#Functions of Political System

[ireallyamabear]

The choice to put Una Chin-Reily on a Starfleet recruitment poster in the late 2370s seems a nod to the extraordinary person she is and her exemplary service, but Boimler’s enthusiasm for her as a personal hero cannot mask the fact of what Starfleet execs are really doing here: while it is Starfleet tradition to honour esteemed personnel from its centuries of history, we have to look at the poster as a product of its time: it seems clear that, shortly after the devastating death toll and the rapid militarisation of the Dominion War, putting a prominent figure of the Great Exploration Age - and notedly someone who had not served in the Klingon War - as the poster person for Starfleet is an indictment that contemporary young people of the Federation are not drawn to the service as it is in their time anymore.

Critically, Starfleet has to use somebody from a 120 years ago, a timeframe that would lap generations of even especially long lived member species like Vulcans or Denobulans, to attract new recruits. Boimler says himself that seeing Una as a representative and her motto - “Ad astra per aspera” was: “Uh, it was a really big reason why I joined.” Clearly there is a wealth of recognisable Starfleet officers from 2370 and onwards, but their entanglement in the Dominion War, or at least in the Borg threat makes them unsuitable as role models for people like Boimler who cannot help but associate these contemporaries with the horrors of war and intergalactic conflict. Thus, the retreat to a “safe�� historical narrative, with Starfleet still being about peaceful exploration reflects the growing divide between the realities of a colonised galaxy, the ongoing need of new bodies to fill the posts on all those ships and space stations and the aspirations and values of young people today. In this essay I will question whether Starfleet can keep its promise of scientific integrity in the face of growing political unrest in the UFP and ask what “Number One” herself would have thought about-

[helenvaughans]

i have to be honest, i truly do not understand the fixation so many people in this country have on hating immigrants. like i've lived in nyc for most of my life which is probably one of the (if not the most) diverse places in the country (and also frankly one of the places where most immigrants actually end up as opposed to like bumfuck, alabama or whatever) and this perspective is just totally alien to me. you walk down any street in this city, and you will probably hear at minimum 2 foreign languages being spoken, and no one gives a fuck.

obviously i know it's mostly just good old xenophobia and racism but the fact that enough people are willing to imperil our democracy just to feel like they're owning the immigrants bc they've seen a few too many non-white people around town for their liking is insanity to me.

[ckerouac]

Washington Post live updates

[wizardofgender]

Regarding the US election

This was an election I had the highest stakes in but ultimately no say once however. I am a nonbinary teenager. These next four years are supposed to be about growing up, figuring out who I am and where I stand in the world. If this election goes the way it looks like it will, I will instead have to figure out who I can safely be without endangering myself or my family.

Myself and every other teenager were forced to entrust our futures in the hands of the adults.

This message is to everyone who said "they're the same, " decided not to vote out of a misguided ego or even thought they were helping by abstaining from their fundamental privileges, to everyone who claims that economic policy outweighs human rights.

I hope you're happy with how you've used our trust.

[xehanortsreport]

oh yeah, don't forget false flag campaigns are a thing and there will be bad faith actors pretending to be leftists discouraging you from voting. i too want a better system than what we have, but as things are, voting is the most potent power we can wield. right wingers try to restrict it for a reason, it is denied to vast swaths of the nation for a reason.

by all means, be critical and even disdainful of our candidates, always agitate for better than what we have, and do not be tricked into believing that what we have now is all there has ever been and will ever be.

however, be skeptical of whose opinions you absorb, where those opinions come from, and that the anonymity of the internet is not always your friend. you must educate yourself outside of social media. you have to.

[dullahandyke]

Tfw I'm trying to get better at reading things written by people with different political opinions but also this history of rhe Irish penal system is really up its own ass about penal reform.... my first clue should have been not reading an article from 'the Jesuit centre for faith and justice in Ireland'

[hollowwhisperings]

when you're between hyperfixations and feel your brain drying out even as you try desperately to feed it with older fixations but it won't accept such platitudes it wants something new but no you say i am too tired to think of new things in new ways but yes says your brain i want something shiny and i will not be elaborating further on what that even means

[lord-squiggletits]

i know i’m late to the conversation—i just watched the movie this month—but i feel compelled to say this because i was genuinely shocked (still am) to see that the overwhelming takeaway for many viewers was the "d-16/megatron was right" bs. while it’s understandable to sympathize with his anger and grief, justifying his actions in the end or framing them as entirely right feels so deeply misguided. what surprised me even more was the tendency to shift the blame on orion/optimus, as though he was solely responsible for d-16’s downfall. it’s disheartening to see orion/optimus being villainized so much. his efforts to reason with d-16 came from a place of desperation and hope, as he tried to prevent the escalation of violence. at that point, d-16 had already begun to spiral into his unchecked rage, disregarding the safety of those around him. to see that nuance overlooked, with orion being faulted for a situation that was far beyond his control (the whole "don't be like sentinel" thing is often used to shit on op lol), is genuinely baffling.

while i love that the movie showed the tragedy of d-16’s arc and even empathize with his situation, painting his actions as justified—and vilifying orion/optimus in the process—feels like a misreading of the movie’s core message. sorry but i was so happy to see your post about the movie, it was tiring to see so many 'megatron was right about this and that' comments.

Oh man if you're new to this fandom, you really ought to know that this place is full of people who glorify terrorism and war in the name of "justified revolution" and it doesn't really matter what Dee/Megatron does or how horrible/over-the-top it is, he's oppressed or he's mentally ill or he's just plain upset which means that everything he does is justified and questioning him makes you evil.

It's so funny because I hoped for sure that a continuity where both OP and Megatron were working class individuals before the war would reduce this kind of shit take (compare to something like archivist/librarian OP and gladiator Megs in TFP or CBV, or cop OP and miner Megs in IDW1), but unfortunately this fandom literally still found a way to blame Orion for everything even though he suffered the exact same things Dee did..... and furthermore Orion literally was the rebel challenging the system compared to Dee who wanted to keep his head low and not cause trouble so honestly at this point I just think the fandom (and somehow new fans whose first exposure to TF is this movie) purely sides with Megatron on everything as either a knee-jerk reaction or some misguided attempt at being counterculture and intelligent.

People get sooooo mad when you tell them that unbridled rage and killing everyone who disagrees with you isn't a good social/political strategy, but then again this is a problem that is universal to humanity and not just the Transformers fandom. It's just a shame that so many people looked at a movie that blatantly spells out what the moral of the story is, and has all of the protagonists be working class oppressed people fighting against a tyrannical system, and their takeaway from it is still basically "fascism is okay if you're mad enough about it and if your friends try to stop you it's a sign that they're centrist liberals who think punching Nazis makes you as bad as a Nazi." It's childish black-and-white thinking masquerading as critical literary analysis.

And at this point people pretty much just don't give a shit about Orion/Optimus and will find a way to make him the villain no matter what the context is, no matter if he also has feelings or if he also deserves to be respected/listened to/validated as Megatron's long-time (possibly lifelong) friend. If ppl look at the way Dee treated Orion and their other friends and DON'T see what was concerning about that then there's really no saving them until they deradicalize a little and learn what usually happens when "kill all the bad people until society is a utopia" is implemented as a governing party's primary strategy.

[wortsandall]

when i first started out i was sooo into the decepticons and now all my faves are autobots but at the same time i would never be an autobot. thank you idw for fleshing out the bots but...😬

[zugzwang4]

idk man i just think that if u celebrate resources many people desperately rely on collapsing bc it symbolizes the collapse of the bigger harmful system ur maybe overlooking the actual people part of why we want these systems to end. if libraries are collapsing but were gaining more and more millionaires, i think laughing at ppl who use libraries bc their 'precious system' is collapsing is maybe the wrong response.

[auutumn]

me wanting to write more about the autumn court vs me needing to know more about prythian's geopolitics, civics, and laws.

[onelonelystory]

you need to stop thinking your anecdotal experience is a substantive generally applicable argument. you need to stop assuming that being directly impacted means you have a comprehensive understanding of things. and you need to stop feeling like people who say batshit things are correct because they’re speaking from experience and the broad strokes sentiment is something you agree with and support. please.

[arctic-hands]

I spent FOUR DAYS in an E.R bed because there were NO beds open anywhere in the hospital proper. I get discharged after a week of being dangerously dehydrated despite the constant heavy duty electrolytes being pumped into my veins round the clock and in the third worst pain of my life, only to watch on the news at home a report about the days-long wait times in hospitals and hear that the reporters have the audacity to wonder why hospitals are overcrowded again

It's covid. Stop being wilful idiots

[obituarybug]

Everytime I tell someone I'm independent/no party and they immediately start spouting bullshit to me about the importance of voting and why I should vote and that "a vote for third party is a vote for x" an angel loses its wings

Like sorry I wasn't aware that only Republicans & Democrats are allowed to vote for their respective parties and independents can't and that if they see you're registered independent they fucking rip up your ballot in front of you and don't count it

I AM STILL GOING TO FUCKING VOTE SHUT YOUR BITCH ASS UP.

[tweedfrog]

No pwease don't be mean and criticise the politician 🥺 that's my special online friend and actually all their comms are just a fun little story they're telling me 🫶

[theinstagrahame]

This is the thing I genuinely don't get about... Boomers? Conservatives? Whoever it is that is so terrified someone might just get an iota of comfort for free that our entire society has to bend itself around that fear.

Just... Why? What does it matter? Who gives a shit?

I just cannot fathom caring that much about it. I have actual problems to deal with in my life. It doesn't affect me, it's not like they're raising my taxes; most of those are going to the military (which does offend me).

I'd rather pay ¢0.00125 to give someone a moment to relax, regardless of whether they "deserve" it (and everyone does deserve to chill) than pay whatever of my taxes are going to support genocide abroad.

I don't give a shit as long as those in need benefit