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tomorrowusa · 2 months ago

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We've been seeing a flood of news stories that young males have been flocking to rightwing parties around the world in recent elections. But the opposite seems to be true in the recent election in Australia. Men under 30 have apparently swung towards the left of center Australian Labor Party (ALP) which won a landslide victory this month.

(Researcher Intifar) Chowdhury says the 2025 election results stop “any kind of insinuation” that young men in Australia are becoming more rightwing. “If you look at electorates with a higher share of both first-time voters and voters under the age of 30, the higher the percentage, the more likely they are to swing towards Labor,” she says. “I will be very surprised if we see a swing among young men towards the Coalition, because no matter what demographic you’re talking about, there is some swing against the Coalition.” If her hypothesis is correct, it’s bucking global trends. At the 2024 US election, men aged between 18 and 29 turned out in force for Trump, while women of the same age voted for Kamala Harris by an even wider margin. Similarly, men at the 2024 UK election were twice as likely to vote for Nigel Farage’s rightwing Reform UK, while young women were more likely to vote Green. In Germany, there are signs young men under 30 are moving towards the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). China, Tunisia and South Korea have also experienced a surge in support for rightwing candidates among young men. But data suggests young Australians have been repelled by Trump’s leadership style. A March study of voters aged 18-44 found just 23% surveyed said Australia would benefit from a leader like Trump; 58% said “absolutely not”. A sense of dread about social cohesion and the rise of the far right were consistently cited as major issues among a cohort of almost 1,000 young voters who reached out to Guardian Australia over the election campaign. Chowdury describes what occurred this election as the “Trump slump”. “I think Australia just became more moderate, to be honest,” she says.

It's not so much a swing to the left as it is to the moderate left.

All but one of the nation’s five youngest electorates were won by Labor in 2025 after previously being held by the Greens. (Ryan was too close to call at the time of writing.) “Australians in general tend to vote heavily based on their issues of importance,” Chowdhury says. “If you think about the generational grievance of the younger generations, it’s being locked out of the [housing] market, the erosion of the safety net, job precarity.”

This Australian phenomenon seems driven to a large degree by the media scene in the country.

Hannah Ferguson, 26, is head of independent news commentary page Cheek Media Co and co-host of the Big Small Talk podcast, both aimed at younger audiences. She says Australia’s election felt like a “battle of influence”. “Murdoch media were projecting the Coalition to win and endorsing them, and it felt like I was in this bubble where I had to prove myself and push my audience to believe they were the change-makers,” she says. Ferguson says she has often been asked why “all the influencers in Australia are progressive”. She says that, excluding Fox News, America’s mainstream media is perceived as leftwing, allowing influencers to position themselves against the “establishment”. While Australian influencers are also responding to “the establishment”, she notes it’s in a media “heavily dominated by Murdoch”. “The commentators who have risen up in this election are the ones challenging the far-right establishment of media in this country,” she says.

What we in the US can learn from this is that we need to talk more consistently and frequently about the rightwing establishment being responsible for the mess in the US. We should also promote influencers and podcasters who are effective at presenting common sense progressive viewpoints.

#australia #australian federal election #australian labor party #the moderate left #anthony albanese #young male voters #media choices #intifar chowdhury

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butch-de-101 · 2 months ago

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Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 🎉 Fallout Addition

Now as you may know the Fallout Series is big and full of many many characters and takes place on “various” parts of the US. So here I’ll be talking about 5 Asian characters who are your companions/Allies in the game. And starting off our list is…

Clover: Featured in Fallout 3 Clover is a slave who lives in Paradise Falls and is the property of Eulogy Jones. Having been captured a few months prior to the Lone Wonders departure from Vault 101, Clover and another slave named Crimson were both abused, tortured and broken down by the slavers of Paradise Falls. Their owner Eulogy Jones use them as his personal sex slaves and abuses them both physically and emotionally, and unlike Crimson who managed to keep some of her will and is aware of her abuse, Clover has completely succumbed to her abuse and lost her original personality and became completely obedient and loyal to Eulogy and or whoever hold her contract.

Clover’s is entirely devoted to Eulogy and follows behind him where ever he goes and he’s the only person she will call “Daddy” while everyone else is just “Lover”. But despite all of this Clover is desperate for Eulogy’s attention/Affection profusely apologizing for even the slightest bit of fury and begs for forgiveness and to do whatever it takes to make Eulogy happy again. But because of this obsessive devotion towards Eulogy, Clover is rather jealous and hostile towards her fellow slave Crimson, who she bags/begs Eulogy to sell her which leads to her being berated by him to “Leave Crimson alone and unless he saids so”. She sometimes ignores these commands and will antagonize Crimson calling her Ugly and tells her to back off of Eulogy.

If the Player Character has evil Karma they will be able to purchase Clover for 1,000 caps or 500 caps if their Barter Skill is at 50, If dismiss she will return to Paradise Falls and be able to be rehired for free regardless of the player’s Karma. If purchased she will not turn hostile towards the Player Character if they attack the Slavers in fact she will use this opportunity to attack and kill Crimson.

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Another character from Fallout 3 and is actually a temporary companion is…

Sydney: A mercenary for hire and self-taught survivalist who has been bravely traveling the wasteland on her own since she was 14 years old. Her mother was raped and murdered by raiders leaving her father to raise her all on his own for years, he then vanished one day. Sydney and her father were very close and he called her his “Little Moonbean” and with his disappearance left a mark on and cause her to believe he abandoned her but in reality he died while on a mission to deal gone bad at the Statesman Hotel.

The skills taught by her father such as gunsmithing and reloading, served her well for the years. This caused her to be always ready for a fight and even sleeps with a gun under her pillow and to perfected her combat skills becoming a freelance mercenary who specializes in hunting down pre-war relics and treasure. Sydney also enjoys high risk dangerous jobs in particular, as to also make sure she reaches her goals. She came across her calling by accident when she stumbled upon the corpse of a dead relic hunter with information about how to locate the original copy of the Constitution of the United States. This will then lead her to working with Abraham Washington of the Rivet City and chairman of the Capitol Preservation Society, which leads her to her newest job in recovering the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives.

Sydney is loyal and professional. She’ll never reneges on a deal and focuses on the task at hand, and typically works alone. When she has to work with someone, she prefers not to discuss her past and other personal topics. She dislikes men approaching her (a difficult thing to avoid, on account of her looks) and just about the only person she's close with is Emaline, her girlfriend. After completing the quest Stealing independence and is kept alive plus not double-crossed, you’ll find her at the Ninth Circle in Underworld working as a weapons merchant and will even fight along side the residents unless she hit by them. If you do double-cross her, you’ll find her in a Random Encounter called “Bragging Rights” in where she with the company of her girlfriend Emaline, calls out the player her backstabbing her and she’ll won’t let you go around claiming the glory all for yourself.

:She has a Girlfriend named Emaline :She is one of the three same-sex couples in Fallout 3 with the other being Flack and Sharpel In rivet City and Greta and Carol in the Underworld.

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Now we are entering Fallout 76 and yes these aren’t companions, but are allies instead. We start off our first alley with…

Grandma Junko: A traumatized survivor of the Great War, she is a grandmother with a humorous, though sometimes confused personality, as well as having good cooking skills. Born in a small city in Japan called Inzai,her father gave her the name “Junko” which means Pure Child, and when she was young she moved to the west coast United States. At some point she meet another Japanese American by the name of Kazuichi who had a quiet but kind personality, and the two feel in love and married on a rainy day. With him she had a daughter named Sayoko who would then have three children of her own and live in Appalachia with her family. Meanwhile Junko would travel around the US with her husband due to his work.

As time in the US become more politically uncertain and the Great War becoming more likely her husband Kazuichi built a fortified room in their basement, Junko and Kazuichi waited her their daughter and her family to arrive but they sadly never came. One day her husband went out to restock on food and left the shelter and when he came back it is implied that he was in the process of becoming ghoul or succumbing to radiation poisoning, Junko says he "fell asleep" although her dialogue suggests he actually died, and that she is trying to cope with the situation by believing that he only fell asleep. She left him a note saying she is going to find the rest of her family, and still hopes to this day he will awaken and they will reunite.

Over next two-and-a-half decades later Junko has returned to Appalachia in the hopes of finding her daughter and grandchildren, and she has remained remarkably fit and attributes her heathy aging to yoga, eating well, and occasionally chocolate. She also attributes her survival by avoiding people whenever possible, but she is know to buy groceries from the people of Foundation and even know meet Odessa Valdez who she thinks is sweet.

It is ambiguously implied through her dialogue that Junko is unaware of the true state of the wasteland/post-apocalypse or in actually putting up an innocent/ignorant façade as a way of coping or even if she has dementia and genuinely believes every is less serious than it actually is. For example, she refers to power armor as being a Robot Costume. When war is brought up as a subject, she replies, "War? Wait, which war?" She thinks Super Mutants are merely green due to bad hygiene and are College Dropouts, and that the Cult of the Mothman are university entomology students. She is also naive to the Enclave. She can also discuss some of the Player Characters progress such as them luring how to cook, curing the scorched plague, becoming a Overseer by graduating, but if you call her ancient she will refuse to talk to you unless you apologize.

: Grandma Junko is the first elderly Japanese woman to appear in the Fallout series, as well as the first elderly Asian woman to appear in normal gameplay. Wan Yang cannot be found normally in-game, while other Asian women such as Madison Li and Rei Nakano are depicted as being middle-aged. : Her full family members names are.. Husband Kazuichic, Daughter Sayko, Son-in-law Manabu, and her three grandchildren Asa, Kei and Mako.

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Our next Ally is…

Sam Nguyen: Is a self-taught mechanic of Vietnamese descent and potential ally living in Appalachia, Sam is a mechanic by trade and musician for fun but comedic at heart. Sam being a mechanic is not his first choice of work, mentioning doing things like repairing generators is needed for survival in the wasteland. For instance, he learned how to fix a furnace because he didn't want to freeze to death. He is mostly self-taught and he learns better by doing things instead of reading how to do them. He works hard to stay alive and becomes slightly offended if the Vault Dweller says he is "lucky" to be alive.

Although originally he’s always dreamed of becoming a Rockstar, but doubted and questioned his ability due to his ethnicity and saying how he never seen an asian men be represented in Pre-War posters. But he does hope that if he does make music people would focus on that and instead and instead of his appearance and looks, Sam does point out that looking different from others does have it’s benefits as it makes him more recognizable and easy to spot out, unless people are trying to hunt him down or trick him.

His mother told him that the world would bend before he would ever get his real first gig.. guess she was right. His mother and her would move around a lot and they never had a real place to call home or settle down, but when Sam was 10 he meet this other boy at a junkyard who offered to teach him how to repair old radios and the duo would sell them for 50 caps each. After fixing his first radio Sam heard “The Best Song I Ever Heard” and ever since then he dreamt of one day traveling to West Virginia and calling it his home thinking how he found a place he could belong. Sam is aware of the brotherhood and is uneasy about their name confusing it as “Steal or Steel” either way he’s aware and he is that they “Swipe” people’s technology.

:Sam is of Vietnamese Descent: Nguyen is a very common Vietnamese Surname :He’s interested in learning about Gardening :He likes the rainy weather :He mentions having an ex-Girlfriend.

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And now for our last alley of Companion/Ally of Asian Descent. We have….

Yasmin Chowdhury: Yasmin was born and raised in Philadelphia before the Great-War and had always dreamed of becoming a chief and owning her own restaurant as an act of rebellion. This dream of her was at odds with her parents who were both academics and wanted her to follow in their path, but Yasmin continued to show her love her cooking and soon her parents came to understand and accept that her love for cooking was not a phase. Her love for the culinary arts became when she was a little girl and would spend time making confectionaries know as Sandesh with her Grandmother to celebrate Yasmin’s sister birthday, and after that she assisted her grandmother in all her cooking endeavors.

After the Great-War Yasmin joined a group of survivors at a Resort in the Pocono Mountains, and her 15 years they lived peacefully but then a group of raiders attacked them. The community was destroyed and those who weren’t killed scattered, while Yasmin fled and headed towards Appalachia in where she meet up with other travelers. As she reached West Virginia, she and other found great help from recipes left by Delbert Winters, but deep down Yasmin still holds out hope to finding and reuniting with her parents and sister.

As time went on and in her experience of becoming a traveling chef, she passionately collects recipes she comes across out in the waste, and when she stops in her travels and hangs out with the locals she’ll swap stories, recipes and teach them how to cook and prepare food. Originally Yasmin’s plan was to open a restaurant of her own but now having moved to West Virginia she wants to open a culinary school, which she hopes she’ll be able to preserve the culinary arts for generations to come as recipes before the war are becoming harder to find or were forgotten.

Having been in Appalachia for some time now by 2103, Yasmin takes an interest in the Vault Dwellers Camp and ask if she can stay, so that she’ll be able to perfect local recipes and make meals so that anyone can enjoy. She was thought how to track animal tracks by the first person she meet in West Virginia, and in return she taught the huntress how to cook and prepare food.

:The surname Chowdhury is of Indian/Bangladeshi origin and means “Holder Of Four, Landlord or Chief. : When selected as an ally, Yasmin will periodically whip up a meal that will fully restore the hunger meter. :Yasmin is the only source of steeped black bloodleaf tea in the game, as the item cannot be crafted.

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Well there you have it folks! I hope you enjoyed and found this piece of Character information interesting and fun to read. I also hope you learned something new, cool and even surprising? Did you know about this or ever thought about it? Anyway, thank you for reading and Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

#fallout #fallout 3 #fallout 76 #clover #Sydney #Gradma Junko #Sam Nguyen #Yasmin Chowdhury #Asian American #Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month #fallout Clover #fallout Sydney #fallout Gradma Junko #fallout Sam Nguyen #fallout Yasmin Chowdhury #Asians of the Wasteland #fallout series #fallout lore #fallout related

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