#so much politics talk imagine that someone suggested to me TODAY we should ALL vote alt right

[eliasdrid]

kinda sorry for not much new art posts but if u guys knew the horrors ive been going thru this week ud possibly give me a pat on the shoulder or something

[foreverdavidbyrne]

David Byrne’s interview in NME magazine

In 1979, David Byrne predicted Netflix. “It’ll be as easy to hook your computer up to a central television bank as it is to get the week’s groceries,” he told NME’s Max Bell, sitting in a Paris hotel considering the implications of Talking Heads’ dystopian single ‘Life During Wartime’.

He predicted the Apple Watch in that interview too: “[People will] be surrounded by computers the size of wrist watches.” And he foresaw surveillance culture and data harvesting: “Government surveillance becomes inevitable because there’s this dilemma when you have an increase in information storage. A lot of it is for your convenience, but as more information gets on file, it’s bound to be misused.”

In fact, over 40 years ago, he predicted the entire modern-day experience, as if he instinctively knew what was coming. “We’ll be cushioned by amazing technological development,” he said, “but sitting on Salvation Army furniture.”

The 68-year-old Byrne says today, “You can’t say that you know,” chuckling down a Zoom link from his home in New York and belying his reputation for awkwardness by seeming giddily relieved to be talking to someone. “It’s crazy to set yourself up as some sort of prophet. But there’s plenty of people who have done well with books where they claim to predict what’s going on. I suppose sometimes it’s possible to let yourself imagine, ‘Okay – what if?’ This can evolve into something that exists, can evolve into something more substantial, cheaper – these kinds of things.”

It’s been a lifelong gift. Byrne turned up at CBGBs in 1975 with his art school band Talking Heads touting ‘Psycho Killer’, as if predicting the punk scene’s angular melodic evolution, new wave, before punk was even called punk. In 1980, Talking Heads assimilated African beats and textures into their seminal ‘Remain In Light’ album, foreshadowing ‘world music’ and modern music’s globalist melting pot, then used it to warn America of the dangers of consumerism, selfishness and the collapse of civilisation. Pioneering or propheteering, Byrne has been on the front-line of musical evolution for 45 years, collaborating with fellow visionaries from Brian Eno to St Vincent’s Annie Clark, constantly imagining, ‘What if?’

The live music lockdown has been a frustrating freeze frame, but Byrne was already leading the way into music’s new normal. Launched in 2018, the tour to support his 10th solo album, ‘American Utopia’, has now turned into a cinematic marvel courtesy of Spike Lee – the concert film was released in the UK this week. The original tour was acclaimed as a live music revolution. Using remote technology, Byrne was able to remove all of the traditional equipment clutter from the stage and allow his musicians and dancers, in uniform grey suits and barefoot, to roam around a stage lined with curtains of metal chains with their instruments strapped to them. A Marshally distanced gig, if you will.

“As the show was conceptually coming together, I realised that once we had a completely empty stage the rulebook has now been thrown out,” Byrne says. “Now we can go anywhere and do anything. This is completely liberating. It means that people like drummers, for example, who are usually relegated to the back shadows, can now come to the front – all those kinds of things – which changes the whole dynamic.”

With six performers making up an entire drum kit and Byrne meandering through the choreography trying to navigate a nonsensical world, the show was his most striking and original since he jerked and jived around a constructed-mid-gig band set-up in Jonathan Demme’s legendary 1984 Talking Heads live film Stop Making Sense.

The American Utopia show embarked on a Broadway run last year, where Byrne super-fan Spike Lee saw it twice and leapt at the chance of turning the spectacle into Byrne’s second revolutionary live film, dotted with his musings on the human condition to illuminate the crux of the songs: institutional racism, our lack of modern connection, the erosion of democracy and, on opener ‘Here’, a lecture-like tour of the human brain, Byrne holding aloft a scale model, trying to fathom, ‘How do I work this?’

“I didn’t know how much of a fan Spike was!” Byrne laughs today. “He’d even go, ‘Why don’t you do this song? Why don’t you add this song in’. We knew one another casually so I could text him and say, ‘I want you to come and see our show; I think that you might be interested in making a film of it’.”

Are the days of the traditional stage set-up numbered? “Yes, I think so,” he replies. “At least in theatres and concert halls the size that I would normally play, yes. The fact that we can get the music digitally [means] a performance has to be really of value. It has to be really something special, because that’s where the performers are getting their money and that’s what the audience is paying for. They’re not paying very much for streaming music, but they are paying quite a bit to go and see a performance, so the performance has to give them value for money… It has to be really something to see.”

How does David Byrne envisage the future possibilities of live performance?

“I’ve seen a lot of things that hip-hop artists have done – like the Kanye West show where he emerges on a platform that floats above the stage,” he says. “I’d seen one with Kendrick Lamar where it was pretty much just him on stage, an empty stage with just him on stage and a DJ, somebody with a laptop – that was it. I thought, ‘Wow’. Then he started doing things with huge projections behind. There are lots of ways to do this. I love the idea of working with a band, with live musicians. ‘How can I innovate in this kind of way?’ It’s maybe easier for a hip-hop musician who doesn’t have a band to figure out. The pressure is on to come up with new ways of doing this.”

In liberating his musicians from fixed, immovable positions, American Utopia also acts as a metaphor for freeing our minds from our own ingrained ways of thinking. As Byrne intersperses Talking Heads classics such as ‘Once In A Lifetime’, ‘I Zimbra’ and ‘Road To Nowhere’ with choice solo cuts and tracks from ‘American Utopia’, he also dots the show with musings on an array of post-millennial questions: the health of democracy; the rise of xenophobia and fascism; our increasing reliance on materialism and online communication; the climate change threat; the existential nightmare of the dating app; and, crucially, the distances all of these things put between us.

“The ‘likes’ and friends and connections and everything that the internet enables,” he argues, “even Zoom calls like this, they’re no substitute for really being with other people. Calling social networks ‘social’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”

Byrne closes the show with the suggestion that, rather than isolate behind our LCD barriers, we should try to reconnect with each other. In an age when social media has descended into all-out thought war and anyone can find concocted ‘facts’ to support anything they want to believe, is that realistic?

“I have a little bit of hope,” he says. “Not every day, but some days. I have hope that people will abandon a lot of social media, that they’ll realise how intentionally addictive it is, and they’re actually being used, and that they might enjoy actually being with other people rather than just constantly scrolling through their phone. So, I’m a little bit optimistic that people will, in some ways, use this technology a little bit less than they have.”

A key moment in American Utopia comes with Byrne’s cover of Janelle Monae’s ‘Hell You Talmbout’, a confrontational track shouting the names of African-Americans who have been killed by police or in racially motivated attacks – Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd and far, far too many more. Does Byrne think the civil unrest in the wake of Floyd’s death and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement make a serious impact?

“We’ll see how long this continues,” he says, “but in projects that I’m working on – there’s a theatre project I’m working on in Denver, there’s the idea of bringing this show back to Broadway, there’s other projects – those issues came to the fore. Issues of diversity and inclusion and things like that, which were always there. Now they’re being taken more seriously. The producers and theatre owners realise that they can’t push those things aside, that they have to be included in the whole structure of how a show gets put together.”

“At least for now, that seems to be a big change. I see it in TV shows and other areas too. There’s a lot of tokenism, but there’s a lot of real opportunity and changed thinking as well.”

Elsewhere, he encourages his audience to register to vote, and had registration booths at the shows. He must have been pleased about the record turnout in the recent US election? “Yeah, the turnout was great. Now you just got to keep doing that. Gotta keep doing it at all the local elections, too. It was important for me not to endorse a political party or anything in the show but to say, ‘Listen, we can’t have a democracy if you don’t vote. You have to get out there and let your voice be heard and there’s lots of people trying to block it.’ We have to at least try.”

Will Trump’s loss help bring people together after four years with such a divisive influence in charge?

“Yes. I think for me Trump was not so much a shock; we knew who he is. He was around New York before that, in the reality show [The Apprentice], we knew what kind of character he was. What shocked me was how quickly the Republican party all fell into line behind him, behind this guy who’s obviously a racist, misogynist liar and everything else. But it’s kind of encouraging – although it’s taken four years and with some it’s only with the prospect of him being gone – that quite a few have been breaking ranks. There are some possibilities of bridge building being held out.”

But, he says, “It’s too early to celebrate,” concerned that Senate Majority Leader and fairweather Trump loyalist Mitch McConnell will use any Republican control of the Senate to block many of Biden’s policies from coming into effect. “[This] is what happened with Obama… I want to see real change happen. [Climate change] absolutely needs to be a priority. The clock had turned back over the last four years, so there’s a lot to be done. Whether there’s the willpower to do everything that needs to be done, it remains to be seen, but at least now it’s pointing in the right direction.”

How will he look back on the last four years? Byrne ponders. “I’m hoping that I look back at it as a near-miss.”

American Utopia is as much a personal journey as a dissection of modern ills. Ahead of ‘Everybody’s Coming To My House’, Byrne admits to being a rather socially awkward type. He claims that a choir of Detroit teenagers, when singing the song for the accompanying video, had imbued the song with a far more welcoming message than his own rendition, which found him wracked with the fear that his visitors might never leave. How does someone like that deal with celebrity?

“In a certain way it’s a blessing,” Byrne grins, “because I don’t have to go up to people to talk to them – they sometimes come up to me. In other ways it’s a little bit awkward. Celebrity itself seems very superficial and I have to constantly remind myself that your character, your behaviour and the work that you do is what’s important – not how well known you are, not this thing of celebrity. I learned early on it’s pretty easy to get carried away. But it does have its advantages. I had Spike Lee’s phone number, so I could text him.”

Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz’s recent book Remain In Love suggests that the more successful Byrne got early on, the more distant he became.

Byrne nods. “I haven’t read the book, but I know that as we became more successful I definitely used some of that to be able to work on other projects. I worked on a dance score with [American choreographer] Twyla Tharp and I worked on a theatre piece with [director] Robert Wilson – other kinds of things – [and] I started working on directing some of the band’s music videos. So I guess I spent less time just hanging out. As often happens with bands, you start off being all best friends and doing everything together and after a while that gets to be a bit much. Everybody develops their own friends and it’s like, ‘I have my own friends too’. Everybody starts to have their own lives.”

The future is far too enticing for David Byrne to consider revisiting the past. “I do live alone so sometimes it would get lonely”, he says of lockdown, but he’s been using his Covid downtime to cycle around undiscovered areas of New York and remain philosophical about the aftermath.

“We’ll see how long before the vaccine is in, before we return to being able to socialise,” he says, “but I’m also wondering, ‘How am I going to look at this year? Am I going to look at it as, “Oh yes, that’s the year that was to some extent taken away from our lives; our lives were put on pause?”’ We kept growing; we kept ageing; we keep eating, but it was almost like this barrier had been put up. It has been a period where, in a good way, it’s led us to question a lot of what we do. You get up in the morning and go, ‘Why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? What’s this about?’ Everything is questioned.”

Post-vaccine, he hopes to “travel a little bit” before looking into plans to bring the ‘American Utopia’ show back to Broadway, and possibly even to London if the financial aspects can be worked out. “Often when a show like that travels, the lead actors might travel,” Byrne explains, “but in this case it’s the entire cast that has to travel. So you’ve got a lot of hotel bills and all that kind of stuff. We wanted to do it. There might be a way, if we can figure that out.”

Once we all get our jab, will everyone come to recognise that, as Byrne sings on ‘American Utopia’s most inspiring track, ‘Every Day Is A Miracle’? “Optimistically, maybe,” he says. “There will be a lot of people who will just go, ‘Let’s get back to normal – get out to the bars, the clubs and discos’. That’s already been happening in New York; there’s been these underground parties where people just can’t help themselves. But after all this it’d be nice to think that people might reassess things a little bit.”

And with the algorithm as the new gatekeeper and technology beginning to subsume the sounds and consumption of music, what does the new wave Nostradamus foresee for rock in the coming decades? Will AIs soon be writing songs for other AIs to consume to inflate the numbers, cutting humanity out of the equation altogether?

“It seems like there’ll be a kind of factory,” Byrne predicts, “an AI factory of things like that, and of newspaper articles and all of this kind of stuff, and it will just exaggerate and duplicate human biases and weaknesses and stupidity. On the other hand, I was part of a panel a while back, and a guy told a story about how his listening habits were Afrofuturism and ambient music – those were his two favourite ways to go. The algorithm tried to find commonalities between the two so it could recommend things to him and he said it was hopeless. Everything it recommended was just horrible because it tried to find commonalities between these two very separate things. This just shows that we’re a little more eclectic than these machines would like to think.”

And in the distant future? Best prepare to welcome your new gloop overlords. Byrne isn’t concerned about The Singularity – the point at which machine intelligence supersedes ours and AI becomes God – but instead believes that future technologies will emulate microbial forms.

“I watched a documentary on slime moulds [a simple slimy organism] the other day,” he says, warming to his sticky theme. “Slime moulds are actually extremely intelligent for being a single-celled organism. They can build networks and bunches of them can communicate. They can learn, they have memories, they can do all these kinds of things that you wouldn’t expect a single-celled organism to be able to do.”

“I started thinking, ‘Well, is there a lesson there for AI and machine learning, of how all these emerging properties could be done with something as simple as a single cell?’ It’s all in there… when things interact, they become greater than the sum of their parts. I thought, okay, maybe the future of AI is not in imitating human brains, but imitating these other kinds of networks, these other kinds of intelligences. Forget about imitating human intelligence – there’s other kinds of intelligence out there, and that might be more fruitful. But I don’t know where that leads.”

His grin says he does know, that he has a vision of our icky soup-world future, but maybe the rest of the species isn’t yet advanced enough to handle it. But if we’re evolving towards disaster rather than utopia, we can trust David Byrne to give us plenty of warning.

December 18, 2020

[artificialqueens]

(nobody can) drag me down [gigi x crystal] - chapter 1/? - Ag98

Cody moves with his family from Springfield to Los Angeles in his senior year of high school and ends up in a project with Sam, one of the most popular guys in school. Little did he know that he was the popular one in Sam’s world. RPDR Season 12 High School AU.

AN: I decided to use the queen’s boys name in this fic, but latter one there will be some drag involved. English is not my native language, if I make some mistake, please correct me :)!

You can check the A03 of this fic. 

Chapter 1 - The Beginning

“Okay everyone, I know you guys must be very excited for this year but first things first”

The classroom became quieter as the principal Michelle entered the room and started talking as the last class of the morning finishes, demanding respect in her voice tone.

“Senior year is very exciting for us all and today I want the candidates for Senior Class President to give a short welcome speech later in the auditorium”

“But we weren’t asked to prepare anything”

“I know Veronica, but that’s the pressure a Senior Class President must be able to handle.”, the principal continues with a very sharp tone, but the students all know she meant well, “And I see some new students in the class, maybe the candidates can show the place around and make some good impressions”

The whole class looks immediately to the new student who stands out the most, after all a seventeen-year-old boy with a mullet in 2020 hair it’s not that usual even in California. Principal Michelle dismisses the class and not a minute later a nerdy looking boy, with square glasses, clearly Arabic features and a formal button-up shirt is standing next to Cody.

“Hi! I’m Darius, I’m running for Class President. You must be the new guy, what’s your name? I’ll show you around”

The nerdy guy speaks so fast that Cody almost couldn’t keep up with him. But since he was alone anyway, he accepted the school tour.

Darius was speaking so much about the school, his candidacy, and the debate club he was a part of, that Cody just nodded his head during the whole way through.

“Why did you come to study in this high school?” he asks all of a sudden to focus his attention on the mullet boy.

“I’m from a small town in Missouri actually. My family moved to LA because my dad is having some health issues and here, he can have a better treatment.” Cody tells him like it’s not a big deal, but Darius becomes quiet just saying a comforting “I’m sorry to hear that.”

They continue their way to the cafeteria in a much silent conversation now, but Darius invites the new kid to have lunch with him and his debate club friends.

“So, you’ve made a great job showing me around. But tell me, how is the environment here? Is there any student I should be careful with?” Cody asks his new, and so far, only friend as they were sitting around the table.

“Most of them are really nice, the Senior Class is full of proud nerds like me. But the athletes can be jerks.” He says while looking at their direction. “The school used to be filled with artist kids but since the LA Galaxy became a big thing, we have to put up with some of their bullshit.”

Cody follows his eyes landing in a group with some guys laughing loudly and making some jokes to the cheerleaders next to him. The boys aren’t as pumped as he imagined, but with soccer being their main sport, Cody thinks it makes sense.

He realizes all boys are wearing the sport team jacket except for a skinny, tall, brunet one. “Who’s the one without a jacket?”

“That’s Samuel, I can’t figure out why he hangs out with them actually. But I guess he’s pretty close with Charlie who is on the team”

Darius stops talking about the athletes to get back to the preparation of the welcome speech he is going to have to give soon.

As much as Cody tries to keep up the conversation and throw some suggestions in it, he can’t stop looking at the skinny boy among the jocks. There’s something about Samuel’s look that is almost hypnotizing, he just can’t stop looking at it. And every now and then Cody catches a glimpse of the boy staring at him, with a weird, confused expression. —————— The auditorium is filled with students and Cody is getting along with Darius better than he expected to. He even started to get excited with his new friend’s speech and it’s really cheering him on.

“I’ve only been here for a morning and already know you’re the best one for the job, you don’t have to worry about it” he says to his new friend seeing how freak out Darius is starting to get.

“I guess I’m the most prepared one, I just don’t know if everyone knows that”, he says in a trembling voice.

Cody pet him on the shoulder ensuring everything is going to be fine.

The first candidate is that girl Veronica and her speech just doesn’t make sense. The girl went on about how she was the best student of the class and therefore she should be the president. She spent five minutes talking about her grades and clubs she’s in but not a single welcome word or promises for what she’ll do for the class. There are some applauses after she’s done talking, but everyone just looked like they fell asleep for some minutes.

The next kid to step on stage is Michael, the captain of the soccer team, even before he starts speaking the athletes and cheerleaders are clapping and screaming his name. “Thanks guys. I’ll be quick. This is the best year of our lives and we’re gonna party through it. And if you know me, which I bet you do, you know I can throw the best parties in the town”. At that moment Cody gets a glimpse of Darius rolling his eyes out and giggles as he knows how much his friends care about this thing. “So that’s the reason you should vote for me: I’ll make prom unforgettable and I’ll make everything you guys want, literally. I’m up for anything”, He finishes his speeds in a minute or so and everyone starts screaming like they just heard the “I have a dream speech” for the first time.

It’s finally Darius’ turn, he’s the last candidate to speak today. As he walks from his seat to the stage Cody -and all students actually- can see he’s nervous. He takes a deep breath and starts talking.

“Hi, everyone! I’m Darius in case we didn’t get a chance to meet in the last years. And as my good colleague said before: ‘Welcome to the best years of our lives’. I’m as excited as all of you are, but I don’t want to be Senior President only because it looks good on my resumé – all thought that’s a big encouragement”; There are some giggles after he lands the silly jokes that’s enough for the nerdy looking guy to get the rest of confidence he was lacking. “I’m here for a much bigger reason. We all talk a lot about representativeness in our classes and I wanna apply that here too. As I’m sure you all know I’m a half-persian gay man and that’s a lot for one person nowadays. But, if I get elected I don’t wanna do the best only for our class, I wanna do the best for the youngest ones too. Because I know from a personal experience that when you’re this different if you don’t see someone like you in places of visibility you think you don’t have what it takes to get somewhere in life. So, I want to change that starting with something simple –“

He gets interrupted by a very loud “By going back to your country, faggot?” coming from the athletes’ group that just leaves Darius speechless. The principal that was sitting next to the stage gets up and shout “who said that?”. And everyone sees Darius leaving the auditorium as she makes that question. The last thing Cody hears before following his new friend is the tall brunette guy from earlier saying to someone “Why don’t you stand up and say that again you coward? Are you only brave enough when nobody is watching? Well guess what, I was”. —————— “I had a feeling you’d be here” Cody says when he finally catches Darius up, in the debate club room. When he gave the school tour, he mentioned it was his favorite place there, where he felt the most confident and safe. “How are you?” Cody says as he approaches his friends and can see the tears dropping out of his eyes.

“I’m tired of this. It’s like I’m not accepted in the persian community because I’m gay. I’m not accepted by the gay community because I’m persian. And for the rest of the world, well, that in the auditorium pretty much says it all” he says with a lot of pain coming out of his voice.

“Well, I guest I’m not allowed to speak for the entire gay community, but I embrace you one hundred percent. And I honestly prefer when you say you’re persian than when you say you’re Canadian”, the last sentence makes Darius giggle a little and that’s enough for Cody to know that it’s okay to hug his new friend.

“Don’t let that stupid jock bring you down, okay?” He says as he lets go of the hug.

“I’ll try, thank you”

“And, I don’t know if you were there when it happened, but that guy Samuel actually stood up for you. He saw who was that guy that shouted that and told the principal. I’m sure he’ll get what he deserves”, Darius seemed surprised by that.

“Well, at least there’s that. But I would rather not know who was the one that said that”, Cody nods and gives his new friend another hug, and he realizes that he’s much calmer now.

“And for the record, just in case it wasn’t clear, you’ve got my vote. I can even help you campaign, but I don’t know if it’s going to help you”

“Of course it is, I’ll be honored to have you by my side”

“You’re really that political huh? C’mon, let’s go back to there and prove them that words can’t hurt you”

Both boys laugh and get back to the last class of the day. —————— “Hey kid, how was your first day? Can you help me get some food?” Cody’s father says as soon as he walks in the house.

“It was fine, I was able to make a friend” he says as he kisses his father’s forehead and goes to the kitchen to heat up some food for him.

“Just friend?”

Cody rolls his eyes out. Ever since coming out his father has tried to show his support in every single way, it’s almost unnecessary but it’s for a good reason. He knows his father it’s just trying to be supportive even if it’s not in the best way possible.

“Yes dad, just a friend” he answers and gives his father a bowl of food, sitting on the couch next to him.

“Okay, just wanted to be sure. Thanks, son”.

He and his father didn’t have much in common, but they loved each other a lot, so Cody watched tv with him for a while just to make him company. Ever since he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three years ago, a lot changed. His father was losing his movement increasingly and his family moved to LA to get a better treatment. But that also meant a more expensive one too. So, his mom has to have two jobs and he’s got to look out for his father after school. It’s been hard the last few years, but he tries his best to stay positive and enjoy his father while he can. —————— “So, the project it’s not that hard. You guys choose someone who you think changed the world somehow and present on why you think that. But, it can’t be someone another pair had presented before. So come prepared with more than one option”

The class started to divide themselves in pairs as soon as Mr. Johnson stopped talking.

“One more thing, since this is a project to show how different people can change the world, I’ll draw the pairs so you can work with different people as well”. The whole class just makes a combined angry noise after that. The teacher asks everyone to write their names in a piece of paper, fold it and then give it to him. Then he goes on to drawing the papers to pair the class up.

“Okay, here we go Darius and Charlie, Veronica and Helen, Michael and Karl, … And that leads us to the last pair Cody and Samuel.”

Cody freezes in that second, knowing that Samuel and the athletes were the only ones he didn’t want to get paired up. But there’s not even enough time for him to think about what to say because before he notices, the teacher dismisses the class and Samuel is in front of him.

“Okay, I don’t have a lot of time so let’s get this over with. You’ll give me your number and I’ll text you my address so we can work on this in the afternoon and finish as fast as we can”

It didn’t seem to be a question, it seemed like an order, so the new student just gave him his number.

“I won’t be able to stay until late” Cody says, shrugging himself.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Samuel says with a smirk on his face that makes the other boy blush. “You have a familiar face, like I’ve seen it somewhere else” he continues and that’s the first time Cody realizes how blue his eyes are.

“Yeah I get told that a lot” he answers.

“Is that true?”

“No”

They both laugh and Samuel leaves saying he’ll see him later. But they are doing better than some of the others pairing. As soon as Darius heard that he would have to collaborate with a jock, he just wanted to die. All he knew about the guy that screamed at him was that it was an athlete, so it could be Charlie.

“Hi! So, how do you wanna do this?” Charlie said, he has a smile on his face, his hair symmetrically combed and the usual soccer team jacket over his shirt.

“Are you sure you don’t want to ask the teacher to change the pair? After all I’m just and out-of-this-country faggot as you or one of your friends referred to” Darius said in a very sharp toned that took the other boy by surprise.

“I wasn’t the one who said that. And I don’t agree with that either”

“Yeah, but I’ll bet when you see the guy who did said that in practice, you’ll just treat him like he didn’t do anything wrong”

“No, I won’t. He was actually expelled from the team and I support this decision one hundred percent” he was talking in a much sadder tone than before, when he actually was excited for this.

“And I’m sorry for what you’ve heard from him. And for not standing up for you” Darius looked at him with an incredibly surprised look, almost as if he was not understanding the words coming out of his mouth, but he continued talking. “I don’t want you to get this impression from me or the other boys from the team, we do not agree with what was said”

“Well, thank you then” was all the nerdy guy was able to answer.

“Let me make it up to you, since we have no more classes today, I’ll give you a ride home okay? Then you can text me later to see how we’re going to do this project; I’ll be free after practice” the excitement in his voice was back again.

“I don’t want to bother you, you don’t have to give me a ride home or anything”

“You won’t bother”, Charlie said and started to walk toward the door. “Shall we?”

Darius was still shocked from the conversation, but he nodded and followed the other boy.

After getting in the blue 2000 Ford Taurus, there wasn’t even a sign of a conversation, it was just a quiet ride with the radio on some pop music radio station. When they finally arrived at Darius’ house, the passenger seat door jammed, and Charlie had to adjust the lock with a slight tug. The half-persian boy just managed to say a goodbye that came out almost as a whisper after being so close to Charlie. As he walked home, he turned his head one last time looking at the other boy, who was biting his mouth as he watched Darius arrive home. He only left after he was sure Darius was inside the house. —————— Cody arranged with his father that he would be home later today, so that he could have some time to do the work at Samuel’s house. Just thinking about the boy made him nervous, but he was trying to ignore that feeling when he arrived in front of the location he had sent and rang the bell. After all, he wasn’t millennium enough to send a message instead of doing things the old way.

“I figured out where I know you from”, he said as he opened the front door.

“Huh?”

“You’re that drag queen from Instagram, Crystal Methyd, I follow you there”

And as soon as Samuel stopped speaking, Cody’s world had turned upside down.

[chiseler]

Imagine Electing Pete

On September 12, 2019, during the Democratic Primary debate in Houston, Texas, something strange, even epiphanous occurred. At least for me. The current Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, one Pete Buttigieg, evidently (for this was by no means visible to the eye) fell into a trance-like state and began to channel a voice that was, oddly, not of the spirit world.

The voice was that of Disc Jockey Glenn Beck, and the words were from a 2009 Mission Statement that he had composed for some extraordinary thing he'd started called the 9/12 Movement; a kind of protest/support group for those citizens longing for the rare fragrance of unity and togetherness which intoxicated all of America, we were told, on September 12, 2001; just one day after that thing happened in Lower Manhattan. "We were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties, the color of your skin, or what religion you practiced. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the greatest nation ever created. We want to get everyone thinking like it is September 12th, 2001 again." Beck continued. "On September 12th, and for a short time after that, we really promised ourselves that we would focus on the things that were important -- our family, our friends, the eternal principles that allowed America to become the world's beacon of freedom." Amen. I suppose. Of course, how formidable the words, and how entirely sincere (or not) the sentiment may have been -- one cannot, I suspect, locate much nostalgia for that moment beating in the hearts of this country's Muslim communities, ever since marked for harassment (and frequently far, far worse) at the hands of those basking 'neath freedom's beacon -- it seems to have been a uniquely durable one. Personally, I had completely forgotten that . . . anyone . . . had told ev'ry little star just how sweet they thought everything was on that day. What I remember most Is the kind of unusually animated daze people were walking around in. The American Imagination was in high style that day. All anybody could talk about was What Happens Next, with many of these people consumed with their own, homemade fantasies of national vengeance toward those responsible. Their hearts were full, and grim. The Mayor of South Bend, as I say, appears to remember things rather differently, and one cannot question it. Six years later -- the clear sky of American unity having, for the rest of us, clouded over once more -- Buttigieg would remain so enthralled by this singular hour in Our American Story that he would leave his two jobs (it was, yes, that kind of economy) as a consultant for McKinsey & Co., and as a Fellow at the Truman National Security Project. He would enlist, voluntarily, in the United States Navy, jumping into our ongoing war of military aggression against the country of Afghanistan with both feet for a period of fourteen months. He ran numbers and drove officers around. Not exactly Audie Murphy in 'To Hell and Back' . . . or Abbott & Costello in 'Buck Privates' for that matter (if he triple-tapped an elementary school or watched our drones wipe out a house party or two, he has not admitted to it) . . . but it provided this future Presidential candidate a chance to build character (and, naturally, his resume). So, unlike a professional grifter such as Glenn Beck, when Buttigieg waxes nostalgic for those days of unity, one doubts his sincerity at one's peril. Buttigieg, during the debate in Houston, stated "All day today, I’ve been thinking about Sept. 12, the way it felt when for a moment we came together as a country. Imagine if we had been able to sustain that unity. Imagine what would be possible right now with ideas that are bold enough to meet the challenges of our time, but big enough, as well, that they could unify the American people. That’s what presidential leadership can do. That’s what the presidency is for." He concluded, of course, with, "And that is why I’m asking for your vote." To someone like Buttigieg, September 12, 2001 is a day that, I'm certain, he wishes could have gone on forever. But whatever he wants people to think, it was a day when the entire country was crouching as one, it seemed, gazing at everyone around them in fear and outright bafflement; a day that our rulers could have done (and in some senses did do) anything they wanted with us, and we probably would have gone along with all of it because we didn't know what else there was to do; a day, in other words, when our empire was never more firmly in the grasp of those who own it. Despite the loftiness of his rhetoric on the debate stage -- a mode of high school valedictorian speech he is often given to -- Pete Buttigieg is, underneath it all, a born technocrat; a classic, Eisenhower-era Republican; a creature of our institutions. He is not Franklin Roosevelt (that Bolshevik). He does not aspire to lift a frightened nation out of its slough of despond and keep its people safe from Capitalism's consequences and depredations; or anything, by all evidence, more inspiring  the citizenry than the 'Shut Up and Shop' society finally urged upon us in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He is only here to apply for a job to manage this empire of ours, nothing more. But I can't help feeling there's something quietly monstrous about his true, evident nostalgia for that time when unity was accessible to some Americans and not to others. I had my first inkling of this a couple months back when he had to get off the campaign trail for a day or two because the cops in South Bend had been for too long conducting themselves like Cossacks under Nicholas II, rampaging with too much impunity through that city's Black neighborhoods (safely separated from the more upper class College Town South Bend is known for being), finally dropping too many bodies with too little pretext. After pleading to the national press that he had essentially no control, no control at all, over the police in his city, and every poll showing that Black voters utterly despise him, he headed over to the part of town in question to inform the residents to please stay on the line, as it were; their questions and concerns were important to him. In full Damage Control mode, Pete Buttigieg read his statement through a bullhorn to a group of women, members of a grossly victimized community, all of whom had had enough and were giving their Mayor the earful his White ass deserved. And he stood before them, this diminutive block of American cheese in shirtsleeves, collar and tie; the guy who blankly tells you he's sorry, but you're being let go and there's nothing he can do about it; standing with a bullhorn in his hand and not a hint of emotion in his voice as he droned into the instrument to his city's Black community: "I'm not asking for your vote." Some people in this country, you see, are asked for their vote; others are not. Matters of race aside -- and not much good can be said on Buttigieg and that subject; which is not to suggest, I hasten to add, that the man is racist. With his background he's probably never had to think very much about race -- one thing was clear to me: He's a real calm customer, this guy; doesn't break a sweat. Everyone says so. Smart as a whip, too. You hear that one constantly from his supporters: swooning over his credentials, his evident intellect, his grasp of languages ("Norwegian! Can you believe it?!"). It all feeds into the overarching perception of his ability to handle crises with the right character of detachment. Our media adores him, largely for this reason; and why shouldn't they? He's perhaps the closest thing to a polar opposite in this race to the dread Donald Trump without his skin being at all darker. With Pete Buttigieg as President, I have been told, we won't have to think and worry so much about what's going on in the world, the way we do now. We won't be on pins and needles, waiting to see what the President of the United States does next. We can, at long last, relax again; get some sleep. He's got this. I can understand the enthusiasm for Buttigieg on the part of those who wish to see him elected President (there aren't too many of them, if polling has anything to say about it, but they do make themselves known). I even can find it in me to share it. To some extent, anyway. There is, after all, true intrinsic value in the election, should it happen, of the first (openly) gay President of the United States; just as Barack Obama's election possessed similar intrinsic value; just as the election of our first Woman President will when it happens. It's the only, unambiguously good thing about a prospective Pete Buttigieg Presidency. But beyond that, and the fact that most of what is claimed for him is probably true, I actually dread his ever being President (that he is not the only candidate currently in the race who I can say this about does little to ease my anxiety). Last night's single file march down 9/12 Memory Lane tore it for me. I know what he is now, and no mistake. He is a living, breathing, competent, talented, educated, cultured (no Alfred E. Neuman for this guy), credentialed throwback to the brain trusts and planners of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Rostow, McNamara, Bundy; every Ivy League war criminal Halberstam wrote about in 'The Best and the Brightest', who cooly, carefully ran the numbers, made their calculations, and executed a wholesale genocide in Southeast Asia. Buttigieg has the potential to be precisely the kind of cool, detached, analytical monster that will tell us, sorry, but entitlements have to be cut (numbers don't lie) or, worse, successfully oversee the ongoing, unending US war on Islam while our once again fat, dumb, happy country sleeps an untroubled sleep. In that sense (if no other), Pete Buttigieg is the most dangerous of all the candidates currently in the race. He's what Noam Chomsky warned us about fifty years ago.

by R.J. Lambert

[chaoticproximity]

Twas the week before Christmas… (part 2)

Again,  Apiary Bees, if I borrowed your OC and messed up a name/pronoun/anything, let me know! I’ll fix it! Part 1 is here.

Elvin was entirely on edge as he entered Sunken Venice, showing his new VIP pass and navigating the security checkpoints. The place was a mess. Rubble and toppled bookshelves were everywhere. People in white uniforms so dirty they looked tan or, worse, pink with half-washed out blood were running around everywhere. Elvin eyed the other two Dragon representatives nervously. Amelyani seemed to be holding it together well, though Elvin wasn’t sure how much they could see through that charmed blindfold. Niirah, on the other hand, had an expression on her face he knew well, the barely contained rage mixing with horror into a dangerous combination.

Shadow was being quiet for once, though whether that was because Niirah had requested it or the somber atmosphere, Elvin couldn’t be sure. When they’d heard the news, it’d been the first time Elvin had ever seen Shadow go so still. “This didn’t happen. This isn’t supposed to happen.” They’d said it at the Fashion Check briefing too, quietly near Myu’s side. Myu had responded by taking Niirah’s cookie stash and setting it out for the ethereal entity without another word. Elvin knew what they were talking about just enough to get chills down his spine.

Niirah held up a hand to stop as they got near another group, the Illuminati delegation. They were easily recognized by their blue uniforms… except for, well…

Amelyani tried not to snicker. “Xie, do you even own a shirt?”

Despite the rabbit mask, it somehow was still easy to recognize that the man was smiling as he gave Amelyani a thumbs up. Owen just shook his head. “We already had the argument on the way over. He’s not going to wear one.”

Inanna looked over the Dragon delegation with quiet analysis. Niirah shot her a humorless grin. “Happy holidays, huh?”

“I half expected you to talk your handler out of the uniforms,” Inanna jabbed, with no real heat behind it.

“What? Scarves are stylish.” Niirah flipped the end of hers over her shoulder. “And I managed to get the fancy yellow sashes out of storage.”

“Much to the chagrin of a couple monks,” Elvin chimed in. “Anyone seen the Templars yet?”

Owen pointed towards the security checkpoint. “I think they’re still trying to get their pets through security.”

Sure enough, a few minutes later the Templar delegation made their way over. Willry was holding a very annoyed looking cat. “I know they’re stressed, but just because the cat is named Bitey doesn’t mean he’s a threat!”

“Dawww…” Amelyani tried to pet the distressed cat, but Rhiannon stopped them before Bitey could snap at them.

“They’re holding my Smiler until they can be sure it isn’t a weapon,” Osterby said. He looked around the assembled group and sighed. “All the faction leaders had the same idea it seems.”

“Unfortunately,” Inanna sighed.

Niirah shot her a suspicious look, but wasn’t able to comment when a member of the Venice staff began ushering them all towards the temporary Council room to get started. Elvin gritted his teeth. Politics were bad enough; politics in war time were worse.

~~~~~

Four hours later, the temporary delegates were finally released for a break. First had come the swearing-in, which came with a long list of expectations and promises they had to make. Then once everyone had been sworn-in, the staff had debriefed everyone on the situation and what was being done for the survivors of the explosion. They’d been launched into a world outside their depth as Council Staff described the current political climate and reviewed a month’s worth of reports, all for their sake. Eventually the group had been released for lunch, with the warning that the afternoon session held the part everyone dreaded: nominating and voting on a Chief Councilor.

“So, who’s it gonna be?” Niirah asked the room at large over a mess of turkey sandwiches.

“We really have to talk politics over lunch?” Inanna muttered darkly, her mouth half full of sandwich.

“I’m no monk, but I can read the patterns well enough, Beemom,” Niirah retorted, emphasizing the nickname. “The factions sent the Apiary and friends to take control of things in Venice, and your nomination was the catalyst for it.”

“So what?” Inanna grumbled.

Osterby dropped his sandwich as the realization kicked in. “The Illuminati want you in charge.”

“Well I don’t want it,” Inanna insisted.

“The Pyramidion had a point, though,” Owen pointed out, grabbing a bag of potato chips. “You’re definitely someone we all trust.”

“Inanna? Sure,” Amelyani chimed in. “The Lumi supercomputer’s schemes? No way.”

“Can’t we just put it off till after Christmas?” Willry asked. “This is all happening super fast.”

“We need a Chief Councilor to declare a Christmas truce.” Owen chimed in. “Gotta pick someone.”

Elvin cleared his throat. “I’m with Amelyani. I don’t think it should be Beemom… no offense… or any of the Illuminati group for that matter. If we all got sent in response to you, there’s a reason, and that’s to politely stand in your way.”

“Well don’t expect us to pick one of you troublemaking lizards,” Inanna shot back, looking miffed on general principle. “You’d start causing chaos…”

As if rehearsed, the three Dragons all started talking over Inanna.

“Nawwwww…” “Who us? No way!” “We’d neverrrrr….”

They descended into sniggers.

Osterby sighed. “I suppose that means one of us Templars-” “No!” Five voices immediately chimed in. Xie stopped petting Bitey long enough to make an X with his arms.

“Aw, come on.”

“Any of us is going to be manipulated by our home faction.” “It’s only temporary though!”

“Who else would we pick, one of the smaller factions?”

As the noise in the room grew, Rhiannon popped her last piece of gum into her mouth and started chewing. By the time the noise had reached a dull roar, Rhiannon had gotten the gum to the correct consistency. With practiced skill, she blew a bubble… larger… then let it pop with a surprisingly loud noise. The room fell quiet as everyone turned to look at her. Rhiannon held up the empty gum container.

“Rhii’s right,” Inanna said. “We’ve got no time for this. If it’s not one of us, who?”

“Not the Phonecians,” Willry immediately spoke up. “They’re suspect enough as it is.”

“Could do someone from the Council’s own delegation. Someone factionless.” Elvin proposed.

“They’re tightwads,” Owen immediately chimed in. “Sure they’ll be neutral but at what cost?”

Before anyone else could speak there was a knock at the door. Xie got up and answered it, revealing Osterby’s Smiler and a very cheerful looking Council of Venice member on the other side. “Oh! Hello! I’m here to deliver this little guy to an… uhm…” He looked down at a holiday themed clipboard. “Mr. Osterby?”

“Here,” Osterby replied. The Smiler spotted him and trotted over, bwooing happily.

“You have a lovely pet robot there, sir. Very well behaved! If you were to need a pet sitter while in meetings today, I’d be more than happy to lend a hand.”

As the white uniformed agent gushed at Osterby, Elvin felt a small tug from Shadow. “I know him from before!” the entity hissed quietly.

Unable to ask more questions without drawing attention to himself, Elvin nudged Niirah and pointed under the table to his own swirling shadow. Niirah glanced down, then smiled, clearly taking Shadow’s activity as a sign. She cleared her throat. “Pardon my interruption, but I was wondering if I might know your name.”

“Oh! My apologies!” The agent said, turning towards Niirah as if she hadn’t interrupted. “I’m Agent Arlen Askew, at your service. I’m part of the support staff for the Council.”

“Nice to meet you, Arlen. How do you think we are doing so far?”

“Oh, you’re all doing marvelously for your first day. I imagine it’s all very disorienting for you, being thrown into this so suddenly, especially right before the holidays.”

“Yes, we are all very eager to get back home for that, but…” she sighed a tad bit too dramatically to be natural. “We have to pick a Chief Councillor first and no one wants to be that person.”

Osterby opened his mouth to say something but caught the look Inanna was giving him. The Illuminati were going to let the Dragon make this play, whatever it was. Osterby settled back to watch.

Arlen didn’t seem to have noticed. “Well that’s no good. The Chief Councilor is a great position!”

“But we’d have to cut ties with our faction,” Niirah pointed out.

“Only temporarily. Besides, think of all the new friends you’d make! I wish I could…” Arlen seemed to cut himself off.

Niirah’s open expression twisted slightly on itself, turning vaguely conspiratorial. “Did you want a seat and get skipped?”

Arlen looked frazzled. “Oh it’s fine! I’m not good in long meetings anyway. Tend to tune things out a lot. Honestly, it’s fine!”

Niirah leaned back in her chair, smiling. Arlen was making his excuses and leaving at that point, looking flustered from having been pinned so easily into the half-admission. Niirah made eye-contact with the others as soon as the door was shut again. “I think we have our butterfly.”

“He isn’t a Council representative. We can’t just bring him in and put him in charge, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” Osterby pointed out.

“Yet.” Niirah replied, turning to the Illuminati faction. “How many favors can I cache in for a virus?”

“You want to change the roster in the system?” Owen guessed.

“No…” Niirah grinned. “I just need a scenario to malfunction on a certain Council Rep. Then we just make sure our new friend is in the right place at the right time.”

Amelyani cackled. Rhiannon gave a thumbs up. Inanna just shook her head. “You realize this is going to just cause more problems with everyone on high alert, right? Sure, he seems nice, but he’s just some random agent.”

Niirah shrugged. “Which is worse, acting as we are expected to and putting someone potentially corrupt in power? Or putting a guy who the enemy doesn’t expect in charge and working things out with him?”

to be continued

[madamspeaker]

Hillary Clinton on where it all went wrong | The Sunday Times Magazine

The woman who lost to Donald Trump reflects on the failure of her presidential campaign and coping with crushing disappointment. Interview by Christina Lamb

First comes a man to switch the chairs. Then a young press officer to arrange their position. Two men in grey suits with tell-tale earpieces, the Secret Service, hover at the doorway. Stylists flit in, pleased the weather is overcast as it is “kind for photos”. It feels like the entourage of an ageing movie star or the forward party of an absolute monarch. “She’s just coming,” I am repeatedly told, followed by: “She’s held up.” I keep getting my notebook and tape recorder ready, to no avail. And then, when Hillary Clinton finally walks in, I am helping the photographer prepare his shot, crouching down pretending to be her and making angry and devastated faces; she did, after all, lose the election to a womaniser whose candidacy she considered a joke. Fortunately, she appears not to notice and immediately moves the chairs closer. “I feel like we’ve met,” she says, warmly. This is odd, as she is the one who is familiar, if a bit softer, blonder and bluer-eyed in person. At 69, she has been on the world stage my entire adult life. First lady, wronged wife, senator, secretary of state, first woman to run for president for a main party. Even her pantsuits are familiar; today she wears black trousers and a blue top as shiny as a Quality Street wrapper.

“I’ll bet you know more about my private life than you do about some of your closest friends,” she says in her new book. “You’ve read my emails, for heaven’s sake. What more do you need? What could I do to be ‘more real?’ Dance on a table? Swear a blue streak? Break down sobbing?”

That, of course, is exactly what I want as I wait in the hotel in Chappaqua, the small, leafy town north of New York that she and Bill call home. At the end of a nearby cul-de-sac stands their large white clapboard house, where she has been doing yoga (favourite position: Warrior II), praying and downing chardonnay to drown her sorrows. Today, it’s strictly iced tea (it’s not even midday) and she is so much nicer than that brittle woman on TV that it feels mean to ask her to relive her pain. Instead of cursing or sobbing, she is keen to discuss why child refugees are going missing in Europe, and the implications of last month’s Kurdish referendum.

We establish that we met in the bar of a hotel on a trip to South Korea in 2010 that included a visit to the demilitarised zone, where she was literally eyeball to eyeball with a soldier from the communist North standing outside the window. I was surprised then by how funny she was over gin and tonics.

Korea, of course, is very much in the news. The day before, the president had prompted gasps in his first speech to the annual UN general assembly in New York by threatening to “totally destroy North Korea” and taunting its leader, Kim Jong-un, as “Rocket Man”.

You must feel you should have been the one standing there, I say. Her smile is part-grimace. “Put aside what I would have said, how I would have conducted myself, I just found it hard to believe he was standing there as president and saying what he was saying,” she says. “It was a distressing speech — dark, dangerous, selfish, incoherent — and left as much room for misinterpretation and confusion as I ever heard in a speech by a president of the United States.”

She was particularly worried about Trump’s suggestion he would undo Barack Obama’s hard-won nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump derided as “an embarrassment to the United States”.

“They want to blow up the Iran nuclear deal just because we did it,” she says. “I think the Iran nuclear agreement was a stellar example of multinational co-operation, but more than that, it certainly put a lid on its nuclear programme. So when I hear President Trump talk in such a bellicose manner, threatening not just North Korea but Iran, it raises the potential you will have two extremely dangerous nuclear challenges in two regions of the world with unforeseen consequences, which will be horrible for people in those regions.”

Trump’s repeated use of the word “sovereignty” (21 times) in the speech and insistence that he would “always put America first” seemed intent on undoing all the effort she put in as secretary of state in the Obama administration to — as she sees it — restore the international reputation of the US after the damage caused by George W Bush’s War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq. “It’s not about me,” Clinton insists. “It’s about the message that sends to the world and what his priorities are, what he values and doesn’t.”

Of course, it is also about her. Rather than accept defeat and go quietly into the night, as many believed she should, she has written a 494-page angst-ridden book, titled What Happened. Though she laughs a lot in our interview, her bitterness resonates in every mention of the T-word — and there are many. A close female friend of hers tells me that “Hillary is utterly devastated”. “I have developed the hide of a rhinoceros,” Clinton insists to me, but I can’t imagine what it is like actually Being Hillary.

In the 1990s, she had to endure the whole world knowing about her president husband’s affair with the intern. Who can forget Monica Lewinsky’s semen-stained Gap dress? Then, when she contested the Democratic nomination in 2008, she had to watch the job go to the cool younger guy with far less experience. After that, she had to swallow her pride to work for him, which she did with great aplomb. Then, to run again and lose to a reality-TV host who boasted of sexual abuse, and tweets insults to everyone from the mayor of London to the Pope.

Clinton clearly can’t get her head round the fact that her fellow Americans voted for Trump rather than her own supremely qualified self. “I thought I’d be a damn good president,” she says. “I did not think I was going to lose.”

She admits she had prepared for her first 100 days with binders full of policies, and had written her victory speech, which she planned to give dressed in white, the colour of the suffragettes. Indeed, so confident was she that, as the results started coming in on election night, she went for a nap in her suite at New York’s Peninsula hotel. She woke before midnight to find husband Bill and her team ordering in whisky and ice cream for the shock, as the key states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Iowa all fell to Trump. By 1.35am it was all over. The victory party was cancelled, the white suit packed away, and the specially built platform in the shape of the United States under a symbolic glass ceiling a terrible embarrassment.

Instead, she and Bill lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Does she still wake up every morning, wondering how it happened? “Yeah,” she replies. “I’m not living it every minute of every day, but every day I live it.”

Does she sometimes want to kick something? She laughs. “A friend gave me a little sign that says, ‘I do yoga, I meditate and I still want to kick somebody.’ I know that feeling.” It wasn’t just losing, she adds, but to whom. “It’s deeply troubling, because if I had lost to what I’d call a ‘normal Republican’, I would have disagreed with them — I had deep disagreements with George W Bush, but came to understand his worldview. I knew his father, I knew Reagan, I would have a lot of political differences, but I wouldn’t have felt the same sense of real loss for our country, that we elected someone who knows so little, cares even less and is just seeking the applause of the masses. I feel a terrible sense of responsibility for not having figured out how to defeat this person. There must have been a way and I didn’t find it.”

Instead, in the early hours of November 9, she made a concession telephone call that she describes as “one of the strangest moments of my life — weirdly ordinary, like calling a neighbour to say you can’t make his barbecue”.

After addressing shocked and tearful supporters the next day, she and Bill drove home in silence. Desperate for distraction, she decluttered all her wardrobes, arranged photographs in albums and remodelled the adjoining house they bought last year. In between, she went for walks with Bill and their dogs, read all the Elena Ferrante novels and went to weepy Broadway musicals such as Les Misérables.

But it was impossible to escape. Even the wallpaper in their bedroom, yellow with pastel flowers, was a copy of that in their old bedroom in the White House.

Then there was the inauguration that she and Bill were expected to attend as former president and first lady. Knowing the eyes of the world were on her, she steeled herself to “breathe out, scream later”, and tried to imagine she was in Bali.

Over and over, she asked herself “Why?”. Astonishingly it came down to just 77,744 votes out of 136m cast. “If just 40,000 people across Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania had changed their minds, I would have won,” she wrote.

“I thought, ‘I have to understand what happened,’ ” she tells me. “That’s why I wrote the book.”

Yet the writing process was so painful, she admits, that “at times I had to go and lie down”.

Shouldn’t she just accept defeat and shut up? She gives the very idea short shrift. “I am perfectly willing to take responsibility for all the shortcomings I can identify about myself and my campaign,” she says. “But that wasn’t the whole story. I’ve been in campaigns for decades, nobody runs a perfect campaign. People make gaffes, missteps ... This was of a different order in terms of forces at work and I think that’s one of the biggest threats to democracy.”

The “forces” blamed in the book include misogyny whipped up by Trump, the American electoral college system (which meant she got 3m more votes than Trump, yet still lost), the spreading of fake news through social media as well as other interference by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that she describes as “more serious than Watergate”. This includes Putin’s alleged involvement in the dumping of her emails by Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.

Most of all, she blames the FBI director James Comey for firing off a letter to Congress just before the election — in which he revealed that the bureau had uncovered emails “pertinent” to a previously closed investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email address for classified information during her time as secretary of state. “What happened was almost a perfect storm,” she says. “I think I would have won without the Comey letter. I think the combination of the letter 11 days before the election, and what the Russians did weaponising WikiLeaks, raised enough doubts right at the end among a couple of tens of thousands of people in three states to vote differently.”

I point out that the former vice-president Joe Biden criticised her campaign for its lack of economic message, while Tony Blair said the anger that buoyed Trump “is not unjustified. You can’t just sit there and essentially blame the people.” They are not the only ones who accuse her of being elitist and out of touch.

“I knew that [anger] was out there,” she replies. “But I believed — and the popular vote proved it — more Americans agreed with the direction we were heading than not, and I believed Trump was temperamentally unprepared and unqualified to be president.

“I think there was lots of justified anger and distress over the financial collapse of 2007-2009,” she adds. “People’s savings were wiped out, they lost jobs and homes. But Barack Obama stabilised the markets and navigated us through it to the point that now incomes are beginning to rise and jobs are being created again.I don’t think Trump’s principal appeal is based on economic insecurity. It was a combination of playing on the fears of people who are worried about losing out in the future by fuelling sexism, racism and anti-immigrant feelings.

“The whole campaign he ran, from the very first day, was aimed at scapegoating. So if you are not in the place where you think you should be in society, that’s because someone else has taken it.”

In his campaign, Trump talked about how a victory for him would be “Brexit plus plus plus”. Did the British vote, less than five months earlier, not make her think that a similar populist earthquake was possible in the US? “Brexit should have been a bigger alarm than it was,” she admits. “It was some of the same people working for Trump, advocating for him. They thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got this figured out, just tell a really horrible lie over and over again, keep people off balance and make them think that this will, if not make their lives better, make them feel better.’ They voted against modern Britain and the EU, believing that somehow this would be good for their small village. It made no sense. The same thing played out in my race, but I didn’t think we were so vulnerable. But it turned out we were wrong — in part because the Russians played a much bigger role.”

By the “same people”, she particularly means Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, who was an enthusiastic advocate of Trump. Indeed, he was the first foreign politician to be received by Trump after his election. She speaks of Farage with disgust. “He came to the US to campaign for Trump and spent half of his remarks insulting me in a very personal way and talking about Trump as the alpha male, the silver-backed gorilla. Think of those images and what that says about what’s acceptable and what’s not.”

The real Bond villain in her book, however, is Putin, who she believes wants revenge for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the expansion of Nato. She also insists he has a personal grudge against her, describing him as “manspreading” in their meetings.

“US policy of the 1990s, to help democratise and protect former Soviet states, was something Russians didn’t like,” she says. “Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst catastrophe in human history. But he never personally attacked my husband.

“There was that famous encounter Bush had with Putin when he said, ‘I can do business with him, I looked into his soul.’ I said, ‘He’s a KGB agent — by definition he doesn’t have a soul.’ So I sparred with him from a distance and as secretary of state. It was a personal grudge.”

To try to improve the situation, she says she would always go to meetings with Putin trying to find something they could actually engage on, but “as President Obama once said, [Putin] is like the bored guy in the back of the room”. She finally got his attention by asking him about wildlife conservation. “He came alive!” she recounts. “He takes me down the stairs — all of his security guys are jumping up, because we weren’t expected — into this inner sanctum with a huge desk and the biggest map of Russia and he started telling me he’s ‘going here to tag polar bears’. And then he says, ‘Would your husband like to come?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll ask him, but if he’s busy, I’ll go!’ ”

The invitation never came. Instead, last October, the US government formally accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic Party’s computer network, and said that Moscow was trying to “interfere” with the US election. Russia also used its own state-run media, such as RT and Sputnik, to generate anti-Clinton stories, as well as internet trolls to post fake stories on Facebook and other social media.

Last month, Facebook admitted that Russians had spent at least $100,000 on some 3,000 ads on US issues, posted on the site in the past two years. If people clicked, they received a stream of provocative news stories.

“No country has attacked the US with so few consequences,” Clinton writes. Should the Obama administration have done more, I ask. “Aagh,” she sighs, “that needs a whole other session.” She continues with a plea for the British authorities to investigate Cambridge Analytica, a behaviour-profiling company run by an old Etonian that reportedly received £5m from the Trump campaign to help swing voters.

“I hope the UK are investigating,” she says. “You know they were involved in the Kenya elections and Brexit, and are the subject of congressional and special counsel inquiries. The question to be asked is: how did they, the Russians and the Trump campaign converge?”

Grudges aside, what did Putin hope to achieve by supporting Trump? “I think it has exceeded his expectations — except for the unpredictability of it,” she replies. “He thought he was backing somebody who would immediately lift sanctions, be quiescent about Syria and Ukraine, and he’s got a lot of it.”

The Russians may have spread fake news, but why did so many Americans believe it? This, it seems, is the question that haunts her. One particularly improbable story that gained traction involved Clinton and her campaign chair, John Podesta, running a child-trafficking network from a pizzeria in Washington.

“Why would people believe that? Do they despise me and my politics so much that they are willing to believe the most horrible lie? How, in democracies like ours [can] people believe nonsense and lies on the side of buses about how much money the UK government paid to the EU? How did we let this happen?”

Clinton not only feels she inflicted Trump on the world, but that she let down women who had thought they were going to see America’s first female president.

Whatever you may think about Hillary, it was unedifying, to say the least, to see election rallies in the world’s most powerful nation chanting, “Kill the bitch!” How did that make her feel? “Sexism and misogyny are endemic in our society, so of course they are present in our politics,” she replies. “What I found so despicable was that it was stimulated by the candidate himself. In that campaign we had someone who advocated violence, who said all kinds of terrible things, who smirked at other terrible things. It was hard to believe it was happening.

“I got an honorary degree a few years ago from St Andrews in Scotland,” she continues, “and one of the other honourees was Mary Beard [the Cambridge classics professor]. She pointed out that some of the really horrible things people said about me harked back to ancient Greeks.” For example, the campaign mugs depicting Trump holding up Clinton’s severed head recalling Perseus holding up the head of Medusa.

“And Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, told me it reminded her of puritan witch-hunts of the 17th century.”

In the book, she describes how it felt as Trump followed her around the stage in the second TV debate, two days after the release of a tape in which he bragged about groping women. “He was literally breathing down my neck,” she writes. “My skin crawled.”

“Trump was running a reality-TV campaign filled with personal attacks, giving people a great show,” she says. Yet people didn’t just watch it — they voted for him, women too. While Clinton won the vote of black, Latina and Asian women by large margins, 53% of white females preferred Trump. Was she surprised? “No, because these forces have been around my entire life. But both through legislation and broad consensus, starting in the 1960s, it became less and less acceptable in our politics to run on race or be overtly sexist. But that didn’t mean everyone agreed and all of a sudden became feminist and opened the circle of opportunity.”

This, she says, presents a huge challenge for any traditional politician. “When people come along and say we just have to figure out how to get along with voters who voted for Trump, I say, ‘At what cost? At the cost of turning our backs on refugees and immigrants? At the cost of permitting discrimination against blacks and women?’ No, that’s not an acceptable cost. How do we do a better job of conveying, instead, that we are going to grow opportunity in society, so more people can realise dreams? That has to be the message.”

She made that pitch, though, and it didn’t work. Has America now had enough of the Clintons? “I am not going anywhere, but will be active in politics, which I care deeply about.”

She is setting up an organisation to recruit and train young people — particularly women — to go into politics. “I will do not-for-profit work, working with universities and writing and speaking out [against] what I see as a global backlash against women’s progress.”

Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, recently said: “Things that are seen as strengths in a man are seen as weaknesses in a woman.” Does Clinton agree? “I met Nicola this spring in New York and we had a great conversation,” she says. “There’s a commonality that exists among women who reach a certain level in politics.”

Has she met Theresa May? “No,” she simply says.

Do women lead in a different way? “I think I do. I am very comfortable in a more collegial way. I like to listen, I don’t like to brag or lie about what I can do, which I think put me at a disadvantage this time!”

After all she has endured, would she encourage her own daughter, Chelsea, to enter politics?

“I don’t ever think like that, because she is an independent, incredibly accomplished person. She has written a couple of very good books, I don’t think she’s at all interested in office.”

In the meantime, spending time with Chelsea and her two young children is one of the bonuses of losing. “Grandchildren are the best!” she exclaims.

Bill, she says, is a wonderful hands-on grandfather to Charlotte and Aidan. It’s an unexpected image — almost as unexpected as the affection with which she repeatedly refers to her husband throughout the interview. When I was a Washington correspondent in the Obama years, everyone told me the Clintons’ was a marriage on paper and the couple had struck a deal that she would stay with him in return for him helping her become president. She vehemently denies this, saying she is “fed up with people speculating on the state of my marriage”. In the book, she admits there were times she doubted its future, but she decided to stay with him because “I love him with my whole heart”.

Family aside, there’s always the chardonnay and a strange relaxation technique she describes as alternate nostril breathing.

It’s time for her photos, and what Clinton calls her “glam squad” appears to touch up her hair and make-up. She worked out she spent 600 hours — or 25 days — getting ready on the campaign trail. It’s not over. Next week she comes to the UK, where she will go to Swansea for the naming of a law school in her honour. “I am blessed with a strong constitution and am resilient,” she insists. “I am not going to spend the rest of my life looking backwards.”

The smile breaks and for a moment she looks as crestfallen as the 13-year-old Hillary who wrote to Nasa saying she wanted to be an astronaut. “Sorry, little girl,” came the response. “We don’t accept women into the space program.”

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton (Simon & Schuster £20) is out now

Hillary Rodham Clinton makes exclusive UK appearances at both The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival and Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival on Sunday 15 October

[allonsysilvertongue]

Chasing Hope

Summary: “If I ask you to name all the things you love, how long will it take for you to name yourself?” A story on finding hope, forgiveness and love in a world they never imagined they would survive. Post-MJ. Previously

6. Making Conversations

"How do you go back to being strangers with someone who has seen your soul?" — Nikita Gill.

 With Peeta home, breakfast actually became a practice instead of a meal that Katniss and Haymitch frequently skipped. For the first time since Haymitch brought Katniss home, her kitchen island was laden with breads, muffins and homemade jams.

"Can you pass the marmalade, please?" Effie requested.

At the sound of her voice, Haymitch glanced up and realised that the question was directed at him. His hand was full holding a cup of coffee and a teaspoon in the other so he popped the teaspoon in his mouth, leaned over to grab the jar and handed it to her.

As he pulled the spoon out of his mouth to continue stirring his coffee, Katniss shot him a disgusted look, not that he noticed because he was still staring at Effie.

She had been here nearly a week and throughout the time, she treated him with polite civility which was expected from any well-mannered, civilised person. He missed her warmth, their banter which more often than not turned flirty in seconds and their vicious arguments, granted an argument was the last thing he wanted right now. He thought it might be even better if she was outright cold with him. At least then, he would know where he stood.

"So, Haymitch, you'll be at the Town Square today?" Peeta asked.

He forced his gaze away from Effie to look at the Peeta. "Yeah, guess so. You?"

"Yes," he answered.

Peeta had found it helpful to immerse himself with the rebuilding as well, claiming it was a community effort and he would very much liked to play his part. The first two days after his return, he had gone straight to working on Katniss' garden, planting primroses and other flowers. Then he began to notice that there were days in which Haymitch was not around so he started following his mentor. Peeta often dropped by with a basket filled with muffins and pastries for the volunteers and workers, and then he would help where he was needed.

"We are laying bricks today," Peeta informed both Katniss and Effie. "Some of the houses in the old part of the Seam are up with very basic amenities but at least there is a roof over their heads. It is not going fast enough from what I heard but the district also need shops if we are going to go on living so we need the Town to be sorted within the week. That's the focus for today and the following days, isn't it, Haymitch?"

"Yeah," Haymitch answered simply.

"I heard there will be a vote to elect a mayor here..." Effie chimed in.

"Oh, yeah," Haymitch nodded. "Not sure when that'll be but should be soon."

"What about the rumour that instead of coal, our focused trade might now be medicine?" Peeta queried.

Haymitch shrugged.

"One thing at a time. First get the houses up then a place we can buy and sell and then we can focus on whatever else we need to boost the district's economy."

"Maybe you should be mayor," Katniss remarked. "You seem to have a good idea of what we need."

Haymitch chuckled and waved it off.

"Never crossed my mind. I'll leave that to someone younger and with more ambition. Besides, I have something else to occupy my time," Haymitch said.

“Really?” Katniss asked sceptically.

"Speaking of which, I might head off to see if I can salvage any old books at the library ground. Beetee and Plutarch are sending some over my way as well so I'll swing by the train station – be back in the evening."

“Old books?” Katniss frowned. “What for?”

“Something,” Haymitch said simply. “Got a plan – nothing concrete yet.”

Since Paylor had told him that his suggestion had merit and since no one had volunteered to take up the task with the avoxes, she was willing to let Haymitch helm the rehabilitation programme. This meant that he needed to put something together. He already had an idea of the direction he intended to take and among the first thing he realise he needed to tackle was to give the avoxes back their ability to communicate. That was where the books came in. Pollux and his brother must have learnt to sign from somewhere and by that logic, there must be books on it. While waiting for word from Pollux, he figured he should get a head start on that on his own.

“So…” Haymitch said, taking a bite off his muffin, “what are you up to today, sweetheart?”

Her gaze cut sharply to him. She seemed startled that his question was directed at her, as if the very idea that he would take interest in her plans was unheard of.

“I … I have nothing planned.”

“Yeah?” he raised an eyebrow. “You always have a plan or something.”

“I was thinking that if Sae wants my help with her… She is planning on opening a small restaurant and I thought I could help. Otherwise, I’ll think of something else.”

“Ah, alright,” Haymitch leaned back in his chair. “Don’t stay cooped up in that house all day long. It ain’t good.”

It was something he noticed. She spent more hours in than out, and when she actually ventured out, it was usually to take walks with Peeta in the evening or for meals at Katniss’ house. Apart from them, Sae and her granddaughter’s coming and going was the only other social contact she had.

Haymitch wasn’t sure how long her visit in Twelve was going to last or what her arrangement with Peeta was. He wasn’t sure if she was going to be here tomorrow or the week after. He wasn’t sure if he was going to wake up the next morning and find that she had left for District Four to visit Annie and Johanna. He wasn’t even sure if ‘visiting’ meant that she had left the Capitol for good, and if she did, then where would she stay?

The only thing Peeta had told him when he asked was that Effie was looking for a fresh start.

He supposed the only thing he could do was the take one day at time where Effie was concerned. Right now, she was here and that was all that mattered. He liked that Katniss, Peeta and Effie were all in the same place where he could keep an eye out for them. It would be perfect if Annie and Johanna were here too but that would be asking for too much.

He just wished… He just wished that she would talk to him, not this thing where he ask a question and she answer, and nothing else. If she was still angry, he would rather she screamed at him because right now, sitting here and sharing breakfast with her felt too much like having a meal with a stranger.

“Paylor’s swearing is in today,” Peeta reminded them. “We should all try to be back for dinner for that.”

“Dawn of a new era,” Haymitch remarked.

“Does this mean that the situation in the Capitol has stabilised enough for them to finally hold the inauguration? It’s been – what? – almost two months since she was elected…” Katniss mused.

“Even if the Capitol’s still in a mess, they need to hold it soon. There is a need to make it official to keep the stability in the country. Paylor’s head of the government now and the people need to see that.”

“Effie had a hand in choosing Paylor’s outfit,” Peeta broke the news, looking at Effie encouragingly as if to give her an opening for which she could talk.

“Oh, really?” Haymitch turned towards her.

“It is nothing too extravagant,” she said. “Plutarch merely summoned me to the Presidential Mansion to get my opinion on which outfit would be suitable. It took less than a day.”

“That’s good – it means your opinion matters,” Haymitch pointed out.

“Yes, I supposed.”

Haymitch let out a breath and exchanged a glance with Peeta who shook his head imperceptibly.

When did conversations with Effie become so difficult? It was easy before. They always knew what to say to each other. They also always knew which buttons to push to anger the other. She knew him like no one else did.

He knew he needed to stop grumbling. He needed to give her time. From where she was standing, he had all but betrayed her and if someone had betrayed him, he sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting on the same table as the said person to have breakfast together.

She needs time, he told himself.

What was important was that she was here. He would take this win.

Do you think Haymitch has a right to feel frustrated that Effie's not as friendly and warm with him as she used to? Effie's civil and making an effort by being present for meals so that's a point for her :) Tell me your thoughts!

[trans-matters]

My friend just told me that he thinks he's transgender and I want to support him but I'm not sure how because I've never dealt with this kind of thing first hand before, do you have any advice?

I found the following article had some good tips, I’m going to past the article in here.

SOURCE: http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/how-to-be-ally-to-trans-friend/

1. Find an Appropriate Space to Process Your Thoughts and Feels

Holy guacamole! Transgender?

Maybe it’s been a long time coming, or maybe you’re completely shocked. You might be scared, or uncertain, or downright confused. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s understandable that you have some processing to do.

Because while your friend has had years to come to this realization, you haven’t had much time to figure it all out.

That’s totally okay! Take some time, some space, and unpack those thoughts and feels.

However, the important thing to know is this: It is not your friend’s responsibility to help you sort out your feelings.

That is, while it’s perfectly understandable that you might be struggling with your friend’s transition, it’s not fair to unload that weight onto your friend.

Your friend already has a lot on their plate. A transition is a big step! And chances are, they’ve come out to a lot of people at once. They are likely not in a position to guide each individual person through the complicated feelings that they have about this transition.

Nor should they – during such an emotional time, it could be hurtful (and even traumatic!) to try to ease people into acceptance.

Your friend has asked for your support during a really challenging life event. It’s not an appropriate time to demand that they shoulder your emotional baggage when they are already carrying such an enormous weight!

Instead, seek out a support group, whether it’s online or offline. Look to other friends that you trust to help you process your feelings. Journal about what you might be thinking. Seek a creative or physical outlet that lets you release some of the stress you might be feeling.

This allows you to be in a better place to support your friend and ensures that you won’t be triggering your friend by saying something unintentionally hurtful as you try to process.

2. Do Your Homework

I’m going to sound like a broken record by now, because this is far and away the most frequent advice I give to allies of trans folks.

But it’s true! You gotta do your homework!

The Internet is a magical place, and there’s an enormous wealth of information out there on the transgender community. And if you’re looking to support your friend, it’s a great idea to do a little bit of research.

This takes your friend off the hot seat instead of forcing them to painstakingly educate you (and many others) on every little aspect of their experience.

This article is a great place to start, but there are many other places to go from here! GLAAD has an abundance of friendly resources to get you started on the basics. You can always poke around the transgender tag or non-binary tag here at Everyday Feminism, too.

And depending on how your friend identifies (maybe they’re neutrois, non-binary, or genderqueer!), there are so many fantastic blogs written by trans folks where you can get direct insight into the experience of being trans.

If you’re overwhelmed by the reading, you can always hop over to YouTube and let Ash Hardell (and fantastic special guests!) school you on everything gender, or check out Dr. Doe at Sexplanations as she chats about the social construction of gender in sailor attire (no, seriously, she’s dressed like a sailor).

You’ll have the benefit of deepening your knowledge of gender (how cool!), and your friend will appreciate that you took the time to learn.

3. Respect and Validate Their Identity

The worst thing you can do for your friend is invalidate their identity. When your friend comes out as transgender, it’s not your place to greet them with disbelief, amusement, contradiction, or a refusal to recognize their gender.

Regardless of how you perceived them in the past, it’s your responsibility to believe your friend when they come out – and affirm their sense of self.

For example, when I came out, a number of people told me they were having a difficult time believing me because I had worn dresses in the past and had seemed to enjoy femininity. They suggested that I was confused and should take more time to think about it.

When a trans person comes out to you, it isn’t your place to tell them how they should or shouldn’t identify. No one can know someone’s gender except for the person themselves. If they say they are non-binary, they are. If they say they are a woman, they are. If they say they are a man, guess what? They are.

This probably goes without saying, but support means using the name they have asked to be called, using the pronouns that they have requested, and tuning in when they share their experiences – without judgment, without contradiction, and without accusation.

Remember that appearances can’t tell you what someone’s gender is. Gender is not something you can necessarily see, although we sometimes choose to express our gender in a particular way. Gender is not a haircut, a way of dressing, a set of body parts, or a set of behaviors. Gender is a sense of self, an identity that is only for us to declare.

So please, don’t say things like “But are you really?” or “I don’t believe that” or “Those pronouns are too complicated.”

If you are having a hard time accepting someone as transgender, give yourself the space and time you need to get to a place where you can better support this person before attempting to give support.

4. Don’t Just Talk the Talk

Sometimes being supportive means showing the fuck up.

Being an ally is about more than just vocalizing your support. One really excellent and helpful way to show that you’re standing by your friend is to offer tangible, concrete support to make their transition a little bit easier and make our lives as trans people a little bit safer.

Do they have a doctor’s appointment or a surgery consultation? Offer to drive or hang out in the waiting room. Are they going to court to legally change their name? Bring them flowers and accompany them. Are they shopping for new clothes? Ask to tag along.

If your friend is using a public restroom but they’re afraid for their safety, offer to go with them. If they’re fearful of using public transportation, offer to ride with them or give them a ride. If they need to get home after a fun night out, offer to call them a reputable cab or walk them home. Because while the victims are never at fault, the reality is that transgender people are statistically more likely to be the victims of violence and assault.

And if your friend is experiencing body dysphoria, I’ve written an entire article on steps you can take to support them.

And of course, ask your friend if there’s anything you can do. Your friend may have something in mind that they won’t ask for unless prompted.

We are the experts on our own experience, so it’s best to check in with us before assuming our needs.

5. Be an Ally and Advocate (Without Overstepping)

Support can be personal, of course, and standing by your friend through their transition is a valuable and wonderful thing.

But in today’s world, being transgender is sadly not just a personal struggle. Often times, it’s political. There are difficult battles each and every day being fought over our right to exist, our right to be recognized, and our right to be safe.

Being a supportive friend can also mean being an ally – because creating change is one of the best ways to make your friend’s transition safer, easier, and more empowering.

“Whoa,” you might say. “That sounds serious. But where do I even start?”

Well, here’s a list of 52 things you can do for transgender equality. Yes, 52; so don’t tell me there’s nothing to be done! You can do one thing per week for a year, damn it.

Ultimately it means making sure you are politically engaged and aware when there are issues at stake for the trans community (hint: this means always).

It can be as simple as voting “yes” on local ordinances that will support the trans community or calling someone in when they say something problematic about trans people.

It can mean being involved at your local LGBTQIA+ center and canvassing for a trans cause or donating to a fantastic trans organization.

But it also means stepping out of the spotlight and allowing trans people to lead and tell their own stories.

You should amplify the voices of trans people – sharing their work, inviting them to conferences and universities, getting them involved wherever possible – rather than speaking over them.

There’s always more work to be done. And if you’re looking to support your friend who is trans, it’s time to make this world a better place for all trans people.

6. Learn to Take Criticism and Know How to Apologize

Even if you follow every bit of advice in this article, you will still make mistakes. And I want to remind you that making mistakes is okay, as long as you’re willing to receive criticism and apologize sincerely.

Remember that regardless of your intention, your impact is still important. You may not have meant to spill coffee on my shirt, but I imagine that if you did, you would still apologize and you would still try to help me clean things up. Because, you know, I’m assuming you’re a nice person.

You may mix up your friend’s pronouns by accident. You may say something insensitive, only to realize this later on. Even I, as a trans person, make mistakes with other trans people from time to time. We’re all learning. Every single one of us!

Just recently, a thoughtful friend and fellow Everyday Feminism writer, Adrian, explained to me that a word I was using was actually extremely harmful to trans women. Instead of getting all prickly and defensive about it, I had to remind myself that this was a great opportunity to do some growing and avoid hurting others in the future.

Even I make mistakes! What’s most important is to learn from those mistakes.

So how do you apologize?

When you misgender someone, it’s best to offer a quick apology, a correction, and let the conversation move forward. Nothing is more awkward than a person spending five minutes apologizing for misgendering you and completely redirecting the conversation. I shouldn’t feel like I have to console or comfort you after you’ve made a mistake, right?

When there’s a bigger hiccup – maybe you’ve said something offensive without realizing it – it’s good to know how to give a sincere apology. There’s an amazing video that breaks this down that is basically required viewing for anyone who aspires to be a decent human.

As the brilliant Franchesca Ramsey says in her video, “A real genuine apology is made up of two parts: the first part is you take responsibility for what you’ve done, and then the second part is you make a commitment to change the behavior.”

If you’ve said something that is hurtful to your friend, an apology can be the difference between a rift in your relationship and an opportunity for growth. Never underestimate the power of a sincere apology.

—-

Kyle

[openanonymity]

Facebook As A Political Podium

I think today has been a day where I'm just annoyed with everything. It started with a truck driver totally fucking up the flow of traffic downtown. He almost caused a car accident with his shitty driving. Then I looked over the Learned League questions for the day, which appeared to be relatively easy today, as I got three right for the second straight day. I made the foolish mistake of checking Facebook. There, I saw two posts put up by different people which I'm assuming voted for our Asshole In Chief. The first post was showing a video of workers at what I'd imagine is an oil refinery, or something similar. The men were doing some high risk labor, and the caption read something like "fast food employees are fighting for $15/hour; this is what $15/hour looks like". I was close to leaving an extensively long comment about hourly wages. I'm not an economist or a business expert, but I feel the need to chime in sometimes with what I believe, because from my perspective, they're saying that if you work fast food, you're not worthy of making an hourly wage that requires your fingers and toes on which to count. I totally agree that a fast food employee isn't on the same skill level as someone who works at an oil refinery. But there is this illusion that everyone believes about the fast food industry, is that it only consists of teenagers and "entitled millennials" who expect a handout. Here's the thing: NOT ALL MILLENNIALS ARE EXPECTING HANDOUTS. They're not like the billionaire "too big to fail" corporations that the politicians we're given no choice to vote for are helping bail out every time the economy shits a cinder block and collapses. So, as I was saying, not everyone who works in the fast food industry barely making minimum wage is a teenager. There are older people who work full time for the following reasons: -They dropped out of high school -They are working toward getting their GED -They are single moms or dads trying to provide for their families, just like those of us in white collar office jobs -They got laid off and this was the only place hiring -They retired and still didn't have enough money in their pension/401k -They just came into the country and this is the only place that would hire an immigrant These are the people who are fighting for that $15/hour pay, and to deny them that right because the job isn't skillful enough is a bullshit excuse. They put up with all of us and our shitty attitudes. They have some high risk factors in the workplace too, such as handling hot grease, avoiding wet spots on floors, and using proper safety procedures when handling sharp objects such as knives and whatnot. Those who work oil refineries I would imagine took on an apprenticeship or went to a trade school to learn the skill set required for the job. I'd also believe it's a unionized industry, much like electrical workers, pipe fitters, etc. They have the privilege to go on strike if their wages or working conditions aren't up to par, and they probably put in a ton of hours each week doing what they do. I have a hard time believing they make $15/hour. They should be making much more. But if they do indeed make $15/hour, the unions should be stepping up and pushing for higher wages. $15/hour isn't a hard goal to reach for fast food employees. Also, why is everyone so against wage increases? I'm sure the amount I'm making was the same amount a middle management employee was making 20+ years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you increase the minimum wage, doesn't everyone else's wages increase as well? When I worked at Wendy's, that was the case. They bumped me up an extra 30-40 cents hourly when the minimum wage went up. When you raise everyone's wages, it's good for the economy. People are more willing to spend their extra income, invest their money into more things such as a 401k, 529 plans, stocks, Roth IRAs, etc., and even purchase houses and cars. If you don't increase people's wages at the same rate that the cost of living increases, you put the workforce at risk of stressing out, being overworked just to make ends meet, and certain markets suffer greatly, such as the housing market. It's a chain reaction/domino effect. Increase fast food workers' wages to $15/hour (which I'm guessing would be a 30% increase), and increase everyone else's wages who make below $75k/year by that same percentage increase and you will see a much better economy. The only reason we are fighting about this is because the CEOs refuse to increase the wages, saying their profits will be hurt, while they give themselves ungodly pay raises and bonuses. The other thing I caught on Facebook was someone posting a picture of Colin Kaepernick with the caption "Colin Kaepernick is still a free agent". I know for a fact the person who posted this hated Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand for the national anthem. I know a lot of people hate him for doing that. But here's the thing. He is/was protesting the anthem for a good reason. We don't hear the full national anthem when it is sung. There are more verses, and one includes a line that glorifies the murdering of slaves, but he was also exercising his first amendment right to sit down because he can't salute the flag of a country that isn't truly free, when cops are killing innocent black men and women. According to him, this will truly be a free country once the police quit racially profiling minorities and open fire on them when they haven't done anything wrong. Being black, Latino, Muslim, LGBT, Jew, or anything that isn't white, male, heterosexual, or Christian subjects you to oppression, bullying, and even worse, your eventual death. Perhaps I'm sounding a bit extreme, but to many people, this is the case. Kaepernick was the quarterback of my favorite team, and I think with nobody signing him yet, it makes the NFL look bad. This is a League that allows rapists, murderers, and domestic violence/child abusers to roam freely throughout the league after serving punishment that is nothing more than a slap on the wrist, but if you prefer to deflate your footballs or sit during the national anthem, you're a disgrace to the country and the league. Fuck the NFL and fuck the person who put up that post. She's about to be unfriended. So, with all that said, I was doing my delivery this morning and one of the tech guys asked me if my coworker was taking the buyout. That's been the big talk at my 9-5. Apparently, this guy is taking it. Good for him. I told him if I was in my coworker's situation, I'd take the buyout and likely leave the country, especially with the current political climate. I should've known the guy voted for Asshole In Chief. We got into a long debate about politics and spoke about immigration, tax returns, etc., and he said nobody had given past presidents a tougher time. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!? Where were you the past 8 years when the Republicans had done EVERYTHING they could to block anything and everything Obama did, even going as far as to suggest he's not born in this country and a socialist or communist Muslim terrorist? I told this guy every candidate released their tax returns, how does orangeface get a free pass? I didn't say orangeface, but I was very close. At that point, I kind of stopped listening to him even when he said don't leave the country, I was like "it won't get any better under this administration, they're reversing everything that was good about this country. Then, on my way to the van, one of the cleaning guys gets on me about being parked at the loading dock. I sarcastically apologized, and when I left, I noticed the Pepsi truck was still parked at the other loading dock. So, my main complaint here is that this fucking troll knew the Pepsi truck was there, why not go to the fucking cafeteria and find that driver, tell him to move if he wasn't using the loading dock? He's not an employee of this company, but I am. I'm done with today. Can it be Saturday already?

[itsfinancethings]

New story in Politics from Time: Angela Davis In Conversation With Yara Shahidi: ‘We’re Doing Today What Should Have Started 150 Years Ago’

Actor and activist Yara Shahidi was born in 2000, three decades after Angela Davis began wielding her platform as a UCLA professor for radical activism. But their generational gap hasn’t stopped them from becoming friends or uniting in their efforts to dismantle white supremacy. The pair reconvened on Zoom to discuss the global nature of their struggle and the value of voting, regardless of ideology.

Yara Shahidi: Dr. Davis, I know it’s been almost a year since our last meeting, and so much has come to light in that time. Many people are talking about how unprecedented what we’re going through is, when, in reality, there have been generations of precedent set. What is the importance of opening the conversation to involve many generations?

Angela Davis: It seems like this is the moment we’ve been struggling to reach for many decades. It’s an extraordinary moment—and when conjunctures like this happen, they happen almost serendipitously. But if we have been doing the organizing work over the decades, then we can seize the moment.

But at the same time, I think we’re formulating questions and addressing issues in ways that ought to have happened in the immediate aftermath of slavery. We’re doing today what should have been started 150 years ago. Of course, beginning to eliminate or even minimize the impacts of racism on structures and institutions in our society is going to require a great deal of labor: intellectual labor, activist labor.

The focus has largely been on Black people. I’m glad about this. But we should also acknowledge how essential it is to understand racism against indigenous people, and what you might call the unholy alliance of colonialism and slavery-produced, racist state violence. So that when we examine all the complex ways in which anti-Black racism expresses itself in this country, we also should look at anti-indigenous and anti-Latinx state violence.

YS: It makes me think back to that event at the Underground Museum [when they first met], and how impactful it was for me as a high schooler to have a globalist perspective in regard to connecting our struggles here to our communities globally. Right now is another moment in which we’re witnessing a world visibly in crisis after generations of colonialism and imperialism. I was wondering, when facing what seems like many a problem, how we go about fighting for them all? Is there a perspective we can help cultivate that allows us to simultaneously dismantle systems of white supremacy that have happened globally?

AD: From the time I was very young, from the earliest period of my activism, I became convinced that our work has to be global. This insight came to me when I was in Paris for the first time. I was in college, and I went to France in search of a place without racism: I thought I would find ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité.’ Instead, what I found was the Algerian revolution. I joined demonstrations against the French government in support of their liberation.

In this country, It’s difficult to persuade people to think about what is happening in Brazil, or Africa, or the Middle East, because such a U.S.-centric focus has been encouraged. But I think this crisis of COVID-19 and the fact that almost all of our public interactions are happening virtually allows us to understand how easy it is to be connected to what is going on in other places. I think we can learn a great deal from listening to people who are involved in other struggles.

YS: I go back to the words of James Baldwin, when he talked about how one of the greatest sins of white supremacy was taking away our global language and our ability to communicate with one another, making it harder to actively disassemble these common evils and racisms. I think what you’ve said about being virtual is also something my generation is trying to utilize to the best of its ability. It feels like I and some of my peers have received great benefit from being in direct connection with one another on social media, regardless of where we are. At the same time, social media also has the tendency to allow us to disappear things as trends pop up and then fade. Something I’m trying to figure out is how we maintain consistent touchpoints and sustain conversations.

AD: Social media is very important. Unlike you, my formative years were not spent with these new technologies. My experience as an organizer involves knocking on people’s doors. I’ll never forget when H. Rap Brown was in jail, we raised $100,000 for his bail by going door to door in Los Angeles, largely in South Central, asking people to donate coins! That sounds prehistoric at this point.

But it’s still important to try to encourage that kind of contact. I know how important it was back in 2014, when Ferguson happened, for people involved in the BLM movement to visit Palestine: To witness with their own eyes what was happening in occupied Palestine, after the Palestinians were the first to express solidarity with them.

I think It’s so important to utilize the technology—to use it as opposed to allowing the technology using us. As a friend of mine pointed out many years ago, how many likes you have is not necessarily an indication of the organizing work you’ve done.

YS: I can look at every photo I’ve posted and see how many people have shared it. It then creates a hierarchy of what we think makes an impact rather than what actually does. One question I had tangentially: Being a part of the social media world is often how one develops a political opinion. Do you have guidance for young people developing an opinion now, on how to develop a non-reactionary politic?

AD: As a person involved in education for the vast majority of my life, it’s so important to not to confuse information with knowledge. In this day and age, we all walk around with these cell phones that give us access to a vast amount of information. But that does not mean as a result that we are educated. Education relies precisely on learning the capacity to formulate questions—what we call critical thinking. Learning how to raise questions not only about the most complicated issues, but about the seemingly simplest issues, so important.

This is one of the reasons I find the trans movement so important. When one learns how to question the validity of the binary notion of gender, one is questioning that which has persistently been the most normal context of people’s lives. The work of ideology happens in those seemingly normal spaces.

This is also why the police-abolition campaign has been so important. Prisons and the police state are assumed to have been with us forever. So we begin to ask questions about how we address issues of harm without replicating the violence: how we create safety by not resorting to the same tools of violence that are responsible for us being unsafe.

YS: I love the wording of “questioning the most simple.” This summer, I was going through an African philosophy canon, and what it highlighted for me is these Euro-centric or U.S.-centric norms that have been established. For readers who are submersed in Western media, are there other texts we should be turning to subvert these norms?

AD: I’m reading this book now that’s on my desk: Françoise Vergès’ A Decolonial Feminism. Speaking of which, I know you’re passionate about feminism. I’m interested in how that passion is expressed in the social-justice work you’ve been doing over the last period.

YS: At first, my interest came from, “How do I interrogate my own identity?” I realized for so long that the primary prism through which I viewed most things was through being a brown and Black person in the world. It’s been an ongoing process of being more honest in my experience and the ways my identities layer on top of each other. What does it look like to structure a movement strong enough to hold many of our truths in one, while still actively dismantling the lack of equity that is often tied to presenting as a woman?

How has the hetero-normative tradition influenced the rest of our trajectory? While I do voting work, what does that mean to know that the solutions presented to us on the ballot aren’t perfect? How do I engage with voting while engaging with this larger movement of equity in these spaces?

AD: So, how do you?

YS: The conclusion I’ve come to is that it is by no means the only means of civic engagement. It is actively necessary to engage throughout the year in whatever way -possible—and the months of continued protests have helped nuance this conversation. There can no longer be this binary of whether to vote or not is the difference between having an equitable society and not.

AD: Or to assume there has to be a perfect candidate in order for us to participate in the electoral process. I was severely criticized when I suggested during the last election that we all needed to vote, even though the candidate was not the one we wanted. It was a difference between a candidate that would allow our movements to flourish, which would also include being extremely critical of that candidate once she was elected to office—or be faced with the alternative we have experienced. I’m someone who historically has not been excited at all about the electoral arena. I was excited only to the extent I knew how important achieving the right to vote was, because I myself wasn’t able to register in my home state of Alabama when I first attempted to. I always tended to vote for the other parties: The Communitist Party, the Peace and Freedom Party.

Now, and I hope I haven’t gotten less radical in my framework, but I think that we vote for our own capacity to continue to do the work that will bring about change. Individuals don’t change history or create transformative moments. Every major change in this country has been a consequence of a kind of collective imagination. So we have to ask, Will this candidate enable that kind of arena or shut it down? In a sense, when we vote, we’re either voting for ourselves or against ourselves.

YS: I love the term imagination. One of the strategies of white supremacy is to take away the potential of the Black imaginary. We’re in a moment right now of world building—in which it’s time to build a world not based on precedent, or even in reaction to the systems that have been set up, but truly independent, based on these values of equity.

So I view this election as an opportunity to reclaim our space for imagination. We know the people we vote for will not be perfect, but we will dedicate our time to actively critiquing and moving forward. We know at the very least, that overt white supremacy won’t be sanctioned. Not to say it won’t be allowed. There just may be more space for us.

Moderated by Andrew R. Chow

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2FGWvx4 via IFTTT

[citizentruth-blog]

I Didn't Vote or Campaign for Hillary. Please Don't Use the Separation of Immigrant Families to Try to Shame Me for It. - PEER NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/i-didnt-vote-or-campaign-for-hillary-please-dont-use-the-separation-of-immigrant-families-to-try-to-shame-me-for-it/

I Didn't Vote or Campaign for Hillary. Please Don't Use the Separation of Immigrant Families to Try to Shame Me for It.

If you want to talk about my white privilege, fine. If you want to talk about what I could have done for vulnerable immigrant groups and can do going forward, I’m genuinely sorry, and with you. If you want to shame me for my vote for a third-party candidate, however, I reject your ignorance of electoral realities and your political bigotry. (Image Source: CBS News via YouTube)

I don’t often share personal experiences in my political writing, mostly because I feel like I’d be sharing stories that no one wants to hear. That still may very well be the case, but seeing as this situation was made relevant to the ongoing crisis facing the separation of immigrant families, I figured I would highlight my experience as a way of talking about the related issues.

A now-former friend on Facebook, who is a leader/organizer on behalf of a nonprofit organization, recently took to social media to ask whether any Jill Stein voters would like to apologize for their choice in the wake of said crisis. I, as someone who voted for Stein, took umbrage to this comment, if for no other reason than it seemed particularly haughty of him to begin the conversation on these terms. Granted, I could’ve (and probably should’ve) not engaged at all, but I did, and so here we are.

First, a note about my vote for Jill Stein: I am neither an ardent supporter of Stein nor am I am a Green Party fanatic. I also don’t fully know what the heck the point was of the recount she spearheaded or ultimately what exactly became of the money raised to fund recount efforts. For some of you, I suppose that just makes it worse: that I would just up and support a third-party nominee of whom I am not a follower despite being a registered Democrat. In this sense, my vote can be seen as somewhat of a betrayal.

I also should note that I supported Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, and voted for him in my state’s Democratic primary. By this point, I had no illusions that Bernie would capture the nomination; my home state, New Jersey, was one of the last handfuls of primaries to be held in the 2016 election season, and several media outlets were already calling the nomination in Hillary’s favor before the polls could open. Accordingly, you might see my refusal to cast my ballot for Clinton, too, as a manifestation of the “Bernie or Bust” mantra. Although technically I did vote, just not for a representative of either major political party. Nor did I write in Sanders’s name as a protest vote. Or Harambe’s, even though I’m told he would’ve loved to see the election results.

When it came down to it, though, I didn’t feel like Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party did enough to try to win my vote—simply put. To me, Clinton’s campaign was emblematic of a larger strategic flaw that characterizes the Dems: too much capitulation to centrists, too dismissive of concerns about reliance on corporate and wealthy donors, too little regard for the concerns of working-class Americans and grass-roots organizers until it comes time to donate or vote. To me, Hillary’s pitch seemed largely tone-deaf if not disingenuous, plagued by secrecy about E-mail servers and Goldman Sachs speeches as well as ill-advised comments about “deplorables,” among other things. And for those of you already raising a finger to wag about the deleterious aspects of the Republican Party and its nominee, I never even remotely considered Donald Trump or another GOP candidate for my vote. At present, that’s a line I won’t cross, in jest or otherwise.

Thus, despite her evident misunderstanding of quantitative easing, I voted for Jill Stein—not because I thought she could win or because I feared Trump could—but because I felt the values she and her campaign expressed most closely matched mine. That’s it. I imagine many Trump voters felt the same way re values—that is, they supported his economic or social platform more than him or his antics, though if that’s the case, I don’t know how much that says about their values. I’m just trying to get the idea across that people’s “support” for particular candidates can be more nuanced than today’s political discourse might otherwise suggest.

My voting mindset, therefore, was not “strategic” in the sense that I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton specifically to block Donald Trump. In light of my state’s final tally, it would seem my vote was unnecessary in this regard, though I could not know that for sure at the time I cast my ballot. Clinton came out ahead in New Jersey by more than 13 percentage points and close to 500,000 more votes, and thanks to the Electoral College and our winner-takes-all style of deciding these matters, all 14 of the Garden State’s electoral votes went to her. Stein did not even manage a third-place showing, being bested by the likes of Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s candidate.

This was the crux of my initial rebuttal about the need to apologize for my vote. While on a state-by-state basis, the notion of Johnson and Stein being “spoilers” may or may not have more validity (more on that in a bit), in my state, it did not. Regardless, to point fingers at lowly third parties deflects a lot of blame, and to borrow a term from Ralph Nader, who faced similar finger-pointing following the 2000 election, is to succumb to a high degree of “political bigotry.” In other words, it’s scapegoating perpetrated by members of major parties to distract from their need for substantive reform.

In addition to the culpable parties oft-cited by Clinton’s supporters and defenders—namely Russia, James Comey, and sexism (this last one may or may not be so true depending on the context or individual voter’s mindset, but that’s a whole different kit and caboodle)—there’s ample room to consider what role other groups played or, in theory, could have played. After all, what about the people who could vote and didn’t? What about the people who couldn’t vote but perhaps should be afforded the privilege, such as convicted felons? And what about the folks who actually voted for Donald Trump? Are they to be absolved of responsibility because they didn’t know better? If so, where is this written?

Additionally, what does it say that someone like Clinton, vastly more qualified than her opponent and, from the look and sound of things, quantifiably more capable, lost to someone in Trump to whom she had no business losing? For all the justifications for Hillary Clinton failing to capture an electoral majority—let’s not forget the fact she won the popular vote, an issue in it of itself when considering it’s not the deciding factor in presidential victories—we shouldn’t overlook some questionable decisions made by the Clinton campaign, including, perhaps most notably, how she and her campaign paid relatively low attention to important battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Of course, even in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania where Clinton campaigned heavily, she still lost, so maybe any establishment Democrat the party trotted out might’ve met with the same resistance fed by blue-collar whites flocking to Trump. Still, one can’t shake the sense Hillary approached the final throes of the campaign with a certain sense of arrogance.

To my ex-FB-friend, however, my reasoning was insufficient, and at this point, one of his colleagues, who happens to be a person of color, interceded to agree with his sentiments. As far as they were concerned, my support for Jill Stein may have influenced people in states more susceptible to a Trump win to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton. I guess, for the sake of an analogy, my thoughts could’ve “infected” those of otherwise discerning voters to make them vote the “wrong” way. My assignment of blame to Hillary despite the forces working against her was panned as well, as was my diminishment of Stein as a spoiler. All in all, they contended, my position was one that exhibited my white privilege and made me sound—quote unquote—morally reprehensible.

As far as I am concerned, if I’m morally reprehensible—fine. You can call me a serpent demon, for all I care. The legitimacy of the arguments within is what interests me. On the subject of my potential game-changing pro-Stein influence, though it’s possible, it’s highly unlikely. In my immediate circle, I told few people unless specifically asked who I planned to vote for. I also wrote a post back in 2016 about why I planned to vote for Jill Stein and posted to Facebook, but—let’s be clear—hardly anyone reads my writing. My own mother doesn’t even read it most of the time. From her standpoint, my entries are of the TL;DR ilk, and what’s more, they tend to be devoid of pictures of cute animals or how-to makeup videos. Fair enough, Mom.

On the subject of Jill Stein as the spoiler, while it’s true that Stein’s numbers may have been larger than Trump’s margin of victory in key states, to say that all those votes would have gone to Hillary instead makes an assumption which may be accurate, or it may not. Again, however, it doesn’t change the contention that the race shouldn’t have been this close in the first place. Weeks after the 2016 election, as vote counts were yet being finalized in too-close-to-call contests, Jim Newell wrote as much in a piece for Slate. He argued:

The lesson of the Comey letter should not be that everything was just going fine until this singular event happened. Obviously Democratic candidates can pick up some tips for the future, such as a) always be sure to follow email protocol and b) keep your electronic devices as far as possible from Anthony Weiner. But they can never rule out some other Comey-equivalent October surprise. The question to ask is: Why was the Clinton campaign so susceptible to a slight shock in the first place? A campaign is resting on a very weak foundation if one vague letter from the FBI causes it to lose a huckster who sells crappy steaks at the Sharper Image.

The “Jill Stein or James Comey cost Hillary the election” narrative is akin to the narrative that Bernie Sanders did irreparable harm to the Democratic Party. You’re telling me that one man not even officially affiliated with the Democrats as a U.S. senator permanently damaged the entire party apparatus? To me, charging Sanders with potentially bringing ruin to the Dems says more about party’s infrastructural integrity (or lack thereof) than it does the intensity of his so-called “attacks” on Hillary Clinton as her primary challenger.

On the subject of my white privilege, meanwhile, well, they’re right. Let me say I don’t dispute this. I enjoy a certain amount of privilege on a daily basis and have almost certainly benefited from it over the course of my educational career and my professional life. Going back to the state-by-state basis of variation in election results, though, the biggest issue would appear to be my geographic privilege. If I lived in a state projected to be much closer based on polling data, might I have chosen differently?

Perhaps. It’s a decision I’m weighing on a smaller scale as we speak with Sen. Bob Menendez seeking re-election in New Jersey after a poor showing in the Democratic Party primary. Sure, Menendez is still the likely winner come November, but with doubts raised about the ethics of his behavior still fresh in voters’ minds, can I take his win for granted? On the other hand, if I do vote for him, what does this say about my values as a voter? Is choosing the “lesser of two evils” sufficient, considering we’ve been doing it for some time now and the state of democracy in this country doesn’t seem to be all that much better for it? These are the kinds of questions I don’t take likely.

Another issue invoked at around the same point in this discussion was whether I had done as much as I could to prevent Trump from winning. For what it’s worth, I wrote a piece separate from my pro-Jill Stein confessional right before the election about why you shouldn’t, under any circumstances, vote for Trump, but as I already acknowledged, my readership is very limited. At any rate, and as my online detractors insisted, I didn’t vote for Hillary, and what’s more, I didn’t campaign on her behalf. I could’ve “easily” made calls or knocked on doors or what-have-you for her sake at “no cost” to me, but I didn’t. As a result, according to them, I was complicit in her electoral defeat.

Could I have told people to vote for Hillary Clinton? Sure. I don’t consider myself any great person-to-person salesman, but I could’ve made an effort. Although this would present a weird sort of dissonance between my advocacy and my personal choice. Why am I instructing people not to vote for Trump and choose Clinton instead when I myself am choosing neither? Then again, I could’ve chosen to vote for Hillary, or simply lied about my choice, assuming anyone ever asked. I also could’ve tried to lobotomize myself with a fork to forget anything that happened leading up to the election. That’s the thing with hypotheticals—you can go any number of ways with them, no matter how unlikely or painful.

Eventually, it became evident that these two gentlemen were demanding that I apologize, but in a way that could make them feel better about accepting me as one of them—a liberal, a progressive, a member of the “Resistance, etc.—rather than simply apologizing to immigrant populations and people of color for “putting my white privilege above” their more immediate worries. My original critic was unequivocal in his demands: “You need to apologize.” His colleague and my second critic, reacting to my expressed feeling that relitigating the 2016 election only to quarrel among various factions on the left was of limited use and that we need to be more forward-thinking in our approach to 2018, 2020, and beyond, was likewise stern in his disapproval. As he stressed, you can’t just do something shitty, say “let’s move on,” and be done with it. I would have to admit my wrongdoing, or he and others would reserve the right to judge me negatively. Such was my “choice.”

Ultimately, my parting remarks were to reiterate my positions as stated above and to insist that people not be shamed for their vote as part of some scapegoating exercise against third-party/independent voters. I also closed by telling my second critic in particular—someone very critical of me on a personal level despite barely knowing me—that I hope his recruitment efforts as an organizer are handled with more aplomb. End of discussion, at least on my end, and click on that Unfriend button. Now you guys don’t have to fret about having to work with me—because I won’t work with you unless I have to.

The unfortunate thing about this conversation—other than that I let it happen—was that it grew so contentious despite the idea we seemed to agree on a lot of points. For one, I conceded my privilege in voting the way I did, something I have characterized as not merely being about race, but of geographical privilege as well. I would submit that admitting privilege is only a small part of the solution, however.

A more constructive recognition of inequality between people of different ethnicities, I would argue, involves advocacy for those who can’t vote, those who should be able to vote, or those who can vote, but otherwise ,find obstacles in access to the polls. On the latter note, there are numerous reforms that can be enacted or more widely used to expand the voter pool in a legitimate way. These include automatic voter registration, increased availability of the absentee ballot and early voting options, making Election Day a national holiday, and opening and staffing additional polling places in areas where election officials are unable to meet the demand of voting constituents.

Moreover, these issues can be addressed concomitantly with issues that affect all voters, including the electoral vote vs. the popular vote, ensuring the integrity of machine-based voting with paper records, gerrymandering designed purely for one party’s political advantage, the influence of Citizens United on campaign finance laws, and ranked-choice voting as an alternative to a winner-takes-all format. American elections have a lot of avenues for potential improvement, and particularly salient are those that disproportionately affect people of color.

I also conceded that I could have done more and can still do more on behalf of undocumented immigrant families, especially as it regards the separation of children from their parents, and this recognition more than anything merits an apology on my part, so to those negatively impacted by the policies of this administration, I am sorry. By this token, many of us could probably do more. Hearing of so many horror stories of young children being traumatized and parents being deliberately deceived by Border Patrol agents is disheartening, to say the least, and as powerless as many of us may feel in times like these, there are ways to contribute, even if it seems like something fairly small.

There seems to be no shortage of marches and protests designed to elevate awareness of the severity of the crisis facing immigrants and asylum seekers, notably from Mexico and Central America, as well as groups devoted to advocating for and defending the most vulnerable among us that can use your contributions. RAICES (the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) jump to mind, but there are numerous possible recipients of much-needed donations. As always, be sure to do your homework regarding the reputation of any charity you seek out.

Though it may go without saying, you can also contact the office of your senators and the representative of your district to express your desire that they support any legislation which puts an end (hint: not the House GOP bill) to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance policy” on illegal immigration, and to thank them for signing on in the event they do. If they don’t accede to or even acknowledge your request, keep trying. As it must be remembered, these lawmakers serve us—not the other way around.

The point I refuse to concede, however, is that I should apologize for my vote for Jill Stein in a state won by Hillary Clinton when I neither voted for nor supported Donald Trump, when both major parties have contributed to destructive immigration policies over the years, when Democrats lost an election they most likely shouldn’t have lost, and when this same losing party refuses to own its shortcomings and open the door to real reform, instead only becoming more calcified. That is, I certainly won’t apologize merely to assuage the concerns of fellow Democrats and liberals. Now is the time for a dialog, not a lecture, and certainly not the time for endless dissection of the 2016 presidential election and guilting conscientious objectors. At a point when we should be working together, I reject this means of tearing one another apart.

  With Allies Like Trump, Who Needs Enemies?

[chrismaverickdotcom]

on Donald Trump and the Last Days of America...

Big Trumper is Watching

About two weeks before the 2016 presidential election I was talking to my mother on the phone and I said something to the effect of “I am looking forward to seeing exactly how Donald Trump will bring about the downfall of America once he wins. I remember her telling me “that’s not funny. Don’t even joke like that!” And then I told her I wasn’t — I study contemporary cultural phenomena through media. That’s like my job and stuff. It’s not like I WANTED him to win. I just saw that he was likely going to and there wasn’t anything I could do about that, so I might as well make my peace with it and try to make the best of it. I’ve never watched a civilization fall from the inside before! When was I going to get another chance like that. I figured it’d be educational if nothing else. I made similar comments to other people, all of whom thought I was joking… you know… until he won.

So now we’re here.

Today is day 124 of the Trump presidency. Not even I could imagine that it would go THIS fast. I mean, this has been a textbook lesson in how NOT to be president. And I don’t mean ideologically. It’s not really surprising that I disagree with the Donald on political levels or basic ethics or whether or not it’s ok to drown kittens for fun (Note, I have no actual proof that the president likes to drown kittens for fun… but you know, I think one can just assume). What I’m saying is that I have a hard time believing that someone could even TRY to get into as big a mess as he has in less than 125 days like ON PURPOSE. It’s kind of remarkable really.

Last night, Steph and I were watching CNN as their talking heads were discussing the president recently deciding to lawyer up on the Russia investigation (something that he frankly should have done like weeks ago). Steph asked me where do I think all of this is going to go. She suggested maybe I write a blog about it. The problem is that that for once, I have no fucking idea!!! I’m kinda lost on it. Seriously.

So I’m looking at this as a cultural critic, as a historian, as a sociologist and… we’re just sort of in unchartered territory.

No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, it should be pretty clear that the administration is having some problems right now — some very serious problems. Even if you are a conservative — even if you are a huge Trump supporter. I’m going to go out on a  limb for a second (just a second) and give El Donaldo the benefit of the doubt and say “innocent until proven guilty.” Fine. But the problem is, for the last few weeks he’s been acting a lot like a dude who is guilty… like not even a real dude. He’s acting like the kind of supervillain you put in a really really over the top cartoon for six-year-olds where you want to make it unquestionably obvious that you’re talking about a bad guy. And then the six year old watches the cartoon and says “what the fuck? This is ridiculous! That guy is kinda over the top. What do you think I am? Four!?!?”

Because Trump is that guy. He’s a four year old super villain. Have you ever walked in the kitchen to find a four-year-old, face and hands covered in chocolate, who suddenly says, without even being asked “Mommy, I didn’t steal any cookies!!!” and so you say “Did you steal a cookie?” and the four year old says “No!!!!” and then takes the cookie jar and smashes it to the ground so as to cover up the evidence, completely forgetting that the whole thing could have been avoided if he’d simply wiped his face and hands off in the first place and the kept his big fat mouth shut? Yeah, that’s Donald Trump. And to not see that what he’s doing right now looks like the behavior of a four-year-old super villain, you’d have to be a fucking idiot.

And therein lies the problem… because as you might have noticed, Herr Donald and many of his supporters are fucking idiots.

And idiots don’t really behave logically. I wrote a while back that one of the flaws people make in their arguments is that they expect to beat Trump supporters with logic. Except that doesn’t work, because the Trump supporter isn’t interested in your “facts.” And that’s what’s making figuring out how this will shake out a little tricky.

Let’s take a look at some previous disgraced presidents. The most recent president where impeachment was really on the table was Bill Clinton. Clinton was impeached, but was not indicted so stayed in office (impeachment doesn’t mean what most people think it means…). During the impeachment proceedings it was reported that Clinton and Gore had a transition team in place to guarantee minimal interruption of government during the transfer of power. If Clinton had been removed, I think Gore would have been fine. There would have been some Republican pushback towards Gore, but really, at the end of the day, Clinton’s main problem was not keeping his dick in his pants, and Gore could reasonably say he had nothing to do with it. He would have been fine.

If we move back a little longer we have e Nixon. When impeachment was on the table with Nixon, he had the good sense to resign in an attempt to protect his legacy as much as possible and the integrity of the rest of the Republican party. Agnew had already resigned previously for a different scandal, and so Gerald Ford, who had only been appointed vice-president nine months earlier basically ascended into the presidency. It ruined his political career. Even though he was confirmed as vice-president by a senate vote of 97-3, he basically had no real legitimacy in the office because the people had never actually chosen him. He wasn’t able to accomplish much and was beat out of the presidency by a peanut farmer two years later.

The most contentious president before those two would have been the very first Republican president (as they love to point out), Abraham Lincoln. And his presidency ripped the union in two. And of course his successor, after he was assassinated, was Andrew Johnson, the only other president (besides Clinton) to be impeached (and who very narrowly avoided indictment).

So how do we apply those lessons of the past to the Trump administration? First, we have to think about succession. I think a lot of people really think that if the Russia investigation goes the right way and everything comes out, this will invalidate the 2016 presidency and somehow magically Hillary Clinton will become president. Or, if not her… somehow we will impeach and indict enough people down the line that we will eventually get to a democrat. These people are wrong. There is literally no one in the presidential line of succession right now that could be considered a liberal. So just take that off the table. The Constitution has no mechanism for redoing an election we don’t like. So in the event that Trump is removed in some way, then we end up with President Pence.

But that’s problematic. Because this particular case isn’t really about Trump just being ideologically unpopular (like Lincoln) or even breaking a law (like Clinton and Johnson). The question in the minds of the people is whether or not his election was valid in the first place. If it is somehow determined that the Russians totally reversed the course of our election but that Trump had no knowledge of it, then there’s no real reason to impeach him (well, there might be, because of the obstruction of justice that he’s done since then… or who knows what else…. but I mean for the initial case) and yet the optics of what happened will render his entire presidency completely illegitimate in the mind of the people. It will hurt the office. It will hurt the Republican party. A normal chief executive in place might see fit to simply resign for the good of the office… but Trump isn’t that guy. That’s just never going to happen. And his insistence on fighting it is going to make things worse.

On the other hand, if Trump is somehow removed from office (either by Congress because he’s found to be actively in collusion or if by some miracle he steps down in order to protect the office) that leaves Pence. As far as I can tell from the information available to the public Pence had nothing to do with any of this and so there’s no good reason to impeach him. And this is good for him. The best he can kind of hope for is Gerald Ford presidency. If Trump goes down, he’d need to distance himself as much as possible. It is better to be a dupe than a co-conspirator. But can he reasonably expect the people to support him if he ascends to the presidency as the guy who was too stupid to know that there was an international conspiracy going on around him?

Of course if by some means Pence goes down too… then that means that Ryan can take the office. And that may be the best thing for the presidency (and the Republican party) at this point. There’s no doubt that he had nothing to do with any of this. And that would be fine. Again, this is the Ford situation… a president with no mandate and tenuous acceptance by the people. This is where Nixon stepped aside, Agnew was already gone, and Ford got to rebuild. Nixon, for all his problems, respected the office.

But Trump…

See, the thing with Trump is that he isn’t actually a Republican. And he doesn’t really care about the Presidency. He cares a lot about BEING THE PRESIDENT. This was  always about winning. Like, I’m not making that up. I’m not interpreting his actions. He specifically said that. He likes to win. He wanted to win. This was all a game to him. And the way he won was by convincing people that winning the game was the only thing that mattered. Right now, the presidency is just a football game, and he’s not going down without a fight. This is why he is able to brazenly say that he doesn’t want to be presidential. This is why he is able to come right out and tell Lester Holt and the Russian ambassadors that he fired Flynn in order to impede the Russia investigation. The optics don’t matter here. All that matters is continuing to win the game for as long as possible by playing by his own rules and Kobayashi Maruing the shit out everything.

Remember when Trump said during the debate that he might not accept the election results if he didn’t win? He was going to “keep us in suspense.” Well he sure as fuck isn’t going to accept an investigation that says that his presidency is illegitimate…whether he is implicated or not. He’s not going to just step down. And if he is forcibly removed… well, he’s cultivated a following that is just not going to accept it. Anyone who hasn’t turned their backs on him by now, simply isn’t going to. It doesn’t matter if he “shoots someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.” If he is impeached and indicted, he could conceivably rip this country in two. And he is the kind of person who will do so simply because with no other options left, it would be the only win left.

Hillary supporters have taken to referring to themselves as “the Resistance” in the time since election. But I don’t think most people really think about what that ultimately means. There is no easy endgame here. The Constitution has no “asshole provision” to fix this. And for all the comparisons to Watergate, this hasn’t really quite been the same thing. We’re moving past the realm of ending a presidency and into something that is a lot closer to toppling a regime. And historically, regime changes aren’t… pleasant. About 150 years ago, Lincoln’s presidency led to a civil war. It was a convenient civil war; there was a clear ideological difference that was cleanly mappable to some nice geographic boundaries. There was governmental support on each side. Civil wars don’t work like that in the 21st century. They begin with civil uprising in much more diverse pocketed communities with no clear boundaries. They start on the internet and result in what is frankly much closer to rioting and terrorist attacks. This is what the “peaceful transition of power” between presidencies is meant to prevent. If there really is a “Resistance” then we need to be prepared for some fallout. Some really unpleasant fallout with no clear precedent in American history.

But you know… the next season of House of Cards drops on Netflix in a week… and I’m kinda looking forward to that…  I just feel like it’s going to be kind of boring and simplistic. Yep… that’s where we are.

Related articles

Arkansas Senator: GOP Should Let Trump Redefine the Party

Trump claims ‘absolute right’ to share info with Russia

Citing FBI handling of Clinton emails, Donald Trump fires James Comey

Democrat congressman Al Green calls for Donald Trump’s impeachment

Reminder: Impeaching the President Wouldn’t Necessarily Remove Him From Office

It’s Pretty Bad When Nancy Pelosi Is the Voice of Reason on Calls for Trump’s Impeachment

JUMPING THE GUN? Congressional Dems make early calls for impeachment

Democrats Are Split Over Impeachment

Is impeaching President Trump possible?

Moby To Trump: “Just Resign, Ok?”

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1&appId=1449198322001470"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "facebook-jssdk"));

on Donald Trump and the Last Days of America… was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom

[anavoliselenu]

Monday Chapter 3

Disappointment punched her gut. “Oh.”

“It’s okay. I’ll go over what to expect, and what you need to say to the reporters.”

Selena nodded, took a deep breath, and stepped through the door. After securing the deadbolt, she turned to the car and let Jay lead the way.

Twice she caught herself lifting her fingers to her lips. She reduced herself to pinching her hands to keep them in her lap. Of late, the nail biting was becoming an issue. Normally her nerves were steady. She patted her purse at her side and remembered the small pistol she kept there.

It was a security blanket. One she probably didn’t need any longer, but she couldn’t be too careful.

Jay explained that Justin would do most of the talking. She was to nod, smile, and tell the media that if it weren’t for Justin’s intervention, she and Gwen would have been in danger.

“They’ll ask personal questions. Don’t answer them,” Jay told her. “Let Justin do the side stepping. He is the politician after all.”

Right! And everyone in office masters the art of double speak their first week on the campaign trail.

The driver maneuvered them around the front of the hotel briefly, where news vans from every local station were parked. The driver didn’t stop in front, instead he took a side entrance, parked, and opened the door for the two of them.

She was thankful for a few minutes out of the spotlight. Jay and the driver flanked her sides as they walked her into the hotel. A few employees glanced up as they walked through an obvious staff entrance, but no one stopped them.

The brim of your hat will hide your unease. Use it. Gwen’s voice echoed in Selena’s mind and she tilted her head.

The hard floors shifted to lush burgundy carpet as they passed a doorway. The cool, dry air inside the hotel circulated the smell of whatever cleaning agents the staff used. She kept her gaze low, barely noticing where they were walking.

Jay held open another door and Selena passed through.

“Jay, what’s going on, where’s…” Justin’s voice trailed off when Selena lifted her eyes to meet his.

His jaw dropped and his words dried up. Shock, admiration, and desire flashed in his eyes. “Selena.” Justin’s voice was breathy.

A wave of feminine power tugged at her pride, as he stood there speechless.

“Hey, Justin,” she said.

“Wow.”

Her cheeks warmed. The others in the room grew silent.

“You approve? The hat isn’t over the top, is it?” Not that she was taking it off. She felt safe under it, which was silly, but she did.

“Perfect. Everything is perfect.”

Behind Justin, someone cleared his throat. He turned and the half a dozen men in the room started to return to whatever it was they were doing. “Ten minutes,” a kid, maybe in his twenties, said waving a phone in the air.

Justin managed two steps in her direction and grasped her hand. He lead her to a second door in the suite where there was a king size bed, perfectly made with a garment bag draped over the frame.

“Sorry I had to send Jay to get you up. Something came up.”

“You’re a busy man.”

His hand rested on her arm after he’d pulled her through the door. He didn’t remove it.

“You look…amazing.”

She expelled a nervous laugh. “Are you trying to make me nervous?”

“No. I’m just… I mean, you’ve always been beautiful, but this…” He waved his hand in the air. “This is perfect. It’s as if you had a political coordinator telling you what to wear.”

He thought she was beautiful? Really? “Gwen,” she said, still stuck on his compliment.

“Gwen what?”

Shaking out of the daze, she gave him a better answer. “I knew Gwen would know what I should wear. If you need a political coordinator, she’s your girl.” Maybe it’s the dress and hat he thinks are beautiful.

Justin squeezed her arm. “Are you nervous?”

“No,” she lied. “Yes…a little. Jay briefed me, in the car. Nod, smile, and say very little.”

“Right. Let me do the talking.”

She chuckled. “Jay called it side stepping.”

A knock from the other side of the door interrupted them. “Time to go, Mr. Billings.”

Justin let his hand drop to hers. “You ready?”

“As much as I can be.”

His hand squeezed hers. He paused. “Selena, do you trust me? Outside of football plays that is?”

She remembered their conflict at Christmas and laughed. “I think you’re an honest man.” For good measure, she added. “I’ll vote for you.”

“But do you trust me?”

Would she call him in an emergency and expect him to drop everything and be there? “Yeah. I trust you.”

He bobbed his head. “Okay…okay. That’s good.”

He was having a short conversation with himself, she mused.

Someone knocked on the door a second time. “Mr. Billings?”

“We’re coming,” he called and directed them through the door.

****

He felt the moment her palm went damp. Double doors opened and the two of them, surrounded by his manager, one bodyguard Neil insisted on, and three of his staff, escorted them onto a raised platform.

The last thing Justin wanted to do was let go of her hand, but when he reached the podium, he didn’t have a choice.

He gave her a reassuring smile, squeezed her hand, and let go. She held tight to her purse but otherwise appeared unaffected by the constant flashing of lights set off by the photographers in the room.

“Mr. Billings? Justin? Mr. Billings?” Reporters called his name repeatedly. He lifted his hands and waited for all of them to calm.

“Thank you for coming,” he began. “Everyone has been patient. I hope to ease your curiosity today. Thanks to YouTube, many of you witnessed an interesting video last weekend. As many of you know, myself and Miss Havens…” He glanced at Selena, who smiled and nodded. “Stood up for our very close friends Lord and Lady Harrison, the Duke and Duchess of Albany as they renewed their wedding vows in Texas—”

“Don’t they do that every year?” someone from the mash of reporters called out. A few reporters laughed.

Justin smiled. “Yes. They do. Love makes people do things like that.”

“Give ’em five years. That’ll stop.”

Justin lifted his hands again. Sticking with his speech, Justin told the reporters he was in the bar briefly where he and Blake’s bodyguard noticed a couple of unsavory characters giving unwanted attention to Selena and Lady Gwen. He purposely used Blake and Gwen’s titles to add a sense of class to the situation. Earlier today, Blake suggested he use their titles as much as he needed if it would help the situation.

What Blake didn’t know was the press conference was only one phase of Justin’s plan.

The reporters would figure out the bar was sleazy and after a couple of interviews it would be discovered that Gwen and Selena weren’t completely uncomfortable up until the fists started flying.

“It’s unfortunate that my intervention was needed. Let it be understood that I will not stand by and watch a crime unfold in front of me without intervening.” Several reporters dipped their heads and franticly wrote down his well practiced and thought out words.

Justin glanced over his shoulder and reached a hand to Selena.

On the outside, she looked the picture of composure. But he sensed the frantic rate of her heartbeat when he touched her wrist. He noticed her chest rise and fall a little too fast.

She held his hand almost like a lifeline.

“Miss Havens?” A recognizable network reporter called out. “Can you tell us what happened?”

Justin met her gaze, and she allowed a half smile to reach her lips. “Of course,” she said standing next to him as she leaned into the microphones. “Lady Gwen and I weren’t familiar with the area. We’d been in San Antonio for a few days, preparing for the wedding. We thought it would be nice to hear some country music. It was Texas after all,” she offered.

Justin’s shoulders started to relax as a few of the reporters laughed. Even Selena seemed more at ease as she spoke.

“Like Justin said, a man led my friend outside, and if it wasn’t for Lord Harrison’s personal bodyguard and Justin, I can’t imagine what might have happened.”

“Who threw the first punch?”

Selena swallowed. “One of the men from the bar struck Justin first.” She glanced at him. “I for one am proud to know we have the opportunity to vote for such an honorable man.”

More pictures flashed.

A warmth filled Justin’s stomach.

“What’s your relationship?”

“Are the two of you dating?”

Justin stepped up to the podium and covered Selena’s hand with his. “I think we’ve answered your questions.”

“The public wants to know if they’re voting on a party boy with a bank account and friends in high places, or a serious candidate, Mr. Billings.”

Justin’s jaw tightened.

“Justin and I have known each for a couple of years,” Selena spoke for him. “Outside of a beer while watching a football game, I’ve never seen him over-drink. I dare anyone here to prove me wrong.”

“You sound defensive, Miss. Havens.”

“I’m offended. He might not call plays well from the sofa, but Justin Billing’s is an honest man.”

The rapid fire of questions and Selena’s revealing answers stunned Justin silent.

“You’re a football fan, Miss. Havens?”

“Isn’t everybody?”

Justin, along with half the crowd of reporters, laughed. He stepped forward and slid his hand over hers. She flinched, but didn’t pull away. “Thank you all for coming today.”

“Mr. Billings?

“Miss. Havens?”

Reporters pushed forward, cell phone and small recording devices in hand. Each of them begging for one more answer to one more question.

Justin slid a hand to the small of Selena’s back and guided her off the platform. Only when they were back in his room did he stop touching her.

Jay clapped a hand to Justin’s back once the door closed behind them. “Well done.”

Selena released a sigh and turned toward them. “What now?” she asked.

“We watch how they spin it,” Jay explained as he switched on the TV.

“How they spin it?”

Justin indicated a chair for her to sit. She sat close to the edge as if ready to leave.

“The media has a way of taking what you say, splicing it with what you didn’t say, and making a completely new story.”

“I’m not sure how they could possibly do so with what we said.”

“You’d be surprised,” Jay said, removing his jacket and tossing it on the back of the sofa.

“How long will this take?”

Jay glanced at his watch. “We have twenty minutes before the afternoon news runs.”

“Have you had lunch?” Justin asked. The way she twisted her hands together in her lap gave evidence of her nerves.

“I don’t think I could eat.”

“Which means you haven’t eaten.”

Selena shook her head.

“How about something light? We’ll have them bring it here.” He lifted the phone and didn’t wait for her to agree. The concierge put him through to room service. After ordering the soup of the day and a pot of coffee, two more of his staff members walked into the room. After a short debate, Justin ordered a few sandwiches to feed everyone in the room.

“I saw Bradley from channel four doing a wrap up outside the lobby,” Justin, one of the staffers told them.

“And?”

“Hard to say.” Justin’s eyes shifted to Selena. He smiled and shrugged.

Another staffer arrived, tossed his jacket aside. “Well?”

“Nothing yet.”

Selena glanced from each man in the room to another. Her skin grew pale.

The men spoke to each other, each speculating what the media would say. Justin sat on the arm of the chair Selena sat in and leaned forward. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

Yeah, right!

“We can watch in the other room.”

She glanced at the bedroom door and shook her head. “I’m fine here.”

Yeah, right!

Twenty minutes felt like an hour. As the opening credits for the news rolled over the television screen, room service arrived. Jay rushed the hotel staff in and out. Nobody bothered with the food.

“Shh!”

Justin’s first glimpse of Selena on the screen filled him with a strange sense of pride. It was unfounded, he knew, but watching her walking beside him on film felt right somehow.

“After last week’s blunder, gubernatorial candidate, Justin Billings is on clean up. He certainly enlisted a mysterious and charismatic partner to help him. It’s hard to determine if Mr. Billings was fighting off an unwanted suitor to his current girlfriend, or if his explanation holds merit. You be the judge.” As the press ran a clip of Justin’s press statement, Justin noticed what little color Selena had on her face disappear. Her index finger slipped between her lips, her eyes fixed to the screen.

You sound defensive, Miss Havens.

I’m offended.

“Even with Miss. Haven’s obvious edge, she humored the reporters with her crack about Mr. Billings not being able to determine a ref’s call during a football game. Still, this reporter isn’t convinced Mr. Billings will be able to escape the now notorious YouTube video.”

Jay switched to another channel. This one more sympathetic than the last, but still not what Justin was hoping for.

Without a word, Selena stood and walked past the crowded room and into the bedroom.

Chapter Six

Her stomach churned and she didn’t even bother to keep from biting her nails.

Selena glanced down at her expensive dress before removing the hat from her head and throwing it on the dresser. “What a waste.”

She collapsed onto the bed and grabbed her purse. She removed her wallet and found a well-worn picture. On the yellowed paper was a once happy family. Her mother, who Selena resembled so closely they could pass as sisters, and her father, an honest, loving man, and her as a child of only nine.

The picture had been taken six months prior to their deaths. Prior to their murders.

Those memories were buried so deep, at times, Selena would forget. After seeing her picture on every news channel, she realized how much she and her mother looked alike.

And that could be a problem.

A knock at the door had her scrambling to put the picture away and to close her purse. “Selena?”

It was Justin. “Come in.”

Closing the door behind him. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s you they’re smearing all over town. I can’t believe how much they’ve twisted everything.”

He leaned a hip against the dresser and tucked his hands into his pants pockets. Even with all the stress, he was sexy as hell. “We didn’t think one press conference would fix everything.”

“I hope you won’t need me. My wardrobe budget is tapped for the year,” she released a nervous laugh.

“I can reimburse you.”

Her jaw tightened. “Please. That’s not what I’m suggesting.” Besides, she couldn’t remember the last time someone paid for her clothes… Well, outside of a stupid yellow bridesmaid dress. “So what’s next? More press conferences?” She needed to know so she could make a graceful exit from this part of Justin’s plan.

“I’m sure those will happen.”

He moved over to the bed and sat beside her. She placed her purse to her side.

“You have a different plan, don’t you?”

He nodded, nervous suddenly in a way she’d not seen him before. “We’ve run studies, and researched past candidates in similar situations. Outside of waiting four more years, I need to do something drastic to get the media’s focus on the race.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“It’s simple. They want a family man in office.”

Selena shifted on the bed. “You’re going to pull a family out of your butt?”

He laughed and his blue eyes fixed to hers. “No. I’m going to get married.”

Her smile fell. Kathleen? Isn’t he done with her?

“That’s extreme, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so. Getting married fixes the image of a fight-starting, party boy in a bar. It adds stability to an office that historically has been run by married men. It’s the answer to my problems.”

Maybe it was, but her stomach didn’t like it. She swallowed hard. “I suppose.”

“You agree?”

“You’re the politician, Justin. You have a finger on the pulse of the voting public more than I do. I guess as long as Kathleen agrees—”

“Kathleen?” His confused stare bordered on comical.

“Who else?” He probably had a small lineup of willing women to be Mrs. Billings.

“You!”

Selena jumped to her feet; her purse fell to the floor. “Me? Are you crazy?”

“Before you say no—”

“No!”

“Hear me out.”

“No!” She needed out of the room. Needed out of the hotel. Selena grabbed her hat and shoved it on her head.

Justin stood and stopped her from reaching for her purse. He placed a hand on her arm, and she pulled back as if stung. “Listen, Selena. You’re half the reason I’m in this mess.”

“Hey,” she said poking him in the chest with a cracked nail. “I didn’t invite you to that bar, and I certainly didn’t suggest you get into a fight. So don’t blame me for this.”

“What was all that about me being an honorable man?”

“The truth of that will change the minute you try and blackmail me into marriage.”

“Who said anything about blackmail? I was proposing—”

She tried to step around him only to be blocked again. “Yeah, well don’t. I’m the wrong woman for you for more reasons than you could possibly know. Now give me my damn purse so I can leave. I do have a life to live.”

“This discussion isn’t over,” he said.

“You’ll be talking to yourself, because I’m done.”

Justin clamped his jaw shut and stared.

She folded her arms over her chest and stared back.

He cracked first, stepped back, and reached for her purse.

Remembering the gun, she moved to intercept him. “I’ll get it…”

Justin reached it first. The purse wasn’t big, and the moment Justin’s hand touched it, his face turned to stone.

She tried to grab the bag he lifted out of her reach.

He undid the clasp.

“Stop.”

And dumped the contents on the bed.

Selena froze, staring at the weapon she’d carried with her all her adult life. Not even Samantha knew about it. And no one knew why.

“You want to tell me what this is all about?”

Her chest heaved with every rapid breath she took. “You want to know what this is all about? I’ll tell you what it’s all about. None of your damn business. That’s what it’s all about.” As quickly as she could, she shoved the contents into the bag, the gun last, making sure the safety wasn’t tripped, and then stormed out of the room.

She made it as far as the door.

She opened it and found herself faced with two suit-wearing men holding badges.

“Miss. Havens.”

“Sonofabitch!”

The detectives glanced at each other and put their badges away. “We need to speak with you.” They glanced around at the audience of Justin and all his men. “In private.”

Not too often in Justin’s life, at least since the age of eighteen, did he ever feel off axis. Apparently, all that was changing today.

His bodyguard stood beside the detectives, and his staffers had turned down the television set and were tuned in like an uplink to the net.

Justin took a chance and placed a hand on Selena’s shoulder. She didn’t flinch.

Worse, she trembled.

“What can we do for you, detectives?”

“It’s Billings, right?”

“That’s right.”

“We need to speak to Miss. Havens, alone.”

“Selena?” As if saying her name snapped her out of a daze, she shook off his hand and glared at him over her shoulder.

“I have this,” she told him.

“If you’d come with us, we can—”

“Hold up,” Justin stepped in front of her, stopped them from leading Selena away. He might not know what she was hiding, but he wasn’t about to let her leave the hotel in custody without some explanation. “I am a lawyer and was a judge before seeking office. If you have a reason to take Miss Havens—”

“I’m sure you’re a brilliant attorney, Mr. Billings, but even you understand that some things shouldn’t be discussed in the hallway of a very public hotel with an entourage of people at your back.”

Taking the clue, Jay said, “That’s our cue, gentlemen. Time to give everyone some space.”

“No.” Selena grasped Justin’s arm and tugged him back. “I’ll go.”

“The hell you will.”

“Listen, Hollywood. I get that you feel the need to protect and serve here, but you don’t get it. I’ll just go. Everything is fine.”

“If you’re in trouble…”

“I’m not.”

“She’s not.” Both Selena and the detectives spoke at the same time.

“I’ll call you later,” she promised and then stepped away from Justin’s protection and walked alongside the detectives down the hall.

What the hell is going on?

Justin met the eyes of his bodyguard, Joe, and nodded toward the retreating figures. Taking the hint, Joe followed them.

Unable to pursue without drawing attention to them, Justin watched until Selena turned the corner and disappeared.

The woman he’d just asked to marry him was being escorted away by bona fide detectives and hadn’t been surprised in the least. Expected it even.

The gun didn’t faze her.

She didn’t explain it.

Twisting on his heel, almost colliding with Jay, Justin returned to his hotel room and swung his cell phone to his ear. “Go.” He told his staffers. “And I shouldn’t have to tell you to keep your mouths shut about what just happened.”

“We’re on your team,” Jay reminded him.

Justin’s jaw hurt with the amount of pressure his back teeth were taking. “I know. Just… just keep the others silent.”

Jay nodded to those leaving the room. “I’ll spin it…don’t worry. It’s what you hired me for.”

Rubbing a frustrated hand over his face, Justin managed a half smile while the cell phone in his hand rang. Answer the f**king phone, Blake.

Answer the f**king phone.

****

At least the detectives waited until they hit the car before they started in. “What about “low-profile” did you not understand, Selena?”

“I’m not in the mood for a lecture,” she told them. She’d had a right-shit day, starting with a press conference she really didn’t want anything to do with. Moving on to the twisted media who couldn’t recognize a red light at an intersection if it was flashing in their face. Then onto a proposal from a gorgeous, successful man who, if she were being honest with herself, she had the ultimate hots for, but to whom she promptly said no…and ending with, but not limited to, being driven to destinations unknown by two of L.A.’s finest!

Yeah! She’d had a shitty-ass day!

“Standing in front of every media station in the greater Los Angeles area, and at least two national channels, isn’t exactly low profile.”

Dean, the overweight detective in the passenger seat glared at her. The last time she’d seen him he was chewing nicotine gum like it was crack. From the slightly yellow teeth peeking through his lips, Selena guessed the cigarettes won.

James, his skinny partner drove while keeping a keen eye on his rearview mirror.

Yeah, Jim was short for James…and the fact that putting their names together spelled out James Dean wasn’t lost on her.

“I’m not eight,” she told them.

“But you look exactly like her.”

Her…damn it, her mother had a name. Not that she’d remind them.

“She is dead. Has been for a long time.” No one knew that more than Selena.

Dean twisted in his seat and poked a yellow finger in her direction. “She gave everything to protect you. The least you could do is stay hidden so she can rest knowing you’re safe.”

“Hide you mean?”

“Hide, live life out of the spotlight…however you want to put it. Shouldn’t be hard. Zillions of people aren’t splattered all over the damn TV.”

“Yeah well…life happens.” Life with a duchess as your best friend and an influential politician suggesting marriage.

Nibbling on her fingernails, Selena took two seconds to wish things in her life were different. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to live a normal life with a sexy man like Justin protecting her.

Wasn’t gonna happen.

She glanced at James who had stayed painfully silent during their drive. “You don’t have anything to add,” she asked.

“We’re being followed.”

Unable to stop her natural instinct, Selena shifted in her seat and noticed Justin’s bodyguard in the dark sedan following them. “It’s okay. He’s harmless.”

“Your boyfriend’s?” Dean asked.

“Justin isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Looked like it to me and half of America. Even those in prison with privileges.”

Taking a deep breath and blowing it out thought clenched lips, she sputtered, “You’re reaching, Dean.”

“I’m not and you know it. You’re biting your nails. You know this shit stinks.”

Asshole.

“How are the cigarettes? Still smokin’?” It was mean, but he wasn’t playing fair and Selena didn’t care. “I’ve lived my life like a good little witness-protection-program girl. I’m done. You got that…? Done!”

“I don’t think you have a clue who you’re dealing with if you think you’re done. This isn’t a joke, Lisa—”

“It’s Selena. I haven’t been Lisa since I was nine.” Just one of the many changes she had to make in her life. “Take me home.”

“That isn’t wise,” James finally said.

“Take me home.”

Jim met Dean’s eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder if they’d take her into custody for her own protection.

Jim took a sudden turn back toward the freeway. Toward her home in Tarzana.

She sat back in her seat with her purse in her lap.

“I hope you know how to use that gun,” Dean said.

How did he know? Of course he knew. Jim and Dean seemed to know everything about her life.

“Anytime you want to have a shoot off, or whatever you call it, you let me know.”

“I might just do that,” Dean said.

Jim laughed. “You’d lose,” he told his partner.

She let a half smile meet her lips.

“So. Was this a scare tactic, or do you two know something?”

Dean looked at Jim and then the rearview mirror.

Neither of them said anything.

Scare tactic. Which worked when she was a kid trying out for the cheerleading team. Not so much now.

They turned off the freeway and down her street.

“Get back to the studio, Selena. Brush up on your Tae Kwan Do. Stay alert,” Dean told her as he turned into her driveway.

“And for the sake of God, call us if you find the butter in the wrong place in the fridge. Got that?”

Yeah, she got it.

Through their rough exterior, James and Dean were good guys. They had no idea what her life was really like, but they meant well.

“Got it.”

Chapter Seven

Her phone was ringing when she walked into the house. Caller ID told her it was a private number, but Selena knew without a doubt it would be Samantha. Blake and Justin were close. He probably hit speed dial the minute she disappeared down the hall.

To avoid a face to face with her friend, Selena picked up the phone. “Hey.”

“What the hell, Selena? Are you okay?” Under the tone of what the hell is going on was, I’m scared for you.

“I’m fine.” She pulled back the curtains and checked the street. As expected, Joe was parked across from her house and it looked like Jim had circled the block and was now a few houses back.

“Justin just got off the phone with Blake.”

“Yeah…” Looked like Jim was staring at the license plate of Joe’s car. Selena hoped Joe didn’t have a background he wanted buried.

“Yeah? Selena? Talk to me. What’s going on?”

She let the drapes fall back into place and stepped away from the window. Let the cops and bodyguards work it out among themselves. “I’m fine, Sam. Really. I’m sure Justin painted an ugly picture, but I’m good.”

“The police don’t escort you away for a private chat if everything is good. Justin is freaked out, and he and Blake are on overdrive trying to figure out what’s happening. You can save us all the trouble by talking.”

Selena leaned against the wall in the hallway and toed off her heels. How was she going to avoid this? She’d managed to keep her past buried for years. Maybe she could buy some time and figure out a plan. “Some things shouldn’t be talked about on the phone. I’m sure you understand that.”

Samantha hadn’t always lived the perfect life. And when she and Blake were dating, his crazy ex bugged the very phone Selena spoke on to gain information about their relationship.

“I understand. Do you want to meet for coffee? Come over to the house?”

As much as Selena would have liked to ignore Jim and Dean’s warnings, she couldn’t. How much could she tell Samantha? And how wise was it to have Gwen stay with her?

And how soon would Justin be pounding on her door for answers?

“I need a day or two. And before you say it, I know I can trust you. I just need a little time.”

Samantha blew out a sigh over the phone. “Okay. Promise me you’ll call or come here if you need anything.”

“You know I will.”

After hanging up, Selena ran upstairs and changed into two outfits, one hidden under another, and then quickly locked up her house before getting in her car.

Two cars followed her. Joe stayed close, not caring that she saw him, but Jim followed a few cars back.

Within ten minutes, she was in a packed mall parking lot and out of her car.

The crowded mall would have made ditching one person following her easy. Three would take some effort.

Dean weaved in and out of people, easily seen because of the size of his waist. Joe was talking into a cell phone, probably to Justin.

Keeping her sunglasses on, Selena found the movie theater inside the mall and noted the movie times. The latest young adult vampire movie was about to let out. “Perfect,” she whispered to herself.

At the ticket booth, she smiled at the twenty-something attendant and bought a seat for the latest chick-flick. “One for Ten Million Dollar Bride please.”

Ten bucks later, Selena was slipping into the crowd. She diverted to the ladies room but not before noting Joe buying a ticket.

Inside a stall, she shimmied out of her loose knit pants and black shirt and tucked them into her oversize purse. Her barely-there shorts fit the teenage style and the shoestring top should have been illegal to wear. She pulled her hair through a trendy black hat with a sparkly cross embellished over the brim. As she was applying gloss to her lips, a slew of giggling teenage girls crowded into the bathroom.

“Oh, my God that was the best one yet,” one of the girls squealed as the others oohed and awed over the latest teen heartthrob.

One of the girls noticed Selena standing there and let a toothy grin brighten her face. After a few seconds of chatty teenage noise, Selena glanced at the obvious popular girl of the group and said, “Love that shirt. Where did you get it?”

The tiny blonde lifted her chin and smiled. “Forever Teen,” she said. “Cute hat.”

Using the desire to impress an older hip girl to her advantage, Selena complimented the girl’s taste and in a weird way managed to gain her trust. The girls moved like a small mob from the bathroom while others shoved in. Selena slid her glasses on and melted into their group, chatting as she went about a movie she’d not seen. Thank God the trailers of the film had dominated the movie ads for weeks.

In the small gaggle of teens, Selena snuck out of the movie theater, right past a clueless Joe. Dean stood outside the door of the theater, but didn’t see her slip by.

and a����

[cyclicreferenceerror]

Chronomorph

This post is based on Archimedes’s Chronophone and its Motivations, which I urge you to read now if you haven’t. Properly understood, the chronophone teaches us why it was so hard for Archimedes to arrive at beliefs that our own culture holds to be obvious (like “slavery is wrong”).

I like it because it could be a powerful tool to derive an intuitive measure of the change-inducing potential of an idea. To come up with cognitive strategies you could transmit to Archimedes to get him to do the things you consider good, you have to think of the things future generations would consider obvious and good, but which our own generation thinks incorrect and possibly outrageous. And in reverse, it serves as a test to measure the cultural impact of a cognitive strategy you’re following. Talking about “prediction markets” is sufficiently non-obvious in our culture that it might get Archimedes to, say, think about tax reforms, but getting him to change his mind about slavery would require coming up with something worth centuries of progress in our time. “Make money by inventing technological gadgets” is so obvious in our time that it would probably just come out as “conquer enemy territories”.

On first glance, it would seem that the notion of transmitting cognitive strategies rather than beliefs is simple enough to understand:

You cannot suggest, for example, that women should have the vote.  Maybe you could persuade Archimedes of Syracuse of the issue, and maybe not; but it is a moot point, the chronophone will not transmit the advice.  Or rather, it will transmit the advice, but it will come out as:  "Install a tyrant of great personal virtue, such as Hiero II, under whose rule Syracuse experienced fifty years of peace and prosperity."  That's how the chronophone avoids transmitting overly anachronistic information - it transmits cognitive strategies rather than words.  If you follow the policy of "Check my brain's memory to see what my contemporary culture recommends as a wise form of political organization", what comes out of the chronophone is the result of Archimedes following the same policy of looking up in his brain what his era lauds as a wise form of political organization.

However, the problem with transmitting cognitive strategies instead of beliefs is that a cognitive strategy is derived from other strategies, and that chain usually has many levels. For instance, if I want to transmit “donate money to an effective charity”, what cognitive strategy do I transmit? How do I even identify my own cognitive strategy here? To oversimplify it a bit, it looks like:

Belief: “earn to give to the most effective charities”

strategy 0: “read widely to understand current thinking on effective altruism”

strategy A1: “seek to help the less privileged”

strategy A2: “understand my own (axiomatic) morality, whatever its origins”

strategy B1: “apply rational strategies since they help me win”

…

It’s cognitive strategies all the way down. Multiple strategies can combine (creating branching) to give rise to a new strategy, and strategies may feed back into each other (creating loops). Each of these levels will have a different cultural equivalent in Archimedes’ time because they have different cultural status in our time, so how does the chronophone select which level to transmit? Or in less abstract terms, how do you really figure out the result of trying to communicate a particular piece of advice over the chronophone? Saying “donate money to an effective charity” could be arrived at using any (and probably all) of the cognitive strategies “try the advice of the last reasonable-sounding book you read”, “follow your culture’s best stance on your favourite school of ethics”, or even “figure out something useful to say into a chronophone”, all of which would produce different results at the other end.

To really get at the heart of what powers the chronophone, you need to bypass Archimedes altogether. Imagine that our scientists, inspired by the chronophone, invent a kind of temporal manipulation device (“chronomorph” for short) which lets you manipulate physical reality across time! If the chronomorph is focused on you, then whatever actions you take here will be transmitted across to an ancient version of you that will dutifully obey.

Unfortunately, the chronomorph is subject to the same restrictions of time travel as the chronophone, so actions are translated through culturally equivalent cognitive strategies (“chronomorphed” for short).

The important thing to understand about the chronophone is that it is functionally equivalent to the chronomorph – that is, no more or less powerful. If you can describe a strategy into the chronophone that would come out the other end as something that’s actually useful for Archimedes to hear, then you can always execute the same strategy in your time and achieve the same amount of change-relative-to-your-culture (“chronomorphic delta” for short). As a consequence, you can test the impact of anything you want to say into a chronophone by instead focusing a chronomorph on yourself, and actually executing that strategy to measure its delta in your own culture.

This makes it much clearer what the result of saying “donate to an effective charity” into a chronophone would be. If you actually did this in our culture, it’s sufficiently non-obvious that the marginal benefit you achieve can be quite large. As a cultural ideal, if large numbers of rich people started paying attention to this, any measure of lives saved and improved would show massive gains. Yet it’s something that’s been around for a while without really taking off, suggesting that people don’t respond to merely being aware of it. It also faces valid criticisms. Any belief that comes out of the chronophone will hold the same promises and be beset by the same problems, and that’s all you need to know. It almost doesn’t matter what cognitive strategy is used to arrive at this belief; indeed you can back-calculate the common strategy that, when applied in the two cultures, gives rise to those two beliefs.

When we say that a chronophone transmits strategies instead of beliefs, we’re obliquely getting at what’s really conserved – the chronomorphic delta – the impact that believing in, talking about, and implementing a cognitive strategy has.

So what kinds of beliefs/strategies are good candidates to transmit through a chronophone? Or equivalently, what actions should you take today, that could be chronomorphed into desirable outcomes in Archimedes’s time?

A basic principle of the chronophone is that to get nonobvious output, you need nonobvious input.  If you say something that is considered obvious in your home culture, it comes out of the chronophone as something that is considered obvious in Archimedes's culture.

Non-obvious is often a synonym for “weird”, “nerdy”, “socially unacceptable”, or even “subversive”, so the budding chronophonist must be prepared to cheerfully accept these labels. If you try to seek out especially those new ideas that are ignored, rejected, or suppressed by the mainstream, that’s probably fertile ground for finding good candidates. The chronophone is the bridge that transports the horror of slavery in Archimedes’s time into our own time, transmitted through invariant chronomorphic ignorance.

In Archimedes's time, slavery was thought right and proper; in our time, it is held an abomination.  If, today, you need to argue that slavery is bad, you can invent all sorts of moral arguments which lead to that conclusion - all sorts of justifications leap readily to mind.  If you could talk to Archimedes of Syracuse directly, you might even be able to persuade him to your viewpoint (or not).  But the really odd thing is that, at some point in time, someone must have turned against slavery - gone from pro-slavery to anti-slavery - even though they didn't start out wanting to persuade themselves against slavery.  By the time someone gets to the point of wanting to construct persuasive anti-slavery arguments, they must have already turned against slavery.  If you know your desired moral destination, you are already there.  Thus, that particular cognitive strategy - searching for ways to persuade people against slavery - can't explain how we got here from there, how Western culture went from pro-slavery to anti-slavery.

This gives us another clue: “searching for ways to persuade people against slavery” wouldn’t work in Archimedes time just as “searching for ways to persuade people against… umm… X” wouldn’t work in our time, because we don’t know what X is. If you wanted to chronomorph “figure out slavery is bad”, the action you would need to take here couldn’t be anything you already know is right. You have to start with your best guesses, and take step by blind step, always trying to course-correct, without knowing your destination.

So how could Archimedes have figured out that he should be anti-slavery, if he didn’t know his destination? How can you figure out truths about your world when you don’t already know them, when you don’t know others know, and when no one knows?

At a minimum, you need to admit your own ignorance, and acknowledge explicitly that many, if not most things in your culture will be recognised by future generations as bad. But you can’t stop there – the proper use of humility is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors.

How would you behave today if you knew you were being chronomorphed?

    Footnotes:

So how could Archimedes have figured out that he should be anti-slavery, if he didn’t know his destination?

Perhaps the first step would have been acknowledging explicitly that there were probably in his world that were non-obvious to his culture, and that future generations would recognise them as such. Then he could actively seek out philosophers of his time who were considered subversive, and try to understand their thinking. He could have been more wary of mainstream ideas, prodding and poking at them until one rung hollow. He could have enlisted his smartest friends to help, but also tried to talk to the least obvious sources, even a slave. Maybe if he biased more towards the non-obvious, towards the fringe, it would have helped.

This strategy isn’t the best, and maybe not even good enough (given how deeply entrenched slavery was), but it’s a start. In our time, the closest equivalent I can think of is something like CFAR.