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whetstonefires · 6 years

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d gray man liveblog part 4! (part 1)(part 2)(part 3)

No but seriously, Cyril Camelot is the English Foreign Minister and just staged an assassination attempt on himself for an excuse to declare war on the people he just spent a while negotiating an agreement with.

Why? In what way does this benefit the Noahs?

(...why is the name of the country censored, I feel like hoshino-san just didn’t want to try to come up with a plausible European country for England to go to war with in 18-mumblety.)

I mean Bookman says tragedy breeds akuma in his analysis, but they took Japan while it was so emphatically not at war that it had zero foreign relations at all; war is clearly not necessary for the Earl’s bargains to go through apace.

Cyril kind of looks like he just does this shit for fun.

...”the evil man who made the world his enemy” is a fascinating choice of words, Tykki Mik, I really wonder very hard about you.

And you’re right, when he’s not wearing his balloon costume, and talking normally, and buying flowers from little girls, he looks normal! Weird how that works.

Question: is that umbrella he declined so he could walk in the rain Lero? Does Lero have to share the Earl with other umbrellas outside of official monster business, or disguise himself as a normal bumpershoot when out in public? Is that servant another disguised akuma, or a normal person who has no idea?

...it’s probably an akuma.

YAY KRORY WAKE UP!

why so many chain. it’s not like he lost track of who his enemies were in that last fight, even when he was made of blood. rude to chain.

aw he cry. he cry! ;_; he cry for his friends!

this is the kind of sad boy i like. he can be annoying but not in, you know, a murdery way.

holy shit creepy ghost girl?! i...logically must have read this part before but i don’t remember it, damn i was bingeing like a mad thing.

where...where did the poison come from. why is Krory’s arm sticking out like that. what is going on.

Why Are The Order So Bad.

aaaaand cut to the kind of random hijinks that seem intended to lift the mood but tbh they’re kind of too grim in their own right.

lmao alternately this is an excuse to draw kanda and lavi as chibis and Allen with long hair.

If it’s not because of structural damage, why are they moving to a new base? No one’s said anything about the new headquarters being any more secure against frickin’ teleportation. Maybe the Pope just wants the Order distracted with moving chores?

(I like referring to the higher-ups at the Vatican as the Pope; I realize we have no actual evidence the actual Pope even knows any of this is happening, but if hoshino is gonna be having people shout that other people are ‘property of the Pope’ i’m gonna use the word Pope as often as I can get away with because

1) it makes the whole thing more ridiculous b) it emphasizes the European Gothic Via Japan vibe going on here which is at least 20% of the entertainment value and thirdly, ‘Pope’ is fun to say.)

Oh, right, Allen’s ongoing identity crisis! (it only gets worse from here, kid)

The bosses were logically correct to make Cross Marian do his ‘report to Vatican and be responsible’ part before giving him the pay-off of ‘allowed to talk to Allen’ because otherwise he’d just fuck off but damn it’s hard on the kid, being left hanging.

I absolutely do not believe for one second this business with Mana’s past and secret motives was planned before the series started, but that’s honestly for the best; it’s more wrenching when we didn’t have any more reason than Allen to suspect something was off.

...i like when nice clowns adopt people tho... :o(

not telling the brass or their stooge about your creepy extra reflection was a Good Call.

yes link really truly allen is a good kid who is not plotting evil shit. sheesh.

more Potion Accident gags, i’m sorry, i can’t keep up with your taste in mood whiplash and i never liked most slapstick anyway. the bunny ears are. strange.

...never mind who made the ‘talk like a cat’ potion, who packed that box Miranda spilled; that is such an absurd chaotic collection of items organize your shit people. eesh.

Lmao everyone’s #1 creepy ghost theory is, Komui Playing A Dumb Prank.

...okay, Allen’s reaction as the Matron gnaws on his arm, and the fact that everyone’s first assumption is that Allen has annoyed this very sensible woman to the point that she is communicating via teeth, manages to be funny but noooooo, why would you, not Awesome Shoes Lady after she made it through the Level 4 Akuma attack unscathed, come onnnnnn.

okay, uhhh...contagious vampirism zombie thing...lmao everyone gets worried about matron when she bites Miranda, everyone is super embarrassed when Miranda bites Noise, this is just some impressive Not Realizing Shit’s Fucked guys.

okay, zombie horde of various survivors of all the recent massacres.

uh, if this weren’t being dropped at a time of total emotional exhaustion, it would work better. it’s already working better the second time around for the fact that i took a break after the last arc.

considering it comes out monthly and we had a Noah interlude, it probably worked in the original context just fine, but daaaaaamn did this storyline piss me off the first time, all i even remember about it is the rage.

:D Lenalee rescued Tiny Kanda. Who for some reason can interpret her ‘nyah’ sounds.

...how is a stimulant drug contagious via biting.

i remember the first time i read this i naturally assumed the biting disease was derived from Krory. that still would have made more sense.

robot eats notebook, lol...bickering...”my pride won’t allow me to become a zombie” yes allen excellent logic you weirdo.

okay i’m done checking back in when slightly less stupid shit starts happening....

okay never mind the robot’s fireworks blew Allen through a wall, where Krory was suffering in chains, and then the blanket spontaneously combusted, and then there was somebody with an axe...

...and then Allen wakes up and is informed he was knocked out and concludes Krory’s situation was a dream oh come on.

krory is at the door! but being creepy! the robot refuses to open the door out of self-preservation! allen seduces the robot into risking its life!

...

‘this is nostalgic’ with the hero face on i can’t.

okay, so it was Krory, who apparently swallowed the entire bottle of poison, lid included? for some reason?

oh great there’s a parasitic zombie ghost thing riding Reever and sticking its face out his stomach. horror! nope, now played for laughs.

aaaand suddenly veering back into pathos. bonus info about evil human experiments!

...aaaaaand touching bonding moment for the Lees. Aww.

Not only is Komui protective and self-sacrificing, when he isn’t being psychopathic, he has absolved Lenalee of his having sacrificed his entire life to watch over her after she was kidnapped into this.

then a stupid gag! and the ghost does a creepy jealous possession thing! and meanwhile everything is on fire.

et cetera, mood whiplash back and forth at least once every other page...komui starts reciting from memory the names of every single person killed in the Order’s human experiments...

...i don’t think the names are intended as an additional gag, but most of them are fairly odd and many downright improbable, though none truly syllable-mashing outrageous. I’m rather fond of Asia Smet and Oona Boelyn.

a page and a half of heart-rending pathos, and then the robot falls off the ceiling with a huge syringe of ‘vaccine’ it synthesized from Krory’s blood because he was the first infected by the...stimulant...egad, that’s not how any of that works.

and then, and then...anyway then everyone was zombies and the boss from China came in off-panel and fixed everything, as you do.

i truly hate you hoshino katsura, all the more for the fact that i genuinely loved about 15% of that parade of neck-wrenching bullshit.

anyway! that’s all over and done with, we are now on a boat being cute, because allen is using the stolen teleportation Ark that only he can drive to open a door between the old Castle headquarters and this...uh...cave? that they’re moving into.

...oh hey Shadow Of Allen (XIV) is now sporting wings remarkably like the ones Krory had during his drugged vampire zombie freak-out. i bet that means nothing whatsoever.

man whenever Leverrierererererer turns up i hallucinate ominous music. smug assholish ominous music. slimier sounding than the Imperial March, you know?

that’s not just my biases, hoshino-san lights the panels very effectively to create that effect. egad, he’s going to be in command??? is that why the move, because it was easier to undermine komui’s authority if he was removed from his entrenched power base?

...we just covered last chapter that that castle was a leverrier family fortress originally tho. huh.

excessively creepy secret Pope police involved in isolating and depowering Allen.

also lol that is very Japanese-style religious magic going on, that is not what a Catholic ritual binding would look like at all. not that they have as much settled precedent, their demon-fighting standards run much more toward ‘make it go away.’

aw shit komui’s right there and he can’t do shit, best he can get is a promise that ‘if Allen is a good child’ he won’t die.

flashback! aw man allen the first lesson mana ever taught you was to make peace with the dead and let them lie. should’ve listened.

...man allen was a grouchy brat. i wonder what color his hair was, before it went white. haha apparently he acquired his adoptive dad by running away from the circus with him.

pfffffft little allen hated clowns, that achieves the level of actual irony...welp, suicide joke.

aw shit mana was too burned out on grief to cry for his dog but allen could, for the doggie that licked his hand once. imma cry now.

whoa actual conversation with Cross Marian! under the supervision of papal ninjas (known as Crow) within a magic cage of paper. and wow! an actual answer to a question! unprecedented!

...it isn’t labeled which of these kids was Mana and which was (the most recent incarnation of??) the Fourteenth but imma hazard a guess that the one with hair that matches little Allen’s is not Mana.

oh also Adam Puddinghead killed the 14th, i don’t think we officially knew that until now? or maybe it came up when he blew up Edo i don’t recall.

oh my god i was definitely bingeing too hard last time; by the time Cross Marian started referring to the 14th in the second person to Allen my capacity to be astonished or distressed was burned right the fuck out. i was just like ‘yeah yeah figured get on with it.’

it’s actually a pretty dramatic scene, but it’s weird to be getting this shit in straightforward exposition after all this absence of any information at all.

wait “the human implanted with” ... “the host for his revival” ... i can’t tell if Cross Marian is referring to whatever the normal noah transfer process is or some way 14 found of circumventing that.

ohhhhhh man this title page has tiny clown Allen and it is the cutest shit ever.

did i ever tell you guys one time when my mom was two and a half, she had her stage debut as the cutest little pigtailed clown? and she ran onstage toward her daddy just like they’d practiced and the whole audience burst into delighted laughter.

and Tiny!Mom turned to look at them in appalled horror, and u-turned right back around and ran offstage again.

no one had successfully communicated to her she was going to be laughed at by a bunch of strangers. possibly they didn’t expect a toddler to mind.

oh sure Cross Marian, tell the kid the horrifying truth about himself and his dad in the most overdramatic way possible, in front of witnesses, and then when he dissociates in horror just beat the shit out of him until he resets.

the amount of playing abuse for laughs in this series is one of the many emotional strains that led me to drop it the first time.

it’s honestly a contest sometimes who i currently hate most, Marian, you or Labradorito or the Earl. Ech.

‘no idea’ tch. but if you’re saying he implanted his memories into Allen before he died, then...the Earl caught up with the 14th really recently, then?! How long were he and Mana on the run? I totally forgot these details, wow. i suspect some of them will turn out to be false.

...why the fuck are you saying it like this? bastard.

wow CM you almost look spooked by the fact that allen cares more about the possibility that his dad never actually loved him than the prospect of having his mind eaten.

maybe he’d care more about the mind-eating if the 14th was the Earl’s ally instead of planning to use allen as a weapon to kill him? allen is already using himself as a weapon to kill the Earl.

oop, way to get him back on target! “what if i told you you’ll kill the people you care about?”

aaaand cut.

that was like ten chapters’ worth of blather, i need to get more efficient.

#catching up with d. grey man #d gray man #allen walker #d gray man spoilers #oooold ones but hey #abuse of power #idiocy #this writing style is PUNISHMENT #and ceasing to read was SELF-CARE #yet i persist #i am stronger than the me of a decade ago #stg #hoc est meum

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goffilolo · 6 years

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Demise of Midoriya Izuku (part 9)

Hi! Happy new year. i hope you enjoy this chapter. It’s much shorter than the last few, but i guess i missed the shgorter format. it also allows me to post more frequently. the whole fic is also on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11557743/chapters/30250017

Another day, another opportunity to piss off your psychiatrist. Because when life gives you lemons you squeeze them to get the juice in Shin’s eyes.

“-now this time I want you to open up a new page in your notebook and fill it with all of your good qualities” said Shin as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

“My what now?” asked Izuku, feeling very unimpressed and maybe slightly sarcastic, but not too much since he already had lunch.

“Izuku!” exclaimed the doctor in his usual halharted threatening tone “we’ve talked about this.”

“No, we didn’t! You talked about this, and I pretended to listen while plotting Endeavour’s murder” said the boy as a matter of fact while flipping through his notebook and pointing to a particular page titled ‘KILL ENDEAVOUR’ to prove his point.

“See? That’s another thing” shouted Shin as he stood up and pointed at his patient “What’s up with your fixation on Endeavour?”

“He’s an ass”

“No that’s not it...I mean it kinda is, but that’s not your main problem. There’s plenty of assholes you could be fixated on, Fuckugou would’ve been a better choice, given that he actually fucked you up, yet somehow…” the doctor trailed off, hoping to achieve a dramatic effect, which was not dramatic, just straight up annoying - according to Izuku at least.

“...somehow, you’re hyper fixated on this one asshole who you’ve never even met in your life, who hasn’t done anything to you, who you haven’t had any contact with whatsoever. You know what I think?” he asked cheekily.

“No, but I’m probably about to find out” said Izuku, rather unimpressed with his doctor’s childish behaviour.

“I think…” there he goes again with the annoying pause.

“JUST GET FUCKIN ON WITH IT!”

“Alright, alright. I think that deep down it all goes back to your father-”

“For fucks sake, Shin not again. Literally every session you bring up my dad at some point. I don’t even know why you want me to talk about him, because THERE ISN’T ANYTHING TO TALK ABOUT! I haven’t seen this man since i was a little kid, I don’t remember shit about him, and yet you fixate on him. Now which one of us has daddy issues, huh?!” shouted Izuku as he overflowed with irritation. The topic of his dad was a bit of a sore spot for him and he knew it. And Shin knew it just as much. So why would he try to poke and pry on purpose, knowing how much it would agitate his patient?

“With you it’s always daddy issues, or mommy issues, it’s such a Freudian thing, you’re practically fixated on it” exclaimed Izuku, trying to divert the attention from the topic, as well as blow off some steam by messing with the psychiatrist “Is there anything you’d like to tell me? Do you perhaps want to fuck Freud?”

“Izuku, what the actual fuck!” shouted the doctor, feeling slightly disturbed by the boy’s mental gymnastics that lead to this conclusion.

“Two can play that game, Shin”

“No, no, no! We’re not doing it, I see what you’re doing and we’re not going off the topic. Back to the problem” said the doctor as he glared at the boy, wanting to get back to the main problem rather entertain Izuku by indulging him in his shenanigans.

“Because your father left so early you now have this internal unresolved conflict that you refer to as ‘daddy issues’ that you simply refuse to acknowledge and deal with, which is why you’re going to be bitter and sensitive about the subject and never be able to move on, unless you actually face it like an adult” said Shin in a gentle voice, one that Izuku has never heard before, and barely recognized as belonging to this man. It was one of those rare moments when shin showed him a different side of himself that Izuku knew meant something important.

“Alright then you Freudfucker, enlighten me about my daddy issues and how do they relate to my Endeavour hatred” said Izuku as he mentally patted himself on the back for coming up with ‘Freudfucker’.

The doctor glared at him, but otherwise did not acknowledge the new insult, insead he opened up his notes about the unruly patient and began to elaborate on the origins of the ‘daddy issues’.

“Due to the distance between your father and yourself there is a gap of some sort where a ‘father’ figure is ought to be. Basically any male figure who you look up to, admire, learn from. When it comes to you Izuku, that gap has been filled by All Might for a very long time, which makes sense if you look at it; it’s a very distant admiration of a person who you have no interaction with, the same way you have no interaction with your father.”

“Ok, that sounds like some Freudian shit, but ok” said Izuku, feeling a bit skeptical, but still curious about where all of this is going.

“After your suicide attempt and letting go of your dreams to be a hero All Might is no longer a centre of your universe, he is no longer an aspiration, therefore the gap remains empty once again. Right now you’re angry, you’re bitter and for good reasons. However there is also this anger towards your father, which you refuse to touch upon or even acknowledge, which caused you to look for another target so to say. I’m not saying you see Endeavour as a father figure, but he’s an excellent scapegoat for your anger as it allows you to both be angry on someone else’s behalf over his shitty behaviour, as well as project your own feelings. Again a distant, one-sided interaction, the same way as with your father, because you simply don’t know how to do it any other way.”

The long winded explanation of the doctor was followed by a pregnant silence as the teen was still trying to process everything the psychiatrist said to him. He felt the usual irritation’ a byproduct of his defences when it came to being analysed to a point where you’re unsure of your own motivations and identity. It felt like being scratched on the inside, knowing that it’s there, but unable to touch it yourself. The vulnerability that came with those sessions was something Izuku will never become fully comfortable with, but he’s smart enough to know that it’s not meant to be pleasant, it’s meant to be helpful.

“What the fuck” said Izuku, softly, but full of emotions that he cannot yet comprehend.

“Sorry, was it a bit too much?” asked Shin sheepishly, feeling that he overwhelmed the teenager.

“A bit is a strong word.”

“Yeah”

The silence dragged on, neither knowing how to continue the session. To be fair the session was almost over anyway. Shin looked at his watch awkwardly, then back at Izuku hoping that the boy will get the hint and end his misery. The man really hated being put in such tense, awkward situations.

“So…” he said, standing up from the chair and heading towards the door.

“Time’s up?” asked Izuku as he slowly started to wheel himself out of the room.

“Don’t worry, we will continue next session. I’m glad that we finally broke through your defences when it comes to the topic of your father. I hope we can make more progress from now on”

“Oh yeah? Well I hope to win a lottery, but life is not a wish-a-bitch” said Izuku sarcastically.

Just as the boy was about to leave the room he was smacked on the head with a clipboard.

“Oi, what did I say before? Don’t get cocky with me. And don’t forget to do what I asked you to. I know it seems silly, but it’s an opportunity for you to look at yourself beyond the image of a ‘quirkless, pitiful boy’ that the whole world around you insists on. You’re more than an extra joint in your foot.” said Shin in that inspirational tone that always irked Izuku.

“We’ll see about that”

………………………………………………………………………………

The next day Shin found a very familiar notebook stuck on the door to his office with a note attached saying ‘did my homework like a good student ;)’.

‘Suspicious’ thought Shin ‘very suspicious’.

He grabbed the notebook and went into the office, already dreading whatever it was he was about to see.

While flicking through many pages of personal thoughts, Endeavour related conspiracies and very graphic drawings depicting the hero’s death, the doctor has finally reached the last page titled ‘The Awesomeness of Midoriya Izuku’.

What followed was a list of ‘good qualities’, most of which in Shin’s opinions would be more suitable in the context have they been titled ‘How to be a perfect criminal’.

‘Superb murder planning’

‘Can sing All Might’s theme song while asleep’

‘Would be a good stalker’

‘No self preservation (survival is for the weak)’

The doctor sighed and closed the notebook, feeling already tired despite the fact that his shift hasn’t even began. This was going to be another long day.

“IZUKU!”

#demise!au #bnha #boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #iyashi shin #fanfic #demise of midoriya izuku

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83gigsof90semocore-blog · 5 years

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Post 4: The letter C

Welcome back! It sure wasn't yesterday, how have you been? I'm fine thanks, been a little busy myself and had to put this project on the backburner as you can probably tell. I alluded to being really busy in the last post and that's been pretty much true for all of the past year. Luckily, things are looking a bit better up ahead so I might actually start posting regularly soon!

Much has happened outside of the blog too. I toyed with the idea of moving this beuat over to blogspot (where all the real emo blogs are anyway) when it looked like tumblr was self-destructing for a hot minute. But in the end cooler heads prevailed and it looks like tumblr is just gonna keep existing albeit with less popularity. In the emo world, 125, Rue Montmartre, the first band I covered about a year ago are releasing their discography on vinyl and are now on spotify. All thanks to my blog, I'm sure. Don't be fooled by my modest follower count

I actually have quite a few prestigious readers. Most notably perhaps being Prof. Anders Ahlén, a man important enough to have his own wikipedia page.

C has been the longest letter so far by far clocking in at a mighty 6.56 GB as opposed to the average of 2.8. I've been listening to it in phases with sometimes a month or more in between so it hasn't really been a coherent experience. It has been a real slog though, which is part of why I gave up several times. This has also been a letter with a great number of "famous" emo bands. Because part of the purpose of this listening experience is to experience 90's emo "as it was" rather than colored by nostalgia or what is deemed worthy of attention by the internet discourse I'm disqualifying bands that are prominent in the emo canon from best name, song or image. I will however still do a quick write up on them for those of you not as familiar with emo, chances are I'll reference them in the future so do take notes.

Emo classics

Cap'n Jazz

It's almost impossible to tell the story of 90's emo without Cap'n Jazz. Among their members they have Tim Kinsella, who would later go on to play in Joan of Arc and Owls, his brother Mike Kinsella who would later play in American Football as well as Owls, Their/They're/There and Owen and also Davey von Bohlen who would later play in the Promise ring. When they formed in '89 they where just a bunch teenagers, Mike being just 12. They released their first album 6 years later which goes by the title Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We’ve Slipped on, and Egg Shells We’ve Tippy Toed Over, but is simply referred to as Schmap'n Schmazz by fans. Most of the lyrics where supposedly written by Tim one night while high on mushrooms. They have a wonderful surreal dadaist quality to them with lines such as Hey coffee eyes, you've got me coughing up my cookie heart or You are colder than oldness could ever be. The music is chaotic and full of a warm messy energy. I am personally absolutely enamored with their cover of Aha's Take on me which I insist on putting in as many playlists where it makes some sense whatsoever. As you can hear, Tims vocals do absolutely not Morten Harkets heights (not an easy feat in Tims defense) and you can plainly hear a teenagers voice falseto-cracking and it's absolutely amazing somehow.

Cap'n Jazz really hit the spot of this awkward sensitive yet punk energy that from the start was very central to emo. Although Cap'n Jazz are a big helping sillier and more pubertal than, say, Rites of Spring.

One popular quip about the Velvet underground is the following:

The Velvet Underground didn't sell many records, but everyone who bought one went out and started a band.

I suppose Cap'n Jazz is a bit like that for emo although their presence was perhaps felt as strongest around 2010 with bands such as Snowing, Glocca Morra and in particular Algernon Cadwallader aping their style.

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Christie Front Drive

I think part of the reason for Cap'n Jazz's status as a cornerstone band stems from their originality. Christine Front Drive is in contrast a very prototypical 90's emo band. They have a sound that borrows heavily from both post-hardcore and indie-rock with the slightly whiny vocals typical for the genre and era. On their song November they sing Still the same // Fucked for what you've done // Still over // Staged over // November's almost done // Still the same which I think is a nice cross section of their lyrics (most of the rest of the song are just variations on the same words with "remember" also thrown into the mix). The overall sound is slow, moody and a bit dreamy, very typical of their brand of emo. As easy as it is to find bands that sound similar to CFD, I dare say that they did it better than most and that this is what has earned them their spot in the emo cannon.

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Cursive

Cursive formed in 1995 and has since been together on and off up to the present day, the drive only has music up to 2005 though. This includes their 2003 release the Ugly Organ which was released by Saddle Creek and is the only one I've heard before starting this project. By that point they had already moved away from their emo roots though, and I'm glad to finally have gotten around to their earlier stuff. The Ugly Organ is artsy, catchy and a bit baroque, but also definitely on the outskirts of emo to the point where I'd perhaps describe it as an indie/alternative album if I wasn't talking about them in the context of emo. This doesn't mean that it isn't worth a listen because it absolutely is. Their early stuff is more typical of what the rest of the drive is like with a sound more in the ballpark of CFD but much more punk, with a higher tempo and angrier vocals while still maintaining a somewhat whiny voice, introspective lyrical content and the cold, big guitar sound typical to this branch of emo.

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My favorite band

Car vs Driver

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So far I've generally picked bands that stand out a bit because in a long stream of relative sameness, that's what you end up paying attention to. Car vs Driver is however not one of theses bands that stand out but rather pretty typical of the emocore sound. They do it pretty well though. They are undeniably punk, but with more introspective lyrics and a slightly melodic edge, which is exactly how emo was first conceived. One some of their tracks like the featured Without A Day day even flirt a bit more with an alt-rock sound but they also have songs that are a lot more hardcore like Livid Step.

When researching them I half expected them to be a pretty substantial band that I had somehow managed to miss, but they're actually very unheard of, something which I consider to be a shame.

I did however find that the drummer of the band has a blogspot at beyondfaliure.blogstopt.com where he catalogs various bands he's been a part of. There is a collection of Car vs Driver flyers as well as two live recordings and this summary he wrote for their discography

Car vs. Driver began when I was 17 years old. By the time we played our final show, I was 19. This band was the music of my life during a period when people usually experience the greatest amount of freedom, which is what I think of whenever I listen to this music now. There were so many new experiences: living on our own, meeting new people, getting a new perspective on life. Our lifestyle in turn gave us a new perspective on expressing music, and we poured all of our energy and emotion into it. Music that now seems a world away – music from a different life. It’s hard to remember that everything about being in a band at that time was simply making a 7”, buying the cheapest van you could find, and touring the country for the summer. There was no infrastructure to build your music around, which also removed its barriers. Instead of running our band like a corporation, we played peoples living rooms and basements, engaged in kickball tournaments, made record covers out of manila envelopes, slept on top of our van, cooked pasta, and played with some of the most amazing bands in the process. Bands that epitomized the time – like Spirit Assembly, Policy of 3, Friction, Current, The Yah Mos, Assfactor 4, Frail, Hoover, Freemasonry, Scout, and Inkwell. The experience we had is something that could never be recreated, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been a part of that moment in time. Thank you Matt, Steve, and Jonathan for bringing this to me.

James Joyce August 2004

This compilation is dedicated to our faithful roadies Ashley Lawrence Moore and William Anthony Nation.

We froze, sweat, bled, argued, and laughed.

Amazing stuff in all, I can highly recommend clicking around their for a while if you, like me are a bit obsessed with the 90's emo scene.

My favorite band name

Christopher Robin

Christopher Robin is a screamo band that go pretty hard. The name is a funny contrast to this and the juxtaposition between childhood nostalgia and angsty screaming works really well.

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My favorite picture

Featured is the cover to a demo tape by french screamo band Cather Mathra, which features songs such as Ils M'ont Oubliés (they forgot me) or Leur Révolution (their revolution). You can read more about them on psychoviolence, a blog dedicated to French punk & violence. I think that using a medieval (?) drawing for a cover is pretty cool, especially if you're a french screamo band.

Curiosly they don’t have any music on youtube, you’ll have to check out the drive if you want to listen to them. Tumblr has a limit of 5 embedded videos anyway, so that worked out nicely I suppose.

#emo #emocore #cap'n jazz #cursive #christie front drive #car vs driver #christopher robin #cather mathra

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aeschylusresigned-blog · 7 years

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all of them

((I’m guessing you mean the mun thing because I didn’t reblog anything else and if not and you’re just sending all of them out of context then wh o o boi I just put myself through An Ordeal for nothing.

☯ Is there a muse you’ve always wanted to play?

Yes! Nepeta!!!! I’ve always wanted to play her but I don’t have the confidence because I lack proper grasp of her character.

♣ Is there an author(s) that you look up to with your writing skills?

Ooo yes definitely. Beloved, for one, has the most amazing prose I have ever seen. I’ve learned a lot from their writing and I still aspire to someday be able to write something as breathtaking as their works. Quenive as well has spectacular writing and their stories and dialogue flow so well and j u st ohmy g od.

♧ Is there an RP partner(s) that you credit for becoming a better writer?

Definitely. I would say it was all of the people I’ve roleplayed with before that allowed me to develop Hal so much. The people in my old group chat definitely helped me flesh out different aspects of Hal that I could play (ie: sadist demon while still managing to be an angsty know-it-all) and the spontaneous connections on parp really helped me figure out how to play Hal in stupid situations while still keeping him ic.

♥ What’s your favorite ship with your muse?

Ha ha h a,,h,a,,,,wh ee zes

♡ Would you ever write a poly ship?

If anyone were actually interested in writing a poly ship with me, then yes definitely.

♦ What’s an AU that you’ve always wanted?

Oh boi there are just s o m a n y. That one godstuck au maybe. That would be fun to play out. Also the generic vampire aus I am weak for them. There’s also the au’s I’ve made that would be fun to play out but they’re difficult to explain. Merstuck au’s are also amongst the favorites to play along with dragon rider au’s I love me my fantasy genre. Whoops that was more than one but listen ok I want a lot of AU’s.

♢ What’s an AU that you think just won’t work with your muse?

Hmmm I’m not sure. I can’t think of any at the top of my head but any AU that revolves around Jake probably wouldn’t work well with Hal.

♔ What’s your opinion on teacher/student verses? Do you have any of these as threads?

I’m not personally a fan of them and I can’t say I see the appeal but if that’s what rocks another person’s boat then I’m not going to be the one hating on them. As of the moment I don’t have any as threads.

♕ Do you like magic!anons? Why or why not?

Yes!! They’re a lot of fun and I always think throwing the unexpected at my muses is the greatest thing ever.

⚜ What is the best time to write for you? Why?

Late afternoon or evening because that’s the time I’m awake and Functional and have actually thought of Creative ideas to write.

★ What type of historical AU would you like to do one day?

Maybe something based on the Renaissance period? Or the classic medieval period. Ancient Greece would also be fun to play out.

☆ What type of fantasy AU would you like to do one day?

There are many. Just, anything that is fantasy I probably want to do it. I’ve never really tried the whole AU with the fae/faeries so perhaps that would be fun to look into.

☄ Do you think your muse would have liked going to high school sports games? Do you or did you go to high school sports games?

Nope, he wouldn’t be interested in the actual sport. Going to see hot guys though? Definitely. I don’t generally go on a day to day basis because I understand like nothing. If a friend wanted me to go or a teacher was giving extra credit for me to then yeah I’d go.

☾ Do you like writing smut? Why or why not?

I have actually never written smut so I can’t really say. I think it’d be difficult for me to having had no experience whatsoever with anything relating to smut.

☽ Do you like writing angst? Why or why not?

Yes and no. Yes because I love to make my muse suffer and it’s great and fun to throw Tragic headcanons to my rp partner and to watch them suffer(not really) a well. No because,, I am a simple person,, who wants my muses to be happy,, and roleplaying angst fucking h u r t s.

☼ What’s an FC that you’re dying to use? Why?

Uhhhh???? I don’t really have one of a Real Life Person but I pretty much draw my own interpretations of Hal so? That probably counts maybe.

☀ What’s an FC that you desperately want to play with? Why?

See above.

☁ What’s an FC that you refuse to play with? Why?

See also above.

☂ How does your muse spend a rainy day? How do you spend a rainy day?

Napping against the window sill lulled to sleep by the gentle patter of rain falling upon the glass is how he spends a rainy day. I, on the other hand, spend it indoors on my laptop like I do every single day.

☃ If your muse was cartoonized, what would their FC be? Why?

???????

☺ What’s a character that you desperately want your muse to play with? Why?

Any of the robots. Literally any. I hardly ever get interactions with any of the robots it’s kind of sad.

☹ What’s a character that you refuse to play with? Why?

There aren’t any I would refuse to play with but there are some that I prefer to not interact with. This is due to the fact that either I or my muse or both dislikes the character and roleplaying with them would actually require more effort on my part.

☢ Are there any ships that you would like to write for one day? Any that you wouldn’t?

There are definitely ships I would like to write for one day because I’m a sucker for that really. There are also ships I wouldn’t but I’m not going to get into that because I don’t want to be involved in The Discourse.

☣ What’s one thing that will make you drop a thread?

If a mun godmodded my character or forced their character onto mine, probably.

♨ What’s a muse that you wished had lasted, but didn’t?

Mmm can’t really say I have one. All of my main muses stuck with me. I guess there were my OC’s that I used to rp with my friends but it’s not that much. I do wish that my friends and I could have lasted in rping with each other tho.

❀ Do you like reblog karma? Why or why not?

Assuming I have the correct definition of reblog karma, yes. It’s nice because it’s like a win win scenario. Everyone gets asks in their inbox and it’s kind of just polite y’know? Like a tip of the head “I see you like this rp meme just as I do so I’ll send you something so we both can enjoy it.”

✿ Do you have a mun FC? If so why did you choose that as your FC, and if not who would you choose?

Nnoot really? I have my own drawings of how I depict myself through my art if that counts.

♪♩♫ Does music inspire your muse? What’s one song on your playlist that reminds you of your muse?

Sometimes but not really. He doesn’t listen to music for inspiration, more of to fill the gaps of silence that occasionally settle in. Gasoline definitely reminds me of Hal. Definitely.

✂ Do you like to format your posts? Why or why not?

I like when other people do because it’s aesthetically pleasing and it’s so nice and spiffy. I, personally, don’t like to because it’s a pain in the ass and I only have so much patience.

✆ Other than RPing, what’s a hobby of yours?

Drawing! My icon and header is drawn by me so-

✉ Do you RP on any other platforms?

Does Parp count? Sometimes I use cherubplay too but not too often because the people there intimidate me.

❤ Have you or are you currently in love?

Romantically, probably not if you get what I’m hinting at. ;)

❥ Has something ever happened for you to hate a ship? Why?

Hoooo boi you can bet on it. Let’s just say an extended encounter with a really Toxic Roleplayer And Person In General has led to me disliking basically any ship involving a certain character.

ツ Who has been your favorite muse to play so far? Why?

Hal because he’s such an asshole I love it. I don’t generally get to be mean but man with Hal I can be as petty as I want.

回 Which muse was the worst to play? Why?

There was this once I tried to roleplay Dave and it just. It went terribly wrong I had no grasp on his character and I still don’t. Never again.

✘ People come in a group. If I were to look on your blog, who would I see you interacting with the most?

@timaeustestbed this one. This one @documentingsatan has also been taking up a lot of blog interaction lately too. Though they’re both the same people.

ღ Do you have a personal blog? Do you share it with your followers or do you keep it private?

I do! It’s linked right on my “mun page” lmao.

▼ Do you keep your character in character even if they are one of the worst people in the world?

I would like to think I do because Hal is objectively one of the worst people in the world. Though, I’ll admit I do a lot of justification for Hal’s actions from Hal’s point of view because Hal doesn’t see himself as a villain. Just a terrible person. I am also very soft on Hal and he probably acts happier than he should.

▽ Why did you create this muse?

True story but when I finished reading Homestuck I was like “shit I need to pick a character to roleplay” because that’s just what I did. I like to roleplay and Homestuck was such a large fandom that it was bound to be Fun to roleplay. There were many Failed and Subpar attempts to rp some characters on parp and I just couldn’t find a character that clicked, y’know. I tried John, Dave, Karkat, Jade, Rose, Dirk and just nope. And then. On a random spur as I scrolled through the available options in the Parp menu I saw “Lil Hal.” Of course, at the time, I only clicked it because I had thought I exhausted all other resources and if I fucked up everyone else why not fuck up this character I knew nothing about it (and I mean literally nothing about. I used to hate when Hal started talking in the comic because I thought it was so damn annoying). But surprise I was?? I was good at rping him?? People liked my shitty depiction of Hal. So I read more about Hal and how to play him and he just grew on me and here I am today.

#ask memes #ooc #this was long and ardous #anon

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furynewsnetwork · 7 years

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LISTEN TO TLR’S LATEST PODCAST:

By Joshua Philipp, Epoch Times

There are multiple investigations into whether a foreign power interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. They began with allegations of Russian meddling, yet have taken a new turn with the revelation that the Obama administration was monitoring the communications of the Trump team, possibly for political reasons.

Former national security adviser Susan Rice, responding to a question about whether she had sought to unmask the names of members of the Trump campaign or the Trump transition team, told MSNBC she had not done so “for political purposes.” Rice claimed later in the interview that any unmasking that she ordered was done for national security reasons.

Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees are now calling on Rice to testify on whether the gathered intelligence was used improperly.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Twitter that Rice “needs to testify under oath.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that there is still no conclusive evidence showing the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia, saying, “I don’t think we can say anything definitively at this point.”

The investigations into Russian interference pull from a legitimate concern that a foreign power may have interfered with the U.S. presidential elections. This was initially based on suspicions that WikiLeaks, an information-leaking website, had released emails that may have been stolen from Hillary Clinton’s aides by Russian hackers.

It carried an additional component, however, that is now beginning to unravel—the idea that the Trump campaign may have had a hand in the leaks.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told ABC News on March 6, that in his investigations into Russian interference in the elections, conducted under the Obama administration, “There was no evidence whatsoever, at the time, of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.”

Michael Morell, who has served as deputy and acting CIA director, arrives to testify before the House Select Intelligence Committee on April 2, 2014. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Obama’s acting CIA chief Michael Morell also stepped back on his initial hardline that the Trump team may have colluded with Russia, and said at a March 16 event, according to NBC News, “On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke but there is no fire, at all.

“There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it.”

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is currently investigating whether Russia interfered in the election, are starting to quell expectations. BuzzFeed News said it spoke with more than six individuals involved in the investigation, both Republicans and Democrats, and noted that “there’s a tangible frustration over what one official called ‘wildly inflated’ expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation.”

An official told Buzzfeed, “I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations.”

Emotions on Overdrive

The 2016 elections were hard on most Americans, to say the least, but they were especially difficult for Democrats, who were told up to Election Day that Trump stood no chance against Clinton—only to watch this fade away on election night. And they were told again that the electoral college could flip its vote and Clinton would still have a shot, only to again be disappointed.

There is a huge disparity between the amount of evidence that is cited in news stories and the charges—they’re overcharging, if there is any evidence at all.

— William McGowan, , author, ‘Gray Lady Down’

Many major news outlets, meanwhile, have hunkered down on the idea that the Trump presidency is not legitimate, and the Russia probe has become their last bastion against Trump.

This has led to a style of reporting that has blown many findings out of proportion, and that has failed to put information into its accurate context. At the same time, many of the ongoing controversies are based not on new evidence, but instead on new comments about old evidence.

President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on, Jan. 28, 2017. Also pictured, from left, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“There is a huge disparity between the amount of evidence that is cited in news stories and the charges—they’re overcharging, if there is any evidence at all,” said William McGowan, author of the books “Coloring the News” and “Gray Lady Down” and a former editor at Washington Monthly who has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other national news organizations.

William McGowan, author, ‘Gray Lady Down’

McGowan said that while he’s not a fan of Trump’s antagonistic style, he has found the coverage and commentary on Trump to be “strikingly biased, and much more successful at expressing fear and loathing than in encouraging an understanding of the man and his movement.”

He noted that in their coverage, many news outlets take the road of misquoting Trump, then using the misquotes to denounce him. As an example, McGowan cited a video in which Trump allegedly—as The New York Times put it in their headline—”calls on Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails.”

The press conference video is widely cited by major news outlets as evidence that Trump was tied to WikiLeaks’ releasing of stolen emails from the Clinton campaign.

Taken in context, however, Trump’s statement was very different from how it has been framed. At the time of the press conference on July 27, 2016, WikiLeaks had already started releasing the stolen emails, and news outlets were already trying to accuse Trump of being tied to the leaks. Trump condemned Russia’s actions, saying, “Russia has no respect for our country,” and said that if a foreign government was behind the leaks, it was a “total sign of disrespect for our country.”

Reporters continued to press Trump about the leaks, however, and continued to accuse him of being involved—without evidence. Trump then responded, “What do I have to get involved with Putin for?”, and then accused the reporters of bias and double standards, asking them why they weren’t similarly holding Clinton accountable for her missing emails. He then stated, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

News outlets then began widely circulating clips of Trump’s ending statement to allege he called on Russia to hack Clinton.

McGowan said, “What you have is a shred of a statement or utterance, and the media takes a huge leap from that.”

According to Ronald J. Rychlak, a lawyer and staunch critic of Russia, people tend to draw incorrect conclusions when they start looking at issues from an existing assumption. Rychlak co-authored the book “Disinformation” with Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official who ever defected to the West.

In legal cases, Rychlak said, there are checks and balances on burden of proof and on cross examination. With accusations spread in the news, “reporters get to set their own standards.”

“Some evidence is inconclusive,” he said, noting that if you approach an investigation while already assuming that one party is guilty, then “your starting assumption is going to determine your ultimate conclusion.”

Carter Page

There are at least three investigations into the Trump–Russia connection by the FBI.

In addition, Congress has five standing committees and one sub-committee investigating Russian interference in the election as well as contacts between Trump’s team and Russian officials.

Rep. Schiff said during a March 20 testimony to the House Select Intelligence Committee that at least four people involved in the Trump campaign are being investigated: Carter Page, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone.

Page was allegedly named a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, although Trump’s campaign staffers deny this. He was accused by Schiff of doing business in Russia—specifically with Russian oil companies Gazprom and Rosneft. As with most major companies in Russia, the oil industry is largely controlled by Russian oligarchs, and company CEOs typically have relations with the Russian government.

Page, an oil industry consultant, is the founder and managing partner of Global Energy Capital, a New York investment fund and consulting firm that specializes in the oil and gas industries in Central Asia and Russia.

Michael Flynn

Flynn is arguably the most controversial figure in the investigations. He allegedly wants to testify to the House and Senate committees to explain his case, but has also requested immunity.

While his request looks bad—suggesting he broke the law somewhere along the line—it likely ties to legal issues that are already known.

Flynn is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama from July 24, 2012, until Aug. 7, 2014. He later served as an adviser to the Trump campaign and started as Trump’s national security adviser on Jan. 20.

Flynn served as adviser for just 24 days, before he was removed from the position on Feb. 13. Flynn said he resigned, and Trump said he was fired.

Flynn was accused of lying to Vice President Mike Pence, claiming he did not discuss Russian sanctions during a call he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislya before Trump took office. It was revealed in intercepted transcripts from the Obama administration that Flynn did discuss sanctions.

In his resignation letter, Flynn apologized and said it was not intentional. He said in his resignation letter that “in the course of my duties as the incoming national security adviser, I held numerous phone calls with foreign counterparts, ministers, and ambassadors.” He said the calls were to ensure a smooth transition for the Trump presidency and that “because of the fast pace of events,” he had unintentionally provided Pence with “incomplete information.”

Schiff also accused Flynn of receiving $33,750 from Russian television network RT, which receives part of its funding from the Russian government, for a speech he made in Moscow in 2015. The Trump administration said Flynn did not disclose his payments from RT.

In March, Flynn registered as a foreign agent lobbying for Turkey. His firm, Flynn Intel Group, was paid $530,000 by Netherlands-based firm Inovo BV, which is owned by Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Most of this was already known. Online news portal The Intercept reported in Nov. 2016 that Flynn Intel Group registered as a lobbying entity in September 2016, and in that same month, Robert Kelley, the company’s general counsel, registered as a lobbyist for Inovo BV.

Flynn may be in hot water over both of these issues—mainly on the grounds that he failed to disclose his RT payment to the Trump team and that he did not register himself as a foreign-agent lobbyist in the Turkey deal.

Paul Manafort

As for Manafort, he and Stone both worked for the Trump campaign—Manafort as campaign manager and Stone as an adviser. Both are professional lobbyists with the Washington-based lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly.

In August 2015 Trump fired Stone, while Manafort resigned in August 2016. Stone claimed he quit, but the Trump campaign said he was fired because, according to CNN, “We have a tremendously successful campaign and Roger wanted to use the campaign for his own personal publicity.”

Schiff has accused Manafort of long being “on the payroll of pro-Russian Ukrainian interests.”

According to The Associated Press, Manafort worked with a Russian billionaire to “greatly benefit the Putin government,” which took the form of a $10 million annual contract with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, chairman of Basic Element Co.

Put into context, however, Manafort’s deal with Deripaska started more than 10 years ago in 2006 and ended by 2009 at the latest, according to AP. It notes that by 2016, the relationship between Manafort and Deripaska had gone sour, and during the 2016 presidential campaign, “Deripaska’s representatives openly accused Manafort of fraud” and were trying to recover money from him.

Manafort is also accused of working with the Russian government through Ukraine. This accusation concerns his having worked with Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine, who was pro-Russia.

Manafort’s lobbying firm, Prime Policy Group, lobbies U.S. Congress on behalf of foreign governments. It was formed in a 2010 merger between Timmons & Co. and BKSH & Associates, and its members have many political connections—both Republican and Democrat. Charles Black Jr. was a senior adviser to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns, and later to George H.W. Bush. Peter Kelly, also in the firm, was an adviser to Al Gore and Bill Clinton.

Roger Stone

The case against Stone was also outlined by Schiff on March 20. He claimed that Stone communicated with Julian Assange, head of WikiLeaks, which would later publish emails of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, and that Stone also communicated with the hacker behind the leaks, Guccifer 2.0, who has been inconclusively accused of working for Russian intelligence.

Stone did communicate with Guccifer 2.0 over Twitter—but it was close to a year after he was fired from the Trump campaign and at a time when the leaks were well underway.

In August 2016, Twitter had reinstated Guccifer 2.0’s account after suspending it for leaking private information on Democrats when the scandal over Clinton’s missing emails was running hot. Stone told Politico on March 27 his message was just to send him a “high-five saying, ‘Glad you’re reinstated,’ because I’m against censorship.”

Stone made his full Twitter discussion with Guccifer 2.0 public on March 10, showing he sent three short messages. The first two were in August 2016, and said he was glad his account was reinstated, then asked him to retweet an article on how the election could be rigged against Trump. His third message in September 2016 was in response to a story Guccifer sent to him via Twitter direct message, to which Stone replied, “Pretty standard.”

Stone claimed he communicated with Assange on Aug. 8, 2016, again close to a year after he left the Trump campaign. According to FactCheck.org, “Stone later clarified that he never spoke directly with Assange, but that the two have a mutual journalist friend,” and that the journalist told Stone that Assange was going to release emails on Hillary Clinton in October.

Schiff also alleged that Stone predicted Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta would fall victim to a cyberattack and have his emails published, before it happened. Schiff’s statement was based on a tweet Stone published on Aug. 21 that said, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary”

He sent the tweet after WikiLeaks had already begun publishing documents on the Clinton campaign, close to a year after he was fired by Trump.

Stone later clarified his tweet in an interview with Breitbart News, saying it was in response to political attacks about Manafort’s business deals with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

He said the tweet was meant to predict that Podesta’s own business deals with Russia would be exposed. This was related to information leaked in the Panama Papers, which unveiled, according to The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the “rogue industry” that hides money for politicians and criminals.

The Clinton Campaign

Stone’s reference to Podesta was also pointed to by Trump, who alleged other connections between Russia and Clinton’s team.

Trump tweeted on March 27, “Why isn’t the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech … money to Bill, the Hillary Russian ‘reset,’ praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company.”

According to the Observer, the Panama Papers showed The Podesta Group, co-founded by Podesta and his brother, company chairman Tony Podesta, has lobbied Washington on behalf of Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank. Tony Podesta is a registered lobbyist for Sberbank and was a top campaign bundler and contributor for Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Observer states Tony Podesta worked for Sberbank to “help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector.”

Fox News reported that in 2011, Podesta joined the board of Massachusetts-based energy company Joule Energy, and two months later, a Russian company invested close to $35 million into it. The Russian company was Rusnano, a joint-stock company owned by the Russian government.

Podesta claims he disclosed his 75,000 stock shares in the company and transferred them in January 2014, before he became counselor to Obama that same month.

In another case, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 by Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital, owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, for a speech in 2010, according to Hillary Clinton’s financial disclosures.

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton shakes hands with President Barack Obama as former president Bill Clinton looks on at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2017. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

According to PolitiFact, some critics of the Clintons suggest the speaking fee “might have been an attempt by Renaissance Capital to curry favor with the State Department,” since Renaissance Capital was involved in a deal to obtain Uranium One, an international mining company headquartered in Canada but with operations in the United States, that supplied close to 11 percent of U.S. uranium in 2014.

Around the time of Bill Clinton’s speech, the State Department—under Hillary Clinton as secretary of state—had to sign off on Renaissance Capital’s bid to gain a controlling stake in Uranium One. The New York Times reported in April 2015 that as the bids were approved from 2009 to 2013, “a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation” that totaled $2.35 million.”

Falsified Cyber Reports

During the presidential transition in December 2016, former president Barack Obama ordered an investigation into the possibility that Russia helped Trump win the election. This produced two reports, which Obama rushed to the public before Trump was sworn into office on Jan. 20.

The first report, from Dec. 29, 2016, from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), began with a disclaimer that it “does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.”

The report dedicates less than three pages to the allegations that two hacker groups breached the DNC’s networks, and breaks up these pages with large infographics showing how basic cyberattacks work. It then shows a list of nicknames given to alleged Russian hacker groups by the cybersecurity community, and then dedicates the remaining pages to tips on how companies can guard against cyberattacks.

The 13-page report alleges that Guccifer 2.0 is actually two hacker groups, and at least one breached “a political party.” The report fails, however, to show any conclusive evidence to support this claim.

It also turned out that much of the work in the FBI report came from investigations of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which recently revised and retracted some of its initial conclusions that Russia was behind the cyberattacks.

Part of the Russia connection was from a CrowdStrike claim that it found evidence the Russian government hacked a Ukrainian artillery app, which shut down Ukraine’s howitzers in its war against pro-Russia separatists. This proved to be false, however. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said the hacking never happened, according to Voice of America, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies disavowed the CrowdStrike report, noting that contrary to claims, CrowdStrike never contacted them.

Malicious actors can easily position their breach to be attributed to Russia, and that even hackers with the most basic skills can do this.

— Report from the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

CrowdStrike was hired by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to investigate who hacked its accounts. After one day of analysis, it concluded the attacks were from “Fancy Bear” and “Cozy Bear,” nicknames cybersecurity researchers have given to alleged Russia hacker groups.

The problem with CrowdStrike’s findings is they were based solely on the tools the hackers used, the traits of the targets, and similar information.

Guccifer 2.0, the hacker behind the leaked emails, issued a statement on Jan. 12 stating the accusations of him being tied to Russian intelligence are “unfounded” and noted that “any IT professional can see that a malware sample mentioned in the Joint Analysis Report was taken from the web and was commonly available. A lot of hackers use it.”

“It’s obvious that the intelligence agencies are deliberately falsifying evidence,” he stated.

Many cybersecurity experts have pointed out similar issues, noting none of the information in the reports is conclusive, since any hacker can spoof such attacks by simply using the same tools and methodology of a known hacker group.

A report from the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) says, “Malicious actors can easily position their breach to be attributed to Russia,” and that even hackers with the most basic skills can do this.

It adds, “It would be easy to baselessly declare that all of the attacks were launched by Russia based on the malware employed.”

To make things still more complicated, the method that CrowdStrike used to identify the alleged Russian hackers looks at the same information that the CIA can allegedly spoof. Under the CIA’s UMBRAGE group, revealed by WikiLeaks on March 7. The CIA maintains a digital library of attacks and techniques from various hacker groups, so that it can use these methods to launch attacks while framing known hacker groups.

WikiLeaks noted in a press release that the CIA’s UMBRAGE files included attack profiles of Russian hacker groups, which could be used to leave falsified “fingerprints” for cyber forensics investigators.

No Evidence of Collusion

The next report was released on Jan. 6 through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which collected analysis from the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency (NSA).

It alleged that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election.” The keywords here are “influence campaign.”

The evidence presented by the 25-page report consists almost entirely of news articles from Russian news outlet RT. Its says the Russian government favored a Trump victory, and the state-funded RT reported favorably on Trump and negatively on Clinton.

The report’s core claim to foreign interference is on the grounds that RT news articles received traction in U.S. news outlets and social media networks.

Of course, similar analyses could be applied to any foreign official who openly supported or decried a U.S. presidential candidate, and whose comments received broad media coverage. Most foreign leaders, including in Canada and Europe, took an opposite stance from Russia and openly supported Clinton and decried Trump.

The report also made broad allegations based on classified evidence that was not made public. The nature of the classified information was later released by BuzzFeed on Jan. 10, and was shown to have come from a 35-page dossier collected by a former British MI6 agent who now runs a private security business.

When the “highly classified assessment,” as the government report called it, was made public by BuzzFeed, even BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith wrote, “There is serious reason to doubt the allegations.”

The narrative has since unraveled, as was revealed by James Clapper, who led the investigations as director of national intelligence under Obama, during a March 5 segment of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Clapper said, “We did not include any evidence in our report (and I say, ‘our,’ that’s NSA, FBI, and CIA, with my office, the director of National Intelligence) that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. We had no evidence of such collusion.”

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politicalfilth-blog · 7 years

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Demonizing Russia: The Psychology And Consequences Of Neo-McCarthyism

We Are Change

The American public is being conditioned to fear and hate Russia, but why?

Article via SCG

This article is not intended to alter your position in regard to Donald Trump in any way. Whether you love him or hate him isn’t an issue of global importance, nor is his political survival relevant to this analysis. Some of the tactics being used in the push to take Trump down however, are.

The Stakes

Before we dive into the quagmire that the topic of of Russia, Trump and the 2016 elections has become, it behoves us to anchor to the stakes: Russia is a nuclear power. The demonization of foreign nations is a precursor to war, and even a limited conflict between the United States and Russia would kill millions (if not billions) of people; rendering much of the planet uninhabitable for decades. Using U.S. Russian relations as a political football in this context is foolish and irresponsible.

The Trump Variable

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign made tying Trump to Russia a central pillar of their messaging strategy. This line of attack was predicated on comments made by Trump over the years expressing respect for Putin. For example:

“Look at Putin – what he’s doing with Russia – I mean, you know, what’s going on over there. I mean this guy has done – whether you like him or don’t like him – he’s doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period,”Trump to Larry King on CNN – October 2007

“I think I’d get along very well with Vladimir Putin. I just think so.”Trump – July 31, 2015

Clinton used these and other statements to weave the narrative that Trump is “Putin’s puppet”. The mainstream media, and left-leaning blogosphere took that narrative and ran with it. Those who didn’t were labeled “fake news”, and attacked as collaborators. The goal was to capitalize on existing anti-Russian sentiment by attaching it to Trump and his supporters (and to pressure those on the fence distance themselves).

This wasn’t just innuendo. Take this headline from Buzzfeed for example: Trump Supporters Love Russia And Think CNN And The New York Times Are “Fake News”. Or this one from TheWeek: Why are Republicans so blindly backing Trump over Russia?

This is an age-old political tactic. Guilt by association and honor by association (aka acquired equivalence) may be logical fallacies, but they are highly effective… most of the time.

Studies have shown that not only does guilt by association transfer negative sentiments from an individual who is disliked to the target in question, but also to anyone associated with them.

The pairing of a target with a (dis)liked person not only affects the evaluation of the previously neutral person but spreads to other individuals who are (pre)associated with the target (spreading attitude effect).

This line of attack got plenty of traction on the neoliberal left, and from the old neocon contingent led by the likes of John Mccain (which have long pushed for a confrontation with Russia) but elicited virtually no response from Trump’s base. Why? Because Trump supporters don’t view Putin as the boogie man the corporate media has worked hard to depict him as. They view him as a conservative, a brilliant strategist, and a strong leader. They don’t see him as perfect, but they consider him to be better than Obama (and by a long shot).

Obviously a lot of “progressives” take issue with that perception, and have found it very frustrating that they were unable to roll over that obstacle as if it wasn’t there. Their response to this, and to other similar failures, has been to declare that we are living in a “Post Truth Era”. That’s a topic in and of itself, but for those who have paid close attention to geopolitical developments over the past eight years, the irony is thick.

The Russian Hacking Allegations

When the 2016 election didn’t go as expected people were looking for someone to blame. Of course blaming Hillary for being a terrible candidate (any honest progressive will acknowledge this), or for running a terrible campaign, was out of the question, and of course they couldn’t acknowledge that the backlash over the DNC’s shut down of Bernie Sanders played a role. So of course they blamed Russia.

Now playing loose and fast with the facts for political purposes is a mainstay of American partisanship, but when foreign policy gets thrown into the mix, and “leaders” start accusing a nuclear power of “an act of war” the facts matter.

As of today, many months after the election, no one has put forth any evidence that Russia hacked anything related to the election whatsoever. None. The closest thing anyone has even resembling evidence is the word of CrowdStrike, the company hired by the DNC to investigate their servers, after someone released emails showing that Democratic party officials had been working behind the scenes to discredit and disable the Bernie Sanders campaign.

There are several problems with the CrowdStrike angle however. The first problem, is that the DNC refused to allow the FBI to look at the servers themselves. The FBI instead just took their word for it. The second problem is that CrowdStrike has a SIGNIFICANT conflict of interest in this situation. Google is a major stakeholder in CrowdStrike, and Eric Schmidt the Executive Chairman of Alphabet (the parent company of Google) was working directly on the Clinton campaign effort. He was providing tech assistance, he drew up her campaign plan, and he was even photographed wearing a “staff” badge in an exclusive area during election night.

Eric Schmidt wore "Staff" Badge at Clinton Election Night Party https://t.co/UEcDfjBNAg pic.twitter.com/SkiBpHDr5v

— LeslieP (@less_tx) November 16, 2016

This doesn’t pass the smell test, at all.

Furthermore, the anti-Russian angle peddled by CrowdStrike was premised on the “fact” that the malware used in the attack was of Russian origin. As any security expert will tell you, once malware is used in the wild, anyone can pick it up and use it (including other state actors).

CIA steals other groups virus and malware facilitating false flag attacks #Vault7 https://t.co/K7wFTdlC82 pic.twitter.com/Z0nat1Lqsv

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 7, 2017

To bolster their claim, CrowdStrike attempted to draw parallels to a supposed hack on Ukrainian artillery communications that used the same technique. That however, blew up in their face when both the Ukrainian military and the International Institute for Strategic Studies came forward to debunk their assessment.

Then there is the fact that Wikileaks has been very clear about the fact that their source was NOT Russian.

“We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party,”

The rabbit hole on this topic goes deeper, and clearly there is room for a lively debate, but it takes a willful act of intellectual dishonesty to treat it as a slam dunk case where the villain is clearly defined.

Anyone who has studied crowd psychology knows that one of the most important principles of ideological contagion is repetition. It doesn’t matter if something is true or false. If you repeat something enough times people will start believing it. Once an idea becomes an accepted belief, it takes on characteristics of religious orthodoxy. To question becomes heresy.

The quote below is characteristic of the anti-Russian rhetoric and conspiracy theories that have been parroted endlessly after the election.

But what would be illegitimate, and perhaps even treasonous, is an effort to soften American policy toward Russia’s actions in its near abroad without a clearly stated policy rationale and in return for help from Russian intelligence in defeating a domestic political opponent. “Promise to help us in Ukraine and we’ll help you win against Hillary Clinton by releasing stolen emails that make her look bad”: That and other possible acts of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign are what the FBI is investigating.Damon Linker – The Week

The trouble with these kinds of accusations, is that once enough people believe them, they have a way of taking on a life of their own. Demands for investigations into Trump’s links to Russia were made, and balls got rolling, but they didn’t find what they were looking for.

“On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all. There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it.”Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell – (A prominent Clinton Backer)

The Ukrainian And Syrian Variables

The demonization of Russia didn’t actually begin at the Ukrainian crisis of 2014 or even during the Syrian crisis. There were always a few crazies in the back of the room (like John Mccain and Mitt Romney) pushing the narrative, but no one was listening to them.

However Russia’s successful defiance of the U.S. in Syria and Ukraine triggered the equivalent of a temper tantrum on the part of the U.S. and European ruling elite. Obama in particular got egg in the face several times during these crises, and this created an emotional link for those who were committed to supporting the Obama administration no matter what. Russia had made their leader look bad. Therefore Russia was an enemy. This phenomenon is an expression of the pack instinct. The Alpha must be protected at all costs.

The counterattack became a question of repetition and psychology, rendering the facts irrelevant. Rather than acknowledge that over 95% of the Crimean people voted to reunite with Russia in a referendum that no one has been able to discredit in any meaningful way, or the fact that under international law, the right to self determination is a valid premise for such a reunion, the mainstream media blurred the issue with a simple slur, parroted endlessly: Russian aggression, Russian aggression, Russian aggression.

The Long Term Consequences

The short term political utility of tying Trump to Russia has blinded many on the left to the long term effect such a strategy is bound to have. Consider for a moment the implications of an entire generation being raised in the United States right now marinating in news and commentary which frames Russia as enemy number #1 (or #2 depending on where Trump supposedly fits). The facts and specifics won’t matter to these formative minds. It all boils down to sentiment. This sentiment can (and likely will) be used in ways that those fomenting it never imagined.

A recent poll by Reuters found that a stunning 82% of Americans now view Russia as a threat. This is a ticking time bomb.

It is a strategic error to assume anti-Russian propaganda will always work in the favor of the political left. Remember the original Mccarthyism. Neocon Republicans like John Mccain and Mike Pence would like nothing more than a chance to clip Putin’s wings, and in the right context that’s exactly what they would attempt to do. By linking Russia to Trump (arguably one of the most hated political figures in American history) the left is unwittingly laying the psychological groundwork for war.

If and when the moment comes where a Republican president decides to escalate tensions with Moscow (by direct or proxy intervention), “progressives” will find themselves in an extremely uncomfortable dilemma: either they get carried along with their enemies in the wave of anti-Russian sentiment they helped create, or they try to reverse tack and play opposition.

Reversing tack wouldn’t be easy under any circumstances, but it the midst of a crisis it would be all but impossible, and such protests would be easily shot down with snippets of their own words. Hypocrisy is after all, a vulnerability in and of itself.

This article first appeared on StormCloudsGathering.com and was authored by Aaron Hawkins.

The post Demonizing Russia: The Psychology And Consequences Of Neo-McCarthyism appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change https://wearechange.org/demonizing-russia-psychology-consequences-neo-mccarthyism/

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