#if you see this towards the end of october/beginning of november go vote for your favorite fabio hairstyle | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

uwua3 · 3 years

Text

imposter.

🌸🎮 chigasaki itaru

summary: rule #1 — never take off your helmet

dedication: shy anon 🧡 :)

warnings: angst, betrayal, death(s), gore, heartbreak, lying

author’s note: this is set in an among us universe :D please be mindful of the concept of the game as you progress forward in the writing! this is an overdue halloween–piece that will bring the chills even in november! (this is the first time i’ve written in first person... :O) ♡ to shy, i hope you especially like this!

word count: 2,550

music: hit and run – lolo, as the world caves in – matt maltese

YOUR LOG. STARDATE:

October 31, 20XX ☆ 05:24

There is only one rule on the spaceship everyone follows: NEVER TAKE OFF YOUR HELMET.

Ever since the report of an alien specimen being on board, the entire crew has made it mandatory that we remain in uniform. I’ve slowly forgotten the faces of my crewmates, all I can see is the color of their astronaut suits. Every day is the same: waking up to do tasks, all whilst hoping not to die.

Luckily, we haven’t had to call an emergency meeting in months. Or, so I believe. Time passes differently in the middle of the solar system. How long has it been since I’ve talked to someone outside of maintaining the ship? Days, weeks, months, years? The threat of an invader walking among us has taken over our ship for the worst.

I have to do my tasks now.

YOUR LOG. STARDATE:

November 1, 20XX ☆ 06:30

Today, a new crew member joined us! From what the captain told us, he goes by the name Taruchi. He wears an orange uniform and doesn’t seem to talk much, only really spends time on his government-assigned phone.

I’ve introduced myself to Taruchi at the mandatory staff meeting, but he didn’t seem to be too interested. He just nodded and went back to tapping away on his screen, playing something that looked like shooting asteroids.

To be honest, no one knows exactly why it took this long to replace White, who was tragically murdered by the Imposter not too long ago. I assume it’s because no one wants to work on a spaceship where the alien is still on board. Taruchi’s got guts, that’s for sure. Or, maybe…

Is it just me… or is Taruchi sus?

YOUR LOG. STARDATE:

November 2, 20XX ☆ 15:43

Red died.

Right before the lights had to be fixed in Electrical, I noticed an orange suit out of the corner of my eye. Taruchi leaned against the wall in the Storage corridor, right beneath the blinking security camera. He was on his phone again, almost pulling it out of his pocket before stopping, looking up to meet my gaze.

I swear my heart stop. Even with both of our helmets on, I could feel the piercing stare of this unknown crew member. Taruchi straightened his posture, and I could feel how tall he truly was. He tilted his head, presumably looking me up and down before tapping a button on his phone. The last thing I felt was the unfamiliar buzz of notification against my belt strap before it went all dark for a few minutes.

Red’s body was reported by Purple in Electrical, a location Taruchi and I were just around the corner of. By the time everyone entered the Cafeteria to vote, Purple’s finger was pointed directly at me. It was the first time I’ve been accused of being the Imposter. Purple, a friend who I had known ever since we both joined this Skeld map together, thought I had murdered Red in cold blood.

Taruchi spoke up for the first time since he arrived. His voice was smooth with a tone of calmness that fit his casual stance around the ship. Taruchi jumped so easily into the conversation, I couldn’t help but stare in awe while he sat beside me.

“They were with me in Storage, they’re safe.” Taruchi vouched for me, turning the conversation to a dead end. We all ended up agreeing to skip the vote, even if it was against Purple’s will at the end. When we rushed to finish our tasks for the day, all I remember was Purple staring at me for a moment too long before heading in the direction of the Upper Engine.

It was just Taruchi and me in the Cafeteria with the emergency button going through its cooldown again. I nearly couldn’t believe it, I was suspected. I would have to be careful of where I was next time.

Taruchi turned towards me as if wanting to say something, before sighing and shaking his head. He moved to stand up and stopped by the entrance to Medbay, turning around while knocking his knuckles onto the wall once as if he already didn’t have my undivided attention.

“Be careful, okay? There’s an Imposter among us.” I swore I could see him wink before he disappeared. Taruchi’s words didn’t leave me for the rest of the day because I had realized something.

We haven’t had a death in so long, until Taruchi arrived.

YOUR LOG. STARDATE:

November 5, 20XX ☆ 17:12

One crewmate had died today: Purple.

It was a hit and run in the Lower Engine. At the second body reporting of the day, Cyan claimed they were on cams duty in Security, but they didn’t see a thing. Purple was found in the Lower Engine in the lowest corridor to the left, making it an easy kill for the Imposter. Once I had found out the news, I was the immediate suspect.

If it wasn’t for Taruchi again, I would’ve been kicked out into space. I would’ve been the third death, but Taruchi had once again saved me.

Prior to Purple’s death, I was in the Reactor trying to start it. Taruchi walked into the room, nearly making me yell out of shock from how quiet he was. Taruchi raised his hands as if trying to prove he was innocent, helping me up from the ground with a small laugh.

“Hey, hey, hey. Calm down, you’re okay.” Taruchi reassured me, making sure I could stand on my own two (2) feet before letting me go. For some reason, even if every sign pointed to him being the Imposter, I believed him. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, nodding as I managed to thank him. Taruchi just waved his and, signaling for me to not worry about it as he caught sight of the keypad in front of me.

“Oh? You got the ‘Start Reactor’ task, hm?” Taruchi said, moving in closer to see my progress. I hadn’t even started yet, and that became embarrassingly obvious once Taruchi let out another laugh.

“You haven’t started? How long have you worked here?” Taruchi joked, knocking his fist into my helmet lightly as if to tease me. I swatted back, trying not to show I was flustered beneath my mask. Though, sometimes it felt like Taruchi could see right through me despite only being here for four (4) days or so.

“I’ve always been awful at patterns.” I admitted quietly, looking away as Taruchi tried to hold in his laughter this time around. It took a moment for him to compose himself before Taruchi exaggerated a sigh, taking my position and pressing in the pattern quickly without even hesitating.

Right as it reached the fifth stage, Taruchi looked over his shoulder to hold his hand out. “You have to clean up the Halloween decorations around the ship with me or else I’ll leave you to this task alone.” Taruchi compromised, waiting for me to accept this dal as the timer began counting down.

“Taruchi, you’re kidding.” You paused, waiting for him to say he was joking but that moment never came. Cleaning around the Skeld was the worst job possible, even if it got me out of a day of tasks. Before the last second disappeared, I took his hand with a loud “Fine!” and his other hand entered the code without even looking at the same time. Gamer hands were impressive, to say the least.

“Good little astronaut.” Taruchi patted my helmet as I watched the taskbar go up on my phone. “I’ll see you tomorrow in the Cafeteria at 0800, then, little one.”

Before I could respond to the new nickname, both Taruchi and I’s phone screens lit up with the notification of Brown reporting Purple’s corpse.

Taruchi’s fingers tensed around his device as he looked at me solemnly. “I’ll defend you in Cafeteria, don’t worry about it.” Taruchi promised, leaving first as I regained my senses and followed after him.

Taruchi lived up to his word, even when Yellow brought up how Purple was dead after accusing me a few days ago.

“Purple’s dead after they targeted you? Seems sus to me.” Yellow scoffed, kicking their feet up onto the table and crossing their arms. Murmurs spread around the cafeteria table, my own crew mates beginning to further doubt my allegiance.

“They just did a task in Reactor. Can’t you see it in the taskbar?” Taruchi retorted back, holding up his own screen as evidence. The rest of the crew checked to confirm, and voiced their agreement.

“How did you know that, Orange?” Blue questioned out of nowhere, leaning forward to stare at Taruchi and me. I didn’t know what to say, should I admit I was with Taruchi or would that make both of us seem suspicious?

“Stalked them from the vents, of course.”

It went so silent I could hear the beeping from navigation. Everyone was looking at Taruchi at this point. The vent from Lower Engine did lead to Reactor… but, that made no sense. Taruchi had walked into the entrance, he didn’t vent up.

“Haha, just kidding.” Taruchi said after a moment too long, leading to everyone relaxing after an uncomfortable but relieved sigh. I didn’t know why I didn’t defend Taruchi immediately, except... I did. I just didn’t want to say it out loud. Even I wasn’t sure if Taruchi was another Impostor or not.

Two (2) imposters on one (1) ship… I shuddered at the thought.

Once again, we ended up skipping. I think the crew was afraid of what would happen if we lost another innocent. Everyone else left to mourn yet another death as Taurchi and I stayed behind again.

Taruchi couldn’t be Imposter. Not when I felt this safe with him. Taruchi was the one to stand up first again after he noticed I wasn’t saying anything. This time, he leaned over me instead.

“Your helmet isn’t put on right, it’s not adjusted correctly.” Taruchi reminded me, fixing it so we both could hear the latches hook onto the helmet. I wondered what his hands would feel like without those orange gloves, but, I nodded instead.

“Remember tomorrow, here, 8, got it?” When I nodded again, he laughed. It was a sound that made me feel relaxed even when the rest of the crew was on high alert.

“It’s a date, then.” Taruchi added on before strolling out towards his dorms, I assume. I just waved goodbye before freezing. Huh? What did that mean? Was it actually a date?

Even when my crew mates were facing the threat of death, I couldn’t help but get excited over seeing Taruchi tomorrow morning.

YOUR LOG. STARDATE:

November 6, 20XX ☆ 12:07

Taruchi took off his helmet today.

He said to stop calling him that alias, his real name is Chigasaki Itaru. Itaru… I like that more than Taruchi.

His eyes are the same color as Pink’s uniform, with blonde hair that fell over his forehead after wearing his helmet all day. When Itaru saw me stare, he smiled and it only made my heart beat faster.

“Uh oh. Does someone have to go to MedBay to check their vitals?” Itaru joked, nudging me with his helmet. Itaru had broken rule #1 of the spaceship, he had taken off his helmet… for me.

“See? I told you I wasn’t Imposter. I could tell you were thinking that, but, I promise, I’m on your side.” Itaru didn’t ask me to take off my helmet. He just put his back on and we continued taking down the Halloween decorations.

Taruchi—no, Itaru, wasn’t an Imposter. I knew that for a fact.

YOUR LOG. STARDATE:

November 15, 20XX ☆ 02:52

I really like Itaru. I want to play this game with him forever, but, I can’t.

YOUR LOG. STARDATE:

November 24, 20XX ☆ 23:11

Itaru and I were watching the stars as we patrolled Navigation for the night. As we slowly made our way through time and space itself, I could hear Itaru turn on automatic cruise control. I looked towards him as he yawned despite being the biggest night owl on the ship.

When Itaru took off his helmet and shook his head, fixing his hair in the process, he leaned back in his pilot seat with a lazy smile.

“Me, you, and the stars. What could be better than this?” Itaru sighed, as if at peace after leaving the tense atmosphere of the ship. Now that it was night, the suspicion was asleep as everyone took their appropriate night shifts.

Underneath the starlight, I couldn’t help but admire him yet again. Itaru was beautiful and I found myself subconsciously smiling at him like a fool. Itaru glanced at the sky before meeting my sight, seemingly lost in a daze for a second before swearing, taking his feet off the control panel.

“I can’t see you, but goddamn it, I want to kiss you so bad.” Itaeu put his head in his hands, his words muffled but clear enough to make my heart skip a beat. Before I could stop myself, I revealed what I’ve always wanted to say ever since I met Itaru.

“I trust you, Itaru. Kiss me.”

Itaru slowly lifted his head, silently asking if you were serious. I leaned in closer, pushing my chair towards him as if giving him permission. Itaru was in shock and disbelief, before breaking out into a wide smile as if this was the highlight of his night.

When he leaned in as well, his hands ghosted over the latches of my helmet warily, meeting my eyes again to confirm. I nodded, and right before Itaru took it off, he whispered his last confession.

“I love you.”

Black alien tentacles pushed past the opening in my helmet and wrapped around Itaru’s throat without any warning. The helmet clattered to the floor noisily as tens of intergalactic limbs spread out and searched for their next victim. It had been so long since I last killed that my extraterrestrial tentacles were deathly hungry, and Itaru was next.

Itaru was lifted into the air, his feet dangling as he desperately tried to grab the tentacles off him. I couldn’t help but smile even as I watched the light fade away from his eyes. My parasitic tentacles squeezed tighter and tighter around every square surface of his body. It wouldn’t be long before he exploded all over the entire Navigation room.

“Rule #1: Never take off your helmet, Itaru.”

I dropped his lifeless body onto the floor without a care in the world. Orange’s suit was stained with blood with what was left of him. I put my helmet back on, wiping the evidence away like I’ve done many times before.

I made sure to set off O2 malfunction on my phone before I hopped into the vent, quickly coming out of Shields before running with the rest of the group. When I managed to report Orange’s body, I watched his corpse float millions of light years away in the distance.

Itaru was not the Imposter.

I am, and I’m going to win, no matter who died.

#chigasaki itaru #itaru chigasaki #a3! act! addict! actors!#a3!#act! addict! actors!#a3! actor training game #a3! one shots #act! addict! actors! one shots #mankai a3!#mankai company #a3! x reader #a3 x reader #itaru x reader #a3! itaru #a3 itaru

97 notes · View notes

lovehaswonangelnumbers · 4 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/2020-2021-the-deeper-astrological-outlook/

2020-2021 THE DEEPER ASTROLOGICAL OUTLOOK

By Elizabeth Peru

Dear Cosmic Community, 2020 has been a year of ‘profound change’ – within all of our lives. Indeed, it was always going to be. The new energy decade of 2020-2030 will see more change in 10 years than we’ve known in the past 10,000 years. My previous blog post details why this is. And as we look towards the final months of 2020 and into the new year of 2021, that ever-changing landscape is set to continue, with some profound astrological markers, opening the way for an awakened humanity to evolve – together.

Before I begin looking at the deeper meaning behind some of these major astrological happenings, there are 3 focal points to consider.

When you follow these practices, the path ahead ‘becomes easier’ and any upcoming changes will enhance your life experience.

Seek Beauty Within All – When you look for what is good and true within everything you see, hear, feel, touch and intuit, you increase your vibration. You’ll fill yourself up with high-frequency, ‘self-empowered’ energy. This means that when any challenge comes your way (as it will) you can respond from a strong, wise and assured view point. When you’re filled up with lower level negativity, seeking what’s wrong instead of what’s good in life, you’ll weaken your ability to respond and will ‘react’ instead, making decisions that dis-empower and pull you down. Under the 5D energy template now operating on Earth, what you focus upon, manifests quickly. I have a Guided Meditation to instantly Raise Your Vibration and inspire and motivate you.

Observe your Past and Future – As your past comes up for review, and it replays over and over in your mind, just observe yourself within it, rather than reliving it by being part of the replay. Pull yourself back, and just watch your part within it. Then you won’t be swamped by revisiting your past, but instead will learn and grow in wisdom from it. My Guided Meditation to Open Your Third Eye will assist in envisioning a soul-focused future for you.

Bring your Integrated Spiritual and Physical Presence To Bear – When you awaken to the fact that you’re a soul (a being of light) experiencing a physical life – then live like it. Walk through your life exuding your integrated spiritual and physical presence. The grater spiritual energy you emit, the stronger, more grounded and more able to effect change you become in your everyday life. My Guided Meditation for Empowering Empaths invokes your highest presence into your life.

And so, let’s look at some of the major astrological happenings for the remainder of 2020 into early 2021 and the deeper messages behind them…

The Cosmic Rectangle – September 2020. This is a planetary alignment that sees Earth placed in the centre of a giant rectangular formation, created by the overlapping energetic lines of the planetary bodies. This formation will help us to see the myriad of life ‘options’ that are actually available to use in 2020 and beyond. It extends your ability to see what’s around you, from all angles, all at once. This assists with creating an integrated spiritual and physical human. I see many souls deepening their understanding of who they are in September, with an ability to live their truth.

7 Planetary Retrogrades will also occur in September 2020. A retrograde occurs when a planetary body appears to be moving backwards around the Sun, when observed from Earth. It doesn’t actually move backwards, but it appears to from Earth, due to our relative positions moving in an ever-changing cosmic dance around the Sun. With Jupiter, Pluto, Chiron, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Mars all in retrograde for a period in mid-September, the globe will be taken back over old ground. This is where focal point 2 (that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post) comes into play. You may feel like you’re not moving ahead and are just reliving your past, but this is not so. You’re simply being asked to observe your old patterns, so that you can improve upon them going forward. And this is the key in working the retrogrades to your advantage. This will be tricky energy for some to navigate, especially if they have no understanding of cosmic energy and its impact on our lives.

The Three Super New Moons – Beginning in September 2020 and then continuing in October and November, we will have three Super New Moons in a row – signalling our movement out of the 2020 energy fabric, as we begin to weave the picture of what our 2021 will look like. A Super New Moon occurs when the Moon is new and is also at its closest approach to Earth all month. The first Super New Moon in September is the door opener on three months of accelerated newness. Much can and will change in your life (for the better) from September until the end of November. This is where focal point 1, from the beginning of this blog post, comes into play. Seek the beauty in your life. Emit it from within you and find it outside of you. Look for it in every situation in your life – you can do this. This will make all the difference in how well you navigate and experience the final months of 2020 in your power.

Mercury Direct on ‘the day’ of the US Elections – I mention the US elections, as many in our community of light are interested in this ‘once in 4 year event’ that does have such a profound impact, not only on the US, but also on the globe. The lead-up to November 3, 2020 sees two Super New Moons occurring and between 7 and 5 planetary retrogrades. So, we will have one cosmic influence asking us to seriously address our past and another to optimistically address our future. And with postal voting set to be huge in the US for this election, this will effect voting preferences. Again this is where focal point 2 (that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post) comes into play. Rather than becoming angry or confused about the past, or wishing that you were back there and not where you are today, observe it instead. From careful observation comes a progressive life view that you can then take forward to effect great positive change. In the lead-up to the election Mercury will be in retrograde and this can cause create some uncertainty, as to which way the election results will go, Mercury influences all communication and messages, electronics, the Internet and the electrical charge within us all. There will be varying poll results, and views from day to day, right up until the actual day of the election – counting could also be delayed. Which is interesting because, by the afternoon on November 3 (in the US) Mercury will have just moved direct, before a final result is announced. That is good news for the eventual clarity of results. There will also be a Blue Full Moon only days before the election, just as Uranus makes it closest approach to Earth all year. Uranus causes us to break out of old patterns in an unexpected and often-surprising way and the Blue Full Moon (the second Full Moon in a month) will demand that the old completes in a grand way. Over these final days before the election, over-blown and ever-changeable energy will be present. Do your best to focus on the bigger positives for our globe over the next 4 years and that we’ll experience a smooth transition, that is respectful and all-inclusive of the wise beings of the light that we are.

The Final Eclipses of 2020 – Beginning in late November and continuing through until almost the end of December, we’ll close the year with the energy of radical change, similar energy with which we began 2020. The final eclipse season for 2020 will be intently felt. In late November, there’s a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse, and then in mid-December, a Total Solar Eclipse on the New Moon, just before Chiron moves direct. This Total Solar Eclipse is one of the final cosmic events for 2020 that will stamp a completion (and honouring) of all events in your life from January to December. Eclipses force us to clear out what isn’t working in our life in favour of what is. My advice is always the same during Eclipse Season – ‘do your work and make your changes’ each day. Don’t wait for the actual eclipses to make the radical changes for you – as they turn out not be what you desire’. You can zip up in evolutionary knowing in the final two months of 2020 with the ever-useful, uplifting energy of The Eclipses.

The Great Jupiter/Saturn Conjunction in Aquarius 2020 (an influence into 2021) – On the Solstice in December 2020, Jupiter and Saturn will meet in the zodiacal sign of Aquarius, known for its progressive energy and bringing forth of societal change that focuses upon ‘we instead of me’. Saturn is a slow mover and takes almost 2.5 years to cycle through each sign of the zodiac and will transit Aquarius until 2023. This is why it takes almost 30 years to return to the same position as the day you were born, known as your Saturn Return (a time of great awakening and deepening in our lives every 28 – 30 years). Jupiter will transit Aquarius for just over 12 months until December 29, 2021. Jupiter takes just over 12 years to cycle through the entire zodiac and it last transited Aquarius from 2009 – 2010. I’ve mentioned previously that the period of 2010 – 2020 is what has prepared us for 2020-2030 and the biggest shift in 10,000 years Indeed, the years of 2009 – 2010 have been what has prepared us for entry into The Aquarian Era of Light, which cosmically kicks-off on The December Solstice 2020, with Jupiter and Saturn both meeting in Aquarius – a great conjunction that last occurred 20 years ago in 2000.

I will be holding a special global event on this great cosmic occasion in December 2020 just for our Tip-Off Community

Very Early 2021 – With such a magnificent event as the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius on the Solstice at the end of 2020, the opening weeks of 2021 will be infused with Aquarian energy, inflecting us with higher ideals and a humanitarian outlook. I’ll be speaking more ‘very soon’ on the bigger cosmic picture of the entire year of 2021, as so much is still shifting in 2020 that the landscape is still morphing.

ARE YOU READY TO GO FURTHER? NOW IS THE TIME TO START BEFORE 2021 BEGINS For all of the details, of every cosmic event and how this energy will be advancing your spiritual path and growth each day, you can take this opportunity and join with the thousands of awake and aware souls globally, who are already successfully ascending on their spiritual path every week with my daily energy forecasts and soulful life guidance The Tip-Off It’s a choice that I know, will empower you…

I trust that this blog post has inspired you, brought new information to light and most importantly has peaked your interest about the deeper astrological outlook coming up. I welcome your ‘loving interactions’ in the comments below ♡

In the highest vibration as you…experience your soul Elizabeth ♡

*******

All of Creation Is watching Earth and witnessing its Ascension Process. They are ready, ready for this Planet to be Declared a Light Only Zone. All of Humanity are called upon now to Step Up in fulfillment of their Divine Soul Contract.

The dark has been cleared, fully defeated and New Earth, Nova Terra, is ready to begin. This requires each Being to fully clear the remaining density within their bodies, to awaken to full remembrance of their Galactic Truth, their Soul Essence, their Divine Blueprint.

This is not a Drill, in Real Time, Present Moment of Now Mother of All Creation is on the Planet and she is Our Divine Director, Our Eternal Mother. She hired you for this role and She is here to guide you.

Mother has the entire Galactic Federation of Light and all the Angels with Her in all moments. She also has Her guide/ambassador Robin Williams and Master St. Germain by Her side. There is no session like this available on the planet, or in all of Creation.

LoveHasWon.org is a Non-Profit Charity, Heartfully Associated with the “World Blessing Church Trust” for the Benefit of Mother Earth

Share Our Messages with Love and Gratitude

VISIT OUR LOVEHASWON DIRECTORY… ALL OUR PLATFORMS ACCESIBLE IN ONE PLACE ~ https://linktr.ee/lovehaswon777

Visit Our Online Store for Higher Consciousness Alternative Medicine, Products and Tools: Gaia’s Whole Healing Essentials

Visit Our NEW Sister Site: LoveHasWon Angel Numbers

https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/

Commentary from The First Contact Ground Crew 5dSpiritual Healing Team:

Feel Blocked, Drained, Fatigued, Restless, Nausea, Achy, Ready to Give Up? We Can Help! We are preparing everyone for a Full Planetary Ascension, and provide you with the tools and techniques to assist you Home Into The Light. The First Contact Ground Crew Team, Will Help to Get You Ready For Ascension which is Underway. New Spiritual Sessions have now been created for an Entire Family, including the Crystal Children; Group Family Healing & Therapy. We have just began these and they are incredible. Highly recommend for any families struggling together in these times of intense changes. Email: [email protected] for more information or to schedule an emergency spiritual session. We can Assist You into Awakening into 5d Reality, where your experience is one of Constant Joy, Wholeness of Being, Whole Health, Balanced, Happy and Abundant. Lets DO THIS! Schedule Your Etheric Surgery With Mother God Below, Including TWO sessions with a recommended donation of $88.88

⭐ Etheric Surgery with Mother & Father of ALL Creation ~ It’s Miracle Time! ~

https://www.lovehaswon.org/sessions/etheric-surgery/

⭐Crystal Schools for Rainbow Children:

https://www.lovehaswon.org/crystal-schools-for-rainbow-children/

⭐Schedule an Amazing Holistic Healing Session:

https://www.lovehaswon.org/holistic-healing-session/

⭐Call to Action Ascension Session:

https://www.lovehaswon.org/call-to-action-ascension-session/

⭐ LoveHasWon Clothing Line:

https://www.lovehaswon.org/t-shirts-apparel/

🌈 If you wish to participate, collaborate or coordinate with us on projects or services that are similar to the mission of Ascension for Mother Earth & Humanity, contact us. It is an Honor to connect with those of the Heart, in Unity Consciousness.

Love Always,

Mother & Father of all Creation & The First Contact Ground Crew Team.

Twin Flame Spiritual Intuitive Ascension Session: https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-twin-flame-spiritual-intuitive-ascension-session/

Request an Astonishing Astrology Session: https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-astrology/

Connect with MotherGod~Mother of All Creation on Skype @ mothergoddess8

Receive THE TRUE STORY OF CREATION, The Tree Of Life Book ~ https://gaiaswholehealingessentials.org/collections/higher-consciousness-transmutations/products/lovehaswon-tree-of-life-book

Receive The LoveHasWon Ascension Guide: https://gaiaswholehealingessentials.org/collections/higher-consciousness-transmutations/products/lovehaswon-ascension-guide

**If you do not have a Paypal account, click on the button below:

If you wish to donate and receive a Tax Receipt, click the button below:

https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/3676799

Use Cash App with Our code and we’ll each get $5! FKMPGLH

Cash App Tag: $lovehaswon1111

https://cash.me/app/FKMPGLH

Donate with Venmo

https://venmo.com/lovehaswon1111

Thank you so much for Supporting Our Gaia’s Whole Healing Gofundme Campaign

https://www.gofundme.com/f/gaias-whole-healing-essentials

We also accept Western Union and Moneygram. You may send an email to [email protected] for more information.

***If you wish to send Donations by mail or other methods, email us at [email protected] or [email protected]***

**** We Do Not Refund Donations****

MeWe ~ Youtube ~ Facebook ~ Apple News ~ Linkedin ~ Twitter ~ Tumblr ~ GAB ~ Minds ~ Google+ ~ Medium ~ Mix ~ Reddit ~ BlogLovin ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Snapchat

#5D Astrology #Astrology Updates

8 notes · View notes

uwunnie · 4 years

Text

Update + Week 1 recap (Nov.7, 8:21 PM US Mountain Time)

Today marked the final day of the first week since this whole ordeal began. Truthfully, it feels like we somehow transported to the Dramarama video because time seemed to stop, but alas, here we are.

For the recap, I’m not going to put specific dates, but for today’s update, I will title it as such. You’ll see - this should be a pretty easy format to follow (tiki-taka),

For the sake of everyone’s timelines, the recap and update begin after this read more.

When news broke out regarding a Wonho’s sudden departure on October 31 (US and the like time-zones), may have been November 1 for other zones, there really weren’t that many updates in the way of efforts to bring him back. That day was full of shock, so everyone was more angry and depressed - even more so compared to now.

But after a day or two, Monbebes managed to channel their emotions into a bigger cause: Bringing Wonho home, and bringing him home we will.

Let’s recap:

Twitter Monbebes, Carter and Kei, organized the GoFundMe to raise $10,000 USD to purchase an ad in NY Times Square.

Within 45 minutes of initial service, the goal had been met.

After a couple days, the donations kept piling in and finally, as of November 3 - the GoFundMe closed at $25,102 USD ($15,102 USD over the original goal).

The ad’s payment was successful and the ad went up! However, my understanding is that the ad’s run-time ends in a few hours.

Ad’s location: New York, 42nd St. and 7th Ave., facing east.

Photos of the ad:

Reads: We shine brighter as a family, then proceeds to list each name of OT7 along with their logo and a photo of OT7 together with MONBEBE on the photo.

The board kicked off on November 6 and ran 30 times per hour for 15 seconds all day except 2-5 AM.

A petition calling to keep Wonho a member of Monsta X was published. Within a week, the petition is still going pretty strong with over 400k signatures. The goal is 500k, so I predict it will reach its goal within the next week.

The petition can be found here.

In addition, more projects/campaigns have been released since then and can be found in this master-post here.

Since this day, however, more projects have been revealed, so once I compile all of them, I’ll add them to the previous link.

Let’s remember:

K-MBB left sticky notes on Starship Ent.’s building. Eventually, within a few hours, a staff member was photographed collecting them.

News outlets began reporting about Monbebe efforts to bring Wonho back, thus bringing more attention to our goal.

Celebrities reached out and showed their support of Monsta X.

Monbebes began writing everyone to spread awareness - spanning as far as contacting Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president.

Naver (shockingly) released a positive article - something that’s very rare.

Efforts are still being made to spread more awareness through physical ads in South Korea.

K-MBB’s held a silent protest outside of Starship Ent.

International fans flew to South Korea to participate.

Staff said they can and will welcome Wonho back.

Staff also helped Monbebes greatly:

Met with MBB’s on the day of the silent protest to help them cut out banners.

These plaques read, “I do not want to remain just a memory,” which are lyrics from If Only.

Supported MBB’s in the fan cafe - even went as far as changing their icons, I believe, to photos of Wonho.

Continued collecting MBB sticky notes and even provided tissues at the protests for those who were crying.

Continue encouraging us to continue with our efforts.

Other fandoms have showed their support for Monsta X and MBB.

International MBB are still organizing a silent protest from what I’ve seen circulating the web.

For Minhyuk’s birthday, MBB adopted four whales as gifts. One is a southern humpback named Monbebe, another a blue whale adopted in Minhyuk’s name. I’ve heard another one was named Monsta X, but don’t quote me on it because I’m not 100% sure.

Minhyuk’s birthday tag also reached #1 worldwide trend.

A set of stars were also purchased and named Lee Hoseok and Monsta X.

NY-MBB got a dance group to dance to Follow.

UK-MBB are hosting fundraisers in efforts to raise money for a central London billboard.

As I stated prior, all sorts of ad efforts were, and still are being, made.

Over 30 tags have consecutively trended worldwide for one week - many of them reaching -#1 trend several times.

K-MBB’s used the original fan chant during one of the performances for Follow’s promotions. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, it means that they used the OT7 chant including Wonho’s name.

300 fans were allowed into the Inkigayo recording - 100 over its normal capacity.

Tower Records, international music franchise store, showed their support in their Japan branch’s sector through MX signs and posters.

MX reminders:

Wonho is still active on the fan cafe.

Majority of the members have been active on the fan cafe.

Minhyuk posted this for his birthday:

Changkyun posted this two days ago:

Wonho is still on Starship’s official site.

This photo was posted a day or two ago:

For those that may not understand, the white ink is circling Wonho’s signature and name on the wristband. Some people claimed it doesn’t matter because those bands are pre-made, but to that I’d like to point out that those bands are made out of paper and his name is printed/signed on the end, so it would have been very easy for staff to cut off the end part if they really wanted to, or were instructed to do so.

This was circulating the web:

Speculations:

Nov. 7: Shownu wore Wonho’s shirt.

Nov. 7: Kihyun wore Wonho’s earrings.

Nov. 7: Hyungwon wore Wonho’s chain.

Nov. 7: Changkyun wore Wonho’s, or a similar, earpiece.

Nov. 7: Our boys left a space for Wonho at the end of their performance. Take a look here and see what you think.

Nov. 2: MX left a space for Wonho during Follow and Find You.

Nov. 2: Jooheon’s lyrical slip-up could have been in protest of what’s occurring.

In regards to this speculation, he did this recently again as well, so my interpretation is that it’s probably related to the protest as well as exhaustion.

Starship info and overall legal matters:

As far as my knowledge extends, this is the ONLY official statement SS has released:

The explanation/speculation of this letter can be found here.

SS is involved in their own, personal, controversy. I’ve made past posts regarding the situation, but for the sake of not stirring the pot, so-to-speak, I’m going to exclude them from this particular post. Until further information about their situation is released, or I feel it’s becoming a detriment to MX, I will bite my tongue.

In regards to 🐻’s controversy, SS confirmed the photos were manipulated (fake).

🐻’s searches have been cleared, at least from my knowledge. I’ve been told that they have been, but I’m not entirely sure if they’ve come back or anything.

I know a lot of people messaged me that particular night in regards to a YouTube video talking about 🐻’s situation and everyone was concerned it would spark up the searches again. I didn’t want to say anything until I saw the video taken down, but I messaged KJ and explained the situation to him. He had no ill intent with his video - in fact, he was trying to help clear the negative rumors revolving around MX. He was just simply unaware that, unfortunately, any publicity regarding 🐻’s situation would trigger the searches again, so I explained this to him and told him about MBB efforts. He completely understood and removed the video.

Updates from November 7:

MX received their 2nd win!

The video and post involving Hyungwon’s speech can be found here. HIGHLY recommend watching it.

GOT7 congratulated and hugged each member, and E-Dawn congratulated Changkyun.

Only 10 Monbebes were allowed inside for the performance, so Ahgases (GOT7’s fan club) held up Monsta X light sticks during our boys’ performance in place for the MBB not allowed in. Ahgase also helped MBB with the live voting.

In other words: Ahgase and Monbebe are each other’s sweethearts. 💚🤧💜

Jooheon told MBB not to cry.

They held a fan-sign to which:

Wonho’s photo was projected on the screen behind them. A link to the photo can be found here.

K-MBB informed MX of the Times Square ad.

Changkyun stayed this is the last week of promotions.

Kihyun said he will do a cover of Believer.

I think Shownu earned his PhD? Or is going to?

Jooheon confirmed the release of the studio version of Sambakja, or he said he might. I’ve seen people talking about both, so I can guarantee 100%, but Jooheon, if you’re reading this - please.

Trends continue meaning we’ve successfully trended for one week straight.

Eshy:

Voting for MAMA has been open and Monsta X is a nominee in all except a couple categories.

There’s two ways to vote:

Voting for them in specific categories on the website, here.

Voting on Twitter as well by utilizing:

#MAMAVOTE #monstax

Current twitter tags to trend as well:

#LoveUWonho

#우리_항상_네_곁에_있을게요

@/OfficialMonstaX

@/STARSHIPent

Overall reminders:

Do not engage in fan wars.

Do not engage in any hate towards the duo. I’ve said this in the past and it’s practically been confirmed: They’re trying to gather sympathy through the situation they’ve caused by trying to play victim. Popular sites are posting articles painting them in positive undertones and netizens are starting to support them because of the hate they’re getting on their social platforms and what not. Those comments can also be collected and utilized in the ongoing legal case, so please, do NOT engage with them. Instead, channel your energy into MAMA voting, campaigns/projects, trends, and other positive things that will bring Wonho home to us.

Messages to MX, project created by @wonderlanddragon, ends Nov.8/9. The posted regarding the details can be found in the campaign link above!

Bunnies for Wonho, created by @thoughtsfromaclutteredbrain, has been ongoing now. They’ve also planned a new project for a video, so please send in your favorite Wonho moment along with your name and/or nickname to them!

@stay-dont-strayy creates an International MBB project. You can find the info on their blog!

Kpop group chats have been created, links here.

@sezy001234 has also created five tumblr kpop group chats, so hit her up for details on everything!

I’ve also made a kpop tumblr group chat, so if you’d like to be added, send in an ask or message!

The source to find the bunny 7-1=0 profile pictures can be found here in seven different colors.

You can leave letters/sweet messages to the boys on the fan cafe. Please be mindful of the situations at hand when doing so and also, give a little extra love to our baby, Changkyun. MBB at the fan-sign have mentioned that he seems to be struggling the most and tbh, it’s been very visible in his performances and photos.

All seven are trying to be strong for us, so let’s try our best to be strong for them. ❤️

We’ve made it through the first week, babes.

We can do it time and time again.

I love you all. ❤️🤧

Let’s bring our bunny home. ❤️🐰

(Posting: Nov. 8, 3:05 AM US Mountain Time // yes, it took me this long to make lol)

#monsta x #wonho #shownu #kihyun #hyungwon #minhyuk #jooheon #changkyun #im #joohoney #updates #first week #monbebe

143 notes · View notes

valerie · 3 years

Text

TWITL - week fifty-three - farewell 2020

New Post has been published on https://kiari.com/2020/12/twitl-week-fifty-three-farewell-2020/

TWITL - week fifty-three - farewell 2020

I’m starting this on December 31, 2020 but not sure when I’ll post it. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m never one to call a whole year a total negative, so I’ve never understood the people who take a whole twelve months and say that it was all crap. I want to ask them– so, not one day shone bright for you? There weren’t bright spots that were actually wonderful moments to counter whatever utter despair you experienced? You would erase that whole year from your memory because it was that bad?

Of course, I never ask those questions. People will feel what they must and if writing off a year helps them for the upcoming year, go for it. I’m just not that kind of person. I say I go for balance but really, I tend toward the more positive moments and feelings. I try not to give in to the darkness and despair for too long.

2020 has certainly challenged that resolve.

Let me acknowledge that 2020 has tested us in so many ways. It’s been a hard year for so many people. We have all had to realign what’s “normal” and what we can tolerate. We have lost more than we should have. We have had to rise out of our selfishness and face the fact that we are all connected. We felt fear and anger and helplessness. Some of us rose above it to heed the calling of community. Some of us sank into the darkness. Many of us just tried to keep afloat, to find that new normal, to strive for some balance.

It was scary, wasn’t it, when we had to lockdown? Part of me liked staying home but I didn’t feel somewhat relieved until I found out that I would still have a job through all of this. I was further heartened by the fact that the husband would still have a job as well. We didn’t have to worry so much financially (beyond the usual worries). It sucked hard too, didn’t it, to have your favorite places shut down? I missed going to the library and to the bars after work, as well as restaurants and such. The hardest thing for many people, of course, was not being able to see family and friends. No matter how amazing technology is, nothing can replace that real smile, the kiss on the cheek, the warm, tight hugs, or even the handshakes. Most of us crave even the simplest of touches and so many of us were denied it because of the pandemic. Many of us are still denied that simple thing.

I do not go through my days in fear because I have to wear a mask. Do I find it inconvenient? Yes. But it’s not the rights stripping directive some people would have you believe it is. If you don’t want to wear your mask, then stay home and yell at the tv or internet. But if you have to go out, wear the fucking mask. Don’t be selfish. Don’t be an asshole. Please. Why is it such a challenge for people to think of their neighbors and the good of the community? Isn’t that what most religions teach us? This pushback on masks and social distancing will continue to boggle me.

So what has 2020 shown me? Well, in stark ways, the year has shown me that people SUCK HARD. It has also shown me that people are amazing and generous and courageous and loving. I try not to dwell on the people who would rather spew negativity. No, I try to focus on the people who are positive and enlightening and real. So too, I try to be. 2020 has also shown me how I personally handle crazy times. The year wracked my nerves for sure and it made me search within myself for the tether to keep my balance. I tried to feel all the confusion and uncertainty then let it go and work through it. 2020 was certainly a year of self reflection.

2020 also brought me joy and contentment. The husband and I have each other, a home, money in the bank, and good people around us. Sure, we missed going to concerts (probably mostly me), the bars and restaurants, heading to breweries, seeing our family and friends. But we got to spend a lot of time together and that’s always a good thing, even if you’ve been married for 26 years. So no, I would not take back those days and months or mere moments together.

Things 2020, good and bad:

January – I “broke up” with one of my fellas in melodramatic fashion but I’m still doing the fan thing for him because of my fellow fans. But I tell you, my heart still really isn’t in it… The 49ers made me care about football for a little while by being NFC Champions.

February – Ugh, the 49ers lost the Super Bowl. But hey, at least they got there?… The busiest time of year at work started for me. Transfers galore!… Tyler Rich was announced his first headlining tour and I bought tickets for it!… Saw Sonic the Hedgehog in the movie theatre. Wait, was this the last movie I’d see in the theatre for 2020? (Yes, yes it was.)

March – Jack Whitehall was announced as part of the lineup for Netflix is a Joke, with a show on May 2nd in Los Angeles. I bought tickets for it, thinking I’d have to find a way to say hello to him and have him say Happy Birthday to me since my birthday would be the day after his show… I had a passport appointment because I thought we might be going out of the country in June… I got a free haircut and then a week or so later– lockdown… Spring Break was one of uncertainty. We were told to stay home but I went in for a couple of days just to catch up on things… Tyler started his IG live sessions and Simon Kassianides read a poem everyday for awhile– the things that kept me somewhat sane as lockdown began.

April – Work steadied. At first, I worked from home, which I did not mind at all . I was just happy to have a regular schedule of sorts and a paycheck!… Oh, that Zoom chat with the G Bar crew and having a special guest sing for us… 26th wedding anniversary!… I wrote a poem a day for a few weeks, inspired by Simon reading poetry for a time… The 30th marked five years since we met Tyler…

May – I turned 49. LORD!… Learning to wear a mask, social distance, etc… Started a new story that for some reason had Chris Hemsworth as inspiration. This led to me brushing up on Hemsworth’s work… Someone got a new phone (not me)…

June – Bangs trimmed at the salon. First time out seeing people other than the husband and co-workers. Crazy!… Watched from afar the protests and read about a lot of it online… Working from home but going into work twice week, which isn’t so bad… Debuted Besotted by Chris on Chris Conrad’s birthday!…

July – Watched Hamilton and it was SO GOOD! I totally get it now… Took some time off from work that I would have normally taken at the end of June/beginning of July… The news cycle was so exhausting…

August – One of my work friends died and it just hit me so hard… Fires made the sky so smoky…

September – Tyler’s debut album was released! Two Thousand Miles – go and get it!… Another Zoom chat with the G Bar lovelies. Tyler and Sabina joined us and there might have been some tears… Also a CPN chat. Love those ladies!… The hubby was away and out of radio contact for about five days. It was weird. I was so happy when he was back home…

October – Simon Kassianides called me his Number Two fan (his mum being the Number One fan). Umm, what the hell?! Giddy fangirl moment… The Apple Event happened and I decided I would get the iPhone 12 Pro. Then I thought about it more and thought, why not get the iPhone 12 Pro Max and really test my patience… Started prepping for National Novel Writing Month…

November – Headed to Anchor Bay for the first weekend of the month and it was cold but beautiful. The first time in a long time I felt “normal” because I was unmasked around people I hadn’t seen in awhile. And all of it was outside, so I felt “safer” about it? Came home with a cold though… Oh, the election. I was so glad I voted by mail… National Novel Writing Month! I got to 50k words but I was behind pace for most of the month. The fella who inspired this story? Freakin’ Chris Evans. What the hell? I blame my OT… My new phone was in my hands on Friday the 13th! I bought the iPhone 12 Pro Max and I LOVE IT. So big, so pretty, so expensive. Ye gods!… Back to shelter at home mode because people can’t do simple things… Went a little nutty buying stuff online during those many off days…

December – Renewed our rental for another year. YES!… Donated to a short film mostly because Simon Kassianides is in it. It’s so cute. I hope it gets picked up!… Speaking of Simon, he’s the reason for my best Monday ever! Seriously, that Cameo Shanaye got for me is the BEST. I wonder, did he know that he was making the video for his Number Two fan?… Closing out the year off from work. It’s the best way to end this crazy year…

And that’s it! If you actually made it to the end of this, nice on you! I might do a part two to this with my hopes for 2021 but we’ll see. Until then…

WEAR A MASK, KEEP YOUR DISTANCE, WASH YOUR HANDS.

Love to you all!

#chris evans #chris hemsworth #jack whitehall #simon kassianides #tyler rich #TylerRich #TWITL

1 note · View note

dinaxoxo · 4 years

Quote

I love you early in the morning and it’s difficult to love you. I love the January sky and knowing it will change although unlike us. I love watching people read. I love photo booths. I love midnight. I love writing letters and this is my letter. To the world that never wrote to me. I love snow and briefly. I love the first minutes in a warm room after stepping out of the cold. I love my twenties and want them back every day. I love time. I love people. I love people and my time away from them the most. I love the part of my desk that’s darkened by my elbows. I love feeling nothing but relief during the chorus of a song. I love space. I love every planet. I love the big unknowns but need to know who called or wrote, who’s coming—if they want the same things I do, if they want much less. I love not loving Valentine’s Day. I love how February is the shortest month. I love that Barack Obama was president. I love the quick, charged time between two people smoking a cigarette outside a bar. I love everyone on Friday night. I love New York City. I love New York City a lot. I love that day in childhood when I thought I was someone else. I love wondering how animals perceive our daily failures. I love the lines in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof when Brick’s father says “Life is important. There’s nothing else to hold onto.” I love Brick. I love that we can fail at love and continue to live. I love writing this and not knowing what I’ll love next. I love looking at paintings and being reminded I am alive. I love Turner’s paintings and the sublime. I love the coming of spring even in the most withholding March. I love skipping anything casual—“hi, how are you, it’s been forever”—and getting straight to the center of pain. Or happiness. I love opening a window in a room. I love the feeling of possibility by the end of the first cup of coffee. I love hearing anyone listen to Nina Simone. I love Nina Simone. I love how we can choose our own families. I love when no one knows where I am but feel terrified to be forgotten. I love Saturdays. I love that despite our mistakes this will end. I love how people get on planes to New York and California. I love the hour after rain and the beginning of the cruelest month. I love imagining Weldon Kees on a secret island. I love the beach on a cloudy day. I love never being disappointed by chocolate. I love that morning when I was twenty and had just met someone very important (though I didn’t know it) and I walked down an almost empty State Street because it was still early and not at all late—and of course I could change everything (though I also didn’t know it)—I could find anyone, go anywhere, I wasn’t sorry for who I was. I love the impulse to change. I love seeing what we do with what we can’t change. I love the moon’s independent indifference. I love walking the same streets as Warhol. I love what losing something does but I don’t love losing it. I love how the past shifts when there’s more. I love kissing. I love hailing a cab and going home alone. I love being surprised by May although it happens every year. I love closing down anything—a bar, restaurant, party—and that time between late night and dawn when one lamp goes on wherever you are and you know. You know what you know even if it’s hard to know it. I love being a poet. I love all poets. I love Jim Morrison for saying, “I’d like to do a song or a piece of music that’s just a pure expression of joy, like a celebration of existence, like the coming of spring or the sun rising, just pure unbounded joy. I don’t think we’ve really done that yet.” I love everything I haven’t done. I love looking at someone without need or panic. I love the quiet of the trees in a new city. I love how the sky is connected to a part of us that understands something big and knows nothing about it too. I love the minutes before you’re about to see someone you love. I love any film that delays resolution. I love being in a cemetery because judgment can’t live there. I love being on a highway in June or anytime at all. I love magic. I love the zodiac. I love all of my past lives. I love that hour of the party when everyone’s settled into their discomfort and someone tells you something really important—in passing—because it’s too painful any other way. I love the last moments before sleep. I love the promise of summer. I love going to the theater and seeing who we are. I love glamour—shamelessly—and all glamour. Which is not needed to live but shows people love life. What else is it there for? Why not ask for more? I love red shoes. I love black leather. I love the grotesque ways in which people eat ice cream—on sidewalks, alone—however they need it, whenever they feel free enough. I love being in the middle of a novel. I love how mostly everyone in Jane Austen is looking for love. I love July and its slowness. I love the idea of liberation and think about it all the time. I love imagining a world without money. I love imagining a life with enough money to write when I want. I love standing in front of the ocean. I love that sooner or later we forget even “the important things.” I love how people write in the sand, on buildings, on paper. Their own bodies. Fogged mirrors. Texts they’ll draft but never send. I love silence. I love owning a velvet cape and not knowing how to cook. I love that instant when an arc of light passes through a room and I’m reminded that everything really is moving. I love August and its sadness. I love Sunday for that too. I love jumping in a pool and how somewhere on the way up your body relaxes and accepts the shock of the water. I love Paris for being Paris. I love Godard’s films. I love anyplace that makes room for loneliness. I love how the Universe is 95% dark matter and energy and somewhere in the rest of it there is us. I love bookstores and the autonomy when I’m in one. I love that despite my distrust in politics I am able to vote. I love wherever my friends are. I love voting though know art and not power is what changes human character. I love what seems to me the discerning indifference of cats. I love the often uncomplicated joy of dogs. I love Robert Lax for living alone. I love the extra glass of wine happening somewhere, right now. I love schools and teachers. I love September and how we see it as a way to begin. I love knowledge. Even the fatal kind. Even the one without “use value.” I love getting dressed more than getting undressed. I love mystery. I love lighting candles. I love religious spaces though I’m sometimes lost there. I love the sun for worshipping no one. I love the sun for showing up every day. I love the felt order after a morning of errands. I love walking toward nowhere in particular and the short-lived chance of finding something new. I love people who smile only when moved to. I love that a day on Venus lasts longer than a year. I love Whitman for writing, “the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events; / These come to me days and nights and go from me again, / But they are not the Me myself.” I love October when the veil between worlds is thinnest. I love how at any moment I could forgive someone from the past. I love the wind and how we never see it. I love the performed sincerity in pornography and wonder if its embarrassing transparency is worth adopting in other parts of life. I love how magnified emotions are at airports. I love dreams. Conscious and unconscious. Lived and not yet. I love anyone who risks their life for their ideal one. I love Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. I love how people make art even in times of impossible pain. I love all animals. I love ghosts. I love that we continue to invent meaning. I love the blue hours between three and five when Plath wrote Ariel. I love that despite having one body there are many ways to live. I love November because I was born there. I love people who teach children that most holidays are a product of capitalism and have little to do with love—which would never celebrate massacre—which would never care about money or greed. I love people who’ve quit their jobs to be artists. I love you for reading this as opposed to anything else. I love the nostalgia of the future. I love that the tallest mountain in our solar system is safe and on Mars. I love dancing. I love being in love with the wrong people. I love that on November 23, 1920, Virginia Woolf wrote, “We have bitten off a large piece of life—but why not? Did I not make out a philosophy some time ago which comes to this—that one must always be on the move?” I love how athletes believe in the body and know it will fail them. I love dessert for breakfast. I love all of the dead. I love gardens. I love holding my breath under water. I love whoever it is untying our shoes. I love that December is summer in Australia. I love statues in a downpour. I love how no matter where on the island, at any hour, there’s at least one lit square at the top or bottom of a building in Manhattan. I love diners. I love that the stars can’t be touched. I love getting in a car and turning the keys just to hear music. I love ritual. I love chance too. I love people who have quietly survived being misunderstood yet remain kids. And yes, I love that Marilyn Monroe requested Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow” to be played at her funeral. And her casket was lined in champagne satin. And Lee Strasberg ended his eulogy by saying, “I cannot say goodbye. Marilyn never liked goodbyes, but in the peculiar way she had of turning things around so that they faced reality, I will say au revoir.” I love the different ways we have of saying the same thing. I love anyone who cannot say goodbye

Alex Dimitrov “Love”

#alex dimitrov #love #personal #poetry

32 notes · View notes

dylanobrienisbatman · 5 years

Text

Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge

That’s right, we’re back!!! A fan fiction challenge just for writers for The 100 fandom!! If you’re new to our fun little fanfic challenge, or just need a refresher, here’s how it works!

The Challenge!

The Chopped Challenge will have four (4) rounds, three qualifying rounds and a championship round. The structure of each round will be the same.

The first three rounds will be open to anyone who would like to participate. Each of the first three rounds will have a theme that your fic must comply with, which will be announced in this post. At the start of each round, we will announce a mystery basket of four (4) random tropes pulled from this list, which must be used in your fic, and you will have a one (1) week writing period to complete your fic.

Once you finish your fic, upload to it our anonymous AO3 challenge for that round (there will be a different anonymous challenge for all four rounds). Once the week writing period is up, the challenge will be closed. We will then take a 24 hour period to compile all of the fics to create the voting poll, after which the two (2) day voting period will begin.

The voting will contain polls for the use of each individual trope, the use of the rounds theme, and a bonus poll for each round which we will determine. There will be one round that has a bonus poll for ‘best rare pair’, which we will announce at the beginning of the round. Voting will require a URL or email, and only one vote per person will be counted. Each round will also have a poll for the best cumulative use of all four tropes and the theme. The first, second, and third place winners of each poll will be announced at the end of the voting period, and the first, second, and third place winners from the cumulative polls from each of the first three rounds will have the chance to write and have their fic submitted for voting in...

The 100 Chopped Challenge Championship Round!

The final round will have the same structure as the first three rounds, but will not have a theme, and one of the tropes will be a free choice trope where the writers will use the trope of their choice in their fic. (We will open a non-anonymous challenge for this round as well, if anyone would like to write for it that did not make it in the first three rounds, and fics submitted here will not be submitted to voting.) There will be another 48 hour voting period following the championship round, and the ‘Chopped Champions’ will be announced!

Timeline

Round 1: Canon Divergence (S1-S6)

Prompt released: 12:00am October 1

Submissions close at 11:59pm October 7

Voting begins 12:00am October 9

Voting ends 11:59pm October 10

Round 2: Canon Spec

Prompt released: 12:00am October 12

Submissions close at 11:59pm October 18

Voting begins 12:00am October 20

Voting ends 11:59pm October 21

[Speculate away! Got s7 spec boiling over in your mind? Still hung up on not knowing what happened to spacekru in that 6 year time jump (aren’t we all)? Maybe you’re even hanging out in that three month gap between s2 and s3, or have some precanon ideas floating around that you want to put out there? We want it all!]

Round 3: Modernised Canon

Prompt released: 12:00am October 23

Submissions close at 11:59pm October 29

Voting begins 12:00am October 31

Voting ends 11:59pm November 1

[For this theme, please choose a scene from canon (s1-s6) and recreate the scene in a modern setting. Feel free to swap around characters or change the mood or feeling of a scene, but please include in your description what scene you are recreating, and try to make it clear to a reader what scene it is you’re playing around with.]

Final Round

Prompt released: 12:00am November 3

Submissions close at 11:59pm November 9

Voting begins 12:00am November 11

Voting ends 11:59pm November 12

Rules

This competition was created to get creative and different fics out into the world, and to create a fun, positive fandom experience for everyone! In order to ensure that we achieve that goal of a positive experience, here are a few rules and guidelines that must be followed!

The requirements for the fics entered into the competition will be:

Must be The 100

Must fit the theme of the round (for rounds 1-3)

Must use ALL of the tropes selected for each round. If you don’t use the tropes, it will result in disqualification!

All fics must be 10,000 words or less!

All ratings are welcome, G through E, but please be aware that some smut fics may not be everyone’s thing! Write what you like, but it the voting is public so just keep that in mind!

You will be disqualified if you include:

Rape!

Underage! (This means no high school AU with sex, no teacher/student if the student is underage, zero adult/under 18 relationships!)

Incest! (incest includes adopted siblings, parent/child, step siblings, biological siblings, or any familial relationship, blood related or not!).

Negativity towards any character or ship! (This includes any sort of abuse perpetrated by a character intending to paint them in a negative light, negative statements about a character intended purely to express your dislike of a character, or things of that nature.)

This is meant to be a fun and positive experience for everyone. Fluff should be fluffy. Angst should be ‘angsty’ but not traumatic. Please try and write positive and good fics. We reserve the right to disqualify anyone if we are reading and we think it violates the negativity requirement!

Remember that if you have any questions at all, including whether something would fit our trope requirements, would violate one of the rules, or anything at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me (dylanobrienisbatman) or @thelittlefanpire we are here to help!

This challenge is open to any and all ships! As of now, we are not going to separate out the more popular ships from the smaller ships, we are going to trust that you guys will vote based on the story you read rather than the ship it comes from, but we understand why some of you are wary. If it becomes clear that the fics for ‘less popular’ ships are not being read as much as the others, we will figure out something. If you choose to vote, please try to read most of the fics, so that its fair to all the writers involved! We had no issues in our first challenge, and we hope we wont have any issues in this run either1

Please remember this is an anonymous competition!! Please dont post your fics on your own AO3 account or on tumblr until the voting for each round is over!

We are super excited to see what you guys write!!

This is the trope list we will be sending through a randomiser to get the tropes for each round. It was created via crowdsourcing last time we did this challenge, and im posting it here so people can get an idea of what tropes might be chosen.

#chopped: the 100 fanfic challenge #chopped: the 100 fanfic edition #the 100 #fanfic #fanfic challenge

79 notes · View notes

drev-the-ambassador · 6 years

Text

It's sometime in the 1200’s. Men have come from the west, and they speak the language some - not you necessarily, but some -of the people on this small strip of sparsely populated land recognize, even if they don’t understand it. You’ve traded with the western men before, been attacked by them as well, just like a while ago, when they came. You and your people struck back, but nonetheless. Someone tells you that you must pay taxes now. You have a king now. You are handed a cross. You have a king now. A Swedish king.

It’s 1809. You are in Porvoo. The war is still ongoing, but yet, here you are, to swear an oath to your new king. No, this is no king, this man is an emperor. Alexander the First. He promises you that you can keep your religion, your old Swedish laws and your rights. The estates swear their oaths of allegiance. At the end of the ceremony, the tsar tells you that you and your people have now been heightened to a nation among nations. You are not sure what that means - there is no nation, no country, just nine provinces, the Åland islands and some land from the north, where Tornio- river marks the border between two countries - the one you belonged to yesterday and the one you’ll belong to from this day on. Next autumn, the Treaty of Fredrikshamn is signed by the representatives of both, the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire. Sweden gave up the nine läns, the islands and the strip of land from the north forever, and they would be forever a part of Russia. You wonder what you should do. Russians have given the citizens three years to decide where they wish to live; Sweden or Russia. You don’t particularly like either option, but there is no third option. There is no land between east and west.

It’s 1899. The tsar, Nicholas the Second, did not agree to meet with the men bringing him the Great Petition to end the February manifesto. The Grand Duchy of Finland does not have its own postal service anymore. The diet can no longer decide the laws; Russians decide them now. You don’t understand how the emperor could do this to his loyal citizens. They’re telling rumours that there are people in Russia who want to take the autonomy away once and for all. You hope those are only rumors.

It’s 1917. Everything is chaos.The Great War is raging. There was a second revolution in Russia; the bolsheviks have the power now. You are at a loss of what to do. The Finnish Parliament declares that it now holds the greatest legislative power in the Grand Duchy. The working class and the middle class are not getting along, haven’t been since the years of oppression. Everything is changing - you can feel it.

It’s 6th of December, 1917. The Parliament has just approved the declaration of independence made only two days earlier. Now, for the first time ever, you all have to stand on your own two feet - there is no motherland to take care of you if you mess up. You wonder if you’ll survive a decade here, in this sparsely populated land between east and west. You swear to do everything it takes.

It’s 2017. Some teenage girl is writing this pretentious text at 3:15 AM in November. In the independent Republic of Finland.

Finland’s 100 years of Independence 6.12.1917-6.12.2017

Finland is both very old and very young. The ancestors of the people living in Finland today - and of the Sami people especially - are among the first humans to have settled down in Europe, and the bedrock on which Finland rests is among the oldest in the world. However, the Finnish written language was developed only in the 1500’s by Mikael Agricola and the first books written in Finnish were published in 1870. In the 1700’s, the concept of “Finnish” being separate from “Swedish” regarding the language and some cultural aspects was born, but really being Finnish like we are Finnish today wasn’t born until the latter half of the 19th century.

Parts of the area known as Finland today were annexed by the Kingdom of Sweden at different times. Some areas of Finland were a part of Sweden for around 600 years, some less than 60. As a part of Sweden Finland wasn’t really… Finland. It consisted of the provinces, or läns, though one of them was called Varsinais-Suomi, Proper Finland, or Egentliga Finland in Swedish. Only in 1809, when Sweden lost the Finnish War to the Russian Empire and gave up its eastern areas, did Aleksanteri I, Alexander I, unify the läns under the name “Suomen suurruhtinaskunta”, “the Grand Duchy of Finland” and make the Grand Duchy an autonomous region within the empire.

As a part of Russia Finland was doing quite well, better than as a part of Sweden. It’s impossible to say if Finland would’ve been better off as a part of Sweden all along, but it can be said with certainty that as a part of Sweden Finland most likely wouldn’t have become an independent country. The Diet of Finland wasn’t called until 1863 even though Alexander promised to do so in like 1812, but Finnish people either didn’t mind or didn’t care. Finland was also one of the most peaceful parts of the Russian Empire; the Finnish people were either very loyal to the czar OR, again, they didn’t really care. Nonetheless, Finland gained its own postal service, currency and eventually the Diet was called as well. The Finnish language was to become equal to Swedish in 20 years, and the national awakening was bringing with it the Golden Age of Finnish Art.

A product of the Golden Age, Raatajat rahanalaiset (Kaski) (1893) by Eero Järnefelt, English translation being “Under the Yoke (Burning the Brushwood) ; Wage Slaves / Burn-Beating”.

In 1899, just as Finland had started to embrace its Finnishness, the Russification of Finland, known in Finland as Sortokaudet, the Years of Oppression, began with the February Manifesto by Nikolai II, Nicholas II. The postal service had been shut down earlier, but now all the power from the Finnish politicians in the Diet was given over to the Russians. The use of Finnish was no longer encouraged, now everyone was forced to learn Russian. Finnish people tried to appeal to the czar, students collecting half a million names (about ¼ of the population) into the Suuri adressi, the Great Petition, by skiing from village to village, only for the czar to decline the delegation. Finnish politicians started to be replaced by Russians. Finland was slowly losing its autonomy.

A famous painting, Hyökkäys (1899) by Edvard Isto. The name of the painting means “An attack”. It depicts the Russian double-headed eagle trying to rip the lawbook from the hands of the Finnish Maiden, the national personification of Finland. It became a symbol of the resistance towards the Russification of Finland.

In 1905 the revolution ended the Russification, and the Finnish Parliament was formed - it has barely changed since, by the way. With this reform of the Finnish political system, Finland also became the 2nd country in the world to give women the right to vote, and the first country in the world to give everyone, regardless of gender, equal political rights. The first women in the world elected as Members of Parliament were Finnish. After this brief period of time Russification was put into action again. It was only ended by the October Revolution in 1917. Which brings us to our next topic...

End of the Year 1917

In 1917 the two Russian revolutions took place, at the beginning and at the end of the year.This unrest made the working class and middle class, who were not on very good terms with each other otherwise, to agree on one thing: They wanted independence.

On November 15th the Finnish Parliament declared itself to hold the highest legislative power in Finland.

A newspaper article from Viipurin Sanomat from 10.11.1917, telling about the decision the Parliament made to transfer the power (in Finland) that earlier was held by the czar to 3 people chosen by the Parliament.

The suggestion, voting and the final result of the plenary session where the Parliament ended up deciding to ditch their previous idea of electing those 3 people and just having the legislative power to itself.

On 4th of December the government - or P.E. Svinhufvud’s Independence Senate (P.E. Svinhufvudin itsenäisyyssenaatti) - gave the Declaration of Independence.

A picture of Svinhufvud’s Senate and the original Finnish Declaration of Independence. A link to the English translation of the text.

On the 5th, the Declaration was published for all the people of Finland to see - however, the rising tensions between the working class and the middle class, as well as the famine closing in kind of distracted the people.

On December 6th the Parliament voted in favor of Independence. The votes were 100-88, those 88 being the Social Democrats who’d wanted to negotiate with the bolsheviks before independence. This day was chosen as the national day of Finland, the Finnish Independence Day. However, on 6th of December in the year 1917, the newly gained independence did not stir much positive emotions. According to the memoirs of a Finnish author, Lauri Arra, that year, “everyone waited for or sensed that some terrible disaster was going to happen”. This terrible disaster was waiting for the newly born nation in the January of 1918, only a few weeks later.

To be a real country, other countries must recognize the independence first. Right away Finland asked Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Norway and Great Britain to recognize the new country’s independence. You might have noticed that a key player in this becoming-a-country-independent-from-Russia-and-asking-others-to-recognize-our-breaking-away-from-Russia-process is missing: Russia.

No, Finland did not ask Russia to recognize our independence at first. However, all the other countries refused to recognize Finland as independent before the country Finland was trying to break free from approved of said breaking free first, and so Finland had to turn eastward with an apologetic smile and go: “...Please?” I mean, I assume that’s how it went, I dunno, I wasn’t there.

The first ones to make a move were the Social Democrats: they asked their eastern comrades to recognize Finland as a proper nation. Lenin agreed to do so if someone came and asked. On 29th of December Svinhufvud himself, with the other negotiators, traveled to St. Petersburg. The Finnish delegation was forced to wait for hours in some room outside the room where all the important stuff was happening.

Then, just before midnight, literally minutes before the year 1917 came to a close, the Finns were handed a note, a piece of paper, with which Soviet Russia recognized Finland as an independent nation.

Said piece of paper.

Recognition

Soviet Russia was the first country to recognize Finland’s independence on December 31st, 1917. The confirmation for the recognition was given on January 4th, 1918. The next countries to recognize Finland as a country were France, Sweden and Germany, on January 4th as well. Other countries followed, even though countries like USA and Great Britain recognized Finland only after WWI, to make sure Finland wouldn’t go and join the bad guy Germany, so to say. (Krhm.)

A screencap of the Wikipedia article on the Finnish Declaration of Independence because it had the handy list here. On top of these countries, Romania, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Mexico and Hungary recognized Finland in 1920. Paraguay and Luxembourg followed in 1921, Serbia in 1922, and finally Afghanistan and Albania in 1928.

Map of Finland in 1917.

Here’s the end of part 1 of the Finnish Independence post. This focused on the history, but the next part, which I will hopefully publish soon, will focus on how we celebrate our independence. I hope you enjoyed.

Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää!

#hetaliafandomdirectory #suomi100 #finland #aph finland #finland's independence day #hetalia #hey it's sort of in time!!#i underestimated my need of sleep #so this is like 6 hours late #i apologize deeply #I hope you like it!!'#i'm pretty sure these are old enough to be in public domain #enjoy!!!!

2K notes · View notes

patriotsnet · 3 years

Text

What Did Obama Say About Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-did-obama-say-about-republicans/

What Did Obama Say About Republicans

Etymology Of Obama Republican

Fmr. President Obama Mocks Trump’s Middle-Class Tax Cut: âCongress Isnât Even In Sessionâ | NBC News

On February 12, 2008, Barack Obama mentioned Obama Republicans in his Potomac primary victory speech: “We are bringing together Democrats and independents, and yes, some Republicans. I know there’sI meet them when I’m shaking hands afterwards. There’s one right there. An Obamacan, that’s what we call them.” In another speech, he said, “We, as Democrats right now, should tap into the discontent of Republicans. I want some Obama Republicans!” In his call for Republican votes, Obama referred to Ronald Reagan, who he says “was able to tap into the discontent of the American people … to get Democrats to vote Republicanthey were called Reagan Democrats.”

RepublicansforObama.org was founded in December 2006 by John Martin, a US Navy reservist. The organization grew to include over 2,500 registered members from across the United States, and was featured in USA Today, The New Yorker and other media throughout the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

Republican And Conservative Support For Barack Obama In 2008

United StatesPresidentBarack Obama, a member of the Democratic Party, was endorsed or supported by some members of the Republican Party and by some political figures holding conservative views in the 2008 election. Although the vast majority of Obama’s support came from liberal constituencies, some conservatives identified in him shared priorities or other positive attributes. As in any election, voters can and sometimes do cross party lines to vote for the other party’s nominee. Republican and conservative Obama supporters were often referred to as “Obama Republicans“, “Obamacans” or “Obamacons“.

Republican and conservative supporters of Obama included elected officials, former elected officials, academics, commentators, and retired military officers. According to exit polls on Election Day, 9% of those who identified themselves as Republicans voted for Barack Obama, conflicting with polling data gathered by The Economist in October 2008 reporting 22% of conservatives favored Obama, up slightly from the 6% of self-identified Republicans who voted for John Kerry in 2004.

Moment Of Shame: Obama Calls On Republicans To Speak Out In Response To Us Capitol Violence

Former US President Barack Obama condemned the violence that took place at US Capitol on Wednesday and said history will remember the incident as one incited by the sitting President and it was a moment of great dishonour and shame for America.

Hundreds of Trump supporters entered the US Capitol in a bid to overturn his election defeat. The violence that followed led to the death of one woman. The Senate, which was disrupted in its process of certification of Biden as the winner in the November 3 election, resumed it soon after officials declared Capitol secure.

Heres my statement on todays violence at the Capitol, Obama tweeted.

Barack Obama

Read full statement:

History will rightly remember todays violence at the Capitol, incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful election, as a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation. But wed be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total surprise.

For two months now, a political party and its accompanying media ecosystem has too often been unwilling to tell their followers the truth – that this was not a particularly close election and that President-Elect Biden will be inaugurated on January 20. Their fantasy narrative has spiraled further and further from reality, and it builds upon years of sown resentments. Now were seeing the consequences, whipped up into a violent crescendo.

Read Also: Why Do Republicans Hate Planned Parenthood

Obama Says Republican Party Has Become Unrecognisable In Shift That Started With Palin

In this screengrab, Former president Barack Obama speaks during the Celebrating America Primetime Special on 20 January 2021

Expressing worry about Americas state of democracy, Barack Obama criticised the Republican party for being cowed into accepting positions that would be unrecognisable and unacceptable even five years or a decade ago.

In an interview with CNNs Anderson Cooper, the former president said when he left the White House, he thought there were enough institutional safeguards in place, including the Republican establishment.

He said he did not believe things would get this dark when Sarah Palin in 2008 brought the dark spirits such as xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward Black and brown folks to the centre stage of the modern Republican Party.

I thought that there were enough guardrails institutionally that even after Trump was elected, he said.

The degree to which we did not see the Republican establishment say hold on, time out, not acceptable but rather be cowed into accepting positions that would be unrecognisable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago…, Mr Obama said.

In his memoir, A Promised Land, Obama blamed Ms Palin for ushering a shift in the Republican party towards populist sentiment at its centre.

He, however, lauded some Republicans including Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for being very brave and standing up to Mr Trump.

Ies Run Even On Key Issues

The Republican Party runs about even with the Democratic Party on three key issues: the economy, immigration and gun control. In recent years, neither political party has held a decisive advantage on these issues. The Democratic Party led on the economy through much of George W. Bushs second term and Obamas first year in office. But since 2010, about as many have favored the GOP as the Democrats.

Similarly, neither party has had a consistent advantage on dealing with immigration. The current survey finds opinion split evenly; Democrats held a slim advantage in late 2012, while Republicans held a slight edge in 2011.

And while the gun debate has drawn significant public attention over the past four months , it has not resulted in an advantage for either political party. In the immediate wake of the shootings in Newtown, Conn., Americans were divided over which party could better address gun control, and that divide persists today.

Independents are split over which party can do the better job on key issues. Overall, 38% of independents say the Republican Party could do the better job on the economy while nearly as many say the Democratic Party. Similarly, independents are divided over who can better address immigration and gun control . On all three issues, about a quarter of independents volunteer no preference between the two parties.

Recommended Reading: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

Obama: More Moderate Republican Than Socialist

The president rejected criticism from conservatives that he is a socialist.

Obama: I Would Be Considered Moderate Republican in the 80’s

During an interview with Noticias Univision 23, the network’s Miami affiliate newscast, Obama pushed back against the accusation made in some corners of south Florida’s Cuban-American and Venezuelan communities that he wants to instill a socialist economic system in the U.S. The president said he believes few actually believe that.

“I don’t know that there are a lot of Cubans or Venezuelans, Americans who believe that,” Obama said. “The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.”

See Also:

Obama’s comments come amid the contentious debate over how to resolve the “fiscal cliff,” in which the White House and Congress are trying to figure out whether to extend a series of tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year while staving off steep spending cuts to domestic and defense programs set to go into place at the beginning of 2013.

For years amid the brooder debate over taxes and the size of government, Obama has been characterized by some on the right as a socialist who wants to redistribute wealth. They cite Obama’s healthcare law in particular as a massive increase in the size of government.

Michelle Obama Says Gop Is Willing To ‘tear Down Democracy’ Urges Dem Turnout In Georgia Runoffs

“We cant just vote for President and think that our job is done,” wrote Obama on Twitter

In a series of tweets published one day before Georgia’s Senate run-off election, former First Lady Michelle Obama urged voters to turn out, saying a vote for the Democratic candidates would be “another step toward cleaning up the mess of the past four years.”

The eight-tweet-long thread offered a strongly-worded rebuke of both;Donald Trump and the Republican Party in general, which Obama said had amplified the president’s false claims about election fraud while ignoring the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Your vote is your voice. Its your power. And right now, from the President of the United States on down, were seeing and hearing just how desperate some are to take that power away,” Obama wrote. “They want us to believe that their pride is more important than our democracy.”

She continued: “And this is just unconscionable at a time when a staggering number of Americans are dying every day from a virus that was downplayed for far too long. Its unconscionable to focus on overturning an election rather than helping struggling families or distributing a vaccine.”

RELATED: Michelle Obama Recalls Putting Her ‘Anger Aside’ for Transition of Power to Donald and Melania Trump

“These runoffs will decide whether President-Elect Biden has a Senate that will work with him rather than just obstruct him at every turn,” Obama continued.

You May Like: What Is The Lapel Pin Republicans Are Wearing

The Affordable Care Act

In 2013, Senator Ted Cruz responded to the question “Why Donât We Impeach ?” with “Good question… and Iâll tell you the simplest answer: To successfully impeach a president you need the votes in the U.S. Senate.” That year, when asked if Obama had committed impeachable offenses on immigration and health care, Cruz said the implementation of the Affordable Care Act was “lawless”, and said of impeachment, “Thatâs a question for the House ultimately… My responsibility would be to render judgment.”

Congressional Opposition To Impeachment

Republicans react to Obama’s success

A number of prominent Republicans rejected calls for impeachment, including House SpeakerJohn Boehner, and Sen. John McCain. McCain said impeachment would be a distraction from the 2014 election, and that if “we regain control of the United States Senate we can be far more effective than an effort to impeach the president, which has no chance of succeeding.” Rep. Blake Farenthold said that impeachment would be “an exercise in futility.”

Don’t Miss: How Many Republicans Are Now In The House Of Representatives

Ways Obama Tries To Work With Republicans And Is Rejected

To President Obamaâs critics, he will never bring about the era of bipartisan cooperation that he campaigned on in 2008, but the facts prove otherwise.

The presidentâs nomination of conservative Republican Chuck Hagel to his cabinet is just another example in a long line of Obamaâs attempts to reach across the aisle and work with a recalcitrant Republican minority. Here are a few other gems, as we highlight some of Obamaâs most bipartisan gestures of his first term and the Republican response.

1) Keeping Robert Gates as secretary of defense

In January, 2009: Obama is inaugurated and immediately seeks out Republican lawmakers willing to work with his new agenda. He makes it a point to maintain Robert Gates as his Secretary of Defense. Some Republicans on the Hill even whisper that Obama was working with them more than Bush ever did.

Republican response in January, 2009: Rush Limbaugh welcomes the president with a hearty âI hope he fails.”

2) Obama meets with pro-choice and pro-life advocates

In May, 2009: Obama begins the first of several sessions meeting with pro-choice advocates and their detractors in order to help design legislation that protects both the lives of women and the unborn.

3) Obama listens to Republicans on health care

4) Obama compromises on 2010 budget deal

5) Obama compromises on “fiscal cliff”

Public Debate Over Impeachment Demands

In terms of background, U.S. public opinion widely opposed efforts made to impeach previous Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland has stated that their organization found that 69% opposed impeaching President Bush in 2006.

According to a July 2014 YouGov poll, 35% of Americans believed President Obama should be impeached, including 68% of Republicans. Later that month, a CNN survey found that about two thirds of adult Americans disagreed with impeachment efforts. The data showed intense partisan divides, with 57% of Republicans supporting the efforts compared to only 35% of independents and 13% of Democrats.

On July 8, 2014, the former Governor of Alaska and 2008 RepublicanVice Presidential nomineeSarah Palin publicly called for Obama’s impeachment for “purposeful dereliction of duty”. In a full statement, she said: “Itâs time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.”

Andrew McCarthy of the National Review wrote the book Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case For Obama’s Impeachment, which argued that threatening impeachment was a good way to limit executive action by Obama .

Also Check: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

Obama Explains His Remark About Punishing Enemies

After House Minority Leader John Boehner chided him for using the term “enemies”in a conversation last week with Univision Radio, President Obama offered an explication for his remark in an interview today with talk radio host Michael Baisden.

Following is Mr. Obama’s “enemies” quote from the Univision interview:

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ — if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election — then I think it’s going to be harder. And that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2nd.”

Here is what Boehner said about Mr. Obama’s use of the word “enemies” in prepared remarks for a speech Monday night.

Mr. Obama told Baisden that he should have used the word, “opponents,” rather than “enemies” . According to his language parsing, presumably some Republicans candidates are “opponents,” not “enemies,” of provisions, such as comprehensive immigration reform. Understood?

Obama: Gop Blocked 500 Bills

President Barack Obama is railing against congressional Republicans, telling a Hollywood crowd that the midterm elections are crucial because the GOP is willing to say no to everything.

The president, speaking at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event Wednesday evening hosted at Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horns home, said Republicans have been obstructionist since even before he took office.

Their willingness to say no to everything the fact that since 2007, they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress has actually led to an increase in cynicism and discouragement among the people who were counting on us to fight for them, Obama said of Republicans.

The conclusion is, well, nothing works, the president continued. And the problem is, is that for the folks worth fighting for for the person whos cleaning up that house or hotel, for the guy who used to work on construction but now has been laid off they need us. Not because they want a handout, but because they know that government can serve an important function in unleashing the power of our private sector.

Obama opened by saying that he is in trouble at home, because in 2012 he had told his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, that he had run his last campaign.

Also Check: Did Trump Call Republicans Stupid In 1998

Trump Says He Wants To Box Biden On 9/11

Former President Barack Obama said Republicans have been “cowed into accepting” a series of positions that “would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago,” telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper he is worried about the state of democracy in the United States in an exclusive interview that aired Monday.

Obama Says He’d Be Seen As Moderate Republican In 1980s

President Obama said his economic policies are “so mainstream” he’d be considered a moderate Republican in the 1980s.

In a Thursday interview with a Miami-based local television station, Obama said he thinks few people believe he wants to impose socialism on the country.

“I mean, what I believe in is a tax system that is fair,” he continued. “I don’t think government can solve every problem. I think that we should make sure that we’re helping young people go to school. We should make sure that our government is building good roads and bridges and hospitals and airports so that we have a good infrastructure.

“I do believe that it makes sense that everyone in America, as rich as this country is, shouldn’t go bankrupt because someone gets sick, so the things I believe in are essentially the same things your viewers believe in,” Obama said.

Conservatives frequently raise concern that Obama has turned the U.S. toward socialism, pointing to Obama’s healthcare law and the stimulus bill the president championed shortly after taking office.

After Obama won reelection, former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Fox News said his win would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy because “Obama’s socialist policies” will “destroy America’s working class as he outsources opportunities.”

“I don’t know that there are a lot of Cubans or Venezuelans, Americans who believe that,” Obama said.

Here’s a full transcript of the interview with Obama:

Don’t Miss: How Many Republicans And Democrats Are In The House

0 notes

shirlleycoyle · 4 years

Text

It’s Crunch Time and Data Shows the USPS Is Still Experiencing Delays

This article was sent on Tuesday to subscribers of The Mail, Motherboard’s pop-up newsletter about the USPS, election security, and democracy. Subscribe to get the next edition before it is published here, as well as exclusive articles and the paid zine.

Hi everyone, exciting news: Our second zine has been printed and is currently on the way to us, and will be mailed out to subscribers later this week or early next week. This month's edition is about a topic that has always been near and dear to our hearts: Hacking. Since most of our hacking coverage is about things that happen online, we thought it'd be cool to have a snapshot of where hacking culture is, in a printed zine. The issue features stories by Motherboard staff and this incredible cover art by Rebekka Dunlap:

Anyone who subscribes now will also get a copy of our first zine. There are also a few people who have subscribed since we sent out the first zine—we will ship you both zines at the same time.

If you want to get in on the first batch, please subscribe by Friday.

We are now a week from Election Day (somehow!) and mail service in many parts of the country still sucks. Two areas in particular where mail service sucks are Philadelphia and Detroit, Democratic strongholds in key swing states. The Washington Post published an article focusing on mail problems in those two cities as well as other swing states, although the article also made clear they're hardly the only areas experiencing delays.

Mail delays are persisting despite the USPS's carefully worded promises to stop doing some—but not all—of the stuff that made people angry over the summer, at least until the election is over. For example, they stopped dismantling sorting machines but didn't promise to put any back in service (a few recent media reports claimed a federal judge ordered them to put the machines back together; the order merely stated the USPS must do so if it could no longer accommodate election mail which the USPS has long maintained won't be an issue). They said they would not ban late or extra truck trips or overtime but also insisted they never did that in the first place, even though they obviously curtailed them significantly. And the USPS never in fact fully resumed late or extra trips, which still lag far behind pre-DeJoy levels along with overall service. In sum, delays are persisting despite court orders that mandate USPS management knock it off (to use a technical legal term).

Why does mail service still lag its pre-DeJoy levels? And does it matter for tallying votes?

We live in a country in which all votes matter but some votes matter more than others. If you live in a swing state, the marginal value of your vote in the presidential election is a lot higher than mine is in New York. Similarly, mail delays in some parts of the country could have a much greater significance than in others.

Using performance data released by the USPS as part of one of the court cases, I tried to create one chart that summarizes first class mail delivery performance since the beginning of the year. It's a little messy since it's broken down by the USPS's 67 service districts, but I think it tells an important story. Below is a screenshot of the chart, but you can play around with an interactive version of it here (the big swooping outlier that runs off the chart in April is the New York district).

USPS First Class Service Performance by District

Every chart tells a story, sometimes misleadingly so. But the one this chart is telling me accords with all of the reporting I and many others have done on the USPS so far. So I think it's worth listening to.

The story goes like this: In 2020, two events destabilized USPS performance in different ways. The first was the pandemic, which began in mid-March in certain parts of the country and, in case you haven't noticed, is still going. It destabilized service in specific places at specific times. While this could impact delivery rates elsewhere if it caused key sorting facilities to be short-staffed, in general the impacts were relatively localized. To tell this story in terms of the way the graph looks, it caused some districts to get detached from the big clump of lines that represents the pre-2020 status quo. But the status quo clump didn't change much if at all.

Then, in July, the clump undergoes a "W" pattern, where service tanks, briefly rebounds a bit, tanks again, then rises once more to almost-but-not-quite reach the status quo levels again. This second destabilizing event coincides with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's sudden policy shifts as well as the peak of coronavirus case counts over the summer.

However, I think it's pretty clear this "W" pattern was the result of DeJoy's changes, not coronavirus cases as the USPS continues to argue. We saw throughout the previous months how coronavirus affects mail service, and this looks altogether different.

When coronavirus delays mail service, some districts fall off the clump as case counts rise in that area. That's not what we see in July. Instead, we see a sudden, simultaneous drop-off across the entire postal network. Districts didn't fall off the clump. The clump went into freefall.

What happened afterwards is the most important lesson for today: the clump stopped being quite so clumpy, meaning service performance became more erratic and with a higher variance between districts. You can tell this by comparing the density of the lines in January to that of September. In January, the clump ranged from 85 percent to 95 percent, or a 10-point variance. By September, the clump is spread out from a high of just over 90 percent all the way down to about 70 percent, or a 20-point variance.

In total, the story of this chart is one of an organization losing control. Not just in swing states, but everywhere. Even non-swing states like Alabama and Mississippi are struggling with mail service, ranking towards the bottom of first-class mail delivery.

Which brings us back to the second of the two questions I asked at the top of this newsletter: does the USPS service tanking matter for counting votes? The best answer I can give right now is: probably, but we don't yet know how much.

First, we simply don't know how many people are waiting to mail ballots until the last minute. According to the U.S. Elections Project, there were 47 million mail-in ballots still waiting to be returned as of Sunday. Some of them will be mailed back in the last week. A smaller number of them will probably be mailed back on November 1 or 2. But many likely won't be mailed back at all, with voters either opting to cast their ballot in person on Election Day, during early voting if available, or not at all. Plus, a few states have changed postmarking and ballot delivery deadlines to add some buffer time for sluggish mail service, so even if a ballot is mailed back on, say, November 2, it might be counted in one state but not the other, even if they are both delivered on November 4.

Second, it's not clear whether the overall first-class mail statistics accurately reflect how ballots specifically are handled (which are only about two percent of overall first class mail during these election weeks). The USPS has pledged to make all possible resources and alternatives available to expedite ballot delivery, particularly in the final week before Election Day. How much will they actually do, and to what extent will it move ballots faster and more reliably? This is all yet to be seen.

Third, the distinction between being on time and being two days late has a huge difference in service delivery. According to the USPS, for the week of October 10 to October 16, 97.25 percent of first-class mail was delivered either on time or less than two days late. That's within a percentage point of its performance in January.

So a randomly selected voter within the U.S. would have roughly the same expectation a ballot mailed by Thursday will reach their election official by the end of Election Day with the similar confidence as before the pandemic. But, on aggregate, a one percentage point dip across tens of millions of ballots could mean hundreds of thousands of ballots not getting delivered in time. That could make a huge difference if these delayed ballots are concentrated in just a few key areas like Detroit and Philadelphia. It could also make little difference if they're spread out across the entire country roughly in proportion to the service performance lines we saw above. And, of course, smaller numbers of ballots make bigger differences in outcomes the further down the ballot you go. How much of a difference the USPS will make is one of those things you can only really know by doing the math after the votes are tallied. But I think we can all agree it would be better for democracy if the USPS was functioning like it did in early June.

This Week in Mail

I just sent links on Thursday and not that much has happened since then. Here’s a cool story about India’s postal network. Which reminds me, I’ve gotten a few questions about how postal services work in other parts of the world, how they have handled the internet transition, etc. I will have more to say on this but for now please read this excellent London Review of Books article from 2011.

Postcards

Wash hands

Wear masks

Write letters

Aaron

It’s Crunch Time and Data Shows the USPS Is Still Experiencing Delays syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

0 notes

maxwellyjordan · 4 years

Text

“We’ll just have to keep doing the work”: Ginsburg’s clerks remember her example in a tumultuous term

The members of the 2016-17 clerk class for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg started their clerkship amid great uncertainty and a grieving court. In the second in a two-part series of interviews with former Ginsburg clerks, SCOTUStalk host Amy Howe talked with all four of the justice’s clerks from that term: Subash Iyer, Hajin Kim, Beth Neitzel and Parker Rider-Longmaid. Between the recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a contentious election, and two nominations for one seat, they describe the year as “a slow-motion train wreck.” But amid the chaos, they remember Ginsburg’s commitment to doing the work, notable cases that advanced justice, and the few special times they made her laugh.

Listen on Acast | Spotify

The full transcript is below.

[00:00:00] Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

Amy Howe: [00:00:03] This is SCOTUStalk, a nonpartisan podcast about the Supreme Court for lawyers and non-lawyers alike, brought to you by SCOTUSblog.

AH: [00:00:13] Welcome to SCOTUStalk. I’m Amy Howe. Four years ago, the law clerks for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg started the new term amid a lot of uncertainty.

[00:00:22] Justice Antonin Scalia had passed away in February 2016, so the court was operating with just eight members. Then-sPresident Barack Obama had nominated Judge Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, but Senate Republicans had refused to hold hearings or a vote. In January 2017, the new president, Donald Trump, nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy. He was confirmed and took the bench a few months later. We’re delighted to have those four law clerks with us today to discuss that unusual term and how Justice Ginsburg responded. Joining me are Subash Iyer, Hajin Kim, Beth Neitzel, and Parker Rider-Longmaid.

Justice Ginsburg with her 2016-17 clerks and their partners.

[00:01:02] So you all were clerks in the October Term of 2016, and it was an unusual term. The term started with eight justices and a stalled nominee, and then there was a hotly contested election. How did this shape your experience? Did it shape your experience?

Parker Rider-Longmaid: [00:01:21] You know, you mentioned it was an eight-justice court. And so it you always had the potential for the court disagreeing, but being unable to resolve cases. And by the end of the term, we did see some of that. But there, of course, was a lot going on, as you mentioned, that year. And it was the year of a presidential election. And, in fact, that vote, when we when we learn the result was right before a major argument. I think that that was happening that term and in Sessions v. Morales-Santana. And actually the case at that time was called Lynch v. Morales-Santana. And it was an interesting sensation going from having learned the results of this election into an argument where the court had the potential to address this very important disparity between the way men and women were being treated and having to, at least for me personally, balance feelings that I was having at that time about what was going on in the world and what was going on before the court.

Beth Neitzel: I think it did shape the year in a number of important respects.

[00:02:34] I think that all of us started the clerkship anticipating that our boss, Justice Ginsburg, would perhaps be the most influential justice on the court, before long, right, she was the senior-most justice in the liberal bloc. I certainly believed that ultimately the Senate would indeed carry out their constitutional duty to put forth the president’s nominee. With the election, of course, everything changed. And I think any hopes that the Senate would indeed carry out its duty was lost, and everything slowly started to change. I sort of think back to that year like a slow motion train wreck, certainly after the election dynamics on the court started to change and it was publicly known that a lot of cases started to be relisted continuously for a very long period of time until that ninth justice was confirmed. So, know, I think the expectations we had for the year were very different from how the year turned out, and watching all of that unfold during the term was really hard and was pretty discouraging, to be honest. I mean, I think by the end of the year, there were times that we were struggling as clerks. The justice, I mean, that was the most remarkable thing. The justice never seemed to. She always was calm, determined, unflappable. And so we tried our best to be that way. We were never as good at it as she was. And I think that’s what we’re all striving for right now.

AH: Subash?

Subash Iyer: [00:04:29] I mean, I think one of the interesting dynamics of the year, from my perspective, was that it sort of preceded as three separate phases. There was the phase leading up to the election where we really did think that there would be a ninth justice filled relatively soon.

[00:04:46] And then there was a long period between November and roughly April when Justice Gorsuch was finally seated. And in that six-month window, the court was still operating as an eight-member court. But the dynamics had changed. And then at the end of our term, I find it to be a very interesting experience, to have a whole new set of clerks and a new justice come into the building, especially when you have a fairly cohesive clerk class. And for just one month of cases, there is a new set of clerks in the building and a new justice in the building. But I think we all, as a group of existing clerks, navigated that transition as smoothly as we could. But there were some very important cases in April. And in particular, one of the things that was notable about that term was that there were relatively few capital cases. But in the month of April, there was a stretch of eight capital cases that were scheduled in the last two weeks of that month. And that, I think, was a particularly challenging period for all of us, because the work that the court does on its capital docket is among the most emotionally exhausting and draining work that any clerk does. And to have that much in rapid succession and a brand new court with nine justices at the end of a term that was very exhausting, was very difficult. So that last three-month stretch from April until we got the opinions out, it felt like a very different year.

[00:06:19] And I think the dynamics have changed.

AH: Hajin, do you have anything you want to add?

Hajin Kim: I just really want to echo what Beth said, which is that we started the term with really a lot of hope and then it was November with a shock. And the fact that, you know, Judge Garland wasn’t seated, that was also a shock, although more of the slow, slow moving train wreck that Beth was saying than the election. One question you asked in the set of questions was if we had any advice for OT20 justices’ clerks. And I really tried to think like, you know, what advice do I have aside from sort of what Beth was saying earlier about how the justice would just keep soldiering on and do the work. And I think it’s really hard to say because I really think that people to ask are actually the OT15 clerks because they dealt with Justice Scalia’s passing. And I think that’s really hard for everybody in the building. It’s especially hard for the clerks of the justice who passed.

PRL: [00:07:16] I think it had one thing, which is that Justice Ginsburg really set an example for us even during this hard time. And when Justice Gorsuch started on the court, and I’m sure this is known because we’ve seen it in the media as well.

[00:07:29] But she turned around and offered Justice Gorsuch her law clerk manuals as a way that he could begin his time on the court with something to work with. And it’s very interesting. You look at the long history of these institutions. That manual, I guess, had its inception in one way or another in the manual that Justice Byron White had passed on to Justice Ginsburg. And Justice Gorsuch, of course, was a clerk at that time, having been hired by Justice White and served with Justice Kennedy. So there’s a long respect that the justices have for each other. And I think Justice Ginsburg taking the long view of all this. And we certainly spent time talking with her and working through our feelings on what was going on in politics, in the world and at least to me personally, and I’m sure you get different answers from other people. But one of the comforting things for me was that she had been through so much in her life and she had seen she had seen the Second World War and she had seen all these cases she argued as an advocate before the court and all the change she had made. And she had been through many different elections and very hotly contested times and seen the pendulum swing back and forth. And she had a different perspective on it, I think than we might be able to have in our short lifetimes. And so I continue to think of that when I think about what’s coming next and what we can expect and what we might be able to do in our own lives.

AH: [00:08:58] So, Subash mentioned the capital cases that term. What else do you remember in terms of the work? But is there a dissent or something about Justice Ginsburg at oral argument, in any of the cases that sticks out to you see what I mean?

SI: [00:09:15] I think one of the one of one of the cases that term that I think had an impact was Moore v. Texas, which was the case that we heard early in the term. And it was a capital case. And the question before the court was whether Texas’s approach towards identifying whether a capital defendant had an intellectual disability that would prevent them from being executed, whether that approach was rooted in modern scientific and psychiatric principles. And they ultimately upheld the idea that the evolving standards of decency that we all know to be central to the Eighth Amendment, that those standards do depend on and do reflect changes in science. And so it was an opinion that Justice Ginsburg wrote that term and she held a narrow majority. I think it was a 5-4 decision where she had Justice Kennedy and along with the four more traditionally liberal justices. So that was that was an important case, I think, for establishing that there are still scientific standards that also govern the Eighth Amendment.

BN: [00:10:36] I was just going to say I’m going to share a memory of the justice. That’s a little bit more in general. It’s not it’s not unique to a case, but it’s something I think of whenever I think of working on cases with her, working on opinions, something that I think that a lot of people may not know about the justice, I mean, a lot of people know that the justice with a law professor at some point in her career, but just how much of a teacher the justice always was through and through, I’m not sure is widely known. And that really came through when we worked on opinions with her. She would have us draft opinions in triple-spaced Courier fonts like that old typewriter font, but with large gaps between each line so that she could edit it very carefully by hand. And then she would call us in and you would sit down at this little table with her. She would walk you through every one of her edits and explain why she did that. Or she would ask you sometimes, sometimes with the expression…

AH: In all seriousness, how long does that take? It must take hours, right?

BN: [00:11:47] So, I mean, depending on how early. Yeah.

[00:11:49] How long the draft was, how extensive her edits were, et cetera.

[00:11:56] But she would also ask you sometimes why this word, sort of like why in the world would you put it that way?

[00:12:06] But often she may understand why you chose the tack you did, but then she would explain why her way was better. And it was. And it was it was really an extraordinary experience to say, it was pretty amazing that she took the time to do that. Right, to walk us through it all to as I said, I mean, to me, it just felt like she cared deeply about teaching. And that was the same way that she had approached her litigation prior to being appointed to the federal bench. She talks a lot about approaching her work on sex discrimination as educating these often quite elderly, usually white men. She said that the way she would think about it was, I just need to explain this to them because they don’t get it.

[00:13:00] And I just need to help them understand that the damage caused by stereotypes is all of this and it harms all of us. That was an approach she took with her work always, whether with her clerks in her opinions when she was a litigator, etc. and it was something that you saw till the end.

HK: just that just to add to that.

[00:13:25] So I always thought it was striking that because she cared so much about teaching, she would always say that she had been a law teacher, not a law professor, I think to emphasize the teaching and how important that was. And it is, you know, she just had, Beth mentioned that she really thought her view, her her job was to educate these judges who didn’t recognize the harms from discrimination. And it’s such. It’s such a beautiful and wise view in many ways, in ways I didn’t appreciate before, because instead of saying, oh, look at these terrible people who are like just, you know, being so bad to women, she said, oh, they just don’t understand. With reasoned dialogue, I can get them to understand. They just don’t see it. And so I just have to help them see it. And so she really to give everybody the benefit of the doubt and said we can we can get through this, we can make the world a better place. We just need to, you know, understand it better and like have a better perspective. And I think that’s really that’s you know, she had this famously wonderful and beautiful friendship with Justice Scalia. And I think it’s because she really, truly saw the good in other people, even though she was seemingly on these, like, partisan lines, she never really thought of it that way. It wasn’t partisan for her.

PRL: [00:14:44] We actually, there was a case our year that I think illustrates some of what Beth and Hajin have said. I mentioned it before. The Sessions v. Morales-Santana case. And it was a gender discrimination case, which, you know, will be huge with Justice Ginsburg on the court. And she did end up getting the opinion. The issue in that case was how federal law treats the children who are born to citizen mothers or fathers who are married or unmarried abroad. In this particular case, you had the son of a citizen father who was born out of wedlock, and his father actually had been born in Puerto Rico and had had spent most of his time in Puerto Rico up until about 20 days before he was 19. And at the time that disabled him from being covered by the federal law that would allow him to pass citizenship to his son. His son was here in this litigation at risk of being deported from the country because he wasn’t a citizen. So he was he invoked, he claimed, a right to citizenship based on his father’s right to citizenship. And at that time, the unwed citizen father had to have 10 years of physical presence in the United States.

[00:16:00] An unwed citizen mother only had one year. It was a little bit more complicated than that in terms of how it was calibrated. That’s essentially the picture. And so unwed citizen mothers had in some ways were able to pass citizenship much more easily than any other type of parent. And what Justice Ginsburg is able to explain in the opinion for the court, much like Beth and Hajin said is a teacher, if you go read that opinion, you’ll see how she approaches it and she goes through all the cases that that she had litigated as an advocate. And she says, you know when these laws are based on these stereotypes that in marriage, the man is the head of the household and he is the leader of the family. But that out of wedlock, the mother is the sole and natural guardian of the child. And she said it’s the only way to understand what’s going on here. And ultimately, the court’s decision is somewhat unsatisfying because they’re unable to provide any relief for Luis Morales Santana in that case, ultimately concluding that Congress would have wanted the longer period to apply to everyone.

[00:17:06] And the interesting thing is you’ll see the separate opinion from Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Alito, saying we don’t know why you’re addressing this discrimination question if the litigant here doesn’t get a remedy. Why are you doing this? And it’s very interesting. I think it’s one of the footnotes in the Justice Ginsburg opinion where she talks about the importance of rooting out discrimination even when you can’t necessarily afford a remedy for the litigant in that case and really doing something. This opinion that exposes, I think, again, for the world, the constraining effect stereotypes can have on everyone. And just one other example I would give and this goes to the point my colleagues have made about Justice Ginsburg’s relentless drive to continue having dialogue with colleagues she disagreed with. I don’t think there’s, I think you just point out that the same issue had come before the court several years before. I think it was in 2009 in the court. Justice Kagan recused and the court divided 4-4 on the question and was unable to resolve it. Well, you look at this opinion in Sessions v. Morales-Santana and has a 6-2 opinion. So if you think about the power that that changing hearts and minds and different ways of looking at the law can have over time. And I think we at least were able to spend some time with her when she was working through with the court on issues like this.

AH: [00:18:26] The traditional Jewish message of condolence is “may her memory be a blessing.” What blessings did Justice Ginsburg leave for you or has she inspired you in your life, your work, how you get along with your family and friends?

BN: [00:18:40] She has inspired me to pursue two feats that I will probably never attain. The first is to choose my words very carefully and to listen more than I talk, and that’s probably going to be a lifelong journey. And the other that I think is even more difficult is that she as the most gracious person I think I’ve ever known. She believed very strongly that you will not persuade others to join you if you demonstrate frustration or impatience or anger. She is often quoted as saying something along the lines of, you know, go out there and fight passionately for what you believe in, but do it in a way that makes others want to join you. And I think I’m pretty good on the first half of that.

[00:19:40] And I’m not always as good on the second half.

[00:19:43] And I think that will also be sort of a lifelong undertaking. But I really I thought that those two characteristics were quite remarkable. And it’s, even though I will probably never manage to do what she did, I think it’s worth striving to emulate it in any event.

HK: [00:20:10] I think she was the ultimate role model, I agree, I think she, I mean, everybody says, OK, she was that ultimate role model because she was so successful professionally and had this beautiful full life of family and friends and, you know, things that she cared about and was able to make it all work. But it’s I think it’s beyond that she you know, so before gratitude was this popular, in thing to exercise and like do a gratitude journal, she lived her life with gratitude, even though objectively like if we were thrust back into her era, we would probably just be really angry about a lot of things. So, you know, she had to, she went to law school, had a baby. Her husband gets very sick. And instead of saying, oh, woe is me, she goes, every part of my life gives respite to the other. I get to study. And when I study, I get to enjoy that. And then I, I go and take care of Jane, her daughter in law school. And then I get to sort of enjoy that part of my life as well. Whereas I think especially now in Covid times, it’s really hard for working parents and we’re all just kind of like, oh my gosh, I have so many things to do. This is awful. And she just really saw the bright side of all of that and appreciated it, and she even in her, she did so much to advance to advance women in the law. And instead of saying like, oh, ha ha, how great am I? Which she totally had the right to do. She is she was amazing. She instead said that she thinks it was her great, good fortune to have been able to participate in in the movement, like she just appreciates that she got to be part of that. That type of mindset, I think is incredible. And I would love to be able to adopt that. So. So, yeah, I think she’s an inspiration in every facet of life.

SI: [00:22:03] I think another blessing that the justice gave me.

[00:22:07] And I think that as the four of us talk over the past couple of days, the blessing is that she sort of gave us the tools to take this moment of incredible grief and try to channel it towards something good ,and in particular, I think the moment that all of us gravitated to when we heard about her passing and we’re feeling the grief was this conversation that we had the morning after the last presidential election. We went into the office and it was a really important oral argument, which Parker talked about earlier. And after the argument, we sat down with the justice and we talked about the cases because that’s what we always do. And after that.

[00:23:07] I think we were all just really struggling and so we asked her. Do you have any advice for us? We’re having a hard time today. And what she said was.

[00:23:23] Things will get better. We’ll just have to keep doing the work. And I think there’s something so powerful in the idea that you just keep doing the work and I think it’s what animated her whole life, she wasn’t in it for the glory. She didn’t even know when she started that she would be able to succeed in breaking all the barriers that she did and crafting the law that she did and making this world a better place. But I think her mindset always including after that election, which I think hit us harder than it hit her, was to just keep doing the work, and so, I mean, I think we’ve all been reflecting back on that moment. And it was it was incredible that all four of us that we all sort of centered on that moment. It’s such an important piece of our time with her. And I think it’s a lesson for all of us as we’re processing, because I think nationally we all are processing this grief that that’s probably what she would want us to do.

PRL: [00:24:22] I agree with everything my colleagues have said. I think I would add that in terms of the freedom I was talking about, Justice Ginsburg giving us some opinions like Sessions v. Morales-Santana. As I started into private practice after my time with Justice Ginsburg, I thought about how am I going to find time to be a father?

[00:24:48] And my son came probably about a week after I started and is now just has turned three.

[00:24:56] We all have very small children, all four of us. And I was able to look at the example Justice Ginsburg set as she was doing what goes without saying was incredibly important work and still finding time to spend with her kids.

[00:25:11] And for me, it was about making sure as much as I could getting home in time for dinner to see my son. And then as Covid struck and we all have been in our own ways trying to cope with that and all of us with working spouses. My wife is a pediatrician. And so in some ways made us more paranoid, I think, than a lot of people. And we’ve been doing our own child care and just finding ways to make that work and looking. I say this knowing my privilege, but being able to look at the justice’s example to say, I know what I’m going to be comfortable and telling people at work that I need to take this morning and take that afternoon. And I’m just not going to be available then, even though we have very demanding jobs. And I think she in many ways by saying, look, stereotypes should not govern our lives. They shouldn’t be written into our law. I think she gave us the freedom to look and say we can be strong people. We can be people in bonds with each other, and we can trust each other to do good work. And we don’t need to have these rules that really at the end of the day, just constrain us. I mean, if I can just for a moment, selfishly say I’m very, very grateful to her for that kind of thing and what she’s, I think, given to all Americans, there’s this hope and potential that we can look forward and say, what else do we need to look at in our law that we can that we can say this is holding us back, is preventing us from achieving our individual and collective potential.

[00:26:38] And I think she really thought about it and the whole bigger picture, and that’s why she was able to be so effective.

HK: [00:26:45] Should I tell the Star Athletica story?

BN: [00:26:49] Sure.

PRL: Yes, I do.

BN: [00:26:52] And I think one of the things I’m sorry, can I just say before Hajin says this. It’s like one of the things that has helped us over the past few days. And, you know, you may not want to use any of this material, but we have very much enjoyed sharing stories with each other of times that the justice sort of demonstrated the justice’s sense of humor, like she was very funny. And also the times that we got to see her laugh, which were like the most gratifying thing ever.

[00:27:20] But anyway, so with that now.

HK: I feel like we should check we should share some of the other things that we’ve talked about. So what did that at, say, one case, that term was Star Athletica. It’s a copyright case about cheerleading uniforms. And we actually had no idea she was going to do this, and we only heard about it from other clerks around the building. She went to conference with pompoms. I think we are all coming back from something. And some of the clerks were like, oh, my gosh, did you hear what your boss did? And we were like, what? It was so great. But, yeah, she just she always had, like, a good sense of humor.

AH: [00:27:58] I love hearing those because they really, you know, her public persona… There was there was the Notorious RBG, but then her public persona, you know, she was kind of quiet and reserved. And so it’s so much fun to hear these stories.

HK: [00:28:16] Oh, my gosh, somebody has to tell the story because I’m terrible at stories. But somebody needs to tell the Duchess of Krakenthorp story because that was right after the election. We were like in the worst of spirits.

SI: [00:28:28] All right, so so relatively early in our term, probably in October, we got wind of the fact that the justice would be performing that season at the Kennedy Center and we were very excited, we didn’t think we’d really have the opportunity to go, and then the justice invited us one day to come see her at the dress rehearsal, which did not feel like a dress rehearsal at all because the Kennedy Center was packed. She played the role. I honestly could tell you so little about any other aspect of that performance except that she was the Duchess of Krakenthorp.

[00:29:15] All right. So she comes out and proceeds to deliver a monologue. It was not a singing part. I think she herself is very grateful for that, and it contained in it all of these subtle or not so subtle digs that the political world—and the performance was in the same week as Election Day was—so I think for that entire audience, it was this moment of incredible comedic relief. I know that our spirits were definitely lifted.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: [00:29:48] Dropping traditions that have worked and continue to work is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

[00:30:02] We will resume when you, Marie, and the birth certificate are all here.

[applause]

PRL: [00:30:28] Can’t follow that. Certainly, I remember one other time in this kind of goes to the theatrical element and Justice Ginsburg’s ability to find humor, even in the small things. And this goes to what you were saying, Amy, in terms of the perception publicly that she was very reserved and serious. And you may remember there after President Trump had fired James Comey and it was a surprise to many people and Sean Spicer among them. And then he was accosted, I think, on the grounds of the White House lawn and he hid in the bushes. Well, this was this was one image that I guess had not made it to Justice Ginsburg. So we just we thought the image was theatrical and funny and we shared it with her and some of the memes that had been posted online. And it just the sheer imagery of it. She just thought it was hilarious. And it was one of the times that we saw her laugh quite hard. And there was a moment of levity, I think, in an otherwise rather serious term at times.

SI: [00:31:34] There were quite a few times I think that we successfully made her laugh. We’ve gone through the chronicle of this, though, and I think that’s the only story that we can actually share. But we did every once in a while to get her to laugh. And it was it was always a big victory for the clerk who got her to crack up, because, I mean, when she when she started laughing, she would laugh for a little while. It was great.

BN: [00:31:58] It was the best thing ever to hear her laugh. It was it was so wonderful. They are among my favorite memories. One night when I was working late, perhaps on an opinion or something with her, I was in a different part of chambers, but I could hear her laughing down the hall in her office, and the door was open. So, I quietly walked down the hall to see what she was up to and peeked in her office to see her giggling while watching an SNL skit of herself. Of them doing RBG. It was great. It’s like one o’clock in the morning, and she was enjoying, I think, you know, a bit of comedic relief herself, undoubtedly after a long day of work, although, let’s face it, one o’clock in the morning, it’s pretty early for her.

[00:32:50] She was probably heading home to put another three or four hours in.

AH: [00:32:53] Amazing. All right, Beth Parker, Hajin, Subash, thanks so much for sharing your memories with us. That’s another episode of SCOTUStalk.

[00:33:02] Thanks for joining us. Thanks to Casetext, our sponsor, and to our production team Katie Barlow, Katie Bart, Kal Golde, and James Romoser.

The post “We’ll just have to keep doing the work”: Ginsburg’s clerks remember her example in a tumultuous term appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

from Law https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/09/scotustalk-keep-doing-the-work/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#law #justice

0 notes

wellesleyunderground · 6 years

Text

Conversation with the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens Union Workers

Wellesley College approached the service employee union in October stating their intention to eliminate the three Botanic garden union jobs and replace them with three nonunion jobs, one with the requirement of a bachelor’s degree and two with master’s degrees.

The college and union had been negotiating over positions at the greenhouse, but as of the beginning of November, the union ended negotiations because the college had yet to explain who would do the work the union employees do (mowing, watering, weeding, pruning, insect control etc).

Wellesley Underground’s Hoi-Fei Mok ‘10 and Shelly Anand ‘08 spoke with the three union workers Tony Antonucci, Tricia Diggins, and David Sommers, who may be facing job losses. Read below for the interview.

WU: You all have been with the college for over 30 years (thus having about 90s years of experience together). What has your experience been like working at the College? What has your experience been like as a member of the union?

TD I have found many things to love about the college; the students, the landscape, the security of being in a union. Sometimes though being at odds with management can be demoralizing. The union always wants to see opportunities for advancement for our members but the college is likely to hire from outside or give the opportunity to a less senior union job applicant. However, knowing you are given rights in the CBA (collective bargaining agreement or contract) is empowering.

DS I’ve enjoyed working here. I like the greenhouse and the beauty of the college and New England. I’ve met a lot of great people here. As far as being in the union - I like knowing everyone and waving to everyone on the road. The common history we all share, since so many of us have been here for a while, makes us feel like a community.

TA Very good experience, felt secure in my position at the college providing services for students and classes. Also have felt very good about being in the union. For my entire time at Wellesley, I have felt part of the Biological Sciences department and a union member. Only now do I feel separated.

WU: What is the process for joining the union at Wellesley? What benefits do employees get for joining and why do some choose not to join? What does your collective bargaining agreement look like?

TD An employee hired into a union job on campus is signed up by the union after 30 days in the job. Our union is the Independent Service and Maintenance Union of America (IMSEUA), an independent union only at Wellesley. Campus police also has its own union. Employees get many benefits from a union. Many rights and benefits are spelled out in the CBA and if the rules are followed, everyone feels treated fairly because the rules are the rules. Of course no system works perfectly, but there is recourse through the grievance process to try to fix a situation if the union feels the CBA has been violated. Our CBA covers the service and maintenance workers on campus, so if you are in one of the jobs covered in the agreement, you are in the union, thus no one chooses not to be in the union. The CBA is a document that is negotiated with the college about every two to four years. Many parts stay the same, some get tweaked and occasionally big things change like a couple of contracts ago when we gave up our defined benefit pension for incoming union members.

WU: What are some important facts to know about the history of the union at Wellesley College?

TD Perhaps the biggest fact is that a union was voted in by employees in the 1940’s because supervisory employees were arbitrarily firing service employees they didn’t like. At this time we are lucky to have institutional memory in the union that goes decades back. That allows us to remember battles we fought in the past but that need to be fought again and again, like the seniority principle which should help employees with more years of service get better opportunities but which rarely happens anymore.

TA The union has historically provided the maintenance work on campus and allowed for upward movement between departments.

WU: Overall, in the past, how has the college treated you?

DS I think I’ve been treated pretty well in the past. Some perks have been cut back on but overall I’ve felt pretty secure.

TD The college has treated me well with pay, benefits and opportunities to serve the college community and union. Eighteen years ago, I was caught up in a seniority battle for a higher union position I wanted that they gave to a man with much less seniority. I ultimately lost in arbitration but I’m grateful for the union’s help and disappointed in the college for not giving a motivated woman a chance to advance. I lost the case because I hadn’t plowed snow before.

TA In the past the college treated me very well.

WU: How has the working relationship between the College and the union changed, in your view, over the years?

DS There used to be more people in the union that we all knew, people who had come up through ranks, from food service and custodial and into the higher paid skilled trade jobs.

TD I think it has been fairly stable. Some years are good, sometimes new people come in and a lot of changes happen. It’s up and down.

TA The college has become more business-like with less community in the last few years.

WU: What is the negotiating process like at the college?

TD The union forms a negotiating committee with union members representing different areas, like food service, custodial and the trades. And they meet with the College’s management team. Each side had their lawyers who do most of the talking.

WU: When a layoff occurs, a union employee may bump another union employee from another job if they are qualified. What is the typical process for bumping rights?

TD The College needs to prepare a seniority list of all the people in the union and what jobs they hold (though in the past names were left out) with their shift hours and any other pertinent information. The most senior person being laid off bumps into a job they are qualified for (sometimes qualifications are questioned, which complicates things but we’ll assume that part goes smoothly.) The person bumped from their job looks for a new one from the list (or they would have a choice to take severance pay.) It’s possible that someone would have no place to bump and they would have to take severance pay, but if a union job opens up within a year and that person has the seniority and qualifications, they can come back to work.

WU: When were you first told that your jobs at the greenhouse were in jeopardy?

DS I was told in the beginning of October that my job would be eliminated.

TD I was told in late September that the management wanted to take the botanic gardens jobs from the union and David and Tony would be laid off.

TA In the beginning of October, Dave and I were told we could move into another department because of our seniority and our jobs would be replaced by non-union jobs requiring higher degrees.

WU: What was the negotiating process like around your ability to keep your job?

DS I felt totally unsure about where I was going or what was going to happen to me.

TD It was apparent that the new direction for the Botanic gardens staffing was toward professional jobs, but there was no explanation of how the greenhouse union work would get done with no union workers.

TA The message I got was I would stay until my replacement was hired and then I could bump into another union job.

WU: What justification did the college give for the additional degree requirements for the jobs?

DS The college said they need specialists in warm temperate flora, which will be the basis of “Global Flora.”

TD The explanation was that a much stronger science background would be necessary for pest control and understanding plant interactions.

TA The new ‘Global Flora’ would be more educational and all decisions on caring for the plants would be made through data collection from monitoring systems. The routine daily care of plants would change and not as much work would be required. We have been struggling with a deteriorating greenhouse structure and poor water quality that have made growing plants challenging, so we were looking forward to caring for plants in a new greenhouse. The new degree requirements were upsetting.

WU: What brings you the most joy about working at the greenhouse?

DS The greenhouse is the best place to work during New England Winters. I enjoy meeting the many visitors to our greenhouse. Growing plants from seed is very enjoyable for me, I’ve grown some of our bigger specimens from seed.

TA Seeing the plants thrive and the having other plant people appreciate the work required to keep them thriving.

WU: The Botanic Gardens are an important space on campus for educating students about plant life and ecology as well as providing a natural refuge and inspiration. There have been a number of events and projects in this space, such as the student design of the edible ecosystem garden. What events or projects have you helped with and what have you enjoyed the most?

DS I really like the mystical tree tours out in the arboretum. The light shows have been great. I also like planting trees in the arboretum and seeing them grow through the years. I really like seed growing too though that’s not a particular event.

TD I really liked the light show this year because we got to grow plants associated with two art works, the unicorn tapestries and Botticelli's Primavera. We got to order seeds of a bunch of European plants we never would have grown. Some worked out great, others not so much, but it was a great learning experience.

TA I really enjoyed the light shows and working on New England Spring Flower Shows as well as learning and implementing our Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM) and soil food web programs. I also like the way the outdoor gardens are being managed more ecologically.

WU: What can the Wellesley College Community of students, faculty, staff, and alumnae do to help and support you?

TD The petition SLAP started on Change.org has been great. We’ve loved reading the comments from everyone, especially students and alum we’ve worked with. SLAP has more actions planned. We started to get some conciliatory comments today from the college about rethinking the union jobs but nothing official to report. I think the actions the college community have been taking to express their disapproval of this reorganization are making a difference.

TA In the long run, I think it would be helpful to have more people involved, maybe on a committee, to look at the maintenance needs and future projects within the botanic gardens.

----

Bios of the Botanic garden union workers

Tony Antonucci

Tony has been employed at Wellesley College for 35 years, starting in the greenhouses as an assistant horticulturist. On his first day on the job, the college started dismantling the old greenhouses and the old superstructure was saved and renovated. From 1983 - 2000, he assisted in maintaining the greenhouse collection. He was promoted to the current position of senior greenhouse horticulturist, the position in charge of greenhouses, in 2000 upon the retirement of Del Nickerson who had worked in the greenhouses since 1965. He also had the privilege of knowing Harriet Creighton, botany professor and a major figure in the history of the Botanic Gardens and Joe Jennings, the head of the greenhouse before Del, which gives Tony an incredible amount of institutional memory. Tony has been great in working with work study students in the greenhouse and teaching them many aspects of running a greenhouse. Del and Tony started the Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM).

As of this writing, Tony will be laid off in June 2018 or sooner if his replacement is hired.

David Sommers

David is an assistant horticulturist in the greenhouses. He worked in food service and custodial before starting in the greenhouses in 2000. David has many stories about students he knew from his days in the kitchens and is always hoping to see alums he remembers at reunion. He loves to help students with their houseplants as well as share his observations and knowledge of the plants in the greenhouses and the animals and landscapes of Wellesley. He is known for his excellent photography and his pictures have appeared on the Wellesley website and Alumnae magazine.

David was expecting to be laid off on December 1st of this year but the college has not told him what his severance pay or bumping rights will be.

Tricia Diggins

Tricia has been at Wellesley College for 31 years. She spent four years at a night job at Schneider center food service and working in energy conservation before being lucky enough to get into the horticulturist job in the arboretum and botanic gardens. Wellesley allowed Tricia to attend many gardening classes and symposia through which she made up for my lack of formal horticulture education. She was promoted to Senior Gardens horticulturist around 2006 thanks to a reorganization of jobs by Kristina Jones, director of the Botanic gardens. She is very actively involved with IMSEUA, the service employee union on campus, throughout her years at Wellesley.

Tricia was offered one of the manager jobs in the new proposed job restructure but since her job is mostly landscape chores like mowing, trimming, weeding etc. and because the college didn’t tell her who would do that work, Tricia had said no. At this time throughout negotiations the college has not said she would be laid off.

#wellesley underground #wellesley botanic gardens #labor unions #wellesley college #Tricia Diggins #David Sommers #Tony Antonucci #inclusion series

3 notes · View notes

annazverina · 4 years

Text

2019 Letter to the World

Well, it’s that time of year again. I usually begin writing this annual letter in the fall. I looked at the date, and when I saw it was the 29th of October, I asked myself, “Where the hell did the time go!?” It’s amazing how fast this year (and decade) went by.

Was 2019 as bad as 2018? In my opinion, no. I think graduating high school, leaving behind the toxic marching band I was in, and starting university in a nicer environment had a lot to do with my year being good. A lot of what I’ve learned this year is from my university experiences. This year I want to discuss love, differences, Boomers, and privilege. Please, do read to the end.

This year, I made one of the best decisions of my life. I joined Kappa Kappa Psi, a band service fraternity. There, I found my family away from home. I’ve only known my Brothers for a few months, but there is already so much I would do for each and every one of them. While going through the process to become a Brother, we discovered the importance of the Brotherhood. There was one day where we, the Membership Candidates, were asked not to talk to the Active Brothers. That day really sucked. I avoided the area in the music building where we would normally collect, and I felt completely alone. It felt like I had just started university again, when I didn’t have anybody to talk to. There was an important lesson we had to learn from that which I shouldn’t share, but it ties into what I’m about to talk about.

My high school British Literature teacher taught us that there are two different types of love: conditional and unconditional. Unconditional love is the love you have for your family. Even if you dislike their decisions, you still love them. Conditional love is what you feel towards your significant other and friends. If someone does the wrong thing, it’s over. Sometimes, your friends are your family. Whilst I was blessed with family to love unconditionally, my Brothers are also people who I love unconditionally. I have discovered this year that life is nothing without unconditional love. I discovered that my new Brothers are people I may or may not be best friends with, but I still love them. Find somebody to love unconditionally who will also love you the same way. Trust me, they exist. I don’t have friends, and I don’t think anyone considers me one. I do, however, have family, and I know I am family to others. That is more important.

During my Membership Candidate process, one of the Active Brothers said something that really caught my attention.

“If you just focus on your differences, you’ll never get passed the ‘hello.’”

That caught everyone’s attention.

I suck at defending my beliefs, meanwhile my brother is fantastic at it. If you’re not good at defending your beliefs, don’t discuss them with others. Better yet, even if you’re great at it, still don’t discuss it with others. As of recent, I almost NEVER discuss politics with anybody. Whenever family members bring it up I try to change the subject. All I see on the internet are people being complete assholes to each other when trying to defend their beliefs. Both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of this. Whenever I see one side defend themselves by saying that the other side are nasty towards their side, I laugh.

In 2018, Stats Britain tweeted regarding the United States’ midterm elections, “100% of Democrats should be voting today.”

“100% of Americans should vote,” I said, with inclusion in mind.

“The Republicans can stay at home!” they replied to me.

“And I bet the Republicans are saying the same thing about the Democrats!”

You know how they responded? They deleted the thread. I think I won that one. By the way, the Republicans were saying the same thing about Democrats.

It bothers me when people on the internet are all about inclusion, yet they exclude people who are different from them. Again, both sides are guilty of excluding those who are different. Believe whatever you want to believe, but when it comes time to interact with other humans, keep those beliefs to yourself and just focus on showing common human decency towards each other. Remember back in April when the final season of Game of Thrones started? Remember everyone sharing their excitement with each other? I saw people of all backgrounds coming together, ignoring their differences, to prepare for the finale of an epic show. Why can’t that happen more often? People just enjoying each other without their differences getting in the way? People constantly fighting about what they think is the right answer is exactly why our world is so hateful. Based on all I’ve seen, I don’t think a right answer exists.

In early November, I saw a new trend on the internet: Ok, Boomer. Basically if anyone said anything “incorrect,” that’s how people would respond to them. My dad was born in 1964, so he’s technically a Boomer, but obviously he identifies with Gen X more, which is what my mother is.

Here’s a fact: Not every Boomer/Gen X is ignorant, and not every Millennial/Gen Z is correct. I wish we didn’t stereotype like that, but it seems there’s a stereotype for everything. I was born in 2001, therefore I am a Gen Z. My brother was born in 1997, but he identifies with millennials more, despite Gen Z starting around 1995. If the younger and older generations were to combine into one, the world would be fantastic. I’ve noticed that older generations tend to be more ignorant about the changing world. For some reason they don’t want to sit down and learn how to use their iPhone properly. They would rather drive their kids a hundred yards to school than walk with them (and get some steps in).

My generations need the wisdom of our older generations, and the older generations need the progressiveness of my generations. I don’t know why it’s so hard to not listen to each other’s ideas.

Given that I go to a pretty liberal school, what has come up a lot in conversation, and in my University Seminar class, is privilege. I wish everybody could have everything they wanted, but they can’t. There are not enough resources for that. I had a lot of privileges growing up. I am white, American, and Texan. I had an intact family, and I always had access to food, shelter, and technology. Those are some of the big things, but there are little things that I believe everyone experiences every day.

You woke up this morning alive. Being able to see, hear, and walk are privileges, in my opinion. Not everyone can do those things. If you are reading this, it means you are literate and have a device with internet access. Marcus Aurelius once said, “When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.” Humans were blessed with a rational decision maker and the ability to love. We have the ability to ignore our natural human instincts for other people. How awesome is that?

I hope you can take something from this. I enjoy writing about what I learned during the year and sharing it with whoever will read it. Thank you for reading. Happy New Year! Enjoy the Roaring 2020s!

Have a great whatever time of day it is!

twitter.com/AnnaZverina

instagram.com/AnnaZverina

wattpad.com/AnnaZverina

youtube.com/AnnaZverina

0 notes

lbat1901 · 4 years

Text

2019 Review

I’ve never posted an end year review on Tumblr. I only post on either Facebook and DA, buuuuut it’s time for a change.

Also I couldn’t decide whether or not to separate it into two parts. I decided to say f**k it and post the whole thing.

Anyway, welcome to the first ever year end review where I recap 2019. Just a side note, I am doing this so you won’t have to. Also there a lot of ranting in this.

Quick thing to know is that I can become very brutal when comes to ranting. Trust me they’re not pretty. Oh and I tend write these things like at either towards the end of June and mid July about the stuff that just happened before coming back to it in late October and early November while adding even more information. That’s how things work.

Anyway with that out of the way, I present to you, Lbat1901’s review of 2019 broadcasted worldwide on this day of December 31st (or either the 1st of January and/or December 30th depending on your timezone).

2018 was a good year despite a few thing here and there. Now 2019 was a tad bit better but we lost the OG actor of Chewbacca from Star Wars. Well this isn’t a bad thing, there’s another actor to play the part.

If deaths weren’t always there to make a year bad, then it would be a person’s own downfall. I’m talking about the downfall of the one and only ProJared. Oh god….when I heard the news that he and his wife were filing for a divorce, it wasn’t good at all. Well it was bad at first, but it got worse when his ex-wife stated that he cheated on her. That took me by surprise, but I was all like: “Ah well. Things can’t get any worse than that, right?”. Unfortunately things did got much much worse.

ProJared was reported for doing some sexual activity on Tumblr. He actually DMed a minor and said some explicit stuff to them. Oh boy….that was a shocker. Due to this, everyone and his fans couldn’t find it in their hearts to forgive him. By the way ProJared at the time reached the milestone of 1,000,000 subscribers. That…later went down. A couple of months later, ProJared posted an apology on Twitter which didn’t make any sense. In reality doing that kind of stuff like that could land you in some legal troubles and you won’t be able to recover from it.

It really sucks and it hurts me a lot when it should be considered that ProJared is one of my favorite gaming channels on YouTube and one of my inspirations for all that sweet comedy gold. His videos are so good along his random commentary and jokes. Plus him working together with PeanutButterGamer, another YouTuber that I like, gave out some great positive vibes of collaboration. It’s going to take me a very long time to get over this and find it in my heart to accept his apology, but for now, I’m taking a break from ProJared.

…Aye I’m just kidding! It turns out that in late August, he uploaded a video explaining what really happened which means I can forgive him. I rate ProJared’s explanation video: “a fixed reputation out of 10.”

Another thing that happened was the suicide of another well known YouTuber that I like, that goes by the name of Etika. You see Etika is known for his reaction video especially when it comes to stuff like Nintendo such as Smash Bros. His DLC reveal reactions were priceless and hilarious. At the time, I never knew he had mental issues since it wasn’t clear onto why he always acts up giving off this destructive behavior. I’ve always believed that he did this for to be funny, but now I look back at it, his reactions were a bit too much. Shockingly before his death, he was went to some mental place and even came out from suffering from depression.

Soon afterwards, his family and his fans all reached out to him, but Etika pushed them all to the side. After that, he released a video saying how sorry his was shortly before he took his own life out. When I first heard about it from IGN, I didn’t believe it. But after awhile it turned out to be true. Etika really did killed himself.

I’ll say this once: killing yourself isn’t an option. Sure it maybe a solution to end your problems but in reality it makes everyone around you fall in deep despair. This is coming from a person who had depression in the past along with some forms of PTSD and schizophrenia. If you’re suffering from depression don’t turn down help. There’s always a light at the end of tunnel waiting for you to go towards it. Don’t stop waking to it. And Etika if you’re reading this, from wherever you might be, I hope you’re doing better than you were before since your now considered to be free from your troubles. All of us are going to see you again. Even though I haven’t meant you in person, you’re still a cool guy to me. Stay awesome.

Okay enough of the heavy feels. You all know what’s coming up next. It’s the part where I rant about the things that have happened this year. And hey, new people, you get to have a front row seat for this. The ranting part always gets my reviews a whole lotta views, making them somewhat popular. Here we go!

Alright…I’ll get this part out the way. Is it just me or was it that January 2019 was a very painful month to get through? No? If you’re living in a part where it’s warm everyday for the full entire year, good for you. You don’t have to suffer. But….can we like trade places? I want 90 degree weather all year long. Why you such lucky things. January, according to parts of the world that snow, is considered to be one of the slowest yet worst months of the year. Plus it doesn’t help that fact that it’s still winter and it’s the first month. I have always believed that January is a very slow month, but January 2019….oh my lord, it was brutally slow. Also January is also known to be the month of severe depression since nobody can hold onto their New Year resolution.

January 2019 felt like a drag. Plus I was still lingering to some of my depression after trying to recover from it after November 2018. It was a really bad time for me even though November is usually fast, but it felt I was being stabbed repeatedly. January 2019 was no different. Oh and don’t come to me stating that February comes after January and that it’s a fast month. That is true, but 2019 had to drug up February with depression pills making that a month of total despair. At least once it hit March 2019 things got better and much smoother.

January and February 2019, umm…what the f**k happened to you? January, I don’t expect anything magical about you, but February 2019, my god, you were supposed to be a better month. You had one job and failed at it that’s for sure.

This year’s review would like to take the attention and put it on Venezuela for once. During the first half of the year, many countries around the world has talked about the crisis in Venezuela. Venezuela is known to be a country in South America to have an oil industry which helps the country be successful. The current president is Nicolás Maduro and let’s be honest here, he’s a horrible person. Why? It’s because all of the things that he has done were quite questionable and he has said some controversial things mostly being related to storages. So far there has been several riots, people getting killed in some of those riots, nobody can get any food or medication due to power outages. It continues to get worse as time goes by. Most Venezuelans fled the country because it becoming a sh*thole and I don’t blame them. I would be fleeing from the country too if I can’t get anything. As I said before, countries around the world have been talking about the issues happening in Venezuela. There are some countries that support Maduro while other countries such as the US supports Juan Guaidó who vows to oppose Maduro. This kinda triggers the 2019 presidential crisis in Venezuela; however Guaidó has been given support by 54 countries as of June 2019. Although there is some competition, nobody should be getting in the way since this is Venezuela’s fight and it’s basically their freedom of speech. They must fight the powers that be.

What’s coming up next is something that I refuse to ignore. Article 13 getting passed. You heard that right folks, they did it. They actually f**king did it. In March 2019, the EU were having a debation on whenever or not to pass Article 13. If you don’t know, the EU created a whole bunch of rules for each country in Europe to follow. Some are good and some are just plain stupid. Article 13 is kinda like Europe’s version of Net Neutrality…only if it were on steroids. Article 13 has some tight restrictions but the most controversial thing to come from is that it kills off anything that has to do with copyright. Anything like music, video games, and of course memes won’t exist and guess what? Those motherf**kers in the EU actually said “f**k it!” and let the thing pass and all thanks to this lovely son of a b*ch, Axel Voss

*sighs heavily*

Axel Voss…why? Why? Just why? Why would you say yes? Months before the voting in March, you were supposed to be hope. I trusted your word. I thought you knew what to say, but you had to say the complete opposite. And do you want to know what my reaction is? Do you really want to see it? Oh I’ll give it you you. Here is goes. All I have to say is….wow, you really f**ked everything up big time and here’s my message towards you all:

F**k the EU! F**k Article 13! F**k everyone who allowed to let this thing get approved and have it take effect two years later! And finally, f**k you Axel Voss! F**k you all! I hope all you will burn in hell for this.

Now it’s time for the star of the show and the main topic I talk about every year, Trump.

Oh my where I do even begin? 2019 was the year on how low Trump can go as a president and as a person. Well he already is low.

I know that there’s a huge like and dislike ratio with this man. If you support Trump and would like to dismantle any argument that I make that is totally against everything he says and does, then that’s great! Now do me favor: GO F**K YOURSELF!!!

I had enough of this man and I am sick of this nonsense! Hell I’ve been sick of it already. He’s done way too much and he’s been tripping all over the place as well.

Why are there still people out there supporting this guy? Like seriously, what is wrong with you people?

I have a feeling that you’re going to say this: “What makes him bad to you? He basically done a lot in the past three years. He lowered my taxes so I won’t have to pay that much”.

Um excuse me? Does it look I f**king care if you don’t have to pay that much for taxes? Abso-f**king-lutely not. I don’t give a sh*t if you’re paying less in taxes along with telling me that it’s raining tacos. Must I remind you that this man ordered a government shutdown for the first part of the year which, bear in mind, lasted 30 days all because he wanted a wall to be built between the Mexican and American borders? Let’s not forget that the president of Mexico already said no to paying that wall.

So yeah, Trump was throwing a tantrum over it. Why not you just build a wall of Legos? It’s cheaper.

The more I think about this, the more I pay attention to the audience in Trump’s rallies. What do I see, I hear you ask? Nothing but basic white people and that’s exactly my point. In most of Trump’s rallies, you don’t see any black, Hispanic, Asian, or Somalian people in the stands. That’s because would they support Trump? All you see is just white people and the majority of them have blonde hair and blue eyes.

They’re not just any white people, they are the ones with the guns, Trump hats, the pick up truck, and the Confederate flag. They are also known as those die hard rednecks that love to spread hatred and racism. I do have to admit that I love rednecks with their Southern accents and charm (expect for the racism), but not the rednecks that love an orangutan that cares about himself and money.

This orangutan is also businessman who seems to have an obsession on running a business to the ground which is exactly what he’s doing to America. Plus he doesn’t think that global warming is real. Uh huh, you might want to tell that to California and its many wildfires, the farmers who had so much rainfall this year and can’t sell their crops due to tariffs, and pretty much to the entire world or you can just act like an idiot which leads into me calling you, and say it with me, a whiny little b*ch.

Oh Trump honey, you and you’re little friends are in so much trouble when it hits January because you’ve got impeached and you were basically whining on Twitter about it. All I heard was doom and gloom and the sounds of a baby crying. Awww….does little Trump want his nappy wampy? Might as well tell your queen Mike Pence that you need one, because you’re losing this chess game.

I can’t get the image of Trump showing off a map on where Hurricane Dorian was going to hit out of my head. He may got the part on where it was going to hit Florida right, but he pointed out that it was going to hit Alabama. Technically that map was outdated and Hurricane Dorian didn’t hit Alabama, but he didn’t say that he was wrong. Instead he just circles on where the hurricane was going to hit with a white sharpie and had a proud look on his face saying “Look what I did, daddy. I’m smart”. He pretty much made the entire state of Alabama fall into a panic.

He was so proud of himself that he phone called his best friend Putin about it. I swear that Putin has something on him and the reason why he wanted Trump to win is so that he can get Trump to do whatever he wants. Trump is basically Putin’s b*ch.

Plus Putin rewrote the Russian constitution which Trump doesn’t even seem to care about America’s own constitution at all. Even his own party members don’t care about it. They seem to care about the 2nd amendment more and it’s a dying shame that all of them will be voted out of office when 2020 hits. Can’t wait for it.

Unfortunately, when there’s a new president, there’s going to be a lot to fix since no one trusts America anymore since Trump ruined everything especially getting out of that deal with Iran. That had to be the most dumbest thing that he’s ever done. Big mistake, Trump.

All he did was claim that Obama gave them money? No he didn’t. The agreement was to see what America was giving to Iran along with unfreezing their money just so they feed their people. But no, blame everything on Obama because why not.

Honestly the current Republican party blame things that happened on former presidents and the Democrats. People also say that the Democrats have gone way too far onto the left, but here’s the thing, the Republicans were the party that actually had the balls of steel, but now they’ve gone completely off the rails allowing their own president to break the constitution just get information on a political rival from a foreign leader which is a violation and illegal. Do the Republicans seem to care about rules being broken? Of course not. What are these people on exactly? Dope? I would sure love to have some of that just so I won’t have to deal with crap.

Most of my year end reviews on what Trump did is hard. Why? It’s because he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. Again, why is there people out there who support this man? He’s a crook. You might argue with me that he’s a businessman. And? You’re point is? Listen, how can he be a businessman when filed for bankruptcy several times? That’s not a good businessman, that’s a bad one. When are you people going to get that through your thick skulls?

Can you imagine if it were Obama doing the crap that Trump had some so far? Oh god, the Republicans would have his head. The Republicans now? Nah, they don’t want to bother since they don’t want to lose their power. Ahh….that’s too bad, you’re going to be losing that during the senate trail next year.

Speaking of Alabama, they were the first state to pass an anti abortion law, but guess what? Women don’t know if their pregnant in six weeks so why bother. Oh wait, I keep forgetting that the American government is being run by old white men that like taking a giant step back in time where woman didn’t have any rights. Back in the 1960s, doctors wouldn’t tell women about their health but only told it to their husbands. Yeah that’s right, women weren’t treated as as people and it was pretty messed up. Now a few decades before that time period, women couldn’t walk around unless they were with their husbands. Can you imagine that being written in law in this current time period? It would be f**ked up even though it was back then and it still exist in other countries to this day. What’s even worse is that women weren’t taught how to read or weren’t sent to school. That was centuries ago mind you.

2020 is going to be the start of whole new decade. The 2010s weren’t that bad, but it was till the near end were it got bad. 2020 is going to be the year of adios Trump.

Anyway, this has been Lbat1901 reporting last time in 2019. See you in 2020.

0 notes

progressivemillennial · 7 years

Text

The Mirror Game, Or, I Don’t Blame You

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most to blame of all?

I had scrapped writing this essay thrice since I first sat down to write it in December because I foolishly continued to think we’d been done talking about who to blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss. So here we are: people are still having conversations on social media about this subject, the media still writes and talks about it, and Congress still yacks about it. We have Congressional hearings all about Russia and a special counsel, Robert Mueller, investigating multiple aspects of the election and Donald Trump’s business ties to Russia. I’m sure you still see these fights or conversations happening from time to time. This is the conversation that never ends, and for a critical reason: we still find ourselves forming the narrative of the 2016 American Presidential Election. Whoever “wins” at forming the narrative will for the foreseeable future dictate how we discuss the 2016 election. For example, when you think about the 2000 election, ask yourself why Al Gore lost. Who or what comes to mind first? Ralph Nader, perhaps? If so, that’s not a coincidence.

As we begin, I have a small favor to humbly ask: go find a mirror. Look straight into your reflected eyes. Raise either of your hands and point your index finger towards your image in the mirror. Finally, capture this image in your mind’s eye and hold it in your memory for later. Good? Thank you! I appreciate you playing along. The conclusion to the game will be revealed later. The idea of scapegoating especially fascinated me towards the end of this election, before which I contended satirically that a whole host of people and entities would be scapegoated if Hillary Clinton, the inevitable candidate, lost.

Popular Scapegoats From the Last Nine Months

1. Bernie Sanders: I admittedly was naive enough to think that Bernie would avoid blame since he campaigned for Hillary upon his defeat in the primary. Wrong! Don Lemon of CNN argued that Bernie Sanders and his supporters “in the beginning, before” damaged Hillary Clinton, enough for her to lose. This kind of logic suggests that no one should have run against Hillary Clinton; although, to many Americans, this kind of coronation process does not seem democratic.

2. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein: MSNBC made it pretty clear that if third party voters had voted for Hillary Clinton, she would have won the presidency. Rachel Maddow later tweeted that if certain percentages of Stein and Johnson supporters had voted for Clinton in key states, Clinton would have won. As we found in 2000, third party candidates make for easy, simple scapegoats. So do their supporters.

3. Jim Comey: The Director of the FBI has been loved and hated by Democrats over the past year. When he announced that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton, Democrats were ecstatic. Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate, called him “a wonderful and tough career public servant.” After his own “October surprise,” Comey drew the ire from most Democrats and would probably top the list of scapegoats had it not been for the Russian interference scandal that continues to this day.

4. The Media: Clinton aides thought that, in addition to Comey, the media was most to blame for the loss. Clinton supporters even now can be seen referencing “her emails” as a reference to the media’s coverage of the email and server scandal. President Obama in December said that the media was more to blame than Russia for Clinton’s loss. Neither Clinton nor Trump nor Sanders supporters thought the media gave their candidate a fair shake. The media also gave Trump billions of dollars of free media. The media is an easy fall guy.

5. Fake News and Facebook: Facebook took a lot of heat originally for hosting fake news on its site before the election. While the accusations against Facebook specifically have faded quite a bit, the term fake news unfortunately lives on, and it has been co-opted by Donald Trump. The narrative of fake news impacting the election results took off so quickly that Stanford University released a study on January 18 on fake news and social media.

6. White People: White people were far more likely to vote for Trump than people of color, and I say white people because the majority of white women joined the majority of white men in voting for Trump. This is not surprising since Donald Trump appealed mainly to white people. What do you have to lose, it turns out, did not resonate with voters of color.

7. Millennials: Younger voters took a Clinton win for granted, so more voted for third parties. They didn’t show up for her the way they did for Obama. They were bitter about Bernie and couldn’t let go. They didn’t vote at all because they couldn’t vote for the lesser of two evils. Bernie was too harsh on Clinton, so millennials couldn’t vote for her. The supposedly idealistic and naive millennials have been blamed quite a bit for Trump.

8. Sexism and Racism: It would seem pretty silly to argue that sexism didn’t have anything to do with the outcome of the election, although the opinion column cited here makes such an attempt. The column appeared in The Hill and was written, no less, by a woman. Regardless, many wrote and continue to write about sexism and misogyny and its role in the election. As for racism, you can likely recall Van Jones declaring the election a whitelash back in November on CNN. I mean, I’m not saying he’s wrong, but I am saying we had a black president for not-one-but-two-terms, so there are limits to this argument.

9. Wikileaks: Wikileaks revealed a number of inconvenient truths about the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton: that Donna Brazile on at least a few occasions gave questions in advance to the Hillary camp for upcoming engagements with Bernie Sanders, that the DNC clearly favored Hillary Clinton over other candidates including Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s dreams of open borders and free trade throughout the western hemisphere, Clinton having divergent public and private positions on issues, and more. The information contained in these emails likely hurt her campaign and the Democratic Party.

10. Russia: The Google News search Russia election interference returns 278,000 results. The Google News search for Putin american election returns 5,280,000 results. The Google News search Trump Russia investigation returns 8,130,000 results. Needless to say, much has been written on the subject. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and the Office of the DNI assessed with confidence that Russia attempted to influence the American election in favor of Donald Trump, which doesn’t sound like an unreasonable assessment at all.

11. People Who Didn’t Vote: Only 58% of eligible Americans voted in 2016. While it’s a bit arrogant to argue that had everyone voted, Hillary Clinton would have won, we should be careful not to blame literally everyone who didn’t vote for Donald Trump. Some voters experienced issues getting to their voting place because the polling location is located inconveniently or due to a lack of transportation. And voter suppression laws continue to successfully suppress the vote, particularly in minority communities.

12. The Electoral College: In case you somehow missed it--and I’m not sure how one would achieve that feat even living under the world’s biggest rock--Hillary Clinton won more votes across the United States than Donald Trump. In an alternate universe where the electoral college doesn’t exist, we cannot know who would have won a popular vote because both campaigns’ strategies would have been different. But in this universe, big cities like Los Angeles and Chicago delivered Hillary Clinton a significant lead in total votes over Trump.

None of These Reasons Is Inherently Wrong

The beautiful thing about the 2016 election is that all of the reasons above could reasonably be argued for as a reason why Donald Trump won because the margins by which Hillary Clinton lost were so thin. You don’t even need to try to quantify their effect; instead, you can simply think that if a sliver of white people are racist enough to vote against Clinton, that could swing the vote in Michigan or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania to Donald Trump. Because more than a sliver of white people are racist, who could reasonably argue with you?

There are some individuals, groups, and causes that have mostly managed to escape the spotlight when it comes to the blame game, but the truth is: nearly everyone is responsible for the mess we’re in.

The Democratic National Committee: Even Hillary Clinton blamed the DNC. As she put it, “I mean, it was bankrupt. It was on the verge of insolvency. Its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. ... I had to inject money into it." Maybe the DNC supported Clinton in the primary not because of her ideology or ability to win but because of her wealth. And to be clear about supporting Clinton in the primary: when John Podesta was encouraged to ground Bernie “to a pulp” during the primary, he replied, “I agree with that in principle. Where would you stick the knife in?” Most importantly, the DNC wanted to elevate candidates like Donald Trump. They thought it was advantageous for Hillary to go up against one of them. They got what they wanted, and they were wrong.

Superdelegates: Like it or not, superdelegates had a choice at the Democratic National Convention: they could vote for Hillary Clinton, who won the most votes in the primary but who was already unpopular and an establishment candidate in a change election, or they could vote for Bernie Sanders, who lost the primary but also was and is very popular and had a populist message that could have been effective against Donald Trump’s. Polls at the time showed that he ran more strongly against Trump. Superdelegates chose to vote for Clinton. Perhaps they voted for the wrong candidate. To be completely fair, I am not saying that Bernie would have certainly won. We don’t know that, obviously, because we can’t prove a counterfactual.

Winning After a Two Term President: Gore couldn’t do it, McCain couldn’t do it, Clinton couldn’t do it. Since 1948, only Harry Truman and George H.W. Bush won the election after eight or more years of a presidency within their party, and Truman. It’s very challenging for a candidate to win after their party’s president held the office for two previous terms, and there’s no shame in that.

Hillary Clinton and Her Campaign: Hillary Clinton did not run a perfect campaign, and she was not a great candidate. John Podesta, her Campaign Manager, understood this, saying “we've taken on a lot of water that won't be easy to pump out of the boat. Most of that has to do with terrible decisions made pre-campaign, but a lot has to do with her instincts.” She could have chosen a more progressive Vice President to woo skeptical voters on the left. She could have not voted for the Iraq War, or pushed for war in Libya, or voted for the Patriot Act, or its reauthorization. She could have not run with the “America’s already great” rhetoric when so many Americans are unhappy with the country and its politicians. She neglected the Rust Belt. Her ads lacked substance and policy, which were her strength. Hillary is responsible, too. But that’s not all.

One of the election’s greatest myths is the most common: that if you voted for Clinton, you could wash your hands clean and blame everyone else in righteous indignation.

If, to you, Trump is Hitler, if he will bring about the apocalypse, if he will take away minority rights, tear down democracy, implement a fascist state, enable anti-semites, and all you did was vote for Hillary, then your bare minimal democratic participation does not match the level of urgency that the Trump presidency should evoke in you. There’s a gap between your rhetoric and your actions. You could have been calling voters, canvassing, marching before marching was fashionable, writing your local newspaper, participating in civil disobedience, and more. Maybe not all of the above: everyone has different levels of time to commit to a cause and not everyone can afford to commit civil disobedience, but the end of America and the end of the world sounds like a reasonable cause to make time for, no? Maybe you’re “less to blame.” Good for you. Trump is still the president.

And so, if you feel the need to blame others for the outcome of the election, recall the mirror game that we played at the outset of this piece. Remember the image of you, looking squarely into your own eyes, pointing at yourself. The next time you want to blame someone else for the election’s outcome, remember that image. Unless you were a full time volunteer getting the vote out for Hillary--which is extremely unlikely based on probability, you are responsible, whether you are happy, unhappy or indifferent to the results. Own it.

Insert quote here about age-old advice regarding what happens when one points finger in direction of others...

And know that I’m not pointing the finger at you. Read the title again. Who am I to point a finger? I did very little to get Clinton elected. In fact, I’ve basically been told that I enabled a Trump presidency, and that my conscience will have to deal with that. But I absolutely am speaking to you. We have hard work ahead of us.

Self righteously pointing the finger at others may be easy and cathartic and require little thought, but it’s much more challenging to hold the Democratic Party responsible, to reflect on what more we could have done in the run-up to the election, to change, to get more involved, to change our behavior.

Peace and love, Tom President and Founder of Team Scapegoat

6 notes · View notes