#not that any of these problems are the fault of the west wing lol

[princesssarcastia]

thinking about the tragedy of The West Wing tonight. thinking about how jed bartlet convinced josh lyman to work for him, before they ever met, by telling the truth even when it cost him political points. thinking about how bartlet massively betrayed the trust of the people working for him, and also kind of did defraud the american public!

thinking about how even when american liberals write their wet dream political fantasy they still can't get anything done. thinking about how the bartlet white house got so stymied politically the show spent more and more time writing convoluted military plotlines, because they'd hit the ceiling of their own political imagination.

let bartlet be bartlet, they said, and bartlet wanted to lie. he compromised on his agenda and his values. he promoted moderate positions and people. he sat there and watched everything he'd worked for be unwritten by a maverick republican speaker.

the most interesting moment in the back half of the show is when bartlet attains some kind of meta-level awareness of his own ineffectiveness and sends the government into a shutdown because he can't bear to play politics by the rules anymore. but it only lasts for a few episodes before it's back to business as usual.

"Filling another seat on the court may be the only lasting thing I do in this office," Bartlet says, and he's right. yes, they negotiated that deal on social security, but they couldn't take credit for it and that was it! that was their one thing!

no, don't go after the KKK and other white supremacist groups. no, don't publish that study about the necessity of sex education. don't do anything. espouse some grand ideals and watch as they're slowing crushed by the political machinery that YOU are operating.

it's best epitomized long before aaron sorkin left, in a half-overheard exchange happening in another room.

BARTLET: I couldn't disagree more, Cal. As long as these people are funding their public school districts with property taxes, neither the value of the schools nor the value of their property is going to go up. It's a vicious circle. It's terrible and it has to be stopped. CAL: So we're going to do something about it. BARTLET: I wouldn't go that far.

That's a real issue that we need a real solution for. But instead of reaching for the stars, the west wing decided to stay right here in the dirt where our current system has left us. and here we still sit, together, over twenty years later.

#west wing #we are trapped by our own lack of radical imagination #not that any of these problems are the fault of the west wing lol #im not charging them with that #but it is emblematic of everything that's wrong with liberals

[atamascolily]

lily watches fma:b, eps. 62-64

Okay, when we last left off, the Big Bad was running around half-naked in a bathroom smiting people in a knockoff young!Hohenheim body, and 50 million people in Amestris had a really shitty day being devoured alive for their life energy before being miraculously restored to their still-breathing bodies by a not-quite-deus ex machina.

hohenheim challenges father to create something and he spits out humans from Xerxes--including the asshole king whose greed destroyed his entire country and people who RECOGNIZE HOHENHEIM.

[like, the trauma here!!!]

[I also like JUST NOW REALIZED that Greedling is the same character archetype as Grimmjow from Bleach - an aggressive, hyper-macho asshole who is a surprisingly fun character to watch break things?]

[FURTHERMORE both 03!Greed and Grimmjow had the same Japanese voice actor, LOLOLLOL]

greed and olivier have a pissing contest, lol

al's body is destroyed protecting may - good thing he's got another one waiting in the wings!

and then it's everyone takes a turn at father - first the briggs soldiers, then roy with hawkeye guiding him, armstrong, lan fan,the chimeras, etc,etc,

roy is so weirded out by being able to cast without a circle, LOL.

father tries to eat greed for more stones

ed swooping in in to defend greed is GREAT

so is watching izumi fight!!

anyway, they finally wear father down to the point where God can fight back and Father vomits him back up again.

... which makes him literally a zombie staggering around for "stones"

ed's automail is shattered, and he's pinned down - al, realizing his armor is cracked and his blood seal is about to break, gets May to make a circle so he can swap out his body for Ed's arm.

it works and ed goes absolutely feral on father.

(the fact that he still looks like hohenheim probably helps ed, tbh)

everyone cheers him on and greed is like "oh, yeah, all I really wanted was FRIENDS,"sob

greed sacrifices himself to keep ling yao from being eaten by father and it's so heartbreaking, everyone loves u greed

greed is like, yeah, kid, lan fan has a stone, take 'em and go home and be emperor of xing like a boss

greed: so epic he gets to die TWICE in this show. AND WE'RE SAD BOTH TIMES BUT THIS ONE IS WORSE.

greed transforms father's body into graphite (using his Ultimate Shield ability) but gets crushed by father.

ed slams a hole in father's chest and all the philosopher's stones leach out of him and then... the black grabby shadow hands emerge from the same hole and pull him back wherever he came from...?

[ngl: I don't get WHY that works, but okay.]

and of course, he gets to monologue about how he just wanted to be free without any constraints, which gets hohenheim all emotional.

Father is back to his flash form in the Gate World and he calls Truth "God" and asks why he didn't like him... and truth's like "because you're a greedy little asshole, that's why"

father is sucked back into the open gate by more grabby shadow hands and says "no, I don't want to go back" implying that this is, in fact, where he came from because the Xerxes alchemists were fucking around with stuff they shouldn't have been.

father is screaming and truth's like, "why? this is TOTES what you wanted, isn't it?being one with god?"

meanwhile, hohenheim offers his own life in exchange for al on the grounds that he was  a crappy dad.

true, sir, but also ed is having none of it

anyway, ed offers his own gate and ability to do alchemy as trade for al's body and truth's like "Sure, yeah,why not"

turns out that even once they've won, hohenheim is still brooding and depressed over father - he blames himself because it came from his blood? Like, dude, there are a lot of things to blame yourself for and you pick the one that REALLY ISN'T YOUR FAULT?

armstrong thanks him for ed and al saving the day and hohenheim bursts into tears and walks off... and goes to resembool to die on tricia's grave?

like, did he even say good-bye to his kids? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, HOHENHEIM?

pinako finds him dead at the grave, and tbh, i'm disappointed she doesn't punch him out anyway like she promised

"goodbye, my weird immortal friend"

Anyway, umm... that's basically the end, but let's wrap up with the "where are they now?" final episode!

somehow ling is emperor because he has magic people juice to give the current emperor, which just... seems like it might lead to problems, given what happened in xerxes? Just sayin’. But he’s going to take care of May and her clan, so I guess the show’s just going to sweep that under a rug and pretend it’s fine!

[ling definitely got the best character development of anybody along with Greed]

marcoh shows up with a philosopher's stone, which Roy agrees to use to rebuild his eyesight and also Havoc's legs, which just feels a little too deus ex machina for me, and also kinda shaky ethics here. but roy's okay with it because he's going to rebuild ishval, so...

and apparently scar is gonna be there, too? still forever grumpy, though.

grumman is fuhrer now (??!!) because roy and company are rebuilding ishval, so I guess all that talk about war crime trials was just for show because that sure isn't happening now that they won.

[I'm still bitter because it should have been Olivier!!]

Mrs. Bradley is raising Pride/Selim, who seems perfectly normal, even though Grumman says they'll have to kill him if he does anything evil. Mrs. Bradley says, "I'll make sure he doesn't show anything," which is kinda ominous to me? Like this woman would do anything for her kid. If Pride DOES get out of hand, she's not going to tell anyone.

[also I'm bitter that Pride gets to live and Greed DOESN'T, sob]

Ed and Al hang out in Resembool with Winry for two years until they get restless and go off on adventures again--but separately. Al goes to Xing with Jerso and Zampano (who have suddenly decided they want their original bodies back after being fine with it for the entirety of the series).

That's fine, since Al and May are very definitely a thing, but Ed goes west--which we've never heard from in the entire series--by himself, to research alchemy after sacrificing his ability to DO alchemy. I CALL BULLSHIT.

Winry goes with him to the train station and Ed is so fucking tsundere, I cringed just watching him.

(but also it was refreshing to see a male example of this trope and it was super-cute when he started blushing)

BUT ALSO his proposal is based on "equivalent exchange" - "I'll trade half of my life for half of yours!" - which is simultaneously the nerdiest thing ever and also YOU'RE NOT AN ALCHEMIST ANYMORE, ED, STOP.

Winry says that's stupid, she'll give him all of it,and then starts negotiating to 85%.

but given that Ed is LITERALLY RIDING OFF here, I gotta wonder how the math works out.

A random woman asks why Ed's leaving if he's in love with Winry, and Winry says something about how men left at home cause trouble (which implies she's fine with a long-distance relationship). THIS FROM THE GIRL WHO GOT MAD ABOUT BEING LEFT BEHIND ON *SEVERAL* OCCASIONS IN THE SERIES.okay.

In the credits, we see Ed and Winry have two kids, so... Ed has LITERALLY BECOME HIS FATHER, wandering the earth while his wife raises two kids alone. WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

I just have... questions.

Like... no. Just no. Ed stayed home and he was a great father to his kids, full stop. He did NOT repeat the cycle; he was a much better person than Hohenheim and he proved it by actually BEING THERE FOR HIS FAMILY WHEN THEY NEEDED HIM.

people say fma03 has a downer ending, but this one bums me out WAY more because it feels so ooc and contradicts a lot of stuff that the show has spent so much time building up to.

i am just left feeling very “meh” and also “what was the point of it all?” which is probably not a great place to be after finishing a story.

#fullmetal alchemist #lily liveblogs

[awed-frog]

If I may ask, what do you think of the whole sea watch 3 mess? And indeed of the whole migrant situation in Italy?

Well - I have messy thoughts about that. Mostly I’m angry, disgusted, worried and pretty hopeless about the whole thing.

As a recap for people who haven’t been following this (complicated stuff ahead, so I don’t claim to be right about everything): 

1) In 1990, the EU decided on how to deal with migrants by drafting the Dublin Regulation, which came into effect in 1997. The idea was charmingly simple: people seeking refuge in Europe should ask for asylum in the first European country they got to. Optimists claim it was difficult back then to imagine any complications, since immigration was very low and European countries still had borders and everything else, but in hindsight, you have to wonder why countries like Italy agreed to this at all. You obviously can’t get to Germany or the UK without crossing through Italy or Spain first, so the Dublin Regulation was bound to cause huge problems. The other ridiculous thing is that the Italian government that signed this was headed by Andreotti, a nearly immortal ghoul princeling who’d been in politics since the 1750s and had been implicated in at least two murders.

(He’d also been found guilty of collaboration with the mafia, but was let go on a technical detail.)

2) In 2011, Muammar Gaddafi, ‘Brotherly Leader’ of Libya, was killed. We still don’t know exactly what went down - more on that in a second - but a general problem the West has in the Middle East and Africa is that we tend to support dictatorts, no matter how brutal, because it’s just easier to do business and get our way with one greedy and corrupt person than it is to deal with an entire Parliament, but the risk we overlook, time and time again, is that all-powerful dictators tend to become more and more ambitious and form their own plans, which may or may not align with Western interests. In the case of Gaddafi, Hilary’s emails (I know, I know) seem to indicate the real reason the West - and particularly France, as in former President Nicholas ‘I’m the son of an immigrant but he was the right kind of immigrant’ Sarkozy - suddenly got annoyed with Gaddafi is that Gaddafi was planning to introduce a new banking system in Africa - a thing that would rival the CFA franc. 

(That’s a currency used in fourteen African countries which is basically a leftover from French colonialism - it’s managed directly from the French Treasury, and that gives France more or less full control of those countries’ economies). 

So anyway, NATO got all tough on Libya, Gaddafi was killed, and as a result Libya is now a failed state with - if that’s possible - more human rights violations than before - particularly relevant for your question is a very harsh treatment of black Africans (down to and including literal ‘slave markets’ where people are bought and sold, also torture camps and everything in between). This happens partly because it’s lucrative af, and partly because there’s been bad blood between ethnic Arabs and black Africans for generations.

So, aynway, that’s the general context. What happened next is what we’ve seen for the last few years - an increase in the number of immigrants coming to Europe, therefore an increase of the number of deaths in the Mediterranean, therefore widespread panic leading to 

immoral and unethical deals with people like Erdogan (I say ‘people’, lol)

a sharp rise of the extreme right and 

a general inability to welcome those desperate enough to come here and offer them a decent life.

Most recently, Italy’s far-right Interior Minister decided to close down the harbours to prevent NGOs-operated rescue ships from docking. The Sea-Watch 3, which was carrying 42 migrants, decided to ignore this and go to Lampedusa, in Sicily - the closest and safest harbour. Now its captain has been arrested, but it’s unclear what will happen next.

If you’re asking me what do I make of all this - I don’t know. It’s a mess. 

For instance, there are studies showing that if NGO ships patrol international waters, the crossing gets more dangerous, because people smugglers don’t bother finding good ships - they know they just have to get migrants off the coast of Libya, and someone will pick them up. This means more risk for the immigrants themselves, and more money for the smugglers. But on the other hand, no rescue ships there means no help at all, so if something goes wrong, those people are doomed. The same ‘yes but’ applies to many other issues concerning migration. Like, a lot of migrants coming in (and these are people who were left with nothing, including ID) means more of them disappearing into thin air, because of the badly-organized and overcrowded camps. We know thousands of them end up exploited by criminal gangs - in Italy, a particularly brutal business is managed by the Nigerian mafia, which trafficks thousands of women into prostitution and terrifies them into obedience thanks to ‘black magic’, but there’s also agricultural workers, people forced into drug trafficking, kids who end up homeless and so on. Another major problem is that - other than the Syrians - the immigrants who got to Europe over the last decade are difficult to integrate into the legit labour market because they lack the necessary qualifications. Most of the European is now tertiary-based, which means you need some kind of post-high school diploma to do anything, and research shows about half of those coming here didn’t even finish primary school.

(To be very clear: I’m not saying this is in any way their fault, or something that can’t be fixed. But: it does encourage a battle of the have-nots, as people at the bottom - including chunks of the native population, immigrants from Eastern Europe and more recent immigrants from the rest of the world - compete for those few and miserable options open to them, like run-down housing, meagre welfare checks, and a handful of jobs you don’t need qualifications for.)

On top of that, many migrants would need a lot of support, because they escaped from horrific situations - not only those torture camps in Libya, but everything else you can think of: civil wars, political persecution, brutal rapes, whatever - that’s also something that has a cost no one wants to cover. And finally, since coming to Europe is so dangerous, most immigrants tend to be young men on their own - which is exactly the ‘worst’ group of people in any culture.

(Sorry if that sounds bad, what I mean is - we know that for whatever reason, young men everywhere tend to be more reckless than other social groups, and that increases the chance for risky behaviour - especially when the person is not ‘kept in check’ by a well-structured community. Thus, a young man without family or friends is more likely to make stupid or dangerous choices - for himself or others - than, say, a middle-aged father or a young woman.)  

All of this, as daunting as it is, could be solved - after all, this is not an invasion: it’s numbers we can manage - but probably won’t because:

1) There’s some interest in keeping the situation as it is. More migrants means more political success for right-wing and extreme right parties, not to mention huge profits for a lot of people.

2) Right now, the EU can’t agree on anything because of reasons. 

3) Nobody wants to do the right thing, ie treat Middle Eastern and African countries with a modicum of respect and actually support them and their development instead of propping up whatever strongman is convenient and robbing their citizens of whatever isn’t nailed down.

4) The countries on the EU borders have their own issues and right now it’s very hard to imagine those issues ever going away. Like, under many respects Italy’s basically a failed state that relies on the goodwill of half its citizens to keep trudging forward. It never rooted out clientelism, corruption, or tax evasion - plus, it still hasn’t defeated its own mafias, and despite an exceedingly brave and dedicated bunch of policemen and judges (plus all those ordinary citizens risking their necks every day by saying no and living an honest life), the battle against foreign mafias (like the Albanians, and more recently the Nigerians) is probably a task beyond its means.

So, well - sorry this turned into a novel. I guess what I think is - I admire people like Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete and everyone else who volunteers and fights for the most vulnerable, and I think the current government is a disgrace, but ultimately immigration is a political problem whose only solution is the usual solution to everything else: more courage, more competence, more transparency; less inequality, less greed, less corruption. More democracy, and a democracy operating without the (overt and covert) influence of powerful lobbies. Less support to dictators, fair wages for workers and fair prices for raw materials - even if that includes higher prices for Western consumers. And, above all, more regulations and less power to corporations and stakeholders.

Very few people actually want to leave their homes, but if we keep forcing them out, then they’ll keep fleeing - with all the consequences that entails.  

#ask #sea watch 3 #carola rackete #immigration #italy #eu #sorry for the lack of sources #it's still very hot here #my brain's melting #but everything is googlable #there shouldn't be anything weird at all #long post for ts #somehow the 'cut here' doesn't work anymore?? #sorry guys! #you can press j to skip things though

[filmery]

Stream of Consciousness

from Iron Man

****WATCH OUT FOR LOTS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS****

fav marvel opener- flipping comic book pages -never read any whoops

no one is wearing black- back in black

sexist- driver woman

rdj is =iron man

peace sign kid holds- he dies so thats why tony does peace sign

"older guy cant work camera" clishe

uggggh shaky camera

why was he with the troops/ not in helicopter?

zoom into bomb fast- GREAT fast comedic moment just before sadness

he shud not have been conscious after explosion that close

WTF IS THAT UNDER HIS SHIRT WTF- IFITS ARMOR IT SHULD PROTECT HIM

al quaeda to soon

so hes steve jobs- made a frikin computer in his garage

ewww rbj with no beard- bad cgi :( cant u just shave and get over urself?

yes weapons are the key to peace hahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhahaha

rip terrence howard as rhody

"too cool for award" cliche

"bald guy is bad" cliche

"hes always working" uhhh besides a few montages.... no he really just parties

only talks to cute girls....... uggggh

military funding? ha more like military debt ahahahahah 20 trillion is iron mans fault

jarvis is wing man after one night stand???? idve thought hed think tony was cheating lol

"girl wakes up with just guys shirt" cliche

"guy wakes up and leaves before girl wakes up" cliche

cat fight ha+2 points

literal and figurative island haha

so tony aint smart, he just uses jarvis

he obvi doesnt know how t4he faa works

i was gonna get REAL mad if tony didnt buy a painting cuz it was "too expensive" but we good

tonys a dick

yet pepper finds him attractive

ksorry

yaaaas rhody calling him a baby cuz he FING IS

im pretty sure laser shows in airplanes are illegal

"im not drinking them gets drunk" cliche

in my opinion from what ive collected, you cant be feared AND respected. fear takes over and you do things based on fear, not fromrespect - also how will blowing up people help them respect you? unless youre talking about getting respect from those u protect and those u kill cuz thats completely differeent then

"i respectfully disagree" or do you "fearfully disagree"

starts out as all techno talk, then turns into baby talk wtf

that shock wave conviently stopped right after it hit them

montage of painful surgeyr cliche

ewww that pipe in his nose as groooooooss

"dont do that but dontexplain" cliche

the dude cant understand english how did he know that tony refused????

why tf wouldnt u test it ANYWHERE BUT THE MIDDLE EAST?????

why cant they just wait and order the missile

k so this scene is srs and all but WATCHING HIM CARRYING THE CAR BATTERY IS SOOOO FuNNY I CANT

"no he wont" OK NOW U CANT UNDERSTAND U POS

"theyll never find u" cliche

why is his friend here?

how does he know how to build it? tbh he probs just had jarvis do it back home

how does the gov not know hes selling weapons to terrorists? we cant be that corrupt can we?

so hes building his ring thing but they DONT FING NOTICE THATS THERES NO MISSILES AT AlL??????

and they didnt question them the entire time

lemme peek but not go in and investigate

"i have steady hands" and then he crashes his car and LOOK! Doctro strange!

when a speech starts with a history lesson, u know its been rehearsed u poser

honestly... hot coal in mouth- worst way to die fml

props to marvel for not telling how fast theyre moving so i cant bust them for not being able to get it done

why the circle around the chest thing

wouldt one of their rules to be able to see u at all times

ctrl i is italicize hahahaha

why did the lights shut off but no the clearly hookedup laptop?

i enjoy the rock music as background music- not ur stereotypical ( yet awesome) hans zimmer score

yaaaaaas bitches run

gun shootsthen rebounds onto him- pretty sure thats not how physics work

if anyone should die, its tony tbh that whiny bithc

-2 for killing an actual good guy

how does not one of those bullets penetrate his suit?

----not enough use of the word penetreate

k no theyd keep shooting

tony: everythings on fire and im dying

ouchie that giant fall

how does he know hose helis are good?

DONT TOUCH HIS SUNBURNT AND BLISTERING SHOULDERS RHODY EWWWW

+2 for cheeseburger yas

-2 for burger king ew

doesnt sheild deal with aliens not terrorists?

newsreels? hes not THAT old

+10000 for ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILTY WOOOOO

k hes obvi doing the best thing here and now everyone gets pissed for him TRYING TO SAVE PEOPLES LIVES EHY IS THAT BAD?????? HE ALREADY HAS a shit otn of money LET HIM BE

fuck u and ur segway obidiah

the other thing..... dont put ur name on it

jokes on u! it was alqueade

+100 for mad money reference!!!!!

...so pepper didnt know about it so whyd he blame her for .3 seconds?

pepper is useless omg PUT YOUR HANDS IN HIS CHEST

why did he say dont take out the magnet but all of a sudden u dont need it?

i wonder if they actually built robots for tonys btterfingers

rhodeys we need pilots speech was just proven again by the aircraft landing in the hudson

so non military= humanitarian now? and if so why that bad?

honestly surprised that jarvis isnt some hot lady voice

k raza with sunglasses= morpheus

why is the mask the most vital part for raza?

tony crashing into wall is why u should ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET KIDS

obadiah is NOT playing the piano

+2 for not trusting obidiah

daaaamn if thats 1% whats 100% capacity

and he still doesnt wear a helmet

k his eye holes are so small how can he actually see?

run before walking leads to lots of problems later in life tony

at leaast he checked atc

goddammkit u made smol child drop ice cream

beginners luck

rip that baby grand he probs didnt know how to play

+2 for that fire extinguisher

+50 for Pepper being a cutie with that gift

how does tony not have his liscence revoked? hes a shit driver and can hire a chaffeur

STAN LEE BABE

RIP COLESON OMG :'(

so just fire pepper and marry her

pepper is totally right and tony should seperate who actually matter to him

how is a lot of olives 3?

im not my company- THEN TAKE UR NAME OFF HOE

no, modern day hell s walking those 15 miles and watching a car and heli and camera lady who are fine and can get there in 20 minutes

i sincerely hope that these footages were planned and not real

is this the news or a documentary?

just realized he never gave pepper her drink lol

yeah, let the kids watch their dad get shot thats fine omg

after that hit, he looks like a lion

why did he say colonel rhodes form weapons development? that name isnt that common

there was 0 time for radio contact omg

the only thing i could think during this scene was SERPENTINE SERPENTINE SERPENTINE

k now im getting a lil tired of the electric guitar

finally obi has been outted geez

im feeling some west side story WITH snaps

why is raza telling obi what he ALREADY KNOWS CUZ THEYVE BEEN IN CONTACT

how has no one noticed that obi just GOES TO THE MIDDLE EAST LIKE ALL THE TIME

this scene between pepper and tony is THE MOTHER of cliched lines

WHY DIDNT SHE SHUT DOWN THE COMPUTER STUPID WEIRDO

he tried to push his hair back hahahaHAHAHAHAHhaha

not scraps obi.... he had his own stuff

im just imagining obi hidig under toys couch haha

that dick took his shirt!!!

yaas beethoven reference

props to makeup people for his paralysis on point!

sorry but paralysis seems to me like U CANT FING MOVE TONY

i thought the old reactor needed a magnet

OF ALL THE CARS TO STEAL RHODY YOU STEAL THE AUDI

goddman all these chains

JUMP SCARE COMING HAHA I KNEW IT

-2 awful jump scare

yes middle age mom- honk at the GIANT FING ROBOT

nooo not the hydrogen powered bus!

gooood iron freezes before stainless tell

daaamn obi is a real bad shot

and radiation now floods the malibu land area and thosands are illed thanks to tonys reactor

sk glad hes corrected the mediait aint iron

coleson never briefed tham

that was longer than 90 seconds

iron man- STOP TRYING TO BE BATMAN

great ending 10/10

affter credit scene: 10/10 avengers yay

#film critic #tony stark #iron man #filmery #stream of consciousness

[rupertacton]

RUOBAL ETOV

I'm in Baxter's Court on Mare Street. Day before Thursday the 8th of June. 2017. What am I doing? Not applying for jobs. Fuck it. Can't concentrate. Everything. Confused. Vote Labour sticker on the 2nd hand Ralph shirt. Shit coffee. Dreaming of a better future. Nightmare visions of division. We have always been divided. Us and them. Me and you. Here and there. Be here now. No. Not me. I'm voting. Don't know why. Always do. Everything changes but you. But nothing. Deep fucking state we're in. The Deep State in a deep state. Arm everyone. Radical deradicalisation. Totally fucking radical dude. Arsenal. Millwall. The classic dichotomy. It's not that. Never was. I've crossed London Bridge thousands of times. Troubled bridges. Turbulent waters. Pont de la Tour. What's the point? Intern me first. My turn. I do not share your shared values. Do not share that with me. Not interested. Fucking cops everywhere. Reading my emails. Tapping my dreams. I dream of Friday not being shit. Every simple question. The answers are complicated. Extreme rationalists. Silicon roundabout reactionary fuckheads. Neither Left nor Right. Always right. Without fail. They, hate, our, way, of, life. WAYS OF LIFE. RIGHTS OF WAY. Pluralism. Tolerance. Most people just want to live a peaceful life. MORE ARMED POLICE. No. I stand for law and order. As long as it doesn't apply to me. As long as I get to choose my transgressions without punishment. Vote tactically to stay in the EU. Vote tactically for more years of those cunts. They don't really like you. They wouldn't get a round in even if they had the fucking bunce. Which they do. Rolling in it. Coffee is cold. I drink it anyway. How can I escape? Escape the shit opinions. My own included. I AM ALWAYS WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. Take. Take. Take. Hot takes. Cold coffee. Keep calm and drink tea. Run through fields of wheat. Fields of gold. Twee fucks on miniature railways taking us to model concentration camps. I LOVE EU. I don't. You value that over everything else? Reassess your fucking values. Old people are not the enemy. The North is not the enemy. Enemies within. Enemies of the state. The state can do better than paying private companies to do what the state did. It worked. It can be reformed. The state must be destroyed. Apart from the bits we need. The weak deserve protection. Anything else is fascism. Sorry if you don't class yourself as that. Sorry. Not sorry. LOL. Crypto-memetic-libertarian-neo-reaction-alt-Nick-Land-LD50-nihilist-ancap-manosphere-hipster-cunt-fuckwits. Not important. Not significant. But there. Right there. Right at the heart. The right at the heart. Analysing. Guilty feats of algorithms. Sorry. They will all jump in bed to defeat the common enemy. Us. I'm cynical. Sarcastic. I'm sincere. I sincerely love the young people who can tell what's up. Don't infect them with your cynicism. Your grown up opinions. They want housing. They want a country that gives a fuck about them. What is better about what you want? Is it that you already have it? Is that it? That's it. Ask yourself those hard questions. Don't shy away from the answers. Just because you liked some rap music in the 90's. You did pills. You went out and got shitfaced. You smoked some fucking spliffs. You listened to some dub. You like proper left wing politics. You are tired of identity politics. It has ruined your fun. Your right to free speech. Your right to pontificate on problems that aren't yours. You can't bring yourself to vote for THEM because of HIM. Because what? Because anti-semitism? Because Abbott? Because Brexit? Because you are definitely not a Tory? Because shambles? Because lack of talent? Because mediocrity? We would probably have a right laugh down the boozer. We would probably agree on a lot of things. SUCK IT UP. Ask yourself some very hard questions. And suck it up. Take it on the chin. HOPE. HOPE. HOPE. FUCKING HOPE. I can't stand it. I'm not a fucking doorstepper. Activist. But. Thank. Fuck. Some. People. Are. I can offer a kind of support. Support in kind. New Labour. Blue Labour. Dr. Who Labour. Harry fucking Potter Labour. Old Labour. Momentum Labour. Militant Tendency. Satire Labour. If you identify as left wing and you are going to vote Tory what the actual fuck are you playing at? Playing. You watch the fucking West Wing and think it's reality. House of Cards. It will come crashing down around everyones ears. LOL. People will die. I was working in Westminster last summer and I wish I'd punched Liam Fox in the face. Regrets. I've had a few. There is a clear choice. Terms that I don't really want to hear anymore. Echo chamber. Virtue signalling. Strong and stable. Coalition of chaos. Enough is enough. Enough is enough already. Y Tribe. Tribal politics. Bit heavy on the politics this. Sorry. Bit light on the psychedelic urban prose poetry. Not enough football. Not enough bants. Not sorry. I want it all to be over as much as you. By the time you read this it probably will be. I'm going to get pissed either way. Wondering whether to get lunch here. Private enterprise steps in where the state now fears to tread. If Wetherspoons did community centres. They do. This is one. Just across from the Town Hall. Local government. Labour Councils heavily involved in social cleansing. It's not going to change overnight. Fucking hope it changes though. Lambeth. Southwark. Hackney. Etc. Blood on your hands. Difficult choices. I wouldn't want to make the choices. Still dealing with legacy of that fucking woman. Just old enough to remember being dragged out on marches. The impotence of the campaigning left. She fucking hated London as well. Not just the industrial north. Just there were more rich people here. Not as simple as that. I know. But it is. Bunch of people just walked in. Tories Out t-shirts. Time to start MI5 files on all of them. You fling around the numbers. What does terrorist sympathiser actually mean anyway? Invasive species. I'm an invasive species sympathiser. Parakeets. Grey squirrels. You name it. Love them. Kill them all. Badgers as well. Foxes too. The bloodlust never ends. Blood me. Soak me in it. Initiate me into your rituals. Occult forces at work. Deep Patriotism. I have legitimate concerns. Not ordered lunch yet. Still mulling it over. Lost in a sea of joyless opinion. Genuinely wonder if they've ever felt anything close to actual joy in their sad lives. Can't even watch a fucking pop concert, a moving, beautiful, attempt to help actual children come to terms with the horrific nature of the world around them and give them some hope, without spewing out their bile. Then they can't take it when people, rightly, call them cunts. I don't even want to put their names. FUCK THEM. ALL OF THEM. They love terror. They love death. Just like the people they claim to hate. We need hope. We need a new approach. The ways that weren't working before are still NOT WORKING. This is a chance to change. The first time I've ever felt a genuine choice. This is what is going to hurt so much. But for now. I wasn't a supporter. Still have reservations. But for now. One hundred. From zero. Real quick. Too much at stake. VOTE LABOUR ON THE RALPH SHIRT. Real policies. Boringly real policies. That would make a difference. I don't think that would have happened under someone else. I was up for getting rid. I was wrong. I WAS WRONG. Whatever the result. This fucking election. I truly want it to blow up in her face. Already has. Blown up in all our faces. Literally can't talk to anyone. Shit campaigner. Very easy to say if she still wins it's because of the current opposition but doesn't really stand up to any serious analysis. Doubtless that will be said though. I respect that. Just wish that the last two years had been years of unity. Both sides haven't covered themselves in glory. One side is definitely worse though. Internal machinations. Coups. Apparently though it's the fault of the people who voted him in. TWICE. I've moaned about him. Called him and his people incompetent. Weak. I apologise. The shit they've had to take. SORRY THIS IS FUCKING BORING. I'm fucking sick of it all. I want to be out in the outskirts. Routes through fields. Allotments. Edibles in my blood. Alternate realities. Intrigue. Fictions. Borges. J Hus in the headphones. Lib Dem boi paigon. I can't stand them. Fuck the other side. It's on sight now. Sites. Not on the maps. Blank spaces. Parapolitics. Back to the planet. Undercovers. Under the covers. Deep cover. Twins. Giving birth. The children of people who stole the identity of dead children. This is what they do. Professional. Give them more powers. Shoot to kill. I'm losing it. Losing the thread. Threads. Nuclear war. Discharge. Truth theories. NWO. Same old shit. SOS. SAS. Dipset. Diplomatic Immunity. Diplomacy. Foreign policy. Arms. Armshouse. Almshouses. Housing. Social Care. Healthcare. Dignity. Hope. Youth. Age. Hard borders. Troubles. Troubling. The past lives on. History is back again. A man just sat down. Says loudly: ANOTHER DAY IN THIS FUCKING SHITHOLE. Starts talking to the girls at the table next to him. They are talking fucking politics. They are all voting. Voting Labour. Do what they are doing.

ENTHUSIASTICALLY VOTE LABOUR. GRUDGINGLY VOTE LABOUR.

HOLD YOUR NOSE AND VOTE LABOUR. DESPAIRINGLY VOTE LABOUR.

TRIBALLY VOTE LABOUR. FOR THE FIRST TIME VOTE LABOUR.

DON'T VOTE FOR THEM LOT.

VOTE FOR OTHER PEOPLE WHO AREN'T THEM LOT IF IT KEEPS THEM LOT OUT.

VOTE FOR ME TO SHUT THE FUCK UP.