#additional poll incoming

[moorishflower]

Tumblr please take this poll

[thesightstoshowyou]

Alright, friends. I need some help.

I gotta start making money on my writing or else I think I’m just going to lose all motivation entirely tbh.

SO if I were to start self-publishing original writing, would you be more likely to purchase and read long-form or short-form?

[angstandhappiness]

Pretty

✨🌙✨

[hotvintagepoll]

Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh (Fire Over England, That Hamilton Woman)—That's a whole lot of beautiful in one on screen couple, and since both were stage actors they played passionate so well

William Powell and Myrna Loy (The Thin Man films)—i know they will have been submitted already but What If They Haven't Been!!!! the screen couple so hot together that people assumed they were married in real life! they match each others snark and dry deliveries SO well, theyre so married i still keep them tucked away in my mind as The Bar of established couples for movies. its also THEIR season rn new years is THE season for the thin man so a vote for loy-powell is a vote for love

This is round 3 of a mini tournament. Each poll lasts for three days. If you'd like to send additional propaganda supporting your favorite hot couple, you can reblog this post with your propaganda added, send it to my asks, or tag me in it. To vote in all the polls, click here. Happy holidays!

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

Olivier and Leigh:

Loy and Powell:

William Powell and Myrna Loy from The Thin Man series. Glamorous and witty, with the banter of a will they or won't they couple combined with the mischievous affection of the happily married. And they're detectives!

They're ridiculously in love with each other, genuinely enjoy spending time together, respect each other, and just look at them:

He's dapper! She's gorgeous! Asta is adorable! They're simply the best!

Nick & Nora Charles, my pre-Code LOVES. Wikipedia describes them in one line as a couple who enjoy “copious drinking and flirtatious banter,” and they’re right for that.

Myrna Loy and William Powell, their delight in each other on screen makes me deliriously happy every time I watch them. I’ll even watch the later Thin Man movies, even if they aren’t great, just for those two flirting and smirking knowingly at each other. Watching them as Nick and Nora, you just know those characters really enjoy being with each other more than anyone else.

They had sizzling chemistry, and their real life friendship meant that they actually enjoyed being around each other, and it showed on screen.

I know I'm probably not the only one suggesting them, but I HAVE to nominate my favorite on-screen duo: Myrna Loy and William Powell. The chemistry between them has rarely been equaled; they're like the fun, cool couple that's clearly in love without ever being obnoxious about it. I love all of their movies so much, but my favorites are the Thin Man Series, Libeled Lady, Love Crazy, and I Love You Again. Obviously, I'm not alone, seeing as they had 13 movies together. Also, them+Asta? True double income, no kids goals.

(I know other people will be saying this but One Must Be Sure). MYRNA LOY and WILLIAM POWELL. From The Thin Man (1934), After the Thin Man (1936), and all the other Thin Man movies etc. They're just so into each other in such an equitable way, they push each others buttons and tease each other while drinking like fishes and solving mysteries and it's REALLY HOT. They both always had a twinkle in their eyes and adorably wrinkled their noses at each other.

Myrna Loy and William Powell, who are both life goals and wife goals simultaneously. The ultimate gender envy couple.

[nathaslosthershit]

End of Summer Event!

After a summer of barely any posts, I have a whole list of fics lined up to celebrate the end of the season! The one issue, I don't have a specific driver in mind for some of these stories, so I will be giving the plot and you all will be voting on the driver! Polls to pick the love interest will be posted shortly ;) "Notice me" "Beg for it" (Out Now!)

After what feels like centuries of back and forth flirting, these two teammates have tired people out with their inaction to do something about their very obvious crushes (SMAU)

Driver Options: Lando, George, Alex, Pierre Race Winner: Lando! Access Poll Here

Coworkers? Something like that... (Out now!)

Working in media for a Formula 1 team, you had expected to be behind the scenes, unseen and unnoticed by fans. But catching the eye of one of the drivers and the very public flirting as a result has thrust you into the spotlight

Driver Options: Ollie, Max, Lewis, Daniel Race Winner: Max! Access Poll Here

Emotional Times (Out now!)

Pregnancy was a time full of hardships. Hormones on high, stress of the incoming baby, and all the sudden changes were what this father-to-be was expecting, ready to face. What he wasn't expecting was having to battle his pregnant wife's newfound sensitivity to everything that could have her emotions changing in an instant

Driver Options: Oscar, Charles, Carlos, Lance Race Winner: Oscar! Access Poll Here

How Old? (Out Now!)

A driver, unknown to the public, seems to have found himself a younger girlfriend. There isn't anything morally (nor legally) wrong with the relationship, and the pair are doing quite well in their private bliss, but the internet likes to insert itself in other's business. Luckily, Lewis is doing too good to care about what the internet has to say. Part of the Blind Items series

Driver Options: Fernando, Lewis, Sebastian, Jenson Race Winner: Lewis! Access Poll Here

There will also be two additional fics posted, but I already have a driver in mind for them! Can't wait to write these for you all!!

[mightyflamethrower]

Recently, Gov. Newsom weighed in on the Trump administration’s efforts to undo the last four years of border destruction, when an estimated 10-12 million illegal aliens entered the U.S. unlawfully—among them thousands with criminal records.

Of the recent Los Angeles efforts of ICE to detain those who entered and reside here illegally, the governor proclaimed:

“Continued chaotic federal sweeps, across California, to meet an arbitrary arrest quota are as reckless as they are cruel. Donald Trump’s chaos is eroding trust, tearing families apart, and undermining the workers and industries that power America’s economy.”

Dissect that statement, and almost everything Newsom said was either not factual or misleading.

“Chaotic?” What is chaotic is allowing 12 million unaudited migrants into the U.S. ahead of those waiting years for background checks and legal permission.

The current antidote to a truly chaotic, nonexistent border was to bring some legality and order back to immigration—and not to perpetuate a wild-west border, drug smuggling, cartel profiteering, and child trafficking and abandonment, which were the Biden-era norms.

Chaotic is 1,000 rioters in southern California swarming ICE officers, endangering their safety and lives—and then being contextualized, excused, or even supported by the governor of the state, who supposedly is an upholder of our laws and their enforcement.

Each time Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom side with violent protests and the intimidation of ICE officers, the greater the chance that an officer will be seriously injured or killed—and the violence will spike. Apparently, both think they are riding a wave of public support, when in fact the latest CBS poll found 54 percent of Americans support such deportations.

California’s elected officials seem clueless that the optics of illegal immigrants torching autos, attacking law enforcement, or pelting bystanders, while waving Mexican flags, are terrible. What is the logic of waving the flag of the country to which one is violently opposed to returning, while assaulting the officers and infrastructure of the very nation in which one is demanding to remain?

“Arbitrary arrest quota?” Consider the math. In just four years, Biden allowed between 10–12 million illegal entries, or 2.5–3 million a year, or somewhere between 200,000–300,000 per month, or between 7,000–8,300 a day.

Trying to find, audit, and deport even 10–20 percent of that daily figure, or 800–2000 a day over four years, is not an “arbitrary arrest quota.”

It is instead a formidable but often vain effort to return illegal immigration numbers to where they were before Biden’s systemic lawlessness.

In other words, with the current level of deportations, ICE cannot possibly reduce the population of illegal aliens back to the pre-Biden range of 10–12 million resident illegal aliens before the additional and contrived 10–12 million four-year influx.

In Newsom’s world, how many million breaking the laws and swarming the border are acceptable? Ten, twelve, or twenty million?

“Reckless?” What is reckless is destroying the southern border. Reckless is also allowing an unchecked amount of cartel fentanyl, disguised as prescription or less toxic illicit drugs, to kill 70,000–100,000 Americans per year.

Reckless is empowering the cartels with lucrative trafficking fees for facilitating illegal immigration across a destroyed border.

Reckless is drumming out of the military 8,500 American soldiers who balked at the experimental mRNA vaccine while allowing more than 10 million illegal aliens to flood the border without any medical or inoculation scrutiny.

Reckless is demanding 2–3 forms of independent IDs from U.S. citizens to qualify for the required “real ID” to fly, while allowing tens of thousands of illegal aliens to be exempt from even rudimentary identification.

Reckless is a governor leveling the highest income tax rates in the U.S., the highest gas taxes, among the highest aggregate sales taxes, and still ending up with annual multibillion-dollar deficits.

Reckless is driving 200,000–300,000 middle-class taxpayers out of the state every year, who cannot afford sky-high California prices and receive so few services in return for such high state taxes.

“Cruel?” Cruel is overtaxing state social service facilities with hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals, whose sheer numbers imperil the health care of California’s own beleaguered citizen population.

As far as ‘cruel’ governance, perhaps it is defined as the highest gas prices in the nation while sitting atop some of the largest gas and oil reserves in the country. Cruel is watching poor people in Fresno or Tulare County buy gas in increments of $30 in cash rather than filling up their pickups at a prohibitive cost of $130.

Cruel is the California high-speed rail boondoggle that has wasted nearly $30 billion without a single foot of track rail installed and may well be abandoned—its concrete overpasses now testaments to our modern Stonehenge monoliths.

Cruel are the state’s ossified “freeways”—especially the 101, the 99, and I-5—that have remained unchanged for the last half century and record some of the deadliest traffic statistics per mile driven in the U.S.

Cruel is what the state and city of Los Angeles did to their own residents during the recent fires.

Cruel is a derelict mayor—shamelessly attacking those who are trying to enforce federal law—junketing in Ghana of all places at the height of the fire season. Mayor Bass has about as much concern over violent protestors burning cars in Los Angeles as she did for neighborhoods burning while she junketed in Ghana.

Cruel was the Los Angeles deputy mayor (tasked with public safety, no less), who was arrested and convicted for reporting fake anti-Israel bomb threats.

Cruel was the Los Angeles water and power director who allowed a life-saving reservoir to remain abandoned and empty.

Cruel was the fire chief who obsessed over DEI hiring while leaving scores of fire hydrants across the city inoperative.

Cruel were state directives that prevented sane clearing of brush kindling that guaranteed plentiful fuel to ensure an inferno among Pacific Palisades homes.

Cruel were the Coastal Commission and the city of Los Angeles that make it almost impossible to rebuild burned-out homes promptly.

Cruel are destructive regulatory policies that have driven out of the state everything from Tesla to refineries to insurance companies, ensuring that the struggling and vanishing middle classes cannot afford the staples of life.

Cruel are the roughly 40,000 annual traffic accidents in Los Angeles County, after which the culpable drivers often flee the scene of the accident. Does the governor or mayor ever ask why that is so, or worry over the some 8,000 victims who are killed or injured?

Cruel are the state’s “renewable energy” mandates that have skyrocketed the cost of electricity and impoverished state residents—one in four of whom now default on their monthly power bills.

Cruel is the boutique leftism of a generation of elite multimillionaire Bay Area politicians—from Jerry Brown to Nancy Pelosi to Gavin Newsom—whose wealth, office-holding, influence, and zip codes ensured that they were never subject to the baleful consequences of their virtue-signaling ideologies that fell only on distant and vulnerable others.

Trust? Who could trust the state of California, which has become a bifurcated medieval society of the very rich and the subsidized poor, with a complete disdain for the struggling middle class who cannot afford houses, power, fuel, or insurance?

“Undermining?” Undermining is better defined as a governor and mayor deliberately ignoring or nullifying federal law in neo-Confederate fashion and siding with violent protestors, while offering the offenders implicit assurances of impunity.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

Even before President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House next Monday, California got ahead of things. Anticipating more of the federal meddling they’d seen in the past, like when Trump’s first administration tried to block the state’s vehicle emissions standards, lawmakers met in a special session to start preparing a defense of its progressive civil rights, reproductive freedom, and climate policies.

The incoming president brings renewed threats to climate progress. Trump has repeatedly called climate change a hoax. During his first term, he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and rolled back more than 100 environmental rules. In his second term, Trump has signaled he would attack Joe Biden’s climate policies any way he can, increase fossil fuel production, and stymie the expansion of renewable energy. 

Yet he may not be as successful as he hopes, because states will once again take action. Their efforts, often led by California, have among other things pushed utilities to move away from fossil fuels, limited tailpipe emissions, and mandated energy-efficiency rules for buildings. It’s here, at the state level, where climate progress will continue, or even accelerate, in the years ahead. 

“The way that our federalism works is, states have quite a lot of power to take action to both reduce carbon pollution and to protect residents from climate impacts,” said Wade Crowfoot, head of California’s Natural Resources Agency. “So regardless of who is president, states like California have been driving forward and will continue to drive forward.”

Such action occurred regularly in Trump’s first term. In 2017, a bipartisan coalition of governors launched the U.S. Climate Alliance to collaborate on policies to address the crisis. That coalition now includes two dozen states that are chasing 10 priorities, including reducing greenhouse gases, setting more efficient building standards, and advancing environmental justice. 

“Governors have filled the void left by President Trump before, and are absolutely prepared to do it again,” said Casey Katims, executive director of the alliance. “A change in federal leadership really underscores the importance of state and local action over the next four years.” Governors have a strong mandate, too: A 2017 poll found that 66 percent of Americans think that in the absence of federal climate action, it’s their state’s responsibility to step in.

States have had additional reasons to ramp up their efforts: The Biden administration’s landmark climate legislation, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, provided $369 billion for clean energy tax credits along with other climate and energy programs. It also pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into industries involved in the green economy, like renewable energy. 

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Lincoln Project

* * * *

VP Harris challenges Trump on immigration

September 19, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

On Wednesday, VP Kamala Harris spoke at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 47th Annual Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. Harris took on Trump's nightmarish threat to deport millions of immigrants if he is elected.

Harris said,

While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward. We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation, in American history. Imagine what that would look like and what that would be? How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?

Harris’s speech is here: Harris delivers remarks at Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute leadership event.

As VP Harris said, it is a dangerous fantasy to believe that Trump could deport ten million immigrants. An operation of that scale is beyond the resources of the federal and state governments combined. Although the effort would not succeed, it would lead to economic chaos as the labor pool is jolted by the sudden disappearance of workers who fill entry level service jobs, harvest America’s crops, provide home care for the elderly, and provide significant portions of the workforce in construction, hospitality, and manufacturing industries.

If you don’t have time to watch Harris’s entire speech, I recommend viewing the segment in which she frames reproductive rights as one of the freedoms guaranteed to Americans. She also notes that 40% of Latina women live in states with Trump abortion bans: Harris addresses impact of Trump abortion bans on Latina women.

VP Harris’s comments on abortion and reproductive freedom are powerful and moving. She continues to be an effective, focused campaigner who is sticking to the Democratic messaging of “freedom” and “an opportunity economy.”

As a reminder, Kamala Harris’s Opportunity Economy focuses on making the lives of middle-class Americans better. Her proposals include a $6,000 tax credit for families with newborns, expansion of the child tax credit, expansion of the earned income credit, a $50,000 deduction for new business owners, making rent affordable, incentivizing the construction of 3 million starter homes (as opposed to McMansions), subsidizing $25,000 of the down payment for first time homeowners, and reducing the cost of prescription drugs. See Issues - Kamala Harris for President: Official Campaign Website.

The Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by 0.5%

The Biden-Harris administration significantly reduced inflation levels while sustaining robust growth in the US GDP. As a result, the Federal Reserve announced today that it was cutting the prime interest rate by 0.5% and suggested that additional cuts would be forth coming. See Federal Reserve Board - Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement.

Even Trump admitted that “it was a big cut,” although he suggested the timing was political. In truth, the cut was overdue. The Fed waited too long to reduce rates. See Common Dreams, Fed 'Waited Too Long' But Finally Cut Interest Rates. As noted in the Common Dreams article,

Center for Economic and Policy Research senior economist Dean Baker also welcomed that the Fed is changing course, saying: "This is a belated recognition that the battle against inflation has been won. Contrary to the predictions of almost all economists, including those at the Fed, this victory was won without a major uptick in unemployment."

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden achieved the nearly impossible—avoiding a recession while taming inflation. They deserve great credit for doing so—and voters are starting to realize that fact. See Harris closes gap with Trump on the economy, new Pennsylvania poll shows | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Per the Post-Gazette,

Pennsylvania voters no longer prefer former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris on the economy in a poll that shows the Democratic presidential nominee all but erasing the deficit on which candidate can best handle the top issue for voters this fall. In a Quinnipiac University poll of likely Pennsylvania voters released Wednesday, Trump’s advantage over Ms. Harris was just 50% to 48%, a two-point advantage well within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

Harris continues to do everything just right. While there is no guarantee of success, we should be gratified that we have a candidate who is running such a terrific campaign!

Trump's effort to cram voter suppression bill through Congress fails

Trump ordered Speaker Mike Johnson to make a futile attempt to pass a continuing resolution for the budget that included the GOP voter-suppression bill that would require proof of citizenship to register as a voter. (Note that our nation has survived for 235 years without requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.) The bill was doomed to fail—and Mike Johnson knew it. But Trump ordered him to jump and Johnson’s only question was, “How high, sir?”

See Roll Call, Johnson's stopgap funding package goes down to defeat.

To be clear, Trump wants to force the US into a financial crisis for political advantage. He said on Truth Social,

If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form.

But extremists in the GOP caucus know that Mike Johnson will cave. Per Marjorie Taylor Greene, “Johnson is leading a fake fight that he has no intention of actually fighting.”

Americans deserve better than a House GOP caucus willing to hold the budget hostage for Donald Trump.

Trump's desperation is showing

Trump is promising tax cuts like a man who can smell defeat. On Wednesday, he promised New Yorkers that he would remove caps on federal deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). Trump's position is absurd because he proposed and obtained the SALT caps as a way of punishing taxpayers in New York, New Jersey, and California (among other states). Now that he senses that he might lose, he is telling voters in those states that he will remove the caps he instituted.

Members of Congress immediately trashed the idea. Although capping the SALT deduction was unfair to taxpayers in states that fund their operations and pay into the federal coffers, reversing the policy would add $1.2 trillion dollars to the deficit. See HuffPost, Donald Trump’s Latest Tax Pander Flops In Congress.

Trump's flip-flop is a sign of his willingness to promise anything to anyone to be re-elected. Trump's desperation is a more reliable sign of the state of the race than the polls!

Wall Street Journal debunks JD Vance immigrant / cat story

The Wall Street Journal published an article on Wednesday that reported (a) the city manager of Springfield told JD Vance that there was no evidence to support the cat-eating immigrant story before JD Vance doubled-down on the false claim on social media, and (b) the woman who filed a police report claiming her cat had been taken by Haitians later found her cat hiding in the basement of her house.

See Wall Street Journal, How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True (This article is accessible to all.)

Per the WSJ,

[Vance] asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” recalled [Springfield City Manager] Heck. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.” By then, Vance had already posted about the rumors to his 1.9 million followers on X. Yet he kept the post up, and repeated an even more insistent version of the claim the next morning.

The WSJ article takes a deep dive into the situation in Springfield and is well worth your time to read the entire article. The WSJ reporters lay out in detail how Vance and Trump are exploiting an immigrant population that is helping Springfield to grow and prosper after decades of decline:

The local economy boomed. Business owners said they were grateful to have workers eager to work long shifts and do what it took to meet production goals. New subdivisions sprung up in the cornfields outside town. New restaurants opened. The Haitian flag flew at City Hall.

Growth came with growing pains. The number of non-native English speakers in the public schools quadrupled to more than 1,000 children. The local clinic and hospital were overwhelmed with people fleeing a country where healthcare had been scant. Traffic increased, as did frustration with drivers more accustomed with the chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince than the orderly grid of Springfield.

One thing is clear: Vance and Trump know the rumors have no basis in fact but continue to promote them—thereby hurting the people of Springfield. Trump claims he will visit Springfield—over the objections of the mayor and the Governor of Ohio (both Trump-supporting Republicans!). The fact that Republicans in Ohio understand the cynical dishonesty of Trump's propaganda is a good sign

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[best-nun-tournament]

Round 1, Match 20

King Richard and Prince John (Robin Hood/English history) vs Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII (Egyptian history)

Propaganda and history lesson under break.

King Richard and Prince John

Richard goes off to fight in the Crusades and John plots behind his back to steal and exploit the kingdom!

Poll Runner's Note: That's the Robin Hood legend, and there is some truth to it: While Richard was off on the crusade, John locked up Richard's chancellor Bishop Longchamp, set up his own royal court, and declared himself Richard's heir, over Richard's choice of their nephew Arthur (age 4). He even tried to have Richard declared legally dead so he could claim the throne (he had in fact been taken captive by the Duke of Austria and was then held for ransom by the Holy Roman Emperor). John left his wife to marry the King of France's sister so he'd support his claim, and basically started a civil war which lasted until Richard finally returned home. And that meant paying 100,000 pounds of silver in ransom. Everyone had to pay 25% of their property, on top of additional taxes.

Richard "forgave" John, in that he didn't have him killed and just confiscated most of his land, but he still officially declared his "hate and malevolence" towards John for over a year.

After Richard died five years later, John introduced yet more taxes, including England's first income tax. Why? To pay for a war with France to get back all the land that was lost when John asked the King of France to help him defeat Richard's supporters. A problem he himself caused by fighting with his brother!

Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII

You know

Poll Runner's Note: I sure do, and now I'm going to tell everyone about it! Ptolemy XII, their father, had five children: Berenice, Cleopatra, Arsinoë, Ptolemy XIII, and Ptolemy XIV. Berenice had usurped Ptolemy XII's rule and was executed when he regained power, making Cleopatra his eldest living child. In his will, he declared that when he died Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII should get married and reign as co-rulers of Egypt.

Ptolemy XII died when Cleopatra was about 18 and Ptolemy XIII was 11, and right from the start she was not interested in this co-ruler business. She started leaving his name off documents, leaving his face off the coins, and generally acting like she's the only ruler in Egypt. Unfortunately for her, Ptolemy's guardians weren't keen on being demoted from "power behind the throne" to "glorified babysitter", and they deposed Cleopatra and forced her to flee to Syria, where she raised an army and started a war against her brother. It didn't go well for her, and things were looking bad for her until Julius Caesar showed up with his army.

Caesar was 1) Already mad at Ptolemy's advisors for killing Pompey who he'd wanted to spare and 2) famously a huge slut so Cleopatra was pretty easily able to convince him to restore her to power.

It's at this point Arsinoë shows up with her army. She joins forces with Ptolemy XIII, declares herself Queen Arsinoë IV, and beseiges Cleopatra and Caesar in the palace complex. For five brutal months, they battled through the city. The fires are said to be how the Library of Alexandria was lost, which is probably a legend but it was still devastating. Ceasar himself almost drowned while fleeing Arsinoë's forces at the Battle of Pharos Island.

Finally Caesar's allies show up with their armies, and Ptolemy drowned trying to flee across the Nile while Arsinoë was taken prisoner. She was brought back to Rome as part of Caesar's triumph, but her life was spared and she lived out the rest of her days at the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. This was about five years because Cleopatra later persuaded Mark Antony to have her murdered right there in the temple.

Cleopatra married her youngest brother Ptolemy XIV, before finally poisoning him so she could make her son Caesarion the new Pharaoh.

Cleopatra was at least partially responsible for the deaths of all her siblings except the one her father killed, and the struggles between them were devastating for Egypt and caused a lot of suffering. These are some legitimately awful siblings.

[darkmaga-returns]

Harvard has refused to accept the orders of a Trump administration commission concerning its chronic problems with anti-Semitism, campus violence, and racial tribalism, bias, and segregation.

Yet, unlike some conservative campuses that distrust an overbearing Washington, Harvard and most elite schools like it want it both ways. They do as they please on their own turf and yet still demand that the taxpayers send them multibillion-dollar checks in addition to their multibillion-dollar private incomes.

Aside from the issues of autonomy and free expression, there are lots of campus practices that higher education would prefer were not widely known to the public.

But soon they will be, and thus will become sources of public anger. Perhaps envision elite private colleges as mossy rocks, which seem outwardly picturesque—until you turn them over and see what crawls beneath.

So, if there are protracted standoffs, our elite campuses will be hard-pressed to defend the indefensible. This effort will be difficult because public confidence in higher education has already plummeted to historic lows in the most recent polls.

In Amerispeak public surveys, those expressing very little confidence or none at all in higher education have soared to about 30 percent of respondents, while those polling only “some” confidence rose to 40%.

[magpiejay1234]

Though there are many other interesting points about this poll, one of the important aspects is that though the Gen X is identifying as queer at a faster relative rate than other generations (as a result of late bloomer effect), this didn't reflect to the political attidutes in 2024.

This seems to show the obvious limits of non-class based identity politics, but at least this means a cultural shift is slowly coming.

The problem is, of course, the reaction will be harsher, which means there is inevitably going to be a massive conservative wave after the Democratic presidency after Trump.

****

This also seems to confirm that yes, the Democrats, allying themselves with upper class minorities, have lost the working class definitely. Racism, xenophobia, and classism will still keep the working class majority Democrat, but like the black men, this will be a declining majority, which will eventually shift.

This is, as we have discussed before, an objectively good thing. The ultimate goal of identity politics is not the proletarianisation of the minorities, it is the capitalistification of the minorities. More social acceptance of marginalised communities will mean they will eventually reach a status to become reactionaries. It happened with women, it is happening with homosexuals (happened significantly before in Europe), and it will happen with heteronormative trans folk (Europe is actually behind this trend, though).

The problem is, as we discussed before, USA politics is about coalition building, which in the modern structure means either getting the opposite party's voters, or the shrinking middle. Democrats have politics that are broadly popular if they run on them, but the current structure means they are stuck as the party of the rich, which means they can't electorally expand on being the party of the working class without breaking the pact with Romney to Biden, and Cheney-Harris voters, and soon incoming Reaganites. In addition, the remaining marginalised groups are not large enough to give them a voter base, short of maybe a rise of women coming out asexuals. Asexuality seems to be only sexuality that is actually more common in women than other groups.

That is probably where the white feminist movement will target next.

[hotvintagepoll]

Conrad Veidt and Mary Philbin (The Last Performance, The Man Who Laughs)—I admit I haven't seen The Last Performance yet but it looks like they were a couple in that movie (albeit horror-style) so I'm hoping it counts. In the Man Who Laughs they were incredibly sweet, lighting up with joy in each other's presence through the entire movie and constantly holding hands and touching. I once heard it described "you don't have to be sold on the idea that those characters were in love" and it's true!

William Powell and Myrna Loy (The Thin Man films)—i know they will have been submitted already but What If They Haven't Been!!!! the screen couple so hot together that people assumed they were married in real life! they match each others snark and dry deliveries SO well, theyre so married i still keep them tucked away in my mind as The Bar of established couples for movies. its also THEIR season rn new years is THE season for the thin man so a vote for loy-powell is a vote for love

This is round 2 of a mini tournament. Each poll lasts for three days. If you'd like to send additional propaganda supporting your favorite hot couple, you can reblog this post with your propaganda added, send it to my asks, or tag me in it. To vote in all the polls, click here. Happy holidays!

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

Veidt and Philbin:

Loy and Powell:

William Powell and Myrna Loy from The Thin Man series. Glamorous and witty, with the banter of a will they or won't they couple combined with the mischievous affection of the happily married. And they're detectives!

They're ridiculously in love with each other, genuinely enjoy spending time together, respect each other, and just look at them:

He's dapper! She's gorgeous! Asta is adorable! They're simply the best!

Nick & Nora Charles, my pre-Code LOVES. Wikipedia describes them in one line as a couple who enjoy “copious drinking and flirtatious banter,” and they’re right for that.

Myrna Loy and William Powell, their delight in each other on screen makes me deliriously happy every time I watch them. I’ll even watch the later Thin Man movies, even if they aren’t great, just for those two flirting and smirking knowingly at each other. Watching them as Nick and Nora, you just know those characters really enjoy being with each other more than anyone else.

They had sizzling chemistry, and their real life friendship meant that they actually enjoyed being around each other, and it showed on screen.

I know I'm probably not the only one suggesting them, but I HAVE to nominate my favorite on-screen duo: Myrna Loy and William Powell. The chemistry between them has rarely been equaled; they're like the fun, cool couple that's clearly in love without ever being obnoxious about it. I love all of their movies so much, but my favorites are the Thin Man Series, Libeled Lady, Love Crazy, and I Love You Again. Obviously, I'm not alone, seeing as they had 13 movies together. Also, them+Asta? True double income, no kids goals.

(I know other people will be saying this but One Must Be Sure). MYRNA LOY and WILLIAM POWELL. From The Thin Man (1934), After the Thin Man (1936), and all the other Thin Man movies etc. They're just so into each other in such an equitable way, they push each others buttons and tease each other while drinking like fishes and solving mysteries and it's REALLY HOT. They both always had a twinkle in their eyes and adorably wrinkled their noses at each other.

Myrna Loy and William Powell, who are both life goals and wife goals simultaneously. The ultimate gender envy couple.

[mariacallous]

In 2024, Americans in eight key states had the opportunity to vote in both a competitive U.S. Senate race and in the presidential contest between President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. While he carried each of those states, many of Trump’s supporters either cast what some call “bullet ballots,” voting only for Trump and no down-ballot candidates, or they split their tickets by voting for the Democratic Senate candidate as well as Trump.

This pattern may have cost the Republicans four additional Senate seats in the upcoming 120th Congress. It helped the Democrats save incumbent senators in Wisconsin and Nevada and elect Democrats to open seats in Michigan and Arizona. Although such voting behavior was not enough to save Democratic incumbents in Ohio and Pennsylvania and defeat a Republican incumbent in Texas, it made the Senate contests in those states far more competitive as well, according to NBC election results and exit polls in each of the states.1

Let’s have a look state-by-state, starting with the states where Democratic Senate candidates won.

Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin was the only Democratic incumbent running for reelection in a battleground state that got more votes than Vice President Harris did in their state. Baldwin’s vote total of 1,672,777 was 4,548 more than Harris received. Meanwhile, in the same election, her Republican opponent Eric Hovde received 96.8% of Trump’s vote total—53,630 fewer votes than Trump. In addition, Baldwin had a 34,031-vote advantage among those who cast a split ticket ballot. Since Sen. Baldwin only won by 28,781 votes (or 0.9 points), those Trump voters who made it to the polls but didn’t vote in the senatorial contest or who voted for Baldwin rather than Hovde cost the GOP an eminently winnable seat in the incoming U.S. Senate.

In Nevada, incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen came close to also exceeding Harris’ vote in her state. Her vote total of 701,105 was 99.4% of Harris’ total vote of 705,197. Her Republican challenger, Sam Brown, only received 677,046 votes, a falloff of almost 10% (9.9%) from Trump’s total of 751,205. At the same time, Rosen received a net 35,536 advantage from ticket splitters who voted for her after voting for Trump. Overall, Sen. Rosen won by 24,059 votes (1.7 points). Once again, the combination of falloff from Trump and ticket splitting unfavorable to the Republican candidate saved the day for a Democratic incumbent and cost the GOP a possible Senate seat.

Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan received 99.1% of Vice President Harris’ vote, about the same minimal falloff from Democratic voters in her contest as Sen. Rosen experienced in Nevada. However, Slotkin’s margin over her Republican challenger, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), was smaller than that of any other Democratic senatorial victor in 2024. Even though Rogers was able to win 95.6% of the votes cast for Trump, that number still represented a 122,956-vote falloff from Trump’s total. In addition, Senator-elect Slotkin benefitted from a 27,887-vote advantage over Rogers from ticket splitters. Together, falloff from Trump supporters and her ticket splitting advantage were just enough to provide Elissa Slotkin with a narrow 19,006 (0.3 point) final vote margin over Mike Rogers.

Reuben Gallego’s Arizona Senate win was perhaps the most impressive of any Democrat in a 2024 battleground state. Gallego’s vote total outpaced the Arizona vote totals of the Democratic presidential nominees in both 2020 and 2024. He received 93,475 votes more than Kamala Harris in 2024 and even 4,192 votes more than Joe Biden did when he carried Arizona in 2020. That enabled Gallego to defeat his election-denying Republican opponent Kari Lake by 80,574 votes (2.4 points). Like the other Democratic senatorial battleground victors, Gallego benefitted from both a substantial falloff among Trump voters and ticket splitting. Only 90.1% of Arizona Trump voters cast a ballot for Kari Lake. In addition, Gallego had an 84,662 net vote advantage among presidential/senatorial ticket splitters. Together, these more than accounted for Gallego’s margin over his GOP opponent. As a result, the Democratic candidate who attended more rodeos, Mexican wrestling matches, and UFC fights than even Donald Trump did in 2024, will be sworn in as the junior senator from Arizona this week.

Turning to the Senate candidates who lost, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) was not as fortunate as the four Democratic candidates who won their senatorial contests. Receiving 3,384,180 votes, he came within 15,115 votes of his Republican opponent David McCormick, who was defeated by Dr. Mehmet Oz in the 2022 Republican senatorial primary. Casey fell just short of reelection even though he got 98.9% of the vote Vice President Harris did in the Keystone State. McCormick received 144,013 fewer votes than Trump did. Of that number, 67,720, were Trump voters who split their ticket to support Casey, who had been elected to statewide office in Pennsylvania before he served three terms in the Senate. But Trump’s margin over Harris in Pennsylvania of just over 120,000 votes was too much for Casey to overcome.

Despite serving in the Senate for as long as Casey, another incumbent Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, also lost his reelection bid. Brown’s vote total was 108,669 votes (106%) greater than Vice President Harris’ in Ohio and only about 28,000 fewer votes than President Biden received in the state in 2020. His opponent, Senator-elect Bernie Moreno, suffered the greatest vote difference from President-elect Trump’s total (322,733 or 89.6% of Trump’s vote) of any Republican senatorial candidate in the eight key state contests examined. As was the case elsewhere, a lot of that difference was due to Trump voters who split their ticket to vote for the three-term Democratic incumbent (212,076), but the overall Republican strength in Ohio was too much for Brown to overcome in 2024, and he lost by 206,434 votes.

Although the candidacies of former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred in Texas and Debbie Murcarsel-Powell in Florida won enthusiastic support from Democratic donors across the country, the strength of President-elect Trump’s support in these two states was too much for either of them to overcome in their bids for a Senate seat. Allred’s effort was the strongest. In a state in which Donald Trump received almost 6.4 million votes (56%), Allred’s vote total exceeded that of Harris by almost 200,000 votes. Meanwhile, Allred’s unpopular Republican opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, failed to win the votes of more than 400,000 Trump voters in Texas. Allred benefitted from a net advantage among ticket splitters of more than 240,000 votes. But, in strongly Republican Texas, all that accomplished was to hold Cruz’s margin of victory over Allred to less than a million votes (959,492).

In Florida, while GOP incumbent Sen. Rick Scott received 132,419 fewer votes than Donald Trump, Debbie Murcarsel-Powell still received nearly 80,000 votes less than Kamala Harris. In addition, Murcarsel-Powell was the only Democratic Senate nominee in the eight key states to operate at a net disadvantage of 22,705 votes among ticket splitters. In the end, Murcarsel-Powell lost to Scott by well over a million votes (1,374,629).

What happened in the 2024 Senate elections demonstrates the challenges facing each party in the future. Republicans are in danger of becoming a “cult of personality” built around Donald Trump, who, at least according to the Constitution, will never be on the ballot again. But the Democratic Party cannot count on a lower Republican voter turnout when Trump isn’t on the ballot to win back the White House and a majority of the Senate in the future. Democrats will need to enhance turnout levels more consistently, expand beyond their current voter core, and do an even better job of persuading Republicans to split their tickets for Democratic candidates they have come to know and like if they hope to avoid another election disappointment in the future.

[dailyanarchistposts]

J.5.1 What is community unionism?

Community unionism is our term for the process of creating participatory communities (called “communes” in classical anarchism) within the current society in order to transform it.

Basically, a community union is the creation of interested members of a community who decide to form an organisation to fight against injustice and improvements locally. It is a forum by which inhabitants can raise issues that affect themselves and others and provide a means of solving these problems. As such, it is a means of directly involving local people in the life of their own communities and collectively solving the problems facing them as both individuals and as part of a wider society. In this way, local people take part in deciding what effects them and their community and create a self-managed “dual power” to the local and national state. They also, by taking part in self-managed community assemblies, develop their ability to participate and manage their own affairs, so showing that the state is unnecessary and harmful to their interests. Politics, therefore, is not separated into a specialised activity that only certain people do (i.e. politicians). Instead, it becomes communalised and part of everyday life and in the hands of all.

As would be imagined, like the participatory communities that would exist in an anarchist society (see section I.5), the community union would be based upon a mass assembly of its members. Here would be discussed the issues that effect the membership and how to solve them. Thus issues like rent increases, school closures, rising cost of living, taxation, cuts and state-imposed “reforms” to the nature and quality of public services, utilities and resources, repressive laws and so on could be debated and action taken to combat them. Like the communes of a future anarchy, these community unions would be confederated with other unions in different areas in order to co-ordinate joint activity and solve common problems. These confederations would be based upon self-management, mandated and recallable delegates and the creation of administrative action committees to see that the memberships decisions are carried out.

The community union could also raise funds for strikes and other social protests, organise pickets, boycotts and generally aid others in struggle. By organising their own forms of direct action (such as tax and rent strikes, environmental protests and so on) they can weaken the state while building an self-managed infrastructure of co-operatives to replace the useful functions the state or capitalist firms currently provide. So, in addition to organising resistance to the state and capitalist firms, these community unions could play an important role in creating an alternative economy within capitalism. For example, such unions could have a mutual bank or credit union associated with them which could allow funds to be gathered for the creation of self-managed co-operatives and social services and centres. In this way a communalised co-operative sector could develop, along with a communal confederation of community unions and their co-operative banks.

Such community unions have been formed in many different countries in recent years to fight against numerous attacks on the working class. In the late 1980s and early 1990s groups were created in neighbourhoods across Britain to organise non-payment of the Conservative government’s Community Charge (popularly known as the poll tax, this tax was independent on income and was based on the electoral register). Federations of these groups were created to co-ordinate the struggle and pull resources and, in the end, ensured that the government withdrew the hated tax and helped push Thatcher out of government. In Ireland, similar groups were formed to defeat the privatisation of the water industry by a similar non-payment campaign in the mid-1990s.

However, few of these groups have been taken as part of a wider strategy to empower the local community but the few that have indicate the potential of such a strategy. This potential can be seen from two examples of libertarian community organising in Europe, one in Italy and another in Spain, while the neighbourhood assemblies in Argentina show that such popular self-government can and does develop spontaneously in struggle.

In Southern Italy, anarchists organised a very successful Municipal Federation of the Base (FMB) in Spezzano Albanese. This organisation, in the words of one activist, is “an alternative to the power of the town hall” and provides a “glimpse of what a future libertarian society could be.” Its aim is “the bringing together of all interests within the district. In intervening at a municipal level, we become involved not only in the world of work but also the life of the community … the FMB make counter proposals [to Town Hall decisions], which aren’t presented to the Council but proposed for discussion in the area to raise people’s level of consciousness. Whether they like it or not the Town Hall is obliged to take account of these proposals.” In addition, the FMB also supports co-operatives within it, so creating a communalised, self-managed economic sector within capitalism. Such a development helps to reduce the problems facing isolated co-operatives in a capitalist economy — see section J.5.11 — and was actively done in order to “seek to bring together all the currents, all the problems and contradictions, to seek solutions” to such problems facing co-operatives. [“Community Organising in Southern Italy”, pp. 16–19, Black Flag, no. 210, p. 17 and p. 18]

Elsewhere in Europe, the long, hard work of the C.N.T. in Spain has also resulted in mass village assemblies being created in the Puerto Real area, near Cadiz. These community assemblies came about to support an industrial struggle by shipyard workers. One C.N.T. member explains: “Every Thursday of every week, in the towns and villages in the area, we had all-village assemblies where anyone connected with the particular issue [of the rationalisation of the shipyards], whether they were actually workers in the shipyard itself, or women or children or grandparents, could go along … and actually vote and take part in the decision making process of what was going to take place.” With such popular input and support, the shipyard workers won their struggle. However, the assembly continued after the strike and “managed to link together twelve different organisations within the local area that are all interested in fighting … various aspects” of capitalism including health, taxation, economic, ecological and cultural issues. Moreover, the struggle “created a structure which was very different from the kind of structure of political parties, where the decisions are made at the top and they filter down. What we managed to do in Puerto Real was make decisions at the base and take them upwards.” [Anarcho-Syndicalism in Puerto Real: from shipyard resistance to direct democracy and community control, p. 6]

More recently, the December 2001 revolt against neo-liberalism in Argentina saw hundreds of neighbourhood assemblies created across the country. These quickly federated into inter-barrial assemblies to co-ordinate struggles. The assemblies occupied buildings, created communal projects like popular kitchens, community centres, day-care centres and built links with occupied workplaces. As one participant put it: “The initial vocabulary was simply: Let’s do things for ourselves, and do them right. Let’s decide for ourselves. Let’s decide democratically, and if we do, then let’s explicitly agree that we’re all equals here, that there are no bosses … We lead ourselves. We lead together. We lead and decide amongst ourselves … no one invented it … It just happened. We met one another on the corner and decided, enough! … Let’s invent new organisational forms and reinvent society.” Another notes that this was people who “begin to solve problems themselves, without turning to the institutions that caused the problems in the first place.” The neighbourhood assemblies ended a system in which “we elected people to make our decisions for us … now we will make our own decisions.” While the “anarchist movement has been talking about these ideas for years” the movement took them up “from necessity.” [Marina Sitrin (ed.), Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina, p. 41 and pp. 38–9]

The idea of community organising has long existed within anarchism. Kropotkin pointed to the directly democratic assemblies of Paris during the French Revolution> These were “constituted as so many mediums of popular administration, it remained of the people, and this is what made the revolutionary power of these organisations.” This ensured that the local revolutionary councils “which sprang from the popular movement was not separated from the people.” In this popular self-organisation “the masses, accustoming themselves to act without receiving orders from the national representatives, were practising what was described later on as Direct Self-Government.” These assemblies federated to co-ordinate joint activity but it was based on their permanence: “that is, the possibility of calling the general assembly whenever it was wanted by the members of the section and of discussing everything in the general assembly.” In short, “the Commune of Paris was not to be a governed State, but a people governing itself directly — when possible — without intermediaries, without masters” and so “the principles of anarchism … had their origin, not in theoretic speculations, but in the deeds of the Great French Revolution.” This “laid the foundations of a new, free, social organisation”and Kropotkin predicted that “the libertarians would no doubt do the same to-day.” [Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 201, p. 203, pp. 210–1, p. 210, p. 204 and p. 206]

In Chile during 1925 “a grass roots movement of great significance emerged,” the tenant leagues (ligas do arrendatarios). The movement pledged to pay half their rent beginning the 1st of February, 1925, at huge public rallies (it should also be noted that “Anarchist labour unionists had formed previous ligas do arrendatarios in 1907 and 1914.”). The tenants leagues were organised by ward and federated into a city-wide council. It was a vast organisation, with 12,000 tenants in just one ward of Santiago alone. The movement also “press[ed] for a law which would legally recognise the lower rents they had begun paying .. . the leagues voted to declare a general strike … should a rent law not be passed.” The government gave in, although the landlords tried to get around it and, in response, on April 8th “the anarchists in Santiago led a general strike in support of the universal rent reduction of 50 percent.” Official figures showed that rents “fell sharply during 1915, due in part to the rent strikes” and for the anarchists “the tenant league movement had been the first step toward a new social order in Chile.” [Peter DeShazo, Urban Workers and Labor Unions in Chile 1902–1927, p. 223, p. 327, p. 223, p. 225 and p. 226] As one Anarchist newspaper put it:

“This movement since its first moments had been essentially revolutionary. The tactics of direct action were preached by libertarians with highly successful results, because they managed to instil in the working classes the idea that if landlords would not accept the 50 percent lowering of rents, they should pay nothing at all. In libertarian terms, this is the same as taking possession of common property. It completes the first stage of what will become a social revolution.” [quoted by DeShazo, Op. Cit., p. 226]

A similar concern for community organising and struggle was expressed in Spain. While the collectives during the revolution are well known, the CNT had long organised in the community and around non-workplace issues. As well as neighbourhood based defence committees to organise and co-ordinate struggles and insurrections, the CNT organised various community based struggles. The most famous example of this must be the rent strikes during the early 1930s in Barcelona. In 1931, the CNT’s Construction Union organised a “Economic Defence Commission” to organise against high rents and lack of affordable housing. Its basic demand was for a 40% rent decrease but it also addressed unemployment and the cost of food. The campaign was launched by a mass meeting on May 1st, 1931. A series of meetings were held in the various working class neighbourhoods of Barcelona and in surrounding suburbs. This culminated in a mass meeting held at the Palace of Fine Arts on July 5th which raised a series of demands for the movement. By July, 45,000 people were taking part in the rent strike and this rose to over 100,000 by August. As well as refusing to pay rent, families were placed back into their homes from which they had been evicted. The movement spread to a number of the outlying towns which set up their own Economic Defence Commissions. The local groups co-ordinated actions their actions out of CNT union halls or local libertarian community centres. The movement faced increased state repression but in many parts of Barcelona landlords had been forced to come to terms with their tenants, agreeing to reduced rents rather than facing the prospect of having no income for an extended period or the landlord simply agreed to forget the unpaid rents from the period of the rent strike. [Nick Rider, “The Practice of Direct Action: the Barcelona rent strike of 1931”, For Anarchism, David Goodway (ed.), pp. 79–105] As Abel Paz summarised:

“Unemployed workers did not receive or ask for state aid … The workers’ first response to the economic crisis was the rent, gas, and electricity strike in mid-1933, which the CNT and FAI’s Economic Defence Committee had been laying the foundations for since 1931. Likewise, house, street, and neighbourhood groups began to turn out en masse to stop evictions and other coercive acts ordered by the landlords (always with police support). The people were constantly mobilised. Women and youngsters were particularly active; it was they who challenged the police and stopped the endless evictions.” [Durrutu in the Spanish Revolution, p. 308]

In Gijon, the CNT “reinforced its populist image by … its direct consumer campaigns. Some of these were organised through the federation’s Anti-Unemployment Committee, which sponsored numerous rallies and marches in favour of ‘bread and work.’ While they focused on the issue of jobs, they also addressed more general concerns about the cost of living for poor families. In a May 1933 rally, for example, demonstrators asked that families of unemployed workers not be evicted from their homes, even if they fell behind on the rent.” The “organisers made the connections between home and work and tried to draw the entire family into the struggle.” However, the CNT’s “most concerted attempt to bring in the larger community was the formation of a new syndicate, in the spring of 1932, for the Defence of Public Interests (SDIP). In contrast to a conventional union, which comprised groups of workers, the SDIP was organised through neighbourhood committees. Its specific purpose was to enforce a generous renters’ rights law of December 1931 that had not been vigorously implemented. Following anarchosyndicalist strategy, the SDIP utilised various forms of direct action, from rent strikes, to mass demonstrations, to the reversal of evictions.” This last action involved the local SDIP group going to a home, breaking the judge’s official eviction seal and carrying the furniture back in from the street. They left their own sign: ”opened by order of the CNT.” The CNT’s direct action strategies “helped keep political discourse in the street, and encouraged people to pursue the same extra-legal channels of activism that they had developed under the monarchy.” [Pamela Beth Radcliff, From mobilization to civil war, pp. 287–288 and p. 289]

In these ways, grassroots movements from below were created, with direct democracy and participation becoming an inherent part of a local political culture of resistance, with people deciding things for themselves directly and without hierarchy. Such developments are the embryonic structures of a world based around participation and self-management, with a strong and dynamic community life. For, as Martin Buber argued, ”[t]he more a human group lets itself be represented in the management of its common affairs … the less communal life there is in it and the more impoverished it becomes as a community.” [Paths in Utopia, p. 133]

Anarchist support and encouragement of community unionism, by creating the means for communal self-management, helps to enrich the community as well as creating the organisational forms required to resist the state and capitalism. In this way we build the anti-state which will (hopefully) replace the state. Moreover, the combination of community unionism with workplace assemblies (as in Puerto Real), provides a mutual support network which can be very effective in helping winning struggles. For example, in Glasgow, Scotland in 1916, a massive rent strike was finally won when workers came out in strike in support of the rent strikers who been arrested for non-payment. Such developments indicate that Isaac Puente was correct:

“Libertarian Communism is a society organised without the state and without private ownership. And there is no need to invent anything or conjure up some new organisation for the purpose. The centres about which life in the future will be organised are already with us in the society of today: the free union and the free municipality [or Commune]. ”The union: in it combine spontaneously the workers from factories and all places of collective exploitation. “And the free municipality: an assembly … where, again in spontaneity, inhabitants … combine together, and which points the way to the solution of problems in social life … “Both kinds of organisation, run on federal and democratic principles, will be sovereign in their decision making, without being beholden to any higher body, their only obligation being to federate one with another as dictated by the economic requirement for liaison and communications bodies organised in industrial federations. “The union and the free municipality will assume the collective or common ownership of everything which is under private ownership at present [but collectively used] and will regulate production and consumption (in a word, the economy) in each locality.

“The very bringing together of the two terms (communism and libertarian) is indicative in itself of the fusion of two ideas: one of them is collectivist, tending to bring about harmony in the whole through the contributions and co-operation of individuals, without undermining their independence in any way; while the other is individualist, seeking to reassure the individual that his independence will be respected.” [Libertarian Communism, pp. 6–7]

The combination of community unionism, along with industrial unionism (see next section), will be the key to creating an anarchist society, Community unionism, by creating the free commune within the state, allows us to become accustomed to managing our own affairs and seeing that an injury to one is an injury to all. In this way a social power is created in opposition to the state. The town council may still be in the hands of politicians, but neither they nor the central government would be able to move without worrying about what the people’s reaction might be, as expressed and organised in their community assemblies and federations.

[mightyflamethrower]

Harvard has refused to accept the orders of a Trump administration commission concerning its chronic problems with anti-Semitism, campus violence, and racial tribalism, bias, and segregation.

Yet, unlike some conservative campuses that distrust an overbearing Washington, Harvard and most elite schools like it want it both ways. They do as they please on their own turf and yet still demand that the taxpayers send them multibillion-dollar checks in addition to their multibillion-dollar private incomes.

Aside from the issues of autonomy and free expression, there are lots of campus practices that higher education would prefer were not widely known to the public.

But soon they will be, and thus will become sources of public anger. Perhaps envision elite private colleges as mossy rocks, which seem outwardly picturesque—until you turn them over and see what crawls beneath.

So, if there are protracted standoffs, our elite campuses will be hard-pressed to defend the indefensible. This effort will be difficult because public confidence in higher education has already plummeted to historic lows in the most recent polls.

In Amerispeak public surveys, those expressing very little confidence or none at all in higher education have soared to about 30 percent of respondents, while those polling only “some” confidence rose to 40%.

Polls show that less than a third of Americans have quite a lot of confidence in our college campuses.

No wonder: Over the past half-century, tuition has generally risen at twice the rate of inflation. In part, that price-gouging became standard because federal aid to our most prestigious schools has skyrocketed, hand-in-glove with the federalized student loan program. It has become a $1.7 trillion entity in which the combined rate of both those students who defaulted on their guaranteed loans or are currently late on payments is nearing 12-13 percent. In sum, colleges counted on an ensured stream of tuition money and so raised their prices inordinately, given federal guarantees.

Note that small private Hillsdale College, which takes no federal money and is the guarantor of its own generous student aid, charges about $45,000-50,000 for combined tuition, room, and board—about half the going rate in the Ivy League and similar elite campuses.

Half the youth of the country who choose to go straight to work and not attend college might object to such use of their tax dollars. They would assume that universities with multibillion-dollar endowments and huge annual incomes have plenty of resources to guarantee their own student loans. That way, campuses would have a financial interest in seeing their own students graduate in four years, get jobs, and pay back their alma mater promptly and fully. Instead, as long as universities are paid upfront, they seem to care little that their graduates leave heavily in debt and occasionally default on their loans.

There is almost no intellectual diversity on campus.

Some recent studies have found Democrat/liberal professors outnumber their Republican/conservative counterparts by a 10-1 margin, especially in the social sciences and humanities. There are plenty of conservative PhDs on the market, but higher education has used insidious methods such as diversity oaths and covert political bias to find ways not to hire or retain them.

Colleges no longer believe in their ancient mission to teach students the ancient, disinterested, and inductive method of pursuing knowledge. Nor do they care much that their graduates leave college without a broad classical education in history, literature, language, philosophy, science, and math. Instead, they are missionaries who believe their duty is to indoctrinate youth in progressive ideology, found mostly in studies courses and deductive classes, as part of a greater project to fundamentally alter the nature of the United States.

The Supreme Court in a recent case ruled against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, stating that their use of racial and gender bias is illegal under the 14th Amendment and thus affirmative action and associated racial essentialism are forbidden.

Yet, many of our campuses simply rebrand their offices of “diversity/equity/inclusion” —the campus euphemism for using race and gender bias in applications, hiring, retention, and promotion—with newer Orwellian names like the “Office of Belonging” or “Community Outreach.” Universities are higher education’s version of sanctuary cities that likewise cavalierly believe they can largely ignore federal laws with impunity.

For example, it’s illegal to segregate university events or facilities by race. But universities sidestep the law by offering race-based graduation ceremonies as “auxiliary” or “additional” events and commemorations. Racially segregated dorms are deemed “theme” houses open to all but de facto widely known as racially exclusive. If the so-called “white” minority at Stanford—some 22 percent of the student body—opted for an “extra” white graduation ceremony, theoretically open to all students, the university would—and should—shut it down promptly.

In business and private entities, “overhead deductions” or “surcharges” usually run from 10 to 20 percent. But elite private universities charge the federal government for their faculty research grants, often between 40 and 60 percent. Apparently, they operate on the principle that their supposedly prestigious brands deserve private exemption from gouging the government.

Over the past few decades, foreign governments, without audit, have poured some $60 billion into America’s purportedly most prestigious universities. Communist China and illiberal Qatar alone gave $500 million last year. And they expect and receive something for their ideologically driven investments.

The Department of Education during the first Trump administration fined many campuses millions of dollars for not reporting these often quid pro quo gifts. If one wonders why hundreds of thousands of foreign students from dictatorial and often anti-American nations like China and Middle Eastern autocracies prove instrumental in growing anti-American and anti-Israel protests, then follow the money that funds professorships and programs sympathetic to these agendas.

The Bill of Rights and its later amendments apply to everyone everywhere in the United States. But these laws are especially operative on those entities that take federal government money and, by doing so, forfeit some of their operational autonomy.

Yet disruptions of invited lecturers who are conservative, pro-Israeli, pro-life, or who question biological males competing in female sports are commonplace on campus.

Usually, when an invited conservative federal judge, a Republican officeholder, a traditionalist activist, or a professor deemed not conservative is shouted down, or the lecture hall is swarmed with disruptive and sometimes violent student protestors, campus administrators issue pro forma stern statements about “not tolerating violations of free speech.”

And then, they do nothing.

Most campus officials either empathize with the spirit or the ideology of the disrupters. Or they are far more afraid of their own radical professors and students than they are of the federal government cutting off their funding for refusing to guarantee First Amendment protections. Harvard arguing for federal funds on the principle of protecting the First Amendment is adding insult to the serial injury it has done to free speech.

More cynically, most campus administrators assume that if conservative pro-life students ever swarmed a pro-abortion lecturer, or Jewish students ransacked a Middle East Studies classroom or chased and then trapped foreign students in a library, then they would likely be summarily expelled. Most naturally assume that universities’ selective timidity and laxity are ideologically and politically driven.

There is no guarantee of due process on campus, as understood under the Bill of Rights. Students or faculty who are accused of particular hot-button “crimes,” such as sexual harassment or “hate speech,” are often denied the right to know their accusers or to have an open hearing with legal counsel before a disinterested panel of judges.

The wronged have little redress of grievance except to use the public court system to intervene to force the university to follow the law.

The best-kept secret of our marquee universities is a radical fall-off in standards as once defined by their own, once much ballyhooed, tough requirements. Our best universities customarily now ensure that 70-80 percent of students in their classes receive A’s.

Prestigious campuses, like Harvard and Stanford, have recently introduced remedial math classes. Privately, the supposedly most demanding campuses know that their prior non-meritocratic admissions have resulted in thousands of students who enter college without the high-school preparation necessary to meet their own past traditional university requirements.

Conservative, Jewish, and religious families now doubt whether their offspring would be treated equitably or would receive a first-rate education commensurate with the four-year total $400,000 cost, or are even now safe.

When pressed, universities usually point to their professional and graduate schools in medicine, engineering, math, science, and business as integral to American prosperity. True, they are. But to the degree they are, it is likely because they have either resisted university orthodoxy or were never as politicized as the social sciences and humanities, or are already being weaponized, albeit more slowly.

If universities were smart, they would accept federal conditions to follow the law and protect the safety and interests of their own students.

That way, they would restore their academic rigor and reputations, regain public support, and enhance meritocracy, the key to their former excellence. But even if their officials are either too partisan or timid to change, they could always publicly report to their radical faculties and students that they were “forced” to comply with conditions that they might privately accept were certainly in their own interests.

Otherwise, at the present rate, employers, parents, and the public will make the necessary adjustments, and the brands once deemed the gold standard and prestigious will become mere dross.

[vintagetvstars]

Queen of the Graveyard slot poll incoming in the next hour or two!

If your fav went out in Round 1 here is your chance to vote for them again and decide who from Round 1 should reign supreme over our graveyard hour tv marathon of all the fabulous ladies who were gone too soon from the competition but certainly not forgotten, just broadcasting at a time most inconvenient.

Also in the chance of a 50/50 tie in any of the polls remaining in the competition, the Queen of the Graveyard Slot will have a chance to reenter the competition in a tie breaker poll consisting of the two ladies stuck in the 50/50 with the addition of the reigning Queen of the Graveyard slot (who knows maybe later round losers will have the chance to steal the crown in order to have the slim chance of reentering the competition).