#democracy lives another day

[artcalledwrap]

All Mixed UP and White? With’in the (.on my phone I write white on black)

The correlations may become lost from Tiger figures, ohh Pisces just born right after lunch time on that day overwhelmingly bodies keep it apparent

Skin pull

Face lift

(The sex trade is billions of dollars)

I can’t afford it or know the places for such, in Hollywood-Politicians-bigTimeMONEYfame or as simple as a Truck Driver in todays time

If not it’s a higher up issue!

Those who afford

Can pay the hearts desire’s

I don’t know a Pimp

Don’t comic!

Give dna explain yourself

Come on Man, I said to Trump!

I haven’t watched your video

A snippet

But captured my imaginations

We speak connected together

Oh La La La

And in peaches

Character routines

I move shown mine!

I’m no black widow

More Wolf jumping Spider as my DNA

Explains explained

Ex-open

And a finger until

Dead dogs don’t exist!

Ask Kan-

O yea

Experience overrated over ramped

Or here in new

Was it under Roe vs Wade

That was lost

I’m looking forward

To critic whole episode

Fraggle under Rocks

Probably more red then told

Republican

You pulled my feathers

Dottted blue

And the lemons

Honkies

Niggas

Spics and other segments

I’m nut co co nut

On the inside

Branches out fools

From soil all reversed

To be Offended

Heathen ms wetback ching’s and this roster

When we glance at TV and all what ever names you are called

The whole World Wide Web problem

Are the Leaders

We Globe together better

When

From Country to a World

Can Lead

And Move Progress

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He doesn’t even talk of…….

Reinforcing wanting more Military

It’s a Failed Business

Like an Apprentice Episode

He don’t have not giving

Politically of World

Or In Country

Sssshhhhhh!

I’m a mixed up American

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Fucker

My symbol

Spit punk bitch all call words from all over the races

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Can you gleek from tongue

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You human problem

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Democrats

Helping you along

Ass tards is that a word

I heard it once

Shirt

Not mooned and wolve-d

Tiger dots and black long sleeved

Sometimes black t-shirt and arms exposed

In colors of a splash

Innit ya all

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We gain from in provided histories

Just as in the reast REST of the World

Racism inEquality Segregation Tactics

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[snekdood]

rn you can protest under biden. idk if you'll get that same luxury under trump.

[simply-ivanka]

PLEASE REPOST

This is who Tim Walz is.

“Let’s see how weird the Democrats’ new leadership is:

It’s weird that Walz mandated tampons in boys’ bathrooms in Minnesota schools.

It’s weird for the party that promotes itself as the guardian of democracy to install its leaders without an election.

It’s weird that Walz dawdled for three days while Minneapolis burned before calling in the National Guard during 2020’s BLM-antifa riots.

He abandoned the city’s Third Precinct police headquarters when it was overrun and set ablaze.

Walz explained his weird lack of action as a desire not to be “oppressive” to the rioters who had suffered “generations of pain” and “fundamental, institutional racism.”

It’s weird that Walz’s wife kept the windows open “as long as I could” during the riots so she could “smell the burning tires” and savor the historic moment.

It’s weird that Walz let his then-19-year-old daughter leak the National Guard’s deployment plans on Twitter so rioters knew they could keep destroying Minneapolis.

It’s weird that Harris and Walz base their campaign on “freedom” yet he was the most authoritarian governor in the country during the pandemic, ruling by decree for 15 months, enforcing draconian shutdown orders, mask mandates and curfews.

It’s weird that Walz tells Republicans to “mind your own damn business” when he created a COVID telephone “snitch line” so that people could inform on their neighbors who breached his draconian COVID restrictions.

It’s weird that Walz defended censorship of COVID dissenters by telling MSNBC: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech especially around our democracy.”

It’s weird that Walz signed laws allowing teenagers to be sterilized and genitally mutilated without parental consent and called it “gender-affirming care.”

It’s weird that Walz signed into law a new definition of “sexual orientation” that deleted an exemption against pedophilia.

It’s weird that Walz has turned Minnesota into a “trans refuge” with a law that removes children from parents who don’t agree to their kids’ sex-change surgery and hormone treatment.

Even transgender Minnesota state Rep. Leigh Finke called the bill “beautifully weird.”

It’s weird that Walz has turned Minnesota into an “abortion mecca” with no time limit up to the moment of birth and sometimes beyond, and no requirement that minors inform their parents.

It’s weird that Walz is presented as the epitome of decency and “Minnesota nice” and yet the first time he spoke to the nation, he peddled a smutty sex joke about Vance and a couch cushion made up by the bottom feeders of internet trolling.

It’s weird that Walz has visited China about 30 times, including spending his honeymoon there.

“No matter how long I live, I’ll never be treated that well again,” he said after his first visit in 1990.

“They gave me more gifts than I could bring home.” He should compare notes with the Bidens.

It’s weird that Walz and his wife, Gwen, chose June 4 as their wedding date to commemorate the bloody anniversary of China’s brutal crackdown on democracy protesters in China’s Tiananmen Square.

“He wanted to have a date he’ll always remember,” said Gwen.

It’s weird that Walz quit the National Guard when he was about to be deployed to Iraq, then told everyone he had gone to war.

It’s weird that Walz said he wanted to provide ladders to illegal migrants so they could climb over Trump’s border wall.

It’s weird that Waltz says, “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”

It’s weird that Harris and Walz claim they are defending “democracy” but he signed a law to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, the first step to voting ­illegally in elections.

It’s weird that Walz criticizes Trump for his record on law and order when crime in Minneapolis has soared on his watch.

It’s weird that he poses as a “folksy,” common-sense working man with “Midwestern dad vibes” who hunts and wears camo caps.

Yet he governs like a crazed, green-haired radical, with taxes among the highest in the country and residents fleeing the state as fast as they can.

It’s weird that Walz is a teacher married to a teacher, the son of a teacher and claims education is a priority, yet on his watch, Minnesota students’ average reading and math scores have plummeted to below the national average, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Despite record spending, for the first time majorities of K-12 students are not meeting grade-level standards, finds the Minnesota Center of the American Experiment.

Minnesota’s CNBC education ranking has dropped from fifth to 19th place in the country since he became ­governor.

It’s weird that Harris has not done a single interview since being appointed the presumptive Democratic nominee for president more than two weeks ago.

It’s weird that she laughs at her own jokes.

In psychology, attributing your own flaws to others is called projection, and Walz and Harris have a bad case of weird.”

[hazeltongzhi]

If morality isn't important, why should anyone care about feeding children, stopping fascism, and fighting imperialism?

Because its materially beneficial. Nothing about the proleterian program is built on morality because morality is shaped by the material base of a society and reinforced by its superstructure. It's an awkward middle-man that fails to adequately address or explain material phenomenon.

When you are pushed to the brink, do you care about some moral framework? If you have to steal to live another day, is it the vague rules of morality feed you? You steal, not because you hate morality, but because you will waste away if you dont. Because of how easy it is to simply ignore, reshape, and justify action under some moral code or another, it is a useless tool for analyzing, explaining, and directing action. Instead, you find that the drivers of action are material needs and material conditions. Morality forms based on those needs and conditions and are shaped for each class as such.

Under liberal democracy, morality is centered on profit and exploitation. It is moral to have private property rights and to ensure them. It is moral to exploit workers for profit. Therefore, the imperialist west carries out genocide and invasion in pursuit of profit with no serious moral qualms. For another example, effective altruism is a philosophy more or less based on continuing the status quo and allowing for the accumulation of massive profits under the guise of "saving the future" (highly reductive but it is a philosophy for the bourgeoisie for a reason). Bourgeoisie morality is highly individualistic and selfish and it is so because it fulfills their material interests.

Proletarians, however, favor a collective morality that puts the community and others above themselves. This makes sense since, to survive, the proletarians must band together and protect their material interests. So, as a result, you see proletarian moral codes align to protect the group interests, e.g. favoring the socialist mode of production, "from each according to his abilities to each accoeding to his need", and etc..

Discussions on morality hides and obfuscates the real drivers of action, materialism, under a vague cooud of rules and philosophies which do not greatly contribute to real human actions. Therefore, such discussions are useless in a scientific analysis of society nor in prescribing actions for classes.

[kcrabb88]

One thing that's clarified for me a few days after the Acolyte finale is the immense mismatch in the tone of Quimir's character post episode 5. In that episode we see him slaughter a bunch of highly competent Jedi, including a teenage girl who he refers to as "it." It was SCARY. I was scared. He pretended he was a kind of silly guy at first and then he was actually this monster beneath. After that episode, though, he just kind of ... was there. Sure he fought Sol, but he got his ass kicked. He was suddenly in a dark romance novel bathing naked and making big puppy eyes at Osha. That's not?? What I want from a Sith character in this time period? Manny Jacinto was amazing at being terrifying! Just let him!

The Sith of this time period were the line of Darth Bane. Right now, Tenebrous and Plagueis are out there with their piles of money quietly influencing galactic events and undermining the Republic and the Jedi by working with THE worse people you know to make conditions in the Outer Rim and other similar areas of the galaxy worse. They're like, the Peter Thiel of Star Wars, slowly making democracy crumble from a back room and creating so many problems that the good people in the senate and the Jedi are running around trying to fix those because they CARE. Like! In the Legends novel, Plagueis is out there medically experimenting on living beings to try and extend his own life. He force tricked another kid into throwing himself out of a window when he was like, five.

The Sith aren't Sith because a Jedi made a mistake once. The Sith of this period are enacting a 1,000 year plan of revenge because the Jedi took their power and their empire away from them. Like, that's just Lucas worldbuilding. The ability to make the Naboo blockade happen was because of centuries of dark influence. When a Jedi falls to the dark side, they don't have this "grand plan of the Sith" in mind. It's a different situation, and many of them return to the light. Anakin didn't fall because he wanted the glory of the Sith, he fell out of fear and did terrible things as a result. He came back (after the atrocities, yes, but he did). Quinlan fell for a short while desperately trying to take DOWN the Sith (both in legends and canon) so again, not a glory of the Sith thing, and he came back really fast. Even Dooku was never a Sith's Sith. He did awful stuff, but the Sith thing was more of an avenue for his arrogance in thinking he could replace the Republic with corporate power and that would fix everything.

But the line of Darth Bane? Those guys are fucken EVIL. They want to be evil. They were always evil. Palpatine is the culmination of a thousand years of planning, and he kills his own master to ensure he keeps it for himself--the ultimate show of being a Sith, honestly.

Anyway, I guess THAT is the show I thought I was going to get, full of political intrigue and the slow seep of darkness that connects to the prequels. But that's not what it was at all.

[contemplatingoutlander]

The Editorial Board of the nonprofit Philadelphia Inquirer wrote the kind of column that SHOULD have been written after the debate by major mainstream media news sites--but which wasn't. Yes, it is understandable that many pundits think that Biden should step down after the first debate, but why weren't there also pundits demanding that Trump step down? Fortunately, The Philadelphia Inquirer did so. Here are some excerpts:

President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race. But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office. In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump. Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that? To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America. Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a “failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.” [...] Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world. Trump’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.” After scheming to overturn the 2020 election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins. The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage. [...] Yes, Biden had a horrible night. He’s 81 and not as sharp as he used to be. But Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best. Biden must show that he is up to the job. This much is clear: He has a substantive record of real accomplishments, fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable. [...] There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be. [color emphasis added]

I highly recommend that you read the entire editorial.

Although it looks like Biden might be suffering from some cognitive issues related to aging, Trump has alarmed experts by some of his own cognitive slipups during rallies. Just because Trump didn't show those issues during the debate, does not mean they don't exist, since cognitive slipups can come and go in the early stages of cognitive decline.

Regardless, as The Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out, Trump's debate performance was built on lies, and his hate-filled talking points did not bolster confidence in the agenda he might pursue in a second presidency. Trump's childish behavior towards Biden during the debate also reportedly contributed to Biden's being distracted.*

______________ *According to Newsweek, Biden told George Stephanopoulos during a recent interview, ""When I realized that even when I was answering the question, when they turned his [Trump's] mic off, he was still shouting, and I let it distract me." That Trump was doing that and the moderators didn't tell him to stop, is troubling. And since Trump's mic was turned off, the viewing audience did not realize it was happening.

[foxqueen-katarian]

Children listen, there is never going to be a perfect candidate. Never. They’ve all done things that you’re going to scrunch your nose at. Every last one of them. They’ll be too old, or too young, or too centrist, or too liberal, or have bad opinions on cops and war and a thousand other things.

You are going to have to get over that.

You are going to have to be the adult in the room.

You don’t have to like it.

We live in a country that has a two party system, and right now and for the foreseeable future those two parties are going to be fascist dictatorship or functional democracy. Those are the only two options. Those. Are. The. Only. Two. Options.

If you want other options you are going to have to work for them. Not once every four years, but every day for the rest of your life. You’re going to have to show up to town meetings, you’re going to have to write your mayor, your governor, your representatives. You’re going to have to show up to elections, all of them. Every single one. Even the ones that don’t effect you, because they will effect you in ways you won’t see until you’re too far past them to try to change them.

And you’re going to have to get comfortable with holding space with people who don’t agree with you 100% of the time.

Because just like there’s never going to be a perfect candidate, there’s never going to be another person who fights and works with you for change who is going to believe what you believe in the same way you do.

There are only two options in November, and not voting isn’t one of them.

[cuubism]

Dream makes Hob Prince Consort in the Dreaming, but does not tell Hob because why would he ever communicate anything. It's just ceremonial anyway. Right? Right.

Anyway Hob lives in blissful ignorance for several years. Sure all the Dreaming denizens are super nice to him but that's just how dreams are, right? It's cool. Nothing weird here.

Then Dream goes missing. Hob's freaking the fuck out -- the last time Dream went missing was fucking Not Good after all -- and as if that wasn't bad enough, Lucienne comes up to him and is like, so... Lord Morpheus left you in charge of the Dreaming in his absence.

Hob: this better be a fucking joke

Lucienne: no, you're prince consort so according to the royal scriptures of the Dreaming you're in charge.

Hob: hang on I'm WHAT so I'm WHAT

Hob: was Dream AWARE of this when he made me consort

Lucienne: *derisive look*

Hob: but I'm just a GUY I can't run a dream realm *shakes fist at absent Dream* my beloved asshole you can't just drop this shit on me oh my GOD

Lucienne: well someone's gotta do it. To be honest I'm still tired from last time.

Hob: well. Uh. *shrugs* guess I'm running the Dreaming now?

----

A year later Dream returns. Hob's been looking for him the whole time but it was kind of fucking difficult when he also had to run a whole REALM.

Turns out Dream was fine he just went on like, a jaunt to another galaxy for dream inspiration and forgot about time dilation in space travel. No big deal. Anyway.

Dream gets back and he's like oops hope Hob hasn't struggled too much, that was only supposed to be three days... lol...

So turns out Hob is not very good at being a King in the way Dream is but he IS very good at just bringing major Dad Energy to all the little dreams and nightmares, just being like the Cool University Professor of the entire Dreaming. So Dream gets back and Hob has managed to befriend EVERYONE in the Dreaming. He's hosting "family dinner" at the palace? He's doing Forums where people can bring their complaints? He instituted set work hours to create work life balance?

Dream is like What In The Democracy Is This. What have you done to my realm.

Hob's like We're Vibing! :) Come on we're having a blast!

And drags Dream to a fucking party going on at the palace? There are drinks? They're doing karaoke? Is Dream having a stroke?

It's all so foreign that he almost calls down a tornado and just obliterates the palace. But Hob pulls him close and makes him dance to the music, and leans in and says, "You know it doesn't have to be all fire and brimstone and seriousness all the time. It's okay to show them you love them."

And Dream is like "I DO love them they're my creations."

And Hob is like, "I know but it's also okay for them to SEE it."

Dream looks around at the ridiculous party. True to Hob's words, the dreams and nightmares look more relaxed and happier than they've been in a while-- at least, when Dream's been around. He wonders what else he doesn't get to see. What they're afraid to show him.

He says, "I went to the Andromeda galaxy for new dream inspiration, but perhaps I should have been looking in you, Hob Gadling."

Hob's like "aw that's sweet-- hang on you went to the WHERE???"

Dream just chuckles and doesn't elaborate, and Hob gives up and pulls him close again, holds him and dances them to the beat of the swing music one of the Music Dreams has just put on. Dream says, "I see that while your leadership skills are... unconventional... I made the right choice in leaving you in charge of the Dreaming."

"Yeah, about that, next time you're gonna spontaneously make me Prime Minister of some place can you let me know in ADVANCE??"

"Well, you wanted fun. Where would the fun be in that?"

[soon-palestine]

In all seriousness, I don’t think Americans understand what’s happening, or how bad it is. Our politicians on every level (presidents, mayors, governors) universities, businesses, and police forces are ignoring their own citizens in favor of another country (Israel).

Understand how wild it is that Israel controls America the way it does. Our country has been captured by a foreign government. How can we even speak of a democracy when another country can get students expelled from school and people fired from their jobs?

The Supreme Court is openly bought off and corrupt. How many times does Clarence Thomas need to be caught up before he gets removed from the bench? Democrats are getting third parties kicked off of ballots. Trump didn’t do this. America’s problems go beyond him.

If what we are seeing at Columbia University, happening in New York, a blue state, were happening in Lynchburg, Virginia, at Liberty University, Liberals would be up in arms about the injustice, and how those students are being treated. The hypocrisy of it all.

Why the fuck do we have police forces that go to a foreign country to train in combat tactics? Who are their combatants, if not every day US citizens? None of this should be happening. Y’all can’t see this shit? This don’t seem fucked up to y’all?

The ADL openly brags about the politicians they get into office! Truly, I feel like I’m the only sober person in a car full of drunk idiots, who are about to drive us over a cliff and kill us all. Y’all are staying loyal to political parties like their sports teams, grow up!

Our entire government regardless of party affiliation, Democrats and Republicans seem to be working harder for, and in defense of another country, over the material needs of the citizens that voted for them, and who’s tax dollars pay their salary. Y’all aren’t mad enough for me.

You can’t afford rent, you don’t have healthcare, your student loans are crippling you, you don’t make living wages, you don’t have guaranteed housing, you have lead filled water, bridges are collapsing, and the politicians that you voted for can’t even pretend to give a fuck.

[nevadancitizen]

-> TO LIVE ANOTHER DAY (I KNOW I NEVER WILL)

synopsis: you've always known that you're a throwaway -- another friendly kill. but when you're brought to ghost's world, you discover that there's so much more to life than defending democracy.

word count: 5.1k

characters: player! simon "ghost" riley, self-aware helldiver! reader

trigger warnings: mentions of canon-typical violence, reader is obsessed with and idolizes ghost, nudity (but not in a sexual/suggestive context)

notes: wanted to try my hand at a reverse version of the self-aware cod au. also if you're not aquantinced with helldivers 2, it's okay! it has easy-to-understand lore but i recommend watching this lore video (it's just under twelve minutes and gives a pretty good run-down on what's going on). also inspired by "to liberty and beyond" by jt music, which is inspired by helldivers 2 in turn (✿˵•́ ૩•̀˵)৴♡*

You always knew something was… off. 

Numerous ads and training modules state that every Helldiver is valuable to the continued reign of Managed Democracy and Super Earth. And yes, you’ve seen more than enough shock soldiers die for the cause – mostly freshly eighteen-year-olds that didn’t read the fine print that states that the minimum enlistment for a Helldiver is ten years. 

But that’s the thing. They died. You watched their bodies be ripped apart by bullets or torn to shreds by terminids. 

You never… died. Not really, anyway. 

It was always a split second of hot-white, searing pain, then a moment of darkness, then you were strapped into a hellpod, being sent down for another wave. Mentions of gods or other types of divine beings weren’t really heard of or taught about, so you didn’t know who to thank – or to blame – for this phenomenon. 

(You tried to mention this to your assigned Democracy Officer, but she just dismissed it with a threat of being sent to a Reeducation Camp.)

So you kept it to yourself. You have a habit of taking your helmet off and bowing your head (In prayer? You’re not so sure) and just breathing, taking in the cool thrum of your heart. You never thought you’d relate to the fascism-fueled automatons, but you only feel the warmth of… your God? your savior? when in the heat of battle.

You always think like this in between being sent down – wandering thoughts while wandering the halls of the ship. There’s not a lot of this type of time, so you make sure to savor it.

You’re in this position right now, looking down at your helmet and thumbing over the imperfections picked up from battle. The void-black visor shows a reflection of you, warped and stretched-out. Above the visor is a skull etched into the titanium – the lines are all jagged edges and uneven depths. You don’t remember doing this, but it’s there anyway. You don’t remember a lot, actually, but you’re, once again, told by your Democracy Officer not to worry about that.

You pick yourself up from that train of thought before you go too far. Instead, you put your helmet back on and start to walk the halls of the ship. 

Once you’re past the armory and terminal, you start down the steps to the sleeping quarters. (Because yes, despite being supersoldiers, Helldivers need their rest, too.) 

But then, you snipe something out of the corner of your eye. There’s… a door. A door you don’t remember being there. Light seeps through the small gap where the bottom of the door and the floor don’t meet. The sight causes the ashes in your belly that have gone cold to stir once more.

Your boots clunk on the ground as you walk over to it. It creaks open, as if inviting you. Again, you never remember having wooden doors that creak on the ship – they’re all automatic sliding metal doors, and open with faint hisses.

You push it open the rest of the way and die.

It’s that all-consuming pain that feels worse than any other time you’ve died – like your skin is being torn off the same time you’re being tarred and feathered. The black isn’t just a flash this time, but a few seconds you can actually count – twelve seconds. Twelve whole seconds. 

Twelve seconds doesn’t sound like a lot, but for you, it was fucking terrifying. 

You thought you actually died. It was almost laughable – you’ve survived automatons and terminids and being in cryo, but you couldn’t survive some mystery door? And all that effort without meeting your… you don’t even know what to call it. Guardian angel? Tormentor?

You wake up and, for the first time, aren’t in a hellpod – instead, you’re in a bed. You can move your arms and legs freely, but they feel… numb. Disconnected. 

When you start to look around, you notice everything is white and sterile. There’s a distinct sharp scent of disinfectant in the air, contrasting the musky gun oil and sweat that you know well. 

(You haven’t ever been in a real hospital – the closest is a small supply closet on-ship that was converted into a first aid station – but you’re pretty sure this is an actual hospital, like the ones back home on Super Earth.)

Your uniform is set on a chair nearby, your black-and-yellow cape draped over the back of it. Your helmet is on the cushion of the seat, facing you. Every piece is… oddly clean. There’s no dark brown dried bloodstains or sickly green bug oil.

With shaky hands (which have never trembled before – at least, not to this degree) you rip out the IV and brace yourself on the railing of the bed before standing. Your legs wobble a bit, but straighten themselves out after a moment. 

You take off the paper hospital gown and dress yourself in proper clothing. All the metal parts of your uniform click into place, and your under-armor fits like it always does – perfectly flush to your skin. 

Just as you’re about to push open the door, a man opens it. You’re stunned for a second before taking him in. He’s tall with a beard that looks like walrus tusks, and is wearing military fatigues you’ve seen in history modules. 

Looking at him causes a dull thrum in your chest, like your heart is picking up again. But it’s not him – he’s not your savior.

“Civilian,” you greet before pushing past him. You wave over your shoulder politely. “Praise be Democracy.”

The man makes a stunned noise before grabbing your shoulder and spinning you to face him. He opens his mouth to talk, but you interrupt him by holding a hand up. 

“Please, no touching the armor, civilian,” you say. “This is the property of the Ministry of Defense, as am I. If you wish to enlist, don’t talk to me, but the nearest Democracy Officer available.”

The man pauses for a moment before barking, “What in the bloody fuck are you on about, muppet?”

You huff out a laugh and lean closer to him. He’s tall, but with your armor, you’re taller. 

“Okay, civilian.” You smile underneath your helmet and speak in a lower tone. “I understand that you don’t see a lot of us, so if you want a signature, just ask, okay? I can make it out to your kid who wants to be a Helldiver, or whatever. Tell them to put that M2016 Constitution bolt-action rifle to good use.”

The man stares at you as if you’ve just admitted to secretly being an automaton and are planning to undermine Democracy to institute socialism. He slowly brings his hand away from your shoulder and walks past you. 

“Come with me,” he says simply. 

You follow him after a moment of contemplation. He causes a faint mimic of the warmth, so that’s good, right? And he can’t be dangerous. Maybe a danger to others, but not to you – not with all the armor you’ve got. You keep your hands clasped behind your back to keep from fidgeting as you walk.

“Firstly.” The man holds up a hand, his index finger raised. He doesn’t glance over his shoulder to look at you. “I am not a civilian. I’m a captain – Captain John Price of the SAS.”

“Nonsense,” you scoff. “A captain should always be wearing their armor. A Helldiver is always ready to fight for Democracy.”

You walk a little faster so that you’re not walking behind him, but next to him instead. “And besides, what is the SAS? I’ve never heard of that division, or that ship – whatever it is. I reside on the Dawn of Destruction.”

Price looks at you out of the corner of his eye, his thick brows furrowing. “It’s the Special Air Service. And I’ve never heard of these… Helldivers you’ve been going on about.”

“Good Liberty, that’s nonsense again!” You look over at Price, your eyes trained on him instead of in front of you. “Helldivers are all over the news, the radio sets, the televisions… surely you’re not that shut off? Every colony has some way to communicate with Super Earth.”

“Super Earth?” Price repeats back to you. He then holds up his hand and stops walking. “Nevermind. I don’t want to hear it.”

He gestures to the door he’s stopped in front of. “Go on.”

You glance at Price before opening the door. It’s an interrogation room, like the ones you’ve seen in old-timey movies. 

“Oh, I get it.” You look over your shoulder at Price. “This is like one of those war reenactments, right? You’ve recreated a military base from the original Earth… very impressive!”

Price shoves you into the room (with a surprising amount of strength), leaving you stumbling. You quickly correct yourself and spin around to confront him, but by the time you’re able to do that, he’s closed and locked the door. 

“Ah…” you sigh as you look around the room. It’s all concrete grey with a steel table and two steel chairs in the middle. There’s a mirror taking up the majority of one wall, one which you know is double-sided.

You walk up to it and try to talk to the people on the other side – you know there’s got to be someone there. “This is fun! Which training module is this? I thought I completed every one… is it new? Because I’ve never heard of something like this.”

After half a minute, there’s no response. You wander over to one of the chairs at the table and sit in it. You laugh a little as you rest your hands in the handcuffs chained to the steel.

“I am ready for interrogation!” you announce. “I sure hope no filthy fascist comes in and tries to cleanse me of the beauty of freedom! Because I surely won’t give them a cup of Liber-tea, and I of course won’t deliver it with my fist…!”

You tap your fingers on the table for a minute before slumping back in the chair. This is boring. Most training modules are the type where you’re run-and-gun-ing throughout the whole thing, but interrogation is boring. 

You’re sat like that for a good half hour before you hear the lock click. Your eyes dart to the door as it opens, revealing a man. 

He’s dressed in all black, with a balaclava covering his face. His russet-brown eyes meet yours through your helmet and it’s like you’ve died all over again. 

Heat explodes your chest like you’ve just got a shotgun slug blasted through your belly. The ashes have been blown away, and in its place, a raging bonfire! It roars like a dragon, and it reeks of reverence and prayer.

The man closes the door behind him and someone locks it from the outside. He barely makes it two steps before you stand from the chair, the legs shrieking against the floor.

“My God,” you say softly. 

“Helldiver,” the man greets.

“No, I…” You make your way around the table and stand as close as you can be without feeling like you’re about to catch fire. “Are you…?”

The man nods. “Ghost.”

“That’s it, that’s what you are!” you exclaim. You take a step forward and feel sweat drip down your back. “You’re the… the Ghost. The…”

The one who kept you from experiencing a permanent death? The one who kept you alive just to torment you? The guardian angel who watches your every move? The devil who prods at your ass with a pitchfork? You’re not sure what to say.

You settle on reaching out to him and saying, “You’re my savior.”

Ghost takes a step back. “Savior? I’m not so sure about that.”

“No, but – you are!” You breathe out a laugh and step forward, mirroring his actions. You bend at the knee and the back to make yourself shorter, as if trying to be smaller than him. “I am… I’m a throwaway. Another friendly kill. But you kept me alive! You brought me back after death, I remember dying so many times – y-you don’t get it, you’re my God!”

You strike, quick as a viper, and take his hand. Even though both your gloves and his act as barriers, it feels like your entire arm is engulfed in flame. Still, you keep holding on. 

“You chose me, right? You chose me to fight!” You clutch his hand tighter. “You chose me to spread Democracy, to smite the fascists and… I – I was taught that we are Democracy, not individuals, but you proved me wrong, because you chose me. 

“God chose me.”

A silence engulfs the interrogation room. You’re both frozen in time, living, breathing statues. It’s too hot. Every bone in your hand, wrist, and arm are turning to charcoal. It’s burning. It’s euphoric. 

Ghost starts to pull his hand away, but you bring your free hand to hold it in place, holding yours. “No, please.”

Ghost forcefully yanks his hand away. He drags you forward with the force, and you fall to your knees. The metal kneepads on your legs clang loudly against the concrete floor. 

You can do nothing but look up at Ghost from where you’re kneeling. There’s nothing sexual about it – it’s more like a believer kneeling at the feet of a statue of Christ. Ghost is your God, after all. 

There’s another minute of silence before you bow your head and reach up with shaky hands to remove your helmet. It clanks loudly against the floor as you drop it. 

You can feel Ghost staring at you. The fire burns hotter – the bonfire caught wind and is reaching up into the trees. The branches above are catching, aching to burn.

Tears rim your eyes as you bring your head up to look at him. His stare hardens.

It’s a sight you’ve seen in the mirror many times before. Your face is a mess of unloaded textures, a checkerboard of black and bright purple, with the exception of your eyes and the surrounding skin. But seeing yourself through Ghost’s eyes… 

It’s Rapture. It’s only you and him. A God and his only believer.

“Ghost, please.” A tear slips down your cheek. You don’t think you’ve ever cried before. It’s cool against your too-hot, burning skin. “Let me stay. I want to stay in Heaven, stay with you.”

“This isn’t Heaven,” Ghost says coldly. “And I’m not God.”

“But you are!” you snap. “This is peace and this is comfort and this is you. Don’t send me back to Malevelon Creek, don’t send me back to those godforsaken ion storms and automatons.”

Your voice grows quieter as tears run down your face and drip off your chin. “Don’t send me back to Hell.”

Ghost sighs and casts his gaze to the side. He’s thinking, and it’s plain on the parts of his face you can see. 

You bow your head and wipe your tears away to give him some semblance of privacy. 

“Fine,” he finally decides. “But stop calling me God. You’re starting to seriously piss me off.”

Your head snaps up and you fight back a fresh wave of tears as you nod. “Yes! I’ll – I’ll call you Ghost. No more God-talk, I promise.”

You huff out a wet laugh as you pick up your helmet and fasten it back on your head. “I mean, I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.”

And so it’s like that for a month. Ghost explains the concept of video games (and how you’re from one – but you figured out that much already), introduces you to his team (and forces you to apologize to Price for calling him a civvy), and gives you his blessing to be his guard (even though he doesn’t need one). 

He allows you to tail him around when he’s in a good mood. When he’s not up for it, you sit outside his door like the good soldier you are.

You’re not allowed to have weapons, on account of being… well. Your entire being. The flying spark that could cause a wildfire. The free radical that could split an atom. It’s just better to give you the bare minimum and keep you there.

And you’re more than happy with the bare minimum. You survive on scraps from the mess hall and the moments when Ghost can tolerate you being a little too close. 

But the week-long missions are nothing but pain for you. And yet, every time you meet him on the tarmac, he greets you with a pat on the side of your bicep and asks how you were while he was gone. Maybe he’s doing it to be polite, maybe he actually cares – you don’t know, and you’re willing to keep it that way. 

(In this instance, you’re blissful with your ignorance. Revel in it, actually.)

There’s a faint part of you that thinks that he views you as an abandoned puppy he found on the side of the road that just followed him home. You’re okay with that if it means you can keep being close to him and keep getting away with everything you’ve done so far. 

So you wait, ever so patient, outside his door. You don’t lean against the wall next to it – you’re always standing at attention, even when your back starts to ache from standing so rigid. You don’t know what to do with your hands (on account of having no rifle to hold) so you let them idly hang at your sides, fighting the reflex to fidget. 

There’s a knock from the other side of the door. A sign from Ghost, telling you that you’re welcome to come in.

You knock back with a soft, “Ghost?”

After a few seconds, there’s no response, but you can hear the lock click and unlock. 

You wait for a minute before you open the door and make sure to duck as you enter. (These doors are shorter than the ones back on your ship – they’re not built to accommodate someone wearing Helldiver armor.)

You shut the door behind you and take in Ghost’s room. It’s bare, like yours. Just a desk with a chair, a bed with military-issued bedding, and a closet with a dresser and clothes rod.

As if on instinct, you take your helmet off, leaving yourself vulnerable yet safe. As your time passed here, your skin has become less black-and-purple and more like a normal skin tone – like the color around your eyes has started to seep into the surrounding area. So far, it’s taken over your face and the column of your throat, just barely brushing past your collarbone.

Ghost moves away from where he’s facing his desk in his swivel chair. He takes you in. Takes your new skin in.

You’ve kept your armor clean, just how you both like it. But the upkeep of yourself, as a person, your new hair and new skin, your new nose and lips and beauty marks and imperfections…

Ghost points at you. “Your hair is greasy as hell.”

You comb a hand through your hair and your glove comes away with a bit of grease, just like he mentioned.

“It is.” You look up from your glove to meet his gaze. “What should I do about it?”

“Fucking hell.” Ghost rolls his eyes. “You’re asking me what you should do about it? Take a shower, knobhead.”

“Ah.” You look down at your boots. 

“Have you seriously not been bathing?” Ghost asks. 

“It, um…” You glance up at him, then back down at the floor. “It never occurred to me. Usually I don’t have to.”

“You’ve been here for a bloody month and you haven’t showered once?” he scoffs. 

You shrink into yourself, an embarrassed blush creeping across your face. 

“Christ…” Ghost mumbles. He stands from his chair and points you up-and-down. “Get out of your armor.”

“Excuse me?” A hand flies to the middle of your breastplate, as if cradling it to you like it’s the only thing keeping you decent. 

“You heard me.” Ghost moves over to the door to his bathroom and opens it, then glances over his shoulder at you. “I’m drawing a bath. And you’re going in it.”

You look down at your glove, at the thin sheen of grease covering it. “I… okay.”

Ghost goes into the bathroom to give you some semblance of privacy. You take a breath to calm yourself and exhale with a soft “Sweet Liberty…” 

You carefully lay out your metal armor on Ghost’s bed, leaving yourself in just your under-armor. It’s durable but thin, causing you to shiver as the air conditioning kicks on.

With light steps, you make your way over to the bathroom. Ghost is hunched over the side of the tub, his hands ungloved and sleeves bunched up to his elbows. One of his hands is under the running water, checking the temperature. 

You lean into the doorway and call his name softly. You only lean in a bit, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Ghost glances over his shoulder at you, then nods at the tub. “Come on. Haven’t got all day.”

You slowly make your way in the bathroom and close the door behind you. It’s a small space, and it just makes everything all the more awkward.

“Well?” Ghost prompts. “Will you be good by yourself?”

“I mean…” You look down at the tile. “I guess.”

Ghost shuts off the faucet, then stands and wipes his hand off on a towel hanging by the bathtub. “I’m off, then.”

“But – wait,” you say softly. “How am I supposed to bathe? It’s not full yet.”

“It’s not meant to be full up,” Ghost says. “You’re acting like you’ve never taken a bath before.”

You shift on your feet, your almost-bare soles making a soft sound against the tile. Your silence tells Ghost all he needs to know.

“Come on then.” He sighs and leans back against the counter, his hands on the lip of the sink. “Strip.”

You shuffle out of your under-armor, fold it neatly, and put it on the counter. You’re nearly shaking from embarrassment, but at least it isn’t as awkward as it would be if your body wasn’t just unloaded textures. Your body below your collarbone is built well, but it’s more like a jacked doll that a kid scribbled a black and purple checkerboard on than an actual human soldier. 

Your eyes meet Ghost’s before you duck your head away in shame. 

“Come on,” he repeats. “Let’s get you washed up, yeah?”

You keep your gaze low as you tentatively dip a few fingers in the water. It’s warm, but not too hot. You slowly hook a leg over the edge of the tub and step in. It feels good – not that you have any prior bathing experiences to compare it to. 

Your knees practically buckle as you lower yourself into the water. You sit with your knees pressed up against your chest, not wanting to take up too much space even though the tub isn’t all that small. 

“Good?” Ghost asks. 

“Good,” you parrot back. 

Ghost kneels by the side of the tub. “How’s it feel? Too hot?”

“Okay.” You raise your eyes to meet his. “Feels like… when I’m near you.”

He just hums, monotone, in response. He shifts to sit more comfortably, then pats the surface of the water, sending ripples. “Lean forward.”

You do as he asks, bowing your head so that your face is close to the water. “This good?”

“Yes. I’m gonna get some water on you now.” 

You nod. Ghost cups his hand and dips it in the water before running it down your back. You gasp softly at the feeling – it’s unlike anything you’ve experienced before. It’s like Ghost’s molten touch is seeping into your skin, but instead of fire, it’s a pleasant version of sunburn. 

Maybe it feels duller and better because you’ve been so exposed to Ghost over the past month that you’ve gotten used to it, like exposure therapy? And the feeling when you first touched him was just too much, too fast…

You quickly divert your thoughts away from the theoretical and into the now. Because right now, Ghost is doting on you unlike any other. 

Water runs through your hair, and Ghost threads his fingers through the strands to make sure it gets properly wet. Droplets run down your forehead and drip off your nose.

You turn your head just a little and look up at Ghost sideways. “Is this it?”

“No.” He huffs out a laugh. “There’s shampoo, then conditioner. Then you gotta wash your actual body.”

“Oh.”

There’s a moment where the only sound is Ghost gathering a bit of shampoo in his hands and rubbing them together to create a lather. He scrubs it into your hair for about a half minute before washing it out.

You break the silence as he starts to work the conditioner into your hair. “I never got to ask – the engraving on my helmet… what’s that about? I don’t remember doing it.”

“Hm?” Ghost hums. “The skull? Dead daft, ain’t you?”

“I’m… I could only parse parts of that sentence,” you say softly. “But I can tell you’re calling me an idiot.”

“Yes. I am. You’re learning.” Ghost huffs out another laugh. “Go on, guess.”

“If I have to…” You close your eyes and lean into Ghost’s touch. “It’s a representation of your control over me? As a player, I mean. Not in… anything else.” 

You let out a nervous laugh and hope Ghost doesn’t pick up on your double meaning. But of course he does – you can tell in the way his hands pause for a fraction of a second before continuing their work. He’s too observant for his own good.

With an awkward ahem, you continue. “But that’s the same reason my callsign is Deathshead, right? Because you’re Ghost. You – you gave me your insignia.”

(You had to stop yourself from saying ‘Blessed me with your insignia’, because you promised you’d stop with the God-talk.)

“Dead on.” Ghost turns and rubs a bar of soap on a sponge, then hands it to you. “Scrub yourself. I’m not doing it for you.”

“Where?” you ask. “Like, all over?”

Ghost washes the conditioner from his hands in the bathwater and nods. “Mhm.”

You carefully scrub yourself from top to bottom. The sponge is a bit abrasive, but nice. 

(You’d much rather have Ghost wash you up, to cause the fire you’ve contained in a little wooden stove to flare out of the firebox and through the grill… but you keep that to yourself.)

Once you’re done, you wring the sponge out under the bathwater, then above water. You set it on the side of the tub and look up at Ghost, waiting for instructions. 

He meets your gaze and shifts where he’s sitting on the toilet lid. “Just relax, Helldiver.”

“Not used to this.” You pull your knees up to your chest. “Not used to having… downtime. I was always being sent down, or preparing to be sent down. Democracy was always my guide, but…”

You tilt your head towards Ghost, and he understands. 

“You are, now,” you voice the unsaid thought.

“That’s concerning.” Ghost rests his hands on his knees and leans back against the tank. 

“I know.” You look down at the bathwater and the bubbles floating on the surface. “It’s just… I’ve never felt the peace that we preach. I’ve only known fighting, only violence and blood.”

You look up and meet his eyes. “Have you ever had your legs blown apart by an Eagle Cluster Bomb? Ever been burned alive by friendly napalm? Because I have. I’ve felt my spine split because of an Orbital Railcannon Strike. I’ve been mowed down by friendly Gatling Sentries.

“But the worst thing I’ve experienced here is name-calling and weird looks,” you say. “I’ve been sick to my stomach with worry once or twice, but then I remember you’re a soldier, just like me. You’re trained, and you’re okay, and you’ll return fine. 

“I am…” You lean your head back against the tile wall and close your eyes. “I’m at peace here.”

“I get that,” Ghost says. His voice is the softest you’ve ever heard it. “How long were you deployed?”

“As long as I can remember,” you say. 

“Bloody long time, then, yeah?” Ghost says.

“Yes.” You bring your hand up and rub your collarbone, where skin meets undefined polygons. “But you’re making me human. Less Helldiver, less of an expendable piece of resurrected meat. You’re making me softer. More civilian.”

You open your eyes and look up at Ghost. The expression on his face is… conflicted. Like he didn’t know he could bring this out in someone. 

“They always said that when united under the beautiful Liberty flag of Super Earth, nothing will be able to stop or split its glorious peoples,” you say. “But you showed me that it’s better out here. That it’s… fascism, is what it is. But that’s a secret we keep from ourselves.”

You reach your hand out and lay it over where his lays on his knee. You just barely brush your fingertips over the back of his hand before grabbing it. 

(Another log has been added to the fire, and it’s covered in lichen and dried mosses. It crackles and pops, but you make sure to keep it still contained.)

“Would you believe me if I said that I hate Managed Democracy?” You laugh breathlessly. Even saying it causes a sick feeling in your stomach, like you’ll be found out and promptly dismissed. (Read: put up against a wall and executed via firing squad.)

“Yes.” Ghost glances down at where your hand lays on top of his. “A lot of people hate the government, all ‘cross the world. Don’t you know that?”

“And they’re… allowed to?” You bite the inside of your bottom lip to subdue a smile. “Like, openly?”

Ghost laughs. “Yes.”

“This really is Heaven.” You sigh out the words, an unbelieving smile crossing your face. 

“Not Heaven,” Ghost says. “Just Earth.”

He moves his hand slightly, and you take it as a cue to move away. You bring your hand back, dipping it back in the bathwater. 

“Well,” you say softly. “I think I like just Earth.”

“On just Earth, we bathe regularly.” Ghost dips a hand in the water and splashes your knees. “Now, come on. Let’s get you rinsed off.”

[robertreich]

Can We Still Find Common Ground? 

Many Americans today worry that our nation is losing its national identity. Some claim loudly that the core of that identity requires better policing of our borders and preventing other races or religions or ethnicities from supplanting white Christian America.

But that is not what defines our national identity. It’s the ideals we share, the good we hold in common.

That common good is a set of shared commitments. To the rule of law. To democracy. To tolerance of our differences. To equal rights and equal opportunities for everyone. To upholding the truth.

We cannot have a functioning society without these shared commitments. Without a shared sense of common good, there can be no “we” to begin with.

If we’re losing our national identity, it is because we are losing our sense of the common good. That is what must be restored.

Some of you may feel such a quest to be hopeless. Well, I disagree.

Almost every day, I witness or hear of the compassion and generosity of ordinary Americans. Their actions rarely make headlines, but they constitute much of our daily life together.

The moral fiber of our society has been weakened but it has not been destroyed.

We can recover the rule of law and preserve our democratic institutions by taking a more active role in our democracy.

We can fight against all forms of bigotry. We can strengthen the bonds that connect us to one another.

We can protect the truth by using facts and logic to combat lies.

Together, we can rebuild a public morality that strengthens our democracy, makes our economy work for everyone, and revives trust in the institutions of the nation.

America is not made great by whom we exclude but by the ideals we uphold together.

We’ve never been a perfect union. Our finest moments have been when we have sought to live up to those shared ideals.

I hope you’ll join me in carrying forward the fight for the common good.

You might start by sharing this video with your friends and loved ones.

[geritsel]

Robert De Niro Talks trump

Robert de Niro turns 81 this year. He still is everything Donald Trump is not; talented, intelligent, compassionate and – as far as I know – a man of a man of impeccable integrity.

Here’s Robert De Niro’s full statement about how Donald Trump should NEVER be president again:

“I’ve spent a lot of time studying bad men. I’ve examined their characteristics, their mannerisms, the utter banality of their cruelty.

Yet there’s something different about Donald Trump. When I look at him, I don’t see a bad man. Truly.

I see an evil one.

Over the years, I’ve met gangsters here and there. This guy tries to be one, but he can’t quite pull it off. There’s such a thing as “honor among thieves.” Yes, even criminals usually have a sense of right and wrong.

Whether they do the right thing or not is a different story — but — they have a moral code, however warped.

Donald Trump does not. He’s a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics. No sense of right or wrong. No regard for anyone but himself — not the people he was supposed to lead and protect, not the people he does business with, not the people who follow him, blindly and loyally, not even the people who consider themselves his “friends.” He has contempt for all of them.

We New Yorkers got to know him over the years that he poisoned the atmosphere and littered our city with monuments to his ego. We knew first hand that this was someone who should never be considered for leadership. We tried to warn the world in 2016.

The repercussions of his turbulent presidency divided America and rattled New York City beyond imagination. Remember how we were jolted by crisis in early 2020, as a virus swept the world.

We lived with Donald Trump’s bombastic behavior every day on the national stage, and we suffered as we saw our neighbors piling up in body bags.

The man who was supposed to protect this country put it in peril, because of his recklessness and impulsiveness. It was like an abusive father ruling the family by fear and violent behavior. That was the consequence of New York’s warning getting ignored. Next time, we know it will be worse.

Make no mistake: the twice-impeached, 4-time indicted Donald Trump is still a fool. But we can’t let our fellow Americans write him off like one. Evil thrives in the shadow of dismissive mockery, which is why we must take the danger of Donald Trump very seriously.

So today we issue another warning. From this place where Abraham Lincoln spoke — right here in the beating heart of New York — to the rest of America: This is our last chance.

Democracy won’t survive the return of a wannabe dictator. And it won’t overcome evil if we are divided.

So what do we do about it? I know I’m preaching to the choir here. What we’re doing today is valuable, but we have to take today into tomorrow – take it outside these walls. We have to reach out to the half of our country who have ignored the hazards of Trump and, for whatever reason, support elevating him back into the White House.

They’re not stupid, and we must not condemn them for making a stupid choice. Our future doesn’t just depend on us. It depends on them.

Let’s reach out to Trump’s followers with respect. Let’s not talk about “democracy.” “Democracy” may be our holy grail, but to others it is just a word, a concept, and in their embrace of Trump, they’ve already turned their backs on it.

Let’s talk about right and wrong. Let’s talk about humanity.

Let’s talk about kindness. Security for our world.

Safety for our families.

Decency.

Let’s welcome them back.

We won’t get them all, but we can get enough to end the nightmare of Trump, and fulfill the mission of this “Stop Trump Summit.”

For many Robert de Niro may be far too rich and far too Hollywood, but i consider this as straight from the heart. I love this man.

BTW... I have high regards for followers on Tumblr, some I consider as friends without ever having met them, but I completely understand those who get fed up with my political in betweens. I wish you all the best!

Regards,

Geritsel (Let Donald Trump never ever become president again.)

[mariacallous]

Between May 6 and May 8, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) revised its estimates of how many women and children had died in Gaza. The numbers appeared to drop drastically: first, it reported at least 24,000 dead women and children, and two days later, it reported exactly 12,756 “identified” dead women and children. One could be forgiven for wondering whether the UN had raised about 6,700 Gazan children and 4,500 Gazan women from the dead.

OCHA has provided a running body count since the beginning of the Gaza war, and it currently stands at 34,844. This figure was generated by Hamas and is apparently accepted, give or take a few thousand, by Israelis. On a podcast last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu estimated that Israel had killed roughly 14,000 combatants and said the country regretted the deaths of another 16,000 Palestinian civilians. The apparent downward revision was made without any accompanying statement to explain the change or sudden precision. Israel’s military did not make a big deal about it either, probably because there is no way to sound good when celebrating a reduction in the number of children you have killed.

Many noticed anyway. David Adesnik, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, gave the most detailed account of what had happened. For about two months, OCHA had been repeating numbers from Hamas’s Government Media Office, and on May 8 it switched back to Hamas’s Ministry of Health, its source at the beginning of the war. The Ministry of Health is acknowledged to be the more reliable of the two, and it is unclear why OCHA switched to the worse of the two sources, or switched back. A UN spokesperson, Farhan Haq, later explained that the Ministry of Health was “for whatever reason, given the conditions on the ground, unresponsive.” But the Ministry of Health kept publishing statistics in the interim. OCHA didn’t use them.

On Wednesday, Haq said that the UN had “difficulty” verifying Hamas’s numbers but was adamant that the number of total dead remained the same. There was, he said, a “reduction in the number of identified bodies.” To clarify, to the extent possible, Haq seems to be arguing that there are just as many dead Palestinians as before, but many have now lost their identity? Haq makes the discrepancy sound like a minor correction. But the UN so drastically reduced the count of identified women and children that it amounts to an admission that it had been spreading deficient numbers for months.

If you are finding this mystifying, you are not alone. As Adesnik explains, part of the confusion arises from the Ministry of Health’s shifting accounting labels. Its system has evolved, and it now tallies named and identified corpses that have passed through its morgues—as well as, in a separate category, “unidentified” dead, for whom it has neither a body nor a name, just a vaguely-defined “report” from outside the hospital system. If, for example, first responders bring in a body, and they say seven other bodies are probably still under the rubble, the body in the morgue would count as identified and the seven others as unidentified. The additional source of confusion is seriously aberrant numbers from the Government Media Office.

Neither Hamas source, Adesnik writes, has fully explained where it gets its estimate of the number of unaccounted-for dead: more than 10,000 people. During the war, hospitals have stopped functioning, and keeping people alive has taken higher priority than keeping defensible statistics. But these numbers matter—first, because of the dignity of those killed or still living, and second, because total deaths and the ratio of combatant to noncombatant deaths will have implications for judgments about alleged war crimes and genocide.

This is one of those moments when the fog of statistics could be dispersed with just a few sentences of straight talk, of the sort rarely uttered by spokespeople. The UN numbers changed because the UN has little idea how many children have been killed in Gaza, beyond “a lot.” It gets its statistics from Hamas. Where else would it get them? There are no independent epidemiologists in Gaza right now doing the survey work, house to bombed-out house, that would yield reliable numbers. So OCHA used unreliable ones. It never concealed its sources, but it distributed even the most questionable numbers under the UN name.

Operating a statistics laundromat for Hamas’s media wing is embarrassing. But the absence of alternatives is also concerning. Any indictment of OCHA’s numbers should propose better sources for numbers—and, in their absence, ask why there aren’t any. Some of the blame for this absence falls on Hamas, which (in addition to its other flaws) ran a totalitarian state where independent research and criticism were policed and punished. Collecting data that contradicted Hamas’s official figures would be hard or fatal, even in relative peacetime.

But Israel deserves reproach, too. Unlike Hamas, Israel purports to abide by the principles of the laws of war, including proportionality and distinction between combatants (who can be lawfully targeted) and civilians (who cannot). Hamas has fought with transparent disregard for these principles. Israel has conducted its war opaquely, in such a way that one must take its word that every bomb and every round is dropped or fired lawfully. Its media operations in this war will be remembered as a historic failure that allowed Hamas’s propaganda to be accepted and spread almost without rebuttal.

Much is expected of modern armies that accept, in theory, the burdens of morality and law. One expectation is that they fight in a way that can be examined by outsiders. In Iraq and Afghanistan, reporters routinely accompanied U.S. and other NATO units into battle. At the time, some questioned these embeds and argued that any reporter who depended on a U.S. infantry platoon for his food and safety would inevitably write positively about these soldiers and negatively about whoever was trying to kill them. But a competent reporter would factor those sympathies into her reporting. The main benefit of embeds was that a reporter could observe soldiers and Marines during moments of stress, when they were too busy to groom themselves and pose for PR purposes, and see what they really did and how they really fought. During moments of unguarded intimacy between engagements, they might speak frankly to a reporter. No one can maintain a pose forever. After a week of foot patrols in Fallujah or Kandahar, and a week of meals and billeting with soldiers, a reporter could say with some confidence whether her host unit was killing civilians indiscriminately, or wanted to.

Israel currently embeds zero journalists in Gaza. It isn’t legally obligated to let journalists join its frontline units. But it doesn’t let journalists into Gaza independently, either. “To allow journalists to report safely,” an Israeli military spokesperson told me, the Israel Defense Forces “accompany them when on the battlefield.” He would not say how many journalists had in fact been allowed to accompany IDF units—let alone accompany them on regular operations, rather than short press tours of battle sites after the action. When Hamas alleges that Israeli soldiers are shooting everyone in sight, and murdering families by flattening buildings devoid of military purpose, it can point to the dead children. Israel can deny the charge and hope that the world trusts it over an avowed terrorist group. The world seldom obliges.

To rebut Hamas’s allegations by letting journalists see the war up close would be a calculated risk. Even when conducted legally, war is ugly. It is possible to kill children legally, if for example one is being attacked by an enemy who hides behind them. But the sight of a legally killed child is no less disturbing than the sight of a murdered one. And Israel has discovered that shutting out the press carries its own risks. An infanticide that no one can see is also going to attract suspicion. Unsympathetic observers will think Israel is conducting its war in the manner of other countries whose counterinsurgent forces have preferred to work out of view of independent media. Russia did this in the Second Chechen War; Sri Lanka, in its civil war. Both countries’ militaries had much to hide.

None of this excuses OCHA, which jeopardized its credibility by repeating dubious numbers, long after the reasons for doubting them had been explained. That credibility is a precious resource. The IDF claims to have killed “at least 13,000” combatants—lower than Netanyahu’s estimate—but refused to comment yesterday when I asked if it had any idea how many civilians it had killed. The correct answer is, well, a lot. It would be nice if, before the war is over, some trusted third party could verify this macabre estimate with greater precision.

[i-am-aprl]

⚠️ Warning: Some viewers may find the images in this exclusive aljazeera english report distressing

A family in Gaza of apparent Israeli war crimes shares a harrowing testimony about executions:

"Tanks and bulldozers surrounded the building. Shells had been hitting the building for days. The situation was desperate. On the 19-th of December Israeli soldiers entered the building. They smashed on our apartment door. My husband opened it and told them we were all civilians. They took him to another apartment. I followed them pleading with them to let him go because we were all civilians. There were no members of the resistance here. They beat me and my daughters. They put us women in one place and threatened us with guns and knives. They made a strip. They searched us, insulting us, using the most terrible words.

They took our names and filmed us. May God bestow his mercy on the 19 men in this building they killed my husband was one of them. They ordered them to bend down and executed them. They killed them all."

Marwan Bishara: "Judging from the images we've been showing this afternoon from Davos, where the club of influence and supremacy lies, clearly their favourite guest is the Israeli president, the one who enabled this genocide, not only because he is the president of the country, but because he was the first to come out on live television and tell the world that no one is innocent in Gaza.

So, when we see the influential world powers, western powers, those who champion democracy and human rights, taking in the Israeli president in order to, once again, spread the lies and the fake claims about Gaza, to justify this inhumanity, this evil that has been unleashed on the people of Gaza, that does not give me comfort that these people are going to ever be actually held responsible.

The International Court of Justice might come up with some ruling, but will this ruling ever be implemented in the presence of the United States and the United Kingdom?"

[azspot]

Most adults experience working at least eight hours for five or more days per week in capitalist workplaces, under the power and authority of their employer. The undemocratic reality of the capitalist workplace leaves its complex, multilayered impacts on all who collaborate there, part time and full time. Capitalism’s problem with democracy—that the two basically contradict one another—shapes many people’s lives. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Walton family (descendants of Walmart’s founder), along with a handful of other major shareholders, decide how to spend hundreds of billions. The decisions of a few hundred billionaires bring economic development, industries, and enterprises to some regions and lead to the economic decline of other regions. The many billions of people affected by those spending decisions are excluded from participating in making them. Those countless people lack the economic and social power wielded by a tiny, unelected, obscenely wealthy minority of people. That is the opposite of democracy.

Richard Wolff

[topazy]

Tomorrow's promise

Pairing: Daryl Dixon × OC, Rick Grimes × sister OC

Warnings: Swearing

Chapter: 3.08

“We’re not leaving.”

“We can’t stay here.”

Glenn shakes his head. “If Rick says we aren’t running, then we aren’t running.”

You readjust your arms slightly so Judith is in a better position as she feeds from the bottle. Since the governor's attack, there has been a contentious debate within your group about what to do next, adding to the growing tension. You personally wanted to leave, but without everyone's agreement, it would be impossible to do so. The best thing for your group to do was wait until the middle of the night, turn all the lights off, and try to sneak out, but there was no point in sharing that idea since it was probably too late.

“No, it's better to live like rats.”

You scoff at Merle, who was locked in one of the cells. He was a rat. Rick clicks his tongue. You ask, “You got a better idea?”

“Yeah, we should have slid out of here last night and lived to fight another day. But we lost that window, didn’t we? I’m sure he’s got scouts on every road out of this place by now.”

“We ain’t scared of that prick,” Daryl grunts. It was hard to take his rough exterior seriously as he walked up and down the cell block so Jace, who was sleeping peacefully in his arms, wouldn’t wake.

“Y’all should be. That truck through the fence was him just ringing the doorbell. We might have some thick walls to hide behind, but he’s got the guns and the numbers. And if he takes the high ground around this place, shoot, he could just starve us out if he wanted to.”

Maggie glares at him, “Let’s put him in another cell block.”

Daryl shakes his head. “No, he’s got a point.”

“This is all you; you started this!” Maggie yells at Merle.

Another argument starts with whether the group should stay or leave. Your brother turns and goes to leave the cellblock, and you step in front of him. The look shared between you is a silent exchange of the unspoken burden you both carried. What happened to you, Woodbury, triggered something inside Rick. “We can’t ignore this; the governor will come back for us, and we need to be ready.”

When your brother starts to walk by you, Hershel furiously yells at him, “Get back here!”

Rick freezes on the spot.

“You’re slipping, Rick. We’ve all seen it, and we understand why, but now is not the time. You once said this isn’t a democracy. Now you have to own up to that. I put my family’s life in your hands, so get your head clear and do something.”

—

Daryl comes into your cell while you’re sitting on the floor reading to Jace. He sits down on the edge of the bed. His legs brush against yours as he stretches his limbs out.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” you say, taking Jace off your lap to let him crawl. “I haven’t had the chance to say it yet, but thank you for showing up when you did and saving my brother. I’m glad you’re back.”

He says nothing and picks at the dirt underneath his nails.

Something about his actions pulls at a memory—something you’d kept locked deep inside your brain for so long you almost forgot. Your lower lip trembles slightly as you remember Shane kneeling in front of you, begging you to say something as you chip the green polish off your nails.

“What’s going on between you and Glenn?”

You pause before answering, “nothing.”

Daryl glances down at you; he knows you’re lying. There was friction in your friendship with Glenn again; not only had he brought up Shane trying to kill to prove a point, he tried to convince your brother and Hershel to hand Merle over to the governor, despite what it would do to his brother. The irony was that Glenn was one of the kindest and softest people you knew, but the trauma he suffered was causing him to lash out.

“Pfft, fine, don’t tell me.”

You swat at Daryl’s leg playfully, saying, “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Fine,” he said huffily. You knew things were hard for him with everyone in his ear bitching about Merle. “Why’s the kid running around collecting poles? Or is that another secret?”

“Stop teasing,” you laugh.

He lets out a deep, throaty chuckle. “Seriously though, Carl is hellbent on finding everything on the scavenger hunt you sent him on.”

“I wanted to keep him busy and made him a list. Beth offered to go with him and make sure he doesn’t stray into a cellblock we haven’t cleared yet. I’m going to sharpen down the poles he brings back, and once nightfall comes, start picking off the walkers. The last thing we need is the fence coming down and then swarming in again.”

“Is this your idea or Rick’s?”

“Mine.”

Daryl looks down when Jace hits his leg with a toy. He leans over and picks him up. “Your mom really is some kind of zombie-fighting wonder woman, huh?”

You smile while watching how gentle he is with Jace for a few moments until the sound of someone running catches your attention. Out of breath, Carl holds onto the doorframe and says, “You need to come now.”

Alarmed, you get to your feet. “Carl, what’s wrong?”

“Andrea is outside.”

Shit. This could be bad. “Was she alone?”

He nods. “I think so.”

Daryl places Jace onto the floor and rushes by you to get his arrows. “Whatever happens, Lil, guard the block. Anybody comes in here that you don’t know, light their asses up.”

Carl leaves right after. You step out of the cell and see a frightened-looking Beth holding Judith in her arms and Hershel. Your stomach turns; a teenage girl and a cripple would be no match for the governor’s men. “Take them and go into the cell right up the back; I’ll cover the door into the block. If anybody gets by, shoot them.”

Beth nods and does as you ask. It was hard to know if Andrea was a threat or not; she could have easily been manipulated or could have turned on your people for the governor.

Hershel pats your shoulder and says, “I’ll go with Bethy. I doubt anybody will get past... but if they do, I won’t let them near Jace and Judith.”

You let out a shaky breath, nervous for what was to come next. “Thank you; lock the door behind me.”

—

Sitting on the table in- front of the doorway, you tap your fingers against your thigh rhythmically with the others to return. You could hear footsteps and voices getting closer by, but the seconds seemed to drag on.

Rick met your eye as he opened the gate leading into your cellblock. You knew from the first look that he didn’t trust Andrea. You knock on the table and say, “Hershel, it’s safe.”

The older man unlocks the gate and joins the rest of you. Andrea lets out a loud gasp and claps at her mouth when she notices his missing leg. “Hershel, oh god.” She steps out of her embrace with Carol and glances around the room. “I can’t believe this. Where’s Shane?”

“He didn’t make it.”

“Oh, Lily, I'm so sorry.” She looks up at your brother and says, “And Lori?”

A lump forms in your throat, preventing you from answering for him. When Rick’s eyes become glossy, Hershel says, “She had a girl. Lori didn’t survive.”

“Neither did T-dog,” Carol adds.

“I’m so sorry.” She looks genuinely taken aback by the news of so many deaths. “Carl… Rick. Shane… I just, how did he die?”

You and Daryl exchange a look. In a gruff voice, he says, “The last thing any of us needs is to relive those moments at a time like this.”

Understanding, the blonde nods her head before changing the subject. “You all live here?”

At first, nobody says anything, then Glenn finally answers, “Here and the cell block.”

“There?” She points in the direction of the area you slept in. “Well, can I go in?”

Rick steps in front of her and says, “I won’t allow that.”

“I’m not an enemy, Rick.”

“Your boyfriend tore through our fences yesterday with a truck full of walkers and shot us up. And the vicious bastards he brought with him had Carl and Beth pinned down outside. They were trying to kill a couple of kids.”

Her eyes are filled with denial. “He said you fired first.”

“Well, he’s lying,” Rick deadpans.

In a softer tone, Hershel says, “He killed an inmate who survived in here.”

“We liked him. He was one of us.”

“I didn’t know anything about that. As soon as I found out, I came. I didn’t even know you were in Woodbury until after the shoot-out.” Andrea was borderline defensive in her tone, and it was clear she wasn’t ready to hear what really happened.

“That was days ago.”

“As I said, I came as soon as I heard,” she says, spinning around to face Michonne. “What have you told them?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t get it. I left Atlanta with you people, and now I’m the odd man out.”

“He almost killed Michonne. He tortured me and Lily, and he was going to kill us,” Glenn clarifies.

“With his finger on the triggers,” she points at Merle. “Isn’t he the one who kidnapped you? Who beat you?”

Your tongue pokes at the gap in your mouth, feeling for the tooth Merle knocked out.

She lets out a deep sigh. “I cannot excuse or explain what Philip has done. But I’m here, trying to bring us together. We have to work this out.”

“There’s nothing to work out; we’re going to kill him,” Rick says bluntly. “I don’t know how or when, but we will.”

She looks at him, horrified. “We can settle this. There is room at Woodbury for all of you.”

“Did your boyfriend tell you this?”

“No.”

Shaking your head, you stand up and ask, “Then why did you come here?”

“Because he’s gearing up for war. The people are terrified; they see you as killers. They’re training to attack.”

“I’ll tell you what. Next time you see Philip, you tell him I’m going to take his other eye.”

Andrea crinkles her nose at Daryl’s comment and looks back at your brother. “Rick, if you don’t sit down and try and work this out, I don’t know what’s going to happen. He has a whole town looking at you; you’ve lost so much already. You can’t stand alone anymore.”

“Unless you’re planning on helping us get inside and bring us to him, I’ve heard enough.”

—

While sewing two thin blankets together to make them thicker, you think about Andrea defending the governor and how she couldn’t explain or excuse the things he did. Is that how you sounded when talking about Shane? Shane had done a lot of bad things over the years, but you always tried to defend him. But he was nothing like the man who was trying to slaughter you all like animals for sport.

Your ears perk up when you hear a baby fussing. It wasn’t Jace because he was sleeping, so it must have been your niece. You peek your head out of the cell and see Carol placing the newborn into Andrea’s arms.

“Oh, look at you. Let me guess, Daryl named her ‘ass-kicker. That’s not her real name.”

“Judith.”

“Judith,” she repeats. “Hi, Judith, how precious are you?”

You weren’t sure why, but something about their interaction left you feeling uneasy. It was most likely a protective instinct to keep your family close and safe. You didn’t think Andrea was a real threat to Judith personally, but the blonde couldn’t be trusted.

“What happened to Lori?”

“During a C-section, Maggie and Lily…” The sadness in Carol's voice hurts to hear. It couldn’t have been easy for her to be around children after losing her own daughter not so long ago. “Carl had to-”

“Oh, my god.”

“T-dog died, leading me to safety.”

Andrea’s eyes gloss over. “And Shane?”

“Rick killed him. That night we left the farm, and the whole Randall thing was a lie. Shane tried to kill Rick.”

Your stomach drops. No, no, no. You wanted to scream that they were wrong and that Rick did nothing wrong. Your mother used to tell you that love calls for sacrifice, and losing Shane to keep your brother was exactly that. Salty tears roll down your cheeks. You were terrified that night would never leave you. It would never end.

“But Shane loved Rick.”

“And Shane loved Lori,” Carol said. “I feel bad for Lily. First, her fiancé cheats on her, then tries to kill her brother. Some people just have a string of bad luck.”

“Oh,” Andrea pauses before saying, “Ricks become cold. Unsteady.”

Your tears of sorrow and guilt quickly turn to hurt and anger. Something about her word choice triggered you. Hearing enough, you wipe your eyes before stepping out of the cell, making your presence known. You hold out your arms and say, “Give her to me.”

When the blonde hands your Judith, you smile at your niece and kiss her forehead. Maybe you were overreacting, but bad mouthing a man while holding his daughter was in bad taste.

Andrea lets out an exasperated sigh. “Lily.”

“Unsteady? When I refused to tell your boyfriend our location, he forced me to strip my clothes off and had one of his goons cut me in the leg so I couldn’t run. He put bags over our heads and made me and Glenn kneel on the ground. If my ‘unsteady’ brother hadn’t turned up, they would have put bullets through our heads.”

“I’m sorry.”

You look at Carol and say, “You’ve never told us what happened before.”

“You should know better than to gossip with someone on the opposite team.”

“Andrea,” Rick suddenly calls up from the ground floor. “I think you’ve over stayed your welcome.”

—

Everyone had gone outside except for Beth, who stayed to watch over the babies while you attempted to wash some of the group's clothes while the rest saw Andrea off.

With the weight of your emotions threatening to overwhelm you, you try your best to focus on the task at hand. What happened to you in Woodbury, hearing Carol's pity hurt. Andrea choosing to go back to the governor hurt.

Beth notices your red eyes and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“It's nothing,” you lie, trying to brush off her question. “Really, I’m fine.”

She sees right through you. Beth places the box of formula down, runs around from the other side of the table, and hugs you from behind. Using the back of your hand, you muffle a sob.

Everything still hurt, but it felt good to let some pent-up emotions out.

—

In a low voice, you motion to Beth, who is singing, “You have a good girl there, Hershel; she has a heart of gold.”

He smiles proudly.

Standing between Hershel and Daryl, you move over slightly when your brother comes to join, and your arm presses against Daryl’s. The contact was minimal, but just the feeling of his warmth seems to slow your rapid heartbeat.

In a quiet voice, Daryl says, “Some reunion, huh?”

“She’s in a jam.”

“We all are,” Hershel sighs. “Andrea’s persuasive. This fella’s armed to the teeth, bent on destruction.”

You look across at your brother and ask, “So, what are we going to do?”

“We match it. I’m going on a run tomorrow.”

“One of us should go with you.”

Rick offers you a small smile. “I’ll take Michonne. And Carl, he’s ready. You three hold it down here.”

“Got it.”