#Like explicitly The CIA Is Bad And Sucks

[robocops-a-christ-allegory]

Richard Carter is the key to all of this. If we can just trick Paul Kupperberg into writing for DC again,

[magnicidelover]

starting to get the sense that hatred for america is a sort of negative religious cult. similar to the obsession with "bad men" in fiction ala tony soprano, walter white, the cunt from mad men. we're supposed to watch it and understand theyre bad people, and yet we enjoy their wrongdoing; it's a structure of disavowal where we can pretend to be intellectual while stories of abusive narcissistic men continue to dominate our screens. it's the same structure that america (through CIA interventionism) bears on "critical history" (the histories which explicitly talk about their imperialist practice) which both denounces "evil" while only being able to speak about the abuser, thereby granting them an absolute position within the told narrative: they're structured as the protagonist no matter what, taking agency away from anybody else present. ie. the CIA is the source of everything wrong in the world + every abusive man protagonist is the source of everyone else's problems (walter white's need for respect and recognition makes the life of everyone around him shittier, and so he remains protagonist and cause). funny how us presidents mimick this dynamic: always hated, always protagonic. it's almost like hate guarantees and validates their authority. if a tree falls and nobody is there to hear it... = if a president is there and isn't hated...

it's time to start ignoring and making stories from a place that isn't "this sucks! *the explaination of why thing sucks dominates the text*" but rather "this sucks! *a vision of a different world and praxis dominates the text*" in other words: revive utopianism, reject dystopic realism

[hopelikethemoon]

Butterflies (Javier x Reader) {MTMF}

Title: Butterflies Rating: PG-13 Length: 1900 Warnings: Pining.  Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set in  June 1988.  Summary: Reader spends an evening out with Connie and Steve. 

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“So,” Connie started with a coy look, “Steve tells me you’ve caught the eye of a certain someone at work.”

You tensed, ever so slightly, as you brought the beer bottle to your lips and took a sip. “We’ve just had one date.”

“Oh, so it was a date?” She wiggled her brows. “That sounds like there might be another date, doesn't it, Steve?” Connie questioned, nudging him in the ribs. 

You shot Steve a withering look. You had explicitly told him not to go running his mouth about your date. And that meant Connie. 

“Who needs a refill? Oh, look you do, honey.” Steve remarked as he picked up Connie’s empty wine glass and retreated towards the bar. 

“I told him not to tell anyone.” You explained to Connie as she met your gaze with a questioning look. “You know how I feel about dating coworkers.” The uncomfortable conversation the Murphys had roped you into after you started working for the DEA was still fresh in your mind a year later. 

“But he’s not really your coworker.” 

“I see him at work!” You huffed a little, folding your arms across your chest. “Sure, he’s more of a work-adjacent associate.” You shrugged your shoulders, “I just want to keep this whole thing on the downlow for now.”

Connie looked so excited for you. It actually kinda made your heart hurt a little. She truly wanted the best for you — and everyone, really. And at least now she wouldn’t keep trying to find you a date. 

“Is there something to keep on the downlow?” 

You rolled your eyes and took another swig of beer, “We’re going hiking this weekend.” 

“Okay, I have to ask,” Connie started, “Did you guys sleep together?”

“Really?” You let out an exasperated sound, sinking back against the booth. “No. Okay? We did not sleep together.” 

“I’m so proud of you.” She slid out from her side of the booth and moved to join you on yours. “I’m not going to judge you for how you live your life but—”

“Sounds like you’re about to.” You side-eyed her. 

“I’m not. But I am glad that you might’ve found someone to settle down with.” 

“We have had one date, Connie. One. Date.” Your brows drew together as you turned to look at her. “I don’t know how things work in West Virginia, but…” 

“Oh, shut up!” Connie laughed, squeezing your arm as she leaned against you. “We should double date.” 

“Maybe.” You shrugged. “I meant it when I said I’m trying to keep this thing on the downlow, okay?” 

Steve returned then, sliding into the booth across from the two of you. “You two through talking about the suit?”

“You’re as bad as Javier.” You scoffed, shaking your head. “Lance is a perfectly decent person.” He was actually pretty fantastic, in your book. He was a charmer, that was for certain. A little bit of a southern accent that really suited his smooth way of talking. Strong jaw, pretty blue eyes. 

The only thing wrong with him was the fact that Javier hated him. Steve did too, but Javier… really hated the guy. 

The funniest thing was the fact that you were dating Lance because of Javier. If he hadn’t pointed out that he didn’t like the way the ‘CIA suit’ was looking at you, you wouldn’t have noticed that Lance was hitting on you. You tried to keep work and your personal life separate. It was hard to do that in Colombia, where your work friends had become your only friends. 

Javier had no idea that he had put Lance on your radar as a potential boyfriend. Boyfriend. It was such a juvenile term, but Lance had already put that out into the universe. It had actually been sweet. After your date, he’d walked you home, kissed your cheek, and told you that he would be honored with the chance to be your boyfriend. 

But it put you in a weird position. Javier hated Lance. He hated the CIA, in general, but Lance really seemed to piss him off.  Every time you were stuck in a joint department meeting, Javier would seethe over every fucking word Lance said. Not that it would just stop after the meeting. 

You were pretty fucking nervous about letting Javier find out about you and Lance. That was the sole reason you’d told Steve. You wanted to know what he thought would happen when Javier found out. But the man was a wild card sometimes and, as Steve pointed out, you tended to be on the same page as him. 

Which meant there was every chance you might lose Javier. And that prospect really sucked. Who else was going to talk telenovelas with you? 

Steve drummed his fingers against the table, shaking his head, “Let’s make one thing clear right now. I am not as bad as Javier. If you’re happy, that’s all that matters.” 

You smiled at him, “Thank you.” 

“We’ll have to have both of you over soon,” Connie suggested. “Once you’re ready to be more public about your relationship.” She nudged you in the ribs, “Don’t worry about whatever issue Javier has. You’re living your life, not his.” 

“Yeah.” You chewed on your bottom lip as you finished off the last of your beer. “You know, we’ve got an early morning, Steve. I think I’m gonna head home.” 

“Already?” His brows rose upwards. “Alright, well I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Are you okay?” Connie questioned as she slid out of the booth so you could get out. 

“I’m just tired.” You admitted and you were. But you also really didn’t want to have this conversation. “Five gets here fast.” 

She hugged you, “I really am happy for you.” 

“Thank you,” You squeezed her back. “See you in the morning, Murph.” He offered him a mock salute, before you headed to the bar to close out your tab. 

It felt stupid to run, but you really didn’t want to talk about your fledgling relationship with Lance. If you weren’t careful, Connie would already have your wedding and honeymoon planned by the weekend. 

You really liked him too. He’d been an absolute gentleman during the date — the kind of gentleman that made the butterflies in your stomach swarm just from thinking back on it. It had been awhile since you felt that kind of giddy. 

 ———

 Sleep was not your friend. Every time you started to fall asleep, your mind would present some new topic for you to stress about. Currently, it was Javier. Of course it was Javier. As if he wasn’t constantly on your mind recently, as you mulled over whether or not you’d lose his friendship. Nights like this one was precisely why you didn’t want to lose him. 

You threw off your covers and padded barefoot out of your bedroom, grabbing the phone off the side table. You caught ahold of the cable, keeping it from snagging on the edge as you sat it down on the sofa beside you. 

You curled your legs beneath you as you sank back against the sofa, turning the TV on and seeking out whatever telenovela was on at one in the morning. You tucked the phone between your shoulder and your ear as you dialed a familiar phone number. 

It took two rings before he picked, “Hello?”

“Hey,” You offered quietly. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.” 

“You didn’t,” Javier assured you, though his voice sounded rather exhausted. 

“Amar y Vivir is on.” 

“Yeah?” Javier questioned, before you heard the rustle of Javier’s hand covering the receiver. “Hang on a second.” The line went quiet. He’d clearly sat the phone down. You could barely make out the sound of voices — his and a woman’s — though both were distant and muffled. 

He clearly hadn’t been up. 

You were a second away from hanging up, before Javier returned. “Sorry about that, company just left.” He sighed heavily, “What’s this about Amar y Vivir?”

“Javier, you didn’t have to kick the poor woman out at one in the fucking morning to talk telenovelas with me.” 

“It’s fine.” He assured you. “She’s already gone and I’ve already got the TV on.” He sighed heavily and you could almost picture him dragging his fingers through messy hair. 

“I still can’t believe they chose to show a car bombing,” You stated, veering your mind away from the direction it was headed. “In the current political climate? It was ballsy.” 

“I’m impressed Escobar hasn’t found a way to permeate the telenovelas yet.” Javier offered with a chuckle, “There’s nothing he won’t use to his advantage.” 

“Don’t ruin novelas for me, Javi. You can’t make them about work.” 

Javier snorted, “You’re the one who brought up car bombs, baby.” 

You rolled your eyes, “I’m not your baby.” 

“You got a preference for something else, baby?”

“No.” You laughed softly. “It’s fine.” 

“That’s what I thought. “Javier clicked his tongue against his teeth, before sighing heavily. “You know, this isn’t a half-bad novela. I still think them having a kid was an odd choice.” 

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He’s got his enterprise, she’s got her music.” He paused for a moment, humming thoughtfully. “I dunno. They just didn’t strike me as the parenting type.” 

“I guess I get that,” You shrugged. “Her own parents weren’t the best.” You grew quiet and realized you were listening to the sound of Javier breathing, instead of focusing on what Irene was singing on the screen. “Javi, have you fallen asleep?”

“No.” He answered, though you weren’t entirely convinced. 

“Javi?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re asleep aren’t you?” 

Javier exhaled slowly, “Maybe.” 

“Javi, just go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” 

“You know I’m…” He trailed off, growing quiet again. It sounded like maybe the phone had slipped out of his hold. “I’m always going to answer the phone for you.” 

Which was a silly thing to say, considering he had no way of knowing that it was you calling him. “I hope that’s the truth, Javi.” You whispered, even though you knew he couldn’t hear you now. “I really hope you’re still going to answer when I call.” 

You started to put the phone back on the cradle, but you paused. Maybe he’d wake back up and expect you to be on the other line still. You stretched out on the sofa, tucking the pillow under your head. 

This might be the last time Javier would stay up — or fall asleep — watching telenovelas with you. Even sleeping, you weren’t quite ready to let that go. Just in case, you lost this. 

But Connie was right. You weren’t living his life, you were living your life. 

Lance wasn’t going anywhere. 

If Javier cut you off, it would hurt like hell but you weren’t going to let it hold you back. That wasn’t you. You’d jumped through every arbitrary hurdle, you’d been met with thanks to men, and the last thing you were going to do was let Javier’s bad attitude hold you back from something that had the potential to be great. 

You heard a rustle on the other end of the line and you brought the phone back to your ear, “Javi?”

“Sorry, I uh…”

“Fell asleep?”

“Yeah.” He laughed nervously. “I’m awake now. I’m not going anywhere.”

You really hoped that was true. 

[rametarin]

Just.. try and imagine for a minute.

Okay. Imagine a really bad American Dad episode where Stan Smith decided D&D “glorified monarchism too much.” So, he and his CIA buddies, and other Reagen/Bush type republicans, storm in and decide to “bring D&D and other tabletop games up to speed.”

They Reaganize it. All the evil races are monarchist, all the good races are constitutional democratic federal republics. And why not, they introduce a God of Gods and while they don’t explicitly say humans are only allowed to worship this one particular god, they imply all other deities are false, idols or evil creatures posing as deities.

That’s kinda-sorta what some problem glasses are doing with D&D now. Only, it’s more, “We’re sorry D&D features stuff like knights and castles! Try not to internalize this as an endorsement of monarchism or fascist feudal systems!” and shit.

Like. We know. We know lordships and nobility and monarchy sucks. We’re not romanticizing the system, we’re romanticizing the aesthetics and archaicness of the system for fun. Nobody plays D&D and pines for giving some inbred hereditary descendants of progressively more powerful tribal chieftans more land and rights over everybodys stuff. It’s patronizing and insulting bordering on an admission of madness that anyone would think that works that way. Down to trying to ban something like Swat Kats because it “endorses military police” without describing them as inherently a bad thing.

It’s just. The world people live in where they think a thing existing in fiction needs somebody there to goalkeep and be like, “BUT REMEMBER MONARCHISM IS BAD AND NOT TO THINK IT’S A VIABLE SYSTEM, MAYBE INSTEAD FEATURE FANTASY SETTINGS WITH.. SAY.. OOOTHER SYSTEMS?” is so ridiculous.

[riseofthecommonwoodpile]

some quick thoughts on Michael Schmidt’s Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism aka I Fucking Hated This Book:

(and also I’m kinda sick and my adhd meds are wearing off for the day so this will be poorly written, sorry)

I picked up Cartography because it seemed like a short but global history of anarchist movements from the 1860′s to today, which sounds great! I’m an anarchist, I like history, what could go wrong? and what i found was genuinely one of the worst books i’ve read in years. i’ve thought about formatting this into a proper review, but no one really cares, so let’s do bullet points:

—the most immediately obvious and glaring problem is that Schmidt treats Marxism as if it is an equal (or sometimes implied to be even greater) enemy to anarchists than capitalism. he at one point literally does the “fascism was bad, but the USSR was just as bad” lib thing, and it comes across as completely ideologically blinded. i am well aware of the ways in which anarchists have been treated under centralized communist states, and let’s just say i am Not A Fan, but even thinking about that, the fact that the only opposition to anarchism we hear about regularly is marxist-leninist opposition, and not fucking CAPITALIST OPPOSITION, skews it into the most blindly and dumbly polemical shit i’ve read since, ironically, Lenin’s State and Revolution —every time he says Maoism he puts it in scare quotes? “Maoism”. it’s silly —he claims that anarcho-syndicalism is the most influential and powerful leftist movement and idea of the 20th century, which like....... —by “anarchism”, he means, specifically, anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism, even that which is not explicitly anarchist. he says anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism are the same thing, basically, so we’ll just call them both anarcho-syndicalism, and also any anarchism that doesn’t follow Bakunin isn’t really anarchism, the only way forward for anarchism is through platformism, and all other forms of anarchism are individualist and don’t care about class struggle. i don’t even need to get into how absurd that all is. even if you agree with it, that shit has to be defended, it is not self-evident as he treats it —the history is both a.) bad and b.) terribly written. this comes across in three main ways: one, there is an equation of all union efforts with anarcho-syndicalism, which, yes, was very influential on union organizing throughout the world (and continues to be very influential), but that equivalence is just not helpful or explanatory. it’s clearly just polemic to make it seem like there were more influential and powerful anarchist groups in the world than there actually were. two, he just throws out numbers for the sizes of some of these groups, and the vast, VAST majority of the time gives no context for them. he will say X group in Uruguay had X amount of members in 1935...but i have no idea if that’s a lot or a little. what percentage of workers in this industry was that? what percentage of the population? how did that compare with other political groups in that same time and place? without context these numbers mean literally nothing. and beyond that, some of the groups he talks about are so tiny and dissolved so quickly that it feels a lot of the time like i’m reading a brief history of global communism that included, in the 8 pages of actual history from 1990-today, an entire paragraph about every splinter group of the US red guards —three, and this one requires its own bullet point because of how much it sucked to read, he goes into way too much detail for the space he’s given himself, and there is no reasonable way for him to adequately discuss or give even an impression of every group he brings up. for example, in the 15 history-focused pages for what he called the “third wave” from 1924-1949 (and these are small pages too, about 4 1/2″ x 7 1/4″, like the size of a sci-fi paper back but with regular medium size text), the following groups are brought up and given abbreviations:

AAUD (General Workers’ Union of Germany)

AAU-E (General Labor Union- Unity Organization)

ACAT (American Continental Workingmen’s Association

ACF (Anarchist Communist Federation)

AFB (Anarchist Federation of Britain)

AFD (German Anarchist Federation)

AFP (Anarchist Federation of Poland)

CCRA (Continental Commission of Anarchist Relations)

CGIL (General Confederation of Italian Workers)

CGIL (General Italian Workers’ Federation) [Yes, they have the same abbreviation, because they are the same thing, but are presented twice with slightly different names and given abbreviations both times]

CGT (General Confederation of Labor, given in a previous chapter but I had to google)

CIA (Anarchist International Commission)

CLU (Conference of Labor Unions)

CNT (National Confederation of Labor)

CNT-DG (General Delegation of the CNT)

CRIA (Anarchist International Relations Commission)

EAAF (East Asian Anarchist Federation)

FAF (Francophone Anarchist Federation)

FAGPL (Federation of Anarchist-Communist Groups of Poland and Lithuania)

FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation)

FAKB (Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria)

FAU (Free Worker’s Union)

FAUD (Free Workers Union of Germany)

FdCAI (Federation of Italian Anarchist Communes)

FFLU (Federation of Free Labor Unions)

FFS (Federation of Libertarian Socialists)

FFSB (Federation of Free Society Builders)

FG (Free Trade Unions)

FIJL (Libertarian Youth Federation of Iberia)

FISR (International Revolutionary Syndicalist Federation)

FKAD (Federation of Communist Anarchists of Germany)

FORV (Venezuelan Regional Workers’ Federation)

FvDG (Free Association of German Trade Unions

GAK (Group of Anarchist Communists, defined in a previous chapter but I had to google just now)

GFP (General Worker’s Federation)

HCH (General League of Koreans)

IFA (Presented without definition, I think defined in a previous chapter but google says it stands for International of Anarchist Federations, but that doesn’t make sense because that was formed in the late 60′s, way after this and the previous chapters, so idk)

IWA (International Workers Association, given in a previous chapter and presented in this one without explanation but that I know of through outside knowledge)

IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, same as previous entry)

JAC (Japanese Anarchist Club)

JAF (Japanese Anarchist Federation)

JJLL (Libertarian Youth)

KACF (Korean Anarchist Communist Federation)

KAF (Korean Anarchist Federation)

KAF-C (Korean Anarchist Federation in China)

KAF-M (Korean Anarchist Federation in Manchuria)

KRF (Korean Revolutionist Federation)

KSS (Black Front Society)

KYFSC (Korean Youth Federation in South China)

LSC (Libertarian Socialist Council)

MLNA (North African Libertarian Movement)

OVB (Independent League of Trade Unions)

POI (Italian Worker’s Party)

PSAR (Revolutionary Anarchist Socialist Party

PSI (Italian Socialist Party)

RPAU (Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, presented without definition but defined in a previous chapter and I know of through outside knowledge. Of note, I almost never hear this referred to like this. Everyone says The Black Army)

RR (Worker’s Solidarity)

RRU (Worker’s Solidarity Movement)

SPD (Marxist Social Democratic Party)

SPIRA (Provisional Secretariat on International Relations)

SWF (Syndicalist Worker’s Federation)

UAI (Italian Anarchist Union)

UCAI (Union of Communist Anarchists of Italy)

USI (Italian Syndicalist Union)

VB (Free Union)

ZK (Kronstadt Accords)

ZSP (Polish Syndicalist Union)

ZZZ (Union of Trade Unions)

bruh I am not joking, he brings all of these up in 15 pages and it seems like you are expected to be able to both remember them and keep track of them as you read, although i’m almost certain a great deal of them are given an abbreviation, mentioned in one sentence, and then never mentioned again. however, i can not promise you that, because you KNOW i could not keep this shit straight or remember any of it.

anyways i am so fucking fed up typing all of those that i don’t want to do this anymore. the book fucking sucks, don’t get it.