#government functionality

[kp777]

Rightwing activist helps fund ‘predatory payday lenders’ in supreme court case

Excerpt:

The rightwing activist Leonard Leo has helped fund a network of groups involved in a crucial US supreme court case that could fundamentally weaken the federal government’s ability to hold corporations to account, a leading watchdog said as the conservative-dominated court prepared for its new term.

#leonard leo #dark money #u.s. supreme court #anti democracy #republicans cheat #government functionality

[ireallyamabear]

The choice to put Una Chin-Reily on a Starfleet recruitment poster in the late 2370s seems a nod to the extraordinary person she is and her exemplary service, but Boimler’s enthusiasm for her as a personal hero cannot mask the fact of what Starfleet execs are really doing here: while it is Starfleet tradition to honour esteemed personnel from its centuries of history, we have to look at the poster as a product of its time: it seems clear that, shortly after the devastating death toll and the rapid militarisation of the Dominion War, putting a prominent figure of the Great Exploration Age - and notedly someone who had not served in the Klingon War - as the poster person for Starfleet is an indictment that contemporary young people of the Federation are not drawn to the service as it is in their time anymore.

Critically, Starfleet has to use somebody from a 120 years ago, a timeframe that would lap generations of even especially long lived member species like Vulcans or Denobulans, to attract new recruits. Boimler says himself that seeing Una as a representative and her motto - “Ad astra per aspera” was: “Uh, it was a really big reason why I joined.” Clearly there is a wealth of recognisable Starfleet officers from 2370 and onwards, but their entanglement in the Dominion War, or at least in the Borg threat makes them unsuitable as role models for people like Boimler who cannot help but associate these contemporaries with the horrors of war and intergalactic conflict. Thus, the retreat to a “safe” historical narrative, with Starfleet still being about peaceful exploration reflects the growing divide between the realities of a colonised galaxy, the ongoing need of new bodies to fill the posts on all those ships and space stations and the aspirations and values of young people today. In this essay I will question whether Starfleet can keep its promise of scientific integrity in the face of growing political unrest in the UFP and ask what “Number One” herself would have thought about-

#i loved what the poster meant for una but really it IS kind of weird #like maybe if there is a series of posters #but especially picard establishes this growing resentment and whispers of plexits (planet exit) political problems in the UFP #which I KNOW are bc writers write what they see #but also...cant we not have nice things in the future. like a functioning united system of government #anyway imagine little boims or tendi seeing the news of the dominion fleet coming through the worm hole? #they should explore that. more. #star trek #snw #snw spoilers #una chin riley #number one #lower decks #brad boimler #bradward boimler #ufp #starfleet #mp #strange new worlds #star trek strange new worlds #star trek snw

[balkanradfem]

I've managed to curate my small misogyny-free space both online and in real life, and now I'm no longer used to misogyny, it's no longer normal to me. So when I accidentally glimpse it, I'm not desensitized to it, I'm always shocked and unbelieving.

If I notice a m*n talking about a woman like she's 'just some ***' I'm immediately aware that this is in fact a demonic creature who needs to be burned. If I see anyone using a slur against women or pretending women are at fault for any of the world's issues, the hair on my neck stands up at the unbelievable amount of hatred.

Anyone implying that women should be in any way controlled, punished, forced to do anything against their will or dedicate their lives to anyone but themselves, is preposterous and villainous to me, I'm at loss that someone could even think that way about a half of the human population who are creators and administrators of life.

I know I am in a bubble, but it feels different knowing deeply in your heart that all of this is not normal, that casual or normalized hatred against women is absolutely insane, that it's sharp and painful and dehumanizing at every turn. It's insane to realize that women just have to live like this, believing all of that is normal, that I once lived like this, wondering what was wrong with me and why I couldn't just be what everyone was expecting me to.

I think still, if I can make a small space without this hate present in it, without anyone or anything implying we should be anything but free, anything but full complete human beings with absolute control over our lives, then we can strengthen and grow these spaces, and get more women in, have more women experience what life is like when hatred is removed. There is hope for women.

#radical feminism #sensitized to misogyny #i know its everywhere but i have no contact with males #and only communicate with women who see the world trough the female perspective #so yeah misogyny free experience rn!!! #except for you know #healthcare jobs government institutions #but i just pretend these things are not there #so they can't bother me in my safe space #i was not meant to change the system from the inside #i was made to create functional spaces outside of it all #so there would be a refuge #and from a refuge we can build community #>:)

[whetstonefires]

okay i like the 'wei wuxian is adopted' jokes as much as anybody, but i do see people taking that premise seriously and like

it's kind of pivotal to the narrative that he wasn't, actually?

adoption is, within the setting, a specific, deliberate process with legal repercussions. people can be formally adopted. that exists. he was not.

adopted wei wuxian would have been in a vastly more secure situation; his ambiguous hovering position where he's simultaneously a nobody-orphan with no formal connections and part of the upper echelon of society is definitional. it's what allowed things to fall out the exact way they did.

adopted wei wuxian could not have walked away from jiang sect so easily; he would have been jiang wuxian. adopted wei wuxian would have been a sect leader candidate, when jiang cheng was out of the running because of wen zhuliu. adopted wei wuxian would have had actual status.

the fact that he's their brother but not on paper drives a significant amount of his jiang-sibling-related plotlines!

adoption would have made a huge difference at a whole bunch of junctures, and it was technically an option on the table that was not taken.

i bring this up for a lot of reasons but also because like. adoption and marriage have a lot in common, as formalized transfers of someone into a family.

there were good reasons for wei wuxian to not get adopted! (also shitty reasons that nevertheless presented valid constraints.)

there are much better reasons of a similar nature for lan wangji not to marry him. to deflect, to try to have it both ways. but they get married anyway.

the fact that our MC is coming into this from a lifetime of his familial bonds being informal and unrecognized and lacking any legal status and vulnerable to summary dissolution while still of passionate importance is not, i think, irrelevant to the novel culminating in a fuck-the-haters gay marriage.

#hoc est meum #gay marriage is not legal in china #it's also not a thing in this particular fantasy historical china but they do it anyway #a power move i appreciate more the more i think about it #this also ties into my thoughts on how it's necessary to several of the themes #for there not to be a functioning imperial government #mdzs #meta #adoption #marriage

[rottmnt-residuum]

Helloo!! I wanna ask about something from Arc 1 Part 18 to 20, what does the chip do? Is it a tracking device?? (The chip that they are putting in Donnie's brain). sorry if this had already been asked

but, to be clear... the tag and the chip are very different

#residual asks #you guys usually pick up on the stuff i put down #with one very notable exception ahaha #but thats because you guys are expecting a very common trope in government horror stories that i didn't realise i'd be slightly subverting #stuff being twists when i didn't think they'd be seem to be a pattern with me ahaha #anyway. the chip having a tracker would be very redundant considering the chips main function #not that it doesn't have a tracker. it does #its just superfluous

[stoat-party]

“How dare they burn everything the Courier loves to ashes!”

*imagines my courier reacting to watching everything she loves burn to ashes*

“…that’s some good stuff. you got me this time todd.”

#at this point i do think the horrific continuity snarls were incompetence instead of malice #especially with how lovingly they animated vegas at the end #so i can’t really integrate it into canon in my head but i’m also not mad at it #the show itself? not my cup of tea. but i’m chill now #might still step away from the fandom though because eesh. war never changes huh. #fallout: new vegas #new vegas #fallout nv #fallout new vegas #fnv #courier six #fallout #fallout amazon #fallout series #fallout prime #fallout show #fallout spoilers #fallout tv show #fallout show spoilers #fallout prime spoilers #fallout tv spoilers #fallout Amazon spoilers #fallout series spoilers #unfortunately my courier’s story requires her to have been imprisoned in shady sands from 2285-2289ish #so that’s gonna be a problem #could make it another city but the ncr needs to have a semi-functional government at least

[blueskittlesart]

I get the impression from your posts that you don’t think there’s a future where Zelda would end up queen of hyrule (I can see where her becoming queen would undermine her entire arc of getting freedom from the painful expectations of princess/chosen etc), but how do you think that hyrules government will work beyond that? Is the population recovered enough for that to even be something established within their lifetime?

honestly, based on what we see in other games, hyrule was never REALLY a proper monarchy. I think it's pretty likely that the hylian monarchy was functionally a symbolic one, especially by the time that botw rolls around. in most games in the franchise, hyrule is largely made up of sort of mini single-race societies that function by defaulting to whatever small tribal government they happen to have. With a kingdom technically made up of multiple different species, each with their own differing cultures, customs, and even lifespans, it makes much more sense to have small governments united in name alone. i think any genuine attempt at true united government of such widely varied and relatively isolated races would not end well for hyrule (can you imagine being a hundred-year-old zora and being told that you have to listen to laws made by hylians who have been alive for a fraction of the time you have?? no way.) But by having a technical alliance under the symbolic hyrulian royal family, all of these races reap the benefits of alliance amongst each other while maintaining their relative independance. This is why most of the villages in hyrule are race-isolated and have their own governing bodies--the zora have a king, the rito, gorons, and gerudo have chiefs, and several of the hylian/sheikah villages have mayors or other governing bodies. these are the actual, functional governments of hyrule. the royal family serves both symbolic and practical purposes as a symbol of the kingdom's allyship and as an entity that can build, maintain, and direct a widespread military force (and i think there's also definitely a religious element to their rule over hyrule, as literal descendants of god in-universe,) but other than that it isn't doing a whole lot of actual governing. (the exception to this rule is MAYBE post-wind-waker on the new continent, and maybe immediately post-sksw, specifically because in both those cases the hyrulian royals would have needed to take a more active governing role in order to rebuild the country.) so with that in mind, I think botw and totk make it pretty clear that this method of small government works pretty well for hyrule. I think the most zelda would EVER be is a sort of ambassador between villages and races, especially as hyrule becomes more intermingled in the aftermath of the calamity. small democratic government largely appears to be working for hyrule and for zelda in totk, so i think that's the road she would choose to continue down rather than attempting to reinstate a monarchy that never actually did that much in the first place.

#hyrule's government is fascinating to me bc like obviously the hylian monarchy isnt REAL bc not a single other race in the country actually #defaults to their governance. even the sheikah have their own village governments in most games #the zora literally have their own secondary monarchy despite also supposedly being under hyrulian governance #so like it's fairly obvious that the hyrulian royals are symbolic/religious leadership and nothing more #EXCEPT for when they're building an army. that's the only true power they seem to have #and i think that's probably to do with the religious aspect. i think the reason a symbolic monarchy was able to build an army like what the #did in botw is because they were functionally fighting a religious war against. the devil. lmao #anyway. yeah #asks #zelda analysis

[punkitt-is-here]

how do you go about getting DEI training? i wanna work in counseling w other queer ppl at some point in the future, and DEI training seems like it'd be vital to doing smth like that

It was part of my job to do some of it, actually, and I know some college classes actually count as it. I took a class on Race and Power that really opened my eyes to intersectionality with oppressed groups! If you get the chance and you're in college, even a community one, I guarantee there's probably at least SOME classes that'll cover most of the ground you're looking for. I would specifically advocate for classes that discuss things like race and power, because understanding how race intersects with other things like gender, sexuality, culture, and presentation is IMO vital to understand the big picture of how we're all affected. I think a lot of the time we can get hung up in viewing things like queer rights, racial inequity, and class as completely separate entities or isolated issues, but in reality they're all super connected and understanding those connections is going to let you understand basically everything surrounding it as well.

#its also why im so chill #like i know queer infighting doesnt fucking matter in the slightest #because ultimately we are all under capitalism and a queerphobic government #and one that needs groups of people to be oppressed to function #so like. i dont care what labels you use homeboy #we're in this together #my posts #asks #anon

[cyber-corp]

And now, a Dubya Shoe Sunday special:

George W. Bush: What the fuck was he?

I cannot tell you coming from someone who was born in Australia during his second term how fucking bizarre George Bush was. But I can try.

First of all, the Bush doctrine, which defined his whole run. According to Wikipedia, "the principles include unilateralism and preemptive war." Imagine being so unbelievably sure of yourself that the Middle East are planning "weapons of mass terror" that Wikipedia states "Oh yeah. That was his main thing. Starting fights without knowing fuck all."

But of course, you can't make the decisions of a madman without speaking like a madman. There's a reason there's a whole article on "Bushisms". Here are some of my favourites:

"Welcome to my hanging." (At the unveiling of his presidential portrait, 2008)

"You work three jobs?....Uniquely American, isn't it?" (Nebraska, 2005)

"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." (Washington D.C, 2008 (side note: what does that fucking mean))

Who voted for this man? What did he say that persuaded them? What the fuck was happening over there? Were you all alright? Do you want a drink? Like milk and cookies or something?

This has been a Dubya Shoe Sunday special.

Fuck Bush.

#dubya shoe sunday #to all the americans reading this post #you have my empathy #you could always come to australia #we have a semi-functional government #gecko boy

[autismserenity]

It's been incredibly difficult to hear from Palestinians in Gaza, not to mention center their experiences and platform their voices. Because ever since Hamas violently kicked the Palestinian government out of Gaza in 2007, it's denied Palestinians the right to free speech.

(Here's Palestinian human rights activist Hamza Howidy sarcastically wondering why Hamas isn't stopping the theft of humanitarian aid when it had the power to arrest him for a social media post within 4 hours.)

I'm working on a series of posts of Palestinians to platform. I came across this thread from someone who used Snapchat to talk to people in Gaza, so I thought I'd post it here in the meantime.

I've seen videos of Palestinians talking about not being able to evacuate because "Hamas has closed all the roads," a video of a Palestinian telling the IDF that Hamas has a car blocking the Salah-al-Din road (the evacuation route) and is pointing guns at people and telling them to turn around. But even as someone searching for Palestinian voices and looking for information about this, I hadn't heard that Hamas had been killing civilians trying to evacuate. (And probably reporting their deaths as part of the daily total.)

I mean, just the fact that the Gaza Strip is run as a separate country from the rest of Palestine is a huge barrier for Palestinians. It's hard to be accepted as a full member of the UN when your country functionally has two or three different governments.

(Confusingly, the PLO is considered the government of Palestine internationally. Abbas is the president of both PLO and the Palestinian Authority, so it sort of works as long as nobody has an election. But the fact that Palestinians have been denied an election for 18+ years, because Abbas keeps cancelling elections and Hamas is Hamas, is also a pretty big fucking problem.)

But it's also true that a huge number of the people in the Gaza Strip, while obviously having a big problem with the Israeli government, have at least as big of a problem with Hamas.

And for all of our decades of talk about Free Palestine, in the progressive movement, we pay shockingly little attention to that.

#you don't need rights #fuck hamas #free gaza #free palestine #free palestine from hamas #hamas is evil #no but seriously why the fuck are palestinian politics so confusing tho #ngl i didn't find out they have three (3) governments until a couple of months ago and i almost screeched #how the fuck is anyone supposed to have a functional country when its leaders are like you just need uhhhhh (checks notes) three times the g #"and also maybe like. we could throw a violent coup in there and then just like totally suppress everyone's political rights and oh yeah. #“zero times the elections. perfect!” #like seriously i have an entire unnecessarily long post in me just about how badly the palestinians have been fucked over by their leaders #pretty much ever since britain showed up #ANYWAY #wall of words

[pencilofawesomeness]

when you’re a genius but cursed older brother and you have terrible grief coping skills regarding the death of your little brother, but to wildly different outcomes

(meanwhile Natsu and Ortho are in the back, trying to figure out whether or not Natsu can eat lasers. he cannot)

#fairy tail #twisted wonderland #fairy tail x twisted wonderland #yes I am still on my bs #zeref dragneel #idia shroud #if I had a nickel for everytime this happened.... #though I do find the comparison hilarious #like two cursed dudes who effectively run or can run the shadow government #and one of them is a really good older brother #and the other decided let the curse take its course and then chucked his brother at a dragon and cut all contact #obviously zeref's curse is worse but #seeing mavis function hits home how bad zeref was at managing lmao #also I am vetoing idia's jacket it is a nightmare to draw

[vordemtodgefeit]

within less than 24 hours:

iconic, truly

#now get rid of truss #this government is somehow even less functional than johnson’s administration #uk politics #ukpol

[layzeal]

so i was thinking back to some discussions on the watchtowers jgy built and whole "was there some insidious motivation?" "was it money laundering?" etc etc but imho these questions are not only unfounded but also neglect one point it was actually brought up in the book about them: "why weren't there any watchtowers near yi city?"

#basically it's not ''the government is installing mind control in 5g towers'' #but ''why isn't the government installing internet access in places that need it the most'' #and ofc the answer in the novel is that yi city was xue yang's playground and jgy was allowing it #to test the reconstructed yin tiger tally away from public view #sometimes the government isn't actuvely DOING something and that's the problem #you need to look in what they are neglecting and why #''were the watchtowers evil?'' nah man they were fine and very important and functional #so functional in fact that they couldn't build one near yi city or it would have exposed them #this was inspired by the ''grandmaster of public infrastructure'' tweet that makes me chuckle all the time #modao #lace speaks #mdzs

[veerbles]

hot take but I fully do not support the 'kaz becomes king of ketterdam by ascending to a position of power equivalent to a literal king' because. do you even know kaz. that is the WORST idea lmao. for his benefit and also ketterdam's benefit and frankly also for several other nations' benefits

but while on most days I trust in captain inej ghafa and believe maybe ketterdam can be saved, other days I think: actually maybe kaz SHOULD burn his city to the ground 🙃 let them dismantle the government and build literally nothing in its place. a little anarchy couldn't hurt that fucking city at this point. it's not a good solution it's just a funny one

#six of crows #kaz brekker #in ck kaz says he's going to build his empire and then burn it and I'm CONVINCED it's foreshadowing for a possible sequel #but can't make up my mind what it's supposed to hint at #and honestly sometimes I get so angry at kerch that I'm like. #maybe overthrowing the council and then fucking off without building something new isn't such a bad idea #you definitely could USE a functioning governing body but I think it'd be funny if you just. didn't have ANY. how much worse could it get

[evidently-endless]

[complicated feelings about home country]

#objectively. a shithole #the job selection is appalling atm. zero opportunities in any fields i’d like to get into #haven’t had a functioning government in years place essentially just does not work #but it’s my home and my family are here :( #personal

[blackerthings]

everyday in America feels like a state of impending doom. the amount of shit this country has done and continues to do worldly, is insane. the fact that when shit finally does hit the fan it'll be everyday people just trying to survive who'll suffer the most... is worse.

#take Biden first #and the government last #and leave us out the middle #literally cannot stand it here #it's really giving pre ww3 and we gotta be so lax about it daily cause otherwise how would we function #but literally wtf