#do we go back to something related to politics/government/public policy? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

HASO “The Best Outcome.”

Just wrapping up a few loose ends from the past few months stories. I hope you all like it. And feel free to give me some ideas on what you want to see, or who you want to see more of. I will try to do my best :)

Breaking News tonight from the Apollo 11 memorial landing site as Admiral Adam Vr and Captains Warren Richarards and Mary Chavez were rescued from the Pacific Ocean following a journey that was supposed to be historical, turned harrowing. Amy Grey comes to us this morning with the story.

Thank you Julie, it was only a week ago here on the historic Cape Canaveral launch site, that the reconstructed Saturn V rocket was launched by the UNSC International Space and Aeronautics Division on the two thousand and fifty first anniversary of the original Apollo 11 mission. On board The reconstructed rocket were astronauts Fleet Admiral Adam Vir head of the UNSC deep space exploration division, Captain Warren Richards five year veteran and historical aeronautics expert, and Mary Chavez six year shuttle pilot veteran, and communications specialist.

The reconstructed Saturn V rocket took off thirty minutes behind schedule at 10:03 GMTJuly 16 after delays attributed to engineering standbys. However, reports by UNSC investigation early this morning indicate that the delays were called for by engineering head Jade Clein who noticed something strange during her final checks of the Saturn V recreated rocket. In an interview early today, flight director, Aaliyah Seif of the Apollo re-creation mission informed outlets that there was evidence of attempted tampering on the hull of the Saturn V rocket. The tampering case in the shape of these small silver tape strips covering loosened bolts along one of the Saturn V side panels. Engineers stated that the tape was not heat resistant and would have burned off in time to rattle the bolts loose and, likely, cause a devastating spin that would destroy the rocket.

While this attempted tampering was thwarted, the mission would only become more dire. A sudden and shocking report by Mericanda News 5 showed an uncut image of an unknown alien hybrid woman claiming that the UN President had ordered th attempted assassination of Admiral Vir, in conjuncton with an audio recording by Admiral Colter Massie, Head of the Galactic intelligence division an known isolationist, that admitted to the attempted assasination of Admiral Vir, and the acquisition of twenty thunderhawks which were used to harry the Satern V on it’s way to the moon. Admiral Kelly, long time friend of Admiral Vir, corroborated the story, saying she caught General Massie just after he ordered the deployment of the twenty thunderhawks. During their conversion he attempted to kill her before being detained by two members of Admiral Vir’s crew, and was later seen being escorted into custody by Military Police.

Indeed footage has been captured from the hull of the Saturn V showing approximately twenty thunderhawks attempting to destroy the rocket while Rundi remote piloted drones and an unknown group of what appear to be racing jets, fought back to delay the attack while word was sent to the UNSC to deploy F-90 darkfire pilots to assist. This all after communications between Houston and the rocket were sabotaged shortly after leaving orbit. The F-90 darkfire pilots were able to arrive on time to rescue the rocket, though a hole was reportedly torn in the hull sucking Admiral Vir out into space, though he was later recovered and returned to his ship without any injuries. Patch teams were then able to repair the torn hull and the astronauts completed their mission landing to crowds on the moon and returning to earth on time on time landing in the Pacific ocean only nine miles away from the waiting ship.

All three astronauts were recovered and are reported to be in good health.

The investigation into the UN president’s involvement is still ongoing at this time, however preliminary reports from the Global Bureau of Investigation suggest evidence is both staggering and damning to the current UN president, who earlier today, attempted to cut all ties to the sabotage efforts saying she was framed. Political experts report that, even assuming her innocence, she will likely not last to the end of her term.

International News Network was able to interview Admiral Vir shortly after his landing while still on board the rescuing ship UNSS Victory.

Here is what the Admiral had to say.

“I find it…. Really very disheartening that someone we all trusted, and someone that we all should have looked up to could do something like this. It really is a heinous demonstration of what political corruption can lead people to do.”

“And how do you feel, personally about all of this.”

“Personally, I…. well to be honest I am hurt and appalled. Not to mention that I fear for the safety of my family and my friends. Every day I wonder if my involvement with them is going to get someone I love killed…. The thought haunts me, but I hope after all of this is over I… and all of us can breathe a little easier.”

“Were you scared?”

“I don’t think that even needs to be a question. Of course I was scared, getting sucked out of your spaceship isn’t ideal.”

“What do you hope will happen now?”

“I hope that justice can be upheld to those who deserve it.”

“What do you have to say to the UN president.”

…

“I have nothing to say. Wouldn’t want to waste the air.

****

What followed would be one of the largest scandals in recent political history. At some point an unknown number of classified government documents was leaked onto the internet, and after that it was all over for the Presidency. Thousands of enterprising humans, and aliens alike, viewed the documents to discover all the underhanded and dirty things which had been going on in the UN governmental body over the past few years. Forensic accounting experts (mostly Tesrtaki) uncovered plenty of fiscal tampering which shed light on plenty of isolationist related projects and bank accounts. There was even evidence that they had something to do with the original assassination attempt against Admiral Vir so many months ago. The drama had even managed to capture the attention of Rundi political experts and Vrul computer science geniuses, and together they unearthed a world of unfathomable, but not unexpected corruption. The process to remove the UN president from office was probably one of the fastest movements of human government ever seen by UN congressional leaders, who were likely trying their very best tro distance themselves from association with the president, who despite not being the only one involved, had become the political scapegoat for everyone else that had a supposed link with isolationism.

Even the VP fell under suspicion and was watched closely for the rest of his term.

Admiral Massie and the UN President were placed under arrest and set up for court dates in the nearing future, though everyone saw a long and arduous litigation process ahead. Even Ramirez’s family had filed for damages against the government after the news came to light confirming that their son had been shot as collateral in one of the UN presidents plans to assassinate Admiral Vir. They settled out of court to the tune of an unknown, but impressive sum of money.

No one really knew how much, but a couple months later Ramirez’s younger sister was seen training at one of the most prestigious olympic academies on earth.

Ramirez himself was suddenly able to afford housing on the moon in a condo just next door to his best friend, though no one else inquired further.

The Rundi chairwoman came forward with her own investigation admitting to being suspicious for a long time though she feared accusations without proper proof. Admiral Vir was seen having lunch with her not so many months after the events took place, suggesting that the trust between the two of them had not been completely dissolved. With much of the isolationist element gone from government, public policy began to lean heavily towards integration with the alliance. The occasional isolationist demonstration or protest was held, but none of them managed to gain traction.

Admiral Vir was finding himself more important than ever, though it was to his chagrin that his ship was grounded for the intervening months while the investigation continued.

No one was entirely sure what the future held.

***

Admiral Vir stepped into Admiral Kelly’s office. The last time he had actually visited her here had been over a few years ago before his promotion to captain of the Harbinger. It seemed so distant now, and he never expected to walk into her office with a star on his shoulder. She stood as he entered, and the two of them shook hands, ignoring all the stuffy formalities that usually come with the meeting of two military officers.

The wall behind her was decorated with a myriad of metals and awards she had received over her career, and he couldn't help but note the slight tinge of grey he could see forming in her hair. He knew that feeling, he was going prematurely white much to his chagrin. She stood and the two of them shook hands.

“Vir.”

“Kelly.”

She motioned him to sit and he sat sighing lightly as he had been on his feet all day consulting with political figures and other members of the UNSC.

“A strange couple months wouldn’t you say.”

“Tell me about it.”{

Kelly reached under her desk and withdrew an amber bottle which she placed between them, “I always forget; Do you drink?”

“On occasion.”

“Well consider this an occasion.” She said popping off the top and pouring two glasses for them. She handed his across the desk and he leaned back in his seat cupping the cool glass in both hands.

She swirled the amber liquid around in her glass, “So what are your plans after all this.”

He took a sip of water warmed by the burning liquid, “Hoping things will go back to normal and I can go back to traveling the galaxy.”

Kelly grunted, “A simple man with simple motivations.”

He laughed , “Sometimes I think a stupid man with simple motivations.”

She chuckled then grew serious, “A lot of people make the mistake of assuming simple people don’[t have the intelligence to match. Some people assume that trusting means gullible means dumb. Just because we are trusting and expect others to do the right thing is not necessarily a fault. I believe there is a kind of beauty in assuming the fundamental goodness of humanity.”

\Admiral Vir shook his head, “How can you after seeing what we have seen.”

“How can you not?” She shrugged, “We always knew that politicians were corrupt, but think about everything else we have seen.”

Admiral Vir nodded slowly, “The enthusiasm for the Apollo 11 recreation mission, the people who flew up to help us. All of those people who went digging through years of information just to uncover the truth.”

SHe raised her glass, “Precisely. Goodness in humanity is all around us, but we tend to overlook the good in favor of the bad.” She placed her hat on the desk and sighed, “It is up to good people to keep their goodness going even when it might seem easier to give into the bad. I I have and will always believe in the fundamental good of humanity. Some may call it naeve, or even stupid. Others have said I have a romanticized view of a species that is fundamentally broken.” She turned her head to look out the window a contemplative expression on her face before turning back to look at Adam.

“You understand me, I think.”

He nodded slowly.

“People need to be believed in. You tell someone for long enough that they are fundamentally bad at their core and they will begin to believe you. For thousands of years pessimists have gotten it into our heads that we are no better than animals, worse even since animals don’t fight in wars. But I believe that is wrong, I have seen people, I have met people, and I have interacted with people who prove to me that humanity cannot just be fundamentally bad or else these people wouldn’t exist.” She tapped her nails against the glass, “I think it is easier to corrupt purity than wash away a stain,”

He listened quietly as she continued.

“Humans are born good, Adam, and life stains us. We aren’t born stained while some of us are wiped clean. “ She shook her head, “Doesn't make sense to me.” She caught him with a look pinning him to the spot with her intense stare, “People like you convince me of this every day.”

“Me….”

She held up a hand. “Adam Vir, I am convinced that the best outcome this universe ever had, was when a happy go lucky science fiction freak was lucky enough to be the first man to meet aliens. Any other way things would have gone horribly wrong.” She leaned across her desk, “The universe needs men and women like you, and not only that but the universe needs people who are going to support men and women like you.” She sat back, “Which is why I have made a decision.”

He raised an eyebrow in curiosity not entirely sure where this could be going.

She smiled, “I have decided to run for President.”

He nearly spit his mouthful of expensive scotch onto the table but managed to choke it mostly down.

Eyes wide he set his glass down, “Are you serious.”

She smiled, “Seriously serious.”

“Well shit, you have my vote for sure.” He raised his glass to her, “I couldn’t think of a better outcome.”

209 notes · View notes

missmentelle · 4 years

Text

Just some small ways that the system keeps people down

When we think about social justice, we often think about it in terms of huge, sweeping reforms that happen on a national level: the nation-wide legalization of gay marriage. The end of segregation. Loving v Virginia. Roe v Wade. Many people only vote in federal elections and only keep up with federal politics, thinking that the federal government is what “really matters” when it comes to progress and human rights.

Federal-level politics and landmark court rulings are important, but oppression often happens in much smaller, less obvious ways. It’s in the fine print of the eligibility criteria for disability benefits. It’s in municipal zoning laws. It’s in bank mortgage eligibility policies. It’s in the enforcement of public park bylaws. The things that make life difficult for marginalized communities often come from local bureaucracy, and look something like this: Disabled people effectively do not have the right to marry.

In the United States, when a disabled person marries a non-disabled person, they gain a spouse, but they risk losing something immensely important - namely, all of their benefits. Currently, the government assumes that a non-disabled spouse takes full responsibility for all of their disabled spouse’s needs; it becomes their job to provide the disabled spouse with healthcare, housing, basic needs and assistive devices that they require, regardless of their ability to actually afford any of these things. Obviously, this is completely out of the question for most couples. Medical costs for a person with complex needs can be exorbitant, and the average person just cannot provide things like private home health services and out-of-pocket medical expenses for their spouse.

Unless a disabled person is marrying someone who is independently wealthy, marriage is often out of the question.

As a result, many disabled people simply have no meaningful access to marriage or the legal benefits and protections it provides. Without a wedding certificate, your partner cannot stay with you in the hospital, access your medical information or make decisions for you while you are incapacitated - something that people with complex medical issues may desperately need their partner to be able to do. International couples may have no means of being able to live in the same country. It may not even be possible for couples to live together at all, as the state may decide that that’s a “common-law” situation and strip away disability benefits even without a formal certificate. The people who are most in need of companionship and legal protection are denied access to it because of cruel and outdated laws that were designed with the false assumption that disabled people cannot desirable partners for non-disabled spouses.

Domestic violence victims can be evicted for being abused.

Some cities across America have implemented “nuisance laws” - these are laws originally designed to punish “slum landlords” who don’t try to stop criminal activity or loud parties in their buildings. In cities with nuisance laws, the city tracks how many 911 calls are made to (or about) each address in the city; if an address goes over their yearly limit of 911 calls, the city goes after the property’s landlord, fining them or even threatening them with criminal charges if they don’t make the calls stop. The point of the law is to encourage landlords to keep an eye on their tenants and evict “problem” tenants that disrupt the neighbourhood, and these policies have definitely resulted in a lot of 911-related evictions. And that’s a problem. Because you know who calls 911 a lot? Domestic violence victims.

These laws have made it so that many people experiencing domestic violence have to choose between “help” and “housing”. If your partner is violently attacking you but your landlord has told you “one more 911 call and you’re out on the streets”, what do you do? How do you navigate such an impossible situation? Many victims simply hold off calling for help unless they’re reasonably certain that their partner is going to kill them, which is incredibly and almost indescribably dangerous, and still results in threats of eviction. Even victims who never call for help themselves can still find themselves out in the cold because of these policies - nuisance laws count any 911 calls made about an address, which means that a well-meaning neighbour calling the cops because they hear screams can cost you your housing. The end result is that an already-vulnerable population are either losing their housing or losing access to lifesaving emergency services, and everyone is worse for it.

It’s worth noting that these policies also disproportionately affect disabled, elderly and chronically ill people. When you are medically fragile, you tend to have increased medical emergencies and a decreased ability to safely transport yourself to the hospital without an ambulance. So if 80-year-old diabetic woman uses her LifeAlert bracelet to call 911 three times in a year because she’s fallen down or having a hypoglycemic episode, she could face eviction for going over her 911 limit and being a “nuisance” to the city.

Redlining has shut black people out of wealth-building for decades. How do you build wealth in America? You need credit. If you want to achieve real financial security, you need to convince someone to loan you large amounts of money at a low interest rate so you can use that money to purchase something that will build wealth for you. Let’s say you only have a little bit of money - you go to the bank and convince them to give you a mortgage (which is effectively just a large low-interest loan) so you can purchase a house for yourself. Once you’ve paid off the mortgage and showed the bank how reliable you are, you can go back and ask them for another loan against your house, and use that loan to buy a business, or a second house to rent out for income, or just save your money while your paid-off first house continues to increase in value. When you eventually die, your kids get all the property you amassed with those loans, and they start life in an even better financial position than you did - they can use that property to get even more credit and invest in even more businesses and property. This is how most American families clawed their way into the middle class after the Great Depression - your great-grandfather buying a house in the 1940s is the reason your parents could afford to pay for your college today.

But there is one group that have been systemically left out of that process for decades, thanks to a practice called “redlining”.

Banks decide whether or not they are going to loan you money by deciding how much of a “risk” you are. In the 1930s, bankers determined risk by looking at maps of their cities and drawing lines around particular neighbourhoods to determine how much of a risk they were. Bankers would draw red lines around predominantly-black neighbourhoods to signal that people who lived in those neighbourhoods were not eligible for credit - this was done regardless of their income. Poor white neighbourhoods could get loans, but middle-class black neighbourhoods could not. This meant that black people could not improve their situations - they could not afford to move out of cramped black neighbourhoods, they could not get the money to start a business, and they could not afford to renovate their houses to sell them at a profit. They were effectively shut out of opportunities that their white peers were granted.

Redlining has been illegal for decades, but the cumulative impact of generations of redlining persist to this day. Experts estimate that an average black homeowner today has missed out on $212,023 in personal wealth because of the impacts of redlining. “Zero-tolerance” policies have harmed marginalized and neurodivergent children without making schools safer.

If you’ve attended or worked in a grade school in the last 20 years, you’re probably familiar with so-called “zero tolerance” policies. These policies emerged as a result of the 1999 Columbine school shooting, and are pretty much exactly what they sound like - in the wake of Columbine, schools began taking an extremely hardline stance against violence and bullying, assuring worried parents that they would not tolerate even the smallest hint of violence. In schools with zero-tolerance policies in place, punishments are extremely harsh - just about everything will get you suspended at a minimum. Get in a fistfight at school? Doesn’t even matter who started it, everyone involved is suspended. Throwing food? Suspended. Shouting at someone? Suspended. It doesn’t tend to matter if you were joking around or if you'd been pushed to the brink by a student who has bullied you for months - “zero tolerance” means absolutely zero tolerance, and you are suspended.

But if you ever actually attended a zero-tolerance school, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that these policies don’t actually have any impact on school safety. What they do accomplish is higher rates of school failure and worse overall student outcomes, especially for marginalized students.

And it makes sense. Which students are the most likely to be acting out in school? Students with ADHD, autism and learning disorders. Students with turbulent home lives. Students in foster care. Students dealing with abuse or trauma. These are the students who need to be in school the most, and need extra support from staff and teachers - instead of getting that support, though, zero-tolerance policies send them away from school for several days at a time, where they are unable to access support and fall further behind their peers. School quickly turns into a vicious cycle; students act out because they’re frustrated, they get suspended, they fall behind in class, which leads to more frustration, which leads to more acting out, which means more suspensions, which puts them further behind, etc, etc. Eventually they become so disillusioned that many of them leave school altogether, putting them at a permanent increased risk of unemployment, poverty, and incarceration.

Parking requirements are making cities unaffordable and unlivable for the poor.

Many cities - like Toronto and Vancouver - have mandatory minimum parking requirements written into their city zoning laws. These policies usually require that all residential buildings have at least one parking space available for every unit of residential housing - if you build a 60-unit apartment building, you need to make sure that you also buy enough land for a 60-stall parking lot or build a 60-space underground parking structure.

When you think about the reasons that housing is unaffordable, “parking” might not be one of the first things you think of, but these laws have huge impacts on the cost of housing, and they negatively impact both the city itself and the working-class people who live there. Parking spaces are not free, especially in major cities like Toronto where land is at a premium - an above-ground parking space in a city costs an average of $24,000, while a below-ground space costs $34,000. Every unit of residential housing has $24-34k in parking costs tacked onto it - whether the tenant needs a parking space or not - and you can bet that landlords and developers are passing every penny of that cost onto their tenants.

Parking requirements also decrease the number of units available, which is a problem, because the best way to keep housing affordable is to make sure that you have a lot of it available. A developer who might want to build a 300-unit apartment complex has to factor in the cost of creating at least 300 parking spaces.... so they might scale back to a 100-unit complex instead. Downtown areas that have huge demand for housing and low demand for residential parking are being underutilized because of zoning laws that were created decades ago and no longer reflect today’s reality. Young people, elderly people and urban poor people are increasingly unlikely to own a car, but they are being priced out of walkable neighbourhoods with good public transit for the sake of unwanted parking spaces.

Food safety laws and public property usage laws are making it illegal to feed the homeless.

“Feeding the homeless” should be one of the most uncontroversial things you can do. Giving food to a person who is hungry is one of the most basic ways that humans care for one another. Everything from cheesy Hallmark movies to the Bible reinforces the importance of giving to others in need. But in dozens of cities across America, you can be fined, arrested or even jailed for giving out food to the homeless.

Cities use different justifications to shut down or even arrest community service workers for trying to feed the homeless. Some pass increasingly restrictive “food safety laws”, stating that charities are only allowed to give away hot food, or that they are only allowed to give away sealed and individually-packed meals, or that they are only allowed to feed homeless people indoors (something that community organizations like mine do not always have the resources to do). Restrictions continue to get tighter every year in some places, despite the fact that there are virtually zero recorded cases of a homeless person being harmed by food they received from a registered charity. Food safety laws can also force restaurants and stores to destroy their unsold food instead of passing it out; some have to go as far as pouring bleach over the food they throw out in their dumpsters.

Other cities have used public property bylaws to ban food-sharing on public property, forcing charities to apply for permits to hand out food (which are rarely granted). Justifications for these bylaws vary - some cities give vague excuses about “safety” while others admit that they’re trying to drive homeless people out of their cities - but the end result is the same. Cities are so desperate to be rid of their homeless populations that they’ll criminalize trying to help the homeless, rather than offering stable, affordable housing solutions.

#missmentelle #askmissmentelle #social justice #social work #socialjustice #oppression #sociology #mental health #mental illness #poverty #homelessness #homeless #working class #classism #domestic violence

216 notes · View notes

superlinguo · 3 years

Text

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Communications and Engagement Assistant

Your social media prowess is actually a job skill, you might just not know yet that those jobs are out there. Maggie is a Communications and Engagement Assistant at a disability peak body. Their work includes traditional and social media communications channels, and a need to think about who your audience is. You can follow them on Twitter (@vonbees) or Tumblr (@ritavonbees).

What did you study at university?

BA in Communications (Writing & Cultural Studies). I actually studied at a weird "technology" university and had to go through a totally different uni to do my linguistics electives. By the time I dealt with the forms and unit conversion and everything, I only had time for 101&102, which made me sad as I loved them! If I had been able to start in first year I might have changed my major.

What is your job?

Communications Assistant covers a really broad range of work! Like it says on the tin, you have to assist your organisation in whatever sort of communications it needs to do. Mine is a disability rights representative and advocacy nonprofit, so my job includes advertising, political campaigns and direct member communication. I am one of the people who tweets from our official account (including sometimes live-tweeting something like a public inquiry into systemic neglect or discrimination), updates our website, edits blog posts and media releases, creates flyers, surveys and infographics... I do a lot of "translating English to English" - explaining legalese, bureaucratic jargon and policy terminology in plain language. We need to be as accessible as possible, so aside from code-switching between Plain English and bureaucratese I do a lot of image descriptions and liaise with specialists to get really important content captioned or translated into Auslan, Easy English, etc. One of my colleagues is currently in charge of our fortnightly newsletter, but when I used to do it I would also record an audio version, sort of like a mini podcast, for members who didn't have screenreader access (usually older folks who had trouble with technology).

How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

Semantics, pragmatics and a descriptivist approach to grammar are all relevant when trying to write about things like UN resolutions and discrimination legislation in plain English! (Sometimes I imagine turning a particularly stuffy government document into a series of tree diagrams, which is at least good for a laugh). Descriptivism also dovetails neatly with an anti-ableist approach to how other people speak and write, so it's helpful to have linguistic references when pushing back against harmful ideas in that department.

Do you have any advice you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

Yes, I wish someone had convinced me not to half-ass it! See, I got into a really great creative writing course and then couldn't attend the university that taught it for logistical reasons (would have been an interstate move). I tried to do the most similar degree I could find at a local uni, but it wasn't a good compromise - it only had two writing classes each year and I was much less interested in the other parts of the course. I should have done a full pivot to something I liked in its own right, like linguistics, instead of stubbornly clinging to a shitty version of my number one choice. I guess the most useful advice without the benefit of hindsight would have been that a degree is a big commitment and it's okay to take a gap year and give yourself more time to think about how you want to go about it. Oh, also if someone had told me I have ADHD that probably would have been helpful.

Any other thoughts or comments?

I've often thought about going back for some linguistics post-grad, but it would probably be for the love of learning - none of my plausible future career moves really need one. So I'm really glad people like you make linguistics knowledge more accessible to lingthusiasts outside academia! Clinically proven to reduce symptoms of FOMO xD

Related interviews:

Interview with a Communications Specialist

Interview with two Communications Professionals

Interview with an Editor and Copywriter

Recent interview:

Interview with a Technical Writer

Interview with a Stay-at-home Mom and Twitch Streamer

Interview with a Peer Review Program Manager

Interview with an Associate at the Children’s Center for Communication, Beverly School for the Deaf

Interview with a Metadata Specialist and Genealogist

Check out the full Linguist Jobs Interview List and the Linguist Jobs tag for even more interviews

#linguistics jobs #linguist jobs #communications #linguistics #linguists #adhd #work #careers #writing

35 notes · View notes

bard-llama · 3 years

Text

“Doing Nothing” The Myth of Neutrality

Apparently when someone blocks you, you can’t even reblog your own posts from them. So sorry for the longpost, but I think the message is important to reiterate.

This all comes about because someone with the ironic name “decolonize the left” decided to argue that the only way to dismantle the system of politics in place is to... do nothing???

Amusingly (or not), this is the exact same thing that the GOP, Russian hackers, and other random trolls WANT you to think. Because it directly benefits them. How? Because doing nothing is not a neutral act. Doing nothing actively reinforces the status quo!

Now, it anyone would like to talk about actually decolonizing the left, by all means, feel free to message me. And what I mean by this is: if you want to talk about the impact white supremacy and racism and ableism and sexism and every other ism in the book has on politics? Great! I genuinely enjoy nothing more than dissecting these things!

But disengaging from the process entirely is NOT HOW YOU FIX IT! You can’t do shit if you don’t get involved! The status quo - aka the white supremacist, Christian, Western imperialist culture around us - depends on you doing nothing. Or on you punching down instead of up. Because when you do, you are actively supporting the very system you claim to hate!

I agree, I think things like the American Public Education System should be torn down and completely rebuilt. Why? Because when something was built to support the status quo, you can’t “fix” it. It’s not broken - it’s doing exactly what it was MADE to do: turn out obediant workers for the capitalist entreprenuers to exploit. And then keep them so overwhelmed with just trying to survive that they don’t care about politics. This is an INTENTIONAL thing that has been systemically built into every institution in the country. Because desperate people don’t have time to care about politics, so they can’t advocate for themselves.

That’s depressing, I know. It seems overwhelming - “if you can’t fix it, then what do you do?” The answer is ANYTHING but give up! What you do instead is get involved! Go to school board meetings. Show the electeds that you’re watching them and use the time for audience comments to tell them what you think! Run for school board! You’d be amazed how many school board electeds have exactly 0 background in education or education related fields. There’s a reason for that. It’s in their own self interest to sit on that board and make rulings that benefit them. Your job is to fight back. There are a LOT of ways to do that! I’d encourage everyone to think about if their own leadership journey could include elected office, but that’s far from the only option! Volunteer with community activist groups fighting the things you’re invested in! Pay attention to the policies so that you can spot the ones designed to harm you! Research candidates in your area and know who to vote for - and tell your friends! A TON of people leave the bottom half of their ballot completely blank, because they don’t know any of those names. They only vote for the federal seats, because those are the names you hear on the news. Those are ALSO the people least likely to make decisions that directly affect you! Yes, the president and your senator and your congressperson are important. But they’re not the only ones.

The decision to not raise teacher salaries, which have been stagnant for over a decade, didn’t come from the federal government. The decision to remove Mexican studies for “encouraging dissent” was not made by the federal government. The decision to zone that area for golf courses didn’t come from Congress. These things all happened on the local level - and I guarantee that if you look into your own area, you’ll find similar horrifying decisions that passed without hardly a news mention. This is done on purpose! The GOP and in particular the Tea Party fringe group actively worked from the early 2000s to now to get people that agree with them elected to all of these local positions. I’m talking about school boards and city councils and neighborhood commissions and state legislatures and state-wide and county-wide elected offices. Do you know who is on your water board? No? Do you think that it might be helpful to know who the people that decide how your water gets billed and taxed and treated and shared are?

tl;dr: Your vote matters, especially at the local level. Disengaging from the process only helps the people already in power maintain it.

And if you think that you’d be interested in running for elected office sometime? Good! Your voice is desperately needed, because no one else is speaking up for your community! So, seriously: run for office. And if you want some resources on how to do that, hit me up, because that’s half of what my job used to be.

In the meantime, I leave you with this last piece of advice: look at who the decisionmakers are and look at who is missing from the room. Whether you’re an elected official, an activist, a policy analyst, or... really anything, honestly. The most important question you can ask before finalizing a decision is “who haven’t we heard from? Whose voice has been missing from this conversation?”

#american politics #longpost #VOTE!#get out the vote #leadership #elected office

9 notes · View notes

thinkveganworld · 3 years

Text

Here’s Part One of a series of articles I wrote a while back:

Goebbels and today’s mass mind control: Part One

How PR opinion-shapers turn the people against their own interests By Carla Binion (”thinkveganworld.tumblr.com”)

Today’s right-wing public relations spin has much in common with the propaganda methods of Hitler’s PR man, Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels admired Edward Bernays, a self-proclaimed founder of the public relations industry. Bernays, a Vienna-born nephew of Sigmund Freud, opened a New York office in 1919. According to John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, (“Toxic Sludge is Good for You,” Common Courage Press, 1995) Bernays “pioneered the PR industry’s use of psychology and other social sciences to design its public persuasion campaigns.”

Bernays wrote in “Propaganda,” (New York: 1928, pp. 47-48) “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it.” Bernays referred to this scientific opinion-control as the “engineering of consent."

In his autobiography, Bernays discusses a dinner at his home in 1933 where, "Karl von Weigand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Weigand his propaganda library, the best Weigand had ever seen.

Goebbels, said Weigand, was using my book ‘Crystallizing Public Opinion’ as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me. Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign."

Today, corporations spend millions on public relations campaigns to "crystallize public opinion,” often in an effort to convince the public that harmful things are actually good for us. Sometimes the companies start by bending the minds of our elected representatives.

This is the first part of a series. In part one, we’ll focus on the ways in which corporations and their public relations mind-shapers worked to destroy the Clinton health care plan. Today forty-four million Americans, about one in five people, have no health coverage, and many people cannot afford needed pharmaceutical drugs. Most Americans probably wonder why, despite repeatedly broken campaign promises, Congress never does anything to improve the health care system.

As far back as November 8, 1999, a Newsweek article reported that half or more of eligible heart attack patients are at greater risk because they can’t get needed beta blockers. The article stated that two-thirds of people surveyed say they are worried that health care is no longer affordable. Conditions haven’t improved since then.

In 1993, the Clinton administration tried to do something about the high price of prescription drugs, hinting at possible government-imposed price controls. The pharmaceutical industry then turned to the Beckel Cowan PR firm to oppose the administration’s designs on lowering the cost of prescription drugs – although, of course, the Clinton plan would have benefited the public. Stauber and Rampton write that Beckel Cowan “created an astroturf [or, fake grassroots] organization called 'Rx Partners’ and began deploying state and local organizers to, in the words of a company brochure, 'generate and secure high-quality personal letters from influential constituents to 35 targeted members of Congress.’"

At the same time, Beckel Cowan managed a mail and phone campaign "which produced personal letters, telegrams and patch-through calls to the targeted members’ local and Washington, DC, offices.” The PR firm built a network of supporters in 35 congressional districts and states. Pharmaceutical companies weren’t the only corporations to oppose an improved health care system.

The insurance industry went to work to fight against the Clinton health care plan, recruiting PR-man Robert Hoopes. According to Stauber and Rampton, the 300,000 member Independent Insurance Agents of America (IIAA) hired Hoopes as their “grassroots coordinator/political education specialist."

Campaign & Elections magazine reported the IIAA activated "nearly 140,000 insurance agents during the health care debate, becoming what Hoopes describes as a new breed of Washington lobbyists,” wrote Stauber and Rampton. Hoopes said the lobbyists “have behind them an army of independent insurance agents from each state, and members of Congress understand what a lobbyist can do with the touch of a button to mobilize those people for or against them."

In Campaign & Elections magazine ("Killing Health Care Reform,” October/November 1994) Thomas Scarlett writes of the insurance companies PR moves, “Through a combination of skillfully targeted media and grassroots lobbying, these groups were able to change more minds than the president could, despite the White House 'bully pulpit.'

Never before have private interests spent so much money so publicly to defeat an initiative launched by a president.” The Coalition for Health Insurance Choices (CHIC), an insurance company front group, led the attacks on health care reform. According to Consumer Reports, “The HIAA [Health Insurance Association of America] doesn’t just support the coalition; it created it from scratch.” Stauber and Rampton write that PR-man Blair G. Childs masterminded the Coalition.

Describing the fight against health care reform, Childs said in 1993, “The insurance industry was real nervous. Everybody was talking about health care reform. It felt like we were looking down the barrel of a gun.” He added, “We needed cover because we were going to be painted as the bad guy. You get strength in numbers. Start with the natural, strongest allies, sit around a table and build up to give your coalition a positive image."

To battle health care reform, Childs said the coalition brought in "everyone from the homeless Vietnam veterans to some very conservative groups. It was an amazing array, and they were all doing something.” (Blair Childs speaking at “Shaping Public Opinion: If You Don’t Do It Somebody Else Will,” in Chicago, Dec. 9, 1994.)

Childs advised industry health reform opponents on selecting names for their fake grassroots coalitions. He said they should use focus groups and surveys to find “words that resonate very positively.” (Examples included the words “fairness, balance, choice, coalition and alliance.”)

His own coalition sponsored the famous “Harry and Louise” television spots. Those ads used strategic words to convince the public that Clinton’s health care plan was overly complex – a “billion dollar bureaucracy.” Propagandist Rush Limbaugh also fueled the anti-health care debate on his radio show with frequent “calculated rants” aimed at his dittohead audience.

PR-man Blair Childs said his coalition ran paid ads on Limbaugh’s show to encourage Rush’s listeners to call members of Congress and urge them to kill health care reform. Stauber and Rampton say that congressional staffers often didn’t know the callers were “primed, loaded, aimed and fired at them by radio ads on the Limbaugh show, paid by the insurance industry, with the goal of orchestrating the appearance of overwhelming grassroots opposition to health reform."

During 1992 and much of 1993, before the propaganda blitz, both Democrats and Republicans were leaning toward a health reform bill according to James Fallows (The Atlantic, January 1995.) Fallows writes, "Bob Dole said he was eager to work with the administration and appeared at events side by side with Hillary Clinton to endorse universal coverage. Twenty-three Republicans said that universal coverage was a given in a new bill."

By 1994, the insurance corporations’ PR attacks had changed the political environment. Stauber and Rampton write that "Republicans who previously had signed on to various components of the Clinton plan backed away.” Even Democratic Party Senate majority leader George Mitchell “announced a scaled-back plan that was almost pure symbolism. Republicans dismissed it with fierce scorn."

Although Hitler’s propagandist used mass mind control for more sinister goals, today’s corporate propagandists have the following in common with Goebbels: They use the same opinion-shaping techniques he did, and they use them for the purpose of turning the people against their own interests. When large numbers of American citizens suffer or die because they can’t get needed medicine or surgery as a result of corporate propaganda, it becomes obvious that Goebbels and today’s industry PR spin doctors have produced fruit that is similar in kind, though different in degree.

The public benefits from understanding corporate PR and its character and intentions. Hitler said, "Only one thing could have broken our movement: if the adversary had understood its principle and from the first day had smashed with extreme brutality the nucleus of our new movement.” (Speech to Nuremberg Congress, 9/3/33.)

Corporate America’s movement to undermine affordable prescription drugs, universal health care and other public health and safety interests has to be understood before it can be fought. Stauber and Rampton say the PR industry resembles the title character in the old Claude Rains movie, “The Invisible Man.” Rains’ character uses his invisibility to get away with robbery, murder and other crimes.

The film was made using special-effects techniques such as hidden wires to make ashtrays, guns and other objects appear to float in mid-air, as if they were being moved by the invisible man. “Instead of ashtrays and guns,” write Stauber and Rampton, “The PR industry seeks to manipulate public opinion and government policy. But it can only manipulate while it remains invisible."

In part two, we’ll look at specific techniques today’s public relations ploys have in common with Goebbels’ methods, and we’ll examine the corporations’ and think-tanks’ Goebbels-like attacks on environmental protection.

7 notes · View notes

theculturedmarxist · 4 years

Text

@expatiating

>Literally anyone who lived in a communist or socialist regime: it was terrible..... 16 year old white girl on tumblr: yeah but that wasn’t real communism :///

You mean anyone like this, you stupid fucking asshole?

Oppressive and grey? No, growing up under communism was the happiest time of my life

When people ask me what it was like growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary in the Seventies and Eighties, most expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state.

They are invariably disappointed when I explain that the reality was quite different, and communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact, rather a fun place to live.

The communists provided everyone with guaranteed employment, good education and free healthcare. Violent crime was virtually non-existent.

But perhaps the best thing of all was the overriding sense of camaraderie, a spirit lacking in my adopted Britain and, indeed, whenever I go back to Hungary today. People trusted one another, and what we had we shared.

youtube

Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank

The island's economy, which suffered devastating losses in production after the Soviet Union withdrew its aid, especially its oil supplies, a decade ago, has yet to fully recover. Annual economic growth, fuelled in part by a growing tourism industry and limited foreign investment, has been halting and, for the most part, anaemic.

Moreover, its economic policies are generally anathema to the Bank. The government controls virtually the entire economy, permitting private entrepreneurs the tiniest of spaces. It heavily subsidises virtually all staples and commodities; its currency is not convertible to anything. It retains tight control over all foreign investment, and often changes the rules abruptly and for political reasons.

At the same time, however, its record of social achievement has not only been sustained; it's been enhanced, according to the WDI.

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank's Vice President for Development Policy who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999; Chile's was down to ten; and Costa Rica, 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50 percent lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba's achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

"Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable," according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. "You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area."

Indeed, in Ritzen's own field the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100 percent in 1997, up from 92 percent in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations, higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90 percent rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

"Even in education performance, Cuba's is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile."

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7 percent of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin America and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (ages 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at seven percent. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is seven percent, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

"Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40 percent to zero within ten years," said Ritzen. "If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it's not possible."

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada's rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

"What does it is the incredible dedication," according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since. "Doctors in Cuba can make more driving cabs and working in hotels, but they don't. They're just very dedicated," he said.

youtube

This amazing video and documentary, produced by Neighbor Democracy, details the evolving communal organs within the Rojava Revolution, from security to health care.

This 40 minute video is an in-depth look into the inner workings of the commune system of Rojava and how they work in practice. Rojava is the colloquial name for the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), a multi-ethnic, pluralist, women’s liberationist, and radically democratic autonomous zone that has grown out of the context of the Syrian Civil War. While there is frequent and thorough reporting on the military aspects of the Revolution in Rojava, especially their fight against Daesh (ISIS) and the Turkish State, the social revolution as it relates to the everyday lives of the people living there is rarely given anything more than a cursory overview, even in radical circles.

This video is one attempt to make up for that gap in easily digestible information about the way the day-to-day autonomous organizing affects daily life in Rojava. It also closes with a call for people in the US and elsewhere to build communes along similar lines, while discussing some possible contextual considerations specific to North America.

The communes in the DFNS are birthed out of tireless organizing by everyday people, predominately Kurdish women, in an effort that started clandestinely in the days of the Regime, but has since led to structures that could fill the power vacuum left in the war. The people of the DFNS are working out in practice through trial-and-error the culmination of 40 years of theoretical and practical knowledge built through the Kurdish struggle, and most thoroughly laid out by the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The communes have many similarities to the neighborhood assemblies that were the focus of the late American communalist Murray Bookchin, who was an inspiration for Ocalan. There are an estimated 4,000 communes in Rojava today, run through direct democracy of all the residents (50-150 families). The work of the commune is divided up into committees which anyone can join. The most common committees are explored in-depth in this video, and their timestamps can be found below. Each committee covered in the video can be found in its own short clip on the Neighbor Democracy channel so that these short, easy-to-digest videos can me shared in discussions about specific topics relating to communal approaches to various aspects of life.

Marinaleda: Will 'free homes' solve Spain's evictions crisis?

In the wake of Spain's property crash, hundreds of thousands of homes have been repossessed. While one regional government says it will seize repossessed properties from the banks, a little town is doing away with mortgages altogether.

In Marinaleda, residents like 42-year-old father-of-three, David Gonzalez Molina, are building their own homes.

While he burrows with a pneumatic drill into the earth, David nonchalantly says it "should take a couple of years".

However, when his new house is finished he will have paid "absolutely nothing".

Free bricks and mortar

The town hall in this small, aesthetically unremarkable town an hour-and-a-bit east of Seville, has given David 190 sq m (2,000 sq ft) of land.

He and others are only eligible after they have been registered residents of Marinaleda for at least two years.

The bricks and mortar are also a gift, this time from the regional government of Andalusia.

Only once his home is finished will he start paying 15 euros (£13) a month, to the regional government, to refund the cost of other building materials.

Of course, most people do not know how to build a house, so the town hall in Marinaleda throws in some expertise.

It employs several professional builders and plumbers, a couple of whom work alongside David, to help him construct his house.

HOMAGE TO CATALONIA

This was in late December 1936, less than seven months ago as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into enormous distance. Later events have obliterated it much more completely than they have obliterated 1935, or 1905, for that matter. I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señior’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’; everyone called everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead of ‘Buenos dias’. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers' side; I did not realize that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being.

Together with all this there was something of the evil atmosphere of war. The town had a gaunt untidy look, roads and buildings were in poor repair, the streets at night were dimly lit for fear of air-raids, the shops were mostly shabby and half-empty. Meat was scarce and milk practically unobtainable, there was a shortage of coal, sugar, and petrol, and a really serious shortage of bread. Even at this period the bread-queues were often hundreds of yards long. Yet so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gipsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers' shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes. To anyone from the hard-boiled, sneering civilization of the English-speaking races there was something rather pathetic in the literalness with which these idealistic Spaniards took the hackneyed phrases of revolution. At that time revolutionary ballads of the naivest kind, all about proletarian brotherhood and the wickedness of Mussolini, were being sold on the streets for a few centimes each. I have often seen an illiterate militiaman buy one of these ballads, laboriously spell out the words, and then, when he had got the hang of it, begin singing it to an appropriate tune.

youtube

Feel free to unfuck yourself you class cuck.

#communism #socialism #anarchism #you're a fucking moron and should shut your fucking mouth

19 notes · View notes

uncloseted · 4 years

Note

my mom keeps badgering me about the capital event bc i really hated it but i support the blm protests and she says it’s hypocritical of me bc the protests were just as “violent” as the capital and “caused lots of deaths”. i never really have anything to say back to justify what went down, do you have any info i could use to explain myself? i know they were for completely different causes and one actually matters, but i don’t know how to justify the “violence” (i personally don’t think a majority of them were violent, all the ones where i lived were routinely peaceful and i think the extreme ones were sensationalized for the news). anyway sorry if it’s dumb i’m 14 and just trying to get into politics and stuff so i’m not super well informed and just trying to learn.

I’m sorry this has taken me a few days to get to. What happened at the Capitol is complicated, and I want to make sure I give you as full of an answer as possible. I also want to just quickly say that it’s awesome you’re getting involved in politics at such a young age and trying to help your parents understand these issues. I would love to answer any questions you have about politics or social issues (or just kind of anything in general, I’m not picky). Last thing and then I’ll get into the meat of this post- I’m a huge supporter of the BLM and police abolition movements and was a protestor over the summer, so I’m maybe a little bit biased. This situation makes me really angry on a personal level, but I’ll try to stick to just the facts as much as possible in this post and let you know when I’m showing my own opinions.

So the first thing I want to talk about is language. The Black Lives Matter protests were protests- a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards a political idea or action, usually with the intention of influencing government policy. In the US, protesting is a constitutional right protected by the First Amendment. The storming of the Capitol was not a protest, and it wasn’t intended to be. It was planned several weeks in advance with the explicit intention of disrupting the counting of Electoral College ballots. Their stated goal was to overturn Donald Trump’s defeat in the presidential election, an election that is widely considered to be the freest, fairest, and safest election in US history (ironically, in part due to Trump’s insistence that there was voter fraud in the 2016 election). Storming a public building is not a form of protest protected by the US Constitution. Further, an attempt to overturn a democratic election is an attempt to carry out a coup. The Capitol rioters will likely be charged with sedition (conduct that incites rebellion against the established order) and/or insurrection (a violent uprising against an authority or government). The Black Lives Matter protestors were not attempting to carry out a coup against the US government, and none have been charged with offenses as big as those.

Next, I want to touch on motivation. The Black Lives Matter protesters were protesting against police brutality towards minorities, particularly Black people. There has long been a documented history of police misconduct and fatal use of force by law enforcement officers against Black people in the US. Many protests in the past have been a response to police violence, including the 1965 Watts riots, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the 2014 and 2015 Black Lives Matter protests in response to the murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray. By contrast, the Capitol rioters were not motivated by fact. They were called to action by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. They were told that the election had been “stolen” from Trump, and were encouraged to march over to the Capitol to “take back our country”. The idea that the election was stolen from the president is demonstrably false. They weren’t motivated by a social issue, a concern for their own lives, facts, or even really principle. “Our president wants us here...we wait to take orders from our president,” was what motivated them. The affiliations of those rioters are varied, but many of them are affiliated with either the far-right, anti-government Boogaloo Boys, the explicitly neofascist Proud Boys, the self-proclaimed militia The Oath Keepers, or the far-right militia group Three Percenters. Many are also on the record as being QAnon followers (followers of a disproven far-right conspiracy that started off as a 4chan troll, which states that an anonymous government official, “Q”, is providing information about a cabal of Satan-worshiping, cannibalistic pedophiles in the Democratic party who are running a child sex trafficking ring and plotting against Trump. Yes, really).

The intentions of BLM were largely peaceful. BLM protest documents encouraged protesters to be peaceful even in the face of police violence, because the BLM protesters knew what the price of being violent would be. We were encouraged not to bring weapons or anything that could be misconstrued as a weapon. Even non-violent protests were met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and riot gear. A reported 96.3% of 7,305 BLM protests were entirely peaceful (no injuries, no property damage). The 292 “violent incidents” in question were mainly the toppling of statues of “colonial figures, slave owners, and Confederate leaders”. There were also several instances of right wing, paramilitary style militia movements discharging firearms into crowds of protesters, and 136 confirmed incidences of right-wing participation at the protests (including members of the aforementioned Boogaloo Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, and Proud Boys). It was also rumored that off-duty police were inciting violence (although to my knowledge, that is unconfirmed). There is no evidence that “antifa” (a decentralized, left-wing, anti-racist and anti-fascist group) played a role in instigating the protests or violence, or even that they had a significant role in the protests at all. People who were involved in crimes were not ideologically organized, and were largely opportunists taking advantage of the chaos for personal gain.

By contrast, the “Storm the Capitol” documents were largely violent; messages like, “pack a crowbar,” and “does anyone know if the windows on the second floor are reinforced” were common on far-right social media platforms. One message on 8kun (formerly 8chan, a website linked to white supremacy, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, etc) stated, "you can go to Washington on Jan 6 and help storm the Capitol....As many Patriots as can be. We will storm the government buildings, kill cops, kill security guards, kill federal employees and agents, and demand a recount." The speakers at the Trump rally encouraged attendees to see themselves as foot soldiers fighting to save the country, and to be ready to “bleed for freedom”. The Capitol rioters were mostly armed; rioters were reportedly seen firing pepper spray at police officers, and pipe bombs, molotov cocktails, and guns (including illegal assault rifles) were found on the protesters. One protester was filmed saying, “believe me, we are well armed if we need to be.” Some protesters arrived in paramilitary regalia, including camo and Kevlar vests.

I quickly want to touch on scale. The George Floyd BLM protests are thought to be the largest protests in US history, with between 15 and 26 million (largely young, sometimes children, minority) people attending a protest in over 2000 cities in 60 countries. There were around 14,000 arrests, most being low-level offenses such as violating curfews or blocking roadways. 19 deaths have been reported, largely at the hands of police. Only one death is known to have been a law enforcement officer. The number of people who stormed the Capitol is still somewhat unclear, but it seems to be between 2,000 and 8,000 (largely older white, cis, straight, Christian men) people. 80+ people have been arrested for federal crimes, including 25+ who are being charged with domestic terrorism (something nobody associated with BLM is being accused of). There have been five deaths reported. One was a police officer, and the other four were rioters. Of those deaths, one was a police related shooting (a female Air Force veteran). The other three died of unrelated medical emergencies. One reportedly had a history of high blood pressure and suffered a heart attack from the excitement.

Now I want to look at government response. During the BLM protests, there was a huge response from law enforcement. 200 cities imposed curfews, 30 states and Washington DC activated over 96,000 National Guard, State Guard, 82nd Airborne, and 3rd Infantry Regiment service members. The deployment was the largest military operation other than war in US history, and it was in response to protests concerning, in part, the militarization of police forces. The police were outfitted in riot gear. They used physical force against BLM protesters, including batons, tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets, “often without warning or seemingly unprovoked,” per the New York Times. Anecdotally, everyone I know now knows how to neutralize pepper spray, treat rubber bullet wounds, build shields out of household items, how to prevent cellphones from being tracked, and how to confuse facial recognition technology to prevent being identified (as six men connected to the Ferguson protests mysteriously turned up dead afterwards, and the police were using cellphone tracking technology). Amnesty International issued a press release calling for police to end excessive militarized response to the protests. There were 66 incidents of vehicles being driven into crowds of protesters, 7 of which explicitly involved police officers, the rest of which were by far-right groups. Over 20 people were partially blinded after being struck with police projectiles. When the BLM protests were happening, Trump said that, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

In contrast, the response to the Capitol protesters was relatively tame, especially given that the US Capitol’s last breach was over 200 years ago (when British troops set fire to the building during the war of 1812) and the rioters weren’t being shy about their aspirations to conduct an armed insurrection incited by the sitting president. There was (widely available, able to be found through a Google search, everyone saw it) prior intelligence that far-right, extremist groups were planning on (violently) Storming the Capitol on January 6th, with the intention of interrupting the Electoral College ballot counting and holding lawmakers hostage. However, the US Capitol Police insisted that a National Guard presence would not be necessary for the protests, and Pentagon officials reportedly restricted DC guard troop from being deployed except as a measure of last resort, and restricted them from receiving ammunition or riot gear. They were instructed to engage with rioters only in self-defense, and were banned from using surveillance equipment. Despite prior knowledge of the “protests”, Capitol Police staffing levels mirrored that of a normal day, and no riot control equipment was prepared. The Capitol Police weren’t in paramilitary gear the way they were for the BLM protests. The mob walked in to the Capitol with little resistance. Some scaled walls, some broke down barricades, some smashed windows, and one video even seems to show Capitol Police opening a gate for the mob. Rioters traipsed around the Capitol (one of the most important government buildings in the country) with little resistance, looting and vandalizing offices of Congress members. Some rioters felt safe enough to give their names to media outlets, livestream their exploits, and take selfies with police officers. One man was (ironically) carrying a Confederate flag, a symbol of a secession attempt on the part of the South (and of racism). It took 50 minutes for FBI tactical teams to arrive at the scene, and the National Guard were initially directed by Trump not to intervene. Pence later overturned that ruling and approved the National Guard. Police used finally used riot gear, shields, smoke grenades, and batons to retake control of the Capitol, but notably no tear gas or rubber bullets. Video showed rioters being escorted away without handcuffs. Trump’s response to the riot was, "we love you. You're very special ... but you have to go home."

This is where I’m going to get a little editorial, but I think it’s important to say. If the people storming the Capitol Building were Black, they would have been met with a large, pre-coordinated military presence, violent restraint, arrests, and quite possibly would have been shot. They wouldn’t have made it inside the Capitol, much less been given free rein to wander around without immediate consequence. Hundreds of people during the George Floyd protests were arrested for just being present- 127 protesters were arrested for violating curfew on June 2nd in Detroit alone, twice the number of arrests made during the storming of the US Capitol. It turns out that the police do know how to use restraint, after all. What an absolute shock. It’s almost like they’re a corrupt and racist institution we should get rid off...

The last big thing I want to talk about is the outcome. The BLM protests were meaningful, but the outcome from them has been tame. Nobody has been accused of domestic terrorism. State and local governments evaluated their police department policies and made some changes, like banning chokeholds, partially defunding some departments, and passing regulations that departments must recruit in part from the communities they patrol. Only one city, Minneapolis, pledged to dismantle their police force. The response has largely been localized. I think the biggest impact it’s had is introducing people to the concept of police abolition and getting more people involved in the movement. By contrast, the Capitol riots have resulted in over 25 people being accused of domestic terrorism and the second attempt to impeach Donald Trump, something that has never happened before in the history of the US.

But what really concerns me is the precedent this sets. Donald Trump is an idiot, and he’s gotten this far. We can’t count on the guy who takes his place to be an idiot, too. The next guy could be clever, strategic, well-spoken, well-mannered... not to invoke Godwin’s law here, but people liked Hitler. He was a persuasive speaker and capitalized on conspiracy theories about World War 1 to gain support. His 1923 attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government failed, but sympathy for his aims grew. He painted himself as a good, moral man who loved dogs and children and was trying to do right by his country (by, among other things, arresting communists and leftists, and then eventually all minorities). Trump isn’t Hitler. He’s not even a Hitler analogue. But Trump has already done this much damage to the fabric of our society. He’s worn down our relationship with the media, with one another, with democracy, with morality, and with truth itself. We have to be prepared for the idea that the next guy might be a much better politician. Getting rid of Trump isn’t the end; it’s the beginning of a fight against fascism that’s only going to grow from here.

There are other differences you could point to. BLM protesters wore masks to prevent the spread of COVID (and indeed, researchers have reported that the protests did not drive an increase in virus transmission), for example, while the rioters were largely unmasked. But I think the bottom line is that the millions of BLM protesters were doing their best to be responsible citizens fighting peacefully for an evidence-based, human rights cause, even though they knew that as a primarily minority group of people, they would be met with violence. The thousands of far-right, white, Capitol insurrectionists were doing their best to overturn a free, fair, safe, and democratic election because of a call to action by Trump and a stringent belief in disproven conspiracy theories, which they knew would be met with minimal resistance despite the severity of their actions. The insurrectionists are fascists, full stop, and we should call them what they are. The BLM protesters were by and large just people, of all different political views and motivations, who wanted to fight against something they saw as unjust.

I’m sorry that this is such a long post. This topic has been on my mind all week, and I wanted to give it the nuance it deserves. All we can do from here is to keep fighting- for justice, for truth, and, hopefully, for peace.

#Anonymous #effys-closet #effys closet

10 notes · View notes

vampiresuns · 4 years

Text

Anatole’s Family Tree

this is Anatole’s family tree down to it’s basics, and you can have some info about everyone under the cut. I apologise for the intersecting lines, but family colours will help distinguish Florentino and Matilda from the Radošević they married.

hexagon is for he/him, circle for she/her, rounded edges for they/them

Vitale Cassano

Aquarius sun, Scorpio moon, Capricorn rising, Leo Mercury, Scorpio Mars, do NOT fuck with this man.

Former Consul of Vesuvia, responsible for the biggest (to date) expansions in the Vesuvian public space, the reason why Vesuvia was an attractive, rich location with solid public funding which ended up going to hell with Lucio’s administration, but that’s another story.

If he knew that his hard work would go to hell like it did, he would’ve made a coup to change the course of history.

Fuck around and find out in human form. His entire energy is condensed in this post.

Had the art of delivering insults diplomatically down to an art, however. “You’re tacky and I hate you” would destroy a diplomatic relation; “I believe a less heterodox decision which might hold the weight of this agreement with less attached risk” doesn’t.

Friends with Dragoslav Radošević parents, as in those friends you call uncle when they’re not really related to you, but kind of are by default of closeness anyway. Befriended him because he was the most eccentric person in the room and he was bored.

Amparo Mediavilla

Is that even her actual family name? Who the hell are the Mediavilla? Where does her money come from? She says she’s from Karnassos but literally no one knows (she does, she just won’t tell). Has a brother named Seraphim Mediavilla, and that’s all you need to know.

Vitale was well aware she was probably a smuggler, but he likes her surprisingly present honour code anyway. Plus, she was fun, she was different, she was efficient. We stan.

She’s half the reason why the Cassano’s library in the Vesuvian Palazzo they inhabit in the Heart District is basically an open research centre for all of those travellers who seek knowledge. The Cassano have almost always have an open doors policy — the Consul acts in behalf of the people, and the people are allowed to go to the Consul. Amparo expanded and bettered that system, to the point it acted as Vesuvia’s public library and the biggest reason why the Palace didn’t quite have one — it was an understanding that it wasn’t needed. The only time the Consul’s Palazzo has been closed to the people of Vesuvia is during the plague.

Longest lashes ever seen in a person.

Somehow already knew the Radošević, they liked her honest opinions and her distaste for explaining herself.

Luciano “Lucenzo” Cassano

Vitale’s baby brother, they had a significant age difference.

Known later as ‘Great Uncle Lucenzo’, literally no one called him Luciano but Vitale when he wanted him to stop doing something stupid. Not that Lucenzo thought his ideas were stupid, after all, this man was an architect and patron of the arts, and Goldgrave’s favourite loose canon ball.

He was not allowed to set a foot in Firent. When you asked him why, he kept changing the story.

Met his wife at an orgy. Yes, you read that right.

Octavia Cassano

Sweet lady, do no harm, take no shit, appreciates a good laugh in life.

Met Lucenzo at an orgy. She made a joke, and the person she was focusing on didn’t find it funny, but Lucenzo did.

Came from another prominent Vesuvian family. Worked with her BIL, Vitale, in developing social policy plans and judicial reforms in Veusuvia. Which also went to hell. If she was alive today, Portia would be her favourite and would literally fight to have her work with her.

Greenest eyes this side of the straight of seals.

Agrippina & Iovanus Cassano

Amparo’s and Vitale’s children, Agrippina is two years older than Iovanus.

Agrippina stepped down from becoming the Consul out of personal preference. They were a scholar and proficient historian, very talented in the art of mixing a good drink as well. Closest to the Prakran intellectual circles and is one of the notable alumni of the Prakran University. One of her later acquaintances, Rosario Aster, would eventually become Anatole’s tutor in History and Politics before he went to university himself.

Agrippina partly worked as a diplomat attaché, wasn’t a full on freedom fighter simply because there wasn’t an uprising to be one in. If Vitale is the MO of the Cassano, Lucenzo their spark, and Amparo their zest, Agrippina is, surprisingly, their political compass. Agrippina and Lucio weren’t on the best terms, they were in awful terms actually. The Cassano and him are simply like oil and water, it just doesn’t mix.

Iovanus took after Vitale and became the Consul. He was less of a surprise stew than the father, though, and inevitably, his best focus became damage control.

His entire vibe is moomin going on a murderous rage and then holding back. He’s folding the knife. For now. Iovanus was a pain in the ass to have as a predecessor in the position of Consul because this man constantly had his patience tested and his city funds used in things he didn’t want to do. Responsible, along with Agrippina, with the current functioning of the Council of Vesuvia and it’s final opening before Anatole’s times. What that composition and functioning is, is something I might, one day, decide to write down, but not today for the sake of staying on topic.

They’re the closest thing to the “spirit” of a tribune of the plebs I can think of, without like, either of them ending up dead like the Gracci brothers.

Cassandra Cassano

Finally some fucking scientist/mathematician. Mathematician wife of Agrippina. Did some political economy, but that hadn’t been invented yet, mostly liked numbers for the sake of numbers and finding out what she could do with them.

Having in mind that when I say ‘Vesuvian’ I mean solely location and original seat, not ethnicity, comes from a Vesuvian Family which settled in Venterre. Studied in Zadith and Prakra, but met Agrippina during some diplomatic function.

She was someone else’s date, and Agrippina was working with Iovanus is some diplomatic relations, and Agrippina literally said they were happy and willing to stay to seal the negotiations if Cassandra would go out with them. Cassandra was bored off her skin, and said yes.

They married by the end of the year.

Valerian Cassano

Iovanus’ husband. Renaissance man in the humanities department, very savant, a virtuoso, but his true passion was the performing arts. Darling of Vesuvian opera and theatre.

Met Iovanus through Lucenzo (patron of the arts, remember?). Iovanus went to every single of his plays for a year, made some very light advances as a “fan”, until Valerian asked him what his deal was. Iovanus was disarmed by gorgeous light amber eyes and witty snark, having no option but to admit his feelings.

Cemented the Cassano-Radošević relationship with Goldgrave. Most of the family thought it healthy for a dose of ‘get of your high-horse’ check.

Hated the Colosseum with a black tar vitriol.

He was Elysian Radošević’s (Anatole’s great grandmother on the Radošević side) best friend.

Matilda Cassano & Krešmir Radošević

Here’s where the story gets a bit sad. Inherited all of the snark of Valerian, but wanted nothing to do with her family’s ventures.

They just didn’t click. She always thought her fathers were very dedicated men, but needed to let loose a little. She was here for a fun time, not a long time. Which was sadly, literal.

For the longest time, it was an understanding that her cousin Cassiopeia would inherit the consulship from Iovanus, which Matilda didn’t love. She didn’t want the Consulship, but thought she was entitled to it. She could be the Consul and Cassiopeia do the job.

Cassiopeia did not like the idea, specially because within the Cassano it’s an open rule that the title falls on whomever willingly wants to take the mantel, number one. Number two, it came with an awareness of your social position and what good you could do with it, having in mind you weren’t really necessary for society. Someone else could be the Consul, the people, if given a chance, would govern themselves. It’s part of the Cassano mythos that surrounds them that they’re a protective line between misused political power and the people of Vesuvia. So, no, Matilda shouldn’t be the Consul.

Honestly, did Iovanus and Valerian spoil her too much? They have no clue. They just think she might be wired that way, because she always disliked it.

She married the fourth of the equivalent generation of the Radošević siblings, Krešmir Radošević.

Krešmir was a bit of a loose shot, doing “useful” things because he had to, not because he wanted to, so they took to each other like fish to water. They both wanted to have fun, the problem was they wanted to have fun with no respect of the world around them. Krešmir had middle child syndrome, which became worse after his youngest sibling, Ilnya, died at 27.

They had two children: Vladislav Radošević and Valeriy “Valerius” Radoševic.

Sadly, they passed away when Vlad was 14 and Val 4. They went on a holiday, leaving the kids with Mircea Radošević (Krešmir older brother) and Florentino Cassano (Matilda’s cousin and Mircea’s husband), as Iovanus and Valerian were in no place (out of grief) to take care of the children, and Mircea and Florentino were their de facto care takers already.

Now, onto the Radošević, so mind you, we’re going back a couple of generations.

Dragoslav Radošević

PRIME recipient of the Radošević tradition of breeding polymaths/”renaissance people”. This man spoke 6 languages, knew astronomy, economy, mathematics, accountancy, a bit of law and a whole lot of history. Excellent chess player.

No one’s exactly sure what the hell he did, he did too many things. Some sort of diplomacy was clearly his most usual job. Big friends with Agrippina, Cassandra and Iovanus. Everyone thought he’d marry Agrippina but both of them dry heaved at the possibility.

He was a bit of a character though. Very conspicuous man with particular rituals. Taciturn man, too, but overall amicable.

Had a very long, stable marriage with Elysian, his wife. Survived the death of two of their children. The death of Ilnya hit Dragoslav more than anyone would expect, but he had a very “let me grief in private” stance. The key to understand a Radošević is that their mentality is “whatever happens to you, whatever life throws at you, you find a way to survive it.”

His is a family of eccentrics, inventors, patron of the arts, humanists and scientists; when he says his family, he means the Cassano too.

No rumour ever mattered to any of them, and Dragoslav & Elysian were a prime example of it. Theirs is a family of academics full of anxieties about the world surrounding them, whose sorrows were scars they rarely showed. Private yet with an extensive, and international, circle of acquaintances who deemed them all charmingly strange on their best days; prideful, analytic, often with a drink in hand.

Had a sister who had three partners, all of them women, too.

Elysian Radošević, nee Juriša

Wallachian by birth, first person in her family (aside from one aunt the Juriša did NOT speak about) to marry someone who wasn’t a Wallachian in a couple of generations. Not that she minded, everything I said about Drago, applies to Elysian.

She was a child of high society, bonded with Valerian, her best friend, out of their love for Operettas, though while Valerian went pro, she was an amateur — still, very good at it.

Excellent piano player, loved a well crafted, ingenious garden.

Beacon of the Radošević righteous rage. The Radošević are meant to be from a place called Balkovia, which is modelled after Yugoslavia, with many of the “bumps” in actual history colliding (A/N: Anatole is a latine-slav like me, for a reason). Elysian was the friend of artists and partisans, and had absolutely zero respect for certain kinds of leeches in political power. Zero national pride in this one, but at least, she came from a place were partisans stood (or used to) stand up to injustice.

In her dignified clothes with her amiable smile, she will bite ankles. Try her, you just try Elysian Radošević and she’ll remind you of all those people who ever said: They shall not pass.

Ambrozije Radošević

Diplomat, politician, eldest of Dragos and Ely’s children.

Inherited his father’s temperance but also had Elysian’s "Excuse Me, What The Fuck Is This Shit” attitude. Still, many times when he talked about his job, he had to stop his mother to go out and bite ankles.

Was the Radošević rage an answer against the grief of living and growing, against the cycle of dying and rebirth, and a cry of this is not enough, what I get is not enough? Maybe. Ambrozije liked to theorise about it.

Married Eloise Isaković and had two children: Kuzma and Lucija.

Best fencer of his generation.

Eloise Isaković

Didn’t take the Radošević surname solely to spite her family. She was disinherited for wanting to marry a Radošević. Her father said “if you want to marry then be a housewife for those freaks and I’ll take you out of University.”

The Radošević were like not in my fucking watch.

You bet Elysian and Dragoslav had words about that.

Percy Shelley, if Percy had been a woman, and also an anthropologist.

Will make femur jokes.

Kuzma & Lucija Radošević

Less in the centre of things than the rest of the family, out of virtue of “dear God, I get they’re my family but these people are fucking weird.”

The Addams energy was too much for them.

Kuzma is an alchemist and an inventor, moved to Zadith to study, never came back. He has two daughters and a wife, though.

Lucija became a diplomat for Balkovia, has a seat beyond the straight of seals. More traditional for diplomacy than Ambrozije by all means.

Very Dad please not now, but she does love the old man.

Married, never had children.

Neuma Radošević

Painter, a gay who can do maths, so that’ll have you knowing she’s stronger than you already. Perspective does not scare her.

Little does.

(Moths do, for some reason).

Claimed to have zero magical ability, but it was heavily disputed because how the hell did she paint like that.

Travelled a lot with her bohemian artist found family.

Never married.

Anatole loved watching her paint as a kid, she taught Valeriy to paint and about art as well. Big difference was Valeriy had a better hand for it than Anatole did, who literally can’t draw to save his skin.

Mircea’s favourite.

Mircea Radošević

Distinguished man, owns my heart.

“That was nOT POLITE”

Pretty level headed, has a big heart and a lot of will to help people. Just don’t be impolite, or he won’t like you.

Yes, he’s a libra.

An Architect, got to meet the other Architect in the family Lucenzo Cassano. That’s, in fact, how he met Florentino. Of course Lucenzo had an apprenticeship for Dragoslav son, but of course. The rest is history. Longest lasting marriage in both the Cassano and the Radošević tree by virtue of them gaving gotten together fairly young, and in the furture dying of a very, very old age.

He enjoyed travelling and the finer, beautiful things in life. If you want to equate his views to anyone in the real world, think about William Morris saying “I do not want art for a few; any more than education for a few; or freedom for a few.”

Aristically, somewhere between Gaudi and Morris.

Worked in several restoration projects both in Balkovia and Vesuvia.

Lived in Vesuvia on and off with Florentino and the children, which meant Vlad and Val were raised right between the vortex of everything that is the Cassano and the Radošević.

As polite and diplomatic that he is, he isn’t really a doormat, and if there’s anyone he would throw hands for it’s for his children (yes, he sees them as his children), and Anatole. Disrispect tha boy in front of him and he will throtle you and say you did it to yourself.

Florentino Cassano

Nicknamed Floren, Florence, Florens, Flolo, Tino, Tinino, Antonino.

Very responsible, big sense of family. Closest in personality to Vitale Cassano, his grandather.

Son of Agrippina and Cassandra, took after Cassandra’s love for numbers, but mixed it with Agrippina’s eye for politics and his Aunt Octavia’s knack for political economy (even if it had’t been invented yet).

Financier and investor worked in the public sector, ran the coffer of the Council of Vesuvia for a while, but quitted out of management differences with certain people in Court and up. Still very willing to help people of all backgrounds manage their assets though.

A bit of a hardass, when Matilda and Krešmir died he said of course they would, as it was very in the likes of them to get so lost in the moment and their ideal world where they had no earhtly responsibilities to forget they had two young sons.

Still, when Vlad and Val first called him “Dad” or “Father”, respectively, he kinda cried big tears. Freaked Vlad out because he thought he had done something wrong. Florentino was quick to tell him he hadn’t.

Ilnya Radošević & Blasio Abadzić

Ilnya was another one of those Radošević that you weren’t exactly sure what the hell was it that they did, because they seemed to have a lot of eggs in different baskets. Was an astronomer, though.

Strongest intuition/six senth in the Radošević. Another of those cases where it was definitely magic (Ilnya was clairvoyant) but they all passed it off as having another explanation.

Was the most joyful, had the most contagious laughter and the quickest, most wicked sense of humour.

I’m not entire sure how Blasio and them met, they haven’t told me yet, but it was one of those meetings which changes your life forever.

Blasio is equally irreverent, if not more. This one post of a man playing the guitar and an old man dancing to it is the exact vibe Blasio had (he’s the old man dancing, the man playing the guitar would be his grandson Milenko — who’s Anatole’s cousin however many times removed).

They lived in Vesuvia. Ilnya was a court scientist. The Cassano library has a try globe map that was their work with a court cartographer. It has a map of the region, of the world, and of the stars for navigation purposes.

Ilnya died of sepsis at the age of 27, going on 28. To this day, no one knows exactly what took them out.

After Ilnya died, the Cassano offered to take Blasio and their twins Atanasie (pronounced Ah-ta-na-SY) and Violeta in with them to ease of the expences of raising two kids as a single father. He accepted.

Blasio was a composer and dramaturg. He took it as a personal goal not to let the joy escape from his life after becoming a widower. Said carrying on with joy and irreverence was his job, as if to preserve his spouse’s legacy.

Vladislav Radošević

Whatever name theme you sense with him and his wife, don’t @ me about it!!! I remade this entire family on a whim, I will take my headcanons about other things and build from them.

Eldest of the V² brothers, if people had soulmate marks, his soulmate would be his brother. Vlad has always felt responsible for him and, unlike him, remembers much of how they parents actually were or how carelessly negligent they could be. His defence against grief was becoming taciturn and “distancing” himself from things. It didn’t always really work for him, but he sure did try.

Grew up with the mistaken feeling that the rest of their families were taking care of him and his brother as a favour. He eventually wrapped his head around the idea that it wasn’t a favour.

Called Mircea and Florentino “Father”/”Dad” for the first time when he was 16, never went back. It wasn’t like he didn’t spent a lot of time being brought up by them due to his own parents absences.

Taciturn, remarkably inventive and intelligent, has a bit of trouble coming out of his shell. Prefers to observe, then pounce. Other than this, his main personality trait is “I love my wife, I love my son.”

An alchemist, works in what would be closest to biochemical engineering.

Mircea and Florens discovered he would be very suited for that field because when he was a kid he kept designing buildings to show Mircea. They clearly showed he had not a predisposition to become an architect, but whatever weird, inexplicable mazes he created always came with solutions attached and clever mechanisms.

He’s a problem solver, he’s just shaking years of bad mental health habits of his shoulders.

A scorpio and a cat person. Has two cats with Louisa, Kiki and Keke (their actual names are Cyrila and Cecilia).

Yes, his brother is also a scorpio, yes his son is also a scorpio. They get along, however.

Met Louisa in some sort of medical-alchemy conference/symposium (whatever that would be aplicable to the time, what matters to me is that you get the idea). Louisa didn’t like his attitude, called him out, and Vlad simply blinked, apologised, and did better.

A second apology and further conversations ended up with them falling in love.

If Vlad knows what allowing himself to love and live feels like, it is because of Louisa and Anatole.

He gets pegged.

Speaks five languages and won a regional fencing championship when he was in his early 20s. Still thinks his brother is better at fencing than he is.

Louisa De Silva

Latin American, eldest of three sisters (Paris and Alma being the other two De Silva sisters). She emmigrated from her native country to a. study medicine b. because there was a Dictatorship at the time, and her parents suspected Louisa would not keep quiet enough to guarantee her safety.

She personally swore never to go back until there were no active traces of said dictatorship left in her country. Nothing, not even the war that eventually rose up in Balkovia has made her change her mind, and probably nothing will. Once she is set on what is right, she is set.

Met Vlad as mentioned above. She didn’t appreciate his initial “careful” cynicism, but also didn’t believe he was as insufferable as most people thought he was. Someone with attention to detail, determination and who prefers to stand back from social situations, who hasn’t actually done anything nefarious, offensive or in bad taste isn’t a bad person.

Once she paid him a visit and he opened the door shirtless because he thought it was his brother, and Louisa almost wheezed in front of him.

“I’m going to sleep with Radošević” “But you don’t have to?” “No, no, I’m gonna.”

Speaks five languages.

Speaking of the war I mentioned: there was a war in Balkovia which began little before Anatole was born, and therefore around 29 years before the events of the game. At the time, Vlad and Louisa were already together, and planning to move to Vesuvia. However, the war began, Vlad felt torn about leaving and not helping, not that he wanted to admit it, and Louisa said “well, I did not leave a country ridden with injustice to passively see war crimes being committed.” As soon as she could after Anatole was born she volunteered as a field doctor.

And she is good. “Louisa De Silva” would absolutely resonate in Nazali’s or Julian’s fellow doctor knowledge level of notoriously good.

Aquarius sun, Saggitarius moon, she’s active, independent, unconventional, friendly, very understanding and highly humanitarian. Louisa loves people and cannot stand injustice. Loves and craves learning and is very sincere. She can be a bit impulsive, but she’s good at coming back from it.

Much of Anatole’s sense of social duty and sometimes even social fight is due to Louisa.

Vlad and Val call her Lulu. Anatole always calls her Mamá. Always. It doesn’t matter what language he’s speaking, she is his Mamá.

Louisa De Silva, santa patrona del pueblo que lucha.

Often dragged Vlad and Val into some of her schemes. Val loves to complain about it, but he actually adores his SIL.

Valeriy “Valerius” Radošević of the Cassano of Vesuvia, former Consul of Vesuvia and Court Advisor.

Here is where I would like to clarify and remind the (very patient) reader that this is my own interpretation of Canon, and I’ve triedto build with it from what little we were told of this specific character, Vesuvian lore, and the story I wanted to tell. I tried to do my best with the interpretation of the character, but know you’re in no obligation to adhere to my ideas.

Some people can call him Val, namely, his parents, his nephew, his SIL and his brother. Literally anyone else he will bite your head.

Inherited his mother’s and his namesakes witty snark, even if it’s not always witty.

I have the personal hc that Lucio cannot, for the life of him, pronounce slavic names, so Valeriy became Valerius, though his family already called him Valerius because it was the one nickname he accepted.

However, for the most part, his family calls him Valeriy, in contrast to Vesuvian citizens, who call him Valerius.

Doesn’t remeber his parents, and doesn’t like to think about them. It is very tragic that they died, but they left him, and he has no time for people like that. His brother, however, had always been there. So have been Mircea and Florentino.

I’ve always hc he had one big love in his youth, but couldn’t actually stand the idea of an empty marriage based on status and decided to never marry.

Wasn’t always this high and mighty. He has always been a complicated man, with complicated tastes and even a snob, but he was raised in two multicultural families, based in two multicultural cities. What I personally hc happening here is that he truly hates his job. He does like the sense of status and the power that comes with it, but the responsibility? The state of things when he took over from Iovanus? The paperwork? The staleness of it all? And to do it for a city that ate itself up?

He would’ve given his cousin Cassiopeia his left arm to take the position for him, but in the end, he was subject of what he thought everyone expectations were. He feared more not being enough in the eyes of his grandfather, who did not want to repeat the same mistakes he did with Matilda, than saying “Nono Iovanus I actually hate this job with all my soul.”

But then again, the power attached to it.

I fully believe that if you had given Valerius a position that was, say, a cultural authority of sorts? Where he could focus on the arts, theatre, food and those sort of things? He would’ve thrived. The city would’ve been leagues away from where it was if he would’ve been allowed to solely focus on art.

Instead, he has to fix people’s problems, and he doesn’t want to. It isn’t that he doesn’t care in the slightest — he does, in the distant sense of people should not be dying left and right, and cities should be ran by competent Statespeople. Of course he believes that! He’s a Radošević and a Cassano of Vesuvia, who do you take him for. It was his family that 500 years ago stepped up into the position due to their sheer excellence, of course he believes that.

Just for the love of everything you deem holy, do not fucking leave that fixing to him. He’s begging you, and he doesn’t actually beg

(At least that’s what he says in public)

While he doesn’t quite like magic, or rather, doesn’t quite understand it and takes a lot of self proclaimed magicians as frauds (and an insult to good peope’s intelligence), he’s never had a judgamanetal attitude towards Anatole’s magical sensitivies. Most of what he sees about it is his inordinate aptitude for languages. He tends to take it as his nephew being simply Better, because if this man is something, that thing is proud.

He eases off after the events of the game where he can simply be a court advisor and give himself a chance. Not that it excuses or ammends any mistake that he committed, but it’s a place to start. He can do that, he thinks.

His was the decision to close during the Plague, and for the first time, the Palazzo the Cassano inhabit in the Heart District to the City.

His grandafther Valerian was (is) still alive while he’s the Consul, and tried to reach out to help him when he began to do deals with the Devil many times, but Valerius sucks at letting people help him. Officially worse than his brother at it.

He is, however, the best fencer in the family, and he is one of the best singers, he just doesn’t do any of both much in front of people. What he does when he’s at home is none of your business.

While I could feel pages of headcanons about this man, but I will try to stay on topic, and mostly address my previous post about the subject of Valerius’ and Anatole’s relationship, which, now that I’ve reworked the families into a story I do feel excited to tell most of it no longer applies.

The timeline is p much the same, both with Valerius, and with Anatole travelling with tutors to study and visiting whenever he could.

His feelings when Anatole dies stay the same. The difference is Anatole's family does know he dies when he stands as the Apprentice (normally, he doesn’t, he just stands as an Arcana OC). During the time of the plague, Vlad and Louisa travelled to Vesuvia to help, so they do know their son died.

What ends up breaking Val is not only losing his nephew (and again for what) but also seeing his brother and his SIL completely break. It was his job to protect him, and he didn't do it. He wasn’t enough.

I headcanon that when Anatole doesn’t die, one of his deals with the Devil is that no harm comes (from the Court) to Anatole. I also hc that for someone who has such pride in his intellect (which is there, he is pretty smart) he did rather unsuitable dealings with the Devil, by which I mean he dealt in really awful terms that he, himself, would’ve berated anyone else to have done out of their sheer idiocy of not fully using their leverage.

The main difference with the post is that Anatole and Valerius do not suffer their family anymore. The Radošević and the Cassano are opinionated and very "If something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us" but they're good, eccentric, people-leaning people, albeit wealthy. Hence, why I personally hc that what happens here is that he hates the job but loves the status, but the status carries the responsibility of people asking him for things, and he doesn’t want to be asked for things. He will be in his room if you need him, and please do not need him.

(In Anatole’s case, it's finding his place in the world. It’s a journey of diaspora and of becoming. To win, you must first know yourself)

Vlad and Louisa adore him to bits still, complicated as he is.

Anatole and Valerius do fight in some of the LI routes and during those three years before the game begins.

Everything else stands.

Atanasie and Violeta Radošević, and Aurora Radošević

Thank you with bearing with me so far, I love you.

Atanasie and Violeta are twins, cousins of Vlad and Valeriy, children of Ilnya and Blasio, the happy eccentric duo.

Grew up right amid the Radošević and the Cassano, and it really goddamn shows. They’re en aunt and uncle/counsins saying criptic things with a drink in hand, and you’re not entirely sure if they’re portetns of doom or not, but good for them!

Best violinists in the family though. Play the most instruments as well, as Blasio was a composer and multi-instrumentalist. Neither of them are professional musicians though.

Atanasie is a traveller and explorer, think of the eccentric explorer archetype without the Colonialism nor the grave robbing. Would, objectively, get along the best with Julian. He’s another of those people who knows a lot of things about different topics, but now like cursed/forbidden/borderline illegal things.

If Amparo Mediavilla had been alive to know him, she would’ve been really proud.

Violeta is a botanist and garden designer. The palace did ask her to work with them, but she went No ❤️. She, however, is responsible for the current design of the Palazzo’s winter garden, which in her biased yet correct opinion is the best room in it.

High femme eccentric queen, married Aurora who used to travel around with Atanasie. She’s an archeologist.

They have one son, Milenko, who is... an entire party.

Aelius Anatole Radoševic De Silva, of the Cassano of Vesuvia, former secretary of the Council of Vesuvia, and Consul of Vesuvia

Good ol’ Nana

Technically, that would be his entire ass title (which he correctly insists it’s a public office, not a nobiliary title, because a Consul is a public servant, and people just got mad with power for to long)

He hates it.

Please just call him Anatole, or Aelius if you’re not that daring.

I’m going to use this to talk a bit about Consul Anatole: along with Nadia, he introduced a series of social reforms, solidified them, and changed a lot of aspects of the way in which the City was run, in order to make corruption harder (Nana’s pride and joy are his Anti-Corruption directives) and to protect the reform on themsleves.

Adamantly against having a statue of him. Which was respected while he was alive, but a couple of generations down, they eventually built one, near the main square.

It points east, which is where the sun rises. It’s a metaphor for hope, and for Vesuvia to have the resilence to await for the dawn.

Milenko Radošević

His vibe is this picture of Javier Botet, meeting this meme, and the video of the old man and the younger man playing guitar, where he would be playing guitar. Oh, also, this picture of a guy floating in the Zadar floods of 2017, from this post. If this was a modern AU rest assured that WOULD be Milenko, and he doesn’t even live in Zadar.

When you see internet memes about how Slavs/people from the Adriatic are kind of weird, I want you to think of Milenko.

So yes, you would see him on a floatie down the canals of Vesuvia.

He’s a journalist and a writer, which has nothing to do with him being a character.

Tried to summon the Devil to show the Devil isn’t real. After the events of the game, if Anatole is involved in defeating the devil, he’s always offended he didn’t bring him along, he had points to prove.

Plays the guitar and the double bass.

Looks like an 80s goth, and we will not question how that’s mildly anachronistic. His favourite band would be The Cure. Also would have a soft spot for The Cranberries which he definitely took from Anatole.

When Belle and Sebastian wrote “colour my life with the chaos of trouble” in the Boy With The Arab Strap they were talking specifically about Milenko.

Chugs respect women juice harder than most people. If he chokes on it, then that’s how he dies.

Not allowed in several bars, has at least one sworn enemy in the Vesuvian nobility.

Him, Amparo Cassano (she’s down below) and Anatole are all in the same age range, and they’re a force to be reckon with.

Thank you for staying with me up to this point! We’re about to make another jump back. We’re following Lucenzo Cassano’s line now.

Atilia Cassano & Anzano Ventura

Atilia is the child of Lucenzo and Octavia. Closest thing to a community organiser. Need someone to organise a party? Atilia. A meeting? Atilia. To allocate human resources to enact some policy? Atilia.

Anzano is the son of two High Priests in Vesuvia from one of the temples in the Temple District, which is how they met Atilia.

Anzano doesn’t have a fixed profession, and takes things up according to their interests. Which are varied.

Cares more about their cat than they do about some people, both of them. Neither of them are the kind to wish ill on other people, but if ill falls on you as consequences of your actions, then that’s on you buddy.

Some of the things Anzano Ventura has said, without context: “My heart is green with hope.”

“Figure out what fortune has to hand you and spit twice in the face of the Gods.” It’s a saying from where they’re originally from. They’ve never properly explained what it means.

“These are not gentle waters we are sailing.” There is context for this one. They said this when the Plague began to surface in Vesuvia.

Atilia died a couple years before Anzano, who died of Plague.

This is how Anzano would’ve looked like in his early twenties.

Cassiopeia Cassano & Iris Ravella

If Valerius had not become the Consul, it would’ve fell on Cassiopeia. She was a Vesuvian diplomat and politician, member of the Council. Would’ve become the Consul anyway, but, respecting Iovanus’ wishes and trusting (correctly or not, it’s up to you) Valeriy’s potential, stepped aside.

Truly did not resent Matilda for harbouring peculiar feelings against her because Iovanus didn’t want to let her have the Consulship. Nor she did on Valeriy for his mistakes.

Iris comes from another prominent Vesuvian family. Theirs is a family of merchants, based in Centre City, who weren’t particularly thrilled about Iris marrying a Cassano.

Iris cared very little. They did it anyway.

Amparo Cassano

Last but not ever least.

Ballet dancer, fencer, deeply invested in politics. Amparo takes after the OG Amparo, her great aunt Amparo Mediavilla, in her daring, often without explanation ways, as she does in her honour code.

Sarcastic wit, a little bit petty. Would be one of those people who go “I licked it, so it’s mine.”

Takes up an interest in languages, as well as runes and tarot, though she’s not as good with languages as Anatole is. She says life gave him a magical advantage or otherwise she would’ve bested him. Anatole doesn’t doubt it.

Would climb to your window to impress you, with a sword to her hip. She’s that kind of bi.

Would definitely dance to Caramelldansen, and so would Milenko. Anatole would Not, but would look at Amparo dead in the eye and dance it when they’re alone, because he knows no one will believe her.

She calls him a ‘motherfucker’, to which he replies: “Do I LOOK like Oedipus to you.”

Loud mouthed, but with a good heart.

While her an Milenko are, technically, not actually related, they act like they are. They don’t care that’s not how it works.

Comrade Cassano? Comrade Cassano.

The world is her oyster and she’s about to slurp it.

Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end of this list. Means the world to me, as I’m happy to share the Radošević-Cassano with anyone who is willing to listen.

#aelius anatole #the radosevic-cassano #this? this is Deep Lore #i'm finally done holy shit

23 notes · View notes

enjoy-the-small-thingsxx · 4 years

Text

#Auspol #TonyAbbott

Get this:- (What began as a plague of anonymous fact-checkers attempting to elevate their preferred politics, has metastasised into a truth manufacturing line with the same quality control as a Wuhan mask factory.) NAILED IT.

Probably the best article you will read today and will most likely be ignored because its long it needs to go viral.

(Spectator)

I hope you all have a good memory, because you are going to need it.

Modern political events are being re-written in real-time – dare we say it – ‘whitewashed’ by the unanimous vote of the unelected press. What began as a plague of anonymous fact-checkers attempting to elevate their preferred politics, has metastasised into a truth manufacturing line with the same quality control as a Wuhan mask factory.

There is a danger that the only faithful record of our era will be the one decaying inside our memories. It is a shame that civilisation has fallen back into this bad habit of allowing the powerful to coerce the truth, seizing control on a scaffolding of lies. That said, there is never anything new regarding the squabbles of humanity. The dramatic events of the past few weeks are, in the proper historical context, a tired repeat of the poorly produced saga of our species. These episodes have different authors and a fresh cast, but their underlying story remains the same.

Liberty creates prosperity. Prosperity creates power. Power creates tyranny. Tyranny creates civil upheaval.

After this, the way forward is uncertain. More often than not, the battle for liberty is lost and the citizenry can do little more than lament the freedoms that were so easily and swiftly surrendered to the mob.

If we are to successfully defend our democracy, preserving the historical record is essential. Failure to do so will leave us in the goldfish bowl of fortune, circling the water with Big Brother looking in – distorted and immense on the other side of the glass.

In 2021, our history is guarded by Silicon Valley. We rent space on their cloud servers and entrust companies like Amazon and Google with our private information – usually without reading their terms of service. One accident at a hosting centre or arbitrary censorial act has the potential to erase businesses and memories. Most people place so much faith in these companies that they do not bother backing anything up for safekeeping.

Our civilisation is awash with data hosted by corporate third parties. While most of us are old enough to remember an age before digital streaming, our youngest generations have lived their lives in the palm of Big Tech. They have entwined themselves with these companies in such a way that any attempt made by the wider community to threaten Silicon Valley’s empire will be resisted by devout technological serfs.

When did Social Media’s control of the historical record begin?

Wikipedia was a shiny new thing when I was in high school. Instead of traipsing to the library to locate a reference book that probably wasn’t even filed in the right place, we were gifted this crazy website out of nowhere. Wikipedia was essentially crack for the academic class, providing instant gratification for knowledge-seekers. Type in the question and voila! all the work was done for you. No more waiting in line at the photocopier with an idiot attacking a paper jam with a pair of scissors.

It was like cheating, and that was certainly what our teachers called it. Despite having this glorious database of seemingly infinite knowledge, no one was allowed to use it for anything other than time-wasting ‘wiki-surfing’. (If you haven’t done it, don’t start.)

Our teachers had two objections to the rise of Wikipedia.

The first was a (perfectly reasonable) fear that it would make our inquiring minds lazy. With everyone receiving instant answers, there was no opportunity to stumble over the complexities of a topic. Wikipedia left classrooms in danger of forming monotonous opinions.

Which brings us to the second concern. Wikipedia was given authority over the truth because of its usability, not quality.

Conceived in an open-source environment, it invited thousands of users to post entries about topics which other users then edited – collaborating to create a vast network of information that quickly outstripped the dictionary cabal. With enough people interacting, it was assumed that the truth would win out. Generally speaking, that was the case.

It later became obvious that absolute freedom over information in a publishing environment had a few flaws – namely – humans could be real little shits when they set their minds to it. A common muck-up day activity involved editing the school’s Wikipedia entry with the level of hormone-induced humour that you’d expect.

As usual, politics ruined everything.

The official pages of contentious public figures were the first to be vandalised by bad actors attempting to defame and damage their political opposition. These budding propaganda agents soon learned that subtle changes were the most effective because they went unnoticed for longer. Slight edits to history could be compounded over time, gradually altering the accepted truth until it became the only truth.

As an intellectual product, Wikipedia was simply too good to die from its wounds. It fed off the accumulation and summation of vast quantities of knowledge. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses – they all joined this digital abyss, leaving our language vulnerable to shifting definitions. As Wikipedia’s traditional market competition learned, information grows too fast to filter through layers of validation. If you can’t keep up, you die off. This is the exact same dynamic playing out between legacy media and social media.

Wikipedia’s influence over society became so acute that it suffered censorial attacks by the European Union when the commission launched Articles 11 and 13 in 2019. This caused a crisis of intellectual freedom across the world that went largely unreported by the mainstream press. In response, Wikipedia blacked out swathes of the European continent until amendments were made. Extraordinary, considering the inflexibility of the EU.

Things declined rapidly with the rise of Cultural Marxism. Wikipedia became the choking canary, wiggling its legs at the bottom of a mine shaft while a cuckoo took up residence. Its articles have since been heavily edited to bring them in line with the prison cell of social justice. Instead of recording knowledge, Wikipedia’s primary goal is to avoid causing offence, leaving the site rife with contradictions and politically correct fiction. It capitulated to these censorial demands and maintained its position as caretaker of (revised) information.

For all the power Wikipedia has, it pales in comparison to social media – a conglomerate in charge of the real-time recording of history. Forget editing the facts; they aren’t even making it to print.

With the US election over, the next information scandal will revolve around medical tyranny. When China’s Covid-19 became a Catch 22 for the global political class (who are terrified that private citizens will sue them for incompetence), discussion surrounding vaccines became intrinsically linked with the survival of those in power.

Medical advances have always created conflict between healthcare, politics and corporate – especially with the global vaccination market worth almost $US60 billion in 2020.

‘Trust the experts’ simply isn’t a good enough mantra for social media to invoke during its censorial binges when we have hard evidence that experts often make horrific mistakes. Thalidomide was available over the counter for years before it was found to cause birth defects. Despite mounting complaints in the public sphere, it was deemed safe across the medical spectrum. In the end, it killed two thousand children and left ten thousand with serious physical abnormalities. Without public pressure, it would have killed more.

Vaccines carry similar risks. While they save millions of lives, they can be wildly unpredictable in their medical infancy. It is imperative that the government maintains public choice and consumer transparency across social media platforms to ensure that alarm bells ring when something goes wrong.

Silicon Valley has inserted itself into the pandemic, no doubt due to political pressure, by announcing plans to ban users from reporting or discussing side effects related to Covid19 vaccines. They claim that these measures are in the interest of public safety, but Big Tech is not a medical institution, nor should it be allowed to silence the necessary feedback to protect its political and corporate friends.

Under their heading ‘Our Expanded Approach’, Twitter detail their intent:

Twitter has an important role to play as a place for good faith public debate and discussion around these critical public health matters. […] Using a combination of technology and human review, we will begin enforcing this updated policy on December 21, and expanding our actions during the following weeks. We will enforce this policy in close consultation with local, national and global public health authorities around the world, and will strive to be iterative and transparent in our approach. We remain focused on helping people find credible health information, verifying public health experts, and updating our policies in an iterative and transparent approach.

If anything goes wrong with a Covid-19 vaccine, don’t expect to hear about it.

Who are these public health experts allowed to dominate the market of information? Absolute authority demands intense scrutiny. Let us run one example.

The World Health Organisation is one of Twitter’s verified sources. They are a medical bureaucracy that has conducted itself appallingly during the Covid-19 health crisis. When Covid-19 emerged, the WHO helped the Chinese Communist Party suppress reports about the severity of the virus circulating inside Wuhan. It released incorrect information about Covid19’s transmission and deliberately ignored Taiwan’s dissenting medical evidence because of regional politics. The WHO then looked the other way when China bullied nations with accusations of racism if they tried to close their borders. When it became clear that a pandemic was underway, the WHO assisted China in concealing the (previously acknowledged) origin of the virus while allowing the Chinese Communist Party to avoid a mandatory independent investigation into ground zero of the pandemic.

This is the same ‘trusted’ WHO that has been caught editing medical advice to keep up with propaganda circulated on social media. Two prominent examples come to mind. The first is their flip-flopping over mandatory mask-wearing after various world leaders put their careers on the line by interfering with constitutional rights. To justify medical mandates, the ‘science’ behind mask-wearing was altered by the WHO after the political decision to enforce them had been made. Warnings printed on the boxes of these masks still contradict the WHO’s advice.

The second and most concerning manipulation of information by the WHO relates to the long-held definition of herd immunity. Our medical understanding of herd immunity has not changed since the arrival of Covid19. What has changed is the effectiveness of the vaccine in relation to the grand promises made about it by politicians who used its existence to initiate financially devastating lockdowns.

Both of these releases are by the same department at the WHO (the emphasis in red is mine for clarity):

9th June, 2020: Herd Immunity is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection. This means that even people who haven’t been infected or in whom an infection hasn’t triggered an immune response, they are protected because people around them who are immune can act as buffers between them and an infected person. The threshold for establishing herd immunity for Covid19 is not yet clear.’

13th November, 2020: ‘Herd Immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’, is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached. Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not exposing them to it. Read the Director-General’s 12 October media briefing speech for more detail.

The second statement from the WHO erased the natural phenomena of herd immunity – which remains the dominant method by which human populations overcome disease – and replaced it with an absolute mandate to vaccinate. The true definition of herd immunity survives with people who remember studying it prior to the edit and anyone in possession of medical books that cannot be so easily manipulated.

It doesn’t help that these institutions in charge of reality are headed up by some of the world’s shonkiest people.

When asking questions about why the WHO has acted inconsistently and bizarrely concerning China’s role in the pandemic, it is worth noting that China played an instrumental role in putting its Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, into power. His ascent was vocally opposed due to positions held within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) – an ethnically-based party that has been the dominant force in Ethiopian politics for nearly thirty years. Tedros served as Health Minister despite the regime being recognised as a serial offender against human rights.

In an open letter against Tedros, it was noted that inside an eight-month period, eighty thousand Ethiopians were imprisoned in gulags run by the TPLF where they were tortured for holding a different political opinion. Party officials stole billions from public and state-run projects. Dr. Abiy Ahmed, the current Prime Minister as of 2018, later admitted that the regime Tedros served under was essentially a terrorist state.

Tedros’ own actions were called into question regarding his handling of a Cholera epidemic – which he incorrectly renamed as ‘Acute Watery Diarrhoea’ even after Cholera was confirmed. A letter signed by the Amhara Professionals Union suspected this inaccuracy related to Tedros covering up a public health crisis to protect the tourist industry – an action which prevented aid organisations from intervening. The open letter further accused Tedros of actively marginalising health care treatment based on ethnicity, resulting in a disproportionate mortality rate among the Amhara people.

This is the man Silicon Valley allows to fact-check your opinion. In addition, Big Tech is heavily invested in the pharmaceutical industry and does not disclose its financial interest in the silencing of information regarding side effects that could harm its profits.

The control that these corporations exert over our access to information has gone far enough that it may never be unpicked.

We are now at the point where the facts of history are so distorted that activists can claim, without contest, that the months of Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots were entirely peaceful, then use this false claim to validate their censorious reaction to the ‘unprecedented’ Capitol Hill riots.

Fearing that their despicable actions would be covered up, I kept a sample of the direct incitement to violence propagated on Twitter by activist groups it publicly endorsed. You can view the archive here – including images of burning public buildings and captions that read: ‘this is what justice looks like’, ‘all pigs burn’ and ‘riot 2020 – burn this motherfucker down – eat the rich’.

The manipulation of truth within our civilisation is nearly impossible to believe. We already know that you can convince people of fabricated facts if you bombard them with enough marketing material from certified sources – especially if it supports their preferred world view.

The twenty-four hour news cycle that created a heightened sense of drama to pull ratings, has transformed into a full-time propaganda house. The media are over-feeding the goldfish as they swim around in stagnant water.

Why would anyone, including Silicon Valley, seek to corrupt the story of humanity?

Simply put, it is to install a political party into government who will not punish them for breaking antitrust legislation or the Communications Decency Act – both of which carry serious penalties if convicted. Big Tech corporations are free to continue making money in their lofty oligarchy while a political party has solidified its position in the absence of opposition.

In truth, politics has become the law, with information as its accomplice.

https://spectator.com.au/2021/01/welcome-to-the-age-of-the-goldfish/

7 notes · View notes

gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

Text

If You Are Vaccinated, You Can Dance the Night Away

Marissa Castrigno was walking through downtown Wilmington, North Carolina, when she spotted the sign in the window of one of her favorite dance clubs. After months of being shuttered by the pandemic, Ibiza Nightclub was reopening April 30, it announced.

This story also ran on Raleigh News & Observer. It can be republished for free.

Thrilled, Castrigno immediately made plans with friends to be there.

About 50 miles north in Jacksonville, Kennedy Swift learned of Ibiza’s reopening on social media. He, too, decided to attend with friends.

But on the night of April 30, the two groups were in for a surprise — one they would react to in starkly different ways.

In addition to IDs, they learned, they’d need to show covid-19 vaccination cards for entry. The club was letting in only people who had had at least one shot.

“I was shocked,” said Swift, 21. He learned of the policy a few hours before the reopening, when the club posted it on its Facebook page.

He and his friends had to cancel their plans, since none of them was vaccinated.

“I’m not against [Ibiza] exercising their rights as a business,” Swift said. “I just think it’s foolish. … This will discourage a lot of former patrons from returning to the club.”

On the other hand, Castrigno and her friends, most of whom had been fully vaccinated since early April, felt the policy made their return to nightlife even better.

“There was raw excitement about going out to a place and feeling safe,” said Castrigno, 28.

Similar conversations are playing out across the country as vaccination rates increase and bars, clubs and other businesses navigate how to reopen. The concept of vaccine passports — which allow people who have been inoculated against covid and are at lower risk of contracting or spreading the disease to participate in certain activities — has been floated for clubs, cruise ships and other spaces where large groups gather in close quarters. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recent announcement that vaccinated people can safely gather indoors and outdoors without masks has reignited the idea. Yet these passports remain highly controversial and their implementation is largely piecemeal. Many private businesses are making their own decisions, and governments in different parts of the country are adopting varying stances.

In New York, for instance, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in early May that places where proof of vaccination or a negative covid test are required can operate at a greater capacity. Some nightclubs there have implemented policies similar to Ibiza’s. In Florida, however, Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a law prohibiting businesses, schools and government offices from requiring proof of vaccination, with fines of up to $5,000 per incident.

For Ibiza Nightclub in southeastern North Carolina — a political battleground state — the vaccine card requirement is proving to be a lightning rod. The club’s Facebook post announcing the policy had sparked 70 comments as of mid-May, and posts across other platforms echoed different sides of the issue.

“I am thrilled to see a personal business putting the health and safety forward in order to keep their business running,” one comment read.

Others took a markedly different tone: “This is pretty dumb!”

“Discrimination, expect lawsuits,” read another.

The Honor Code

Last week, after the CDC said vaccinated adults could largely live their lives mask-free, Raleigh restaurant owner Hisine McNeill felt a troubling pang of déjà vu. He owns Alpha Dawgs, a sandwich shop in southeast Raleigh, and said small businesses like his carried the burden of mask enforcement for much of the pandemic. Now, he said, they’re tasked with trusting adults who say they’ve been vaccinated. He isn’t ready to do that.

“I don’t have the luxury of taking chances on an honor code,” McNeill said. “If I have an outbreak because someone didn’t wear a mask and have to close down, who’s going to help keep me open?”

McNeill opened Alpha Dawgs in 2018 and, like most restaurateurs, he said, struggled through the pandemic, professionally and personally. He said he has lost friends and family members and doesn’t believe the pandemic is over.

“I know people personally in the ICU still recovering from [covid],” McNeill said. “I don’t need any more examples about how serious this is.”

So McNeill posted a new requirement on the restaurant’s Facebook page. He asked everyone to continue wearing masks unless they were prepared to show him a vaccine card.

“To whom it may concern,” McNeill wrote. “If you decide to come into my establishment claiming that you are fully vaccinated, I WILL ASK TO SEE YOUR CARD. If you don’t want to provide it then you will have to wear a mask in my store. And if you still don’t want to comply with either then I have the right to deny service. Thank you for your cooperation.”

The day after he posted that statement, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper eased most covid-related restrictions in the state, including its mask mandate. The Alpha Dawgs post stirred some online debate over masks and vaccinations and led to a few responses, including one from the Raleigh Republican Club.

“Should you be in the area…,” it read. “Eat somewhere else….”

McNeill felt the Raleigh Republican Club was calling for a boycott. Afterward, he noticed multiple one-star reviews pop up on Google, not from people who had been to the restaurant, but people accusing McNeill of discrimination.

“This is not political for me, this is a personal belief,” McNeill said. “I have an 85-year-old grandmother I see every other week. I’m going to make sure she’s protected.”

Raleigh Republican Club board member Guy Smith said the group’s post was written collectively, but he didn’t see it as a call for a boycott.

“Our philosophical position is it’s his business, the owner can choose to do what they choose to do within the confines of the individual business,” Smith said. “Our philosophical position is, to demand someone to demonstrate they’re vaccinated with a card, we think that’s out of bounds.”

Smith said the group also condemns writing bogus reviews of a business.

McNeill said Alpha Dawgs’ business has not suffered from the online dust-up.

“I haven’t had any problems,” McNeill said. “Only the online harassment.”

The Nightclub Expected Opposition

Charles Smith, general manager of the club, said he knew the policy would garner backlash, but “we’ve always put the health and safety of both staff and our patrons, and their families, first.”

Since opening as a gay bar in 2001, Ibiza has been a pillar of the LGBTQ community in Wilmington. Although its clientele has expanded over time, it’s still known for drag shows on Friday nights.

Last year, the club shut down March 12, about a week before Gov. Cooper ordered all North Carolina bars and restaurants to stop dine-in service. Ibiza remained shuttered for 14 months, using the time to renovate, Smith said, and leaning on federal and state assistance for small businesses.

When it came to reopening, he said, “the question was: How do we provide the absolute safest experience alongside the nightlife experience we’ve been known for?”

It wouldn’t be easy. Nightclubs are a perfect cocktail of covid risks: lots of people socializing and dancing in close quarters. Alcohol lowering inhibitions. Music forcing people to speak louder, releasing more droplets into the air.

“The concept of social distancing in a nightclub is an oxymoron,” Smith said. And the club’s staff didn’t want to be “the police of nightlife,” trying to separate people on the dance floor, he added.

The safest option, it seemed, was to require people to be vaccinated.

The club waited till all adults in the state were eligible for vaccines before reopening.

Now Ibiza requires patrons to present their vaccine cards or photos of the cards for entry. On reopening night, the club asked customers to wear masks and limited its capacity to 50%, per an executive order from the governor. But as of May 14, the state lifted its capacity restrictions and masking requirements.

Castrigno, who’d been looking forward to that night for weeks since she saw the sign in the club’s window, said it was “the most jubilant I’d ever seen Ibiza.” Several performers put on a drag show. Customers took turns dancing on poles. Some people wore masks with rhinestones to match their outfits, she said.

She wasn’t surprised that many people took the vaccine requirement in stride. “Queer people are well versed in the risks of public health crisis and protecting the community,” she said, referring to the AIDS crisis, which devastated the community in the ’80s and ’90s.

For James Colucci, who has been a customer since 2016, supporting Ibiza’s vaccine policy is about protecting the club’s employees. Some of them have “spearheaded the [LGBTQ] movement, so we can get together and have events like this,” he said.

But others say the policy is discriminatory and injects the nightclub into people’s personal health care decisions.

Joey Askew, a 37-year-old from Greenville, wrote on Ibiza’s Facebook page, “I’ll never go back to this club until they lift this mandate!!”

In an interview with KHN, Askew said he’s not ready to get the vaccine because there haven’t been lifetime studies of recipients to determine long-term side effects. He’s willing to wear a mask and maintain physical distance, but a vaccine requirement goes too far.

“A mask is something I can buy from anywhere and take off whenever I choose,” he said. “But I can’t take a vaccine out. It’s a permanent choice that [the club] is involving themselves in, and it’s not their place.”

In between the people condemning the club’s policy and those applauding it are many who are conflicted.

Mark Russell, 29, is a nurse in Washington, D.C., who cares for covid patients and contracted covid last year. He plans on visiting Ibiza Nightclub in late May while attending a small wedding in North Carolina where everyone will be vaccinated.

The club’s policy makes him feel safer, Russell said. But he also worries about its effect on people of color, who in many places have faced barriers to vaccination.

“It’s a battle in my own brain, thinking those two things,” Russell said.

For Heidi Martek, 55, the policy raised a personal question. “What about those who can’t get the vaccine?” she wrote on Ibiza’s Facebook page.

She has an autoimmune disease, making her body hypersensitive to any vaccine, Martek said, even the flu shot.

But when commenters on Facebook suggested she sue the club, Martek pushed back. The club is facing difficult choices, she told KHN, and there’s no right answer.

“Whether I can go in or not, I support them,” said Martek, who’s been a patron at Ibiza for six years.

She wants the club to survive the pandemic, unlike other establishments that have closed in the past year.

“It’s not like Wilmington is overwhelmed with LGBTQ clubs,” Martek said. “Ibiza is really important.”

News & Observer reporter Drew Jackson contributed to this story.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

If You Are Vaccinated, You Can Dance the Night Away published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

2 notes · View notes

warsofasoiaf · 4 years

Text

The Celtic Tiger - A Kaiserreich Ireland AAR Chapter 4: Soldiers Are We

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” -W.B. Yeats

---

4 January 1939 - Economic Session of the Dail, Dublin, Ireland

Michael Collins had been debating initiatives to help smooth things over with the Ulster Unionists in the North. He had already revitalized plenty of the region’s industrial base, Harland and Wolff and the Short Brothers Aerospace PLC were employing plenty of people in Belfast, but the new American refugees had caused a great deal of cultural friction. The Unionist Party was never particularly quiet about their opinions on the state of affairs, but things were actively getting worse in Northern Ireland.

“We should expand the steel initiative.” Collins had addressed the Dail in the annual IEAA meeting. “Producing steel domestically will allow us to better manage supply shortages in the event that our trade is cut off, and domestic steel production will be invaluable to the factories and shipyards. Belfast has made a compelling point, they have a significant amount of steelworking knowledge and experience that would meet the target goals faster than they would in other regions. Belfast will reclaim her old mantle as our very own Steel City. The Open For Business Initiative has put us significantly in the black this past year, we can afford to invest heavily in steel production in Ulster along with zinc mining in our rural provinces. That should keep us in boom times and diversify our economic base, in case any post-Black Monday bubbles pop.”

Privately, Collins was more concerned with placating the Unionists. They had been complaining that Dublin was largely favored over Belfast, and that the Open for Business Initiative was an attempt to lure away the young workers of Northern Ireland to Dublin where they would lose their culture, and their voices, largely swallowed up by the Catholic voters. Violent crime was steadily rising in Belfast, the victims being either Catholics or American refugees, or reprisal attacks by Catholics. If there was a war, he could not reliably count on Ulster, even in the face of aggression from the Union. That was a pity. That had been the British strategy against Ireland, divide and conquer. Something would have to give very soon, no amount of economic bandaging was going to resolve the core tension within Ulster - they did not see themselves as part of an Irish Republic.

An aide burst into the meeting hall, causing a minor clamor and it took some time to restore order. The aide burst out breathlessly. “The Union, sir, they’re steaming out of port. The RMS Rebecca is going full-speed at our destroyers in the Irish Sea.” The poor fellow could barely complete a full sentence, his stammering professed an almost lack of belief in what was happening.

“Have they declared war?” Collins asked. The Union and Ireland did not have normalized relations, but that did not mean no information passed between the two countries. G2, the Directorate of Military Intelligence routinely monitored diplomatic intentions within Mosley’s government. Of all the espionage work performed by the Directorate, the Union accounted for almost fifty percent of its foreign operations, perhaps even more.

“No, sir. No word.”

What was frightening about Mosley’s intentions was how much sense it made to Collins. Mosley and Deat, despite their opposition to each other, had stressed the urgency of the revolution at their electoral campaigns, and had prosecuted an aggressive foreign policy to export syndicalism to the world. Both had turned inwards, Deat had been particularly violent in his purging of Blum and Gamelin, and they believed now that without dissent, they would not have naysayers and fifth columnists betraying their governments. By all accounts, their countries were ready to stand at the forefront of a global transformation. Yet the results were not successful. France and Britain had been completely humiliated in the Second American Civil War, with Reed about to face a war crimes tribunal. The Commune of France had threatened to annex Savoy only to have Switzerland seek German support and membership within the Reichspakt, and Deat had backed down. A defeat, militarily, within Europe, would be a disaster, evidence of endemic weakness of the Internationale’s new leadership.

Ireland would have been Mosley’s choice for a target. The stunning growth of the Irish economy and rise in the Irish standard of living would be an ideological foe, proof perhaps, that another way would be better. It was close to Britain and far from Mosley’s foes in Germany, Canada, and the United States. Its army and navy were tiny, compared to the Union’s. If they hurried, it could be a fait accompli no matter what any of the other great powers would do.

Collins thought for a moment. Ireland had benefited significantly from its neutrality between Entente and Reichspakt, not the least of which because it hadn’t been drawn into Germany’s wars as it had in Ukraine. The Open for Business Initiative never would have succeeded had Ireland been fully within the German sphere, and trade with the Entente had pacified the Anglophiles in the Centre Party. It was a natural pivot point that Ireland, as the middleman, could profit from. But an invasion of Ireland would see Ireland severely outnumbered in manpower and industrial capacity.

“Get ahold of Admiral O’Muiris, have him mine the Irish Sea. Conduct a full investigation of the radar stations and anti-aircraft batteries, I want them in perfect working condition yesterday. No more drills, our men must go immediately to battle positions. See what we can learn about any invasion plans, put G2 on it; if they’re planning to land, I want to know where so we can put enough guns to turn their landing craft to splinters.” Collins spoke as if it were 20 years ago, as if he was that same man, ready to fight the last time the British refused the demand of Irish independence. “Also, let’s see if there are others as willing to fight for Ireland as we are, start with the Kaiser.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“We look farther then. Look to Canada if you have to.”

“Are you going to invite the Windsors back in?”

“Not for a moment, but sometimes you must deal with devils. ”

---

25 January 1939 - Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin, Ireland

It was the worst possible news.

The Kaiser had been unable to provide support for Ireland. The Vozhd was threatening the Baltic Duchy and White Ruthenia with his goal of one land for all the Russian people, and Wilhelm II would not abandon them for a western war, especially not one who was not in the Reichspakt. Canada too, could not commit to protecting Ireland, as they were engaged in a large-scale war in India with the Princely Federation. The United States was still deep into Reconstruction, President Garner would not deploy the badly-battered US Army into a foreign campaign when there were still cholera outbreaks and people dying of exposure. They were all perfectly reasonable excuses, but it led Collins to an inescapable conclusion: Ireland was on its own.

No doubt Mosley was jumping for joy. His ambitions would not be curtailed by the major anti-syndicalist factions. Protests certainly arose, even within the Union itself, but Mosley had been able to quell them with daily speeches against Ireland, lambasting the nation for its capitalist economic policies, its embargo of British goods, and the ethnic tensions between Ulster and the rest of Ireland, which Mosley alleged to be inspired by Stephen X and a precursor to the establishment of a Catholic theocratic state. He had harshly criticized Dan McKenna, accusing him and the Thunderbolts of war crimes, summary executions of British volunteers, and torture of Union prisoners; a pointed criticism given that McKenna was soon to return to the United States to give his testimony on Welfare Island and the atrocities that had taken place in the Mississippi Delta.

Collins had established the Mosley Gan Mosley program on 2RN in response, with Irish comedians regularly mocking Mosley’s wild proclamations and providing evidence against his more spurious claims. Collins ensured that the broadcasts were transmitted on a wide band toward the British Isles, focusing on Scotland and Wales as the Autonomists had chafed under Mosley’s centralization and embrace of British nationalism. Collins directed the program to emphasize Mosley’s speeches as expressions of old British imperialism in the hopes of creating public unrest at home. He wondered if it was working at all, or if he was simply trying to give everyone a laugh before the end.

The days after the German and Canadian refusal had been a tense form of limbo. The An tAerchór only had a few fighter planes with limited training, nothing compared to the British Republican Air Force. Sending up pilots would be risky, and casualties would be high. The An tSeirbhís Chabhlaigh was only slightly better off. The cruisers and destroyers were unlikely to match the British Navy in naval combat, but the submarines could pose a serious threat, and advances in naval mines would help cause further casualties among the landing craft. There was no getting around it, the Irish did not have the ability to contest the seas and so would be forced to repel the invasion with their ground forces. Civilians had been preparing for the coming disaster with air raid drills. Last-minute preparations for war were almost all that Collins could hope for, war would come, and Ireland would be alone.

“To ensure the liberation of the working class from the chains of oppressive and exploitative political and economic systems in the pursuit of global peace has been the compelling and continuing mission of the Socialist Union of Britain. To cultivate friendly relationships with nations likewise dedicated to the emancipation of those enslaved peoples and continue to progress toward the prosperity of mankind has always been the foundation of our foreign policy.

Wherefore the government of Michael Collins has engaged and continues to engage in an economic and political system within the Republic of Ireland that deprives the Irish Worker of the fruits of his labor and depends upon his continued shackling to the dictates of Capital in violation of the Internationale Declaration of Human Rights. In pursuit of its goals against the working class, the Irish Republican government has illegally prohibited the Irish Worker to establish a political party to advance their interests in violation of the 1925 Irish Constitution’s declaration of freedom of association by banning the Labour Party.

The Socialist Union of Britain, in defense of the Irish Worker, therefore demands the reformation of the Irish government to that of a Regional Provincial Workers Council to be directly administered under the oversight of the Trades Union Congress and in accordance with the laws and principles of the Socialist Union of Britain.”

Yet, instead of an immediate declaration of war, Mosley had elected to send words, much to Collins's surprise. For a moment, the Taioseach wondered why Mosley had even bothered, such was the extent of his demands. Perhaps it was to spare himself a war while the Internationale conserved their fighting strength for other targets, or perhaps it was a compromise asked by France. Maybe Mosley thought that Ireland would surrender and he could one-up Deat who had failed to have his ultimatum obeyed. As he had read the words, Collins had almost torn the paper in anger, and among the ministers he had invited to the closed session, he had seen similar expressions on their faces. They may have disagreed on everything else, but not on this.

“The Republic of Ireland will not submit to the colonial dictates of Oswald Mosley. We consider these demands completely illegitimate and a violation of the sovereignty of the independent Republic of Ireland and the government recognized by the Irish people. The Irish Republic is a free and independent nation, and shall not surrender to the British yoke that has for centuries defined the history of Ireland with cruelty and deprivation. We demand the unequivocal cessation of all hostilities against the Republic of Ireland, the immediate removal of British ships from Irish territorial waters, and the abrogation of all demands and claims against the island of Ireland. We also call on the Third Internationale to condemn such a demand and reconsider their relationship with an aggressive nation dedicated to a mission of subjugation.”

Collins was sure that would get Mosley’s anger up. His support of the Anti-Colonialist movement could not abide a direct challenge by naming him the colonist that his government had spoken so long about overthrowing. The Union fixated upon proving that they were not the old British Empire, that they were a modern, just triumph over backward authoritarianism. Questioning the Union’s place in the Internationale was sure to cause some stir as well. South America had long spoken against European colonialism, and Chile had considered itself a bastion of colonial liberation within the continent. Even though Chile had not joined the Internationale, their success in Latin America and their support of Britain and France’s mission had mattered greatly within left-wing intellectual circles; it was their testament against accusations of colonialism. Robbing Mosley of Chilean support could cause unrest at home and with other syndicalist nations like Burma, and perhaps end his expansionist ambitions on Ireland.

Collins was only half-right. None of the major syndicalist nations saw fit to criticize Mosley, neither Chile, nor Burma, nor France, nor the Socialist Republic of Italy in Torino had seen fit to condemn Mosley’s action, nor was any independent comment from the Third Syndicalist Internationale forthcoming, at least not any that Collins had seen or heard. What was true is that Mosley was furious. He had read the Irish response out loud in the Trade Union Congress, and had immediately moved for a declaration of war. It had not been a request, not that any would oppose him after his centralizing purges in ‘37 and ‘38, but the British people were fired up. The declaration of war had been delivered, and almost immediately, planes began flying overhead, and the air raid sirens gave their low bleak wail. For a moment, Collins was certain that he could hear them as a banshee’s wail, and wondered whose death warrant he had just signed.

---

28 March 1939 - Command Bunker, Dublin, Ireland

It had been months since the declaration of war, and bombing missions had been flown against Ireland daily. The anti-aircraft guns and radar stations did their part, but the Union still commanded the skies. They had prioritized strategic bombing, hitting factories, port facilities, and coastal fortresses, but any target would do in a pinch. Each day, Collins made sure to hear the casualty counts, and each day he would address the nation by radio, encouraging them to continue to fight on. Every man, woman, and child had been doing their part. The Union had done a good job choking the imports of steel in an attempt to starve the Irish industrial machine. Air raid shelters had been a regular part of construction during the massive push for industrialization, and for that Collins had been grateful for what foresight he had. Even one life saved was worth it, but thousands had been spared being killed or maimed in a night raid or building collapse. That was small comfort, because fewer people dying still meant people were dying on his watch, soldiers and civilians alike.

G2 had conducted countless missions against the Union. Infiltrating the Army and Marine Corps were a top priority, any landing or invasion plans were a high priority for their agents. It had been a difficult endeavor, but Nancy Stewart, a Union turncoat who had lost her family members in Mosley’s purges and had been recruited to G2 as a local asset, had outdone herself. She had spoken to an overworked member of base security, stolen his keys and identification card, and had snuck it to her colleagues after drugging the man’s gin and dragging him home posing as his girlfriend. From there, Nancy and Rachael O’Brien, who had been recruited from the Cumann na mBan as part of Collins’s efforts to recruit sabotage experts for the Irish intelligence services, had been able to copy the plans all night before sneaking out the next morning, returning everything that they had left before their victim recovered from his night. The plans had been scheduled for late June, to land in the Clew Bay and Killary Harbor, on the west of Ireland.

Surprise was the Union’s primary goal, the territory in that region was a difficult landing, but if the Union soldiers were able to land and fortify, they could use the terrain to repulse an attack, perhaps even establish a breakout while forces had to cross the River Shannon and potentially seize Irish fortifications. The Republican Army was not concentrated in County Mayo, the likely destination would be on the east coast and it was there that they fortified with machine guns and artillery. The Union elected to launch from Cornwall, with a diversionary operation from Liverpool and the Isle of Man. Admiral O’Muiris elected to keep a defensive posture in a double-bluff; he didn’t want to risk any of his few ships on pursuing the Republican feint but kept his ships close to make it seem that he had not known about the Galway-Mayo landings. He didn’t like it, but if they could push back the attack, it might force Mosley to abort his attempt.

Tom Barry had stationed his men in Sligo and Galway city, waiting for forward observers to spot the landings on the western coast. The 1st Armored Division and the 2nd ‘Spearhead’ infantry would strike from Galway, while a mobilized force of cavalry Gardai would strike from surprise from the northeast. The 1st Thunderbolts were given the most difficult position, to fight a pre-dawn attack against the northern landing. Once they had attacked and cleared the beaches, they would march south and attack the main landing zone where the beaches were longer and flatter, supporting the most landing forces. Collins had hoped that he could bombard the beaches to oblivion, pinning the British invasion force soon after it had landed, and destroying their landing craft so they could not retreat.

The landings were commanded by Thomas Wintringham, who had decided to primarily use regular army forces. He had petitioned Mosley for more men, but as that would have compromised the Welsh and Cornwall defensive region, so he was forced to call upon the West Lowlands Home Guard to fill out the invasion. In the middle of the night, the British had attempted to make the landings, but the currents had taken several of the landing craft off course to Galway, where a general alarm had been sounded and the landing craft subject to a heavy barrage. The anti-aircraft turrets weren’t able to be redirected toward the sea, but the river defenses on the Claddagh had utilized static artillery and machine gun pillboxes to create killzones, and the ports within Galway city had been blockaded.

The mobilized Gardai Síochána and the 1st Thunderbolts moved to their northern position, and Barry began to push with a combined infantry and armor push toward the main landing zones. As it was a night landing, the Republican Air Force was unable to provide air support to its invasion zones. The Thunderbolts had marched all night and shot the Mayo landing forces to pieces as they arrived, keeping in contact with radio and light signals, before turning south to attack the main landing point. The 1st Armored advanced rapidly with light tanks before abruptly turning. Ground forces commanders, thinking that the Irish attack had been aborted because the tanks had outpaced their infantry, had attempted a shock charge to attack the Irish armor when they were out of position. Having advanced quickly, Barry closed the net, attacking with the South Mayo Flying Column and the 2nd Spearhead Division as the light tanks returned to repair the damage they had sustained during the light engagement. The ambush had taken the Union forces completely by surprise, and they were scattered, allowing Tom Maguire to push forward with his native Mayo forces and the Dublin Rifles toward the beach landings.

Continuing his hard push, Barry repeatedly probed the Union lines on the beaches, following up weakpoints with infiltration tactics and strongpoints with a withering suppressive barrage of artillery fire. Admiral Richard Boyle, commanding the U-Boats, attacked as the sun began to give visibility, sinking supply ships and troop transports. As the British Republican Air Force began to fly to support their mission, they had found the beaches to be a disaster area, littered with dead Union soldiers and destroyed Union equipment. The Union soldiers had fought tenaciously, but ultimately could not break out of the beachhead. As the hours stretched on, eventually the divisions surrendered. The first invasion of Ireland had been successfully repulsed.

Collins hadn’t been able to sleep, and paced in his command center the night of the march no matter what he tried. Mulcahy had opted to handle the long wait and let Collins try to get a few hours of sleep on a cot, but neither man believed that such a thing could really happen. When the news had come, Collins had listened to Maguire’s report almost dumbfounded, as if he expected to be woken up at any time. A complete success on all fronts, the British invasion had been foiled, and Irish casualties had been exceptionally low. Killed and wounded, Ireland had suffered just short of 3,000 casualties, roughly evenly split among the divisions in theater. The Union had suffered over 111,000 killed or captured in the failed raid, and what few weren’t captured were isolated and fleeing for their lives in the Irish countryside. It had been an overwhelming victory.

“My God, we certainly gave them a bloody nose.” Mulcahy, just as stunned as Collins himself, nodded approvingly.

“Then let us hope all it takes is a bloody nose.” Collins replied glumly.

---

“To conclude, what I witnessed in my almost-two years of volunteer service within the Second American Civil War was commitment in its best and worst forms. The Federal government, armed forces, and civilians of the United States had acted in devotion to their government and their mission, preserving their country and Constitution. Its reverse was true of its foes, a commitment to the annihilation of those who did not fit within their vision.” -Daniel McKenna, closing remarks, Denver Trials

McKenna didn’t belong here. Mosley had tried to invade his homeland. Every man was needed to fight. It was only a direct order from Michael Collins that had sent him to the United States. “We need foreign support more than we need one more general. The Thunderbolts will be well-led, you have my word. If the truth can come out about what had happened in New York, then we can push for further support. Your actions may help the war effort far more than back here in the homeland.”

McKenna thought the idea was sound, but he wasn’t seeing it pan out. Foreign support wouldn’t be pouring in, what had happened in the United States was already known and rationalized away. It was closure for the Americans, perhaps, but abstract notions of justice being punished hardly mattered when real Irish men and women were dying from British bombs. He had gone because he was a soldier and that meant obeying the orders of his commander-in-chief. McKenna had hoped that he could give a quick testimony and return, but he had been approached by the Irish-American Aid Association to give speeches to raise funds to donate supplies for Ireland. The United States was still recovering, but there were plenty of descendants from the Irish diaspora who were willing to donate food, money, and weapons to the Irish cause. That was something at least, some good had to come from this excursion.

McKenna remained in Denver as the tribunal judges deliberated their verdict. Reporters had hounded him the second he stepped out of his hotel until the second he stepped back in, even preventing him from enjoying any meals, calling them a bunch of cicadas in private. However, he was surprised to meet the reporter that he had met in New York covering the Denver Trials. Ruth Sofer had become a minor celebrity for her coverage of Welfare Island, and had resolved to write about the victims and perpetrators of the Second Civil War. “In my view, anything less would be cowardly, and I’ve been told I have an ironclad heart.“ Over dinner, Sofer interviewed McKenna, not only asking him further about Welfare Island, but telling him what she had learned in interviewing members of the Union State and Combined Syndicates who had been guilty of categorical atrocity, and what could have motivated them to do such a thing. It had sickened McKenna to his stomach, but no battle was too difficult for a soldier, and he obeyed his orders.

McKenna had wanted to return to Ireland quickly, but felt compelled to stay to help Sofer until she had finished her manuscript. Her book, Superfluous People, was a chilling examination of the systems of the two rebel movements within the Second American Civil War, their conceptions of a new transformation of reality in a form of secular millenarianism. Most of the second section of the book detailed the rationalizations regarding those to be left out of the new world, and the philosophies of the movements that originated these rationalizations, and the appeals both real and imagined that gave strength to these movements. The third and final section detailed the jump from theory to practice, exhaustively compiled through interviews of ground-level commanders that oversaw these eliminations in action. Notably, Sofer expounded at length on the Federal government in permitting Jim Crow legislation in the South as the foundation for groups like the Silver Legion.

Once the manuscript had been completed, only then did McKenna, hitching a ride on a supply ship from the Irish-American Aid Association, return home, to take up the command of his Thunderbolts once again.

---

12 June 1939 - Forward Command Post, Carrick-On-Shannon

After the failed invasion of Connacht, Mosley had blamed the militia system of the Trade Union Congress, finding the failure of the invasion to principally be the fault of the militia system’s poor organization. To Mosley, the inability of the Union Army to probably organize into a coherent and effective fighting force prevented them from successfully managing the Irish counter-attack until the greater numbers of the British army could land. Mosley dissolved the militias and established a more formalized military with an established central command structure. Officers could no longer be elected by fellow soldiers, Mosley had instead integrated soldier assent via the promotion board and mandated promotion in part on merit and ability to accomplish objectives.

Mosley also reached out to the Communards across the Channel. Deat had not supported Mosley’s invasion of Ireland initially, but he was eager to demonstrate the prowess of the Communard Army. He had anticipated Mosley seeking help, but had thought it would have been more for occupation duties, and had planned for landing from Brittany to land in County Cork on the southern side of Ireland in the middle of August. The initial attacks were mere probing attempts, to see the Munster defenses and better analyze how best to invade Ireland. The weather conditions were right on the 15th of August. Unlike the earlier British invasion, the Communard elected on a daylight landing so their airpower could support the ground invasion. The increased visibility meant the Fenian Rams were able to find the French landings, sinking several troop transports and escort vessels and sinking before the destroyers and naval bombers could attack. Despite the navy’s efforts, French forces were also able to land at Baltimore and in a pasture in County Wexford after being shelled by Irish Republican forces in Waterford. The Dublin Rifles and 3rd ‘Black Badgers’ Division attacked in the Battle of the Sheepfold, where the lack of cover led to high casualties on both sides. The Baltimore landings fared little better, the rocky and open ground provided little cover, and the Irish forces were hard-pressed until reinforcements were trucked in from Limerick.

The landings had similarly failed, though Deat had committed few forces and his troops were far more successful than Mosley’s initial foray. Deat had demanded that Wintringham coordinate with the Communard army for a joint invasion of Connacht. Collins had been able to repulse the Communard landings because his forces, not pressured on multiple fronts, had been able to relieve each other. Overwhelming numerical force would be able to do what smaller forces could not. As Ireland was considered Union territory and the Commune required most of its divisions along the border with the Kaiserreich, the Union would supply most of the manpower for the invasion, although the supreme commander would be from the Communard Army. Union and Communard planes and ships would combine for the endeavor, to support landings from County Claire to Sligo.

The larger invasion force did succeed in its goals. Mosley’s centralization efforts had restructured the militias into an effective and organized fighting force. By standardizing equipment and radio procedures, the Union had been able to break through at Clew Bay, getting off the exposed beach. The Donnelly Division had been scattered, and the French were able to land in County Mayo and attack Sligo after a ferocious onslaught of terror bombing. The initial objectives only sought to reach the River Shannon, as the fortifications made crossing the river a daunting task. The Union took Galway after three days of fighting, Irish Republicans had retreated to the forests and hills outside of the urban centers. After five days, almost the entire province of Connacht was under Communard control. In Sligo and Galway, the Irish tricolor was lowered from the city halls and replaced with the hammer and torch of the Union of Britain, and the Internationale was sung.

The Internationale also executed Irish Republican prisoners. A captain of the 1st Thunderbolts was singled out as a particularly grave offender, accused of having committed war crimes against Union volunteers in Philadelphia during the Second American Civil War. During his impromptu tribunal hearing, he loudly denied the charges against him, demanded hard evidence be presented instead of “self-serving lies from a nation of cowards,” and accused the Internationale of being mass murderers, imperialists, and “the bootlicking spawn of Oliver Cromwell,” disrupting the impromptu tribunal to the point where it was impossible to convene any proper hearing. During the occupation of Connacht, hundreds of civilians were executed. Some were executed for supporting Irish Republican partisan activity or giving supplies to holdout forces, some were members of the Catholic clergy, some others for not turning over foodstuffs to the Internationale army, and yet others were executed after being identified as business owners or landlords by native Irish socialists. The accused were given drumhead trials, their property seized, and hanged from lamposts.

When the news out of Connacht reached Collins, he ordered an effort to retake the lost province. That night, Richard Mulcahy, Hugo MacNeill, and Tom Barry outlined their combined plan to surround and eliminate the invaders, called Operation Execution Ground. A night march along the Atlantic Way from Derry to Sligo led by Barry and Maguire, a march north along the River Shannon toward Sligo for Dublin forces, and the main force pushing up toward Galway from their previous positions in Munster led by MacNeill. The Thunderbolts and Black Badgers, the elite infantry units of the Irish Republican Army, would bloody the Commune in Sligo, while the 2nd Spearheads would seize and destroy stockpiles and command posts that led from Sligo to the Mayo landing points, preventing resupply. Police volunteers from the Gardai offered to help encircle the Communards while the Union forces faced the main infantry force southeast of Galway. It left Belfast and Dublin critically exposed, only their naval minefields and garrison forces would protect them.

Cathal Brugha, already getting old, volunteered to lead any home guard for Dublin. Unafraid of any invasion, he insisted that regulars and volunteers support the Irish Republican Army. With a pistol in hand, he gave a stirring speech, that he would defend the Four Courts by himself if it meant that the interlopers were driven from Irish soil. Collins and Brugha took a photo of themselves, pistols in hand, standing on the steps of the Dail, saying that all Irish citizens young and old can do their part for the fight.

Liam Lynch commanded the infantry coming from the south. When he had seen the bodies in Galway, he told the troops under his command that they were not obligated to “be kind to those who have shown us their cruelty.” Both in Sligo and Galway, the Irish Republican Army ordered heavy shellings on enemy positions followed by aggressive charges. The cavalry forces and the Spearheads moved along the shore, attacking supply lines and cutting off avenues of retreat. To complete the encirclement, the Thunderbolts moved to the west, hoping to break the Communard forces first so that they would flee east into hostile territory rather than west toward the Union.

A G2 agent, masquerading as a sympathetic Irish turncoat, made contact with the Communard forces in their forward positions by the River Shannon. Carrying mock orders, G2 successfully tricked the Communard forces into believing that the Irish had seized radio equipment and were attempting to trick them into thinking that they were attacking their landing sites in an attempt to move them out of their defensive positions and ambush them. The Communards didn’t leave for several hours until communications were severed entirely, exposing the ruse. The extra time proved invaluable to the Irish Republican Army, who were able to complete their encirclement before ordering an attack from all sides. Without radio communications, and surrounded on all sides, the Communard forces were shot to pieces. Only the units hunting the partisans to the west were able to successfully rendezvous with Union forces, the rest, after a ferocious battle, surrendered en masse.

The Union forces opted to abandon Galway early, and establish a strong position near their landing zones with Communard forces that had been ambushed in the forests to the west of Sligo. Lynch continued to push aggressively with his infantry, issuing Pervetin rations to the infantry under his command to sustain the attack. As Lynch turned to support the French encirclement, the Union returned to attack the city, revealing their earlier retreat as a ruse to attack while the Irish before their armies could get into position. The Donnelly Division, who had tried to hold Galway, were almost completely destroyed as a fighting unit, losing almost half of their fighting force. A relief effort from the Spearheads was the only thing to save Galway from being overrun.

Only after the Communard Army was defeated did the army regroup and push toward Clew Bay. In the same position that the previous invasion failed, the Union and Communard forces fought a desperate defense. Eventually, the Internationale’s forces were ground down as they began to run out of ammunition and wounds began to take their toll. The news of the murdered civilians and POW’s had enraged the Irish Republican Army, and the Internationale’s landing zone was subject to intense bombardment that, in the words of one private: “seemed to be the devil’s own hand reaching out with one fell swoop to wreak his evil upon the world.” With little in the way of functional radio equipment, surrender was only possible at night when a desperate signals operator flashed Morse code using a spotlight to communicate surrender.

The aftermath of the invasion of Connacht was tragic. Prisoners were marched in chains to prisons in the center of the country, and many officers and enlisted both were sent to firing squads if they were found to have had a hand in executing Irish civilians or in stealing food from non-combatants. Confessions were broadcast around the world about what had happened in Connacht, with the Internationale virulently denying the charges, accusing the Irish of fabricating war crimes to inflame public support and justify their unjust executions of prisoners of war. Collins had barely heard the figures - eight thousand Irish soldiers had been killed or wounded, while the enemy had suffered 179,000. Most of them had been Union soldiers, about 115,000, while France had taken around 75,000. The numbers were one thing, but his people were executed by a foreign power on Irish soil. It was the subjugation of Ireland all over again. Even if they had taken back their territory, how much more would it cost? The Internationale had six times the industrial capacity and fielded far more men. Even now, there had been no indication that Deat would abandon the fight or Mosley call for a truce. Perhaps they would drown Ireland in blood, if they couldn’t have it for themselves.

---

30 June 1939 - Special Joint Session of Congress, Washington D.C., United States of America

“If you will not fight for the Irish, help the Irish fight.” -Eamon “Dev” de Valera

If there was one good thing to come out of the failed invasion of Ireland, it’s that the world finally seemed to wake up to Ireland’s plight. Eamon de Valera had gone to the United States to lobby for more support, and he had been received warmly by President Garner. Warm regards, however, hadn’t translated to what Dev had actually sought, a threat from the United States to back down or face war. The Gallup polls had been encouraging: 47 percent of Americans favored unqualified economic and materiel support to include shipments of food and oil to Ireland, which went up to 57 percent when the responses included “provided it does not enter us into the war.” Most opposition had come from the thought that America still required all of its strength to rebuild, but estimates had been heartening, support for Ireland wouldn’t threaten American recovery, or so the economic analysts had said. There had been much pain suffered by the United States, but it was on the road to recovery. Major Longist guerrilla networks that were uncovered in the Lousiana bayous had been broken up, and the last remnants of the socialist resistance had been killed or arrested among the factory wreckage of Chicago’s industrial district. It was heartening to see America recovering so quickly.

Food and medical supplies, unarmed and flagged as humanitarian aid vessels, had already sailed to Ireland mostly without problems. The Union Navy demanded the right to search the ships, but Collins had threatened that if humanitarian food aid to Ireland was cut, the first people to starve would be the prisoners taken during the failed invasion. Dev had hoped to acquire more significant war support than mere food aid. Even basic equipment was starting to run bare in the depots, and bombing raids had started to take their toll on the factories. America had the industrial capacity needed to supply the Irish war effort, if it could only turn on the taps, an endless river of artillery, planes, and ships could flood the Irish Republican Army with everything it needed to fight the war.

Harry Hopkins had drawn up a bill with considerable bipartisan support, one that he hoped could both provide vital jobs for a recovering America as well as helping Ireland. Ireland could receive oil and war materiel on credit, to be returned when the war was concluded unless “the return of the equipment is made impossible due to use or damage.” Dev had asked Hopkins just how anyone was expected to return spent ammunition or artillery shells after they had been fired, answered with a simple chuckle.

Dev gave a rousing speech in the halls of the US Congress, and had specifically asked for the German and Canadian ambassadors to be invited to the session as well so that he might be able to address the Entente and the Reichspakt together. The pictures of what had happened in Connacht had risen the ire of many Americans, and shouts of “Remember Welfare Island” had frequently been shouted at pro-Ireland rallies.

“We are a small nation, and in our young history as an independent republic we have never once acted with aggression toward another nation, whether stronger or weaker. In our history we have been the victims of aggression, not its perpetrator. We have now come to yet another chapter in the long history of struggle, a new foe empowered by an industrial war that far surpasses the Weltkrieg. We have stood strong, taken with calm courage and confidence in our people, that our nation will endure. We know full well that we cannot demand any other to stand beside us, or ask that their fathers, husbands, or sons do so in their stead. We ask only that you remember Ireland, a land who with tearful hearts had her sons and daughters leave her fleeing the horrors of famine and destitution, and who welcomed many of America’s sons and daughters fleeing the horrors of war and deprivation. We ask that you remember a land with blue rivers choked with blood and oil and green fields burnt and stained red. We ask you, America, such a vast and mighty nation, to remember a nation that could be swallowed by most of your own constituent states. We ask that you remember the injustice being wrought upon her, and we ask that you remember the words of your Benjamin Franklin, about how a great nation may be reduced to a lesser one. We know firsthand how difficult the path of justice is, but acting justly has its reward.”

Transcripts of the speech, personally written by de Valera, were delivered to the Canadian and German ambassadors, with slight modifications. Instead of referencing Benjamin Franklin, Dev had referenced British and German liberal thinkers. The Canadian speech had omitted about how Ireland had a long history of oppression, instead focusing upon Union aggression wishing to expel people from their homeland. These speeches were eventually collected together, with the German Foreign Minister secretly praising de Valera for the craft of tailoring his message to his audience. The response had been beyond what de Valera had hoped. In Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm had declared the German Empire recognized the plight of Ireland, and had promised shipments of materiel protected by the Kaiserliche Merchant Marine. In Canada, the Tories were emboldened, accusing the sitting Prime Minister MacKenzie King of not doing enough to support the effort to reclaim the Home Isles, and that Ireland was fighting the Union just as the Entente had been fighting against the Totalists in the Bharatiya Commune in India. With overwhelming support, the Canadian Parliament authorized shipments of weapons to Ireland, emboldening the hawks in the Entente to push for Reclamation Day. Argentina, preparing for its own war with Chile, had independently recognized Ireland’s plight, and offered several large field guns every month to help keep the Irish in the war effort.

The shipments were invaluable, and protected by convoy systems, most of the promised aid had landed in Cork and Galway. A reporter was on hand and took a picture of marching Irish soldiers wearing the German stahlhelm and carrying the Lee-Enfield rifle. The quartermasters had difficulty initially in supplying troops in the field, as German and Canadian rifles used different calibers and parts were often not interchangeable. Eventually, units were marked as “Grey” or “Blue” by the nationality of the loaned equipment. Speaking for the cameras, Collins was in high spirits, stating: “This is the turning point in this war. The Internationale knows that it has not cowed us. While we seek a just peace and an end to hostilities, we are capable of fighting this war forever, and this commitment proves it. Neither the Reichspakt nor the Entente would provide supplies to a nation that was doomed; they would not extend credit to a nation whose defeat was inevitable. We are committed as ever before, because we know that we have already won this war.”

Privately, Collins was less enthusiastic, but he had to keep the faith. Every soldier was doing so, and Collins could do nothing less, because he was still a soldier through and through.

---

17 August 1939 - G2 Headquarters, Dublin, Ireland

The new supplies were put to use almost immediately, as the Union had attempted a quick invasion at Leinster before the Irish Republican Army could field an effective response. Army engineers had not been idle, the An Balla program had established an extensive array of coastal fortresses facing the Irish Sea. Fielding only 10 divisions, the Union attack only achieved anysuccess at the earlier French landing sites in Wexford, but an aggressive counter-attack by Richard Mulcahy had achieved great results. As much as Collins didn’t like it, ceding the landing grounds to the invaders and then attacking them after they had landed was far more productive than attempting to engage them at sea. Poorly supplied and out of place, they could be driven back to the sea, and the landing crafts weren’t able to pick many back up, if at all. The casualty counts had to be discouraging for the Internationale. 2RN had made sure to broadcast the figures of killed and captured every day toward the Union, to help spread fear and discouragement among the Union’s public. They didn’t have the strength to attack the Union directly, if they were going to win they had to make the cost unbearable, and prayed that the enemy called it quits first.

G2 had launched their most audacious campaign yet in an attempt to deter the Internationale’s invasion of Ireland given the new shipments. The new Argentinian cannons had included several decoy pieces meant to be installed on mock forts to draw fire away from real artillery pieces; a technique that was invaluable in their conflict with Chile to cause the enemy to expose their position for no gain. G2 had opted to go further, and opted to make an entire phantom army. The radio office had highlighted that the expanded conscription laws, increased volunteerism in support for the war effort, and new shipments of equipment from the Great Powers had finally allowed Ireland to double the size of their armies. Dan McKenna, freshly returned from the United States, would lead this new army with the 1st Thunderbolts at its head. Taking advantage of young, patriotic artists, G2 designed inflatable tanks and prop equipment to be used for staged photo ops. To properly seed the information, G2 designed the ‘public’ news to be disseminated through the public radio waves in Ireland itself and friendly countries, including a few foreign divisions signing on for adventure and the chance to fight syndicalism. Ireland couldn’t directly claim to receive foreign volunteers, that would undoubtedly run afoul of their foreign partners, but “expatriates” would be invaluable, drawing on the formation of the United States Refugee Brigades during the Second Civil War. G2 had expertly designed one division of British emigres in Ireland electing to “fight the syndicalist menace that the crown itself would not” called the Blue Lions, and a division of German emigres called the Iron Wolves whose goal was to secure “a peaceful future for the Irish Republic and the German Empire both.” McKenna had drawn upon his experience with the Volunteer Brigades to help design the false brigades, combined with the intelligence division’s Army Department to establish a formalized command structure complete with unit patches, fake pay records, and even a speech given to the new army by McKenna himself.

To make sure that the Union got it, Ireland elected to release a few wounded POW’s back to the Union after ensuring that they had overheard the information while they were in convalescence. Not sure of how much each man could remember, G2 had made sure to release multiple POW’s. Collins himself had made the offer, suggesting that as a humanitarian gesture, certain prisoners who were well enough to be moved could be released in order to free up hospital beds for other wounded individuals. Collins had instructed his negotiators to push for a payment in gold, but to back down if pressed. Mosley had thought he had secured a win, but Collins was the man with the last laugh. The news of the new Irish army, primarily stationed in Leinster, gave Mosley reason to pause, and instead he focused his attention upon County Kerry, hoping to secure Munster and establish a secure foundation to offload more Internationale troops with a short naval trip after a successful invasion.

The trap had worked perfectly. Collins had ordered general evacuations to ensure civilians would be able to flee, and had ordered the armies to wait until the enemy had landed in order to attack. On the day of the attack, Collins had ordered the An tAerchór to fly and contest the skies from the Internationale with the new delivery of fighters and close air support aircraft from the United States. The Irish pilots were not well-trained, but had been drilled extensively on formation flying for air superiority missions. The surprising attack blindsided the Republican Air Force, who had grown lax in their patrols due to their dominance over the skies since the beginning of the early war. Now with the aircraft to match the Communard and Republican Air Forces, the Irish were able to wrest control of the airspace over the Irish island and attack enemy bombers. Casualties were highest among the Air Force, many of whom were outmatched by the more experienced enemy pilots, but the surprising victory and establishment of further control had further enraged the Commune of France, who elected not to pursue “any Irish ventures” further. They had returned to focus on their Alpine Warfare program, and reinforce their borders with Germany and Spain, recalling their forces from the British Isles and reminding Mosley of the greater mission against the Reichspakt. Half a million casualties in a short campaign, multiple failed invasions only useful for teaching lessons on how to repulse the Entente when the French had elected to cross the Mediterranean; a true waste in every sense of the word. While the war was not ended, the Internationale had decided on other priorities. With Ireland in control of her skies and her territorial waters, they had held on, and they had won.

---

23 September 1939 - Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin, ireland

According to the poets, autumn was the time of loss, from the possibilities of summer into the chill of winter. The poets had not seen fit to think of Ireland in that summer of 1939, where the possibilities of summer were to be bombed by a Syndie plane or executed for failing to turn over their food and valuables to an invader. Yet Ireland’s salvation was no balm, an end to war. On the 9th of September, Deat’s Communard government demanded the return of Elsaß-Lothringen, calling it Alsace-Lorraine, and flew over German airspace to drop leaflets in both French and German detailing their grievances. The Kaiser had refused the audacious demand, claiming that the territory had been German territory for over fifty years. The next day, the Commune of France had declared war on the Kaiserreich, with the Union of Britain joining. The Socialist Republic of Italy, already in a border war with the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, joined the Internationale, and King Ferdinando II responded by joining the Reichspakt. On the 10th of September, Savinkov, declaring the necessity to liberate the Russian people from German subjugation and second-class citizen status, declared war on White Ruthenia, the Baltic Duchy, the Polish-Lithuianian Commonwealth, and Germany itself. On the 15th of September, the Entente declared war on the Union of Britain, the Commune of France, and the Socialist Republic of Italy, citing the illegitimate nature of the governments there, and prepared their invasions. Finally, on the 20th of September, the Empire of Japan, citing pan-Asian ideals and the need to liberate the Far East from Western Dominance, declared war on German Indochina in addition to their ongoing wars in China.

Ireland was no longer the focal point on the world stage, but the rest of the world would feel the fires of war that the Irish had borne, and the fires would burn hotter and brighter than any the world had ever seen. Collins wondered who had been listening to his wish

---

Diplomatic Moves in Ireland

Show of Force

Ireland Abandoned

Britain Demands Annexation

Mosley Declares War

Infiltrating the Army

Come Weal or Woe!

Ambush in Connacht

Casualties - First Invasion

French Landings in Southern Ireland

Casualties - Second Invasion

French Forces Encircled in Connacht

Casualties - Third Invasion

Irish Soldiers with Canadian Rifles and German Helmets

G2 Invents a Fake Army

Casualties - Final Count of the Irish War

Alsace Ultamatum

Alright then, 1939 is down. It’s the longest chapter so far, with the Second Weltkrieg having begun, all the Great Powers (except the US) at war. It’s a more successful tale of Czechoslovakia in 1938 combined with some Battle of Britain and some Operation Fortitude. Let me know what you think

#kaiserreich #creative #celtic tiger

24 notes · View notes