#i’d prefer people voted up and down the ballot but there are people who will vote local and state and ignore the top of the ticket

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

literally cannot overstate how insane it is that the democratic party controls the legislative and executive branches and has the audacity to be like “give us money and vote!” motherfucker we voted for you two years ago precisely so you would DO SOMETHING once you got in. why are you encouraging voter apathy through your own fucking spinelessness

[lyreleafblog]

The Legacy

A (very long) History of Lyre Leaf

Well, it’s come time to do some real talking. I previously introduced myself on a more baseline level, but today I would like to go into some more depth about what this blog is, why it is what it is, and how I’m going to move forward with it. Let’s get into it.

I grew up on the internet—and I think that’s one of the most important talking points to start out with on this blog. A lot of people in my generation grew up on the internet. We were the children of an era with divorce rates higher than ever seen before or since. We became latch-key kids with social anxiety and developmental giftedness that wore off in middle school. Many of us were incredibly poor because of our familial division, what with un-met child support and undocumented hereditary gambling running rampantly outside of the sanitary family courts that determined our custody agreement. We weren’t going out because we couldn’t afford to. Breaks from school were spent at home, most often alone, if not left to mingle with a sibling or two, with nothing to do besides satisfy our curiosities. Of course, when we look at history, it all seems so simple and crisp; Of course children are curious little things, even the older fifteen-ers who think the three long years separating their consciousness from a voting ballot are mostly pointless. Without present guardians to answer our trivial curiosities—without a voice waiting to answer the utterly predictable “why is the sky blue?” banter—we defaulted, simultaneously, to a different authority. We grew up on Google.

As I typed that, just then, this reality manifested in the between-the-lines crevices of societies’ infrastructure. Allow me to clarify: Sally googles all her questions. Did you see that? The word “google” is a verb now. It no longer requires the elegant capitalization of a typical proper noun, such as Bing. Nobody “bings” a question—and Microsoft Word knows so. Google raised a generation. Just like how the heaviness and context of the word “Mother” as a formal, brand-name account of an individual becomes the given expectation of “mothering” as we age into our theory of mind, with our awareness that our parents are not “God” but “gods” with a noteworthy little “g,” and so “Google” becomes “googling.” It starts at the first sign of a book report for which one has never read the book in question.

I didn’t have the chance nor the sense to consider actually asking a parent what the hell had gone wrong with me. I had grown up googling, with a little “g,” every time I had a question. At six years old, my mother gifted me her dinosaur; a Windows 98 PC. I was diagnosed with asthma after a bout of pneumonia around six years old and I’d been prescribed daily breathing treatments. Those treatments went down with a lot less fidgeting when they occurred in front of a computer, so my mother was sold. Little would she know that I would soon take over her brand-new Windows XP computer to live vicariously though The Sims. My own googling started out gingerly: Diva Stars, Barbie, My Scene, Polly Pocket, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Winx…  I am bating you for nostalgia without shame. It escalated alongside my (perhaps unfortunate) rapidly evolving preference for the written word. My search history evolved into how-to-add-hexed-files-to-Babyz and how-to-add-custom-Catz3. By the time I was 8 or so, I was fully enthralled in The Sims and almost all my time on the internet was spent learning about how to make objects for the game. Somehow, I actually achieved this, which shocks now-adult-me.

Google helped me discover things all on my own, too, such as the landscape of online friendship. My first account in what I guess one could call the online-social realm was none other than the massively underrated Barbie Girls franchise. (For anyone wondering, I am still most certainly obsessed with Barbie and closely follow Barbie content—please feel free to send me pics of any cool dolls or other Barbie things you might have.) I realized right away that this early MMO-esque digital universe model suited me much more than socializing in real life. Canned chat (pre-written dialogue options used in place of traditional instant messaging in online multiplayer worlds) generally prevented me from being bullied, which had been a significant problem for me at school. I especially appreciated creative elements in these kinds of online environments. Google helped me find more of them.

Eventually, I got into the world of MMORPGs. It’s all my mother’s fault. Before a custody agreement changed, I grew up with her and her unbelievable addiction to Adventure Quest. She was on the leaderboards (The Feline Fatale, if you’re wondering, way, way back in the late 00’s). While living separately, we played Mabinogi together (Long live Elrinnia, elven savior of the goddess!). As I got even older, we became more and more distant for a number of reasons, and google persisted as my primary authority on information. I found more communities in which to practice my social skills.

I got into sharing my writing online and even went on to make a few YouTube videos with my stepsiblings and friends. I won a few writing awards back in the hay-day of the Young Writers Society. I experimented with art communities and game groups.  I eventually found my way to Tumblr, which, at the time, I had only even seen before while peeking over the backcombed mane of our middle school scene-queen in typing class.

I had a few friends who had made pages on the site. I decided to make one, too! It serves to share that, like any teenager, I was, at that age, desperately trying to fit in with my peers and would quickly involve myself in their activities in any way I could find possible. I was utterly unaware of the scope of my disability at that age and couldn’t understand why I struggled to maintain fulfilling friendships in real life, so the idea of virtually-fitting-in using a digital avatar was especially appealing to me. Unfortunately, because of my age and autism, I was also exceedingly impressionable, and would find that this borderline underground social media / blog platform was mostly unregulated. That’s when it all started getting serious.

I had always been sick, I just didn’t know it. As an infant, I was born with an ongoing infection and couldn’t go home after birth. I had several serious allergies and intolerances. At age six, like I mentioned, my breathing problems began. Soon after I would be diagnosed with migraines and chronic morning sickness (from stomach problems). I was six or seven years old when I was first diagnosed with childhood depression by Christian counselors. My mother told me that I had nothing to be depressed about because I had never known suffering (she was, quite literally, violently incorrect). When I was about seven years old, I would have a three month-long bout with strep throat which was eventually culled by surgery removing my infected tonsils and lymph nodes. Every year I would spend a minimum of six months dysfunctional and sick from various colds and viruses, occasionally requiring hospitalization to get my breathing problems under control.  I missed more than two combined years of school, but still graduated on time despite never getting a chance to make up my lost education. Around ten, I got my first endometriosis period. My so-called period cramps would last for one week before, the week of, and one week following my menstrual period. By this point, I was disabled for 75% of my entire waking life at least—but my predisposition to develop very severe, very long-lasting viral infections would most often cancel out whatever pain-free-days I might otherwise have. I was a completely hopeless human being and my mental health showed this.

The older I got, the worse my health became. My incredibly vicious periods became less predictable in my early teens, and longer. My digestive issues were so pronounced that my stomach was regularly distended and painful. I threw up most mornings before school, so my step mother gave me unrestricted access to PeptoBismol, explaining my dangerous symptoms away as school-anxiety. Around this age, I developed severe skin and sinus allergies to a massive host of proteins, including seemingly all animal proteins. I had a shampoo with egg protein that caused my scalp to flake and itch painfully. I would develop massive welts all across my skin when washing the family dogs. My parents supplemented me with Zyrtec and other baby-problem allergy mediations at which my immune system cathartically laughed and howled. On top of everything else, my walking problem (a usually unnoticeable limp) became apparent when I was about fourteen, and somehow, my family members were allowed to decide for me that corrective shoes would be too unflattering to be worth saving older-me from chronic hip pain. My suffering was genuinely unthinkable, even to the me of today who some would argue is only remotely better than the me of then. I had nothing and nobody in my corner—nobody cared about the fact that I was constantly in pain, constantly suffocating, always covered in hives with raw, itchy skin. I remember feeling as if they were applying a band aid over a burst jugular.

I had to smile and nod. Any time I expressed my medical needs, they were not only invalidated, but I was often criticized for expressing them at all. In my real life, I was a theatrical, dramatic liar who would rather fake her own death than even sit in a room with family members. I was evil—so very, truly evil—the production of a voodoo curse or a gnarly past life—and all I did was pretend to be sick, all to use it for my tiny mastermind plan of laying in bed and doing nothing all day long—the true pinnacle satisfaction of the human boredom that birthed stone tools (this is sarcasm). In my real life, I had absolutely no control over anything that was happening—but I did have one thing; I had google, with a little “g.”

I’m an American woman, and it’s no secret that one of the leading health problems in the USA is obesity. In reality, it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than “obesity,” which itself is a symptom and not the actual problem, in my personal and utterly unqualified opinion, but that’s how the media portrays this phenomenon. So, naturally, when I angrily googled “why the fuck am I always in agony” as a fourteen-and-a-half-year-old, the GPS-localized Google Search feature on my laptop’s browser pointed me to the answer that most locals wanted and expected to hear.

[why the fuck am i always in agony]

“you’re overweight.”

Me? Not possible, I had thought. All of my life, everyone had told me I was too skinny. I remember my weight being a constant conversation in the pediatrician’s office. I googled deeper.

BMI. Hip to waist ratio.

 You  ex-anorexics know how the story goes.

Standing in front of the archaic Victorian-mansion-darkwood-vanity with a construction-grade measuring tape stolen from the garage, I lifted my shirt up and took my measurements. I don’t remember what they were, not that the internet would need to know about a minors waist-to-hip-ratio, but I was satisfied enough to loosen to grips of my rapidly developing eating disorder upon the realization that society had determined the proportion of my stomach to be acceptable. That couldn’t be it, I thought. Whatever was wrong with me was not my weight.

Well, a not even another year would pass of my daily melt-on-the-tongue-allergy meds, my stupid chalky bismuth tablets, and my period cramps that had me sobbing through French class, before I would again refocus my blame for my suffering on the enemy that society said was behind it. The next time I went to evaluate my stomach was right before one of those lovely endometriosis periods, and immediately after eating half a bag of lays potato chips on my couch, with a step brother, as soon as we got home from school. This time, my belly was totally massive, and I didn’t need to measure it to see that.

I thought I knew what to do. I thought I had gained belly fat. I was fourteen, freshly out of a situation legally described as neglect, and I had grown up hating and blaming myself for serious physical ailments that I happened to endure. Every resource I could google said that belly inches are belly fat. I probably never even heard the word “bloat” until a year later. I had no idea that one of the very most common symptoms of endometriosis, or gastroparesis, or hernias, or any one of the number of the things wrong with my abdomen, was abdominal distention. I was fat. The billboards said I was fat. Magazines said I was fat. Posters in the doctor’s office said I was fat. Commercials said I was fat. The news said I was fat. Every single possible resource I was exposed to universally agreed that the cause of misery was being fat and that the solution to every perceivable problem a person might face, from poverty to extortion, might be weight loss. I became determined to get un-fat-- to take my health into my own hands, once and for all.

Google with a little “g” wasn’t doing enough. I would drink extra water, choose whole grains, eat fruits and vegetables and ride my bike as often as I could get away with.  No matter what I did, about 75% of the time, I had some degree of abdominal distention. It changed dramatically throughout the day, leading very-dumb-bless-your-heart-me to believe that I was rapidly gaining and losing weight and fat. Since seemingly nobody ever cared about my unending medical symptoms before, I never even considered bringing this up to my care-givers as a problem, though I was open about my desire to lose belly fat and feel better. One day, I decided to explore the weight loss realm of Tumblr to see if I could find more personal experiences to study, hoping to apply others strategies for weight loss and health to myself. That’s how I fell down the rabbit hole.

Now, I was never one of those pro-ana types with the weight loss groups and the ana-buddies or any of that crap. I was already extremely hard on myself all the time, and I didn’t want or need motivation to lose weight. What piqued my interest were the “tips and tricks” they shared around for how to avoid food and suspicion. Those spheres utterly discredited the conventional weight-loss advice, the food pyramid and any medical knowledge about weight or metabolism. They believed in fairytales—that eating only chocolate would make your body “reject absorbing the chocolate” and that you could throw up enough food to cancel out whatever energy your saliva sent straight to your blood stream.  I was desperate, young, and whole grains weren’t making my endo-belly stay small, so I opted to give these wild ideas a chance. More importantly, I took to the philosophy of self-proclaimed pro-bulimics, and decided to stop using anti-nausea medication. The result of that was that it became unnaturally easy for me to vomit up virtually anything that made it past my esophagus in the first place, and so I did.

Things rapidly got out of control. I lost weight so quickly that everyone around me noticed and cared very suddenly. I lost my period right away, which became the single greatest incentive behind my disordered eating as my chronic pain was dramatically reduced. I was eventually slammed into eating disorder treatment. Minnie Maud, Renfrew—I’ve seen some shit. When you’re diagnosed with an eating disorder as a minor, there are some prerequisite appointments that must occur to assess damage from the disorder. I was diagnosed with my mitral valve prolapse, the supposed explanation to a lifetime of ignored heart palpitations until then, and gastroparesis, which I was told was a temporary side effect from my history of multi-day fasts and vomiting. I also had a host of dental problems and to this day have extremely fragile teeth.

Eventually I found my way into a real-life support group with a bunch of other Tumblr teens. I started a recovery blog and so did most of them. That’s where the story starts to get good. My recovery friends nursed me into my eighteenth birthday. By this point, I had become one of the token-teen-anorexics at my high school and had the disturbing experience of being asked for weight loss advice by my academic peers. I hated this with all of my soul and eventually, so much so, that I wanted to publicly open up about why I had been skinny, why it was bad, and why nobody else should want what I had. I made myself public. I looked up to Amalie Lee and Sarah Frances Young who had similarly bridged the communities in their real lives with the online recovery communities, producing an incredible amount of positive support for themselves whilst also serving to show struggling individuals what’s possible, so I opted to do the same and “put a face to the name.” My plan worked.

The same therapist who supervised my real life support group had been helping me plan a very big move. She’d determined that the problem with my mental health wasn’t that I had been neglected, but that I still actively was being neglected. I needed to be able to be fully responsible for tending to my own needs, or those needs would go on being unmet. I was seventeen when I signed my first lease and was eighteen when I moved 500 miles away from home to a town I’d never been to, in the single greatest escape of my life. My public openness with this experience attracted many people to me, who finally, rather than asking me for weight loss advice, were benefiting from my knowledge on moving out young, finding work, finding shelter and food, and best of all, recovering from disordered eating.

Everything was going great. People would message me for support or resources, I would share it. I bullied a few pro-ana people and launched secret campaigns against various pro-ana spaces on the internet. Somehow, me and all of my friends were those new-age 2015 hippies that don’t mind being broke as long as they’re, like, California-broke, and still eating vegan avocado toast every morning. We were a little subculture of our own, finding our healing through the extremely culturally appropriated words of white male authors who were profiting off our spiritual vulnerability—but it was mutualistic enough that everyone kind of turned out okay, mostly.

I was one of the first flies to drop. My moms death coincided with the terrible worsening of the my endometriosis and PCOS symptoms, long after I had weight-restored. I first shared about it online because I had grown desperate and felt lonely in my circumstance. At the time, I only knew I had endometriosis. My partner immediately became my full time care-taker.

Thanks yet again to the internet, namely Facebook support groups, eventually I got health insurance and got my excision surgery. I was sent off from Dr. Fox with a warning that I probably had more problems going on, and not to blame endometriosis for any ongoing pain, but to seek out other answers until I’ve found them and not be misled. Around the same time, I noticed Amalie posting about her own PCOS—with photos of the same distended belly that I had, that had started it all, maybe for both of us, even. No fucking way.

 Yes, fucking way, indeed. Dr. Fox had already alluded so himself, but seeing it happen in real life was a very unexpected experience for me. I still remember him inferring to me that PCOS correlates with bulimia, so casually that it was almost mean, as to bundle up someone’s complex, perceived-to-be-psychological struggle into a little blood-sugar package. It all went against the accepted modality for eating disorder recovery, which insisted that the phenomenon was purely psychological. I then noticed my other hero, Sarah, sharing about CFS. As it turns out, an abundance of research exists linking chronic illness to disordered eating.  I already had been diagnosed with my endometriosis and the issues I had in childhood, but I had no idea that the experience of chronic illness and disordered eating might be so common.

I became vocal about the observation of the overlap in patient demographics. It still seems like nobody cares much, but I continue to try to raise awareness of the subject because I know one day people will care. People only care about endometriosis excision thanks to anecdote-advocates like myself, but now, they care a hell of a lot more than they did before anecdote-advocates existed.

In 2020, I moved again, back down to the metropolitan area I was born in, but not close to where I grew up. In December of 2020, I first dislocated my shoulder. After a couple of days of walking around in horrible pain, I hesitantly made my way into an urgent care where my x-ray was questioned. I had a dislocation, but absolutely nothing else was wrong, not even bruising, which was extremely unusual. The Urgent Care doctors told me to tell my normal doctor about everything.

My normal doctor then referred me to rheumatology and cardiology.  It all happened faster than anyone could have seen coming—and so fast, specifically, because while I was tangled up in my endometriosis treatment back in 2017, the entire diagnostic criteria for my underlying condition, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, was professionally altered to make it exquisitely better at locating and diagnosing individuals like myself. I have almost every single known feature associated with the condition. I passed the Beighton score with a 9/9, had been diagnosed with my hernias during endometriosis surgery, had the heart stuff and the skin stuff and even the startling scar stuff that made my doctors demand I see a specialist in my condition before I ever try to conceive.

“You’re so soft!” Was something my friends had been saying to me all my life. I thought they were trying to compliment my choice of moisturizer—I didn’t realize they meant that I literally felt like velvet to them.  

Ehlers Danlos turned out to be responsible for a lot of my experiences with poor body image and food—pretty much whatever endometriosis and PCOS didn’t inspire. As I discovered, things like “walking funny” affect one’s posture, which can cause us to carry ourselves in a way that slouches our guts forward and makes us appear to have a rounder middle than we would if postured correctly. I remember standing in a bathroom with a bunch of girls as a teenager once, and all of us, being toxic south Florida suburb kids, were comparing our bellies. Everyone was stretching and pulling their bellies out and talking about how big they were. Of course, as EDSers know, the belly is upon the stretchiest of our portions, so I shocked even myself when I saw my belly kept going and going as I pulled it away from my waist. Humiliated, I was apparently visibly distraught, because the other little girls immediately began comforting me. “You’re not fat! It’s just skin!” “Yeah, you’re definitely not fat, but you are really stretchy."

(A primary feature of Ehlers Danlos is soft, stretchy skin)

Finally aware of the terms for my innumerable ailments, and many more appointments and diagnoses later, I decided to seek out a more specialized kind of therapy. Back in 2018, I had been diagnosed with OCD whilst grieving the loss of my mother. OCD is commonly considered a neurodiverse condition, meaning that while it most certainly can be mentally debilitating, aspects of it are more neurological than specifically psychological. Rather than working against thoughts and feelings, neurodiverse individuals are working against immutable developmental traits to fit in to a conventional world. I eventually found myself under the care of a doctor who was well informed and established with neurodiverse clients, who explained the state of affairs with neurodiverse psychology and insurance in the United States, with adult diagnosis, and most importantly, with what specifically is wrong with me.

This doctor helped me overcome lifelong learning difficulties and discover my actual identity. Slowly but surely, I have been coming around to opening up about the uniqueness of that entire experience online but sharing about being neurodivergent is a hell of a lot harder than sharing about physical ailments. The longer I endured through my new format of therapy, the easier it was to have conversations about the actual logistics of my conditions and how they work in my head. Why can't I do math? It's too noisy.

Understandably, it can feel very dehumanizing as a patient to have conversations like that with a new therapist or mental healthcare team early on. I eventually learned that, yet again, chronic illness tells a story about our so-called “mental health” but in a way much more important than I had ever dreamed possible in my old ED-recovery-days.

Not only is there a well-established co-occurrence between these “neurodiverse” conditions and the form of chronic illness that I have, but many of the psychological symptoms of said neurodiverse disorders specifically co-occur with relative physical features, such as in the case of TMJ (TMD) and hearing or even attention problems.  It’s all just fascinating. With this knowledge, every detail of my life started to make sense. Why had I been neglected? Hereditary-neurodivergent mothering, firstly, compiled with my own inability to recognize or speak about my physical state or needs with enough detail to mean anything—combined with just the perfect amount of white coat syndrome to make me lie, cheat and fake my own wellness or do anything else to avoid cancelling my plans for a doctors visit. Why was I so good at all of school besides math? A learning disability, attention problems, a total inability to interpret mathematical data when it’s spoken directly to me or drawn at me, an inability to properly decipher the symbolism that has come to be known as numbers. Why did nobody notice? I have been intimidatingly pedantic nearly since birth—reading early, writing early, despite never developing hand coordination superior to that of a four-year-old, and practicing the one and only communication skill I was born with an inclination towards being good at. I would write them all clear out of bounds, with a nerdy, pompous level of self confidence that offended and tickled my instructors and fortunately satisfied those meant to judge my writing. It had been that way for me all along, but somehow, it slipped away from my memory. My ability to sound smart is what got me through elementary and middle school.

I am pedantic and intimidating and usually seem much, much smarter and more in control than I actually am. Whether or not I’m a compulsively-faking antisocial psychopath is still up for debate in my own psyche, but my healthcare team has assured me that, what I am, in fact, is a stereotypically neurodivergent person with some trauma around my previously unmet healthcare needs, and also, having lots of healthcare problems that I very much haven't made peace with having.

I also don't want to have these conditions-- not that anyone ever truly wants something like that—I know that would be very unusual—but the diagnosis and treatment of everything besides endometriosis was somehow even more traumatic to me. My mother, the parent I inherited my wonky body from, of course also had my condition and arguably my neurotype, too. I grew up watching the healthcare system fail her and addict her to needless anxiety medications while ignoring her impending early death. I had no interest in reliving another second of that experience. A big part of my disordered eating had stemmed from that fear—the fear that being fat was the cause of sickness and misery.

Finally, I had gotten all of the answers that have for so long plagued my mind.

Now it’s been well over a year, almost a year and a half since I got diagnosed with the last thing I’ve been diagnosed with that wasn’t a random emergency. I’m still adjusting to life with this newfound understanding of my body and my brain. While some of my conditions have significantly improved, like my endometriosis and the joint-injury involved in my Ehlers Danlos, other aspects, like my ongoing mast cell problems and frequently flaring stomach problems, persist and occasionally worsen.

At the point where all of the diagnoses piled up, I felt extremely vulnerable, especially with sharing on my most public, this-is-my-face platform. This isn’t solely of my own, accord, either, as my still impressionable brain is sensitive to the rising criticism against people who talk about their disabilities or chronic illnesses online. At the same time, I too am able to step back from my pedestal and analyze the real implications behind individuals who might be identified as chronic illness influencers. While most individuals in this demographic are viewed positively, a dangerous amount of controversy surrounds their community. Individuals point out the frequency of grifters and scammers.

In my own time among the environments of Facebook support groups, and in the micro-communities I found by publicizing my own experience with mental and physical illness, I too had noticed a highly disturbing trend. It’s one that brought me all the way back to my beginnings, and one that hopefully will justify this absolutely gargantuan transcript of a post. People were competing. These environments, those focused around various chronic illnesses, fostered a competitiveness between patients. One image specifically struck me; a young, emaciated woman, with a feeding tube, posting a selfie from her hospital bed took me all the way back to Wintergirls. I’m not that sick, I told myself the moment I saw her. What is that sick? What is sick enough?

I never want to be part of that atmosphere. I never want to be viewed as competing or be caught belittling someone else’s anguish to better highlight my own. I am utterly petrified of accusations of hypochondria as I’ve lost some family to that very insistence. At the same time, I am perfectly ordinary— blending in well enough to have an ear or two on me at least, compared to the rural, disfigured Appalachians on the other side of my genetic lottery number. Especially when the common conversation focuses more on grifting and scamming than awareness—who is going to practice blatant, blunt, ugly and unwarranted honesty, besides someone who can’t help themselves?

Fortunately, life has backed me up against the wall yet again. Everything will be okay, this time, for real, and I’ve just convinced myself otherwise out of anxiety that’s real enough to be acknowledgeable.  I am afraid of the impending changes and transitions that my state of being require. I am hesitant to do this, to sit at home and write and write and write, despite knowing there’s not much else I can do to be heard. I realized through my work and college that my experience has permanently defined my perception, and that perception is an inherently wonderful thing. I’ve learned from the experts that diversity is what strengthens a population and is a tremendous part of what makes us human. I don’t have to look or be normal to be meaningful; in fact, just like the back-of-cereal-boxes love to remind children, being unique is a good thing.

Now, I’m focusing on that; I’m exploring the things that make me different. One of them is that I’m sure many of you do not spend the entirety of your pain-stricken day off writing a 5,000+ word article for an insignificantly tiny audience. I’m sure many people haven’t needed to source out sliding-scale healthcare institutions. Plenty of people don’t currently think maybe there’s a cyst on my right ovary again.

Nevertheless, my story is unthinkably common. The only issue is that a lot of people like never get the pen in their hands, literally and figuratively. Genetic and developmental conditions will seriously damage individuals’ prospects without proper early intervention.  I got diagnosed with what I’m hoping is pretty-much-everything by 24.  A lot of people won’t be so lucky, and whenever they go through a major life change, and their bodies and brains fail to bounce back, it’s a total, life-ruining surprise. If not for my own “great escape” and my very much updated family, I probably wouldn’t even be here writing right now. 

One thing that people like me all have in common is that we will spend as much time in front of a computer screen or cellphone screen as we are able to do so, because the low-activity stimulation involved with today’s technology is a dopamine-godsend to a kin like ours. So I know that by sharing, I am able to touch the lives of individuals who may have no idea just how much they have in common with me, or the rest of people like me out here in the world.

The internet is a giant library of information, and the more we engage with it, the more accurate it becomes in meeting our needs (specifically in terms of web crawlers). If someone googling joint pain, with a little “g,” happens upon my story, maybe they’ll be more inclined to make that first appointment or take a leap of faith and make a move or escape their unhealthy home environment. I can’t do anything meaningful to really raise us up for the revolution we deserve-- I mean, I try to donate where I can and I'm a big believer in mutual aid, and I struggle, too-- but I can play my part in practicing honesty and vulnerability, in sharing my information by word of mouth, or in this case, by word-of-eyes.

My life isn’t meant to be an advertisement, and neither is yours. Besides, the best kind of revenge against people who have wronged you is to unashamedly own and love yourself and your story—and you need to discover who you really are to do that.

I’ve been blessed to be able to aid a few people in their personal struggles. I’m by no means some kind of mentor, but simply a fellow ally in our fight together, extending whatever resources and support I am able to offer to those who ask for it (and occasionally to those who don’t!). This realization of my ability to contribute to other peoples self-discovery and growth, simply by sharing my own, has made me realize that sharing might be the single most important thing I can do. Honesty is powerful and openness is not weakness, but a way to build strength. I believe in a world where we should not censor our suffering for the convenience of those around us, nor should we withhold immaterial or literal nourishment from those in need if we can spare it.

I found my truths out thanks to "the community" being honest, open and vulnerable-- and I feel endlessly inclined to do my part in paying it forward.

So that’s that! That’s the history of my oversharing on the internet, which I find fully necessary to explain myself and the subjects I cover because of my own unique brain. If you're anything like me, in just about any way, feel free to reach out as I love connecting with people and learning about the diverse range of experiences people with my conditions have.

[my-never-ending-nightmare]

07/19/2022

When I talk about the fact that so many people are living such miserable, unfulfilling lives that don’t make them happy but only make them want to distract themselves through one of the various methods of escape – drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, pornography, video games, television, politics, religion, money, fame, etc. – I’m not just talking about everyone else. I’m guilty of the same thing, obviously. Everyone has their go to thing(s) that they turn to when they feel the need to distract themselves from the hollowness inside of their hearts. But it’s not as if my preferred distractions have only ever been the blatantly self-destructive ones. I’ve dabbled in the others, desperately hoping that I would find in them a feeling that would fill my heart with a sense of purpose & meaning. And, to me, I always thought I’d find that somewhere within politics.

I’ve never been like actively involved in any political movements or parties or anything – and I’ve never given more of my time to it than the time it takes to cast a ballot – but I used to follow it all so closely. Because it felt good to belong to something. It felt good to be able to say: “I’m not like those idiot X voters, I’m a Y voter – X ruined everything, but Y will fix everything. I can see through the bullshit, and I know how to save us all if only we vote for Corrupt Politician Y instead of that dumbass Corrupt Politician X.” And I would spend countless hours a week watching YouTube content creators bicker back & forth with each other in a never-ending intellectual dick measuring contest.

And I did that because I blamed the X voters and their politicians for my problems. I thought that they were not only responsible for my unhappiness, but the unhappiness of everyone around me, also. Because I blamed the system, so to speak. The world around me seemed so dystopian because I hadn’t yet realized that the utopian society I envisioned was nothing more than an ideal. And although I wasn’t angry enough to rage against the machine night & day, I could certainly throw a wrench into every opportunity that I got.

Voting was that opportunity.

I’d vote for the most unpopular, fringe minority sort of politician/party that I could find within my wing of the politician spectrum – and I’d do so not just because of my contrarian nature; but because I wanted to see the machine fail. I wanted the system to stop functioning because it wasn’t functioning the way I thought it should. I blamed it for my unhappiness. And the belief that I knew how it should be run was a distraction from that unhappiness.

I didn’t vote in the last election, though.

Because last summer someone taught me that my vote doesn’t just have the power to hurt the machine. It has the power to hurt people, too. Like, I was never down for any extremist groups calling for harm to people or anything of that nature. What I mean is that the policies and ideas that I vote for have the power to drastically alter if not completely ruin people’s lives – without literally hurting them. If that makes any sense. Like, there are people who are entirely dependent on the very machine that I was so eager to destroy. And that same system that I blamed for my problems is the only thing stopping some people from having even worse problems.

I’ll never forget last summer when I was out for a drive with that aforementioned person in their car. It was during the lead up to an election, and the various political parties were out campaigning in full force. It felt like you couldn’t drive for more than a minute without seeing one of their billboards or signs stuck into the ground along the road. And on this particular day we passed one of those signs that had fallen over along the side of the road – but this sign belonged to the party that I intended to vote for. So I asked my friend to do a u-turn and go back so that I could set it back up for them. My friend did so, and I remember spilling the energy drink in the process which really upset me since it only happened because they were doing something for me while I was doing something for someone else. But I needed that distraction – I needed to feel like I had a purpose. My heart knew that everything it ever needed was already right there with me. But my brain didn’t think that they always would be with me. So instead of putting my undivided attention into loving them in the here & now I was always distracting myself from what I thought was their inevitable departure from my life. And maybe that’s why my energy drink spilt in their car… the universe was trying to let me know that not only was I distracted – but that my inability to focus was making a mess of things, too.

Or maybe I’m just as crazy as I am clumsy lol

But I fixed the sign. And sometime after that – not sure if it was later in the same day or sometime after that – my friend asked me about that political party that I was supporting. And it wasn’t just small talk or anything. They genuinely wanted to know more about it and what they stood for. And it wasn’t because this friend shared my interest in politics. It was because they were interested in me. They wanted to understand the things I support because they wanted to understand me. They wanted to learn about the things that I spent my time thinking about because they wanted to try to see the world through my eyes. And looking back at it now it’s obvious to me that that was because they loved me. It was one of the many, many things they did to let me know that fact – but it was one of the many, many things I ignored while I was waiting for them to just tell me so.

Problem was that I didn’t really know how to answer their question – because my reasons for supporting them were so few. So we ended up on the party’s website looking at their policies when suddenly our pleasant conversation turned unpleasant real quick. My friend saw that this political party was advocating for the reduction of spending on public housing. Something which they and their mother had been dependent on for so long. My friend got angry at me for supporting something that would directly affect them. And I tried to explain to them that it’s not a policy that I had ever really thought about but that it’s an idea that sounds good on paper to me since government spending is completely out of control and will result in consequences. But then they said something to me that I’ll never forget – they told me that I’ll never understand because I had it easy in life. And that’s when I got defensive. I told them that they have no idea what I’ve been through in my life and to not pretend that they do. When what I should have said is something like “you’re right, I was born into an upper middle class family and was fortunate enough to have not had to experience the same hardships as you because of that. Hardships that I fail to appreciate. But I suffered hardships that you don't appreciate, either. Because a wealthy family doesn’t mean a happy family. And it doesn’t mean that that family didn’t traumatize me, either. But I can share share what I’ve been through with you – if you’re interested in understanding each other.”

A moment that could have brought us closer together was wasted by me getting defensive and pushing them away. But I never forgot that moment. It’s the moment that I realized that the ballot I cast has the power to hurt people. Like, suddenly public housing went from being some sort of abstract concept to becoming something tangible. It was no longer just numbers with dollar signs attached at the front – it was people. People like my friend and their mother.

I never told my friend what a life changing moment that was for me. But when the time came for me to cast a ballot in that election I didn’t vote for that party that wanted to decrease spending. I voted for the one that wanted to increase spending, instead. And I think I only did that to atone for the guilt I felt, honestly. But that was the last time I voted – and may be the last time I’ll ever vote, too. I stopped paying such close attention to politics after that, and I stopped pretending to have any of the answers let alone all of them. I realized that all I had been doing was trying to distract myself from my own lack of a purpose by throwing my weight behind someone else’s sense of a purpose. If that makes any sense. Like, it was a way to avoid taking responsibility for my problems by blaming them on something that someone else would fix for me. And it was a way of distracting myself from the fact that I was doing absolutely nothing with my life that was getting me any closer to being happy.

So in the lead up to the last election we had in June it became all I could think about. But I felt the need to vote nonetheless. As if it were some sort of civic duty that I was obligated to perform. I hadn’t followed any of the party’s platforms or anything – but I was just going to vote for the machine this time. I was going to vote for the party already in power. Because, in my mind, I wouldn’t be damaging anything by doing so. And I wouldn’t be running the risk of hurting anyone. But as I stood in line to cast my ballot it suddenly hit me: I don’t know what this party’s stance on public housing is.

I thought about my friend. And I thought about the wonderful little house they shared with their mother. I remembered how my friend told me that technically they weren’t even supposed to have that house any longer because the government would rather give it to someone with young children. And I remembered how much that house meant to the two of them. I thought about how I believed that my friend was making a horrible mistake by moving out of that house to live with a partner that they had only known for half a year. I thought about the fact that my friend’s mother isn’t going to have that house forever. And I thought about how time is running out much faster now that it’s only her there alone. Suddenly I had this horrible vision of the future – a future in which my friend realizes that they were in such a rush to grow up and gain independence from their mother that they made themselves entirely dependent on someone that they don’t even want to spend the rest of their life with. I imagined the day when my friend realizes that they rushed far too quickly into something far too serious with someone that knew for far too little. And imagined that when that day comes then they’re going to regret having left their old life so quickly for the new one that they were so incredibly uncertain about. And I knew that on that day they would want nothing more than to return to everything that they had so hastily left behind.

But what if there’s nothing left to return to?

Like, the inevitable is coming. Sooner or later the government is going to move my friend’s mother from that lovely house and into some small, shitty apartment. And when that happens then it’s too late for my friend to change their mind and end things with their partner because they’d have nowhere else to go. Their old life would be gone - all they’d have left would be their new one. And at that point they’d feel trapped – unable to leave without scarfing all the material comforts of their new life in exchange for none of the comforts of their old life.

And I thought about how unfair it all is. Because plenty of young people make the mistake of being so eager to grow up that they end up somewhere they don’t actually want to be. But so many of them are fortunate enough to have parents who own their homes – and thus somewhere to return to once they realize the mistake that they made. Somewhere they can recuperate before spreading their wings again. But my friend may not have that.

And I don’t want to feel responsible for that.

So as I stood in line to vote I began to frantically google the various options I’d have on the ballot – trying to find one that I felt would give my friends mother the most amount of time in that house. But then it hit: what the fuck am I doing? Not only was I trying to figure out who to vote while I was in the process of voting – but there was no way on earth that I could have possibly understood everything that I was going to vote for in that time, either. Like, even if I found someone to vote for who was pledging to never move anyone out of their public housing until they’re dead – I still would have had no way of knowing what the rest of their polices are, nor would I know how they’d effect people. Real people. Not numbers. Not dollar signs. Not abstract concepts. But people. People that I could be hurting with a careless vote. A vote that I only wanted to caste because it felt like my duty as a citizen of this place. An obligation that I had bestowed upon myself in my search for meaning & purpose. An obligation that, if fulfilled, would have been a momentary distraction from my own unhappiness. But a distraction that could make other people unhappy, too.

Needless to say I left that day without voting.

My heart knew that it stood to gain absolutely nothing from it – despite the lies my brain was telling it about civic duty and all that shit. I only wanted to feel like I had done something meaningfully. I only wanted to feel like I had a purpose. But I all I was going to get is a distraction. Because my heart knows what’s missing. But no politician on this planet could ever give me what that is – and no ballot will ever get me any closer to it, either.

The only way that I’ll ever find what’s missing is by following my heart and doing what I feel is right. Not what I think is right. And the direction my heart wants to take me is towards a better version of myself. Even if what’s missing isn’t to be found – at least I can feel good about myself knowing that what motivated me was love rather than the crap my brain try’s so hard to feed me. I don’t need distractions from that shit. Instead I only need to spend every single day doing everything that I can to be a better person than I was the day before.

Even after the days that I fail.

Maybe then I'll someday feel worthy of the happiness that these days I only dream of.

[root-admins]

SINoALICE x NieR Replicant - Weapon Stories

A complete compilation of all weapon stories from SINoALICE’s NieR Replicant collab... well, the ones that has lore to do with NieR anyways.

Whatever grammar mistakes/translation errors belongs to Pokelabo, and you will tell there are some. Most are stories are pretty self-explanatory tho.

Grimoire Weiss

We fought for what seemed like ages. To kill those things that took a twisted human form. To protect those precious to me, with my own hands. We were deceived for so long. Deceived by people in a land we've never been, whose faces we've never seen Issuing orders from a safe distance. We must have been in love. And despite the fact I couldn't save you, but I never got to thank you for saving me. These fragments glimmering deep in my depths... they seem to be the vague memories of people... the faded remnants of human wisdom... H-hold on! I’ll have you know my name is not “Booky Wooky!” You may call me "Grimoire Weiss" I am a great compendium of ancient wisdom. Treat me with respect!

Grimoire Noir

My name is the Black Book. Are you the king who will lead the world to salvation? Don't be so surprised, Your Majesty. For me, it is a simple matter to speak human words. I sympathize with your distress, Your Majesty. On this occasion, however, we have no choice but to let them deal with your sister. When sorrow overtakes you, you may come to me and speak of your tribulations. Reading is an admirable pursuit. Your Majesty--for me?? I shall peruse this volume if it comes on your recommendation... What is that? You think it odd for a book to read a book? Noir? I would prefer to dispense with this nickname. My name, Your Majesty, is the Black Book. I am a grand tome of human wisdom... thus, to refer to me by such a curious moniker is, dare I say, inappropriate.

Kaine’s Sword

She was slender, with smooth, white skin. The hint of a dark shadow in her expression highlighted her beautiful features. But something about the sword in her hand didn't seem to fit the picture. Anger, sorrow, hatred. When emotions overwhelmed her, she would swing the sword, so there was never a lack of blood to quench its thirst. The problem was that she couldn't put the sword down. A heart and body in constant conflict. No one in the world could understand her. And loneliness was eating her alive. The long war came to an end, and darkness devoured her. But her heart remained at peace. Because she faced fate in the arms of the one she loved.

Halua Head

File_25_10: Update Soon twins will be arriving. There is nothing at all in the white-walled, prison-like room except for a white bed. If only there were something to do in there... File_25_12: Update I went to look in on them, and the girl was kindly encouraging her anxious younger brother. The two of them had heavy expectations to fulfill. The weight of all humanity's hope bore down upon them. File_26_06: Update The day of the experiment, the girl passed me a letter. To the very end, she wanted someone to watch over her brother. Once I agreed, she quickly ran away. Report: Human Weapon Development Things seem to be progressing as expected with Experimental Subject A (Sister), but her condition has changed drastically. In her present state, she seems to have no sense of self. I am urgently beginning work on Experimental Subject B (Brother).

Devola & Popola’s Staff

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Dear Popola, Thanks for that soup recipe! My mom loved it!  －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ A note received from a child in the village. Does this mean they are developing a sense of self? －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Dear Popola, Thanks to the medicine you gave me, I'm feeling a lot better, though I can't leave home yet. Just sending a note to say thanks. －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ According to our records, humans wrote their feelings down on pieces of paper, and sent them to others. Where did they learn to do such a thing? －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Dear Popola, I like you a lot. Will you be my girlfriend? Waiting to hear back. －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ I simply cannot understand the things they have written on these scraps of paper. I feel an unfamiliar feeling, my heart saying “no”… －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Dear Popola, Sorry I couldn't tell you in person, but I'm coming home late tonight. Go ahead and sleep if you're tired. －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Ah, Devola. No need to worry about me this way. Tee-hee.

Favorite Pot

Yonah, I learned a special recipe! When you eat it, all your injuries will be gone! Oh! I want everyone to feed it to those they care about!

The ingredients are deer meat, sea turtle eggs, fresh veggies and herbs from the garden, and lastly tons of scorpion claws! Next, fill a pot up with all your ingredients, place the top on, and let it simmer overnight! The white steam rising from it is just so mesmerizing. ...Oh! I think it's ready! Smell for a soft scent when you take the lid off. That means it's done! I can't wait to give it to grandpa.

Transience

"Rule 0: You have the right to disband a rule by vote." I am the king's aide and second-in-command. Until now, all rules have be absolute, however, a "Voting Rite" was held where citizens could vote to change rules. Now, let's see what sort of ballots were made...

"Rule 451: Consuming alcohol is forbidden during the daytime." And stated as the reason is: because I like drinking... Because it's anonymous, all these votes are based off selfish desires. We need to improve the system somehow that reflects public opinion.

"Rule 356: Royal inquiries are limited once per day." And stated as the reason is: because I long to be with the King more...? Could this Fyra's vote...? No. Of course not. She's not the type to be interested in love. Moving on...

"Rule 68: The King's aides are to forever serve at his side" Reason being: Thank you for all your hard work. You deserve a break once in awhile... Could this be from the King himself? I'm honored to have stood by your side all these years. And the citizens of this country are proud of your work. There's no doubt of it.

Note: After rigorous deliberation, "Rule 451: Consuming alcohol is forbidden during the daytime", the most voted for rule, was repealed.

Grimoire Weiss ver.1.224

My name is Grimoire Weiss. I am an ancient tome of profound wisdom. After awakening from my long slumber, I traveled the world with my most beloved friends. She was a woman lacking respect for her elders. She'd continuously talk down to me, calling me nothing but paper and even set me aflame. However... Her rash words were also the driving force that moved us all. He was a compassionate and gentle boy who loved his friends. His manor of dress was odd, but his kind words warmed everyone's hearts. This I know to be true. I wonder if he, too had felt any relief from his sins. He was a cheeky guy, but not one you could just leave behind. We've been through a number of rough times together. I'd tell ya about it, but... I'm running out of time. If... If only I had an arm... Then I could have...hugged...him...

Grimoire Rubrum

It's the silk of fate. Knowing you, I shall begin living a life of truth. It's the forbidden fruit. Protecting you, I shall sink into wisdom's abyss. Those are the flames of anxiety. Thinking of you, I shall endure eternity's darkness. That is a reunion of bitter tears. Who are they? Why is it not me who's besides you?

Kaine’s Dual Blades ver.1.224

I craved it. Blind violence and blood-thirsty carnage. And I found it. I finally found it. A vessel stained with anger and hatred, seeking vengeance for the murder of her parents. I possessed that woman and gave her "power." That power turned the woman into a beast. One swing of her blade was enough to cut through stone and her grazes healed in an instant. She began downing every foe before her in the name of vengeance. I was delighted to witness the fruition of my desires. The woman's destruction didn't end there. After having her revenge, she continued to exert her "power" for the sake of her friends. Along her journey, her anger and hatred showed signs of waning, however, I gave it no thought. All I desired was to continue bathing in her bloodshed. Because her body has reached its limit, her power has lost control. Still, in the midst of the clashing of blades, I could feel her desire to protect her friends. Yes, this is the violence and carnage I crave. But why is it deplorable and empty?

Devola & Popola’s Spear

Upon hearing an old lady from the village caught a cold, I immediately collected my medicinal herbs with some boiled water, and rushed out from the library. I nursed her and remained by her side until her symptoms calmed down. She was extremely grateful for it.

I read a picture book to a group of children from the village. It was of an old tale about a brave, courageous man who triumphs over evil. I watched their expressions alternated between joy to sorrow to the story's pacing. I'm glad they enjoyed it.

Devola and I performed a song for the people at the village tavern. In addition to the regulars who drank there, elders and children were part of the audience. At the end of our song, the entire crowd smiled and cheered.

Every day Devola and I have been staying late at the library thinking of a plan to make life easier for the villagers. They're indispensable "vessels" for the project, so we need to do what we can for them.

Letter to the Postman

I was in a dimly lit cabin when I met a kind man. He taught me how to write a letter. What should I write on a blank piece of paper...? ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――― ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

Apparently, a letter should start off with the name of the person you want to give it to. Of course, I'd want it to be his. I hope he'll be able to read my sloppy handwriting... ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――― 　　Hans ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

At the end of the letter should be the name of the person who wrote it. Of course, that would be the name he gave me. Is it odd my chest feels warm writing it...? ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――― 　　Hans 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Luiz ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

And in-between these two names, I'm supposed to write how I feel. And tell him what I want the most. I wonder if he'll be happy to receive this...?

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――― 　　Hans, Thank you　Thank you　Thank you Thank you　Thank you　Thank you　Thank you 　Thank you　Thank you. Luiz ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

[reflectionsofacreator]

Before the pandemic started, I worked at a café in a bookstore chain that rhymes with Barnes and Noble. I was strictly café, and didn’t want to be trained on the sales floor because I knew they wouldn’t pay me more for being cross trained. Mid March was when the company decided to furlough most part time employees and go to bare bones operating, effectively shutting down and only doing online shipping. Slowly things opened back up (way too soon, but whatever, USA is shitty about this). 

About three-four weeks ago, my job called and said that furlough ended, and they wanted to see if I would be willing to come back to work. I said yes, despite having developed some anxieties about leaving my house during the pandemic, largely due to where I live. I was assured that hours are shorter, and that everyone’s required to wear masks by company decree, even if the county the store was in had lifted restrictions, socially distance, yada yada. 

I was told that I’d probably have to be salesfloor trained if I wanted any real hours, though, because the store’s diminished hours meant that only 1 person was really needed in the cafe, maybe two in a pinch, when before we needed at least three to four. I didn’t want to be salesfloor trained, but honestly I just need money, and this job pays better than the state/federal minimum wage. So I sucked it up, said sure, I’d be happy to train and help out. (I am not, for the record. I prefer food to retail)

Bro this fucking sucks. 

Sure, sure, you can argue that only a month on retail after not working for five months is still getting back into the swing of things, but like... They’re having our workload be even bigger than before. We’re working with what feels like a skeleton crew. No one’s gotten a raise for working during this time, I’m sure. Even the managers are relegated to less than full time, and I’m pretty sure that means that the company doesn’t have to provide them insurance. My shifts are long as hell, despite the store being open for less hours of the day. If I work in café, our prep and clean up time has been slashed to only 30 minutes before and after the store closes. I can barely do anything in that time. 

There’s announcements overhead about staying six feet apart, and I look over to see a customer leaning over a coworker’s shoulder to look at the computer screen while they get help finding a book. People lift off their masks to talk to me, and constantly laugh and say that they hate them, it’s so difficult to be understood! I’m supposed to sanitize the limited number of tables and chairs every thirty minutes, but often times I’m so busy with other customers that I can’t get to it. There’s a plexiglass on my counter that’s supposed to be between me and the customer, but it only covers 1/3 of my entire counter, and I watch customers circumvent it constantly. All that is just things that affect me, personally. It’s already nerve wracking, and it just sucks so much. 

Before, my cafe had plates and mugs that we could use for customers and wash. Now, everything is packaged to-go, for obvious reasons. Except I can’t help but wonder how much trash that’s going to end up producing in the long run, how much plastic is being tossed away after three seconds. The water fountains at my work are shut off, with a sign that says “Bottled water is for sale at the cafe”. For fucking sale. Yeah, you can argue that sealed water is better to prevent the transmission of the rona, but it should be free. Customers are encouraged to go contactless in their payment, with cash money being frowned upon. My tips have dwindled into nothing, I was lucky to get $4 today, and one of them was from a regular who always tips $1. 

Two weekends in a row, I did over $500 in sales that day in the café by myself. I got no help, and barely any recognition other than “great job!”. Before I came back, there’d only been four days in six months that that had happened. I ended up staying 30 minutes after my shift was over to try and get all the clean up done. 

God I’m just so fucking tired of this. 

I’m tired of the amount of customers acting like nothing is wrong, and in turn making my brain go “hm, maybe nothing IS wrong, and I’m just imagining things.” I’m tired of the long hours. I’m tired of knowing that this job is actually probably one of the better ones I can have right now in this shitty state. I’m so tired of breaking down crying in my borrowed car, only to realize that I can’t do that, because I might be infected and now I have to sanitize the car. 

I’m tired of knowing that my situation is actually pretty damn good, comparatively. 

Moral of the story is go out and vote blue. Nothing is going to fucking change with that jackass still in charge, and things will, in fact, get worse. I can’t even send in a mail in ballot because the state I’m in says that COVID is “not a good enough reason” to provide mail in ballots. I’m still going to vote on Wednesday anyways, because I can’t live with myself otherwise. 

[mueritos]

Not voting is never the educated option. You're leaving decisions up to other people. It's a copout so people can say "oh well it wasn't my choice". You have to do research and vote for the lesser evil. Make the poles see that young people ARE voting. We are the biggest demographic and we should be voting so politicians wise up and see we care

We’ve been taught that not voting is seen as going against our civil duty, and we often believe that if you don’t vote then you’re obviously contributing to the problem of a shitty president being elected, etc. There are numerous reasons people don’t vote (”educated” or not) and its highly privileged to assume everyone does and should.

At times we do not want to vote for the “lesser evil”, because it is still evil. I would not blame anyone for refusing to participate this year; Trump and Biden are essentially the same evil person. Young people may not be voting, but they are participating in many other ways (canvassing, rallies, policial associations, clubs, volunteering). Many people cannot vote because they are undocumented, are incarcerated, or there are structures in place to make voting or registering to vote incredibly difficult (black/brown neighborhoods).

The choice to not vote is definitely an educated one and has been used by grassroots activists, anarchists, and a lot of indigenous peoples who reside in the colonized state. Refusing to vote is an act of decolonization. Imagine what would happen if millions of people just decided not to vote? Some may call that complete chaos, but it might just be proof of rejecting an incredibly failing system that was already designed to not give voice to certain people. And it is not someone’s fault for not voting and the wrong person gets voted into power; the electoral college exists in this country and its existence in itself marginalizes black/brown/indigenous voters and voices. There’s already so many issues with polls in this country (long lines, unable to take off work, inaccessible polls, harassment) and even structural problems (gerrymandering, etc). There are a lot of leftists movements who refuse to participate in the system here because it is broken beyond reform. The country is increasingly moving to the right, the Democratic Party is defending fascists, and any true leftists politics here gets shut down, censored, silence, or disappeared. 

I agree that voting is all we have, but so is the choice to not vote. I dont ever intend to tell anyone what to do with their civil duty, I simply would prefer people to shed the rhetoric that not voting is stupid or bad. I also already explained that I personally would vote whenever I can, but I also wouldn’t feel bad about not voting. If anything, local elections impact a person’s immediate community more than presidential elections, so voting in those are definitely important. In fact, I’d argue they’re more important. We won’t be able to change the fascist political system in place now by the top down, its by the bottom up. If we put judges, senators, governors, etc, in place that care for the working class and minorities, then it would only continue to trickle upwards.

While there are certainly people who dont vote because they feel their voice won't count or just because they dont care, those are still educated choices because it requires an understanding, and that understanding is that the political system is a failure to the marginalized and always has been. 

Overall, I do agree that we should be voting and that if you are able to you should do it. But we shouldn’t dismiss those who dont as uneducated. Bernie is still on the ballot and I will be voting for him, as will everyone hoping that Biden does not get the nomination. But there's a growing movement of rejecting the establishment, and with that is the refusal of voting between a piece of shit rapist and a piece of shit rapist, regardless of party. Biden and Trump are the same person, dems do not even do a good job representing the voices of the marginalized (there are obvious exceptions like AOC, Omar, and Bernie), and this country is becoming disturbingly fascist. 

Hope that helps. 

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

the voting ends today but the fight almost certainly does not

Republicans are filing increasingly desperate and ridiculous lawsuits trying – emphasis on TRYING – to have votes thrown out because they’re big old losers who know they can’t win legitimately.

If you’re the kind of person who can get into the weeds of federal court filings on elections, you probably already have your hair on fire. If you’re not, I don’t recommend picking up the habit right now. It’s just going to make your head swim. These are so incoherent and meritless that even our corrupt federal judiciary and plenty of conservative state judges have frequently brushed them off. I get the sense that Trump’s lawyers are more hoping to win those cases than trying to win them. What they seem to be trying to do with these lawsuits is some mix of the following dishonest things:

depress turnout by making people feel like he can just have their votes thrown out so why bother;

set something, anything, up on track for the Supreme Court, which Trumpworld is (not unreasonably) confident they have sufficiently corrupted;

create a general sense that there’s some authority other than the voters who get to decide this election.

That is what makes me think Trump’s plan to barricade himself in the White House and tweet out a declaration of victory the first moment Fox News reports a good exit poll for him is only mostly about his pathetic need to self-soothe with an autocratic display. He’s also making one last go-for-broke play for the public narrative. He thinks – again, not unreasonably – that if he says he won, then he’ll get a bunch of “Trump Declares Victory” headlines and chyrons, which puts a thumb on the scale in terms of how people frame any resulting developments in their own minds. It’s not a good strategy, it’s more of a hail Mary, but it’s the only potentially helpful option he’s left for himself.

All of this has, once again, summoned the specter of the 2000 election.

We can’t look one day into the future. But we might be able to prepare ourselves for it if we look about twenty years into the past.

There’s kind of a fable that’s built up around the 2000 Florida recount that Republicans were just tougher and savvier and wanted it more, while Democrats clumsily Ned Starked everything up. It’s important to reject that premise as fundamentally abhorrent. In a functioning democracy, campaign strategy is irrelevant after Election Day, because voters are in charge. The Gore campaign, to its credit, was buying into the basic premise of democracy, and had therefore planned their campaign around trying to win an election fair and square. When you punish or condemn people for that, you are ceding ground to the fascists and agreeing to fight on their terms.

The Bush campaign was just fundamentally not operating from the premise of democracy, but from the premise that elections are merely a weak opening bid from the electorate. Before anyone even knew there would be a recount, they had already gamed out a scenario where they could win even if they lost. The contingency they’d planned for, that struck them as most likely, was actually that Gore would win the Electoral College but Bush would win the popular vote. They planned out a whole pressure campaign to create enough of an uproar to give some friendly Republican state legislatures somewhere just enough of an excuse to award electors to Bush even if their constituents had voted for Gore. That wasn’t the scenario they ended up facing, of course. But when you do those kind of war games, you have to think about what your opponent would do, which means the Bush team was ready to hit the ground running with a whole bunch of things they had been expecting Gore’s campaign to do. The core point of whatever they were going to do was always to create an excuse for the nuclear option of having Republican state legislators send Republican electors to install George W. Bush no matter what their voters wanted.

One major difference between then and now is that generation of Republicans knew what they were doing was abnormal and wrong, so they kept it under wraps. Now they’re so high on their own supply that they brag about it to The Atlantic, because they genuinely don’t realize that people will object and try to stop them if they give up the element of surprise.

In 2000, the nuclear option of state legislatures just ignoring their voters to install Bush was not something the Gore campaign could have reasonably foreseen, and even if they did have an in-house psychic to warn them about it, it’s not something they could have realistically stopped except by winning with the biggest margin possible, which they were already trying to do. In 2020, Republicans are basically trying to run the same play, but against Democrats who very much are as prepared as they could possibly be, and by “Democrats,” I mean Democrats at every level. Inside the campaign, Biden campaign senior adviser Ron Klain ran Gore’s recount effort in Florida, and is therefore the last person to have any illusions about the opposition. Their lawyers are fucking beasts. Outside the campaign, Democratic voters have already voted, dragged their friends out to vote, and are amped for whatever fight tomorrow brings.

And, unlike 2000, any formal government processes are going to have to go through House Speaker Nancy D’Alessandro Pelosi, and honey, she is not having it. Remember, Pelosi has already thwarted not one but two Trump regime connivances to steal elections. In 2018, she successfully deterred any attempt to undermine Democrats’ midterm victory. And with her crisp, digestible, precision strike impeachment strategy, she neutered the HUNTERGAZI plot that Trump had every intention of using to sabotage the election this year. (God only knows what other schemes she headed off by making an example out of the pressure campaign against Zelensky. Any foreign leader or official who might have been tempted to cave under similar pressure by Trump got put on notice that trying to appease him quietly was not going to make their lives any less complicated.) No wonder she felt emboldened to tell the Trumpist wing of the Supreme Court to sit their asses down if they know what’s good for them.

What Democrats – and other small-d democrats and progressives – can do, we’re doing. You need to take heart from that, and brace yourself for a couple of stressful weeks.

Unfortunately, we can’t control everything. We can’t control what Trump will do to seize the narrative, and we can’t do much about how the press responds. And again, I’d point back to 2000 as a cautionary tale. Did you know that most of the networks actually called the race right, and they did it pretty fast? It’s true! Early-ish that night, they called Florida for Gore. And, as a subsequent investigation showed, Gore got more votes in Florida! But the ballot count was tighter than it should have been – a lot of registered voters who were likely to have preferred Gore were kicked off the rolls in a racist purge – so they did a reasonable thing and retracted the initial analysis to say the state was too close to call.

I did say most of the networks. I’ll give you one guess which was the outlier. John Ellis – head of the decision desk (ie, the decision of when to call a race for one candidate or the other) at Fox News and first cousin of candidate George Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush – somehow knew something about the Florida vote count that the Associated Press didn’t. Late that night, as Gore’s numbers were actually ticking up, Ellis called Florida for Bush. (I might’ve been more circumspect making those implications five years ago, but these people have forcefully rejected the benefit of the doubt.) The other networks, embarrassed by the earlier retraction and exhausted after a long night, leapt after Ellis like lemmings in five minutes flat.

This created a narrative that seamlessly dovetailed with the Bush campaign’s evolving strategy: a Bush win was a fait accompli, so why was sore loser Gore insisting on this recount, wasn’t it taking way too long? Of course, the truth was that nobody actually wins an election before the votes are counted, so if Bush really wanted to get this over with, why was he so resistant to having so many votes counted even once?

Because, of course, while Bush’s top campaign people were out in front of the press loftily insisting that this recount was an irrelevant waste of the country’s time and attention, Republican lawyers were down in Florida doing everything they could to run out the clock. Deadline after deadline loomed and then passed with a bunch of Federalist Society hacks badgering and haggling over every single ballot. Said Federalist Society hacks included John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

So legal correspondents and voting rights advocates, unfortunately, aren’t crazy to have their hair on fire about the Supreme Court once again doing what happened next in 2000: the court ordered all the counts to stop until arguments that it scheduled for the day before an arbitrary deadline. Then they handed down a decision that even they knew was so incoherent and indefensible that they said it wasn’t supposed to be used as precedent in any other case, even though the Supreme Court’s job for over two hundred years had been to hand down rulings that lower courts could use as precedent.

(Seriously. Guys. If Doc Brown ever tosses you the keys to his DeLorean, your mission is to go back to 1999 and run Chief Justice Rehnquist over with it. Then – and this is important – back up and run over him again. Twice. Then you can go buy stock in Google or feed Trump to zombie vampire bats or hit up a Borders or whatever.)

If you’re not really familiar with this story, you’re saying “wait, what? Why did people stand for this bullshit?” FAIR QUESTION. There are a lot of reasons, though no excuses. One reason that’s been previously underrated, I guess, is that Bush hadn’t spent the week before the election running around telling everyone who would listen that “what we’re gonna do is, we’re gonna make ourselves a huge pain in the ass while people are trying to count votes, and then we’re gonna whine about, ‘why is it taking so long to count all these votes?’ Heh heh heh.”

If he had … well, I’m pretty sure at least 538 Floridians would have been alarmed enough to make a better choice than they ultimately did.

I always want to be able to share an action item. This time, I can’t. (Unless you can vote but haven’t yet, in which case, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ON TUMBLR, GET YOUR ASS IN LINE AND STAY THERE.) I don’t know what the world is going to look like six hours from now. It’s entirely possible that there’s a Biden blowout big enough that Trump just gives up and flees the country. But assume we’re not going to get to take the easy way out of this. Get organized and stay fired up. WE RIDE AT DAWN, unless Florida and/or Texas breaks our way by 10:30, in which case, WE DRINK AT 10:31.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Earlier today, President Trump tweeted that the 2020 election should be delayed “until people can properly, securely and safely vote.”

Postponing the election, of course, is not something the president can legally do. But it’s also kind of besides the point. Trump has already been fighting to delegitimize the results come November, claiming that voting by mail can lead to mass voter fraud.

So let’s dive into that. How would you describe Trump’s efforts to throw November’s results into question? He did something similar in 2016 when facing Hillary Clinton. How is this different?

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Well, in many ways it’s exactly what Trump was doing in 2016. It’s just that he’s president now. And thus, his words are even more damaging (and they were already very damaging in 2016).

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): There’s also a very important distinction here. Before, Trump was just a candidate casting doubt on the election, but now he’s a sitting president doing that.

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I’d characterize this as an exercise in control and influence over his party and the news cycle. Everyone is forced to respond to what he says, even if they’re not responding positively. Trump isn’t effective at that many aspects of the job, but he’s pretty effective at agenda control.

clare.malone: I would also say that calling for the delay of the actual vote feels VERY dictatorial in nature. Like, we’ve perversely gotten used to the “fake votes,” “fake news” stuff. But encouraging a change in the election date feels sort of explicitly over a line.

sarah: And to ask a somewhat obvious question — but one that has to be asked — this is another unprecedented, norm-defying and democratic-value jeopardizing moment, right? To put it another way, has another sitting president ever done this?

julia_azari: I’m always nervous about the “never” question with past presidents, but yeah, most presidents have not been willing to take on all the formal rules, the legal system and other branches of government while in office. Congress — which has the power to change the date of an election — used to be stronger, too, and there was no Twitter. My go-to example for this is we still had a presidential election in 1864, during the Civil War.

geoffrey.skelley: And in modern times, incumbents who have lost reelection have exited office without too much of a fuss. Take George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, or if we go further back, Herbert Hoover. Granted, incumbents don’t often lose. So it’s important to note that each of those incumbents lost decisively, meaning there wasn’t much to stand on even if they had wanted to fight the result. But it’s not like Gerald Ford created a stir in 1976 when he lost narrowly.

julia_azari: Candidates have also conceded even when the election was a mess. See Al Gore in 2000, Samuel Tilden in 1876.1

sarah: But on this question of actually changing the election date. How much power does Trump have to do that?

clare.malone: He does not have the power to change the date of the election.

julia_azari: None. It’s up to Congress, and elections are administered by the states.

clare.malone: Here’s my question, though: What happens if Trump refuses to leave the White House on Jan. 20, and there are no official election results at that point?

Like, in that dire scenario (Trump not leaving, no clear winner) does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi become president and someone has to haul him out of the building?

geoffrey.skelley: If for some reason the Electoral College hasn’t acted or the electoral votes haven’t been certified by Congress, Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, according to the 20th Amendment. So there’d be an acting president, who would be the Speaker of the House per the order set out by the Presidential Succession Act — assuming congressional elections occurred.

But of course, that’s how it’s written, not how it might go.

sarah: Did someone mention

the 20th amendment

?

julia_azari: I keep imagining this scenario, and I have to say, I have a hard time imagining that Trump refuses to leave office. I don’t want to be complacent, but like a lot of people on Twitter, Trump seems to be comfortable tweeting out bold ideas and not as great at standing firm under political pressure.

So as I see it, there would be a couple of components needed for this to actually happen. There would be the political pressure — what are advisors, including Jared and Ivanka, telling him to do? This would help us understand if there are people who have influence over Trump who have some interest in seeing the system remain intact and legitimate.

The second thing would be the actual formal power — does the Secret Service force him out? Does the military gets involved? These are wild scenarios.

I would be surprised if these institutions don’t have plans for this somewhere, even if they are not publicly known.

geoffrey.skelley: Not to take things down an even darker road, but in this scenario, I think it’s important to consider how other institutions like the military act and how the president’s supporters behave in the face of attempts to delegitimize the election results.

clare.malone: Totally. I think that’s where many people’s minds go, too. And as a country, I think we are deeply uncomfortable (and rightly so) with the military being involved with a power transition. I mean, I personally find it incredibly chilling to consider.

geoffrey.skelley: I’ve seen Seven Days In May. Great movie but, uh yeah, disturbing.

But it’s a sign of the times when you have Biden actually saying he thinks the military would escort Trump out of the White House if he refused to leave.

sarah: Because that’s the thing, as you’re all saying, there are mechanisms via the 20th amendment to ensure Trump leaves office. But there’s still a very real question of how some of this would actually be enforced if it came to this, right?

julia_azari: Exactly. The 20th amendment was ratified to shorten the period between the presidential election in November and the inauguration, which had been in March. There was growing instability around the time it was ratified, after the 1932 election, and that’s some of what it intended to deal with, but it wasn’t really designed with this problem in mind.

I’m trying to stake out the ground that acknowledges a lot of people won’t have much incentive to let Trump violate the rules in this way.

clare.malone: Julia, when you say that a lot of people won’t have incentive to let Trump act contrary to the rules, whom are you thinking of?

julia_azari: I guess I’m thinking of people who might want to run for president later.

clare.malone: Republicans?

julia_azari: Or make money off the Trump brand. This includes his kids, and yeah, other Republicans.

clare.malone: That is, people with sway over him. Got it.

julia_azari: Military leaders, too, as we saw many of them push back after the D.C. protesters incident in June.

sarah: So let’s talk about the other big doomsday scenario here: The results aren’t considered legitimate. What are the signs that that idea is already taking root?

julia_azari: That’s a good way to frame that, but I’m not sure there are signs that it’s taking root any more than it’s sorta been lurking in the conversation since 2016 — and even before.

geoffrey.skelley: In the face of COVID-19, states are expanding absentee voting and, in some cases, vote-by-mail. But the president is making the case that mailed ballots are illegitimate and highly vulnerable to fraud — this is not true, of course, but by casting aspersions, he’s setting up the potential for delegitimizing the results as they come in, on and after Election Day. And the after part is probably what really matters, especially if the election is close.

clare.malone: Yeah, I was going to say, we’ve spent the past 4 to 5 years conditioning a certain segment of the population to distrust most everything in American life, unless it comes from the president’s mouth.

Someone shared this 2017 survey that found that around half of Republicans would be ok with delaying the 2020 election. Granted, the question was framed around whether people would support delaying the election to make sure people weren’t voting illegally (a big claim of Trump’s in 2016). But I still thought that was surprising.

It’s especially striking when you get to 2020, and the questions revolve around the pandemic. I was shocked to see, for instance, the share of Republicans and Democrats who were willing to delay the election because of the pandemic (roughly 39 percent of Americans supported delaying the election, according to that survey from April).

sarah: Yeah … it is mind boggling. That finding is also at least somewhat corroborated in this paper FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman published with the Voter Study Group earlier this year. In an examination of democracy in the U.S., Drutman and his coauthors found that both Republicans and Democrats were open to their preferred presidential candidate “rejecting the legitimacy of the election if they claim credible evidence of illegal voting or foreign interference.” And in that vein, 29 percent of Republicans said it would be appropriate for Trump “to refuse to leave office because he claims that he has credible evidence of illegal voting.”

julia_azari: One quibble with that study, though, knowing I have the utmost respect for Lee and his coauthors, is that each scenario lays out a justification for delaying the election, which I think makes it harder to say no. And I think people’s willingness to tolerate this in practice is conditional on their evaluation of that evidence, the credibility of the claims and the person making the claims. (E.g., Trump, who isn’t very popular.)

clare.malone: Totally fair.

I was pretty shocked in general to see how amenable people were to changing this very foundational thing! Even with the reasonings the survey questions provided them.

julia_azari: I was, too, but I think it’s not unreasonable for people to have limits on how much they trust elections if they think those elections were not administered fairly.

geoffrey.skelley: And if the election is close and a state or two is in doubt, any questions about administration could become explosive. See: the 2000 election.

julia_azari: Right. It’s actually amazing how explosive that wasn’t. But things are different now — I wonder how this plays out if we flip it around.

Let’s say Trump wins.

(I mean, this sorta already happened in 2016. Trump won, yet he went right ahead and tried to delegitimize parts of an election he had won.)

But let’s say it happens again, and he wins narrowly once again? Who questions the results? And would that be the right thing to do?

geoffrey.skelley: Yes, I wanted to bring this up! Trump said there were at least 3 million illegal votes in an election he won — conveniently undoing Clinton’s popular vote margin. And then he set up a task force to investigate fraud after he took office. It found nothing.

julia_azari: But there will likely be this question of “credible evidence,” as they cite in that Voter Study group paper. What if Trump wins, and people were standing in hours-long lines in Black neighborhoods in Ohio?

In other words, I think there will be a question of how much skepticism about elections is reasonable, and how much is chaos?

clare.malone: I think there is just going to be skepticism about this election, full stop.

geoffrey.skelley: I would not discount opponents of Trump taking to the streets in that scenario. A recent simulation by a group of experts about what could happen in these sorts of scenarios did not bring me much comfort. They found that every scenario — Trump winning or losing but someone defying the result — ended in street-level violence and political gridlock.

sarah: Oof. It’s interesting to me, though, that the desire to delegitimize results isn’t purely a Republican thing, as that Voter Study paper found. Democrats also showed signs of also being willing to reject the legitimacy of the election if it helps their preferred candidate.

clare.malone: Stacey Abrams’s non-concession concession speech in 2018 provided an interesting template for a potential Biden response (in case of a loss to Trump).

Though I do think Biden is such a conventional politician and institutionalist that he wouldn’t respond in the same way Abrams did, justified or not.

sarah: Yeah and Biden obviously isn’t waging a campaign of disinformation in the way that Trump is either. But perhaps one unintended effect of all this is, to Clare’s point, that skepticism of the election (depending on its margin) is going to be rampant.

julia_azari: Although Biden seems like … truly angry at times about the Trump presidency. It’s not obvious what the institutionalist move is in that scenario, IMO.

clare.malone: A good point!

julia_azari: I think there’s a strong possibility that skepticism is persistent and embedded in Trumpist ideology and among his followers, but not that widespread if the election is not close.

clare.malone: I mean, let’s go back to 2016.

If Trump had lost, we were all preparing for the launch of Trump TV, a perch from which he would rail for the impeachment of President Clinton.

I can sort of see something similar happening if Trump loses (unless, of course, he’s too tired to start the Trump TV experiment!)

geoffrey.skelley: OANN would love to have him.

julia_azari: Again, I don’t want to be complacent. I spend way too much time on politics Twitter. I spend all my time on politics Twitter.

But if Biden wins by a lot and Trump tweets a bunch, most Americans will just go on about their lives. That’s sorta how 2000 played out, and that was obviously really close and subject to questions, too.

geoffrey.skelley: Thing is, I can’t imagine Trump conceding in a 2000-esque situation in the way Gore eventually did.

clare.malone: Of course, 2000 is the election that a lot of people point to as the start of mistrust in elections as institutions. And like, the era of “voter fraud” alarmism really ramped up under George W. Bush.

julia_azari: But the angry minority has demonstrated that it can drive politics and policy to a great degree. So I don’t want to be complacent, but I do want to be specific in my fears.

clare.malone: So you could say people went on with their lives, but there were corrosive effects.

julia_azari: If he loses, I sometimes imagine that people around Trump will say, “People will say nice things about you if you do a good concession speech,” and so he does. But it’s not encouraging that that’s what it might come to.

clare.malone: Right, the integrity of democratic institutions might come down to a pep talk from “Javanka?”

sarah: So at the outset of this chat, I asked how Trump’s tweet to postpone the election was different from what he’s already done to try and delegitimize November’s result. And we’ve also pointed out that there have been prior points in American history where voters have mistrusted election results.

But I think given the abnormal aspects of Trump’s presidency, it’s easy to point to historical comparisons without really probing whether the moment we’re in doesn’t have a historical comparison, as historian Rick Perlstein did in his tweet, telling the media he didn’t want to do more interviews on how this moment might compare to 1968.

julia_azari: I think Perlstein is right, but I also think that we should be precise about how abnormal politics interacts with normal politics, because that has been the story of the Trump presidency IMO.

clare.malone: So, I mean, I take Rick’s point in this tweet; there’s this instinct that we have to comfort ourselves with history (i.e., American democracy has weathered much worse) but I do think that we sometimes dwell a bit in history without facing the new challenges that Trump presents us.

We sort of have to respect the new paradigm that’s been created and understand that there are limits to what history can teach us in this particular case; i.e., Twitter, plus Trump, plus 20 years of diminishing electoral trust.

geoffrey.skelley: It’s interesting that people would comfort themselves with history — I take little comfort from it. We’ve been on the brink before with the 1876 election, for instance.

julia_azari: I think that’s absolutely true. I don’t see history as a comfort but rather as a guide to how much luck and skill it takes to maneuver through this stuff.

I also think history is helpful because it shows what’s not normal. (And what shouldn’t be, but is.)

[ftslianne-blog]

            (  KIM  DOYEON  ,  CIS  FEMALE  ,  SHE/HER  )  did  you  just  see  LIANNE  RYU  pull  up  on  campus  for  the  new  semester  ?  they’re  the  TWENTY  ONE  year  old  in  DELTA  ZETA  ALPHA  right  ?  i  heard  they’re  a  TREASURER  .  it  makes  perfect  sense  because  they’re  RANCOROUS  ,  but  at  the  same  time  BEGUILING  .  i  wonder  when  the  black  sheep  is  going  to  drop  the  big  secret  that  they  PAID  OF  THE  PEOPLE  SHE  USED  TO  BULLY  TO  KEEP  HER  REPUTATION  INTACT  .  anyway  ,  i  constantly  hear  them  blasting  SPICE  GIRL  BY  AMINÉ  ,  tell  them  to  keep  it  down  ,  it’s  quiet  hours  .

            whew  ,  miss  doyeon  could  step  on  my  neck  !  hello  angels  and  gems  ,  i’m  koa  and  i’m  super  excited  to  be  here  .  i  love  a  good  greek  life  rp  ,  so  i  was  happy  to  come  across  this  in  the  tags  !  i’m  not  gonna  lie  ,  lianne  is  a  pretty  brand  new  muse  but  kind  of  a  mosh  of  characters  that  i’ve  played  in  the  past  ,  so  let’s  cross  our  fingers  that  all  goes  well  .  my  discord  can  be  shared  dependent  on  request  as  sometimes  it  doesn’t  want  to  let  people  add  me  ,  but  if  you’re  down  to  plot  in  the  dm’s  i’m  fine  with  that  too  .  i  have  a  link  to  some  connections  that  can  be  found  here  ,  and  at  the  bottom  of  this  intro  you  can  find  some  more  !  without  further  ado  ,  here  is  miss  lianne  ryu  !

BIRTH  NAME  :  ryu  do - hee  .  PREFERRED  NAME  : lianne  ryu  .   NICKNAME(S)  :  lia  ,  exclusively  . BIRTHDATE  /  AGE  : january  17th  ,  1999  /  21  . ZODIAC  :  capricorn  .   HOMETOWN  :  sherman  oaks  ,  california  (  take  a  peek  )  . GENDER  : cis  female  . NATIONALITY  : korean  -  american  . ETHNICITY  : korean  . HEIGHT  : five  foot  ,  eight  inches  (  5′8″  )  . LABEL(S)  : the  sovereign  ,  the  million  dollar  baby  ,  and  the  amaranth  . ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION  : biromantic  . SEXUAL  ORIENTATION  : bisexual  . OCCUPATION  : international  relations  major  at  ucla  ,  treasurer  of  delta  zeta  alpha  ,  and  outsider  hitter  for  the  women’s  volleyball  team  . LANGUAGES  SPOKEN  : english  ,  korean  ,  and  conversational  french  (  as  a  major  requirement  )  . POSITIVES  :  beguiling  ,  candid  ,  ebullient  ,  intelligent  ,  and  cosmopolitan  . NEGATIVES  :  rancorous  ,  haughty  ,  bull - headed  ,  unscrupulous  ,  and  sanctimonious  .

background  .

            bang  ji - eun  and  ryu  tae - ho  were  students  at  the  university  of  southern  california  when  they  met  one  another  .  tae - ho  was  a  human  rights  student  with  intent  on  becoming  a  lawyer  ,  and  he  encountered  the  beautiful  romance  language  and  literature  major  that  was  ji - eun  when  they  both  attended  a  peaceful  protest  .  the  two  wound  up  next  to  one  another  and  sparked  a  conversation  from  there  ,  and  once  their  protesting  was  over  ,  they  decided  to  go  on  a  date  that  very  same  night  .  their  relationship  was  something  of  a  whirlwind  ,  and  within  a  year  ,  the  two  were  eloping  at  the  courthouse  .  

            their  families thought  they  were  crazy  ,  especially  since  their  rings  consisted  of  little  cheap  ones  from  macy’s  (  and  tae - ho  proposed  with  her  favorite  food  )  but  it  was  that  shared  weirdness  that  kept  the  couple  together  .  as  tae - ho  worked  his  way  through  law  school  following  their  graduation  from  usc  ,  ji - eun  jumped  right  into  working  for  a  publishing  firm  .  the  couple  didn’t  come  from  a  wealthy  background  by  any  means  ,  but  they  were  living  comfortably  .  after  a  couple  of  years  of  marriage  ,  tae - ho  graduated  from  law  school  and  went  to  work  as  a  defense  attorney  .  it  wasn’t  an  easy  job  ,  but  he  loved  what  he  did  and  made  that  evident  in  the  work  that  he  did  .

            fast  forward  a  few  more  years  ,  and  ji - eun  has  moved  up  in  her  company  as  has  tae - ho  .  they’re  making  more  money  ,  and  they  make  their  move  to  the  beautiful  suburbs  of  sherman  oaks  .  they  work  hard  for  more  years  ,  and  just  as  they  enter   into  their  mid - thirties  ,  they’re  welcoming  their  first  and  only  baby  girl  into  the  world  .  they  decide  to  name  the  big  brown  eyed  baby  do - hee  ,  and  she’s  showered  in  their  love  .  her  parents  began  calling  her  lianne  from  the  time  she  was  a  baby  ,  often  switching  between  korean  (  where  they  called  her  do - hee  )  and  english  (  where  they  called  her  lianne  ,  but  sometimes  the  lines  blurred  )  .  as  lianne  grew  older  ,  her  parents  made  even  more  money  with  her  mom  becoming  the  editor - in - chief  of  the  publishing  house  and  her  father  becoming  one  of  the  most  sought  after  defense  attorneys in  the  los  angeles  area  .  

            for  lianne  ,  that  meant  growing  up  with  whatever  she  wanted  .  however  ,  her  parents  were  still  quite  hands - on  with  her  ,  so  she  was  never  left  in  the  care  of  nannies  .  she  grew  up  doing  everything  she  could  imagine  ,  but  that  didn’t  stop  her  parents  from  putting  her  in  different  week  long  camps  over  the  summers  .  she  tried  her  hand  at  tennis  camp  ,  basketball  camp  ,  ballet  camp  ,  and  even  a  stem  camp  ,  but  when  she  was  in  middle  school  she  attended  a  volleyball camp  right  before  her  seventh  grade  year  .  she’s  been  hooked  ever  since  .  lianne  always  made  sure  to  keep  up  her  grades  while  playing  because  she  never  wanted  to  miss  a  game  ,  so  it  was  no  surprise  when  she  obtained  a  partial  athletic  scholarship  to  ucla  !

            during  her  high  school  years  ,  though  ,  it  was  no  secret  that  lianne  was  at  the  top  of  the  social  ladder  .  she  played  a  sport  ,  was  whip  smart  ,  and  was  student  body  president  so  it  wasn’t  all  that  shocking  for  her  to  be  mean  to  the  students  around  her  .  it  wasn’t  necessarily  on  purpose  ,  but  she  can  be  quite  domineering  at  times  .  she  didn’t  know  how  to  take  no  for  an  answer  despite  not  being  ridiculously  spoiled  as  she  grew  up  ,  but  she  was  also  in  the  mentality  of  being  an  only  child  so  she  ultimately  did  get  what  she  wanted  .  she  definitely  wasn’t  the  bully  that  got  onto  people  about  their  lack  of  money  ,  but  she  was  definitely  going  to  get  in  your  face  about  voting  for  her  for  something  she  was  running  for  until  you  stuffed  the  ballot  with  her  name  .

            lianne  is  an  international  relations  major  at  ucla  and  she  joined  delta  zeta  alpha  during  her  sophomore  year  ,  and  worked  her  way  to  becoming  the  treasurer  of  the  srat  .  she’s  super  into  her  major  and  will  probably  go  off  to  work  in  politics  as  a  political  analyst  ,  or  she  might  pull  a  meghan  markle  (  also  an  international  relations  major  )  and  dismantle  a  royal  house  .  you  know  ,  icons  only  .  that  being  said  ,  she’s  still  relatively  new  so  i’m  still  working  out  some  kinks  ,  but  that’s  the  gist  of  my  daughter  !

headcanons  .

she  cruises  around  los  angeles  in  a  white  volvo  xc60  .  we  love  a  practical  queen  .

she’s  been  playing  volleyball  since  she  was  in  middle  school  ,  and  has  stuck  with  it  ever  since  .  she  does  club  during  the  summers  to  remain  in  shape  ,  but  she’s  sad  that  it’s  coming  to  an  end  .  

some  people  don’t  think  she’s  an  international  relations  major  because  she  wants  to  be  ,  but  she  does !  

that  being  said  ,  she  doesn’t  dress  as  conservatively  as  most  business  majors  but  she’s  very  serious  about  her  major  .

she’s  100%  based  on  red  head  doyeon  at  this  current  moment  but  black  haired  doyeon  is  gonna  make  an  appearance  once  i  get  tired  of  it  lmao  .  

a  tennis  skirt  enthusiast  .

she  uses  way  too  many  emojis  in  her  texts  and  that’s  never  going  to  change  .

she’s  most  comfortable  in  her  own  space  ,  but  she  likes  being  around  other  people  as  well  .  her  favorite  thing  to  get  food  from  is  leo’s  taco  truck  and  that’s  probably  never  going  to  change  .

personality  .

overall  ,  lia  is  a  girl  who  knows  her  worth  and  isn’t  going  to  let  you  forget  it  .  she’s  really  smart  ,  but  not  in  an  annoying  way  ,  and  she  definitely  won’t  dumb  herself  down  for  anyone  .  she  likes  to  have  fun  and  when  she’s  out  for  the  night  she  definitely  won’t  be  thinking  about  school  ,  but  if  she’s  studying  ...  don’t  even  ASK  her  to  go  out  .  you  gotta  have  a  solid  work  /  life  balance  ,  y’know  ?  very  headstrong  and  it  takes  a  lot  to  admit  that  she’s  wrong  ,  but  she’s  also  the  worst  person  to  cross  ,  so  be  careful  !  she’s  fun - loving  and  she  isn’t  an  outright  bitch  for  no  reason  ,  but  she’s  not  gonna  take  that  and  just  sit  back  with  it  .  she  barks  back  .

desired  relationships  .

            as  for  some  connections  ,  i’d  genuinely  love  just  about  everything  !  i’ve  listed  some  specifics  down  below  ,  but  if  you’d  rather  work  based  on  chemistry  or  if  you  want  to  simply  brainstorm  we  can  do  that  !  also  ,  if  you  had  anything  that  you  wanted  to  do  ,  please  let  me  know  !

a  best  friend  !  they  don’t  necessarily  have  to  be  from  delta  ,  but  honestly  someone  who  she  gets  along  with  the  best  and  who  she  can  really  be  herself  around  .

i’d  die  for  an  enemy  /  rival  ?  someone  who  she  genuinely  does  not  vibe  with  or  like  at  all  ,  and  there’s  really  no  way  of  them  ever  becoming  friends  .  they  probably  subtweet  each  other  or  be  really  shady  on  instagram  ,  but  they  feed  into  their  dislike  for  one  another  and  probs  let  their  friends  hype  them  up  sometimes  ?  i  don’t  want  to  godmod  the  plot  ,  but  it  could  it  could  be  fun  !

some  generic  things  like  friends  with  benefits  ,  gym  buddies  ,  high  school  friends  ,  confidant(s)  ,  good  or  bad  influence  ,  one  night  stand(s)  ,  ex(es)  ,  enemies  with  benefits  ,  and  frenemies  .

ooo  ,  a  squad  from  high  school  !  maybe  they’ve  since  drifted  a  part  or  they’re  still  as  close  as  ever  ,  but  omg  reliving  high  school  memories  🥺  .

alright  i  am  a  lover  of  any  and  everything  written  in  angst  ,  so  please  give  me  an  angsty  exes  thing  so  i  can  hand  you  my  heart  on  a  silver  platter  !  

a  slow  burn  /  will  they  ,  won’t  they  would  be  so  much  fun  too   ESPECIALLY  if  there  are  extenuating  factors  on  why  they  can’t  be  together  and  ugh  .  please  rip  my  heart  out  i’m  actually  begging  you  to  .

[docsamurai]

Where I say something nice about the Democratic candidates.

I know my last few posts about politics have been furious and relentlessly negative, so I'm going to try and say at least one nice thing about each person who was running for president, past and present. Keep in mind I'm not going to mention bad things about these people, so yeah I know that guy supported awful things or that other guy has utterly toxic followers. That's not what this is about.

My feelings about Liz are well known so I'll just cry about the fact that we lost yet another absurdly talented female candidate, and one who had the power to fucking atomize a billionaire from 30 feet with only her death glare.

I'll actually start though with the people still in the race.

Bernie Sanders: Dude is a progressive powerhouse and has been consistently on the right side of history for decades. He's got energy, he's got plans, he's got a passionate following of young people who, if their candidate actually wins will almost assuredly lead the charge in a new progressive wave in politics. And I'm sure that many of them will be passionate enough to support progressive candidates and fight for real change even when their guy isn't on the ballot.

Joe Biden: This guy is a charisma powerhouse, and honestly even if he himself may be more moderate, with as charged up as the democratic voters are right now we could practically hand him a gift wrapped congress. It frankly doesn't matter that much if he's moderate if Congress keeps sending him progressive legislation to sign. Do you think he wouldn't jump at the chance to do M4A or climate change initiatives or even a green new deal if we just put a stack of paper on his desk to sign? He'd get to go down in history as one of the greatest presidents ever without having to do any of the hard work. And even if we can't take Congress for him, he *is* actually charismatic enough to negotiate deals across the aisle. I'll frankly take a small amount of progress over literally burning the planet down.

Tulsi Gabbard: Forgot she was still in this didn't you? Well that's the nice thing I'm saying, she's tenacious. If we can just get her to fight for the right things then she can be a real asset...

Alright now the people who have dropped out.

Pete Buttigieg: it's not nothing for someone to be openly gay and to have gotten as far as he did in American politics. Like yeah, he wasn't the guy to win but for a long time he was a frontrunner and whether you agree with him or not, every bit of representation matters.

Michael Bloomberg: (yes I'm going to say something nice about Bloomberg). Disregard his policies and track record for a moment. Also ignore the disastrous consequences of what it would have meant to allow someone to effectively buy the nomination of a major political party. If he *had* secured the nomination this guy had literally billions of his own personal wealth to throw at down ballot races. If he were president he would have wanted a cooperative Congress and he would have thrown as much money as he could at making that a reality. And while that probably wouldn't have addressed some very important issues, he probably would have at least addressed climate change which any reasonable person will agree is an existential threat to all mankind.

Amy Klobuchar: She was basically Hillary but with fewer scandals and meaner. And honestly the meaner part is kinda important in modern politics. We need someone who can basically turn Senate Republicans into scolded children on a daily basis.

Tom Steyer: He's been taking out ad space to tell us to impeach and remove Trump since January of 2017. Yeah, he's another billionaire but he's the only one I've heard openly talking about how billionaires need to be taxed more.

Andrew Yang: Yeah another billionaire but he got us to have a national conversation about UBI and that's not nothing. Plus I'll admit that he was pretty fun in a genuine way.

Corey Booker: look there's a reason a lot of people were talking about him back in 2018 like he was the next Obama. Smart, charismatic, well versed in policy and procedure but willing to break the rules when the rules were blatantly unfair. Also as a side note could you imagine First Lady Rosario Dawson? Could you imagine a White House wedding?! Between brilliant, talented, hilarious, literal film and theater star Rosario Dawson and President Corey Booker? It would be an event filled with actual class and glamor happening in Washington DC that would have nothing to do with politics that would rival a royal wedding for sheer opulence and spectacle.

Julian Castro: he endorsed Warren so he's automatically getting points for me, he was fairly progressive in his own right and as someone with a Latinx heritage it's pretty damn likely that we could at least start to undo some of the damage of the last few years.

Marianne Williamson: Not gonna lie, I'd be mildly terrified of what her presidency would actually look like, but you have to admit that seeing her campaign against Trump in the general would have been absurd and hilarious. Plus, let's face it she *would* hold cleansing rituals to purge the White House of evil and who knows, it might work.

Deval Patrick, Rob Delaney & Michael Bennett: I'm lumping them in together because I have the same thing to say about all 3 of them. They're boring without standout policy proposals. Remember back when we had boring presidents? No you don't because even the most boring President we've had in a generation (Carter) was still going out and building homes for Habitat for Humanity at the age of 90. But I'm just saying, if we get some bland, inoffensive white guy in office it's not the worst thing in the world so long as we can shift Congress to a more progressive stance.

So yeah. That's the takeaway from this. It's ok to be disappointed that your candidate didn't win. It's ok to not be enthusiastic about the choices you're left with. What it's not ok to do is to refuse to vote. We are literally up against a fascist regime who is hell bent on kicking everyone out of the government who doesn't agree with them and removing voting rights altogether.

In 2016 we underestimated how dangerous his administration would be and how many people in America would be fine with a failed Reality Show Dictator in office. Think of all the things he's been able to do in the last 3 years alone and realize that he keeps "joking" about running for a third term.

Put a stop to this. Now. Vote in your primary for your preferred candidate and then regardless of who wins, vote a straight Democratic ticket in November. We won't get another chance at this.

[eldritchsurveys]

663.

The Collector : What is in your Nine Inch Nails collection? What are you favourite items to own? >> I don’t have an NIN collection. I just took this survey because it seemed to have okay questions when I skimmed it. (Only these first four are questions about the band, lol.)

Deep : Favourite Nine Inch Nails Music Video? >> Closer, I guess. It’s the only one I remember aside from Only, which wasn’t all that interesting (song’s catchy, though).

The Frail : Favourite Nine Inch Nails Album? >> The Downward Spiral, I suppose. Never really thought about it. Year Zero was good too.

All The Love In The World : Favourite Nine Inch Nails Song? >> I don’t have one. There are a fair few that I like, of course, but I’ve never looked at one and thought “this one is my absolute favourite of all the NIN songs I know”.

Happiness In Slavery : Do you enjoy your job or school life? >> I don’t have either of those and I’m quite content that way.

Burning Bright (Field on Fire) - Do You Feel That During The Years As You Have Grown Up, You Feel Reborn? >> Death and rebirth is kind of just a theme with me, in general.

The Fragile : Do You Think You Can Fix A Broken  Person? >> I think a person that feels broken can eventually come to feel less so. I don’t think that it’s anyone else’s responsibility to guide them there. I do think that other people can be a vital source of support and encouragement during that process, if they choose to be.

Ringfinger - What Are Your Feelings On Marriage/Relationships? >> I think marriage and romantic relationships are, you know, great. I don’t necessarily want to partake in romance, myself, but I see their value for others. (And, obviously, I see the legal/social value for marriage, seeing as that’s mostly why I agreed to it in the first place.)

Terrible Lie - What Is The Biggest Lie You Were Ever Told? >> I have no idea. One time my father didn’t tell me our puppy had run away or gotten loose or whatever until I kept asking where he was. I thought that was dumb.

Help Me I Am In Hell - What Is Your Worst Nightmare? >> I have no idea.

Gave Up - What Is Your Go-To Thing To Calm You Down When You Are Pissed Off? >> Venting to Can Calah. It’s about the safest thing I can do, because I tend to behave irrationally and potentially make things worse when I’m upset.

A Warm Place - Your Favourite Place To Be? >> In my bed, tbh.

While I’m Still Here - How Would You Like To Be Remembered? >> I’ve never given it much thought. I figure it’s beyond my control anyway.

Copy of A - Do You Believe We Are In A Simulation? >> No, but I’m always willing to entertain the idea for thought experiments.

The Becoming - Can You Open Up To Other People Easily? >> Not. At. All.

Underneath It All - Are You Over Your Worst Experience? >> Of course not. Repetitive trauma has left indelible marks on my body and mind. The more I try to pretend otherwise, the worse things get, so I might as well acknowledge it.

Love Is Not Enough - Do You Believe In “Second Chances”? >> Sure. They just don’t have to come from me.

Sunspots - Are You Afraid of Growing Older? >> Nah. I am afraid of becoming infirm, or losing senses, that sort of thing. But not just of growing older in general.

Sin - What Is Your Ultimate Pleasure? >> I have no idea.

Something I Can Never Have - If You Could Say Anything To The One Who Got Away, What Would It Be? >> I don’t have anyone like that.

Dear World, : How Do You Sleep? >> Fitfully, a lot of the time. I was sleeping consistently well for a while but in the last few months it’s been a roller coaster.

I’m Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally : Have you ever lost someone who meant everything to you? >> Sure. Eventually, I figured out that no one can actually mean everything to me, and cut that maudlin shit out.

La Mer : Do you love the ocean or do you have a fear of it? >> I love it and I fear it.

March of the Pigs : Do you eat meat? >> Yeah.

Closer : Do you choose to follow a religion? >> I’m considering it, but it’s a constant source of debate in my head right now. Mostly because I have this idea of religion as a restrictive thing, something that would take away from my personal sense of freedom rather than complementing my search for meaning or whatever. It’s something I feel like I need to discuss with someone other than, you know, my own self, to get some perspective aside from my own, but I have no idea with whom.

Starfuckers Inc. - Celebrities You Think Are Attractive? >> Meh.

Shit Mirror - Are you afraid of where the world is currently heading? >> No. I understand why people are, of course. I just... personally can’t afford to expend any energy on fearing for the future. I have enough on my plate with the present.

I’m Afraid of Americans - Do you follow politics or do you choose to stay out of that stuff? >> I choose to keep my political consumption to a minimum. For one, it legitimately doesn’t interest me most of the time. But also, like... it’s all a shitshow. I don’t think my life is enriched by knowing every little thing going on in Washington, or obsessively watching Democratic debates to figure out who is “best”. I don’t fucking know. I can’t be bothered. I’m legitimately just going to vote for whoever ends up on the blue side of the ballot in November, and hope for the best.

In This Twilight - If the end was nigh, how would you choose to go out? >> I mean, I doubt I’d be able to choose.

Year Zero : Do you have plans for the apocalypse? >> No. I don’t believe in the apocalypse and I tend not to plan for things I don’t actually expect to happen.

The Downward Spiral : Do You Feel Like You Have you reached your lowest point and have you recovered since? >> I don’t know if I’ve reached my lowest point. I’ve reached very, very low points. I think that’s enough. I’d rather not try to see if I can get lower.

Hurt : If you could, would you re-start your life again? >> Please, god, no.

The Wretched : What Do You Hate In Life? >> I hate the lasting effect of trauma.

The Lovers : Do You Have Any Vices? >> Sure. Drinking, mostly.

Maybe Just Once : Do You Feel Like a Lucky Person When It Comes to Love? >> I don’t really know what that means. I’d dare say that I’m pretty unlucky in love in general, because I... have not ever had much of it.

Gunshots by Computer : What Are Your Thoughts On Modern Technology? >> I mean, I love it? It has its downsides like anything else, but I love it all the same.

That’s What I Get : Did You Ever Have an Emo Phase? >> Nah. I pretty much stuck with goth through everything.

Not So Pretty Now: Who Is Your Most Disliked “Celebrity”? >> ---

Every Day Is Exactly The Same : Do You Feel Like You Are Stuck In The Same Routine In Life? >> Well, right now, I kind of do keep to the same routine all the time. I don’t think that I’m necessarily stuck, I just... live like this. It’s fine, for the most part. I’ve had a lot of excitement in the past, it’s not necessarily how I want to live my life all the time.

Get Down, Make Love : Do You Have a Cover Song That Tops The Original? >> Yeah, there are quite a few covers that I prefer to the original. Dream Theater’s cover of Rainbow’s Stargazer is an example.

Screaming Slave : Do You Prefer Heavier Music or Softer Music? >> I like both.

Ahead of Ourselves : Do You Think Toxic People Can Change? >> I think anyone can change. Whether they will or not is the question, not whether they can.

Leaving Hope : Is There A Song That You Listen To That Just Emotionally Destroys You? >> Sure, I guess.

Somewhat Damaged : Have you ever been in a full on physical fight? >> Yeah.

Piggy : Have you ever been betrayed in some way by a person you cared about? >> Eh, maybe. That’s not really the verb I’d use, though.

Lights In The Sky : Thoughts On The Possiblity of an Afterlife? >> The possibility is always interesting to consider.

Big Man With A Gun - Are You For Capital Punishment? >> I really have no opinion.

Eraser : What Would Your Ideal Final Words Be? >> ---

Ghosts I-IV : Do You Have Any Supernatural Beliefs? >> Some would say. Those aren’t the words I would use, though.

You Know What You Are? - Thoughts On Fake People? >> I don’t know any fake people.

Home : Where On Earth Right Now Would You Like To Be? >> I’m fine right here. We just washed bed linens and it’s always nice to burrow into a clean bed.

I’m Not From This World : What song just gives you the creeps? >> I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way about a song.

And The Sky Began To Scream : Thoughts on How To Destroy Angels? >> I like a couple of songs. I haven’t really heard anything aside from that one EP, because I kind of keep forgetting to check out their other works.

Tapeworm : Do you have an embarassing illness/accident story you are willing to share? >> I don’t have any stories like that.

Fist fuck : Do you have any kinks/turn ons/turn offs? >> Yes.

Everything : Do you feel free? >> I guess. I never really thought about it, but generally, yes, I am free.

The New Flesh : Favourite horror film? >> I don’t know. I am very fond of the Hellraiser franchise in general, but not necessarily because of the quality of the films, if that makes sense... Oh, there’s also Event Horizon, that’s a horror movie and an overall favourite of mine.

[luninosity]

For @thebestpersonherelovesbucky: here’s the full text of the fake film review I wrote yesterday, for Steadfast...

#

Steadfast Combines History and Heart Into Triumph

 Jillian Poe’s latest directorial effort, Steadfast is at once familiar and unfamiliar: a Regency romance set against the Napoleonic War, full of ballroom scenes and lavish costumes, crackling with politics and passion. It’s (extremely) loosely based on the 1940s novel of the same name, which in turn was based on the historical Will Crawford’s surviving letters and notes, and the romance is real in more than one way—assuming you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve seen the stories about on-set melodrama: Colby Kent and Jason Mirelli hooking up, being injured, falling in love, and from all reports being blissfully happy.

 Leaving the behind-the-scenes drama aside, the question is: is it a good film?

 The answer is unequivocally yes.

 It’s more than good. It’s a brave film, in the best ways: not only in telling a historical gay love story—and it is very, very gay; Jillian Poe and her cast don’t shy away from sex scenes—but in the raw emotion and power of the storytelling and the relationship. It’s the kind of film that gets remembered as a landmark: what good filmmaking can do. And it’s worth seeing, not only for the attention to period detail or the reminder that gay people (and black people, Indian people, and others; we see an impressively diverse London, especially among Will’s Home Office fellow recruits) have always existed in history, but for the sheer emotional experience. Steadfast is a romance, unashamedly so, and it wants you to fall in love, and you will.

 The casting and the script are spot-on, to start.

 Jillian Poe has her favorite stable of actors, so some familiar faces won’t be a surprise. Colby Kent, also a producer, and given co-writing credit with Ben Rogers, stars as Will Crawford—Rogers and Jillian Poe have independently confirmed that Colby did on-set rewrites, which means most of what we see is likely his. We’ve discussed Colby and the industry and uncredited script work at length back when that news broke, so here I’ll just say that Colby is a better writer than any of us realized—good at knowing and utilizing the source material, but also paring down, choosing the exact right word for each moment, giving his fellow actors dialogue that sounds effortlessly natural. Odds on a Best Adapted Screenplay award or two? Pretty high, I’d say.

 Speaking of Colby Kent, he’s always been quietly excellent on screen, often underrated (that Academy Award loss to Owen Heath should’ve gone the other way, no offense to Owen, who is also generally excellent), and equally capable of adorable clumsiness or aristocratic decadence. You could argue that playing young and wealthy and vulnerable and gay is exactly in his wheelhouse and hardly a stretch, and you might be right—but you would also be wrong.

 It’s an award-winning performance. It’s a master class in complex character acting. It’s compelling and dramatic and the core of the film, at least half of it, more on which later.

 Will Crawford—in ill health, a natural scientist, the Regency equivalent of a rich kid and only heir to a vast estate—might have come across as weak, or naïve and fragile, or in need of rescue. And Colby Kent’s good at fragile and lovely and desperate. But Will’s also a literal genius, determined to be useful, and willing to do anything—including spycraft and affecting the tide of battle and the fate of nations—to protect the man he loves. Colby Kent never lets us forget that, and the character and the story become richer for it. He’s almost at his best in moments without dialogue—I say almost because Colby, as ever, has flawless timing when delivering lines, both the heartbreaking and the wryly sarcastic. But his eyes and expressions say so much that every close-up could be a page’s worth of emotion-filled speeches, except not, because they’re not necessary. He’ll definitely get the Academy Award nomination; if there’s any justice, he’ll also win. Though, having said that, my personal vote might go to the biggest surprise of the film, just because I was so impressed and delighted. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

 The supporting cast is also superb—Leo Whyte, as Jason’s second-in-command, embodies complicated and compassionate loyalty, someone who’d follow his captain into battle and also sympathize with his captain’s difficult love, given his own socially fraught marriage to a poor Irish girl (Kate Fisher, having a marvelous time and some of the funniest lines). John Leigh gives his performance as a conflicted would-be mutineer some delicate nuance—he still admires his captain and ultimately makes a painful personal choice. Jim Whitwell epitomizes workmanlike British gentlemanly acting—though we get a hint of the dirtiness of his profession, and of his sympathy for Stephen and Will, which adds layers to his performance. And young Timothy Hayes is worth watching as Stephen’s favorite optimistic midshipman, with deft comedic timing in the midst of storms and the stalking of a French ship.

 The crown jewel of the supporting cast, of course—and the shoo-in for Best Supporting Actor—is Sir Laurence Taylor, notoriously picky about taking on new projects at this point, but here fully committed to his role as Will’s father, the aging Earl of Stonebrook.

 It’s easy to say that Sir Laurence is a legend, but sometimes we forget what that means. In this role, we remember. He delivers words that cut right through his on-screen son, and by extension the audience; but his anguish and grief are equally genuine: he’s a man who loved and lost his wife, who doesn’t understand his only son and heir, who clings to the need to protect the family name and estate and future, while faced with the dual truths that his son prefers men to women and in any case might die young—of illness, if not from daring the world in Regency spycraft. The Earl is awful and vicious and cruel to Will—but watching Sir Laurence stand at his son’s bedside, or come to the window and silently watch his son depart for London…those moments will make you hurt for him despite yourself, and it’s a virtuoso piece of acting.

 Speaking of brilliant pieces of acting, let’s talk about that biggest (and I don’t mean just the physique, though that can’t be missed) surprise of the film: Jason Mirelli.

 First, a confession: I, like quite a few people, felt some skepticism about this casting choice. That’s not to insult action films as such, and Jason Mirelli’s been a consistently reliable action-hero lead. But it’s a very different genre, and Jason’s previous filmography hasn’t, let’s say, exactly indicated much dramatic range. (Having said that, I’ll admit to unironically loving Saint Nick Steel. Is it ridiculous? Yes. Is it hilarious absurd so-bad-it’s-amazing fun? Also yes. Does it have Jason Mirelli in an artistically torn shirt chasing terrorists through a shopping mall while protecting small children and wearing a hat that makes him the reincarnated spirit of Christmas? Hell yes it does. We watch it every year.)

 If you, like me, were on the fence but willing to be convinced…

 I’ll say it right now: Jason Mirelli should be on that Academy Award ballot alongside Colby Kent.

 He’s the other half of the heart of this film, and the second he steps down from that carriage in the opening shot, he’s commanding the narrative. He’s captured the physicality of a wartime ship’s captain, but more than that, he’s captured the layers of character. Every motion of those shoulders, those eyes, that jawline, all means something—as do the moments when he chooses not to move and be still. Take the moment when he looks at Will in the morning-after scene, which is just a look and a few beats on camera, but Jason’s able to convey Stephen’s love, and wistful frustration over their different social classes, and genuine affection, and fear about Will’s illness, and surprised joy at having someone to wake up next to. It’s a hell of a role—romance, war, leadership on a ship’s deck, the shock when Will falls gravely ill, the emotion of the ending, which I won’t spoil here—and Jason’s a revelation. He’ll have his pick of roles after this, and he’ll deserve the Oscar nod, though it’s unlikely he’ll win—the Academy likes to reward previous nominees and is notoriously skeptical of popcorn-flick pedigrees, and Jason might need to prove himself once or twice more. But he shouldn’t have to. This is enough, and it’s fantastic to watch.

 Part of that epic transformation should be credited to Jillian Poe’s direction. With Steadfast, Poe demonstrates her skill as a director and her ability to handle multiple genres—she started out, you might remember, with lighter romantic-comedy fare, often also with Colby Kent—and her ability to get quality performances from her actors, every single one, every single time. I also wouldn’t be surprised at her picking up a directorial award or two; it’s an ambitious project, and also a labor of love, which shines through in each frame.

 The costuming and sets are as plush and attentive to detail as you would expect from an Oscar-bait period piece that’s a Jillian Poe production—that reputation for perfection’s deserved. The score is, if not anything out of the ordinary for a Regency setting, handled with delicacy and love—the music plays into the mood of each scene unobtrusively and expertly.

 Fans of the novel might have some minor critiques involving the looseness of the adaptation, in particular the ending, which—let me offer a minor spoiler warning, no detail, but stop reading if you want to know nothing at all—adds a final sequence that provides a happy ending for Stephen and Will. Is it book-accurate? No. But I called Steadfast a brave film earlier in this review, and this ending is an act of courage: imagining a happy ending for gay men in history, demanding that their love story end well and with joy. (And Colby Kent personally met with the novel’s famously reclusive author, so for all you purists, this change was made with permission.)

 Those stories matter. Steadfast as a film matters. Go see it. Fall in love.

[niafrazier]

Making the Case for Beto O’Rourke

Full disclaimer: Beto is one of my top picks amongst the 2020 democratic field as of now. I’m a supporter but am in no way affiliated with his official campaign.

At a certain point, Beto O’Rourke was hailed by the media as basically the second coming of Obama, RFK, JFK, [insert any popular democratic figure from this past century… oh and Abe Lincoln]. After he unsuccessfully attempted to unseat Ted Cruz in the senate race, many people across the country were calling him to run for the presidency. He even surged in polling being just behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, both who virtually have 100% name recognition. His senate race garnered national attention and even caught Oprah’s attention (she practically begged him to run on her show FFS). Many (including me) grew to admire his authentic, organic, and down-to-earth approach to politics, which is especially refreshing to see given the fact that everything seems so contrived nowadays. So, he wrestled with his decision thoughtfully and eventually came around to the idea, officially tossing his hat into the ring on March 14th, 2019. But now? Right out the gate, the narrative has shifted, and to the mainstream media pundits and Twittersphere, he is seen as an empty-suited, entitled, misogynistic, arrogant dude dripping with white male privilege. What changed?  How is it that the media, the very one that contributed to the rise of “Betomania,” subsequently went into a frenzy and poo-pooed all over his rollout? The faux outrage, double standards, and cynicism directed at Beto by opinion writers, pundits, etc. have basically motivated me to give my own takes on the most common criticisms I’ve seen thus far. So, here we go:

 “ ‘Man, I’m just born to be in it?’ ”

I’m not gonna lie, taking a look at the Vanity Fair cover and seeing that quote was a facepalm moment. As predicted, this quote sparked outrage fairly quickly… given the optics of a privileged straight white man joining a race of several qualified women and POC… Understandably so.  However, upon reading through the whole article, I was able to grasp the essence of Beto’s words. Here’s what he says leading up to his declaration, expressing urgency:

 “This is the fight of our lives…not the fight-of-my-political-life kind of crap. But, like, this is the fight of our lives as Americans, and as humans, I’d argue.”

And now here’s the full quote: “Man, I’m just born to be in it, and want to do everything I humanly can for this country at this moment.”

 He’s not so much saying that he was born to be in a position of power, rather, he’s expressing that during such dire times, especially in U.S. democracy, he could not in good conscience be complacent and not take action. Just as he was drawn to serve his district in El Paso as a 6 year city council member and a 3-term congressman, he believes that at this moment, he has a purpose to serve the whole nation by being as actively involved in the national discussion as possible—to stand up to bigotry and divisiveness displayed by the current administration of the White House. Beto basically confirmed what I had thought after further inspection when he clarified his statement later (Google it. I’m having trouble with my hyperlinks right now). Could he have worded it better? Sure. I just reject the notion that this one gaffe is supposed to sum him up as an egotistical maniac… please. 

“He adds absolutely no value to the race”

This is arbitrary depending on what your key issues are, but I’m gonna give my take on why I think he’s an excellent addition to the race. So, I’ve been intrigued about the possibility of an O’Rourke presidential run since he’s hinted at it back in November. I really didn’t know much about him until toward the end of Midterm season, but the more I learned, the more impressed I became. (Side note: it was this clip that first caught my full attention.) What really fueled my interest in Beto though, was his stance on immigration. As a first generation Nigerian American, this topic is pretty personal to me. My parents were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to immigrate to America and raise me and my three other siblings. However, I’ve also seen firsthand the difficulty of not only getting through with the ridiculous process but also assimilating into this country. For so long, the Democrats haven’t really made immigration a central issue, until the Trump administration hijacked it and pushed the Overton window all the way to the right. With heightened xenophobia running rampant in this country as a result of this abhorrent presidency, it is pertinent that the Democrats not merely pay lip service to this issue any longer and take serious action. Beto has an advantage here: He’s grown up in and served as a U.S House Rep. in the border district of El Paso, also home to the largest binational community in the Northern hemisphere. He can add a lot to the national discussion and debate on the matter. When Trump came to El Paso, the local community organized a counter rally where Beto gave an impassioned speech about the border wall and immigration. It’s pretty long, but I highly recommend the watch. Furthermore, Beto has outlined a 10 point proposal on how best to approach the immigration issue, along with some facts about the border’s history, which you can read here. Immigration hasn’t really been a winning issue, and I honestly don’t see it being one in 2020. With that being said, I respect the fact that despite this, Beto has shown that this is an issue that he deeply cares about. If I’m being honest, even though comprehensive immigration reform is universally called for amongst Democrats, I doubt that anyone in the field will truly make immigration a main priority in their prospective presidencies. To me, Beto has shown that he will. Even if he doesn’t clinch the nomination, it still means a ton to me that we can have the potential to change the narrative of immigration in this country with serious discussion. With the way Beto is able to convey his message, I am hopeful for what’s to come.  

So, let’s talk about Texas. With the way Beto was able to energize the Democratic base in Texas, Democrats have the opportunity to put the Republican bastion state into play. With 38 electoral votes at stake, Texas is extremely crucial for the GOP. To put things in perspective, if Texas turned blue in 2016, President Hillary Clinton would have been a thing.

*Bonus: “He Lost to Ted Cruz lol… already a nonstarter”

Yes. But you know who else lost to Ted in Texas? Donald Trump. Cruz obliterated him in the Texas Republican primaries. I’m not saying Texas is guaranteed to turn blue with Beto on the ballot, but if we learned anything in 2016, it’s not to underestimate the possibility of seemingly blue or red states to flip at any given moment. The GOP has taken note of this. We’ve seen that Beto has a ton of appeal in Texas amongst not only Democrats but Never-Trump-Republicans and independents as well! If Beto is on that ballot, the GOP will most likely exhaust a ton of resources and money into Texas to keep it from going blue. This will only make other states that Trump won with the slimmest of margins vulnerable. Also… I find it disingenuous to make comparisons between Beto and other senators that hail from deeply blue states regarding electability. If Beto lost to Ted in California, then yeah… we could have a conversation about that.

“A woman running mate is his preference? Who does he think he is?”

The backlash on this surprised me, to be honest… Even Whoopi Goldberg blasted his ass for the statement on The View.  If I had to go on a whim here, I feel like it was the Vanity Fair article that sort of set the mood for Beto’s campaign thus far… because otherwise, I believe that this really wouldn’t have been a story. In fact, Beto is not the only male candidate to call for a woman VP. Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders have strongly hinted at choosing a woman running mate. Interestingly enough, I didn’t recall there being any backlash. Here are Beto’s full remarks on choosing a woman as his running mate:

"It would be very difficult not to select a woman with so many extraordinary women who are running right now, but first I would have to win and there's-- you know, this is as open as it has ever been."

This is very much the response I expected from Beto. Time and time again, he has openly acknowledged his privilege, even before getting hammered about it on social media. In the Vanity Fair article, he states his stance on lack of representation in Washington:

“The government at all levels is overly represented by white men,” he says. “That’s part of the problem, and I’m a white man. So if I were to run, I think it’s just so important that those who would comprise my team looked like this country. If I were to run, if I were to win, that my administration looks like this country. It’s the only way I know to meet that challenge.”

Furthermore, he is understanding and considerate of the fact that people are craving for diversity.  Here’s what he says:

“But I totally understand people who will make a decision [cast a vote in the primaries] based on the fact that almost every single one of our presidents has been a white man, and they want something different for this country. And I think that’s a very legitimate basis upon which to make a decision. Especially in the fact that there are some really great candidates out there right now.”

I know I don’t speak for all POC or women, but as a WOC myself, I took no issue to his statements. In fact, I appreciate his sensitivity to the issue and the fact that he doesn’t shy away from addressing uncomfortable topics in politics, such as race and representation.

Let’s just be glad he didn’t pull a Hickenlooper…. Jesus.

“Light on policy… but he stands on counters amirite?”

To discuss this point, it’s important to understand Beto’s campaign style. Beto is more like a blank canvass. What he does is first listen to people and their concerns, and then from there, he shapes his policies around that. He feels that this is the best way to serve the people. The point of his road trips and tours was not to lecture people on full fleshed policy proposals. There is debate on whether or not this is an effective strategy, and I do understand that people do like to know exactly what they’re signing up for before casting a vote. That’s why some people will more likely gravitate toward candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who have been consistent in their messaging. However, I also think people underestimate the power of simply listening. Take these comments that a potential voter made concerning Beto’s ability to listen during his stop in South Carolina for example:

"I think if he keeps talking to the people and being able to listen, and not talk at the African-American voters. Talk to us. Listen to what we have to say… As long as you listen and then actually put forward ideas that are legitimate ideas to do things, then he will be fine.”

 While policy specifics are important, this is still the early stages of Beto’s campaign. Specifics, of course, will have to come at some point, especially when debates come around. Another critique I hear is Beto not having any policy proposals on his website yet. He’s not alone though.  Several candidates who have been running longer than he has don’t either. It’s also important to note that while people in the race most likely have been mulling a presidential run for several months or years, this has been something that came around to Beto as recent as November 2018. Stuff like this takes time. I think he has potential, however, in this area. For instance, as I mentioned earlier, he has put out a 10-point proposal on immigration. He also has a brief 5-point plan regarding criminal justice reform and legalization of marijuana. (Fun fact, he even coauthored a book concerning the legalization of weed.)  And it’s not like he hasn’t taken stances on issues ever either… I mean, he has a whole congressional record, and his townhalls give you an idea of where he stands on key issues. 

Oh... and about the countertops. Ugh. The fact that this really sparked outrage is comical. I’ve seen all sorts of takes on this from asserting his male dominance to throwing his youth in Bernie and Biden’s faces (lmao). At a campaign stop, the owner of the coffee shop that he was at asked him to stand on the countertop because people complained that they weren’t able to see Beto amongst the crowds and camera equipment (despite him being 6’4’’, ha). So then it just became a thing since. And he’s respectful about it in case anyone was wondering, lol. But there’s one thing I think both the Beto detractors and I can agree on: why tf is this getting media coverage? I do agree that there should be more coverage for other candidates concerning the real issues. However, the response shouldn’t be to go after Beto or chastise him for doing harmless acts during his campaign stops… Talk that up with the media. The ironic thing about this is that some of the media pundits complain about giving Beto so much coverage… all while giving Beto more coverage about the coverage he’s receiving… 🙄

So if you made it to the end of this extremely long effortpost, thank you. I actually had tons more to discuss but I’m not trying to make this into a novel. Anyways, I’ll say one last thing: 

Before going along with groupthink or engaging in the toxic political echo chamber that is Twitter, I implore you all to take a step back and actually get to know these candidates. Seek after local news outlets when candidates visit to get a feel of the vibes from locals. Go to Beto’s Facebook page and watch a town hall or two. You may come home with a different impression than what is portrayed in mainstream media. I can tell you that when I did this, the difference was night and day.  We have such an amazing field of contenders to choose from, and I’d hate for misinformation or bad-faith arguments to warp perceptions.   

[ppdoddy]

Michael Moore

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOE BIDEN Dear President-Elect Biden:

First of all, congratulations! YOU did it. WE did it! You stopped the madness. A grateful nation - and myself - are in a state of joy, hope and relief. Thank you for that! We are all eager to join with you to repair the damage done to our country — and to eliminate that about our society and our politics which gave us Donald Trump in the first place.

Mr. President-Elect, I first met you at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. It was clear to me from our talk that day that you were not the politician I remembered from the 1990s. On that day in Boston, we were by then over a year into the Iraq War, a war you voted for. My “Fahrenheit 9/11“ had just come out and you wanted to let me know that you were aware of the folly you had been sucked into. It seemed to me that you were doing a lot of soul searching and you wanted to hear my thoughts. To be honest, I was distracted by how perfect your teeth were, and I wondered, could you really be from the working class? By the end of our talk I was convinced there was something that was quite real and very good about you, though perhaps somewhat buried inside. Would it ever come out so the public could see it? As I reflect today on it - and you - I am sincerely hoping that you will indeed govern as a president who’s from the working class. You - one of us - in the White House. That’s how it should feel. Your actions, if bold, and brave, will make that true.

You are also our second Catholic president. I believe you are a person of faith. You and I were taught the same lessons in Catholic school: to love our neighbor, even our enemy; to create a world where everyone regardless of status or station has a seat at the table, and everyone gets a slice of the pie; a world where “the rich man will have a harder time getting into heaven than a camel will have getting through the eye of the needle.” We were taught that we will be judged by how we treat the least amongst us. Do I have that right? Are these not the moral, foundational principles of the coming Biden presidency?

I was so moved by your victory speech Saturday night when you told the immigrants and the children of immigrants that the Dreamers no longer had to live in fear. That Muslims were once again welcomed into our country. That the world could breathe a sigh of relief because we were going to let the planet Earth itself breathe and have some relief. And you told the teachers of America that starting January 20th, “one of your own will be living in the White House.” That just felt instantly good.

So if I may, I’d like to suggest a few things that might make your presidency one of the best this country has ever had. You and I may have our political differences (you like Amtrak trains, I’d like to ride a bullet train from New York to LA in 10 hours!😎), but I know that you and I - and tens of millions of others - all want and believe in the same basic things: • Health Care is a human right and every American must be covered; • Everyone must be paid a living wage and all of us must work to eliminate poverty and rebuild our broken middle class; • The massive and growing gulf between the ultra rich and everyone else must be narrowed — and the wealthy must go back to paying the taxes they should pay; • Women must be paid the same as men, and no man or government has the right to tell them what they can do or not do with their bodies.

So here’s my two cents:

1. You are right to make containing Covid-19 Job #1. Had Trump won, I’m guessing up to a million people in the next year or so would have died from him ignoring this virus. Yesterday you named your Covid task force of doctors and scientists and you are putting them to work. We don’t have a second to lose. Thank you for this.

2. As soon as you can, please provide much more unemployment relief for the jobless, stimulus checks for all, help for small businesses, and the creation of jobs we desperately need.

3. Millions have lost their health insurance because our system ties one’s health coverage to their employer. What happens when the employer, like now, is suddenly gone, or the boss wakes up one morning and decides these employees’ health benefits are too costly and must be cut? BOOM! Millions of families suddenly have no health insurance. This is nuts.

You MUST create a health system like every other industrial democracy — one backed by the government, not by the whims of the boss where you work or the pandemic that has shut him or her down. This is just plain common sense.

4. I see various people trying to take credit for your victory — and using their personal agendas to push you away from the progressive Left and toward the cowardly center which believes that the best way to beat Republicans is to just be a more easily-digestible version of Republicans. They think because Trump got 70 million votes the Democrats should reject Black Lives Matter, AOC, and anything that vaguely sounds like socialism — at a time when the majority of our citizens under the age of 35, according to most polls, prefer the idea of democratic socialism over the greed of modern-day capitalism. Why risk losing them? We need to listen to and understand why they feel this way. They’ve been saddled with crushing student debt and we’ve handed them a planet In the middle of its 6th extinction event as their future. You and Barack introduced them to the benefits of democratic socialism by letting them stay on their parents health insurance until they’re 26! The result: They just set a record by coming out and voting for you in the largest youth numbers ever.

But you know all this. And you also know how you won these razor-thin victories in the final five states as we nervously watched the final ballots come in from Black Philly, Black Detroit, Black Atlanta, Black Flint. Out west, it was Latinx and Navajo voters who delivered Nevada and Arizona to you. In your speech on Saturday you acknowledged it. And never in our history have I heard a President-elect single out the Black community and thank them “for having my back. And I promise you, I will have your back!” Black and brown and indigenous peoples, plus a landslide of women and young adult voters made this happen. Wow. I absolutely know you’ll keep that promise.

5. Please do not make the same mistake an otherwise well-meaning President Obama made in his first two years. He wanted everyone to get along. He was willing to compromise on anything. Kumbaya. The Republicans had already decided they were going to block EVERYTHING Obama proposed and that’s exactly what they did for eight long years with a discipline and a ruthlessness we should probably envy.

Don’t let this happen to you. Charge in on January 20th like FDR on steroids. You have no choice. People are dying! You need to sign executive orders and cajole, demand and shame Congress into action. And GO BIG! Eliminate the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Act! DONE! Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women! Just one more state needed! DONE! Send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to replace the poisoned water pipes! DONE!!

And none of the above needs a single vote of the United States Senate! In fact, this past summer, your “Biden-Bernie” unity joint task force identified a whopping 277 policies and decisions of Trump’s that you have the legal authority to immediately reverse by executive order or presidential policy decision https://prospect.org/…/277-policies-biden-need-not-ask-per…/. Find that big fat black marker of his and do it!

But, yes, we also desperately need those two Georgia Senate seats to get the Biden/Harris years off to a blazing start. So let’s make that happen! All hands on deck between now and January 5th!! We will all do whatever is needed.

Friends of mine on the Left who are more cynical than I am are probably wondering why I’m sending you this letter. Haha! Well, because I saw you kiss the head of that young grieving man at the Parkland, Florida memorial for the shooting victims of Stoneman Douglas High School. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyMa96yOel0

And because I saw you in New Hampshire this year while we were there working for Bernie, and you were doing a campaign stop and there was a restless five-year boy in the front row. His parents were trying to get him to settle down. You stopped and spoke to the boy. “Hey buddy,” you said in a kind but parental way, “if you can hang on and be a good boy for just a little bit, I’ll buy ya an ice cream!” The boy quieted down, you wrapped up and afterward you went over to the boy and his parents and you gave the kid five bucks so his mom and dad could go get him an ice cream cone. And I thought to myself, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen — and then I started to cry because I wanted so much for that piece of America to come back — goofy, kind, and focusing on what’s truly important: a goddamned ice cream cone!

I think that’s why you won. People saw what I saw with you there in New Hampshire and back in Boston on that day 16 years ago — they knew that maybe, just maybe, their lives might just get a bit better - hopefully a LOT better - with you in the White House. Maybe less of them will die from the virus, this preventable horror. Trump, of whom we knew many despicable things and thought we’d already seen how low the bar could possibly go for one human being — but we never considered him under the moniker of mass killer, terrorist or superspreader. Then you, Joe, came along and offered us a respite, a break from the insanity — “Mr. Biden, we’ll be happy if you just give us four years of ‘Not Trump!’”

But I think you can give us much more than that. What could our lives be like in four years or eight years (with a Democratic Senate to boot)? How ‘bout no one ever goes bankrupt again because they got sick? How ‘bout no one is sitting in a prison cell for possessing marijuana or actual drugs? How ‘bout every child gets to go to a great school and every neighborhood has an expanded free library open seven days a week? How ‘bout paid family medical leave so you can take care of your elderly parents and not lose your job? How ‘bout my bullet train! You and we can make all this happen. It’s not rocket science. 30+ other countries already do it. (https://www.amazon.com/Where-Invade-Next-Micha…/…/B01EGW9EOU) They’re happier. Why not us? Our founders promised it to us in their second sentence: “the pursuit of Happiness.“ They said that’s what America would be — and it’s been a rare day when we’ve actually had a glimpse of it.

Joe, you’re the guy to fulfill the promise. I’ll help. So will my neighbors on the floor where I live. As will the woman who delivers my mail, the workers who stock the shelves of my neighborhood market, the nurse who just wrote me in tears because yesterday she watched her 22nd patient die, alone, no family allowed, from Covid. Not to mention the millions upon millions of Americans who are ready to be foot soldiers in your army of justice, equality and love. We’re all in! We don’t want to go back to the old “normal.” We want a new normal!

We want ice cream.

All my best, Michael Moore

P.S. You know why I think you can and will do this? You picked Kamala Harris to run with you! Ranked as the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate. A woman. A Black woman! I saw the first debate, the one where she challenged you and threw shade on your younger self. Most people (including me), if that had happened to us, we probably wouldn’t have gotten over it. You did. I’m guessing your conscience whispered to you, “well, dang, maybe she has a point.” You hold no grudges. You are a forgiving soul. But then you didn’t just forgive her — you put her on the Big Ticket! Who would do that? You did! That’s why my cautious, hopeful bet is on the good hands we’re now in — both your hands, Kamala’s hands, and the hands of the mass millions who voted for you and will continue to rise up and fight for this new, better, post-Trump, post-pandemic America.

[claremal-one]

Trump Can’t Postpone The Election, But He Can Delegitimize The Results.

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Earlier today, President Trump tweeted that the 2020 election should be delayed “until people can properly, securely and safely vote.”

Postponing the election, of course, is not something the president can legally do. But it’s also kind of besides the point. Trump has already been fighting to delegitimize the results come November, claiming that voting by mail can lead to mass voter fraud.

So let’s dive into that. How would you describe Trump’s efforts to throw November’s results into question? He did something similar in 2016 when facing Hillary Clinton. How is this different?

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Well, in many ways it’s exactly what Trump was doing in 2016. It’s just that he’s president now. And thus, his words are even more damaging (and they were already very damaging in 2016).

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): There’s also a very important distinction here. Before, Trump was just a candidate casting doubt on the election, but now he’s a sitting president doing that.

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I’d characterize this as an exercise in control and influence over his party and the news cycle. Everyone is forced to respond to what he says, even if they’re not responding positively. Trump isn’t effective at that many aspects of the job, but he’s pretty effective at agenda control.

clare.malone: I would also say that calling for the delay of the actual vote feels VERY dictatorial in nature. Like, we’ve perversely gotten used to the “fake votes,” “fake news” stuff. But encouraging a change in the election date feels sort of explicitly over a line.

sarah: And to ask a somewhat obvious question — but one that has to be asked — this is another unprecedented, norm-defying and democratic-value jeopardizing moment, right? To put it another way, has another sitting president ever done this?

julia_azari: I’m always nervous about the “never” question with past presidents, but yeah, most presidents have not been willing to take on all the formal rules, the legal system and other branches of government while in office. Congress — which has the power to change the date of an election — used to be stronger, too, and there was no Twitter. My go-to example for this is we still had a presidential election in 1864, during the Civil War.

geoffrey.skelley: And in modern times, incumbents who have lost reelection have exited office without too much of a fuss. Take George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, or if we go further back, Herbert Hoover. Granted, incumbents don’t often lose. So it’s important to note that each of those incumbents lost decisively, meaning there wasn’t much to stand on even if they had wanted to fight the result. But it’s not like Gerald Ford created a stir in 1976 when he lost narrowly.

julia_azari: Candidates have also conceded even when the election was a mess. See Al Gore in 2000, Samuel Tilden in 1876.1

sarah: But on this question of actually changing the election date. How much power does Trump have to do that?

clare.malone: He does not have the power to change the date of the election.

julia_azari: None. It’s up to Congress, and elections are administered by the states.

clare.malone: Here’s my question, though: What happens if Trump refuses to leave the White House on Jan. 20, and there are no official election results at that point?

Like, in that dire scenario (Trump not leaving, no clear winner) does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi become president and someone has to haul him out of the building?

geoffrey.skelley: If for some reason the Electoral College hasn’t acted or the electoral votes haven’t been certified by Congress, Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, according to the 20th Amendment. So there’d be an acting president, who would be the Speaker of the House per the order set out by the Presidential Succession Act — assuming congressional elections occurred.

But of course, that’s how it’s written, not how it might go.

sarah: Did someone mention

the 20th amendment

?

julia_azari: I keep imagining this scenario, and I have to say, I have a hard time imagining that Trump refuses to leave office. I don’t want to be complacent, but like a lot of people on Twitter, Trump seems to be comfortable tweeting out bold ideas and not as great at standing firm under political pressure.

So as I see it, there would be a couple of components needed for this to actually happen. There would be the political pressure — what are advisors, including Jared and Ivanka, telling him to do? This would help us understand if there are people who have influence over Trump who have some interest in seeing the system remain intact and legitimate.

The second thing would be the actual formal power — does the Secret Service force him out? Does the military gets involved? These are wild scenarios.

I would be surprised if these institutions don’t have plans for this somewhere, even if they are not publicly known.

geoffrey.skelley: Not to take things down an even darker road, but in this scenario, I think it’s important to consider how other institutions like the military act and how the president’s supporters behave in the face of attempts to delegitimize the election results.

clare.malone: Totally. I think that’s where many people’s minds go, too. And as a country, I think we are deeply uncomfortable (and rightly so) with the military being involved with a power transition. I mean, I personally find it incredibly chilling to consider.

geoffrey.skelley: I’ve seen Seven Days In May. Great movie but, uh yeah, disturbing.

But it’s a sign of the times when you have Biden actually saying he thinks the military would escort Trump out of the White House if he refused to leave.

sarah: Because that’s the thing, as you’re all saying, there are mechanisms via the 20th amendment to ensure Trump leaves office. But there’s still a very real question of how some of this would actually be enforced if it came to this, right?

julia_azari: Exactly. The 20th amendment was ratified to shorten the period between the presidential election in November and the inauguration, which had been in March. There was growing instability around the time it was ratified, after the 1932 election, and that’s some of what it intended to deal with, but it wasn’t really designed with this problem in mind.

I’m trying to stake out the ground that acknowledges a lot of people won’t have much incentive to let Trump violate the rules in this way.

clare.malone: Julia, when you say that a lot of people won’t have incentive to let Trump act contrary to the rules, whom are you thinking of?

julia_azari: I guess I’m thinking of people who might want to run for president later.

clare.malone: Republicans?

julia_azari: Or make money off the Trump brand. This includes his kids, and yeah, other Republicans.

clare.malone: That is, people with sway over him. Got it.

julia_azari: Military leaders, too, as we saw many of them push back after the D.C. protesters incident in June.

sarah: So let’s talk about the other big doomsday scenario here: The results aren’t considered legitimate. What are the signs that that idea is already taking root?

julia_azari: That’s a good way to frame that, but I’m not sure there are signs that it’s taking root any more than it’s sorta been lurking in the conversation since 2016 — and even before.

geoffrey.skelley: In the face of COVID-19, states are expanding absentee voting and, in some cases, vote-by-mail. But the president is making the case that mailed ballots are illegitimate and highly vulnerable to fraud — this is not true, of course, but by casting aspersions, he’s setting up the potential for delegitimizing the results as they come in, on and after Election Day. And the after part is probably what really matters, especially if the election is close.

clare.malone: Yeah, I was going to say, we’ve spent the past 4 to 5 years conditioning a certain segment of the population to distrust most everything in American life, unless it comes from the president’s mouth.

Someone shared this 2017 survey that found that around half of Republicans would be ok with delaying the 2020 election. Granted, the question was framed around whether people would support delaying the election to make sure people weren’t voting illegally (a big claim of Trump’s in 2016). But I still thought that was surprising.

It’s especially striking when you get to 2020, and the questions revolve around the pandemic. I was shocked to see, for instance, the share of Republicans and Democrats who were willing to delay the election because of the pandemic (roughly 39 percent of Americans supported delaying the election, according to that survey from April).

sarah: Yeah … it is mind boggling. That finding is also at least somewhat corroborated in this paper FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman published with the Voter Study Group earlier this year. In an examination of democracy in the U.S., Drutman and his coauthors found that both Republicans and Democrats were open to their preferred presidential candidate “rejecting the legitimacy of the election if they claim credible evidence of illegal voting or foreign interference.” And in that vein, 29 percent of Republicans said it would be appropriate for Trump “to refuse to leave office because he claims that he has credible evidence of illegal voting.”

julia_azari: One quibble with that study, though, knowing I have the utmost respect for Lee and his coauthors, is that each scenario lays out a justification for delaying the election, which I think makes it harder to say no. And I think people’s willingness to tolerate this in practice is conditional on their evaluation of that evidence, the credibility of the claims and the person making the claims. (E.g., Trump, who isn’t very popular.)

clare.malone: Totally fair.

I was pretty shocked in general to see how amenable people were to changing this very foundational thing! Even with the reasonings the survey questions provided them.

julia_azari: I was, too, but I think it’s not unreasonable for people to have limits on how much they trust elections if they think those elections were not administered fairly.

geoffrey.skelley: And if the election is close and a state or two is in doubt, any questions about administration could become explosive. See: the 2000 election.

julia_azari: Right. It’s actually amazing how explosive that wasn’t. But things are different now — I wonder how this plays out if we flip it around.

Let’s say Trump wins.

(I mean, this sorta already happened in 2016. Trump won, yet he went right ahead and tried to delegitimize parts of an election he had won.)

But let’s say it happens again, and he wins narrowly once again? Who questions the results? And would that be the right thing to do?

geoffrey.skelley: Yes, I wanted to bring this up! Trump said there were at least 3 million illegal votes in an election he won — conveniently undoing Clinton’s popular vote margin. And then he set up a task force to investigate fraud after he took office. It found nothing.

julia_azari: But there will likely be this question of “credible evidence,” as they cite in that Voter Study group paper. What if Trump wins, and people were standing in hours-long lines in Black neighborhoods in Ohio?

In other words, I think there will be a question of how much skepticism about elections is reasonable, and how much is chaos?

clare.malone: I think there is just going to be skepticism about this election, full stop.

geoffrey.skelley: I would not discount opponents of Trump taking to the streets in that scenario. A recent simulation by a group of experts about what could happen in these sorts of scenarios did not bring me much comfort. They found that every scenario — Trump winning or losing but someone defying the result — ended in street-level violence and political gridlock.

sarah: Oof. It’s interesting to me, though, that the desire to delegitimize results isn’t purely a Republican thing, as that Voter Study paper found. Democrats also showed signs of also being willing to reject the legitimacy of the election if it helps their preferred candidate.

clare.malone: Stacey Abrams’s non-concession concession speech in 2018 provided an interesting template for a potential Biden response (in case of a loss to Trump).

Though I do think Biden is such a conventional politician and institutionalist that he wouldn’t respond in the same way Abrams did, justified or not.

sarah: Yeah and Biden obviously isn’t waging a campaign of disinformation in the way that Trump is either. But perhaps one unintended effect of all this is, to Clare’s point, that skepticism of the election (depending on its margin) is going to be rampant.

julia_azari: Although Biden seems like … truly angry at times about the Trump presidency. It’s not obvious what the institutionalist move is in that scenario, IMO.

clare.malone: A good point!

julia_azari: I think there’s a strong possibility that skepticism is persistent and embedded in Trumpist ideology and among his followers, but not that widespread if the election is not close.

clare.malone: I mean, let’s go back to 2016.

If Trump had lost, we were all preparing for the launch of Trump TV, a perch from which he would rail for the impeachment of President Clinton.

I can sort of see something similar happening if Trump loses (unless, of course, he’s too tired to start the Trump TV experiment!)

geoffrey.skelley: OANN would love to have him.

julia_azari: Again, I don’t want to be complacent. I spend way too much time on politics Twitter. I spend all my time on politics Twitter.

But if Biden wins by a lot and Trump tweets a bunch, most Americans will just go on about their lives. That’s sorta how 2000 played out, and that was obviously really close and subject to questions, too.

geoffrey.skelley: Thing is, I can’t imagine Trump conceding in a 2000-esque situation in the way Gore eventually did.

clare.malone: Of course, 2000 is the election that a lot of people point to as the start of mistrust in elections as institutions. And like, the era of “voter fraud” alarmism really ramped up under George W. Bush.

julia_azari: But the angry minority has demonstrated that it can drive politics and policy to a great degree. So I don’t want to be complacent, but I do want to be specific in my fears.

clare.malone: So you could say people went on with their lives, but there were corrosive effects.

julia_azari: If he loses, I sometimes imagine that people around Trump will say, “People will say nice things about you if you do a good concession speech,” and so he does. But it’s not encouraging that that’s what it might come to.

clare.malone: Right, the integrity of democratic institutions might come down to a pep talk from “Javanka?”

sarah: So at the outset of this chat, I asked how Trump’s tweet to postpone the election was different from what he’s already done to try and delegitimize November’s result. And we’ve also pointed out that there have been prior points in American history where voters have mistrusted election results.

But I think given the abnormal aspects of Trump’s presidency, it’s easy to point to historical comparisons without really probing whether the moment we’re in doesn’t have a historical comparison, as historian Rick Perlstein did in his tweet, telling the media he didn’t want to do more interviews on how this moment might compare to 1968.

julia_azari: I think Perlstein is right, but I also think that we should be precise about how abnormal politics interacts with normal politics, because that has been the story of the Trump presidency IMO.

clare.malone: So, I mean, I take Rick’s point in this tweet; there’s this instinct that we have to comfort ourselves with history (i.e., American democracy has weathered much worse) but I do think that we sometimes dwell a bit in history without facing the new challenges that Trump presents us.

We sort of have to respect the new paradigm that’s been created and understand that there are limits to what history can teach us in this particular case; i.e., Twitter, plus Trump, plus 20 years of diminishing electoral trust.

geoffrey.skelley: It’s interesting that people would comfort themselves with history — I take little comfort from it. We’ve been on the brink before with the 1876 election, for instance.

julia_azari: I think that’s absolutely true. I don’t see history as a comfort but rather as a guide to how much luck and skill it takes to maneuver through this stuff.

I also think history is helpful because it shows what’s not normal. (And what shouldn’t be, but is.)

from Clare Malone – FiveThirtyEight https://ift.tt/39H0l41 via https://ift.tt/1B8lJZR

[spicynbachili1]

Bafel Talabani: ‘Every Kurd wants an independent Kurdistan’ | Iraq News

Editor’s be aware: Under is an abridged model of the interview with Bafel Talabani, which was carried out a day earlier than the electoral fee introduced the ultimate outcomes of the September 30 parliamentary vote in Iraq’s Kurdish area.

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq – Over the previous 12 months, Iraq has seen quite a lot of main political developments, together with the fallout of the Kurdish independence referendum, the Might nationwide elections, and the September parliamentary vote within the Kurdish area.

Earlier this month, after a delay on account of intra-Kurdish disagreements, Barham Salih, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was elected president of Iraq (a place reserved for an ethnic Kurd) by the newly shaped Iraqi parliament.

At the moment, essential negotiations are being held between totally different political powers relating to the formation of a brand new Iraqi authorities, a brand new Kurdish Regional Authorities (KRG), and the way forward for Kirkuk, which was taken over by forces loyal to the Iraqi authorities in Baghdad from the KRG in October 2017.

The PUK, which is seen as being near Iran, and one among its leaders, Bafel Talabani (the son of the late Jalal Talabani, one of many founders and long-term chief of the occasion), have performed a key function in all of those occasions.

On this unique interview, Al Jazeera talks to Mr Talabani concerning the political scenario within the Kurdish area of Iraq, a 12 months after the failed independence referendum, the KRG’s relations with Baghdad, and the US-Iran rivalry within the nation.

Al Jazeera: Why did it take so lengthy to elect a president after the parliamentary elections?

 Bafel Talabani: I believe if you happen to look over the previous couple of elections we’ve had, it is all the time taken a very long time.

There are lots of totally different teams jockeying for various positions. Numerous offers that should be made and partnerships to be shaped. I do not assume it took a very very long time to be sincere.

Al Jazeera: However there have been negotiations taking place between your occasion, the (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Social gathering (KDP).

Talabani: Sure, there have been.

Al Jazeera: And there appeared to be disagreements alongside the best way.

Talabani: There was a little bit disagreement alongside the best way however maybe not as large a disagreement because it’s being proven within the media.

We predict actually there was not sufficient time to decide. We used to have a strategic alliance with the KDP and the strategic alliance was that the KDP would have – or one of many events – would have the regional president and in return the opposite occasion would have the president in Baghdad.

This grew to become difficult the place of president within the north has been placed on maintain.

Because the place has been placed on maintain, the powers of the president have been unfold among the many prime minister and sure different locations. So it appeared troublesome for us, because the PUK, to have each presidents in impact with the KDP.

So what we needed to do was make some form of an association the place Dr Barham [Salih], the PUK candidate, was the candidate of the Kurds as a complete.

Sadly, there did not appear to be sufficient time to handle these negotiations with the KDP. So what occurred was each events ended up going to Baghdad with two totally different candidates.

This saddened me a terrific deal as a result of I’d have most well-liked the Kurds to have made their very own selections earlier than going to Baghdad.

Al Jazeera: So what’s the scenario now between the 2 events?

Talabani: The scenario between the 2 events I believe is just not so troublesome to beat. There have been points between the KDP and the PUK for a number of years. And to be honest lots of these points have been precipitated extra by the PUK than the KDP.

The PUK has had issues internally. Imam Jalal [Talabani] grew to become sick after which sadly handed away. The PUK had numerous points amongst itself, problems with confidence, problems with course, problems with unity. And due to this it has been very troublesome to make concrete and strategic offers with the KDP, with Gorran [Movement].

However now a extra unified and cohesive PUK is ready now to make the suitable agreements and alliances with all of the political events that it must do.

Al Jazeera: How are negotiations going for the brand new Kurdish regional authorities (KRG)?

Talabani: I believe we may have quickly a Kurdish authorities. What occurred was that the elections had gone forward and there have been complaints from many various events about sure irregularities. So it is as much as the fee and if essential the court docket to have a look at this and make a closing resolution.

I do not assume it is taking a very very long time. And what I am conscious of within the subsequent few days, the outcomes will likely be made [public].

Al Jazeera: One other subject that appears to trigger lots of disagreement between the 2 main Kurdish events is Kirkuk.

At the moment the governor there was appointed by Baghdad however he has been elected to parliament, so there must be a brand new governor.

So are there negotiations or perhaps a competitors for who will take this governorship?

Talabani: I do not assume it is essentially honest [to say] there’s a competitors for the governorship. What I want to see occur is for the PUK and KDP to sit down down collectively and work by these points.

I believe with one voice, we’d be a lot stronger in our place to affect issues in Kirkuk and Baghdad. And in reality, we have already reached out to the KDP.

When our staff was in Baghdad for presidency formation, the primary individual we known as was the KDP delegation and provided to sit down collectively and assist one another get the ministries we would like. And the identical factor has occurred relating to Kirkuk.

We reached out to the KDP and stated, look we need to have a gathering of all events the place we will sit down and talk about Kirkuk and one of the simplest ways to maneuver ahead.

Once more, I actually need to stress unity, unity, unity. And I believe if we will do this, we will get previous the opposite points holding us again. I actually assume we will transfer Kurdistan ahead within the subsequent 4 years.

Al Jazeera: What are these different points? What’s the largest drawback between the KDP and the PUK?

Talabani: Truthfully, I believe the most important drawback is unhealthy experiences of the previous, of offers and contracts and negotiations that have not been fulfilled. And also you’d communicate to most individuals and they might say – they did it, we did it. I believe the fact of the scenario is that each events are accountable.

Each events have made errors. I am optimistic for our partnership with the KDP. The friendships within the PUK and the KDP are very deep.

A few of the folks I most respect politically and as individuals are members of the KDP, folks like Nechirvan Barzani, clearly Kak Masoud [Barzani] himself, Kak Masrour [Barzani], and many others.

Al Jazeera: Are there negotiations occurring between the caretaker KRG and Baghdad on resuming the manufacturing of oil in Kirkuk?

Talabani: I could not truly reply you on this one with any form of authority or info. It isn’t one thing I am coping with and to be sincere not one thing I need to take care of.

However I’d be very stunned if any individual wasn’t speaking about how this pipeline goes to be.

Al Jazeera: Over the previous 12 months there have been fairly a number of offers made with Russia’s Rosneft, which has taken over the oil pipeline. Are these offers within the curiosity of the KRG?

Talabani: I’d be very stunned if the KRG did issues in any case this investigation and communication that wasn’t good for the KRG, whether or not Baghdad sees it nearly as good for the KRG, I can not actually communicate for.

Once more the one technique to get previous that is for Baghdad and the KRG to sit down down collectively and see what areas are disputed.

Al Jazeera: There appears to be anger not less than in sure quarters in Iraq about Iranian affect or interference within the affairs of the nation. How do you see that?

Talabani: It is unrealistic to count on different nations to not need to affect this example. However the resolution could be very easy.

I believe the Iraqi political events and the Iraqi folks have to easily do what’s finest for Iraq and never get entangled in exterior struggles.

 Kurdish voters solid their ballots throughout the Iraqi parliamentary elections at a polling station in Erbil on Might 2018. [File:Gailan Haji/EPA] HAJI 

Al Jazeera: You might be identified to have good relations with each Iran and the US. What are your relations proper now beneath the Trump administration with the US?

And the way do you see persevering with US presence in Iraq?

Talabani: I might prefer to assume our relationships are superb. The USA of America have been a strategic ally for us for a lot of, a few years within the struggle towards terrorism, and many others. I might prefer to see the connection get stronger. I might prefer to see a US presence right here for a lot of, a few years to come back.

I believe we’ve some journeys deliberate quickly to america and issues will grow to be clearer then. However all people we’re presently involved with right here, Brett McGurk, the ambassador, the overall consul – the connection has been very, superb. There have been attempting instances in fact. The problem with the referendum strained issues a little bit, however I believe usually we’ve an excellent relationship with america – one thing we want to preserve.

Al Jazeera: However the Trump administration is constructing an anti-Iran coalition right here within the area attracting quite a lot of political forces right here to hitch that coalition towards Iran.

The place does the PUK stand on this?

Talabani: I believe the PUK actually has no want to grow to be concerned in regional conflicts.

We’ve got sufficient monetary, safety, and stability points in Kurdistan. We’ve got a protracted relationship with Iran going again a few years. And lots of instances Iran has helped us and lots of instances Iran has hindered us. I believe it is unrealistic to count on the PUK, or every other Kurdish occasion or every other Iraqi occasion, to chop ties and political relations with Iran.

The fact of the scenario is we’ve lots of of kilometres of borders with Iran. Nearly all of commerce within the Sulaymaniyah area is with Iran.

Al Jazeera: Ought to the Kurdish area have one unified armed pressure relatively than forces loyal to totally different events?

Talabani: I might like to see that occur. I believe we’re slowly transferring in that course. However each time we’ve some form of political setback. I believe in order for you the sincere reality, I believe individuals are afraid. Individuals are afraid of one thing new and it is an enormous change for Kurdistan.

However I would like to see that, to see one untied Kurdish safety equipment, army equipment, and many others. And I believe we will transfer in direction of that and I believe it will assist the political course of right here. It will assist normalise Kurdistan. It will change the dynamic of the area I believe for the higher. It is one thing I want to attempt to work on over the subsequent 4 years.

Al Jazeera: This 12 months, it is 20 years because the finish of the civil battle between the 2 Kurdish events and a few Kurds fear that the tensions between the KDP and the PUK can escalate into an armed battle.

Is that this doable?

Talabani: Over my useless physique. And over the useless physique of many, many Kurds. That is simply not one thing that may occur. I believe no person is prepared to try this anymore. These days are lengthy gone. We’re nonetheless paying the value of that inside battle.

Kurds is not going to, mustn’t, and completely should not be allowed to kill Kurds. We’d like to have the ability to resolve our points politically.

I believe this is absolutely the doomsday state of affairs that each Kurd with a single mind cell would do the whole lot of their energy to make (certain) this by no means, by no means occurs and I can not see it taking place.

Al Jazeera: Do you assume the Kurdish political elite has failed its folks?

Talabani: I believe to say that it has failed its folks is a little bit harsh. But when we’re very sincere with one another, we may have all finished higher.

Saddam [Hussein] hasn’t been in Kurdistan for many years now. Once I have a look at Kurdistan, I believe the scenario with electrical energy nonetheless is not nearly as good appropriately. The scenario with sewage nonetheless is not nearly as good appropriately.

The scenario with roads and infrastructure nonetheless is not nearly as good appropriately. However a few of it is usually right down to the curse of oil. Kurdistan is a really mineral-rich.

Cityscape of Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq [Getty Images]

Al Jazeera: Some say that politics in Iraq is run like a household enterprise. What do you say to that?

Talabani: I believe you might make that argument.

You might make that argument to a lesser diploma in america, you might make that argument in lots of, many nations. I believe that no person in any household ought to be ready of energy simply because they’re in that household and they’re in that place of energy.

However on the alternative of that, I do not assume somebody ought to be held again from politics if they’re working within the occasion and are doing nicely and are attempting to enhance the scenario. A household title should not be held towards them.

Al Jazeera: And this sense, then do you help the trigger for this subsequent authorities of Iraq to be technocratic?

Talabani: I believe that the federal government of Iraq wants a mix of all people.

We’d like some technocrats however we additionally want some sturdy political figures that may maintain the whole lot collectively.

That is in any case Iraq and it has its distinctive set of issues and its difficulties.

Al Jazeera: Is the PUK after particular posts inside that cupboard?

Talabani: No, it is not.

I believe the PUK has all the time been a part of the answer for issues in Iraq and we need to be again to being there. We need to a part of the answer, to not be a part of the issue.

I would love the PUK to work extra with Baghdad, improve its presence in Baghdad, ideally side-by-side with the opposite Kurdish events as a result of if you happen to have a look at our seats in Parliament, we’re so sturdy in Baghdad if we’re united.

That is what I want to see occur and I believe it will occur.

Al Jazeera: So is the way forward for the Kurdish area inside the borders of Iraq? Is independence out of query?

Talabani: I do not assume independence is out of query and I do not assume it is a problem that wants addressing now. We’ve got so many present issues, we’ve so many points that we have to overcome.

We should be a part of Iraq, the power of the area for now for us is thru Baghdad. And I believe each Kurd needs an impartial Kurdistan however the actuality of the scenario is that this can not occur unilaterally.

Baghdad, a few of the surrounding nations should conform to this and we’ve to make actions in direction of that very fastidiously in a thought-about diplomatic method.

Al Jazeera: What are your personally ambitions and the place do you see your self? Do you see your self taking management of the occasion?

Do you see your self staying a army man?

Talabani: I might prefer to see a unified PUK. For me, frankly, who’s in cost is just not essential. However I might prefer to see a unified sturdy PUK with the opposite Kurdish occasion transferring Kurdistan ahead.

I might prefer to see many various insurance policies carried out for the great of the folks. Some anti-corruption insurance policies.

We have to change the best way we maintain our elections. We have to transfer ahead along with all of the events. My private ambitions are that.

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)(window, document,'script','//connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');

fbq('init', '968100353246427'); fbq('track', 'PageView');

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/bafel-talabani-every-kurd-wants-an-independent-kurdistan-iraq-news/