#And that anyone suggesting barriers is a Nazi who hates you

[womenaremypriority]

Any ideology that says you need to take hormones and get surgeries to “be your true self” and not getting access to those things is akin to genocide is an ideology that needs to be scrutinized.

[seancekitsch]

Powerplay: a Marko x Reader fic

part 3 of 3, previous part here

Warnings: harassment, vamp typical shit, cursing, death/killing, smut mentions, reference to the book

Marko was a good boyfriend, it turned out, except for when he wasn’t. You liked the sweet little kisses, the teasing way he snaps his jaw at you when you catch him staring, the way he holds you while you’re falling asleep even though he doesn’t have to.You like that he listens, more than your friends do. You rang another friend the other day, and were left waiting with the endless ringing again. You want to be upset, but they weren't as close as you were hoping they’d be. Your close friends were back in New York, three thousand miles and a year of working behind you. And they were Marko and his brothers now.

You love the way he keeps you safe, your protector being probably the deadliest thing you could encounter. You love the way he laughs, always joking and jovial. You always thought his smile hid a joke like some mystery, but now you're in on it too, and it's the funniest thing. There is no secret  joke, just Marko seeing the world with eyes full of humor. He sees the little things, and now he shows them to you. You love the way you can speak without speaking. Silence followed by heavy laughter, kisses, and understanding.

You even love that week you were on your period and every night he ate you out until you screamed yourself hoarse.

“Marko,” you’d say, “lets ride.”

And he would obey, letting you hop on the back of his bike, always after work, always too fast. You'd like to imagine him crashing as the wind whips your hair, stings your face. What that would be like, huh. It's what you assume he feels like when he flies, free and wild in the night. He caters to your every whim, makes you feel the happiest,  as long as the sun has set.

He was less a good boyfriend when he was hungry, brooding and refusing to get close to you. He would be irritable, pick fights, silent treatment. He would purposely leave you in silence, but he wouldn't ask for a taste, despite your offering. He respected you enough not to try that. Other times, he would make sure that you could hear every thought in his head. His thoughts sounded like shouts, always telling you to get the fuck away, always reminding you how vulnerable you were, how easy to kill you’d be. It's almost maddening. You never knew which nights he would be the silent ones, or which ones would be the loud ones.  

“Marko,” you’d say, “This is just temporary.”

You don't even have to think the words for him to know what you mean. Or those moments during the day when it's highlighted just how different he was, would always be. He would always be twenty and handsome and having fun, with a guaranteed group of friends. With a family he belonged with. You would always age, you would have to find something else to do eventually, and you would probably have to leave Santa Carla, because he wouldn't. You could always bore him, with Marko one day realizing you can't keep up anymore. You would always be weaker, and no matter how often Marko puts you first, he always holds the power. You’re only the decision maker because he lets you be. He could always take that power back. Find someone new when you get old and he stays the same age. He will always be this way, and you will always change.

It's those nights you think of pulling away from him, and you hope he never hears those thoughts. You love him, but he’ll always say it's not temporary. It's not true.

You love Marko today.

The jingling of the bell snaps you from your thoughts, head rising only to be face to face with one of the surf nazis. Huh, guess the boys didn’t clear all of them out. This one was tall, a skinhead with an upturned pug-like nose, wearing a lot of denim with eyes alight with mayhem in his agenda. Oh, please don’t fucking break anything.

“Hey Baby,” he sneers. God, his voice was even worse than his looks and his smell.

“Not your baby,” you deadpan, wishing desperately for him and his friends to leave without stealing or breaking anything forcing a sickeningly sweet customer service tone, “But what can I help with?”

Maybe good customer service will get them in-and-out quicker.

“That hot little body of yours could help me out,” his tone is outright mocking. God, is this how dudes like these think they can pull? You can’t even hide your grimace as you flinch at the words. If there was anyone else, just one other person working tonight, this wouldn’t be happening. You know this. Working nights alone practically invited this brand of harassment.

fuckfuckfuck. It’s way too early for Marko to be sniffing around, and if you can get them to leave the next four hours of your shift will be miserable. The man laughs, and it makes your blood run cold. He leans over the counter, past the little curtain of incense haze; breaching your only barrier of safety.

“I bet it could. Couldn’t it, baby?”

His large arms press against the glass of the counter and your eyes immediately flicker from them to the back room, where your knife is. He straightens up.

“Cat got your tongue?”

You frown, meeting his eyes now.

“Do you plan on buying anything we sell?” The Bauhaus record you have playing over the speaker skips, and you almost jump. It's just enough to break the tension, the rising bile in your throat clearing.

“I come in here for you, girlie,” and he affirms what you already know. Now that half of the surf nazis were gone, they were struggling to maintain their turf on the boardwalk. So harassment and torture at their hands were on the rise. Many people over the past few weeks had been dodging them in the stores around here, and now apparently they had caught wise to that. Done with it, you take a step back, leaning yourself against the back shelf to retreat further into the curtain of nag champa.

“You can fuck off,” you offer, gaining confidence as you realize the bong behind your head was more than affordable, and if you broke it over his head, you could cover it.

He opens his mouth to respond, but-

The bell on the door jingles again. A familiar smile fades into a scowl. Marko looks like one of those greek heroes tonight, maybe if only because his presence saves you from the gross comments (or anything worse) of the shaved head across the counter. He immediately distracts the surfer from you.

“Why don’t you get outta here, buddy? Me and the lady were just discussing me trying her out later,” the man spits, and you almost gag at the mental image of that.

Marko laughs, that high pitched full body laugh you love so much.

“That’s funny, buddy,” He throws the man’s nickname back at him, “Cause that’s my old lady right there.”

You loved and hated when he called you that. Technically, you are a year older than the year he turned. The first time you all realized that, Paul gave himself a stomach ache laughing over the ‘older woman’ Marko brought home. Tonight though, the nickname brings the biggest smile to your lips.

“Damn right I am,” you chime in, “and you couldn’t take the hint.”

Marko seals the deal by striding over to where you are and pulling you into a kiss over the counter. It doesn't take much more for the surf nazi to leave, the jingling of the door opening announcing his departure.

“I’m gonna make sure we kill the rest of them before the week is out.”

He waits the three hours it takes for you to be able to lock up behind the counter with you, loosely holding your hips and following you around, only moving away from you to pick out new records when one ends. 

Come over tonight, Marko thinks, and you know it isn't a suggestion. You kiss him hard on the mouth, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him to press against you. His arms automatically find themselves around your waist, squeezing you as he eagerly returns the kiss. This wouldn’t be your first time at their dilapidated hotel, with sprawling caves and chandeliers and beautiful spray painted murals on the walls. The first time you were there, he brought you there while the others were hunting. He fucked you on any surface not covered with knick knacks they'd collected or takeout containers, leaving you to sheepishly blush while he proudly talked to the others when they returned, deep red hickies and a bite mark on your collarbone you couldn't hide. The next time, the boys and Star and Laddie welcomed you in with booze and a feast and a fun night where you had to crawl out of the cave at dawn looking like a mess. Either way, he waits for you to agree before he leads you to his motorcycle.

“Star, Why don't you just become one of us already?” Paul whined, holding his half eaten eggroll like a cigar, “You're already living with us, Mama. We just want to be friends forever.”

She scrunches her nose, smoothing the long hair of Laddie’s head in her lap. The boy was tired, their unofficial little brother or not, he was still an eight year old.

“Or maybe,” David starts, dropping down from the rim of the check in counter of the hotel, “Star can just have some fun with them and we don’t even have to do what Max wants.”

The boys all laugh, Dwayne’s shoulders turning inward, while Paul smacks Marko in the chest behind you. Whoever Max was, he was someone that could give the boys orders; something you didnt think possible besides their own little group hierarchy. You'd figured out pretty quickly that David was the leader, Marko was his right hand, Dwayne was the left hand; with Marko enforcing, playful and impulsive, and Dwayne being the level head, logical and the one who often kept the boys from fighting and made them all remember why they loved each other so much. Paul was the baby. Both literally and figuratively. He was the messiest, the most likely to slip up;. He was also the one turned last. So when Star decides to be one of them, she’ll be the new baby. Then Laddie.

“No,” Star affirms, “No, I can’t do that to Michael.”

“Michael,” David tests the name on his lips, tongue darting out to lick them after he says it. The curly haired brunette on the boardwalk had a name. Then his eyes flick to you. There's a sharpness to them that feels so different from Marko’s. David is trying to stare through you, not to look inside of your head, to look past it, to see any weakness. A challenge.

“Who’s Max?” you speak up from your spot on Marko’s lap. You can feel him tense under you, but David smiles.

“You don't know about Max? Marko, you didn’t tell her about Max?”

Marko’s hand wraps around your wrist as David continues.

“Max knows all about you, y/n. There’s a reason you're here.”

Here as in, still alive in a vampire den, or here tonight specifically?

Mind thing? You think, and Marko leans his head down against your shoulder as he nods.

“So he knows Marko and I are X-men? Is he Professor X?”

You hear Dwayne and Paul chuckle from the other side of the circle, and Dwayne mutters, “Yeah something like that,” as he swats his hand at Paul’s mesh-covered chest.

“He sired us,” David clarifies.

“You feel it right?” changing the subject, “You feel like you need to be near Marko?”

Marko squeezes your wrist in encouragement, and you nod.

“He’s my boyfriend.”

“That's not what I mean.”

You know what he means. It's the way you feel Marko before you see him, the way you can never sneak up on him.

You nod again.

“That’s what Max wanted to know. Marko, do you wanna tell her, or should I?”

What does he mean? You think and the man below you perks up.

Come with me. His palms grip your hips and gently push you to stand, and he follows suit before taking the lead.

He leads you towards the mouth of the cave, where you enter and away from any listening ears.

“So you know how David is dating Star?” he asks, voice low and close to you in the shadows.

“If that’s what they’re doing,” you joke, and he laughs along with you.

“Well, he thought they had what we have, and that's why she’s with us.” He reaches for your hands to hold them, dropping any playfulness from before.

“I’m supposed to turn you, Max thinks. He’s a lot older than us, and he says some vampires have mates or something similar to that. Others they have some deep mental connection with. The guys… we can hear each other sometimes if we try hard, because we’re a pack. I don't have to try with you and that's why Max thinks it's different.”

Turn you? Like, capital T- Turn you? Into one of them? If he turned you, you’d never see the sun again; never feel its warmth. You’d have to drink blood, and human blood at that. You’d become a killer, and you’d have to keep killing. While you aren’t innocent, killing kind of seems like it would be a stretch for you. Some of their victims had to be innocent, but would your hunger corrupt your morals one day?

It's like he can see the wheels turning in your head, ability to hear your thoughts or not.

“Y/n, you don't have to. Fuck, this was dumb to bring up. David thought you were ready, but if you don't want to I won't make you…” He trails off, visibly a little more deflated.

But if you did, you would be on the same level as Marko. All of the insecurities you have about your relationship would just… stop existing. Your relationship’s expiration date would disappear, your fears about having to leave him or him leaving you would disappear. You'd have people and a place to belong and lover and guaranteed group of friends to be a new family.

“How does it work, Marko?” your voice surprises him, and in honesty, he brought you to the mouth of the cave to give you an out. If you wanted to leave here, leave him specifically, he was going to let you.

“You gotta drink, uh, vampire blood.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

You shrug.

“Are you sure? There's no take backs for this,” Marko’s voice is stern, unlike you ever heard it before.

Deadly sure, Marko.

He smiles, slowly like the moon rising in the night before it crescendos into the wide toothy grin you're so used to seeing.

Marko leads you back into the den of the cave where the others are hanging out.

Dwayne is the first to approach the two of you.

“Everything okay?”

You nod thankfully, offering him a smile.

Paul swoops in next.

“You better be tellin’ me you're joining the fam, chica!”

He tries to drape his arm around your shoulder, but Marko pushes him away playfully, both of the boys smiling.

“Let’s get this girl a drink!” Marko shouts, and the guys start up hollering and laughing.

Marko leads you back to where you had originally been sitting, his designated folding chair. He gestures to you to sit down, while he looks to David for something. Over his shoulder, you can see Star frowning as she watches on.

“Glad you got to talk it out,” David remarks as he hands a bottle of wine to Marko. Maybe you’ll be able to get used to his mannerisms in half a century. Marko hands off the bottle of wine to you, and your hands dip with the weight of it.

The wine bottle is bejeweled, another do it yourself project that the guys seem to love so much. It's heavy in your hands, dark and unseeing down the neck of it, but full. Marko crouches down between your legs, palms flat against your thighs as everyone waits with bated breath. You uncork the bottle, noticing the dark red staining on the cork, and knowing exactly what’s in it now. Two shaky hands bring the bottle to your lips, tilting your head back as you let the contents flow into your mouth, filling it. The ‘wine’ is thick, warm and salty but feels like it's already intoxicating you from just being in your mouth.

“That’s all Marko’s blood, you know,” David remarks, and you swallow deeply. All Marko. He drained his blood for you, weakened himself for you. Your eyes flicker to him, and he smiles up at you from his spot between your legs.

You smile back at him, widely, teeth stained with blood.

[tonystarkreactor]

Also I just saw you are taking prompts?👀👀👀 Can you do one where its Peggy who becomes Captain America instead? She and Tony actually hit it off great, and she becomes protective of him and gives shovel talk to anyone who tries to flirt with him.

cap!peggy? my love?? my life?? absolutely. 

Tony Stark knows footsteps.

He knows the slow, apprehensive ones of job applicants, pacing back and forth outside his office as they wait for him to call them in. He knows the slow, slinking click of heels belonging to women at fancy events, hoping to go home under his arm. He knows the heavy stomps of his panicking R&D staff as yet another fire takes a lab by storm.

Tony knows footsteps, and he knows power when he hears it.

He glances away from Dr. Banner, his mouth still asking a question about the Coulomb barrier. He hears the answer, but he’s distracted so it doesn’t quite process– he files it away so he can understand it later.

In the moment, he follows the sound of power, and he sees a face he recognizes- from the reports from Project: Rebirth he’d found filed away after Howard died, from textbooks, from that framed photo in Howard’s lab, even though there wasn’t even a single picture of Tony.

Peggy Carter.

He feels his hackles rise, but he makes sure not to stiffen his posture. Instead, he throws a lazy solute in her direction. “Captain.”

She turns towards him, leveling him with an assessing glare, so he grants her the same. She’s wearing the Cap suit, but it’s not the same as he remembers from the photos. Instead, it’s kind of offensively bright. It kind of looks like a fanboy had too much fun drawing inspiration from the comics, what with its far-too-loud colors. (He was at least grateful it wasn’t some of the later, more… gratuitous interpretations of the design.)

“Stark,” she returns in a crisp tone, and Tony hates that he can’t read her tone. He’s sort of terrified of what she’s thinking, whatever it is. All he can think about is Howard telling him that Captain America would never be proud of him. Given the way she’s examining his face, he’s sure that she’s mentally comparing him to Howard, cataloging any flaws she may see.

Still, he also tries to think of the other people he knows, those who had once been the close friends of Captain America. He thinks of their stories, the ones that made her seem so different from the one Howard spoke about.

“Tell me, were Uncle Dum-Dum’s stories about you true?” he asks, then bites back a curse as he sees a flicker of pain cross her face. He doesn’t backtrack, though, because he learned long ago that he’ll just end up shoving his foot in his mouth.

But then Peggy Carter resolves herself, and she cracks a smirk with cherry-red lips. “Depends. What stories did he tell?”

“I seem to remember a tale about you literally killing a Nazi with one look,” Tony suggested.

The good captain snorted, shaking her head. “I might have had a bit of help from one of your father’s inventions. Not that he knew I had it, mind you,” she said, and Tony can see her eyes watching him. Testing him.

But he just cracks a grin, one that’s real, and he steps around the table and holds out his hand. “Well, don’t worry, I won’t tell him,” he says jokingly, and then he winces, because really, foot in mouth–

But then Peggy Carter laughs, grabbing his hand and giving it a firm shake, and Tony feels the tension bleed out of his shoulders.

“You’re… not like him,” she says, an eyebrow quirked, and… it’s not judgement there. Tony looks around for any hint of it, but there doesn’t seem to be any.

“That’s good?” he asks, folding his arms by his chest.

“Well, you’ve yet to flirt with me, so I’d say very good, yes,” she replies, smirking, and Tony just feels a weight just fall off his shoulders.

He grins, placing his hands on the table in front of him. “Welcome to the Avengers, Cap.” He gestures towards Dr. Banner. “Now, d’you wanna meet the soon-to-be love of my life?”

[rwby-rants-and-theories]

But the point of Salem's plan is so conveluded, I for example took that she wants to DESTROY WORLD AS WHOLE faunus included in it, because she wants to destroy everything that isn't Grimm, but I might be wrong. and I suggested the villains because I'm pissed because TWF pretty much became villains of the show. Before they seemed to me like morally gray(cont)

area people, doing some things considered bad but for a good cause and are justified. 

Blake esp said that they targeted people who used faunus as cheap labour and shops that refused to serve them. So only people who have been targeted, at least as far as first season went were people who had it coming, No one said at the time, nor even in second season that theytargeted others. We never had it told to us, that they like railed up random people and shoot them in the streets. 

They weren’t evil, and I was estatic when I found out Adam is with Cinder because she blackmailed him, because I loved truly felt for him as character. He used to be one of my ‘please, please don’t kill him’ characters I said, it just gets to me on highly personal level, and I’d really prefer other avenues being explored rather than where it all is heading now…with Sun getting hurt and Blake having to 'take back’ TWF. I know it’s the most logical thing to do with her character but it just is so tone-death esp in today’s world. It seems to be telling people how to protest that only polite asking is the right way, because if you dare to raise your voice a little more and break few windows and punch someone who says out loud they won’t serve you or sell you bread because of who you are, you are a terrorist, which in today’s world is really, really bad message to be getting out there and RT, really should be more sensitive. esp if theywant their show to make social commentaries. 

Like I commend them for intentions of trying to reach a little deeper than other shows that do not touch upon world’s problems. But as we know hell is paved with good intentions and this case seems to be very much so, given where those intentions went. I’m really sorry I’ve ranted so much and probably made little sense BUT I’M SO UPSET!

Honestly, Salem’s (and specifically Cinder’s) plan could seem convoluted somehow but right now I can’t think of reasons why off the top of my head. If anyone has any ideas or a counter-argument, go on ahead.

It’s perfectly possible Salem fully intends to destroy the Faunus as well and is using them as a tool to off humanity first (I’ve added that counter-argument in the previous ask).

You 100% have every right to be upset about the way the White Fang has been dealt with in the narrative. You know I’m pissed about it too. You’re right about everything and I share your disappointment with all of this. 

There hasn’t been a single human rights achievement that has ever been accomplished by asking nicely. MLK broke Jim Crow laws and was jailed, Malcolm X encouraged black people to take up arms to defend themselves, the Black Panthers did so, Jewish people and literally everyone else who was oppressed by the Nazis or had their countries occupied by them fought back with military and subversive force, suffragettes had to smash windows for Parliament to pay attention, LGBT people threw rocks at police in Stonewall when being gay/trans was illegal in America, you’ve told me about how your people retaliated against the communist regime, and in my country’s case, we engaged in a bloody civil war to oust our decades-long right-wing military governments (there were multiple and several juntas) that rigged elections and unleashed a Death Squad against our most prominent and celebrated religious leader and human rights activist, Monsignor Oscar Romero, during the conflict.

And much like our Monsignor, MLK and Malcom were shot, black people keep getting shot, Jewish people still face gross antisemitism, Nazis still exist, misogyny and rape culture run rampant, gay men and trans-women are being actively killed in Chechnya and elsewhere in the world, and the disenfranchisement of our most vulnerable groups keeps happening. Jim Crow might be gone, Hitler defeated, and new independent governments established but those systemic barriers are still there despite a few significant obstacles having been removed. The problem still persists despite the progress. Making Adam and the rest of the White Fang evil encourages historical revisionism. Advances absolutely cannot happen without radical action. Saying otherwise is a gross lie. People still refuse to understand why the portrayal of the White Fang as wholly evil is so damaging. 

Making people hate the White Fang was literally the biggest mistake the CRWBY has ever done. 

[strike-back-now-info]

This is one of the best speeches I ever heard  He spoke for America 1st which is all Americans you want to watch this video only 38 minutes long but it's good.

This is one of the best speeches I ever heard  He spoke for America 1st which is all Americans you want to watch this video only 38 minutes long but it's good.

 WATCH LIVE: Trump addresses the 2019 United Nations General Assembly

 https://youtu.be/eICiLRykTFg

  September 25, 2019

The speech they're trying to hide: President Trump's stellar UN speech

By Monica Showalter

Seems the mainstream media are desperate to keep President Trump's stellar United Nations speech out of the news.

On Tuesday, Trump delivered a far from throwaway speech articulating the vision of the voters who elected him, speaking of nationalism, globalism, and socialism, along with an added rundown of problem nations to condemn and props for others. 

RealClearPolitics has a video and transcript.

For starters, it was a zero apologies for America speech, which was a breath of fresh air, given the previous administration.

He drove a fine definition of nationalism in the American sense, not other countries, as a positive thing that benefits not just the U.S., but all nations.  And he exuded pride in the success the U.S. has seen as a result of recognizing this very reality:

If you want freedom, take pride in your country. If you want democracy, hold onto your sovereignty. And if you want peace, love your nation. Wise leaders always put the good of their own people and their own country first.

The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.

It is why we in the United States have embarked on an exciting program of national renewal. In everything we do, we are focused on empowering the dreams and aspirations of our citizens. Thanks to our pro-growth economic policies, our domestic unemployment rate reached its lowest level in over half a century.

Fueled by massive tax cuts and regulations cuts, jobs are being produced at a historic rate. Six million Americans have been added to the employment rolls in under three years. Last month, African-American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment reached their lowest rates ever recorded.

We are marshaling our nations vast energy abundance and the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. Wages are rising, incomes are soaring, and 2.5 million Americans have been lifted out of poverty in less than three years.

As we rebuild the unrivaled might of the American military, we are also revitalizing our alliances by making it very clear that all of our partners are expected to pay their fair share of the tremendous defense burden which the United States has borne in the past. At the center of our vision for national renewal is an ambitious campaign to reform international trade.

He returned to the subject with a rousing conclusion, too:

Love of our nations makes the world better for all nations. So, to all the leaders here today, join us in the most fulfilling mission a person could have. The most profound contribution anyone can make — lift up your nations, cherish your culture, honor your histories, treasure your citizens. Make your countries strong and prosperous and righteous. Honor the dignity of your people and nothing will be outside of your reach.

When our nations are greater the future will be brighter, our people be happier and our partnerships will be stronger. With God's help, together we will cast off the enemies of liberty and overcome the oppressors of dignity. We will set new standards of living and reach new heights of human achievement. We will rediscover all truths, unravel all mysteries and make thrilling new breakthroughs. And we will find more beautiful friendship and more harmony among nations than ever before.

So much for Trump being a Nazi for being a nationalist, as the Left claims.  This isn't Nazi talk.

Trump also summed up perfectly the problems that globalism has morphed into, including the problem of open borders, perfectly cutting through the kultursmog promoted by the left — exposing them as the real anti-humanitarians:

"Today, I have a message for those open border activists who cloak themselves in the rhetoric of social justice: Your policies are not just, your policies are cruel and evil," he said, accusing them of promoting human smuggling and the "erasure of national borders."

You are empowering criminal organizations that prey on innocent men, women and children. You put your own false sense of virtue before the lives and well-being of countless innocent people," he said. "When you undermine border security, you are undermining human rights and human dignity."

Wow.

He also blasted socialism as a real problem in itself, something no world leader has ever done, but all the world's victims of socialism had to be cheering about.  Trump broke that barrier.

One of the most serious challenges our countries face is the specter of socialism. It's the wrecker of nations and destroyer of societies. Events in Venezuela remind us all that socialism and communism are not about justice. They are not about equality. They are not about lifting up the poor. And they are certainly not about the good of the nation. Socialism and communism are about one thing only, power for the ruling class.

Today I repeat a message for the world that I have delivered at home. America will never be a socialist country. In the last century, socialism and communism killed 100 million people.

It not only put its finger on the world's primary problem, it was also a beautiful speech. Trump described how nationalism isn't a hateful sort of thing - it was precisely this appreciation for nationalism that enables citizens to appreciate one another's differences. Trump had lovely words in it for all cultures, and praised many nations, it wasn't the rah-rah me-alone sort of speech. It was nationalism with a friendly hand out, calling for common ground, because, left unsaid, there is common ground as nation after nation elsewhere comes to embrace their own versions of Trump, too. 

He also did something unprecedented for any president - he brought up the need for human rights for gay people, women, and unborn babies, a human rights manifesto if there ever was one. Zero apologies, and not even the left has tried this.

But rest assured, the groundbreaking speech got overshadowed, first by the press's own efforts and then by the shenanigans in Congress over impeachment.

First, the press focused on a supposed glaring incident with Swedish child activist Greta Thunberg at the UN, which was a nothingburger. (Why, exactly, should a head of state give any face time to an obviously manipulated foreign activist?) A non-story.

Then, following President Trump's paradigm-shifting speech before the United Nations General Assembly, they pointed to the lack of applause, which was about to be expected from this globalist crowd. What it signaled was that they were listening closely, given the lack of cursory applause they give to everyone else, including Iran's crazed leaders.

After that, they decided the speech was very, very 'sleepy.' This one got played a lot.

First, CNBC's nothingburger:

President Donald Trump's United Nations speech was a snooze — at least for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

The 81-year-old Ross took a nap — a very long nap — as his boss addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

Television footage of Ross showed the wealthy businessman sleeping soundly as Trump talked about a possible trade deal with China — which is part of the Commerce chief's portfolio — and the U.S. stance on Iran.

Ross had his eyes firmly closed for as long as 15 minutes, video suggested, as Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave the impression of listening intently to Trump.

At one point, however, Ross's eyes opened. He still looked drowsy, though.

Boy, look at the microscopic attention to that. Ross later smacked them down with what looks like a pretty reasonable explanation:

"This is fake news," Ross said in a statement issued to CNBC by the Commerce Department, hours after this article first was published.

"I wear hearing aids and, during President Trump's inspiring speech, which covered in detail the entire range of significant issues facing the world, was concentrating on what was being said," Ross said.

Then they repeated it as a trope:

Esquire:

He sleepily accused Iran of all manner of international perfidy and gave China a few whacks. In what may have been an attempt to wake his audience up through sheer incoherence, he somnambulated his way through some anti-abortion rhetoric. It was at that point that I began to envy Wilbur Ross.

Daily Mirror:

Donald Trump sent a top ally to sleep with the 'low energy' and 'boring' tone of his speech to the UN General Assembly.

CNN:

And at the UN we watched as the leader of the free world delivered a sleepy, low-energy speech that zeroed in on one head-spinning conclusion: every nation should go at it alone.

It was anything but sleepy. Trump's quiet, deliberate tone was quite different from his rally tone, a wild off-the-cuff style of speaking, improvised plenty, but for that reason, it was far more significant.

Leave it up to the mass media to be unable to distinguish the two and imagine the improvised stuff is more important. Trump changed history with this speech and set new boundaries. No wonder the press is trying to obfuscate and distract.

Image credit: Twitter screen shot.

[silverloreley]

A short lesson in Italian history (Part 4 - from Italy united to the two WWs and today)

(For shitty Americans who think they know better) (This is intended as a very quick crash course as my personal protest against America and its disastrous education system, I suggest to look at actual books for a more complete picture)

I have to admit this is the part of our history I like the least. There’s a lot of politics and I hate politics with a passion. At this point you may have noticed I write this mostly out of spite, to show you how foolish you are about Italy and its history, so I’ll skip over loads of boring things to get to my points (also because no one pays me for this and, honestly, I don’t think anyone will take the time to read this all in full, so whatever).

Anyway! Uniting a country that wasn’t a whole for centuries, provided that it ever was to begin with, was a huge ordeal. Savoy decided to estend its laws to the new country and called it a day, politicians divided in left and right (that are nothing like your left and right, and nothing like today’s either), made a lot of reforms, mistakes and misconsiderations. The attempt at colonialism backfired spectacularly because they tried to do there what Romans did back during the Republic and early Empire, aka improving the situation of the conquered with new infrastructures and more, without getting any gain (the polar opposite of England, basically...) and the whole thing blew up in our faces.

They also tried to make Italy united in ways people didn’t like, enforced schools in the wrong way, didn’t care enough about a lot of internal issues that needed to be addressed, politically, culturally and economically. Language was a barrier that didn’t seem it could be taken down, in South Italy latifundism persisted, North Italy was a mess, Church refused to back down and dominated people’s lives in politics as well.

The Great War (WWI) provided some surprising help in uniting people linguistically and spiritually, but the terrible losses, the lack of gain aside from getting back a couple of the missing regions that made the (almost)full unity became reason of displeasure.

We called it “la vittoria mutilata”, the broken victory, because everybody won but us. Italy came out the war with huge losses in lives, poor and abandoned. Hence the rising of nationalisms.

Now, this is delicate and I want to point out one important thing: Fascism and Nazism were two different things and still are. The ones who push them together are ignorants.

Italian nationalism stemmed from the broken victory as well as the wish to distinguish ourselves from the rest of Europe, to recover our ancient greatness (the myth of Rome was powerful, a siren song...) and rise back again as one of the moving forces in Europe. That this turned into power rule made by Fascism, and later a deal with Nazism, can’t lead to deny that there were good reasons behind its beginning. But all good reasons can lead to extremes (I mean, look at Russia and China’s communism, is it any different?).

This isn’t to justify the horrors of those years, mind you. But to point out where Hitler wanted to exterminate people he didn’t like to create his ideal world, Mussolini was a bit of a narcissist who wanted to lead a strong country like Italy wasn’t anymore, and wanted to do it the only way he knew how, with violence.

Was it right? Nope. Was the same as Nazism? Neither. Was the alliance and the subsequent aid given to the massacres wrong? You can bet on it.

Had the WWII not happened, or had Italy not allied itself with Germany, other countries wouldn’t have minded dictatorship in Italy, like they don’t mind it today in Russia, China, Turkey and so many other countries. And, well, one could even argue USA are in a dictatorship right now, so joke’s on you.

Another important thing is that Italians were the first to fight Fascism from the inside: Resistence was composed of Italians, the americans and others came only later on to “free” us, but we were actively fighting on our own, physically and culturally, against Nazi-Fascists (and I’d like to remind that, by the middle of the War, Italy was not anymore an ally of Germany but one of the invaded countries as well).

Moreover, as soon as the WWII ended, Italy did two important steps: a referendum to get rid of monarchy and the writing of a Constitution that made bloody sure extremisms and dictatorships would and could never happen again in Italy. We learn in our schools this history, we learn what led to it, to be aware of its wrongs, we teach our kids the mistakes of the past so it doesn’t repeat itself.

And it didn’t.

No government, left or right, ever managed to stay in charge for more than the allotted time, more often than not fell long before the 5 years allowed by our Constitution and no single man can choose on his own unless there are very specific and urgent circumstances (like the current pandemic, and even then, when people protest, they do what they can to improve).

Protests had not been repressed in years, we have peaceful protests of various kind nearly every two weeks that often achieve their goals. Italy is not perfect, but at least we work every day to improve.

Enjoy your “freedom”, America, but remember: I am more free in Italy today, even with all the problems we have, than you are.