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meloncubedradpops · 4 years

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Repo! The Corona Opera

For every rotation that Earth has completed around the sun since the dawn of humanity, humans have created art to cope with the realities surrounding our everyday life. We weave stories in songs, movies, plays, books, paintings, and so forth, that help digest the world around us and provide an entertaining escape from the cruelties we endure. Some stories take place in abstract universes or in the future, and we rely on what we know in our present reality to build upon these fantasy societies. My favorite movie, Repo! the Genetic Opera, certainly makes this list. We are currently experiencing perhaps the most surreal year of our collective lives, and with each passing day I argue that we find ourselves closer to the world crafted in Repo. I have seen this movie, at least 20 times. If you haven't watched Repo! the Genetic Opera or you haven't seen it in a while, I recommend giving it a view. The movie is unique in that it falls under three distinct genres: musical, horror, and sci-fi. And while the jury is out on whether our future society is going to go full on gothic aesthetic, I can say that the Repo! movie experience offers a glimpse into a dystopian fascist post-plague world wrapped in unapologetically hilarity with a heaping side of camp. It doesn't offer any spiritual cleansing that our souls collectively need, but it does show us what a new normal could look like if we really go off the rails.

As things stand, right now, so much of our daily lives and culture are impacted by the coronavirus. All of our institutions have been impacted, from school, to work, to family, to the way we interact with strangers, and especially our economy. We have all felt the effects in one way or another, and honestly? Most the impacts are of our own undoing, for better or for worse. I am going to write three pieces analyzing Repo! the Genetic Opera. First I will create the foundations that bridge our contemporary life and the world of Repo! Second I will explain how the Repo! universe operates under the definitions of fascism. And third I will weave together parts one and two into our contemporary world (particularly in the context of the United States) to highlight the dark path we heading towards. My viewpoints are of mine, and my own alone. Let's dive into part one.

Part I Repo! the Genetic Opera takes place in the year 2056. Humanity was on the brink of collapse as a result of a medical crisis that caused massive organ failure.

I never gave the premise much thought, at least not until recently. We aren't given much detail beyond the fact that entrepreneur Rottissimo "Rotti" Largo solved this crisis through his company GeneCo. GeneCo provides organ transplants that can be repaid through a payment plan. Witnessing the coronavirus unfold in real time and seeing its wrath, particularly on severe cases, honestly makes me wonder if the writers had some sort of "super plague" in mind when creating this universe. For the purpose of this analysis, I will assume that humanity suffered at least one infectious disease crisis. And just to reiterate covid-19 particularly, we really *don't* know what it's going to do to us long-term. Let the parallels begin.

The world in Repo! the Genetic Opera, operates as normally as the citizens possibly can, which appears to be quite limited. I have noted how dated some the technologies look.

For a world 30 years in the future, it lacks cell phones and easy access to internet. When we enter Shilo's world (aka her bedroom!) she watched Blind Mag sing on a busted up tiny ass TV and the program itself looks like an ad on Home Shopping Network.

The Graverobber is shown reading headlines on a newspaper. The news reporters shown in the ribbon cutting ceremony during the 1st Italian Post-Plague Renaissance have old school cameras with flashbulbs.

The most contemporary technology appears to be a Wish.com version of an Apple watch, and even that looks like a leftover prop from Spy Kids.

Obviously the people who made this movie intentionally inserted these anachronisms, but why? This is a science fiction movie after all. I speculate that they reverted back because the impact from humanity's crisis resulted in an overall professional "brain drain" from the sheer volume of professionals that dropped dead. In fact every scene depicting medical procedures looks dimly lit and lacking in sanitation. We will see this as we struggle to contain the coronavirus, at least in America. Healthcare workers have already died from this thing, and I am sure many prospective college students will have second thoughts about a career in healthcare. I mean hell, look at no other than GeneCo itself. That company employs workers called "Genterns" who are most definitely not in full PPE. I don't doubt their medical expertise, but they appear to be disposable (please see: that time Luigi killed one for NO REASON in "Mark it Up").

On that note, it really was quite incredible how China built the pop-up hospital in Wuhan in under 4 days, but it was also not the most safe or structurally sound building by far (it collapsed, people were hurt!). Maybe at this point, the people in Repo! don't have much of a choice. I am sure there were likely legit hospitals, but the fact that the Renaissance had gross surgery tents is a bit unsettling.

This is a world that is completely built upon the social more of valuing your health above all else. There had to be a turning point in the GeneCo business model where they really played on up-selling organs for the benefit of "genetic perfection". "I needed a kidney transplant desperately. GeneCo showed this single mom sympathy. This makeover came for a small added fee. Now I look smashing on live TV!" Imagine signing the documents for your power of attorney while actively going into renal failure, when your doctor chimes in with an up-sell for breast implants. When all is said an done, your body is now not only functioning again, but you're hot! Even in a post-plague dystopia we are still holding value to having a nice rack. What's not to love about GeneCo? Obviously we know right away that GeneCo has a dirty side. Rotti Largo personally lobbied to make organ repossessions legal, and he does not hesitate to recollect his property. The concept itself is, of course, wild. In America, our healthcare system is incredibly broken and expensive. You would wonder how it could get worse without us backpedaling many steps on the industrialization timeline. And in a lot of ways, I could see a company like GeneCo thrive here. We already hate the poor, and we have political think tanks that salivate over the idea of cutting social programs that keep people alive. Our president has wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act while many people are unemployed during a pandemic. In Repo! we hear about those who don't pay, but obviously there are plenty of people who do. Those who can will happily pay, either for vanity reasons or to stay alive.

And while society cites Rotti as being a "hero" for humanity, we see more and more evidence that the crisis is both not under control and life is cheap.

His son murders multiple people, in front of others, with seemingly no repercussions. In the scene where Shilo meets the Graverobber for the first time, adjacent to the graveyard and tombs owned by wealthy families who could afford grave markers, lies a poorly constructed wall hiding thousands of corpses piled on top of one another. We even get a glimpse of a truckload pouring more onto the pile. I would not be surprised if there is a disinformation campaign there keeping the public in the dark (although you'd think the smell would be unbearable at this point).

There are multiple indications that propaganda works in society (still), and no one is getting the full picture of how much of a raw deal the people in Repo! have. We see poster after poster about GeneCo, in the literal absence of other corporations.

And a lot of them bear resemblance to 20th century Russian propaganda. It would be a real shame if the goals outlined The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia were actually realized. Imagine going to visit your mother's grave and hearing commercials for hardcore analgesics play through the cemetery. Also, there's a police presence too. Apparently the police are called Genecops and have authority to execute any assumed graverobbers on site.

Imagine the hellscape it would be to live in a world where your loved ones may have died from a terrible pandemic, and you face a non-zero chance of an over zealous cop murdering you thereafter, and because their qualified immunity bypasses the judicial system entirely...oh wait. Anyways let's circle back to the Graverobber character.

Graverobber's role in Repo! appears to be minor on the surface. Rotti's daughter, Amber Sweet, appears to almost despise her relationship with him. And that relationship involves him supplying Amber with what he describes as the "21st Century cure". This cure you ask? A super effective painkiller with the clinical use to accompany GeneCo surgeries. This drug is called Zydrate, and it has a street version that he acquires and sells, with clients including Amber Sweet.

Graverobber makes his living sucking the glowy blue brain corpse goo and injecting them into people on the streets. Yum!

Not everyone who needs an organ transplant can pay for it all upfront. Luckily for them, GeneCo provides payment plan options! The caveat to this is if you fail to make those payments, legally GeneCo can come and repossess your newly acquired organs. If you find yourself past due, you will soon see the last face before your doom, the Repo Man. He will harvest GeneCo's property, and it won't matter where you are or what you are doing. There is no anesthetic, and you will likely die! This was all made legal through Rotti's lobbying efforts.

Society, as it's set up today, allows for property repossessions. This can be as straightforward as a repossession of your vehicle to as heartbreaking as a foreclosure on your home. At the end of the day, the impacts of that are difficult and life changing. Currently millions of people in America are out of work, and the threat of losing everything is at stake for many. We could lose our homes, our vehicles, and our sense of purpose. And while many government bodies have created temporary moratoriums, they have not provided any substantial financial relief to keep the proverbial repo man at bay. What went wrong in this dystopia to normalize the concept of death due to nonpayment? Fascism! Ah yes, the dreaded f-word. In my next essay, I will outline the 14 characteristics of fascism and how it relates to the universe in Repo! After I will relate that to our modern world so that we can try and stop this from becoming our reality.

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kaaras-adaar · 3 years

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KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME: Owl, K, Kmod.

PRONOUNS: He/Him

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: I don’t mind. If it’s first interactions, I assume IM’s and asks is totally an okay way to communicate with me. If I feel we’re in for the long haul, then I’ll offer my discord (or add you if you offer). I generally only chat on discord with mutuals, tho. I will say, I’m REALLY antisocial. Some days, I’m too tired to reply/talk, even tho I’m online. My work is incredibly taxing when it comes to my people metre, so please never take offence if I’m not responding. Sometimes I’m online but not at my PC as well. I will reply when I can. Just know it’s not you, it’s 100% me! Ask all of my close RP buddies, and I’m sure they’ll all agree :’D

NAME OF MUSE(s): Kaaras Taashath Adaar

RP EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?): Oof... wow, I think I started Rping back in... maybe 2008?

PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: DevART notes, email, livejournal, MSN, Skype, MERP forum, chat rooms, Tumblr.

BEST EXPERIENCE: Probably the people I have met here in the DARP community. Some of you are my closest friends, and I find that even with distance and time between us, we can still pick up like we’ve never stopped, and I really love that. Real life is busy and sometimes you just can’t talk all the time, and you guys understand that. I miss my days in the Transformers fandom, but mostly because I was younger and more carefree (the place was very toxic). Being able to write Kaaras has been such an amazing experience over the years, and I’m a lot wiser for it.

PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS: Pet peeves, too much ooc content and too many RL (modern) FC posts on my dash. I don’t mind fantasy/medieval ones, but when I see FC’s with mobiles in a world I don’t write in, it feels very out of place for me. I have a really odd thing with FCs. Not a deal breaker, though. Dealbreakers? Just don’t be a cunt. If you’re policing people how to write and being a cunt on my dash, I’m not interested. Callout posts are childish no matter who you are. I don’t care for your excuses and your white knightery. I’m too old for that shit, and it looks disgusting even if you’re trying to take the moral high ground. Just unfollow and be done with it. You don’t like the way they said or write something, then act like an adult and deal with it maturely. Leave the high school drama at high school. Politics is also a big thing that is starting to piss me off as well. I work hard every day, in healthcare, in the middle of a pandemic, on the front line... the last fucking thing I want to do when I get home is see bullshit politics on my dash when I deal with fuck heads all day at work. I’m here to WRITE and enjoy myself, not deal with the real world and its politics, let alone seeing people ‘splain. If I wanted to deal with that, I’d just stay at work all day.

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT: All. I’m a fan of all of it, so long as there’s chemistry between the characters and we’re going somewhere with it.

PLOTS OR MEMES: I love both. Admittedly, memes are probably the best ice breakers for me, because I don’t have a lot of time to plot anymore--that and being so tired from work makes my brain frizzle out and I can’t even THINK of plots. Memes spike interest because some of the best PLOTS have come from memes. Both have their place, I’m just a tired old man who can’t think of plots much anymore, which is sad because I used to have so many ideas. Whether it’s because I’ve been writing Kaaras for so long that nothing seems new anymore? Or I’m just very tired and my poor, Aspie brain is too filled for new ideas to come in. IDK. But memes are a good way to start things! Also, they can be really random which makes Kaaras react in ways I’m surprised! But once we write a few times, then plots will be sure to come, and I do love discussing them! When I have the brain capacity :(

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: Unless it’s just short bits of dash commentary or a one-off, I prefer longer threads. It’s difficult for me to delve into anything in a short reply. (Fox pretty much hit the nail on the head, so I’m keeping their response here).

BEST TIME TO WRITE: Whenever I have a day off work. Fridays are generally my best, because I’m home alone and have all the space to myself. Weekends I need to do errands, groceries and like to spend some time with my partner playing games or whatever. Generally speaking, Monday--Thursday I’m pretty dead tired.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): In some ways, for sure. We both have very high moral compasses, and we both see people as people. Kaaras has a lot more patience than I do, and is certainly kinder and more forgiving. We are both neurodivergent, and we both require our alone time to recharge. Kaaras is far more poetic than I could ever wish to be, and we’re both very blunt (although Kaaras is better at dealing with confrontation than I am). I would say that we can both be very quick to detatch ourselves from anyone/thing that is toxic as well. Both of us are absolutely fuelled with rage when it comes to seeing innocent people being harmed as well--he definitely gets that from me lol. We both love animals and have farm experience. But we are also VERY different in many ways, too.

Tagged by: @ravusnightblossom Tagging:. @many-tales-told @sunlilted @andrastehope @aylenlavellan @dragonagedmage @wolf-at-worlds-end @wclfdreamt @nehraa-asaaranda and anyone else! Tag me so I can read! <3

#the mod #Dash games #ooc

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alchemabotana · 3 years

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Shamanic Identity

Today I’m taking the time to write this post about something so personal and dear to my heart: Shamanic Identity.

You’ve probably seen it too: people with no right to the word Shaman using it liberally to describe the work they do. I’ve written several other posts about shamanism, its history, and my personal practice here on this blog, but that’s not exactly what I’m writing about today.

The word “appropriation” doesn’t begin to cover this topic, although it is a word that applies to the concepts I’m addressing. The concept of Shamanic Identity is actually not a complicated one at all: a Shaman is an intermediary between the Spirit World and the Physical World, between the multiverse and dimensional realities that are unseen and the seen world. These people do so by simply existing and taking up space. There are Shamanic Practices, Shamanic Techniques, Shamanic Ceremonies, and Shamanic Rituals, but that’s NOT Shamanic Identity. These things are simply words and labels we’ve developed as Shamans to describe categories of actions that we take in the world, not our Identity.

For example, if I stopped offering healings, making medicine pieces or altars, performing rituals or ceremonies... I would still be a Shaman, because that’s who I was born to be. I know Shamans who drive trucks for a living, are maids, trash collectors, incarcerated, or in a mental hospital: but they’re still Shamans. They don’t need to take a special class, tell you their genetic lineage, or practice a specific modality to be a Shaman.

So what has created the Shamanic Identity crisis that is so widespread in this current age? What it boils down to is The Cultural Iceburg.

The Cultural Iceburg is the concept that what we see when interacting with an individual is not all there is. When people think of Shamanism they associate it with our Customs, Language, and Music. But they mistakenly ignore Values, Priorities, Assumptions, Body Language, Stories, Manners, and Space/Time Concepts of our LIVED EXPERIENCE.

This is why it’s so easy for someone to put on the headdress, get a rattle or drum, and start claiming that they are a Shaman. Why do these people do this? Primarily to gain a position in some social group or setting they’d like to belong to (usually not the cultural group they are appropriating from, but others in their racial/social/socioeconomic/class structure). These individuals are also highly motivated by FINANCIAL GAIN.

I want to take some time to talk about financial gain and Shamanism. I’ll be frank, I don’t know any rich Shamans. I don’t know any Shamans who feel completely comfortable charging a fair price for their services, and I know a lot of Shamans who have gone hungry and homeless because they don’t feel right about charging money. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay a Shaman the fair price for their work (services or goods). Just as you would pay someone a fair living wage for hours worked, you ought to pay a Shaman for their work. It’s that simple.

But there are many clear examples, unfortunately many of them in my hometown community, of people taking Shaman Schools or Shaman Certifications or Shaman Classes (usually online - not that there aren’t authentic shamanic online courses) in order to claim that they are a Shaman or to show “proof” that they are “qualified” to be a Shaman. I ran into this when a local hospital approached me about coming on board as a Shaman in their clergy. It became very obvious that their department had no real clue what a Shaman does, as they asked for proof of my schooling and accreditation as a Shaman. When I told them I wouldn’t provide those materials because it is not culturally appropriate, they asked me for the names and qualifications of my teachers. My teachers also did not have the qualifications they were looking for, and I REFUSE to play the “show me your identification card” game which is insulting to our elders.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Shamanism is a complex identity structure. It requires a person to have certain prerequisite gifts. That’s not something you can give a person or teach a person in a course or school. Some will argue that you can transfer gifts, but I will argue that you have to be a Shaman already to receive them. In my experience as a Shaman it has often been necessary to teach other Shamans how to manage their gifts so that they would not be overwhelmed by them. Shamans have to deal with a complex cultural stigma against their very identities: don’t talk to dead people, don’t listen to voices, don’t communicate with spirits, don’t you dare see one or you’ll be labeled insane. If you’re a Shaman of BIPOC origin, just go ahead and layer institutional racism on top of it, and you’re in for a flurry of misunderstanding and bigoted response to your very identity out there in the “real world.” Shamans have to learn to navigate incredible barriers to basic human rights when they take the steps to seek help for mental or physical health issues. Some of those issues have nothing to do with them, except that their care providers are too ignorant on complex cultural matters to be good advocates for their care. This is why the great majority of Shamans that I have taught, studied with, or been in the care of, have tragic stories of healthcare gone wrong & wrongful incarceration/mental institutionalism. I really don’t know a single Shaman who doesn’t struggle with a mental health diagnosis, complex PTSD, or Epigenetic Trauma.

For those of us born of family lineages, we have to navigate Epigenetic Trauma as well. We have to face a healthcare system that was built on experimentation on our ancestors, and overcome major trust issues to receive treatment for conditions that most average citizens of the US suffer from as well: anxiety, depression, PTSD, domestic violence, sexual violence, etc. Except, when a Shaman goes to receive help they have to explain why they see spirits and their whole cosmology before someone takes them seriously around conditions that have nothing to do with their Shamanic Identity. Sometimes Shamans feel they HAVE to be honest about their experiences with these providers, even if it hurts them. They have most likely been abused for their Shamanic Identity, and aren’t so much sharing their experiences to seek help for the woo-woo, but help navigating abuse.

But those without real Shamanic Identities just take off the label Shaman whenever it is convenient. They do not have to bear the burdens of Shamanic Identity, but receive the financial benefits of associating themselves with the term. These are the folks who come to me desperate to associate themselves with me as a student, so they can claim they have met the “requirements” to be a practicing Shaman for their business profile. It’s been incredibly hard for me to navigate this within myself and not respond immediately with rage. Instead, I try to educate people tactfully - some are more responsive than others. For example, I had a student once inquire about my Shamanic Mentorship - a mentorship program I offered pre-pandemic in which I explicitly stated the purpose was to receive mentorship from a Shaman. Nothing more. This particular individual had a yoga studio and wanted to “Add Shamanism” to what they offered. I tried to explain the impossibility of such a venture, especially with me as their token Shaman who would bestow this identity on them, so they could monetize my cultural and identity for their benefit. I never heard from the person again, although they do still own and operate a studio in my hometown, they have taken no actions to support our Shamanic work on any level. My hope is that they realized the futility and ignorance of their request, although I’m certain they had no intention of ever supporting us at all.

You’ve probably seen this kind of “shamanism” online on instagram posts, influencer pages, and people who are what I call “shamanic curious”. All these individuals have done nothing to truly commit to alleviating the pains and sufferings that they’re causing by appropriating someone’s actual identity. They feel like they have the best intentions: “Omg! No!! ONLY LOVE AND LIGHT SIS!” (eye roll). However, they tend to be completely ignorant to the damage and stress they cause to real Shamans through their selfish actions. “Being curious is ok right? I mean, I have the right to explore my identity through yours and see if it gets me friends, likes, follows, and MONEY, RIGHT?” No. Go home. Think about what you are doing when you try on someone’s identity and put yourself out there as the face of that identity. Would it behoove you to consider that Shamans themselves have had to strenuously defend their identities to others? Would it perhaps be a real act of love and light to give up your curiosities and turn over that experience to an actual Shaman? Have you considered that you cause real physical, spiritual, and mental harm to Shamans, and clients that you take on in your exploration of Shamanic traditions, rituals, and ceremonies?

If you don’t truly have a Shamanic Identity I encourage you to stop what you’ve been practicing right now, sit down, and ask for forgiveness from the Spirits, as well as living Shamans and their Ancestors. I would go to a real Shaman and pay them properly to remove the slew of crazy toxic attachments you’ve definitely been accumulating, and release you from the karmic debt you are certainly incurring. If you can get a job doing anything in the real world sector that doesn’t involve you crawling up into someone’s energy stream, I would suggest you take that job and step out of a sector you know nothing about. It’s amazing to me what people think they can make-up about themselves and others because deep down they also believe that Shamanism is made up. If it’s all made up, then you can do anything you want with no repercussions and still make money off someone else’s identity. And you still think you’re not harming anyone?

If you’re a Shaman you know that you can’t fake it til you make it. There’s no faking the Spirits, Guides, and Ancestors. There’s no faking a spiritual or psychic attack. There’s no faking the spirit’s communication to you, or their visible presence. And when you go out into the world, no matter what you do, people are going to find you for your Shamanic Identity.

For example, I once worked at a test grading facility one summer marking up EOG exams. While at this job at every break an elderly woman would come up to me and share her stories, always with the caveat “I don’t know why I’m telling you this but...” and then go into a story about how her deceased father was contacting her at her home. He would do so by knocking things off tables and moving things around. I asked her what he thought he was trying to tell her. She eventually concluded that he wanted her to move from her house, but she didn’t feel ready for that. I suggested that she tell him this next time he made his presence known. Next time we talked she shared that she had spoken with him and that the incidents then stopped. After that she didn’t come up to me to talk, and someone new started talking to me. My boss brought me photographs from her time in AZ as a young woman, depicting petroglyphs that matched my shamanic tattoos. She said “you know that means you’re a shaman right?” I laughed and nodded. At one point everyone in my grading group was feeling very ill, one of the proctor overlords had decided to crank up the AC and everyone was freezing cold. I brought everyone blankets and stones. One gentleman later asked me what the stone meant. I told him, “it’s a piece of quartz, it doesn’t have to mean anything, it can just be beautiful”. He said “No, I mean - they mean something. I know this sounds crazy, but some really bad stuff was going on with my family: financial and health problems. But when I brought that stone home, everything changed immediately. I need you to know that.” I acknowledge him and told him yes, this can happen - the stones heal who they want to, that’s just part of our understanding of them, but we don’t expect others to believe the same way. He said “I don’t need convincing, I experienced it myself”.

No one article can even begin to truly communicate the issues surrounding the theft, appropriation, and misrepresentation of Shamanism in our world, let alone the internet. I mean, the Q Anon guy called himself a Shaman too and the media just ate it up. Why? Because it is exotic and ignorance makes for good press, and good press makes for money.

And I don’t write this to depress or discourage anyone, especially others out there with a Shamanic Identity. Instead, I hope that this encourages you and helps you advocate for yourself in this crazy world. I hope you stand up for yourself to people trying to take advantage of you, especially people in the medical field. I don’t believe that our medical field is based on true healing practices, and I can’t really get into that rant here, but I also don’t believe our doctors mean to be “bad people” or wallow in ignorance: they’re just products of their own cultural issues as well!

However, if you’re a Shaman struggling to receive mental or physical healthcare because someone in your family or caregiver team is purposefully using your Shamanic Identity to paint you as crazy, please feel free to show them this article and demand that they use DSM-5 to evaluate you. You deserve nothing but the best treatment. You don’t need to feel ashamed for feelings of paranoia, terror, anxiety, depression, or PTSD. People who aren’t Shamans deal with it too, so don’t be afraid of those words. I don’t know many Shamans actually disturbed by their gifts. They aren’t actually suffering mentally from seeing or hearing spirits, but from the reactions of their family, friends, colleagues, and health professionals to their actual identities. These Shamans aren’t afraid of the Spirits or Ancestors, and have had to be put in the position where they rely on those spirits to provide the care and discernment of truth that should be provided by the health and wellness systems. It’s time for the gatekeepers of the medical industry to acknowledge their bias, their systemic failure of these individuals, and the exploitation of in-need Shamans. Once that has happened, real care can be provided for issues not caused by a Shamanic Identity inherently, but by external forces of society that come against a Shaman.

This article is dedicated to the sweet Shaman who visited my shop today with only $2 to exchange for altar work. She shared her story in great detail of how the medical industry was abusing her in the ways I’ve outlined before. She was discouraged by it, seeking information to provide to herself and her care team so that she could get real care. I was happy to provide her with the shamanic goods she needed and gift it to her as a birthday present. I tried my best to give her free resources to access for her healthcare and talking points to share with her medical team. Sister, this is what I promised you on my blog, and I hope you enjoy it. Also, I wish you the Safe Passage you’re so willing to offer others, as well as the brightness of your spirit back to you. I hope that things resolve quickly and you get the respect you deserve, because I honor your Shamanic Identity, and I appreciate you honoring mine.

#shaman #shamanism #mentalhealth #shamanicidentity #exploitation #culturalappropriation #appropriation #restorativejusticework #healthcarereform #mentalhealthawareness #bipoc #bipocvoices #indigenouspeople #idigenous #medicinewoman #spiritualhealing #shamanicjourney

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thenervereport · 3 years

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AOC and Progressives Should Take Jimmy Dore’s Strategy for concessions on a M4All Vote.

So, this debate inside the Left went viral and trended for three whole days on Twitter. It all started with Political Commentator, Jimmy Dore, proposed a political strategy that called for AOC and the rest of the Progressive Caucus to use the leverage that is available, right now, withhold their vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, in exchange for concessions to floor a Congressional House Vote on Medicare For All. If you been paying attention, AOC rejected Jimmy’s plan and tweeted the following, while the time of me writing this piece of mine has offered NO strategy or plan of her own, alongside other critics of this plan like Ana Kasparian and Benjamin Dixon:

I don’t buy AOC’s nonsense, this time. And Kyle Kulinski, Secular Talk made this point that Kamala was, also, a Cosponsor for Bernie’s plan, but we all know where her allegiance stands, right now. So, I find this very misleading on AOC’s part, IMO. And this was my series of responses to some of the critical, “Progressive” clowns in the whole debate for the next two days:

They didn’t even try to leverage any power against Joe. And when they tried, it was too late and they did it in the most useless way possible: Writing “StRONg” letters like Nancy Pelosi.

Her argument is stupid. This gives no substantive reason as to why Jimmy strategy is wrong. OK, you agree with Kyle and the strategy, itself, but you’re still advocating against the whole idea just because of the messenger?

Note: She continues on, giving more strawman arguments that don’t deal whatsoever substance-wise, and I respond to her with this, which is true:

Like the fact that she’s a well-known progressive that fights tooth and nail for the Left’s policies, but goes down this route of critiquing a very a good strategy, just because of the messenger. It really does disgust me in a way, because this is in a way similar to how people shitted on Joe Rogan for semi-endorsing Bernie, when, in reality, Bernie did nothing or didn’t even compromise his beliefs to get Rogan on his side.

Then she goes on to talk about organizing General Strikes, protests, basically, and I responded to her and Nomiki Konst as you can see from above. Yeah, protests doesn’t mean shit when the party you’re fighting against has a detailed record of not listening to us when they got what they wanted from. This is part of the DUMB notion that we can push Biden left, which is beyond an empty dream.

Now, to think the day would exist where a portion of the Left would argue that having a vote on Medicare for All in the House is going to hurt the Left or we can’t act upon this plan since I don’t like the messenger. This does not make you politically intelligent. You’re unintentionally doing the establishment’s bidding. Medicare for All has a 69% or 70% approval rating, and other polls find that most Republican voters, also, support Medicare for All.

To the AOC defenders, here are three Reasons as to why she needs to be criticized, and why we should demand better from her and our elected, Progressive Politicians: 1) This wasn’t her first time not using her power or leverage. The election between Biden and Trump is the perfect example, as I mentioned in one of my tweets above. 2) If you don’t have the votes, stop sitting on your ass and get to work on it. Play politics and take a no prisoners approach for once in your career. 3) For once, hold Nancy Pelosi accountable. Mama Bear has no reason at all to be politically OP as she is, right now. As we all know and heard, Nancy Pelosi accepted a 908 or billion stimulate bill, that has no stimulus for the people, contains temporary liability shield for corporations, and is half of what Trump and Mnuchin offered her in the beginning of November. By the way, that plan was bill was a very good stimulate bill, and Ro Khanna was the ONLY one to call for her to take the deal. Yes, the bill did contain a liability shield, which was Pelosi’s scapegoat for rejecting it, obviously, for political reasons and advantage, in my opinion, but what in the world was the point of rejecting it if you’re still going to take it, later on, for half the price? Where was AOC and the rest? Nowhere, doughnut, zero criticism from them.

I replied and made this point in one of Fiorella Isabel’s tweets regarding the Left’s inaction against the establishment: (BTW, apologies for Conservationism. Wanted to Write Conservatism, but auto-correction f*cked me over)

Seriously, it’s beyond past due to simply simply sit on your ass, virtue tweet as the classical Twitter warrior we all know, and do nothing as you shine your ‘guiding’ light as the moral high ground. I’m like, no. The Democratic Party played that route and got steamrolled by the Republican Party multiple times.

And this goes back to my argument regarding Republicans and Obamacare. As I mentioned, No Republican voted for Obamacare, which was the Shitty, Conservative Healthcare Plan, and it was a very, politically smart move of them. This gave them in the ability to paint the narrative that Obama and the Democratic Party can’t deliver on healthcare to the American People since we all know Obamacare is so bad. Even if the Medicare for All vote fails, which we all would expect, this would help shape the narrative for the Left in both the short and long term for the better. The reason for that is because it will expose the politicians for who they truly are to the masses; thus, it would make it easier to primary these f*ckers in the future.

Do you have any idea how bad it would look if Democrats and Republicans vote against Medicare for All, which is denying people healthcare DURING A PANDEMIC? 14.5 million have been reported to have lost their healthcare thanks to Covid. People won’t forget that, obviously. Someone on Twitter made this really good point. If flooring a Medicare For All vote is going to hurt the Left and Medicare for All as a whole, you don’t think that Pelosi, Democrats, and Republicans wouldn’t gladly jump to the idea and floor a vote if it were to hurt the Left? But here’s the reality. Progressives like AOC are more cowardly against the party, than they actually care about fighting for and representing us. We voted you in to stand against the party, not bend the knee out of fear of Mama Bear.

Also, all this talk about organizing, which is being used as a scapegoat to deflect and damage control when it comes to rejecting Jimmy’s idea, does not always work, and half of the time, it fails. You know why? It’s one-sided. You’re fighting with a shield, without a sword, which is Progressives using their power and playing politics. That’s what is. And AOC’s entire notion regarding using leverage for the $15 minimum wage increase is pointless, because it’s already in the Democratic agenda, even though I have my doubts they’ll do it. Yet, IMO, she’s using this argument to deflect and damage control for not wanting to leverage Pelosi for a Medicare for All floor vote.

Since she rejects Jimmy’s plan, you would expect her and her defenders to come up with a better strategy than the one proposed, but, even that, they don’t or even care to do. AOC has no strategy. She won’t do jack like how she and Bernie didn’t do anything during the primaries or in the general. At least, Bernie, right now, is fighting to get us Stimulus checks alongside Josh Hawley. What is AOC doing? Oh yeah, virtue tweeting. Basically, being All-Talk-No-Spine as many of her critics have been pointing out. Now, when is it going to be the right time to use leverage? Martin Luther King Jr. stated this and I quote,

"The Time is Always Right to do what is Right.”

Now, I’ve been thinking for a bit and I actually thought of another strategy to get both a Medicare for All floor vote and Stimulus Checks. And this is my, unless someone thought of it before me without me knowing, strategy, which is also VERY EXTREME: The Elected Progressives in Congress should boycott and threaten renounce their support of the Democrats’ support for Ossoff and Warnock in the Georgia Runoffs, offering to advocate their support for Perdue and Loeffler, unless the Democratic Party and Republican Party agrees to implement Stimulus checks and a Medicare for All floor vote in the House. This would force the party to ACTUALLY listen to us, unless they want to lose more power than they dread and the Senate. Because there’s one thing about the Democratic Party besides being the Republican Party’s bitch, they adore power more than anything else.

Threatening to go and support the Far-Right to force the Center-Right to go Left and do our bidding. That’s how you play politics.

Is it extreme and radical? Yes, but would it work? IMO, Yes, as well. And honestly, who cares if it’s extreme? People need this money and healthcare. That’s all that should matter. Don’t worry about Democratic Smears. These people are out of touch, elitist assholes, who don’t have the political or populist wisdom to come up with strong arguments that would land against this, IMO.

Well, I’m done. Please Like, Comment, and Share, because I really to hear your opinion.

Rei Urameshi, Nerving Off.

#The Nerve Report Post #aoc #jimmy dore #nancy pelosi #Medicare for All #vote #opinion #ro khanna #georgia senate runoffs #left #Twitter

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praphit · 4 years

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SM3: Nice Jerks are the Worst

I don't know about y'all, but I had big plans for 2020. Now, maybe those big plans will still happen, Idk. But, this was supposed to be our year! - that's what people say, right?? This was the year that you were going to go on that vacation. You were going to drop that dead beat spouse, leave that spouse with the kids, and run off to Mexico, right??!. You were going to start that business. Gain that weight. Come out of the closet. Finally tat that left butt cheek. You were going to stop doing hardcore drugs. Maybe this was going to be your year to start doing hardcore drugs. I'm not here to judge, only to ramble.

But, 2020 quickly turned to shit. Now, we're all looking for someone to blame. Someone has to pay for our horrible haircuts or hairiness, our newfound hatred for our families, and for plenty of much more serious stuff.

I, personally, like to turn to movies for lessons about life. And I think I have the perfect movie to help us figure out who to blame - you guessed it "Spider-Man 3"

This first attempt at a motion picture SM was doing so well. We loved Spidey (though some didn't care for Tobey Maguire, playing him).

Spidey and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) are adorable. Then, this thing showed up and everything turned to shit (not unlike Covid-19).

Let's look into what went wrong, and who is to blame.

First, let me say that I really liked the action in this movie. There are three villains in this movie: Venom (played by Topher Grace), that thing you see above.

Green Goblin (played by James Franco), who is... a green goblin.

And Sandman (played by Tommy Church), who has a body that is now kinda made of sand - which seems silly if you pick it a part... though so does a man with the powers of a spider.

There was lots of action, and it was all shot well. There is one action scene where there is NO ONE around... I mean NO ONE. It's frickin NY. Peter Parker (not dressed as Spider-Man) and Green Goblin are causing all kinds of damage and making a lot of noise, and not ONE new yorker has anything to say about it? Unless you're a healthcare worker, I bet new yorkers are still cursing at each other from their homes. This was glaring, but Imma let it slide, cuz the action was good.

That's about all of the good I have to report:)

Quick plot recap:

1) MJ and Petey are on the rocks 2) James Franco is an asshole, trying to destroy Peter for killing his father (which he didn't) 3) Venom is trying to kill Spidey (what else is new??) 4) Venom, at one point, infects Peter Parker, to become "Black Spidey" - this, of course, is also when the people of the city started to hate him.

5) Oh, and Peter, mm! He's the worst. I've got something for him later.

There are two major reasons why people talk shit about this movie.

1st - Casting/Characters

Nobody is likeable in this movie

From the very first scene, MJ is singing to us, annnnd it's sooooo boring. I don't think it was supposed to be. Someone in the audience should have been booing. We can’t just allow entertainers to get comfortable, thinking that they can do whatever the hell that they want! - that’s how you end up with stuff like this

It was like, if Snow White were to perform a number for a large crowd.

Just Snow White - I ain't talking about no cute animals around or the suspense of menacing dwarves that might turn on Snow White at any moment. Not even a prince who might be gay (that’s the word on the streets). Just a long movie filled with songs from Snow White; that's what we're talking about. First, MJ bores me, then she's pathetically whining throughout the whole movie.

Sandman is cool (despite his love for striped shirts), but we don't really get to know him.

Side note: He gets his powers by accidentally getting trapped in a science experiment. The scientists, btw, ( And Lord knows what they were up to) knew that something could have been trapped in there, assumed it was a bird, and kept on going. See, this is why certain people don't trust y'all.

James Franco is James Franco (an asshole). Not worth a pic.

Venom doesn't really have a personality (and his host... well, he ain't no Tom Hardy)

PLUS, Peter Parker is a dick (again, we'll get to that later).

The most likeable person in this film is JJ Jameson, and we're not really supposed to like him.

A person with that look shouldn’t be your most likeable character.

Look at this stage -

Who is likeable up here? Fauci, maybe? But, betting by the amount of times that he puts his hands to his face,

- there are things he's not allowing himself to say, so though perhaps likeable, if we can fully trust him. And as far as Trump... Even Trump supporters can't HONESTLY say that they LIKE the man (I mean, if he weren't the prez, would you honestly want him around? - your family?). They certainly can't say that they trust him - though I guess the amount of people looking into ingesting cleaning products after Trump mentioned something along those lines, would beg to differ.

This is the group we're looking to for direction?!

And this is also a problem in the movie. I have to be able to like SOMEBODY!

I need to be able to trust someone to stop the cheesy-written shit storm that is this movie.

"Cheesy Shit Storm" - how bout that for a visual? :)

2nd - dance numbers!

I actually didn't mind the first one, when Peter is dancing through the streets.

Ha! Wow, he is going for it. Come get it while it’ s hot, ladies!

It's odd, but it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be funny, and it kinda is. You ever dance a lil bit while you're out at a store? I know I do; especially now that we're wearing pandemic masks - no one knows who I am. NBD to dance a bit in public, but if you keep going passed a certain point, it just becomes annoying.

That's why the second dance number is bad. Plus, it doesn't make any sense.

At this point MJ and Peter have broken up. She's singing in a bar, and Peter interrupts her song with a dance number (while using his new girlfriend to poke at MJ). Now, While MJ’s songs of boredom deserve interruption, she didn’t deserve that.

Venom is like a drug. Venom brings out the worst in a person. You're telling me that Peter Parker, with all of the rage built up from Uncle Ben and villains and his life not being all that great; the best or I should say "the worst" that he can do is Jazz hands? With all of his superpowers, he should be out there slaughtering everyone in sight. I mean, he did slap the shit out of MJ though (by "accident"). That's when he snapped out of the evil dance number. I don't know what kind of message that sends.

"MJ, it wasn't until I slapped the holy hell out of you that I realized the error of my ways, so... thank you? I'm just going to go on about my day now."

I see this misguided scene as a metaphor. Peter Parker is dancing around his issues:

His relationship with MJ has been bad. He's on that stuff (Venom). And honestly, MJ knows that he's Spider-Man. Why couldn't he have just explained to her what was happening?

"Sorry, baby. I got possessed by an alien again, you know how it is."

And he was dealing with the fact that the person who killed his uncle is on the loose. Another side note: MJ, even though they had just broken up, still cares for Peter while he's dealing with the news about Uncle Ben's killer. That's a damned good friend right there! - especially the way Peter had been acting towards her.

We've got to deal with stuff, people! We can't just get bad haircuts, wear weird clothes, and do drugs! Eventually, that will lead us to slapping the shit out of someone that we love. There are a lot of realities that we're prob not facing at the moment (and some we prob have no intentions of ever facing). A lot of things that we could have done to prevent certain things from escalating, but... we were busy doing our typical dance.

Peter was warned about Venom and did nothing about it. He told himself, "I got this", and clearly he didn't. Honestly, the whole city was screwing up by not helping Spider-Man at all. At the end, when the big fight is happening, and MJ is near death, everybody is just watching all of this go down. Where were the cops?! The S.W.A.T?! Other superheroes? New Yorkers themselves! - they're bold! But, to be fair, Venom came from outer space, so... it was a bit unprecedented; people were prob scared. I'll cut them and Spidey some slack.

You know who I won't cut any slack - Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker!

Peter Parker is a jerk. I'm thinking that Tobey's Peter Parker has always been a jerk; a nice jerk, but a jerk. Have you ever met a nice jerk? They do all of the things that a regualr jerk does, but they'll rationalize their behavior, and look puzzled when you react to their awfulness. I didn't notice this in the 1st movie, cuz I was just happy to get Spider-Man. I didn't notice in the 2nd movie, cuz those kids were just too darn cute. But, his niceness was so annoying in this movie. And he treated MJ horribly : He never listens to her, he’s always late, he only talks about himself, he’s too damned nice, he never knows when they’re in a fight, he kisses other women right in front of her and then is like “What did I do?”

I kept wanting her to punch Peter out; he would have deserved it.

The foundation of the character of the 1st Spider-Man was a problem from the start! If the foundation is shaky, then - whew! I'm glad that we finally fixed it:)

Plus, he never said he was sorry. He did one of those "Well, I'm not perfect." things. She ain't asking for perfection, just quit being a jerk!

A better movie would have been if MJ had been infected by Venom. For starters, she would have given a better performance, in the beginning. Something more like this -

She would have banged Peter's friends. She would have destroyed her critics. And most importantly, she wouldn't have taken any shit from Peter. That could have been the main plot. Instead of a convultued blend of three villains around the nice jerkiness of Peter, it would have been Spider-Man vs MJ - beatening each other up all throughout the city; though I guess that would be considered domestic violence. But, why dance around real issues out there!

It could have been a family-friendly movie about drug abuse (Venom) and domestic violence... and possibly some make-up sex in the middle of the city. But, after that, one of them, if not both, are going to jail! We gotta deal with the problems, people!

Grade: an entertaining D+

I did enjoy it. It wasn't as bad as I remember it, and I'd prob watch it again. But, I can't deny that on a technical level, it's crap.

"Who’s to blame?" isn't really the question. It's more "Who deserves what percentage of the blame?" There's a lot of blame to go around here... even to us who enabled Peter's jerkiness in the first two movies.

I like the direction that we're going in now.

A better Spidey A better MJ Better villains

And even a better Aunt May

- looking all good with Tony Stark.

- imagine Tony aggressively flirting with the older one

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alexsmitposts · 4 years

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The Emergence of the Technetronic Society of Humankind The world community is being transformed. The current pandemic is only another phase of a metamorphosis set in motion decades ago. The intersection of our physical and digital lives is the battleground, where the last hopes of freedom are being bludgeoned to death. Few can see this because most people are already casualties the old world order sacrificed before the altar of liberty. Most of you reading this introduction will sense a bit of melodrama. But I assure you, anything I could type out here pales in comparison to the skullduggery that has beset humankind the last half-century. The war for planet Earth is upon us, but the battlefield is not some desert in Syria or a swamp somewhere in Latin America. The battlefield is real and virtual. It’s in the streets of Portland, Oregon, and the pages of Facebook. The Third World War is taking place in Walmart. It’s spreading to every back yard in Florida and every apartment complex in Bucharest. We’ve taken up arms against one another over every facet of life, not just whether or not to wear protective masks. Working-Class Struggle Redux Some of you already see this. You understand because you were finally forced to unfriend that high school buddy who Tweets or shares Facebook posters revealing humankind’s ignorance and meanness. We’re back to being tribal, devolution is upon us, and the end is written on the slum wall and the internet version. Wall Street is making a killing, billionaires are gnashing their teeth and wringing their hands, and the so-called little people are boiling in a kettle about to explode. Amazingly, my words here can be proven. Nobody can call “fake news” on this author. No sir. In 1970 the legendary (notorious for some) Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a book entitled, “BETWEEN TWO AGES: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era.” The author, who was one of the five or six most influential political celebrities of the latter part of the 20th century, is well known for his aversion for first the Soviet Union, and then the Russian Federation. Brzezinski’s book was an is a “how-to” book on methods for using computers and communications technologies as a means of transforming society. Though the book reads like an analysis by a technology outsider, the work is part of a wide-spanning strategy we see coming to competition today. Let’s look at an excerpt from the first section of the book where the former counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson and President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor delineates post-industrial America’s course: “In the technetronic society scientific and technical knowledge, in addition to enhancing production capabilities, quickly spills over to affect almost all aspects of life directly. Accordingly, both the growing capacity for the instant calculation of the most complex interactions and the increasing availability of biochemical means of human control augment the potential scope of consciously chosen direction, and thereby also the pressures to direct, to choose, and to change.” I won’t tax the reader here, but I encourage you to read the book yourself so that what I am presenting will sink in. Brzezinski, in no uncertain terms, is describing the fundamental transformation of society beginning sometime shortly before 1970, when he collated the information within the pages of the book. Remember, he was LBJ’s advisor. The Rise of the Techno-Bourgeoisie He continues in this section to refer to the past ideologies of the industrial age which built and sustained America and other democracies, to insist upon a more “modern” or “advanced” central ideology. Brzezinski, who most detractors would describe as a dinosaur or archaic, was discussing cybernetics replacing humans when Bill Gates was still at Lakeside Prep School being bullied and writing his first computer programs. I mention Gates for a purpose that may be obvious to some readers. This citation from Between Two Ages will transport the reader to my line of thinking here. Brzezinski writes knowingly: “In the emerging new society questions relating to the obsolescence of skills, security, vacations, leisure, and profit-sharing dominate the relationship, and the psychic wellbeing of millions of relatively secure but potentially aimless lowermiddleclass bluecollar workers becomes a growing problem.” Please remember, this was published in 1970, years before Brzezinski would brag that he had helped cause the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan so that it could get its very own “Vietnam.” The man was a genius, an evil one, but a brilliant geo-policy strategist nonetheless. This book is not a reflection of Brzezinski’s powerful mind, however. This book is the revelation of a plan set in motion after Dwight Eisenhower left office. It’s a blueprint for the liberal world order to completely dominate the world. But before you label me, please consider how this “growing problem” is being used today. Who is Donald Trump? Aha! Now I have your full attention. What about the psychic wellbeing of aimless lower-middle-class Americans? Or, the psychic wellbeing of relatively secure Germans right before Adolph Hitler made them afraid of all the nations surrounding their country? Wait! Don’t go to that tangent, please focus on who got Donald Trump in the White House and how this came to pass. You see, Brzezinski and his colleagues created the conditions, the society, and the “path” we see taking shape today. Think about our symbols now, for instance. How did Google come to dominate the internet? Who stood behind? What does Google do? How about Facebook or Amazon, or any of the monumental successes we see controlling this technetronic society we now live in? Google lured the masses in with “free” and with slogans like “do no evil.” The competition was driven off, through massive investment. Now billions of people are analyzed and “computed” like Brzezinski revealed, to transform society, not to simply extract money via ads. Take the case of Facebook, it’s the same story. A huge swath of humanity is studied, spied upon, and manipulated while the puppetmasters tweak ideology, foment discord, and steer the crowd toward the desired endgame. Sounds crazy and dramatic, doesn’t it? But, wait for it. In 1972, Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the US House of Representatives. He was then a National Merit Scholar who went to Harvard for a brief time, where he met Steve Ballmer, who would lead Microsoft until 2014. Ballmer was an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble for two years, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, the onetime CEO of General Electric. I hope you are keeping up with me here, for these names figure prominently in the current situation. Immelt was the head of GE’s Medical Systems division (now known as GE Healthcare) as its president and CEO back in 1997. To make a very long story shorter, Brzezinski was closely tied to all the names I am mentioning either through roles at the Council of Foreign Relations, or via more intimate and secretive associations. Take into consideration GE and Immelt’s view on China from back in 2010 when he said; “’I worry about China. I am not sure that in the end, they want any of us to win.” Fast forward to 2015 and Brzezinski is pushing for Donald Trump to “outbid” everyone for the presidency. He tweeted this to his followers on Twitter: “What’s better: a billionaire outbidding everyone for the Presidency, or billionaires picking the candidates for the Presidency?” The answer to his feigned query is drop-dead simple – “It doesn’t matter, the same people control no matter what.” And the control processes were put in action once John F. Kennedy was out of the way. LBJ played his role to a “T”, Nixon got too big for his britches and had to go, Ford plated nincompoop in charge to put the plan on pause, and peanut farmer/Nuke sub commander Carter helped roll out the red carpet for our current technetronic society. But I’m getting ahead. The Immuno-Catalyst Let me retrace a step to the associations of Gates, Ballmer, and Immelt. And most importantly, the current healthcare/pandemic crisis some experts believe is an induced one. Remember Gates’ pal Immelt headed GE Healthcare, which entered an agreement with Gates back IBio to commercialize the iBioLaunch vaccine manufacturing platform. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded iBio Pharma, which has been in recent news because of President Trump grandstanding about a COVID breakthrough. The company is one of those focused on vaccines against the coronavirus. And if you’re getting lost in this maze of technocrats, now it’s time to interject another key player named Warren Buffett. Buffett, who for all intents and purposes owns IBM, is another link in what we should call the Brzezinski Plan for world domination. Remember, it was IBM that teleported Bill Gates out of brainiac obscurity back in 1980. It is not common knowledge, but the last Watson family head of IBM, Thomas J. Watson, Jr. served as US ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1981. It was the ideas and ideals along with the patriotism of the latter Watson, from which people like Brzezinski convoluted the notion of modern democracy. Thomas J. Watson Jr. was also central to the administrations of L.B.J., Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Moving forward, most people are unaware, that Warren Buffett is also the biggest contributor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (more than $30 billion). And in this, we see how the “system” of control gets its continuity. Finally, it was the Brzezinski plan that delivered us to the current sorry state of democracy. The former advisor to key presidents not only helped devise the plan to shift the world’s ideologies and social structure, but he also helped empower the super elites running the show, and the lower-middle class minions who would stoke the forest of orchestrated rebellion. When asked how he would deal with the super-rich, Brzezinski differentiated people like Warren Buffett and Gates from the rest, while at the same time feeding the mob that Trump now leads and the left learning hordes on the left hanging: “It would be increasingly helpful if there was a movement to publish, worldwide, lists of those who make, largely through speculation, enormous amounts of money almost instantly, and hide the fact from their social context.” A Government of Business Power So, a ruling elite was and is to be lifted, isolated, and protected using demonic intimidation from every vector. Today’s dog and pony show across western capitals have roots in Rockefeller’s and Brzezinski’s Trilateral Commission, established to help put in motion the tenets from the latter’s Between Two Ages manifesto. If I throw in the fact that the Trilateral Commission’s notable member list includes such notorious super-rich as Jeffrey Epstein here, I’ve no doubt the reader will be overwhelmed by the scope of this “plan” for turning the world upside down. Finally, the academic Noam Chomsky once criticized the commission’s goals as undemocratic saying the publication of the organization, The Crisis of Democracy reflects how modern democratic systems are not democracy at all, but systems controlled by elites. And the Rockefeller Foundation’s support of the various German eugenics programs and the connections to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele and Auschwitz tarnish anyone and everyone associated with Rockefeller, and the ruling elite of this new “modern ideal” or technetronic society. In his 1980 book With No Apologies, Republican Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater called the Trilateral Commission: “A skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power: political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical in the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved.” The Brzezinski Plan for new democracy is the liberal world order’s plan for humanity. It’s a process that’s been going on for decades, one centered around and dependent on the puppet President Donald Trump. You see, I believe it is Trump’s mission to utterly destroy the very social class of people he is supported by. It is the only idea that makes sense if you examine the loosed cannon idiocy of an otherwise shrewd businessman. What better way to bury the working class who have been bred, reared, and marginalized into mediocrity than to create a revolution against everything they stood for? The Confederate flag, the statues of heroes, the race issues resurfacing, riots, discord, snarling and biting at anyone and anything that is not TRUMP! Real Death, Real Fear, Real Monopolization For this Technetronic Era to culminate in a Utopia for the ruling classes, a pandemic was set loose, a very special kind of virus engineered (probably) for segmenting society. The hard-nosed working class would shun the femininity and weakness of mask-wearing, while the ultra-liberals at the other end of the spectrum would thrive on the morality of caring – and on winning against the callousness of right-wing discord. As I try to explain to those who ask, the situation today is a perfect storm of social upheaval engineered to bring in this new society. You see, both sides of the COVID argument are right – and wrong – at the same instant. This is as it was planned. Bill Gates and his monopoly on vaccines and the health community can hide in plain sight, while Trump’s and Biden’s handlers rake in hundreds of billions playing the dynamic markets. Watching it, at least from my perspective, is like watching the pressure in a boiler build up past the red danger gauge on the outside. In Hitler’s Shadow we find the depth of the US deep state and Brzezinski’s role in the planning for the new world without the Soviets (Russians) in the picture. There’s limited space for describing a CIA operation codenamed AERODYNAMIC which was the forerunner for transformative/revolutionary efforts in the CIS including Georgia, Ukraine, and now Belarus. The reader should understand that Brzezinski, and his father before him, were central figures in a movement to subdue and subdivide the Soviet bloc, and later Russia and her neighbors. No one reading this will know of a man named Mykola Lebed, who operated alongside Joseph Bandera and with the backing of the OSS and later the CIA. He immigrated to the United States because of his importance to the CIA and the deeps state, even though he was in league with the worst Nazis who ever breathed. Brzezinski broadened the scope of AERODYNAMIC, which was in league with former Nazi sympathizers to upend Stalin, and then later Soviet leadership. The history of it is all a deep well no single volume could encapsulate. Again, I have fallen too deep into the rabbit hole of the order, but the reader can observe via this CIA document bearing Brzezinski’s authorship how the plan for today was set in motion decades ago. Trump is destroying the Republican Party for good. Technocrat Bill Gates has monopolized immunization and will leverage it for this new Technetronic Society. The money and power behind this forceful transformation of our society are incalculable, mostly unseen, and probably unstoppable. Think about it, a plan to take over the world put in place decades ago, a plan hardly anyone notices because of its incremental, indomitable, and relentless nature. Sounds conspiratorial, doesn’t it? Well, conspiracies killed Caesar and overthrew the Czar. Conspiracies were the seeds of the American Revolution and the French one too. What? You think control is just a roll of the dice?

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dlamp-dictator · 4 years

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You know, I wanted to talk about the fun parts of the latest Arknights event, like how Texas and Waii Fu got into a fist fight in the streets of Lungmen. I wanted to start a small essay about how Granbelm’s Anna Fugo was a great and interesting villain and how Granbelm as a who was a pretty good mecha anime. I wanted to talk about how awfully predatory AFK Arena’s gacha system is.

But before all that, I think it’s high time I actually lived up the “X” part of Allen X.

So, I hate talk about current events, namely because they heavily date my posts. As such I usually save them for my end-of-the-year pieces that are dated by design. However, I don’t think I can quietly watch a lot of what’s going on in my country without at least addressing its existence.To be silent is to be compliant after all. I’ll try and keep this as brief as I can, but no promises.

But like most of my Ramblings, some background.

As of me writing this, the date is May 31st, 2020. For those unaware, a George Floyd has been killed by a police officer via strangulation a while back. As sad as it is for me to say, this is honestly nothing new in America. Racial discrimination and prejudice by law enforcement is, frankly, older than this country. However, this seems to have been the tipping point, as several states and larger cities have erupted into mass protest. For most of my research and feed searching, the protest have been mostly peaceful, and a lot of the violence has seemed to be done by White Nationalist groups like the Proud Boys and the KKK in an attempt to smear the peaceful protests, even by a few police officers.

My small town is as quiet as ever, but the world around me has exploded.

I’m usually seen as a quiet and thoughtful person for the most part in real life. I think only a handful of my friends actually know my temper can get razor thin in times of stress, and this has been a pretty stressful time for me. So... I’ll break this down as thoroughly as I can. I’ll try and stay calm and professional as I usually am in most of my ramblings, but I can’t make promises on that.

But let’s get to the first point.

Things are Scary

Something I was going to save for a future Art/Writing rambling, but I don’t think enough people have been admitting that things are very scary right now. In the same vein that I don’t think enough people admit art and writing is hard, I don’t think enough people, enough people with actual pull to their words, are admitting that, yes, things are very scary right now as of May 31st 2020.

In January we had a political situation that nearly started War World 3. In February we had the announcement of a global virus that is still just as contagious and deadly as it was then, and possibly was running about by late December. In either March or April I believe had major flooding in the state of Michigan, and now it seems we’re going to end May with civil rights protests where police and military are attacking protesters seemingly unprovoked.

And this is all very scary.

I know my words don’t have the same weigh as a celebrity or a political figure, but I feel that validation of basic human emotion is the key to coming to an understanding, so I’ll say again: this is all scary stuff. It feels like as my world continues to turn uninterrupted while the world around me is just turning more and more to ash. It’s like being in a safe haven while watching people run from a fire slowly approaching, and it’s scary. It’s outright terrifying. And I think it’s important to admit this and accept this. You can be afraid, you can say you’re afraid, you can cry and worry about how scary things are. Accepting those feelings is important, just don’t let them control you.

That said.

Allen X’s Take on Things

Here’s what I can say so far.

A lack of police accountability has be a fact of life here in the US for years, decades even.

The police have far more power than we give them credit for.

While many of my dealings with police have been good, I get the feeling I’m the exception to the rule.

Our current federal leadership has been nothing short of ignorant, arrogant, and domineering toward not only minorities, but the general population.

Supporters of this leaderships are, frankly, remarkably ignorant at best, and criminally dangerous at worst.

We have reached a point were basic health regulations such as wearing masks in the middle of a global pandemic is now a partisan issue. This is bad.

We have reached a point where more police accountability during a time of global pandemic is now politically divisive. This is also bad.

I could go on, but these are the most pressing thoughts I have on our current situation and the nicest I can be about this topic while maintaining an air of professionalism. Like I said, things are scary. The more I look into things, the worse I feel about the state of this country. The only positive thing I can say is that it should all be over once election day comes.

Now, here’s something else I’d like to state.

Allen X is Black

I never enjoy talking about my ethnicity on the internet. As someone who talks more about video games, anime, manga, and general niche “otaku” media, I feel like my ethnicity and race rarely play a role in my opinion of Asian media, as I’d always be viewing it as an outsider regardless. However, with this topic I feel I should at least state that there is a reason I use X as a stand-in for my pseudo last name. It was originally the name of an old self-insert OC, Allen X. Walker, but when I realized Allen Walker was already taken, I just left it to Allen X. A cheeky nod to both how a lot of only aliases of the early 2000s had “X” as a stand-in to keep original names, and a to my ethnicity, riffing on Malcom X, who used that letter as a stand-in for the last name our ancestors had stolen when taken to the US by force to work the plantations.

As I said, my race is rarely relevant to what I cover, but it does effect my everyday life. I get nervous when I say on my application sheets that I’m Black, wondering if that’d be a black mark. I get twitchy whenever I do my laps around my predominately white neighborhood, wondering if I’d get snide looks and sneers. I get agitated whenever anyone uses the n-word due to it never meaning anything positive in my past. I annoyed when people assume I’m either British or from the UK due to my not having the typical accent of most Black people since I lived in a white neighborhood for most of my life and took speech classes as a child to speak “normally”. Hell, I was bullied by the Black seniors in my high school as a Freshman for not being “Black enough”. And more recently, I was kicked out of the neighborhood I do my rollerblading laps in because that neighborhood suddenly became “private property” when some new neighborhoods moved in. New neighbors that are fine with me being ran over by a car, but not “trespassing” on their sidewalks.

Needless to say, I am very familiar with racism and prejudice. It doesn’t effect me as badly as the folks in the south and especially where these protests are, but I am familiar with it. And when I see these videos and tweets of the violence and police brutality, the anger of the people, it’s terrifying. It terrifying that this is real and is happening just a few states down south of me, and possible one state north of me. It’s terrifying that all this is happening so brazenly and with very few people in our system of government, at least at the executive level, doing anything about. And it’s terrifying that I’m not seeing this on too many major news channels and sites. That’s partially due to me rarely looking up the news aside from headlines, but most major places I’ve seen, save for maybe CNN, really haven’t been talking much about it, not as much as I’d like anyway. It’s all just a lot to take in, and those nervous moments I have due to my ethnicity start to make me shake with fear some days now.

But... I need to move on to the next topic, for the sake of my sanity.

What Must be Said

Like before, I feel like there are things that must be said. To be silent is to be compliant, and while my own position in life is a little to fragile to break out the picket signs and parade the streets, I will at least use my online voice to state what I feel must be stated, if only to say what I do and don’t agree with.

With that said:

Injustices by the police and general law enforcement must be given accountability.

The murder of innocent minority, racial or otherwise, is wrong and must be given the proper punishments.

The lack of care toward healthcare, workers’ rights, civil rights, and so on must be ratified.

Law enforcement should never be seen as or used as a force of fear as it currently is now.

And during a health pandemic like we are now, safety should be a prime concern before anything else. For the police to be acting as they are now makes me fearful of the future.

The fact that I have to say any of that, the fact that any of that is controversial is appalling. The fact that a simple hashtag like #blacklivesmatter is controversial is appalling. The fact that I even hesitated to write that hashtag to maintain professionalism is appalling. It sickens me a little to live in a country where any of that is said, written, or typed with a hint of hesitation or worry. It’s just... so appalling.

That’s all I have to say on this subject, at least in this tone. My purer, more raw thoughts I’ll save for my friends and family in private.

But... I think that leaves us with one question left before I end this. Which is...

How Did We Get Here?

Folks, I am a knowledgeable man, but I don’t consider myself an intelligent one. I didn’t study years of the underlying racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism that lead to our situation.

However... I am very sarcastic and sharp-tongued man. I don’t show that side of myself often here on the internet aside from jokes and jabs at nonsensical things like anime, as it breaks my typical persona of an analytical and professional man, but I think I can sum up what’s happening by paraphrasing single quote that I feel many of the wrong people have used to justify their own feelings of injustices. So with that said:

What do you get when you cross an abused and patient minority with a society that abandons them and treats them like trash?

“I’ll tell you what you get. You get what you fucking deserve.”

Anyway, ideally I’ll have a much happy topic to talk about later this week. Like Arknights. Like I said in the beginning, A former mafia delivery girl got into a fist fight with a kung fu detective, a lot of fun things happened in the latest event.

#your dictator is speaking

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vicislifeinbinary · 4 years

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My take on the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic Last week, we all thought everything was going to be normal, we didn’t take the global virus seriously. I saw people at university booking flights (because the tickets were so cheap) and teachers planning the next week’s curriculum. Most people thought the virus was just like a normal flu. I saw life go on as normal, but of course with people washing their hands more and keeping a bit more distance. People said “See you next week!” and I said “Well… Maybe… I hope so!” and we said our goodbyes. Little did we know, that was only the eerie silence before the storm. Then, suddenly, on Wednesday evening of 11/3/2020, the prime minister of Denmark declared a shutdown of Denmark and afterwards people started hoarding food, sanitizing equipment and toilet paper. It was hard to realize what was happening, it felt like a movie. Still does. I was planning on going to school, to work and taking my driver’s license test – it has all been cancelled/rethought/postponed. My brother is working in the hospital and so is my mom’s boyfriend – I can’t believe how brave these people are in the midst of all this. Doctors will have to make some hardcore judgements in the next months. Entire countries are on lockdown and halting business. Closing their borders. All events are cancelled and so is work, school and social events. Stock market is plummeting and we will probably have a recession. It’s like a patient on life support and we’re just getting started, two weeks behind Italy. New York Times has written that “...as of Tuesday evening, at least 7,866 people have died, more than half of them outside mainland China… infected people have been detected in at least 142 countries” and on 13/3/2020 WHO announced that Europe had become the new epicentre. Thanks to the heroic Dr. Li Wenliang, Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi for discussing the virus and warning the public about the communist party’s violent censorship (and then tragically dying and/or going missing). We have seen the virus overwhelm the healthcare system greatly in other countries like China, Italy, Iran, France, USA, Austria and it’s probably only gonna get worse. What many people fail to understand is 1) You can have the virus without having symptoms, 2) It is very easy to spread and catch the virus and 3) The healthcare system does not have enough equipment, beds or staff if many people suddenly start getting seriously ill. I heard that Denmark only has like 1000 respirators in total, which is not enough, and I feel scared for the future, though I am not yet panicking. I’m trying to adjust to this new state in our dimension. Seems like this large scale containment has never been tried before. I look at people with great contempt when they go out to party, socialize, date, chill, act unhygienic etc. because they could be seriously harming others without realizing it – just because you can’t see the consequences immediately doesn't mean you’re not a catalyst. We are all potential vessels for killing our sick and our elderly. And not only old people die, we have also seen people in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s die from this virus. That person you talked to has talked to five other people and that item you touched has been touched by dozens. It’s just like that “burned matches” image people have been sharing, it’s so easy to understand. I honestly think a police enforced curfew will be implemented because some people do not listen to science at all. BBC did a good experiment with mobile phones and GPSes in 2018 to see how fast illnesses could spread if every person could infect 2-3 people and just travel as usual – by the third day 85% of UK was infected. Bill Gates warned us in 2015 that the world was not ready for the next pandemic, but that we could be, if we took big precautions and combined the military with the medical and biological measures. I do not think we are ready now even though we’ve been warned many times. I used to play the game Plague Inc for years and was stunned by how quickly it spread and how realistic the outcomes were (curfews being implemented, airlines and harbours shutting down, economic market collapsing, politicians falling ill, more money given to research etc.) – I never thought I was going to live in such a scenario. It feels dream-like and very brutal and honest. I also saw this in the movies Contagion (2011) and Outbreak (1995) which fucked me up. Material things are fragile. Societal constructs are fragile. World economy is fragile. When shit hits the fan, people are not so kind, rational and civilized anymore. Also interesting to see the world act like introverts. What if the world was like this? No need for anything, no buildings, no entertainment, no social life, nothing to buy or sell… Really scary to see, it looks like a Chernobyl ghost town. Such a strange social experiment to witness. It’s so devastating to all the business owners and to our culture. I do think some positive outcomes could come from this, though, such as: * More people working from home and having less unnecessary meetings and transportation time + generally getting a smaller public sector in Denmark * More e-learning and web exams being had which could open up knowledge greatly (as YouTube already did many, many years ago) * More research being done before the next pandemic + people taking pathogens, hygiene, cooking and vaccines WAY more seriously * Better safety nets being implemented for privately owned businesses and companies * Fewer working hours and shorter workweeks in general being had, as we find out what work is not truly needed/effective, so that we can have more quality time with families and loved ones instead of working all the time * More research going into growing/making cheaper food and better food preservatives * Being less dependent on China, who has been the global production star for a long time now with terrible freedom of speech as well as human and animal rights + China banning the unhygienic wet markets (which are the culprit of several outbreaks) * People realizing how fragile many things and constructs are and coming together to fight one bad thing instead of fighting over politics, money, culture and religion * More research going into robots and AI which could help us deliver food and medicine (and maybe transport individual people too) I do not know what started this virus, if it was nature or some sort of bioterrorism, like Bill Gates mentioned as a possibility in 2015. It doesn’t matter right now, because we still have to deal with it either way. All I know is to keep my distance and stay home. And I think you should too, even if “the weather is nice” and your friends are bored. The bubonic plague took 200 million lives, smallpox took 56 million lives and spanish flu around 50 million lives. Daily Mail writes “Scientists say the 'scale' and 'lethality' of the coronavirus is on the scale of the H1N1 influenza strain that sparked the Spanish flu pandemic over 100 years ago”. We need to take precautions before it’s all too late and we lose millions of lives. People have said “Acting extreme now will only be seen as inadequate later on” and Vox’ YouTube video brilliantly pointed out that “To slow the virus down, you need to act like you already have it”. We CAN prevent some of this. Act now – stay home, stay clean and stay distant. Thank you for your time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . #coronavirus #coronavirusupdate #covid19 #pandemic #pandemia #covid19denmark #coronavirusdenmark #denmark #danmark #coronapocalypse #panicbuying #stayhome #staysafe #flattenthecurve #COVID2019 #virus #outbreak #CoronavirusOutbreak #plagueinc #bbc #billgates #socialexperiment #socialconstructs #healthcaresystem #lockdown #wetmarkets #socialdistancing #quarantine #contagion #SARSCoV2 (her: Copenhagen) https://www.instagram.com/p/B95eoSQBw0W/?igshid=4poeakul8sz1

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back-and-totheleft · 3 years

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#Election2020

Why [the support for Trump], in your opinion? I was surprised that there was less support for the change than I expected. I expected the American people to be tired of Trump, tired of his misbehavior, but they’re not. Trump was openly outrageous in his latest speech when he said, "We won and we have to stop counting the votes because they’re stealing." It’s shameful that the President of the United States says they’re rigging the elections when they are still taking place. It is completely out of order. It's like he's pretending to be both the commentator and the protagonist in his own show. He abused his role and should be thrown out for that alone.

Was he kicked out with this election? No, it's not over. Trump will do whatever he can, he can't lose in his mind, he's what they call a bad loser. He’ll want every vote to be checked and will make everything as difficult as possible. He’ll fight tooth and nail until December 14th and something could go wrong. I hope not because I remember the Al Gore and George Bush election. The Democrats didn't expect the Republicans to play so dirty but now they’re better prepared. I would like to think that Trump is gone. The monster is gone, at least the biggest one of all, I hope. It’s like a horror movie. At the end of the movie you say, “Oh he's gone, the monster is dead,” but then there's a sequel and he comes back (laughs). Even if he admits defeat, I think Trump is crazy enough to run again in 2024.

Meanwhile? He'll be back out there in the world, and I hope they bring every lawsuit against him for all the shit he's done. He will sell the hotels or build them in the midwest, in all the red states, and find a way to turn them into a lower class money-making experiment.

Is the United States on the verge of a civil war? No, I don't see a civil war on the horizon. I think that fear is the result of media hysteria. There will be some confrontations. The point of these elections is that they’re now there for all to see, which makes it difficult for Republicans to declare them a scam. They’ve already repeated it so many times. Trump said it's a rigged election. But his words mean nothing. He’ll say other things, sure, but I don't think they will have the same impact as when he said them for the first time.

Many Western media do not seem to accept that Trump has all this popularity. Why? Trump is an embarrassment. He's the guy who goes to the party and says whatever he wants, says hurtful things. Many of the things that were happening in the government were covered up with polite speeches, while he was very blunt and pissed off a lot of people for his frankness. It ruined the show. He called Washington a swamp. He did the same thing Reagan did. He was right saying Washington was a swamp. It's a swamp but there's no way to fix it. America, like Italy, is stuck in the system.

And how does it get out of the swamp? We have to take money out of politics, which is not possible now because of the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United. It was an important decision that allowed corporate money to flow into the elections and now companies have the power. For much of the judiciary, corporations in the United States are treated as individuals. They have human rights.

Do you believe that Covid19 has shown the contradictions of our system? It showed that our healthcare system doesn't work nationwide. That’s very clear. Each state deals with it in its own way, and each hospital sets its own parameters. I'm by no means an expert on this, but it looks disorganized. In Europe, as you’re smaller countries, I think you’ve done a pretty good job.

What do you think of the protests in Italy against the lockdown? Personally, I'm afraid of this over-regulation where the government now has the power to shut down everything in a country whenever it wants. It is a form of control that I object to. I think a maturity is needed. The death rate from these infections has dropped significantly. I’m disoriented because Covid, to some extent for me, is a disease like others that have come into our life: SARS, MERS. There have been a number of diseases that are part of the planet, caused by climate change or whatever. We have to accept and absorb them without overreacting. Overdoing it is dangerous. Like America exaggerated in 2001 [after 9/11]. It was madness in this country. We passed the Patriot Act.

Could the pandemic threaten the political and civil foundations on which liberal democracies rest? In this period of my life, I’m giving a lot of importance to peace and war. I think it is a crucial issue. If there is peace and you can keep alliances and have no enemies - or you try to reduce enmity through diplomacy - we will have a much more fluid and harmonious world. This world is not facing a world war; it’s not facing what we have faced in the past. There are no diseases that are wiping out the human race. There are no survival problems. There has been an improvement in education and health around the world. In general, there are negative examples, but the emphasis has been on apocalyptic thinking, on doomsday thinking, and I think it’s important for everyone to realize that we are exaggerating.

The media are trying to cause a stir. The media thrives on bad news. It’s always been like this, but it has gotten worse because there is more media than we’ve ever had. Bad news sells. And I think a lot of people have stopped following the media. This is what America did. Many Americans don't read and that's why they like Trump, because they don't want to know all the bullshit he does, like the fact that he doesn't pay taxes. So I think if we maintained a world-wide peace system, there is nothing we could not overcome, including climate change. I really believe that and I'm making a documentary about it. If we fight Russia and call them enemies and thugs, like Biden did the other night, and if we're saying more or less the same thing about China, there is no way out. We're spending a fortune on military spending. Trillions of dollars a year to prepare for war, which is not necessary.

What should we prepare for instead? The real war is the war against climate change. We know that perhaps it’s too late and frankly America is wasting time and wasting an enormous amount of money. So we have to transfer the economic resources. I'm worried about Biden because he said so many stupid things about Russia. The only problem I have with him is on foreign policy. I think his domestic policy is progressive, but his foreign policy… I don't know if he will worry immediately about that because he will have other problems on the national level, so it’s difficult to say where he will want to go, but you know what Obama did. Obama eventually invaded more Muslim countries than anyone else and started drone strikes. He overtook Bush with the bombing. And then Trump obviously tried to do more, but without going to [a ground] war. So people say Trump didn't take us to war. No, but it brought us to the brink of war with Korea. He has certainly brought us to the brink of war with Venezuela and now with Iran.

After the fall of the Berlin wall, have we stopped thinking that there is an alternative world? At the time, the West could destabilize the new Russian regime under Yeltsin and they weren't worried about China because it wasn't that powerful yet. We have increased the rivalry with Russia and China, not only because we’ve destabilized Ukraine but because we’ve kept our weapons, our airplanes and our military troops, NATO troops, at the borders of Russia, closer than ever. The medium-range missiles that are in Europe are very dangerous to the status quo in China. We have completely surrounded it and spent a fortune to potentially block it.

Are there no alternatives then? I don't think neoliberalism has worked. There is this idea in America that the American model is the peaceful way, but it’s not because we embargo countries that do not agree with us. Look at, for example, Cuba and Venezuela. It's horrible. You can't bring medicine to Cuba, it's very difficult. We have imposed sanctions on Russia and Iran, and now against China.

America is not moving towards harmonious world cooperation. We want to be the dominant factor. We don't want to have partners. Bush made this clear in 2000 and it has now been reiterated with Trump. No partners. We only take hostages. Italy is a hostage, a great hostage, because of the huge naval bases we have there. Europe is a hostage. This is a fundamental problem that will grow in the future. It can’t be solved because countries have lost their sovereignty, at least some. Russia and China cannot be told that they must bow to the American model, and you can't tell Iran or North Korea anyway. I want these countries to defend their rights because it is crucial for the freedom of the world that there are alternative ways of living. I can assure you that they are truly sincere about their revolution in Cuba and, unfortunately, they have suffered a lot for that.

On the fake news and social media issue. What do you think of the censorship that some social platforms are implementing? There has been a lot of fake news in America since World War II. It could be said that the whole Cold War, in my opinion, was fake news because we wanted to strengthen the military after the war, so we portrayed the Soviet Union as a lot worse than it was and a lot more threatening. And we keep doing it by saying that the Russians will invade Europe. What the fuck would they want from Europe? They have no intention to do that and Russia is no longer the Soviet Union, it is a market economy.

The concept of fake news is crazy. What is it? It has existed for centuries. When someone wants to find another enemy, fake news is created. They say who the bad guy is, who did this and did that. The Spartans did it with the Athenians. There’s always fake news, what's new? Now they’re blaming Facebook. It's ridiculous. Facebook should be a free and open source. People should go there and say what they want. I agree that hate speech is not a good thing and should be labeled or banned. But when you start playing with the nuances of censorship, it becomes very dangerous.

I am thinking for example of the case of the journalist Glenn Greenwald who left the newspaper he co-founded, The Intercept, because he was not allowed to publish an article on the alleged scandal involving the Biden family in China and Ukraine. I think Glenn Greenwald was right. I think the story was true. I don't want to say it was the biggest scandal, but it's still a scandal, and Trump had his scandals too and people ignored them, but they were reported in the press.

What do you think of the Assange trial? Obama brought forward the first charges against Assange and his rights were violated in every possible way. The Russiagate case is a fabrication. Assange got the information from an insider on the Democratic National Committee, and the FBI has never investigated. They accused Assange of passing the information to Russia but that's not true, technically it doesn't hold up.

Trump wanted to pardon him if he came to testify as to who his source was against Hillary Clinton, but Assange didn't make that deal because he's an honest man and doesn't reveal his sources. Those were the WikiLeaks rules of engagement. Assange is hated by Hillary Clinton supporters for damaging her candidacy and her chance of being elected. At the same time, he is hated by Republicans because he was seen as a troublemaker to the military and the United States, a man who revealed secrets, like Snowden. Snowden and Assange are heroes to me because we need to know how our government operates. We need to know what they are doing on our behalf and they are not doing good things. The government is doing bad things, many bad things, which by the way cost us a fortune.

-Fabrizio Rostelli interviews Oliver Stone, translated from Italian, Fanpage Italy, Nov 8 2020 [x]

#oliver stone #election2020 #donald trump #joe biden #italy #covid19 #coronavirus

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sinrau · 4 years

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June 10th, 112K.

June 20th, 120K.

June 26th, 124K.

July 1, 127K.

July 10th, 133K.

That’s 21,000 deaths in the last 30 days in America — thanks to Donald Trump’s catastrophic indifference to a lethal pandemic.

But the worst is yet to come.

Let’s do some basic math together. First, let’s dispel the notion that coronavirus is some mere flu. Three million are infected in America, 135,000 are dead. That’s a mortality rate of 4.5%. If we apply that mortality rate looking forward, the numbers that result are as nightmarish as they are incredible. For example, 4.5% of half the US population is 7,425,000. You can think of that as an upper limit — how many people might die if the virus sweeps across half of the American population.

That’s a huge number. So you can also think about it this way. 60,000 people infected a day is about 2 million a month. Trump will be in office for another six months, that’s 12 million more cases. The mortality from those cases could well be 540,000 over the next six months. Half a million.

Now imagine that Trump manages to stay in office for four more years, and like now, he has no plan to deal with Coronavirus. 4,320,000. Four million, three hundred and twenty thousand. That’s how many people stand to die over 4 years of a future Trump administration that takes as little action as this one.

Of course, I’ve committed a cardinal sin. I’ve made a simple linear extrapolation. The future isn’t going to be nearly so straightforward. But the numbers above should give you some impression of the magnitude of mass death we’re dealing with. The fact that we have to even consider a tragedy as gruesome as mass death at this scale is squarely due to one man: Donald Trump.

See that chart above? There’s a grim and terrible story it tells. America’s death rate is rising back upwards. And this time is going to be worse than last time.

America’s new viral spike of Coronavirus began in earnest about three weeks or so ago. That was when Red States, egged on by a lunatic President, decided to reopen far, far too soon, and in far too simplistic a manner. Instead of cautious, careful, planned, staged reopening, they threw open the doors — before the virus had been made to peak. The result was predictable: a massive explosion.

Coronavirus rose to new heights: from about 16,000 cases a day, to 65,000. It quadrupled.

It’s taken a few weeks, but the tragic consequences of this disastrous mistake are now starting to become even more visible . The death rate is starting to rise again. The Coronavirus death rate lags the case rate — as you might expect. It takes a while for people to get sick and die. Along the way, doctors and nurses fight bravely for their lives. Sometimes, they don’t succeed.

How long is the lag? Exactly about two to three weeks or so. America hit its plateau around April 5th — when 35K cases were recorded. And on April 18th or so, deaths peaked, at around 4K per day. That tallies with data from around the world, roughly. So just as expected, right on time, two to three weeks after Red States opened their doors, America’s death rate is growing again.

But this time is going to be worse. Why? Because there are now many, many more sick people. America has north of 3 million cases of Coronavirus. And all those sick people are spreading it faster and faster.

That means that the healthcare system is now beginning to break . It’s one thing to deal with a pandemic at the level of 20K cases per day. But it’s another thing entirely to deal with north of 65K cases per day. Those different levels require entirely different levels of resources.

Already, for example, in Texas, the Governor — the very American Idiot who fought against people wearing masks, and creating this new surge in deaths — is now asking hospitals to cancel elective surgeries, to focus on Coronavirus entirely.

Because the healthcare system — what little of one there is in America — is now stretched to its limits, this wave of death is going to be worse than last time. It might take a while to show up in the data, because in an overwhelmed system, getting good data isn’t exactly easy. But it’s now eminently predictable to say that America is about to have a tidal wave of death.

As the healthcare system struggles to treat the sick, Trump’s Army of American Idiots is still out there, doing their best to spread the virus . They don’t wear masks, they’re still having pool parties, and they are just as maliciously indifferent as their Dear Leader to infecting their friends, neighbours, and even families.

And then there’s their idiot President — who still doesn’t have a plan for containing the virus, and isn’t interested in ever having one. The Idiot-in-Chief is fighting for the virus — and so is his Idiot Army — not against it.

What else is not having plan, wearing a mask, doing anything remotely sane and sensible at this point called?

The result of those three ruinous trends — an Idiot Army spreading a lethal virus, cheered on by an Idiot-in-Chief who’s on the pandemic’s side, and a healthcare system that can’t cope already…is going to be disastrous. It’s going to make death rate surge upwards, in horrific fashion.

What is this massive wave of death really about? What it’snotabout is disease, really. We know how to beat Coronavirus. There’s by now a global model of best practices, from nations like New Zealand, South Korea, Vietnam, and so on. It’s not complicated — it consists of all the things science and common sense suggest, from testing, to tracking and tracing, to isolating, to swift lockdowns. All that needs to be done is to apply it. But that’s not happening in America, thanks to the Idiot-in-Chief, and his Idiot Army. America is one of a handful of rogue nations on planet earth that won’t apply the global model of best practices.

So this massive coming wave of death is not really about the disease at all. It’s about something stranger, darker, much more dangerous: human stupidity. Human folly. Human ugliness.

You see, it’s not Trump’s Idiot Army who are going to die of the virus most. It’s minorities, blacks, indigenous peoples, and so forth.

This massive wave of death is a kind of eugenics, a cleansing by any other name. It’s made of racism and hate . The malice is not lost on the world, though Americans might still be playing dumb about it. The people being left at greatest risk of death to Coronavirus in America are the ones it has always hated most, and wanted to enslave, eliminate, annihilate.

It’s hardly a coincidence that black people, for example, weren’t considered human beings, really, until 1971 or so — and now, just a scant few decades later, a thinly veiled white supremacist President and his fanatical movement is fighting for a pandemic that’s killing off blacks disproportionately.

That’s not to say, of course, this wave of deaths won’t hit Trump’s Idiot Army hard, too. They’re becoming what the followers of authoritarian-fascist demagogues, the hardcore fringe of loyalists, always end up as: martyrs.

Think about it. Trump’s Idiot Army is literally willing to die — to watch their parents, kids, wives, husbands, sons, daughters die — just for the sake of free-dumb. For the inalienable right to…spread a lethal virus. That’s how much Donald Trump has conned them. He’s conned them out of their sanity, and their lives, too. What kind of people are willing to put their own health and that of their loves ones at risk…for the sake of a virus? Idiots, is one answer. Martyrs is a more accurate one.

Trump’s Idiot Army is made of the ones who cheered on every form of malice and stupidity imaginable over the last few years. Concentration camps, bans, raids, purges, and so forth. It was one thing when it was happening to Mexicans and Latinos. What they didn’t understand — what such people, broken in the mind — have never understood is that this is a process of grooming, too. Becoming desensitized to brutality, cruelty, violence, and death is usually a precursor for your own.

That’s what’s happened to Trump’s Idiot Army. The spent the last few years on a kind of delirious high. “Did you see what Trump did to those dirty Mexicans today? Woo-hoo!!! Yeah buddy!!” But getting high on violence and cruelty and rage ends up addling your brain. You can’t think straight anymore. By the end of this process of grooming, you’re even cheering on the deaths of people you should love — because all you’re capable of now is ugliness. That’s the story of every fascist-authoritarian collapse in a nutshell.

Trump’s Idiot Army was expertly groomed. They were desensitized to hardcore violence — kids in cages — by a demagogue, who’s also an abuser. And now they’ve ended up martyrs. They’re happily willing to sacrifice themselves for…a virus.

Now, you might think all that’s theoretical, but let me assure you, it’s not.

If we’re going to talk about America’s coming tidal wave of death seriously, then you have to understand all the above: that the hardcore Trumpist fringe is totally desensitized to death by now. They don’t just go to pool parties in the middle of a lethal pandemic because they don’t get it, or because they don’t care, but for a darker reason still: that’s how they prove they’re strong, fit, worthy. By being the ones the virus doesn’t kill. But to get there, you have to do three things. One, risk getting infected. Two, spread it. Three, accept being a martyr.

No healthcare system in the world will ever be robust enough to cope with all that: somewhere between 30% to 40% of a society who are on the side of the pandemic. So America is about to have something unique and ugly and stupid in the world, like so many other things it has, from school shootings to medical bankruptcy to elderly people working at Walmart. It’s about to have an explosion of death. A needless one. Unlike almost anywhere else on planet earth.

That explosion of death is going to be needless . Americans are still playing dumb about one last fact — the most terrible of all. The vast, vast bulk of all the Corona deaths are needless. How many? Somewhere between 60 and 90 percent. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of deaths that never needed to happen.

This fact isn’t discussed much in America. It’s a shame and a disgrace — but it’s another reason why a wave of death was so predictable, too.

How high will the death toll rise? The answer is: the bottom of the abyss is the limit. 250,000 is now a certainty — the virus still hasn’t peaked and we’re more than halfway there. Now we must talk about even bigger, more horrific numbers. 500,000? Easily, in the end. More? That depends.

What if Trump gets re-elected? What if he doesn’t, and steals the election anyways?

Then, my friends, the death toll will never come to an end . Because Trump is never going to have a plan for a virus. He can’t admit weakness, he can never admit a mistake. He profits from the chaos and the ruin. His cronies get the contracts and his buddies, the bailouts. His ideology is that of a racist, fascist, supremacist, and the virus is killing off the ones he hates most, first and hardest. If his Idiot Army dies off a little too, martyring themselves — so what? Do you really think he cares? Trump doesn’t have a plan to contain the virus — and never has had one — because he’s on its side, not yours. He’s on its side, at the most primal level, because the mind of a fascist is a thing that revels in, delights in, worships violence, brutality, death, as the culling of the weak, impure, and unfit.

And so the death toll will rise, at least, for the next six months, before it peaks. That takes us to easily 250,000 before a long-term peak, which means far more than 500,000, by the end of it all.

Those numbers should give us all pause. Because a society in which mass death is possible is one that has crossed the last line. Of decency, civilization, truth, responsibility, goodness. And maybe hope, too.

Umair

July 2020

Donald Trump’s Wave of Mass Death

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vinayv224 · 4 years

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Read Obama’s inspiring commencement address to 2020’s high school graduates

Former President Barack Obama speaks during the “Graduate Together” television special. | Getty Images for EIF & XQ

“Leave behind all the old ways of thinking that divide us: sexism, racial prejudice, status, greed,” Obama said. “Set the world on a different path.”

In his second commencement speech of 2020, former President Barack Obama implored graduating high schoolers to be brave in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, and to reject old ways of doing things while working together to solve pressing problems, from economic inequality to the climate crisis.

“If the world’s gonna get better, it’s gonna be up to you,” Obama said during the television special, “Graduate Together” on Saturday. “Leave behind all the old ways of thinking that divide us — sexism, racial prejudice, status, greed. And set the world on a different path.”

The speech followed one Obama delivered to graduates of historically black colleges and universities in which he offered both pointed criticisms of the Trump administration — specifically that “this pandemic has fully finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing” — and his signature optimistic rhetoric.

Saturday evening’s remarks also contained a few gentle rebukes of the Trump administration, with the former president telling the graduates that adults “don’t have all the answers. A lot of them aren’t even asking the right questions,” and that “things are so screwed up” because “a lot of so-called grownups — including some with fancy titles and important jobs” do “what’s convenient, what’s easy” rather than what is right. But its focus was on inspiring the graduates to use the pandemic as an opportunity to improve both themselves and their countries.

“Your graduation marks your passage into adulthood,” Obama said, noting that passage can be frightening, but arguing that with adulthood comes new agency. “With all the challenges this country faces right now, nobody can tell you, ‘No, you’re too young to understand.’ Or, ‘This is how it’s always been done.’ Because with so much uncertainty, with everything suddenly up for grabs, this is your generation’s world to shape.”

“This is your generation’s world to shape.”—@BarackObama to graduating high school seniors #GraduateTogether Join us at https://t.co/aGSLPSDtgE. pic.twitter.com/3OOnbPa3Gu

— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) May 17, 2020

Read the full rush transcript of Obama’s speech below:

Hi, everybody! Aniyah, thank you for that beautiful introduction. I could not be prouder of everything you’ve done in your time with the Obama Foundation. And, of course, I couldn’t be prouder of all of you in the graduating class of 2020. As well as the teachers, and the coaches, and most of all, parents and family who guided you along the way.

Now, graduating is a big achievement under any circumstances. Some of you have had to overcome serious obstacles along the way. Whether it was an illness, or a parent losing a job, or living in a neighborhood where people too often count you out. Along with the usual challenges of growing up, all of you have had to deal with the added pressures of social media, reports of school shootings, and the specter of climate change. And then, just as you’re about to celebrate having made it through, just as you’ve been looking forward to proms and senior nights, graduation ceremonies, and — let’s face it — a whole bunch of parties, the world has turned upside down by a global pandemic. And as much as I’m sure you love your parents, I’ll bet that being stuck at home with them and playing board games or watching Tiger King on TV is not exactly how you envisioned the last few months of your senior year.

Now, I’ll be honest with you. The disappointments of missing a live graduation, those will pass pretty quick. I don’t remember much of my own high school graduation. I know that not having to sit there and listen to a commencement speaker isn’t all that bad. Mine usually go on way too long. Also, not that many people look great in those caps. Especially if you have big ears like me. And you’ll have plenty of time to catch up with your friends once the immediate public health crisis is over. But what remains true is that your graduation marks your passage into adulthood. The time when you begin to take charge of your own life. It’s when you get to decide what’s important to you — what kind of career you want to pursue. Who you want to build a family with. The values you want to live by. And given the current state of the world, that may be kind of scary.

If you planned on going away to college, getting dropped off at campus in the fall, that’s no longer a given. If you were planning to work while going to school, finding that first job is going to be tougher. Even families that are relatively well-off are dealing with massive uncertainty. Those who were struggling before, they’re hanging on by a thread. All of which means that you’re going to have to grow up faster than some generations.

This pandemic has shaken up the status quo and laid bare a lot of our country’s deep-seated problems. From massive economic inequality, to on-going racial disparities, to a lack of basic healthcare for people who need it. It’s woken a lot of young people up to the fact that the old ways of doing things just don’t work. And it doesn’t matter how much money you make, if everyone around you is hungry and sick. And that our society and democracy only work when we think not just about ourselves, but about each other.

It’s also pulled the curtain back on another hard truth, something that we all have to eventually accept once our childhood comes to an end. You know all those adults that you used to think were in charge and knew what they were doing? Turns out they don’t have all the answers. A lot of them aren’t even asking the right questions. So, if the world’s gonna get better, it’s gonna be up to you. That realization may be kind of intimidating, but I hope it’s also inspiring. With all the challenges this country faces right now, nobody can tell you, “No, you’re too young to understand.” Or, “This is how it’s always been done.” Because with so much uncertainty, with everything suddenly up for grabs, this is your generation’s world to shape.

Since I’m one of the old guys, I won’t tell you what to do with this power that rests in your hands. But I’ll leave you with three quick pieces of advice — first, don’t be afraid. America’s gone through tough times before. Slavery, civil war, famine, disease, the great depression, and 9/11. And each time, we came out stronger. Usually because a new generation — young people like you — learn from past mistakes and figured out how to make things better.

Second, do what you think is right. Doing what feels good — what’s convenient, what’s easy — that’s how little kids think. Unfortunately a lot of so-called grownups — including some with fancy titles and important jobs — still think that way, which is why things are so screwed up. I hope that instead, you decide to ground yourself in values that last. Like honesty, hard work, responsibility, fairness, generosity, respect for others. You won’t get it right every time, you’ll make mistakes like we all do. But if you listen to the truth that’s inside yourself — even when it’s hard, even when it’s inconvenient — people will notice. They’ll gravitate towards you, and you’ll be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

And finally, build a community. No one does big things by themselves. Right now, when people are scared, it’s easy to be cynical and say, “Let me just look out for myself or my family or people who look or think or pray like me.” But if we’re gonna get through these difficult times, if we’re gonna create a world where everybody has opportunities to find a job and afford college, if we’re gonna save the environment and defeat future pandemics, then we’re gonna have to do it together.

So be alive to one another’s struggles. Stand up for one another’s rights. Leave behind all the old ways of thinking that divide us — sexism, racial prejudice, status, greed. And set the world on a different path. When you need help, Michelle and I have made it the mission of our foundation to give young people like you the skills and support to lead in your own communities. And to connect you with other young leaders around the country and around the globe. But, the truth is, you don’t need us to tell you what to do, because in so many ways, you’ve already started to lead.

Congratulations, class of 2020. Keep making us proud.

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