#postwar reconstruction

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Day of Free Enterprise Gone lan Mackenzie Tells House," Ottawa Journal. March 3, 1943. Page 3. ----- The House of Commons last night passed the resolution setting up the Reconstruction and Reestablishment Committee and the Railway Committee.

After almost three days' debate on reconstruction problems in general the House unanimously passed the resolution by Pensions Minister Mackenzie to set up the committee to deal with this problem. The resolution was passed after Finance Minister Ilsley had completed his budget speech.

Mrs. Dorise Nielsen (Unity, North Battleford) urged the committee to see to it that the mild controls over industry established during the war be not relaxed when peace came. Canada had seen unrestricted competition after the last war force the people through "a period of hell". This should not be allowed to happen again.

The committee should see to it that security and levels of living be maintained after the war, Mrs. Nielsen said.

Mr. Mackenzie in closing the debate said in his 23 years in public life he had never listened to such a constructive debate as had taken place on this resolution. The suggestions which had come from all sides of the Chamber would prove most valuable to the committee.

Referring to controls, the Minister said in his opinion the day of free enterprise had gone forever. It would be "controlled enterprise" in the future.

The resolution to set up a railway committee started a debate on railway affairs when T. L. Church (Prog. Con., Toronto Broadview) appealed for better suburban service on railways in the larger centres. "Montreal is the only centre that has a good suburban service. It should be the same in other large centres."

#house of commons #parliament of canada #parliamentary debate #postwar reconstruction #postwar planning #postwar canada #pensions minister #regulation of capitalism #capitalism in canada #mackenzie king government #warfare state #welfare state #birth of the welfare state #canada during world war 2

[apas-95]

As it apparently needs to be restated - race, ethnicity, and nationality are not themselves the basic drivers of history. Political-economic class is.

The European practice of placing African people into chattel slavery was not carried out on the basis of any innate characteristics of 'blackness' or 'whiteness' - those categories did not exist before the slave trade, they were created in support of it. Europe at the time found it would be beneficial to have a class of slave workers for its colonial projects, and it had the military, political, and economic might to subjugate Africa and African people to that end. Had you asked a Prussian and a Scotsman prior to the institution of African slavery if they were both members of a common 'race', they would have found the idea ridiculous - and yet, transport those two ahead in time, and perhaps to settlements in the Americas, and suddenly they were both Whites. Whiteness (and its necessary counterpart, blackness), then, is not some intrinsic quality based on the tone of someone's skin, but a political and economic category constructed to differentiate between those people that could be oppressed and made chattel by the slave trade, and those that could not.

This is true for all these systems of oppression - though they may be divided on supposed lines of biology or locality, they are not inherently based on biological factors, those are functionally coincidental, and are constructed as justifications for a system necessitated by purely political and economic reasons. Nazi oppression of Jewish, and Roma, and Slavic [and etc.] people was not fundamentally based on any inherent quality of e.g. Judaism, but on the economic needs of German capital under the burden of postwar reconstruction and 'war reparations' paid to the victorious powers. It was not blind hatred, but the inevitable result of a society built in pursuit of profit - one whose ruling class held a cold, calculated need to expropriate wealth, weaken worker organisation, and seize and depopulate land to strengthen the composition of capital. It was still necessary for this system to split the population into one group of 'legitimate targets' for victimisation, and one of reassured, protected accomplices, though there were no obvious physical, 'biological' features to base these on - so they were constructed, both through propaganda that exaggerated physiology, and through the appending of obvious badges and marks onto those targeted. Again, these were sets of features, and categories, created to support a system of oppression and exploitation, not the reasons it came into being in the first place.

Again, these are fundamentally political and economic categories, and can only be properly understood as such. If not properly understood as being based, first and foremost, on material interests of classes, then any analysis of them is unstable. For example: appeals to the supposed ancestral claim of zionists to the land of Palestine, and thereby to indigineity, can only be refuted with an understanding that indigeneity is a political and economic characteristic, of relation towards the oppression of a settler state, and not some characteristic of where one's ancestors were born. None of this is to say that race, nationality, etc don't function as axes of oppression - but that they must be understood as manifestations of the existing political and economic material interests of classes that drive the development of history, if they are to be fought against.

[dostoyevsky-official]

A People’s Obituary of Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, who was born in Weimar Germany in 1923, is dead. He made it to 100, and in the last years of his life, politicians, writers, and celebrities feted him as if he were the American Century incarnate. In a way, he was.

[...] At every single one of America’s postwar turning points, moments of crisis when men of good will began to express doubts about American power, Kissinger broke in the opposite direction. He made his peace with Nixon, whom he first thought was unhinged; then with Ronald Reagan, whom he initially considered hollow; and then with George W. Bush’s neocons, despite the fact that they all rose to power attacking Kissinger; and finally with Donald Trump, whom Kissinger fancifully imagined as the realization of his belief that the greatness of great statesmen resides in their spontaneity, their agility, their ability to thrive on chaos, on, as Kissinger wrote in the 1950s, “perpetual creation, on a constant redefinition of goals.”

[...] “We’ve got to break the back of this generation of Democratic leaders,” Kissinger told Nixon, as the two men plotted to use foreign policy for domestic advantage. Nixon responded that “we’ve got to destroy the confidence of the people in the American establishment.”

“That’s right,” Kissinger answered.

Yet, even as the breakup of the old national security state was proceeding apace, Kissinger helped with its reconstruction in a new form: a restored imperial presidency based on ever-more-spectacular displays of violence, more intense secrecy, and an increasing use of war and militarism to leverage domestic dissent and polarization for political advantage.

[...] Kissinger served as not just a foil but also an enabler for the New Right. Over the course of his career, he advanced a set of premises that would be taken up and extended by neoconservative intellectuals and policymakers: that hunches, conjecture, will, and intuition are as important as facts and hard intelligence in guiding policy; that too much knowledge can weaken resolve; that foreign policy has to be wrested out of the hands of experts and bureaucrats and given to men of action; and that the principle of self-defense (broadly defined to cover just about anything) overrules the ideal of sovereignty. In so doing, Kissinger played his part in keeping the great wheel of American militarism spinning ever forward.

[...] At the very least, we can learn from Kissinger, who unhesitatingly supported Gulf War One and Gulf War Two, and every war between and since, that the two defining concepts of United States foreign policy—realism and idealism—aren’t necessarily opposing values; rather, they reinforce each other. Idealism gets us into the quagmire of the moment; realism keeps us there while promising to get us out; and then idealism returns anew both to justify the realism and to overcome it in the next round. So it goes.

#grandin #kissinger

[transbookoftheday]

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.

Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.

#black on both sides #black on both sides: a racial history of trans identity #c. riley snorton #transfem #transmasc #trans book of the day #trans books #queer books #bookblr #booklr

[comradekatara]

Hey, I really love your observations about the post war order the Gaang developed. I always thought that it would have made a lot more sense, and have made a much better story, had Azula acted as a key shaper of said order. Like, maybe after the war she was set free and became one of Zuko's key advisors, working to secure Fire Nation interests and ensure her nation avoid all responsibility for their part in the war, recasting herself as a champion of Republic City's independence.

okay well i know we love to joke about how dumb zuko is but in what world would zuko allow that. his whole thing (in canon at least, we ignore the c*mics) is that he, as a symbol of the harm both done by and to him, must become firelord to directly take responsibility for the fire nation’s crimes, and his role postwar is to atone for his family’s sins. there’s no way he would just allow azula to undo that work??? obviously she’s a lot more manipulative than he is, but he’s also predisposed to be antagonistic towards her so there’s no way he’d fall for that shit. and there’s especially no way that sokka, toph, suki, aang, or katara, mai, or ty lee would fall for that shit!!! azula is probably the last person who could’ve gotten away with securing the fire nation’s privileges after the war.

I also don’t think that she should, but im also a proponent of zuzu redemption 2: electric boogaloo, the long grueling road towards undoing her cognitive dissonance. like i honestly think that one theory going around while lok book 2 was airing, that she becomes a fire nation shaman and healer who tends to herds of sky bison on a remote island, is actually really sweet. sure, it would take a very long time for her to get there, but even just in spirit, i want her to rest and heal and spend her life helping people in peace and tranquility. the idea that she grows up to help the avatar is really cute to me. but actually, your question isn’t really about azula at all.

here’s the thing. if you do buy the state of the avatar-world is as lok implies, i think its easiest to assume that although they had good intentions, the gaang failed in their vision of postwar reconstruction rather than made it that way. a confluence of material forces shaped the world in such a way that was out of aang&co’s control. but also, taking a materialist-pessimist approach is kind of bleak to me, because i like to think that the avatar would have more influence in such a world, especially considering his role in ending the war. not that he can control everything (the fc yee novels do a great job of illustrating the lack of control any one figure has over the state of the world, even provided they’re the avatar). so ultimately i think that assessing lok as an extension of atla must necessarily require acknowledging the ways in which the canon conflicts both politically and thematically, and not attempting to explain every inconsistency through in-universe justifications, but rather to simply admit that the writing was flawed.

#mysticarcadehologram-blog #asks #lok crit #postwargaang #ish #azula #im not gonna pretend that every single writing decision is unimpeachable. why would I do that to myself lmfao

[germanpostwarmodern]

Some 70 kilometers from mainland Northern Germany lies the small archipelago of Heligoland, an island with an interesting history: on 1 July 1890 it was ceded by Britain to the German Empire which in the decades following developed the island into a major naval base and a popular retreat for intellectuals and wealthy people. 

During the 1930s the National Socialists further fortified Heligoland and also established a submarine base, a circumstance that sealed its fate during WWII: on 18 April 1945 it was the target of a massive air raid that completely destroyed the inhabited areas and required the evacuation of all inhabitants. After the German capitulation the island fell within the British occupation zone and on 18 April 1947 the Royal Navy detonated 6,700 tons of explosives to destroy all military installations.

In 1952 Heligoland returned to German control and a competition was organized to obtain plans and ideas for the reconstruction of the island. The competition was won by Hamburg architect Georg Wellhausen whose plan left the landscape as found and changed by the war and who retained the historical density of the built-up areas. Together with Ingeborg & Friedrich Spengelin, Helmut & Traute Bunje as well as local engineers and other architects a number of experimental housing projects as well as reinterpretations of the traditional colorful „Hummerbuden“ at the inner harbor were realized. All of them are connected by gently sloping steeped roofs and a color concept designed by Johannes Ufer.

These aspects, Heligoland’s history as well as its most significant buildings are covered by Jan Lubitz in his architectural guide „Architektur auf Helgoland“, published in 2014 by Rickmers Verlag. Beyond a comprehensive account of the history as well as the reconstruction of the island Lubitz gathers 50 buildings from the postwar years up until the present and thus offers a cross-section of Heligoland’s architectural development. At the same time the author also discusses the heritage status of the architecture but also doesn’t omit the problems hotel and house owners face in view of touristic developments. THE book on Heligoland’s architecture.

#helgoland #architecture #germany #nachkriegsmoderne #nachkriegsarchitektur #architecture book #architectural guide #book

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton

goodreads

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.

Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this book yet, but it sounds very interesting and is on my tbr.

#black on both sides #black on both sides a racial history of trans identity #c. riley snorton #polls #trans lit #trans literature #trans books #lgbt lit #lgbt literature #lgbt books #nonfiction #history #trans studies #to read

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … December 11

1475 – Pope Leo X (d.1521), born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest (only a deacon) to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. He was the second son of Lorenzo de' Medici, the most famous ruler of the Florentine Republic, and Clarice Orsini. His cousin, Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, would later succeed him as Pope Clement VII (1523-34).

Several modern historians have concluded that Leo was homosexual. Contemporary tracts and accounts such as that of Francesco Guicciardini have been found to allude to active same-sex relations - alleging Count Ludovico Rangone and Galeotto Malatesta were among his lovers.

Cesare Falconi has examined in particular Leo's infatuation with the Venetian noble Marcantonio Flaminio, with Leo arranging the best education that could be offered for the time. Von Pastor has argued, however, against the credibility of these testimonies, and rejected accusations of immorality as anti-papal polemic. Gucciardini was not resident at the papal court during Leo's pontificate, while other contemporaries such as Matteo Herculano took pains to praise his chastity. Paul Strathern, a British writer and academic, argues that Leo, while homosexual, was not sexually active as pope, despite identifying notable members of that family as such.

Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais

1913 – Jean Marais, French actor (d.1998); Marais was never much of an actor, and it is doubtful he would have achieved international fame had he not become Jean Cocteau's lover, but he was, by universal acclaim, one of the most handsome men ever to appear in films. In the 1940s when he made most of his movies for Cocteau, actors were still slicking down their hair with Kreml and Vitalis. But he changed all that. His cheveaux fous and athletic good looks created a new style of postwar leading man.

When in 1946 he spent his time in Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, trapped within an ape-like constume, waiting for Beauty's kiss to turn him once again into Jean Marais, Gay moviegoers around the world secretly wished that they were Josette Day who actually got to kiss the handsome actor's furry face. What is perhaps most interesting about the friendship between Cocteau and Marais is that the actor's face in profile bore an astonishing resemblance to the boys Cocteau had been sketching for thirty years before meeting him.

In the 1960s, he played the famed villain of the Fantômas trilogy. After 1970, Marais's on-screen performances became few and far between, as he preferred concentrating on his stage work. He kept performing on stage until his eighties, also working as a sculptor. In 1985, he was the head of the jury at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival.

1948 – Alvin Baltrop (d.2004) was a gay African-American photographer who earned fame through his photographs of the Hudson River piers during the 1970s and 1980s.

Baltrop was born in 1948 in the Bronx. He discovered his love of photography in junior high school. Baltrop received no formal art education; older photographers from the neighborhood taught him different techniques and how to develop photos himself.

Baltrop enlisted in the Navy as a medic during the Vietnam War and continued taking photos, mainly of his friends in sexually provocative poses. He built his own developing lab in the sick bay, using medic trays for developing trays. After his time in the Navy, Baltrop worked odd jobs as a street vendor, a jewelry designer, a printer, and a cab driver. Because he wanted to spend more time taking photos at the Hudson River piers, he quit his job as a cab driver to become a self-employed mover. He would park his van at the piers for days at a time, living out of his van to take pictures.

From 1975 through 1986, Baltrop took photographs of the West Side piers, where he was a well-known member of the community. Baltrop knew every person he photographed, and people often volunteered to be photographed. Younger boys and men at the piers often confided in him about their sexual orientation, their relationships with their families, their housing status, and their work.

Baltrop captured the gay cruising spots and hookup culture that existed in New York City before the AIDS epidemic. Baltrop's photographs not only captured human personalities, but also the aesthetics of the dilapidated piers. His life work is a snapshot of gay, African-American, and New York City history.

Baltrop struggled to make his way in the art world, facing racism from the white gay art world. Gay curators often rejected his work, accused him of stealing it, or stole his work themselves.

"Three Sailors"

Late during the 1990s, NYC artist John Drury, who knew Alvin from their shared neighborhood - Drury living on Third Street, with his wife and Baltrop on Second Street, in lower Manhattan - befriended the artist and recognized the photographers unique abilities, nominating him for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award for the Arts. Alvin Baltrop had few exhibits in his lifetime; his work gaining international fame only after his death.

According to one journalist, Baltrop came out as gay at fourteen years old. Baltrop had long term relationships with men and women, but preferred identifying as gay.

Baltrop was diagnosed with cancer in the 1990s. Impoverished and without health insurance, curators and filmmakers attempted to exploit him for their own financial gain. He died on February 1, 2004

1990 – Nakshatra Bagwe, born in Mumbai, India, is an Indian actor and award winning film maker. Nakshatra will be making his Indian feature film debut in My Son is Gay and is due for his international film debut as the lead actor of Hearts. His films Logging Out, Book of Love, Curtains and PR (Public Relations) represent the current LGBT scenario of India.

He is a LGBT rights activist and also an organiser of Gujarat's first ever pride march. Nakshatra has participated in several Pride Parades in India. He won KASHISH – Mumbai International Queer Film Festival in 2012 for his debut film Logging Out. It was screened at prestigious venues like Queens Museum of Arts (New York), The Old Cinema (London) and it was also a part of Queer India European tour 2012 to raise awareness about LGBT issues in the Indian context.

Nakshatra hails from Konkan coastal region. Masure, Malvan is his native village. He takes part in homosexuality awareness projects. Nakshatra and his mother were featured in a promo of popular Indian television show Satyamev Jayte. He came out to society when he participated in Asia’s first LGBT flashmob. He also participated in second queer flashmob which happened at Dadar station, Mumbai. Nakshatra posed nude for a campaign named 'Breaking Closets'.

In July 2014, He became the brand ambassador of Moovz, a global social network for gay men. Nakshatra is first and only openly Indian LGBT person to be signed up as the brand ambassador by any brand till now.

1998 – The mother of Tyra Hunter (1970 – 1995) is awarded $2.9 million in a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Washington DC. Hunter, a pre-operative transsexual, died of injuries sustained in a car accident in 1995. Emergency medical technicians at the scene were abusive and withheld treatment, and a doctor at DC General Hospital failed to follow nationally accepted standards of care.

[argyrocratie]

The social reaction to feminism includes a hatred of feminism, but as well, idealisations, which produce associations and attachments that shift and surge around a received identity of women and women’s causes as progressive. The problem of identity and identity-thinking - something no one can plausibly claim to be above - maintains because these identifications aren't stable, they were historically produced, and in the case of feminism, no authentic version exists.

Debates around the rights and wrongs of episodes in feminist history are therefore important because they are complex and wrought. Historians of suffrage help to challenge essentialism because it is clear that womanhood had no stable identity. The role of state power in splitting movement alliances becomes far clearer when an idealised story of national women’s rights struggle is troubled. And as Ellen Carol Dubois states, the paths taken by its leaders are hard to disconnect from their social backgrounds: “Woman suffrage leaders were rarely from the ranks of wage-earners. Some, like [Lucy] Stone and Anthony, were the daughters of small farmers. Others, most notably Stanton, were the children of considerable wealth.”27 After the word “male” entered into the Constitution for the first time, Stanton wrote in 1866: “if that word ‘male’ be inserted, it will take us a century at least to get it out.” In fact, once Reconstruction was overthrown and white supremacy reasserted, it was a century before Black Americans finally had some civil rights enforced by the federal government. Meanwhile, white women secured voting rights with the 20th Amendment in 1920.28 

For Stanton and Anthony, the betrayal of "womanhood" by Black male suffrage could only be reduced to a conspiracy of male supremacy, Black and white. The lesson Stanton took: woman “must not put her trust in man.”29 Whilst shared patriarchy was an element, Black male enfranchisement came about in larger part due to Republican Party strategy and the Northern bourgeoisie’s attempt to secure postwar Reconstruction. That is, a calculation was made: Black men would vote Republican, white women would return the white supremacist Democrats to power.

...

-”Fascism and the Women's Cause: Gender Critical Feminism, Suffragettes and the Women's KKK”

#feminism #civil rights

[rabbitcruiser]

Alaska Highway, CDN (No. 4)

The original agreement between Canada and the United States regarding construction of the highway stipulated that its Canadian portion be turned over to Canada six months after the end of the war. This took place on April 1, 1946, when the U.S. Army transferred control of the road through Yukon and British Columbia to the Canadian Army, Northwest Highway System. The Alaskan section was completely paved during the 1960s. The lower 50 miles of the Canadian portion were paved in 1959, but the remainder was largely gravel. While the entire route is now completely paved (mostly with bituminous surface treatment), as late as the mid-1980s the highway still included sections of winding dusty road sandwiched between high quality reconstructed paved segments.

The Milepost, an extensive guide book to the Alaska Highway and other highways in Alaska and Northwest Canada, was first published in 1949 and continues to be published annually as the foremost guide to travelling the highway. The settlement of Destruction Bay was originally a work camp for the highway.

The British Columbia government owns the first 82.6 miles (132.9 km) of the highway, the only portion paved during the late 1960s and 1970s. Public Works Canada manages the highway from Mile 82.6 (km 133) to Historic Mile 630. The Yukon government owns the highway from Historic Mile 630 to Historic Mile 1016 (from near Watson Lake to Haines Junction), and manages the remainder to the U.S. border at Historic Mile 1221. The State of Alaska owns the highway within that state (Mile 1221 to Mile 1422).

The Alaska Highway was built for military purposes and its route was not ideal for postwar development of northern Canada. Rerouting in Canada has shortened the highway by about 35 miles (56 km) since 1947, mostly by eliminating winding sections and sometimes by bypassing residential areas. The historic milepost markings are therefore no longer accurate but are still important as local location references. Some old sections of the highway are in use as local roads, while others are left to deteriorate and still others are plowed up. Four sections form local residential streets in Whitehorse and Fort Nelson, and others form country residential roadways outside of Whitehorse. Although Champagne, Yukon was bypassed in 2002, the old highway is still completely in service for that community until a new direct access road is built.

Source: Wikipedia

#60th Parallel #Summit Lake #Watson Lake #Alaska Highway #street scene #travel #original photography #vacation #landmark #landscape #countryside #summer 2023 #flora #nature #woods #forest #mountains #Canada #Yukon #bridge #Alaska-Canadian Highway #ALCAN Highway #Alaskan Highway #the North #no traffic #tourist attraction #British Columbia #Racing River Bridge #river bank

[ernestbruce]

in a few decades, Ukraine's military will be the most capable, nimble, and advanced in the world

Russia's army is a disgrace. it uses high numbers with old tactics, which ensures that its successes are small and far between, and that its casualties are shameful, enormous, and demoralizing

the world must support Ukraine in its effort to kick Putin's drones out of its borders

Ukraines reconstruction postwar will be beautiful and inspiring

Slava Ukraini

FUCK PUTIN

#Ukraine #Russia #military #fuck Putin #Youtube

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"WON'T BE TAME OPPOSITION JOLLIFFE, C.C.F. CHIEF, SAYS," Toronto Star. August 20, 1943. Page 3. --- "Prepare to Take Over Responsibility of Government After Next Election" ---- In his first public utterance since the provincial election, E. B. Jolliffe, Ontario C.C.F. leader, said Thursday night that his party would "perform the proper functions of his majesty's loyal opposition."

He told the Toronto District Trades and Labor council that "it will not be a tame opposition such as we have seen dozing quietly on the benches at Queen's Park in recent years."

"We shall also prepare ourselves to take over the responsibilities of government in this province, as we shall undoubtedly be called upon to do after the next election, whenever that may be," he added.

Counsels "Reserve" For Drew "The new premier has said he believes his 22 points will win support in the legislature and that he anticipates no difficulty in gaining support for every measure which will be introduced," Mr. Jolliffe continued. "Mr. Drew should not take too much for granted, but should conduct himself, if possible. with more of the reserve befitting the leader of a minority group."

Mr. Jolliffe said: "So far as our group is concerned, we shall support whatever we find to be in the interests of the people of Ontario and nothing else. You can be assured that we shall not be diverted from this course by any threat, expressed or implied, of another genera' election."

The new premier, he said, had chosen to exclude the Liberals from his government. "If, therefore, another general election should become necessary in the near future, the responsibility will be that of Mr. Drew and his party, and their responsibility entirely. To Co-operate With Labor "It is the earnest desire of the C.C.F. members-elect to continue in close co-operation with the representative organizations of labor and agriculture," he said. "You will have noticed that 19 of our members are trade unionists, of whom 10 are in unions affiliated with your congress," he told the labor council.

"Labor's whole-hearted support of the C.C.F. was one of me outstanding features of the recent election. as even our opponents can testify.

"The best answer the Drew government could provide was to appoint an inexperienced businessman as minister of labor," he added.

#toronto #co-operative commonwealth federation #toronto district trades and labor council #ontario politics #canadian socialism #social democracy #canada during world war 2 #postwar reconstruction

[mariacallous]

With more than 12,000 killed and 7.3 million people displaced, ongoing warfare in Sudan has steadily broken down the country’s political, social, and medical services. Reports suggest more than 24 million of the country’s 46 million people need assistance; cholera cases had risen to over 8,200 by late December; and between 70 percent and 80 percent of hospitals in affected states have been left nonfunctional.

As violence and displacement counts rise, humanitarian aid efforts haven’t kept up. Instead, initiatives to negotiate between the warring powers—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo—have been the priority for the international community, neglecting the suffering that ordinary Sudanese citizens have endured for the last nine months. While talks have been on and off for months, vital humanitarian initiatives remain underfunded.

It is easy to assume that with negotiations come a harmonious cease-fire and peaceful postwar society, but global history and Sudan’s history indicate a very different outcome if international actors rely primarily on good-faith negotiations to end the conflict and launch Sudan into a successful postwar society.

To rely on negotiations is to assume that one of the warring factions will win and the other will concede, leaving either Burhan or Hemeti in charge of Sudan’s reconstruction. Given U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent determination that both the RSF and SAF have committed war crimes—with RSF forces also committing crimes against humanity and acts of ethnic cleansing—inviting these parties to a negotiation table projects a bleak future for Sudan.

The international community has its priorities backward. Instead of prioritizing negotiations between two factions that actively reject any notion of their own wrongdoing and that citizens overwhelmingly reject as unrepresentative, foreign actors must redirect their attention to limiting foreign funding of the conflict, advocating for the inclusion of Sudanese citizen groups, and financing proposed humanitarian plans. Indeed, the central focus of international organizations and outside powers seeking peace in Sudan should be the restoration of civilian life, rather than impractical negotiations that have often failed in the past.

After former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was ousted from office in 2019, international powers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) eagerly supported a citizen-led democratic transition, vowing to assist in the process. But, as the U.N. Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) was shuttered this last December by the U.N. Security Council, such promises appear empty. Government officials in Khartoum deemed the mission “disappointing” as they demanded its end and blamed the violence on former UNITAMS chief Volker Perthes, forcing the U.N.’s hand to withdraw.

In managing negotiations between the factions that are barring the progress of a civilian government, international mediators continue to walk back these promises. To reassert their commitment to civilian-led initiatives in Sudan, a healthy and safe citizenry is necessary.

The continued failure of Sudan’s health system represents just one of the many failures Sudan’s public systems have suffered amid the ongoing violence. As RSF and SAF forces have made Sudan dangerous to move within, humanitarian access has been greatly limited. This has since resulted in cholera spreading to nine of Sudan’s states—threatening communities plagued by inadequate water treatment and food insecurity at a higher rate. As measles, cholera, and dengue fever spread, it becomes increasingly obvious that if guns and bombs don’t kill Sudanese citizens, the failure of the health system and lack of medical supplies will.

The ongoing conflict’s impact on access to food and resources has also contributed to massive degradation in the nation’s economy. With an inflation rate of 256 percent relative to average consumer prices, citizens across Sudan, whether in conflict-ridden areas or not, are suffering.

Most efforts aimed at assisting vulnerable citizens have been undertaken by Sudanese people themselves. With unreliable access to the internet, Sudanese people globally have used social media to advertise the best routes to escape Sudan, share which shops have food and medicine in stock, and how to send and receive money amid shuttered banks. Sudanese citizens have taken it upon themselves to do the work they’ve expected of international organizations and powers.

Stories that have emerged out of Sudan over the last nine months detail harrowing civilian experiences with ethnic and sexual violence largely perpetrated by the RSF, invoking memories of the war in Darfur, where widespread violence occurred at the hands of the janjaweed, the militia from which the RSF emerged. While that war was declared ended in August 2020 as Sudan’s newly formed transitional government promised Darfur rebel groups a role in Sudan’s democratic transition, those oaths have disappeared amid the current conflict.

The western area of Darfur remains the epicenter of violence toward civilians, as risks of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and sexual abuse mount against primarily non-Arab communities. A lack of organization within RSF ranks and the group’s history have all but authorized heinous attacks against Sudan’s most vulnerable populations, with a limited humanitarian response from parties outside of the country.

When humanitarian aid does manage to reach displaced people, it typically happens in refugee camps in neighboring countries, such as Doctors Without Borders’ work in the Ourang camp in Chad, despite the organization’s ongoing efforts to maintain a presence in Sudan. Fears of looting and violence, a lack of institutional protection, and the continued degradation of networks have made it increasingly difficult to reach afflicted communities in Sudan.

As violence rains down on West Darfur, communities are becoming more vulnerable. While around 42 percent of Sudan’s population suffers from high levels of acute food insecurity, these figures increase dramatically to over 60 percent in West Darfur. As the humanitarian crisis deepens in areas most affected by ethnic and sexual violence over the last 20 years, a lack of urgency in the international response ensures that the situation will get worse.

The most urgent initiative to protect Sudanese citizens is readily waiting, but with only 41.8 percent of the necessary funding acquired, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) response plan has not been as effective as it could be. The plan aims to provide lifesaving assistance to limit immediate morbidity and mortality rates and keep pending risks at bay through preemptive action.

The limited funding has allowed OCHA to reach only 21 percent of targeted people in need, so increasing pressure on state actors is key to assure humanitarian aid. Of the $2.57 billion needed to fully enact the plan, the United States has provided $549.1 million of the current secured funding, but Saudi Arabia—the other key broker—has contributed only $38 million, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development has given less than $100,000. As negotiating powers aim to bring the United Arab Emirates into talks regarding its role, its government has given less than $400,000 to the effort. Encouraging allies in the West to assist in the existing plan is similarly crucial, as it offers a more immediate response.

Using existing Sudanese citizen networks of grassroots trauma response and financial and educational empowerment of mental health services across Sudan—specifically in areas like Darfur, Kordofan, and Khartoum—is key to development. Frameworks to assist displaced people are necessary as well, as hundreds of thousands flee to neighboring countries where more danger often awaits them.

Building networks for refugees and asylum-seekers to safely leave the country and resettle with the assistance of foreign governments ensures vulnerable populations gain access to robust medical and social services that are not currently available domestically. All these efforts have begun thanks to Sudanese citizens, but without foreign intervention and commitment, these initiatives will not have a wide impact.

As peace talks continue, the Sudanese public must be represented by the citizen groups that led protests against Bashir and his government—as the loudest voice.

Even as Sudanese citizens internally and globally call for both Hemeti and Burhan to be held accountable by the international community, the former allies who served in the Bashir regime may very well end up sharing power in defiance of the public’s will. Bringing Sudanese citizen groups into the discussion could avoid such an outcome while prioritizing the health and human rights of the population. Until humanitarian efforts take center stage in discussions surrounding Sudan, there will be no winners.

[celestemagnoliathewriter]

happy first birthday to Cariad, my postwar Remus x Tonks survive AU! 🥳

I wanted to finish this thing in a matter of months and then life got in the way. It's a year later and I'm still not done (but I'm so close to finishing!). So, in honor of Cariad's first birthday, let me tell you about it and gush about my blorbos.

I didn't plan on writing Cariad. I was almost done with Collide, my first fanfic, when a reader asked if there would be a sequel. I thought on it and decided to do it.

I had a LOT of fears going into writing Cariad. Unlike my time-traveling Tonks series, or the time traveling Teddy one, which had a pretty set structure with canon events for me to rely on, Cariad was a brand new endeavor. The central question that guided my plot:

If Remus and Tonks had lived, would they have stayed together?

and, what is the story about, when you strip everything else away?

What makes a life worth living and fighting for?

My quickest answer to the first question was always yes, but not without significant growth and challenges. They got married in wartime and didn't have much time together to be a 'normal' couple. When the big thing is taken away - the war - and the world is being reconstructed around them, what happens next?

The second question has a simple answer: love. Love is worth living and fighting for, including love of self, love of other, and love of community. Cariad addresses all of these things, told in three story "arcs," as I call them.

The first 25 chapters follow the immediate reconstruction of the wizarding world. Remus and Tonks are finding their place in this new society that isn't yet healed. There's grief, there's rebuilding, there's struggle. But most of this is centered on the world around them - how do we rebuild after the war? How do we create a society that's friendly to a family with a lycanthrope? There's love of community here - Remus and Tonks spent all these years fighting for their beliefs in improving the world around them, and now it's here. But it's not easy. Post-war reconstruction is messy and hard. Remus experiences so many disappointments, job setbacks, and Tonks is naive enough to think it'll get better more quickly. She learns that's not how it works, and she's inundated with work and her own ideals. By the time we get to the early 2000s, three years after the war is over, things are better, and their family expands.

The second 25 chapters, the second 'arc' of the story, centers on love of the other. When Remus and Tonks's daughter, Hope, is born, she's born with lycanthropic traits. Not a werewolf, but not 'healthy.' Remus's insecurities, coupled with Tonks's frustrations, lead to a painful separation. Their relationship has been focused on each other, yes, but so much of their energy has been put into the world around them and not necessarily the other. Hope's birth reveals these deep-seated problems that needed to be resolved, and so Remus and Tonks have to fight for their relationship. They had to fight to hold onto each other because committed relationships like this are both hard work and serious play. It was really hard to write some of these chapters, but ultimately, it was very gratifying to put them back together stronger than before.

The last 25 chapters, the third 'arc' of the story, centers on the family, especially the oldest children, Teddy and Hope. Here we're getting into the lesson of loving yourself. Teddy's the eldest and has experienced more prejudice, as a result of being around when the world was not as kind to Remus. His sense of self-worth is tied up in his ability to be a good brother, a good student, and a perfect son. He'll need to learn that he's good because he's Teddy, not because he perfects a role. Hope, having what I'm framing as a chronic illness, has a chip on her shoulder. She wants to prove she's just as good as Teddy and her famous parents, and she'll need to learn she doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. In this third part, we'll see Remus and Tonks settling into parenthood, making mistakes, but the spotlight will go to Teddy and Hope, as they come of age and come to terms with who they are.

At the end of the day, these are the three major plot points of Cariad. Fight for the world around you, so you can make it a better place. Fight for those you love, so you can play and work to build a life together. Fight for yourself, so you can be happy with who you are, as you are, because you're worth it.

It's been hard work to produce this fic, as creating plot points has been a lot of original work. Nevertheless, I've enjoyed writing it, and for those who have read it, I hope you've enjoyed being along with me for the journey.

#cariad #remadora #remus x tonks #remus lupin #remus john lupin #nymphadora lupin #remus x nymphadora #lupin x tonks #harry potter fanfiction #tonks x lupin #nymphadora tonks #teddy lupin #hope lupin the second #the lupin family #postwar au #remus and tonks live #ronks

[425599167]

Barriss starts out the perfect padawan of esteemed Master Luminara Unduli, and Ahsoka is the wild child getting paired with living disaster zone Anakin Skywalker. But if Palpatine was stopped and the war ended on better terms, Ahsoka was growing into the dedicated Jedi who fought to protect the Republic and trusted in the Jedi Council. Meanwhile Barriss began the war disappointed in Jedi leadership and spent years full of festering doubt and resentment. The second she hits knighthood and becomes independent, she is going to criticize the council at every opportunity. She says they’re too loyal to the Republic over systems outside it, it doesn’t matter how nice they are to the clones when they’re still considered property, ongoing military leadership goes against Jedi ideals and contributes to a growing military-industrial complex, etc.

Luminara: By the right of the Council, by the will of the Force, I pronounce you a Knight of the Jedi Order. Barriss Offee, you may rise.

Barriss: Thank you, Master. No take-backs.

Luminara: You are welco- I beg your pardon?

We know some Jedi like the Lost Twenty choose to leave, but Barriss would stay. Stay and be a problem. The council probably wouldn’t even begrudge her for it, they’d just be stuck in the same political deadlock they’d been in for years, except now they’re facing growing internal criticism as Barriss unionizes all the other wartime padawans. The few who survived, at least.

Barriss: Masters, I’ve noticed the Order is becoming further entrenched in politics. As such, you’ll be happy to know I’m going to become more politically active! *heals Umbaran soldiers injured in Republic bombardments and widely publicizes the damage caused by the invasion*

Windu: Knight Offee-

Barriss: Oh, is this bad? Do you not like this?

Luminara: No, we agree that is exemplary behavior for a Jedi Knight in a recovering galaxy. What we wanted to talk about was you touring the casinos on Sal Sagev and using telekinesis to help several attendees win millions of credits at the roulette tables. It caused a bit of an uproar when you were identified from security footage. Who are these people?

Barriss: They are ordinary citizens who donated their winnings to various charities dedicated to postwar reconstruction projects.

Windu: Hm. Very well, I suppose that’s-

Barriss: They are also the opponents of senators whose corruption you’ve willfully ignored because they’re your political allies.

Twenty years later, Ahsoka is on the council, and is frequently called on to reign in Barriss from escalating fights with the senate and various megacorporations. Anyone else has zero chance of making Barriss stop, and Ahsoka still takes her side half the time. Then, half of that half, Ahsoka will escalate the situation even further than Barriss intended.

#star wars #the clone wars #barriss offee #ahsoka tano

[pix4japan]

1950s Black Japanese Desktop Telephone: NTT Model 4

Location: Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum, Koganei, Tokyo Timestamp: 13:29 on October 25, 2023

Pentax K-1 II + DFA 28-105mm F3.5-5.6 80 mm ISO 800 for 1/20 sec. at ƒ/9.0

Work to establish Japan's first telegraph line began on October 23, 1869, connecting Yokohama and Tokyo. Interestingly, this initiative came 14 years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Japan's telecommunication journey progressed further when the first rotary dial telephone, an all-black model, was introduced in 1933. This design was based on the renowned American industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss's "Type 302 Desk Telephone."

Amidst Japan's post-war rebuilding efforts, a pivotal development for domestic telecommunications took place in 1950. The Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) unveiled the Model No. 4 Automatic Desktop Phone, Japan’s first domestically designed and manufactured desktop telephone. According to NTT, this new model played a significant role in fostering social connections during Japan's postwar reconstruction period.

Notably, my photograph captures the NTT Model 4, showcasing its smaller and more compact casing compared to Dreyfuss's "Type 302" model. According to one of Japan’s major players in the telecommunications market, KDDI, the new design of the NTT Model 4 not only boasted superior call quality, but was also considered cutting-edge for its time.

The Model 4 was available exclusively in black, and became a staple in Japanese offices during its production years from 1950 to 1964. This end of this 14-year period coincided with the introduction of NTT's Model 600 desktop phone in 1964, marking another milestone in Japan's telecommunications history.

For enthusiasts and curious minds, the NTT Model 4 that I photographed can be viewed at the "House of Kunio Maekawa" within the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Tokyo.

Visit my blog post if you wish to delve deeper into the history Japan’s telephone tech and devices where I have provided links to all the original source materials for further research (read time: approx. 2 min.): https://www.pix4japan.com/blog/20231025-edo-bldg-museum

#静物写真 #黒電話 #江戸東京たてもの園 #東京 #pix4japan #pentax_dfa28105 #pentaxk1mkii #still life photography #Japan #Tokyo #telephone #Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum