#you know how old he is??? hes old enough to help martin luther king fight for civil rights he's NOT. A CHILD.

[cripple-punk-dad]

Once again feeling emotions about God, Forgive These Bastards: Songs From The Forgotten Life Of Henry Turner by The Taxpayers. I listened to the whole album not really knowing the background or the story behind the title. I just loved the music and the artist's voices. But then I found the explanation by the main vocalist on the album, Rob Taxpayer, and:

"The first time I met Henry Turner I feared for my life. I remember the exact date – February 18th, 2007 – because the day before, a close friend of mine had unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide in his studio apartment and I’d spent the entire night at the hospital. It was one of those terrible and typical Pacific Northwest winter nights where the rain seemed relentless and the gloom was contagious, and as I waited at a sheltered bus stop on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard for the # 6 to arrive, a man approached me for a cigarette.

I shook my head and gave him a half-smile.

“Sorry. I quit a few years back.”

I stuck my head back into the newspaper I was reading, and he took a few steps closer.

“How about a buck and a quarter then? All I need is a dollar and a quarter and I’ll have enough for bus fair.”

I shrugged and fumbled around in my pocket.

“I’m using an expired bus transfer myself, but I might have a few extra dimes. It ain’t much, but if it helps, it’s yours.”

I passed him the change, and when he grabbed it, he ducked down to my level and looked me straight in the eyes.

“Look at me. Does it look like a few extra dimes would help? You think a few extra dimes would do any good to anybody? Take a look at me. I got a rotten heart and a bad shoulder and I ain’t slept a good night’s sleep in the past ten years, and you wanna know the kicker? I get fuckers like you tossing me their condescending extra dimes.”

He was tall and intimidating, with wild gray hair and deep wrinkle lines all across his face, and his eyes would occasionally roll up into his head, quiver, and then refocus. His thick, wet coat and his tangled beard had bits of crumpled leaves stuck to them, and he carried himself with the strange confidence of an angry and confused lion.

“And the best part about all of this is that I know you’re cheating me. And you know what I did to the last bastard that cheated me? “

He paused for a few silent, terrifying seconds.

“I bit his ear off.”

I almost pissed my pants. My brain was telling me, “get up and run”, but my body was frozen in fear, and I sat there shaking in excruciating silence. Sure, maybe he was harmless, but something about the look in his eyes terrified me. I could see the bus approaching from about a quarter of a mile away. I did the math. From that distance, it would be another minute or so before the bus arrived, saving me from certain death. I could try to fight back. But while he was an old man, he was an enormous old man, and anyways, you just can’t fight a crazy person. I could run. That was it. I was going to have to get up and run before he sunk his teeth into me, or pulled out a knife, or worse.

Suddenly, he burst into laughter. Not a maniacal laughter, but a booming, good-natured laughter, and his angry eyes became kind and warm. His snarl turned into a crooked smile, and he slapped me on the back like an old friend.

“Aw, I’m just fucking with you, kid. Ain’t much for laughs around here. You’ll have to forgive me.”

He held out his massive hand for me to shake.

“Henry Turner. Friends call me Hank. How ya doin'?”

I was still petrified. Was this some sort of a trick? Was he going to grab my hand and then snap it off like a tree branch? He looked me over and laughed again, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a bus pass.

“Here. This one ain’t expired. Go on, take it, I got a whole stack of ‘em.”

And with that, the bus pulled up to our stop in the rain, the doors opened with a loud mechanical sigh, and Henry held out both his arms, outstretched, in the direction of the doors.

“After you, kid.”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was a semi-celebrity around town, although most people wrote him off as just another one of the crazy folks that told rambling, drunken tales – amusing for a few minutes, but best largely avoided. It was true, he had his demons, but he also had a magical brilliant quality to him, and whenever I ran into him around town, I’d end up spending a few hours with him, if for no other reason than to listen to his unbelievable stories. It didn’t really matter whether they were true or not, it was the way he told them, with absolute clarity and confidence, no matter how crazy they sounded. Some of it even checked out. He’d often talk about his years playing baseball with Georgia Tech, and the famous play-off game where he pitched a two-hitter in 1979. When I got home, I went on the internet and looked up the Georgia Tech roster from 1979, and there he was. Henry Turner. I’ll be damned.

The years went by. I’d leave town for months at a time, but when I came home I could always expect to run into Henry for the latest news and a ridiculous tale. Businesses closed and new ones opened, houses changed ownership, new faces arrived and old ones disappeared, but he was like an ancient marble pillar – unaffected by the changes around him. Or so it seemed. In the winter of 2010, three years after we first met, I ran into Henry on one of the downtown park blocks. He was disheveled and had these crazy eyes, and when he recognized me, he touched me on the shoulder and said something to the effect of, “Gonna go away for a while. You’ll hold onto something for me, yeah?”. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a huge stack of unused bus passes, thrust them into my hands, and walked away. It was the last time I would see him.

Henry Turner died on March 25th, 2010, a product of years of substance abuse and tough living. If a funeral was held I wasn’t aware of it. The news of his death hit me harder than expected, and it sparked an obsession: I began compulsively writing down every outlandish and unbelievable story he’d ever told me, as a sort of tribute. My band started working on an album of songs pertaining to Henry’s life. My nights were spent researching everything I could find about the Turner family. I would rant on and on to complete strangers about the whole ordeal. Then slowly, it began to subside. Life went back to normal. Though I never quite forgot about it, my utter entrancement with the Turners faded.

What follows is an amalgamation of the stories Henry told me, as best as I can remember them. I hope I did him justice. There are some embellishments and I took quite a few liberties, but like all good narrators, Henry knew that any story worth telling should be grand, significant, and a little bit false. It’s important to note that Henry was no hero, and I’m not trying to romanticize or defend him – as you’ll find out, he was a murderer, an abusive husband, an unapologetic addict, and a crook who was haunted by his most awful moments. But he was also at times a tender, loving father, a brave adventurer, and an amazing pitcher, who was surprisingly candid and an absolute charm to listen to. No person can be summed up by their worst actions. And despite his insistence that “forgiveness ain’t an inherent human quality”, that’s what this whole thing’s been about for me: the capacity to forgive someone’s most wretched moments.

Ultimately, I think that when Henry was at his best, he was something simple: a kind, strange friend" -Rob Taxpayer, from The Taxpayer's Bandcamp page

Look at me look me in the eyes: "No person can be summed up by their worst actions" I'm broken I'm dead I'm deceased. The last track on the album is an interview with somebody who knew Henry as a child. It's about remembering someone that nobody else thinks about it's about preserving the memory of the jerks and the assholes and the addicts because everyone deserves to be remembered and to have songs sung about them and have their stories told in whatever way they can be told.

[themomsandthecity]

Should I Invite My Racist Family Members Over For the Holidays?

We know that every holiday season, parents have lots of questions - whether it's how to deal with stress-inducing in-laws or ways to keep their kids healthy. That's why, this year, we tapped four advice columnists and experts to help us. Enter: The Holiday Nightline, where we're answering your most burning questions about parenting during the holidays. Keep reading for a Q&A advice column from Doyin Richards, an anti-racism facilitator and the author of several children's books, including "You Matter to Me." --- Dear Doyin, The holidays are approaching, and my uncle and in-laws have been known to have racist viewpoints towards Black people. I'm a white woman married to a white man, and our twins will be 5 in a month. They are definitely old enough to pick up on what the grownups around them are saying, and I don't want them to be influenced by those words and actions. On the flip side, I know my uncle and in-laws are good people, and having a few backwards beliefs won't change that. My question is, should I confront them about their behavior or should I let it pass? They're coming to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. - Holiday Hatred Dear Holiday Hatred, Let's say your uncle and in-laws hate puppies. Every time they saw one in person, on television, etc., they would say how disgusting puppies are and how the world would be a better place if dogs never existed. Now, let's pretend that these adults spew their hatred of puppies in front of your kids whenever they visit your house. I'm going to pose your question back to you - would you confront them about their behavior, or would you let it pass? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you wouldn't hesitate to put your extended family in check if they were acting this way around your kids. Why? Because pretty much everyone loves puppies and dogs (including you, I bet), and you wouldn't sit idly by while all of this canine slander was flying around your airspace. In other words, if your letter included "German Shepherds" in the place of "Black people," you never would've sent it in the first place. It would be a no-brainer for you to stand up for our beloved four-legged companions. As a Black man, I'm not naïve enough to believe that Black people are in the same category as dogs in terms of being endlessly loved by the general public. In fact, if we weren't catching touchdowns, slam-dunking basketballs, dropping bangers for people to dance to, or entertaining people in some way, we would be at the bottom of the list. I'm not just any Black man, though - my day job is to fight against all types of racism as a consultant for corporations and universities across the globe. In doing so, I constantly see people make excuses as to why they won't fight against the world's most pervasive mental illness (and yes, racism is a mental illness), and it usually comes down to one simple phrase: "I don't want to rock the boat." It's so odd to me, because racists have no problem rocking the boat in polite society. They say and do so many vile things - and people are actually concerned about hurting their feelings? Really?! Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described this phenomenon perfectly while sitting in the Birmingham Jail in 1963: "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;' who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season.'" He wrote that letter 60 years ago, and the shameful… https://www.popsugar.com/family/holiday-nightline-racist-family-49308854?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[atlantatorchnews]

Dr. King and the KING of Kings

Click here to listen to this message in 30 languages

1 Timothy 6:13-16: “I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” Revelation 19:16: “And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords.” This message is important to me because I came to faith in Jesus Christ through the efforts of a white, independent Baptist church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, that for many years did not accept black members, but in the late ‘70s was led to start a black church while I was in the Air Force and stationed at Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, at the age of nineteen. As I interacted with the leaders and members of that church, and even the pastor of the black church plant, I heard some negative things about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that I had never heard before. Some people tried to discredit him by suggesting that he was not a true minister of the Gospel, and even that he did not have a genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. They viewed him as just a mere social worker, with some even claiming that he was a Communist. Even some of the blacks in that young church did not think too highly of Dr. King. I must admit that I did have concerns and questions about this matter because I was raised in the black Baptist church and the black Pentecostal Holiness church, with my dad being a Baptist preacher and my mother being a Pentecostal preacher, and yet I had never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ on how to be saved until I was nineteen-years-old, and a young man named Michael Lewis, who had gotten saved through this church plant that an all-white independent Baptist church had started, came to my dorm room and showed me what was commonly called the Romans Road to salvation from the book of Romans in the Bible. Up until that point, no one had asked me the question, if I were to die today, where would I go, heaven or hell? Thankfully, the Lord allowed me to keep an independent mind about the matter through all of that, and I came to see Dr. King as God’s man for that particular time in this nation’s history to help deliver both blacks and whites in this country from the ignorance of racism and prejudice. I even learned later that Dr. King tried to get into a white conservative Christian seminary, but he was rejected because of his race. However, based on his words and his life, it seems as though Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did know the King of Kings — the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only that, but the faith, courage, and fortitude that he showed (and that he inspired others to have) as he led the very dangerous Civil Rights movement speaks of a man who knew Jesus Christ as his Savior and had an abiding faith in God.

According to the book, 

Parting the Waters: America in the King Years

, by historian Taylor Branch: In 1934, when a guest minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta made a strong pitch for the salvation of young souls, Martin Luther King Jr. watched his sister rise to make the first profession of faith in Christ. Impulsively, as he later confessed, “I decided that I would not let her get ahead of me, so I was the next.” Also in his book, Strength to Love, Dr. King wrote: “Bound by the chains of his own sin and finiteness, man needs a Saviour (Jesus Christ). Man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of all things and humanity is not God.” We see here that, contrary to what some thought of King, he did not believe that man could get to Heaven by doing good works. He believed that he and everyone needed a Savior — Jesus Christ. He also said, “Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight victoriously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.” That sounds like what Jesus Christ called being “born again” when He told Nicodemus in John 3:3 & 7, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God…Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” As a teenager, King wrote these words in a paper called “The Negro and the Constitution”: “We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flaunt the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule.” In a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1967, King said, “I’ve learned that to be a follower of Jesus Christ means taking up the cross. And my Bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter. Before the crown we wear, there is the cross that we must bear.” And, in his famous sermon, “A Knock at Midnight”, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The church today is challenged to proclaim God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to be the hope of men in all of their complex personal and social problems.” Dr. King certainly spoke as a man who knew Jesus Christ. His core philosophy of love and nonviolence was rooted in the teachings of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. Dr. King is dead now, and based on his own words and testimony, we can only say that he is in Heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ having served his generation as a Moses in modern times. It is not enough to honor Dr. King alone because evidently it was the power of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, in his life that caused Dr. King to lead and help both blacks and whites in this nation overcome the ignorance of racism and prejudice. If you truly want to honor Dr. King during this time of remembrance regarding his life, you need to make the decision to trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior so that you can do great things in your generation as King did in his, for the Bible says, we ‘can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth us.’ If you want to know Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, please listen closely, and take the following steps before it is eternally too late: First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:20: “For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…” Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Fourth, accept the fact that you cannot do anything to save yourself! The Bible states in Ephesians 2:8,9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Fifth, accept the fact that God loves you more than you love yourself, and that He wants to save you from hell. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (Jesus Christ, John 3:16). Sixth, with these facts in mind, please repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and pray and ask Him to come into your heart and save you this very moment. The Bible states in the book of Romans 10:9,13: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Finally, if you are willing to trust Jesus Christ as your Saviour, please pray with me the following prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and I want to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I want to trust Jesus as my Savior and follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen. If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! I want to congratulate you on doing the most important thing in life and that is receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For more information to help you grow in your new-found faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” Believe by faith. Share the faith. And keep the faith! God Bless You!

[sciencespies]

The True History Behind 'Judas and the Black Messiah'

https://sciencespies.com/history/the-true-history-behind-judas-and-the-black-messiah/

The True History Behind 'Judas and the Black Messiah'

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | Feb. 11, 2021, 3:15 p.m.

When Chicago lawyer Jeffrey Haas first met Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, he was struck by the 20-year-old activist’s “tremendous amount of energy” and charisma. It was August 1969, and Haas, 26 years old at the time, and his fellow attorneys at the People’s Law Office had just secured Hampton’s release from prison on trumped-up charges of stealing $71 worth of ice cream bars. To mark the occasion, Hampton delivered a speech at a local church, calling on the crowd to raise their right hand and repeat his words: “I am a revolutionary.”

“I couldn’t quite say that, because I thought I was a lawyer for the movement, but not necessarily of the movement,” recalls Haas, who is white. “But as Fred continued saying that, by the third or fourth time, I was shouting ‘I am a revolutionary’ like everyone else.”

Judas and the Black Messiah, a new film directed by Shaka King and co-produced by Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, deftly dramatizes this moment, capturing both Hampton’s oratorical prowess and the mounting injustices that led him and his audience to declare themselves revolutionaries. Starring Daniel Kaluuya of Get Out fame as the chairman, the movie chronicles the months preceding Hampton’s assassination in a December 1969 police raid, detailing his contributions to the Chicago community and dedication to the fight for social justice. Central to the narrative is the activist’s relationship with—and subsequent betrayal by—FBI informant William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), who is cast as the Judas to Hampton’s “black messiah.”

“The Black Panthers are the single greatest threat to our national security,” says a fictionalized J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen), echoing an actual assertion made by the FBI director, in the film. “Our counterintelligence program must prevent the rise of a black messiah.”

Here’s what you need to know to separate fact from fiction ahead of Judas and the Black Messiah’s debut in theaters and on HBO Max this Friday, February 12.

Is Judas and the Black Messiah based on a true story?

In short: yes, but with extensive dramatic license, particularly regarding O’Neal. As King tells the Atlantic, he worked with screenwriter Will Berson and comedians Kenny and Keith Lucas to pen a biopic of Hampton in the guise of a psychological thriller. Rather than focusing solely on the chairman, they opted to examine O’Neal—an enigmatic figure who rarely discussed his time as an informant—and his role in the FBI’s broader counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO.

“Fred Hampton came into this world fully realized. He knew what he was doing at a very young age,” says King. “Whereas William O’Neal is in a conflict; he’s confused. And that’s always going to make for a more interesting protagonist.”

Daniel Kaluuya (center) as Fred Hampton

(Glen Wilson / Warner Bros.)

Speaking with Deadline, the filmmaker adds that the crew wanted to move beyond Hampton’s politics into his personal life, including his romance with fellow activist Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), who now goes by the name Akua Njeri.

“[A] lot of times when we think about these freedom fighters and revolutionaries, we don’t think about them having families … and plans for the future—it was really important to focus on that on the Fred side of things,” King tells Deadline. “On the side of O’Neal, [we wanted] to humanize him as well so that viewers of the film could leave the movie wondering, ‘Is there any of that in me?’”

Who are the film’s two central figures?

Born in a suburb of Chicago in 1948, Hampton demonstrated an appetite for activism at an early age. As Haas, who interviewed members of the Hampton family while researching his book, The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther, explains, “Fred just couldn’t accept injustice anywhere.” At 10 years old, he started hosting weekend breakfasts for other children from the neighborhood, cooking the meals himself in what Haas describes as a precursor to the Panthers’ free breakfast program. And in high school, he led walkouts protesting the exclusion of black students from the race for homecoming queen and calling on officials to hire more black teachers and administrators.

According to William Pretzer, a supervisory curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), the young Hampton was keenly aware of racial injustice in his community. His mother babysat for Emmett Till prior to the 14-year-old’s murder in Mississippi in 1955; ten years after Till’s death, he witnessed white mobs attacking Martin Luther King Jr.’s Chicago crusade firsthand.

“Hampton is really influenced by the desire of the NAACP and King to make change, and the kind of resistance that they encounter,” says Pretzer. “So it’s as early as 1966 that Hampton starts to gravitate toward Malcolm X … [and his] philosophy of self-defense rather than nonviolent direct action.”

Fred Hampton speaks at a rally in Chicago’s Grant Park in September 1969

(Chicago Tribune file photo / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

William O’Neal in a 1973 mugshot

(Fair use via Wikimedia Commons)

After graduating from high school in 1966, Hampton, as president of the local NAACP Youth Chapter, advocated for the establishment of an integrated community pool and recruited upward of 500 new members. In large part due to his proven track record of successful activism, leaders of the burgeoning Black Panther Party recruited Hampton to help launch the movement in Chicago in November 1968. By the time of his death just over a year later, he’d risen to the rank of Illinois chapter chairman and national deputy chairman.

O’Neal, on the other hand, was a habitual criminal with little interest in activism before he infiltrated the Panthers at the behest of FBI agent Roy Mitchell (portrayed in the film by Jesse Plemons). As O’Neal recalled in a 1989 interview, Mitchell offered to overlook the-then teenager’s involvement in a multi-state car theft in exchange for intel on Hampton.

“[A] fast-talking, conniving West Side black kid who thought he knew all the angles,” O’Neal, according to the Chicago Tribune, joined the party and quickly won members’ admiration with his bravado, mechanical and carpentry skills, and willingness to place himself in the thick of the action. By the time of the police raid that killed Hampton, he’d been appointed the Panthers’ chief of security.

“Unlike what we might think of an informer being a quiet person who would appear to be a listener, O’Neal was out there all the time spouting stuff,” says Haas. “People were impressed by that. … He was a ‘go do it’ guy. ‘I can fix this. I can get you money. I can do these kinds of things. And … that had an appeal for a while.”

Why did the FBI target Hampton?

Toward the beginning of Judas and the Black Messiah, Hoover identifies Hampton as a leader “with the potential to unite the Communist, the anti-war, and the New Left movements.” Later, the FBI director tells Mitchell that the black power movement’s success will translate to the loss of “[o]ur entire way of life. Rape, pillage, conquer, do you follow me?”

Once O’Neal is truly embedded within the Panthers, he discovers that the activists are not, in fact, “terrorists.” Instead, the informer finds himself dropped in the midst of a revolution that, in the words of co-founder Bobby Seale, was dedicated to “trying to make change in day-to-day lives” while simultaneously advocating for sweeping legislation aimed at achieving equality.

The Panthers’ ten-point program, penned by Seale and Huey P. Newton in 1966, outlined goals that resonate deeply today (“We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people”) and others that were certain to court controversy (“We want all Black men to be exempt from military service” and “We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails”). As Jeff Greenwald wrote for Smithsonian magazine in 2016, members “didn’t limit themselves to talk.” Taking advantage of California’s open-carry laws, for instance, beret-wearing Panthers responded to the killings of unarmed black Americans by patrolling the streets with rifles—an image that quickly attracted the condemnation of both the FBI and upper-class white Americans.

Fred Hampton (far left) attends an October 1969 rally against the trial of eight people accused of conspiracy to start a riot at the Democratic National Convention.

(Don Casper / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

According to Pretzer, law enforcement viewed the Panthers and similar groups as a threat to the status quo. “They are focused on police harassment, … challenging the authority figures,” he says, “focusing on social activities that everybody thinks the government should be doing something about” but isn’t, like providing health care and ensuring impoverished Americans had enough to eat.

The FBI established COINTELPRO—short for counterintelligence program—in 1956 to investigate, infiltrate and discredit dissident groups ranging from the Communist Party of the United States to the Ku Klux Klan, the Nation of Islam and the Panthers. Of particular interest to Hoover and other top officials were figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Hampton, many of whom endured illegal surveillance, explicit threats and police harassment. Details of the covert program only came to light came to light in 1971, when activists stole confidential files from an FBI office in Pennsylvania and released them to the public.

Though Hampton stated that the Panthers would only resort to violence in self-defense, Hoover interpreted his words as a declaration of militant intentions.

“Because of COINTELPRO, because of the exacerbation, the harassment, the infiltration of these and agent provocateurs that they establish within these organizations, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy from the FBI’s point of view,” Pretzer explains, “[in that] they get the violence they were expecting.”

As Haas and law partner Flint Taylor wrote for Truthout in January, newly released documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request confirm the lawyers’ long-held suspicion that Hoover himself was involved in the plan to assassinate Hampton.

LaKeith Stanfield (left) as William O’Neal and Jesse Plemons (right) as FBI agent Roy Mitchell

(Glen Wilson / Warner Bros.)

What events does Judas and the Black Messiah dramatize?

Set between 1968 and 1969, King’s film spotlights Hampton’s accomplishments during his brief tenure as chapter chairman before delving into the betrayals that resulted in his death. Key to Hampton’s legacy were the Panthers’ survival programs, which sought to provide access to “fundamental elements of life,” per Pretzer. Among other offerings, the organization opened free health clinics, provided free breakfasts for children, and hosted political education classes that emphasized black history and self-sufficiency. (As Hampton said in 1969, “[R]eading is so important for us that a person has to go through six weeks of our political education before we can consider [them] a member.”)

On an average day, Hampton arrived at the Panthers’ headquarters with “a staccato of orders [that] gave energy to everyone around him,” says Haas. “But it wasn’t just what he asked people to do. He was there at 6:30 in the morning, making breakfast, serving the kids, talking to their parents.”

In addition to supporting these community initiatives—one of which, the free breakfast program, paved the way for modern food welfare policies—Hampton spearheaded the Rainbow Coalition, a boundary-crossing alliance between the Panthers, the Latino Young Lords, and the Young Patriots, a group of working-class white Southerners. He also brokered peace between rival Chicago gangs, encouraging them “to focus instead on the true enemy—the government and the police,” whom the Panthers referred to as “pigs,” according to the Village Free Press.

Fred Hampton raises his right hand at an October 11, 1969, rally in Chicago.

(Photo by David Fenton / Getty Images)

Speaking with Craig Phillips of PBS’ “Independent Lens” last year, historian Lilia Fernandez, author of Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago, explained, “The Rainbow Coalition presented a possibility. It gave us a vision for what could be in terms of interracial politics among the urban poor.”

Meanwhile, O’Neal was balancing his duties as an informant with his rising stature within the party. Prone to dramatic tendencies, he once built a fake electric chair intended, ironically, to scare informers. He also pushed the Panthers to take increasingly aggressive steps against the establishment—actions that led “more people, and Fred in particular, [to become] dubious of him,” says Haas.

The months leading up to the December 1969 raid found Hampton embroiled in legal troubles as tensions mounted between police and the Panthers. Falsely accused of theft and assault for the July 1968 ice cream truck robbery, he was denied bail until the People’s Law Office intervened, securing his release in August 1969. Between July and November of that year, authorities repeatedly clashed with the Panthers, engaging in shootouts that resulted in the deaths of multiple party members and police officers.

Daniel Kaluuya as Fred Hampton (far left) and LaKeith Stanfield as William O’Neal (far right)

(Glen Wilson / Warner Bros.)

By late November, the FBI, working off O’Neal’s intel, had convinced Cook County State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan and the Chicago Police Department to raid Hampton’s home as he and his fiancée Johnson, who was nine months pregnant, slept. Around 4:30 a.m. on December 4, a heavily armed, 14-person raiding party burst into the apartment, firing upward of 90 bullets at the nine Panthers inside. One of the rounds struck and killed Mark Clark, a 22-year-old Panther stationed just past the front door. Though law enforcement later claimed otherwise, the physical evidence suggests that just one shot originated within the apartment.

Johnson and two other men tried to rouse the unconscious 21-year-old Hampton, who’d allegedly been drugged earlier that night—possibly by O’Neal, according to Haas. (O’Neal had also provided the cops with a detailed blueprint of the apartment.) Forced out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, Johnson heard a cop say, “He’s barely alive. He’ll barely make it.” Two shots rang out before she heard another officer declare, “He’s good and dead now.”

What happened after Hampton’s assassination?

Judas and the Black Messiah draws to a close shortly after the raid. In the film’s final scene, a conflicted O’Neal accepts an envelope filled with cash and agrees to continue informing on the Panthers. Superimposed text states that O’Neal remained with the party until the early 1970s, ultimately earning more than $200,000 when adjusted for inflation. After he was identified as the Illinois chapter’s mole in 1973, O’Neal received a new identity through the federal witness protection program. In January 1990, the 40-year-old, who’d by then secretly returned to Chicago, ran into traffic and was struck by a car. Investigators deemed his death a suicide.

“I think he was sorry he did what he did,” O’Neal’s uncle, Ben Heard, told the Chicago Reader after his nephew’s death. “He thought the FBI was only going to raid the house. But the FBI gave [the operation] over to the state’s attorney and that was all Hanrahan wanted. They shot Fred Hampton and made sure he was dead.”

The attempt to uncover the truth about Hampton and Clark’s deaths began on the morning of December 4 and continues to this day. While one of Haas’ law partners went to the morgue to identify Hampton’s body, another took stock of the apartment, which the police had left unsecured. Haas, meanwhile, went to interview the seven survivors, four of whom had been seriously injured.

A floor plan of Fred Hampton’s apartment provided to the FBI by William O’Neal

(People’s Law Office)

Hanrahan claimed that the Panthers had opened fire on the police. But survivor testimony and physical evidence contradicted this version of events. “Bullet holes” ostensibly left by the Panthers’ shots were later identified as nail heads; blood stains found in the apartment suggested that Hampton was dragged out into the hallway after being shot in his bed at point-blank range.

Public outrage over the killings, particularly within the black community, grew as evidence discounting the authorities’ narrative mounted. As one elderly woman who stopped by the apartment to see the crime scene for herself observed, the attack “was nothing but a Northern lynching.”

Following the raid, Hanrahan charged the survivors with attempted murder. Haas and his colleagues secured Johnson’s release early enough to ensure she didn’t give birth to her son, Fred Hampton Jr., in jail, and the criminal charges were eventually dropped. But the attorneys, “not content with getting people off, decided we needed to file a civil suit” alleging a conspiracy to not only murder Hampton, but cover up the circumstances of his death, says Haas.

Over the next 12 years, Haas and his colleagues navigated challenges ranging from racist judges to defendants’ stonewalling, backroom deals between the FBI and local authorities, and even contempt charges brought against the attorneys themselves. Working from limited information, including leaked COINTELPRO documents, the team slowly pieced together the events surrounding the raid, presenting compelling evidence of the FBI’s involvement in the conspiracy.

Hampton’s fiancée, Deborah Johnson (sitting in middle, as portrayed by Dominique Fishback), gave birth to their son, Fred Hampton Jr., 25 days after the raid.

(Glen Wilson / Warner Bros.)

Though a judge dismissed the original case in 1977 following an 18-month trial, Haas and the rest of the team successfully appealed for a new hearing. In 1982, after more than a decade of protracted litigation, the defendants agreed to pay a settlement of $1.85 million to the nine plaintiffs, including Clark’s mother and Hampton’s mother, Iberia.

“I used to describe being in court like going to a dog fight every day,” says Haas. “Everything we would say would be challenged. The [defendants’ lawyers] would tell the jury everything the Panthers had ever been accused of in Chicago and elsewhere, and [the judge] would let them do that, but he wouldn’t let us really cross examine the defendants.”

Hampton’s death dealt a significant blow to the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, frightening members with its demonstration of law enforcement’s reach and depriving the movement of a natural leader.

According to Pretzer, “What comes out is that the the assassination of Hampton is a classic example of law enforcement’s malfeasance and overreach and … provoking of violence.”

Today, says Haas, Hampton “stands as a symbol of young energy, struggle and revolution.”

The chairman, for his part, was keenly aware of how his life would likely end.

As he once predicted in a speech, “I don’t believe I’m going to die slipping on a piece of ice; I don’t believe I’m going to die because I got a bad heart; I don’t believe I’m going to die because of lung cancer. I believe that I’m going to be able to die doing the things I was born for. … I believe that I will be able to die as a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.”

#History

[vettingsanders]

He Did Nothing For Years

The Bernie Sanders Story

I was going to title this post something that more adequately expresses my rage, like “Bernie Sanders is a Grifting Fuck and a Garbage Human,” but then I decided to be classy and paraphrase a quote from Evita instead.  But I’m also petty so consider the subtitle of this rant to be “A Grifting Fuck and a Garbage Human.”

I was going to wait to post this until the primaries are over because if by some unholy hell miracle Sanders wins the nomination, obviously we all have to unite behind even the shittiest, most doomed to fail candidate, but fuck it.  Vote blue no matter who, that goes without being said, but Sanders is the worst possible choice and was even when there were a dozen plus horses in this race, and now y’all are going to hear all the reasons why.

The Early Years: Sanders the Deadbeat

Sanders graduated from the university of Chicago in 1964 with a BA in Political Science and chose not to work until he was elected mayor of Burlington in 1981

I say “chose not to work” because he was fully capable but preferred being a bum.  He had no student debt, he had no health conditions that prevented him from working, and the 1960s were characterized by rapid growth of the workforce, with three out of four college graduates holding high level positions by 1970

Sanders occasionally did some freelance writing and carpentry during these years, according to his resume, probably so he could claim he was trying to work in order to collect unemployment.  Let’s take a look at some of his writings:

At age 28, he wrote an article for alternative newspaper The Vermont Freeman entitled “Cancer, Disease, and Society.”  In the article, he argues that sexual repression can cause cancer, and women who are virgins, have fewer orgasms than their peers, or simply don’t enjoy sex are more likely to develop cancer.  The article includes statements such as “the manner in which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well determine whether or not she will develop breast cancer, among other things” and “How much guilt, nervousness have you imbued in your daughter with regard to sex?  If she is 16, 3 years beyond puberty and the time which nature set forth for child-bearing, and spent a night out with her boyfriend, what is your reaction? Do you take her to a psychiatrist because she is “maladjusted” or a “prostitute,” or are you happy that she has found someone with whom she can share love?”  He also argues that the education system contributes to cancer, as does having “an old bitch of a teacher (and there are many of them).”  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

In 1969, in another article for The Vermont Freeman, he wrote, “In Vermont, at a state beach, a mother is reprimanded by Authority for allowing her 6 month old daughter to go about without her diapers on. Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business, not to mention the large segment of the general economy which makes its money by playing on peoples sexual frustrations.”  https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-freeman-sexual-freedom-fluoride/

His resume, incidentally, also lists him as a freelance youth counselor during his period of unemployment, which is just great.  The man who thinks thirteen year olds should be getting pregnant and children should touch each other’s genitals, counseling your kids.  Fantastic.

In the 1970s, Sanders stole electricity from his neighbors rather than paying his own bill.  https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927

He stole food from the refrigerator of The Vermont Freeman’s publishers https://newrepublic.com/article/122005/he-was-presidential-candidate-bernie-sanders-was-radical

 He was asked to leave a hippie commune in 1971 due to sitting around engaging in “endless political discussion” rather than working.  Let me repeat, he was too lazy for a hippie commune. https://freebeacon.com/politics/bernie-sanders-asked-leave-hippie-commune/

Now, all of this apart from the theft is arguably okay.  It’s his own life, and if he wants to squander it publishing poorly written essays and doing jack shit, whatever.  Except it wasn’t just his life, because he had a son, Levi.  And he was a deadbeat, paying no child support and causing Levi’s mother, Susan Mott, to rely on welfare, which made her face discrimination when trying to find housing.  https://twitter.com/m_mendozaferrer/status/1093295853907922946

Bernie Sanders is a deadbeat dad.  No respect.

Failing Upwards: Sanders the Politician

In 1971, Sanders joined the Vermont Liberty Union Party, a socialist political group.  From 1971 to 1977, Sanders was the party chief and habitually ran for office, failing every time.  He left the group in 1977, stating that they did not do enough to fight banks and corporations during non-election years.  This is just one example of Sanders decrying everyone else as too impure for him.

In 2016, the Vermont Liberty Union Party voted to brand Sanders as a war criminal.  Their general secretary, Peter Diamondstone, said of Sanders, “ He never was a socialist!"  https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnjby3/the-vermont-political-party-bernie-sanders-founded-isnt-into-him-anymore  This is just one example in the long list of Sanders alienating his allies.

He finally won the mayoral election for Burlington in 1981, by only ten votes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Burlington_mayoral_election

Sanders was only elected to the US House of Representatives in 1990 because he had the support of the National Rifle Association.  The incumbent Congressman, Republican Peter Smith, advocated for an assault weapons ban, so the NRA flooded Sanders with money.  https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/stickin-to-his-guns-the-nra-helped-elect-bernie-sanders-to-congress-now-hes-telling-a-different-story/Content?oid=27816693

In 2006, 2012, and 2018, when running for the Senate, Sanders ran as a Democrat in the state primaries, then declined the Democratic nomination, and ran as an independent in the general.  This made it basically impossible for any Democrat to run against him.  https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/21/bernie-sanders-democrat-independent-vermont-601844

After a landslide loss to Secretary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, Sanders demanded changes to the DNC primary structure that would make the process easier for him to win with just a plurality of delegates instead of a majority.  These rule changes were the reason the 2020 Iowa caucus was such a clusterfuck. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-iowa-caucus-winner-trump-democrats-a9317761.html

Despite all his talk of getting out the youth vote and inspiring disenfranchised voters, Sanders planned all along to squeak by with only thirty percent of the delegates in the 2020 primary by provoking infighting among other candidates to split the moderate vote.  The supposed movement he claimed to lead is a sham. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/04/bernie-sanders-thinking-he-will-win-it-all-2020/587326/

“I Never Saw Him”: Sanders and Civil Rights

Sanders touts his participation in the March on Washington in 1963 as proof of his devotion to civil rights activism.  He loves to remind people that he marched with MLK, as seen during the She the People 2019 forum where he repeated that old chestnut for the millionth time and was booed by the attendees. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-met-with-boos-after-name-dropping-martin-luther-king-at-she-the-people-summit

In actuality, Sanders was one of 250,000 people at the march, along with Mitch McConnell, who is clearly no champion for civil rights. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/7-things-know-about-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-part-flna6C10621413

Representative John Lewis, an actual civil rights hero who worked with Dr. King and whose skull was fractured by police on Bloody Sunday, said that he “never saw [Bernie Sanders].  I never met him,” during the movement. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2016/02/11/john-lewis-never-saw-bernie-sanders-during-civil-rights-era/80263450/

Sanders was charged with resisting arrest during a segregation protest in Chicago in 1963, and was charged $25.  He later white flighted to Vermont, one of the whitest states in the country. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago/

Sanders never bothered to vote during the Civil Rights movement, only putting forth the effort when he himself was running. https://imgur.com/gallery/mmS40Gq#460q6bS

During his speech in Jacksonville on the 50th anniversary of MLK’s death, Sanders rewrote history and tried to claim that King’s real focus was economic justice and not civil rights.  "All of us know where he was when he was assassinated 50 years ago today.  He was in Memphis to stand with low-income sanitation workers who were being exploited ruthlessly, whose wages were abysmally low, and who were trying to create a union. That’s where he was. Because as the mayor just indicated, what he believed — and where he was a real threat to the establishment — is that of course we need civil rights in this country, but we also need economic justice.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can

In thirty years in Congress, Sanders has not sponsored any bills pertaining to civil rights: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on

Sanders voted for the 1994 crime bill https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-has-dodged-criticism-crime-bill-vote-while-others-n1020726

In 1994, he praised the bill and stated that the US needed more jails.  https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1221468426855755776

He touted his vote for the crime bill on his website at least until 2006, as proof he was “tough on crime” and “strong on the cops” https://web.archive.org/web/20061018180921/http:/www.bernie.org/truth/crime.html

In 2015, during a meeting with police reform activist group Campaign Zero, Sanders responded to being asked why he thought a disproportionate amount of people of color were incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses with “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African-American?”  Those present at the meeting stated, “Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can 

In 2018, fifteen racial and social justice leaders in Vermont, including multiple NAACP branch presidents, ACLU organizers, and BLM activists, sent an open letter to Sanders and the Sanders Institute to complain that they were “excluded” from the “national progressive movement that Senator Bernie Sanders is trying to foster.”  The letter asks “how could Senator Sanders host what is supposed to be an intersectional, progressive event without inviting the very people whom he serves?”  http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/vpr/files/201812/sanders-letter-2018.pdf

Curtiss Reed, Executive Director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, stated that the exclusion of Vermont POC from the Sanders Institute’s event was “a catastrophic failure of his sort of tone deafness to marginalized communities in the state of Vermont” and added “I’m tempted to say this is no longer a question of benign neglect on the part of the senator, but willful ignorance on his part not to include marginalized voices in this national conversation on the progressive movement.”   https://www.vpr.org/post/we-find-ourselves-excluded-racial-justice-leaders-ask-bernie-sanders-get-program#stream/0 

Vermont Black leaders stated they were “invisible” to Sanders, and that the senator “was just really dismissive of anything that had to do with race and racism, saying that they didn’t have anything to do with the issues of income inequality.  He just always kept coming back to income inequality as a response, as if talking about income inequality would somehow make issues of racism go away.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/vermonts-black-leaders-we-were-invisible-to-bernie-sanders

In his 1998 autobiography, Sanders repeatedly and needlessly used the n-word. He chose to keep the word in the text when republishing the book in 2015.  https://www.inquisitr.com/5620596/bernie-sanders-under-fire-for-use-of-n-word-in-2015-book-clip-from-audiobook-version-goes-viral-friday/ 

“I Will Not Make It a Major Priority”: Sanders the Ally

During an interview as mayor of Burlington, Sanders said LGBTQ rights were not a “major priority” for him and he would “probably not” support a bill to protect gays from job discrimination.  https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/10/bernie-sanders-on-marriage-equality-hes-no-longtime-champion.html

Also during his time as mayor, Sanders signed a resolution affirming that marriage is between “husband and wife.” https://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/02/06/clinton-surrogates-pounce-on-sanders-over-82-marriage-resolution/

Sanders and his wife stated in 1996 that they opposed the Defense of Marriage Act simply because it would weaken states’ rights.  Only later did he claim his opposition was due to support for same-sex marriage. https://time.com/4089946/bernie-sanders-gay-marriage/

Sanders argued same-sex marriage was a states’ rights issue in 2006. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&v=kej9QAsS3uI&feature=emb_logo

In that same year, after same-sex civil unions had been legal in Vermont since 2000, he responded to a reporter asking if same-sex marriage should be legalized in Vermont with “Not right now,” after the “very divisive debate” preceding the civil union legislation. https://web.archive.org/web/20160407064606/http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060607/NEWS/606070302/1003/NEWS02

In thirty years in Congress, Sanders has not sponsored any bills pertaining to LGBTQ rights: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on  

Sanders the Warmonger

Sanders loves to tout his opposition to the Iraq War as proof of his moral superiority.  But in 1998, he voted for the Iraq Liberation Act, which states that “it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”  He also supported Clinton’s airstrike on Iraq.  https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1998/h482

In 1999, Sanders had anti-war protesters at his office arrested. https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/27/bernie-sanders-savior-or-seducer-of-the-anti-war-left/

The Iraq War Bill that Sanders voted against required Bush to first try diplomatic efforts and abide by UN rules of military conduct.  It also required transparency and progress reports.  https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-joint-resolution/114/text

The Authorization for Use of Military Force Act (AUMF), which Sanders did vote for, required none of that and is the reason the Afghanistan War was so much of a clusterfuck.  Bush would have used the AUMF to invade Iraq even if Congress had voted down the Iraq Liberation Act.  The only person to vote against the AUMF was Representative Barbara Lee.  Sanders voted in favor of it.  https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/sjres23/text

Sanders claims to oppose the defense industry.  But he brought Lockheed Martin and their 1.2 trillion dollar, over budget, outdated stealth fighters to Vermont. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-loves-this-dollar1-trillion-war-machine

During his tenure as mayor of Burlington, he fired the assistant city treasurer when she was jailed for an anti-war protest. https://academic.oup.com/publius/article-abstract/21/2/131/1917641?redirectedFrom=PDF 

Sanders the Healthcare Crusader

Sanders was chairman of the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee during a 2014 scandal when dozens of veterans died while waiting for medical care.  During his tenure, Sanders only held seven hearings on VA Oversight, as opposed to the House committee’s forty-two hearings.  Veterans argue that Sanders was too invested in the idea of the VA as a shining example of government healthcare to address its failings.  Despite the scandal and tragedy, Sanders as recently as 2017 bragged that  he was involved with “the most comprehensive VA health care bill in this country.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-veterans-scandal-on-bernie-sanderss-watch

He voted against the Clinton plan for universal healthcare in 1993.  https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/14/1501210/-Where-Was-Sanders-on-Health-Care-in-93-and-94-Against-the-Clintons

Sanders also voted against CHIP, the children’s health insurance program that AOC relied on to see a doctor in her youth: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1997/h345

Despite campaigning on Medicare for All since 2015, Sanders was unable to explain how much the program would cost during a 2020 60 Minutes interview.  https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/politics/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-2020/index.html

When Senator Warren did the math for him and released her detailed M4A plan, Sanders attacked her, calling his plan “more progressive” and saying hers would “have a very negative impact on creating jobs.” https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/03/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-health-care-plan/index.html

Sanders claims that his healthcare plan is standard in other countries.  But his M4A plan would ban private insurance, which is not done in any country but Canada.  In the Scandinavian countries Sanders loves to hold up as an example of government healthcare, the market for private insurance is growing.  https://aapsonline.org/no-bernie-other-countries-do-not-ban-private-care/

“Too Brassy, Too Bitchy”: Sanders the Feminist

In his autobiography, Sanders quoted an article calling his 1996 primary opponent Susan Sweetser “too brassy, too bitchy.” https://books.google.com/books?id=_2YjBm2_JGUC&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173&dq=sanders+too+brassy+too+bitchy&source=bl&ots=SWrIR5Xa8m&sig=ACfU3U2-Hj1-UXIOM0Zz274h6_Nu8juoBg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHhtObq6LmAhWvUt8KHc8mDVUQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=sanders%20too%20brassy%20too%20bitchy&f=false

 In his Vermont Freeman article “Cancer, Disease, and Society,” Sanders called teachers “old bitch[es]” and blamed them for men developing cancer.  He also said women developed cancer due to sexual repression.  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

Referring to their 1986 governor race, his opponent Madeleine Kuhn stated, “When Sanders was my opponent he focused like a laser beam on “class analysis,” in which “women’s issues” were essentially a distraction from more important issues. He urged voters not to vote for me just because I was a woman. That would be a “sexist position,” he declared.”  https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/02/04/when-bernie-sanders-ran-against-vermont/kNP6xUupbQ3Qbg9UUelvVM/story.html

Sanders called Planned Parenthood “a part of the establishment” because they endorsed Secretary Clinton for president.  https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/planned-parenthood-bernie-sanders-218026

Sanders called Hillary Rodham Clinton, former law firm partner, former First Lady, former Senator, and former Secretary of State, unqualified to be president. https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/06/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-qualified/index.html

In January 2020, leaked phone banking scripts from the Sanders campaign called Warren a candidate of the affluent who wouldn’t bring any new voters to the Democratic base.  https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/11/bernie-quietly-goes-negative-on-warren-097594

In response, members of Warren’s campaign leaked information that, at a dinner in 2018, Sanders had told Warren he did not think a woman could win the presidency.  Sanders and his supporters decried this as a lie, even though reporters knew of the dinner and had been asking Warren if Sanders had discussed women’s electability there for over a year.  https://twitter.com/mlcalderone/status/1104477933886935040?s=19

Sanders supporters then flooded Elizabeth Warren and her supporters’ Twitter mentions with snake emojis.

Sanders said of Secretary Clinton, “It is not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!” https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/21/13699956/sanders-clinton-democratic-party

Bending the Knee: Sanders the Dictatorship Fanboy

During a 2020 60 Minutes interview, Sanders inexplicably decided it would be a good idea to start praising Fidel Castro’s genocidal regime, stating, “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but, you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. When Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program.  Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?” https://www.vox.com/2020/2/24/21147388/bernie-sanders-cuba-60-minutes-nicaragua

He doubled down on this praise at the next debate, whining, “Really?  Really?” when the crowd booed him.  https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article240627047.html

In 2014, Sanders visited Cuban prisoner Alan Gross, who lost over 100 pounds and five teeth during his captivity.  During the meeting, Gross recalls Sanders telling him, “I don't know what's so wrong with this country.”  https://www.npr.org/2020/03/04/811729200/former-prisoner-recalls-sanders-saying-i-don-t-know-what-s-so-wrong-with-cuba

In 1985, Sanders praised bread lines and food rationing.  “American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food.  That's a good thing. In other countries people don't line up for food. The rich get the food, and the poor starve to death." https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/21/1920767/-Time-to-switch-out-from-Bernie-he-praised-nations-with-bread-lines-that-s-a-good-thing-Danger

Sanders hung a USSR flag in his office as mayor of Burlington.  https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/24/bernie-sanders-reveals-his-radical-inclinations-ov/

He honeymooned in the USSR, and praised the state of the Soviet Union. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-bernie-sanderss-1988-10-day-honeymoon-in-the-soviet-union/2019/05/02/db543e18-6a9c-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html

In the 1980s, Sanders attended a Sandinista rally in Nicaragua where the attendees chanted, “Here, there, everywhere, the Yankee will die.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/bernie-sanders-pro-sandinista-past-problem.html

Sanders recently praised China, saying that it has made "more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization." https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/458976-sanders-china-had-done-more-to-address-extreme-poverty-than-any-country-in-the

“They Can’t Stop Us”: Sanders the Conspiracy Theorist

Despite conceding the 2016 primary and stating that “Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination and I congratulate her for that” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders/index.html), he later made the Trump-esque statement “Some people say that if maybe that system was not rigged against me, I would have won the nomination and defeated Donald Trump.” https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-defeat-donald-trump-2016-rigged-primary-dnc-nbc-kasie-hunt-1446116

 On February 21, Sanders tweeted, “I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us.” https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1231021453270769664

After Super Tuesday, Sanders stated that Buttigieg and Klobuchar were pressed to drop out as part of an establishment plot to defeat him. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/486503-sanders-klobuchar-and-buttigieg-ended-campaigns-under-great-deal

Sanders has repeatedly attacked the press as “paid by the corporations and billionaires who own the media.”  He’s promoted the conspiracy theory that Jeff Bezos makes The Washington Post write negative articles about him. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/27/bernie-sanders-attacks-media-press-fair-or-trump-2020-democrats

During the Nicaraguan conflict, Sanders accused American reporters of ignoring the truth and told a CBS reporter, “you are worms.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/bernie-sanders-pro-sandinista-past-problem.html

Sanders accused The Washington Post of trying to harm him in the Nevada caucus by reporting on Russia’s attempts to boost his campaign. https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-takes-a-shot-at-washington-post-good-friends-when-asked-about-timing-of-russia-report/

“We Support Them”: Sanders the Spoiler

Robert Mueller’s investigation found that Russian interference sought to boost both Sanders and Trump’s 2016 campaigns, stating “we support them.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/17/indictment-russians-also-tried-help-bernie-sanders-jill-stein-presidential-campaigns/348051002/

Sanders was well aware of the Russian efforts, stating “What we knew is–well, of course we knew that.  And of course we knew that they were trying to cause divisiveness within the Democratic party.  Uh, that’s no great secret.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDYbHult0Do

When The Washington Post reported on Russia’s efforts to boost Sanders in 2020, Sanders had already known for weeks and said nothing.  After the report came out, he attacked the Post and accused them of trying to tank his performance in the Nevada caucus, stating “I’ll let you guess, about one day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out?  It was The Washington Post?  Good friends.” https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-takes-a-shot-at-washington-post-good-friends-when-asked-about-timing-of-russia-report/

The Fish Rots from the Head: The Sanders Campaign

The 2016 campaign breached the Clinton campaign’s voter data and harvested and stored voter information https://time.com/4155185/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/

The 2016 campaign received a 645 page letter from the FEC detailing the campaign’s finance violations (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-bernie-sanders-donors-who-are-giving-too-much/482418/) and had to pay a $14.5 K fine to the FEC after receiving donations from non-citizens. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/376373-sanders-campaign-pays-145k-fine-to-settle-fec-complaint

The 2016 Nevada campaign director sought to rig the state’s caucus by urging staffers to buy double-sided coins for tie-breaking coin tosses http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sanderss-nevada-director-floated-two-sided-coins-for-tiebreaks-report/ar-AAhHiAI?getstaticpage=true&automatedTracking=staticview

The 2016 campaign initially decried superdelegates as “undemocratic” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/opinions/superdelegates-democratic-party-kohn/) before attempting to persuade them to go against the primary’s outcome and back Sanders instead of Clinton https://www.npr.org/2016/05/19/478705022/sanders-campaign-now-says-superdelegates-are-key-to-winning-nomination

The 2016 campaign was accused by staffers of sexual harassment, demeaning treatment toward women, and pay disparity by gender https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-sexism.html

Weeks before the 2016 general election, Jane Sanders retweeted a video from an April town hall of her husband telling an attendee to “make these decisions yourself” regarding whether or not to vote third party if Secretary Clinton won the primary https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/26/retweet-bernie-sanders-wife-jane-raises-questions/91140254/

The 2020 Sanders campaign appointed Russian interference denier and Jill Stein 2016 voter Briahna Joy Gray as the campaign’s National Press Secretary https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/888555665865814017?lang=en

Following promises to run a civil campaign, Sanders hired David Sirota, a man who’d spent months attacking other primary contenders online, as a speech writer.  The campaign also confirmed that Sirota had already been serving in an advisory role prior to his official hiring https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray called for the doxing of a Sanders critic on Twitter. If there was any repercussion for this behavior, it has never been made public. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/14/1879124/-Bernie-Sanders-s-Campaign-Doxed-a-Critic-on-Twitter

The 2020 campaign hired and fired YouTuber Matt Orfalea within 24 hours after being alerted of his sexist, racist, homophobic, and ableist content, suggesting he was not vetted before his hiring https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bernie-sanders-matt-orfalea-mlk-youtube-video/

Despite his firing and the campaign decrying his behavior in October 2019, in January 2020 Jane Sanders was still retweeting and praising Orfalea.  https://twitter.com/Rob_Flaherty/status/1236861997398048768

In March 2020, Orfalea posed as a Biden volunteer and made calls to voters claiming that Biden has dementia.  https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgeanp/a-man-fired-from-sanders-campaign-is-calling-biden-voters-and-saying-he-has-dementia

They hired and fired Darius Khalil Gordon after two days after being alerted of his sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and ableist Tweets https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/12/bernie-sanders-new-head-organizer-called-people-fgs-bhes/

The campaign also hired former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate.  The Women’s March cut ties with Sarsour following anti-Semitic statements. https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/womens-march-founder-calls-on-current-leadership-to-step-down/

Sarsour was also condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for the statement that “a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.” https://forward.com/news/national/435964/bernie-sanders-linda-sarsour-jewish-voters/

Sanders National Campaign Co-Chair Nina Turner claimed that Biden’s strong support among Black voters is due to the voters’ “short memories” and “not a true understanding of the history” https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/473161-top-sanders-officials-hits-biden-over-riding-on-obamas-coattails

The 2020 campaign paid staffers working 60 hours a week an average of 13 dollars per hour despite Sanders campaigning on a 15 dollar per hour minimum wage https://www.vox.com/2019/7/20/20700841/bernie-sanders-minimum-wage-staff-pay

Bernie Bros attacked Biden’s Detroit rally on 3/9/20, striking senior aide Symone Sanders in the head with an iPad and knocking her down. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/joe-biden-detroit-protests-sanders-124874

“Nobody Likes Him”: Sanders Himself

In 1996, Congressman Barney Frank said of Sanders, “Bernie alienates his natural allies.  His holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”  https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/04/11/history-barney-frank-bernie-sanders-criticize

In her recent Hulu documentary series, Hillary Rodham Clinton briefly spoke about Sanders, saying “He was in Congress for years.  He had one senator support him.  Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.” https://twitter.com/Burkmc/status/1235863901813661697?s=09

A former campaign staffer called Sanders “unbelievably abusive.”  Another campaign insider called him an asshole, and a former Senate staffer recounted, "He yelled in meetings all the time.”  https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/anger-management-sanders-fights-for-employees-except-his-own/Content?oid=2834657

One aide stated that Sanders “never makes you feel like you’re good enough to be in the room with him.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/us/politics/bernie-sanders-image.html

Sanders voted in favor of dumping nuclear waste on the poor and predominantly Latinx community of Sierra Blanca, Texas https://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/28/Sanders-Nuclear-Waste-Votes-Divide-Texas-Activists/

When asked if he would visit the site in Sierra Blanca, Sanders answered “Absolutely not.” https://archives.texasobserver.org/issue/1998/09/11#page=11

Sanders voted five times against the Brady Act which required universal background checks and a waiting period to buy firearms. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/13/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-voted-against-brady/o

He also voted against the AMBER Alert System. http://archive.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/09/21/sanders_vote_on_amber_alert_emerges_as_key_campaign_issue/

He wanted to primary Obama in the 2012 election cycle. https://www.thenation.com/article/yes-bernie-sanders-wanted-obama-primaried-in-2012-heres-why/

After saying millionaire senators are immoral (https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/bernie-millionaire-senators-immoral/index.html) and railing against millionaires and billionaires in his 2016 campaign, Sanders responded to criticism of his millionaire senator status by saying “if you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”  His stump speech now only rants about billionaires. https://theweek.com/speedreads/834228/bernie-sanders-says-millionaire-like-write-bestselling-book 

Upheld a ban on rock concerts as mayor of Burlington like a Footloose villain https://i.redd.it/atpybo1rcwa31.jpg

Despite running on forgiving student loan debt since 2015, when pressed for specifics during an interview with Dana Bash, Sanders responded, “I don't have the plan in my pocket right now,” because, you know, why on Earth should he know the details of his key campaign promises? https://mobile.twitter.com/DanaBashCNN/status/1137779734467792897

Two days before the 2016 general election, Sanders tweeted “I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist.” https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/794941635931099136?lang=en

 Sanders had a heart attack at age 78, making his continued life expectancy 3.1 years. https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/acute-coronary-syndrome/study-65-older-mi-patients-die-within-8-years

He could have dropped out of the race after his heart attack and endorsed Warren, and she could have spent the primary building coalitions with the demographics where she was the weakest, and could well have been the front runner by now.  Instead, he selfishly stayed in the race, screwing her over and knowing full well the odds are against him living through a single term.  He continued to do the only thing he’s good at: fucking everyone over.

Say whatever you want about Biden, it’s not like there aren’t things to say.  But I’ve seen so many posts about how “Sure, Biden’s the worst EVER, but he is EVER SO SLIGHTLY less worse than Trump,” and excuse me, fuck off.  Biden horribly lost his wife and daughter before his 1972 Senate term even started, and instead of dropping out, he continued to serve his constituents while commuting home two hours every night to raise his sons.  Meanwhile, in 1972, Sanders was a deadbeat bum stealing electricity.  There’s no comparison.

[spiritualdirections]

Mercy in a time of national anger

Last Sunday, the Church celebrated the feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit made the Apostle’s speech in their rough, Galilean accents, understandable to those from countries all over the region where Aramaic was not spoken. Ever since proud engineers tried to build the Tower of Babel, the languages of the Earth had been scrambled. The miracle of Pentecost is that through the Holy Spirit, the sin and punishment of Babel were set aside, and people began to understand each other. In fact, the Acts of the Apostles describes the early Church as having a miraculous level of unity, in which everyone lived in harmony, “with one heart and one mind (lit. “soul”).” This sort of unity is available to us, if through the Holy Spirit we set aside the sin that divides us.

But a few chapters later, that harmony gives way to jealousy and misunderstanding. The new Christian community in Jerusalem, which includes baptized converts from both Judaism and paganism, starts to divide among pagan-Jewish lines. At first, the problem is one of (alleged) discrimination—one group thought that they weren’t getting treated fairly. Later the divisions become theorized and theological—the Jewish converts wanted to impose Jewish customs and the Mosaic Law upon the non-Jewish converts. St. Paul spends much of his ministry fighting off this theological error. The Letter to the Romans explains his major arguments: Paganism is bad and you converts from paganism should rejoice at having been rescued from that. Judaism, on the other hand, includes God’s revealed truth. But the Jewish converts to Christianity shouldn’t boast about their superior heritage, since the Old Covenant was incomplete; all its religious truth didn’t actually rescue a single person from sin—for that we all need baptism into Jesus’ New Covenant. The pagan converts were apparently bragging that they’d now supplanted the Jews in God’s kingdom, and so St. Paul shut down that argument as well—we have nothing of our own to boast about, but only Jesus, and the fact that we get to suffer and participate in His Passion and sacrifice on the Cross.

Interpersonal animosity is a consequence of Original Sin. The original harmony of man and woman in the Garden of Eden, in which Adam rejoices that finally God has found him a suitable partner in Eve, gives way after the Fall to Adam blaming God for giving him “the woman”. Cain murders his brother Abel, his anger leaving him open to temptation by the devil. And so on, down to our day.

This week, we’ve been focused on how people of different races don’t love each other. Last fall, in the wake of the Jeffrey Epstein revelations and the #MeToo movement, we focused on how men don’t treat women with respect. Before that, we were concerned about how we treated immigrants. And so on. It seems that we get outraged by whatever part of fallen humanity the media causes us to focus on right now, until the next news cycle refocuses us on the sin over there. We can always find genuine, real, interpersonal animosity if we look for it, since we can always find the fallenness of humanity if we look for it.

We can hate people who are different from us. And, as the story of Cain and Abel teaches us, we can hate people who are a lot like us. A few years ago, we were focused on how Irish Christians, racially indistinguishable from each other, were killing each other. We were shocked about how Rwandan Catholics, all of whom are black, conducted a genocide against each other in the 1990s. This Wednesday, we celebrated the feast of Charles Lwanga and the Ugandan martyrs, all members of the Gandan people, who were killed by their own king for refusing his homosexual advances. Husbands and wives, who profess their lifelong love on the day of their weddings, come to hate each other in the wake of the divorce. Mothers kill their own children by the millions through abortion, from some misguided sense of self-preservation (a species of self-love). We can grow to hate or mistrust anyone who isn’t us. That’s the lesson of original sin.

Charity, the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, is the love that overcomes our anger at injustice and the sinful divisions that follow. Without charity, without grace, our concerns shrink: from a love of all mankind, to a love of our tribe (literal or metaphorical), to a love only of those like us, to a love of this family member but not that one, to a love of ourselves above all, even above Christ. Charity is the love that tears down the walls that divide us. Charity is the readiness to give our lives for those we love, in imitation of Christ’s sacrifice.

As the sad examples of Northern Ireland and Rwanda make clear, Catholics are not free of the temptation to selfishness and even to murder. The Church has had and will always have sinners within it. And yet, in the Creed we say, “we believe in one holy… Church.” This is a dogma. It doesn’t mean that the Church includes only those who are without sin, but rather that the Church is holy insofar as we allow the Holy Trinity to work within us. Through the Holy Spirit, we are baptized into Christ Jesus and his covenant with the Father. When we genuinely act and pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we are holy. Charity is a participation in the interior life of the Trinity.

In my book Mercy, I talk about how a great part of the difference between Christian thinking and secular thinking about politics comes down to mercy, to how we respond to injustices. The mistake of what I call “justice-only politics” is to have well-developed ideas about how things ought to be (aka justice), but no concept of mercy, no real thought about what to do when circumstances and/or people get in the way of their idea of justice.

I think the national reaction to the killing of George Floyd reveals something like this. Some people think that the right thing to do is to enact reforms of the police; others think that the right thing to do is to kill the police and bomb the precinct. Some people think that nonviolent protests are an appropriate response; others think that injustice justifies robbing the local Target. Some people are satisfied when the bad cops are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted; others want to overthrow the government. Some are just so upset that they don’t know what to do. All agree that something deeply wrong happened to George Floyd, but our consensus stops there, at the level of justice.

Mercy is the virtue that comes into play when things go wrong. Once we decide that something is unjust, we still have to decide what is the right thing to do. Do we “cancel” the unjust persons, breaking solidarity with them and removing them from society? Do we send them to the guillotine? Or do we try to make things better? In an interesting Trinitarian statement, Jesus commands his disciples to “be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). So justice-only politics, or any politics without solidarity for the offender and the sinner, is not a Christian option.

Jesus also commands us to be meek and gentle, as he was, rather than angry. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on the Beatitudes, says that to be meek while at the same time not being a wimp (my paraphrase) is a gift of grace. For most people, to keep their anger at injustice under the control of their reason (so that it doesn’t grow to rage) is a virtue. But for the Christian, we have the grace and therefore the responsibility to go way beyond mere self-control. We are commanded to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, hunger and thirst for justice, and not to get angry enough even to call someone names—above all, to love everyone whom Jesus loves, for the reason that Jesus loves them. Jesus, when faced with the greatest injustice in the history of the universe, his own crucifixion, didn’t get angry; to the contrary, he was meek “as a lamb led to the slaughter.” He was strong—he was omnipotent—and could have resisted the injustice with power and caused his enemies to relent and submit. But he revealed to us that to be meek and loving in the face of great wrongs is to be divine.

Racism is a sin, and Jesus conquers sin. It’s a sad fact that most of our thinking about race takes place in a left-wing, Marxist, atheistic context, in which a desire for power and an awareness of otherness crowd out Christian reflections on meekness and solidarity. It didn’t used to be this way. The Civil Rights movement was once led by Christians, most notably the Protestant Pastor Martin Luther King. It appealed to the Gospel to unify people of all races. As in so much of our life, so to with regard to race, it’s a struggle to think in Christian terms. When people only talk about justice, it’s a struggle to cultivate mercy. It’s a struggle to forgive those who have trespassed against us, or people like us. It’s easy to forget what we said above, that mercy is commanded of us.

For this reason, I highly recommend that we Catholics foster a desire for mercy, pray for mercy, and perform works of mercy as much as we can. June is the month devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a symbol of his suffering for us out of his merciful love—the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is Friday, June 19, a time when many people consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart. Many people find that the Chaplet to Divine Mercy helps realign their hearts with Jesus’, so that they can regard people with his merciful eyes and love them with his merciful heart. Both devotions call attention to Jesus’ Passion, the steep price that he paid to conquer sin and division. We’ll find that we, too, have to pay a steep price to conquer the sin in our own hearts—that we cannot be casual or lazy about our own spiritual lives if we want to help the world to be better.

There are no spiritual shortcuts. To conquer racism requires a conversion to holiness, and a willingness to spread grace and charity to hardened hearts. Only through baptism into Christ’s Ascension can any fallen human being participate in the inner charity of the Trinity. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to transform our lives.

[haleviyah]

I just want to be clear ^^;

For future reference, and the fact I keep being asked about this, I am NOT a Christian.

I have not been to church in years, I have even been ousted by Christians over the littlest and most ridiculous reasons that occurred before I even published “Rose of Sharon”. I was policed and harassed by these said people online, and it resulted me to be disbanded from them not just for my safety and well-being but also for their’s as well…

Long story short, we don’t get along. I tried (emphasis on TRIED) making bridges with them, which resulted in these sheep always knocking it down… Geez. Sound familiar?  

HOWEVER, I am a person growing in Biblical philosophy. The reason why I don’t (and even refuse to) share verses of the Bible on social media anymore is not because I don’t believe in it. It is simply because:

I need to, and would rather, fully understand what these verses are contextually saying FIRST, before sharing. It’s pointless of me repeating phrases I don’t understand.

Call me old fashioned, I prefer to walk before I talk now a days. I don’t speak verses unless I apply them personally first.

I treat the Bible like how I treat my marriage: privately. Just the fact that I read the Bible should never be paraded so I can look good to others. If you want to share verses, feel free to share, but don’t do it to portray as the good guy or that ego going to bite you in the ass.

I rather let people judge me by my character and not the labels I wear or what I so happen to post here. That’s all I ask. (Common sense, if a woman loves her man she’s faithful to him, same context should apply to what I am reading from the Bible...same damn context!) 

So, I’m not aChristian technically speaking. I came, I saw, but they saw me too, hated me and… I left. And again, I am biblically growing, does this mean I hate other people by default? Uh, Hell no.

I mean, what gives me the right to damn another person who has just as much potential as I do?

Unpopular opinion here, I’m a woman who took Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words more seriously than “certain movements” that have been trending on social media for the past few month. I prefer to judge by the content of character. It’s effective and helps you find real friends in the world. 

I really don’t care if you’re gay, American, Asian, African, atheist, Catholic, Jew, or even physically/mentally injured, I really, really don’t care. What I care more about is the continuity of your character.

It’s simple: If I see your are open and willing to listen, then we’ll talk. However if I see you are apathetic and expect me to psychically know your philosophies/issues without clear, adequate explanations from you, then I won’t understand you. Or if you expect me to kowtow to you because you’re “x” label, we will have issues. 

On a side note let me also say this: I have made the mistakes like many others here. I have made unjust judgements (I mean, who hasn’t?) and I have started fights that I to this day do regret even if I did apologize for them. Bottom line, I have learned from those cringe worthy mistakes. And with that, I know what leads a person to see the world through “Black and White” or “Kingdom of Light and Kingdom of Darkness”. It’s called ‘ignorance’. That simple.

That very filter of division does drive you mad, and turns you into the exact devil you claim to be fighting against. Arguably, (based on experience) that kind of divided mentality never truly unifies people - doesn’t matter if you’re religious or not. Living like that doesn’t really give chance for Truth and what is consistent in this world to speak up and guide or correct you. As a matter of fact, that kind of philosophy doesn’t even encourage you to accept correction or rebuke maturely; which is extremely dangerous! This “my way or the highway; if you’re not with me you’re the devil” mentality is more disgusting than snuff films. I’ll be frank...

In recent years, I’ve learned that there are different shades of grey in the world, different hues of light. Some people are dim sparks and other’s are bright stars; but each flame tells a story wether it be of tragedy or triumph, we can learn regardless from each person. But I challenge those who view the world divided, how can you reach out and unify these sparks into a beautiful light show if you are too damn picky of favoring the brightest, whitest lights? You’re going to go blind like that. If you’re playing favoritism like this you’re not the wiseman, you’ve become the fool in that case.  

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: Ignorance breathes fear, fear breathes hatred, and hatred breathes destruction. Fear cannot be cured by committing genocide on everything you hate, it can be cured by simply educating yourself. Empathizing others.

What does it mean to empathize? Empathy simply means the act of placing yourself into the shoes of another and seeing the world through their perspective while investigating why they act and think this way. This move demands absolute humility and being empty of your personal opinions. Or how Christian’s constantly preach of “Being dead to yourself”. Unlike sympathy which is usually moved by emotion and usually only rewarding one person, empathy is moved by genuine willingness to understand another. It helps give opportunity for both people to grow and become stronger individuals through each other’s understanding. To have a clear picture of it, Sherlock Holmes is great example of empathy (the original novels, not the recent tv show). Pretty cool if this is your first time hearing empathy, huh?

Unfortunately, this requirement of humility, self-disesteem, and sacrifice of personal opinions is exactly why people don’t like empathy. Because humility by nature has a habit of getting you out of your comfort zone; out of that safe space so you can can understand your true place. Empathy is very self-convicting, but that’s what makes it so powerful and unifying than just holding riots in the streets with signs.  

That’s a mere brush up, but I hope that’s enough.

But going back to explaining myself. I’ve learned too much in the past year alone to just bow the knee to the demands of just anyone. I’m NOT doing that because this year has made me bitter… No. I am honestly putting the foot down for the sake of the other person. If I bow the knee to them, that rewards any bitterness that is eating them up inside, and thus would blind each of us to what is honorable and just in this world. In short, it would just kill us.

I am not for treating a person according to their sins, but I’m rather for rebuking them according to the potential they have and what they stand for. Of course everyone has a choice to listen or not, but let mine be the just thing to do.  

Do unto others and you want others to do unto you. We know who recited that phrase, but He also said “You shall be condemned (or held accountable) to the words you speak (what you uphold/ or the philosophy you live by).”  

So, back to original statement. After reading all this, do I sound or act like a Christian? What defines one since there are so many variations out there anyway?

Everyone is welcome here on my blog. I’m not going to push anyone away just because you are different from me, but I’m not expecting everyone to love me. I can be blunt sometimes, but it’s better than me lying to people. I am not going to shove the Bible down your throat because simply I find that stupid and immature. If you don’t like me you don’t have to follow me, just don’t resort to emotional retorts... it’s not going to make me do anything. 

If you’re open to me, I’m open to you. If you’re closed up from me, I won’t force you to open up… But please…

PLEASE! Don’t expect me to understand you if you don’t explain yourself.

It’s all that simple.

[dipulb3]

Selma marcher sees history repeat with new challenges to voting

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/selma-marcher-sees-history-repeat-with-new-challenges-to-voting/

Selma marcher sees history repeat with new challenges to voting

“It was horrible,” Bland recalls now. “There was this one lady, I don’t know if the horse ran over her or if she fell, but all these years later, I can still hear the sound of her head hitting that pavement.”

The march — known as Bloody Sunday — so shocked the nation that it helped mobilize Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. That landmark legislation finally dismantled the Jim Crow-era laws that relied on obscure civics tests, discriminatory poll taxes and violence to deny full citizenship to all Americans.

But today, 55 years later, Bland feels as though she’s re-living parts of the past as she surveys a country riven by racial tension, where Black men and women die too often at the hands of police, and in which states press ahead with purging voters from their rolls and enforcing strict voter identification laws — even as a once-in-a-century pandemic stalks their citizens.

“Sometimes I wake up and I think we are paralleling the 60s all over again,” Bland said in an interview from her home in Selma, where she leads tours of the city’s civil rights landmarks. “The laws that they passed to prevent African Americans from voting were insurmountable, and states could make up their own rules. That’s pretty much where this is going now.”

History repeated

Once again, Alabama is among the states at the forefront of the battles over voting.

A cluster of voting-rights groups has sued the Secretary of State John Merrill and other election officials over requirements that voters casting ballots by mail must make a copy of their photo identification and sign their ballots in front of two witnesses or a notary public. The groups also want the state to allow curbside voting.

Forcing voters to meet those requirements and have contact with other people in the middle of a pandemic, puts Alabamians who potentially face serious health consequences from the coronavirus at greater risk, said Caren Short, a senior staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the groups suing over the restrictions.

Although African Americans make up only about 27% of Alabama’s population, they have accounted for nearly 40% of confirmed Covid-19 deaths in the state, according to the state’s Department of Public Health.

Short credits Alabama officials with moving to expand voting by mail because of the pandemic, but she said that’s not good enough.

“Alabama is the birthplace of the civil rights movement, and it’s the birthplace of the voting rights movement,” she said. “It really should be the state where officials are making it as simple and as easy a process as possible for citizens to vote.”

Merrill told Appradab the voter ID and witness requirements are enshrined in state law and can’t be suspended. “We don’t have the ability to set aside state law because we’re not interested in it or because we don’t think it’s appropriate at this time,” he said.

He said his overarching goal as secretary of state is to “make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

A supreme fight

The skirmish is just the latest legal battle in Alabama over voting rules.

The most consequential for the state and the nation came in 2013 when the Supreme Court sided with Shelby County, Alabama, in a challenge to federal oversight in places with a history of discrimination.

The Shelby ruling defanged the Voting Rights Act by tossing out the portion of the law that determined which states needed approval from the US Department of Justice or a federal court before they could make changes to their voting procedures and laws.

Before the ruling, those blanket rules meant states needed prior permission to make changes, big and small, to their voting practices — ranging from moving a polling place to redrawing electoral districts or changing the date of an election.

The case centered on a local redistricting plan from Shelby County, but the 5-4 decision reverberated across the nation, especially in the nine states and parts of six others that required so-called pre-clearance of voting changes.

Within hours of the high court’s decision, Texas — one of the states subject to pre-clearance — announced voter identification rules would take effect in the state. Alabama and other states, including Mississippi, began to enforce strict voter ID laws. Other states have enacted new restrictions, such as signature match laws that require a voter’s signature on an absentee ballot to match their signature on voting rolls.

Post-Shelby, it’s now up to the Justice Department, individuals and groups to pursue court challenges of voting laws they view as discriminatory. Rick Hasen, an expert on election law at the University of California, Irvine, and a Appradab contributor, said the Obama administration filed “litigation where they could.”

But the Trump administration’s record protecting voting rights has been “abysmal,” he said. “I can’t think of a single thing that the Trump administration has done, coming out of the Justice Department, to help minority voters.”

In Alabama, Merrill, who helped write his state’s voter ID law while serving in the state legislature, disputes that Alabama laws have made it harder for any Black voters to cast their ballots in the state.

Voter registration has soared during his tenure, he said, with 96% of eligible African American residents registered to vote, compared to 91% of White Alabamians. He said the state works to make sure every qualified voter has photo identification.

In Georgia, a potential presidential battleground state this year, battles have raged over the state’s aggressive removal of voters from registration rolls. Voting rights groups have accused the state of improperly purging legitimate voters; state officials say they are engaged in routine list maintenance.

Bland, now 67, has followed the raft of new laws from Selma — a city she returned to in 1989 after stints in the US Army and time living in Florida and New York.

“Purging the rolls, closing down polls in rural communities, requiring an exact signature,” she said ticking off the changes she’s seen across the country. “But we’re not going to let them discourage us. We’ll follow their rules until we can change them.”

Young freedom fighter

Bland was exposed to voting rights fights at a young age.

Her mother died in childbirth when Bland was just three, and her grandmother, Sylvia Johnson, moved back to her native Alabama from Detroit to help care for the family, Bland said.

Bland said her grandmother was shocked by how little had changed. Barriers to voting still included poll taxes and literacy tests, that among other things, required would-be voters to read aloud parts of the Alabama state Constitution, know the exact size of Washington, DC, as spelled out in the US Constitution (10 square miles) and which of the original 13 states had the largest representation in the first Congress (Virginia).

The answers were “impossible to know unless you were a civics genius,” changed frequently and varied by county — all in “in a concerted effort to make it as difficult as possible for individuals to pass,” said John Giggie, who directs of the Frances J. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Local officials had discretion over who got the hardest questions and what it took to pass the tests.

In 1965, before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, only about 2.1% of voting-age Black residents of Dallas County, where Selma is located, were registered.

Johnson, with all four of her grandchildren in tow, began to attend mass meetings of the Dallas County Voters League, led by Amelia Boynton, one of Selma’s civil-rights pioneers. While the adults talked strategy, Bland said she was focused on more prosaic issues: chiefly, how to gain access to the lunch counter at Carter’s Drug Store in downtown Selma.

“I wanted to sit there like those white kids and spin around on those stools and eat ice cream,” she recalled. “Grandmother said, ‘Colored children can’t sit at the counter, but when we get our freedom, you can do that.’ “

“I became a freedom fighter the day she told me that,” she said, attending her first meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at age 8.

As a child, she thought the marches themselves were fun. “The spirit of the movement is what we liked the most,” Bland said.

She said she and her friends thought little of joining the throng headed to the bridge on that Sunday in March for what supposed to be the first leg of a 54-mile trek to the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery to demand voting rights.

“I didn’t know there was the possibility of any violence,” she said. “Then, I crested the bridge and saw the police across all four lanes.”

Pandemonium ensued as the troopers pushed into the crowd. Images from that day show one swinging his baton at Lewis, as the then-25-year-old SNCC chairman raises his right hand, trying to shield his head from the blows. Boynton was beaten unconscious.

“They were running the horses into the crowd,” Bland recalled. “People were being trampled.”

Choking on tear gas, the young Bland fainted in terror. Someone picked her up and took her safety. She awoke in a car, her head in her sister’s lap.

But two days later, she and her sisters were on the bridge again, now joined by 2,000 others and led by The Rev. Martin Luther Jr., for what became known as “Turnaround Tuesday.” She still was scared and wanted to turn back, Bland said, but her sisters grasped her hands tightly to keep her in place, telling her: ” ‘They won’t beat Dr. King.’ “

King and march leaders, obeying a federal court injunction, prayed and sang when they encountered the police blockade that day and turned the protesters around. The march to Montgomery would proceed later that month with Alabama National Guard troops, now under federal command, protecting the protesters.

A lifetime’s work

For Bland, what followed was a life dedicated to social justice that included helping to found a museum of voting rights in Selma to help residents tell their own stories of the struggle.

And she sees parallels between her past and the protesters today who have taken to the streets to demand change, following the deaths of George Floyd and others at the hands of police. Police brutality “hasn’t stopped one day since I’ve been on this Earth,” she said. “But now you can see it in real time.”

In the run-up to November’s election, she’s spending her days pushing everyone she sees to register, get their absentee ballots and use them. On Election Day, she’ll be where she usually is: At the polls. For some 30 years, she worked there in some capacity — early on as a Democratic poll watcher, this year as an official poll inspector.

Lewis’ death in July at 80 has renewed calls by some national activists to rename the bridge in his honor. Pettus, its namesake, was a Confederate general, US Senator and Ku Klux Klan leader in Alabama.

But Bland would rather see it left as it was the day she crossed it as a young girl.

“What happened on that bridge in ’65 gave that bridge a new meaning,” she argued. “It’s now synonymous with freedom all over the world.”

The best way to honor, Lewis, she said: “Get out and vote.”

[katstrm]

i am tired

I am tired of America turning a blind eye to this. I don’t even know how to describe “this” anymore. I hesitate to call it what it is, racism, hate crime, abuse of policing power - only because unfortunately, injustices like the murder of George Floyd have happened far too many times that we have grown indifferent, numbed, and unbothered by these terms. We have grown accustomed to the systemic crime and murder of black people, it has become the norm and is ACCEPTED as part of the regular news cycle. I know that the American culture has accepted this injustice - injustice doesn’t even cut it anymore, it doesn’t convey anywhere near the sheer amount of evil carried out in these acts - because IT KEEPS HAPPENING. Over and over and over and over again. 

This isn’t up for debate.

I remember being in elementary school, 8 years old in second grade, learning about Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights movement. I remember thinking to myself “How can this happen, why did so many people allow this to happen?” I remember thinking “If I lived in the 60s, I would’ve said something. I would’ve participated in the marches, I would’ve fought back against the bullies.”

The people who enforced and encouraged racism weren’t the only “bad guys” in the textbook. The people who idly stood by and kept quiet to avoid rocking the boat were the villains, too. 

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

-Desmond Tutu

I didn’t want to be the bad guy in the next generation’s history books. I thought I would be better than that. In our schools we are taught about the dangers of neutrality in hopes that we as a generation would avoid making those same mistakes in pursuit of a better, more equal future. But that’s not happening.

Too often have I sat out of political discussions, political activism, reposting and sharing because I didn’t want anyone to think differently of me, to dislike me because of what I believed in. I didn’t want to rock the boat. 

But this, isn’t about me.  I can’t possibly imagine what it’s like to be black in America. Yes, anti-asian sentiment is alive and well, unfortunately. But it doesn’t even COMPARE to the black experience. I have never had to fear for my life when faced with the very system and people set in place to PROTECT and SERVE me. My comfort in neutrality comes at a price, one that I don’t have to pay. 

I’m tired of being comfortable. Being comfortable means that you know what’s happening, and you’re allowing it to happen because it doesn’t personally involve you. That’s not going to cut it.  I’m tired of being comfortable with innocent people being murdered, I’m tired of being comfortable with killers being defended and let loose. I’m tired of us not holding these people accountable for their actions, and for allowing these actions to shape the values of our society. I’m tired of our own president, who was sworn in to power in order to serve the ENTIRE American people, not just a select few, turn a blind eye to the hate and evil brewing in this country. 

It is not enough to be angry. It is not enough to say, “Another innocent black person has died. How sad.” It is not enough to say “This shouldn’t be happening.”

For my friends and family in law enforcement, it is not enough to frown upon the actions of the four officers who murdered George Floyd, and the countless other innocent black people killed for living their lives. Yes, while you may not have personally committed these acts of evil, it is your responsibility to not only condemn these killers, but to hold them accountable for their actions and to stand against the system that allows them to avoid the consequences. It is not enough to not be racist, we must actively be ANTI-racist and fight against this. 

I refuse to be quiet anymore. 

As a side note, we don’t deserve applause or praise for speaking up either. If someone falls to the ground, and you help them back up, do you expect a reward for your help? Do you help people in expectation of a reward? No. You help people because it is the right thing to do.  If you are a good person, you speak up about what you know is right. You speak up against hate and evil. This is what our expectation of society should look like.

TL;DR

Now, more than ever, is the time to fight racism. We must reject comfort and stand up against the very systems established that allow the murders of George Floyd and countless others.

some important resources/action items:

Attorney Benjamin Crump is representing George Floyd’s family in court. His twitter is a great place to start if you want to help support the Floyd family and their cause. He also has a link tree with additional resources and articles.

The official GoFundMe for the George Floyd Memorial Fund

Donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, who is helping bail out the people in Minneapolis demanding justice

Sign the petition

[theworldbrewery]

A playlist for my current party: 4 idiots + their honorary cult grandma, four with new names and one with someone else’s--god I love them. they requested a playlist breakdown so i’ve placed it under a cut for brevity. I’m always soft for making fan content for the campaigns I’m in tbh.

Alice: an elf-turned half-orc after a reincarnate spell went awry, her wild magic caused her marriage to fall apart when she accidentally burned down her home. She’s looking for control over the magic that is ruining her life.

Remmy: a man of many names, Remmy is an aasimar cleric with more secrets than even the other party members are aware of. He’s untrusting and full of fear, but the party gets him to open up--against his better judgment.

Gadao: an earth genasi from an isolated monastery, he’s looking for an identity of his own after realizing he may not be an incarnation of an ancestral spirit after all. Looking for his place in the world, the party’s fast-paced life contrasts with his steady nature.

Leap: an elderly tiefling ranger, she grew up in a cult of pain and left it only by good fortune. Her taste for adventure--and a need for closure--keep her on the road, though she looks forward to seeing her family again.

Blue: an aarakocra bard, Blue awoke with no memory and promptly joined a shady merchant vessel as a good-luck musician. They’re always down to fight, curious, and ready to hoard as many items as they can get their hands on.

Anger | Sleeping at Last

I love the way this song opens, the energy it has. Favorite lyrics are “it all spills out/reckless but honest words leave my mouth,” which maybe speaks to my love of intra-party conflict… but I also have a soft spot for “and suddenly I’m someone that prays/last-minute man of faith” given the campaign’s attention to the divine. I’ve really loved leaning into that. It feels like this song has threads that connect to every character.

Hellfire | Barns Courtney

God, I love the chorus to this song. I feel that in this party, Leap and Remmy have the strongest links in these lyrics, between Leap’s simmering fury at her cult and Remmy’s...everything. There’s a period of the song that isn’t quite an instrumental, but has sort of mangled lyrics/rap, and though I can’t quite make it out, one bit sounds like “roll the dice” -- a fun nod to D&D as a whole and the risk-takers among the party.

Blood I Bled | The Staves

My favorite lyric here is “raise your banners and ride to war/throwing ‘round your name.” This song feels like a challenge to the world, suitable for a group of adventurers just forming a party. The singers and songwriters mention the song as one of “no, I won’t take this bullshit,” and that strong message really speaks to the PCs.

Hustler | Zayde Wølf

Hustler is all about coming out on top, and y’all are “turning up the heat” all the time. “Looking at the city like I already own it” feels like a foreshadowing moment to me; one day, when you all are level 10, 15, 20, you might reach an unmatchable power, if you live long enough to see it. 

Homemade Dynamite | Lorde

I chose this song for the absolute clusterfuck D&D parties can be. “Don’t know you super well/but I think that you might be the same as me/Behave abnormally” encapsulates something really funny about party members getting to know each other and start to trust each other, even when the rule might still be “I’ll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies,” and your secrets and private problems haven’t yet come to light.

Nervous | X Ambassadors

The chorus of foreboding in “cause what comes up must come down”  is, how do I put this? Iconique. I think this song especially fits Leap and Alice, both of whom are aware of how quickly things can go awry but put a cheerful face on their own worries. Even when nothing’s wrong (“and I can’t complain, it’s amazing”) they know things could go south quickly.

An Act of Kindness | Bastille

This song best fits Leap and Gadao’s relationship, especially when they met. “Oh I got a feeling this will shake me down/Oh I’m kind of hoping this will turn me round” seems to speak directly to Gadao pulling Leap away from the cult and giving her the opportunity to be better than she was. On another level, the party’s bonds are born from acts of kindness and friendship--Remmy buying lorebooks for Alice, Leap making tea, Gadao stepping in to defend the party from the mimic.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World | Lorde

Despite the name, this has something for everyone, I think. “Turn your back on Mother Nature” suits Alice’s vendetta against the Forest Father, “Help me make the most of freedom/and of pleasure” fits Blue’s brand of hedonism, “It’s my own remorse” echoes Leap’s regrets. Gadao alone doesn’t quite fit in here...unless… >:)

Kicks | Barns Courtney

This is a Blue song! “I’ll show you how to live for free” the artist sings, and Blue’s freewheeling lifestyle seeking “kicks” matches this energy really well. If Blue is “a wild one” “singing in the midnight street,” they’re getting their kicks with this party for sure. Blue lives without being tied down, theoretically limitless. 

Hail to the Victor | Thirty Seconds to Mars

This song is about Leap, no question. “Another life, another love/another kill, another drug” fits into Leap’s two lives, one in the cult and one out of it. And in this new mission against Babylon Lionel, she’s seeking a revenge of her own, though it’s one against her childhood more than her actual enemy.

I’m a Wanted Man | Royal Deluxe

Remmy “would kill again to keep from doing time,” without a doubt, so this one’s for him. Constantly warning he’s trouble for his friends, saying that “you should never ever trust my kind” isn’t too far off. Like Remmy, this song is edgy, but with a hesitant moment of emo-ness that makes the performance of darkness something a little more genuine.

Big God | Florence and the Machine

Alice is not a faithful woman, but she’s unfortunately entangled in some religious nonsense she hates. At the same time, I feel lyrics like “you’ll always be my favorite ghost” refer best to Alice’s fraught relationship with her wife. My favorite line here is “Sometimes I think it’s getting better/and then it gets much worse,” which is essentially Alice’s experience of her wild magic. Deep down, she might even be drawn to the magic’s chaos, but she can’t help but resent what it’s taking away from her.

Wisdom, Justice, and Love | Linkin Park

This one’s for Gadao. It starts off so peaceful and hopeful, the instrumentals overlaid with a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. But as he starts to list the evils of the world, King’s voice, so steady and confident, is warped. Gadao’s own faith experience becomes warped by the power games of the people around him, and even as he’s seeking “wisdom, justice, and love,” he can’t escape the effects of materialism and violence around him.

Icarus | Bastille

Some folks live steady lives, but not these people. Adventurer’s lives tend to burn bright, hot, and short. From Leap’s perspective, most of the party is made of kids who don’t know the world yet. Are they “digging their own grave,” “too close to the sun?” Despite their ride-or-die commitments, Leap can see all of you risking yourselves--and for what? Who do you want to be, at the end of it all? A wife and mason? A sage and monk? Or do you want greater things than that?

Losing My Religion | Dia Frampton

I can hear so much of Remmy’s opinions in this song, saying “I’m choosing my confessions, trying to keep an eye on you” but realizing, over and over again: “Oh no, I’ve said too much.” As he tries to keep up his own facades, Gadao and Leap’s own faith collides with the beliefs of a cult leader and Alice struggles with a religion she doesn’t care for at all.

Start a War | Klergy and Valerie Broussard

Like Hail to the Victor, this song is all about Leap’s conflict with the cult of Loviatar and the Mother of Martyrs. Even though the Loviatar cult might be gone, the spirit lives on. My favorite line for Leap here is “bang, shots fired/pain is what you desire,” for the decision to challenge Babs to a one-on-one fight. But is it Babs who is starting this war, or Leap?

Friction | Imagine Dragons

This one kind of gives me Gadao vibes with the lyrics “when you’ve made it/won’t you tell me what to do?” After all that pressure to fulfill the expectations of other people, he has to get out of the middle and move on, maybe even become someone new. Key line is “why can’t you let go/like a bird in the snow/this is no place to build your home,” reminding Gadao that he doesn’t have a place in this world. Not yet.

Transcendental Youth | the mountain goats

“Sing, sing for ourselves alone,” sings John Darnielle, and maybe that’s what makes this feel so much like Blue. Maybe it’s the lyric, “cedar smudge our headbands/and take to the skies/soar ever upwards,” calling to Blue’s dislocation from time and place, flying away from their problems. Blue doesn’t remember their childhood, and has no idea how old they are. Even if they did know, their lifespan is short. They live every day like the halcyon days of youth, footloose and fancy-free indeed.

Champion | Barns Courtney

I swear this is the last Barns Courtney song. But this song is the resilience of coming through fights and perils and dangers. My favorite lyric is “Oh, Lord, save my soul/take my pain and turn it into gold” which, incidentally, is exactly what happens when you level up. The party’s struggles translate to strength, to influence, to skill, and even riches.

In the Woods Somewhere | Hozier

On the one hand, this could be about any combat in the dark woods at night (*cough*, Remmy killing that dragonborn, *cough*). But more importantly, this song is about Alice. She struggles with a power she doesn’t understand, with something’s eyes on her that she can’t fight. The best she can do is run from the danger and try to survive it. Whatever eyes are watching her now, Alice better take care. Favorite line? “I clutched my life/and wished it kept/my dearest love/I’m not done yet.”

Natural | Imagine Dragons

Natural tells the party one way of surviving. The line “you gotta be so cold/to make it in this world” suits Remmy’s outlook so well, the one he pushes at the rest of the party. The line “rather be the hunter than the prey” speaks well to Blue’s tactics--preferring to act from above. Alice and Leap know better than anyone that “nothing ever comes without a consequence or cost,” and Gadao may be the only one ‘holding the line’ against a harder heart. Another song with bits and pieces associated with everyone.

Dead Hearts | Stars

There isn’t a specific lyric here that jumps out at me, no line that tells me who this song is for. This is the song for the ones who die--those who have, and who will. We might not be there yet, but this is a song for acknowledging the sacrifice of your friends and allies. The knowledge that you knew them once, and in some ways, their ghost stays with you. Or maybe they’re revived, or reincarnated, but there’s always something a little different.

The Projectionist | Sleeping at Last

Eventually the session ends, and the story closes, and the lights come up. “We’re leaving our shadows behind us now/we’re leaving, we’re leaving it all behind for now,” Ryan O’Neill sings. We’re putting on costumes, telling a story for each other, and maybe the game ends every time, but maybe it makes us brave. I’d like to think so. 

The lyrics to all these songs can be found at Genius.com. Thanks xx

[justkending]

Used to Be Overlooked. Chapter 14.

Summary: Steve Rogers was walking down the streets of Brooklyn after finishing a mission. The goal was just to take some time to clear his mind along the city streets, but when he runs into a gorgeous young lady that looks extremely familiar… How can he go about moving on? Who is she? What does he know her from? Was that memory even from this decade?

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader (Rosalyn Ember/ Y/N ?)

Word Count: 2800+

Warning: SLOW BURN. Soooo slow, but sooooo worth it...

Series Masterlist

Chapter 14:

“Rosalyn!” Bruce said putting down the gadget he was messing with, and taking off his goggles as well. “What a pleasant surprise? When Tony said you were here and wanted to talk, I have to admit, I was kinda surprised. We haven’t heard from you since the dinner.”

You walked in with Steve right next to you. He had opened the door for you and motioned for you to enter first. Tony was probably close behind.

“Yes, that’s my bad. I’ve been having some major things happen at the lab, and needed to take some time to get it all sorted,” you smiled politely as you walked over to the station he was at. “But in good news, we found a vaccine for the flu that I was telling to you about.”

“Oh, that’s great news! I remember you saying something about it hopefully being done a couple of years from now, but to hear it’s finished so soon is amazing!”

“Amazing indeed. We just needed some insight from a fellow scientist at a partnering lab, and sure enough, progress was made,” you said looking at Steve, who was now standing tall next to you, and then looking back at Bruce with a soft grin.

“Well, like you said. It never hurts to have fresh eyes on something. You never know what you could be missing.”

“Very true.”

“Ok, the king is here! Why don’t we get this party started?” Tony said making a grand entrance. You all turned your heads to the door he came in, and watched as he waltzed over to a stool and turned his body toward you as he leaned against the counter. “What brings your beautiful presence to us this afternoon, Miss. Ember?” he smirked.

“Right,” you sighed remembering all the nerves that you were feeling before coming.

As you got flustered and hesitant at taking the next step you came here for, you felt Steve’s large hand on the small of your back. You looked up meeting his kind and reassuring crystal blue eyes. He sent you a soft and warming smile, and a sense of ease washed over you. For a second.

You took a deep breath before reaching into your bag and retrieving the folder you showed earlier.

“I have some things to discuss with you both. Now, this thing is a very big secret near and dear to my heart, and I ask that you give me a chance in explaining it before throwing me under the category of crazy or… Well… different,” you said looking between the two men who were now furrowing their eyebrows at you.

They gave each other a look of confusion and turned to Steve who just nodded and turned his head to you. You could tell he was there in full support and was going to have your back in the whole process. It made the whole situation a lot easier to handle honestly.

“Rosalyn, is everything ok?” Bruce said taking a concerned step toward you.

“My name isn’t Rosalyn actually.” you said in a soft tone. You handed him the folder which he took hastily, and looked down at it then to your face for direction. “My name is Y/N Erskine, and everything that you need to know about me is in that folder right there.”

You finally turned a glance at Tony behind Bruce, and saw surprise, but not as much as you were expecting. He stood and walked over to Bruce taking the folder from him and quickly pulling out the contents from it.

He started scanning over the files you had, and Bruce took a second to comprehend the situation before looking over Tony’s shoulder and starting to read what he could.

“Wait a minute, this birth certificate is from 1918.” Bruce said stealing the papers from Tony, and looking harder at it. “Y/N Erskine. Daughter of Dr. Abraham Erskine and Mary Erskine. Born October 11, 1918 in Martin Luther Hospital, Berlin, Germany at 2:03 am.” he continued to read. “I-I-”

“Easy there Banner. Don’t get too worked up,” Tony said taking the papers easily from the shocked scientist and looking over them himself before letting out a short laugh. “Good to know,” he mumbled, but you heard it.

“You don’t seem too surprised Mr. Stark,” you said crossing your arms and looking at Steve. Had he told Tony after you begged him not to. Frustration started slowly welling up in your chest. Remember Y/N. Steve wouldn’t do that.

“Should I be? I mean the man your standing next to is literally, what? Four months older than you? I hate to tell you sweetheart, but there have been weirder things that I have seen in my life,” he said sifting through the papers on the counter. Then he came across your blood work. “Now this. This something new,” he said raising and eyebrow, and lifting the paper into the light some more.

“That would be the test I’ve ran over my blood.” you said walking over and standing next to him as you sorted through to find more of those types of papers.

“This doesn’t look normal,” Tony said.

“That’s because it isn’t,” Steve interjected making you both look at him as he made his way over to stand by you once again.

Bruce was still standing where you left him trying to process the fact your birth was almost a hundred years ago.

“Banner, get you ass over here, and look at this,” Tony said snapping his fingers and effectively bringing Bruce’s attention back to you.

“I-I don’t understand-” Bruce sputtered as he sat on the other side of the table looking at you with wide eyes.

“Yes, we know you don’t understand it,” Tony scoffed. “Look at these, and maybe you will,” he said sliding the papers over to him.

Bruce took them and started reading the blood work.

“The white blood cell count is high. If it’s this high, then you should be sick,” he said looking up at you before looking back to make sure he was reading it right.

“What does he mean?” Steve asked as he went to look over Bruce's shoulder.

“White blood cells are part of the immune system of the body. They help fight off illnesses, allergies, infections, and the list goes on. The problem is, if you have too many, then your body can develop bad diseases. Cancer bad,” you explained.

“But that doesn’t make sense for what you’re body does,” Steve said now more confused.

“Exactly, but if you look closer and knew how blood cells are supposed to look-”

“These are modified. They aren’t normal ones. They are bigger, and look…” Banner tried finding the words. “Mutated. Stronger. I-I don’t understand how…” he was still trying to process.

“Ok, Rose- Sorry, Y/N,” Tony said putting the paper he was reading down and turning to you. “I think we are going to need a little background story before we keep reading these lab reports that make no sense to us.”

“Right,” you sighed grabbing a stool and getting comfortable. “What I’m about to say may seem a little… crazy, but-”

“I’m sure I’ve heard worse. Lay it on us,” Tony smiled softly trying to make you more comfortable.

You returned the smile feeling a little better about all of this. Bruce was shocked and still trying to wrap his head around it, but at least he wasn’t screaming at you for lying. Tony was just genuinely curious like Steve said he would be. Less surprised than you thought, but reassuring nonetheless.

As you got ready to debrief them on everything that had happened to bring you here, Steve grabbed another stool and sat by you at the table to make sure that you were even more comfortable. You gave him a smile of thanks, and started telling your story to the two brunette scientist.

You told them basically everything you told Steve, minus a few of the minor details that weren’t of importance to the main problem you were trying to get across.

“So, experiment gone bad? I understand that,” Bruce chuckled finally more comfortable with everything.

“Yep,” you sighed.

“So, why tell us? I mean I’m glad that you felt you can confide in us, but why?” Tony asked.

“I’ve lived this life too long. I’ve done trials and trials of ways to go back to normal, but nothing I do takes,” you said fidgeting with your hands. “I’m honestly tired of this whole not aging thing. I want to be normal again. I don’t want to have to keep trying to find a new life every 5-6 years when things start to look suspicious. I want to settle down, find someone to have kids with, and grow old. Not- not this,” you motioned to the papers.

Steve took in what you were saying and felt a flutter in his chest. You wanted to find love and have kids? You wanted the apple pie life?

Snap out of it Steve! You don’t even know her that well! 

But maybe he did. I mean he certainly felt like you knew him, and every time you guys talked or were in the same vicinity of each other, he felt that bond grow.

“Ok, and what can we do to help that?” Tony asked picking up the papers.

“Honestly, maybe nothing, but I thought I would let someone else in on this secret that is my life, and maybe fresh eyes-”

“Can open up a new perspective,” Bruce said making you look to him, and share an understanding smile.

“Exactly.”

“I’m not really an expert in this medical portion field personally, but I’m sure Bruce can lend a hand, and I’ll do my best to see where I can contribute,” Tony said gathering the papers and tapping them on the table so they were straightened. He turned giving you a tight smile.

“I appreciate it,” you smiled back.

Steve leaned over in your ear while Bruce and Tony started talking about what they could possible do.

“I told you. They won’t do anything that you don’t want them to do. This is all on your terms.”

You turned seeing he was just inches from your face, and the heat of a blush started creeping up your neck and to your cheeks. Without thought, you looked down at his lips, but quickly recovered and looked back at his eyes. He had a boyish grin on his face that showed he probably saw the quick glance. You just gave him a fast smile before turning back to the men in front of you, wanting to hide your reddening face from him.

“Ok Y/N. It looks like Banner and I have some things to go over. I’m glad that you came to us,” Tony said smiling and standing straighter as he faced you.

“I have to say, I was hesitant, but I guess I’ve become more desperate in solving this as the years go by.”

“I love helping desperate women,” Tony smirked, making Steve clear his throat in annoyance. “Anyway, this is going to take some time to work through. It also is going to take some collaboration and your thoughts on the process as well. You ok with meeting when you can to help us out?”

“Sure. Work should be a little slower now, so I can make time to come visit every week to help you guys.” you nodded standing and placing your hands in front of you with your bag.

“Yeah, we are going to need all the information, and past experiments you’ve done so far to get a better grasp on all this,” Bruce spoke up coming around the table.

“I understand. It’s a lot,” you chuckled lightly. “Again, thank you so much for being willing to help,” you said offering your hand for them to shake, which they both kindly accepted.

“Anything for a fellow scientist,” Bruce smiled.

“I’m assuming since we can’t tell anyone about this, we need to keep up the front of calling you Rosalyn still?” Tony asked arching an eyebrow.

“That would be ideal. I’m not really comfortable letting this secret out to more people.” you said tilting your head, and nodding.

“One problem with that,” Steve spoke up. You looked over at him with raised eyebrows. He tucked his hands in his pocket and started rocking on his feet. “Bucky already suspects something.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” you said sarcastically.

“When this whole thing's started, and I got a curious in finding out who you were, I confided in him. He was the only one who would truly understand, and well…”

“He knows something is up,” you finished for him as you looked at the ground trying to think of your next step.

“Yeah, and Bucky isn't one for letting things slip by. His curious nature gets the best of him, and he can be a little nosy,” Steve chuckled.

“I suppose since he already knows something isn’t right, we can tell him. Also, wouldn’t hurt to have someone else my age in the know,” you sighed looking at Steve. “But if anyone else, and I mean anyone,” you said pointing a finger and stepping up to him. “Finds out about all this. I will follow up with my threat from the other night,” he raised a nervous eyebrow knowing what you were talking about. “I will leave you with something that can not be healed Cap. I mean it.” you said in a stern and terrifying whisper.

“Y-Yes ma’am,” he stuttered out as he looked into you dark (Y/E/C) eyes that showed promise.

“Good.” you said changing right back to sweet and innocent. He wasn’t the only one who could flip a switch. “Now, if you gentleman will excuse me, I took a sick day for the first time in almost 10 years, and I’m going to take advantage of it. Any further questions?”

They all looked at you shocked, and slightly scared at the change of mood. You nodded and threw your bag over your shoulder.

“Ok, well I will see you all later. Thank you again for the help, and I’m anxious to see where this leads. Please call if you have questions or need insight on anything,” you smiled before turning swiftly and walking to the door.

They were all too stunned to respond, and just watched until you were a few feet away from the door. Tony snapped out of it first, and cleared his throat as he shook his head.

“Wait! One last thing!” he shouted causing you to turn and tilt your head at him. “We are having a charity gala this Friday night. It involves the Avengers inviting foster children here and trying to get some publicity for them to help raise funds for some new homes they are building for them.”

“I think I remember seeing something in the news about that,” you nodded.

“Well, it just so happens that Cap here,” he stepped forward, and smacked Steve on the chest and wrapped his other arm around his shoulder causing Steve to finally snap out of his thoughts and send Tony a glare. “Does not have a date to said Gala,” he grinned in a devilish manner.

“Hmm,” you hummed.

“Tony-” Steve spoke up looking down at the man.

“I’m sure he would love to have a date as lovely and stunning as you on his arm,” he winked. “Isn’t that right, Rogers?” he said patting him again.

Steve cleared his throat sending Tony a death glare before looking up at you who had a sly grin on your face.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want-”

“It sounds fun. I don’t remember the last time I got to go to an event for something as great of a cause as this,” you responded. “Unless of course you don’t want me to come. I understand-”

“NO! NO!” he shouted putting his hands up and striding closer to you. “I would love for you to come. Truly,” He grinned when he realized that he was just a few feet from you. “Only if you want to of course.”

“I want to. Gives me an excuse to get out of the house. Add Captain America in the equation, and you got an eventful night,” you smiled.

God, that smile would be the death of him.

“Really?” he asked surprised that you saw it that way, and a giant grin started to form on his own face.

“Absolutely. It’s a date. I’ll meet you here at 8,” you beamed turning back to the door. “See you gentleman on Friday then,” you waved walking away with pride.

The men watched you walk with poise as you passed Bucky on the way out nodding as you said goodbye. He smiled timidly as you passed stopping to watch you leave too. Once you disappeared out of all their sights, Bucky shook his head out of his thoughts before walking into the lab.

“She terrifies me,” he grumbled walking up to Steve who was still looking where you left.

“She’s definitely something else,” Steve mumbled.

“She is so out of your league,” Tony laughed making Steve send him yet another glare.

“Ok, so what did I miss?” Bucky said clapping his hands.

“What didn’t you miss?” Tony sighed.

“We have a lot to catch up on.” Steve said as all the men looked at each other.

Chapter 15

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[crimethinc]

Life in “Mueller Time”: The Politics of Waiting and the Spectacle of Investigation

For almost two years now, faithful Democrats have waited for special counsel Robert Mueller to file his report about collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian attempts to interfere in the US election, not to mention Trump’s involvement in obstruction of justice. Whenever Trump’s activity provokes them or a subterranean rumbling within the Justice Department emboldens them, the faithful take to the streets and social media with hand-held cardboard signs and internet memes to proclaim that Mueller Time is close at hand. Yet even if the Mueller investigation concludes with Trump’s impeachment, the spectacle of the investigation has served to immobilize millions who have a stake in systemic social change, ensuring that what comes next in the United States will be politics as usual—not liberation.

When you’ve fallen on the highway And you’re lying in the rain, And they ask you how you’re doing Of course you’ll say you can’t complain If you’re squeezed for information, That’s when you’ve got to play it dumb You just say you’re out there waiting For the miracle, for the miracle to come

-The 20th century’s greatest messianic thinker, Leonard Cohen

Within weeks of the beginning of the investigation, there were already think pieces and t-shirts proclaiming “It’s Mueller Time.” Let’s take the t-shirts at their word: maybe it’s been Mueller Time all along. Maybe Mueller Time is not a specific date that is about to arrive, but the era we’ve been experiencing these past two years.

In that case, Mueller Time is not an hour on the clock, but a way of experiencing time, a kind of time—like crunch time or quality time or go time, but the opposite of all of them. It is not a scale of time, like geologic time, or a time zone, like Eastern Standard Time—Mueller Time is more like the End Times, perpetually anticipated.

To be precise, Mueller Time is the political suspended animation in which the Democrats have waited for a repeatedly deferred deus ex machina to deliver them from this unbearable pres(id)ent. This condition of waiting, itself, rather than any of the grievous injustices that have taken place during it, is the very essence of hell.

Dante, the Marco Polo of the Abyss, located Limbo, the residence of those who wait, in Inferno, not in Purgatory. Waiting is not transformative or redemptive—it is the sort of sin for which the punishment is the crime. “Limbo” shares a Latin root with liminal—it is homeland of those who tarry on the threshold, those who are on the fence.

If you can get people used to waiting, you can get them used to anything.

To understand Mueller Time better, we can begin with its namesake. “Miller time” is a time to take a load off, to ease our pain by drugging ourselves into oblivion. It’s a profound expression of despair—“I can only relax in this world by deadening my senses”—disguised not just as relief but as celebration. What is the glee with which Democrats invoke Mueller Time if not an admission of their own abject powerlessness and dependence? “Rejoice,” says the Democrat, “Justice will be done! And thank goodness, as usual, the FBI will take care of everything.”

Miller Time and Mueller Time are both chronotopes, to use the term popularized by literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin: they are specific relationships to time. You cannot understand a group of people without understanding how they experience the passing of time. Peering between chronotopes produces strange refractions, like looking through a glass of water. How different the world appears to a person whose activism consists chiefly of waiting, in contrast to how it appears to those for whom waiting and acting are opposites! It is the difference between spectator and athlete, between the consumer and the inventor, between those who suffer history as if it were weather and those who make history as a side effect of understanding themselves as the protagonists of their time.

And Miller Time and Mueller Time are both marketed chronotopes. Miller Time is the “5 o’clock somewhere” that unites wage labor and intoxication in a mutually reinforcing false opposition—but even more importantly, it is the branded colonization of that time. Likewise, Mueller Time is not just the “he’ll get his” which all people of conscience wish for Trump, but a particular deferral of responsibility. Both are successful advertising campaigns that concentrate capital in certain hands precisely by inducing people not to take their problems into their own hands.

“The politicians’ stubborn faith in progress, their confidence in their ‘mass basis,’ and, finally, their servile integration in an uncontrollable apparatus have been three aspects of the same thing.”

-Walter Benjamin on how Social Democrats permitted the Third Reich to come to power in Germany

All this is familiar to those who were raised as Adventists, believing that the outrageous sinfulness of the prevailing world order indicates the imminence of the Resurrection and the necessity of repentance before authority. Mueller Time is the redemption, the arrival of the Millennium, when the legitimate authorities will reassert their dominion and the obedient will be rewarded for their patience. Good Christians have awaited this for two thousand years; they have made a religion out of waiting. You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.

To keep people waiting for salvation indefinitely, it helps to shift every once in a while from one source of dramatic tension to another. Some hoped Trump would run the country “like a business.” Now that the signature forms of evil associated with capitalism—nepotism, profiteering, corruption, race baiting, sexual harassment, misinformation—characterize the presidency, Democrats are proposing to return to the good-old-fashioned signature forms of evil previously associated with government: bureaucracy, clientelism, experts deciding the fates of millions behind closed doors. All the things that helped Trump come to office.

For the purposes of relegitimizing government, it is ideal that Robert Mueller is not just a “good” authority figure, but specifically, a white male Republican—an FBI director who first made a name for himself overseeing the killing of Vietnamese people. He is everything the average Democrat would oppose if Trump had not moved the goal posts by pursuing the same Republican agenda by potentially extra-legal means. Mueller represents the same FBI that attempted to make Martin Luther King, Jr. commit suicide, that set out to destroy the Occupy movement. Under Mueller’s leadership, the FBI determined that the number one domestic terror threat in the United States was environmental activism.

Mueller Time is a way of inhabiting the eternally renewed amnesia that is America. This is the real “deep state”—the part of each Democrat’s heart that will accept any amount of senseless violence and murder and oppression, as long as it adheres to the letter of the law.

“Definitions of basic historical concepts: Catastrophe—to have missed the opportunity. Critical moment—the status quo threatens to preserve itself. Progress—the first revolutionary measure taken.”

-Walter Benjamin

What will be the fruits of Mueller’s labors?

Rank-and-file Democrats still don’t understand how power works. Crime is not the violation of the rules, but the stigma attached to those who break rules without the power to make them. (As they say, steal $25, go to jail; steal $25 million, go to Congress.) At the height of Genghis Khan’s reign, it would have been pointless to accuse the famous tyrant of breaking the laws of the Mongol Empire; as long as Trump has enough of Washington behind him, the same goes for him. Laws don’t exist in some transcendent realm. They are simply the product of power struggles among the elite—not to mention the passivity of the governed—and they are enforced according to the prevailing balance of power. To fetishize the law is to accept that might makes right. It means abdicating the responsibility to do what is ethical regardless of what the laws happen to be.

In the struggle to control the law-making and law-enforcing apparatus of the US government, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have secured a solid majority. They remain at an impasse. The most likely explanation for Mueller’s delays is that he has been biding his time, waiting to see if the balance of power in the US government would shift enough that there could be some consequences to his report.

The wait The wait The wait The wait

The wait The wait The wait The wait

-Killing Joke, “The Wait”

Ironically, the only thing that could guarantee that Mueller’s report will have an effect would be if this impasse were disturbed by forces outside the halls of power—for example, by a real social movement utilizing direct action. If millions of people were in the streets preventing the Trump administration from accomplishing its agenda, then the power brokers in Washington would consider sacrificing Donald Trump to preserve business as usual.

In standing back and waiting, affirming the authority of the FBI and Congress to take care of matters, Mueller’s fans make it less likely that his investigation will pose a serious threat to the administration. The rank and file Democrats are left gazing at their screens, watching the bureaucratic equivalent of the spinning wheel of death.

In this case, the more you clap your hands, the less Tinkerbell exists.

I’m in the waiting room I don’t want the news—I cannot use it I don’t want the news—I won’t live by it

But I don’t sit idly by I’m planning a big surprise I’m gonna fight for what I wanna be And I won’t make the same mistakes Because I know how much time that wastes

-Fugazi “Waiting Room”

The arc of history is long, but it curves towards—death. There is no excuse to delay. Tomorrow will use you the way we use today.

What would it mean to stop waiting?

It would mean to stop looking to others to solve our problems, no longer permitting a series of presidents, Speakers of the House, FBI directors, presidential candidates, and other bullies and hucksters to play good cop/bad cop with us.

It would mean figuring out how to deal with the catastrophes that Trump’s presidency is causing directly, rather than through the mediation of other authority figures. It would mean building up social movements powerful enough to block the construction of a border wall, to liberate children from migrant detention facilities and reunite them with their families, to feed the hungry and care for the sick without waiting for legislators to give us permission to make use of the resources that we and others like us maintain on a daily basis.

Remember when we shut down the airports immediately after Trump took office? It would mean doing more of that, and less sitting around waiting on politicians and bureaucrats. That was our proudest moment. Since then, we have only grown weaker, distracted by the array of champions competing to represent us—the various media outlets and Democratic presidential candidates—all surrogates for our own agency.

Let’s stop killing time. Or rather—let’s stop permitting it to kill us.

“We live the whole of our lives provisionally,” he said. “We think that for the time being things are bad, that for the time being we must make the best of them and adapt or humiliate ourselves, but that it’s all only provisional and that one day real life will begin. We prepare for death complaining that we have never lived. Of all the people I know, not one lives in the present. No one gets any pleasure from what he does every day. No one is in a condition to say On that day, at that moment, my life began. Believe me, even those who have power and take advantage of it are plagued with anxieties and disgusted at the dominant stupidity. They too live provisionally and spend their whole lives waiting.”

“Those who flee the country also spend their lives waiting,” Pietro said. “That’s the trouble. But one mustn’t wait, one must act. One must say Enough, from this very day.”

“But if you do not have the freedom to act?” Nunzio said.

“Freedom is not a thing you can receive as a gift,” Pietro said. “You can be free even under a dictatorship on the simple condition that you struggle against it. A person who thinks with his own mind and remains uncorrupted is free. A person who struggles for what she believes to be right is free. You might live in the most democratic country in the world, but if you are lazy, callous, and servile, you are not free—in spite of the absence of violence and coercion, you are a slave. Freedom is not a thing that can be begged from others. You must take it for yourself, in whatever share you can.”

-Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine

Further Reading

Take Your Pick: Law or Freedom

The Centrists

[the-desolated-quill]

Rosa - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

It comes as a massive relief to say that I really enjoyed this episode. There are a number of ways Rosa could have gone wrong and while Chris Chibnall has managed to crank out two surprisingly good Doctor Who episodes so far, it’s hard to shake off old fears. Oh my God, I thought to myself, a historical episode about Rosa Parks and the Black Civil Rights Movement. Is Chibnall biting off more than he can chew? 

Thankfully Chibnall had the good sense to hire a co-writer that can keep his white privilege in check. Malorie Blackman. Author of the critically acclaimed Noughts and Crosses series of books depicting an alternative reality where Africans developed a technological advantage over Europeans and where white people are segregated under this world’s version of the Jim Crow laws. It’s safe to say that Blackman knows a thing or two about exploring racism and, being a black woman, she’s much more qualified to talk about issues of race and to represent Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole than Chibnall is. The result is, without a shadow of a doubt, some of the best Doctor Who I’ve seen in years.

One thing I’m glad about is the way Rosa Parks is depicted. Historical stories (particularly New Who historical stories) have an unfortunate tendency to go completely over the top with it. It’s just not enough to have a character who played a significant part in human history. Oh no. They’ve also got to be the specialist, most important person in the whole wide universe. The result is that we’re often left with a wafer thin episode that completely romanticises the period of history the story is trying to depict, waters down all the more complicated and unsavoury parts of the historical setting and turns the famous historical figure into a shallow caricature of themselves (see Agatha Christie in Unicorn And The Wasp, Winston Churchill in Victory Of The Daleks and Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent And The Doctor). Rosa, thankfully, doesn’t fall into the same trap. Rosa Parks isn’t treated as a god among mortals. She’s treated like an ordinary person, thus making her actions that much more powerful.

Vinette Robinson (who appeared in a previous Chibnall penned story 42) does an incredible job playing Rosa Parks. Again, more emphasis is placed on how ordinary she is rather than how historically significant. Nowadays we of course view her as the genesis of the Black Civil Rights Movement and she has rightly been praised and immortalised for that, but it’s easy to forget that she was a real person behind the legacy, which is what the episode really delves into. We get to see her fear, sadness and frustration in this oppressive society. And it really brings home how mundane her actions really are. Sure we can see from hindsight how her actions would influence others and change the course of history, but she wasn’t some heroic freedom fighter taking a stand. She was a woman who just wanted to sit down on a bus after a hard day at work. And the fact that she, Martin Luther King and other black people actually had to fight for the right to do something so trivial is utterly ridiculous.

Some have criticised the episode saying that this is too heavy a subject matter to deal with at 7pm on a Sunday evening. I couldn’t disagree more. For one thing, this isn’t the first time Doctor Who has handled difficult subject matters (Nazism and genocide have frequently cropped up in past stories after all). But I think the criticism mostly stems from people (white people) being left feeling uncomfortable by the story and are trying to avoid having a serious conversation about it NRA style, claiming that this isn’t the right time for it. Well... when is it the right time? Nobody wants to have this conversation, sure, but we’ve still got to have it. And as uncomfortable viewing as it is, it’s important that it is not sugar-coated and that we’re reminded of how difficult things were for non-white people so that shit like this never happens again. So no, I didn’t think the use of violence against black people or racially charged language up to and including the n word were inappropriate. It was an accurate depiction of the environment at the time and if you felt uncomfortable by that, then congratulations, that’s precisely what you’re supposed to feel.

In fact I honestly thought the episode’s depiction of violence against black people was quite restrained, making the acts of discrimination that much more despicable in my eyes. Using gratuitous violence would have been a cheap shot and Chibnall and Blackman mercifully avoid that route. What makes the episode so chilling to watch isn’t the things that white people do, but rather the oppressive atmosphere they create. It’s not the arrogant tosspot slapping Ryan across the face for touching his wife’s glove that had me on edge. It was the scene after that where everyone is just silently staring at the TARDIS crew in the cafe that really made me feel queasy. The threat is implied, yet constant, which is infinitely scarier. After the likes of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss boasting about how their episodes were going to be ‘the scariest Doctor Who stories ever’ only for them to amount to a hodge-podge of tired horror cliches and a dumb monster going ‘boo’, it’s a relief to see writers take a more subtle ‘less is more’ approach. I’m sorry, but the bus driver glaring angrily at Rosa is much more terrifying than a Weeping Angel. Period.

Which brings me to Krasko, played with smug charm by Joshua Bowman who succeeds at making you want to reach through the screen and punch his racist face repeatedly. Again, some have criticised the episode for its ‘one dimensional villain’ and, again, it only seems to be white people making this criticism. Not to make sweeping generalisations here, but non-white fans seem to be largely happy with how Krasko was written and depicted, probably because they’ve had to deal with pricks like him at least once in their lives. I’m guessing the source of the criticism comes from him not having a backstory or concrete motivation other than he hates black people. But my response to that is... does he really need one? Would Krasko have really been a more interesting character if it was revealed that he was bullied in school or a black kid had stolen his My Little Pony lunchbox? Does there really need to be a reason for why he hates black people and wants to ‘put them in their place’? I would have thought him being a racist white person would have been enough reason to hate him frankly. Let’s not forget what happened when Star Wars and Marvel respectively gave their villains Kylo Ren and Kilgrave tragic backstories to provide context for their despicable actions, at which point the fans proceeded to romanticise the fuck out of them, calling them misunderstood. Maybe (and this is just my opinion) giving Krasko a backstory wouldn’t have made him more interesting, but instead would have been seen as an attempt to justify and excuse his shitty behaviour, and maybe, just maybe, we’re better off without one. Just a thought.

Besides, it’s not as if we don’t learn anything about Krasko. We’re given enough information to work with. He’s a time traveller from the future. He was put in prison for murdering two thousand people (quick side note, did anyone else laugh when the Doctor said the Stormcage was the most secure prison in the universe? Remind me, how many times did River Song break out again?). He’s clearly intelligent, as demonstrated by him coming up with a non-violent plan to ruin the lives of generations of non-white people in order to circumvent his neural inhibitors. While it’s never overtly mentioned, he’s clearly some future version of the alt-right and is there to act as an extension of the true villain of the story. Because that’s the thing the people criticising his character have overlooked. Krasko isn’t the villain. White people are. The society Rosa Parks lives in is the true villain. Krasko is there not just to get to the plot going, but also to subtly demonstrate that while things do get better for non-white citizens, there will always be that racist element within our society. Hell, Ryan and Yasmin even spell it out for you in their conversation whilst hiding from the police. While people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King made a huge impact and helped change things for the better, racism and prejudice hasn’t just magically gone away. It’s still around. There are still people who cling on to these extremist and bigoted views. Some might argue that racism has become so entrenched in Western society that it will never fully go away. That there will always be some remnant hanging around. That’s what Krasko represents. So if you thought he was a rubbish villain because he had ‘no backstory or motivation’ then I’m afraid you’ve completely missed the point.

I should also applaud Chibnall and Blackman for resisting the urge to shove in some pointless alien like other historicals have. Not only would that have distracted from Rosa’s story, the racist white people are scary enough thank you very much. While there are sci-fi elements in here, the episode quite rightfully focuses on people.

Speaking of people, let’s talk about the TARDIS crew. Yeah! They’re in this episode too! Haven’t really talked about them much, have I? The Doctor largely takes a backseat in this one, which I know some people have a problem with, but I think it was the right thing to do. We don’t want an alien white woman coming in and stealing Rosa Parks’ glory. Jodie Whittaker graciously lets Vinette Robinson take centre stage while she busies herself with other things like confronting and intimidating Krasko and organising fake raffles with Frank Sinatra. I really like the balance they’ve struck between light and dark with this Doctor (something Moffat tried to do with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor and failed at miserably). She’s funny, compassionate and caring, but there’s a little bit of Sylvester McCoy’s devious cunning in there too, which really comes to the forefront here. Did anyone else find it really disconcerting seeing the Doctor try to maintain history? Influencing events so that Rosa Parks had no choice, but to give up (or refuse to give up) her seat. While we know she’s doing it for the right reasons, in order to keep black history in check, she’s still nonetheless actively contributing to Rosa’s misery, which is actually a clever way of exploring how white people all contribute to a racist status quo, directly, indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally. And of course it all culminates in the Doctor and co refusing to give up their seats in order to keep history intact. The look on Thirteen’s face as events unfold says it all. The look of sheer sadness and self loathing, knowing she played a part in this, is haunting. Same goes for Graham’s realisation. The widower of a black woman and step-grandfather to a black teenager being forced to contribute to this racist institution is utterly heartbreaking.

But the standout of the main cast has to be Ryan. Tosin Cole truly shines in this episode, giving an incredibly powerful and moving performance. This in many ways is his episode as he comes face to face with the racist prejudices of the time period and Cole rises to the occasion. My favourite scene has to be when Ryan talks with Rosa, thanking her for everything she will do in the future and promising that things will get better. It’s incredibly emotional and I actually started tearing up with him. I’m also so happy that he was the one that got to beat Krasko at the end rather than the Doctor. I stood up and cheered. And his reaction to seeing Martin Luther King has got to be one of the most charming moments of the series so far.

Rosa is unquestionably one of the strongest episodes in all of Doctor Who. It’s incredibly well written and performed and it’s extremely powerful as well as being very subtle and nuanced. What’s more, I’m now completely sold on Chris Chibnall being the showrunner. Any lingering doubts I’ve may have had are now completely evaporated after this episode. Rosa proves that not only does Chibnall respect and value diversity both in front of and behind the camera, but that he’s also committed to creating something truly special with his tenure, using the Doctor Who format to explore hard hitting and difficult subject matters with care and respect. Truly excellent television.

[imsobrooklyn-archived-sameurl]

TAGGED BY:  found & stolen. TAGGING: @saturnrang, @falsedking, @valinta + whoever come across this.

►   GENERAL.

HEIGHT:  5′8  —  previously 5′6. After being bitten by the genetically-altered “42″ Spider, his stature is elongated by two inches. WEIGHT:  160 lbs — Miles is an ectomorph; it’s mostly maintained because of his obligatory participations in gym classes, playing basketball with the neighborhood every now and again after school, and the rare times he can sneak off for urban exploration or play around with his uncle’s punching bag. He doesn’t exactly have the greastest diet plan. ETHNICITY:  African-American && Afro-Puerto Rican. OCCUPATION:  Freelance photographer, explorer, artist, F.E.A.S.T. (Food, Emergency, Aid, Shelter, and Training) volunteer, Brooklyn Vision student, convenience store cashier, Dream Defender, and vigilante. GENDER:  Cis-male. He/him. ROMANTIC AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION:  Heterosexual & Demiromantic. MBTI:  ENFP- the champion. Miles know how to relax, and he is perfectly capable of switching from a passionate, driven idealist in the workplace to that imaginative and enthusiastic free spirit on the dance floor, often with a suddenness that can surprise even his closest friends. Being in the mix also gives him a chance to connect emotionally with others, giving him cherished insight into what motivates his friends and colleagues. He believe that everyone should take the time to recognize and express their feelings, and their empathy and sociability make that a natural conversation topic.

Few personality types are as creative and charismatic as ENFPs. Their enthusiasm and vivid imagination allow ENFPs to overcome many challenging obstacles, more often than not brightening the lives of those around them. ENFPs’ creativity is invaluable in many areas, including their own personal growth.

►   SPECIFICS.

FAVOURITE FOOD:  Pasteles, Empanada, Chicharon de pollo, Pop-Tarts, Platanos, Chopped Cheese, Nathan’s Famous’ hotdogs, Aunt Butchie’s Desserts (chocolate mousse preferably), Chinese food, and Ray’s Pizza. FAVOURITE DRINK:  He enjoys his uncle’s Whey protein drinks, but you’ll mostly see him drinking sodas, Gatorade, O.J., and water.  FAVOURITE HOBBY:  Vandal by nature, Miles loves snagging Priority Mail and Hello, My Name Is stickers to practice his art and toss his mark up wherever and whenever he can. Other than that, he plays mental gymnastics for fun when it comes to math problems. If he’s not doing that, then he’s fooling around with programs like Audacity, Sony Vegas, or FL Studio. 

But the activity he feels most at peace at is when he’s isolated in his room or hanging around a building as Spiderman, writing in his journal. FAVOURITE SCENT:  Vanilla, Sandalwood, Shea Moisture Manuka and Yogurt. FAVOURITE PERSON:  Ganke. Miles never had a brother (a reality he yearned his parents make happen), but Ganke gives him an idea as to how it would be if he did have a biological brother.

►   TEN FACTS.

Miles is an only child. “Born” on December 14th, 2003.

He’s Catholic.

Adaptability comes as second nature to Miles. In two days, he managed to survive his near-death experiences as he tangled with some of the best of the original Spiderman’s villains.

Miles use to cry Martin Luther King Day because the television and radio would play clips of his speeches, and he thought sounded like a ghost. 

Until he reached the age of ten, Miles had irritable bowel syndrome and would crap his pants every so often.

He owns an Atari, Sega, and Nintendo console passed down to him from his father.

One of his favorite shows is American Ninja Warrior.

Calculus is one of his favorite subjects. Numbers, symbols, and alphabets is a challenge that he can never tire from.

 There’s an unshakable habit he has and that’s speaking his thoughts out loud, much to his chagrin.

His facial features mostly resemble his father and his uncle, which is can be considered a blessing and a curse, depending on the environment he’s in. Because the Davis brothers dark past had them as hustlers, stick-up kids, and graffiti artists, and their lives would take a drastic turn in where one becomes a cop and the other went on to become a boxer, the name Davis is enough to put a sour taste on the tongues of certain circles. It’s a fleeting love-hate thing he has for it.

►   FIVE THINGS HE LIKES.

VIDEO GAMES  —  Jefferson was never comfortable with sharing his questionable deeds on the streets with his son, but he was more than excited to share his childhood glory with him. He couldn’t wait until Miles was old enough to have a controller in his hand. Miles is “heir” to a collection of dated collection. He likes modern consoles too, as he does own both a XBOX ONE and PLAYSTATION 4, but he prides in being a ‘young old soul’. GRAFFITI  —  It just kind of happened? He wasn’t messing with actual spraypaint because he’s too young to cop them from Home Depot, so he stuck to just stacking up on stickers and using that until he’s legally able to buy his own. HIP-HOP  —  That’s New York. Hip-Hop was born there. Miles passionately embraces the main four elements that represents its culture: Emceeing, DJING, Graffiti Art, Breakdancing and integrates the other five in how he moves. Street fashion, language, entrepanuership, knowldge, beatboxing, Hip-Hop is something he lives.  BOXING  — We can thank Aaron for his interest in that. Aside from the man’s criminal resume, Aaron graduated from neighborhood bruiser to professional boxer. His had a impeccable record before he hung up his gloves, but the passion he had for the sport stayed with him and any chance he got with his newphew, it would show when he would spit game on the greats like Mohammad Ali, Joe Fraizer, Dixie Kid, Jack Dempsey, Tyson, and others and teach him a few of his old moves.  CLEANING SNEAKERS —  It’s nothing deep. You watch Paid in Full a couple of times and add your love for that movie to your natural love of keeping your gear fresh and you get a sneakerhead that’s addicted to keeping his kicks mean and pristine.

►   FIVE THINGS HE DISLIKES.

PEER PRESSURE  —  His hood didn’t have too many stars. There were plenty of potential there, but due to unfortunate circumstances, they make it out, but Miles—everybody regards him as the gold representation. Because of his upbringings, Miles is sort of hood royalty in a positive sense. On one hand, he enjoys it appreciation, but on the other hand, he hates it because his father doesn’t make it easy on him at all. He doesn’t judge his father for doing what he had to do in the streets to survive, but he hates his father for shoving his demons down his throat. Becoming Spiderman was nothing to leap for him to leap excitedly over either. Being stressed with being the “good son”, the “golden boy” of his neighborhood, and acing studies was enough as is. Since Peter Parker and his uncle’s murder, he felt tremendous guilt over not being able to help, and with his abilities, he feels strong on his moral obligation to do what he can to be New York’s protector. It’s not the easiest weight for a teenager to carry. E X P E C T A T I O N S! eff dem! UNDERESTIMATED  — In school, he dealt with a teacher that regarded him and kids like him as trash that would never be able to amount to anything. The Spider-gang didn’t think he had what it takes, making him feel as if he was a burden and incapable of being strong enough to keep his promise to his universe’s Peter Parker. He doesn’t do well with people acting like he can’t do anything. TALES FROM THE HOOD  — Doesn’t particularly care to hear about criminal exploits, especially the ones his family participated in. Some kids would love to hear about how hard their peers went in the street—Miles isn’t one of them. If anything, he wishes he was oblivious to it and didn’t have to hear one related word to it. That’s one thing he’s thankful for when it comes to his dad and Aaron. They never bragged or felt inclined to share gorey details and for good reason. Miles know they and everyone else want better for him. LYING —  His mama raised him to be a honest boy. His pops raised him to be a man of principle. His uncle instilled street honor in him. Other than that? Miles naturally hates lying. It doesn’t make him feel good and can actually make him a serious nervous wreck if it gets to be too much for him.  FIGHTING  —  Even though he was taught self-defense and enjoyed his boxing lessons, Miles avoided conflict as much as he could. He preferred to just be that cool guy that can make friends with the whole world and keep it pushing. He accepts that it’s unavoidable as a superhero, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to come to a peaceful resolve before the situation gets nasty.

►   WORDS / PHRASES THAT ANNOY HIM.

CLASSISM —  I know it’s not a word/phrase, so I’ll just say toxic braggadocio statements. When it comes to skin color, religion, abilities (supernatural or mortal), lienage, whatever—Miles views them all as people that share the same oxygen and should treat each other like they’re aware of that. Being made to feel like a sub-human aggravates him more than he cares to admit (he once broke his classroom desk because of his teacher constant poking at the african diaspora).

►   PERSONALITY TYPES HE PREFERS.

FREE SPIRITS —  Chilled souls; people that are down to do whatever they please (in a healthy, non-violent way), and exudes positive energy. It’s nice to be around individuals that understands what it means to have fun without restrictions and not people that live by some book like his father. You can miss him with those that feels like they have to be tight asses all the time.

►   PERSONALITY TYPES HE AVOIDS.

GOD COMPLEX —  Kingpins/drug lords/gang leaders/criminal upstarts, just people that play God in the streets, dictating who lives and dies, just because they have a gun and have a little bit of power. There’s not a doubt in his mind that there will be elements in the underworld that’s going to try to seduce him to the life. It’s a mission of his to not fall into the same darkness that stained the Davis name. You will never see Miles becoming close friends with a thug or a wannabee. He’ll try to steer them clear of it and be a moral compass of course, but having that as a part of his inner circle is a big no.

[radioleary-blog]

Hef Tragedy Jam

Hugh Hefner died yesterday. When the news was announced, over fifty women said they were dismayed. No, wait...over fifty women said they were “Miss May”. Fifty more were Miss June, and, well, you get the picture. If you were lucky you got their pictures.

Few of you reading this are old enough to remember that Playboy magazine was about the only place you could see a naked woman, and I say that because there are probably few of you reading this, period. But hey, my column gets more readers than the average suicide note, statistically speaking. Although I’m trying to increase my readership, and the average suicide note is more of a stand-alone project. I bet if George Lucas ever wrote a suicide note, he’d follow it up with three prequel notes. Each successively worse than the last. People would be like, “Why did he have to ruin that original suicide note, which I loved, with those awful prequel-suicide notes? I don’t care why he got depressed, but clearly only a manic depressive could make such a desperate cry for help as introducing Jar-Jar Binks. If I ruined a billion dollar franchise by coming up with an offensive racist caricature like Jar-Jar Binks, I’d probably consider putting a lightsaber in my mouth too.”

I grew up with Playboy magazine, and my early knowledge of female physiology was less from a volume of Grey’s anatomy or sketches by DaVinci, and more from volumes of Playboy magazine. It was like a reference guide, one that you would hold up with one hand. In fact, the first time I had a girlfriend who got naked, I wondered where her staples were. Of course, today, I’m the one who should have his stomach stapled, but that’s another story. Ah, sweet irony!

I’m sure Hugh Hefner went to Heaven, but whatever gleaming Mansion in the sky awaits us, no matter how glorious, for Hugh Hefner it’s going to be a pretty big step down from the Playboy Mansion. It may actually be Seventh Heaven, but Hef has been living on Cloud Nine since 1956. But, hey, he’s already wearing a robe. You know when you see depictions of Heaven, everybody is always wearing white robes? That’s because they were wearing those white robes in the hospital when they died. And they make you wear those awful robes that don’t close in the back because that’s where your wings will come out when you get to Heaven. It’s all part of God’s plan. I bet you’ll still have that plastic wristband on too, St. Peter just scans it at the gate to let you in. <beep> “Cardiac arrest. You’re good. Check in at the registration desk. Have a valid photo ID ready.”

Hugh Hefner was such a consummate pussyhound, I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a deathbed conversion to radical Islam, just to get the 72 virgins in Heaven. God would be like - I mean “Allah” would be like, “Pretty tricky Hef, pretty tricky. But...technically it counts. You old horndog!” Of course, you know what Hugh Hefner calls 72 virgins? A slow Tuesday.

The Playboy Mansion was famous for its out-of-control parties, and the mansion had a natural cave-like grotto on the grounds where everyone would go to snort coke and have sex. I guess Hef was a lot like Bruce Wayne, a millionaire with a mansion and a cave. And didn’t they call Bruce Wayne a millionaire playboy? Hef was a Playboy millionaire. But the difference is, Hef would rather do coke and fuck super-models whereas Batman would rather do-good and fight super-villains. Plus, Batman slides down the Bat-pole, and crazy hot chicks slide down the Hef-pole. In other words, Hef was sane, and Batman was, well, not so much. Batman is basically a billionaire who just wants to hurt people and not get sued for it and pretend he’s a hero. Kind of like Trump.

The grotto cave on the grounds of the Playboy Mansion had a huge, heated Jacuzzi pool, where movie stars, rock and roll gods, and celebrity athletes were eagerly humped by groupies, star-fuckers, and aspiring playmates. Unprotected 1970’s sex was messier than Michael J. Fox eating an ice cream cone, so the pool was probably 60% water, 2% spilled cocaine, and 38% James Caan’s jizz. The lifeguard got syphilis just from giving mouth to mouth resuscitation. At least that was her story. But that was about the same time Grand Funk Railroad was in town, so who can say? I do think ‘grotto’ must be the Italian word for ‘gross’.

I hear some of the more politically correct crowd, or as they’re more commonly known, nitwits, complaining that Playboy exploited women. And I guess it was exploitation, in the same sense that Vogue magazine is exploiting the mostly-naked teenage anorexic girls slash super-models in their magazine. And I say slash because that’s what these girls often try to do to their wrists. Unlike Vogue magazine models, at least the Playboy women didn’t have eating disorders. They’re a lot less likely to stick their fingers down their throats. I’m not saying they’re any less likely to have something down their throats, but not their fingers.

Exploiting women. As if Hugh Hefner was hanging around the Newark bus station looking for a girl down on her luck and fresh off the turnip truck from Topeka. That sounds more like the plot of a 1930’s movie than the way his business empire was run. I think what Hef did was have his photography editors, both men and women, spend endless hours going through duffel bags of mail sent in by thousands of women from all around the country who wanted to pose for Playboy. The staff would narrow it down to probably a few dozen, and then get Hef’s opinion on who was not only the most beautiful, but who had the look that would be right to feature in the magazine. That’s exactly what the editors and publishers do at Elle, and Vogue, and every other magazine that holds up a particular brand of beauty as an ideal.

And I don’t know any women who haven’t worn out the related links on their favorite porn sites jilling off to whatever their particular porn flavor might be, so who exactly are these people that still have a problem with Playboy? Because without Hefner’s decades of battles against governmental and religious censorship, there would be no porn sites. Hef made it possible to look at porn sites without pretending you go there for the articles. Without Playboy, people would still be saying, “Did you read that insightful article on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur? And that recently-found short story by J.D, Salinger?” “Why, yes. I particularly liked the profile of Jazz trumpeters from the post-bop era. And I did notice some delightful porn as well, between the articles, of course.”

The reason Hef could get away with putting in naked chicks is his magazine is because Playboy was a serious, respected literary magazine. The greatest writers of the day were in Playboy:

Ray Bradbury wrote original content for Playboy, and serialized Fahrenheit 451, which was coincidentally the exact temperature of how hot the playmates were.

The Beat writer Jack Kerouac wrote for Playboy, and that cat was cool as hell. Beat, Jack, that is exactly what Playboy readers do.

Ian Fleming published short stories in Playboy, and the James Bond novel “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was published first in Playboy. We all know James Bond got enormous amounts of pussy. But compared to what Hef was getting, James Bond looks like a bible salesman with erectile disfunction. Or a guy who works in a comic book store. Think about that for a minute; the world’s sexiest pussyhound spy still gets less women than the guy who published the magazine his story is in. And Bond is fictional!

Roald Dahl wrote for them, too. The author of “Willie Wonka” writing for people who wonka their willies, sounds apropo.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote for them all the time, and that dude was cooler than Ice Nine. There’s a reference for ya!

Joseph Heller published a lost chapter of “Catch-22” in Playboy. I think the title Catch-22 might be the number of social diseases you’d get if you had sex in the grotto.

Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” started writing for Playboy in 1991. I would imagine one of her stories was called “The Handmaid’s Tail”.

Hunter S. Thompson. Gabriel García Márquez, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Truman Capote, they all wrote for Playboy. This magazine was the real deal, kids, it was smarter and cooler than absolutely anything you know today. You see, all of these stories were longer than 140 characters. Or even 280.

I actually learned quite a bit about culture from Playboy, between rounds, if you know what I mean. By middle school I could discuss the literary feud between Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer in English class and sound like a friggin’ genius, I just couldn’t tell the teacher where I learned it. “Where did I learn that? Oh, you know. Around. Literary journals, and the like. At that building that has all the books. Yes, exactly, the library! That’s the one! I frequent that establishment, I‘ll have you know.” What was I gonna say? My father’s sock drawer?

The Playboy Interview was legendary, they were deep, involved discussions, frank and uncensored. Here are some of the people they interviewed: Salvador Dali, Patty Hearst, Groucho Marx, Ansel Adams, Stanley Kubrick, The Beatles, Albert Schweitzer, Buckminster Fuller, Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Abbie Hoffman, Tennessee Williams, Erica Jong, Allen Ginsberg, and Bertrand Russell. Then there are the so famous they’re known by just one name:  Fellini, Castro, Brando, Nehru, Sartre, Bowie, Nabokov, Hoffa, Carson, Antonioni, Mastroianni, Gleason, and Sinatra. And Playboy was woke, they interviewed Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alex Haley, Miles Davis, Muhammad Ali,  Eldridge Cleaver, Dick Gregory, and Huey Newton. Holy shit, right?  Who do you see interviewed today? Kardashians? Ryan Gosling? Taylor Swift, but interrupted by Kanye West? This time we live in today has less culture than a petri dish.

Hef lived so long that most people today have no real idea how influential he was, what an important cultural icon he was, and that he somehow talked Marilyn Monroe into posing naked on the cover of the very first issue of his magazine way the hell back in 1956. That’s a dude with the Kavorka, big-time. And nobody was naked back in 1956. Not in this country. In 1956, people showered wearing a suit and tie, and apart from time shampooing, a smart fedora. They say people were more cultured back then because they went to art museums, bullshit, I think they only went to art museums to see the nudes in the oil paintings. You would too, and you know it, don’t even try to deny it. You’d say you were admiring the Titian, but you were really just admiring the Tit.

Nearly every issue, Playboy featured a very prominent celebrity with a well-established career and respected in her field who actually wanted people to see how beautiful she was without any clothes. Starting with Marilyn Monroe. And she was smoking hot, too, an icon in her absolute prime. Future historians will be more grateful for that photo shoot than they are for the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts. Where do you go from there, Playboy? Well, how about Farrah Fawcett, the biggest sex-symbol of the entire 1970’s! The list of gorgeous, talented, famous, successful women that wanted to pose for Playboy might be hard for you to imagine, as you live in an age where women pose in magazines like Maxim with their clothes on! And men today pay to see that? Wtf? Man, I can see women with their clothes on just about anywhere I go. I can see that in line at the deli counter, I don’t need to pay for it.

Here are just a few, a very few, of the already-famous women who chose to pose with no clothes:

Daryl Hannah. Olivia Munn. Kim Basinger. Charlize Theron. Drew Barrymore. Denise Richards (she had kids with Charlie Sheen, so posing for Playboy was comparatively a relatively sound decision). Shannen Doherty. Belinda Carlisle. Jayne Mansfield. Mariel Hemingway. Margaux Hemingway. Nastassja Kinski. Sharon Stone. Rosanna Arquette. Vanna White. Elle MacPherson. Brigitte Bardot. Uma Thurman. Kate Moss. The list is almost endless. I almost said bottomless, but being Playboy, “bottomless”  goes without saying.

Sure, the last decade and a half weren’t great for Hef, but who stays cool past the age of 75? Only Bob Dylan and Picasso. Hef couldn’t let it all go, and at the end it was pretty sad. It was like Sunset Boulevard with viagra. But I’ll miss the Hef of fifty years ago, that man was at the forefront of political movements, cultural progress, gay rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, and the right to take your goddamn clothes off if you feel like it.

This may be the first funeral where you should bring condoms. In lieu of flowers, please give blowjobs. So long, Hef. Thanks for the mammaries.

[chasholidays]

okay please write me non-au where bellamy comes back to earth & they missed each other so much that it is now like SUPER AWKWARD & UNCOMFORTABLE TO BE AROUND EACH OTHER?? but then something something grounders, they get captured by whoever they're currently at war with & HANDCUFFED TOGETHER & make a break for it & have to fight their way out in cuffs & idk I just have this mental image of them being chased through a forest but weirdly happy about it cause the magic is back in their relationship

oops I failed to write a scene like that mental image sry tree this is what you get

“I can’t believe after six years and two apocalypses, we still haven’t just made some fucking friends,” Bellamy grumbles, letting his head fall back against the wall. “Hasn’t anyone ever heard of giving peace a chance?”

Clarke laughs, this soft, amused little huff that makes his heart skip. It’s easy to be annoyed when they’re stuck in some jail cell, imprisoned by people he didn’t even know existed, but at least they’re stuck together. The most unbelievable thing is that Clarke is alive, and next to him, and just as pissed off about the whole thing as he is.

That part is, admittedly, completely believable. He and Clarke are great at being pissed off about the same stuff.

“We’ll get there,” she says, with a calm he does have trouble understanding. “What’s the quote? The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

“Martin Luther King Jr., right?” he asks. “You must have had a while to read while we were gone.”

“I had nothing but time,” she says, and he tries not to wince.

The thing about leaving Clarke behind is that no one did anything wrong, but it still feels like he fucked up. Like he should have done more, even though they’re all agreed that what he did was exactly right. He left her. He was supposed to leave her. And they’re all alive.

This is the happy ending.

“So, how do we get out?” he asks, raising his left hand and pulling hers with it. “And out of this?”

“I don’t know. I assume they want us as hostages. To leverage against your sister and my mom.”

“Which is why we should get out.They can’t use use us if they don’t have us.”

“Great,” says Clarke. “How exactly?”

“Teamwork? Novel concept, I know.”

It’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s been a hard few weeks, harder than he expected. It was supposed to be, well, different. She wasn’t supposed to be alive at all, and while the fact that she is remains probably the single best thing that has ever happened to him, they haven’t settled back into being a unit yet.

Part of him can’t help worry that they never will again. That six years is too wide a chasm to cross.

“Teamwork doesn’t bend bars, Bellamy,” she says, but it’s teasing.

“It might, we haven’t tried yet.”

She smiles, and his heart twists, a little painfully. He’d been ready for a future without her in it, but that was when she was dead. The prospect of future with her in it, but not his, that’s something he’s still getting used to.

“I guess we’re not doing anything else.”

They don’t have any luck with finding an exit, but it’s good to have something to do. As much as Bellamy’s wanted a good few hours to sit down with Clarke and talk, this wasn’t really what he had in mind. And he still doesn’t know what to say to her, honestly. Sometimes, he wonders if he even knows her at all, anymore, if he ever will again.

Then, their guard opens the door to feed them, and it’s like no time has passed at all. Without discussion or a single word spoken, they take him out, even handcuffed together, even with all the awkwardness between them.

Clarke gets the keys with her free hand, and Bellamy gets the man’s weapon. It’s their good luck that it’s his left wrist bound to her right one, leaving both of them with their dominant hands free, and Clarke leads the way while he covers her with the gun.

“Just like old times,” he mutters, and Clarke spares him a smile.

“Like you said, I wouldn’t mind something different, one of these days.”

The timing is perfect, because that’s when they break out of the ship, into the barren landscape of broken trees and wilted grass. It’s how everything looks, outside of Clarke’s patch of green earth, and it still gives Bellamy a creeping feeling of cold dread in his gut. There’s so much more barren ground than there is new growth, and sometimes he thinks they can’t survive this. That it won’t ever be enough.

“So, where now?” asks Clarke, and when he looks at her, the tension eases a little.

Enough is relative. All the people he loved who could survive the fire did, and they’re together. They have food and water, and they’re working together. Clarke is by his side, and even if right now, it’s because she has to be, he thinks this could work.

“Cover first,” he says. “And then we find our way back home.”

“Home,” she agrees. “Let’s go.”

*

They’re in a cave, Bellamy trying to break the chain on the cuffs with a rock he found while Clarke watches the rabbit they caught with one eye, when she asks, “Did you think about not coming down?”

“What?” he asks, glancing up at her.

“Focus, Bellamy,” she says, with a small smile. “If you break one of our hands because you’re not paying attention–”

“Then it’ll be because you distracted me. And breaking a hand is an option, to get out.”

“It’s not that bad,” she says, and takes the opportunity to shake out her shoulders, shifting on the ground to get more comfortable. “I was just thinking, about a month after the five-year mark, I started wondering if maybe the Earth looked so bad, you just decided not to come down. I know that’s not what happened,” she adds, before he can say it. “But–was it better up there?”

“No,” he says. “And you wouldn’t have been happier.”

That gets him a dubious look. “No?”

“Maybe you would have,” he grants, inclining his head. “But Madi wouldn’t have made it alone.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“You remember how it was on the Ark,” he goes on, putting down his rock to take a break from the fruitless attempts to break the bond between them. “It never felt like living, just killing time until we could get back to the real world. And it was worse, the second time. When we all knew what we were missing. Or at least, most of it,” he adds.

Clarke frowns. “Most of it?”

“We didn’t know you were still down here,” he reminds her, with a small smile. “And it wasn’t like I wanted to stay up there. But–I couldn’t even imagine it. What would Earth even be like if you weren’t being a pain in my ass?”

She laughs, a bright, surprised sound that’s as unexpected and unfamiliar as it is welcome. “I’m sure you’d find someone else to fight with.”

“No one I like as much as you.”

It feels too honest, and when Clarke looks away, he’s sure it was. But she’s smiling when she looks at him again. “I didn’t know what I’d do either, if you didn’t come back down. That was all I had for–”

His hand is so close to hers that it’s easy to reach over, to twine their fingers together. It’s not until he’s done it that he realizes this isn’t normal for him and Clarke, that for all he considers her one of the most important people in his universe, they don’t do this often. Physical contact was as easy as breathing on the Ark, the close quarters and the lack of other people bringing them all close together. But he and Clarke only held hands once that he can recall, when she took the Nightblood in Polis, years and years ago. It felt staggering back then, to have her deman, and now he can’t help feeling as if this was too casual.

But she squeezes his fingers.

“I’m still sorry,” he says. “For making you wait.”

“I know.”

He wets his lips, looking down at their joined hands. “I think we’ll probably need to wait until we’re back to get the handcuffs off. Raven should be able to get them off in half a second.”

“Yeah.”

He looks over at her, but she’s not looking at him, and he doesn’t know what to say again. It was easy, for about ten minutes after they landed, when all they did was hold each other, catching up on how they survived. And then, once he let her go, he found he didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t either.

They’re allies and leaders and friends, but it’s somehow not enough, and he still can’t figure out why.

“I think the rabbit’s done,” he offers, and Clarke looks relieved.

“I think so, yeah.”

Eating is more than a little awkward, since they both keep trying to use their hands as normal, and dragging each other around without remembering what’s going on, but once Clarke starts laughing about it, he relaxes too, and then it’s just another thing for them to deal with, this strangely funny obstacle that keeps tripping them up.

The awkwardness comes back after, when they have to leave the cave to relieve themselves, but that’s nothing compared to when they make it back to the cave, and it’s time to sleep.

“Side by side?” he finally suggests. “I usually sleep on my back.”

Clarke flinches like he struck her, but all she says is, “Yeah, that’s fine.”

The cave floor isn’t particularly comfortable, and even with his eyes closed, he’s too aware of Clarke, the warmth of her shoulder just close enough that he can feel it, like a light’s on in the corner of his vision, keeping him awake.

“Clarke?” he finally asks.

Her response is instantaneous and alert, as if she hadn’t been even close to sleep. “What?”

“I miss you,” he finally admits. “I missed you all the fucking time, and I still miss you, and you’re right here.”

For a second, there’s nothing, just silence so loud it feels like it’s pressing his ears down, and then she rolls, curling into his side, and he brings his free arm up around her, burying his face in her hair.

“Hi,” he says, and she laughs.

“Hi. I miss you too.”

“I used to think about what I’d do if I ever got to see you again,” he admits. “When I wanted to fucking torture myself.”

“And?”

He pulls back, waits until she looks up before he touches her jaw. When she doesn’t shy away, he leans down and she leans in, and the kiss isn’t one he’d ever imagined, on his back in some strange cave, one hand out of commission because it’s cuffed to her, but that’s not really a bad thing. It’s too strange and uncomfortable to be another dream.

Clarke lets out a shaking breath, and he smooths her hair back with his right hand, smiling.

“And I’ve been wanting to do that for almost seven years.”

“Since when, exactly?” she asks, sounding curious.

He smiles. “Hard to tell when it switches over from I guess I’d say yes if she asked to I’m in love with her. I don’t have an exact second.”

Even in the dark, he can see her smile. “But you are.”

“Yeah. I always thought I’d tell you the first chance I got.”

“Well, we haven’t been alone much.” She bites her lip. “I love you too. And I thought you must have–you thought I was dead. I thought you’d moved on, that you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

He kisses her again, will probably never get tired of kissing her. “I got you back,” he says. “It was a fucking miracle.”

They manage to fall asleep, not entirely comfortable but at least close, and when the sun comes up, Clarke is still there, and he still gets to kiss her.

She makes a face, pushing him off. “Your mouth tastes disgusting.”

“But that’s the only problem, right?”

Her smile is even better when there’s enough light for him to see it. “I’d like to get rid of the handcuffs too. Just so I have full use of my hands.”

He laughs, getting to his feet and pulling her up with him. She settles into his arms for a long hug, fitting in like she belongs there, and he kisses her hair one more time before he lets her go.

“So let’s go home and get ourselves fixed up.”

“I think this was the big thing that needed fixing,” she admits, twining her fingers back in his. He hopes they hold hands this much once they’re not stuck together; it feels like they might.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “So let’s go fix everything else.”

“Yeah,” says Clarke. “That sounds like us.”