche that would have a domino effect on World History. Like, what if Austria had won the Austro-Prussian war, and the German Empire didn’t exist? What if the Norman conquest had been repelled by the Celts? What if Margaret Thatcher slipped on wet concrete and bashed her head in on the way to Number 10? There are so many better possibilities to write about than Confederates and Nazis!

#alternate history #alternate history scenario #world war 1 #world war 2 #the great war #us civil war #2000 election #soviet union #ussr #impeachment #assassination #fuck reagan #fuck ronald reagan #fuck republicans #fuck conservatives #authoritarianism #world peace

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day0one · 3 years

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Donald Trump's Far-Right Extremist Army Has Turned On Him

The monster that Trump created doesn’t need him anymore.

For months, President Donald Trump’s message to his supporters was clear: The election was being stolen from him, and they needed to fight to take it back.

So on January 6, during a Trump-promoted rally to “Stop the Steal,” thousands laid siege to the US Capitol in a stunning attempt to do just that. The fallout of their failed insurrection, which resulted in five deaths, was swift: Trump was de-platformed from nearly every major social network and, on Wednesday, impeached for a historic second time.

When he emerged on camera a short while later, tail tucked between his legs, to condemn the rioters whom he himself had incited, and to call for a peaceful transfer of power to president-elect Joe Biden, his base felt betrayed.

“So he basically just sold out the patriots who got rounded up for him,” one person wrote in a 15,000-member pro-Trump Telegram group. “Just wow.”

In online havens for MAGA extremists, including Gab, CloutHub, MeWe, Telegram, and far-right message boards such as 8kun, the tone toward Trump is shifting. HuffPost reviewed thousands of messages across these platforms and found that a growing minority of the president’s once-devout backers are now denouncing him and rejecting his recent pleas for peace. Some have called for his arrest or execution, labeling him a “traitor” and a “coward.” Alarmingly, many of those who are irate about Biden’s supposed electoral theft is still plotting to forcibly prevent him from taking office – with or without Trump’s help.

“We don’t follow you,” another Telegram user wrote, addressing Trump after the president put out his video urging calm and order. “Be quiet and get out of our way.”

It has become apparent that now – after his mass radicalization campaign of voter-fraud disinformation and conspiracy-mongering – even Trump can’t stop the dangerous delusion he’s instilled across the country or the next wave of violence it may soon bring.

Authorities are urgently warning of armed protests being planned in all 50 state capitals in the days leading up to Biden’s inauguration. Politically motivated extremists “will very likely pose the greatest domestic terrorism threats in 2021,” according to a new joint intelligence bulletin from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and US National Counterterrorism Center. The document, first obtained by Yahoo News, attributes this threat to “false narratives” that Biden’s victory “was illegitimate, or fraudulent,” and the subsequent belief that the election results “should be contested or unrecognized.”

Ahead of last week’s riots, Trump supporters openly planned their attack on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other mainstream platforms, where they shared materials including flyers titled “Operation Occupy the Capitol.” These sites have since cracked down aggressively on such behavior, causing extremists to migrate to lesser-known corners of the internet to plan their next move.

While this has hindered their ability to spread propaganda and enlist new recruits, their new social channels are subject to less scrutiny and have already exploded in reach.CloutHub, MeWe, and Telegram shot to the top of the charts of popular free apps on the App Store and Google PlayStorein the wake of the siege. Gab has also reported a massive surge in new users, with about 10,000 people signing up every hour.

In these spaces, HuffPost has observed calls to “burn down” the Capitol, launch “an armed revolt,” “pop some libtards” and “TAKE THIS COUNTRY BACK WHATEVER IT TAKES!!” Some posts are more specific:“Civil War is here. Group up locally. Take out the News stations,” one person declared. “LET’S HANG THEM ALL,” another implored. “LET’S FINISH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.”

The Boogaloo Bois, a far-right militia organizing to foment civil war, is capitalizing on the unrest to issue online a renewed call to arms. The FBI has warned specifically of potential Boogaloo violence during planned rallies at state Capitol buildings in Michigan and Minnesota on Sunday.

“There's a war coming, and cowering in your home [while] real patriots march with rifles ... will make you a traitor,” commented a member of an encrypted Boogaloo chat.

Some extremists, however, are urging each other not to attend any of the upcoming armed protests. The Proud Boys, a rabidly pro-Trump neo-fascist group that helped storm the Capitol, is cautioning its followers that such demonstrations could be “fed honeypot” events set up by authorities in order to seize attendees’ guns.

It seems that even the Proud Boys are losing faith in Trump: a Telegram channel run by the group reposted a message with Trump’s video along with the text “The Betrayal of Trumpist base by Trump himself continues.”

For four years, the president’s supporters have worshipped him like a god. His rallies have been likened to cult gatherings. Nearly half of his campaign donations came from small donors, trouncing Biden’s 39%. For most of his presidency, Trump enjoyed strong support from the Republican base, polling well above 90% with that group. But after the Capitol riots, his support is plummeting at record rates.

MAGA world has stood unwaveringly by Trump’s side through multiple allegations of sexual assault (including rape), an impeachment for abuse of power, revelations that his administration literally caged children, a historic rise in national debt, countless lies, blatant self-enrichment by him and his family members, a pandemic that has claimed close to 400,000 American lives under his leadership – nearly a fifth of all deaths worldwide – and more.

So to see his “America First” army suddenly begin to turn on him is truly remarkable. It’s happening broadly among his supporters, and even among the far-right extremist communities that have flourished online during Trump’s presidency.

Among the recent messages excoriating Trump in dedicated pro-Trump networks:“tbh I hope they hang Trump at this point”; “He deserves what’s coming to him”; “he is literally done he will die in jail”; “Seriously hoping they’ll lock him up or lynch [him]”; “Guy is the biggest cuck ever at this point”; “Can’t wait til the left locks up his bitch ass. Rot in prison.” Several people have proclaimed that at this point, Trump can only redeem himself by declaring martial law to maintain power by force.

After losing to Biden, Trump systematically attacked the allies that propped up his presidency in a desperate effort to keep his re-election fantasy alive.

He first turned his adherents against Fox News, which stoked his ire by accurately projecting Biden’s electoral victory in Arizona before a few other networks did so. Then, when some Republicans – including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell – declined to play along with his unsupported claims of mass voter fraud, Trump urged his base to turn on them. After that came Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, who refused Trump’s unconstitutional demand to reject votes in favor of Biden. (“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution,” Trump tweeted on the afternoon of January 6, provoking chants of “Hang Pence” during the riots.)

Now that Trump himself appears to finally be backing away from his “Stop the Steal” hoax, a growing faction of his supporters is through with him, too.

But after the dramatic failure of his slow-motion coup, as he counts down the days until his return to life as a private citizen, Trump presumably has more pressing concerns than maintaining his followers’ devotion. Aside from the hundreds of millions of dollars in personal debt hanging over his head, it seems increasingly likely that he could face criminal prosecution, from which he will no longer be immune. And following his latest impeachment, if the Senate convicts him, it can also vote to disqualify him from ever running for office again.

With so much at stake and no sane hope of clinging to power, it’s now in the president’s best interest for his base to avoid further violence, which could increase his chances of conviction. But the reality is that the monster Trump created doesn’t need him anymore.

“He can promise and call for peace all he likes,” one Gab user wrote. “Won’t make a blind bit of difference.”

#donald trump #politics #2020 election #extremism #capitol riot

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mst3kproject · 4 years

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Tobor the Great

This was a movie YouTube thought I ought to watch. It’s so bad even Leonard Maltin didn’t like it.

Two scientists, Dr. Harrison and Dr. Nordstrom, are concerned about the effects of space travel on the human body, and so they attempt to convince the Civil Interplanetary Flight Commission (think NASA, but with funding) to use an alternative form of test pilot. No, sit down, dog- and monkey-lovers in the audience, I’m talking about a huge, unwieldy, unnecessarily humanoid robot! Obviously, foreign agents want to steal this machine and turn it into a huge, unwieldy weapon instead of a huge, unwieldy astronaut, but Nordstrom’s grandson Brian saves the day using his special telepathic link with Tobor!

The movie does not believe we’re smart enough to figure out why the robot’s name is Tobor. It spells it out for us, literally and on more than one occasion.

Tobor the Great is a children’s movie – the main character is eleven-year-old Brian, who is mostly addressed by his nickname, Gadget or Gadge. He’s established as an engineering genius in his own right, who gets to hang around in his grandfather’s lab and make friends with this cool robot. He’s what every white American boy in the 50’s was supposed to want to be. All of which makes it sort of weird that we don’t meet him until nearly fifteen minutes into the movie.

Consider some better children’s movies. In Coco, Miguel is the literal as well as the metaphorical narrator – we begin with his voice telling us the backstory. Lilo and Stitch gives us one title character almost immediately, and then brings in the second as quickly as it can to get us to the point where they meet. Of course, you don’t have to introduce the main character first in a movie, but if you’re going to put it off you have to do it skillfully. Star Wars takes its time getting around to Luke Skywalker, but it’s already given us somebody to follow in the form of C-3P0 and R2-D2, who make good audience proxies because 3P0 doesn’t know what’s going on any more than we do. Tobor the Great lets nearly a quarter of its running time go by before we finally meet Gadge, and even more before we get to Tobor himself, and that time is spent setting up what seems to be a rather different movie.

The opening does establish the need for Tobor, but it takes way too long about it. We start with narration and stock footage about the American space program, which is as deathly boring as it always is in these movies. Maybe it seemed more exciting in the fifties, when space rockets were the coolest thing around. Then we get into Dr. Harrison and his complaints about unsafe practices, which lead to his resignation and to him trying to dodge the press before meeting the likeminded Dr. Nordstrom.

These seem like strange things to put in a children’s movie. I feel that a lot more time is spent justifying the need for a robotic astronaut than is really necessary, and the early close focus on Dr. Harrison makes it seem like he’s going to be our main character – but he fades into the background once we get to Dr. Nordstrom’s lab and at the end he’s not much more than a completely unnecessary love interest for Gadge’s widowed mother. In Star Wars the two droids stick around and participate in the plot for the whole movie – Dr. Harrison doesn’t. The politicking within the CIFC is not something children are likely to be interested in, nor is the nagging newspaper man, and all of these scenes are just guys in suits talking. Very little actually happens and none of it involves robots carrying off beautiful women like the poster shows us!

The annoying reporter is a particularly odd inclusion. His name is Mr. Gilligan, which Joel and the ‘bots would have found hilarious. I went into Tobor the Great totally blind, having never heard of it when the thumbnail appeared in my YouTube recommendations, but if I’d read a plot summary or something beforehand, maybe I wouldn’t have expected Gilligan to play a major role in the plot. As it was, I figured he was either a Soviet spy or would unintentionally pass information on to them – but he vanishes after the first press conference, and the question of whether he has the right to compromise national security in the name of selling newspapers is never dealt with. Instead the spies are a bunch of guys we’ve never seen before.

Once all this is over with, though, we do finally get to see Tobor strut his stuff. Nordstrom and Harrison work on programming him to do things like type reports to be sent back to Earth and dodge meteor showers (as all 50’s space rockets had to do), while Gadge sits and watches… and does very little else. You’d think this part of the movie would continue the thread of Gadge being the equal of the adult scientists, maybe overlapping with him and Tobor bonding, but there’s almost none of either. Why set up Gadge as a prodigy if you’re not going to make use of it? At the climax we expect Gadge to save the day by figuring something out, as he showed he could do earlier. Instead he just shuts his eyes and thinks really hard at Tobor, like Ichi trying to summon Gamera. It works, but it’s not as satisfying as it could have been. At the end the movie has neatly avoided almost all of its potential and anything that might have been cool to watch, and failed to give us anything it seemed to promise.

To make things even worse, Gadge is played by one of those insanely cloying 50’s child actors who say things like “oh, gosh!” and “gee whillikers!” I cannot imagine anybody actually talking like this. Actor Billy Chaplin sure makes it sound fake as hell. While Chaplin is a decent actor physically, everything he says sounds stilted and unnatural, like he’s reading it off notes while trying to project his voice to a full auditorium. The adult actors are much better, which just makes Chaplin look all the worse by comparison.

Tobor, on the other hand, is wonderful, in the ‘stupid cardboard movie robot’ way that makes Torg from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and the delightfully awful robot of Devil Girl from Mars so much fun. It’s got lots of blinky lights and moving parts, and stamps around with a pretty convincing sense of weight. Unlike some movie robots it actually moves at a good clip when it wants to, perhaps helped by the fact that it has working knees. The movie makes the point that Tobor is a large and dangerous piece of kit at the same time as it’s able to be gentle and dexterous, which reinforces the idea that it would be frightening as a weapon.

My favourite part is when Tobor drives a car. I wonder if the guy in the costume could see anything. That must have been a hell of a day on set.

What you want me to get back to, though, is the bit where the robot is psychic. Yes, that’s actually the premise of this movie, a telepathic robot! I’m not sure how plausible that would have seemed in the 50’s, even in such an explicitly silly movie. Dr. Nordstrom doesn’t expect the reporters to believe in it without a demonstration, and yet the same decade also produced films like The She-Creature that present such ideas with an entirely straight, albeit incompetent, face. Psychic powers as hard-ish sci-fi seems to have gone out of style by the 90’s, and nowadays it sounds like something you’d see in the Weekly World News.

Man, I miss the hard copy Weekly World News. It was so nice to have that little isle of humour in the sea of garbage that was (and still is) the supermarket tabloids. Remember Hilary Clinton’s space-alien lover? Classic.

The function of telepathy in this story is not just to give Gadge a way to summon the robot after the spies break Nordstrom’s control mechanism. It is also a means whereby Tobor may acquire human traits and emotions. How to make a robot feel things is a perennial problem in science fiction… a lot of the time the mechanism is simply glossed over, as an artificial intelligence becomes more human by interacting with humans. Emotions are just chemicals in our brains, though, and the more we learn about how they work, the harder it gets to justify a machine feeling them. In Star Trek: the Next Generation Data and Lore have a special bit of hardware that must be installed to enable emotions, and really seem like they’re better off without it. In Saturn 3, Hector has a processor made of cloned brain cells that can produce their own chemistry, as well as a direct neural uplink to its programmer.

As such solutions go, I actually kind of like how Tobor the Great goes about it, even if the mechanism is silly. Rather than having emotions of its own, Tobor senses and mirrors those of the humans around it. When Gadge is panicking, worrying that Tobor is out of control, Tobor panics and goes around smashing things, thus making for a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Gadge thinks of Tobor as a hero, the robot comes to his rescue, carrying him to safety like a rescued princess, and responds to the anger and rage of the spies by turning these emotions back on them and beating them up. This is quite different from many ‘emotional machine’ stories, in that it doesn’t actually require Tobor to be in any way self-aware.

Unfortunately the movie is not very consistent about this. There’s a scene in which Tobor gets frustrated and breaks stuff after being put through too challenging a simulation, which does imply that the robot has an intelligence and emotional capacity of its own. This bit has a purpose, as it serves to make us worry that Tobor will be unable to tell the difference between friend and foe at the finale, but it just doesn’t fit with the way this machine is treated in the rest of the movie.

Like many others both from MST3K and from the Episodes that Never Were, Tobor the Great has a couple of good ideas at its core. It even predicted how much easier and safer it is to send robots into space than people, although those robots don’t look much like the lumbering humanoids of 50’s sci-fi. Sadly, the film is uneven, rushed, and poorly-acted, and nothing particularly fun or exciting happens in it. Various people over the years have seen its potential and Tobor has starred in a couple of comic books and an unproduced TV pilot, but these never went anywhere either.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #tobor the great #50s #tobor is robot spelled backwards

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nerdyqueerandjewish · 4 years

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Here is what Researcher Jeremy C. Young wrote on twitter to help put the numbers discussed in the report from Imperial College into context. Fair warning, he does use the number of deaths in the Shoah (and other events) to help people understand the magnitude, I don’t think he’s trying to make a direct comparison and I don’t think that’s the best choice, but I’m still sharing because I think that the information is really valuable.

⚠️ Read with extreme caution ⚠️

————

Summary from Jeremy C. Young:

———

We can now read the report on COVID-19 that so terrified every public health manager and head of state from Boris Johnson to Donald Trump to the dictator of El Salvador that they ordered people to stay in their houses. I read it yesterday afternoon and haven't been the same since. I urge everyone to read it, but maybe have a drink first, or have your family around you. It is absolutely terrifying. The New York TImes confirms that the CDC and global leaders are treating it as factual.

Here's a brief rundown of what I'm seeing in here. Please correct me in comments if I'm wrong.

The COVID-19 response team at Imperial College in London obtained what appears to be the first accurate dataset of infection and death rates from China, Korea, and Italy. They plugged those numbers into widely available epidemic modeling software and ran a simulation: what would happen if the United States did absolutely nothing -- if we treated COVID-19 like the flu, went about business as usual, and let the virus take its course?

Here's what would happen: 80% of Americans would get the disease. 0.9% of them would die. Between 4 and 8 percent of all Americans over the age of 70 would die. 2.2 million Americans would die from the virus itself.

It gets worse. Most people who are in danger of dying from COVID-19 need to be put on ventilators. 50% of those put on ventilators still die, but the other 50% live. But in an unmitigated epidemic, the need for ventilators would be 30 times the number of ventilators in the United States. Virtually no one who needed a ventilator would get one. 100% of patients who need ventilators would die if they didn't get one. So the actual death toll from the virus would be closer to 4 million Americans -- in a span of 3 months. 8-15% of all Americans over 70 would die.

How many people is 4 million Americans? It's more Americans than have died all at once from anything, ever. It's the population of Los Angeles. It's four times the number of Americans who died in the Civil War...on both sides combined. It's two-thirds as many people as died in the Holocaust.

Americans make up 4.4% of the world's population. So if we simply extrapolate these numbers to the rest of the world -- now we're getting into really fuzzy estimates, so the margin of error is pretty great here -- this gives us 90 million deaths globally from COVID-19. That's 15 Holocausts. That's 1.5 times as many people as died in World War II, over 12 years. This would take 3-6 months.

Now, it's unrealistic to assume that countries wouldn't do ANYTHING to fight the virus once people stopped dying. So the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, this time assuming a "mitigation" strategy. A mitigation strategy is pretty much what common sense would tell us to do: America places all symptomatic cases of the disease in isolation. It quarantines their families for 14 days. It orders all Americans over 70 to practice social distancing. This is what you've seen a lot of people talking about when they say we should "flatten the curve": try to slow the spread of the disease to the people most likely to die from it, to avoid overwhelming hospitals.

And it does flatten the curve -- but not nearly enough. The death rate from the disease is cut in half, but it still kills 1.1 million Americans all by itself. The peak need for ventilators falls by two-thirds, but it still exceeds the number of ventilators in the US by eight times, meaning most people who need ventilators still don't get them. That leaves the actual death toll in the US at right around 2 million deaths. The population of Houston. Two civil wars. One-third of the Holocaust. Globally, 45 million people die: 7.5 Holocausts, 3/4 of World War II. That's what happens if we use common sense: the worst death toll from a single cause since the Middle Ages.

Finally, the Imperial College team ran the numbers a third time, this time assuming a "suppression" strategy. In addition to isolating symptomatic cases and quarantining their family members, they also simulated social distancing for the entire population. All public gatherings and most workplaces shut down. Schools and universities close. (Note that these simulations assumed a realistic rate of adherence to these requirements, around 70-75% adherence, not that everyone follows them perfectly.) This is basically what we are seeing happen in the United States today.

This time it works! The death rate in the US peaks three weeks from now at a few thousand deaths, then goes down. We hit, but don't exceed (at least not by very much), the number of available ventilators. The nightmarish death tolls from the rest of the study disappear; COVID-19 goes down in the books as a bad flu instead of the Black Death.

But here's the catch: if we EVER relax these requirements before a vaccine is administered to the entire population, COVID-19 comes right back and kills millions of Americans in a few months, the same as before. The simulation does indicate that, after the first suppression period (lasting from now until July), we could probably lift restrictions for a month, followed by two more months of suppression, in a repeating pattern without triggering an outbreak or overwhelming the ventilator supply. If we staggered these suppression breaks based on local conditions, we might be able to do a bit better. But we simply cannot ever allow the virus to spread throughout the entire population in the way other viruses do, because it is just too deadly. If lots of people we know end up getting COVID-19, it means millions of Americans are dying. It simply can't be allowed to happen.

How quickly will a vaccine be here? Already, medical ethics have been pushed to the limit to deliver one. COVID-19 was first discovered a few months ago. Last week, three separate research teams announced they had developed vaccines. Yesterday, one of them (with FDA approval) injected its vaccine into a live person, without waiting for animal testing. Now, though, they have to monitor the test subject for fourteen months to make sure the vaccine is safe. This is the part of the testing that can't be rushed: the plan is to inoculate the entire human population, so if the vaccine itself turned out to be lethal for some reason, it could potentially kill all humans, which is a lot worse than 90 million deaths. Assuming the vaccine is safe and effective, it will still take several months to produce enough to inoculate the global population. For this reason, the Imperial College team estimated it will be about 18 months until the vaccine is available.

During those 18 months, things are going to be very difficult and very scary. Our economy and our society will be disrupted in profound ways. Worst of all, if the suppression policies actually work, it will feel like we are doing all this for nothing, because the infection and death rates will be very low. It's easy to get people to come together in common sacrifice in the middle of a war. It's very hard to get them to do so in a pandemic that looks invisible precisely because suppression methods are working. But that's exactly what we're going to have to do.

#pandemic #covidー19 #covid19 #covid 19 #shoah tw

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erin-hart · 4 years

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“We can now read the report on COVID-19 that terrified every head of state from Boris Johnson to Donald Trump to the dictator of El Salvador so much that they ordered people to stay in their houses after lax attitudes in the beginning.

Here's a brief rundown...

Now, it's unrealistic to assume that countries wouldn't do ANYTHING to fight the virus once people started dying. So the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, this time assuming a "mitigation" strategy. A mitigation strategy is pretty much what common sense would tell us to do: America places all symptomatic cases of the disease in isolation. It quarantines their families for 14 days. It orders all Americans over 70 to practice social distancing. This is what you've seen a lot of people talking about when they say we should "flatten the curve": try to slow the spread of the disease to the people most likely to die from it, to avoid overwhelming hospitals.

The entire report is below...

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

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patricianandclerk · 5 years

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some hamish mckinnon notes

feel free to feedback/send asks/discuss!

Brief

Plump, rosy-cheeked and appears to be into his fifties. Thick, blond hair that's thinning ever so slightly on the top, has a tendency towards yellows and browns in his wardrobe - fan of tweed, but also of clothes with various patches on them, and tends to look a few decades out of time. He has sensitive feet, and wears red slippers virtually all the time.

When he was a child (thirteenish) in the late 1600s, he was taken by faeries, who dropped him, for the sake of fun, in the middle of the states in the mid-1800s. Ended up in the middle of a cultist sacrificial ritual, but it went wrong, and instead of being devoured a legion of demons half-possessed him. They're connected to him but can't actually control his actions, and tend to just follow him around and get him to entertain them. They used to be cruel to him, but they've got bored of that and are now just entertained by whatever he offers them as he won't generally attack people.

Bought the antique shop in London in the 1970s and just stayed ever since, as dealing in antiques and speciality magic items is rather easy for him, but doesn't take all too much effort.

He reads voraciously and often, and he's relatively good with the Internet - took a secretarial course in the 70s, learned to type on the computer in the 90s, took another IT course recently.

External Body

Hamish is a short man, plump and rounded off – round belly, thick rounded thighs, thick arms, round cheeks with red apples in them. He has a small mouth, red with plump lips, and heavily lidded, round eyes, which are a softly golden hazel. If you look very closely, you can see the shadows shifting about his irises – the physical reflection of the Horde’s connection to him. He has small crow’s feet and frown lines at his brow and around his mouth, but his hair is thick and deeply golden-blond, burnished with a little brown, and not greying at all, although it is beginning to thin slightly.

His skin is generally pale all over, and mostly unmarked, with patches that go very red very quickly. He has a heavy chest and rounded belly, with broad thighs and calves – he’s quite muscular beneath the fat, especially his calves, his shoulders, and his arms, but you wouldn’t think it to look at him. Holds himself very small.

His feet are only a 5 or a 6 maybe? Quite small feet, and they’re very delicate-looking.

Quite a bit of body hair, but it’s a lighter gold than the stuff on his head, and it tends to dust very finely on his chest, his back, his belly, his thighs and calves. His hands are usually very delicately kept and manicured, with super soft hands.

The horde are a legion of small demons, a few hundred of them that are insectile – they each have six little arms, bat-like wings, little legs, and are a sort of reddish brown colour. They look and feel like bats to the touch, and are that kind of furry-warm, but if you press on them you’ll feel that they’re hard-shelled underneath the soft outside of leathery skin, and on the inside they’re insectile, with hemolymph etc, and their skeletal system is external.

You see them as dark shadows and funny dark spots around Hamish, often under chairs, behind shelves, etc, and semi-non-corporeal so that they just seem like thick shadow.

Job(s)

Hamish owns McKinnon Antiques in London, which is an antique shop that specialises in haunted and supernaturally charged objects.

His main thing is as a supplier for others, and to get hold of things for some people and pass them over – he’ll usually come in and get hold of something and mostly take it off someone’s hands? Like, he always makes sure that he gets a haunted object away from someone because he’s very aware of how big that weight can be on someone, and then he’ll either put it into storage or sell it on.

He’s a big supplier to businesses and so on.

He makes some income from the several flats above his shop, and also owns some other storage spaces and houses and such that he rents out through an agency. He is not a very friendly, involved landlord – the renters upstairs (usually faeries that are struggling to get the hang of appearing human enough to rent elsewhere, usually as a stop gap before they get work elsewhere) pay him directly in cash, but the others are run through an agency with a director so that Hamish doesn’t have to interact with anybody.

The agency is called the Wednesday Letting Agency, the name being one that Asmodeus came up with when it was established back in the 1970s.

Abode(s)

Hamish owns the entire building McKinnon Antiques is in, which is the flat just above the building, which is two storeys of the actual flat, and then the other like, half a dozen storeys are like, three more flats and some extended storage? The flats are from an entrance at the side, and are usually the faeries and whatever.

Hamish’s flat is two stories, so like.

You enter the shop, which is crammed full of stuff, and then has a whole further area of back storage, a little kitchenette, and then you go up the stairs into the first floor, which is Hamish’s living room/library – a room with a very plush and cushy couch, lots of bookshelves, a nice radio and record player. It’s got a lot of soft surfaces, a lot of the McKinnon tartan hung up, and a lot of blankets and cushions, and you really would feel like you’d stepped back in time to look at it all.

There’s a small, cramped kitchen with a fairly big oven and some okay gas burners, but not much counter space, and just a little dining table that’s made for two people. Hamish does not have a toaster or an electric kettle – I don’t think he actually has anything electric in his kitchen.

Upstairs, he has his bedroom and then the two other bedrooms that are used for storage, although he always has some cots he can fold out for people who desperately need somewhere to sleep, usually JP and Colm, and later like, Velma. Hamish’s bedroom is a bit more cramped than cosy, with a lot more books, clothes, etc, all stuck into the same room, but you do step in and feel like, warm and comfy rather than claustrophobic. His bed is huge, very plush with four posts and a top, and he literally has like, thirteen or fourteen blankets on his bed.

Religion & Worship

Hamish was raised as a Christian, but is now an atheist, and is generally very uncomfortable with a lot of religion and very religious people.

Childhood & Young Adulthood

When he was 13, Hamish went wandering in the woods to avoid like, his parents and that, and ended up straying off the path when he heard a funny noise, and was seduced by like, a very pretty man just off the edge of the path? Ended up stepping off and off the path, into the midst of a faerie realm

Hamish was kept as a sort of pet and toy as he grew older, once he was old enough to have sex, he did? It was always pseudoconsensual, but it was obviously affected by the whole situation around him – he could choose to initiate it, which he did with other boys, but it was slow and uncertain, and as time got older it was more charged, more complex

He did age in the fae realm, but far far slower, and once he seemed to be around 25, the faerie prince who was most infatuated with him grew bored with him and his blossoming manhood, and they decided to turn him out…

In the middle of a summoning circle in America, where he stumbled in amidst the Christians that had been radicalised by a demon and were trying to summon another demon. It was all just a joke – the idea was that they’d summon the horde of demons and be devoured, which the original demon found super funny?

But because they used Hamish as a sacrifice to open up the split in the parallel realms and not a human, the magic didn’t respond right – Hamish’s capacity for magic had been permanently changed by his centuries in the fae realm, and so the demons were bound to him instead

And then…

He had to deal with the Horde.

The horde are a legion of small demons, a few hundred of them that are insectile – they each have six little arms, bat-like wings, little legs, and are a sort of reddish brown colour. They look and feel like bats to the touch, and are that kind of furry-warm, but if you press on them you’ll feel that they’re hard-shelled underneath the soft outside of leathery skin, and on the inside they’re insectile. They’re one of the smaller species of pseudo mammalian demons.

For a few years, as Hamish began to work himself out – this was just after the civil war, so he managed to find for himself a place in the country to work with the demons, who just fucking tortured him the first few years, but once he got a handle on them and learned to live with them, and then he made his way into Dinwiddie, Virginia.

When he started travelling north toward New York, in like, a little bit after the civil war, he met the angel Asmodeus, who immediately took an interest in him. He, Jean-Pierre and Colm had just landed in the US and were spending some time in NY – later, obviously, they’d move elsewhere for another like, fifty years, I think going across the top of the US, then down to California in the mid 1900s, then to Texas, and then back East to go back to Ireland as they came into the 21st century

The demons were immediately fucking terrified of Asmodeus, which meant that like, for the first time in nearly a decade, someone could get close enough to actually touch Hamish, who was beginning to show his age now, starting to look a little bit older, now looking like he was in his thirties, and Asmodeus didn’t know why, but he was super interested and engaged with Hamish?

He slipped a little bit closer, took Hamish into bed, and to his surprise kept thinking about him afterward?

Middle Age

Hamish settled in NY, began working with a carpenter in the city and then began working in furniture making, so that when he makes his way back to the UK in the 1920s, he looks the age he does in the 21st century, that he looks like he’s in his 50s, opened up the shop in town, and then just. Stayed there.

Asmodeus comes to visit regularly.

Hamish buys and sells antiques, is generally quiet with himself and is often uncomfortable with a lot of people because he’s still frightened of bringing the demons out in public because they’re little cunts. They’re not actually cruel anymore, they’re just mischievous and sort of stupid, which makes it all difficult.

Velma comes in regularly enough, and she very much encourages Hamish to come out of his shell a bit – Ash does the same when he’s around, but isn’t actually hugely social himself, so isn’t the best at it, whereas Velma encourages Hamish to come to bars, restaurants, parks, etc. The Horde likes Velma.

When Ash comes in, he’ll normally sleep with Hamish in the same bed and give him a little taste of domesticity? They tend to settle in together, Ash will take him out for dinner and expensive wine, will often take him dancing somewhere quiet, and then they’ll spend a few days together, reading, etc.

Asmodeus isn’t at all big on botanical gardens, libraries, or museums, but will specifically go out of his way to bring Hamish to places like that.

#as defined by dictionary #hamish mckinnon #asmodeus craddock #dictionary's original fiction

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azurescapegoat · 4 years

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What's up with your name?

200 years ago, there was a space-faring civilization known as the Clyrax. Plagued by a hundred year long civil war on their formerly united planet, planet Hirbyn in the Yatu system, hundreds of millions of Clyrax had died in the fighting. The war had gone on for so long that the two sides, the “Front for Truth” and the “Unity Circle” have long since forgotten why they were fighting in the first place.

Many Clyrax had attempted to leave the war-torn planet, to escape the death and devastation. Launching an unregistered spaceship from the planet was not only strictly illegal and punishable by death, but the few number of ships even remaining on the planet made it near impossibly difficult to even attempt. The first Clyrax ship to leave the planet in 100 years was the ship known as “The Mistress”, flown by Captain Monlis Suvii and his crew of marines. The Mistress was an old, run down ship. Clunky and slow, especially since one of its three forward thrusters had been damaged beyond repair in the Battle of Yna.

Captain Suvii had deserted from his post as admiral of a fleet of 100 warships on the eastern front, and instead took his chances and fled the planet, away from the war. His wife and daughter had long ago died in the fighting. It was a bomb from his own side, a bomb meant for the enemy, that had locked on to the wrong target. Nearly 50 people had died, for no reason.

The escape wasn’t as easy as simply aiming the plasma thrusters down and speeding off into outer space. The Mistress was pursued by a squadron of fighters with orders to shoot to kill anyone attempting to leave the atmosphere. Both the Front for Truth and the Unity Circle were so pressed for manpower that letting even a single ship leave the planet would give the other side an advantage, and even if the ship couldn’t be stopped and returned to the planet, it was seen as a better alternative to shoot it down rather than allow them to set a precedent for future deserters.

But Captain Suvii was a master tactician, and a master at maneuvering, and his crew trusted his orders more than they trusted their own senses. The Captain ordered his men to take to the Flak cannons and open fire at the pursuing squadron. Meanwhile, knowing that the small and light fighters would easily be able to avoid the shots, the Captain slowed down the ship and allowed the squadron to get up close, right behind his damaged thruster. The Captain ordered his engineers to divert all power to the damaged thruster, which they did without hesitation. The thruster fired up, producing a massive blue plasma-flame behind the ship, burning the fighter squadron to a crisp and bringing the Mistress up toward its maximum safe speeds. Without anyone pursuing them, the Captain and his crew could safely make it out of the atmosphere. However, the damaged thruster was now dangerously close to overheating. It only had enough life in it for one last push, after which it was at a real danger of exploding, taking the Mistress with it.

The Captain ordered the thruster shut off, and now they were drifting. Drifting, slowly, but surely, through outer space, going further and further away from planet Hirbyn.

Over the years and decades, the Mistress was reworked from a battleship to a colony ship. Using the ship’s lifeboats, the crew were able to fly down to inhabited planets, buy a few supplies (engine parts, tools, beds, food, water, seeds, etc.) It took multiple generations to build a society, but the Mistress was finally a home. It couldn’t really fly, merely divert its course in case of a potential collision somewhere (which in space is statistically unlikely). Instead the new crew, the new citizens of the Mistress, focused on building greenhouses, water filters, solar panels, and even things like a school, a hospital, and a theatre. They may never find a new home planet, but they at least found a home.

This new society on board the Mistress wasn’t thriving, but it was surviving. However, after 200 years drifting in open space, the Mistress was finally caught in an orbit it couldn’t escape: An orbit around the Sun. Readings showed that one of the planets, one designated “Sol 3″, was home to a primitive lifeform known as “Rénlèi” or possibly as “Humans”. The creatures on this world don’t seem to have even decided on a single language yet.

Signals have been picked up from Sol 3 in the past. 45 years ago they sent a series of sounds which our “scientist” (Greglox) managed to translate into a very childish drawing of what appeared to be a red monkey with a Y****grlox about to be inserted into his head. 83 years ago there was a far more decipherable message; a cute little primitive craft containing a yellow disc. The content of the disc appeared to be spoken language from Sol 3. But there were like 50 different languages to translate and honestly we couldn’t be bothered.

One of the messages was in a language we already had translated, however. The inhabitants call it “Pǔtōnghuà” or “Zhōngwén” (depending on if it’s written or spoken, we think).

The message read: “各位都好吧？我们都很想念你们，有空请到这来玩。; 各位都好吧？我們都很想念你們，有空請到這來玩。”

Which we eventually translated to mean:

“How's everyone? We all very much wish to meet you, if you're free please come and visit.“

So, we’ve decided to take them up on their offer.

We hope you have a large enough landing pad, Zhōngguó. And plenty of tasty snacks for us to try!

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confusedsmoulder · 5 years

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Monthly summaries for September

September was a month that had a lot going on and I am happy to relay that October will be a little bit more relaxed. We have a couple of fun things that we have planned. During this time we are encouraging tying up any loose ends that you may still have.

At the beginning of the month we bared witness to the destruction of Hell’s Kitchen. This was due to the hand of the Jester whom after loosing Jingles has faded into the back ground but swears he will be back for more fun in the future.

The trial of Loki occurs. Loki is on trial for moving Asgard to Midgaurd. Asgard unfortunately was put right on top of Atlantis.

The Trial:

Opening statements occur and it is obvious that the air in the room is thick.

Matt Murddock:

“Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I wish I could say it was good to see you this morning, but I can’t. I’m blind. I’m an unconventional choice of representation for a woman who has enough money and power and resources to hire whomever she wants. The opposition wants to paint a picture of her as some power hungry, war-mongering, not-of-this-world invader who intended harm to Earth. And before you say oh she picked you because you’re cut from the same cloth...Remember: She didn’t hire me for this grand of a stage. The world maybe even interplanetary stage. She hired me because she needed someone who knew Hell’s Kitchen. She wanted to change a neglected, poor, crime ridden section of city that’s seen better days. I grew up there. I was blinded there. And I have fought —quite literally— for it to be a better. And she’s tried to help it. Not just Hell’s Kitchen but countless cities. Is she perfect? No. But we’re not trying to prove that. We’re going to prove she is what she says she is: Someone who cares. Someone who has never intended the world harm. No. She is someone who has tried to prevent violence and harm. She is loyal and loving to those she believes in and has constantly striven to be better. Loki Odinson is many things but guilty is not one of them.”

Lucianna Felix:

"As we gather here I would like to remind everyone in the room that Atlantis has lost up to 80% of there population due to Asgard being moved into its current location. 75% of Atlantis is currently struggling to rebuild and it has lost a far amount of its history and historical land markings do to this. Atlantis although not recognized outside of myth until recently is protected under the unknown lands protection act that was established a couple of years ago under section D35 where it mentions that lands containing sentient beings that have been located on Earth for more than 50 years are placed under the UN protection clause. Seeing as Loki had not asked to move Asgard onto the earth without going through the proper space approval channels. We are pursuing the harshest punishment possible in light of her crimes. I would like to also remind the court that Loki refers to herself as the 'Ruler of the Nine' which includes the Earth or as they phrase it on Asgard: midgaurd. Looking at her actions it is highly plausible that she feels she is above all laws and jurisdictions. Just some food for thought."

As the trial continues Matt Murddock finishes his questioning of Stephen Strange. Stephen makes a strong case of Loki’s character that is nearly unshakable. Lucianna Felix shows Stephen Strange a phone number to see if he can I identify it as Kate Bishops which he was able too. There are several text messages on the phone to Silkie Va’nora detailing how she was now related to Garth which meant that Loki was now her sister and how Stephan and Garth were the best parents she ever had. Seeing this the court takes some of what Stephen Strange has to say in consideration although viewed as heavily biased. The facts are reviewed by the court during a brief recess.

Seeing as Stephen Strange was the only witness to Loki’s character the three judges have Loki stand and plead her case in better explanation to the court. Loki taking the stand pleads her case talking more so towards the other leaders in the room rather than the court itself feeling she had a better chance of swaying them. After stepping down from the stand Loki takes her place with her family and her lawyer. The judges then request other countries to plead their stance on what Loki had done.

Wakanda’s stance is that if it was the last option that they would have done so, however they would have went through and picked a location that wouldn’t be in the way or an issue along with going through the proper channels.

Themiscyra’s stance is that they would have done what Loki had done and felt that if anyone was put in her situation that they would have done so. Proper channels or not if it was life or death of a nation or if they felt incoming threats that they couldn’t protect themselves from it would be done. If they had the ability to do so at least.

Atlantis’s stance is that they would not have done so. It is obvious that the king’s son does not agree to this with the look on his face however he stays very quiet.

With these statements the court goes into another recess for deliberation. Once they are settled in court the Judges ask Loki to stand. Loki is found guilty however they have the most sympathetic judge speak.

-Asgard is to be moved although it is allowed to remain on the Earth seeing that it is already here they can’t just ask for Asgard to go back to it’s realm. It is moved to be floating above the earth’s ocean the Atlantic. It will not receive tourism do to it’s distance above the Earth.

-Loki is not acknowledged as The All Nine

-Asgard is to help rebuild Atlantis and supply funds if needed.

-Loki is seen as unfit to be put in any ruling position be it political or figure head.

-Loki is not imprisoned seeing as a few countries and hidden societies would have done the same in her position if their hand as forced and they had the ability.

The Fake Civil War:

After the trial Loki does not release a statement and changes her appearance to remain unnoticed for the time. She avoids the press and lays low with her family. Tony on the other hand…

Standing in front of the camera’s Tony clenches his fists not being 100% healed from his resent secret surgery. He wears make up to seem less sickly than he actually is. Looking a cross the sea of camera’s and media excited to hear from Iron man himself, Tony waits watching the room hush enough to a murmur he clears his throat a bit. “Trial sentencing for Loki? It’s bullshit. Look, I don’t want her dead. Danvers and Banner love her, but...political offices stripped from her and she had to fork over money? At least Ambassadors have to follow certain rules and conduct themselves with some kind of decorum. She brought an entire super-powered civilization and plunked it down. What does that smell like to you? Invasion. Act of War.And now, it’s been days. We haven’t heard anything from her. What’s she planning? What’s she going to do now that she’s been let off the leash?I’m not gonna sit around and find out.” Tony states it with anger a ploy that he used in hopes to get the correct response. As the room erupts into a fit of shouts and questions he steps away from the microphone and walks away.

At the time of the press release Wanda and Loki find their way to Asgard to request the help of Moni. Loki explaining everything that has occurred is hoping that the fight will draw out Hydra from hiding. Moni agrees to help offering the space that is needed.

Loki and Tony ask all heroes to secretly meet up at the sanctum. Explaining the plan each person agrees to be apart of the plan. Especially since she had the feeling that Hydra has some hand in the outcome of her trial. With the flash drive that Steve had gotten from the Hydra base it was all more than possible.

Sending Wanda and Loki to Asgard the pair work together to make a large fight that is purely fake and done with magic happen.

As this fight begins Carol, fake Loki, Bruce, and heroes who have chosen to stand on her side are lined up. On the opposite side Steve, Tony, and a few others stand on his side. The fight is large and massive being recorded by drones the live footage being live-streamed to all outlets. As they went on for most of the day they were finally down to four people on their field just before the final blow the footage is cut.

-After seeing this the Super Hero Registration act and the Mutant Registration act are brought into the spot light. Being just passing comments and on the back burner for most legislation seeing this massive battle as pushed these things into the spot light. Fast tracking making them law in the next couple of years.

-As for Hydra the ploy hadn’t worked and they had nothing to do with the outcome of Loki’s trial.

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Violent Protesters Storm Legislature https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-live-updates.html

Hong Kong Protest Live Updates: Protesters Storm Hong Kong’s Legislature

After destroying the building’s facade, protesters entered the building, where riot police warned them not to breach the central chamber.

Alexandra Stevenson, Mike Ives, Tiffany May, Katherine Li, Javier Hernandez, Austin Ramzy, Gillian Wong and Ezra Cheung contributed reporting. | Published July 1, 2019 | The New York Times | Posted July 1, 2019 |

RIGHT NOW

Dozens of protesters breached Hong Kong’s legislature building, as thousands of other protesters took to the streets on the anniversary of the city’s return to China’s control.

Here’s what you need to know:

Protesters smashed glass walls as they charged the offices of the legislature.

The demonstrations are a challenge to China’s leader, Xi Jinping.

The attack on the legislative complex exposed divisions among the protesters.

The city’s embattled leader promised to be “more open and accommodating.”

‘Carrie Lam, step down,’ protesters elsewhere chanted in a peaceful march.

Protesters smashed glass walls as they charged the offices of the legislature.

After steadily destroying the facade of Hong Kong’s legislative complex on Monday, protesters entered the building leaving broken glass and torn steel shutters in their wake, hours after the government held a ceremony commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the territory’s return to China from Britain.

“Come on, people of Hong Kong!” dozens of demonstrators gathered along the side of the building shouted.

Using metals bars and makeshift battering rams to break the building’s outside glass walls and doors, some protesters entered the building and attempted to force open metal roller shutters that sealed the entrance to the legislative chambers.

The protesters did not seem to have a clear strategy beyond the destruction of the building’s facade. After shattering several glass walls and doors, many did not enter the building but instead moved on to rip off metal panels and dismantle an outdoor fence.

Riot police with gas masks and shields guarded the facility from within the building, holding up signs warning the protesters that they would use force if the demonstrators charged. The police and government said that they condemned the violence at the legislature and that officers were exercising restraint.

But early in the day, hundreds of riot police officers had used batons and pepper spray to beat back protesters at a different site — near a government flag-raising ceremony attended by the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam.

“I think most of the Hong Kong people are in no mood to celebrate,” Lam Cheuk-ting, a democratic lawmaker who joined the protesters, said of the July 1 holiday. “We urge Carrie Lam to step down as soon as possible, because she has refused to listen to the Hong Kong people for so long.”

At the handover of Hong Kong to China’s control in 1997, the Chinese government agreed that Hong Kong could retain its democracy, justice system and protections for civil liberties for 50 years, under a philosophy commonly known as “one country, two systems.” Protesters today are angry because they see Ms. Lam’s pushing of the extradition bill as giving up those rights to the mainland.

The demonstrations are a challenge to China’s leader, Xi Jinping.

Huge crowds of demonstrators have taken to Hong Kong’s streets in the past several weeks, protesting a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China. The protests forced Mrs. Lam to suspend the bill but demonstrators want a full withdrawal and for her to resign.

The turnout of protesters on Monday was among the largest attempts to disrupt the Hong Kong government’s most important annual political event. It underscored the deepening anxiety that many in Hong Kong feel about the erosion of the civil liberties that set the city apart.

Monday’s protests, which also fell on the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, were a direct challenge to President Xi Jinping and his increasingly authoritarian policies.

Analysts said the chaos risked giving Mr. Xi an opportunity to justify his tough approach.

“If it gets really violent, the risk is that Beijing has a good excuse to become even more uncompromising,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political scientist at Hong Kong Baptist University. “Xi can put even more pressure on Carrie Lam not to make any concessions.”

The attack on the legislative complex exposed divisions among the protesters.

Protesters who joined the demonstration outside the legislature said they were frustrated that the government was not listening to their concerns. “Friends, don’t leave,” read the signs many were waving. “People of Hong Kong, don’t give up,”

This was the latest instance in which a group of predominantly younger protesters have taken measures that test the boundaries of civil disobedience in this usually orderly financial hub. In recent weeks, to protest the extradition bill and what they saw as a heavy-handed police response, the protesters have twice besieged the city’s police headquarters and sought to disrupt government services.

The protesters said they chose to descend on the Legislative Council because the police prevented them from getting close to the site of the government’s flag-raising ceremony that morning.

Several protesters said that while they did not personally plan to break into the complex, they supported those on the front lines who did. Peaceful protest methods were ineffective, they said, and they increasingly felt open to a more confrontational approach if it would help to protect Hong Kong’s freedom and relative independence from Beijing.

“We have been too peaceful for the past few times, so the police think we are easily bullied,” said Natalie Fung, 28, who was outside the legislative complex supporting the protesters with food and drinks.

Not all protesters supported the handful who attacked the Legislative Council. Several democratic lawmakers tried to stop the protesters by positioning themselves between the demonstrators and the building but were eventually pushed aside.

Claudia Mo, who was among the pro-democracy legislators attempting to stop the protesters, said she thought the violence had affected the turnout of the peaceful march.

“I’m extremely worried because the young really seem like they have nothing to lose, when they have a lot to lose,” Ms. Mo said. “It’s their Hong Kong they’re fighting for. It’s their future and they need to take their future into account.”

Samson Yuen, a political scientist at Lingnan University in Hong Kong who studies social movements and identity politics, said that many protesters who felt like they were facing repression could set aside their ideological differences about the use of violence. “People understand that they need to band together in order to avoid being fragmented.”

In the morning, police used batons and pepper spray to beat and push back demonstrators who tried to march to the convention center. Protesters who had been hit with pepper spray stumbled to seek help at medical stations set up by supporters. Some poured water over their bodies.

The government said around midday that demonstrators had attacked police lines and thrown an unidentified liquid at officers. Some officers reported difficulties breathing and irritated skin, and 13 were sent to the hospital, the government said in a statement. The police also said that some protesters had scattered lime powder at the police, injuring officers.

“Police strongly condemn such illegal acts and will stringently follow up,” it said.

The city’s embattled leader promised to be “more open and accommodating.”

Mrs. Lam, the city’s chief executive, sought to strike a conciliatory note on Monday morning, pledging that she and her government would be more responsive to public sentiment. She was earlier criticized for insisting on pushing the unpopular legislation through despite an intense public outcry.

“I will learn the lesson and ensure that the government’s future work will be closer and more responsive to the aspirations, sentiments and opinions of the community,” Mrs. Lam said at the official ceremony commemorating the handover anniversary. “The first and most basic step to take is to change the government’s style of governance to make it more open and accommodating.”

Local television news channels broadcast a startling split screen. On one side, Mrs. Lam and officials from Hong Kong and mainland China clinked champagne flutes in a toast to a unification, on the other riot police clashed violently with protesters.

Mrs. Lam said she would make more time to meet with people from different political backgrounds and reach out to the city’s youth. She said that Hong Kong’s economy could feel the repercussions of a protracted trade war between the United States and China and urged Hong Kong residents to work with the government on managing the impact of the trade dispute and addressing the housing shortage and other issues.

The broad public anger has already forced Mrs. Lam to suspend the proposed legislation, but demonstrators want it to be fully withdrawn and have also turned their scrutiny on the police, whom they say acted with excessive forcein dispersing a June 12 protest. A march was planned for later in the day that pro-democracy organizers said was expected to draw a large turnout.

‘Carrie Lam, step down,’ protesters elsewhere chanted in a peaceful march.

Separately, tens of thousands of other protesters, including families and children, marched through nearly 90 degree heat on Monday afternoon to fill the streets of downtown Hong Kong in a separate demonstration calling on the city’s leader to resign.

Protesters carried signs saying “Free HK Democracy Now,” and “Hong Kong Fights For Democracy.” The march began at Victoria Park, where a few people handed out yellow signs urging people to “stand firm and investigate police violence.”

“Carrie Lam, step down, get some dignity for yourself,” said Lo Woon-fun, 84, who was sitting under a small umbrella in the muddy field at the beginning of the march. “I came out today because I want to tell Carrie Lam that despite my old age, I still come out to demand she step down.”

“I have come here because of the future generation of ours. I want them to live a good life as I have,” she said.

Members of the labor union for Postal Service workers carried a large printed banner that read: “When a million people walk against the mainstream, it’s inhumane to neglect it,” referring to a massive protest in June.

China Vowed to Safeguard Hong Kong’s Freedoms. Some See a Wolf at the Door.

‘One country, two systems’ was Beijing’s pledge when it took back a former British colony. But concerns over civil liberties are mounting.

By Austin Ramzy | Published July 1, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 1, 2019 |

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

HONG KONG — When Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997 after more than a century of colonial rule, it was a moment of immense pride for Beijing, and immense trepidation for a territory that had long enjoyed greater freedom and prosperity than the nation that was reclaiming it.

An authoritarian state run by the Communist Party was taking over a global financial center with independent courts, burgeoning democracy and extensive protections of civil liberties. Would the Chinese government hold to its promise to maintain “one country, two systems” for the next 50 years? Would it let Hong Kong remain Hong Kong?

Beijing was quick to offer reassurances.

“China,” its premier told his British counterpart, “would prove her words by her deeds,” according a declassified British government memo.

But as Hong Kong marks the 22nd anniversary of the handover on Monday, some of China’s recent deeds suggest something else.

Hong Kongers may still enjoy a degree of freedom mainland Chinese can only envy, with freedom of assembly, a free press and an unfettered judicial system. But almost every day brings new evidence those freedoms are slipping away, with the territory falling farther under Beijing’s shadow.

In recent weeks, Hong Kongers have taken to the streets to protest. For many here, there is a sense of time running out.

“There will be a moment that mainland China will completely take over Hong Kong,” said Danny Chan, a 25-year-old primary school teaching assistant who joined a recent protest. “As a Hong Kong citizen, the best we can do is postpone it.”

A war over opium, an island as a prize

The British arrived in China in the late 17th century, bent on trade and empire, and soon found themselves at odds with Chinese rulers happy to export their goods, but far less interested in importing the West’s.

In opium, Britain saw a way in, forcing the drug onto the Chinese market against the wishes of the Manchu emperors.

The British claimed Hong Kong from the Chinese through two wars, later securing part of the territory with a 99-year lease that expired on July 1, 1997.

During the Hong Kong handover talks in the 1980s, China rejected Britain’s desire to continue running the territory, and instead proposed that Hong Kong become a semi-autonomous region of China. China’s then-premier, Zhao Ziyang, told Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain that there should be no doubts about Beijing’s trustworthiness.

And at first, when Beijing took over in 1997, it did take a light touch.

While the fears of many in Hong Kong that their rights would disappear overnight in 1997 proved exaggerated, since then there has been a gradually escalating assault on liberty.

“Unlike in 1997, I think some of the unease today comes from certainty, not uncertainty,” said Peter T.Y. Cheung, an associate professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong.

China’s controlling approach toward the territory has grown increasingly clear since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 and set out to strengthen his grip across the country.

“In particular over the past six, seven or eight years, we have seen Beijing tightening its grip over Hong Kong,” said Anson Chan, the No. 2 official in Hong Kong government before the handover and for four years after.

A stalled march toward democracy

During Britain’s rule of Hong Kong, the colonial governor was appointed, and directly elected seats on the legislature were only introduced in the early 1990s.

The Basic Law, which amounts to a constitution for Hong Kong and took effect in 1997, declares that the “ultimate aim” is for the chief executive and the entire legislature to be chosen by voters. In 2007, when China was led by Hu Jintao, it set a date for the vote, saying the chief executive could be directly elected in 2017, followed by the whole legislature.

That did not happen.

In 2017, Hong Kong’s chief executive was once again chosen by a committee that has always done Beijing’s bidding. And nearly half the legislature is made up of representatives chosen by professional sectors, not the voters at large. There is no sign that will change when the legislature is up for election again next year.

“The most significant area of erosion is the promise that 20 years after 1997, Hong Kong should be able to choose its own chief executive through a direct election,” said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “That promise has clearly not been kept.”

Carrie Lam, who became chief executive in 2017, often says that she has two bosses, Beijing and Hong Kong. But Beijing’s role in choosing the chief executive leads to widespread questions over who calls the shots in Hong Kong.

Beijing did once endorse a form of direct elections for Hong Kong, but with a big catch: Hong Kongers could vote for their leader, the Chinese legislature decided in 2014, but the candidates must first be approved by a pro-Beijing nominating committee. In other words, Hong Kong could elect its own leader, but only from a handful of candidates acceptable to the Communist Party.

Thus was the so-called Umbrella Movement born. Those restrictions set off huge protests in Hong Kong, and demonstrators occupied city streets for nearly three months to protest what they labeled “fake democracy.”

A year later, the Hong Kong legislature rejected the plan, with pro-democracy lawmakers voting unanimously against it. Some suggested that the democratic camp may have missed a chance at an incremental gain that could have later been improved upon.

The long reach of the mainland

When Britain and China hashed out a treaty in the 1980s on what a post-handover world would look like, negotiators were at pains to establish where China’s authority ended and Hong Kong's began.

Foreign affairs? China. National Defense? The same.

But under the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, all other responsibilities were to reside with Hong Kong.

In recent years, though, there have been clear signs those lines are blurring, especially when it comes to the realm of justice.

So when Hong Kongers, who were already afraid their autonomy was deteriorating, got word about a new extradition measure coming before the Hong Kong legislature that would ease sending people to mainland China for trial, the result was huge street protests unlike any since the Umbrella Movement — and a delay of the plan by the authorities.

While the extradition measure would make it legally easier for mainland China to seize Hong Kongers, the absence of such a law appears not to have stopped mainland authorities in the past.

In 2015, five people connected with Causeway Bay Books, a Hong Kong establishment that sold gossipy books about mainland Chinese politics, disappeared. One was apparently grabbed off the streets of Hong Kong, another kidnapped from his home in Thailand. Three more were detained in mainland China, where all five were held and one remains in custody.

As lawless as these covert actions may seem, they may be, paradoxically, less of a threat to Hong Kong’s autonomy than overt coercion, since they involve going around the backs of the local courts rather than insisting that judges bend their standards.

Many in Hong Kong fear that the proposed extradition law would allow mainland authorities to directly demand the handover of people wanted in political cases, despite promised human rights safeguards.

After the law was proposed, Lam Wing-kee, one of the previously detained booksellers, fled to Taiwan.

“From the book store incident, you can see that the Chinese government wants to control free speech in Hong Kong,” he said. “Now it’s gotten worse. With the extradition law they want to make such kidnappings legal, and bring Chinese law to Hong Kong.”

A free press in the cross hairs

The Joint Declaration signed in 1984 declares that a free press will be ensured by law. But many media organizations say they are struggling as mainland China undermines that right.

There are many ways such pressure is applied.

Executives at the most vocally pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, say the Chinese government’s liaison office has told large companies to pull advertising.

And last year, Hong Kong expelled a Financial Times editor who had hosted a talk by an activist who called for the city’s secession from China.

The decision to expel a representative of a powerful Western publication sent a chill through many in the city. Some journalists began saying that the long-predicted “death of Hong Kong” had finally arrived.

The independent book publishing industry has also taken a big hit. The Causeway Bay Books detentions shocked many in the industry, leading some businesses to close. The few that remain say they have run into severe difficulties printing and selling books on politics and history in Hong Kong, which they attribute to pressure from the mainland.

Sino United Publishing, a Chinese government-owned company, now controls almost all of the book publishing and retail sales market in Hong Kong. Books banned on the mainland are not found on the shelves of its outlets.

A venerated judiciary, now threatened

Hong Kong’s judiciary is one of the most deeply respected of local institutions, prized for its independence. Its judges, often educated in England, are in the habit of issuing decisions that protect civil liberties.

Beijing promised to protect all that. Instead, it is whittling away at it.

China’s central government made its views on Hong Kong courts clear in a 2014 white paper that called judges “administrators” who must be patriots and for whom “loving the country” is a basic political requirement.

“Hong Kong people are used to separation of powers,” said Martin Lee, a founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party who served on the Basic Law drafting committee. “This was alarming.”

While most observers say Hong Kong’s courts remain independent, the fundamental weakness is that Beijing acts as a Supreme Court, deciding how the territory’s laws should be interpreted.

In 2016, Beijing used that power against pro-democracy lawmakers who staged protests during their oaths of office. After the Chinese legislature ruled that oaths must be taken “sincerely and solemnly,” what happened to the lawmakers? They were ousted.

The Takeaway: On paper, Hong Kong’s autonomy is guaranteed for another 28 years. On the ground, the reality appears far less certain.

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veevvee · 5 years

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sorry it took so long @derelict-blade , and sorry if it's not what you expected >///<

✮✮✮✮✮✮✮✮

- the date on this thing says "October, 13, 2287", and all the clues lead me to believe that... the prototype 0078-yh...

- one of the functions of this thing is a journal on which I can write and save in a flash drive similar to a mini-disk (who uses mini-disks anymore?).I've decided to take note of everything that may help me understand what happened and to sort things out; if it's true that it's been 270 years since the day of my test on myself... no, I don't want to think about "that" question, now it's of no use to me.

- I managed to get out of this "vault", finally, only to come back with my tail between my legs. The scenery presented to me outside makes me believe that, at some point, during my hibernation, that atomic war finally happened.The state of the surrounding vegetation suggests that at least 50 years have passed.

- I think I killed all the giant cockroaches that infested the vault and I was able to make some terminals work, at least those are still intact... The hacking was so outdated that it was literally the last card I played. I found the diary of one of the scientists who worked here, and with it the confirmation of a nuclear strike occurred in date October 23, 2077; so they brought me here with the prototype between 2017 and 2077 and they used us to develop other cryopods, in which they locked twelve people against their will... those people survived the bombs just to be imprisoned here, maybe forever… or at least until the reactor stops working.

- I've had enough for today, I'll try to sleep and continue tomorrow. It's so cold here, but it could be me...

- 10/16: I decided to try to explore the surroundings once more, at the first giant spider that I meet I'll shoot myself straight in the head. I brought with me the gun I found, 22 bullets, no, 21... I’ll keep one for myself.

- before I left I checked the vital signs of the twelve hibernates, they are fine, as long as you can feel fine in a cryogenic induced coma... I promised (to who?) that every once in a while I'll be back to check on their conditions. now let's see how I handle this shit…

- I stopped almost immediately, at a gas station (?) a few steps from the vault. From the hillside you could see a hamlet, very small, maybe ten houses, but for now I prefer to avoid - I was going to write "population centres". I… I'm too scared of who or what I could find there, but here I was lucky, I met a dog, an healthy and friendly-looking German Shepherd... REGULAR SIZE. Good boy.

- from here you can see what looks like a water supply, and if it’s telling the truth, we are (meaning the dog and I) near Concord, meaning, we are not too far from Cambridge... I wonder if it wouldn't be better to… all I had was there... I need to see with my own eyes that... now...

- a few hours after leaving the gas station (??) it started raining, the dog and I (yes, he’s following me, and I must admit that I feel safer now), we found a shelter in an abandoned tool shed. I set up a bed and I locked myself in, now I want to take advantage of this time available to learn how to use this... wrist-computer (?); "pip-boy 3000" is says here, yeah there's no way I'm saying that...

- 10/17: I fell asleep while "playing" with this minicomputer, I were fooled by the puppy's body heat, or maybe it was his smell… but if it keeps away the beasts then it's worth it. I had breakfast with some canned water, I found old boxes of processed food that I don't trust to eat, I keep them aside for when I have no other choice... that could be a matter of hours, since I have not eaten in four days... oh right, 269 years, 10 months and 6 days, thanks a lot brain.

- the dog (I wonder if I should give him a name) hunted down a couple of birds to feed himself, I got a good look at them, he's so lucky he’s not a fussy.

- The dog is much smarter than many people I've met, he helped me find some medicines and A RIFLE! 38 caliber, telescopic sight, silencer, and 34 cartridges in a hip bag. Now I'm less afraid of meeting a giant spider... or nearly... He also brought me a can of Cram, regardless of the expiration date, I never liked it, but if I want to keep going with this experiment I'll have to come to terms with it, sooner or later.

- 10/18: I had to stop my entries because, like an idiot, I attracted a dogs pack with that goddamned Cram and... I had to... I've never shot anything alive before yesterday... I had never killed voluntarily... but those dogs were... I've never seen them so aggressive, they looked like those birds with which the dog (the friendly one) feeds occasionally, spot baldness, purulent sores, I managed not to get bit by the skin of your teeth. Who knows from what kind of bacterial mutant disease they were infected... they were five and... I shot three of them in the head after the dog (the friendly one) broke the first two's necks... then we had to run, I feared that the shots could have attracted something, or someone, even worse. Now we are safely locked in a wrecked bus, I cried for an hour and slept for another.

- it's an oddly beautiful full moon night, I can see the silhouettes of the buildings in Cambridge, if I leave at the first lights I could get to my old apartment by nightfall, if it works for everyone…

- in order to get my shit together I made an inventory of my "equipment": the clothes I'm currently wearing - a scarf (now in the bag) - my glasses - other sunglasses (now in the bag) - my pager (broken) - wallet - money ($ 518 in cash, $ 11 and 57 cents in change) - my I.D. did not survive the freezing, the data is illegible - 10mm gun - 17 ammo of the abovementioned gun - caliber 38 sniper rifle - 34 cartridges of the abovementioned rifle - 6 units of canned water - 1 unit of half eaten Cram (it sucks, but edible) - 2 units of Pork n’ Beans – 2 units of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes – a blue jumpsuit, new, too big for me (now in the bag).

- the food preservation industry has made tremendous strides while I was sleeping ... bah, America.

- inside the vault it didn't work properly, but I noticed that the radio of this minicomputer has intercepted some frequencies; as soon as I find a shelter I'll try to tune in. It's surely an indication of post-apocalyptic civilization, I don't know yet whether to rejoice or not.

-oh, this minicomputer also has a built-in thermometer, according to it I've a bit of fever and I'm almost dehydrated.

- I would give my left arm for a hot bath...

- … and the right one for some not 300-year-old cigarettes.

- I can't get those dogs out of my head... among all that happened to me, those dogs...

- it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid thinking of "that question"...

- 10/19 part 2: while I was having breakfast with the leftover of that Cram (ugh) I saw a person pass by, a woman, along the way nearby: she was alone, if we don't count the naked cow loaded with stuff (it had two heads?? Perhaps my dehydration is more severe than I expected), and she was armed, if we can consider weapon a gun made out of twigs and scrap metal (???), the dog was not alarmed, I was about to go and talk to her, but I'm a coward and I missed my chance...

- I waited to see her disappear behind a distant corner, then I waited another twenty minutes to not hear gunshots, at that point I followed her steps, we are pretty close to Cambridge, and more houses can mean more people, people who could be hostile, that's why I took the safe off.

- I wonder if it's not the case to go to the police station... I'm not stupid enough to hope to find Edward there, but maybe there’s some stock that could turn useful, weapons, ammunition, ESPECIALLY ammunition, better yet body armour, anti-aggression equipment... yes, it's DEFINITELY the case to go to the police station.

- Edward… when the war broke out he should have been 95... who knows if no fuck no, I can't think of this now, I don't want to do the same calculation for those assholes, they are dead, they are dead they are dead they are all dead I’m sorry Edward

- 10/19 part 3: I have two hours of light, I'm wasting time on this fire escape, it wasn't easy to get the dog up, he didn't want to hear of it, but I thought it was safer to try to get in from the roof, I didn't even see the main entrance... if there were people inside... if those people were armed and hostile... if that woman, that of the two-headed cow, went around armed there must be a reason... if those people were trying to kill me, how much further could I claim self-defense? Would I be able to defend myself? Would I be able to ... kill them before they kill me? This is going to be the most difficult experiment that I must ever conduct.

-OK that’s new: there are signs of recent activity, someone tried to set up a shelter in here, there’s ammo but no weapon, makeshift mattresses, FOOD, but I didn't touch anything; whoever did this could come back and I need to be ready, perhaps to fight, perhaps for a peaceful dialogue... I hope for the latter.

-10/21 I'm absolutely the most idiotic and lucky person in the world: after my last entry two days ago, due to the dog's body heat and to my belly full of 200 year old treats, I fell asleep AGAIN... I'm such a dumb shit…! The first unregistered voice that I heard in eight days woke me up, under threat and pointing to me what I later realized was a weapon, who highly invited me to identify myself and to declare my intentions. I've never been so close to wet my pants, but luckily that man was open to dialogue, maybe I'll write something about him and his group later, they are four, they know what they’re doing, and they don't want to hurt me... apparently.

- and now the bad news: when I was woken up the dog was gone. Danse, I mean Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel (?), said there was no dog with me when he found me, I looked for him a bit nearby the others warned me not to go too far because Cambridge is Ghoul infested (???)... that dog can take care of himself, he'll be fine... please let him be fine...

-Haylen wait, Scribe Haylen (oh my fucking god), is teaching me how to use the latest technology, hardware and stuff, she was nothing short of enthusiastic about my minicomputer, and advised me not to keep it inside my duffle bag, but always on my wrist (shit, it's as comfortable as a wooden underwear). She also told me to wear the jumpsuit I found in the vault, the one that was too big for me, because the fabric is made of a radiation-resistant material, has the ability to regulate body heat according as necessary and, lo and behold, it's not too big, the suit fits your size, you wear it, you wiggle in it a little bit, and it fits perfectly. I'm wearing it under my clothes, it's definitely TOO tight for my liking.

- speaking of radiations, Haylen says that the medicines I found are safe, in small doses even that pre-war food, although fresh food would be better (fresh food here???).

- I like Haylen, we share very much and I can talk to her pretty quietly, she asks a lot of questions, but can't say I wouldn't have done the same myself. Paladin Danse is doing his best to make me feel comfortable, he doesn’t always succeed, however I appreciate the effort, and his "power armor" is the coolest thing I've ever seen! Sometimes I find Knight Keane looking away from me, he hasn’t spoke to me in two days, almost makes me think he hates me, he would not be the first. Knight Rhys is dickhe

- Paladin Danse called a meeting in ten minutes, this time my presence is requested, and now that I'm writing it, I'm afraid it's because they've finally decided what to do with me...

#may #brotherhood of steel oc #dogmeat?#paladin danse #scribe haylen #knight keane #knight rhys #expect some reblogs #I put a lot of work into this shit #sorry for my shitty english

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italeteller · 5 years

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My first contact with Spider-man was by the 90′s cartoon. I loved the series, though I fear I didn’t pay it as much attention as it deserved.

As the years went by I watched other series. The one with Iceman and Firestar, the CGI one that lasted only one season, Spider-man Unlimited which I never really made up my mind on whether I liked it or not, and of course the best of them all: Spectacular Spider-man. I think that was the one that sealed my love for the character, not surprising since it was the most faithful to the original setting.

On my 14th birthday I got my first Spidey comic, one from the Ezekiel saga. Must be why I’m so fond of that arc which most people don’t like.

Little by little I started collecting comics, though I could only afford a steady collection by the time Civil War rolled in. Horrible timing but I wouldn’t know that until several years later.

Buying comics new and old, pirating the ones I couldn’t get my hands on, I got more and more immersed on a world I loved, on a character I adored. And all was well, until it wasn’t.

Spider-man’s 50th anniversary came, alongside comic #700, and the big brains ar Marvel decided it was time to kill Peter Parker and have Otto Octavius steal his body, becoming a darker, edgier, murder-happy self proclaimed superior Spider-man.

To this day I still get really bitter around the word “superior” and try to avoid using it as much as possible.

It wasn’t gonna last, obviously. Death doesn’t last on comics, much less the death of someone like Peter Parker. That wasn’t the issue.

During the two years “Superior” lasted Jameson, who had finally made amends with Spider-man, went back to hating him because Ock blackmailed him. Kaine, a clone of Peter seeking redemption for his past crimes who thought of Peter as a role model, runs into Octavius and just about loses faith in humanity. Flash, Peter’s high school bully turned great friend and the then-user of the Venom symbiote also ran into Octavius and left worse for wear.

All the good things the character had, ruined. Every friend, betrayed. 50 years of comics sent down the drain, as if they had never mattered.

Two years later, Peter is back. Octavius gives him his body back and accepts Peter was always the true superior Spider-man.

Too little, too late. How could I trust a company that treated it’s characters like that? Back around that time I began reading the glorious new Ms. Marvel, but how could I give my heart to a new series that could just as easily be taken over by some idiot who’d shit all over it in the name of money?

Between that and the new and absolutely horrid Ultimate Spider-man series, I decided there was no point in keeping up with something that made me suffer and cut myself off of Marvel.

No more comics, no more series, no more Spider-man. Even the MCU eventually turned to shit, barring some exceptions. I didn’t even watch Homecoming.

I made exceptions for stuff like Renew Your Vows, and I would have bought the PS4 game if I had a PS4 or the money to get one, but other than that I avoided Marvel like the plague.

Today I watched Into the Spider-verse. Since it came out I’ve only been hearing good things about it - and spoilers because you people just can’t tag worth shit can you - and particularly, I saw people saying this was the way Spider-man was meant to be written. Having seen the movie, I completely agree.

That movie feels like a love letter to the character. It’s like someone had distilled the character’s essence, everything that makes him who he is, the best of the best, and turned it into two hours of footage. It’s an absolute delight and I can’t wait to see it again.

And I nearly missed it. I could have let it slide until it left theaters. I could have wrapped myself in my hatred for Marvel and ignored everything that told me this movie was worth it.

I don’t know how to finish this. It’s become a different post than the one it was when I started. I hear the new Spidey comics are good. That the current writer is unfucking everything the previous writer fucked up. Maybe it’s time I start reading them again. I still don’t have faith in Marvel, I don’t know if I ever will, but if that distrust cost me more stories like Into the Spider-verse, I’d be a fool for holding onto it.

And should the time come when another idiot takes the reins and fucks everything up... well, I will always have the older comics. And I will always have Into the Spider-verse

#marvel comics #spider-man #into the spiderverse #long post #been a while since something made me want to speak my heart out like this #god I've missed spider-man

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xtruss · 3 years

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'Convenient Scapegoat': Imran Khan Urges West Against Blaming Pakistan For 'Unwinnable' Afghan War

— Sangeeta Yadav - Sputnik International | September 29, 2021

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has addressed several reports which claim that Islamabad is actively supporting the Taliban and that the terrorists could not have been successful in their offensive without the country's assistance.

In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Monday, Khan criticises the Afghan and Western governments for making his country "a convenient scapegoat" for the outcome of the war in Afghanistan.

"Let me put it plainly. Since 2001, I have repeatedly warned that the Afghan war was unwinnable. Given their history, Afghans would never accept a protracted foreign military presence, and no outsider, including Pakistan, could change this reality," he writes.

Khan hits out at successive Pakistani governments and former military chief Pervez Musharraf, saying that they had sought to please the US instead of pointing out the flaws of a military-driven approach in Afghanistan.

"Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf agreed to every American demand for military support after 9/11. This cost Pakistan, and the United States, dearly," he stresses.

Citing an incident of the US support for the Afghan Taliban way back in the 1980s, PM Khan points out how then US President Ronald Reagan hosted them at the White House during the days when the CIA and Pakistan's spy agency ISI trained them to fight against the Soviets.

"Once the Soviets were defeated, the United States abandoned Afghanistan and sanctioned my country, leaving behind over 4 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and a bloody civil war in Afghanistan. From this security vacuum emerged the Taliban, many born and educated in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan," he argues.

"Fast forward to 9/11, when the United States needed us again — but this time against the very actors we had jointly supported to fight foreign occupation," adds Khan.

He laments how General Musharraf, who was then ruling over Pakistan, turned a blind eye to US drone attacks and gave the CIA a foot hold in Pakistan.

He also regrets how Pakistani troops were sent into the semi-autonomous tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, "which had earlier been used as the staging ground for the anti-Soviet jihad."

"The fiercely independent Pashtun tribes in these areas had deep ethnic ties with the Taliban," he writes.

Between 2005 and 2016, Khan shares, about 16,000 terrorist attacks were conducted against Pakistan by over 50 militant groups, who viewed Washington and Islamabad as collaborators.

"We suffered more than 80,000 casualties and lost over $150 billion in the economy. The conflict drove 3.5 million of our citizens from their homes. The militants escaping from Pakistani counterterrorism efforts entered Afghanistan and were then supported and financed by Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies, launching even more attacks against us," he says.

Pakistan "a Convenient Scapegoat"

Calling former Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari "the most corrupt man to have led my country," Khan has blasted both him and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, accusing them of not worrying about the collateral damage caused by US drone strikes.

"In Afghanistan, the lack of legitimacy for an outsider’s protracted war was compounded by a corrupt and inept Afghan government, seen as a puppet regime without credibility, especially by rural Afghans," he says.

Khan highlights that Islamabad offered Kabul a joint border visibility mechanism, suggesting biometric border controls, advocated fencing the border, and other measures. However, each and every idea was rejected.

"Instead, the Afghan government intensified the 'blame Pakistan' narrative, aided by Indian-run fake news networks operating hundreds of propaganda outlets in multiple countries," the article continues.

Khan says that the collapse of the Afghan Army and the Ashraf Ghani government could have been avoided if a more realistic approach was adopted.

"Surely Pakistan is not to blame for the fact that 300,000-plus well-trained and well-equipped Afghan security forces saw no reason to fight the lightly armed Taliban. The underlying problem was an Afghan government structure lacking legitimacy in the eyes of the average Afghan," he adds.

'Engage With New Afghan Government'

Khan opines that the "right thing" right now for the world to do would be to engage with the new Afghanistan government for the sake of peace and stability, and by assuring constant humanitarian aid, the Taliban will have greater incentive to honour the global community's demands.

"Providing such incentives will also give the outside world additional leverage to continue persuading the Taliban to honor its commitments," he adds.

"If we do this right, we could achieve what the Doha peace process aimed at all along: an Afghanistan that is no longer a threat to the world, where Afghans can finally dream of peace after four decades of conflict. The alternative — abandoning Afghanistan — has been tried before," warns the Pakistan Prime Minister.

On 15 August, Taliban insurgents took control of the last government-controlled border crossing, leaving Kabul Airport as the only route out of the country. They subsequently surrounded and captured the Afghan capital after the city surrendered without a fight, and Ghani fled for the UAE.

On 6 September, the Taliban announced that the last resisting province, Panjshir, had come under their control. Shortly after, the group announced the formation of a new interim government of Afghanistan. Mohammad Hasan Akhund, who has been on the UN sanctions list since 2001, became the head of the new cabinet.

Opinion: Imran Khan: Don’t Blame Pakistan for the Outcome of the War in Afghanistan

— The Washington Post | September 29, 2021

A man surveys the site of the blast targeting the government girls school in Tank, Pakistan, on Sept. 22. (Saood Rehman/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Imran Khan is the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Watching the recent Congressional hearings on Afghanistan, I was surprised to see that no mention was made of Pakistan’s sacrifices as a U.S. ally in the war on terror for more than two decades. Instead, we were blamed for America’s loss.

Let me put it plainly. Since 2001, I have repeatedly warned that the Afghan war was unwinnable. Given their history, Afghans would never accept a protracted foreign military presence, and no outsider, including Pakistan, could change this reality.

Unfortunately, successive Pakistani governments after 9/11 sought to please the United States instead of pointing out the error of a military-dominated approach. Desperate for global relevance and domestic legitimacy, Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf agreed to every American demand for military support after 9/11. This cost Pakistan, and the United States, dearly.

Those the United States asked Pakistan to target included groups trained jointly by the CIA and our intelligence agency, the ISI, to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Back then, these Afghans were hailed as freedom fighters performing a sacred duty. President Ronald Reagan even entertained the mujahideen at the White House.

Once the Soviets were defeated, the United States abandoned Afghanistan and sanctioned my country, leaving behind over 4 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and a bloody civil war in Afghanistan. From this security vacuum emerged the Taliban, many born and educated in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan.

Fast forward to 9/11, when the United States needed us again — but this time against the very actors we had jointly supported to fight foreign occupation. Musharraf offered Washington logistics and air bases, allowed a CIA footprint in Pakistan and even turned a blind eye to American drones bombing Pakistanis on our soil. For the first time ever, our army swept into the semiautonomous tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which had earlier been used as the staging ground for the anti-Soviet jihad. The fiercely independent Pashtun tribes in these areas had deep ethnic ties with the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

For these people, the United States was an “occupier” of Afghanistan just like the Soviets, deserving of the same treatment. As Pakistan was now America’s collaborator, we too were deemed guilty and attacked. This was made much worse by over 450 U.S. drone strikes on our territory, making us the only country in history to be so bombed by an ally. These strikes caused immense civilian casualties, riling up anti-American (and anti-Pakistan army) sentiment further.

The die was cast. Between 2006 and 2015, nearly 50 militant groups declared jihad on the Pakistani state, conducting over 16,000 terrorist attacks on us. We suffered more than 80,000 casualties and lost over $150 billion in the economy. The conflict drove 3.5 million of our citizens from their homes. The militants escaping from Pakistani counterterrorism efforts entered Afghanistan and were then supported and financed by Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies, launching even more attacks against us.

Pakistan had to fight for its survival. As a former CIA station chief in Kabul wrote in 2009, the country was “beginning to crack under the relentless pressure directly exerted by the US.” Yet the United States continued to ask us to do more for the war in Afghanistan.

A year earlier, in 2008, I met then-Sens. Joe Biden, John F. Kerry and Harry M. Reid (among others) to explain this dangerous dynamic and stress the futility of continuing a military campaign in Afghanistan.

Even so, political expediency prevailed in Islamabad throughout the post-9/11 period. President Asif Zardari, undoubtedly the most corrupt man to have led my country, told the Americans to continue targeting Pakistanis because “collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me.” Nawaz Sharif, our next prime minister, was no different.

While Pakistan had mostly defeated the terrorist onslaught by 2016, the Afghan situation continued to deteriorate, as we had warned. Why the difference? Pakistan had a disciplined army and intelligence agency, both of which enjoyed popular support. In Afghanistan, the lack of legitimacy for an outsider’s protracted war was compounded by a corrupt and inept Afghan government, seen as a puppet regime without credibility, especially by rural Afghans.

Tragically, instead of facing this reality, the Afghan and Western governments created a convenient scapegoat by blaming Pakistan, wrongly accusing us of providing safe havens to the Taliban and allowing its free movement across our border. If it had been so, would the United States not have used some of the 450-plus drone strikes to target these supposed sanctuaries?

Still, to satisfy Kabul, Pakistan offered a joint border visibility mechanism, suggested biometric border controls, advocated fencing the border (which we have now largely done on our own) and other measures. Each idea was rejected. Instead, the Afghan government intensified the “blame Pakistan” narrative, aided by Indian-run fake news networks operating hundreds of propaganda outlets in multiple countries.

A more realistic approach would have been to negotiate with the Taliban much earlier, avoiding the embarrassment of the collapse of the Afghan army and the Ashraf Ghani government. Surely Pakistan is not to blame for the fact that 300,000-plus well-trained and well-equipped Afghan security forces saw no reason to fight the lightly armed Taliban. The underlying problem was an Afghan government structure lacking legitimacy in the eyes of the average Afghan.

Today, with Afghanistan at another crossroads, we must look to the future to prevent another violent conflict in that country rather than perpetuating the blame game of the past.

I am convinced the right thing for the world now is to engage with the new Afghan government to ensure peace and stability. The international community will want to see the inclusion of major ethnic groups in government, respect for the rights of all Afghans and commitments that Afghan soil shall never again be used for terrorism against any country. Taliban leaders will have greater reason and ability to stick to their promises if they are assured of the consistent humanitarian and developmental assistance they need to run the government effectively. Providing such incentives will also give the outside world additional leverage to continue persuading the Taliban to honor its commitments.

If we do this right, we could achieve what the Doha peace process aimed at all along: an Afghanistan that is no longer a threat to the world, where Afghans can finally dream of peace after four decades of conflict. The alternative — abandoning Afghanistan — has been tried before. As in the 1990s, it will inevitably lead to a meltdown. Chaos, mass migration and a revived threat of international terror will be natural corollaries. Avoiding this must surely be our global imperative.

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