#also there is no covid rules in my country’s state

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 12 -- WHEN ONLY FRIENDS GOT 2GETHER-ED

TRIGGER WARNING: EVERYONE'S UP FOR CRITICISM HERE, JOJO AND TEAM, FORCEBOOK, FIRSTKHAO, ALL OF THEM. Read at your peril.

Well. Big deep breaths. I spent a lot of time on a show that had been marketed as not-a-BL, that ended as a BL. As a mom with not that much time to spend on watching and writing on dramas that were marketed incorrectly, I am feeling some kinda way (fucking pissed off).

So many people had amazing takes yesterday, on both sides of the aisle, regarding how the show ended (pro-ending here, anti-ending here, here, here, here, here, and here, and my dear friends @neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan did heavy lifting on reblogs yesterday, so stroll on over to their blogs for more).

I want to set up a constellation of points to touch upon before I get into the meat of this post.

1) I referred quite a bit to my review of Theory of Love throughout my watch of Only Friends. In that review, I meditate on how the majority of the general global public judges sex, and casual sex, and people who have sex and/or casual sex. Generally speaking -- even in countries that makes as progressive art on sex and sexuality as Thailand and the United States -- that's a rule of thumb that I can rely on. Sex is judged by the majority of the global public.

2) I hate to say it. I cannot believe this happened. But I was right about monogamy being an ultimate theme in Only Friends. Not just a theme, fam. A theme by which people judged others for having open, casual, and consensual sex. Queer sex. Queer sex that is so very often had outside of the constraints of a monogamous relationship.

There was a reason why that holiday party was populated by couples, except for Boston, and Boston had to grovel to them in apology for their friendship. In Only Friends: monogamy wins, and casual queer sex loses.

3) Unfortunately, in part though an analysis of Cheum inside of last week that I accidentally started (ha), I see that points 1 and 2 come together to have created a fabric and framework of judgement that Only Friends ended on.

The last paragraph in this excellent post by @benkaaoi notes that the assumption by a large portion of the OF fandom that the creative choices that were made to end this series were designed to save the sanctity -- economic and otherwise -- of the shipped pairs of ForceBook and FirstKhao. This rings true to me.

Most of the BL shows that I've watched this year are older shows, through my Old GMMTV Challenge, in which I've been studying the changes over time that GMMTV and other Thai networks, have made towards their editorial choices, attitudes, and risks in producing BLs. I included Only Friends on this syllabus to note the show's impact as a kind of zeitgeist measure of how much heat and literary controversy GMMTV could take in airing increasingly progressive queer media -- even though Only Friends wasn't originally intended to be a BL.

To the theory that Only Friends needed to save the ships... and to another theory that the ships needed to be saved in the most moralistically judgmental way that I could have ever imagined (I was actually blown away by how heavy-handed this messaging was) -- I look to the ending of 2gether.

The majority general reaction to the ending of 2gether from within the existing BL fandom in 2020, was one of guffawed incredulousness. BrightWin/SarawatTine did not kiss in the first season of 2gether. It took Aof Noppharnach to come in to make Still 2gether to indicate that these two young men may have been at least vaguely sexual with each other throughout the course of their fictional relationship.

Yet, 2gether was a massive success. Many theorize it was because 2gether was the first big BL to air during the start of the COVID pandemic, and new BL fans had time to be at home and watch shows. But I posit in my 2gether/Still 2gether review that 2gether was also successful PRECISELY BECAUSE IT LACKED SEX (and by sex here, I mean plain old kissin').

As I stated earlier: sex is judged by the majority of the global public. With BrightWin NOT kissing, new fans who may have been implicitly and/or explicitly turned off by physical depictions of queer love could glom comfortably onto 2gether, and watch a BL without the "threat" of physical depictions of two men expressing their love to each other.

Subsequently, BrightWin gained massive social media followings, 2gether made GMMTV buckets of money, and GMMTV went -- well, hot diggity.

Many of us had impressions of Only Friends as...something else than it ended up being. Early on, Jojo Tichakorn, for instance, cited an early non-GMMTV, non-BL show, Gay OK Bangkok, that he and Aof Noppharnach worked on in 2016 and 2017, as being referential to Only Friends. Gay OK Bangkok centered on a group of queer friends, mostly cisgender men with Jennie Panhan in the mix, as they lived their lives and dated away in Bangkok.

I'll tell ya, GOKB didn't end the way Only Friends did, and I'll get into that more in a bit. I believe @benkaaoi, @lurkingshan, and others are absolutely right that the ultimate moralization on casual sex that this show depicted -- and how Only Friends punished Boston for his casual sex -- was an economic decision designed to reflect on the sanctity of monogamy that shipped couples like ForceBook and FirstKhao can sell back to their fans, fans that may have actually flocked to GMMTV shows from 2gether, and that demand a fantasy of devoted monogamy from both fictional characters and professional actors who are actually only just doing fan service to earn their livings. GMMTV has known for a long time how to make money, and money the network doth has made from Only Friends, and from shipping their ships around the world to service the growing fandom.

Casual sex in fiction, casual sex that breaks up the ships.... fucks that economic shit all up.

GMMTV has taught us our lesson, a lesson that we had already learned from the no-kissing rule of 2gether. Loose lips shall not sink ships at this network. And I think we lost a chance for a big and progressively artistic zeitgeist that GMMTV could have taken risks on, if it had the courage to risk depicting something truly novel.

I want to note quickly another framework that I dug into while I was watching this show. I sent a flare to @lurkingshan before I started watching the episode that I was going to, in part, watch this last episode from my personal Asian lens. I wanted to ask myself, as I was watching this disaster -- is there anything happening here that strikes my heart with fear and doom as an Asian?

Indeed, yes. I didn't expect it, but there was a dialogue on individualism vs. collectivism.

Boston. My dear, sweet Boston. Boston, named after a city so very distant from Bangkok.

Boston was punished by his group of friends because he didn't adhere to the rules of the group. His individualistic actions and preferences -- his preferences to "roll alone," as Nick stated, would not work in the frameworks of either monogamy with Nick and/or the group dynamics of the hostel crew.

The link I linked above is an amazing answer to an inquiry I posed to dear @absolutebl last year about how Asian social collectivist paradigms are depicted in BLs. In that question-and-answer dialogue, I asked ABL Sensei about the motif of queer revelations in BLs, and how seemingly straight characters respond in kind to being approached with a proposition to a queer dalliance and/or relationship. Generally speaking, the Asian collectivist mindset is to at least attempt to respond in kind to those kinds of propositions, as one's behavioral habits are designed to be responsive to others instinctually, as opposed to only servicing oneself. To only service oneself is not only seen as selfish, but also as disturbing to the general flow of public existence among one's societies. To respond in kind means that you will not cause potentially disturbing angst to another individual or group. (Collectivism explains why Asian countries performed much better with mask mandates during the pandemic than we in the States did.)

So -- Boston filming Ray, Boston sleeping with Top, created waves in the friend group. He was so severely punished for it.

And the show iterates, and repeats, Nick's preference that Boston move forward alone in Boston's life, because of Boston's tendencies to make decisions that suit himself. As an Asian-American, I mutter to myself: god forbid.

Nick will not commit to Boston -- and yet, will also condemn Boston for making his own decisions outside of the specter of a monogamy that does not exist between Nick and Boston, and that Boston will still get judged for, as referenced in the Sand/Nick conversation depicted above.

In other words: if Boston makes a decision for himself? That's punishable. Because it might hurt someone else's feelings -- a someone else that actually hasn't committed to Boston, and/or allowed Boston to commit himself to.

This group caught Boston in a moralistic and collectivist catch-22, the likes of which I just would have never expected from Jojo and team, even if the creative team faced the economic pressures of the GMMTV bigwigs. I'm sorry to state that I am beyond disappointed in this condemnation of individualism, sending Boston alone, judged, and friendless, off to New York City to live in, what, the immoral boundaries of Chelsea? Homey, get a fucking SWEET-ASS PAD, and FUCK THESE LOSERS, leave 'em BEHIND in your cloud of airplane gas emissions. See you at the La Quinta rooftop bar on 32nd Street, friendo.

Only Friends could have ended so much better. And I understand that in the Only Friends novel, published AFTER the script was finished, that it did end somewhat better for Boston (cc @jinitak, reporting from Thailand, thank you for this heads-up about the novel!).

So. Any-fucking-way. Do y'all know how Gay OK Bangkok ended?

Of many lovely endings for the various GOKB characters, an older main character, Aof, was dating a much younger character, Big. (CC to @neuroticbookworm for our quick convo on this last night.)

Aof was sex-averse. Big wanted lots of sex. Big slept with a lot of people. He loved Aof. Aof couldn't handle Big having sex with other people, and they broke up. It was a lovingly handled break-up, written just gorgeously by Aof Noppharnach.

After their break-up, I thought Big would disappear from the show. Instead. Instead! Nong Big, the little brother to the core group of queer friends that centered GOKB, was welcomed back with open arms. Arm, Pom, Sathang (played by an effervescent Jennie Panhan), and others toasted to Big, telling him he would always be family, no matter if him and his ex, Aof, had broken up. In the queer circles of friends that I'm a part of, exes are not as commonly excommunicated as they are in straight circles.

Only Friends could have been this. Something, a little something, like this.

Instead, Only Friends punished a friend for acting outside of the rules of their group.

Boston was punished because.... because Only Friends had to end up being a BL. For the sake of the moolah, for the sake of collectivism, for the sake of the shippers who'll buy tickets around the world to see ForceBook and FirstKhao perform fan service on stage.

I just didn't think that the show would be so brutal, on so many levels, in the end, to people who want to have casual sex. I don't think any of us expected this. But, it's over, it's done, and the piece has been said -- GMMTV said, no casual sex today, and here's how we actually feel about it.

I'll see you over on Gagaoolala for Playboyy. Deuces, OF.

(It was an absolute pleasure writing meta with the Ephemerality Squad -- onto the next one! @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @slayerkitty @thatgirl4815 @distant-screaming @clara-maybe-ontheroad)

#only friends the series #only friends #only friends meta #force jiratchapong #book kasidet #forcebook #topmew #top x mew #mew x top #firstkhao #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #neomark #neo trai #mark pakin #sandray #sand x ray #ray x sand #bostonnick #boston x nick #nick x boston #lookjun bhasidi #nonnie pitchaporn #lookjunnonnie #april x cheum #cheum x april #neo trai deserved much much better than this stupid role #ephemerality squad

[reasonsforhope]

"During the global coronavirus pandemic, China built dozens of makeshift hospitals and state quarantine centers, some out of steel container boxes. They became closely associated with the anxiety of mass testing and the fear of sudden lockdowns.

Now, cities are turning the huge centers into affordable housing units for young workers in an attempt to revive the country's economy post-COVID...

Just over a year ago, these apartments were used very differently: for medical triage and quarantine facilities. Beijing alone built 23 of these makeshift facilities, designed to hold up to 23,000 people at a time.

"It was not very cold yet but they told me to pack my belongings," remembers Hudson Li, a Beijing resident who was quarantined in one of these facilities, called fangcang in Chinese, in October 2022...

Less than two months after Li was quarantined, Beijing lifted most of its COVID restrictions. Li says he still associates the fangcang with a feeling of helplessness and fear: "It has been over a year already, but I definitely have PTSD from the pandemic, from the fear of scarcity and having to stock up on a lot of medicine and food."

Attracting young tenants with low rents

Now the fangcang across the country are undergoing a minor transformation and turned into apartment units for young graduates like Li. The changes are an effort from local authorities, who have been tasked with restarting economic growth and supporting small businesses after nearly three years of ruinous lockdowns.

Populous cities like Beijing are also trying to bridge the housing affordability gap between high real estate prices and low salaries, on average, for young workers. In the northeast corner of the capital city, near its airport, one fangcang with more than 4,900 units has been rebranded the "Jinzhan Colorful Community" — a reference to the bright hues of paint — and now offers amenities like a canteen where residents can grab a cheap meal before or after work.

Another fangcang facility, in the northeastern city of Jinan, has been turned into 650 units for skilled workers inside an industrial park.

"Given that the current overall [COVID] epidemic situation in the country has entered a low level, revitalizing the fangcang for other housing purposes is worth learning and thinking about all over the country," Yan Yuejin, a housing analyst, told Chinese media.

The fangcang, once a symbol of containment, are now supposed to represent dynamism and growth.

"I have complex feelings about this. The facilities were built using public funds and not rented out transparently," Li says. "But I do have to say you will not get anything more affordable than these apartments. They are very price competitive."

A list of rental prices for a Beijing fangcang converted into apartments shows most rooms are Rmb1200 (USD $170) a month, low for Beijing."

-via NPR, December 9, 2023

#china #covid #quarantine #affordable housing #housing #beijing #jinan #apartments #real estate #housing crisis #cost of living #good news #hope

[minetteskvareninova]

How Would I Put This For My Non-Slovak Mutuals

Slovakia is going to have elections (premature, I should note, because Matovič is an idiot, see bellow) and by God I am stressed. Our options are as follows:

Progresívne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia) - They are the, well, progressive party of the Slovak political spectrum. Which means they are the only fucking party that supports the LGBT movement with any consistency. Most of their other proposals are also relatively reasonable; they are interested in protecting the environment, want to improve the sorry state of Slovak healthcare, fight the corruption and so on. Their only two issues are the fact that their leader, Martin Šimečka, is a fucking nerd with the charisma of a wet noodle, and the fact that everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, even people who theoretically should be on their side on account of not being bigoted Putin-loving dipshits, hates them for absolutely no reason. Well, except for their large preferences, probably. They are the most successful party, or second most successful (depends on how the elections pan out) after...

SMER - Sociálna demokracia (DIRECTION - Social Democracy; yes I know SMER is also short for something but I'm too lazy to look it up right now) - Hoo boy. These guys. How would I even start to explain the sheer amount of baggage these guys carry...? SMER has been in power in 2008-2012 and 2012-2020. And it was a fucking shitshow. Between massive corruption and widespread mismanagement of public resources, you can't help but wonder how the fuck did these people last one term, let alone three?! Don't let the Social Democracy thing in their name fool you, these people aren't really social democrats, they have no ideology beyond getting more votes and avoiding jail. Their leader is Róbert Fico, a literal antichrist whose corruption scandals would make for an exceptionally thick encyclopedia. This man is able to sell his soul to the devil for money and power, but since the devil seems kinda unavailable, he figured Putin is the next best (worst?) thing. His latest strategy for gaining more support is leaning into the fanatical Putin-loving, EU and human rights hating crowd, which in our country is depressingly large. Another memorable personality is Ľuboš Blaha, a tankie extraordinaire whose favourite meal is the sole of Volodya's boot and a steady diet of bathit conspiracies. Remember when Blaha engaged in casual atrocity denial around Bucha, because Pepperidge Farm and Minette's blog remember. https://www.tumblr.com/minetteskvareninova/680859499810177024/this-war-is-horrible-and-itself-would-be-enough

Hlas-SD (Voice-SD) - Most progressives in Slovakia have high hopes for these people. I don't. They are an offshoot of SMER, whose leader Peter Pellegrini has mostly held the line with Fico, but at least seems spineless enough to betray him if it happens to be advantageous enough. They don't really have any kind of concrete politics (most of their program is a vague "we'll make things better" kind of stuff), but at least they don't actively spread hate, so in that way they are able to climb over the low bar that is their mother party. Still, how are these people in the third place of every pre-election survey I will never know. I guess Pelle is just that sexy or whatever.

Obyčajní ľudia a nezávislé osobnosti (Ordinary People And Independent Personalities) - They have been the ruling party since 2020 and much like with SMER, it was kind of a shitshow, just in a different way. Their leader Igor Matovič is less corrupt (mind you, not NOT corrupt) than Fico, but more than makes up for it by being kinda stupid and also a horrendous drama queen whose antics prematurely ended two cabinets, his and Heger's. Tenderly nicknamed "Matelko", he became known for his "atom bombs" of ideas, such as giving out prizes in a lottery that people join by getting vaccinated. Y'know, to increase vaccination rates during the height of COVID-19 pandemic. That's why this whole thing had to be televised, complete with "call to collect your prize" type of deal. For what it's worth, he at least made attempts to fight the corruption of the previous regime; he did it badly, as is his way, but nonetheless. "Independent personalities" here means a bunch of small parties that joined them in this election, because they would have no chance otherwise. They are a pretty diverse bunch, meaning their ranks include, among others, an infamous bigot and fanatical anti-abortion activist Anna Záborská, but they also made my bae Jaroslav Naď a defence minister, so that kinda balances it out. I wouldn't hate it if they managed to get into parliament, I'll tell you that much.

Slododa a Solidarita (Freedom and Solidarity) - Considering Matelko profiles himself as an anti-corruption crusader, you'd think Róbert Fico is his nemesis. You'd be wrong. Fico unfortunately loses that prestigious title to one Richard Sulík, leader of SaS, who is... Eh? Like, he's competent in the questions of economy and in general not in the worst tier of Slovak politicians, but also, he's as much of a libertarian as is possible in our part of the world (which si to say, he's not as bad as an average American libertarian, but still engages in, for example, casual climate change denial) and constantly feuds with Matelko. Again, I don't hate him, but we could do a lot better.

Kresťanskodemokratické hnutie (Christian-Democratic Movement) - They are surprisingly not as bigoted as their name would suggest, but that's because here in Slovakia we are used to levels of homophobia and transphobia that would boggle the mind of an average non-fundie American. They come off as relatively reasonable, but only because one can't help but compare them to Putin kissasses like SMER, SNS and Republika. Which brings us to...

Slovenská národná strana (Slovak National Party) - You know, Stupidest Slovak Politician is a tough contest, so my respect to anyone who is able to win it as decisively as Andrej Danko. This man is like Róbert Fico, if his spirit animal was a sheep instead of a fox (and I say it as someone who has experience with sheep, those motherfuckers are ungodly stupid). He simped for Putin before it was cool, when that particular fanclub was just him and Blaha. He doesn't seem to be able to speak his mother tongue and his constant malaproper speech is the source of many a meme. Which, yes, means that him getting into parliament would be pretty funny. On the other hand, all that fun would probably be somewhat spoiled by the fact that he's ALSO super corrupt, not to mention, y'know, conspiracy-spreading Putin simp and bigot. He also cites Viktor Orbán as his actual, honest-to-God role model. So, an all-around cool dude that I am very happy might be in the next parliament (if Fico wins the election, because naturally these two get on like a house on fire). /s

Republika (The Republic) - I can't believe SMER legit isn't the worst mainstream Slovak party, but I mean, at least they aren't actual neonazis? I mean, Republika does its best to hide their affiliations, but because their leader, Milan Uhrík, is in competition for the second stupidest Slovak politician (the first place, as stated, firmly belonging to Danko), they don't do a particularly good job of that. I mean, Republika is the product of a schism within ĽSNS, who were already infamous for their idiocy (besides, you know, barely disguised fascism), so figures. Milan Uhrík in particular is the man whose most important contributions to Slovak culture were sitting in the European Parliament doing fuck all (did I mention that like most bigots, he also shits on EU constantly?) and the "I am not a historian" meme. Basically, because of the blatant fascist sympathies of his party, including worshipping Jozef Tiso, he was asked to condemn the crimes of the First Slovak Republic (which was basically a Nazi puppet - yeah, Ukrainians aren't the only nation in this region with a shady past, go figure; not that it prevents some people, including Uhrík himself, from spreading the "denazification" bullshit). Uhrík's answer? "I am not a historian". Since then, he has been given several options to revise this opinion. He never took any of them. His agenda is also truly something to behold, like I've never read something as profoundly dumb as the pamphlets where they present it. They don't seem to be as successful as ĽSNS, but that's unfortunately because their schtick was stolen by SMER with the good chunk of their electorate. Still, SMER might actually take them into their coalition, because like goes with the like even if the "like" is bigotry, and lest we forget, there is no God.

Sme rodina (We Are Family) - *sigh* Do I have to? Okay. Sme rodina is yet another conservative party, completely unlike EVERY OTHER PARTY THAT EVER GAINED ANY TRACTION IN THIS COUNTRY PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE. Ahem. Its leader Boris Kollár is a businessman who gained something of a memetic status in Slovak showbusiness by being a massive whore and having a fuckton of illegitimate children (the current count is I think 12?). Something of a Slovak Herschel Walker. And just like Herschel Walker, he, the avowed conservative that he is, has been accused of paying for abortions of one of his ex-girlfriends. Which is just a reflection of this guy's general moral consistency. To put it simply, Boris is the biggest Slovak whore. If Fico asked him to join his coalition, you bet your ass he would. He also has associated with people involved in organized crime (just like Fico) and sexted a fifteen year old drug addict. Because, as their billboards state, Sme rodina "protects children". Needless to say, I can't fucking stand this dude just as a person; since he seems to want to be an Isekai hero, I hope he gets hit by a truck.

Demokrati (The Democrats) - They're fine. Their leader is our former short-term prime minister Eduard Heger, whose only flaws were being hopelessly naive and letting Matelko get away with shit he should not have gotten away with. Any people that might be OK with them already vote for Progresívne Slovensko, but maybe they will get enough votes to be eligible for parliament? Maybe??? Their chances aren't high to be honest, but what do you know, miracles do happen.

#slovakia #politics #minette complains #complete and utter despair

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

things that people who are stop recommending to CFS/ME/SEID/long COVID with PEM and CF (called "PEM w/ CF" henceforth) patients immediately:

Exercise. This includes yoga, pilates, aquatherapy, and other "gentle" exercises. If it works against gravity or another resistance, it's not good for treating PEM w/ CF. The deconditioning theory was debunked years ago, so don't bring that shit here.

B-12. It's important to get tested for a B-12 deficiency as the symptoms can be similar to PEM w/ CF, but once it's ruled out added B-12 can have side effects. The main and most studied one is insomnia, but anecdotal reports (including my own) also often mention racing heart rate and jitters. Since these side effects use up energy, it's better for people with PEM w/ CF to err on the side of caution and avoid excess B-12 intake. Also it's pretty much the first thing anyone suggests so unless someone is newly ill they've likely already tried it and are sick of hearing about it.

Caffeine and other stimulants. While these can make you feel energized temporarily, it doesn't actually increase the amount of energy in your body. Assuming we're running on the theory of PEM w/ CF being a deficiency of ATP caused by mitochondrial issues, fatigue isn't a state of mind. It's our bodies telling us we're running out of fuel to keep them going. Also many of us have a co-morbid tachycardia condition and a flair up of that condition can cause a flair up of fatigue.

Medication and other treatments designed for mental illnesses. While having a chronic illness can cause mental illness, especially if you live in an ableist country with failed disability aid services, mental illness does not cause PEM w/ CF. Treatment for mental illness won't actually treat the symptoms of PEM w/ CF.

Alternative medicine. Many alternative medicine treatments are actively dangerous and the idea that there's "no harm in trying" because "it's natural anyway" is false. Stop recommending ozone therapy (potentially deadly and not useful in concentrations not strong enough to kill you), stop recommended chiropractors (can result in a stroke), stop recommending essential oils (no approved medical use beyond basic relaxation and concentrated nature can make them dangerous), you get the picture. Alternative medicine preys on desperate suffering people to sell them ineffective, potentially dangerous "treatments", don't do their advertising for them.

PEM w/ CF patients feel free to add on treatments that are commonly recommended but unscientific/uneffective, others be respectful and don't derail.

#cfs #chronic fatigue syndrome #me/cfs #cfs/me #seid #long covid #cpunk #cripplepunk #cripple punk #actually disabled

[yourtongzhihazel]

>whines about voting having no effect

>simultaneously whines about voting for dickheads = having an effect

Hmmmmm

Also, Jackie Chan's son was sent to prison for years because he's all friendly with drug users. Don't give us this bullshit about you being better than the west (not that you're not western, of course. In my experience, it's mostly white American men whining about the west. I'd wager you're two of 3.)

I think it's real cool how mitch mconnel is buddy buddy with the Chinese ruling class. He's presumably a based communist, yes?

I've always wondered something. If outsourcing to other countries is bad and they do it because they don't have to pay as much and worker protections are lesser in the targeted outsourcing area, why is it cool of American capitalists to get most of their stuff made in China? Could it be that the workers are being taken advantage of? Nah, I'm sure it's just a capitalist libcuck conspiracy.

Glory to the 'working class,' comrade. 😉

Awwww thanks for caring sooo much about my compatriots and family in a country you're not from! Might be the first time a yankee does it!

Deng Xiaoping and the CPC never once hid the exact goal of reform and opening up. Now the PRC has the best manufacturing on the planet and there's nothing yankees and do about it. Chinese wages are rising. Chinese purchasing power is rising. Chinese union membership is rising.

How are your wages doing? Your inflation? How's your manufacturing? How's those covid numbers? What's going on with your unhoused population? What's that about LGBT safe states and women's reproductive rights? Where's your communist party?

Listen me and follow these directions carefully: go to the store. Buy a banana. Eat it. Then shut up and start building working class solidarity in your country that you claim to care about.

#hazel's press releases #yankees shut the fuck up challenge 2024 (impossible)

[mariacallous]

A retired US Army lieutenant colonel is organizing an armed convoy next week to the Texas border to, he says, hunt down migrants crossing into the US from Mexico. Hundreds of people already say they are coordinating travel plans for the convoy on Telegram as tensions continue to rise between the state and federal government over immigration.

Pete Chambers, the lieutenant colonel who says he was a Green Beret, appeared on far-right school-shooting conspiracist Alex Jones’ InfoWars show on Thursday to outline plans for the Take Back Our Border convoy, which has been primarily organized on Telegram.

“What gets us to the enemy quickly is find, fix, and finish,” Chambers told Jones. “That’s what we did in Syria when we took out ISIS really quick. Now we don’t have the authorities to finish, so what we can do is fix the location of where the bad guys are and pair up with law enforcement who are constitutionally sound.”

While this kind of right-wing chatter doesn’t always amount to anything, on Telegram the main Take Back Our Border channel now has over 1,000 members and is being used as a place to plan and share information about the convoy, as well as three rallies taking place in Texas, California, and Arizona next week. The convoy will reportedly begin on Monday, January 29, and participants currently say they are planning on driving to Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, where the Texas National Guard is currently in a standoff with the US Border Patrol.

The convoy has been promoted by Texas state representative Keith Self, who appeared on Fox Business to speak about the event and posted a link to a news article from the conspiracy-focused The Gateway Pundit about the convoy on his X account.

In state-specific subgroups for attendees to organize rideshares and other resources, members are outlining their plans about where along the route they will join up with the convoy. The main part of the convoy will begin in Virginia and will make its way through Florida, Louisiana, and on to Texas.

One group member suggested others bring “kits” to the planned rallies so that “if stuff goes down you will be able to protect yourselves and help out.” Another user responded: “I’m in Missouri. I’ll be ready and have my kit full.”

Some Telegram users have compared this moment to the American revolution of 1776.

“There is a point where we are going to have to get our hands dirty,” one member wrote in the Texas group. “I've dealt with MANY bullies in my life, and I've never been able to reason with them. The one universal language bullies understand is when you push them back.”

Another poster shared a quote from far-right figure Jack Posobiec saying the country is on “the verge of civil war with the government,” while one member claimed, without evidence, that the Border Patrol is “letting known terrorists into the US.”

A promotional video for the convoy on the website begins with alarms sounding and the words “invasion alert” flashing over what appears to be night-vision footage of people crossing the border. The video also calls back to previous convoys, such as the People’s Convoy that rolled into Washington, DC, in 2022 to protest Covid-19 lockdowns. However, the administrators of the Telegram group and the convoy’s website are careful to say this will be a peaceful protest and that only “law-abiding citizens” are welcome. The convoy’s website says it’s looking for everyone to join the effort, including “all active and retired law enforcement and military veterans.”

The convoy is being organized as tensions over the US–Mexico border escalated this week, when the US Supreme Court lifted an order by a lower court and sided with President Joe Biden’s administration to rule that Border Patrol agents could remove razor wire installed by the Texas National Guard and state troopers. Texas governor Greg Abbott has defied the ruling as the Texas National Guard and state troopers have continued to roll out wire at Shelby Park on the banks of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass. Republicans have backed Abbott, who stated on January 24 that the state’s right to “defend and protect” itself against an “invasion” of migrants “is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”

More than two dozen Republican governors, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and former president Donald Trump have come out in support of Abbot.

“Biden is, unbelievably, fighting to tie the hands of Governor Abbott and the State of Texas, so that the Invasion continues unchecked,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Texas has rightly invoked the Invasion Clause of the Constitution, and must be given full support to repel the invasion.”

“The feds are staging a civil war, and Texas should stand their ground.” Representative Clay Higgins, a GOP congressman from Louisiana, posted on X after the Supreme Court issued its ruling.

The post was shared widely in online communities populated by far-right extremists, including on The Donald, a far-right message board where some of the planning for the January 6 Capitol riot took place.

“There’s no other way to interpret removing a border than outright treason,” a member of The Donald wrote. “The Supreme Court justices who agreed to this deserve to be executed as traitors.” Another added in relation to the judges: “Traitors deserve to die.”

On X on Thursday, the hashtags #CivilWar and #StandwithTexas were both trending.

During the hourlong interview, Chambers blamed migrants for the fentanyl crisis, which he described as “chemical warfare,” and he called the Biden administration the enemy of the people. Jones described Abbott’s January 24 statement as “the new Declaration of Independence.” Chambers told Jones how he was planning to use the same techniques he claims he used while in the US military fighting the Islamic State to target migrants crossing the border. He echoed Abbott, and described the effort as “domestic internal defense.”

Chambers also said that one of the stops on the convoy will be the One Shot Distillery and Brewery in Dripping Springs, Texas, which is owned by Phil Waldron, a former army colonel. Waldron was central to plotting the January 6 insurrection, when he circulated a 38-page PowerPoint presentation to members of Congress that, among other things, called for Trump to declare a state of emergency and seize voting machines. Waldron was listed as an unindicted coconspirator in Trump’s Georgia election-interference case.

And while much of this kind of violent rhetoric is never acted upon, there have been a growing number of incidents beyond January 6 where online comments have been followed up with real-world action, including when a man targeted an FBI office after slamming the agency for searching Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Truth Social.

Efforts in Congress to find a compromise on border funding appeared to collapse earlier this week, but yesterday Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that talks were still “ongoing.”

[bumblebeeappletree]

Jerry meets up with a guerrilla gardening group taking over empty public spaces to grow food for those that need it, sharing growing skills to increase community resilience. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe

Over the pandemic lockdowns, many of us were alarmed by images of empty supermarket shelves and supply shortages. Rather than running out and hoarding toot-roll, a group of young people saw it as an opportunity to provide for the vulnerable in their community and rethink how public space was being used.

Al Wicks says they’d “always had the pipe-dream of doing community gardens…over covid me and my friends started getting worried about food security for vulnerable people in the community”.

One of these friends was Ruby Thorburn, who says “there was an overwhelming sense of fear, seeing these empty supermarkets. We wanted to produce food overnight…to avoid red tape and bureaucracy and use direct action”.

In response, they formed “Growing Forward”, a community organisation dedicated to setting up guerrilla community gardens in underutilised public space. We’re visiting a site they’ve successfully converted from forgotten space to thriving community gardens with a purpose.

What started out with a bit of rule bending, has now garnered support of the whole community – including the council.

“We looked around and found a plot of land that was owned by the state government, but had been abandoned for over 90 years. Our neighbour works in council and looked into contamination reports that had been done on the soil and found it was good” says Ruby.

Leaning on Ruby’s permaculture background, they conducted a site assessment and identified a tap for water supply and a promising full-sun aspect. “The goal was community food resilience, and to get people thinking differently about food”.

After speaking with local indigenous elders to gain their permission to use the land, the group studied successful guerrilla community gardens to try to replicate what factors had made them work.

The first was wide community consultation. Every house in the surrounding area to the proposed garden was repeatedly doorknocked, to canvas any issues or concerns with establishing the garden- and identify anyone who was willing to help. Flyers were also distributed.

The next was rapid implementation. “Our goal was to set it up in 2 days, to skip the uncertain period where people are not sure what’s going on” says Ruby. “We just went ahead and did it” says Al.

“We brought in about 20 m2 of soil, and spent our personal money on it” says Al. “It took about a day to get it all in, there was a lot of community support”. While a lot of elbow grease went into the set-up, there’s no permanent infrastructure, which helps avoid the ire of bureaucrats

The first garden is at West End, in inner-south Brisbane, and it’s been a total success. Occupying around ¼ acre, it’s ringed by edible native plants with mounded beds of vegetables inside.

Everything grown goes back into the community to feed those who need it most. “The founding principles were doing free work for the community, and the produce is free”. “We have signs saying this food is going to vulnerable people, and it seems to work”.

At West End the produce goes to refugees living in the community, so Al and Ruby asked the refugee community organisation what they would like to eat. Accordingly, the fare is a little more diverse than what’s on offer at the shops, with sweet potato, okra, cassava, elephant foot yams and papaya thriving. It’s also become a place for meetings and picnics.

The approach has been a big success, regularly supplying food to community organisations and those most vulnerable, as well as building local connections. The program has expanded.

Featured Plants:

PAW PAW - Carica papaya cv.

SWEET POTATO - Ipomoea batatas cv.

CHILLI - Capsicum cv.

PUMPKIN ‘JAP’ - Cucurbita maxima cv.

OKRA - Abelmoschus esculentus cv.

Filmed on Turrbal & Yuggera Country | Brisbane, Qld

#gardening australia #Australia #Solarpunk #guerrilla gardening #pandemic #covid 19 #food #Al Wicks #community garden #Ruby Thorburn #Growing Forward #permaculture #indigenous people #West End #Brisbane #Youtube

[nobrakes]

if you don't mind, would you explain kelly's latest story? As much as i understand, the video suggests he must be a criminal bc he went to an underdeveloped region? like wtf?

So, i had to go look this up because I don't follow her on social media but, from what I saw she posted two things: 1 - shared two posts from a brazilian ex olympic volleyball player turned far-right commentator, and 2 - shared the video you mentioned.

TLDR Kelly is spreading bigoted misinformation.

About the posts she shared: the first mentions a report by a journal called Gazeta do Povo (a Bolsonaro supporting """"news"""" company) where they talk about the history between Lula (the left wing candidate for president of Brasil, who also was the president during 2002-2010) and Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua's president, a described dictator). This is part of a recent strategy by Bolsonaro's campaign as they try to moral panic people into believing that Lula would bring a left wing dictatorship and that Brazil will "become like Venezuela or Nicaragua" which in their minds are poor, violent and ravaged countries where all women are pr*stitutes and gangs rule the nations.

This, obliviously, isn't true. I don't have time to debunk it all.

All of this is basically trying to gaslight people as if Lula is the one who would push for a dictatorship (even if he was in power for 8 years and all he's done was strengthen democratic institutions) while Bolsonaro literally has said that he would strike a coup. Go figure.

The 2nd post she shared was again from this commentator, who I'll say again: is a fascist volleyball player who became a political commentators for Jovem Pan. Jovem Pan is the Fox News of Brazil, they are horrible, all they do is lie and preach right wing, fascist, racist and homophobic content on tv. They are the channel of choice for Bolsonaro because it is, as the girls say, a right wing bubble. The news thing she shared was about Jovem Pan, and it's a report on how the Lula campaign allegedly was going to request maybe possibly for Jovem Pan to be shut down.

To my knowledge, this isn't exactly true. Jovem Pan is claiming "censure" from the Electoral Courts (we have a specific branch of the judiciary that takes care of organizing the elections) all because they keep lying about Lula, and calling him a "thief" and spilling so much fake garbage about him that the courts have repeatedly granted Lula motions to give him the "right of response" on tv against these false claims or demanded that the content be taken down by the publisher. You see, here in Brazil, sharing and spreading fake news about the elections and the electoral system isn't exactly legal. It's a practice that's being fought by the courts and prosecutors.

Just because we're in a democracy, it doesn't mean you can say whatever the fuck you want, especially if that is with the intention of benefiting a certain candidate on tv by lying about the other candidate. Campaign laws are very strict here and misinforming electors ain't allowed.

So essentially, because the courts are saying "nah, mate, you ain't gonna be allowed to just spread misinformation like that", this fascist news organization is saying they are being censored. And Kelly seems to be agree. Yeah. Shocker.

The third post she shared is indeed a video of misinformation connecting Lula with organized crime.

This is something that has been rampant since Lula decided to do a rally at Complexo do Alemão, a favela community complex in Rio de Janeiro. He wore a cap with the letters "CPX" on it, which means "Complexo" or "Complex". The hat was given to him as a gift by a group of supporters who have a small hat selling business at the favela. This is a poor region, predominantly populated by black and marginalized individuals, those who have been ignored by the state.

Bolsonaro, during covid, even went as far as saying that they would be fine, because they were "bathing in the sewer" and didn't die, so the virus wouldn't kill them. I don't even need to mention here that favelas were absolutely ravaged by COVID, do I? Do I also need to mention that favelas have a lot to do with the legacy of slavery in Brazil? Or that Brazil was the last country of the Americas to abolish slavery?

Favelas are notoriously viewed as dangerous places, where organized crime is rampant. I don't have any way of explaining the racist ways in which the drug war, racism and policing has made it so that those people have to live oftentimes in the middle of war zones that are constantly getting invaded by heavy armored police and being hit by "stray bullets", having their homes invaded and being executed without a trial by police officers.

The Bolsonaro administration has seen and supported some of the most horrific mass killings by the state at favelas.

I'll try to leave some links at the end of this post where you can learn more if you want.

Now.

The video she shared basically said that the reason why Lula was able to go up to the favela and have a rally was because he was a criminal and associated with criminals, who wanted him to get elected, and that Bolsonaro isn't liked by criminals because he's """tough on crime""" tc etc.

However, this is LAUGHABLE as, Bolsonaro is literally FACTUALLY involved with the Rio de Janeiro militia. Yes, the militia. Made up of dirty current and ex cops, mostly from dictatorship-time "death squads" that have taken over Rio and are destroying the state.

So, the video not only is racist and absurd as it insinuates that just because a politician ACTUALLY goes to where the vulnerable people live and is welcomed by those people, who have been suffering, particularly hard over the past four years, then he must be criminal, but also, completely dismisses the fact that Bolsonaro legit 1) has a son who employed the wife AND MOTHER of a milita chief on assistant roles on his cabinet (his sons are also elected officials) 2) LIVED on the same condominiums with a militia member who was implicated on the murder of Mariele Franco, a Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman who was a black, bisexual, favela born woman who was brutally murdered back in 2019.

This isn't about crime.

This is about race. This is about class.

This is about working people being seen and heard and given respect.

Lula went there and was received with love and joy, and didn't try to move away from them, he went there with the purpose of showing his support for those vulnerable communities during these absurd and hellish times.

And then Bolsonaro called all favela residents "criminals" on tv during the debate last Sunday.

Anyways, sorry this was so long.

I, obviously, get rilled up over this shit because I'm terrified of what's going to happen on the next few weeks.

I'll add some links you might wanna check out about some of the stuff I mentioned:

Reports about Bolsonaro’s involvement with the militia (a murderous cop mafia in Rio de Janeiro) X X

Report about the police killing people during operations at favelas X  (HEAVY trigger warning here for blood and brutality)

Reports about how much covid ravaged the communities X X

Disclaimer: this post has been midly edited for grammar, clarity and to add some links on the bottom.

#anti kelly piquet #br politics #br #anyways #anonymous #answered

[xtruss]

Imran Khan Warns That Pakistan’s Election Could Be A Farce

His Party is Being Unfairly Muzzled, the Former Prime Minister Writes From Prison

— January 4th, 2024 | The Economist

Imran Khan, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan. Image: Dan Williams

Today pakistan is being ruled by caretaker governments at both the federal level and provincial level. These administrations are constitutionally illegal because elections were not held within 90 days of parliamentary assemblies being dissolved.

The public is hearing that elections will supposedly be held on February 8th. But having been denied the same in two provinces, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, over the past year—despite a Supreme Court order last March that those votes should be held within three months—they are right to be sceptical about whether the national vote will take place.

The country’s election commission has been tainted by its bizarre actions. Not only has it defied the top court but it has also rejected my Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (pti) party’s nominations for first-choice candidates, hindered the party’s internal elections and launched contempt cases against me and other pti leaders for simply criticising the commission.

Whether elections happen or not, the manner in which I and my party have been targeted since a farcical vote of no confidence in April 2022 has made one thing clear: the establishment—the army, security agencies and the civil bureaucracy—is not prepared to provide any playing field at all, let alone a level one, for pti.

It was, after all, the establishment that engineered our removal from government under pressure from America, which was becoming agitated with my push for an independent foreign policy and my refusal to provide bases for its armed forces. I was categorical that we would be a friend to all but would not be anyone’s proxy for wars. I did not come to this view lightly. It was shaped by the huge losses Pakistan had incurred collaborating with America’s “war on terror”, not least the 80,000 Pakistani lives lost.

In March 2022 an official from America’s State Department met Pakistan’s then ambassador in Washington, dc. After that meeting the ambassador sent a cipher message to my government. I later saw the message, via the then foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and it was subsequently read out in cabinet.

In view of what the cipher message said, I believe that the American official’s message was to the effect of: pull the plug on Imran Khan’s prime ministership through a vote of no confidence, or else. Within weeks our government was toppled and I discovered that Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, had, through the security agencies, been working on our allies and parliamentary backbenchers for several months to move against us.

People flocked onto the streets to protest against this regime change, and in the next few months pti won 28 out of 37 by-elections and held massive rallies across the country, sending a clear message as to where the public stood. These rallies attracted a level of female participation that we believe was unprecedented in Pakistan’s history. This unnerved the powers that had engineered our government’s removal.

To add to their panic, the administration that replaced us destroyed the economy, bringing about unprecedented inflation and a currency devaluation within 18 months. The contrast was clear for everyone to see: the pti government had not only saved Pakistan from bankruptcy but also won international praise for its handling of the covid-19 pandemic. In addition, despite a spike in commodity prices, we steered the economy to real gdp growth of 5.8% in 2021 and 6.1% in 2022.

Unfortunately, the establishment had decided I could not be allowed to return to power, so all means of removing me from the political landscape were used. There were two assassination attempts on my life. My party’s leaders, workers and social-media activists, along with supportive journalists, were abducted, incarcerated, tortured and pressured to leave pti. Many of them remain locked up, with new charges being thrown at them every time the courts give them bail or set them free. Worse, the current government has gone out of its way to terrorise and intimidate pti’s female leaders and workers in an effort to discourage women from participating in politics.

I face almost 200 legal cases and have been denied a normal trial in an open court. A false-flag operation on May 9th 2023—involving, among other things, arson at military installations falsely blamed on pti—led to several thousand arrests, abductions and criminal charges within 48 hours. The speed showed it was pre-planned.

This was followed by many of our leaders being tortured or their families threatened into giving press conferences and engineered television interviews to state that they were leaving the party. Some were compelled to join other, newly created political parties. Others were made to give false testimony against me under duress.

Despite all this, pti remains popular, with 66% support in a Pattan-Coalition 38 poll held in December; my personal approval rating is even higher. Now the election commission, desperate to deny the party the right to contest elections, is indulging in all manner of unlawful tricks. The courts seem to be losing credibility daily.

Meanwhile, a former prime minister with a conviction for corruption, Nawaz Sharif, has returned from Britain, where he was living as an absconder from Pakistani justice. In November a Pakistani court overturned the conviction (Under United States’ Scrotums Licker Corrupt Army Generals’ Directions).

It is my belief that Corrupt to his Core Mr Sharif has struck a deal with the establishment whereby it will support his acquittal and throw its weight behind him in the upcoming elections. But so far the public has been unrelenting in its support for pti and its rejection of the “selected”.

It is under these circumstances that elections may be held on February 8th. All parties are being allowed to campaign freely except for pti. I remain incarcerated, in solitary confinement, on absurd charges that include treason. Those few of our party’s leaders who remain free and not underground are not allowed to hold even local worker conventions. Where pti workers manage to gather together they face brutal police action.

In this scenario, even if elections were held they would be a disaster and a farce, since pti is being denied its basic right to campaign. Such a joke of an election would only lead to further political instability. This, in turn, would further aggravate an already volatile economy.

The only viable way forward for Pakistan is fair and free elections, which would bring back political stability and rule of law, as well as ushering in desperately needed reforms by a democratic government with a popular mandate. There is no other way for Pakistan to disentangle itself from the crises confronting it. Unfortunately, with democracy under siege, we are heading in the opposite direction on all these fronts. ■

— Imran Khan is the Founder and Former Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and was Prime Minister of Pakistan from 2018 to 2022.

— Editor’s Note: Pakistan’s government and America’s State Department deny Mr Khan’s allegations of American interference in Pakistani politics (Bullshit! Hegemonic War Criminal Conspirator United States and Corrupt Army Generals and Politicians of Pakistan Were Clearly Involved. It’s Social Media’s Modern Era, Not 1970). The government is prosecuting him under the Official Secrets Act.

#By Invitation | Pakistan 🇵🇰 #Imran Khan #Elections Under Corrupt Army of Pakistan #The Economist

[whoneedssexed]

Is it true that homeschooling in the U.S. is typically done for religious reasons, that's it's not regulated at all and that the children are at a disadvantage, or that they can be abused more easily? I hear about it but when looking it up all I see is stuff for COVID homeschooling reasons.

That it's typically for religious reasons? Not sure about that, especially depending on how one might define as "religious". Some people may talk about how the Christian g-d is their reasoning for pulling their kids out, but nothing they teach has anything to do with Christianity and more to do with conspiracy theories.

That it's not regulated? Unfortunately, this one is true. There are very few regulations, nobody's required to teach their children accurate information, or any information at all. There are a few regulations that basically make it so that the children/families aren't defying any compulsory education laws and the kids are accounted for, but each state is different in how this mandatory reporting works.

This is of course very dependent on what each state wants, but for the most part in the country there's very few defined rules. Here's a link that quickly goes over some of the legalities in homeschooling, and which states actually put effort towards educating children in the home.

That they are at a disadvantage? It can be true, yes, especially for the many parents who choose to "unschool" or otherwise remove schooling from their children entirely. While some have a much more structured approach on this, a lot of people have taken this to mean not even trying to educate their children. You can partly thank the internet for this, in my opinion, as it allows these types of knuckleheads to spread nonsense like that (think facebook mom type of groups).

There's also arguments made that homeschooling limits a child's social development, as they are around a lot less people and peers their age, and don't experience the typical interactions of the world.

This isn't always the case, however, as some homeschooling is done through actual programs offered by education experts, and classes kids can attend at their leisure. This allows them more socialization and to stay up to date, while also giving them the space and freedom to get what they need out of it.

So when it comes to disadvantages, it is heavily case by case.

That they are more likely to be abused? Well, it really depends on how you define abuse in this sense.

Of course, some people absolutely can and will argue that refusing to teach things like basic math or reading skills is abusive, or that forcing kids to believe your theories of the world is abusive, let alone that "withholding socialization" from them can be seen as abusive as well.

But some families abuse in ways that there are no gray areas about, such as families that intentionally leave their girls in the dark because they do not believe women have rights, or that use their older children to enforce punishment and be free babysitters under the guise of "homeschooling". These are pretty clearly abusive.

There was an uptick in abuse cases when children had to stay home as a result of the pandemic. The problem with these stats is that there are so many factors going into them that it's hard to say for certain any specific thing that makes the abuse more likely. Particularly big contributors include the stress of trying to juggle everything added with the fact that just being around someone more often increases the likelihood of abuse. These are two things that homeschooling can fall prey to.

So again, it's really a case-by-case thing.

The major problem is there isn't, and never was, a one-size-fits-all solution on education. That's why a lot of parents choose to homeschool - because their children are not succeeding in a formal public classroom as a result of needing something different than what is being presented to them. This is what a lot of parents with kids who have disabilities have to wrestle and contend with. In the same vein the lack of regulation of education can allow all the negative aspects to flourish. We see the same thing in public schools.

I'm not sure how things are run in other countries, maybe they have figured out something we haven't (which is very likely, considering the amount of things we are so far behind in).

But for the most part, what you've heard is true, it's just not always true for all homeschooled kids.

mod BP

#homeschooling #school #education #student rights #family #teaching #familial abuse #parental abuse #parenting #parents #schooling

[wartakes]

Three Conflicts to Keep an Eye On (OLD ESSAY)

This "essay" (its another listicle really) was first posted on August 11th, 2021 when I was struggling for ideas in the Summer doldrums.

Honestly, this one is a little dated now and maybe even OBE but still useful for looking at some of the situations we're in today (and for checking to see how accurate or not I was) so it may still be worth reading now.

(Full essay below the cut).

You don’t have to look far today to see either an ongoing violent conflict with significant impact, or a tense situation that could very quickly turn into such a conflict. War continues to rage in Yemen, Ukraine, Syria, and Afghanistan (though at the rate the Taliban is advancing at the writing of this piece, it may not be going on much longer), causing mass upheaval, hardship, and other repercussions throughout their respective regions. Meanwhile, other geopolitical points of contention have the potential to turn to bloody conflict under the right circumstances in the coming years, such as a Russian invasion of the Baltic States or escalation of their invasion of Ukraine, a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan or more territory in the South China Sea, a war with the United States, Israel, and their respective allies against Iran over its nuclear program or regional ambitions, or the ever-recurring threat of war or instability emanating from North Korea – just to name a few.

However, between these conflicts and other global stressors like the effects of climate change, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and much more, it’s easy for other conflicts to fall beneath the radar of most people until they finally become bad enough to be noticed. Conflicts involving countries that may not capture attention in the same way that China, Russia and the other usual suspects do. Conflicts that are no less important, but that people who aren’t gigantic nerds about this kind of stuff (like me) may not be spending a lot of time thinking about, if at all.

So, this month, I wanted to do a quick around-the-horn on three of what I think are some of the most important conflicts or potential conflicts to keep an eye on in the near future due to how bad they could get and the potential impact they could have on their respective regions and the rest of the world. This list is by no means all-inclusive, and I thought about adding more, but I decided to keep this installment to a tight three because I felt these three have been the ones most pressing in my mind lately that have not had as much coverage in the news. I also wanted to flesh each of them out a bit more than I could have done with a bigger list (and also, frankly, because I’m wiped and the thought of writing any more pre-emptively exhausted me). I may follow this up sometime in the near future with additional conflicts for the list and I’ll likely make this a recurring segment as conflict map of the globe continues to shift and morph.

For now, though, let’s begin:

1. Burma (Myanmar)

Years of perceived progress towards democratization in Burma (officially renamed “Myanmar” by the previous military junta) came crashing down in February 2021. The political party of former dissident and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had just maintained their majority in November 2020 elections after being swept into power in the 2015 elections – the first free and fair elections in the country since the de jure dissolution of the previous military junta in 2011 (one of two successive military governments that had ruled Burma since 1962).

However, as it often goes, the election of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy had not immediately fixed all of Burma’s persistent issues. Under the new government, Burma’s long-time persecution of minority groups within its border persisted – including actions that the United Nations has called crimes against humanity and even genocide against the Rohingya people. Despite elections, the military still maintained significant influence over politics and wished to maintain it. When the party they backed failed to regain control of the government in the 2020 elections, military denounced the election as illegitimate due to fraud – a claim that was rejected by the country’s electoral commission on January 29th, 2021.

It was only a few days after the military’s claims were rejected in the courts that it decided to change the situation by force, launching a coup de tat and deposing the government. It arrested Suu Kyi and other members of her government and inner circle, initially charging her under trumped-up offenses of violating the country’s COVID-19 emergency regulations before unveiling more serious charges weeks and months later, including violating the country’s official secrets act and bribery. The coup and arrests almost immediately resulted in mass protests against the military that are still ongoing at the time of writing this essay. The natural inclination of the military has been to respond with violence, which has predictably only toughened resistance to them. As of July 19th, the activist group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners estimated that at least 914 people had been killed by security forces since the coup.

As the military continues to crack down on protests and the possibility of non-violently rolling back the coup fades, many protestors and activists have resorted to taking up arms to defend themselves, or even with the intent of removing the military from power by force. There’s already been reports of attacks by newly organized opposition groups on military and security forces in recent months. This is in addition to the already existing, long-running internal armed conflicts within Burma between the military and rebel forces associated with multiple different minority groups, which the military has reportedly stepped up its attacks against following the February coup. Some of the existing ethnic rebel forces have reportedly offered their assistance and support to newer anti-coup forces, which raises the possibility of a more expansive armed front against the military and a wider war should one break out.

Six months on from the coup, neither the military nor opposition forces show any signs of wavering. The conflict has even taken on an international dimension, with a alleged plot to assassinate Myanmar’s UN Ambassador who is one of multiple officials and diplomats who have opposed the coup and the junta (the junta denies all involvement in the plot). The longer this struggle goes on, the greater the likelihood of more open and intense conflict going forward – a possibility that neighboring regional powers like India, China and others will almost certainly take an interest in when it comes to their own interests as well as regional stability.

2. Ethiopia

It was only in 2019 that Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the Nobel Peace Prize after successfully negotiating a peace with long-time adversary and former internal-subject Eritrea. Just a year later, Abiy was going to war against his own people.

The origins of this conflict come from actions Abiy took the same year as his Nobel Prize win, consolidating several regional and ethnic-based political parties into a new political party under his leadership. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front – which has a checkered authoritarian past, its old coalition having previously dominated Ethiopian politics for some thirty years – refused to join the new party after having been ousted by Abiy from its role as leader of the previous governing coalition a year prior. The TPLF accused Abiy and his government of being illegitimate after postponing August 2020 elections due to COVID-19, and went on to hold its own regional elections in September in defiance of the federal government.

The federal government initially responded by declaring these elections illegal, following that up with a build-up of military forces – along with regional paramilitary forces from the Ethiopian region of Amhara – on the Tigray border. The political conflict suddenly escalated to a military one on November 4th, 2020, when the TPLF launched a series of coordinated surprise attacks on multiple Ethiopian National Defense Force bases throughout the region, overrunning several units, capturing weapons and equipment, and even taking thousands of ENDF troops prisoner.

In the weeks that followed, the ENDF appeared to regroup and retake the initiative. On November 28th, the ENDF entered the Tigray capital of Mekelle as the TPLF withdrew. Riding high on this apparent victory, Abiy declared that Ethiopia had “completed and ceased the military operations in the Tigray region” (a statement that did not remind me of anything else I had ever seen in that context before). He then proceeded to impose a large-scale communications and media blackout on the restive region. Information on what was happening in Tigray became hard to come by for the next eight months as a result, with little activity being seen.

The communications blackout – along with Abiy’s claim of the war being over – was shattered when the TPLF launched a counter-offensive in June, retaking the regional capital of Mekelle. The dramatic reversal of fortune was one of several factors that no doubt influenced the Abiy’s government into declaring a unilateral ceasefire following the ENDF’s withdrawal from Mekelle.

What the TPLF’s June counter-offensive has made clear is that any hopes the federal government had of this conflict being short and decisive are now long gone. The unilateral cease fire appears to be unravelling, with the TPLF occupying parts of fellow Ethiopian regions Afar and Amhara and both the federal government and Amhara’s regional government threatening counter-offensives of their own against the TPLF. Abiy has called upon “all capable Ethiopians” to join the war effort against the TPLF, accusing foreign powers of supporting them. Blames and recrimination for various offenses have gone back and forth between the factions. This bodes ill for a conflict that, less than a year in, has already exacted a heavy toll. The war has reportedly displaced some two million people and placing thousands under famine conditions as the conflict keeps them from being able to plant new crops. The death toll is hard to pin down with competing claims from both sides but is likely in the thousands – many of those civilians, including children, as well as aid workers.

The fresh TPLF incursions and the reactions to them threaten to widen the war beyond Tigray itself and engulf more of Ethiopia into violent conflict. As the federal government relies increasingly on regional paramilitary forces in an effort to regain the initiative in the conflict, it may only further entrench and even worsen the regional and ethnic politics that Abiy intended to extinguish when he undertook the political initiative that contributed to the outbreak of war in the first place. Meanwhile, the TPLF is not without allies of its own apparently, for just today as I post this essay the Oromo Liberation Army – another armed force in Ethiopia based around the Oromo, the largest single ethnic group in the country – has apparently allied with the TPLF with the stated aim of overthrowing Abiy’s government by force, despite past differences between the two. Any hopes of de-escalation now appear to be solidly in the rear-view mirror as the regions and ethnic groups of Ethiopia stake sides in this growing conflict.

3. Lebanon

Lebanon – like the other countries on the list – is no stranger to conflict. Its brutal, 15-year long, multi-sided civil war was both a hotspot for intervention and competition between regional powers, as well as in the wider Cold War between East and West. Even with the official end of that civil war in 1990, Lebanon has still been subjected to recurring violence of all stripes – from both outside and within its own borders – as well economic instability, political corruption and deadlock, and a whole host of other adverse conditions.

However, all of these stressors have been intensified over the last year, starting with a massive explosion that occurred around a year ago on August 4th, 2020, when hundreds of tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrite exploded in the capital city of Beirut’s port, causing mass destruction and the death of over 200 people. Since that explosion, things only seemed to have worsened in Lebanon. The country is in the midst of one of the world’s worst economic collapses, with the costs of essential supplies rising dramatically while the country’s money simultaneously drops in value almost as quickly. Not that there’s many essentials to buy, with things like food, fuel, and medicine all in short supply. Blackouts and power cuts can last so long that you may only get one hour of power a day if you can’t afford a generator and fuel for it. Many have left the country in search of relief and better opportunities, while those forced to stay find day to day life more and more difficult.

It appears now that things may be coming to a head with Lebanon’s current crisis, with the frustration and anger over Lebanon’s ills naturally finding form as violence. On August 9th, three people were killed in disputes over fuel supplies. Police and protestors clashed on the one-year anniversary of the Beirut explosion, when protestors attempted to storm the main building of Lebanon’s parliament. Just three days prior to that anniversary, five people were killed at a funeral procession for a Hezbollah member – who had himself been killed only the night before. Violence, never far from the fore in Lebanon’s tumultuous political environment, appears to be returning as the situation in the country continues to deteriorate.

Hezbollah itself is another point of contention that could lead to additional violence. The Shia Islamist paramilitary organization which is closely aligned to Iran has been a powerful force in Lebanese politics since its founding during the Lebanese Civil War, and in many ways is a state and a military unto itself within Lebanon. It has clashed multiple times with Israel since its creation, most recently in the last few days, launching fresh rocket attacks across the border between Lebanon and Israel after Israel declared it would respond against Iran for a fatal drone strike against an Israeli owned tanker (the latest in an ongoing, shadowy tanker war between the two countries). This has brought the predictable Israeli  military response in the form of large scale artillery barrages, with muscular threats of further escalation by newly-minted Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – as well as promises of further retaliation by Hezbollah on their part.

Ruther rifts and conflict between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanon may also be a concern amidst the specter of renewed war with Israel. On August 10th, the country’s President condemned criticism of the patriarch of Lebanon’s Maronite Christian community after he made comments encouraging the military to confront Hezbollah and halt its rocket attacks against Israel. Between Israel, Hezbollah, a corrupt, ineffectual, and entrenched political and security establishment, an economy in free fall, and many other ails, Lebanon isn’t lacking in potential sparks to set alight the tinder of a fresh conflict. If a new war does break out, the bigger question may be whether the new war would be as chaotic, bloody, and long-lasting as the previous civil war was, and whether it would be as much of a hotspot for competition and proxy fighting among both regional and great powers on an increasingly tense global stage.

And many, many more… As I said before, this list is by no means all-inclusive. I have other conflicts in mind that I could talk about after these three and I almost certainly will cover them in the future. Likewise, I know with everything else going on in the world, these may be the last things in the world anyone wants to think about.

But, part of the reason I started writing here is because I wanted to make sure folks in my political neck of the woods (as it were) are a bit more aware when it came to international relations and war and things of that nature, so I offer this initial list of three conflicts to keep an eye on with the intent of arming you with knowledge and being more aware of a shifting international landscape that can and will touch your life somehow at some point – and that actions that you or your government take could also affect them. My intent isn’t to bum you out at the state of the world and the fact it could get much worse quickly, but to keep you in the know and better equip you for what may happen and the potential impacts that could have. Ok, that came more self-important and lecture-y than I intended it too but I’m not sure how to word it any better. Just know my heart and brain are in the right place here. Promise. Lacking any better way to wrap this up: thanks for reading and see you again for next month’s essay.

#essay #War Takes #War Takes Essay #leftism #leftist #socialism #democratic socialism #international relations #IR #national security #national defense #international security #foreign policy #foreign affairs #military intervention #war #civil war #internal conflict #Ethiopia #Myanmar #Burma #Lebanon

[orossii]

hi! first of all, love you blog and your artwork is wonderful! secondly, i don't really have anyone to discuss this with, so i thought, i might as well bother a stranger on the internet. i recently came across dmitry orlov, a russian-american analyst-writer-blogger. while i disagree with him on a lot of things, he has rather sharp humor (the title of this post alone sure is something) and a strong conviction that the us is going to collapse a-la the soviet union, probably even worse. such predictions are usually met with an eye-roll, and i made a "pfft" sound and rolled my eyes as well. but then i come across an article stating that 50% of the respondents in the us expect no less than a civil war (!) in just a few years. where did this come from? is it just uber-maga people or what? along with other things, this type of info makes me scratch my head. what do you think?

thank you so much for the kind words and this ask @haissitall! i'm always open to messages and questions, though I can be a little spotty when it comes to answering sometimes. i'm unfamiliar with dmitry orlov but what i'm seeing of his work is very interesting so i'll try to backread some of his articles and keep up with his work going forward.

i found his article where he outlines the indications that the US is close to collapse and agree with them completely. the one i found was published in 2018 too, before the ukraine proxy war and the economic devastation and political polarization that exploded during COVID had even happened yet. i don't make the claim that i'm a geopolitical or economic expert by any stretch, but from my sort of above average level of understanding i think the US is absolutely in a state of free fall that i can't see taking much longer than another couple of years or so to really become fully apparent domestically. i'm going to put this reply under a cut because it ended up being pretty long. sorry for the text wall, this is just something i've wanted to put into words for a while now and you gave me an excuse to do so lol

so. the US dollar has been, up until recently, the world's reserve currency, meaning that much of international trade is reliant on a country having large amounts of US dollars in order to buy and sell goods internationally. from what i understand, this means that the US can leverage predatory loans against the global south via the IMF, whose terms entail that they agree to devastating economic austerity measures and buyouts of their national industries if they're to survive. this means that the US can plunder these countries for its own financial gain while also outsourcing domestic labor for a fraction of the cost. as a result of the US's heavily financialized imperialist economy, industry (and the skilled labor jobs that accompany it) have largely left the country, and our domestic economy now revolves around finance

to put that another way, americans that used to benefit from well-paying industrial jobs found themselves growing rapidly poorer as the reagan era delivered the death blow to labor unions and the subsequent flight of american industry to the global south made the domestic economy increasingly reliant on jobs in disposable, low-paying unskilled labor positions in the service industries, tech, and non-productive professional-managerial positions like doctors, office workers, and teachers. this means that the US working class had less economic power over the means of production, effectively crushing most of the working class's leverage to demand reforms or wage revolution against the ruling class of capitalists who derive their income from finance

this new, defanged working class is entirely dependent on the ruling class for their day to day survival. the cost of living is dramatically disproportionate to the income of most american families, so in order to pay for things like houses, cars, healthcare, education, and various day to day expenses, we have to take on predatory loans with high interest rates. this, in turn, allows the big banks to extract much of the meager wealth earned by the working class in order to enrich themselves exponentially. due to the endlessly greedy nature of capitalism, every year the working class grows poorer and more disenfranchised as the cost of living increases and the ruling class devises new ways to squeeze pennies out of people who are already largely a missed paycheck or two away from not being able to pay their bills

part of this form of capitalism's leverage over the working class is what's referred to in marxism as the reserve army of the unemployed-- this is a pool of unemployed workers that can be selected from at the ruling class's leisure in order to quickly fill vacancies in these poorly paying unskilled or low-skilled job positions. when workers are easily replaceable they'll do whatever they can to hold onto employment even if it means tolerating poor working conditions, low pay, and insufficient benefits. homelessness and incarceration is the implicit threat that keeps this neo-feudalist engine oiled and the people obedient

when a large proportion of the population is poor and the standard of living declines every year for people of the so-called middle classes, you naturally have a lot social instability that emerges. which is where the culture war comes in. i don't think it's a coincidence that the race to more deeply distinguish the cultural ideologies of the republican and democratic parties coincided with american de-industrialization. the ruling class needed to create a sort of good cop-bad cop dynamic for the people to project their angst onto. if you're a democrat, you're expected to blame the republicans for your ever-increasing misfortune, and the inverse is true of republicans. they advance intentionally divisive and increasingly drastic cultural positions that are guaranteed to repel a certain target subsection of the population while pairing that position to the core belief system of another subsection of the population. races are decided by where politicians stand on cultural issues such as abortion or gun rights, and while those issues are of course relevant to public consideration, both parties are united in advancing the economic interests of the imperial rent-extracting finance capitalists that fund their campaigns in relatively equal measure, depending on who is currently in power

there's a strong incentive to deepen the culture war every year, because the same messaging doesn't work forever. they have to create new fronts and inflame rhetoric more and more in order to hold peoples' interests. as a result, you end up with a population that's extremely individualistic, highly ideological, and loaded with contempt for other people within their class. they're so busy calling the other side fascist that they fail to realize that they're already living in a fascist country that's upheld by neo-feudalist and neo-colonial rent extraction policies as well as non-stop war and political interference abroad. in congress, neither side is able to concede to one another or agree on anything of substance so the only thing that really gets passed is funding for the US war machine

this is the domestic context the US is working with at the same time it started to realize that new economic rivals to its hegemony were starting to emerge. china in particular is set to surpass the US as the wealthiest country on earth within five years or so because of the unprecedented buildup of their productive industrial capacity that the US itself invested in because of the immediate promise of cheap outsourced labor. russia is a massive oil-producer with enough oil supply to easily provide europe with an alternative to more expensive US-owned oil, which was the purpose of the now-destroyed nordstream pipelines. iran is rich in a number of resources including oil and natural gas and serves as a military counter-balance to US domination over the middle east

the US, being almost completely de-industrialized and totally reliant on extraction from its imperial subjects in the global south for its industrial production, absolutely 100% can not under any circumstances tolerate the existence of a competitor to its highly aggressive foreign trade strategy. china and russia aren't without fault of course, but they've historically engaged in relatively straightforward, equitable trade with the leadership of the global south. they bring in affordable commodities while investing heavily in local infrastructure in order to increase domestic industrial capacity by providing them with resources and education on how to build and maintain their own factories and railways. they also don't meddle in their political affairs with assassinations and media manipulation, impose unpayable debt on developing nations, or use the threat of military intervention to coerce them into unfair trade deals. russia even helped syria, a key russian trade partner, militarily fight off US-backed forces seeking to overthrow its government, which would have happened were it not for their assistance

in the 20th century the US employed a divide and conquer strategy to pit the soviet union and china against one another to prevent them from forming a bloc, but by targeting russia, china, and iran all at the same time, they've catapulted all three into an iron-clad alliance that the US has no way of disrupting. the supremacy of the US dollar is falling rapidly as the neocons that run our foreign policy realize that they underestimated russia's economic resilience that comes with being an industrial power. the sanctions they imposed after goading russia into a military intervention in ukraine only hastened the emergence of a new multipolar world order that is already serving as a far more attractive counterbalance to the mafia-style US-led international order

i was utterly shocked by how little time it took for one-time US lapdogs turkey, india, and saudi arabia to start jumping ship and turning toward the eurasian axis. the EU and NATO states (aside from Turkey) have proven themselves to be total puppets to the interests that rule the US empire and are voluntarily de-industrializing themselves by cutting themselves off from russian oil all at once, and de-militarizing themselves all at once by sending all of their military infrastructure to ukraine to be blown up by the russian military. this is utterly catastrophic for the US. the global south is oriented more and more toward the russia-china-iran axis the longer the US drags out this unwinnable proxy war that it paradoxically can't afford to lose

europe is going to collapse without the russian oil needed to keep its industry and the US will be close behind. the US empire's capacity to maintain the hundreds of expensive military bases that pepper the globe will decrease dramatically when it can no longer rely on a constant inflow of imperial rents from a newly industrializing global south. the eurasian and eurasian-aligned countries will benefit from cheap and abundant energy while the european and american people will face a full scale economic disaster. people will freeze to death in winter, lose their houses and life savings, struggle with rampant food shortages. i feel like the US will probably try to re-industrialize, it seems like biden's nodding in that direction, but it would be impossible to do so in time for a collapse that in my largely uneducated opinion will probably be here in the next three to four years, if that, given how already pushed to their limits the people were at the start of this thing. no idea what happens from there. it'll be a total fucking nightmare but will ultimately, in my view, precipitate the re-industrialization and gradual socialist development of the west. i'm not looking forward to it but it needs to happen, the US empire is well beyond its expiration date and the slaughter has to end

if you'd like to read more about this from people i keep up with, i'd start with michael hudson and garland nixon. the above is a poor articulation of their analysis along with various others, so if you want to get it from the source, i'd start with them. i remember being profoundly impacted by this piece by michael hudson when i was still getting my bearings re: the ukraine proxy war, i think it's a good jumping off point

#imperialism #asks

[andiessoccerblog]

Group E Breakdown

Expected to move on: USA, Netherlands

Expected to exit in group stage: Portugal, Vietnam

United States

See this Post! https://www.tumblr.com/andiessoccerblog/721584664034361344/uswnt-roster-drop-june-30-2023?source=share

Netherlands

FIFA Ranking: 8

Reputation:

The Netherlands won the 2018 Euros and reached the final of the 2019 World Cup, but in 2022 they dropped from 4th place to 8th place in the FIFA world rankings. This is a result of a team who has a solid base, but suffers if its stars are not available. Some of their strongest players aren’t playing at their best any more, and their extremely capable goalie from 2019, Sari Van Veenendaal, has retired, leaving huge shoes to fill. Additionally, the coach that led them to the 2019 World Cup final has since taken a job at England, leaving the team in the hands of less-experienced and very recent addition, Andries Jonker. Their most important game in the group will be the repeat of the 2019 final, Netherlands v. USA, where the Dutch walked away with silver.

Player Pool:

Netherlands’ stars from the 2019 World Cup are in the team’s midfield: Lieke Martens and Danielle Van de Donk. I would normally include Vivianne Miedema, but she was ruled out of the tournament with an ACL injury. The team will need to rely on veterans Sherida Spitse (captain), Shanice van de Sanden, and Jill Roord to pull them past the group stage.

2019 WWC Performance: 

The Netherlands skyrocketed into the final this year, winning their group and finding results in every game in the elimination round, except for the USA. Their game against Sweden went to extra time, but they showed the grit and talent to make it to the final.  They had an impressive number of goalscorers, with the top being Vivianne Miedema, and the goalie Sari Van Veenendaal won the tournament’s Golden Glove award, and is my Netherlands MVP.

Portugal

FIFA Ranking: 21

Reputation: 

It will surprise most people that Portugal is also a World Cup debutante–they are the highest FIFA-ranked debutante team– their inclusion this year is due to one of the extra European confederation spots in the expanded field. Despite never having qualified, Portugal has been a staple in the women’s game for years as they host the Algarve Cup, a yearly international invitational tournament that is considered a “Mini World Cup” that has run since 1994– making it the second longest running women's soccer tournament, other than the World Cup itself. Portugal will likely beat fellow debutante Vietnam in their group, but will likely not find results in games against the USA and the Netherlands, the gold- and silver-medalists of the 2019 World Cup.

Player Pool:

Portugal has several veteran players with over 100 caps, but there isn’t a front-runner that has scored massive amounts of goals for the country. FIFA pinpoints Dolores Silva as the player to watch, a dynamic midfield veteran that scored a couple goals in their path to qualify for 2023. 

2019 WWC performance:

Did not qualify

Vietnam

FIFA Ranking: 33

Reputation: 

After narrowly missing out on both the 2015 and 2019 World Cup, Vietnam finally qualified for 2023, and followed up their qualification by winning the 2023 Southeast Asia Playoffs, in which fellow debutante the Philippines didn’t make it out of their group. To help the growth of women's soccer in their country, there is a semi-professional league  that almost all of the players are in.  An interesting twist in their qualification is that some of their games were against Asian teams that were still suffering substantial player unavailability due to covid–but Vietnam’s luck ran out when the country got placed in this group with the USA and the Netherlands. 

Player Pool:

Since almost all of the team plays domestically, there isn’t a lot known about the team. Captain Huỳnh Như and midfielder Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Dung are the leading scorers.

2019 WWC performance:

Did not qualify

#woso #uswnt #womens soccer #women's world cup #nwsl #world cup #wwc 2023 #vietnam #portugal #nedwnt #netherlands

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

We finally know who bailed Rep. George Santos (R-NY) out of jail—despite the beleaguered congressman claiming he’d rather go to jail than give up their names.

Court documents unsealed Thursday revealed that Santos’ father and aunt put up the $500,000 bail bond that allowed Santos to walk free after his arrest by federal authorities last month.

While only their signatures appeared on the unsealed document, a source close to the matter confirmed their names as Gercino dos Santos Jr. and Elma Santos Preven.

Gercino, Santos’ father, lives in New York and previously worked as a house painter, according to The New York Times.

Santos’ father and aunt both donated thousands to his congressional bid, according to federal elections data. Preven’s social media accounts reflect a particular interest in Brazilian politics, as she has posted material critical of the country’s left-wing President Ignacio Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and supportive of his far-right foe and predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. A United States Postal Service worker, she owns properties in both Queens and in Brazil.

“My family & I have made peace with the judges decision to release their names,” Santos tweeted on Thursday afternoon. “Now I pray that the judge is correct and no harm comes to them.”

Prosecutors have accused Santos of running a scheme to defraud political donors, cheating the federal government out of COVID-19 relief funds, and even faking disclosure forms during his campaign for a Long Island congressional seat. The Justice Department indicted him in May on 13 counts that include money laundering, stealing public money, wire fraud, and making false statements to Congress. Santos pleaded not guilty to all those charges, calling the case a “witch hunt.”

“I’m going to fight my battle, I’m going to deliver, I’m going to fight the witch hunt, I’m going to take care of clearing my name, and I look forward to doing that,” he told reporters massed outside the court last month.

Santos surrendered to authorities at a Long Island courthouse on May 10. His suretors—the people who bailed Santos out of jail that day—stepped in to cover his $500,000 bond, but not before Santos’ defense team moved to have their identities redacted from public court filings.

Since then, Santos and his lawyers have fought tooth and nail to keep those names out of the public eye, citing perceived threats to their physical safety and emotional well-being.

“There is little doubt that the suretors will suffer some unnecessary form of retaliation if their identities and employment are revealed,” attorney Joseph Murray wrote in a June 5 letter to Judge Anne Y. Shields. He added that Santos would rather have the parties withdraw their support and await his trial in jail “than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come.”

In that same letter, Murray claimed that one of Santos’ suretors backed out after witnessing the “media frenzy” around the case.

The identity of Santos’ mystery benefactors drew the interest not only of the news media but also the House Ethics Committee, which wants to evaluate whether receiving the bail bond breached congressional rules on receiving gifts.

Media outlets had asked Judge Shields to unseal the names of Santos’ benefactors, to which she agreed in a June 6 order. Santos immediately appealed. When that move failed this week, Judge Joanna Seybert slated the reveal for Thursday at noon.

In the unsuccessful appeal, Murray countered claims that Santos violated House ethics rules by revealing that the bail money came, at least in part, from members of Santos’ family.

The court also unsealed a protective order on Thursday that will keep discovery materials confidential, a common procedure in criminal cases.

Santos first gained notoriety when a New York Times investigation revealed that he had lied his way into office, fabricating practically his entire resume. Since then, most of his life story—from his religious background to his mother’s death to his volleyball skills—has been exposed as fraudulent.

State and local entities, as well as authorities in Brazil, have since pursued criminal probes. Democrats in Congress have pushed for his expulsion, while Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has declined to support his re-election bid.

“I think he has other things to focus on in his life than running for re-election,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol.

But Santos hasn’t wavered on his plans to run again for New York’s 3rd congressional district in 2024, even as his legal troubles pile up.

#us politics #news #the daily beast #republicans #conservatives #gop #rep. george santos #george santos should resign #george santos probe #Gercino dos Santos Jr. #Elma Santos Preven #bail bonds #The New York Times #new york #Judge Anne Y. Shields #Joseph Murray #Judge Joanna Seybert #brazil #2023

[raimagnolia]

Mastpost for Direct Action: Resources To Recieve Aid Or Host (explaining why both formal and informal organizations exist)

Someone made a post about this before, but adding on to this https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/0kcalsugarbabe/688499006016520192

1. Stay up-to-date

Trigger laws are already being fought off and delayed by state judges, which is still allowing women to get abortions, some as late as 15-weeks.

Ex. https://href.li/?https://www.axios.com/2022/06/27/abortion-louisiana-trigger-law-lawsuit-roe

As I've said before, helping someone g_ c_mping is a viable option especially in states with protective laws put in place for these specific reasons.

Ex. https://www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2022/06/25/walz-issues-executive-order-on-reproductive-health-following-supreme-court-ruling

Edit: This is especially relevant if you're a minor. I'm so sorry for y'all, but it's a whole other ball of wax when it comes to getting an abortion while having a minor status, since often it'll be required of you to produce a signature of your parent/guardian or get a waiver.

2. Check their social media. This is a part of the vetting process that even networks use like WRRAP, and should go both ways (both by host and people looking for one)

3. Any research into these areas should be done with VPN (a lot of people use Express or 12) and a browser like duckduckgo.

4. Ask Abortion Funds for Financial Help if Required. As people have outlined before, SOME abortion funds can help you get to the clinic by giving you a ride or paying for a bus ticket and hotel depending on your situation: https://abortionfunds.org/

But If You Can't For Any Reason And Need A Ride remember to follow the earlier instructions to keep both yourself and a volunteer safe.

5) To people who wish to host women, yes, there are posts already about formal and informal groups ( I share them below). It's preferable for you to live near an airport/abortion clinic. You can offer home-stays or help women book hotel rooms depending on your states COVID policies for fresh arrivals (but remember there would be a risk in helping to assist in these bookings; that's why the abortion fund provides services of taking the legal risk).

Reasons volunteers offer home-stays by the way...is because depending on the abortion clinic procedure, hotel stays can run up to hundreds of dollars. I looked around my area, for example, and a proper hotel (not bug-infested motel, bc these women have got enough problems to deal with as is) and it's the same deal.

The woman who began the "camping" euphemism is herself someone who had to travel across statelines for an abortion; decades older and more knowledgeable than most of us on this website, and yes, has now a team of volunteers that are offering the services to help women get their abortions (Not posting the name directly here obviously for safety reasons) It always starts somewhere. Something small that grows larger with time. Direct action that spreads into a coordinated movement.

That is why on Tumblr you might hear of informal groups like one of my friends is a part of like "The Aunties" that will help you out: "A modern-day adaptation of underground abortion networks that helped people access care when the procedure was illegal, the Auntie Network stands alongside formal organizations like the Brigid Alliance and the National Network of Abortion Funds that coordinate travel and remove financial barriers to getting abortions." ​

The Brigid Alliance supports individuals who are seeking an abortion and are currently 15 weeks pregnant or more, and they're able to cover your costs and transportations if you set up appointments at their clinics: https://brigidalliance.org/need-support/ (currently in five states)

The Abortion Fund Network offers over 50 practical support organizations across the country: https://apiaryps.org/pso-list (Covers 41 states)

These limitations are also why the informal groups exist-- it's in efforts of covering all bases. ​(NOT of fighting each other for Christ's sake)

Advice from people already on the ground who have decades of experience in this: https://www.kunc.org/2022-06-29/some-californians-are-prepping-to-host-visitors-who-seek-abortion-access

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/04/reddit-auntie-network-abortion/ ​

Volunteer form for reproductive health organizations: https://wrrap.org/get-involved/volunteer/volunteer-form/

Find an abortion fund and offer a hand in volunteering: https://abortionfunds.org/funds/ ​

Edit: Find assistance as a minor (there are more complicated legalities in place for needing reproductive health care as a minor) and someone went into it more on their post here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/bitchesgetriches/688620891405418496?source=share

And just an additional tag on, protests in your area: https://map.wewontgoback.com/

#Reproductive rights #pro choice #Abortion rights #Resources #the supreme court #Direct Action

[neonpigeons]

I wish travelling with a pet would be easier. I feel like it used to be? I think a bunch of the rules changed with covid 19. I just want to visit my mom in NYC but I don't want leave Noodle here because I'm very attached to him (and vice versa) and my dad and roommate don't really give a shit about him.

he's 30 pounds now so I can't take him in the cabin of the plane and putting him in cargo is expensive and seems incredibly cruel. honestly I'd be willing to just buy an extra seat for him if possible but I don't think they allow it. I can't take him on an Amtrak train because the limit for them is also 20 pounds and only on trips less than 7 hours and it would take a lot more than 7 hours to go from california to new york.

really my only other feasible option would be to drive but that would mean a minimum driving time of 43 hours (if I were to just drive nonstop with no sleep or anything). over 2800 miles. and I'd have to drive through some shitty states. I really wish my mom hadn't decided to just up and move across the country and leave me with my dad, who can barely take care of himself. really fucking sucks.

#i know you're probably thinking ''oh just leave the dog'' but he would be so upset and honestly i would be very upset too #i don't want to resent her for this cuz this is also my fault I could've gotten my life together and moved out #my brother did that. he lives in texas. my sister lives in north carolina. they're functional adults #everybody just fucking left and im just stuck and im much more upset about this than i thought #i feel like utter shit right now it's so stupid!!!! im so so so unhappy. just constantly. always. #i don't know what to do with myself or anything #im sorry if you read all of this i just really needed to vent because im going to explode otherwise #i was supposed to visit her at the end of may but then noodle happened and he was still a baby #so my friend visited her without me and that fucked me up too #now i haven't seen her since january when i had to officially say goodbye #ari speaks #i don't think I've ever been so miserable in my entire life. and im on medication that's supposed to help with this #but i guess i literally can't cope with anything