#Republic 59

[magnusbae]

Star Wars: Republic #59 || Darth Vader (2017) #01

#I found it greatly ironic and so wished to cross those two together :) #anakin skywalker #anakinskywalkeredit #darthvaderedit #userjasmine #Starwarsedit #swedit #Star Wars #Star Wars Comics #Star Wars Republic #Darth Vader 2017 #Republic 59 #buns.edits #buns.all #sw comics #Anakin #not me‚ dutifully removing everything from the background and recreating new smooth sand background #only to crop 90% of it off in order to make Anakin bigger on tumblr... classic. XD #Darth Vader

[blizzardsofilum]

"The words that make us fall apart, cannot be taken back. You hold the line that holds my heart, don't let go of that. The stars that keep on falling down, will shine on us forever. We disappear without a sound, on wings of hopeless dreams."

The Words by Dragonborn feat. Jacob Bellens

#star wars #a'sharad hett #anakin skywalker #jedi #tusken raiders #clone wars #my art #watercolor #this was inspired by star wars republic nro 59 #it's a comic from 2003 #I really recommend these comics! #they were part of the original clone wars multimedia project

[thetwofaced]

I can not stress how much I adore that this hellsite made the collective decision to celebrate the fact that someone went all stabby McStab stab on Julius Ceasare on the 15th of March of 59 BCE.

Like

It's been over 2000 years

God I love tumblr

#march 15th #julius caesar #59 bc #i love this hellsite #i love tumblr #we are all little chaos gremlins and im so here for it #i forget sometimes that outside od tumblr this istn really a thing #et tu Brute contra me #to be fair the history nerd in me does want to point out that i understand why the senat went stabby on him #it did mark the beginning of the end of the roman Republic #well the first triumvirat did actually #the second triumvirat was morenof a bad joke than anything and we all know it #ides of march

[yumiflys-blog]

#military aggression #The national flag of the Kyrgyz Republic was lowered on the Bishkek Panorama in memory of civilians and military personnel killed as a resul #Today is a day of mourning in Kyrgyzstan. Flags are lowered throughout the country #as well as on the buildings of diplomatic and consular institutions abroad. In addition #cultural institutions and television and radio companies in the country are advised to cancel entertainment events and programs on this day #As a result of the armed conflict #which Kyrgyzstan has declared by Tajikistan #according to the Ministry of Health #59 people died and 163 were injured on the morning of September 19.

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

Common Misconceptions About the End of the Roman Republic

Julius Caesar was not born by Caesarean section. Romans only performed that procedure on dead mothers, and Caesar's mother definitely lived another 40+ years.

Julius Caesar was almost certainly not Marcus Brutus' father. He was only 15 years older than Brutus, and Servilia was married to someone else.

Caesar's electoral campaign for 59 BCE was funded by his intended co-consul, Lucius Lucceius, not by Crassus. Although Crassus probably loaned Caesar money at other times.

It is not clear whether Caesar and Pompey used armed intimidation to get their legislation passed in 59 BCE, as neither of them had an army at this time, no contemporary source charges Caesar with political violence during his consulship, and only some of their proposed bills actually passed. See Robert Morstein-Marx's Julius Caesar and the Roman People for more.

Caesar was not an ideologue or demagogue, nor was his legislation particularly radical or populist. He was neither a "voice of the working man" nor a fascist. However, the methods he used to get what he wanted, and his refusal to back down at critical moments, were controversial and sometimes illegal.

Caesar was probably not behind the Vettius affair, considering that Vettius had previously attempted to get Caesar killed.

Caesar was also almost certainly not a member of the Catilinarian conspiracy; in fact, he assisted Cicero's investigation of it.

The "first triumvirate" was not an official group in the same way the second triumvirate was, nor did it overwhelmingly dominate Roman politics. Most of the triumvirs' legislation failed after the first half of 59 BCE, and most of their electoral candidates were unsuccessful.

Caesar didn't conquer all of Gaul, since the Romans already ruled the southern coast and Cisalpine Gaul.

Caesar landed on Britain, twice, but did not conquer it.

The Gauls were not "savages," but a diverse and sophisticated collection of tribes with their own agriculture, political systems, artwork, trade networks and more.

Caesar's Gallic Commentaries are mostly reliable for concrete events and dates, but less so for distances, troop numbers, and people's motivations. The Civil War Commentaries are even more biased.

There was probably no serious threat of Caesar being prosecuted if he entered Rome without imperium. His conquest of Gaul had been highly popular (with the Romans) and his laws had been repeatedly upheld by the Senate. See Morstein-Marx again.

Caesar did not go to war "against the Senate" or "against the republic." The Caesarian and Pompeian factions in the Senate were roughly equal in size, and the overwhelming majority of senators preferred peace over either one.

Caesar did not say "The die is cast" or any variant of it while crossing the Rubicon. He had already sent troops into Italy, and the Senate had begun military action against him over a month before.

The civil war of 49 BCE was caused by a mutual breakdown between Caesar, Pompey, and other factions in the Senate, not solely by one man.

Caesar and Pompey's falling-out was not caused by the death of Crassus or Caesar's daughter Julia, which happened years before any evidence of a rift appeared.

Most of the Pompeians were not fighting "for the republic," and Cicero expected a dictatorship to occur no matter which side won.

Caesar was not the first dictator of Rome, or even its first dictator for life; the first dictator for life was Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 82 BCE.

Caesar also wasn't the first Roman general to march on Rome. That's Sulla again, or possibly Coriolanus if you believe he was real.

There is no evidence that Roman armies considered themselves more loyal to their commanders than to the republic until very, very late in Caesar's civil war, when we first hear of soldiers calling themselves "Caesarians" in Spain. Caesar, Pompey, Marius, and Sulla all had to argue their political legitimacy to their troops before they could make them fight other Romans. See Erich Gruen's Last Generation of the Roman Republic for details.

Caesar was killed in the Theater of Pompey; the Senate house had been burned down years before.

Caesar's last words are unknown, although classical sources suggest "Kai su, teknon?" (You too, my son?), "Casca, what are you doing?" "Why, this is violence!" and silence as possibilities.

Caesar is not usually categorized as an emperor by modern sources, but some ancient writers like Suetonius did.

Augustus was not born in August, but in September.

Octavian never went by Octavian. First he was Gaius Octavius (Thurinus), then Gaius Julius Caesar (Octavianus), then added "Divi Filius" and "Augustus" and eventually replaced the first two words with "Imperator."

Cleopatra probably was not killed by a snakebite. She had much more reliable and less painful poisons available.

Cleopatra was not the last pharaoh of Egypt. The last native Egyptian pharaoh was Nectanebo II, the last Ptolemaic pharaoh was Caesarion (Ptolemy XV), and the last Roman emperor recognized as pharaoh was Maximinus Daza.

Augustus' reputation as a coward comes from his enemies. He fought numerous battles throughout his career, including the two he was accused of ducking, Mutina and Philippi. (He fought in the second confrontation for each one.)

Augustus didn't declare himself ruler of Rome. Although he was de facto the ruler, he was officially just "the first citizen" (princeps), a concept that long predated him.

Although initially patricians were the aristocratic class, by the late republic they made up only a minority of the aristocracy; the rest were wealthy plebeian families.

The Senate could not pass laws on its own during the late republic; its legislation had to be ratified by the People's Assembly.

The Roman government was not as democratic as most modern republics, with much less of the population represented, but it did have some popular influence on government policy, and public demonstrations and protests were common.

Roman politicians do not fit into modern political movements like socialism, fascism, or liberalism, or into stable parties like democrats or republicans. Roman politics was driven mainly by personal alliances and rivalries rather than by ideologies.

Although the "Roman empire" is sometimes used to refer to the period when Rome had emperors, Rome had an empire-like system of provinces, conquest, and tribute as early as after the First Punic War in 241 BCE. Julius Caesar and Augustus initiated a change in how Rome was governed, but they did not create Roman imperialism.

Roman women played an active role in politics, particularly in coordinating marriage alliances, communication networks, advocating on behalf of their families, public protests, and diplomatic negotiations behind the scenes.

The late republic was very ethnically and religiously diverse, with many Roman citizens descended from Greeks, Africans, Gauls, Jews, Iberians, and other groups. Mixed marriages and multilingualism were common.

Romans did not categorize sexuality by gender attraction, and most Roman men would not have identified as what we now call heterosexual. See Roman Homosexuality by Craig Williams for details.

Most famous Roman monuments, like Trajan's column and the Colosseum, date to after republican times. During Cicero's era the city was mostly brick and wood.

Historians do not agree on why, or when exactly, the republic "fell." Not all of them believe it was "doomed," either. It's likely that many connected factors, and random chance, played a part.

Suggested sources for learning more:

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, by Mary Beard

Cato the Younger: Life and Death at the End of the Roman Republic, by Fred Drogula

Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician, by Anthony Everitt

Augustus: First Emperor of Rome, by Adrian Goldsworthy

Julius Caesar and the Roman People, by Robert Morstein-Marx

Historia Civilis

The History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan

Everything on my recommendations page

#putting all these in one place for convenience. may add more as i think of them #jlrrt essays #historiography

[weallfallfromgrace2]

9-11-01

Those who were lost, those still fighting, those answering the call, those still mourning, You Are Not Forgotten!!

Today please take time to tell your loved ones, you love them!!

We as 🇺🇸 American's will "Never Forget" September 11th, 2001 nor September 11th, 2012.

We all remember, Where we were?? Who we called?? How shocked & devastated we were!! And the anger that raged!!

We have moved forward as 🇺🇸 American's, but “We Have Not Forgotten” your Sacrifices, and in that you are all Heroes and forever Legend's!!

WTC: 2,606

Civilians: 2195

FDNY: 343

NYPD: 23

NYPA: 37

Private EMT’S & Paramedics: 8

American Airlines 11: 87 Civilians

United Air 175: 60 Civilians

American Airlines 77: 59 Civilians

United Air 93: 40 Civilians

Pentagon-125: Civilians: 70, Military: 55

90 countries lost citizens in the attacks,

United Kingdom: 67

Dominican Republic: 47

India: 41

Greece: 39

South Korea: 28

Canada: 24

Japan: 24

Colombia: 18

Jamaica: 16

Philippines: 16

Mexico: 15

Trinidad and Tobago: 14

Ecuador: 13

Australia: 11

Germany: 11

Italy: 10

Bangladesh: 6

Ireland: 6

Pakistan: 6

Poland: 6

9/11/2012

Benghazi, Libya

4 🇺🇸 American's

Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Ambassador Christopher Stevens

Never 🇺🇸 Forgotten 🇺🇸9/11

#sept 11th #never forgotten #true heroes #we live amongst legends #we will never forget #9/11

[legendknit]

#SIGNALIS

SIGNALIS fanmade removable sticker : advance order form International shipping from Korea(Republic of).

1) Product making will be start end of this order form's order period.

2) Product will be shipped sequentially after the packaging is completed.

3) Shipping date will 17~30days after I send. 

If you have any question, contact  [email protected]

Order period : 2024. 01. 05 ~ 2024. 02. 04. 23:59 (UTC+9)

▼Order form link below▼

#signalis #signalis fanart #original post #doodle #stickershop #fanmade

[workersolidarity]

Three, four years ago I could have told you, and did tell people, that inflation would start steadily going up, and I said even then that it would likely be stubborn, meaning it wasn't going to be an easy fix.

I knew this back then because it was obvious, even years ago, that the BRICS countries, along with many African and South Asian countries and elsewhere were looking for ways to get around using the US Dollar for trade.

They were making moves to expand trade relations outside US dollar transactions and were for many years planning and building the infrastructure for a future Multipolar world.

And that process began rapidly picking up pace three or four years ago.

I began to say then, what I'm still saying now, as that process goes on and trade outside the US Dollar system grows exponentially year-on-year, that's going to begin to have an effect on inflation.

Why? Well, Imperialism really. Because the US for decades has depended on the steady demand for US Dollars to hold down inflation, allowing the US to use debt spending to finance wars, military bases and imperialistic ventures like Syria.

Remember, it was the US in its massively dominant position after WWII that built the Bretton Woods System that made the US Dollar the world reserve currency pegged to gold, and it was the US that unilaterally abandoned Bretton Woods 1 and took the dollar off Gold, allowing for the US to finance wars through debt spending, and created the Petro-Dollar with Saudi Arabia in the 1970's.

This debt spending is essentially the surplus value from the Global South and other poorer countries that must buy US Dollars to fund infrastructure projects, energy consumption, food and medicine imports, etc since it's the world reserve currency and if you wish to use the US Financial System at all, such as the World Bank, or SWIFT messaging system, well you have to use US Dollars.

Basically, it's the sucking of the wealth out of poorer countries to finance their own economic oppression.

But as these countries catch on and with new rising global powers like Russia, China and Iran building the infrastructure for an alternative system, the US Dollar is being abandoned faster than ever.

In 2000, more than 70% of Foreign Exchange Reserves were held in US Dollars. By 2020, that figure had dropped considerably to 59%. And the rate at which it's dropping is only increasing.

Knowing this, I said back in 2019 and 2020 that inflation was likely to become a problem. And if it did become a problem, then we knew exactly what the Fed would do as a result: dramatically increase benchmark Interest rates.

This didn't take any particularly specialized or secretive sources to figure out. It's been obvious for years to anyone seriously interested in economics and geopolitics.

And what happens when interest rates go up? The value of the bonds bought under lower interest rates suddenly go way down, while debts become more expensive. It's like gravity in economics.

So with all that being said, why then did all these banks (Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank) continue buying troubled assets and Treasury bonds if they're so smart and educated and knew all this?

I mean, these guys are supposed to be the best of the best corporate bankers, right? On the cutting edge of investment banking, right? That's what everyone said even just months before Silicon Valley Bank failed. (CNBC host and moron of the year Jim Cramer literally praised Silicon Valley Bank less than a month before its failure)

So one of two things must be true here and neither one is good for YOU the average worker.

Either these bankers are idiots; complete morons who have little to no understanding of basic economics, geopolitics, and monetary policy, something that should be of concern to all of us.

I mean, I'm just a dude working for a small retailer in New Orleans and even I knew this inflation and higher interest rates were coming.

So why exactly are these people paid such exorbitant salaries? If I can understand the basics of their job better than they can, why am I a retailer, and he, a millionaire banker???

So that's one possibility, one I'm virtually certain is actually true, that our ruling Elite isn't particularly smart or well educated in reality, anymore than ordinary people I meet everyday, and any one of us could easily do their jobs just as well or better than they do given the opportunities afforded to them.

But even if in this case, that's not what happened. That these weren't idiots. Well then the alternative is something that should also be deeply disturbing to you: that these bankers knew they would be facing this situation, that they were well aware of the coming inflationary pressures and equally aware what the Feds response would be, interest rate hikes.

And instead of using the last couple of years to shed possibly dangerous assets and shore up the money the banks kept on hand, they continued to do what was personally making them so much profit, at the expense of tax payers, because they were absolutely certain that the government these bankers spend so much money on campaigns for, would swoop in regardless of the recklessness of their behavior, and bail them out no matter what.

These are not the signs of a healthy political, economic or banking system.

#bailout #bank bailout #bank bailouts #us corruption #economic corruption #political corruption #us imperialism #us hegemony #wall street #bankers and bailouts #fuck capitalism #neoliberal capitalism #neoliberalism #fuck neoliberalism #socialism #communism #marxism leninism #socialist politics #socialist worker #socialist news #socialist #communist #marxism #marxist leninist #progressive politics #politics #us banking crisis #us banking system #recession #economics

[magnusbae]

Normal Jedi Master reaction to literally seeing their Padawan's death:

Abnormal Jedi Master reaction to the mere mention—unconfirmed and very likely psychological torture trick—of one's Padawan's death:

#Obi-Wan is not calm. #He is so far removed from calm it makes him look stupid. #I adore him. #obikin #star wars comics #obi wan kenobi #Obi Wan #The Battle of Jabiim #Star Wars Republic #Republic 58 #Republic 59 #sw comics #buns.hc #buns.all

[ancientcharm]

The Ides of March. On March 15,44 BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated.

We owe Julius Caesar the famous phrase “the die is cast” (Alea iacta est). He said this in January 49 BC when he led his army across the Rubicon River in northern Italy, after his conquest of Gaul. A positive aspect of him is that he did not seek revenge. He spared the lives of his enemies defeated in the civil war with the intention of turning them into friends and together improving what he called "the new Republic." Among his murderers on that Ides of March were those "friends" whose lives he had spared.

In 59 BC he founded Florentia which later changed its name in Italian to Firenze (Florence). The curious, almost prophetic thing is that Florentia in Latin means “flowering” and it was in Florence where emerged the cultural movement known as the Renaissance (a flowering of art of the Ancient Rome).

In 46 BC he modified the Roman calendar, creating the novelty that the year began on January 1 and not March 1 as in the previous calendar in addition to the novelty of the leap year. 

Julius Caesar, one of the most famous men, had a passionate relationship with one of the most famous women, the Ptolemaic Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII. They had a son, named Caesarion. After Cleopatra's arrival in Rome in the year 46, Caesar himself officially recognized the child as his son.

He had a daughter named Julia, whom Caesar married to Pompey Magnus, who would later be his greatest rival and whom he defeated during the civil war at the Battle of Pharsalia. Julia and the baby died during childbirth. Caesar adopted his grandnephew, Octavian as his son and sole heir. Years later, Octavian ordered the execution of young Caesarion, days after Cleopatra committed suicide.

Caesar proclaimed himself Dictator for 10 years, something completely unusual. The position of Dictator was an occasion in which a man was elected by the Senate for a period of 6 months to 1 year to make special laws, in times of war or serious crisis. In addition to the calendar,Julius Caesar has also forever changed the meaning of being a Dictator. 

He became a dictator in the modern sense of the word: he was populist, he did things to please the Roman people to the point that they idolized him. Although it must be recognized that he did very favorable things for the people.

Shortly after, he proclaimed himself Dictator for life, this sealed his tragic end. 

Senators agreed to assassinate him.The conspiracy was carried out in the house of Servilia ,mother of Brutus and lover of Julius Caesar for years. 

They stabbed him 23 times, taking him by surprise in the Senate.

After years of civil war caused by this assassination, his grandnephew Octavian,Caesar Augustus, became the first Emperor of Rome. Unlike his uncle and adoptive father, Octavian was very vengeful; Within a few years, all of Caesar's adversaries and assassins were dead.

Historians agree that with exceptions, such as Cato, Cicero, Brutus or Cassius,who sincerely believed that the Republic was in danger, the others did not decide to assassinate him out of fear of a monarchy, as they hypocritically claimed, but out of envy and ambition; They did not want to be republicans, they wanted to be JULIUS CAESAR, the same desire of every authoritarian ruler from then to the present.

#Ancient Rome #history #julius caesar

[william-r-melich]

Nikki Go Home - 02/26/2024

Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley again, and she won't go home. Trump won by 20 points over Haley in South Carolina's Republican Primary on Saturday, February 24th, 59% to 39%. She's still committed to staying at least through Super Tuesday, March 5th. She recently lost a big donor, Koch. Others may follow suit, but as long as she keeps getting enough support to keep going, it appears that she'll just keep on humiliating herself. She's become the democrats' darling, staying in to detract from Trump's funds and focus from defeating Joe Biden, or whoever they might throw in there at some point leading up to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this August. She's becoming an annoying distraction to Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and her condescending attitude makes her actions even more repulsive, in my opinion. The republicans need to unite behind Trump, which most of them are, there's just a few swampy Rhino's and a political whore (I don't want to mention any names, but her initials are Nikki Haley.) putting up a few roadblocks and detours. This will only slow Trump down. Barring a conviction or some other unfortunate, tragic occurrence, I'm convinced that Trump will be the next POTUS. I and many others are still waiting on the US Supreme Court to weigh in on the presidential immunity aspect related to the January 6 protest which was not an insurrection. The fact that Trump was never charged with an insurrection should make presidential immunity irrelevant anyway. Trump is right, all these cases against him are the left's attempt at election interference. Mark my words, it won't work. It's all so crazy and banana republic, 3rd world communist-like tactics being implemented by this corrupt, bass-akwards nightmare of an administration. Nikki Haley has gone nuts too, but she needs to give it up, go home and either stay out of the way or jump on the Trump bandwagon.

#donald trump #trump #supreme court #nikki haley #rhino #presidential immunity #insurrection #us supreme court #south carolina #republican primary #joe biden #biden administration

[ffxivxd]

59 year old Count Edmont de Fortemps was a progressive thinker while partaking in politics. When Ishgard began moving towards establishing a republic, he left the world of politics and renounced his title.

#ff14 #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxivxd #final fantasy 14

[sovietpostcards]

Vintage prints of Soviet republics’ emblems, flags and traditional patterns (published in 1967).

The following are available: Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Lithuania, Georgia, and the USSR.

Size 41 × 59 cm (16" × 23.2″). Good/OK vintage condition. Pinholes, folding lines, some tears and handling wear around the edges. I’ll send detailed pictures upon request.

Price $35/ea + $12 shipping (will be shipped in tube)

Message me!

How to buy. Other items in my shop. I combine shipping if you buy more than one item.

#sp: available #sp: available: prints

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

Review: Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy

This biography of Caesar is an excellent starting point. Goldsworthy is quite reliable on the facts, cites his sources often without getting overly dense, and is usually very good at pointing out gaps and ambiguity in our evidence. He also doesn't fall prey to the common fallacy of assuming Caesar's career and the end of the republic were inevitable.

I do disagree with a few of his interpretations. I think he overstates Cato's commitment to Stoicism, Brutus' nobility of character, Caesar's popularity with the common people in early 44 BCE, and the likelihood of Caesar getting prosecuted in 50 BCE if he'd laid down his imperium. (See my previous post on the "prosecution theory.") I also think the argument that Caesar broke the law as consul in 59 BCE is dubious; on the other hand, I think Caesar's regime as dictator was more corrupt and less effective than Goldsworthy suggests.

A lot of these disagreements come from a book I'm very fond of, Robert Morstein-Marx's Julius Caesar and the Roman People. In many ways JCRP is a response to the "standard" narrative of Caesar outlined by historians and authors like Goldsworthy, and it came out more recently. For Cato the Younger and Brutus, I prefer the biographies by Fred Drogula and Kathryn Tempest respectively.

I must also disagree with Goldsworthy calling Caesar a "patriot" in the epilogue. This is a man who chose his dignitas over the lives of his countrymen and the stability of his country. Even if Caesar enacted some reforms that benefited Rome, when his career was threatened, he put himself first every time.

Even so, I still think that if you want a solid and mostly impartial picture of Caesar's life, Goldsworthy's book is the first one I'd recommend. He gets the overwhelming majority of facts right, as far as I can tell, points out Caesar's positive acts as well as his atrocities, and takes into account the culture and circumstances of Caesar's life.

#jlrrt speaks #julius caesar #book review #book rec #adrian goldsworthy #caesar: life of a colossus #jlrrt essays

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Considering how rapidly the right's "war on woke" is expanding, it was perhaps inevitable: Self-identified "mama bears" on a Texas school board are angry that a classroom had a poster showing people of different races holding hands. Last week, the school board in Conroe, Texas, a small city north of Houston, turned the right-wing mania for censorship into a dark parody of itself. At issue? A poster that seemed to imply that interracial friendship is possible.

According to ABC 13 Eyewitness News in Houston, things started when school trustee Melissa Dungan declared that she had spoken to parents who were upset about "displays of personal ideologies in classrooms." When pressed for an example, according to the news report, "Dungan referred to a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races, that they transferred classrooms."

"I wish I was shocked," Dungan said of the poster. "I am aware these trends have been happening for many years."

Some other members of the school board did, in fact, argue that there was nothing objectionable about such a poster. But Dungan was backed up by another trustee, Misty Odenweller, who insisted that the depiction of uh, race-mixing was in some way a "violation of the law." The two women are part of "Mama Bears Rising," a secretive far-right group fueling the book-banning mania in Conroe and the surrounding area. At least 59 books have been banned due to their efforts.

When another trustee asked Dungan if she personally objected to an illustration of cross-racial friendship, she demurred, simply declaring that she was just trying to avoid "situations like that." Situations like what, exactly? She didn't say.

Dungan's behavior is a perfect illustration of the "anti-woke" tap dance. The person alleging nefarious wokeness never admits to their own bigotry, instead pretending that they're reacting to "woke" people who are "pushing" an agenda, in this case through innocuous poster art.

Of course, the entire premise of the argument is rooted in bigotry, as this example shows. It presumes that the feelings of real or imagined bigots who might take umbrage at such an image are of paramount importance, and that everyone else's freedoms must be curtailed to appease them.

It's tempting to shrug it off as one-off weirdness from Nowheresville, Texas. But while this was an especially ham-fisted example, it's part of a well-funded nationwide effort, led by a group of interlocking far-right groups, aimed at destroying modernity, undermining democracy and imposing authoritarian government against the will of most Americans.

Donald Trump sucks up most of the oxygen in the discussion about rising American fascism, but even without him, this movement is powerful and widespread, and it's using these local culture-war skirmishes battles to seize even more power. And old-fashioned racism, the kind on display in Conroe, is very much at the center of it all.

Last week, the New Republic published a lengthy and terrifying investigative article by Katherine Stewart about the Claremont Institute, once a vaguely respectable conservative think tank and now among the leading right-wing organizations pushing the anti-education and anti-democratic agenda below the surface of the Conroe incident.

One of the many Claremont alumni Stewart profiles is Christopher Rufo, who spearheaded the recent hysteria over "critical race theory" in education. In reality, critical race theory was an approach used in law schools and other graduate-level academic spaces, and had basically nothing to do with public schools.

Rufo's ingenious idea was to turn it into a catch-all scare term that could be used to demonize any and all forms of anti-racist education, even something as previously noncontroversial as a poster depicting interracial friendship.

The far-right, anti-democratic politics of the Claremont Institute are so grotesque that many readers will dismiss them as preposterous, but it's all carefully documented and disturbingly real. As Stewart chronicles, Claremont has promoted the work of Costin Alamariu, who holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale and writes under the name "Bronze Age Pervert." He has declared that the "liberation of women" is an "infection" that requires "the most terrible convulsions and the most thorough purgative measures."

A frequent contributor to Claremont's online journal, who writes under the name "Raw Egg Nationalist," argues that "men and women shouldn't work together in the same spaces" and describes the Black Lives Matter protesters of 2020 as "hideously ugly, malformed people." Claremont-associated blogger Curtis Yarvin argues (in Stewart's words) that "America needs a king, a dictator with total military power." Claremont's most famous associate is board member and former law professor John Eastman, now known as "Co-Conspirator 2" in the indictment against Donald Trump for attempting to overthrow the U.S. government.

Because of their tight link to the book-banning efforts, the relatively new but suspiciously wealthy group Moms for Liberty has received massive media attention in the past couple of years. Even so, the group's radical ideology has not really been covered in most mainstream news coverage, which tends to portray the Moms as a bunch of overzealous church ladies. As Flux editor Matthew Sheffield, Media Matters vice president Julie Millican and researcher Olivia Little explained in a recent "Theory of Change" podcast, however, underneath the facade of "Christian moms" is some startling far-right radicalism.

For instance, while it was widely reported that a Moms for Liberty pamphlet from one branch was caught quoting Adolf Hitler, the group was able to spin that as a misunderstanding and a mistake. But at their summit a few days later, speaker Tiffany Justice yelled, "I stand with that mom" — the one who quoted Hitler — while the audience whooped its approval.

Moms for Liberty has heavily promoted trainings for conservative activists on how to take over school boards, which ought to make clear how we should understand stories like this one, which just sound like a racist tantrum in a Texas suburb. These aren't random or isolated events — they're part of a large, well-organized and well-financed attack on public education across the country.

Mama Bears Rising, the group that fueled the Conroe school board takeover, in unsurprisingly discreet about its connections to the larger national movement for censorship. But screenshots of online communications by local anti-censorship activists suggests that it's no coincidence that the books targeted for censorship in Conroe are the same ones that show up on book-ban lists across the country. Mama Bears Rising is drawing on the same playbook that's being disseminated nationwide through a well-funded network of Christian nationalist activists.

These days, it's almost never just one nutty lady at a school board meeting. It's about a movement with a committed ideology, that has deep connections to Donald Trump's campaign to end democracy.

#us politics #news #salon #2023 #republicans #conservatives #book banning #book bans #wokeness #woke #moms for liberty #interracial friendship #racists #xenophobia #tweet #twitter #Mama Bears Rising #Claremont Institute #Costin Alamariu #Christopher Rufo #critical race theory #Curtis Yarvin #John Eastman #Tiffany Justice #adolf hitler #censorship

[venndaai]

REPUBLIC OF TWO SYSTEMS INDEPENDENCE DAY FANWORK EXCHANGE, 2023 EDITION

This year is a pretty special one in the Imperial Radch/Leckieverses fandom! This October will mark the 10th anniversary of Ancillary Justice's publishing date, and this June we're getting a new Radch universe book, Translation State! So it feels important to run this exchange once again. I'm excited to get hype.

(The Republic of Two Systems Independence Day is a holiday mentioned in the Preface to the Traveler's Guide to the Two Systems. Ms. Leckie has told us it can probably be celebrated the Monday after Easter Sunday, when Peeps are cheapest. This year, that's April 10.)

TAG SET  —   COLLECTION

NOMINATION PERIOD: until February 26, 11:59 PST. NOW CLOSED.

SIGNUPS: Closed. February 27 - March 6, 11:59 PST.

ASSIGNMENTS OUT: March 7.

WORKS DUE: April 7, 11:59 PST.

WORK REVEALS: April 10, 12:00 AM PST.

AUTHOR REVEALS: April 17, 12:00 AM PST.

MATCHING: OR matching, on both characters and ships. (The signups should be simpler this year, now that I understand AO3 exchange tags better.)

MINIMUM: 500 words or a sketch on unlined paper.

DETAILS UNDER CUT

NOMINATIONS:

Go here to nominate tags!

There are three fandoms for this exchange: Imperial Radch, The Raven Tower, and Crossover. Characters/ships from Provenance, Night's Slow Poison, and She Commands me and I Obey go in the Imperial Radch fandom. Characters from the godsverse short stories go in the Raven Tower fandom. For Crossover, you can nominate crossover relationships between Radchverse and godsverse characters, relationships between Leckie and non-Leckie characters, or solo non-Leckie characters you want to see in a Leckie universe. Please put the second fandom in parenthesis after the character. For example: “Breq & Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)”. 

For easy matching, all nominations will be Relationships. To nominate a solo character, write "Solo: (Character)". For example, "Solo: Medic". Relationships can be romantic, indicated by a “/”, or platonic, indicated by an “&”. For example, “Breq/Murderbot” would indicate a romantic or sexual relationship, while “Breq & Murderbot” would be platonic.

I've added general Worldbuilding tags for Radch and Raven Tower, but feel free to nominate more specific ones, like "Worldbuilding: genitalia festival".

We are a small and crazy fandom. There may be some injokes and OCs in the tagset. If you want to nominate something weird & obscure, go for it.

If you miss the nomination deadline by a couple hours, just message me and I’ll reopen the tagset for you. 

SIGNUPS:

You will need to make at least 3 requests, and 4 offers. For each request or offer, pick at least 1 fandom, 1 relationship tag, and one medium from the dropdown tagset. You can group your requests however you like; you could make 3 individual requests, each with one character, or three requests each with 20 characters- up to you.

If you only want to receive or create works based around worldbuilding, rather than characters, request/offer the “Worldbuilding” tag.

The way the matching works, you will be matched with someone who used at least 1 of the Fandom tags, 1 of the same Relationship tags, and 1 of the Medium tags as you. The work you create only has to use one of the requested relationship tags. 

You can pick “Any” for both offers and requests! Just remember that really does mean “Any”, and be prepared.

If you’re fine with both Art and Fic, you can check off both boxes, or just pick “Any” for that section. 

If there are things you very much Do Not Want in your gift, please list these in the Optional Details box for each of your prompts. For example: “DNW any appearances by spider mechs.” You are required to make a good faith effort to not include DNWs in your recipient’s gift. 

You’re encouraged to give your gifter some prompts! You can put these in the Optional Details box, or paste a link to a letter into the URL box. Optional Details are Optional, and your creator isn’t bound to follow them, outside of the DNWs. Only DNWs in your signup are enforceable, so put them there, not just in a linked letter.

You are allowed to mention characters and ships that weren’t nominated in your optional details, but remember, your creator matched on the tags you chose and isn’t obligated to include anything else.

If you are 18+, you can ask for or create NSFW, but your creator isn’t required to give it to you, so it would be polite to provide some SFW prompts as well. Only give someone NSFW if they ask for it in their prompts. 

ASSIGNMENTS: everyone will get an email through their AO3 account once I’ve run matching. The email will have your assignment in it. 

It’s possible there will be some people who won’t have anyone they could create for. I’ll email them through their AO3 email asking them to add more offers, and if they don’t respond in 24 hours, their signups will be deleted. If this happens to you and you don’t see my email in time, don’t panic! Just contact me and we’ll work something out.

Please don’t tell your giftee who you are. If you have a question, let me know and I’ll convey it to them. 

When you are creating your work, make sure you include at least one tag from at least one of your giftee’s requests, and don’t include DNWs. You only need to create one work, and it only needs to include one of the tags in your giftee’s signup. 

DEFAULTING:

If you can’t finish your gift, no worries. Just click the “default” button on your assignment page. If the person assigned to you also defaults, you may not get a gift. 

If you need an extension, just message me and let me know! If the posting deadline passes and you haven’t posted anything or contacted me, I’ll assume you’re defaulting. 

If you’ve posted your gift, and your creator defaults their assignment, a pinch-hitter will create a gift for you. Everyone who posts a gift will get a gift. 

POSTING:

Please post a finished work of 500 words or sketch on unlined paper by the posting deadline! You can continue to edit and add to your gift until the 10th, but you need to have something that could work as a gift by the 7th.

To post your gift, go to your Assignments page on AO3, and click the “Fulfill” button. Your gift will be automatically given to your giftee, but it will be hidden until the reveal date on the 10th. 

REVEALS: Works will be anonymous for a week after they are revealed. 

#imperial radch #the raven tower #translation state #ancillary justice #ro2sid exchange #ro2s9d 2023