#kinds of election outcomes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

Text

How Google’s trial secrecy lets it control the coverage

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

"Corporate crime" is practically an oxymoron in America. While it's true that the single most consequential and profligate theft in America is wage theft, its mechanisms are so obscure and, well, dull that it's easy to sell us on the false impression that the real problem is shoplifting:

https://newrepublic.com/post/175343/wage-theft-versus-shoplifting-crime

Corporate crime is often hidden behind Dana Clare's Shield Of Boringness, cloaked in euphemisms like "risk and compliance" or that old favorite, "white collar crime":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/07/solar-panel-for-a-sex-machine/#a-single-proposition

And corporate crime has a kind of performative complexity. The crimes come to us wreathed in specialized jargon and technical terminology that make them hard to discern. Which is wild, because corporate crimes occur on a scale that other crimes – even those committed by organized crime – can't hope to match:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card

But anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. After decades of official tolerance (and even encouragement), corporate criminals are finally in the crosshairs of federal enforcers. Take National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo's ruling in Cemex: when a company takes an illegal action to affect the outcome of a union election, the consequence is now automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

That's a huge deal. Before, a boss could fire union organizers and intimidate workers, scuttle the union election, and then, months or years later, pay a fine and some back-wages…and the union would be smashed.

The scale of corporate crime is directly proportional to the scale of corporations themselves. Big companies aren't (necessarily) led by worse people, but even small sins committed by the very largest companies can affect millions of lives.

That's why antitrust is so key to fighting corporate crime. To make corporate crimes less harmful, we must keep companies from attaining harmful scale. Big companies aren't just too big to fail and too big to jail – they're also too big for peaceful coexistence with a society of laws.

The revival of antitrust enforcement is such a breath of fresh air, but it's also fighting headwinds. For one thing, there's 40 years of bad precedent from the nightmare years of pro-monopoly Reaganomics to overturn:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

It's not just precedents in the outcomes of trials, either. Trial procedure has also been remade to favor corporations, with judges helping companies stack the deck in their own favor. The biggest factor here is secrecy: blocking recording devices from courts, refusing to livestream the proceedings, allowing accused corporate criminals to clear the courtroom when their executives take the stand, and redacting or suppressing the exhibits:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-27-redacted-case-against-amazon/

When a corporation can hide evidence and testimony from the public and the press, it gains broad latitude to dispute critics, including government enforcers, based on evidence that no one is allowed to see, or, in many cases, even describe. Take Project Nessie, the program that the FTC claims Amazon used to compel third-party sellers to hike prices across many categories of goods:

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/amazon-used-secret-project-nessie-algorithm-to-raise-prices-6c593706

Amazon told the press that the FTC has "grossly mischaracterize[d]" Project Nessie. The DoJ disagrees, but it can't say why, because the Project Nessie files it based its accusations on have been redacted, at Amazon's insistence. Rather than rebutting Amazon's claim, FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar could only say "We once again call on Amazon to move swiftly to remove the redactions and allow the American public to see the full scope of what we allege are their illegal monopolistic practices."

It's quite a devastating gambit: when critics and prosecutors make specific allegations about corporate crimes, the corporation gets to tell journalists, "No, that's wrong, but you're not allowed to see the reason we say it's wrong."

It's a way to work the refs, to get journalists – or their editors – to wreathe bold claims in endless hedging language, or to avoid reporting on the most shocking allegations altogether. This, in turn, keeps corporate trials out of the public eye, which reassures judges that they can defer to further corporate demands for opacity without facing an outcry.

That's a tactic that serves Google well. When the company was dragged into court by the DoJ Antitrust Division, it demanded – and received – a veil of secrecy that is especially ironic given the company's promise "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful":

https://usvgoogle.org/trial-update-9-22

While this veil has parted somewhat, it is still intact enough to allow the company to work the refs and kill disfavorable reporting from the trial. Last week, Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – published an editorial in Wired reporting on her impression of an explosive moment in the Google trial:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

According to Gray, Google had run a program to mess with the "semantic matching" on queries, silently appending terms to users' searches that caused them to return more ads – and worse results. This generated more revenue for Google, at the expense of advertisers who got billed to serve ads that didn't even match user queries.

Google forcefully disputed this claim:

https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1709726778170786297

They contacted Gray's editors at Wired, but declined to release all the exhibits and testimony that Gray used to form her conclusions about Google's conduct; instead, they provided a subset of the relevant materials, which cast doubt on Gray's accusations.

Wired removed Gray's piece, with an unsigned notice that "WIRED editorial leadership has determined that the story does not meet our editorial standards. It has been removed":

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

But Gray stands by her piece. She admits that she might have gotten some of the fine details wrong, but that these were not material to the overall point of her story, that Google manipulated search queries to serve more ads at the expense of the quality of the results:

https://twitter.com/megangrA/status/1711035354134794529

She says that the piece could and should have been amended to reflect these fine-grained corrections, but that in the absence of a full record of the testimony and exhibits, it was impossible for her to prove to her editors that her piece was substantively correct.

I reviewed the limited evidence that Google permitted to be released and I find her defense compelling. Perhaps you don't. But the only way we can factually resolve this dispute is for Google to release the materials that they claim will exonerate them. And they won't, though this is fully within their power.

I've seen this playbook before. During the early months of the pandemic, a billionaire who owned a notorious cyberwarfare company used UK libel threats to erase this fact from the internet – including my own reporting – on the grounds that the underlying research made small, non-material errors in characterizing a hellishly complex financial Rube Goldberg machine that was, in my opinion, deliberately designed to confuse investigators.

Like the corporate crimes revealed in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, the gambit is complicated, but it's not sophisticated:

Make everything as complicated as possible;

Make everything as secret as possible;

Dismiss any accusations by claiming errors in the account of the deliberately complex arrangements, which can't be rectified because the relevant materials are a secret.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#but-id-have-to-kill-you

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

Image: Jason Rosenberg (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/underpants/12069086054/

CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Japanexperterna.se (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/japanexperterna/15251188384/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

#pluralistic #secrecy #opacity #google #antitrust #trustbusting #wired #working the refs #megan grey #semantic matching

2K notes · View notes

duchessonfire · 2 years

Text

I have been reading a bit on the OTW elections and the whole Tiffany G thing, but most of all, I've been reading comments from people supporting Tiffany saying that she just wants to clear AO3 from all the CSAM (child sexual abuse material) content and I don't know who needs to hear this but:

If someone comes to a predominantly QUEER space (like AO3) and tells you that censorship is necessary to eradicate CSAM... it's not actually CSAM they want to eradicate...

I've seen this type of discourse about Pride and about queer literature and queer movies and queer communities. It's a tried and true technique of the right and conservative movements.

First, they say there is a DANGER to the community through CSAM and they conflate the actual threat of CSAM in the community (we all know someone who thinks that writing a love story between two characters who are 16 is CSAM...), and make you believe that censorship is the only way to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. And since most people are (rightly) mind-bogled at having to explain that of course they don't support CSAM content, they bow down and accept the censorship for the greater good, without anyone actually trying to have a conversation about what qualifies as CSAM (which needs to, you know, actually involve real children and not fictional characters who are 17 and losing their virginity with their crush in a Mature-rated story about high school football and first love based on the author's own experience of losing their virginity at 17 to their crush in high school).

Then, they tell you that there are other forms of DISTURBING CONTENT, and what they really mean is porn that THEY find disturbing, for ex, (and I kid you not, I have seen comments like that) porn featuring disabled characters, which they consider to encourage the exploitation of vulnerable individuals, or BDSM porn (which supposedly encourages violence and lack of consent), or rough porn, or any kind of porn that isn't two (preferably white and skinny) able-bodied people doing it missionary style while lovingly gazing in each other's eyes. SO TO PROTECT VIEWERS, that needs to be banned as well.

And then, they tell you that even that sanitized version of porn is still porn and that people under 18 or under 21 or under whatever age they consider too young to view anything sexual regardless of the fact that not all countries have the same law about the age of maturity, should be free to surf the site without having to *gasp* filter out properly tagged works. So TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN, every explicit content is censored.

And then finally, when all that is left is a sanitized, white-washed, ableist, puritan type of content featuring General-Audience approved gay works of two nice men or two nice women holding hands and chastely kissing each other on the lips... Well guess what? :) CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE EXPOSED TO QUEER CONTENT SO WE NEED TO BAN THAT AS WELL, and since we've basically done purge after purge before and there are still a handful of people on the website, well surely they won't mind/care anymore, will they?

It's not just a slippery slope, it's something that has been done time and again, and that is why censorship on AO3 will never, never have a positive outcome.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#otw elections #ao3 #sorry for the rant #but i'm tired of seeing the same BS again and again #tw cp mention #censorship

18K notes · View notes

hazbin-writings-and-musings · 2 months

Text

Lucifer Morningstar x Pregnant!Reader Headcanons Part 3

Keeping the ball rolling after part two, here's Lucifer and reader headcanons as baby gets ever closer to arrival. I think I'll do two more, with the last one detailing the actual birth and dear Lucy welcoming his second child. Thank you for reading and please enjoy!

Warnings: Pregnancy Mention, Smut

- His dedication to soothing your aches and pains grows even faster than they do as you get further along. The wealth of information now available about pregnancy (albeit not of the supernatural variety) initially overwhelms him, but he manages to find what he needs in books about prenatal massage. It doesn't matter where or when pain strikes, he'll be there to roll up his sleeves and work as long as he needs to make sure you're better. He's happy to have a professional masseuse join the palace staff to provide the help you need, but he also just enjoys doing it himself. There's a kind of intimacy he can't explain when it comes to tending his beloved and the body you're growing his child with. It doesn't hurt that his fingers are literally magical.

- He wants the FULL stereotypical expecting-a-baby experience, so yes, he'd love to do some breathing classes with you! The King of Hell might struggle to do anything in public without attracting attention, but he manages to locate a relaxed enough class that the two of you can attend without fear of paparazzi, and he is beyond thrilled from the very first session. There's not much he can offer now and through delivery beyond support, but he intends to give 110%. Pregnant yoga is also not off the table, nor is any activity that lets the two of you bond and enjoy the experience. To a very small extent, he enjoys these sessions because he gets to be seen with you. The Sinners and Hellborn just can't help sneaking an extra look at the King and his expecting lover. He doesn't need to say a word whenever he meets the gaze of someone looking the two of you over, the proud puff of his chest says it all as he lovingly splays a hand on your belly; that's right, I pulled this.

- He wants to brainstorm names right away, and because the two of you elect to be surprised by the birth sex, a very long list of potential selections is drafted for any outcome. His tastes tend to be a bit more old fashioned, but he has a knack for choosing those whose beauty has passed the test of time. His selections are also based on humans that have caught his attention through the ages, for good and bad reasons. Charlie was named after an ancient king, for example, who stood out most to Lucifer because he managed change on a scale few can ever hope to achieve, and change was what he desired for his child above all else. As he follows the naming rule of "two yesses, one no" he listens to all of your suggestions just as eagerly, which over the months results in an increasing long piece of parchment covered in names and notes. Vetoed suggestions are crossed out and he makes a point to note any potential issues with a name in great detail, and while the process is far from streamlined, the two of you have a great deal of fun selecting a final list of favorites.

- Out of everything required to prepare the nursery, selecting baby clothes tends to get him crying from the cuteness most often. He'll hold up potential outfits and try to imagine the baby in them, and while he's got a fantastic sense of fashion, the fabulousity doesn't detract from the adorableness before him. The itty bitty booties, the tiny socks, the cute little onesies... Stars, he's going to have another perfect baby, and since they'll no doubt be as precious as Charlie was... You'll often find him tearing up but beaming in silent thought as he looks over your future child's wardrobe, and he'll always explain himself honestly; he just can't wait to enjoy another round of baby days. If only they didn't go by so quickly...

- Lots of things grow increasingly difficult as you get further along, but he's always up for the challenge of making life easier for you, especially in regards to the bedroom. A baby bump will make certain positions impossible, but that's of little consequence for a man that can bend reality and his own physical form with ease. His capacity for effortless flight makes gravity a non-issue, and where his magic hits its limit, his creativity takes over. Whatever position results in comfort and satisfaction for you will be achieved, and he thinks of plenty to be offered. With his long, forked tongue added to the mix, you need not worry about missing out, no matter how much your middle swells. If anything, he rather enjoys being on the bottom...

347 notes · View notes

olekciy · 11 months

Text

A short reminder that Russia is imperialist, has been imperialist for a long time, and there's no way around that fact.

Sections of the Western left have developed a narrative according to which Russia has been gradually surrounded by NATO and that supposedly "provoked" Putin. It's increasingly difficult to sustain the notion that Russia is simply "defending itself" after 24 February 2022, but the thing is - the invasion did not come out of the blue. One needs a different narrative to understand what Russia actually is: an aggressive imperialist power alongside other imperialisms.

So, a different narrative:

- 1994: Russia, with US support, acquires Ukrainian nuclear arsenal in exchange for the assurances to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity

- 1997: Russia acquires the Sevastopol naval base and almost all of the ships (82%, to be exact)... in exchange for the assurances to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity!

- 2004: Russia meddles in Ukrainian presidential elections, fighting hard to force an undemocratic fraudulent outcome, but fails

- Mid-to-late 2000s: As punishment for Ukraine electing Yushchenko, Russia uses energy blackmail, a form of economic coercion not very different from the IMF and World Bank lending and conditionality

- 2008: NATO refuses to adopt a roadmap towards Ukraine's membership and in effect postpones the decision indefinitely. Ukraine's security is in no way guaranteed, while Russia has already demonstrated the propensity to use coercion to force Ukraine to do its bidding

- 2009: Dmitry Medvedev, then president, writes to Yushchenko that "Russia does not pose and cannot pose any kind of threat to Ukraine", so seeking NATO membership is stupid. Yea, sure

- 2014: Russia, which "does not pose and cannot pose a threat to Ukraine"... annexes Crimea. Really, Dima?? I thought you were for real??

Of course, by annexing Crimea Russia not only makes all the previous statements that it "can never pose a threat to Ukraine" a ridiculous lie, but also breaks the 1994 memorandum and 1997 treaty. "We are the Kremlin. Our word is worth nothing"

- Crimea's annexation provokes armed separatism in Donbas that Russia supports and coordinates, including direct military command and control, and then completely subordinates Donbas "authorities", in effect occupying the region

- Ukraine's still not in NATO, its security is still in no way guaranteed, and the supplies of US weapons only begin in 2018. They are kept to a minimum... out of fear of provoking Russia!

- Nevertheless, on 24 February 2022 Russia launches a full-scale invasion to establish 100% control over all of Ukraine in one way or another. There is literally no military development on the ground that could have provoked the invasion. On Russia's part, it's a war of choice in exactly the same way the invasion of Iraq was a war of choice for the US in 2003.

Now, this is only the general outline. One should add Russia's drowning of Ukraine with spies and agents of influence, money to corrupt Ukrainian politicians and massive acquisition of Ukrainian assets to impose economic and political dependency.

These are well-known facts, but so many on the left refuse to see the story behind them. It's a story of decades of imperialist aggression, culminating in a war that cost 150,000 lives in 2022 alone. Any discussion of left-wing internationalism should begin with recognizing the reality of what Russia is and what it did.

#ukraine war #ukraine #imperialism #left #russian imperialism #russian ukrainian war #russia #policy #war #nato #russian chauvinism #anti-imperialism #history

815 notes · View notes

legobiwan · 9 months

Text

I know we've all been talking about revisiting the Super Mario Brothers Supershow since the release of the movie, but as a Super Mario Brothers 3 cartoon enthusiast, I would like to give you all a compelling list of insane reasons you should go watch this on YouTube right this instant:

The opening theme kind of slaps.

A lot of people get turned into dogs for some reason???

George Bush (Sr) ends up kidnapped by the Koopas and sent to the bottom of the ocean? Which, honestly, may have been the best outcome for 90s American politics.

Peach is into surfing and has an implied fling with some California stereotype surfer dude on Hawaii. Get it, Peach.

You want de-aging tropes? Baby Mario and Luigi? Get 'em here.

Luigi is sent to seduce Wendy Koopa and succeeds. (This is Mario's plan, meaning Mario has utter faith in his brother's natural rizz). You have to watch this for Luigi's voice change, it's incredible.

Speaking of seduction, Luigi is mistaken for a 1,000 year-old mummy's husband. Mario is mistaken for...their son.

Yes, the brothers get into a BLOWOUT fight and it's amazing. Mario ends up brainwashed by Ludwig's mind-control device and the brothers have a very brief altercation.

I don't what the deal is with the Mario franchise and brainwashing/possession/mind control, but in a separate episode, Luigi and Bowser fight over a mind-controlling music box.

Peach is apparently a big Milli Vanili fan (you have to love the 90s) and rope Mario and Luigi into going to a concert in the Real World. Look at these two DORKS compared to Peach, who is effortlessly fashionable. (Granted, Toad gave them bad intel, but I don't think either brother has been "cool" in his entire life).

NERDS.

Mario ends up with a case of PTSD after almost drowning. I wish I was kidding, but this episode goes kind of hard if you think about it. (Not to mention the fish lady who is relentlessly pursuing him for marriage).

The Boys Do Venice.

Bowser takes a "Nice Guy Potion" in order to try to sabotage an election.

Three words: Zombie Trash Koopas

A family from Wichita end up in the the Darklands in their very typical station wagon. Hijinks ensue.

Some of the later episodes kind of turn into awkward Saturday afternoon specials with messages about gossip, racism, recycling, and worker's rights, which isn't exactly what one would expect from a Mario Brothers cartoon, but if you remember the 90s at all, this kind of tracks.

This being said, the episode where the Koopa kids go and try to take over the 7 continents relies on some unbelievably (awful) hilarious stereotypes (again, it was the 90s). But we do get to see Luigi on ice skates, which is a win.

Bowser kidnaps Luigi as bait. It works.

I'm just going to leave you all with this final screenshot.

#hello there #smb3 cartoon #luigi #mario #bowser #i've been wanting to write this post for a while and im on break between job 1 and job 2 #and gym time #this all reminds me that i need get cracking with the writing this weekend

446 notes · View notes

contemplatingoutlander · 8 months

Text

This is an excellent NY Times interactive article, so the above link is a gift 🎁 link so anyone can read the entire article, even if they don't subscribe to the NY Times. Here are some excerpts.

Upending the outcome of a free and fair presidential election is no minor endeavor. It requires time, energy, money and, especially, an awful lot of people willing to do the wrong thing — or at least go along with it. The network of people who allegedly helped Donald Trump try, without success, to stay in power more than two and a half years ago may seem hopelessly chaotic, but there was a method to the madness. American elections are, by design, entrusted to the states and therefore decentralized. To meddle in them requires national masterminds working hand in glove with plotters at the state and local levels — a tangle of conspirators, enablers and indulgent bystanders as messy and sprawling as our democracy itself. And while it can be tempting to downplay or dismiss the entire nightmare as the pathetic machinations of crackpots and fringe figures or even to wave it off as ancient history, that would be a mistake. Those who worked to overturn the 2020 election are the same kinds of people and groups Mr. Trump would surely surround himself with if elected to a second term: unscrupulous or timid federal and state officials, ethically flexible lawyers and Republican yes men and women. Except that in 2025 those figures would have a better sense of how to dismantle the guardrails that once stood in their way and how to exploit the fault lines and weaknesses in our electoral process. [emphasis added]

Below is the final graphic in the article that shows all the people connected with Trump's coup attempt, including some who refused to go along with it:

This interactive article is well worth reading, and I invite you to use the above gift link to do so.

______________ The text of this article is by Michelle Cottle; the graphics are by Taylor Maggiacomo and Norman Eisen.

#trump #coup attempt #key players in trump's coup attempt #january 6 #fake electors #michelle cottle #taylor maggiacomo #norman eisen #the new your times #interactive article #gift link

314 notes · View notes

bhaalble · 6 months

Text

Couple things of note here to me.

1. So the Emperor sure made a big deal of the fact that the Elder Brain becoming the Netherbrain was a nigh unpredictable outcome, something only a super ascended mind flayer could anticipate please take the tadpole and become illithid tonight queen please please please-....and yet it seems like Gortash had been anticipating this for quite some time. Once again the Emperor's take on events should never be trusted it just has a dire fetish for feeding you tadpoles.

2. This is another one of those things that makes Gortash's offer of alliance being genuine incredibly interesting to me. Ketheric seems to have run the math that it would simplify things to have a single commander of the Netherstones and is (understandably) assuming that the others are running the exact same calculations and this will eventually doom the alliance. Yet even when things fracture too much with Ketheric and Orin to continue Gortash continues to seek out allies. I believe this is tied in to what he tells you at his Coronation, that having multiple wills united is pretty much the only thing capable of bringing an elder brain to heel. This is true: the player can succeed literally all their checks against the Netherbrain while wielding the stones and still not bring it to heel. I believe the likely explanation is Gortash simply has a better understanding of how the Crown actually works than the other two and is electing to share the power rather than crash and burn trying to take it. This is why he never technically breaks his word with Ketheric and Orin/Durge, and why he tries to form a legitimate alliance with the player. Makes his move to snatch the Netherstones in the final hour a bit. Odd but I can probably accept that actually being confronted with a shot at that kind of power may have been an overwhelming kind of temptation for the Chosen of Bane.

3. Ketheric doesn't seem to anticipate any kind of political betrayal from the Dark Urge or Orin. Again, it makes sense to be most concerned about the Baneite in this situation but it is potentially an interesting bit of characterization for the Dark Urge

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 spoilers #dark urge #ketheric thorm #enver gortash #orin the red

185 notes · View notes

diet-comet-soda · 2 months

Text

I have no idea how this upcoming American election will shake out. I have always been one to argue for strategic voting, lesser of two evils and all that. But Biden and his administration's active participation in the genocide of Palestinians is beyond "lesser of two evils." Like, it's just two insurmountable evils now. And I know Biden and the dems have always had blood on their hands, that they've been supporting these kinds of atrocities the whole time. This isn't anything new, really. But the absolute scale, the cruely of it all, it's just... I can't express in words.

Even if the democrats are the "better" option, even if logically I still believe a vote for Biden will be better than anything else you could do/not do with your vote (any right wing candidate would be doing the exact same shit to Palestine and probably worse), every part of me is sick with the idea of encouraging people to vote for him. I'm sure many others feel the same. And there are no alternative candidates, not even close, in a year where I feel like an alternative could've actually had a slight semblance of a hint of a chance.

I don't see an outcome for the 2024 election that isn't just mass voter apathy from anyone even slightly left of center while the right shows up like they usually do, and Trump is subsquently thrust back in power. And from there, I don't know? Either shit's just gonna get really really awful as the right executes a lot of the absolutely batshit regressive goals they've been unapologetically gunning for in recent times. Or the idle ideation of violent revolution I constantly hear being espoused from the left might actually amount to something and shit will get really really awful in a totally different civil war kinda way.

And in the end, none of this still feels nearly as important as the genocide in Gaza. Every domestic political issue I've ever cared about pales in comparison. And I know you can care about multiple things at once, that suffering isn't a competition, blah blah blah. But in the wake of Palestinian genocide, I have become so numb to everything else; it is a whole order of magnitude beyond.

Free Palestine. Free Gaza.

#free palestine #free gaza #politics #american politics #palestine #joe biden #biden #vote #election 2024 #2024 elections #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbt politics #giada says words

112 notes · View notes

decolonize-the-left · 2 months

Text

Reminder that liberals aren't leftists and are in fact closer to being centrists and conservatives. Leftists are people like socialists.

Leftists want everyone's needs met. Healthcare, housing, food, etc and within the USA where the GDP is 23 trillion those things should be provided by the government. Workers should equally own the businesses they run and distribute profit equally as well.

Being a leftist can look like a lot of things- like calling for the straight up destruction of a government- but most can agree that until that happens then everyone's human rights and basic needs should be provided at the very least. Lots of leftists work towards this.

Remember that when leftists ask you to vote for 3rd parties with platforms that include universal healthcare, housing, and police reform.

Because liberals who stopped their political growth in 7th grade will try to make leftists out to be "Russian psyops" or white supremacists because we vote with principles and values and that don't allow us to vote for people who commit genocide, let single moms and their kids starve, and/or call environmental protests terrorists.

They'll reduce all this nuance to us "being immature and splitting the vote"

Quite frankly, I refuse to fall for this narrative in 2024.

We are ALL exercising our right to vote for the person who represents us. No, my beliefs don't line up with Democrats so I don't vote for Democrats ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not "splitting a vote" because I can't split my own fucking vote and I'm not a member of your party. I don't owe your shitty genocidal party any of my loyalty, quite frankly idk why You even vote for them since you say you care about human lives but I digress.

If your guy loses that means your views aren't the majority.

It does NOT mean I'm a Russian Psyop. And because I've already seen a post floating around about how The-Russian-Tumblr-Bots-Were-Real-And-Pretending-To-Be-Black I'm asking y'all to use your brains and critical thinking skills this election.

There's a REASON why they specifically wanted to undermine your trust in BIPOC. So let's think about this for a second.

Why would anyone want to undermine your trust in BIPOC? What kind of things do BIPOC say about the government and it's history? What are the political leanings of BIPOC? What would happen if everyone started to agree with those politics? Which party would those views harm most?

It's crazy to me y'all think those bots were there to help Trump when it's obvious as fuck to me that the Real concern is that BIPOC would make y'all more left which would only be trouble for Biden/Clinton. The only people that would lose votes if y'all voted more left like BIPOC bots told you to would be Democrats. We want Republicans to vote more left, remember? That would be a good thing.

They were on the site to keep liberals from going left and voting for someone like Sanders or Claudia de La Cruz instead of Clinton/Biden. They weren't helping Trump. They were helping Democrats. Republicans aren't the people listening to BIPOC Tumblr bloggers, are they?

And that psyop is STILL working cuz now liberal goons put in overtime to accuse anyone who criticizes the 2 party system of being a Russian bot 🥴🥴

Yeah. I'm sure the two parties who rely on that system definitely didn't expect or want that outcome at all. And I bet they really didn't want you to refuse to vote for anyone outside those 2 parties either. I'm sure they hate how this psyop ended with you having more trust in a corrupted 2 party system and less trust in 3rd parties that challenge the corruption of the system. How awful it must be for them, that the Russian Bots Ordeal ended with MORE trust in the current government and people being less willing to change it :(

#idk how to be anything but a bitch abt this tbfh #liberals #2 party system #russian psyops #or they call you a white supremacist because If You Loved Minorities You Would Vote Blue #literally fuckinh choke and die #anywya #rant #vent #electoral politics #voting #2024 elections #biden #Clinton #sanders #claudia de la cruz #jasmine sherman #trump #im so fucking over leftists being the scapegoat for what is obviously Democrats gaslighting voters

132 notes · View notes

sirfrogsworth · 1 year

Text

The expectation of trans medical care being 100% safe and never having a negative outcome is not consistent with any other kind of medical care.

People have negative outcomes and regret in all other genres of healthcare. There is very often a risk/reward analysis that patients and doctors have to assess when considering various medications and treatments. And the risks come to fruition more than healthy people probably realize. The number of side effects I, myself, have experienced would probably shock some people. But under the circumstances, my doctor and I felt it was a risk worth taking if it would improve my quality of life.

Even elective cosmetic procedures have risks that have been accepted for decades. Breast implants often have to be redone or removed. They can have serious complications. People think it is such a benign procedure without much risk and it really is not. Yet I see no legislature trying to ban them for minors.

These lawmakers want to hold gender affirming care to an impossible standard despite a truly remarkable low regret rate.

231 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 6 months

Note

How do you feel about the Gaza war all but ensuring Trump's reelection by destroying Biden politically?

It might; it's certainly hurt his standing with a number of different groups like Arab-Americans. Whether it will translate into a broader erosion of support I can't tell, and there are so many things that are up in the air still about this election (which is over a year away!) that it's kind of a fool's game to try to predict the outcome now.

I'm not sure that Biden's support for the Israeli bombing campaign/ground invasion is "destroying" him politically at all. That would imply he's paying a real cost among the majority of his supporters, but the Democratic party is quite right-wing on the Israel-Palestine issue at the moment. I think Biden is pursuing the policies that he thinks have broad support among his political faction, and unfortunately I think he may be correct in that assessment.

It goes without saying that if Trump or a similar politician was president now, or was president during a similar crisis in the future, he'd probably be even more enthusiastic about endorsing whatever the Israeli government wanted to do. That troubles me, of course. It would be nice if there were options for the American president other than "endorsing mass murder with a sigh of regret" and "endorsing mass murder with cheering and clapping of hands."

I have a lot of worries. I worry that for all the outrage, nothing will fundamentally change--that Israeli politics will (with Netanyahu in charge or someone else) continue to drift to the right, that Oslo will be the high-water mark for hope for a peaceful resolution in my lifetime. More parochially, I worry about the German government cynically exploiting this situation to justify a stronger anti-immigration and anti-refugee policy, hoping to outflank the AfD on this issue; and I worry that Biden will lose in 2024 and the lesson the Democratic party will take from it isn't "we need to be less like a bunch of cynical neoliberal death cultists" and instead "it was clearly our labor policy that was the problem, let's lurch rightward again." I worry that the lessons we took from World War II have faded already, or were always too narrow in scope--that we are sensitive to fascism only if it marches under literal swastikas, that we care about refugees and genocide only if they can be mythologized as the perfect victim, going meekly to their fate (preferably years after the fact, when it is too late to actually do anything about it).

I think there are a lot of good people in the world doing good things, who want to fight for what's right. But this is a really bleak situation, and none of them are in charge. We could use a leader with real courage who can vigorously articulate an expansive moral vision, something beyond massacre-for-massacre retribution with no end in sight.

139 notes · View notes

anarchywoofwoof · 4 months

Text

do you see the microscopic text underneath this image? it's actually kind of relevant. let's zoom in and i'll make my point.

when you have a 12% success rate at putting people in permanent housing, how can you justify the implementation of these types of laws against homeless people simply trying to exist?

it is a known fact that Housing First permanent supportive housing models result in long-term housing stability, improved physical and behavioral health outcomes, and reduced use of crisis services such as emergency departments, hospitals, and jails.

furthermore, The Lancet has done a study on the effectiveness of permanent supportive housing and concluded that permanent supportive housing interventions - particularly housing subsidies combined with case management - are an effective methodology at addressing homelessness.

it is not enough to throw unhoused people in temporary housing with no plan for how they will be there the next month, or the month after that. observations of programs already carried out by various states like California have been proven to be lackluster in their ability to provide long-term support to the unhoused.

and yet now the Supreme Court will get to decide whether states can unilaterally clear encampments while many states have no other meaningful plans to address the people being displaced.

Elected officials urged the justices to take up the case because they say the rulings complicate their efforts to clear tent encampments, which have long existed in West Coast cities, but have more recently become more common across the U.S. The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, driven by a lack of affordable housing, a pandemic that economically wrecked households, and a lack of access to mental health and addiction treatment. “The Supreme Court can now correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need,” Newsom said in a statement.

thank goodness that liberals like Gavin Newsom are out there fighting the good fight.

#united states #houselessness #us news

64 notes · View notes

naartjie-hijabi · 4 months

Text

The scariest part...

I think the scariest part of what's currently happening is the possiblity of a world war. In 2022, people joked about the possibility of Russia starting the third world war, two years later, I can't stop thinking about it actually happening.

Israel has been complicit in many global conflicts since its creation in 1948, now that they have been called out and are being held accountable for their actions for the first time in little more than 75 years, what exactly will be the outcome?

Both the UK and the US, two countries who actively support and fund Israel, have bombed Yemen, a country that has been kicked down so many times that it is only a matter of time before they start baring their teeth. The tension between China and Taiwan is increasing and the Russo-Ukrainian War has still not reached its conclusion. This year is the year of global elections and, honestly speaking, it feels like 2024 is a disaster in the making.

Of course I remain positive, this is just the musings of an 18 year old girl who has finally awoken to the state of current affairs. I am not educated in global politics, international relations, or anything related to law. I remain steadfast in my belief that Palestine will be free, that humanity will start caring, that individualism will decrease, but even still I refuse to be blindly optimistic.

It is because of my ill-knowledge of global politics that I have these terrible feelings. What is the actual state of the Middle East, how are things in Yemen, what kind of lives are Syrians leading, whose side is Saudi Arabia and the UAE truly on? It seems that in everywhere, Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas, peace seems to be hanging on a thin thread ready to snap at the tiniest disruption.

Yesterday, I felt pride and today I felt anger, tomorrow I wonder what will I feel. There is certainty in my heart that things will get better, that world is in its healing stage right now, that's why everything is chaotic, but the logical part of me says that perhaps the worst is yet to come.

All in all, I believe that Palestine will be free and the liberation of Palestinians is a fight that I will continue until the Apartheid Israel is dismantled once and for all. It is not simply free Palestine, it is free Yemen, free Congo, free Sudan, free every singled oppressed individual. This is what was taught to me yesterday and what was reminded to me today. Tomorrow holds as much potential as it does uncertainty, and I guess that if there's a fight worth fighting for, we should focus on that instead and not on the possibility of terrible outcomes.

#palestine #yemen #south africa #the middle east #israel #musings #free palestine #congo #sudan

70 notes · View notes

raibebe · 9 months

Text

Dreamies in Hogwarts

Genre: fluff Words: 1595 Warnings: mentions of injury, mentions of bullying

A/N: I had this very sudden need to develop new characters and these are the outcome. And it may or may not have been to do with some post about Jeno being in a house he doesn't belong in.

So here I present (with the help of the lovely @flowerboykun who helped both with some of these bullet points and the little banners) my take on the Dreamies if they were in Hogwarts.

Comments and further questions on them are greatly appreciated. Also arguments about their houses. I very much appreciate other points of view.

Gryffindor (duh)

Muggleborn

Prefect

Golden boy of the house

Has only lost house points ONCE (and he will keep blaming it on Donghyuck until he dies)

If he doesn’t get 100% on a DADA exam, something is wrong

The first one to master his patronus spell by thinking of the day he first stepped into Diagon Alley

Yes, he too got spooked by the big lion he cast but that was before the animal let him pet his mane before disappearing

Had several mental breakdowns trying to choose his elective courses because he couldn’t just take all of them

Always has an open ear for his underclassman

Might just let it slide whenever he sees a first-year out of bed too late because he too would just get lost on the way from the library to their common room and suddenly it was after the curfew

Seeker of the Quidditch team

Refused the captain position multiple times because he thinks Jeno is more suited for it and honestly… He doesn’t need any more responsibilities

So oblivious to everyone who tries to hit on him… Like please help this guy

The amount of times he has been asked out on dates and he just thought it would be a friendly hangout and he brought more people is getting ridiculous

Ravenclaw

Pureblood

Do not underestimate him

His skills in Charms are unmatched and he probably knows more hexes than all his classmates combined

His quick thinking probably saved Chenle’s life during a Quidditch match once when he fell off of his broom after taking a bludger to the side

Got thrown out of the library for shouting at Donghyuck and Chenle… permanently…

Makes them pay for it by getting his books… And some that he doesn’t actually need… Heavy ones…

Has a new love letter in his bag after every day… He has stopped reading them…

And started folding them into little tiny cranes instead so he can charm them to fly right back to whoever wrote it… It’s his way of letting them down gently..?

Very fond of the merpeople once he saw them in the Slytherin common room

Also uses them as an excuse to accept Donhyuck’s invites to hang out because he of course just wants to catch a glimpse of them

Maybe beating Donghyuck in wizard chess is also a plus

Not a prefect but loves using the prefect bath (yes, he got Mark to tell him the password)

Found the Room of Requirement sometime during his fourth year which took on the space of a quiet and comfortable safe room for him to recharge

Whenever you cannot find him, he’s probably in there painting

Gryffindor

Halfblood

The sorting hat had a really hard time putting him in a house

Like it took a looong time but in the end, Jeno’s courage and drive got him sent to Gryffindor

Captain of the Quidditch team

Plays as Chaser

Once accidentally broke one of the hoops because he threw the quaffle too hard and then there was the time when the Hufflepuff Keeper got a concussion…

Loves Care of Magical Creatures and no matter how ugly the creature is, he takes care of them with utmost respect and admiration

Very fond of the Thestrals, especially the smaller foals and very upset about people being ignorant towards them just because they can’t see them

Wants to go into the forbidden forest so fucking badly to see what kind of creatures live there but he knows that he’ll get in so much trouble if he actually went in

So he just likes to hang out right at the edge of it in hopes to catch glimpses

Once fell asleep in a Divination class that Jaemin talked him into taking with him

He thought it would be a lot more exciting and the calming scent of the tea put him right to sleep

Needless to say, he dropped the course for Arithmacy instead… Don’t ask how that’s going.

Actually, he’s doing pretty well in the exams after staying up the whole night cramming, only making his way into bed because Mark found him and carried him upstairs after he passed out in the common room

Slytherin

Halfblood

Didn’t care for Quidditch much until he found out that Mark was playing for Gryffindor

Suddenly, he knew all the rules and had a brand new broom for the tryouts

Is he looking for the snitch or is he just annoying Mark the whole game? No one actually knows

Are you still rivals if it lasts longer than 4 years or are you just in love at this point?

Anyways

Always puts on a strong face but he’s fucking tired of stupid rich purebloods telling him that he doesn’t belong in “their” house

Whenever it just gets too much, he goes to the owlery because their sweet hooting always comforts him and his own eagle owl is always down for scritches and cuddles (and very menacing screeches whenever someone shows up to bother them)

That is until one day, a small black cat also came to the owlery and curled up in his lap, purring when he started to pet it

And surprisingly, it was very easy to just complain to the little kitten about everything, it even gave disapproving meows at the correct timing

The most peculiar thing though… The cat doesn’t trigger his allergies. But it’s magic so that explains it. Right?

Maybe he should really ask Renjun whether or not there are any charms like that

Takes his divination class very seriously

No, I am kidding, he’s bullshitting himself through every essay… Successfully.

Slytherin

Pureblood

Fuck gender. Like seriously. Who invented this concept? Not them. So therefore it shouldn’t adhere to them.

Metamorphmagus and therefore they might have a new hair color every other day

Very fond of giving themself heterochromia

Everyone thinks they’re just naturally very gifted in potions but they have worked their absolute ass off to be as good as they are since their grandma is a potion master and they have been brewing with her for as long as they could stir a cauldron

Has a (very legal) business of selling love potions

And always has an antidote on hand in case someone tries to spike Mark’s drink (again)

Could not care less about house points and rivalry

Or Quidditch for that matter even though they show up for every game his friends play in

Might get distracted halfway through and play with cats beneath the bleachers

Friends with the kitchen elves and always praises them for their food

Very peaceful unless you fuck with their friends

Someone is taking advantage of Mark’s or Jeno’s kindness? Some asshole is calling Donghyuck names again? A dude pushed past Renjun and made him spill his pumpkin juice all over his notes? They sure as hell will not enjoy their next meal when everything suddenly tastes like vomit

Will give them the antidote with a sickening smile on their face once they apologize because they’re just that nice of a person

Slytherin

Pureblood

Transfiguration prodigy

To everyone’s misfortune

He could use his gift to experiment and figure out new spells… But instead, he chooses to play elaborate pranks on his friends

They have stopped counting how many times Jisung’s quills have turned into bugs in the middle of the lecture

Figured out how to turn himself into an Animagus when he was 15

Nothing and nobody is safe from him once he turns into a sleek black cat

Has tea on literally everyone

Cannot stand the pureblood fanatics and will not hesitate to curse them out very colorfully or turn their belongings into different bugs and animals whenever they’re being assholes to others who don’t fit their standards

Very obsessed and intense about Quidditch

Do not ask him about his favorite team or he will not stop gushing about one of their chasers

The quickest of Slytherin’s chasers

Once got badly hit by a bludger and refused to be taken to the hospital wing because they were behind by quite a lot despite his arm definitely being broken

Yes, he had to be dragged off the field

Hufflepuff

Muggleborn

Baffled and in awe about everything around him

Still cannot believe that he’s able to do magic and make things LEVITATE

Also food just randomly appearing on the table??

Owls bringing his mail?? That’s crazy. Like how do owls know how to do that?

Really likes Herbology but is kind of freaked out by how many dangerous plants are out there

Please let him drop his potion class for his own safety

Claims that he followed the exact steps in the recipe but somehow managed to melt the bottom of his cauldron not once but twice and got the whole room evacuated because his concoction smelled so bad, a girl fainted

Despite Jaemin’s continuous efforts at teaching him, he seems to be a lost cause but at least he hasn’t exploded one of his potions in a long time

Almost failed the flying class because he was scared shitless after Chenle told him a bunch of nonsense about accidents that have never happened

Very good friends with some of the portraits and therefore knows a lot of secret passages

The one who always ducks at Quidditch games if any players or balls are remotely in his vicinity

Also still gets spooked by the ghosts

Which only prompts them to scare him even more. Mostly by peeking their head through his food

111 notes · View notes