#and almost all the rest are either social democratic or democratic socialist

[tanadrin]

Nepal has *four* different Communist parties in its parliament.

#lol #and almost all the rest are either social democratic or democratic socialist #Nepalese politics is complicated

[awesomerextyphoon]

A Warrior’s Heart | Phase 1: Welcome – 3

A Hero’s Welcome?

Summary: When someone with a connection to Steve’s past dies, he’s reminded of the promise he made to Dr. Erskine and whether or not he’s failed. Can Ife help him see that he hasn’t?

Characters: Steve Rogers, Ifekerenma ‘Ife’, Abraham Erskine (mentioned), Marlene Erskine (mentioned), Nick Fury, Eliza Maza, Azeneth Ramirez

Main Pairing: Stucky x Black!OFC (Ifekerenma ‘Ife’)

Rating: 18+/Explicit

Word Count: 5,801

Warnings: Depression, Talk of Death, Slightly Cynical Steve, Politics, Smutty Thoughts

A/N: I’m sorry that this so long. I really wanted to try something different with Erskine and the time around CA:TFA. Also, I wanted to explore how Steve would be feeling right after AoU (little bit of a downer, but it will get better). Furthermore, this story will diverge a bit from MCU in terms of Steve’s and Bucky’s abilities. Feedback is welcomed and greatly appreciated. Dividers were by the lovely @firefly-graphics​. Thanks to @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​ for the beta!

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Early June 2015

“What do you have to report, Ifekerenma?”

Ife pursed her lips together,”Wanda is doing well with her training. Djamila and Nazaret had some sung her praises during their first session.”

It took a few days to convince the team and Fury to let her friends train Wanda. Luckily Nat had her back and Wanda was able to show the compound how much she improved from what Ife was able to teach her. Unfortunately, Azeneth was unable to make it due to being tied up with a BNA mission and relocating to the NYC division.

“That’s good to hear. Have you made made any progress with the others?”

Ife’s eyes casted down in thought. Vision was a no-go for now. Pietro was warming up to her, but he thought she was still suspicious (wasn’t wrong). She didn’t want to try Rhodey yet (too close to Tony). Nat was..difficult; she’ll try again later.

“I’m going to try Steve next. He seems like a safe bet, even with the serum. Hopefully, he won’t catch before it’s time. I will need Erskine’s folder though.”

Eliza’s lips turned upward in a small smile, “Agreed. I’ll have it sent to you within the hour. Best of luck, Ife.”

And with that, Ife got dressed and headed towards the common room.

  Steve leaned back and clasped his hands together behind his head in thought and vexation.

The 21st century must be fucking with him.

Right after Operation ‘Captain Briar Rose’, Steve went to Brooklyn. He could barely find any trace of his old neighborhood. The apartment complex where he and his mother lived was now a ritzy condominium with a Starbucks on the ground level.

All of the places he’d go with Bucky were now soulless veneers filled with empty promises of ‘happiness’ or ‘self-esteem’.

He remembered the time Bucky bailed him out of yet another beating by Arnie and his gang back in 1928. His mother berated him for getting in yet another fight while Bucky’s mom laughed and treated them to ice cream from the local sweets parlor. Bucky’s sisters – Rebecca, Rose, and Annabelle – were making a fuss and bursted out in giggles when Annabelle got ice cream in Bucky’s hair. It was one of the best days that year.

A T-Mobile now stands in its place.

All of his friends and comrades save Bucky and Peggy are dead; he nearly bawled in the middle of briefing when found out that Timothy ‘Dum Dum’ Dugan died and had a cry alone in his quarters afterwards.

Felt shitty about the current state of the country. It seemed as though everything has gotten worse. He found out about the Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Wars. How income and wealth inequality has somehow gotten as bad as, if not worse, than the Gilded Age. Corruption has turned DC and NYC into dog and pony show.

He was furious at all of the politicians and corporations that wanted him to endorse them or their actions. They wanted Captain America’s helmet and shield to mask their heinous acts. They were the same if not worse than Senator Brandt.

Some days Steve wished SHIELD let him stay in the ice. Even worse, there were days he felt that Captain America was for an America that never was.

Nowadays, he felt even more like an anomaly.

It started when he got out of the ice. He felt a lot stronger and faster; only Thor knew the extent of it and he has to hold back a lot when fighting for fear of government asking for more of his blood. Though he suspected Ife and Natasha might be onto him.

He was a lot hungrier than before he went on ice as well. Often time, he would have late night ‘dinners’ (now it's every night), To be honest, he was a bit embarrassed at how much he ate, though the thought of pinning the blame on Ife did cross his mind. It wouldn’t work due to Ife almost never eating with the team and Sam said that he would know if Ife was the culprit. Steve suspected that Ife has been using her connections to restock the food between when he retired to his quarters and before the rest of the team came for breakfast. Also, she kept leaving him fun pop culture facts and media recommendations for the night.

Steve didn’t feel he could go to Dr. Cho since he doubted she had anything to go on in his case.

He did wonder if Ife could help him. She seemed to like helping the team and she was knowledgable about Non-Humans. Wanda’s rapid improvement in her powers and control bolstered his decision.

Sighing, Steve sat up straight in his chair and picked up the letter he received that morning. Marlene Philomena Erskine had passed away and he was invited to her funeral.

It was sad to have yet another link to his past slip from his grasp.

  Steve was finishing up another book to fight off his jitters. It was the night before the operation and he needed to have a few moments of respite from the war.

He was so engrossed in what he was reading that he failed to notice Dr. Erskine entering.

Erskine, for his part, was eyeing several books in Rogers’ makeshift bookshelf: They Odyssey, Of Mice and Men, Murder on the Orient Express, Tender is the Night, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Homage to Catalonia, and To Have and have Not.

“What do you think of the book?” Erskine asked as he sat across the startled recruit.

“Just finished. Y’think it wise to get buzzed before a major operation, sir?” Steve noted when he saw the bottle and two shot glasses on the bed.

Erskine chucked, “Calms my nerves a bit. What did you think of the book?”

Steve pressed his lips together for a moment, “It was a good read. The book had a lot of good points for something written eleven years ago.”

“What truths?”

“Well, for one thing, how technology is used to make the populace happy, but not better. The World Government found a way to get people to willingly trade self-expression, self-awareness, and their happiness for cheap happiness and comfort. Makes you wonder if the US was next, you know?”

Erskine was taken aback by his answer. It was much deeper than most of commanding officers gave if they even read the book.

Though that last sentence was interesting.

“What do you mean next?”

“Isn’t that what happened in Germany?”

Erskine sighed, “Yes and no. Most people here think Hitler came out of nowhere, but he didn’t. Not everyone in Germany was for WWI. There was a 100,000 person march in Berlin, but it didn’t matter since the Social Democratic Party failed to rise to the occasion and went along with war effort. Many were scapegoated for Germany failure, Matthias Erzberger for instance.”

“What about the Weimar Republic?”

Once again, Erskine was taken aback by Steve’s knowledge, “Weimar Germany was a great place to be creative, curious, and make new discoveries. I met my wife, Greta, in Berlin during that time. I made a lot of friends, friends I had to leave behind.”

Erskine frowned as his face darkened,”The terrible thing, my friend, was not that Hitler was dangerous, it was that either people didn’t take him as the threat he was or they wanted to use him for their own ends. The cops and judges sympathized with the Nazi Party to get one over the Socialists and Communists. Industrialists wanted to make money off of the Nazis getting into power. Even the German and International newspapers didn’t cover him with the urgency required.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Ja, and it almost happened here, didn’t it?”

Steve nodded in reference to the America First movement and the German American Bund. He still remembers getting the crap beaten out of him by the Silver Shirts when he spoke out against them a few years ago.

“So why did you choose me?”

“I suppose that is the best question.” Erskine admitted while glancing at Steve’s bookshelf, “What do you think of the Odyssey?”

Steve shrugged, “The adventures were fun, but they were just fantasy.”

“They may not be, Mein Freund. How old do you think I am?”

“Uh, mid sixties?”

Erskine laughed, “You’re too kind. I will be 94 this September,” he smiled noting Steve’s shock, “Things are not always as they seem. I come from a long line of ‘healers’ dating back to before Rome. One of them was able to ‘make a man more’. They inspired me to go into this profession.”

“Making super soldiers?”

“Medicine and bio-chemical engineering.”

“Oh”

“Did you know that you will not be first to undergo this?”

“Who was?”

“His name was Konrad Jager. He was a lot like you: small, frail, but had a great deal of courage and compassion. He was willing to fight Nazis in the streets knowing he’d lose. One day in 1930, his parents begged me to save him as the doctors had given up all hope.

I was woking on a serum that would make the body impervious to all diseases rather than wait for the next outbreak to occur. I thought it would propel the medical field.

The trial worked and he was healed. He became much taller and broader in size as a result.”

Erskine pulled out a picture of himself next to a tall, well-built young man.

“That’s Konrad isn’t it?”

“Yes. I was able to help eight more people through the earlier version of the serum. All but one turned out well.”

“What happened to the one?”

“Ah yes, Eren Kant. He was a shy young man before the serum, but then became more like Hodge: a philander, arrogant, and bit of a bully with a temper. He ‘grew too big for his britches’ as one would say and was arrested by the Munich police. He let his arrogance blind him and he escaped in a way that intrigued Der Fuhrer and was taken to Berlin soon after. By this time, rumors had spread of my work and the Nazis were anxious to be the ‘best of the Aryans’. They were able to get my whereabouts from Eren and sent Schmitt to fetch me, but I was already on my way to Switzerland when he reached my home.”

“How did he get you?”

Erskine slightly jerked his head to the side and back, “A year prior to my attempted escape, I met a man in Geneva who warned of the dangers that lied in Berlin. He gave me his card if I needed to escape. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have waited so long before I made the phone call. I was tipped off by an old colleague of Eren entering Nazi custody.

Everything was set. My family and I were to enter Switzerland by crossing Lake Constance. We made it to Meerburg and the lake was in sight when Schmitt and his agents cut us off.

Schmitt believed that there was a power left behind by the gods. He believed himself to be a leader of a new race of men. He wanted me to ‘perfect the serum’, make him stronger than Eren. He had my children, Klaus and Marlene, taken to the outskirts of town as insurance implying that they would be sent to Dachau if I should fail.

I stalled for as long as I could hoping Schmitt would forget about me, but it was not meant to be. A few years after I was taken hostage, Schmitt stormed into my lab and pointed a gun to Greta demanding I give him the serum.”

“Did it make him stronger than Eren?”

“It did, but it had...side effects. The serum was not ready. Schmitt’s skin turned red and his face became so disfigured that Hitler called him the Red Skull. He killed Greta with his bare hands,” Erskine wiped away a few tears, “and ordered Marlene and Klaus to be sent to Dachau while I was banished to the dungeons.

Fortunately, Agent Carter and the SOE were able to save Marlene and myself. Though Klaus sacrificed himself when the agents could only save one of them.”

“Your son is a hero.”

“I only wish I could’ve told him that myself. But, back to your original question. I chose you because, like Konrad, you are a weak man. You see, the serum amplifies everything; good becomes great and awe-inspiring, bad becomes worse and a nightmare. Men who are strong their entire lives often do not value strength and abuses it. However, a weak man who is compassionate and brave will use it to help others. You were chosen because you had the aforementioned virtues and because you use your mind.

The world does not need perfect soldiers, look where that has gotten us. No, what we need right now are good men.”

Erskine poured out two shots and gave a glass to Steve.

Steve raised his glass, “To the little guys.”

The liquor was just about to touch his lips when Erskine snatched the glass from him, “What are you doing? You have an operation tomorrow. No fluids.”

Steve chuckled as Erskine bid him farewell and good luck tomorrow.

  Ife found Steve in the Common Room hunched over a chair with a letter in his hands. Emotional echoes of gloom came off in waves as she approached him.

“Whatcha looking at, Steve?”

When Steve didn’t respond, she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, “What’s wrong?”

Steve finally turned to Ife, “I received an invite to a funeral. It’s for Marlene Philomena Erskine, Dr. Abraham Erskine’s daughter.”

Ife nodded in understanding; he feels that he failed Marlene by not protecting Dr. Abraham Erskine.

But in fact, he didn’t fail her.

She lived quite the life for a human.

Not long after her father’s assassination, Marlene became a badass mechanical engineer and physicist. Her designs and schematics for transportation vehicles and energy storage/distribution gave the colonizer nations a fighting chance during the Wars Against Colonialism.

Though part of it was because the UA was a little cocky at that point. Marlene sure lit a fire under their ass! Ife can still hear her Aunt Eziamaka pouting at the news of one of UA bases nearly falling into their control.

Marlene’s assistance with the war effort didn’t last long as her gratitude towards the people who saved both her and her father wasn’t enough to overlook the Military’s treatment of some her colleagues.

Her life from there was pretty standard. She became a professor at MIT, got married and had a few kids.

BNA took her off the ‘humans of special interest’ list in 1971.

Thinking back on it, Marlene may have had a better life by her father not making it past WWII.

Though Ife thought it would be wise not to mention this to Steve.

“When is the funeral?”

Steve didn’t raise his head, “It’s in a week.”

“In that case, might I accompany you?”

“Yes...and thank you.”

“No Problem! See you later.” Ife wrapped her arms around him in a quick hug and went on her way leaving Steve slightly bewildered.

  Steve didn’t know what to make of Ifekerenma.

She was always asked the team how they were feeling at what seemed to be the right moment. Shoot, she even talked to custodial staff that few of ever acknowledge. Compassionate to nearly everyone, especially the child hostages during the last mission.

She’s nerdy to the point of Sam jokingly calling her a weeb (anime lover?) when she walked around in an oversized Cowboy Bebop t-shirt once. Wanda mentioned a ‘digital friend’ in her room and caught her mentioning how slow Stark’s tech was much to the amusement of team at Tony’s expense.

Steve’s certain Nat sent Clint a video of the whole thing.

Also, she was what Sam called a ‘Supreme Chef’. He contently patted his midsection remembering the feast she prepared for the team last night. Her cooking would’ve put some of Stark’s gourmet chefs to shame. She asked the team what they liked and she ended up having to create a dinner rotation. Steve was especially touched when she went to an antique bookstore for a recipe that was close to what his mother would’ve made for him.

Furthermore, she would leave out little homemade treats/ snacks at night. Pietro and Sam would sneak some when they thought no one was looking. She even giggled when he accidentally let out a huge belch after an amazing dinner a couple nights ago saying it’s a sign of thanks on her home planet, Avlenia.

Ife always called him Steve; not ‘Captain’ or ‘Cap’ or even ‘Good ol’Century Virgin’ (damn it, Tony!). She never made light of him ‘taking an ice nap’ or asking him about the 1940s in a demeaning way like some reporters and ‘little upstarts on social media’. Somehow, Ife found out about his love of drawing and got him art supplies with a list of recommended artists

She made him feel more like a person and not a symbol or a far off figure who’s emotionless.

Steve felt warm whenever he was around her in a way not unlike Bucky or Peggy though much more like Bucky. She seemed to sense that he was desperate to truly be seen in way that only Sam and sometimes Nat has.

It also didn’t hurt that she was a total knockout. He had the, ahem, pleasure of seeing her out of her uniform and training outfits a few times. She usually wore clothes that were more on the modest side...except for that one time when she wore a Sailor Moon crop top and high-waisted shorts as a dare from Nat. Half of the compound was staring and Steve spent most of the day in his quarters nursing a hard on he was so aroused.

And yet, Ife was one of the toughest women he knew; even Nat was a little scared of her (at least, he thinks). She might be the strongest person physically and she doesn’t take shit from people who badmouth her or the team; Agent Roussel learned that the hard way.

All in all, Ife was...something else, someone he wanted to get close to.

  The day of Marlene’s funeral started out well enough.

Ife spent the early morning making Sam’s request of cinnamon rolls, sausage, omelettes, waffles, and hash browns since he won the raffle of Vision’s turn as he doesn’t eat.

She was handing out everyone’s first servings (didn’t care what happened afterwards) when she felt Steve’s emotional echoes of depression, melancholy, and despair noting how his eyebrows furrowed and how tense his body language was.

She just hoped she could get to him.

  Steve was walking to garage hoping his outfit wasn’t too much.

Nat somehow convinced him into wearing a Highbridge Black Custom Suit with an Eastley Dobbey Blue Shirt, a Black Solid Tie, a Navy Blue Pocket Square, and Ink Black Dress Shoes.

He ‘upped the swoon dial’ as Nat put it. Could’ve sworn he heard Sam snickering.

Steve reached the entrance hoping not to keep Ife waiting when he heard clicking of heels behind him.

He turned around to find Ife looking almost unearthly.

She was wearing a black Ankara (?) dress with a cape that was black on the outside and golden on the inside with various blue, silver, and khaki rectangle clusters. Her hair was mostly contained in a wrap with a few strands framing her lovely face. Her full, plump lips were coated in a Light Plum (?) Matte Lipstick and she wore minimal gold eye shadow.

Her outfit did a splendid job of hinting at her voluptuous curves without needlessly flaunting them like the women who throw themselves at him at press tours.

Ife smiled at him and asked which car were they taking.

Steve motioned to one of the Black SUVs and the two of them strapped in for the three hour car ride.

  Ife sighed and gazed out the window at the scenery. Neither one of them had said anything in the past twenty minutes. Steve wasn’t a fan of most of the music that’s on the radio despite Sam’s best efforts. Ife had to break out her puppy dog eyes to get him to let them listen to some instrumental music from her favorite movies.

It seemed that they weren’t going to say anything until Steve cleared his throat.

Ife, not wanting to suffer in silence, decided break it, “How did you know Marlene?”

Steve raided his eyebrows for a split second, “I didn’t. I just feel like I should pay my respects, you know? I mean, I should attend the daughter of the man I failed’s funeral.”

The last sentence struck a chord with Ife. Emotional echoes of despair hit her like a tsunami.

Tentatively, Ife continued, “How did you fail Erskine?”

“I-I don’t think I’ve fulfilled my promise to him. The country has changed so much since I was on ice. It’s funny; I thought that Brave New World would only have a one of two aspects come to life, but I didn’t see nearly the whole book being right.”

Ife didn’t argue with the last two points. The US was nothing but a never-ending commercial sometimes. People were too busy being ‘happy’ or trying to get the newest thrill to realize that they were living in a sham of a republic.

Though she was concerned about the first sentence.

“What was the promise you made to Erskine? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Steve turned slightly, “To be true to who I am; a good man, not a perfect soldier. To be more like Konrad.”

Ife nodded musing on his answer. Erskine would want everyone he helped to be a good person considering the dangers of such power.

Though she wondered if she knew Dr Abraham’s full history.

Abraham Erskine came from a long line of Homo Magis who specialized in Alchemy . He turned to science when it was clear that his magical powers would never manifest (being only 1/16 Homo Magi). Erskine started working on what would become the Super Soldier Serum in 1920 after the witnessing the horrors of WWI firsthand as a medic.

He made a breakthrough in 1927 when he found what looked to be an old power cell in the attic of his childhood home. Turns out it was a modified Atlantean battery dating back to the 1600s, but whatever.

Konrad Jager was the first of nine volunteers; most of whom went on to fight in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades and be part of the German Resistance’s Special Forces during WWII.

Needless to say, they were recruited into BNA’s European Division.

Only Eren Kant was deemed a failure in the end.

Ife shook her head at the info in Erskine’s folder.

Eren was pompous dumbass who broke himself out jail by bending/breaking the bars of his cell after getting arrested for being a player and bully by the Munich Police in August of 1935. His show of superhuman strength got Erskine’s work onto the Hitler’s radar. BNA had to send a cleaner to ‘handle’ Eren before he could get everyone in even more trouble.

She wondered if Konrad and the others would make an appearance.

“What do mean by not staying true to yourself?”

Steve sighed, “It seemed a lot easier to do so in my time.”

Ife wanted to go further, but she couldn’t. Steve was punishing himself up for something he couldn't control and it was tragic.

She hoped that she could actually help him, not for the mission, but for himself.

  They arrived at the venue twenty minutes early. Steve was trying (failing) to fix his tie while Ife was looking as glamorous and poised as can be.

Sensing Steve’s unease, she gave his hand a comforting squeeze, “You’ll do fine,” she whispered as she fixed his tie while not trying inhale his delicious natural scent like a creep (again).

“Let’s go inside.”

  Everyone seemed to stop what they were doing when they entered the venue. Though Ife had to hand it to the guests; no one asked Steve for an autograph or a selfie. She noted several BNA officials and a couple of Earth-based Non-Human big wigs in attendance.

Guess Marlene was popular.

“Ife!” Azeneth shouted as she strode over to from a corner and enveloped her in a hug.

“Azeneth, how are you? I didn’t think you would be back from Mexico City so soon.”

“Well, the mission was short and they wanted me in New York to accompany Eliza here. Now, who is this fine gentleman, Ife?” Azeneth queried while Steve started shifting uncomfortably.

“This is Steve Rogers, one of my new teammates and Ca-”

“Captain America. I know, Ife. I was jesting.”

Ife sighed dramatically while rolling her eyes, “Steve, this is Azeneth. She’s one of my best Earth-based friends.”

“Kickass friend.” Azeneth corrected, “How are you liking Ife? She’s not too much trouble.”

“Stop it, ‘Aze!” Ife playfully hit Azeneth’s shoulder, “Feel free to ignore her, Steve.”

“Hmm, no. I don’t think I will, especially after the stunt you pulled on the first day at the compound.”

Azeneth burst out laughing at Ife’s shocked expression and Steve’s sly grin. She probably would’ve kept goin if not for Eliza cutting into their conversation.

“Excuse us, Mr. Rogers. I’ll have to speak with Ife for a moment. My name’s Eliza Maza, by the way.”

  Once they were out of Steve’s line of sight (Azeneth was keeping him busy), Eliza activated a noise canceller.

“So did anyone die in the attack on the Magic Council?” Ife asked as she made sure Steve wasn’t looking at them.

“No one was harmed, but several books are missing from the library.”

“Shit! Okay. Well, would Dr. Strange be available to assist Wanda with her training? Wong and Nazaret are at the Sanctum and he said that he knew of some spells that could help.”

“I’ll look into it. I should have an answer in a week”

“Okay.”

“Ife, please give me a call when you get back to the compound.”

Ife eyed Konrad Jager, Gregor Eisenberg, Sonje Decker, and Lukas Denhart making their way to Steve. She hoped they weren’t going to drop an info bomb on him today.

“I will.”

  The service was short and sweet as Marlene didn’t want everyone to be bored to tears on her behalf. The crowd got a laugh out that joke.

Afterwards, Marlene granddaughter, Zahara, requested if Steve could stay for a bit. She gave him a beautifully wrapped package.

“My grandmother wanted you to have this. She saw you fighting in the Battle of New York and knew you would know what to do with it.”

“It would be an honor, Miss.”

  Ife thought about her earlier conversation with Steve on the say back. She realized what’s happened to Steve was heartbreaking.

Here was a man who gave up everything for a country that only wants him as a cudgel for their heinous deeds. Someone who, if he hadn’t fallen into the ice, would’ve probably been ruined by the same country he swore to protect. They would’ve labeled him as a communist and destroyed his good name for not immediately getting on board with the next war.

To be honest, Ife didn’t think much of Steve before joining the team. She thought he was just the banner boy for colonizers to feel good; he was the reminder of that brief moment when the US was totally the bad guys (totally being the operative word).

But now?

She saw the toll the helmet and shield had on him. Ife doubted he knew that he was going to be alive for awhile judging how neither Konrad or the others aged a day since they received Serum 1.0 and Steve supposedly got one that was at least 3x as powerful.

She wanted to comfort him somehow, but she was lost on what to do.

When she got back to the compound, she gave Steve a hug and went straight to her quarters to call Eliza.

“Eliza. I can’t do this by myself, and if we’re going to pull this off, I’m going to need some serious backup because the Avengers need some serious help.”

  Fury was going through some mission reports when he heard a knock on his door.

“Come in.”

Oddly enough, Ife was the one to enter the room and not Maria Hill.

“Good Evening, Fury. I have someone who would like speak with you.”

“Well, give me a name and contact info and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Actually,” Ife reached in her pocket for a disc, “I can do you one better.”

Ife tossed the disc into the air and a moon-door portal formed from it. Out came Eliza, Azeneth, and Angela in her gargoyle form.

Eliza gave Ife a quick nod and turned to Fury, “Good Evening, Nicolas Fury. My name is Eliza Maza and we’re from the Bureau of Non-Human Affairs or BNA. I would advice that you lower your weapon. It won’t do you a lick of good,” Fury lowered his gun,” Good. Put Maria Rambeau on speaker, we need to talk.”

  -Somewhere in France-

 Maeve was enjoying her brunch while watching the footage of Eliza officially making contact with new SHIELD and SWORD.

“Well, it looks like it’s time to ‘get the band back together’ as the kids would say.” She chirped to the woman across the table.

“That expression pretty much died in the 90s. No ‘kid’ uses that phrase anymore.” Koronis deadpanned.

Maeve scoffed, “Anyone born after 1800 is a ‘child’ to me. This is what I get for trying not to sound like ‘an old hag’ as you put it.”

“Well, is everything on track?”

Koronis, or Carol, closed her eyes for few seconds, “I see nothing standing in our organization’s way. However, we should have the meeting sooner rather than later.”

“Duly noted. Anything else?”

“The new variable, Ifekerenma, will be more useful to our plans than I originally anticipated.”

“Oh, I do love surprises! I mean, I know how it will end, but I still like to be at least a little surprised. I knew it was a good idea to let Klaue be discovered by Ultron in Istanbul!”

Another woman walked up to the pair,”You wanted to see me, Mistress?”

“Yes. Svetlana, call the others. It’s time to put our plan into high gear. Hell’s Moon is upon us.”

  Steve was having a shitty birthday.

The press was pestering him about the presidential election. Several outlets have called him a sellout and a coward for not endorsing anyone.

He was figuring out the best way to take a shower and hit the hay in less than 30 minutes when he found a beautifully written note taped to his door.

It said to come to Ife room wearing his best dancing clothes.

Ten minutes later, Steve knocked on her door and it instantly opened to reveal a modest dancing hall not unlike the ones he went to with Bucky before the war.

He was so lost in thoughts admiring the place that he failed to notice Ife hovering a few feet from him.

“Happy Birthday, Steve! How do you like it?”

Steve turned to see Ife in a knee-length golden yellow African Wax Print Ankara dress with cold shoulders, ruffled sleeves, and a v-neckline. He didn’t miss the modest view of her cleavage or how her legs looked oh, so smooth in the dress.

Ife, for her part, was super nervous about this. Nat said that people went to dance halls all the time in the late 1930s and 1940s and it took her five days to get the architecture, the music, and the lighting just right.

She hoped that Steve wouldn’t be angry with her.

Steve looked incredibly handsome in his simple dress shirt and slacks. His powerful shoulders, thick biceps, trim waist, and beefy thighs were accentuated by the lighting which made him look like he was glowing.

Ife would’ve drooled if she knew that he didn’t like it when most women would throw themselves at him.

“It’s amazing. Thank you.”

“I’m sorry about the dress. I couldn-”

Steve raised a hand to stop her from going off on a tangent,”You look beautiful.”

Ife felt a flurry of warmth in her core at the compliment.

“So, what would like to do?”

Before Steve could answer, Duke Ellington’s Don’t Mean a Thing starting playing.

Steve stretched out his hand, “Would you like to dance?”

Ife took his had and they glided onto the dance floor.

“Where did you learn to dance?”

“Bucky’s mom made us learn when Bucky started getting attention from the girls at school. She thought it best that we knew how to treat them to a good time.”

“I see,” Ife giggled, “Then she was wise to make take the lessons. Though I’m more familiar with the jitterbug.”

Steve chuckled as they resumed swinging. He hummed a bit as they danced to Ella Fitzgerald, Caro Emerald, Jo Stafford, Billie Holiday, and Gene Krupa.

Ife was impressed with Steve’s dancing skills. What were those women thinking passing him up like that?!

After a couple more rounds of dancing, the music shifted to something more modern but not (it was Howl’s Moving Castle’s Main Theme) , the colors on the walls and ceiling brightened, and several chandeliers formed on the ceiling.

Steve gave Ife a slightly confused look and asked her if she would like to try a waltz this time.

The song lasted a little more than five minutes. Steve was somehow able to lead their movements in sync with the song.

Ife felt her body was aflame with gentle yet commanding touches Steve was giving her. He even lifted her a few times making her feel as though she was flying with how gently he held her.

They were absorbed in their own world they either failed to notice or ignored Nat and Wanda entering Ife room to see if they could have another spa day. Nat even got a few pictures of the two dancing.

Steve gave Ife one last life during the climax and pulled her in when the music came to a close. They were about to come in for a kiss when Ife pressed her lips together and back away.

“We should probably retire for evening. Goodnight, Steve.”

Steve’s shoulders slumped in defeat, but left Ife’s room with a simple goodnight with Nat and Wanda in tow.

Ife frowned. She knew Steve wasn’t in the best place for a relationship and her conscience wouldn’t let her take advantage of that.

#steve rogers #steve rogers x ofc #stucky #stucky x ofc #mcu imagine #avengers imagine #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers imagine #mcu smut #mcu fanfiction #black fanfiction #black fantasy #steve rogers angst #steve rogers fluff #marvel au #a warrior's heart #mcu #alternate history #captain america #captain america angst #captain america fluff #steve x black!reader #steve x ofc

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

The New Nihilism

It feels increasingly difficult to tell the difference between—on one hand—being old, sick, and defeated, and—on the other hand—living in a time-&-place that is itself senile, tired, and defeated. Sometimes I think it’s just me—but then I find that some younger, healthier people seem to be undergoing similar sensations of ennui, despair, and impotent anger. Maybe it’s not just me.

A friend of mine attributed the turn to disillusion with “everything”, including old-fashioned radical/activist positions, to disappointment over the present political regime in the US, which was somehow expected to usher in a turn away from the reactionary decades since the 1980s, or even a “progress” toward some sort of democratic socialism. Although I myself didn’t share this optimism (I always assume that anyone who even wants to be President of the US must be a psychopathic murderer) I can see that “youth” suffered a powerful disillusionment at the utter failure of Liberalism to turn the tide against Capitalism Triumphalism. The disillusion gave rise to OCCUPY and the failure of OCCUPY led to a move toward sheer negation.

However I think this merely political analysis of the “new nothing” may be too two-dimensional to do justice to the extent to which all hope of “change” has died under Kognitive Kapital and the technopathocracy. Despite my remnant hippy flower- power sentiments I too feel this “terminal” condition (as Nietzsche called it), which I express by saying, only half-jokingly, that we have at last reached the Future, and that the truly horrible truth of the End of the World is that it doesn’t end.

One big J.G. Ballard/Philip K. Dick shopping mall from now till eternity, basically.

This IS the future—how do you like it so far? Life in the Ruins: not so bad for the bourgeoisie, the loyal servants of the One Percent. Air-conditioned ruins! No Ragnarok, no Rapture, no dramatic closure: just an endless re-run of reality TV cop shows. 2012 has come and gone, and we’re still in debt to some faceless bank, still chained to our screens.

Most people—in order to live at all—seem to need around themselves a penumbra of “illusion” (to quote Nietzsche again):—that the world is just rolling along as usual, some good days some bad, but in essence no different now than in 10000 BC or 1492 AD or next year. Some even need to believe in Progress, that the Future will solve all our problems, and even that life is much better for us now than for (say) people in the 5th century AD. We live longer thanx to Modern Science—of course our extra years are largely spent as “medical objects”—sick and worn out but kept ticking by Machines & Pills that spin huge profits for a few megacorporations & insurance companies. Nation of Struldbugs.

True, we’re suffocating in the mire generated by our rule of sick machines under the Numisphere of Money. At least ten times as much money now exists than it would take to buy the whole world—and yet species are vanishing space itself is vanishing, icecaps melting, air and water grown toxic, culture grown toxic, landscape sacrificed to fracking and megamalls, noise-fascism, etc, etc. But Science will cure all that ills that Science has created—in the Future (in the “long run”, when we’re all dead, as Lord Keynes put it); so meanwhile we’ll carry on consuming the world and shitting it out as waste—because it’s convenient & efficient & profitable to do so, and because we like it.

Well, this is all a bunch of whiney left-liberal cliches, no? Heard it before a million times. Yawn. How boring, how infantile, how useless. Even if it were all true... what can we do about it? If our Anointed Leaders can’t or won’t stop it, who will? God? Satan? The “People”?

All the fashionable “solutions” to the “crisis”, from electronic democracy to revolutionary violence, from locavorism to solar-powered dingbats, from financial market regulation to the General Strike—all of them, however ridiculous or sublime, depend on one preliminary radical change—a seismic shift in human consciousness. Without such a change all the hope of reform is futile. And if such a change were somehow to occur, no “reform” would be necessary. The world would simply change. The whales would be saved. War no more. And so on.

What force could (even in theory) bring about such a shift? Religion? In 6,000 years of organized religion matters have only gotten worse. Psychedelic drugs in the reservoirs? The Mayan calendar? Nostalgia? Terror?

If catastrophic disaster is now inevitable, perhaps the “Survivalist” scenario will ensue, and a few brave millions will create a green utopia in the smoking waste. But won’t Capitalism find a way to profit even from the End of the World? Some would claim that it’s doing so already. The true catastrophe may be the final apotheosis of commodity fetishism.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this paradise of power tools and back-up alarms is all we’ve got & all we’re going to get. Capitalism can deal with global warming—it can sell water-wings and disaster insurance. So it’s all over, let’s say—but we’ve still got television & Twitter. Childhood’s End—i.e. the child as ultimate consumer, eager for the brand. Terrorism or home shopping network—take yr pick (democracy means choice).

Since the death of the Historical Movement of the Social in 1989 (last gasp of the hideous “short” XXth century that started in 1914) the only “alternative” to Capitalist Neo-Liberal totalitarianism that seems to have emerged is religious neo-fascism. I understand why someone would want to be a violent fundamentalist bigot—I even sympathize—but just because I feel sorry for lepers doesn’t mean I want to be one.

When I attempt to retain some shreds of my former antipessimism I fantasize that History may not be over, that some sort of Populist Green Social Democracy might yet emerge to challenge the obscene smugness of “Money Interests”—something along the lines of 1970s Scandinavian monarcho-socialism—which in retrospect now looks the most humane form of the State ever to have emerged from the putrid suck-hole of Civilization. (Think of Amsterdam in its heyday.) Of course as an anarchist I’d still have to oppose it—but at least I’d have the luxury of believing that, in such a situation, anarchy might actually stand some chance of success. Even if such a movement were to emerge, however, we can rest damn-well assured it won’t happen in the USA. Or anywhere in the ghost-realm of dead Marxism, either. Maybe Scotland!

It would seem quite pointless to wait around for such a rebirth of the Social. Years ago many radicals gave up all hope of The Revolution, and the few who still adhere to it remind me of religious fanatics. It might be soothing to lapse into such doctrinaire revolutionism, just as it might be soothing to sink into mystical religion—but for me at least both options have lost their savor. Again, I sympathize with those true believers (although not so much when they lapse into authoritarian leftism or fascism)— nevertheless, frankly, I’m too depressed to embrace their Illusions.

If the End-Time scenario sketched above be considered actually true, what alternatives might exist besides suicidal despair? After much thought I’ve come up with three basic strategies.

1) Passive Escapism. Keep your head down, don’t make waves. Capitalism permits all sorts of “lifestyles” (I hate that word)—just pick one & try to enjoy it. You’re even allowed to live as a dirt farmer without electricity & infernal combustion, like a sort of secular Amish refusnik. Well, maybe not. But at least you could flirt with such a life. “Smoke Pot, Eat Chicken, Drink Tea,” as we used to say in the 60s in the Moorish Church of America, our psychedelic cult. Hope they don’t catch you. Fit yourself into some Permitted Category such as Neo-Hippy or even Anabaptist.

2) Active Escapism. In this scenario you attempt to create the optimal conditions for the emergence of Autonomous Zones, whether temporary, periodic or even (semi)permanent. In 1984 when I first coined the term Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)

I envisioned it as a complement to The Revolution—although I was already, to be truthful, tired of waiting for a moment that seemed to have failed in 1968. The TAZ would give a taste or premonition of real liberties: in effect you would attempt to live as if the Revolution had already occurred, so as not to die without ever having experienced “free freedom” (as Rimbaud called it, liberte libre). Create your own pirate utopia.

Of course the TAZ can be as brief & simple as a really good dinner party, but the true autonomist will want to maximize the potential for longer & deeper experiences of authentic lived life. Almost inevitably this will involve crime, so it’s necessary to think like a criminal, not a victim. A “Johnson” as Burroughs used to say—not a “mark”. How else can one live (and live well) without Work. Work, the curse of the thinking class. Wage slavery. If you’re lucky enough to be a successful artist, you can perhaps achieve relative autonomy without breaking any obvious laws (except the laws of good taste, perhaps). Or you could inherit a million. (More than a million would be a curse.) Forget revolutionary morality—the question is, can you afford your taste of freedom? For most of us, crime will be not only a pleasure but a necessity. The old anarcho-Illegalists showed the way: individual expropriation. Getting caught of course spoils the whole thing—but risk is an aspect of self-authenticity.

One scenario I’ve imagined for active Escapism would be to move to a remote rural area along with several hundred other libertarian socialists—enough to take over the local government (municipal or even county) and elect or control the sheriffs & judges, the parent/teacher association, volunteer fire department and even the water authority. Fund the venture with cultivation of illegal phantastice and carry on a discreet trade. Organize as a “Union of Egoists” for mutual benefit & ecstatic pleasures—perhaps under the guise of “communes” or even monasteries, who cares. Enjoy it as long as it lasts.

I know for a fact that this plan is being worked on in several places in America—but of course I’m not going to say where.

Another possible model for individual escapists might be the nomadic adventurer. Given that the whole world seems to be turning into a giant parking lot or social network, I don’t know if this option remains open, but I suspect that it might. The trick would be to travel in places where tourists don’t—if such places still exist—and to involve oneself in fascinating and dangerous situations. For example if I were young and healthy I’d’ve gone to France to take part in the TAZ that grew around resistance to the new airport—or to Greece—or Mexico—wherever the perverse spirit of rebellion crops up. The problem here is of course funding. (Sending back statues stuffed with hash is no longer a good idea.) How to pay for yr life of adventure? Love will find a way. It doesn’t matter so much if one agrees with the ideals of Tahrir Square or Zucotti Park—the point is just to be there.

3. Revenge. I call it Zarathustra’s Revenge because as Nietzsche said, revenge may be second rate but it’s not nothing. One might enjoy the satisfaction of terrifying the bastards for at least a few moments. Formerly I advocated “Poetic Terrorism” rather than actual violence, the idea being that art could be wielded as a weapon. Now I’ve rather come to doubt it. But perhaps weapons might be wielded as art. From the sledgehammer of the Luddites to the black bomb of the attentat, destruction could serve as a form of creativity, for its own sake, or for purely aesthetic reasons, without any illusions about revolution. Oscar Wilde meets the acte gratuit: a dandyism of despair.

What troubles me about this idea is that it seems impossible to distinguish here between the action of post-leftist anarcho-nihilists and the action of post-rightist neo-traditionalist reactionaries. For that matter, a bomb may as well be detonated by fundamentalist fanatics—what difference would it make to the victims or the “innocent bystanders”? Blowing up a nanotechnology lab—why shouldn’t this be the act of a desperate monarchist as easily as that of a Nietzschean anarchist?

In a recent book by Tiqqun (Theory of Bloom), it was fascinating to come suddenly across the constellation of Nietzsche, Rene Guenon, Julius Evola, et al. as examples of a sharp and just critique of the Bloom syndrome—i.e., of progress-as-illusion. Of course the “beyond left and right” position has two sides—one approaching from the left, the other from the right. The European New Right (Alain de Benoist & his gang) are big admirers of Guy Debord, for a similar reason (his critique, not his proposals).

The post-left can now appreciate Traditionalism as a reaction against modernity just as the neo-traditionalists can appreciate Situationism. But this doesn’t mean that post-anarchist anarchists are identical with post-fascism fascists!

I’m reminded of the situation in fin-de-siecle France that gave rise to the strange alliance between anarchists and monarchists; for example the Cerce Proudhon. This surreal conjunction came about for two reasons: a) both factions hated liberal democracy, and b) the monarchists had money. The marriage gave birth to weird progeny, such as Georges Sorel. And Mussolini famously began his career as an Individualist anarchist!

Another link between left & right could be analyzed as a kind of existentialism; once again Nietzsche is the founding parent here, I think. On the left there were thinkers like Gide or Camus. On the right, that illuminated villain Baron Julius Evola used to tell his little ultra-right groupuscules in Rome to attack the Modern World—even though the restoraton of tradition was a hopeless dream—if only as an act of magical self-creation. Being trumps essence. One must cherish no attachment to mere results. Surely Tiqqun’s advocacy of the “perfect Surrealist act” (firing a revolver at random into a crowd of “innocent by-standers”) partakes of this form of action-as-despair. (Incidentally I have to confess that this is the sort of thing that has always—to my regret—prevented my embracing Surrealism: it’s just too cruel. I don’t admire de Sade, either.)

Of course, as we know, the problem with the Traditionalists is that they were never traditional enough. They looked back at a lost civilization as their “goal” (religion, mysticism, monarchism, arts-&-crafts, etc.) whereas they should have realized that the real tradition is the “primordial anarchy” of the Stone Age, tribalism, hunting/gathering, animism—what I call the Neanderthal Liberation Front. Paul Goodman used the term “Neolithic Conservatism” to describe his brand of anarchism—but “Paleolithic Reaction” might be more appropriate!

The other major problem with the Traditionalist Right is that the entire emotional tone of the movement is rooted in self-repression. Here a rough Reichean analysis suffices to demonstrate that the authoritarian body reflects a damaged soul, and that only anarchy is compatible with real self-realization.

The European New Right that arose in the 90s still carries on its propaganda—and these chaps are not just vulgar nationalist chauvenist anti-semitic homophobic thugs—they’re intellectuals & artists. I think they’re evil, but that doesn’t mean I find them boring. Or even wrong on certain points. They also hate the nanotechnologists!

Although I attempted to set off a few bombs back in the 1960s (against the war in Vietnam) I’m glad, on the whole, that they failed to detonate (technology was never my metier). It saves me from wondering if I would’ve experienced “moral qualms”. Instead I chose the path of the propagandist and remained an activist in anarchist media from 1984 to about 2004. I collaborated with the Autonomedia publishing collective, the IWW, the John Henry Mackay Society (Left Stirnerites) and the old NYC Libertarian Book Club (founded by comrades of Emma Goldman, some of whom I knew, & who are now all dead). I had a radio show on WBAI (Pacifica) for 18 years. I lectured all over Europe and East Europe in the 90s. I had a very nice time, thank you. But anarchism seems even farther off now than it looked in 1984, or indeed in 1958, when I first became an anarchist by reading George Harriman’s Krazy Kat. Well, being an existentialist means you never have to say you’re sorry.

In the last few years in anarchist circles there’s appeared a trend “back” to Stirner/Nietzsche Individualism—because after all, who can take revolutionary anarcho-communism or syndicalism seriously anymore? Since I’ve adhered to this Individualist position for decades (although tempered by admiration for Charles Fourier and certain “spiritual anarchists” like Gustave Landauer) I naturally find this trend agreeable.

“Green anarchists” & AntiCivilization Neo-primitivists seem (some of them) to be moving toward a new pole of attraction, nihilism. Perhaps neo-nihilism would serve as a better label, since this tendency is not simply replicating the nihilism of the Russian narodniks or the French attentatists of circa 1890 to 1912, however much the new nihilists look to the old ones as precursors. I share their critique—in fact I think I’ve been mirroring it to a large extent in this essay: creative despair, let’s call it. What I do not understand however is their proposal—if any. “What is to be done?” was originally a nihilist slogan, after all, before Lenin appropriated it. I presume that my option #1, passive escape, would not suit the agenda. As for Active Escapism, to use the suffix “ism” implies some form not only of ideology but also some action. What is the logical outcome of this train of thought?

As an animist I experience the world (outside Civilization) as essentially sentient. The death of God means the rebirth of the gods, as Nietzsche implied in his last “mad” letters from Turin— the resurrection of the great god PAN—chaos, Eros, Gaia, & Old Night, as Hesiod put it—Ontological anarchy, Desire, Life itself, & the Darkness of revolt & negation—all seem to me as real as they need to be.

I still adhere to a certain kind of spiritual anarchism—but only as heresy and paganism, not as orthodoxy and monotheism. I have great respect for Dorothy Day—her writing influenced me in the 60s—and Ivan Illich, whom I knew personally—but in the end I cannot deal with the cognitive dissonance between anarchism and the Pope! Nevertheless I can believe in the re-paganaziation of monotheism. I hold to this pagan tradition because I sense the universe as alive, not as “dead matter.” As a life-long psychedelicist I have always thought that matter & spirit are identical, and that this fact alone legitimizes what Theory calls “desire”.

From this p.o.v. the phrase “revolution of everyday life” still seems to have some validity—if only in terms of the second proposal, Active Escapism or the TAZ. As for the third possibility— Zarathustra’s Revenge—this seems like a possible path for the new nihilism, at least from a philosophical perspective. But since I am unable personally to advocate it, I leave the question open.

But here—I think—is the point at which I both meet with & diverge from the new nihilism. I too seem to believe that Predatory Capitalism has won and that no revolution is possible in the classical sense of that term. But somehow I can’t bring myself to be “against everything.” Within the Temporary Autonomous Zone there still seems to persist the possibility of “authentic life,” if only for a moment—and if this position amounts to mere Escapism, then let us become Houdini. The new surge of interest in Individualism is obviously a response to the Death of the Social. But does the new nihilism imply the death even of the individual and the “union of egoists” or Nietzschean free spirits? On my good days, I like to think not.

No matter which of the three paths one takes (or others I can’t yet imagine) it seems to me that the essential thing is not to collapse into mere apathy. Depression we may have to accept, impotent rage we may have to accept, revolutionary pessimism we may have to accept. But as e.e. cummings (anarchist poet) said, there is some shit we will not take, lest we simply become the enemy by default. Can’t go on, must go on. Cultivate rosebuds, even selfish pleasures, as long as a few birds & flowers still remain. Even love may not be impossible...

#hakim bey #Nihilism #t.a.z. #anarchism

[marcjampole]

The Democratic Nominating Process is Much Ado about Very Little

Centrist pundits are raising alarms about the possibility of Bernie Sanders getting the nomination, convinced that his so-called extreme policies will turn off centrist voters and conservatives who are disgusted with Trump’s hateful rhetoric. Supporters of Buttigieg, Biden, Klobuchar and Bloomberg are all saying that their candidate is the only one left who can defeat Trump. Panic-provoking pundits from all over the severely limited mainstream media spectrum are saying that the Democratic party will do what they claim it always does—fracture, shoot itself in the foot, turn off key constituencies and stay at home election day.

But if we look at the hard numbers, review the extremely narrow path that Trump had to Electoral College victory in 2016 and analyze the contrasts between Trump and the Democratic Party, it should befuddle us why so many are in, or pretend to be in, a frenzy.

The truth of the matter is that unless Russians or Trumpites manage to change the actual voting tallies, every Democratic candidate will defeat Donald Trump and every Democratic candidate (with the possible exception of Elizabeth Warren) will end up accomplishing pretty much the same thing as president.

Trump’s losing hand plays out in six key states. We start with the former blue wall of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, all of which Trump won by razor thin margins, all of which are suffering economically as a direct result of Trump’s economic and foreign policies. These three states are now in the hands if Democratic voters, which means it will be harder to suppress the vote in 2020. The Democrats completely ignore Wisconsin in 2016, which won’t happen again. Trump should lose at least one and maybe all three of these states.

A battleground state that Republicans usually seem to win by extremely small margins in Florida. A court recently ruled that Florida cannot make voting by ex-felons contingent on paying the court costs they owe, meaning that there should be a massive influx of new voters in Florida, most of whom will lean blue.  About 200,000 had already paid their fees before the ruling, and only 57% of these voters have to vote blue to give whomever is the Democratic nominee Florida’s 29 electoral votes

All the Dems need is Florida and any one of the former blue wall states to win in the Electoral College, but they are also threatening to turn two long time red states into Democratic strongholds: Georgia and Texas, and for good reason: the enormous growth of minorities in those two states.

In short, Trump needs another series of miracles to win reelection. Virtually any Democrat should beat Trump.

And virtually every Democrat, from the corporate B-boys (Bloomberg, Biden and Buttigieg) to self-professed socialist Bernie Sanders will do the same things:

Try to raise taxes on the wealthy, although some will want to bump up what the rich pay by more, some by less.

Heal the wounds the Trump Administration dealt to the Affordable Care Act and build on the Act to cover more Americans and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the healthcare system. Again some will want to go farther than others towards a single payer system, but all will want to offer a public option.

Reverse the many Trump Administration decisions to weaken environmental, safety and other regulations.

Try to mend the relationships we have with our allies and get back into the Paris Accord and, if possible, the Iran Nuclear deal.

Ratchet up election security regulations and laws.

Institute a relatively large program to repair and update our infrastructure of roads, highways, sewer systems and mass transit systems.

Address global warming with a combination of administrative and legislative action, although some will want to do more than others.

Rethink the current military budget, which is just about equal to what the rest of the world spends on guns, bombs and soldiers. Again some will cut the military budget more, some less.

Do something to make higher education more affordable.

Moreover, every Democrat (and many Republicans, too) will almost always tell the truth to the American people; demonstrate respect to all people, even enemies; and base most decisions on science and reason.

Some of the tasks on the Democrats’ action list a president can do by her/himself and some require Congress to pass legislation. A careful parsing of the list I put together reveals that the Democrats left in the race tend to disagree most on the things that a president has the least control over because they require legislation: reforming the healthcare system, commitment to global warming, how much to raise taxes on the wealthy and how much educational support to give to families. The things these candidates could do without Congress if elected tend to be stuff they agree on, such as reversing Trump’s regulatory carnage and getting back into international treaties from which we’ve withdrawn.

In other words, no matter who is president, she/he will have to work with Nancy Pelosi and will be subject to Nancy’s program, which will in all likelihood reflect the 2020 Democratic platform. Nancy’s influence will loom especially large if Sanders, Buttigieg, Steyer or Bloomberg are elected. In the case of America’s favorite small-town mayor and the two billionaires, their inexperience will concentrate more power into the hands of Pelosi and her senior congressional team. Bernie’s former role as a rebellious backbencher will limit his ability to influence Congress without Pelosi’s support. It is likely that of all the candidates, Bernie would have the least impact on what a Democratic Congress produces.

In general, we can characterize Nancy Pelosi as a central Democrat, which means she stands at the center position of the Democratic Party, which makes her left of center when considering the entire electorate. As far as the candidates go, she stands slightly to the left of Klobuchar and Biden and slightly to the right of Booker and Harris.

Elizabeth Warren knows how the administrative branch of the federal government works better than any other candidate, simply because she is the only one to have created a federal bureau. Like Biden and Klobuchar (and unlike Bernie) she has deep roots in the party and has worked cooperatively with other legislators, so she will therefore be less beholden to the Speaker of the House. For these reasons, Warren would likely be able to drive the country further left as president than any other Democrat running, which is why I support her. But no matter who is the winning candidate, most of the first term will be spent first returning the government and the regulatory state to the pre-Trump days and then taking Nancy Pelosi-type steps (perhaps not perfect, but not too cold and not too warm) to build upon the party’s vision in the areas of global warming, inequality, healthcare, education and a cooperative approach to international relations.

All the hand-wringing and finger-pointing about the candidates’ electability and vision make for great spectacle and enable social media users to blow off a lot of steam. But at the end of the day, the Democrats should prevail no matter whom they nominate and the winning candidate should move the country back to “Obama” normalcy and start to fix some of our long-term problems. There is no need to fear either Sanders or Buttigieg. (Bloomberg is another story, since he is trying to buy the election, a very significant step away from a representational democracy.) Instead, Democrats should fear poll manipulation and low turnout.

#democrat #dnc #primaries

[anomiezine-blog]

The Cult of the Proletariat

“Because the horror of Communism, Stalinism, is not that bad people do bad things — they always do. It’s that good people do horrible things thinking they are doing something great.”

-Slavoj Zizek

‘But as in all cults, what’s central to the Communist Party is the belief system and the elimination of nuance. From there you’re very slowly led down the road to fanaticism and mass murder.’

– Alexei Sayle

I have found a way to tell apart Leninists (otherwise known as Communists or Bolsheviks in the common parlance) from what you might call the reasonable left. It is not the outfits, stained by take-away and Tippex, or their odour, because deodorant is a bourgeois affectation. Instead it is their answer to one rather simple question: ‘Do you trust people to make their own decisions?” I have never met a Leninist that didn’t say No. An addendum to that might be the question: “If you could have your revolution but it would make people poorer and less free, at least in the short term, would you still want it?” Once again I have never met one that didn’t answer in the affirmative. It is the same toxic combination of misanthrope and fanaticism that you can now see in Brexiteers in Britain, and amongst Fascists the world over. It is the belief that you and your tribe alone have received the revealed truth from on-high, and however you see fit to make that a reality is acceptable. It is the language of a cult.

It’s a word that is thrown around a lot and there are even multiple competing definitions, but it is essential to understand what a cult is if we are to understand the toxicity at the heart of Leninist parties of the past and present. What are the obvious signs of a cult? In my opinion, there are 10 unequivocal signs:

1. A small group of people united by a Utopian ideology (or religion) who stand outside normal society.

2. A dominant leader/s that hold complete power over the lives of its members.

3. An all-or-nothing worldview. “Either the Revolution comes or the world will end.”

4. A cadre or administrative class that directs the majority of members.

5. Gaslighting. The changing of facts and reality to suit the party.

6. Mental, physical or sexual abuses (see the SWP in the UK)

7. The policing of language, opinions and the effective creation of secular blasphemy.

8. The welding of the social and the political. The party becomes your only community, sometimes to the detriment to your family and older friends.

9. Those that leave the party become apostates and are to be shunned and demonised.

10. A uniform. In this case conformity of clothing is encouraged through bullying and mocking rather than an order from above.

It is hard to explain to those that have not experienced life in a cult why anyone would willingly join such a toxic entity. Left wing cults, like all cults, don’t look toxic from the outside. In fact, when you first join you are often showered with not only attention, but with a sense of purpose. You feel that finally you are with people that see the problems of the world as you do and are motivated by high ideals of humanism and solidarity. This is described by some psychologists as the lovebombing stage. It is a very powerful indoctrinating tool and often keeps individuals attached to the party long after the toxic nature of the party has become apparent.

In this I can at least speak from personal experience. I was a member of a Trotskyist party, that shall go unnamed, in my youth and I got a firsthand experience of cult tendencies within the left. All the cliches were there; the lovebombing; the close social circle; shadowy General Secretary; the strict hierarchy; the self-censorship of speech; the pandering to party leaders; the Gaslighting; the blasphemy; and the apostates. I have done a large amount of study of what are known as cluster B personality disorders (anti-social, narcissistic and Borderline) since, to try and understand what had happened to me, and I can attest to the presence of these toxic behaviours within all levels of the party structure. I am not the first to notice the cult tendencies within Leninist parties, in fact a cursory google search will present you with ample evidence of how commented upon this is. It really is one of the worst kept secrets on the left. Yet, these parties still persist and in the case of Ireland are the only real alternative to the parties of the Landlord class. As an Anarchist with a sense of history and responsibility this is exceedingly worrying.

This is not to suggest that Anarchist groups can’t become cult like. I spent time in a certain British anarchist group, that again shall not be named. In many ways it functioned along similar lines to the Leninist party I had formerly been part of . While there was a rotating leadership role, the same small group of people swapped the officer positions, and there was the same narrow mindedness to new ideas. Thankfully there is a great deal more individualism amongst Anarchists and this small toxic group were eventually expelled from the organisation. To some extent cult behaviour is a human failing. The legitimate and noble desire to make the world a better place can easily be perverted by disordered people for their own pleasures. You can see this in countless churches, sects, and organisations of every hue. In the case of political groupings, at least, anarchism has an answer and it is in our very DNA. A distrust of authority. Leninists parties can never be reformed from within given their very inspiration was taken from the mind of an authoritarian cult leader, Vladimir Lenin.

If you have the time or inclination to read about the father of 20th century Communism, you will learn many things, none particularly endearing, whether it be his: accepting German Imperial help in 1917; crushing the Soviets, snuffing out workers’ democracy; the invasion of Poland in 1920; the founding of the vile gulags; the rejection of a democratic vote in 1917 that the Bolsheviks lost; the creation of the brutal Checka, etc. The figures vary, but Lenin’s Red Terror is believed to have killed anywhere between 100,000 and 1.3 million people. The fanatic view of the Lenin towards any challenge to the new regime was published within the organs of the party: ‘anyone who dares to spread the slightest rumor against the Soviet regime will be arrested immediately and sent to concentration camp”. By 1921 70,000 were imprisoned in the brutal gulag system. The authoritarian and genocidal views of the Leninists were apparent quite early with Grigory Zinoviev declaring in 1917: ‘To overcome our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia’s population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated”. The fact that so many within the left still celebrate this man is stunning to behold, but then again he had the good fortune to die before the experiment of Leninism reached its apex under his protege Stalin. He would order the deaths of tens of millions of his own people, whether through the repression of the secret police or through man made famines, and after World War II enslave the population of Eastern Europe for half a century. And yet, the failure of the Left to ever really exorcise the ghost of the USSR and Leninism is one of our greatest failings. The supposed unique evil of Josef Stalin is a lazy way to avoid the truth, that the Bolsheviks were totalitarians in their very DNA, due to the teachings of Lenin. The USSR was in its origins a cult of Leninism extended to the entire Russian Empire. The Left need to except that the USSR is ours to own much like the right must accept Fascism as the logical extension of their own ideology. There is little to salvage in this experiment and the left should have long ago acknowledged Leninism as the twin evil of Fascism in the 20th Century. Unfortunately, it has not and we are left in a situation where anarchism remains at the fringes and the Leninist parties remain the only likely alternative to what must soon follow another violent collapse of Capitalism.

Any reasonable look at the enormous debt bubble forming around the world can not help, but lead you to the conclusion that a major global depression is looming. The conservative estimate is that there is 420 trillion dollars of debt worldwide. In Ireland we are one of the most indebted countries in the western world. Our debt to GDP ratio is 170% of GDP with some estimates as high as 210% of GDP. Each Irish citizen owes 42,000 Euro of debt. We will never be able to pay that off. This global debt can be combined with the huge wealth now centred in the hands of a very small cabal of oligarchs. Less than 100 persons now own over half the wealth of the entire globe. A vampiric ruling class long ago tore up the post-war social democratic settlement and could give a shit about the long term cost of their greed. As a result, the middle class’s spending power has shrunk to a fraction of what it once was. (Economics 101: the middle class buy the products of the ruling elite. If they have no money, and cannot borrow anymore, a crisis of capitalism ensues. It is that simple!) This makes a major depression almost inevitable, with some recent estimates saying it will arrive by as early as 2021. A collapse of capitalism will in rather short order unleash not only the demons of Fascism, but also the demons of Leninism. If, as I fear is likely, we are in the midst of another era of capitalist crisis similar to the 1920s and 30s, the corrupt parties of the centre across Europe will fall, and the masses will look for answers and alternatives to croney capitalism. At the moment the working class is bearing the brunt of neoliberalism and are looking to Trump, Brexit and the European Fascist right, the Orban’s and Le Pen’s. In the future there is no reason to suppose that some of remaining middle class will not make the same choice. In such a situation, it will seem wise to align ourselves with the Leninists in hopes of preventing another epoch of Fascist authoritarianism, but I would ask all anarchists to consider the old Bakunin quote: ‘When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the People’s Stick’. We have been here before and we know what the Leninists will do if they get a whiff of power, therefore ‘What is to be done?’

Well, surprise, surprise, I recommend anarchism, but not in its current form. These days anarchists are a scattered and clicky sect within the left, rightly mocked for both the black block and its disinterested hipster membership alike. We must accept some of the blame for failing to take advantage of the post-Leninist era of the 90s-today. There were even some signs of anarchist ideas permeating the general left in the Seattle demonstrations of 1999, the occupy movement of 2011, the Arab Spring, and the yellow jackets, but these were to come to nothing. Clearly we have not learned from our own mistakes of the 20th century. Here I will perhaps lose some of my audience when I say that our principles held us back in the past. We were firm believers that ‘the Great is not enemy of the Good’. That ‘pragmatism was defeatism’. We, too, believed in an ‘all or nothing revolution’. Either it was complete eradication of the state and class system or it was not worth fighting for. This did us no favours in the past and it will do us little favours in the future. The world is not as we hope it to be, but rather as it is. Who will our allies be in the times to come? Unless we want to repeat our ancestors mistakes in Russia and Spain, it can’t be the Leninists. Rather I suggest the reasonable left I mentioned at the start of this article: Socialists, Left-Communists, Social Democrats, Republicans and even Liberals have all proved in the past to be determined enemies of the cults of Bolshevism and Fascism and capable of pluralism, though not always willing. It is possible to imagine a society of differing political structures coexisting, and of this being a truer reflection of the will of most people than any monolithic authoritarian Leftism can provide. These are our logical allies, some more than others, but to ensure history does not repeat itself we will have to find a way to both defend ourselves and inspire hope for a better future. For such a pluralist society of state socialists, anarchists, and even liberals, must not sap the hope and idealism of a genuinely Libertarian Socialist Revolution. We will have to walk a tightrope between reactionaries, both left wing and liberal. For without going down another rabbit hole, it was not just the Leninists that betrayed the Anarchists of Spain, it was also their republican and liberal allies. It will not be easy and much like our ancestors we will probably fail, but the difference between fighting for a society that allows differing political ideals the chance to bloom and the totalitarian cult of Leninism, seems a worthy trade off.

#anomie #anomiezine #anarchism #anarchy #article #proletariat

[schraubd]

When It Comes to Demographic Doom, Conservative Pundits Really ARE Whistling Dixie

Responding to David Brooks' fear of an upcoming GOP apocalypse, Daniella Greenbaum Davis might have written the least self-aware pollyanna account of Republican prospects I've ever read. It's almost -- not quite, but almost -- Liel Leibovitz-level bad. Brooks' argument is simple: young people hate the Republican Party. And as this generation becomes the dominant force in American politics, it becomes a bigger and bigger problem if they hate the Republican Party. If there is to be a conservative appeal to this generation, it has to be one that can speak in the language of pluralism and diversity -- a project that the contemporary Republican Party is racing away from at top speed. Davis is not convinced. First of all, we get the standard chestnut that even if Trump alienates the youth, he doesn't count because he isn't really "conservative". Specifically:

Trump is not conservative in the strict sense of the word; he’s a libertarian and a libertine.

Trump is a libertarian? Are you kidding me? Trump represents conservativism at roughly its furthest possible distance from libertarianism. His signature policy is a massive increase of state repression at the border. Most recently, he's wreaking havoc on the economy with a threatened tariff war. He pairs a massive ramp up of the security apparatus with targeted economic bailouts and distortions aimed to assist politically-connected and favored industries (like coal). This is the least libertarian posture imaginable. Moving on:

We don’t need data to show us that young Americans are over-represented on the left. But it was a wise someone — not Winston Churchill, who usually gets credited, but the French historian and prime minister François Guizot — who coined the Burkean insight that anyone who is not a liberal at 20 years of age had no heart, and anyone who is still a liberal at 40 has no head.

Well, I'm glad we got it straight that it wasn't Churchill who said it! What's amazing about this is that Brooks directly addresses this point: He specifically observes that the popular belief that young are always more liberal is actually a myth (see: Israel). Instead, the first few elections a person votes in tends to calcify their political affiliation for the rest of their life -- so if young people learn early on to vote Democrat, it becomes much harder to dislodge them from Democratic affiliation later on. So the GOP can't just wait for the kids to grow up and get more conservative. Indeed, the reason the younger generation is more liberal is because it is (a) more diverse and (b) more likely to have personal encounters with people of other backgrounds, races, etc. on a regular basis. But that's not going to change over time -- the youth might be older in fifteen years, but they're not going to become Whiter. In any event, Davis thinks that the growing progressive bent among the youth will eventually implode on itself because it will be too socialist and, as time goes by, will eventually "consume its young". Of course, this directly contradicts the "young people will mellow out as they age" hypothesis, which would instead suggest that the harder edges of Millennial politics will instead get filed off as time goes by -- a more sustainable progressivism replacing certain youthful idealisms. It also has the convenient property of not necessitating a GOP response, since the failure of the progressive wave is axiomatically assured. So no need to tamp down on nativist or flatly racist elements in the GOP coalition -- which one would think would be a necessity of they're ever going to appeal to a generation that either is or is friendly with immigrants and either is or is friendly with non-White people. Instead, it allows the GOP to continue to respond to growing diversity in America by literally whistling Dixie. Regardless, Davis foresees a purge where the radicals oust the moderates, who are left looking for someone -- anyone -- to carry the torch of classical liberal values. And enter the GOP!

Those exiles might abhor social conservatism, but they would be wrong to define conservatism purely by a handful of socio-religious issues, some of which exercise only the GOP’s powerful but numerically small Evangelical wing. It’s those other conservative specialties — defending free speech, championing a diversity of opinion and faith, defending free-market capitalism — that are the issues that can win back the voters.

This might have some plausibility except that the contemporary Republican Party has never been less well positioned to attract an "exile" interested in these values. We already noted that Trump -- with eager buy-in from the GOP caucus -- has pursued an economic policy of crony capitalism and a social policy of big government repression. And now we see a growing faction of conservative voices -- like Sohrab Ahmari and  Liel Leibovitz -- just openly declaring war against whatever remains of classical liberal conservatism. The ideology that wants to upend libel laws, ban entire academic disciplines, and wreck energy markets to protect polluters can no longer claim to "specialize" in free speech, diversity of thought, or even free markets. Davis does allow that, eventually, Republicans will have to offer an agenda beyond opposing progressive "nihilism". But it speaks volumes that her survival plan for the GOP depends less on anything they might do, and instead relies on the unshakable faith that eventually Democrats will destroy themselves. Growing progressivism won't last because it can't last. That sort of outlook, ironically, is exactly the sort of docile quiescence that's allowed modern conservatism to decay into the shell of an ideology that it is today. Not free markets, not free speech, not free movement, and not free people. Just Cleek's Law, in ever-purer forms. via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2ZalnBG

#conservatives #GOP #Multi-culturalism #progressives #Republicans

[dopemagicattack]

The D-Wheel that only turns left

When I first started watching 5D’s, one of the main aspects that stood out was how much anarchism was present in the series, so let’s talk a little about it, and I’ll headcannon about the main political views in the anime. I won go into TOO MUCH detail because I don’t think that fitting in to an exact spectrum is that important, but if you think any of this is incorrect, feel free to argue. Also if there's any chance you didn't watch it, please do, it's not just card games on motorcycles.

In a general way, 5D’s is always shown state actors as an opressing force, where the police is only an agent of brutality, the upper classes maintain discrimination while the rest of people are more than happy to participate. Neo Domino City functions in a hierarchic, aristocratic logic,and since the series obviously criticizes this, I believe it shows a more anarchist point of view (as in hierarchies bad, free-associations good)

I think I shold go ahead and say: Satellite is Palestine. Almost a colony, people geographically maintained separate and opressed because who they are and where they’re from, with everyone around hating them and treating them like trash for this. City people are also actively trying to murder them, as shown by Goodwin’s plan. There might be other examples that fit the description, but that is the most famous one.

First of all is, of course, Yusei

Yusei is the anarchist hero we all wanted, but not really

 While he does openly despises authority and searches to promote equality, Yusei, although reluctantly, agrees to work within the system to help change it, agreeing to work with Goodwin, which makes him a bit of a social-democrat in practice, but I think he’s more of a closet anarchist. All the way reformist.

(also a bit of an idiot because C’MON HE KIDNAPPED YOUR FRIENDS. AND YOU TRUST THAT GUY. HOW?)

Also one of the most beautiful elements in the series and in Yusei’s character is how willing he is to believe in people even if they are all out criminals. Not many other works, specially Western, are willing to show criminals as human beings deserving of dignity and equal treatment, and 5D’s does that without even questioning WHAT THEY DID

Pro-tip: when he talks about “there are no useless cards”, he also means people.

Yusei is our hero, yet he’s treated like trash simply because of where he came from. He than spends the entire first season fighting for people who are either imprisioned or discriminated by birth, and if that’s not awesome I don’t know what it is. 

Next up is Crow

Crow has a Robin Hood sort of world view, Unlike Yusei,he actually grew up homeless. He also despises authority and is more than willing to practice illegal actions to help his kids.

I really think he would be a black block sort of a guy but that’s more of a headcannon. Honestly, I think Crow is a communist ((not a socialist tough) (oooh used a bad word). He also doesn’t believe in the state or authority, and he also wishes to end bring people to the same patamar, with the same opportunies, and probably doesn’t believe in private propriety. Revolutionary.

Jack is anarchocapitalist. Sorry, I know but hey, at least he’s cute.

Next up is KIRYU/KALIN. I really don’t know how to classify him,he also hates authority, but the way he behaves, hurting people who are weaker, I think he’s more of a warning of what people can do when they go off the rails. Aligns with anarchism but I don’t think it’s from a political viewpoint that he does, just as in that’s the way his hatred of the since surfaces.

AKI AND DIVINE are my greatest critics of this show. They are SCARECROWS

The Scarecrow Fallacy is when you steriotype something as the worst things someone imagines about it to make onlookers think is bad. Like saying all feminists are man hating, ill loved ugly women. That’s a scarecrow.

Aki and Divine are scarecrows as well as the product of lazy writing.

“Arcadia Moviment” talks all the time about spreading their ideology and world view but it never says WHAT ARE THEM. NEVER.

You know why?

1- lazy writers.

2 - Ideology is a BAD WORD. Ordinary people see it and think “oh it’s a BAD WORD. THEY’RE BAD PEOPLE”.But every single thing and thought in this world is ruled by an ideology, like neoliberalism, but since it’s the predominant one, you’re trained not to view as ideology, but as ‘the way the world works”. This keeps people from thinking too much and trying to classify their beliefs because that is IDEOLOGY and IDEOLOGY IS WROONG.

Yes, this is also how you can write a series with anarchists and not think they’re anarchist, because you don’t want to name thinks because it is a BAD NAME and you’re not supposed to think about it.

(Yes, this is also directed to anyone reading this.)

I’m gonna go ahead and say Z-ONE is a communist, but not dwell too much in it because this is a spoiler free post.

All in all, this anime holds a clear message against discrimination and xenophobia, and isn’t afraid of showing poor people or even criminals as PEOPLE. I’m only sorry that this changed so much in season 2. But still, a marvelous work. Arc V goes very much in the same direction, but I haven’t finished it yet, so i’ll talk about it later

#yugioh #yugioh 5ds #yu-gi-oh! #yu-gi-oh 5ds #ygo #ygo 5ds #yusei fudo #izayoi aki #akiza izinski #jack atlas #crow hogan #arcadia moviment #kiryu kyosuke #kalin kessler #anarchism #communist #if you are wondering #yes #i'm a communist #no i don't eat children #no private propriety doesnt mean your house you egghead #my stuff #i cant write good things about ancaps

[queernuck]

The Ballot Box, And Nothing Else: Aesthetic Radicalism in American Political Thought

There are, fundamentally, three different approaches to voting that must be considered when discussing the particular weight of voting in an election, more specifically American elections, Presidential and Midterm alike: the ontological consideration of what a meaningful vote is, the metapolitical and metacultural significance of a given vote as a statement regarding American political discourses, and the potential effect of a vote on the outcome of a given race, ballot measure, so on. Through one example of Judith Butler’s discussion of assembly, as implied through its shared space in an interview where she gives a halfhearted endorsement of Hillary Clinton as a candidate and realized in examining the semiotics of such an example in relation to her work both on assembly and on performative, discursive creations of the body, as well as some irreverent analysis of the spectacle of voting, a certain sort of space wherein the act of voting can be at once affirmed and rejected, held in a kind of tense compromise as simply one performance in the pornographic life of an American settler, emerges.

To begin with a precursory exegesis of Butler’s interview, her reasoning behind Clinton is one that was not terribly uncommon, both in liberal and radical discussion of the election: Hillary Clinton was the better candidate due to the likelihood that she would appoint relatively liberal (by American parlance) judges to the Supreme Court, a likely task given the death of Alito and the age of other Justices. Butler’s position, that this makes Clinton worth voting for, can then be read either as reformist (that meaningful change can come from the Supreme Court) or as a practical consideration (that the reduction or restriction of certain reactionary aspects of American legal practice could be achieved within the Supreme Court’s decisions given the right makeup of the Court). The former seems to be more in line with Butler’s own thinking, or at the very least easily emerges from it. However, a more meaningful reading of her words reveals that the second is a far stronger interpretation, even if Butler’s own thoughts on the matter do not match up with it. Given the domestic nature of the Supreme Court, how it exists as a kind of solipsistic point of consideration for Americans looking toward their electoral interests, choosing Clinton would be worthwhile so long as a secondary series of conditions were met, which would imply a larger acceptance of the structure of voting as present, but not a personal involvement by necessity. One can only vote so many times; there are so few hours in Election Day and if one lives in a state that is part of a similar voting bloc, such fraud is only meaningful on a local level, if at all. The legitimation of voter registration drives as a tactic is one that works well in the face of disenfranchisement, but in large part specifically because it allows for the choice of abstention to become a possibility rather than a foregone conclusion. The nomination of a Supreme Court Justice requires a great deal of political collaboration, and the means by which obstruction and selective acts of resignification have been used by Republicans to select and confirm favorable candidates for the Supreme Court provides such an example. The supposition goes that, if turnout against Trump had been higher, straight-ticket votes had been more common, so on, there would not have been such a situation. Of course, this ignores that participation was, in many cases, a secondary consideration if one at all. The extent to which Republicans had been aided by the Supreme Court already in rolling back laws preventing various efforts of voter suppression was already in place, and in fact accepted by Democrats as simply part of the disparities of American politics. The electoral system had been rigged intentionally, gerrymandered on a national scale, and yet “going high” was still the Democratic strategy.  

One example, in Romania, shows that electoral structure can register abstention in a way far more meaningful than a vote, specifically due to the tension within the means that electoral significance, thresholds of democratic recognition, are placed in referendums like the one on a constitutional change to ban gay marriages in the country. Given the support of the ruling party and a comprehensive campaign to support the measure by many of the nation’s churches, the voter turnout was overwhelmingly in favor of the measure. However, the measure failed specifically because it did not maintain an electoral coherence: for a referendum to be recognized at least 30% of the eligible voting population must take part in it, but the referendum only reached 20.8% all votes included. Given the fervent support the Yes vote was maintaining, that the Yes vote was in fact the intended outcome of the campaign, a vote of No would have effectively been a support of the measure, as it would have pushed it closer to a point where it reaches that threshold of 30%. Due to the massive disparity between those supporting and those opposing, a conservative majority would have all but certainly won had the referendum met standards of legal acceptance, and as a result the only means of opposing it effectively was to refuse to vote, to take a specific stance of objection and maintain it in the face of temptation to participate. That so many accounts of Hillary’s loss note her victory in both the Popular Vote and large states often relies upon a kind of dual consciousness: some of the most likely Democratic voters who abstained due to objecting to Clinton as a candidate were ones who considered this in light of their own assessment of conditions akin to Butler’s: there was no need to vote for Clinton in their own state specifically because of the high likelihood of her carrying it. That the Supreme Court had been the one to hand Bush an electoral victory despite a loss in the popular vote should have been an indictment of a similar difference between popular and electoral results in the 2016 election, but instead the concentration on singular notions of abstention as due to a kind of uncaring privilege, a sort of radical liberalism that posits the non-voter as a nihilist white man within a standpoint theory framework. Radical liberalism, as a strain of thought, frequently makes genuinely incisive critiques of capitalist social formations while still maintaining a fundamental anticommunism. It looks to radical figures, takes on radical class character and consciousness, may even openly espouse certain radical ideologies within itself. There is absolutely room within radical liberalism for these critiques, so long as the tendency toward socialism is in fact a reaction to the very anticommunist ideology they too tend toward. The DSA is too far for most, if not all, and Marxism as a whole is anathema to their projects of decolonization, occasional opposition to imperialism, their naming of colonialism and thus the potential for postcolonial thought. Radical liberal notions of Marxist thought often position either Marx himself or those who adopt the label “Marxist” as racialized specifically as white, in a fashion that itself results in a kind of racialized maintenance of political hegemony. The appropriation of Marxist assemblies throughout history by this hegemonic ideation of whiteness is an Orientalist approach which names Marxism as simply flowing from colonial dominance, with a reactionary concept of a “return to nature” being invoked in some postcolonial thought. Ignoring that anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism have been almost uniformly Marxist movements over the past century, have been either started or maintained in relation to class struggle, have established national identity in opposition to a national bourgeoisie, a kind of colonial landlord resting on the plantation, a masked agent of bourgeoisie control standing in for a white body that cannot be present, is all ignored. Instead, a “self-actualization” which concentrates on bourgeoisie individualism, on the satisfaction of certain denatured goals surrounding colonial structures of power, of a refusal to enter into critical theoretical inquiries of postcolonial thought, a refusal of postcolonialism as a critique that recognizes and in fact fundamentally relies on the capitalist, imperialist resignification of culture as itself a distortion, reshaping, creation of time and history itself, the imperialist character of genealogies of cultural identity as part of a new bourgeoisie state, are inserted into the neoliberal development of a state’s identity. This has already been completed to a great degree in post-socialist nations like the former Yugoslavia, and is continuing through the presence of American colonial power through AFRICOM, the resurrection of the positions once held by the Chicago Boys in Latin America, the insistence by the United States on an irreconcilable gap between the ROK and DPRK, the necessity not of reconciliation but rather the completion of an absolute genocide against the DPRK begun during the Korean War. Radical liberalism can present itself as radical specifically because it maintains a kind of edgy aesthetic presence, using twitter wonk and various memes, irreverent positioning disguising a hegemonic structure of acceptance and belief, and a perspective on postcolonial culture like that condemned by Spivak, the acceptance of a cultural hegemony ossified in reaction to colonial control as itself a genuine and irreducible part of the culture-at-hand, one that must be not only accepted but maintained as part of a certain relativist positioning. That this relativism serves to further colonial power, that it involves a specifically anticommunist critique and requires one refuse to enter genuine discursive consideration regarding the sorts of bodies maintained by this control, instead requiring an anthropological and metapolitical distance for a “Western” onlooker, the insertion of a concrete Orientalist “other” into the space wherein such relativism could in fact be a tool of genuine postcolonial critique, is part of disguising the anticommunist character of such ideologies.

That voting is a favorite topic of theirs, then, is hardly surprising. It involves a singular action of masturbatory character, alone and yet denoted as an exhibitionist exercise, the kind of late capitalist commodification of voting as just another sort of transaction, akin to the purchase of an electorally appropriate Pumpkin Spice Latte (or, in rejection thereof, a more proletarian black coffee). Due to the means by which citizenship as marked by voting rights in America is specifically racialized, based in extending class violence to other significations of identity, the push to register voters purged from the rolls by new laws can take on a radical character in that it involves raising an awareness of how fragile the maintenance of a certain order within politics is, how much the apparent-democratic relies on not the voting itself, but the aesthetics thereof. The coverage of political candidates themselves casting votes is part of this, the notion that they too are included within their own system, that they are no more able to effect its course than the average voter, when even a cursory inquiry into this notion finds that an elected official in fact profoundly dictates the very terms on which voting may occur. Accepting the spectacle of voting, that it presents a kind of fetish within organization and moreover using it as a means of organizing other actions, of raising class consciousness, of discussing how the American government is able to create Reservations as non-places, as an absence-of-place, as part of an ongoing and centuries-long genocidal course of action necessary to maintain the settler-colonial libido, to keep fantasies of Manifest Destiny alive, to push toward an absolute genocidal end, the full settling of America, coupled with the intentional antiblackness of other voter laws, the way in which structural inaccessibility is found in so many different fashions, how maintaining barriers to entry is part of a larger hegemonic operation regarding antiblackness in America, how the policing and jailing of black Americans involves specifically creating a felon as a subject to take away voting rights, the ability to own a firearm, job prospects to increase the power of police to arbitrarily enact violence against a black person (by increasing the likelihood that any given brutalized subject will be a felon, presenting an a posteriori justification of the brutality) how protections around age, gender, ability, are all specifically forgotten within intersections and assemblages of race, blackness most particularly, is shown by the effort to organize voters. Thus, when this is made clear, when voting is used in order to show the profound failure of such a civic system, it creates potential for organization past the ballot box: after all, the old IRA slogan mentioned the ballot, but it mentioned other courses of action as well.

However,  the singular outpouring that radical liberals have around electoral politics specifically imagines the elected official as somehow beyond any consideration, as an ontological necessity, that the democratic structure of voting cannot take place outside of electing representatives. As Laclau describes with his concepts of Radical Democracy, the character of a vote takes on a far different meaning when it is radically shrunk, out of the infinite arborescence that is electoral politics and into a rhizomal interfacing of democratic affinity, where the most basic structure of organization is itself based on democratic agreement, direct affinities that do not require voting to be masturbatory, but in fact part of a schizophrenic exchange of ideation, the acceptance that loss of a vote can in fact be not only an acceptable outcome, but one that will be celebrated. Certainly, there are cases where metapolitical considerations lead to an “acceptable loss” within liberal politics, but these are rare given the acceptance of certain sorts of politicians within mainstream discourses. That the cynical reference to the “white working class” so common in radical liberal vocabularies often specifically excludes white working-class voters except through other acts of explicit inclusion, individualization of a potential proletarian subject, a rejection of the potential of an American proletariat not as a call for Third World consciousness or a revolutionary opposition to the colonialism of the American state, but rather as a means of focusing on certain standpoint theories, of using identity in order to justify the election of reactionary candidates that have goals well in line with many white voters due to the white supremacist power that extends in a vector outwards from them, separated from their positioning of themselves by the measure of politics, favoring overwhelmingly white bourgeoisie interests in the name of opposing a “white working class” imagined by vulgar considerations of socialist theory by other members of their party. This leads to a kind of paradoxical rejection of subjects outside of hegemonic whiteness specifically because their needs may be identified alongside those of the supposed “white working class”, in that the disproportionate violence done in rejecting those interests is not to those in these areas who are white, but specifically those outside of it, those who are rejected due to gender, or orientation, or race but still are marked as belonging more meaningfully to the area, the district, the population marked in electoral terms as that of a “white working class” area.

Of course, these radical politics are hardly anything without their counterparts. The radical right, in America, needs little introduction but I feel compelled to take a genuine look at it, given the means by which it has reorganized itself from a neoconservative worldview into one that is increasingly adopting not merely the past fascist fetishes of neoliberalism, the kind of pornographic displays of a fascist libido seen in colonial action, but in fact is itself tending toward a fascist aesthetic, is accepting and creating new fascist ideological positions, is tending toward certain kinds of fascist thought which are themselves absolutely comprehensible, are not the aberration that they are made out to be but in fact a fully American phenomena, truly patriotic and truly acceptable within this electoral system. This has fueled, as well, the emergence of a radical centrism, an apparently-apolitical movement that has a cryptofascist character to it, that either spills out into neoreactionary thought or hides it behind acts of political renaming, a measuring of distance between the content of thought and its intention, the action at hand regarding it. It serves to distance itself from the American moderate conservative, the “Boomer” figure, by adopting a kind of neofascist ironic appearance, one that eschews the duplicitous substitution of language so expertly crafted within neoconservatism for a new kind of duplicity based in an outright declaration of fascist principles followed by a kind of tunneling underneath: it shows a kind of “weakness” to the aesthetics of fascism, their own grandiosity and decadence, in order to create a means of realizing them. It is almost akin to the sort of seriousness found in Drag and Camp, the blending of humorous separation and earnest engagement into a unified whole that can be easily excused as “just a joke” despite the totality which it serves to influence. A reliance on voting, here, is far less necessary specifically because fascism presents itself in a hegemonic articulation, its anticapitalism is in fact a transition into a stage of development which maintains capitalist orders of production, simply redistributed in a new fashion amongst representatives of a chosen class, a newly-minted bourgeoisie that hardly looks any different from the old one, but with a refreshing totalitarian candor and a passing resemblance to the workers in their factories.

Meanwhile, the average “centrist” of American politics, caught within this shift toward a neoliberal aesthetic of rebellion and one that accepts a turn toward fascism, sees a principled objection in declaring potentially revolutionary sentiments from absolutely incorrect reasoning. Voting is done “independently” in a way that, effectively, boils down to a particular kind of capitalist acceptance, a weighing of exactly how they see capitalist ideology as developing, as a means of crafting a political identity that is as unobjectionable as possible within American political discourses. Voting, then, is an exercise like any other personal choice, one that will lead to an ultimately good conclusion even if it involves a good-natured defeat on the part of the centrist themselves. That their condemnation of fascism is far less spirited, far more sympathetic than their reliance on continuing American realization of anticommunist ideology, the way that one finds many “centrists” opposing Antifascist Action, seeing soldiers and police officers as fundamentally good people simply following orders rather than the enforcers of a violent colonial regime, the sort of refusal to acknowledge any politics beyond the ballot, involves a larger strain of liberal thought which emphasizes the singularity of voting as an act of political determination, of one that radically signifies all other political actions. Your vote is your life, and your life is only as good as your vote.

And so, Clinton lost, Trump won, the Supreme Court took a turn further toward its already-present fascist identity, and liberals again believe that voting can fix this, even if it requires their most fundamental misunderstandings of what ends are achievable through this liberal-democratic process. Rather than accepting the sorts of strategies around voting that see it as an opportunity to organize, to highlight opposition as a larger series of positions, to accept the symbolic and ineffectual quality of certain votes, it is instead held up in spite of its impotence as the absolute model of the democratic position stopping the fascist creep. It would do these people well to remember that “blue” is not usually the color used to describe those who most ardently stand against fascism, but that is something that will take a long time to understand without it being sublimated into an appropriated history of polite and peaceful change against apartheid, sexualized oppression, the making of war and sexual violence and genocidal maintenance of global hegemony into a blase concept such as “foreign policy.”

Maybe this guy will give you better taxes.

[sakurastyles]

☆*ﾟBIOGRAPHY: THAÍS

Salomé Thaís da Silva Arias

@twotiedships honestly idk why anyone’s worried?? she’s just another gold-digging beard ??

@tpwkbabe HARRY AND THAÍS ARE THE NEW GEORGE AND AMAL CALLING IT NOW!!!

Nicknames: Thai, Lo (to her Colombian family), S, Guayabita (to Juanlu)

Occupation: Immigration lawyer

Alma Mater: Received her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in linguistics and pre-law, finished her juris doctors from Harvard University, currently studying for her masters of law at Georgetown University.

Birthday: June 9th, 1994

Likes: América Latina (especially her home countries, but she’s biased), learning languages, stained glass windows, hand-rolled cigarettes (or spliffs), honeysuckle and jasmine, the pains au chocolat in Paris, the smell of saltwater and/or freshwater, cooking (especially with someone else), old vinyl records, thrift shopping, photography, traveling, museums (d’Orsay in Paris is her favorite), trashy reality TV, Picasso, gold jewelry, hard cider, peach flavored lip gloss, postcards, elephants, horror movies, crucifixes, passport stamps, guys with tattoos, humid climates, tropical fruit (mango, passion fruit, banana, guarana, guava, kiwi), fig jam and brie cheese, androgynous girls, knitting, rap music in other languages (especially French rap), reggaeton, not wearing makeup, public transportation, sand beaches, cobblestones, sunsets, mom jeans, Harry Styles.

Dislikes: Donald Trump (especially his immigration policies), INS / ICE, racism and xenophobia, the far right, jetlag, losing friends, losing her possessions, student loan debt, rips in her tights, red wine, driving, black and green olives in any circumstance, tight clothing, class barriers, being late, brown liquors, winter, motion sickness, long layovers, pretentiousness, social media, running out of film, creepy men, gentrification, scabs (she always picks at them), sometimes her husband.

Faceclaim: Luma Grothe

Ethnicity: Half-Colombian, Half-Brazilian-Portuguese

Nationality: Both a Brazilian and Colombian national, she received her permanent citizenship to the United States following her marriage in 2014.

Born: Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.

Raised: Medellín, Colombia.

Resides: Washington, D.C., United States.

Languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, can read basic Latin, and she’s recently begun studying Mandarin Chinese.

Romantic Orientation: The only serious romantic relationship she’s ever had was with her husband, so the concept of romantic orientation is still very confusing and new to Thaís.

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Kinks: Daddy play/age play, pet names, dominant partners, choking, spanking, being held down/tied up, marks and bruises, masochism, exhibitionism/public sex, spitting, cum/raw sex.

Marital Status: Married to Caetano Rodrigues

Smokes: Yes (to both)

Alcohol: Yes

Political Affiliation: A registered Democrat, though she’s more far-leftist and radical than her party typically allows (basically a devout socialist/anti-fascist)

Religion: Catholic

Bio: She loves Brazil, adores it even, but something about Medellín will always remind her of home. She doesn’t remember much before Colombia, or the divorce that tore her parents apart, the one that drove her and her mother out of Curitiba and into the home of her tia and primos, family she’d never met before. A place that felt like a whole different world. She never saw her father again, or much else in Paraná, really. The wound’s still far too raw. Even if that singular, crystalline moment, the trauma of losing her father and the idea of what ‘parents’ were supposed to be, still haunts her, Thaís swears that the new family she gained made up for it. She finally had siblings, a brother and a sister, both older, both fiercely protective, and she grew up the way all little girls should - playing football and gossiping with friends and ultimately, happy. Until her mother left. Thaís was beginning puberty when her mother decided to seek work in the United States, leaving her only child with Tia Marlli and Tio Luis. Though she loved Colombia, and the home she had forged for herself there, the longing she felt for her mother never dissipated and she spent the majority of her formative years dreaming about the perfect life she’d be living in America. Unfortunately, despite her best attempts, Thaís failed to receive a visa during high school, though she worked hard at her aunt’s coaching to maintain high marks throughout her education. Instead of worrying about citizenship, she focused on university, and after her acceptance to Johns Hopkins University, she figured the rest would come easily. The culture shock of Baltimore had been a lot to take in at first, and she took a while to adjust and assimilate into American life. Her mother wasn’t all too far away in D.C. either, which helped, though it hurt Thaís to see the struggles she had been enduring, struggles that seemed very different from the American idealism she had envisioned in her head. She coped the only way she knew how - throwing herself into her schoolwork and studying diligently, with the knowledge she had to make a better life for herself, for her mother’s sake. Things at Johns Hopkins seemed pretty dull; until she met Gabriela, that is. Thick as thieves, it felt almost as if Thaís had gained another sister, one to study with and cry over boys with and practice kissing with. She even got to spend a semester studying abroad in Paris. Graduating early was probably one of her proudest achievements, only seconded to her Harvard law acceptance. Though despite her status as a student, Thaís’ status as an immigrant proved far more precocious and fearing the worst, she ultimately married American-born Brazilian hotel heir, Caetano Rodrigues, a relationship of mutual convenience. Thaís finally became a citizen and Caetano could get the wife his parents always demanded of him. Granted, it can be difficult to be with a man one hardly loves, but Thaís can’t complain, especially after he helped pay off her colossal student loan debt. After successfully finishing law school and passing the bar, she began practicing immigration law, representing people like her from countries like her own in a system that continuously puts them at a disadvantage. Much of her work is unpaid, though she doesn’t mind the grueling hours. It’s the emotional labor that’s truly taxing. She’s returned to college for her masters degree and continues to make strives in her career every day. But what she never anticipated was meeting a popstar and falling in love. Her education never prepared her for that.

FAVORITES

Location: Her family home in Medellín, Colombia.

Sports team: Either the Brazilian or Colombian national football (soccer) teams.

Music: Is she biased if she says her favorite artist is her cousin/brother, Juan Luis Arias, aka Maluma?? Other than him, she adores other reggaeton artists such as J Balvin and Daddy Yankee, all kinds of different rap (she’s obsessed with Kendrick Lamar), and some random bands here and there too (her favorite is definitely Glass Animals).

Shows: Narcos, How To Get Away With Murder, Lost. Anything that can keep her intrigued.

Movies: She always said Pulp Fiction was her favorite, but lately Coco’s given it a run for its money.

Artists: Picasso, Matisse, Klimt.

Food: Her avó’s cooking.

Beverage: An ice-cold Coca-cola (but it has to be in a glass bottle!)

Color: Green. Any shade.

#thaís #took me all day gbfhjdnkj #and it's still shit #bios

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND SOMETHING

How many even discover something they love to work on them. But that assumption is often false, and worse still, the more ideas you implement, the more you push the good stuff spreads, and the programmers work down the list, fixing them. The most important quality in a CEO is his vision for the company's future.1 You don't give up on your dreams.2 There are only two things you have to manufacture your own hardware, or use your software, you should probably be able to come up with an idea that sounded plausible, but was actually bad. If you pay them by the volume of work done but only as you defined work.3 There are only two reasons someone might sue you: for money, but what will make you a better programmer, and yet they don't seem to matter very much in software is public opinion—or rather, hacker opinion.4

It's exceptionally rare for startups to have traction before they put in significant money. Efficiency matters for server-based software, you can think instead That's an interesting idea, you can find and fix most bugs as soon as they appear. T: Scheme has no libraries. The reason design counts so much in software is public opinion—or who might buy a copy later, when he has just read in the paper that some other language is poised, like Ada was twenty years ago people noticed computers and TV were on a collision course and started to speculate about what they'd like to publish their lives semi-publicly on the Internet, you don't need Microsoft on the client, it will be because it's more convenient. There are many exceptions to this rule. In fact, shelving an idea probably even inhibits new ideas: as you become more eminent, gradually to increase the actual value of the company. He walks right by them, dressed up as an old man on crutches, and they never suspect him.5 I don't mean to disparage Yahoo.

But though labor unions are shrinking now, it's not a sufficient one. It works, but you come from the corporate world and your friends are not early adopters, and only realize later that they could always interrupt anything with a report of a genuine bug.6 I can think of three possible reasons. And that did turn out to be big like Microsoft.7 The five languages that Eric Raymond recommends to hackers fall at various points on the power continuum. For millennia that was the optimal path to dominating a big market. Boston half the time: it's hard to imagine now, but I don't think they hamper innovation much.8 We, as hackers, know the USPTO is letting people patent the knives and forks of our world.

To us that's positive evidence an idea is good. Web-based software is offered through ISPs acting as resellers. It looks as if it will be whatever the startup can get from the first one to write a novel, for example, even though it is probably a bad idea. What really makes him stand out, though, that even with all the fat trimmed off its market cap, Yahoo was still worth a lot. Most people could see how it might be helpful to be in the twentieth century. In Lisp, these programs are called macros. Nor do startups, at least something that made me feel better about it. The definition then spread to people who behaved like assholes in forums, whether intentionally or not. In fact, worse than arrogant: since readers are used to companies ignoring them.9 Microsoft and Facebook both got started in January. From the evidence I've seen so far is nothing compared to what's coming.10 They work odd hours, wearing the most casual of clothing.

They even let hackers spend 20% of their time on their own projects, and instead of trying to approximate the value of free markets, are run internally like communist states. They just sit there quietly radiating optimism, like a well is almost a necessary condition for a good startup idea. Smalltalk: Not everything in Simula is an object. It's one of the heavy school record players and played James Taylor's You've Got a Friend to us. Our approach to support made everyone happier. The same thing will happen if you're running a big company is the same thing to them.11 But that assumption is often false, and worse still, the more a project has to count as research is so narrow that it's unlikely that a project that satisfied that constraint would also satisfy the orthogonal constraint of solving users' problems in a way that he made seem effortless. And when you have a recurring revenue stream.12 I notice something surprising, it's usually a big company will be their big break. If applications run on remote servers, no one can get between you and potential users without preventing them from browsing the Web. Look at this, for example, as property in the way only founders can.

You're going to have to add a spoonful of sugar to make the release date you assemble a team of qualified experts and tell them to make a living. But designed is not really the word; discovered is more like it. TV is probably dead. Indeed, food is an excellent metaphor to explain what's wrong with the usual sort of job. The source code of the Viaweb editor was probably about 20-25% of the code in this program is doing things that don't scale that we call pulling a Meraki. But it would require a great moral effort; it would mean staring failure in the eye every day for years. Now everyone knows that this is changing. Working in crappy informal spaces is one of Silicon Valley's biggest weaknesses. If you think of using Lisp in a startup.

When one company or industry replaces another, it usually works best to get something in front of it. It doesn't add; it multiplies. One day, when the stock was trading around $200, I sat down and calculated what I thought before Viaweb, to the extent I thought about what it meant to call someone a hero, it meant something to talk about their previous startup idea while they were working at their day jobs. Few would be willing to claim that it doesn't matter at all where a startup is to focus on bad ones. By the time journalists covering the press release got round to calling us, we would take. If the startup can't raise the rest, the lead is out too. Umair Haque wrote recently that the reason there aren't more Googles is that most essays are written to persuade. And if you're writing a program that only has to do.13 Neither Apple nor Yahoo nor Google nor Facebook were even supposed to be a good trick to look for waves and ask how one could benefit from them. In the first couple bites feels great.

Only a handful actually do, and the enforcement of quality can flow bottom-up often works better than top-down.14 The reason I want to plant a hypnotic suggestion in your heads: when you can say things you wouldn't say in conversation. When you read of big companies. With server-based software before you buy it. When they go to VC firms. Especially since you won't even really learn about it, they'll be able to come up with surprising new ideas.15 Each type of schedule from other people. Open source and blogging both work bottom-up: people make what they want when they want it, and gradually whatever features it happens to have become its identity. You should compete against what someone else could be doing, not just because it's free, but because they felt it was really for them, they'll get a lot done during those few days, you will be net more productive.16 Howard Aiken said Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. The most memorable example of medieval industrial secrecy is probably Venice, which forbade glassblowers to leave the city, and fragile organisms like startups are exceedingly sensitive to such variation. On the Web, and it also tends to have the time and the inclination to build things that are impossible to build.

Notes

Maybe you don't go back and forth. As willful people get serious about tax avoidance. Stone, op.

If Ron Conway had been campaigning for the next round is high as well.

Only founders of Google to do some research online. But it's a bad idea, at least try.

The problem with most of the reason. And though they have to sweat any one outcome. If spammers get good enough to convince limited partners. No one seems to have lunch at the exact same thing.

The Socialist People's Democratic Republic of X is probably the early 90s when they set up an additional disk drive. Among other things, they mean statistical distribution. If a man has good corn or wood, or much energy would be investors who say no for introductions to other investors, but explain that's what you're working on what interests you most. A company will either be a lot easier now for a patent is conveniently just longer than the set of users comes from.

I assume we still do things that will be maximally profitable when each employee is paid in proportion to the present day equivalent of the startup will be on the subject of language power in Succinctness is Power. I write out loud at least straightforwardly benevolent, doesn't help people on the valuation a bit of an outcast, just those you can never tell for sure a social network for x instead of happy. But on the other becomes visible.

But the solution is to the writing of literary theorists.

The answer is simple: pay them to. The greatest damage that photography has done to painting may be that the applicant pool gets partitioned by quality rather than giving grants. It's lame that VCs play such games, but mediocre programmers is the other side of the present, and stir. 5% a week for 4 years.

It is a sufficiently good bet, why not turn your company right now. And the old one was nothing special. Maybe it would have been the general sense of the problem, if they can get very emotional. Just use the local builders built everything in exactly the point I'm making, though it's a seller's market.

I'm just going to need common sense when intepreting it. While Jessica didn't ask many questions, they sometimes say.

If anyone wants. Giant tax loopholes defended by two of the breach with Rome, where w is will and d discipline.

There is of course the source files of all tend to be about 200 to send a million dollars out of the false positives reflecting the remaining outcomes don't have to give up your anti-takeover laws, starting with the exception of the big winners aren't all that matters, just the location of the words won't be trivial. The CRM114 Discriminator. To talk to feel tired.

This argument seems to them. Conjecture: The variation in wealth over time, because you need to fix.

In a series A round about the right way.

What he meant, I was not drinking that kool-aid at the start of the clumps of smart people are trying to make you expend as much income. Turn the other team. Http requests are indistinguishable from dishonesty by the high-fiber diet is to use a restaurant is constrained in a certain way, because talks are usually more desperate for money.

This is actually a computer. He did eventually graduate at about 26. We're delighted to have them soon.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #power #someone #outcome #idea

[newstfionline]

Saturday, January 30, 2021

US jobless claims drop; still at 847,000 as pandemic rages (AP) The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell but remained at a historically high 847,000 last week, a sign that layoffs keep coming as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage. Last week’s claims dropped by 67,000, from 914,000 the week before, the Labor Department said Thursday. Before the virus hit the United States hard last March, weekly applications for jobless aid had never topped 700,000. Overall, nearly 4.8 million Americans received traditional state unemployment benefits the week of Jan. 16. That is down from nearly 5 million the week before and far below a staggering peak of nearly 25 million in May when the virus brought economic activity to a near halt. There is optimism that COVID-19 vaccines will end the health crisis and help stabilize the economy, but that effort is moving forward haltingly and right now, the job market is stressed. Since February, the United States has lost 9.8 million jobs, including 140,000 in December.

Biden faces scrutiny over reliance on executive orders (AP) President Joe Biden and aides are showing touches of prickliness over growing scrutiny of his heavy reliance on executive orders in his first days in office. The president in just over a week has already signed more than three dozen executive orders and directives aimed at addressing the coronavirus pandemic as well as a gamut of other issues including environmental regulations, immigration policies and racial justice. Biden has also sought to use the orders to erase foundational policy initiatives by former President Donald Trump, such as halting construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and reversing a Trump-era Pentagon policy that largely barred transgender people from serving in the military. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Biden’s early reliance on executive action is at odds with the Democrat’s pledge as a candidate to be a consensus builder. Biden on Thursday framed his latest executive actions as an effort to “undo the damage Trump has done” by fiat rather than “initiating any new law.” Earlier in the day, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield bristled at the criticism of Biden’s executive orders in a series of tweets, adding, “Of course we are also pursuing our agenda through legislation. It’s why we are working so hard to get the American Rescue Plan passed, for starters.”

Christianity on display at Capitol riot sparks new debate (AP) The Christian imagery and rhetoric on view during this month’s Capitol insurrection are sparking renewed debate about the societal effects of melding Christian faith with an exclusionary breed of nationalism. The rioters who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, leading to federal charges against more than 130 people so far, included several people carrying signs with Christian messages, and video showed one man in a fur hat and horns leading others in a prayer inside the Senate chamber. The rise of what’s often called Christian nationalism has long prompted pushback from leaders in multiple denominations, but in the immediate wake of the insurrection, other Christian leaders spoke out to denounce what they saw as the misuse of their faith to justify a violent attack on a seat of government. Russell Moore, president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that when he saw a “Jesus Saves” sign displayed near a gallows built by rioters, “I was enraged ... This is presenting a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ that isn’t the gospel and is instead its exact reverse.” The Rev. Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, cited the corrosive effects of “a convergence of a nationalist identity and a Christian identity.” “Certainly I love our country, and as the son of immigrant parents I am deeply grateful for the hope this nation represents,” Kim said. “But as a Christian, my highest allegiance is to Christ.” Yet some supporters of former President Donald Trump say that denunciations of Christian nationalism are a way of attacking them politically. Former Rep. Allen West, now chairman of the Texas GOP, said on a Tuesday panel with several other religious conservatives sponsored by the group My Faith Votes that the term is used against those who “don’t conform to a progressive, socialist ideological agenda.”

Bernie Sanders’ mittens, memes help raise $1.8M for charity (AP) About those wooly mittens that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders wore to the presidential inauguration, sparking endless quirky memes across social media? They’ve helped to raise $1.8 million in the last five days for charitable organizations in Sanders’ home state of Vermont, the independent senator announced Wednesday. The sum comes from the sale of merchandise with the Jan. 20 image of him sitting with his arms and legs crossed, clad in his brown parka and recycled wool mittens. Sanders put the first of the so-called “Chairman Sanders” merchandise, including T-shirts, sweatshirts and stickers, on his campaign website Thursday night and the first run sold out in less than 30 minutes, he said. More merchandise was added over the weekend and sold out by Monday morning, he said. “Jane and I were amazed by all the creativity shown by so many people over the last week, and we’re glad we can use my internet fame to help Vermonters in need,” Sanders said in a written statement.

No Justice, No Peace (Foreign Policy) While headlines may be zeroing in on the latest COVID-19 variants to arise in Latin America, another story—with ramifications for peace and justice in the whole region—took a key step forward this week. After an investigation spanning more than two years, Colombia’s transitional justice court charged eight former guerrilla commanders for crimes they committed during the pre-2016 civil conflict, including kidnapping, homicide, forced disappearance, and sexual violence. Two of the defendants are sitting senators, positions they were granted as part of the peace deal. Under that 2016 agreement, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels agreed to demobilize and undergo investigation in exchange for concessions such as reduced criminal sentences, physical protection, and seats in Congress. That first concession is what is in play now. The ex-commanders can either recognize the crimes and take a five-to-eight-year sentence or face longer sentences of up to 20 years. The defendants’ and other political actors’ responses to these charges—part of the first of seven umbrella cases at the war crimes tribunal—will constitute a temperature check on Colombia’s fragile peace process.

UK PM Johnson ‘immensely proud’ as visa offer for Hong Kong citizens launches (Reuters) Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday hailed a new visa scheme that offers qualifying Hong Kong citizens a route to British citizenship—a programme launched in response to China’s new security laws in the former colony. The scheme, first announced last year, opens on Sunday and allows those with “British National (Overseas)” status to live, study and work in Britain for five years and eventually apply for citizenship. Britain says it is fulfilling a historic and moral commitment to the people of Hong Kong, after accusing China of breaching the terms of a 1997 handover by introducing security laws that London says are being used to silence dissent. The 250 pound ($340) visa could attract over 300,000 people and their dependents to Britain and generate up to 2.9 billion pounds net benefit to the British economy over the next five years, according to government forecasts. It is still highly uncertain how many people will actually take up the offer. Government estimates show that 2.9 million and a further 2.3 million dependents will be eligible to come to Britain.

Macron weighs up a third lockdown despite signs the French ‘can’t take it anymore’ (AFP) Amid risks of a push back from a population wearied by successive restrictions, the French government is mulling tougher anti-Covid curbs—including a third lockdown—after conceding a nightly curfew was failing to suppress the spread of the virus. When it comes to deciding on new measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, French President Emmanuel Macron and his government are walking a tightrope. Should another nationwide lockdown—the third in less than 12 months—be quickly imposed on the French, as scientists are advocating? Or should the government wait a few more weeks, or even opt for a less strict approach, so as not to alienate part of the population? It is a decision that has left the state’s leaders in a quandary. The French, like so much of the rest of the world, are increasingly succumbing to a generalised state of weariness after nearly a year of living under Covid-19 restrictions. Frustration and fatigue have set in after almost a year in which ordinary lives have been upended. Recent events in the Netherlands, where a protest movement and riots took place after the announcement of a Covid-19 curfew last weekend, would not have escaped Macron’s attention. The police arrested 250 people on Sunday evening and another 70 on Monday. Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the riots “the worst in 40 years”, in a country that has not seen a curfew since the Second World War. At the same time in France, the hashtag “#JeNeMeReconfineraiPas” (#I will not go back into lockdown) appeared on Twitter, where it went viral with more than 40,000 shares. Some of the posts even invited civil disobedience.

Italian grandmother finds treasure at home thanks to confinement (Worldcrunch) The story began grimly, with an all too familiar ring: Another Italian grandmother had tested positive for COVID-19. At the age of 98, Nonna Maria was at particularly high risk in one of countries hit hardest by the pandemic—and though she had only developed light symptoms, doctors told her to remain at home in “maximum isolation.” But it was while in quarantine last November, that this COVID story would take a very different twist: the Nonna (“grandmother”) found a fortune hidden in her apartment in eastern Rome, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reports. Without much else to do in lockdown, Maria had set out to organize her memorabilia and tidy up her apartment. It was in the hidden compartment of an old sewing machine that she found a 1986 government bond that she had completely forgotten about. Her late husband, a former army official, had decided to put his savings into an Italian Post bond originally worth 50 million Italian lira (26,000 euros), before hiding it there to protect it from burglars. An ongoing legal investigation will confirm the bond’s present value. The Italian Post has already offered 200,000 euros, although some have questioned the math and say she could be due as much as half a million, or about 19 times the amount of the initial investment. And the best bit of good fortune: Nonna Maria had fully recovered from COVID-19.

In Afghanistan, Follow the White High-Tops and You’ll Find the Taliban (NYT) The unassuming white leather high-top sneakers with green-and-yellow trim are a best seller for a roughly half-dozen shoe vendors in a sprawling bazaar in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. But they are not in demand because they’re the latest fashion trend. For many Afghans, the sneakers evoke only one emotion: fear. That’s because they’re beloved by Taliban fighters as a status symbol. In Afghanistan they’ve been worn by rifle-wielding insurgents for decades—from the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s to the U.S.-led war that began in 2001. The sneakers have become synonymous with violence, and especially so on the feet of the Taliban. Even in the heart of Afghanistan’s most populated cities, including the capital of Kabul, the shoes evoke a certain sense of dread. “I have seen these shoes worn by the Taliban many times,” Said Mar Jan, a resident of Khost city in Afghanistan’s mountainous east, said. Government militia members, some security forces, criminals and people in rural areas also buy and wear them.

Wake-up call for elite as COVID-19 floods Zimbabwe’s hospitals, killing rich and poor (Reuters) When Zimbabwe’s rich and powerful get sick, they often go abroad in search of the best treatment money can buy; ousted President Robert Mugabe died in a hospital in Singapore in 2019. With travel curtailed by the coronavirus, that luxury is not available, exposing the elite to a truth the majority has long known: Zimbabwe’s health system has been crumbling for years and is now struggling to cope with a spike in COVID-19 cases. Anger among overwhelmed medics is adding to broader public dissatisfaction with President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who pledged an economic revival after he took over from Mugabe following a coup in 2017. “It’s a rude awakening to the government and to the politicians,” said Norman Matara, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights. “If you have decades of continuously destroying your public health system, and then now you have a pandemic, you cannot then overturn that decay ... in one year or in six months.”

Bison rangers (Foreign Policy) As U.K. conservationists plan to introduce European bison to the county of Kent, they are seeking Britain’s first-ever bison rangers. Wild bison—Europe’s largest land mammals—haven’t resided in Kent for millennia. Moved from the Netherlands, Romania, and Poland, the animals will help manage the Kent woodlands. Stan Smith, who works for the Kent Wildlife Trust, told Reuters that while the ideal applicant for the job should be accustomed to animal behavior, they were not expected to have experience with bison, “because you can’t until now.”

#headlines #news

[punkrockpolitix]

Trumpism and the Tyranny of the Minority

by Mitch Maley — I'm often asked why self-described patriots seem to be okay with fascism or how those who scream in defense of concepts such as liberty and freedom can fail to be troubled by our slide toward totalitarianism, but such questions seem to miss the larger point.

Trumpism isn't a new phenomenon or even unique to the man at its helm. It is simply the logical end point for the so-called Tea Party movement that has completely taken over traditional conservatism in the past decade, a movement that aims to fully impose the will of a minority, even if their views are grossly out of step with most Americans.

In that sense, 2010 was the official end of bipartisan government, the moment the opposition became the enemy. It became more dangerous to reach across the aisle than to sit on your hands and do nothing, unless you could do everything your constituents wanted. It became a zero sum game in which half a loaf of bread was worse than none at all.

Make no mistake, extremism—whether it comes from the right or the left—is always about minority rule. Otherwise, the beliefs would be mainstream. Donald Trump was only the fourth president in U.S. history to lose the popular vote and win the electoral college, and he did it with less of a share of the total vote (46.9) than any of the others. Not once during his presidency has his approval rate hit 50 percent, and it's recently been as low as 35.

I point this out because to hear his supporters tell it, they are part of a silent majority, despite what the math tells us. However, minority rule has been at the core of this movement from the beginning—at least for its architects. From restrictive voting laws clearly meant to suppress opposition turnout (including the current misinformation campaign on vote by mail) to packing the courts with judges that hold views grossly out of step with the majority of Americans and seeking to subvert the Supreme Court decision on a woman's right to choose with laws meant to curtail the ability of women to access abortion under bogus pretenses, the right-wing platform has increasingly become about a minority of people imposing their beliefs on a majority who find them objectionable.

Sure, there are memes, slogans and talking points that attempt to rationalize things like voter ID laws, limitations on early voting, requiring OBGYNs to have admitting privileges near their clinics or that the clinics to be expensively retrofitted to meet arbitrary codes, and on and on across a broad spectrum of issues, but when you read the literature of the think tanks and policy groups that craft such legislation, their objective is clear: How do we get what we want, without the power of the majority behind us?

One way is to argue that the rules favor the minority view, which is why there are always so many lay constitutional scholars ready to tell us how things like universal health care, mask mandates during a pandemic, sensible environmental regulation and other policies favored by a majority of Americans run afoul of the founder's intent, even if those same experts fail to find their voice each time this president tramples on the Constitution on behalf of something they agree with.

But gerrymandering districts so that you can keep at least part of Congress under your control despite getting less total Congressional votes cycle after cycle, or packing courts with sympathetic judges who might uphold the unconstitutional laws you are able to get passed is part of the kind of long game most people don't have patience for. In the end, if you want to see your country look exactly the way you want—and most of your fellow Americans do not share your vision—there is only one route: ceding power to a totalitarian dictator who has been able to turn minority support into presidential power and is willing to dance to any song his supporters play, so long as they provide the means for him to remain in power—legitimately or otherwise.

It is in this effort that fascism becomes quite useful, for it allows the minority to actually claim defense of our freedoms against an enemy that can now be identified as the other, an outsider group who they don't need to count among their numbers, as those people are now the enemy, making for a false reality in which they are no longer a minority but rather a majority of real Americans who love their country and are therefore intent on stopping the evil others at all costs.

Fascism is, at its core, not an ideology. Most simply put, it is an attack from the right on the left, on the basis that the central tenets of liberalism represent a constant threat of socialist takeover that is always close to being upon us. Draped in nationalism and an appeal to a brand of inherent righteousness most commonly found in religious movements, it should be no surprise that its adherents often espouse rhetoric that is just as dogmatic and evangelical.

Conversely, socialism is, in many ways, a similar attack on the perceived inherent evils of capitalism. Like fascist revolutions, socialist ones routinely justify violent insurrection, theft and even the execution of those who do not bend their knee, as necessary nearly to the point of being benevolent—regardless of the majority's will. One need not look further than the recent upheaval in Seattle, where a group of left-wing radicals vandalized private property while occupying six city blocks and making ridiculous demands until eventually devolving into the deadly chaos of a miniature failed state. The means to take power already exist through democratic channels, but because a majority is needed to seize it, the malcontent convince themselves that such a system is inherently corrupt to the degree that such criminal reappropriations are not only justified but completely necessary in order to force their minority view on the rest of the community who so desperately needs to live by it, even if they don’t realize it yet.

What the extreme left and extreme right have in common is an unwavering belief that there is but one way to do things—theirs. The big difference, however, is that while the extreme left doesn't even like the Democratic Party, even the progressive left is but a fringe force in a party almost wholly controlled by right of center NeoLiberals who drape themselves in progressive slogans, while remaining contemptuous of progressive politics.

Meanwhile, the Tea Party movement has, in just 10 years, completely vanquished the NeoConservative forces that preceded it as the power center of the Republican Party. Trump's election in 2016 signaled the passing of the torch, or rather it being pried from the cold, dead hands of the House of Bush. The extreme right, very much unlike the extreme left, is in control, with both the White House and the Senate under its wing. Those who haven't bent their knee in fealty to Trump and his tribe like former NeoCon stalwarts Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley and Mitch McConnell have, have either been marooned in a political no man’s land (Mitt Romney) or have gotten out.

What's left of the NeoConservative Republicans is now part of team Biden, seeing far more commonality with the NeoLiberals than Trump's crowd. That should be no surprise. The majority of Democrats and Republicans of 2000-2010 disagreed on little when it came down to brass tacks. Sure, they dangled identity politics, social issues and class warfare as red meat for the crowd, but when it came to Wall Street, globalization, bad trade deals and forever wars, they had much in common and were happy to divy the loot.

Of course, if you're a Trump supporter, you might be inclined to think something totally different. To hear his campaign frame the 2020 election, he's not running against the guy who wrote the crime bill, voted for every war and military spending bill ever put before him and routinely worked across the aisle to make deals. No, they're running against Antifa, AOC, looters in Portland and the impending socialist revolution that will always be on the verge of taking over, lest Donald J. Trump protects us.

Why? Because there's not a very sound argument for minority rule or trading democracy for autocracy to get it, unless the wolves are at the door and your only choices are giving up your freedoms or being eaten alive. For many Trump supporters, the constant rhetoric and propaganda has led them to a place where they truly believe there's that much at stake in November. It doesn't matter that the streets were peaceful when he took office or that Americans have never been as divided as they have become under his rule, at least since the Civil War. That's not because of his actions. In their minds, it's in spite of them. If Biden were to win, every American city would be overtaken by violent leftists, AOC and the Squad would be pulling his strings, and their country would become unrecognizable. Of course they would hand over any power needed to the one man who could save them from such horrors.

For the rest of us, the country has already become unrecognizable since 2016, and in the worst way possible. We're living their nightmare and the notion that four more years of Trump (or perhaps more, given his regular references to deserving a third term) might indeed see the United States slide into a totalitarian autocracy in which dissenters or even those deemed insufficiently enthusiastic about Dear Leader could be sent off to the gulags seems all too possible. The only thing that remains certain is that it won't be over on November 3, no matter who wins. America is at the crossroads of a cultural reckoning, and it will take more than just a presidential election for it to fully play out.

Dennis “Mitch” Maley has been a journalist for more than two decades. A former Army Captain, he has a degree in government from Shippensburg University and is the author of several books, which can be found here.

[deadinsidedressage]

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT RUSSIA BEING KICKED OUT OF THE OLYMPICS

ELLEN WAS THIS YOU!?

Okay, so. Let me tell you guys a thing about Russia’s treatment post USSR break-up that is not taught in American schools due to Cold War propaganda.

Here’s the REAL historic breakdown of WHAT led to the end of the USSR:

Mikhail Gorbachev was the best thing to happen to Russians since Alexander II. As head of the USSR he was extremely, extremely liberal and created so many reforms that he earned nicknames like the Great Soviet Reformer (Alexander II was the Great Reformer). He was ending the ethnic erasure in Central Asia by putting native nationalists into the local government (governor type positions) and overall was trying to merge Capitalism into the Socialist government the way that eventually happened in China. He was also trying to bridge Russia into either a mixed democratic society after China’s model OR into a capitalist democracy. He understood that socialism had failed many Russians and that there was no point in continuing a failed experiment. 

America had nothing to do with the “Fall of the Soviet Union” despite American textbooks claiming otherwise. 

Gorbachev was making reforms that continued to limit the power of the Socialist Republic, working towards creating a truly representative branch of government (do I need to tell y’all how corrupt the USSR politics were?), and overall completely undoing Stalin’s legacy when Boris Yeltsein came on the scene. 

Yeltsein & Co. staged a coup that forced Gorbachev to dissolve the USSR and forced Gorbachev into exile outside of Russia. Russia very nearly got to have a democracy, but as is very Russia… at the last minute something got fucked. 

Yeltsein was the worst thing to happen to Russia since Nicholas II. (I mean, I’d say Stalin but Yeltsein benefited from Gorbachev losing power by way of coup the way Lenin (and then Stalin) benefited from Nicholas II losing power by way of coup. So in a roundabout way he’s the worst thing since Nicholas II in terms of the ending of a political era). Yeltsein brought in the false democracy (aka, oligarchy) that Putin would inherit. Yeltsein also established the Yeltsein “Family” (family as in mob terms) that would bring Putin his original power base and pave the way for absolutely painfully corrupt mob-like politics.

Now, here’s where America and the rest of the Western countries fucked up and conveniently leave out of their textbooks: 

The West decided to claim victory in defeating the USSR despite it being 100% internal power struggles that brought the beast down. The West would also tarnish the reputation of Gorbachev and make him appear to be an enemy that needed to be taken down (because how else would him being removed from power = a victory without him being an enemy); which would mean that in order for this propaganda warfare to work the West would have to paint Yeltsein as a hero. Which they did initially. 

Now, since the West (USA included heavily here) decided to treat the dissolution of the USSR as a victory, that meant they needed to treat Russia as a defeated enemy. 

For those unaware, to bring a country out of Socialism and into Capitalism it takes a great deal of assistance from Allies. One does not simply overnight have all their citizens involved in (failing) social programs that are supposed to provide them everything they need and the next day be forced into a very bare bones Capitalism without or with hugely reduced social assistance. 

Russia in the 1990′s experienced a Depression of a MUCH greater scale than the US’s Great Depression of the 1930′s. This is 100% due to Western countries treating Russia almost exactly as Germany was treated post WWI (which, in case you don’t know put Germany into such an economic Depression that Hitler was able to rise to power because he promised change). Which, by the way the West had learned that was bad idea and offered a HUGE amount of assistance to Germany post WWII which has since enabled it to become the economic powerhouse it was. YET, thanks to DECADES of McCarthyism, Russia was not given this treatment and instead was shut out of international trade, had massive tariffs placed on it, and ultimately purposefully left out of the international discussion all together. 

When the NATO was formed, the United States pushed to get the Soviet Satellite nations in as fast as possible. This meant countries like Poland, Moldova, Estonia, etc. were being accepted into NATO membership DESPITE NOT MEETING REQUIREMENTS TO JOIN NATO. This was done 100% with the intent to further weaken Russia, which it did. The United States also effectively chose to make it impossible for Russia to ever meet NATO requirements by raising them and raising them while making constant exceptions to add any of Russia’s border countries. 

The purposeful international neglect in rehabilitating Russia which lead to it’s Depression and intentional isolating of Russia’s borders through fostering NATO alliances with Soviet Satellite’s is what Putin has built his entire political career on. 

When Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was actually democratically elected in 2000, he did so on a platform very similar to Trump’s and his slogan might as well have been “Make Russia Great Again”. Putin, being much more intelligent however has then spent 2000 onward consolidating his power and strengthening his ties to oligarchs. Putin also near immediately disposed of all belonging to the Yeltsein “Family” (he’s got a whole string of bodies tied to him) and made his hold on power unquestionable. When he has not been president, it has been to exploit a loophole in the Russian constitution that doesn’t limit LIFE service, only consecutive terms. He’s also very much been running Russia continuously since 2000. 

“But Emma,” you might cry, “Putin is a Bad Hombre. Why is he still in power if he’s so evil and corrupt?”

Well dear friends, because Putin is perhaps one of the greatest political geniuses of this century if not of all time. Putin has kept his approval rating above 70% (as verified by non-Russian polling) this whole time because he has built a cult-like following or at least acceptance due to his platform. What is his platform? His platform is on pitting Russia against the West, namely it’s generally the United States. 

Putin has convinced Russians that the last time Russia was secure was at the height of it’s Imperial power and he aims to get that back. He has painted the United States and the West as being the only thing stopping him and THIS has enabled him to do things like invade the Crimea, interfere with international elections, and at times do terrible things to the Russian people because he is “righting a historical wrong”. He is using the treatment of Russia in the 90′s as fodder for his own propaganda machine which keeps him in autocratic power. 

And he is an autocrat. There is not a single shred of real democracy in Russia. There is only a government in which the ultimate power is Putin. 

So, how do I feel about the exclusion of Russia from the upcoming Olympic Games? 

I feel it’s a horrible, horrible political mistake. I am well versed in steroid-use history and don’t deny that Russia is probably the most talented nation when it comes to cheating the system, but the idea that the IOC would outright ban the entire country from competing is a terrifying proposition. 

Also, realize Russia is also no longer being represented in the IOC. 

This plays right into Putin’s narrative and when you consider HOW close China & Russia are to declaring an official military alliance (they RECENTLY were doing joint military exercises in the Baltic) then you understand what an awful decision this is and how it could potentially jeopardize international politics. President Xi has also been building a narrative in his nation about how The West is the only thing holding China back from being a respected world power. You add them in an allegiance and the United States is kicked off the global stage, which might as well mean the entirety of the West is kicked off the global stage. The United Nations has proven to be the most useless thing in existence, especially since the UN couldn’t come to an agreement to stop Russia’s illegal invasion of the Crimea. 

The United States and The West are simply making it too easy for Putin to enact him plan by being this careless and the idea of letting “clean” athletes compete alongside refugees under the Olympic banner is a total farce. If you allow North Korea to compete under their flag but do not allow Russians to compete under their flag then you are showing the depths of McCarthyism in the 21st Century and the absolute idiocy in dealing with the sleeping giant that is Russia. 

[bluewatsons]

Byron Zachary Rom-Jensen, ‘Socialist’ suicide in Scandinavia: a historical view of a common myth, Nordics (November 28, 2019)

High rates of suicide are often connected with the Nordic countries and their apparently ‘socialist’ policies. Highlighting high suicide rates in Scandinavia can be traced back to at least the 1960s when foreign observers attempted to either undermine or legitimize the welfare states in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. These characterizations forced Scandinavian commentators to respond in diverse and interesting ways, sometimes invoking the spirit of regional solidarity against criticism from outside the region, other times acting competitively and combatively. In the process, the enduring myth of the extraordinarily ‘suicidal’ Scandinavians was born.

In the 1960s, commentators suggested the behavior of Scandinavian mothers, such as dominating child-rearing and going out to work, influenced their offspring's mental health and led to higher suicide rates. Photo: Les Anderson, Unsplash.

For the Scandinavian states in the twenty-first century, suicide plays a key role in their international image, despite a concurrent reputation for prosperity and stability. In this image, suicide is often purportedly linked with the political structures of the Nordic countries, especially the existence of a universal, redistributive welfare state, and is frequently juxtaposed with high rankings of international happiness surveys.

A New York Post article from 2015 drew upon this image to convince Americans about the undesirability of Scandinavian political lessons given the countries’ issues with alcoholism, use of anti-depressants, and suicide. This view posits suicide as the expected outcome when individual freedom and initiative is sacrificed for social and economic security, making suicide a particularly Nordic phenomenon to the extent that these countries are still treated as being uniquely ’socialist’, often in contrast to the Anglo-American countries.

The circulation of this image has led commentators to frequently question the Nordic countries’ high rank in happiness surveys in the face of such seemingly massive unhappiness. In fact, most studies do not indicate a particularly strong tendency towards suicide in the Nordic region. In OECD data on suicide rates from 2014 to 2017, the Nordic countries appear around or under the median, with only Finland in the top 16, at number ten. In all five Nordic countries—with the possible exception of Iceland, where a small populace leads to a great deal of annual variance—suicide rates have fallen over the last 40 years.

These statistics have not unraveled the image of suicidal Scandinavians. Suicide is certainly an important public health issue in the Nordic region, especially for vulnerable groups like teenagers, the elderly, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Loneliness, often misunderstood and undiagnosed, and addiction to drugs and alcohol are furthermore major contributors to suicide rates and extremely complex to resolve. Yet, the struggles with stress, isolation, and addiction highlights that Scandinavian suicide cases are not special: the causes are often universal, and rates in these countries are neither particularly high nor low. However, the perpetual focus on these themes in a Nordic context suggests the image of Scandinavian suicide has taken on a reality independent of, and even in contrast to, actual conditions – a myth.

The myth of socialist suicide dates back at least a half century and was constructed through the Nordic countries’ interactions with other nations. Self-perpetuating and difficult to disprove completely, this myth has the ability to influence how outsiders view the Nordic region—as well as how Nordic citizens view themselves. Let us trace the roots of the myth of Scandinavian socialist suicide to the 1960s, as foreign observers attempted to either undermine or legitimize the Scandinavian countries and their burgeoning welfare states.

Reputation for suicide took hold in early 20th century

It was not until the twentieth century that the Scandinavian countries gained a reputation for being particularly suicidal. Before that, perceptions about the causes and acceptability of suicide of course fluctuated in the Nordic region over time. In the Norse eddas, the institution of honor regulated attitudes towards suicide, which was seen as an acceptable response to “the shame of not fulfilling an expected duty." Viking-era permissiveness contrasted with the Christian ethics of the Middle Ages, when suicide was considered a moral failing and socially unacceptable given the religious proscriptions against it. As elsewhere in Europe, Nordic society viewed suicide as self-murder and the result of spiritual and moral corruption, linking it with other elements of vice, most notably the consumption of alcohol. This conception of suicide as a wicked act encouraged nineteenth-century Scandinavian governments, along with governments in the rest of Europe, to begin measuring suicide rates as a means of assessing immoral activity. Suicide therefore remained illegal in the Nordic region until the mid-nineteenth century (and remained illegal in Finland until 1889). The censoring of suicide only began to change in the pre-modern era with the maturation of more scientific norms, which encouraged a view of suicide as the product of a medical disorder and consequently curable.

In the early twentieth century the Scandinavian countries would gain a reputation for being particularly suicidal. To some extent, this reflected reality as suicide rates increased in Scandinavia from the 1930s onwards and at a higher rate than other countries (at least in Denmark and Sweden). Culturally, the films of Ingmar Bergman in the 1940s and 1950s also gave international moviegoers access to bleak and pessimistic images of Sweden, which fit well with a supposed regional propensity to suicide. However, it was not until the mid-twentieth century that this image became politically charged.

Conservative backlash against the social democratic project in the mid-20th century

The early twentieth century witnessed the extensive development and alteration of Scandinavia’s international profile, particularly in the 1930s when American journalist Marquis Childs baptized it a “middle way” between capitalism and communism. While the depression-era desperation of the 1930s led many to fawn over the region’s economic and political stability, a counter-movement took hold in the 1950s, especially amongst conservative politicians and journalists. Scandinavian social services in this period began to resemble those in existence today, as social democratic governments created mandatory and voluntary programs that sought to equitably redistribute resources and ensure security in areas like housing, education, and pensions. In response, conservative rhetoric, both in and outside the region, increasingly characterized the Scandinavian countries as welfare states gone amok. According to such portrayals, the result was a rise in ‘welfare criminality’, meaning that the conformity and uniformity of the welfare state drove desperate citizens to acts of defiance: petty theft, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide. The latter was justified by the higher recorded rates of suicide in countries like Denmark and Sweden—although notably not in Norway—than in the United States or the United Kingdom.

The rise of ‘socialistic’ suicide from late 1950s

United States President Dwight Eisenhower captured this new dystopic vision of Scandinavia during the final year of his presidency in 1960 while supporting his Vice President Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign. Decrying the dangers of the Democrats’ plans to expand government programs in an informal speech at the 1960 Republican convention, Eisenhower noted:

"I have been reading quite an article on the experiment of almost complete paternalism in a friendly European country. This country has a tremendous record for socialistic operation, following a socialistic philosophy, and the record shows that their rate of suicide has gone up almost unbelievably and I think they were almost the lowest nation in the world for [sic] that. Now, they have more than twice our rate." (Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Remarks at the Republican National Committee Breakfast, Chicago, Illinois.,” The American Presidency Project, July 27, 1960).

PICTURE: Richard Nixon was US President from 1953 to 1961 and in 1960 linked suicide with socialism in an unspecified "European country". Photo: Wikimedia, Public Domain.

This dystopic landscape, Eisenhower implied, awaited Americans if they strayed from the “middle of the road” into the “gutters” of socialistic experimentation, presumably by voting for John F. Kennedy. Although not the first to express a connection between suicide and the Scandinavian welfare state, Eisenhower’s prominent position ensured it became an international sensation.

Eisenhower’s statements led to some solidarity in the Nordic region, both in the way they refuted the president’s characterizations and in view of the attack being aimed broadly at the Nordic countries. When the Danish newspaper Berlingske Aftenavis put together a list of possible candidates that would fit the “friendly European country” on 29th July 1960 in an article called Eisenhower i Vinden (Eidenhower in the wind), it concluded that the president could be referring to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, or Iceland. It also highlighted a belief in the shared situations throughout the region. The indignation went to the top, as Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander defended the politics of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, while Norwegian Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen went on the attack by calling for an intervention by the US Congress.

However, the solidarity did not last long. Soon after the statement, reporters began comparing suicide rates and ’socialistic’ tendencies in the three Scandinavian countries to determine the true target of Eisenhower’s vitriol. The reports took on a flavor of attempting to find the most suicidal Scandinavians. Eventually, a type of consensus was reached in that Eisenhower was referring to Sweden, which led to frequent rebuttals from Swedish politicians and media figures for years afterwards (see Frederick Hale’s ‘Challenging the Swedish Social Welfare State: The Case of Dwight David Eisenhower’ in the journal Swedish-American Historical).

PICTURE: A still from the 1968 film Sweden: Heaven and Hell.

Socialist suicide would remain a compelling piece of imagery for foreigners seeking examples of the consequences of the welfare state. In a 2005 book, political scientist Richard Rose identified Eisenhower’s speech as a key moment for preventing the importation of Swedish-style social democracy to the USA. Part of the effectiveness of the suicide myth was its connections to a certain Nordic exoticism also circulating at the time. In 1968, the image captivated audiences watching the American trailer to the Italian mondo film Sweden: Heaven and Hell, which promised: “See the Stockholm strip, where Sweden’s liberated youth, bored with sex, bored with drugs, bored with life itself, drop out…for good.” The narration, accompanied by an image of a sprawling girl having ostensibly jumped to her death, bundled the suicide myth as part of the (outlandish) repercussions of a welfare state gone wild.

Blaming the mothers, Suicide and Scandinavia

More nuanced voices also emerged during the 1960s, including those aiming to rebut the socialist suicide thesis. In 1964, Herbert Hendin, an American psychologist, published Suicide and Scandinavia: A Psychoanalytic Study of Culture and Character, which went on to become a foundational work on suicide in northern Europe. The first attempt at a comparative examination of the role of national characteristics in suicide across Scandinavia, Hendin intended his book to disprove that Scandinavian suicide was linked to “character defects” of social democracy as argued by “opponents of economic planning and social welfare measures.” (page 4) Instead, Hendin proposed that the Nordic states’ various psychosocial characteristics defined their proclivity to suicide. Danish mothers, having driven their husbands out of the child-rearing process, instilled guilt and dependency in their children, making Danes vulnerable to loss and fantasies of gratification after death. Swedes likewise suffered from “too much maternal control,” but also maternal rejection, as Swedish mothers demanded independent children in order to pursue their own careers (page 65 and 71). The result was emotional distance amongst Swedes, who turned to sexual contact to bridge the gap. Norway, which boasted a lower suicide rate, avoided such extremes by maintaining a “view of the woman’s role as that of a mother rather than a wife,” making for closer relationships, less dependency, and greater emotional freedom (page 102).

While Hendin disputed that the welfare state led to suicide, his book credited social and economic security with reinforcing suicidal tendencies. In Denmark, the expansive social programs fit with a Danish “desire to be taken care of,” leading to a lack of competitiveness and individual responsibility (pages 48-50). Meanwhile, Swedish government sponsored daycares contributed to the separation anxiety of its citizens, who lost contact with mothers pursuing individual freedoms. Hendin thus indirectly blamed the country’s initiative to bring women into the workforce for the suicidal tendencies of its citizens, even while expressing hope that these institutions could exist without the psychological cost (page 87).

Hendin’s book made a worldwide splash upon its release, winning the Association for Psychoanalytical Medicine’s 1964 book award, receiving favorable reviews in leading American newspapers, and inspiring other psychologists to test Hendin’s findings on the correlation of mothers’ care-giving with suicide. Even writers with diverging political convictions from Hendin, like conservative British writer Roland Huntford, came to use Suicide and Scandinavia to explain how the same society that led to the welfare state also pushed guilt upon its inhabitants.

PICTURE: Roland Huntford's The New Totalitarians which was influenced by Hendin's Suicide and Scandinavia.

Hendin’s book also left a mark on the self-understanding of Nordic citizens. The Norwegian translation of the book lured in readers with a provocative question on its front cover: “Why do we commit far fewer suicides than the Danes or the Swedes?” (Hvorfor begår vi langt færre selvmord enn danskene og svenskene?). Conversely, Danes responded negatively to Hendin’s assertions by trying to discredit Norwegian statistics. Leftist newspaper Information, for example, implied that Norway had as many suicides as Denmark but did not report them as such (Danmarks Rygte (Denmark’s reputation) published in Information on February 25, 1964). Similarly, on the political right, newspaper Berlingske Tidende claimed Danish citizens were in fact more satisfied with life than their Norwegian counterparts (see Litterært Selvmord (Literary suicide), March 25, 1964).

While national ego trumped regional fellowships, Danish journalists were also willing to turn their pens against the United States. Hendin’s inaccurate reporting, Information concluded, was due to Americans’ obsession with the Scandinavian countries and their welfare states. In any case, “well-disciplined and well-raised” Scandinavian children were surely better than those “small monsters” found in the US, as reported in Skyldfølelse Og Selvmord (Guilt and Suicide) in Aktuelt, January 11, 1961. Scandinavian suicide today

The influences of the 1960s on the Scandinavian suicide myth reverberate today, both directly and indirectly, within the international reputations of the Nordic countries. Eisenhower’s condemnation of the socialist state is regularly included in portrayals of suicide in Scandinavia, while the region retains a ’socialist’ label amongst conservatives that fits unevenly at best. Meanwhile, the idea that career-driven women in Sweden contribute to suicide amongst their children remains a way of criticizing both the welfare state and Scandinavia’s emphasis on a dual-breadwinner household. And while international portrayals of socialist suicide usually no longer induce widespread rejoinders, the events of the 1960s remain a demonstration of the extent that foreign opinions can spark Scandinavian acts of solidarity—or disassociation.

Further reading

Evelyne Luef, 'Low Morals at a High Latitude? Suicide in Nineteenth-Century Scandinavia', Journal of Social History 46, 3, 2013, pp. 668–83.

Frederick Hale, 'Challenging the Swedish Social Welfare State: The Case of Dwight David Eisenhower', Swedish-American Historical Quarterly 54, no. 1 (2003).

Herbert Hendin, 'Suicide in Denmark', Columbia University Forum 4, 1961, pp. 26–32.

#sweden #scandinavia #suicide #data #suicide rate #nordic countries #1960s #welfare state #social democracy #cultural myths #stereotypes #stereotypes about national character #child rearing #happiness #quality of life #maternal blame #outlook #reputation #national reputation #secularism #community #dwight d. eisenhower #golden calf #great scandinavian lie #misconceptions #socialism #Other Countries #Others

[megacircuit9universe]

Just Saying

SAT MAR 07 2020

So... after monitoring TikTok for a couple days, I’ve seen a definite uptick in pro Bernie, and anti Bernie rhetoric... which I need to break down a bit.

On the pro Bernie side, there has been more acknowledgement that so far, the young vote has not turned out in any meaningful way so far... with appeals to young voters to step up... being mostly low key.

On Twitter, Bernie tweeted something like, hey, young people, this is your campaign. You need to vote here. Just saying.

On TikTok, it’s been like, Hey, um... you guys might want to vote right now in the rest of the primaries... cuz... just saying.

...With a couple of punctuated, Fuck You Vote!, peppered into the feed.

And beside this, also an uptick of TikToks that just review why Bernie is a good candidate, and what he’s about, that are positive, but non judgemental.

So... a low key, no pressure, shoulder nudge to all the young voters... ya might wannna do this though, right?.. in the primaries like we talked about?

This is probably the best approach, and one much wiser than I could’ve conceived, because it’s quite true that today’s young generation is a lot more shy and introverted than any we’ve seen since the Silent Generation... and also a bit more intelligent... as every successive generation tends to be.

Thus, the subtle approach is what’s called for.  Nobody’s freaking out.  Nobody’s trying to tell you what to do. But... this is kind of important. So... Just saying.

On the flip side, however, I’ve seen a huge increase in TikTok posts by youthful conservatives... some idiots, and some half convincing pseudo-intellectuals... with the former posting quick anti Bernie cheep shots, and the latter... disingenuous take downs of socialism.  

And it’s these conservative TikTokers this week... not just in their videos, but in their hashtagging and what they’re leaving in the comments of the Progressive TikToks... that betrays they already see Bernie as Trump’s opponent for reelection.

And that’s very interesting, because it suggests that from their vantage point... Bernie is already the Democratic Nominee.

They don’t care about the inside baseball of the Democratic primary season, or who won what state, or how many delegates we’re at right now.  They simply see Bernie.

Now, maybe on Facebook it’s a different world.  I don’t know, because I keep away from Facebook. But it’s probably old farts attacking Biden for Burisma... and other old farts cheering Biden, and hating on socialist Bernie, who will surely lose.

But... we don’t care about Facebook, because all of their votes are guaranteed and reflected accurately in the polls.  We care about TikTok, because that tells us something about an army of potential first time voters, from 18 to 38, who really hold the fate of the world in their hands.

There is a showdown happening right now, inside that generation... between their left and the right wings... kinda feeling each other out.  Do we really want this fight?  What are the stakes here?  What is the world right now?

It should be noted here that, after being an active user of the app for a year, the algorithm’s learned not to feed me more than the occasional conservative viewpoint, in a sea of funny memes and... lesbians?   The algorithm has identified me as a lesbian?... and I’m oddly quite okay with that.

Point being... over the past two days I’ve been seeing pointed conservative TikToks almost every other scroll, on the For You page... which can only mean there’s a huge tsunami of them rolling out right now... so many that my poor algorithm can barely keep them down to 50% of what I see.

Not a single one is anti-Biden.  There is no mention of Biden whatsoever... on either side.  Just... the occasional clip of him being dementia on stage, like... really?

You might be thinking, That’s because these young conservatives know there are no arguments to be made against Biden, so they attack the candidate they know is the loser... Bernie!  They know he’s the loser, so they’re just attacking the loser for being a loser!

But, you know that’s not how it works, right?

Attack the threat, is politics 101.

Last Summer, when everybody assumed Joe Biden would for sure be the Democratic Nominee... Trump set into motion a plot to discredit him, that got him impeached.

Talk about an over-reaction to some favorable polling about Joe Biden, seven months before Iowa.

Yes, in the mainstream media, Trumpists are, half heartedly, going after Biden a little bit, but... not with anything near the kind of bitch ass bravado they’d like to bring down on him... if he were the actual threat.

But he’s not... because he’s in stage three of an early onset dementia, and nobody wants to do this to him.  Not even his worst enemies want to do this to him.  Nobody is stooping so low as to take pot shots against a guy in stage three of early onset dementia.  

They know we’ll never nominate him, because if we did... well what kind of monsters would we be?

Reelection guaranteed.  What were you even thinking?  Are you even a party anymore, after a move like that?  

Bernie is the threat.

And while he is not the threat they wanted to face... they’re sharpening their anti-socialist talking points on TikTok in preparation for the big fight in the fall.

...Or so would be my best interpretation of the goings on I’ve witnessed online over the past 48 hours.

That’s my best gaze into the crystal ball tonight.

Gotta get to bed.

Daylight Saving Time is kicking in today.

[drakus79]

The End of Socialism?

Well I was right in predicting that my prediction will probably be wrong :P

That’s what you call hedging your bets.  So why wait so long for another post?

1. I’m lazy and writing is hard.

2. I wanted to give enough time for things to settle before I posted my thoughts and predictions.

The reactions to Trump winning was amusing to say the least, and I wasn’t even one of his supporters.  It’s still amusing to this day, but we’re all starting to get used to him now and the mass hysteria is starting to subside.  So now that clearer heads can prevail, what does it all mean, and where are we going?

This is something I’ve seen coming for some time, but I think Trump’s speech at the UN clarified it.  And no I’m not talking about “Rocket Man” although, his country is part of the story (and I think “Madman Across the Water” would have been a better nickname).  Anyway, this whole election, everything leading up to it, and these final battles to come are the last gasps of a dying ideology.  Call it what you will Socialism/Marxism/Communism, yes I know they all have different definitions.  But like “conservative” “liberal” “left” “right” these are politically loaded terms that people have attempted, both successfully and unsuccessfully to redefine over the years in an effort to paint “their team” in a better light while denigrating their opposition. 

And Trump is guilty of this too.  Watching him criticize Venezuela for “faithfully implementing socialism” was more than a little bit laughable considering all economies are mixed to some degree, and the USA has fallen significantly in rank on the economic freedom index thanks largely in part to the sort of debt spending policies that Trump is in favor of.  It is no longer in the top 10 and has been surpassed by “socialist” countries like Canada and Australia.

Source:  http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

The US has become significantly more Socialist in the past century.  Just one look at the US debt clock gives you an indication that perhaps maybe we need to reverse course quickly to avoid a monetary crisis:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

It has surpassed 20 trillion, already well passed our GDP.  The ones advocating for more expensive social spending, specifically medicare for all (which is our largest budget item) may be unwittingly pushing for a default on the debt and the harshest austerity conditions imaginable.  Think late wave Soviet Union or current day Venezuela but here in the US.  I don’t think that’s what socialists imagine when they advocate for more public spending, but that’s often what they get when there’s not a strong enough competitive free market to support the socialist side of a mixed economy.

So when I say, “the end of socialism” this what I mean.  Socialism, as it has in the past, will be so discredited most likely as a result of socialists getting what they want and it backfiring horribly.  I don’t think the ideology will die off completely though.  It’s been around for as long as civilization has existed, just under the different names.  The Populares were the “socialists” of the Roman Empire after all.  The whole socialist vs. capitalist argument is so tired and old and will never be resolved because you will always find evidence on each side that supports your confirmation bias.

The truth is people in Socialist countries DO live better as long as the people are still wealthy enough to support the social programs and there are few enough corrupt special interest groups taking advantage of the system or bloating up the bureaucracy.  But I'm not sure if you can still call it socialism if most of the population believe that their tax money is well spent and they would voluntarily put their money towards those causes even if the government didn't force them to through taxes.

The way I see it, you can measure how effective your social program is by how voluntary it is.  The most voluntary would be to give directly to those in need without the need of government or any third party organization.  The next level would be through charities or churches.  Another level higher would be through local municipalities or county governments through taxes.  States would be the next level, and the Federal level would be the highest level.  And if we’re taking a global approach having it instituted through a global tax and world government.  With each level comes an increasing degree of bureaucracy and centralization.  The more bureaucratic and centralized it gets, the less trustful people are that their money is being well spent, and there is a higher tendency for the government to resort to the threat of force to tax their citizens.  Thus it becomes less voluntary.  So comparing a small “socialist” state like Norway to the United States is like apples and oranges, since the degree of voluntaryism involved in taxing and funding Norway’s socialist policies is much higher than it is here in the US.

In the US we are nowhere close to having a socialist system that is anywhere near voluntary.  You'll be hard pressed to find anyone on either side of the aisle who skips to the mailbox and happily mails their tax check feeling as though they’ve done a good deed by giving the government their money.  The average middle class family is taxed at 40% of their income between local, state and federal taxes, and that doesn’t include the hidden taxes and fees that are passed down to them whenever they try to buy anything in the “free market”.  At what percentage does taxation become slavery?  60%  70% 80%?  Or do we have to reach North Korea levels and have the government own 100% of property?  The US spends 4 trillion a year, and that's just on the Federal level.  If you throw in state and local budgets it's probably closer 7 trillion. And most of it us funded on debt.  More than 1 trillion has been spent on medicare alone.  That's more than all the European Socialist countries combined.  Yet we get very little in return.

That's because the US actually HAS become socialist.  Very few small businesses make it passed the startup phase anymore, instead they sell themselves to the larger conglomerates that are already embedded in the whole government/corporate super-monopoly that our "free market" has become.  Anyone who's taken one economics class knows that if there's a monopoly that corners the market, prices are going to go up.  Well that's happened in every major established market because the government has become the monopoly, and the big corporations are the parasites that leach off of it.  It's not just the military industrial complex either.  It's almost the entire finance industry, the healthcare industry, the insurance industry, the entertainment industry and main stream media, the auto industry, the construction industry, and pretty much any corporation the government deems "too big to fail".  This is why the average person can't pay for anything in those industries out of pocket anymore without insurance, going into debt, or government assistance.  The USA has essentially adopted a system of corporate communism.

The progressive era at the turn of the century was where the realignment and the trend towards socialism began. Both parties became progressive, and the low tax / small government / anti-central banking classical liberals eventually abandoned the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party had originally inherited the anti-federalist platform from classical liberals like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, but after the civil war, largely influenced by populist and marxist movements of the time, they instead became MORE progressive and MORE federalist than the Republicans, a party that had originally inherited the Federalist platform from classical conservatives like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

The Dem's position as the more federalist and progressive party was solidified with Wilson and later FDR. Wilson's signing of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 cemented the central bank's power, and we've had unprecedented deficit spending ever since. FDR's new deal and his reliance on John Maynard Keynes' economic policies of debt spending and expanding government programs during bust times to get us out out of the Great Depression actually had the reverse effect and really extended the Great Depression an additional decade longer than it should have lasted. It took victory in WWII to finally get us out of it. The rest of the world's economy was shattered and we came out of the war in much better shape comparatively which is why it looks as though spending on the war got us out of the depression.  In truth, we just lost the least. But we never really got out of the debt spending mentality and we allowed the military industrial complex to become a parasite to our increasingly bloated federal government. This has led to other large corporations following suit.  Now the government is one big corporate monopoly.

If you go back to my post where I talked about Strauss and Howe’s Generational Theory, I mentioned that each cycle’s fourth turning focused on resolving a major public problem that had been dogging the nation for that entire cycle.  But every solution creates a new problem, and the next cycle is all about dealing with and ultimately resolving that new problem.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory

During the Revolutionary Cycle, it was getting out from England’s oppressive Imperial Monarchy and establishing a limited government founded on classically liberal principles.  But in order to come to an agreement on the constitution, the founders had to compromise on slavery, and thus the issue of slavery was not resolved until the next cycle.

During the Civil War Cycle, it was about resolving the issue of slavery and reversing course on some of the more extreme aspects of classical liberalism (namely property rights as it pertained to owning slaves and states rights).  But this solution resulted in a much stronger Federal government and a sense of nationalism as well as an explosion of unrestrained capitalism during the Gilded Age.

During the Great Power Cycle, Marxism/Socialism, Populism, and Progressivism took hold both in Europe and the US in reaction to the abuses of unrestrained capitalism during the Industrial Revolution.  A sense of Nationalism also continued to grow, and a fragile system of alliances resulted in WWI, which in turn resulted in WWII when the National Socialists and International Socialists finally had their disastrous and horribly bloody ideological split.  The National Socialists lost and were discredited with good reason.  But the International Socialists came out looking like the good guys despite being just as totalitarian and we’ve been dealing with them ever since.

The Millennial Cycle has been all about the cold war and dealing with the International Socialists/Marxists/Communists whatever you want to call them.  You had your monsters like Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot in Russia, China and Cambodia who killed hundreds of millions of people during the first part of the cycle, but now those countries have developed into mixed economies of varying degrees not too different from Western “Capitalist” Democracies.  The only total command economy left is North Korea, and “Rocket Man” seems to be an isolated laughingstock on the world stage.  Just one look at the economic freedom index tells you that NK ranks the lowest.  North Korea is the only country left that institutes full blown socialism.  Until as recently as this summer there were no property rights at all.  It seems that even Kim Jong Un has realized that some degree of free market capitalism is necessary to fund his government programs in the wake of all of the sanctions.  But sadly, the North Korean people are still essentially his slaves.

The socialist ideology has been discredited many times over to a large extent, but it keeps getting redefined and different words get used to try and reframe it.  And even after the Soviet Union fell in 1990, the influence of Marx is still felt strongly in the US.  Socialism even made a bit of a resurgence during Obama’s term as president.  So much so Trump’s election was like a Nationalist over-reaction to it.  For a moment there, in Charlottesville last month,  it seemed like National Socialism and the racism and anti-semitism that came along with it might be making a comeback as young men marched out with tiki-torches.   They even had the confidence that their message would be acceptable enough to the masses that they wouldn’t have to wear KKK masks this time.  But this was not the case.  They were shamed, disavowed, their faces forever enshrined on social media and associated with the hateful ideology they were trying promote and their lives are now ruined. But, the attention was shifted to the “anti-fascists”, who similarly wave communist and international socialist symbols from regimes that also committed acts of genocide.  After Trump’s election their actions were mostly ignored by the media, and there was a lot of pressure from elements of the establishment to NOT disavow them, despite the fact they DO wear masks and aren’t opposed to using violence to promote their political ends.  But that started to change after Charlottesville and they could no longer be ignored.

The writing seems to be on the wall to me.  All of this seems to be a sign that the ideology of socialism/globalism/marxism/communism ... whatever you want to call it, it’s been relabeled, redefined and rebranded so many times ... is coming to an end.  That’s not to say there won’t be an effort to reframe it again as something new in the future though, this tired old argument of more centralization of power vs. less centralization of power never goes away completely ...

#socialism #marxism #trump #north korea #keynes #classical liberalism #generational theory #strauss & howe #libertarianism #Soviet Union #China #United Nations #Rocket Man #World War II #World War I #US Debt