#solidarity is good. solidarity forever. but what do you have beyond ideals? who do you know? and who knows you? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ziracona · 4 years

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Ohmygod I want like all of ur headcanons they're all so good. Oml. Would it be okay if I settled on meg headcanons or Dwight & Jake hcs? God you write them so well it makes me so happy

Thank you so much! <3 I know you asked this like this morning, and sorry about that, but I had a lot of fun answering it. Ended up doing Meg. I’m not sure if you want general, or post-ILM so I just kinda did some of both? And got carreid away, haha, it’s gonna go mostly under a read more. :’-)

Meg’s mom did a great job taking care of her growing up. Meg had a hard time making and keeping friends, because she’s full of energy and passion and also very ADHD, so she has a big personality and will talk all the time about what she loves and is a whole lot (in a good way). But a lot of people growing up did not enjoy that about her. Meg wasn’t great at shutting up and acting or lying or falling into a role to get kids at her school to like her, and also just didn’t understand why the rest of them would do that, and didn’t mesh well. With each time she was not accepted, she got a little bit more bristly and ready to defend herself, and it kind of became a self-fulfilling prophecy. It wasn’t like she never had any friends, but she never had any close ones, and a lot of the ones she did have kind of dicked her over for someone else, or moved on, and that was rough. Plus, her dad left her when she was a baby, she was poor, she was loud, and she was Bi. This gave kids a whole lot to bully her for. And they sure did.

Meg’s a fighter, though, and didn’t take shit—she got into trouble a lot, and was mad, because (as y’all who’ve been in the American education system at least know) the faculty never cared if she’d shoved someone because they called her a slur, or said something shitty about her mom, or that she’d punched someone because they’d followed her out of school to say nasty things about her, or that someone else had shoved her, or poured something on her book, or provoked her first. Didn’t even care if it had been four on one, or a guy had come up and fake asked her out to make fun of her in front of his friends—didn’t care about any of what was being done to her, or that she’d just been defending herself. The worst they ever did was talk to the other students, and that just made them want revenge and didn’t stop jack shit. Because of that, she really started to resent faculty and got a huge rebellious streak. She used to get in trouble all the time, before joining track, at her mom’s suggestion. Then, finally, really for the first time ever, even if she didn’t have friends, she had a pack, and that was something. Team didn’t have to like her, they still worked together so they had some kind of a bond and couldn’t just flip, and their track teacher would care if things got nasty, because it lowered performance. Plus, she had natural talent, and a bunch of energy, so it was an ideal fit.

Childhood was all still pretty damn rough though. I wouldn’t say she was miserable all the time or anything, but she was constantly tired of it all. There were some good parts, though. And she had some casual friends she was pretty chill with. Even a kind of almost girlfriend her last two semesters (although that was not exactly the world’s most stable relationship either. Still, not all bad.) While she wasn’t ever tight with them, there were several people at school who thought she was really cool too, because not only would Meg always defend herself, she also was ready in a heartbeat to throw hands for anyone—especially someone weaker or smaller than herself—she saw getting shit from classmates. She was a roaming vigilante of school hall fury by 10th grade, and had earned a certain amount of respect and fear, and a pile of detentions and reprimands, and parent-teacher conferences where her mom chewed out teachers and staff for ignoring the parts of all this where her daughter was getting bullied. Meg used to actually love parent-teacher time, because she got to watch her mom rip people she hated apart, and it filled her with glee to have somebody else fight for her.

Even with school all sucking, Meg had a pretty good childhood basically exclusively because of her mom. Her mom had to raise a kid as a single parent when Meg’s dad abandoned them while Meg was still a baby, and it wasn’t easy. She worked full time when Meg was little as a postal worker. That was unsustainable, though, with how life was going and her wanting and needing to actually be physically present in her kid’s life, so she ended up finding employ as a ghostwriter, and switching to that. It was almost exclusively terrible and ridiculous romances she would get a fraction of the pay and no credit for when published, but Rachel Thomas found a way to make that funny and enjoyable both to herself, and her curious little daughter who would waddle up to her and ask all the time what Mommy was doing and to hear her stories. She would pick safe bits and read them as silly and funny as possible to amuse Meg and feel okay about what she was spending all her time on, and it worked. It made the work enjoyable, when otherwise it would have felt tiring and worthless. Rachel got to be happy with it instead.

She always worked super hard to give Meg a good life, even with very limited resources. She taught herself how to do things like use pencil dust to check for fingerprints when Meg was super into Nancy Drew books as a kid, and how to pick locks, and then taught them to Meg. Meg loved growing up in that house, because her mom was the best. She was always ready to hear about whatever fascinating new thing Meg had discovered, or to pick up a toy sword and go have an epic battle in the backyard as people they’d made up to be. She passed on a love of movies and music and dancing, too, and because she knew that life was rough for Meg, even as a young child, Rachel always went out of her way to make holidays huge productions. Got one really cool present that always had to do with whatever story Meg was the most into usually, and a lot of fun little ones to go with it, so she could open a whole pile of gifts even though the only one who was ever there to give her any presents was her mom. Meg kinda just grew up thinking of holidays like that because of her, and did as big productions for her mom too (to the best of her age-relative ability).

It was super hard on Meg when her mom got sick. I mean, I think it would be on anyone (who had a positive relationship with the parent, or probably even a neutral one), but she took it really hard. She’d been super excited about finally getting out of her hometown and going to college on a track scholarship she’d worked incredibly hard for, but then this had happened, and of course she’d come back to look after her mom. It was really awful though. She wasn’t sure if her mom would survive. At first, the situation had been like, go to college, or go home to help your mom get better, but she realized after a little while with a sinking feeling that it was starting to look like something else. Like give up on your one chance at being able to pay for college, or come home to watch your mom wither away and die while you can’t do a fucking thing to stop it. Her mom had always been a strong and fun and full of life person, so much like Meg herself, in a lot of ways, and she got sick so fast, and so bad. They even looked a lot alike—not just in biological features, but they kind of dressed similarly by nature, and Meg’s mom had also always kept her bright red hair long and liked it like that. Sometime when Meg was little, she’d called her mom’s hair a “fire mane,” older Meg could only assume because she’d been reading picture books about horses, and her mom had loved that and teasingly called it that forever after. The second night after she started chemo that her hair started to fall out, Meg got home to see her shaving her head in the bathroom, because it had been coming out in clumps she hadn’t been able to stand the way that felt. Meg felt heartbroken, and went over to join her and took the scissors on the sink and started to cut hers off too in solidarity, but her mom stopped her and begged her not to. Meg cried and told her she wanted to do it, and her mom comforted her and kissed her on the forehead and asked her to please keep it for her, so that when she got better, she could look at Meg’s as inspiration for what she wanted to get back to. Meg finally agreed, but it was really hard. Harder still to watch her getting weaker and weaker until she just couldn’t do any of the things she used to. And then one day her mom’s doctor had come back and told them he was sorry, but that treatment was failing. She could try a few experimental avenues, and there were people to contact, she could keep trying this in case there was a change, but that she probably only had another year at most to life.

It had been beyond devastating. Meg hadn’t known what to say. Or how to think or cope. She’d just walked out of the hospital feeling shellshocked. And when they’d gotten back in the car, her mom had asked her to pull over at a Wendy’s, and bought them both frostys, and Meg went through the motions, and parked in the lot. And when they were there, her mom had started to eat hers slowly with a spoon, and looked her in the eyes and said, “Don’t worry, Meg. I’ll get better. I promise.”

And Meg had looked up and seen she meant it somehow, even with what they’d just heard. And her mom had said, “You know me. I’m a fighter.” and that had been true, so Meg had sniffed and nodded and said, “Me too. We’ll try all the options.”

Her mom smiled at her and they ate their one dollar treats and went home to research, but Meg had still kind of believed it, because she always believed her mom. She’d had hope then, that she might not die. Even as the weeks went on and she got sicker. And then Meg went for the one jog she didn’t come back from.

Meg and Dwight were the first two to really band together. They survived a trial together and made it to the same fire, and Dwight just unloaded like a whole plan to start systematically picking up other people they met, and theorizing about leaving with them to make it to the same fire, and banding together to survive better, and Meg was kinda ‘no thoughts—head empty’ because she was exhausted from trying to outmaneuver the Nurse, and he was talking so fast and she hadn’t listened at all to the first few lines and now she was playing catchup, but she’d been like, “Oh. Worm I guess?” and agreed. Meg kinda thought Dwight was a pushy little dumbass, and he kinda was, but she also kinda liked him, and waaay faster than Jake did. Meg’s an extremely loyal person, so even though unhooking her and helping her out, or giving her a tool he knew she was better with than he was was just good strategy, Meg’s heart went “Friend saved me” and kinda kept it, so she didn’t mind “New friend is also annoying and full of himself and kind of a douche.” I don’t think she really noticed his change in behavior at first. Just one day like, a month after he’d started working hard to be less of an ass, she was sorting a new toolbox post-trial, and he paused by her and was like, “Hey! Great job in the trial today. Sorry I messed up your escape during that chase—I misjudged how fast he was and thought you’d have time to hide. You really saved us with that last-second chainsaw dodge getting the door open. –Oh here, I found these in a box and I’m still pretty shit at flashlights, but I saved them for you,” and gave her some batteries, and she was just like, “Cool. Thanks. And it’s fine—I almost tripped right over Claudette’s hiding spot yesterday.” and then when he was like halfway back to the fire she was just like WAIT A SECOND and sat bolt upright and stared at him and was like, Didn’t you used to be kind of pretentious and inconsiderate? When did this change??? And was never totally sure, but was pretty jazzed about it. She also remembers way less well than Jake, Ace, or Claudette that Dwight did used to be a loser. If someone else told her that she’d be like, “Oh yeah…huh.” but she’d never really think of it on her own.

This is kind of more a Dwight one than a Meg one, but one of the specific events that was a personal changing point for Dwight was back when it was just the OG four, before even Ace had joined, they had a hard trial with Trapper and Meg was really down. Everyone passed out before Dwight, because he was trying to plan and stayed up, and he noticed Meg having a nightmare and after a minute woke her up because she looked so scared, and she thanked him and then was quiet and just sat there, looking miserable. After about ten minutes he decided to ask if he could do anything to help, and she said she was afraid to go back to sleep, because she thought she might just pick up where she’d left off, and then hesitantly asked him if it was okay if she came over by him, because she thought it might help. He was super surprised, but said yes, and she came over and lay down beside him and leaned on his chest fell asleep. And it felt really nice that someone would seek him out for comfort, and trust him to watch over them. The first time they stayed at the same fire, she’d given him a look and said, “Promise not to come over here while I’m out if I take a nap?” and warned him she was a light sleeper, but she hadn’t even jokingly reminded him of anything like that now. She just trusted him. It made him want to be worthy of that and a lot more.

[ I want to do more bc I’m super into Meg rn, but my word count is shooting me dirty looks so ima do 2 real short post-ILM Meg and call it a night—happy to do more or your Jake-Dwight sometime though. <3 ]

Tapp helps Meg take courses and study up, and gets her certified as a PI, and she actually does really love it. They work cases for cheap for people who need help, and do it together, and it’s very rewarding. That’s not the most sustainable full-time job, but Tapp’s got a little money saved, and David’s…David. Plus, collectors will pay weird money for realm merch sometimes, and Min is…scarily. Worryingly good, even, at finding those people to sell to. So she also has a lot of time to do other things. She can’t exactly do track like she did, but she does long-distance runs for charity, and has fun, and gets to go visit her friends all the time. She loves being able to say she actually is a private detective, and feels like she’s come full circle from being the little her who loved Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie books so much. She’s able to help her mom, too, so her mom is able to actually spend time writing the kinds of things she’d like to, for once, and Meg’s super happy for her and still spends a bunch of time with her, often her and Susie, who her mom took to really fast, together. Meg loves to ambush Susie with gifts when she’s working on stuff and make surprise visits to drop off a drink or something, and thrives on the embarrassed-happy Megggg look on her face if she pulls off flirting in public just right. Sometimes Susie will come with her and Tapp when they’re working to try to help, or just to spend time, especially for the like, long research parts of the job. Meg also makes sure they see Michael Tapp a lot, and that Tapp takes time off to do fun stuff with her and his other friends. She is still definitely trying to get him with her mom. Or Jane when Jane’s there. Or her mom and Jane. Sometimes Ace is in the mix when he’s there. And it all ain’t subtle. It’s rough out there being Meg’s even vaguely parental figure. :’-)

Like Tapp promised, he and Meg get a dog. A retired K9 whose handler died a few years ago, and been retired when that happened because it was old enough it had been set to retire that year or the next, and it took the loss of its handler very hard. With its handler gone, it was open to adoption from other force members or retired ones. It was an old dog that had been alone for a long time, still missing someone dead, so sad looking. Outlived his best friend. Tapp had checked the database on impulse alone when starting to work on honoring Meg’s request, and seen it, and wanted badly to take it home. He’d been kind of nervous asking Meg about getting it though, thinking she would want something that would live longer, but she’d jumped at the chance and been really happy. The German Shepherd had been named Partner, because that had been the sense of humor his handler had, and Meg thought it was cute, to always be saying, “Come on Partner,” to a dog. He had been really sad looking when they’d gone to pick him up. Lonely in the back of a pen, nose between his paws, watching people go by, and hesitant when they’d gone inside. Quiet, all the way to the car, and the whole drive home. Just sat in a seat, looking out the window, no matter how much Meg petted him or talked him, or Tapp did, and then they’d gotten home and taken him inside, to a bed and a food bowl and water dish, and he hesitantly ate, and then started to wag his tail a little. They took him out to the yard after to play and he finally got it, and it was like seeing a totally different animal. He got excited, and barked for the first time, and ran around pretty fast for an old dog and would come press his forehead against their legs while wagging his tail, like he was hugging them, in a way Meg had only seen dogs do a few times. He is now a very happy pup who likes to hop up on the couch and put his head in people’s laps and watch them lovingly while they watch tv, and sometimes puts the old skills to good use if he’s in the mood to walk around and lend aid to a case.

#ask #anonymous #ilm spoilers #in living memory (fic)#in living memory #meg thomas #💙💙💙💙 thanks for the ask!#long post

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thisdaynews · 4 years

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US:President Joe Biden's Inaugural Speech As 46th American President

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/uspresident-joe-bidens-inaugural-speech-as-46th-american-president/

US:President Joe Biden's Inaugural Speech As 46th American President

This is America’s day. This is majority rule government’s day. A day of history and expectation, of reestablishment and resolve. Through a pot for the ages, America has been tried another and America has adapted to the situation. Today we praise the victory not of an applicant but rather of a reason, a reason for vote based system. The individuals – the desire of the individuals – has been heard, and the desire of the individuals has been noticed.

We’ve realized again that majority rule government is valuable, vote based system is delicate and, at this hour my companions, majority rule government has won. So now on this blessed ground where only a couple days prior brutality looked to shake the Capitol’s actual establishments, we meet up as one country under God – unbreakable – to do the serene exchange of force as we have for over two centuries.

As we look forward in our exceptionally American manner, eager, strong, idealistic, and put our focus on a country we realize we can be and should be, I thank my archetypes of the two players. I express in all seriousness. Furthermore, I know the flexibility of our Constitution and the strength, the strength of our country, as does President Carter, who I talked with the previous evening who can’t be with us today, however who we salute for his lifetime of administration.

I’ve recently made a holy vow every one of those loyalists have taken. The promise originally depended on George Washington. Yet, the American story depends not on any of us, not on a few of us, but rather on us all. On we the individuals who look for a more wonderful association. This is an extraordinary country, we are acceptable individuals. Also, over the course of the hundreds of years through tempest and hardship in harmony and in war we’ve overcome much. Be that as it may, we actually have far to go.

We’ll press forward with speed and criticalness for we have a lot to do in this colder time of year of danger and huge chance. A lot to do, a lot to mend, a lot to reestablish, a lot to construct and a lot to acquire. Not many individuals in our country’s set of experiences have been more tested or discovered a period more testing or troublesome than the time we’re in at this point. A once in a century infection that quietly follows the nation has taken the same number of lives in a single year as in all of World War Two.

A huge number of occupations have been lost. A huge number of organizations shut. A sob for racial equity, somewhere in the range of 400 years really taking shape, moves us. The fantasy of equity for all will be conceded no more. A sob for endurance comes from the actual planet, a cry that can’t be any more edgy or any more clear at this point. The ascent of political radicalism, racial oppression, homegrown illegal intimidation, that we should go up against and we will vanquish.

To defeat these difficulties, to reestablish the spirit and secure the fate of America, requires far beyond words. It requires the most subtle of everything in a majority rule government – solidarity. Solidarity. In another January on New Year’s Day in 1863 Abraham Lincoln marked the Emancipation Proclamation. At the point when he put pen to paper the president stated, and I quote, ‘if my name actually stands out forever, it’ll be for this demonstration, and my entire soul is in it’.

My entire soul is in it today, on this January day. My entire soul is in this. Uniting America, joining our kin, joining our country. Furthermore, I request that each American go along with me in this reason. Joining to battle the adversaries we face – outrage, disdain and contempt. Radicalism, rebellion, savagery, sickness, joblessness, and sadness.

With solidarity we can do extraordinary things, significant things. We can right wrongs, we can give individuals something to do in steady employments, we can show our youngsters in safe schools. We can defeat the dangerous infection, we can reconstruct work, we can remake the working class and make work secure, we can make sure about racial equity and we can make America indeed the main power for good on the planet.

I know talking about solidarity can sound to some like an absurd dream nowadays. I know the powers that partition us are profound and they are genuine. Be that as it may, I additionally realize they are not new. Our set of experiences has been a consistent battle between the American ideal, that we are completely made equivalent, and the cruel monstrous reality that bigotry, nativism and dread have destroyed us. The fight is enduring and triumph is rarely secure.

Through common war, the Great Depression, World War, 9/11, through battle, penance, and difficulty, our better blessed messengers have consistently won. In every one of our minutes enough of us have met up to convey we all forward and we can do that at this point. History, confidence and reason show the way. The method of solidarity.

We can see each other not as foes but rather as neighbors. We can treat each other with pride and regard. We can unite, stop the yelling and lower the temperature. For without solidarity there is no harmony, just sharpness and anger, no advancement, just debilitating shock. No country, just a condition of bedlam. This is our noteworthy snapshot of emergency and challenge. Furthermore, solidarity is the way ahead. Also, we should meet this second as the United States of America.

On the off chance that we do that, I ensure we won’t fizzled. We have never at any point, ever, ever fizzled in America when we’ve acted together. Thus today as of now in this spot, how about we start anew, we all. How about we start to hear one out another once more, hear each other, see each other. Show regard to each other. Governmental issues doesn’t need to be a furious fire annihilating everything in its way. Each difference doesn’t need to be a reason for absolute war and we should dismiss the way of life where realities themselves are controlled and even made.

My kindred Americans, we must be unique in relation to this. We must be superior to this and I trust America is such a lot of in a way that is better than this. Simply glance around. Here we remain in the shadow of the Capitol arch. As referenced before, finished in the shadow of the Civil War. At the point when the actual association was in a real sense yet to be determined. We suffer, we win. Here we stand, watching out on the incomparable Mall, where Dr King discussed his fantasy.

Here we stand, where 108 years prior at another debut, a huge number of dissidents attempted to hinder courageous ladies walking for the option to cast a ballot. What’s more, today we mark the swearing in of the principal lady chose for public office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Try not to disclose to me things can change. Here we stand where legends who gave the last full proportion of commitment rest in interminable harmony.

What’s more, here we stand only days after a crazy horde figured they could utilize savagery to quietness the desire of the individuals, to stop crafted by our majority rules system, to drive us from this consecrated ground. It didn’t occur, it won’t ever occur, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not ever. To each one of the individuals who upheld our mission, I’m lowered by the confidence you put in us. To each one of the individuals who didn’t uphold us, let me state this. Listen to us as we push ahead. Take a proportion of me and my heart.

On the off chance that you actually dissent, so be it. That is majority rule government. That is America. The option to contradict calmly. Furthermore, the guardrail of our popular government is maybe our country’s most noteworthy strength. In the event that you hear me obviously, difference should not prompt divergence. Also, I vow this to you. I will be a President for all Americans, all Americans. Furthermore, I guarantee you I will battle for the individuals who didn’t uphold me concerning the individuals who did.

Numerous hundreds of years back, St Augustine – the holy person of my congregation – composed that a people was a large number characterized by the regular objects of their adoration. Characterized by the basic objects of their adoration. What are the regular articles we as Americans love, that characterize us as Americans? I think we know. Opportunity, security, freedom, poise, regard, honor, and indeed, reality.

Ongoing many months have shown us an agonizing exercise. There is truth and there are lies. Falsehoods told for power and for benefit. Furthermore, every one of us has an obligation and a duty as residents as Americans and particularly as pioneers. Pioneers who are promised to respect our Constitution to ensure our country. To shield reality and thrashing the falsehoods.

See, I comprehend that a considerable lot of my kindred Americans see the future with dread and fear. I comprehend they stress over their positions. I comprehend like their father they lay in bed around evening time gazing at the roof thinking: ‘Would i be able to keep my medical services? Would i be able to pay my home loan?’ Thinking about their families, about what comes straightaway. I guarantee you, I get it. In any case, the appropriate response’s not to turn internal. To withdraw into contending groups. Doubting the individuals who don’t seem as though you, or love the manner in which you do, who don’t get their report from a similar source as you do.

We should end this uncivil war that sets red in opposition to blue, country versus metropolitan, moderate versus liberal. We can do this on the off chance that we open our spirits as opposed to solidifying our hearts, in the event that we show a little resilience and quietude, and in case we’re willing to remain in the other individual’s shoes, as my mother would state. Only briefly, remain from their perspective.

Since here’s the thing about existence. There’s no representing what destiny will give you. Occasionally you need a hand. There are different days when we’re called to help out. That is the way it must be, that is how we help each other. Also, in the event that we are that way our nation will be more grounded, more prosperous, more prepared for what’s to come. Also, we can even now oppose this idea.

My kindred Americans, in the work in front of us we will require one another. We need everything that is in us to continue on through this dull winter. We’re entering what might be the most obscure and deadliest time of the infection. We should put aside governmental issues lastly face this pandemic as one country, one country. What’s more, I guarantee this, as the Bible says, ‘Sobbing may suffer for an evening, happiness cometh in the first part of the day’. We will traverse this together. Together.

Look people, every one of my associates I present with in the House and the Senate up here, we as a whole comprehend the world is viewing. Observing we all today. So here’s my message to those past our lines. America has been tried and we’ve come out more grounded for it. We will fix our coalitions, and draw in with the world indeed. Not to address the previous difficulties but rather the present and the upcoming difficulties. Furthermore, we’ll lead not just by the case of our force yet the force of our model.

Individual Americans,

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anotherworldnowblog · 4 years

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TOWARDS A THEORY OF A FEEDBACK LOOP OF GOOD VIBRATIONS!

(December 2019 - January 2020)

“The cult of competition must be replaced by the cult of solidarity and of sharing.” - Franco Berardi, Futurability

A knowing smile forms underneath my scarf when I pass the bike cop. I smile because I feel, deeply, that his days instilling terror from above us are numbered. Everything from the rusted, oozing “el” tracks to the fact that damn near the entire anti-war protest stopped to help when a younger marcher fell to the ground to the way you are looking at me right now is practically screaming out a song of love, life, and possibility. I allow this tingling, rushing feeling to fill me completely, from my calloused heels up to my swelling throat. I’m high from it. I have developed a new superpower. I can see hope everywhere now. I’m drunk with belief in us. Until experiencing it first hand, I might have been convinced that this level of hope was either dangerous, delusional, or - at the very least - unsustainable. That I’d fall into lazy paralysis and a misguided belief in the inevitability of a communist future. But that’s not really how hope works, I think.

Hope is not belief that something is actively happening (i.e. the end of global capitalism), nor is it rooted even in the odds of some potential outcome (i.e. the odds that ***** and I end up together forever). Hope flows out of the possible, indifferent of likelihood. “The future is dark, with a darkness as much of the womb as the grave” (Rebecca Solnit, Hope In The Dark). What comes next is still unwritten, and as long as that remains so, all possibilities are drawn into equivalence in their non-existence, their not-yet-happenedness. To say “anything is possible” is probably too much. As we have said elsewhere, the possible is inscribed in the present (Berardi). But I have never felt so sure that somewhere within the vast, twisting tree of the presently possible there lies at least a few better worlds. And signs seemingly affirming the existence of these possible worlds are blossoming around the globe and rebounding across its networks. Despite the neoliberal capitalists’ attempts to automate the course of history through financial trickery, ideology, and digitization, we are still here in the miserable present, and the future is just as not-here-yet, or “dark,” as ever.

I have come to believe that, at this late stage of capitalism, hope takes on meaning beyond the mere apprehension of a desirable possibility. It transcends its designation as an affective state and moves in the direction of duty and action, or praxis. The maturity of neoliberal capitalism, the pervasive twin logics of finance and digitization, and the social repercussions of existing within a near-Absolute network conjointly give rise to a moment where our hope for the abolition of the nightmarish “present state of things” can be carefully deployed as a weapon or tool for guiding latent possibility into The Really Existing. In the new economy, our sincere belief in the possibility of a future together founded upon ideals of love, global solidarity, and the broadest possible conception of the common good becomes the means of achieving the world we so clearly deserve.

After the neoliberal turn in the 1970’s and 80’s, there could be no doubt: financialization of the economy had fully decoupled the public good from private profit. Major financial institutions were now gambling against the people, at times against the state itself, and even against the very planet’s continued habitability. The economic foundation upon which emerges our society has been transformed by neoliberal capitalism into a depressing mixture of doubt, mistrust, bad faith (not to mention racialized violence, hyper-exploitation, and a politics of cynical inclusion utilizing a cybernetic panopticon). The pace of life quickened to keep up with a system that’s sole focus was short-term profit and ever faster circulation of capital. Drugs were invented to ensure workers’ ability to keep up with the new demands of an accelerating world. Work itself was transformed into an isolated, not to mention precarious, endeavor. Where there had once been factory floors there are now freelancers and independent contractors, where there had been careers there now only stands part-time or seasonal jobs, or “gigs.”

But more than just the physical terrain of work changed with the rise of neoliberalism; production itself was transformed. Today, “it is not use value but emotive or cultic value that plays a constitutive role in the economy of consumption… emotion comes to possess value for capitalism only when a switch to immaterial production occurs. Emotions have become a means of production only in our own times” (Byung-Chul Han, Psychopoltics). The means of production today is nebulous, hard to pin down, both within and without. Not just our personal property (a spare room, a car) but even a thought, a feeling, a relationship becomes a site of value creation. Everyone a means of production! We’re all now our own bosses, little self-contained enterprises, exploiting ourselves endlessly with every “like,” post, or reaction. As Han goes on to say later in the same chapter, “Emotions assume dimensions beyond the scope of use value. In so doing, they open up a field of consumption that is new and knows no limit.” Our emotional, inner selves, the sphere of our lives that used to be firmly our own despite our abysmal conditions as wage slaves has finally become raw material, food, for capital under neoliberalism. At the same time as our working lives have become unbearably precarious and anxiety appears to be the dominant feeling characterizing our moment, technologies are deployed that capture and weaponize that very anxiety against us for the sake of opening up new markets and expanding private profits.

All of this has given rise to an understandably paranoid, sad, lonely, and anxious population who are largely kept too busy and dejected to even take stock of their position or the rapid changes that have and continue to unfold around them, let alone begin organizing for a chance at a better future.

It is this sadness, isolation, exhaustion, and anxiety; this mistrust, bad faith, and simply the lack of faith in each other (or really much of anything) that constitutes the terrain upon which we will wage our revolution. The capitalists’ blind pursuit of speed and profit has sapped the life from, well, life. Our goal must be its prompt return.

“The front line no longer cuts through the middle of society; it now runs through each one of us…” -Tiqqun, This Is Not A Program

We currently lack the solidarity and technical capacity to break free of this system, but right this moment we do have the ability to begin to prefigure the type of world that comes next and we damn sure have the ability to share that vision with the world– the techno-capitalists made sure of that. In fact, the algorithmic particularities of the networked world make things more plausible or imaginable or possible the more they are seen as plausible or imaginable or possible. The possible is actually made more possible by appearing possible. Within the network, something is made more imaginable when it is imagined.

The networked world is constantly experiencing wild feedback loops (as well as the more insidious, controlled variety) where attention is concentrated, activity streamlined and spread, virally, and the impact of the initial action then exponentially exceeds any prior estimation based on the initial activity’s supposed or predicted potentiality.

Franco Berardi describes these feedback loops as “positive feedback” in his 2015 book, Heroes. He elaborates that,

“Contrary to negative feedback, which maintains stability in a dynamic system through a reduction of the exciting factors, positive feedback is a process in which the effects of a disturbance on a system result in an increase in the intensity of the factors which generate the disturbance. In other words: A produces more of B which in turn produces more of A. Thermal runaway, for instance, is a situation in which an increase in temperature provokes a further increase in temperature, often leading to a destructive result.”

Embodied in the vast architecture of the networked world there lies, not only the obvious apparatus of a Total surveillance and future counterrevolution, but a potential weapon for our side. In building a vast system of interlocking “social networks” governed by a logic of maximized engagement, the capitalists have inadvertently created a situation where possibility can be steered into being by a relatively small number of actors, in our case, revolutionary possibility.

For a decade now, we have unfortunately seen an accelerating positive feedback loop, a wave, fed by the contradictions inherent in American neoliberal capitalism, of horrifying racism mixed with extreme violence. This wave eventually brought us Trump, while globally, a similar phenomenon brought with it Brexit, BoJo, Viktor Orban, Bolsanaro, and most recently, a fascistic coup in Bolivia. But just as the ascent of neo-fascism seems all but guaranteed, we are now witnessing the explosive birth of what could be the beginnings of a global uprising against austerity and neoliberal capitalism. What began with the Gilets Jaunes in Paris, has spread to every corner of the inhabited world. Barricades are burning in Haiti, Mexico, Iraq, Lebanon, and Ecuador. We’ve seen techniques for resisting armed police invented and honed in Hong Kong (laser pointers, tear gas neutralization, umbrellas, etc.) adapted and deployed in Chile within days of each other. Just in the week of this essay’s writing we have seen a local movement for the abolition of public train and bus fares in Chile adopted in New York, and then Toronto, and then Chicago and Seattle. Protestors are bravely de-arrested in Hong Kong and immediately, the possibility of a refusal to be detained fans across the network. Within weeks, footage emerges in France during the general strike of the same: an assertive declination to being taken by the police, on the part of the people.

From every corner of the planet, images of dignified struggle and deep solidarity are being generated and shared, and the belief that another world is not just possible, but preferred, is accelerating through the network. The same is true of the idea that fighting the police is both plausible and necessary. The combination of a brutal, artificial scarcity imposed on the masses from above along with the previously unimaginable level of cognitive interconnectivity thanks to the internet and its social networks, has brought us to the cusp of what could legitimately be a revolutionary moment. And the artificial nature of that aforementioned scarcity is a reason for real confidence in ourselves.

This brings us, finally, to the feedback loop of good vibrations. It is possible, as Subcomandante Marcos once described, referring to the EZLN’s defiant existence as a loosely federated region of communes, that “a crack in history” is in the process of opening up. Capitalist Realism is very probably coming to an end. The contradictions inherent in neoliberal capitalism have become too great to simply smooth over with dreamwork and fentanyl. What comes now, be it fascism or, hopefully, something far more agreeable (Anarcho-communism? Library socialism? Green Stalinism?), is not yet decided. As we are seeing around the world, this is a global civil war. And as has been stated above, the terrain of this struggle is not just the places we work or live but the very feelings in our hearts and dreams in our minds. It is a war for our capacity to imagine and to love.

What is meant by the half tongue-in-cheek notion of a feedback loop of good vibrations is the recognition that our position as situated in a near-Total network can be leveraged towards the aim of steering something known as the Good Life into existence, or at least catalyse a new era of struggle for that Good Life. It is in some ways an inversion of pseudo-Marxist assumptions emerging out of the idea of base-superstructure, that posit culture as something always downstream from politics or economics. Financialization, digitization, and social networkification have conjointly created a situation where the cultural production of a society bleeds back into the political.

Financialization, meaning the increasing influence and size of the financial sector in relation to the overall composition of the economy, creates a pervasive logic of risk aversion, short-term gains, and general stupidity. Digitization prioritizes speed and thus linguistic simplicity and reproducibility. And social networkification results in a spectacular consolidation of global attention, incentivizes participation or inclusion, and turns what was previously known as the private sphere into public life. The confluence of these three forces is what gives us the potential for a feedback loop. Financialization first imbues the entire system with a preference for a “safe bet.” Financialization occuring in tandem with digitization means that this preference for a “safe bet” is algorithmically encoded into the (social) network. A “safe bet” in the era of social networkification is anything that captures human attention. This is where we see the system feedback into itself. Once tagged as a “safe bet,” the algorithm accelerates and concentrates attention within the network for maximum engagement and capture. The possible is actually made more possible by appearing possible.

Up until very recently, this “feedback loop” phenomenon was perhaps hard to spot because late into the era of Capitalist Realism, much of the cultural output of our society does little else than reaffirm the status quo, forming a negative feedback loop. This negative feedback loop has been alluded to by Mark Fisher as the “slow cancellation of the future” in his essays about cultural stagnation and anachronism. We have been stuck in a kind of flattened no-time. The end result is more of the same: limitless wealth for the few and deepening misery for the many. The effect is that financial capitalism becomes a self-regulated, stable system in that its continued existence is all that we are able to conceive of. In fact, it’s continued existence depends on this very dis-ability. It’s “stability” is only relative, obviously, as it is predicated on intensifying boom-bust cycles every 8-12 years and the destruction of the only life bearing planet we currently know of. Our inability to imagine anything beyond dystopia is what guarantees that the future will be a dystopia. That makes the first task for of our revolutionary effort relatively straightforward: imagine something else.

Literally anything else. This is not suggesting a praxis that is limited in its relevance to a specific style of post-capitalist formation. Communist utopia is not (and perhaps should never seek to be) the end of the political or problems, just the end of Capitalism, money, and scarcity. If you allow yourself, imagining utopia is easy. The communist horizon exists dormant within each of us, in our sociality as animals and in our capacity for love as humans. Our utopic vision is OUR vision. The next step is trickier: prefigure, embody, and evangelize that new world while stuck within this one and do so in such a way that leverages our position as unwillingly placed within a near Total network, towards our own, revolutionary ends (in some of the writing to follow this draft, we will use a variety of techniques, including and especially fiction, to describe what this could possibly look like).

There are two parts to the initial work I am referring specifically to here: the aforementioned “prefigurative” work, as well as “narrative” work. Narrative work is simply an attempt to tell a different story. It is when we dream of a better world and share that dream with another. It’s when we articulate a lack and thus a desire. It’s the work of stripping neoliberal capitalist ideology of its power. It’s when we reveal words like “pragmatic” and “sensible” and even “progressive” to be empty constructs and it is when we inject new life into words like “love” and “solidarity” and “trust.” Prefigurative work is more complicated. While this work typically consists of an attempt to embody a future world in the here and now, there is also an understanding that the embodiment will always be incomplete, and due to systemic limitations (the literal price of staying alive, more specifically) will often be unsustainable as well. Prefigurative actions are perhaps inherently performative. That doesn’t mean they can’t meet a real need or seek to deliver a real blow to capital. It is a flash vision of the normally hidden possibilities of other forms of life, uncovered for as long as we can hold them in stasis for common consideration.

But what does it mean for us to attempt this work in a time of immense interconnectivity and hyper-surveillance? What happens when nearly every action creates an image? Can prefigurative action be designed to achieve a certain resonance within the network? Can such an action go beyond the cynicism or doubt or bad faith of our system and exist as a monument to the ideals of a newly possible tomorrow? We already know that the local can overnight become the global thanks to the propensity of the social networks’ algorithms to accelerate. If social media has turned the private lives of individuals into public performances, can those multitudinous singularities, those infinite @’s, be arranged to represent and propagate new potentialities across the networked world?

It at least seems possible.

At long last, we arrive at what I hesitate to even call a theory, so for now let’s call it a hunch. The hunch is this: performative belief in the possibility of a better world actually makes that world more possible, specifically due to the networked, financialized system we currently struggle under.

“What is to be done?” Take care of one another and attempt to narrow the space capitalism carves out between us. The space between us and our better world and the space between each of us is one and the same.

An action creates an image. Every image creates a ripple. Every ripple can become a wave.

“Revolutionary movements do not spread by contamination but by resonance. Something that is constituted here resonates with the shock wave emitted by something constituted over there.… An insurrection is not like a plague or a forest fire — a linear process which spreads from place to place after an initial spark. It rather takes the shape of a music, whose focal points, though dispersed in time and space, succeed in imposing the rhythms of their own vibrations, always taking on more density.”

-The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection

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creativitytoexplore · 4 years

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Pandemic Advertising Got Weird Fast

A few weeks ago, as millions of Americans settled into home confinement in a desperate effort to stymie an era-defining pandemic, Little Caesars invited them to step up to its Pizza Portal, a virus-hostile pie locker that circumvents the need for human interaction. Little Caesars was not the only brand—or, for that matter, the only pizza company—that wanted people to know their lockdown options. Commercials by Domino’s and Papa John’s reminded viewers that the heat of pizza ovens annihilates germs. Others had different ideas: Become a Burger King Couch Potatriot with a socially distant burger delivery. Buy a face mask from Forever 21 and it will donate a mask to a person in need. Take up to 25 percent off kitchen-organizing essentials at the Container Store. Buy a whole Hyundai on the internet.

Even in a culture numbed to viral stunt marketing, these abrupt pivots to the pandemic in television commercials, social-media posts, and marketing emails have been hard to ignore. It’s jarring to see advertisers, usually so optimistic about their products as a means to improve lives or grant happiness, forced to acknowledge that things in America are broadly terrible. Some viewers have noted an unsettlingly similar solemnity across brands’ pledges to protect and serve their clientele. Others have found comfort in the commercials’ shoddy earnestness; if America’s salespeople have no choice but to share in everyone’s uncertainty, then maybe the country is mostly united after all.

Together, these ads reveal a pandemic dystopia with a particularly American twist. With unpredictable government-aid coffers, most companies that want to remain solvent through an extended catastrophe will have to master the precarious, high-stakes art of disastertising. To do it, they’ll need to persuade you that giving them your money is an act of solidarity.

[Read: Don’t spit! Pandemic posters through the years]

By most accounts, the coronavirus catastrophe became real to advertisers around the same time it did for lots of Americans: when the NBA suspended its season. “That’s when we were like, ‘Oh, this is going to be big, and it’s going to change consumer behavior and affect people’s lives for real,’” says Fernando Machado, the chief marketing officer for Restaurant Brands International, which owns Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons. The company shut down all its offices in the country and threw out its existing advertising plans. Its new ads spotlight low-contact payment and the plan to scoot bags of food out the drive-through window on a tray. If the company’s restaurants were going to pay employees and order supplies, it wanted people to know they could still come buy food.

At Domino’s, the situation was similar, according to Kate Trumbull, a vice president of advertising at the company. The pizza giant scrapped an ad campaign that showed customers standing close to one another, rolled out information about its hands-free food-packaging practices, and repurposed a Risky Business–themed ad to address social distancing. (Sliding around at home in your socks and underwear is all too relevant to many viewers now.)

Chain restaurants like these have an edge when it comes to disastertising. Most small restaurants have had to close during the pandemic because they have no delivery infrastructure or can’t sustain themselves on takeout alone. Grocery stores force people into close contact, sometimes run short on staple goods, and have few or no delivery options in many parts of the country. Pizza delivery and drive-through, meanwhile, are convenient enough to be recast as public services. On top of that, chains can advertise that they're offering thousands of low-wage food-service jobs to Americans who have lost their income in the past few weeks. “We are open, and we are hiring,” Trumbull says. “If there’s one way that Domino’s could actually help right now, that’s the way.”

Both Machado and Trumbull say that Americans have greeted their companies’ efforts with near-uniform positivity. Customers, they say, are grateful for the information about pandemic-related services and safety procedures. Marketing executives of course have a vested interest in the perceived success of their work, but some evidence exists that people actually do appreciate companies that disseminate this information, even if the ads themselves are a little corny. A recent survey by the data company Morning Consult asked participants what they’d prefer to see in ads during the pandemic, and among the eight options, by far the most popular choice was ads that explain how companies have changed their services. Explicit information about safety procedures was also among the top requests.

There are many reasons Americans might embrace this performance of coronavirus care, including the simple comfort of knowing that companies that sell your favorite french fries or service your car have given at least a passing thought to your safety. But there might also be a certain appeal in hearing clear, useful information from whatever powerful American institutions are willing to supply it right now, when guidance from the U.S. government—the institution ostensibly most responsible for providing it—has been slow, inconsistent, and confusing. Plus, advertising gives businesses far broader and easier access to people’s attention than other sources of solid safety information have, such as public-health experts or epidemiologists, who offer sound guidance in far less profitable ways.

[Read: Brands are not our friends]

In the past decade or so, deepening cultural and political divisions in America have frequently led to perceived leadership vacuums, in which broad consensus is difficult to rally for any particular institution or person. Those vacuums have often been filled by brands that see social issues as an opportunity to connect with customers—especially younger ones, who want to believe that there’s a right way to spend their money. “That comes from a mix of deep cynicism and heady idealism” on the part of young people, says Jessica Greenwood, the global chief marketing officer at the advertising agency R/GA, which works with brands such as Nike, Airbnb, and Verizon. “They want to believe that these companies can change the world, but also they’re very cynical about being sold to.” In the Morning Consult survey, people under 40 were more likely than their older counterparts to think advertising should cease entirely during the pandemic, but they also generally responded more positively than older people to recent ads that struck a useful, empathetic tone.

Today’s disastertising does merit plenty of cynicism. Beyond the plausibly useful ads, quarantine TV is flooded with messages of vague support from soda brands, insurance companies, or tech firms, set to sensitive melodies. Many of those ads feature the voices of executives insisting that we’re all in this together, while those executives might be self-isolating in sunny vacation compounds. This worst kind of messaging flies beyond the bounds of simple uselessness and lands at full-on smarm; there’s no value except to the company itself, reminding you that it’s still around to accept whatever money you have left.

The canniest disastertisers, meanwhile, aren’t relying on tone-deaf ads to rally people to their cause. Instead of traditional avenues, many companies have turned to conspicuous acts of charity. AB InBev, which owns Budweiser, has donated $5 million and some of its advertising airtime to the Red Cross, and the company is using some of its facilities to manufacture hand sanitizer. Apple has donated millions of masks and other protective gear to health-care workers. The shoe brand Crocs donated thousands of pairs of rubber clogs to health-care workers, then paid Priyanka Chopra to post about its good works on her Instagram account. Machado says that Burger King has donated more than 1 million meals to hungry kids through a charity partner. “Yes, it’s marketing, but it takes into account the context that people are in and the impact on their lives,” he says.

Read: The four rules of pandemic economics

Small local businesses pioneered many of these most popular pandemic charity ideas. But local companies largely lack the public-relations muscle or name recognition necessary to receive national media attention and public support, which R/GA’s Greenwood says is crucial for companies hoping to survive. “Everybody is watching Netflix and listening to Spotify premium and spending a lot of time in places that don’t have ads,” she notes. “In that environment, the tools that you have available to you as an advertiser are PR and social media—things that respond really well to newsworthy actions.” For big companies, an act doesn’t even have to be all that grand: Coors Light recently won press appreciation for delivering 150 cans of its product to an elderly woman who had put a sign in her window bemoaning her lack of beer.

But charity doesn’t guarantee plaudits for major companies, Greenwood cautions. When a brand courts positive attention, “people immediately look at your corporate practices and say, ‘Well, you’re expressing solidarity, but you’re not paying your workers,’ or ‘You’re expressing solidarity but refusing to shut down your warehouses,’” she says. “It’s super, super important right now to have all your ducks in a row, because if you want to say anything that’s meaningfully human at this time, you have to be operating in very human ways, and that’s not true of every company.”

This blowback has been particularly swift for the employers of low-wage service workers, who have been drafted into duty as de facto first responders in jobs with few benefits and an elevated risk of contracting COVID-19. Amazon and Instacart workers have gone on strike for better working conditions. Walmart is running ads in which its CEO expresses solemn appreciation for the company’s store employees while those employees work in dangerous conditions and receive meager sick leave. At least two Walmart store employees have died from coronavirus complications so far. (Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.) Many retailers have responded to these complaints with hazard pay, which usually amounts to a few extra bucks an hour, as well as paid sick leave. Accessing sick leave at some companies requires a positive coronavirus test or an official quarantine order, which can be extremely difficult to get until a person is severely ill.

Many fast-food workers experience similar issues with low pay and paltry sick leave, but they face a different set of challenges during the workday. Their restaurants’ dining rooms are largely closed, but commercial kitchens are close quarters, even when run with a skeleton crew. In-store employees for Domino’s have raised concerns about inconsistent safety procedures and the availability of masks and gloves, and Burger King employees fear that they’re still in too much contact with customers. Both Domino’s and Burger King say that they’re doing what’s possible to provide safety gear and sanitizing equipment for employees amid shortages, and that all workers in corporate-owned stores are eligible for paid sick leave.

In spite of disastertising’s pitfalls for brands and how much people may loathe it at times, it’s too late for the country to save itself from the necessity of some kind of advertising during COVID-19. Marketing is tied up in almost all parts of the modern American economy. The sale of goods and services is necessary to keep workers everywhere from factory floors to corporate headquarters fed. Advertising is also the economic engine of much of media, including journalism. If advertisers simply were to go idle, the harm could radiate out to lots of working- and middle-class people with little or no direct connection with advertising itself. In past recessions, companies that maintained their communications presence had an easier time recovering when the economy stabilized, enabling them to retain employees they might have otherwise laid off.

Just how necessary it is to disastertise—to contort a simple message about drive-through lanes or beer delivery to paint a company as public servants during an extraordinary moment—isn’t as clear. Americans seem eager for practical information and opportunities to help, not solemn vows of corporate togetherness. It’s also a choice, not a foregone conclusion, that the American economy is held together by advertising and low-wage workers during a crisis. Overseas, some governments have helped coordinate the distribution of necessary supplies to their homebound citizens, instead of forcing fast-food-delivery people and Walmart cashiers to shoulder the burden with little oversight. For companies whose income has dwindled, many governments are paying the majority of workers’ wages to prevent layoffs and allow more people to stay home.

If disasters have any silver lining, it’s that they give people a rare opportunity to reimagine society. When the pandemic ends, America might try to create a future that’s less reliant on broad public knowledge of virus-killing pizza ovens.

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shalbhin · 8 years

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Stand

I stand. I stand with the people, who are willing to make changes, to how we do things, in order that we as a people, need not buy our shoes, from companies who exploit labor in Vietnam or china or Indonesia or Mexico, or anywhere where the labor is exploited labor, that serves to profit the rich the most, and give the working poor as little as possible. I stand, With The spirits of the Native ancestors of this land we now call America. But I call it the land of bones. Blood and Bones, Spirits that are rising. I Stand With The African People, Those who where brought here a slaves and with all of their posterity, until, the shackles of European Imperialism are forever broken, and buried deep into the molten core of the Earth. I Stand with all the ancestors colonized by European Imperialism, and all the descendants of those ancestors who have suffered under these ruthless grips. I even Stand with, The Whities out there, and the almost whities(like me) who don't dig, but undig this global imperialism that has come to move matter and people in a way most destructive to all ecosystems and life forms on the planet. I stand with the natural fact, that, what goes beyond the bounds of what nature will sustainably allow is destined to fall, and to crumble under the weight of its own false rationale and logic. That there is no social contract that upholds the dignity of the people here in America, or any where else where the products of our commerce come from. According to my analysis, (as "americans" our so-called "values" have only proven to be a biting and venomous hypocrisy) We are living in a moral vaccume, where there has been a huge loss of accountability towards our fellow citizens, and it has been replaced (well its been like this so replaced isn't the right word) by a class and race, division, of often subtle but very prevalent, neglect and criminal feelings of disgust coming from the bougie and emanating to all who do not live up to their mannerisms. A moral code doesn't exist here but in the form of mannerisms designed to gloss over the problems, so the comfortable remain comfortable, and the anguished remain in anguish. Yeah I know there are a lot of good people out the, but the systems and ways of thinking we have been brought up in has gotten us to move and act in a way of complicity, hopeless happiness, and/or fear. Fear that if we go with what we know we will be alone. Complicity of the form "well its just gotta be this way, its always been this way, so I won't trouble myself if struggling to change." (to that i say "Chicken headed get cut off"). And theres that Hopeless Happiness of the bourgeoisie, "things keep getting better, we are safe, be greatful, don't fuss with the man, the man protects us, let's just keep going like this because I am comfortable, and those poor people should just go get a job." (To that I say, Your comforts are built on oppression, Why do you think your class needs so many anti-depressants, Because you have been alienated from stewarding the Earth and communing with all people, by wallowing in comforts that anesthetize your alienation, and robotify your logic, into thoughts that were not your own, but for the safety of your mental, you have accepted these ideals as your own instead of taking a stand in this world. I got no pity, but a plea, please begin to see) I still love you, but love hurts, please change, be bougie no longer, join the hungry masses of the world in solidarity. I stand, Within my self, and my self knowledge of my ability to respond to all this world to the extend that I can. I Stand And see, that, now it is up to me to be all I can be. And this is not an apologetic time, this is a time that calls for blatancy and being straight up. Its time to spill the beans. Please don't fake it, lets see where our sentiments really lay. I respect someone who is twisted but truthful about that, more than a twisted person who pretends to be so good. Get It!!

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romancatholicreflections · 8 years

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16th January 2017, 'Solidarity In Weakness And In Grace' ~ Daily Reflection on Today's Mass Readings for Roman Catholics on Monday, Second Week in Ordinary Time

SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ HEB 5:1-10; PS 110:1-4; MK 2:18-22 ] There are two extreme groups of people in the Church and in the world. Obviously, the first group belongs to the category of sinners. They may or may not know that they are sinners. Those who do not, continue to sin. Some are relativists, who are not conscious of what is right or wrong. Others are aware that what they do is wrong. Most are aware that hurting others, whether bodily, sexually or physically is wrong. There are those who destroy the reputation of others, infringe on their rights or take away their property. Some are regretful. Yet they feel unable to overcome their tendency to evil and selfishness. They condemn themselves and think that they are beyond reach. As a result, they stay out of the Church because they think that God condemns them and, at any rate, they are not worthy to come to Church because they would then be hypocrites. The other extreme group of people are those who seek to be righteous. Within this group, there are those who genuinely seek to be faithful to the truth and the precepts of God. We must not think that all the Pharisees and scribes during the time of Jesus were hypocrites and insincere. Indeed, many of them who have been brought up with the importance and the sacredness of the law as given by God to Moses sought to observe the laws as faithfully as possible. So we must not think that those who seek to be true to the laws are condemned by the Lord. The danger is that those who are so passionate about the Laws of God and the Church, in wanting to be faithful to the laws, may become proud and egoistic. They may become self-righteous, judgmental and despise those who fail to keep the laws as faithfully as they do. When that happens, they condemn others. They are fault finding, like the Pharisees and the scribes who were more focused on catching those who sinned than being attentive to their own sinfulness. Some of them can spend hours quibbling over the interpretation of the laws when people are suffering. So much so, sometimes Catholicism is seen to be too bureaucratic and distant from the lives of our people. It is perceived as theoretical and impersonal in its response to the struggles of our people in their moral life, especially in the areas of sexuality and marriage. Christianity appears to be a joy killer. Some were alarmed that Jesus and His disciples did not fast. They asked Jesus, “Why is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?” In truth, Christianity seeks to give life, not death; freedom not slavery. Jesus and the disciples were eating and drinking. They were people who celebrate life. There is nothing wrong with celebrating life and love, provided it is truly life and love. Jesus replied, “Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of fasting while the bridegroom is still with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they could not think of fasting.” Fasting only becomes a necessity when we are not living an authentic life of love and giving. We are called to fast not just from food but from evil, injustices, and falsehood. So the real fasting is to abstain from our sinful and immoral activities. Physical fasting is but a discipline to remind ourselves of the need to fight against sin and the disorientation of our human will. We need to seek truth and love. But then where do we draw the line between justice and mercy; truth and love? On one hand, we are obliged to observe the objective laws. St. John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 79 declared the existence of absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts that are binding without exceptions. On the other hand, there is the compassionate approach of Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia when he wrote, “The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations. Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding ‘its inherent values’, or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin.” (AL, 301) Right from the outset, we must reassert the fundamental principle of Jesus in today’s gospel when He spoke of the need for integrity and consistency. He said, “And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too. No! New wine, fresh skins!” It is important that we should hold fast to the teaching of Scripture and Tradition with respect to the objective norms of the moral law. We cannot compromise on the truth. We have no authority to change the teachings of the Church either. It is not for individuals to change the moral teachings of the Church as they are based on scripture and tradition. The letter of Hebrews reminds us all, including the authorities of the Church that we are not the legislator of the laws but God Himself. We are only the servants of the Church and of Christ. We are chosen by God’s grace and leaders must be faithful to their call as they are accountable to God. “No one takes this honour on himself, but each one is called by God, as Aaron was. Nor did Christ give himself the glory of becoming high priest, but he had it from the one who said to him: You are my son, today I have become your father, and in another text: You are a priest of the order of Melchizedek, and forever.” Nevertheless, whilst holding to the absolute norms and objective truths, we must also exercise tolerance and compassion with those who are not able to arrive at the absolute norms. In many ways, Christianity remains an ideal for us to reach. We all fall short of the laws and the commandments in many ways. None of us live out the laws completely or perfectly. We are all sinners. This is a fact that must be acknowledged and recognized. We should not pretend to be holy when we are not. Pope Francis wrote, “Yet conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal.” (AL, 303) This is not giving blanket approval to a conscience that goes against the moral absolute norms that prohibits intrinsically evil acts. In order to show compassion, mercy, understanding and tolerance to those who fail to be true to the teachings of Christ, we must learn to identity with them in their struggles and sinfulness. This is what the letter to the Hebrews also said, “Every high priest has been taken out of mankind and is appointed to act for men in their relations with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; and so he can sympathise with those who are ignorant or uncertain because he too lives in the limitations of weakness. That is why he has to make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.” We must be compassionate because we are all in the same journey from guilt to grace, slavery to the Promised Land. Being conscious of our own sins keeps us humble and compassionate with fellow sinners. We must avoid hypocrisy, thinking that we are perfect and holy. Whilst circumstances can mitigate moral responsibility, yet we must reiterate that “circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act ‘subjectively’ good or defensible as a choice.” (VS, 81) Today, we are called to follow the example of Jesus. He led us by example and by obedience to the will of God. Like Jesus, we must seek to align our will with the will of God, difficult though it may be. We need to pray for docility to the Word of God and for the strength to do His will. We must form our conscience according to the mind of Christ and the Church based on Scripture and Tradition. Only the truth can set us free. At the same time, we recognize that moral responsibility is mitigated by other factors such as “by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.” (CCC, 1735) This is where compassion is required. We need to enlighten them and help them to find strength to do His will. This can only be done through the grace of God given through prayer. Even Jesus prayed fervently for the grace to do the Father’s will. “During his life on earth, he offered up prayer and entreaty, aloud and in silent tears, to the one who had the power to save him out of death, and he submitted so humbly that his prayer was heard.” For those of us who are living in irregular situations or unable to overcome our sins and addictions, let us turn to God for mercy and pardon. Let us acknowledge in all humility that we need to change but at the same time, let us beg from Him the grace, courage, strength and determination to do the right thing. With God on our side, like the Messiah, we will be victorious over evil. Written by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart. Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord. It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.

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