#VOTE TO SECEDE

[thedawgsblog]

ANOTHER COUNTY TALK SECESSION FROM CALIFORNIA

ANOTHER COUNTY TALK SECESSION FROM CALIFORNIA

California county larger than several states to have secession measure on 2022 ballot Voters in Southern California’s San Bernardino County will have the chance to decide in November whether they want the county to potentially secede from the state. The county’s Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 on Wednesday to put the secession measure on the 2022 ballot, the Southern California News Group…

[therighthandofvengeance]

I ♥️ Delenn of “fuck around and find out” Mir, and her husband, John J. “find out and and fuck around” Sheridan

[konakoro]

Reading up on the Cascadia independence/secession movement and the thing that kills me is the desire to make May 18th "Cascadia Day" in honor of the eruption of Mt St Helens.

Maybe it's me and having spent my life hearing first hand accounts of the aftermath of the eruption from my parents and family friends (not to mention the hours in both science and local history classes about it), but that just makes me laugh my ass off. Yes, let's celebrate the notion of our independence from the United States and Canada on the day one of our volcanoes fucking exploded and caused a worldwide ecological nightmare. 10/10, no notes

[david-talks-sw]

Dooku didn't leave because of the Jedi.

At least, if you're going by George Lucas' word.

In deleted scenes of Attack of the Clones, when we learn about Dooku's departure and his values, there's no mention of the Jedi or "the Jedi Order as an institution".

And every time Lucas refers to Dooku's disenchantment and reason for falling, he doesn't mention the Jedi.

"When you realize that Dooku is Darth Tyranus, it explains what Darth Sidious did after Darth Maul was killed: he seduced a Jedi who had become disenchanted with the Republic. He preyed on that disenchantment and converted him to the dark side, which is also a setup for what happens with Anakin." - Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones, 2002

"[Dooku is] one of the few Jedi who became disenchanted with the Republic and left the order and he is leading a separatist movement." - Vanity Fair, 2002

"I wanted a more sophisticated kind of villain. Dooku’s disenchantment with the corruption in the Empire is actually valid. It’s all valid.  So, Chris plays it as, 'Is he really a villain or is he just someone who is disenchanted and trying to make things right?'" - Starlog Magazine #300, 2002

He probably meant the Republic/Senate in that last one, but you get the point. And you're seeing the pattern, right?

Dooku's problem isn't the Jedi, it's the Republic.

He's become disenchanted with a system that - according to Lucas' prologue in the 2004 book Shatterpoint - worked for 1,000 years...

"For a thousand years, the Old Republic prospered and grew under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the venerable Jedi Knights."

... but has been rendered ineffective because of 1) senators becoming corrupt and 2) corporations gaining political power.

"But as often happens when wealth and power grow beyond all reasonable proportion, an evil fueled by greed arose. The massive organs of commerce mushroomed in power, the Senate became corrupt, and an ambitious named Palpatine was voted Supreme Chancellor."

That's the message Dooku runs on, when he rallies the systems to form the Separatist Alliance.

"By promising an alternative to the corruption and greed that was rotting the Republic from within, Dooku was able to persuade thousands of star systems to secede from the Republic."

The Jedi aren't really a factor in his decision to leave.

Why would they be? Their political status isn't very high, they're virtually powerless, as illustrated by the film's narrative and stated repeatedly by Lucas.

On the contrary, as we already established in this post, Lucas full-on confirmed that Dooku actually carries the sympathies of most of the Jedi. Again:

Most Jedi agree with Dooku, ideologically.

As far as the Jedi are concerned, the politicians are effing up the Republic, and it sucks because the Jedi see this but aren't allowed to interfere in the political process. They have to resort to looking for loopholes in their mandates to actually get stuff done.

That's what that whole "she's a politician" scene is meant to hint at. In the commentary of Attack of the Clones, Lucas uses a similar turn of phrase as he does with Dooku.

"[This scene gives us] a chance to talk a little bit about politics and the Jedi’s disenchantment with the political process, due to the corruption and the ineffectiveness of the Senate." - Attack of the Clones, Director’s Commentary, 2002

Considering all this, it becomes clear that the intended narrative surrounding Dooku's decision to leave the Order is not:

"The Jedi are dogmatic and asleep at the wheel except for Dooku, who is ahead of the curb and sees the system is flawed, so he left."

It's actually:

"ALL Jedi see the system is flawed, Dooku's the only Jedi who decided to take it a step further and leave the Order so he can try to get into politics himself and change things."

That's why they hesitate to accuse him of murder.

That's why in an earlier draft of the Attack of the Clones script, by the end of the second act, Mace STILL has his doubts that Dooku would sign a treaty with the Trade Federation to attack the Republic.

As far as the Jedi are concerned, Dooku is out there fighting the good fight, making noise because whenever they try to protest it falls on deaf ears... until his betrayal on Geonosis.

After all, let's not get it twisted: the Dooku we're introduced to in the films and The Clone Wars, isn't really just Dooku anymore.

He's Darth Tyranus.

A point Lucas makes sure to highlight in his Shatterpoint prologue:

"Unbeknownst to most of his followers, Dooku was himself a Dark Lord of the Sith, acting in collusion with his master, Darth Sidious, who, over the years, had struck an unholy alliance with the greater forces of commerce and their private droid armies."

It's not about doing the selfless thing for Dooku, anymore. He's knowingly part of the problem.

He's all about ambition, now. His personal goals are things like overthrowing Sidious and becoming the most powerful Jedi.

"[Anakin's] ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku’s. He says “I will become more powerful than every Jedi.” And you’ll hear later on Dooku will say “I have become more powerful than any Jedi.” [...] It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things." - Attack of the Clones, Director’s Commentary, 2002

"If you put two Sith together, they try to get others to join them to get rid of the other Sith. [When revealing the truth to Obi-Wan], Dooku's ambition is really to get rid of Darth Sidious. He's trying to get Obi-Wan's assistance in that and help in that, so that he and Obi-Wan could overthrow Sidious and take over." - Attack of the Clones, Commentary Track 2, 2002

Y'know? Selfish things.

Dooku - like all other Sith, and like the very corporations and Senators he had sworn to destroy - is consumed by his own greed.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Look, every time there's some "Texas wants to secede!" Bullshit, here's a few points to remember.

1. We can't and won't. There was already one war about this. It's grand standing virtue singaling big boot nonsense.

2. You shouldn't want that. Texas is full of diverse, wonderful people who have been largely voter suppressed and disenfranchised. "Eh fuck em" is a shit political stance.

3. US Republicans *do not want this* and *will not let it happen either.* Do you honestly think that Republicans could remain a relevant political party in the US if they lost the 38 Electoral college votes, 2 senators, and the (on average) 25 congressmen (average 11 democrats, so a net gain of +14) that Texas sends to Washington?

They'd never win another presidential election again.

[brrmian]

something that so many star wars fans somehow fail to realize is that george lucas always intended for the fall of the republic to be a completely unavoidable tragedy. that’s what makes it such brilliant storytelling.

placing the blame on just one party in the galaxy-wide farce that was the clone wars just isn’t interpreting the story the way its writer intended. neither is saying that all players should be held equally accountable. i don’t think the jedi were at fault for the state of the republic, and (despite the fact that he did horrible things) neither was anakin, on a galactic or governmental scale.

the real villain is palpatine, who shaped the government into a corrupt system by his own hand. the blame for turning a democratic republic into an authoritarian dictatorship (which it was long before it became the empire) under the noses of thousands of incredibly corrupt politicians must be placed entirely on him, and him alone.

by the end of the war, the jedi council recognized that they had already lost the ability to hold onto what it truly means to be a jedi. in their prime during the days of the old republic, the jedi knights were “the guardians of peace and justice.” they’re meant to as diplomats, peacekeepers, mediators, and public servants. when the clone wars began, they were essentially forced into being soldiers, generals, and quasi-politicians by palpatine and the senate. all of those things are antithetical to the jedi’s beliefs, but they had no other choice.

placing even the smallest bit of blame on the jedi for anything leading to the republic’s downfall—and their own—is not only unfair, it’s factually incorrect. the jedi order is a monastic organization. they have no say in the senate and no voting power. saying they’re corrupt, when in fact they were just as conned by palpatine as the rest of the galaxy, is victim-blaming and scapegoating.

palpatine shoved the jedi face first into fighting the war, and pretty much threw the clone army into their laps on top of that. the jedi had no say in the matter, and they certainly had no say in the war itself being started, either. because he controlled both sides, palpatine was able to make the CIS and the republic declare war on each other even though its citizens wanted the same outcome: political independence and survival. if not for palpatine’s schemes, the separatists would have been allowed to secede peacefully, the republic would have continued existing, and the war would have been completely avoided. but that was unfortunately not the case.

so in a galaxy thrown into an unavoidable war by its own secret dictator, with an army of sentient slaves suddenly at their command, and the risk of billions of deaths at the hands of the droid army imminently approaching, what do the galaxy’s official peacekeepers have no other choice but to do? be peacekeepers. why wouldn’t the sworn defenders of the galaxy be out on the battlefields trying to end the war? if they sat in the temple and did nothing, they simply wouldn’t be jedi.

the jedi were forced into a lose/lose situation. every religion and organization has faults, but that doesn’t place any blame on them for the catch-22 they were trapped into falling for. when the clone wars started—and the key point here is that it never should have in the first place—the jedi still needed to be jedi. unfortunately for them, that meant having positions of power not meant for them being thrust upon their shoulders. they couldn’t drop the burden, because that meant actively choosing not to save lives—but the other option, becoming soldiers despite the tenet of their beliefs that dictates they shouldn’t, was no better.

see what a cruel trap palpatine set? it’s like a fish being caught in a fisherman’s net. the net is spread out across the ocean floor, and the fish swim above it, not knowing that the trap is waiting to be drawn in around them from below. in the end, when the net starts to tighten, dragging them closer to the surface, they can’t swim fast enough to escape from the middle to the edge—and to safety—before the net is completely tied. it’s the cruelest kind of trap: the kind that gives you just the right amount of time to think you can escape while being sprung just quick enough to make actually escaping impossible.

in the end, the order actively chose to fight the war because they needed to. there was no other way to continue on as who they were. militarizing the order was not the right choice in a vacuum, but this was not that; this was a situation in which every galaxy-changing choice was the wrong one. the jedi knew they were making a decision that drew them farther away from their beliefs, but it was the lesser of an infinite list of evils, and they didn’t see the walls closing in on them until it was too late.

lucas himself has even said that the order was not corrupt or decaying from the inside, nor did they make a series of bad choices that ultimately led to their own destruction. they were always just trying to do the right thing—but unlike literally everything else in fiction, the jedi order’s death was completely unaffected by any of the choices they made. no matter what they did, they were always going to lose. the fall of the republic wasn’t caused by its defenders choosing what they saw as the least bad choice. it didn’t come down to any decisions, political or not, that the jedi council made with the limited tools that they had. it certainly didn’t come down to one emotionally unstable twenty-three-year-old’s slow descent into insanity, either. the republic and the jedi would still have been destroyed with or without anakin’s unhinged nervous breakdown.

anakin, just like the order, the republic, and the separatists, was taken advantage of by palpatine. even if a person’s choices are their own, they don’t exist in a vacuum.

anakin would have made better choices if not for palpatine, but he didn’t. the jedi order would have kept the peace if not for palpatine, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t. the republic, and democracy with it, would not have crumbled if not for palpatine. not the order, not anakin, not the separatists, and not the republic.

in the end, they were all just pawns in a decades-spanning plan, one that none of them saw coming until it was too late—and by then, it was already irreversible.

[soberscientistlife]

Let Texas secede from the United States. Trump will not have enough electoral votes to win!! It's a win win.

[simonalkenmayer]

For those of you unaware of what is happening in USA politics right now, it’s absolutely historic. This is how the Republican Party began, and this time it’s them collapsing.

The Speaker of the House is third in line for the Presidency. It is an elected position within congress. Often it goes to the majority leader, but the majority leader is Kevin McCarthy. He’s being challenged right now from 20 house members of his own party. Which means that minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has 212 votes out of the 218 necessary, while McCarthy has only 202. If McCarthy cannot get 16 more votes, he cannot become speaker. Hakeem Jeffries is in line to be only the second black speaker in history. It looks as if those 20 will stand their ground. If they continue to hold the election hostage, we cannot place a speaker. Stable republicans might switch sides just to get it over with.

The last time this happened was 1856, when the government collapsed beneath Lincoln. And then yes…SC seceded of course, and but a bit later we began the civil war.

If Hakeem Jeffries flips just 6 republicans, he does something doubly historic and the country, in my opinion, will be much better off. If McCarthy gets 16, he does so at great cost. He’s fucked either way for the duration of his career.

Keep your eyes peeled. They voted 3 times today and adjourned to tomorrow. The record is over 133 votes.

Why am I telling you this?

Narcissistic collapse. Remember I predicted a bit ago that we would begin to see infighting and the narcissism of small differences? Well…they’re all bitching and moaning at each other and bickering over the carving of the carcass and how much they’ll get. They aren’t thinking at all about people. MTG did nothing but bemoan her lack of committees. McCarthy bemoaned his results and claimed he was being unfairly squeezed and so on.

Watch it. See what patterns you notice

[mx-heinous]

So I Wanna Talk About Jefferson

If he ever shows up, I think he would be such a petty bitch cuz LOOK

He's like, if California and Oregon had a rebellious kid that absolutely hates their guts. Typical child of divorce. Keep in mind that this is his official flag, and it's practically screaming, "Hello, backstabbers :)"

California (begrudgingly) has main custody while Oregon gets weekends.

Just straight up declares himself the 49th state. The thing that gets me here is the fact that he literally just... seceded every Thursday. Ah yes, what a perfectly normal mundane activity to schedule.

Jefferson: Wha'd'ya mean I can't go to the meeting?! It's Thursday, so I'm a state!

California: Seceding weekly does not legally make you a state

Jefferson: I don't have to listen to you! You're not my dad >:(

And when they were going to vote on whether to make him a state, goddamn Pearl Harbor of all things happen.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniel Villarreal at LGBTQ Nation:

A completed draft Texas Republican Party platform refers to homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” gender-affirming care as “child abuse,” and Drag Queen Story Hour as “predatory sexual behavior.” The platform has been voted on by state party delegates and will be formally adopted on Wednesday after a final vote count. The list of state party priorities calls for an end to legal same-sex marriages, same-sex parenting, all LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination laws, all transgender rights — including gender-affirming care for children and adults — a ban on LGBTQ+ content in schools and libraries, the defunding of all diversity-equity-inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and legal protections for anyone who discriminates against queer people based on “religious or moral beliefs.”

Furthermore, the Texas GOP platform calls for a complete end to all of the following: pornography, federal welfare programs, minimum wage laws, mandatory sick or family leave policies, net neutrality, removal of Confederate monuments, pro-immigrant sanctuary cities, public education of undocumented children, no-fault divorce, non-abstinence sex education, abortion, birthright citizenship, professorial tenure in colleges and universities, cannabis legalization, anti-climate change legislation, contact tracing for the tracking of communicable diseases, federal regulations ensuring safe farm food production, and U.S. participation in the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The platform also calls for fertilized human egg cells to be legally recognized as people, the passage of a “state electoral college-style” law that would make it nearly impossible for Democrats to win statewide office, a ballot measure for Texas to secede from the United States, the invalidation of all federal laws not approved of by county sheriffs, and for Christianity to be inserted into public schools and government buildings.

[...] “Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice,” it continues. “No one should be granted special legal status based on their LGBTQ+ identification…. We are opposed to same-sex parenting, intentionally subjecting a child to the loss of their biological father or mother, and other non-traditional definitions of family.” “We oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity,” it adds. “There shall be no attempt to engage in so-called ‘gender affirming’ medical or mental health intervention for persons between the ages of 18 and 26,” including the use of names and pronouns associated with trans people’s genders. The platform would require health insurance companies covering gender-affirming care to also fully fund de-transitional procedures. The platform says that any professionals who aid a minor’s gender transition in any way should face professional, civil, and criminal penalties, as well as lawsuits from anyone affected by their behavior. Furthermore, it calls for all gender-segregated facilities in prisons, schools, and government buildings to only be accessible to people based on their biological sex assigned at birth.

[...] It also calls for laws prohibiting the exposure of minors to “social transitioning” (that is, exploration of a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth), “predatory sexual behaviors” like Drag Queen Story Hour, and “the desensitization of children to sexual topics.”

The Texas GOP's platform reaffirms and expands its war on LGBTQ+ Texans, such as including anti-LGBTQ+, anti-trans, and anti-drag planks like baselessly calling Drag Queen Story Hours "predatory sexual behaviors" and gender-affirming care "child abuse".

This is in addition to calling homosexuality "an abnormal lifestyle choice" (a bigoted dogwhistle term used against recognizing LGBTQ+ identity) and opposing trans identity.

[vomitdodger]

[state-of-connecticut-official]

When we do eventually secede, I vote for New Haven to be our capital. and that comes from no personal biases whatsoever.

[propaganda-inc]

Hello mutuals, it's time for your (daily? weekly?) dose of Propaganda from Propaganda, Inc.

Since it's Juneteenth, I thought I'd bless you guys with some dope ass black history facts from Reconstruction- and in particular, I want to shit-talk about one state in particular- South Carolina. I feel it's... avoided when talking about Black History.

I think we should fix that.

I want to introduce you guys to the most badass picture I'd ever seen in a history class, seen above.

Many of you have NEVER seen this picture, and for good reason.

I'd like to introduce you peeps to some of the members of the 1868 SC Constitutional Convention - the first majority black legislature in United States history.

One thing Lost Causers forget to mention about the Civil War: When they failed, the Confederates failed HARD. Literally the next election after the Civil War, Black Americans were voting in such droves that SOUTH CAROLINA, the state that was the first to secede from the Union less than 5 years earlier, was majority Black.

The University of South Carolina, the same goddamn school that was sending Confederate troops to battle during the Civil War, WAS A MAJORITY BLACK COLLEGE DURING RECONSTRUCTION. The first Black to graduate from Harvard, incidentally, would become a librarian in the school during that time- alongside the same representatives and senators that would study at the school and then go to legislate for their state.

Oh and the modern South Carolina Constitution? The first constitution in the United States to codify public education as a basic right for all students in the state? Yeah, that was that same black majority in South Carolina too.

It wouldn't be until massive white supremacist blowback (and cultural icons like Birth of A Nation and Gone with the Wind) would shift the conversation (and idiocy of hardcore racism) against these activist and legislators.

The history of Reconstruction is revisionism incarnate. I intend on letting y'all know just how much. Let me know if you want more posts like this guys- I've got a LOT of crazy shit like this.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Evo Grian is really like,

I’m gonna spend the first several episodes of the series longing for my friend and building a whole magical shrine to summon him into this world, immediately recruit him to join my empire of one, only for him to revolt against me, secede and start his own republic and declare war against me, and then I’m going to nominate him for an election without him knowing and I’m going to vote for him and he’s going to win the election by one vote (mine) because all the other candidates got disqualified for fraud and then I’m going to construct an elaborate Saw-style dungeon and pretend to be a Watcher to lure him into a maze of rooms designed for psychological and physical torment and I will kill him and then give him a cake at the end.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Traitor and useful idiot to the Neo-Nazi oligarchs.

In the old days they could say things to their right-wing audiences and it would never make it to the national news. In the Information Age that can’t be counted on as a certainty. So now when Nikki is pandering to Neo-Nazi/Neo Confederate audiences it goes viral and she has to walk it back to try and get votes from everyone else.

Many in the media think we should vote for this puppet of Christian Nationalists just because she’s younger than the other two candidates. Firstly, while younger, she’s still not a spring chicken. Secondly, and most importantly, she’s a Republikkkan racist that hates the poor and has always voted against us. No way should anybody vote for this vile puppet of the oligarchs.

[fictionadventurer]

Every time I think I'm tired of these guys and their endless rivalries, I learn about another crazy facet of the political system of the time and I get obsessed all over again.

You've got the chaos of 1840-1860, where slavery's increasingly becoming the all-important issue. The Whig Party is fracturing over it and turning into a bunch of tiny little one-issue parties that split the Northern vote. The only reason the South isn't seceding is because the chaos in the North keeps Southern-sympathizing Democratic presidents in power. By the time the 1860 election rolls around, the tiny little Northern parties have finally coalesced into the Republican Party, whose one issue is opposing slavery, and the Democrats are fracturing to back three separate presidential candidates. This allows the North to finally get a Republican in the White House, upon which the South immediately throws a tantrum and bails.

Which then transitions us to the political climate of the Civil War, where the war effort is vastly complicated by the fact that you've got to keep a jillion tiny little factions happy to prevent the country from splintering further. You've got the slave-holding border states who need to be placated so they don't decide to secede. You've got abolitionists who want to make the end of slavery the prime object of the war, which would be a great way to send all those border states straight into the arms of the Confederacy. You've got German-Americans and Irish-Americans and a bunch of different ethnic groups who all want representation among the high-ranking officers of the war. Within the Republican Party itself, you've got former Whigs and Know-Nothings and Radical Republicans and Free Soilers and anti-slavery Democrats who all agree that slavery is bad, but disagree about the best way to get rid of it, plus they all retain vastly different political beliefs from their former party associations. Plus, there are still some pro-Union Democrats you have to deal with, who also splinter among themselves into War Democrats and Peace Democrats who disagree on whether we should continue this horrific war or sue for peace.

And then there's the Confederate politics. You have Davis, the so-called President-General who'd rather be leading troops and hates politicking so much that he'll allegedly cross the street when he sees a Congressman coming rather than risk talking to him and be accused of currying political favor. He's dealing with a Congress that's essentially the Anti-Davis Party, because it's made up of a bunch of men who thought they should have been president (and I cannot explain just how hilarious that is to me). They're uniting under their belief that slavery should be preserved, and yet by the end of the war they're considering emancipation efforts in a last-ditch attempt convince France or England to help them out. They seceded because of one issue and they're willing to throw that away rather than admit defeat.

The chaos just keeps going. It's a never-ending series of high-drama rabbit holes to jump down. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. Politics nowadays is crazy, but Civil War politics are crazier, plus we have the distance of history that makes it fun to just sit back with a bag of popcorn and watch the insanity unfold.