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wilwheaton · 4 years

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wow! you really did it this time. who knew you would be the one whod crack the oh so cryptic nazi dogwhistle that the rightwing has been hiding behind all this time? you're truly a genius! now that you have basically compared the official term (that the members themselves have used for years) of the democratic party TO the n-word, the s-word and the k-word, they cant make fun of liberals and leftists anymore, we are finally free. their supplies are SPENT and their defenses BROKEN. thank you mr. wheaton, you have done it! you have defeated fascism! may god bless america!

Just because you don’t know about the history of something doesn’t mean your interpretation and dismissal of that history is factually correct.

You’re probably not going to hear this. That’s okay. This is for anyone else who is open to hearing how this 48 year-old guy got where he is, politically.

The biggest event in my generation’s life is likely the attack on 9/11. None of us had ever experienced something like that, and it wrecked a lot of us.

But in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, all of us who weren’t on board with Bush’s illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq were grouped in with the terrorists who murdered 2000 people. We were The Other. It wasn’t as dangerous or as violent at that is in Trump’s America, but for its time, in its context, it hurt.

Sidebar: We are losing a 9/11 of Americans every two days, to COVID. It didn’t have to be this way. The fact that it is this way is a choice.

The whole point of a slur is to dehumanize and cast out a group of people. slurs shape unconscious public perceptions, encourage prejudices and bigotry, and create The Other.

When our nation was grieving and afraid, Republicans saw it as an opportunity to consolidate power, and one of the ways they did that was to Otherize and dehumanize all of us who didn’t share their political ideology. Our grief was minimized and discarded, and part of that was deliberately calling us The Democrat Party, instead of The Democratic Party. This was started by right wing Fascist Rush Limbaugh. He said that anyone who was a Democrat wasn’t actually democratic, and within 24 hours, elected Republicans at all levels of government, their supporters on hate radio, and right wing pundits were saying “Democrat” party instead of “Democratic Party”. As far as slurs go, it’s nowhere near the slurs propagated against BIPoC, LGBTQ+, and other groups of people who are dehumanized by my fellow white people. But it is still a slur, and it is still intended to dehumanize and delegitimize us.

So we were left with this huge, emotional, psychic wound that we couldn’t heal, a national grieving we were very publicly excluded from. If you weren’t alive then, you likely don’t know what it felt like for us to be told “you’re with us or against us” at a time when “us” meant Bush and the GOP. We lost friends and family and colleagues on 9/11, too. We were afraid, too. We lived in the same country and had the same right to grief and healing as Bush’s allies.

So when I hear a young person, who likely wasn’t alive or was a baby in 2001 and its immediate aftermath repeating a phrase that was used against me and people like me, I take offense. I won’t apologize for that. I also won’t apologize for not being as Left as some of the kids who attacked me. I do apologize for not making more of an effort to communicate clearly and compassionately.

I can’t imagine that anyone who doesn’t already agree with all of this is still reading, but just in case some of you are open to it, open to hearing this old man’s voice of experience:

This will be hard for you to believe, but I’m WAY to the Left in American politics. I know I’m not as Left as some of y’all in other countries. I respect where you’re coming from, and I ask you to understand and respect that, in 48 years (30 of them voting and actively participating in campaigns at every level of government), I’ve learned that we will never get as Left as I want. Bernie was as close as we’ve ever come, and as much as I love his message and policies, Americans have been asked, twice, if we want him to be The Guy, and both times America has said no thanks. We tried, again, with Senator Warren, and America said No Thanks.

That’s a giant bummer, but it has laid the foundation for a new generation of progressive Democratic Socialists who I hope are the future of my party. I believe that the future is progressive, that America can’t continue to exist in Late Stage Capitalism, and that the Republican party as it exists now must be destroyed.

This is likely where we diverge: I vote my conscience and my heart in the primary, but I vote for Democrats in the general election, because even when I don’t get everything I want, I know that of the two options, Democrats aren’t going to deliberately hurt me and people I love the way Republicans will and do.

I’m willing to fight like crazy in the primaries to get the most Progressive candidate into the general, but once we’re in the general, I am going to support the candidate who is closest to me. I sent my message in the primary with my vote, and with my bank account by supporting the most progressive candidates I’m comfortable with. There was a younger version of me who believed voting Green would push the Democrats to the Left, where I was. I was wrong, and boy do I regret ever giving any of them my vote. Maybe it’s different in other countries, but in America, Greens have become useful idiots for Fascists who seek to hold onto power not by winning majorities, but by splitting their opposition’s vote.

When my candidate doesn’t make it out of the primary, I’m not willing to sit out the general, or cast a vote for a candidate who won’t ever win, because I have worked on enough campaigns, been close to enough party officials, and spent enough time in American politics to know that the two parties you despise don’t care at all about your protest vote. It doesn’t move them to adopt your positions. It makes them dismiss you, entirely. That 90 or 90 percent of things you and the Democrats agree on? Doesn’t matter. You’ve ceased to exist for anyone who will ever be elected or hold electoral away. And because you did not vote for the one candidate who could beat the candidate you hate more, you have ended up supporting not just the candidate you hate, but all of their policies, their SCOTUS Justices, and every single head of every single branch of government.

I want to repeat that, because I really hope someone will hear this the way I couldn’t and didn’t hear it when I was in my early 20s: When you vote third party, not only do you help the candidate you most want to defeat, you take yourself out of the conversation. Nobody who will ever be elected takes you seriously, and all the things you care about will not be any closer to being addressed by people who can actually make a difference.

I don’t want you to give up your seat at the table. I want you to move the Overton Window back to the Left, so we get America closer and closer to being a nation that isn’t overtly racist, doesn’t murder Black people, provides healthcare and college to all Americans at no cost, and holds criminals -- even powerful criminals -- accountable for their actions.

In our Primary, I worked hard to get Senator Warren over the top, but our party and the voters who will decide the election didn’t agree. The people who can end Trump’s criminal reign of terror all said “We want Biden,” and I know this is a hard to swallow pill, but they are the people who matter, and they are the people we need to support if we want to get rid of Trump and stop the Fascist advance in America.

#alejosdo

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ts-unpopular-opinions · 4 years

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if you don’t mind me asking why don’t you respect thomas as a person anymore? i’m not trying to be rude or jump to anyone’s defense, i’m just genuinely curious.

I have been getting a lot of asks like these since I mentioned that I’m still upset with Thomas and although I’ve covered it multiple times on this blog, I will go ahead an explain it again because I’m tired of people telling me how to feel.

Here I will complie a list of all of the reasons why Thomas just does not rub me the right way sometimes. That being said, i recognize that Thomas is a very good actor and is a very talented man. He may have things going on in his life that I don’t know about, but the opinion I’ve formed of him is simply based on what I’ve observed and I am willing to change that if he shows reasons for the things that he does. I’m in no way trying to “demonize” Thomas here or make him out to be some crazy, rutheless being. I simply just dont vibe with some of the choices he makes and things he does. So here we go...

1) Thomas appears to have a pretty big ego. He constantly posts pictures of himself on his social media instead of using the platforms as most youtubers would: to communicate with fans about his content. He is okay with fans contantly worshipping him like a god and living off his every word. Even during his birthday he would retweet videos of people literally cellebratig his birthday with cake and candles, and that is just so odd to me... Theres nothing wrong with having a lot of confidence in yourself, but its simply something that rubs me the wrong way.

2) Thomas is a really awful business man. As I have mentioned time and time again, Thomas is running a business here, just like most youtubers with his level of fame. He has merch, a huge following, and a membership program. Despite this, Thomas continues to act as if his youtube channel is just a fun past time for him. His schedule for video releases is atrocious and I’d be surpised to find out that the team even schedules dates for things at this point. To an outside fan it just seems like they release a video whenever they want to or whenever they finish it, with no prior end goal in mind. Thomas treats his job as if it is an opinional past time, and as someone who is in college, works in a fast food job, and has an internship I cannot respect that. The man has no work-life/personal-life separation and it shows... He’s hired all of his friends to work for him and gets work done at a snails pace because of it. He always says that the team is working hard and getting things done, but never has anything to show for it...

3) Thomas is very bad at communicating with his fans. For having such an outstanding and die-hard fanbase, Thomas takes them for granted. Instead of giving fans insight on video release dates and production, he opts to say nothing simply because he doesnt “want people to get mad at him for being wrong”. I don’t know about anyone else, but that is just so messed up to me... You keep all of your adoring fans in the dark simply because you dont want to face the concequences of you not getting your work done is a timely manner? This bothers me a lot... especially when a lot of fanders are paying to get “extra information” when in fact the livestreams are simple Joan and Thomas hanging out and joking around with a very rare, almost completely absent mention of future videos.

4) The babying issue. Thomas has to recognize that his fans baby him and treat him like a breakable doll all the time. This not only makes him incapable of taking and responding to criticism, but it makes him shrug off responsibility all together. If his fans never give him concequences for his actions and simply praise him to no end, then he just keeps going what he’s doing and ignores any ouce of negativity because of it. The fanbase has babied thomas into thinking that he can do no wrong and will never be criticized, and it shows. Never once has he formally sat down and just talked about the concerns people like me and the anons that come to my blog have.

5) This is a newer one I realized with the most recent episode. The whole Trump joke threw me off guard because, while I don’t support Trump, I KNOW there must be fanders who do. And Thomas must have known this when allowing the joke into the show. It’s very inconsiderate to subtly manipulate your fans like that when this show has frankly nothing to do with politics. Had a fan been watching that who has their reasons to support trump, they may have felt alienated and hated by Thomas and that just insnt cool. This isnt the only instance of Thomas being manipulative with his fanbase. He constantly thanks and praises those of his fans who baby him and worship him while ignoring and never talking about those who have criticisms. This make fans who have concerns feel as though their worries make them terrible people and they shouldnt say them. Is this blog is anything to show for it, fanders are scared to speak about how they feel. Thi has created an extremely toxic environment for open discussion, but thomas continues to let it go on.

6) Money. Everyone, believe it or not, but Thomas makes a LOT of money. He is not an independent creator that films and edits videos all by himself simply for the fun of it and not for the money. This is his career. He is a business man and the owner of this company. His goal is to not only produce content, but to make money. And boy does he make a lot of it... Here is some math i did on my own to figure out just how much (granted it is not perfect, but it should give everyone a realization that Thomas is nowhere near the independent artists and authors that they constantly compare him to...):

-The average youtuber with 1m subscribers makes $57,200 a year from ad revenue. Thomas has 3.36 million subscribers so 3.36*57,200 is $192,192.

-The last member livestream has 1.5k views and each member is giving thomas $5.29 per month. So per month thomas is making 5.29*1,500 from members, or $7,935. Per year, Thomas the recieves 7,935*12 from members, or $95220 (obviously this number could be a little smaller because I’m sure youtube takes some of that money)

-Apart from this, Thomas also sponsors nearly every video on his channel that is a decent length. (I’ll admit that the math for this part is up to a lot of interpretation because I have no idea how Thomas sponsorships are handled, but I will do my best). Alright so, youtubers charge brands anywhere from $10 to $50 per 1,000 views, to be forgiving I’ll do the math using the lowest price. On Thomas’ most recent blooper video, he had 736k views. If we divide that by 1000 thats 736. So 736*10 is 7,360. And that is just one sponsorship at the lowest price. I’m not really sure how many sponsorships thomas has done, but in the last year it seems like about 5 (the blooper, asides episode, gay disney prince, intrisive thoughts, and SvS). So that is 5 sponsorships per year, 7,350*5 or $36,800.

-So total income before considering merch sales and by assuming the lowest numbers for some areas is $36,800 + $95,220 + $192,192 = $324,212

Now with all of this in mind... Thomas makes so much money. Money that I could never even dream of coming by. And he does this with minimal uploads and scamming his members into continuing to pay him even through month long periods of no content. Thomas doesn’t even need to make videos at this point, the money that he drags out of his fans is already plenty. And then, not only does he have all of this money, but he uses it for fun trips and adventures those of which he brags about on his social media. He went to new york and saw three broadway shows, he went to vidcon and took a weeklong vaction there. He bought from what I saw, at least three playstations and games for different friend and family members. He is in no way struggling for money... and instead takes money from his adoring fans when he has no content to show for it.

#thomas sanders #ts unpopular opinions #ts unpopular answers #ts discourse

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certainempatheticturkeymuffin · 3 years

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ah, i’m crying because I came across some old messages between myself and a friend in fifth grade. I’ve had that Quotev account for so long...

I was so naive back then wasn’t I? I want to go back. I could ignore all the yelling and screaming, I didn’t think that danger lurked around every corner. I could lose myself in a book. I was perfection incarnate for both my parents. My brother was just the fun big brother. My sister was just my little sister that I liked to play with. I was a good catholic little girl...

They weren’t violent. They didn’t scream. They weren’t homophobic. I still believed in God, I just. I want to go back. How do I rebuild my rose-colored glasses?

I think they started to crack the first time my dad sat me down and beat me. But I kept them on because I deserved it, right? I stole something, I deserved to get beat. It scarred me for life. If you’re going to do something “stupid” don’t get caught ever again. I still get caught sometimes, but it’s easier to hide and lie now.

Then the crack got bigger when my brother and sister were getting yelled at for being stupid. That’s where my perfectionist tendencies came from.

The cracks became holes once I realized that they supported Trump, that I couldn’t defend their ideations against my peers’ arguments because there was no humane way to do so. That emails were nowhere near as bad as the shit I was failing to defend Trump for. That was an embarrassing day, but a well-learned lesson. Do more research to back up your claims.

The holes got bigger when I realized that I was LGBT. I looked into the politics. I started thinking for myself. I started questioning everything, not wanting to be played for a fool because I was indoctrinated into it as a child.

They shattered when I realized I didn’t believe in God anymore. It was horrifying. Something that made me realize that there was no way I’d ever be accepted for who I was by my family. Their opinion on atheists was clear. They’re going to hell.

The only confirmation I needed was my mom telling me I was going to hell when my sister outed me. Even if the label no longer fits, she thinks I went through a phase.

I’m sure it was always like this. I just see it now.

My brother’s always been going behind our parents’ backs. I understand why, but it was only to get expensive things from my grandparents. Now he thinks he can live off their dime without lifting a finger to help.

My sister’s always been violent. No one curbed her in her early stages, so now she thinks it’s okay to hit people and beat them up. My mom’s sending mixed messages by allowing her to learn kung-fu, but not allowing her to hit me, usually. I vote her the most likely to get arrested. She’s still my favorite because she’s predictable. I know how she’ll react, I know what to say and how to act around her. Everyone else...isn’t.

My mom changed after she divorced by dad. She became crueler. More open to hitting us. More open to insulting us. She belittles me. Puts her accomplishments over anything I can ever hope to achieve. She looks at my papers and claims that she’s better, and when asked to write me a paper because I have so many things going on, she turns out shit and I have to rework it from the ground up. I have panic attacks, she knows this, she claims there’s nothing wrong with me. She doesn’t get me medical help, but she got my sister a therapist, only to quit it when she realized it was going to be a long-term thing. She’s homophobic, and a Trump-supporter, and that paints a perfect picture of who she is. She even said to me, recently, that “Some people think there’s a problem with any loss of human life, and,” sarcastically, “it’s fine to think that way, but-” yeah. She’s not someone I’d trust with my children. And she frequently complains about how we’ve ruined her life. Not that blatantly, but I’m not stupid, and my sister just blocks it out. It’s amazing how many things you can learn by being the one that people vent to. I know not to interject or correct her. I silently debunk everything she says in my head, but the moment I try to speak, my thoughts are never perfectly articulated, never perfect enough to avoid her “debunks” until later when I do research and find out that I’m right, only for my mom to ignore me because she’s “older and wiser”. I also recently found out that she doesn’t believe in evolution....and she wanted me to be a doctor??? It’s a miracle I’m allowed to be a scientist at all with how much anti-science propaganda she spews. I don’t doubt she’ll start believing in Big Pharma sometime soon.

My dad. He hit me and beat me until I grew up enough to know how to avoid being caught. Then he stopped even considering it when I was big enough to fight back. He pretends to be kind, but barely remembers my birthday, most of the things he asks are about my mom. So he can one-up her. He’s fun to be around, for a little while. I’ve learned how to weld because of him, but he’s not a good person to be around frequently. He doesn’t care what his children want to do, what’s more important is what he wants to do, even if we’ve expressed displeasure at loud noises or bright colors. He refuses to believe that there’s anything that we need medical help for. He thinks my digestive issues are “all in [my] head” and that my sister doesn’t have autism. I even said once that “Nah, it’s just an attention deficit.” and immediately he reacted with “You do not have ADHD.” “I didn’t say it was a disorder” even though it is. His immediate gut reaction was to say there was nothing wrong with me. He wouldn’t have cared if I’d listed out every symptom I’d had, it would’ve gone in one ear and out the other. He’s also a Trump-supporter and owns a shit ton of guns.

My family’s always been like this. I just see it now. And I hate it.

#vent

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 4 years

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Okay, if it's too much, don't answer that's fine. I'm not American and I've read so many different things about the political stuff that's going down over there, some saying Biden is the same as Trump, some say he's even better than Bernie. I got not clue how to sort that Joe Biden guy, sooo... Could you help us non Americans out a little? So far it's just looking like everyone is standing around a dumpster fire, shouting stuff that's not really comprehensible

Jesus Christ this was something to wake up to this morning. I’m gonna be honest, it’s not my job to educate you or anyone else on this matter, you’re all adults (supposedly, I’m doubtful about a lot of you) and Google exists. But I also understand that it can be intimidating to dive into the wide world of the internet and it feels easier to ask someone you trust or feel that you know, so I’ll do my best to be concise and explain.

Everyone is standing around a dumpster fire shouting stuff that’s not comprehensible because people, my darling, are idiots.

“No, Mads, people aren’t idiots!” A person is not an idiot. But people are. Put us in a group and we’ll happily self destruct in the most spectacular fashion possible.

Biden is nowhere near the same as Trump, people just live in an echo chamber and refuse to look at the facts. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how awful Trump is. It baffles me that people are saying Biden, who happily supported Barack Obama and played second fiddle to him for eight years, is the same as the man who’s putting children in cages.

Here is a breakdown of Biden’s policy plans should he be elected. Very different from Trump’s, as you can see. To quote this post here:

“It's important to be critical of political figures, especially during a primary election. Joe Biden has been in politics for a very long time, and his record is by no means spotless. There's lots to criticize, politically and personally. But having Biden in the big chair instead of Trump changes the entire game.

Look at it this way: if Joe Biden wins, a democratic Congress gets a clear path to passing real, lasting progressive laws. If Joe Biden wins, Ruth Bader Ginsburg gets to retire, and be replaced by a young firebrand who will make Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh's lives a living hell for the next 40 years. If Joe Biden wins, all of the horrible executive orders Trump has enacted are gone, on day one: family seperation, abortion bans in VA hospitals, EPA funding gutted, global warming denial in NOAA, removal of LGBT+ protections, all GONE in January 2021. If Joe Biden wins, all the Trump shills in the government disappear: I'm talking about new people in the CPB, the Justice Department, the FTC, and everything other federal agency. With Biden instead of Trump, we're going to be fighting for Medicare for All vs. Obamacare, instead of Keeping Obamacare vs. Stripping Away Any Kind of Federal Insurance. We're going to be fighting for the Green New Deal vs. Having a Functional EPA, instead of Gutting The EPA or Having No EPA At All. The fight is way different, and we get to pull the conversation further left - where it belongs.

This election is just as much about getting rid of the Republican stench in the Oval Office as it is electing a particular person. So yeah, be critical of Joe Biden, but please don't lose sight of what President Joe Biden would actually look like versus President Trump.”

People seem to be forgetting that when you vote for president, you are, supposedly, not voting for One Supreme Leader Who Makes All The Decisions Ever. Putting Biden in the Oval Office is more about putting in a man who will pass the laws that a liberal, democratic Congress will put in front of him. A man who will actually listen to his advisors. It’s about putting in someone who won’t appoint a bunch of judges that will screw over everyone for the next, oh, three decades.

I don’t want Biden in office. I wanted Elizabeth Warren, for fuck’s sake. Whose policies were the same as Bernie’s, by the way, for all you bros out there who say you aren’t sexist. The last thing I want is another old white man, for the love of whatever you worship. But the idea that someone who supported and worked under someone like Obama is somehow the same as a Neo-fascist egomaniac is... ridiculous. It’s truly ridiculous. Not that Obama was perfect, far from it, but under his presidency we were making progress on things and my God, I wasn’t scared for the lives of just about everyone I know.

As for Biden versus Sanders, the argument that Biden is better stems from the fact that while Sanders has helped move the party left with his presidential campaigns and he makes pretty speeches, he hasn’t actually done anything in all his time serving as an elected public official. If you actually go and look at his track record, he hasn’t passed many laws or helped enact a whole lot of others. Everyone’s making a big deal about how he “saved millions of lives” with his big speech but actually, sorry kids, politics are not Hollywood and you don’t save the day by making a speech and miraculously everyone votes on something. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado and Schumer actually talked to people, convinced them on it, and got the votes that secured the unemployment bill being passed, and that’s what saved lives, not someone yelling (no matter how passionate or eloquent their yelling is).

It’s great to yell about how the system is corrupt etc but you have to actually follow those words with actions, and Sanders, historically, is not good about compromising, working with others, reaching out to others, being on a team. And that’s exactly what you need to be able to do in politics to get anything done. There’s an episode of Leverage called “The Gimme a K Job,” where Sophie spends the entire time running back and forth between politicians getting them to compromise and quid pro quo for one another so she can get them to vote on a law. I recommend watching it. The situation is played for laughs, but it’s also brutally honest. You cannot get anything done in politics (or in a lot of things in life) if you aren’t willing to work together and bargain and give some to get some, and Sanders isn’t, and that’s not good.

Now, Sanders has done a lot in his presidential campaign to move the Dem party left and he’s really stirred up younger voters, and those are both good things. If you look at Biden’s policies in the post I linked, you’ll see a lot of them are more liberal than most people expected, and that’s probably because Biden and his team saw everyone supporting Sanders’ policies and went, “oh, okay, this is what the people want.” Which already shows that Biden is willing to listen to the people more than Trump and his party are.

And then there’s the more personal side of things. Sanders really left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth because some of his supporters were so extreme in their support of him, to the point of acting like he’s the only person who could possibly save us, when honestly that’s not how democracy (or socialism, frankly) works. The whole idea is that all of us, working together as a movement, are what makes change. The people all standing up together and demanding that lawmakers do this, that, and the other thing. Sanders extremists, known as “Bernie Bros,” acting like Sanders is their One True Savior has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. In my experience, people don’t like being shouted at and told they’re idiots. And in my experience, one single person isn’t going to save you. And nobody’s perfect so furthermore acting like someone is perfect is only going to annoy everyone else around you and set you up for disappointment down the line.

There are a lot of people out there feeling attacked by Sanders supporters, and so frankly, they’re glad to see the back of him and throw support behind Biden, because they’re just sick of dealing with his extremist followers.

If you want to tear the system down completely then gold star to you, but the fact is otherwise you have to work within the system to change it. And I don’t see any of these people yelling on the internet actually doing the work to organize a revolution. It’s fun to yell about your opinions, it helps you feel better, it helps you feel powerful and heard. But the real work is done in volunteering, in protesting, in running for local offices, in doing research and then voting for your mayor, your governor, your senator, your state representative. Those people, as the COVID-19 epidemic is proving, actually often have more direct power to help or harm you than the President does.

People have more power than they think, but they’re just refusing to use it, and they’re refusing to think critically and to do research on the policies of candidates. I’ve seen people calling Biden a “serial rapist,” for crying out loud, which, whether he assaulted a woman or not, is not true. That’s like if I killed one person and suddenly everyone was calling me a mass murderer. People like to exaggerate, to bloviate, and to think in black and white. It’s disappointing, but true.

One final thought, for both you and actual Americans: look at how non-Americans are viewing the United States election. We are not the center of the universe (although we like to pretend we are) but we do have a huge impact on the global stage, and other countries are begging us to elect someone other than Trump. You want to claim we’re not the stereotype of the selfish, self-centered American? Than put your money where your mouth is and look at the non-Americans who are asking us to please, please, please elect someone else. Do it for them, if nothing else. The world is bigger than just us.

Biden isn’t perfect. One could argue one way or another on the Sanders v. Biden debate. It really depends on your personal opinion. But when it comes to Trump v. Biden, it really shouldn’t be rocket science. One of them has allowed racism, sexism, and xenophobia to thrive. He’s literally responsible for thousands of deaths (and counting) through his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s backed us out of the planet-saving environmental agreement that everyone else agreed to. He’s enabled corrupt, selfish politicians to have their way. He would appoint judges that will strike down everything from refugees to abortion rights. He’s destroyed our international relations, nearly started a war, and I actually don’t think he knows how to read.

And his name’s Trump.

That’s the difference.

#mads answers things #politics #this is the one and only time I am explaining this #all other questions will simply get a link to this post #yokoo-chan98

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taniuchiha · 3 years

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I don’t think anyone should die. But they can fuck off to nowhere and don’t ever talk to me again. They are voting for a guy who rather goes and hide in a bunker than stand with poc and protect them. They are voting for a guy who makes it’s own country pay for an unnecessary wall instead of putting that money into healthcare so that people would not have to pay for ambulances. They are voting for a guy who puts young easily traumatised children in cages without their parents anywhere near because they stepped foot in the country he leads. They are voting for a guy they believe will help the economy but has declared bankrupcy 6 times and has done the worst out of all countries during Covid-19. They are voting for a guy who spent money helping Jeffery Epstein’s child trafficking. Don’t get me started on what easy shit he won’t even try to do for LGBTQ+ rights. And women, who he sees as nothing more than sex objects he is allowed to touch without their consent.

Any and every Trump supporter is a selfish human being who believe every word he says despite being proven wrong and wrong again. You just need 5 minutes on social media to see thousands of reasons he is an unfit president.

Imagine putting your country in the hands of someone with so little brains that he is now questioning why he isn’t getting a lot of votes by mailed-in ballots when he told his audience not to do that for months.

But yes, let’s vote for him because he lowered some taxes you are spending on a FREAKING PIECE OF BRICK. Instead of healthcare which is needed way more.

A woman who voted for Trump actually said she voted because he treats everyone the same shitty way... she thought that was equality.

He’s also a guy who wanted to stop the counting of votes even though EVERY vote should count. He is trying to make your country in a dictatorship. He was/is working on changing the rules so that he would stay in house after 2024. He is trying to kill democracy.

And that great economy trump supporters like to use as a ‘valid’ reason consists of yes, having a lot of people keep their job, if only these jobs weren’t for fucking companies that are destroying and hurting the environment.

You are asking for people not to say that they hope Trump supporters will die, when voting for Trump is hurting a lot more people than some speech on the internet.

First off, You are valid in your opinion and are very much allowed to feel the way that you do.

I want to address some of the points that were made.

1. What do mean be he was hiding in his bunker? What was the issue you were citing because I'm not with it today 😅 work frazzles me.

2. The issue with the border wall and the cages are complicated because of the gang related activity involved. Ms13, cartel, and other bad individuals bring drugs and humans over the border to sell and traffic. Many of those "families" may not even be families. It could be a man bringing a child to traffic in the us. Those men are called "coyotes" I do think a wall is a bit crazy, but necesary against something of this magnitude.

3. And as a Trump supporter, I do not believe every word he says. I'm not completely blind to his faults. He said he wasn't touching social security and then I read a couple articles of which SS is on the budget of things to cut. So I get it, but like I said, with what research we do, we do like the things that he promises that he does keep to. Like providing more jobs and helping our economy. And yes, I agree that his Twitter posts can be crass. A lot. I feel that he's a very crass, but we have to remember that he wasn't a politician, he was an business man and an entertainer. He likes attention, which is what he gets by making those tweets. I think when he actually tries, which he was very successful at the last debate, he can be a better president.

4. The bankruptcy and the Epstein situation, I'm with you. He said that he distanced himself from Epstein a long time ago and judging by there weren't any recent pictures of the two, I believe it, but the fact that they were friends in the first place makes me feel sick.

5. And yes, the mail in votes were expected to be mostly Democrat because yes, trump did in fact tell his voters to vote in person, which if you heard there were issues with the in person polling booths. People saying that they weren't working and to leave them with pollers. People didn't trust that and stayed in line and suddenly it working after several hours. That sounds just a little sus to me.

In my opinion, yes, every counts, but if you are mailing in your vote, you should plan to send it early so that it makes it in time. If it doesn't make it by Nov 3, than it shouldn't count.

And if we are talking little brains, Joe Biden is not the best comparison. Considering that he thought he was running for Senate, waved to an empty field, said "hello Minnesota" when he was in Florida and played despacito in his phone.

6. Concerning covid, I don't think joe Biden would have done much better. Not a lot of evidence shows that he would have.

We can't just lock everybody down, that's impossible. People have bills, and jobs that need to be done. Suicide rates jumped, depression jumped. For the economies sake, we needed to open. Yes people died, and i really am sympathic. But it didn't help that Cuomos idea of trying to help was putting covid patients in nursing homes, which infected and killed many elderly people and actively refusing to wear masks even under threat of fines which probably doesn't bother him one bit. There are mistakes in both parties concerning this matter.

7. Trump isn't trying to kill democracy. I haven't seen anything about him killing democracy, however, I did see on kamala Harris's Twitter her outright supporting communism! Which I am completely against! The video she posted equity is not equality. Watch it and it is pretty much the definition of communism which sounds good on paper but never in execution.

8. There are plenty of other positions in gov that have done the same thing in keeping life positions. I do not agree with this and believe that it should be limited to terms.

And I don't believe his next four years would hurt as many people as you say that it would. 8 years of the Obama presidency probably hurt people more than trumps 4 years. That's just my stance on it from my perspective. I remember the government shutting down constantly, 5$ a gallon gas, the bombing in foreign countries and also his influence on racial tensions.

Now, you are entitled to feel however you want to feel. That's the beauty of America. In another country, these criticisms in our conversation wouldn't be tolerated. I do believe wholeheartedly that we should protect that with everything we have. And that's why I love these conversations.

I get to hear what you have to say and how you feel, and i can also express to you the same. If there are problems, we can try to find a way to fix them. Stay strong, peacefully and work together to make it fair.

But I think a lot of the problem is the anger or hate, as it comes of as. The aggression, be senseless violence... It doesn't make people want to support that cause! I believe that black lives matter. I believe that lgbtq lives matter. They all matter so much, but this violence, this damage is not getting the message across. It's scaring people. It's chaotic.

Sorry I'm rambling in again 😅 this is already long enough and sorry for the late response. Work has been a little rough.

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phoenix · 4 years

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So I ranted a bit about this on Twitter, but kinda wanted to flail a bit more where I don’t have space limitations.

In today’s episode of “What Did My Sister Share?” she reposted a thing asking, “Which Obama accomplishment do you consider his best?”

As you can probably guess from something posted by a Trump supporter, the list is...VERY biased. And certain items are written with deliberate phrasing to colour your thoughts.

I’mma share the image for anyone who might want to see this, but put it behind a cut to spare everyone who doesn’t, as well as my rambling (Well, everyone except the people on mobile, sorry...)

So, there’s actually quite a few items on this list I can’t really speak to, since I am no political expert, like the Bowe Bergdahl thing I know I’ve heard about, but have zero opinion of, because I don’t know enough about it, which is on me

But man, I do not even have to go past the VERY FIRST ITEM, do I? “Allowed men into women’s bathrooms” is transphobia writ large. It should surprise no one that I of course support transgender people getting more rights. Even if I *wasn’t* transgender myself. Also, thanks for so clearly illustrating why I am NOT out to my family, or on Facebook. And to deliberately phrase it that way makes everything else on this list questionable, but let’s continue.

Gave Iran millions of dollars? No, released their own frozen assets, which were taken under sanctions. Still an issue to possibly discuss, but deceptively phrased.

The Mexican border *does not need securing*. To claim it does, is racist at best. Also, the president hasn’t secured it either.

I am VERY okay with him passing on the Keystone Pipleine, for environmental reasons, for renewable energy reasons, for tribal land reasons.

The budget deficit stuff is again, above my head. The company line is a lot of the bad economy was inherited from Bush, but you can legit go back and forth on that. The budget may have suffered, but in other ways the economy as a whole, I THINK was better off at the end of his tenure?

“Vast expansion of government” is another of those things that is VERY broad, and an old debate on how much government is too much, so I’m just gonna move on.

Oh but this is a good one. “Racial division at an all time high”?? Seriously? Y’all gonna blame him because a large chunk of this country is racist as fuck and can’t handle a black man being in charge?? FFS.

Kinda the same for “disrespect for police officers”. I generally fall on the side of wanting to support police myself, but I do not deny that there are some, possibly even many (Okay yes many), that are far too violent, and need to be looked into. Also “Black man hates cops” feels very deliberately racially charged.

Failed economic stimulus plan...now that is legitimately a fair criticism. It was a hastily thrown together idea as our economy was in freefall, and it did not work as well as hoped. But again, economic stuff is a bit too heady for me.

The rising price of health care is indeed true, but the GOAL is to have everyone pay a little more now, so they have to pay NOTHING when they go to the hospital, and should be a net win, if you ever have a medical disaster. And lumping in the other ACA stuff in here, that bill was hamstrung by Republicans and compromises, making it nowhere near what people wanted. It was set up to fail, but not by many Democrats.

...I am not going to even comment on disregard for the Constitution, considering what the President said the other day about his ‘total authority’.

Is having more people on Food Stamps a BAD thing? I guess the implication is “so many people are poor under this president, he’s a failure!” but what *I* see is “The requirements for assistance was loosened, so more people were able to get much needed help.” Phrasing is a funny thing, eh?

And there is nothing wrong with denying American exceptionalism. We are not immediately the most perfect ZOMG amazing country just because we’re “American”. We are great because of our words and deeds, and sometimes we fall short, and should ALWAYS strive to be better.

And wrapping up with the vetting immigrants thing...that’s another I have zero opinion on. Is it a problem? Did not vetting immigrants cause problems? Or is this just more not so thinly veiled racism?

The funny thing is, there ARE things Obama did wrong, like promising to close Guantanamo and then not doing it, as well as some questionable bombings in the Middle East, that are nowhere on this list.

(Also, I bet it would be easy peasy to make a list of Trump ‘accomplishments’ that rivals if not exceeds this, from JUST this year.)

#Foenix rambles #long post

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blairwaldcrf · 7 years

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Hell is for Children

Jimon. 1600words. (flashbacks/child abuse) prompt by @claryroberts .. ao3

Jace has been tenuously nervous every second of free time he’s had since Simon had asked him to meet his mother and sister. There’s a million ways that this could go wrong, and he’s obsessively ran through every single with a slightly amused but mostly supportive Izzy. Alec was no help. Alec told him to try dating the Prince of Hell’s son and get back to him. Izzy, however, has told him that he’s silly for thinking that they’re going to be attacked out of nowhere and he’ll have to out himself as a Shadowhunter. She’s also told him he’s even sillier for worrying that Simon’s mom might secretly hate him for not being Clary or Maia or female. The only dilemma she even briefly considers for more than a second is Jace’s worry about all of his runes. With an appraising eye and pursed lips, she tells him, “Maybe wear long sleeves for now.”

“Jace, I promise my mom hasn’t ever hated anyone in her life,” Simon told him on the way over, briefly squeezing his hand while driving. “I mean maybe Donald Trump, but that is like the lowest bar on earth. She even thought Raphael was sweet. You can beat Raphael.”

“What if I say something stupid that mundanes should know?” Jace asked him, glaring.

“Well if you’re worried about ever saying something stupid, we should turn around now,” Simon joked. Jace did not find it funny. Simon frowned. “Look, I’ll steer the conversation away from politics and you can just ask them super embarrassing questions about my childhood. They’ll never shut up then, we’ll be lucky if we ever get out of there.”

Finally, Jace cracked a small smile. “Permission to embarrass you? You must really like me.”

His boyfriend laughed. “You might be growing on me.”

“Not now, Simon, we have dinner first.” Jace replied, winking, and Simon rolled his eyes at the innuendo. There was still a blush.

His anxiety further escalated at the door of Simon’s old house, and peaked when Elaine opened the door. She smiled a bright, full smile, one that reminded Jace of Simon as she greeted them. “Monkey! I’m so happy to see you. And this must be the boyfriend!”

Jace had received a brief relief from his worry at Simon’s nickname. not holding back a humongous smirk that received him a don’t you dare glare from Simon. Immediately he found himself slowly relaxing as he let himself be hugged and said hello to Simon’s sister Rebecca.

“I’m going to use the restroom real quick if that’s okay,” Jace said, and like an idiot when Elaine went to tell him where it was he slipped, “Thank you, I know where it is.”

Both Elaine and Rebecca look to Simon to explain, but Simon’s looking at him with confusion until he realizes why Jace is staring at him. The first time Jace had been to this house Simon was dead and Clary was trying to decide what to do about it all while also trying to console a terrified and emotional Elaine. Simon jumped in quickly. “You guys know how detailed I am in my stories. Can’t shut up.”

When he returns everyone is sitting at the dinner table while Elaine grabs the food from the kitchen. He’s about to ask Rebecca for the childhood stories like Simon suggested when Simon’s mom rests a plate of spaghetti in front of him.

It’s stupid. It’s so utterly stupid. His brain barely registers the plea as he stares at the pasta and feels his heart rate quicken. Faintly Jace can hear Simon and his family talk around him but the sounds are beginning to slur together and even though he plasters a smile on his face so they can think he’s still listening, they still catch on within minutes. Is it minutes? It’s not seconds, it can’t be, not the way his body is reacting like it’s suddenly in quick sand and he’s being drug under the earth to suffocate in shitty memories.

The tomato-covered noodles sit in front of him and suddenly he's five and taking a bath, finally happy that who he sees as his father loves him enough to have this, even if he does roll his eyes. But then he's six and he's learning piano and crack goes one finger and crack goes the other and he's begging his father to let him quit because he's a child who hasn't learned to accept physical pain. His father heals him with an iratze and he wildly thinks, at six years old, that Valentine didn't want to hurt him Jace had deserved it. His father didn't want him to be in pain if he would heal it. Then he's seven and he says something only slightly disrespectful after a very long training session that has every part of him aching and his father has hit him across the face giving him a bloody nose. There's no iratze this time. Jace feels every rib break, every part of his skin bruise, every cut bleed over and over again. His childhood home, the cabin, the boat-- he hears every twisted horrible word about how he's stupid and worthless and too emotional and weak replay repeatedly. All of it leads up to the subject of previous nightmares, a flash of Valentine telling him he's not his son and the feeling of having what was once a loved one carelessly steal your life with their blade.

In real time he has made a mess. The spaghetti that was in front of him is flung across the table as his hands hold desperately tight to the edge of the table. His breath is more ragged than it's been the last thirty missions he's completed, so out of control that he knows he's close to passing out from hyperventilation. There are tears in his eyes, and more than the mess or the possible fainting, that is what gets to him. He's crying at dinner with his boyfriend’s family like some toddler over the food choice because he's too weak to forget the past.

Simon's hand is on his, but Jace has never broken down like this in front of him before and Simon’s face shows fear. The only people to ever witness this were Alec and Izzy when he had first moved in and had to readjust. Now Simon sees how broken Jace really is and why he never should have bothered. Jace should have stuck with hookups and book club, not destroying any chance of his future with a boyfriend and his family who will never see him the same.

Somewhere in the midst of Jace shutting his eyes to drown everyone else out and control his breath, Elaine approaches him. She tells him she's going to touch him before she does, ever so lightly, and Jace barely hears her tell Simon to get something. When he comes back, Elaine asks Jace if she can help and when he doesn't argue she slowly slips an ice pack on the back of his next.

The effect isn't immediate, but it's damn near close. Elaine hands off the job of holding it to Simon, and moves so she can kneel in front of Jace. She takes his hands as he’s coming back to the room and feeling more inside his body and as he tries to hide his face in shame she gives his hands a squeeze. “Honey, it's okay. You're okay now. Everyone is here for you and you're safe. When my-- when my husband died, I was with him. I watched him, helpless. I used to get flashbacks just as physically violent.”

Jace blinked, watching her compassionate expression. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Elaine shook her head and brushed his hair back from his eyes. “You don't need to be sorry here. I'm a terrible cook anyway, it'll be better for everyone if we just order Chinese.”

Jace nodded in agreement and she walked out of the room. Simon set the ice pack on the table and hugged Jace as tightly as possible. For at least three minutes they sat like that, wordless, and when Jace had shed enough leftover tears he pulled back.

“Can I kiss you?” his boyfriend asked, beautiful brown eyes so completely earnest. When Jace nodded Simon complied, lips greeting his so softly and intimately that Jace could barely breathe.

They pulled back afterward, but Simon still didn't ask what went wrong. That was the beautiful thing about him. Sure, Jace figured his boyfriend probably knew exactly who the root cause was, but there had never been a moment in time where Jace was willing to admit that spaghetti was a trigger for him.

“I'm sorry I ruined dinner, Simon,” Jace said guiltily, not meeting his eyes.

“Are you kidding? This is not the first dinner that dealt with PTSD in the Lewis household, I promise. Mom being able to relate with you on that probably means I'm her favorite second son now.”

“Don't beat yourself up, Lewis, you'll always be her only monkey.”

“Ah, there it is,” Simon said dryly, but his eyes were twinkling at the joke. “If I get even one monkey themed present for my birthday or Hanukkah all of yours for the next two years will be duck themed.”

“Even for our anniversary?” Jace asked.

“Especially that one,” Simon replied with a grin. “Now you're about to learn a lot of psychology terms from my sister who is a major, so let's decide exactly how to avoid that conversation.”

“We could have sex in your old bedroom.” He replied with a grin.

“Interesting plan,” Simon said in turn, pursing his lips. Have couldn't quite tell if his boyfriend was more frustrated, aroused, or embarrassed by the idea. “Have you considered that may not be the best way to hang out with my family?”

“Hey, you just said I was her favorite son already!”

"I see my mistake now," Simon said wisely. Jace pushed his arm with a smile and Simon laughed. "Alright, but we have to be quick."

“You’re a vampire and I’m a Shadowhunter,” Jace said in a hushed tone and a big smirk. “I think we can make it work.”

#jimon #jimon fic #tw child abuse #tw flashbacks #jace herondale #elaine lewis #shadowhunters fic #my work #my fic

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copiosis · 5 years

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A Future Full Of Passionate People Is The Best Future Of All

Imagine a world full of people pursuing their passions instead of working jobs.

Imagine what would be possible. Not only for those people. For the world too. Individual passions unleashed to the tune of 7 billion people. I wager every problem we see today would be solved, and fast. Every person's passion has a place. And each passion makes that place better. No matter how weird it may initially look.

Studies show people, particularly men, languish if they don't have "a job". Jobless men men wind up playing video games, or watching television or movies hours on end. Many are on drugs of all kinds. So says the New York Times:

A huge number are on painkillers, including 43.5 percent of men who have stopped looking for work. Both physical and emotional pain — sadness, stress and dissatisfaction with their lives — were particularly acute among men without college degrees, the unemployed and those not looking for work.

Disease and death claim many of these men. Including black men in disproportionate numbers.

It would seem jobs are health elixirs. Particularly men's health. Studies show people find social connection and meaning from work. Could disconnection and lack of meaning kill a man?

At the same time, 85 percent of people hate their jobs worldwide. What a Catch 22! Eight out of ten humans: "I hate that which I can't live without."

What a conundrum!

That conundrum fuels political, commercial and mainstream popular sentiment. The sentiment says jobs are important. But that's wrong. It's not jobs that are important. It's what people think they get from jobs. More direct: it's what people think is available from jobs, and nowhere else.

A Rigged System That Forces You Into A Job

People pursuing their passions get far more meaning from what they do. Compared to what near 90 percent of humans are doing that they hate. So much so, they're willing, eager even, to forego financial wealth.

Yesterday, two men sat next to me in a coffee shop. The older advised the younger on career prospects in film. Overhearing them, the older contracts his film-making skills to the likes of Nike and Adidas. He told the younger man how the work is "feast or famine". He ended his advice with: "You're working minimum wage in the end, but hey, you're doing what you love."

Back to the jobless: There's something wrong with cajoling the jobless back into jobs. Maybe they're telling us something we need to listen to. Are dire statistics about languishing, diseased, depressed and dying men arguing for creating more jobs? What about the 85 percent who hate them?

What's going on here?

I suggest two things:

Men don't languish because they don't have work. They languish because they are ignorant. Of what are they ignorant? They don't know what lights their fire.

Our socioeconomic system is rigged so that men, and other people who either hate their job or have no job, also have no alternative. It's either a job or languish. And the rigged system doesn't care about the one thing that can turn this around: people's passions.

Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang uses these stats in his Freedom Dividen arguments. He wants to give every American over 18 $1000 a month no strings attached.

And while his idea will help, it only partly addresses the two points I made above. Given his visionary platform, Yang remains stuck in the "jobs are important" camp. He doesn't realize people do their best work when they're not paid. Even though that's exactly what he said about himself in January.

Ignorance is a terrible thing. Ignorance within a rigged system is not going to be solved by giving everyone a thousand dollars.

What we need is a new system. One rigged in everyone’s favor. One that connects us with what we're each passionate about. And if that can happen with no one paying for it, even better.

Imagine an army of mental health workers. Not the ones we see today. Today's mental health profession, particularly social work, is full of struggling professionals who don't like what they do.

I'm talking about people who care about caring for people. People who are well compensated. So they get rich. Their compensation is high because they're good at what they do. They're good at what they do because they love what they do. That shows in their results.

Now imagine these people, double the number of mental health people today, unleashed on the languishing jobless. Imagine their charges not having to pay a dime for their intervention. Imagine a million different approaches explored on the fly. As each mental health professional knows she can increase her financial reward if her new approach proves better than others. More so if others can do it too.

Today, men languish in parent's basements because they feel they have no other option. No one helps them because no one will pay someone to help them. The men for sure won’t.

So we have millions of men not contributing to the world in the best way they can: through their passions.

This is our culture. The future may have more in store. Artificial Intelligence and Automation are going to wreak havoc. Not just in retail and behind the wheel. Radiologists are in trouble. So are accountants, lawyers. Even engineers. Yang says they already have wreaked havoc. It’s how Trump got elected, he claims.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

In the future I see, consultants accompany this army of mental health professionals. These consultants take once-languishing men, now fueled by passion, and helps them.

The consultants find them resources. They find them places to express their passions. They connect them with people passionate about the men's passions. And passionate about letting others know such passions exist.

In other words, these consultant coordinators link them to their audience and supporters. Audiences encourage their passions. Like the supporters, they love what these men do. The men get reconnected.

All this happens without a single dollar being spent. Yet everyone involved (except the audience) gets rich. The audience gets rich pursuing their passion.

How can this happen?

It can't happen in capitalism. Capitalism is the rigged system I mentioned above. But it can happen with a better way. A freer system that's rigged in everyone's favor. I'll describe that in a moment.

In the meantime, if you don't believe passions change the world, check out these two examples. There are millions of others.

Landmark Shifts In Science And Language

Perhaps you've heard of William Bently. He's long dead. But his passion changed nature photography and a whole lot more. Here's what he said about his passion: shooting snowflakes with a camera. From Wikipedia:

“Always, right from the beginning it was the snowflakes that fascinated me most,” he remembered. “The farm folks up in this country dread the winter, but I was supremely happy.”

Known as the snowflake photographer, Bently's passion pioneered a process that didn't change for 100 years. Before he died of pneumonia, publisher McGraw-Hill, the US Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service), Scientific American, National Geographic, Nature and Popular Science all memorialized his contributions.

Here's a short film about his life and work. It's great.

youtube

Then there's Charles K. Bliss. He had a rabid passion for unifying and simplifying human language. Bliss created a brand new language from scratch. He called it Blisssymbolics. I had never heard of this language. But I don't have cerebral palsy.

For kids all over the world who do, Blisssymbolics changed their world. It allowed children with cerebral palsy to communicate with adults and each other. Bliss' invention changed kids lives world-wide. His language ended up in Hungary, France, Sweden, Israel, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Brazil, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Bermuda, Guam, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland, Venezuela, Madagascar, and Yugoslavia. That's a lot of lives changed from a single man's passion.

Neither man gained financial success through their passions. Not because they weren't valuable. They were. But our rigged system doesn't reward our most valuable human output. Output we’re passionate about. Such as caring for our kids, siblings or parents. Or creating something that changes life. Yang acknowledges this all the time:

Radio Lab Podcast did a great show about Bently and Bliss. Their great examples show how passionate people change the world, influencing it for hundreds of years.

How To Turn A Rigged System Into A Better One

It's not as hard as it sounds changing capitalism into something that's not capitalism. It starts by giving those who love capitalism something that outperforms capitalism.

Show those who capitalism benefits something that will benefit them more. If that something eliminates every conceivable way they can lose their wealth, even better.

The future I'm talking about makes rich people even richer. It allows them tremendous future potential to become richer still. A rich person will love the future without capitalism. Once they understand there is nothing to fear about it and everything to gain.

They don't need convincing. Enough of them will convince themselves once they find out about it. Most everyone else will too. Why? Because they're better off too. Rich even.

It's that simple. Show rich people how to get richer. They'll beat a path to the future. Meanwhile, everyone else gets rich too.

When A Pipe Dream Isn't

Is turning capitalism into something better too good to be true? Nope. You only haven't thought it through. No harm in that. We're all so busy. That's what the rigged system does. It keeps us busy. Heads down, nose to the grindstone. Busy doing what? Earning a living. A ridiculous notion if you think about it.

So everyone engages themselves in this ridiculous notion. Except those living in their parent's basement...

Maybe they’re harbingers of the future. Thing is, we don’t have to earn a living. No one does. Maybe these basement dwellers’ suffering points the way to something better. Could they be martyrs?

It is not a fait accompli that the jobless doom themselves to depression, listlessness, disease and death. Depression and listlessness stem from hopelessness and or helplessness. Disease and death tend to follow those. Thinking makes it so, says Shakespeare. Hopelessness and helplessness are thoughts. Thoughts can create disease.

These people feel powerless. The rigged system's insensitivity to their ignorance fuels that powerlessness.

Hopelessness can become hope. Helplessness can become excitement and empowerment. The listless can revive. Turn them on their passions. And watch the world change.

I say let's make that happen sooner than later. Let's start this this way: Turn the rigged system called capitalism, which demands everyone earn a living, into one that works forpeople. How? By making everyone free. For real.

It can be done. It only takes imagination.

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bethevenyc · 7 years

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The Amazing Underwire-Free Bra That Bra-Haters Swear By

The Vibrant Body Company bra is transforming. (Photo: Vibrant Body Company)

Raise your hand if you hate wearing a bra!

You’re not alone. And while the reasons for that are numerous, a likely top problem is this: You’re wearing the wrong size, and it’s damn uncomfortable.

It’s why a few of us at Yahoo Style couldn’t resist when Heidi Lehmann, Vibrant Body Company technical designer, offered us fittings as part of a recent tour to promote Vibrant bras — which come with a seductive promise: “never wires, never toxins.”

Why wireless? Because while there is no conclusive scientific evidence that wearing underwire bras is harmful to your health, experience shows that they’re uncomfortable. And, as Vibrant literature explains, “What we do know is that a wired bra is often restrictive. It restricts breast tissue as well as lymph nodes. We believe that restricting your body, any part of your body, for a prolonged or consistent period, is not healthy. We believe that freedom of movement and the flow of internal systems is important and the healthier, more comfortable option.”

And regarding toxins, “Many of the most recognized intimates brands use nasty chemicals in their fabrics,” Vibrant notes, “including phthalates and carcinogenic amines. Irritants that your body can easily absorb.”

So after seven years, 132 designs, and 211 prototypes, Vibrant Body Company — developed by media entrepreneur Michael Drescher and designer Roslyn Harte — came up with a new kind of bra. The result is a breathable, nontoxic, OEKO-TEX certified, wireless creation that the company claims is “comfortable” and “naturally sexy,” with wide straps that don’t dig in or fall down, and sideways cup support that “creates natural curves.”

The bras come in two styles — full coverage and semi-demi ($89 each); three colors — pearl, caramel, and black; and sizes ranging from 34B to 42D. After receiving our personalized fittings from Lehmann and our accurately-sized full coverage bras, we test drove them for a week. Below are our reviews (but suffice it to say that some of us have not taken them off yet).

I’ve got an internal debate simmering over the hunt for a perfect bra vs. the desire to shed mine altogether (which I do daily and immediately as soon as I get home from work). Still, the last bra I got truly excited about remains the first one I ever wore — two flimsy peach triangles purchased reluctantly by my mom when I was about 10 years old, and worn by me faithfully even though I was nowhere near needing it, just because I thought it made me seem grown-up. But now I’m excited all over again. For starters, the Vibrant feels great to the touch — it’s silky smooth — and almost as good while I’m wearing it, thanks to the absence of underwires and the soft, wider-than-usual straps that honestly don’t dig in or fall down. I still rip it off as soon as I walk through the door at the end of the day, but with none of the usual disdain. —B.G.

The Vibrant bra is honestly the best I have ever had the pleasure of wearing. Through the years, I have had a hard time picking out just the right size. After being fitted, I learned that I was wearing the wrong size, and I hadn’t been adjusting my straps properly. The Vibrant bra wasn’t too tight and didn’t have any hard underwires harshly leaning up against my underboob. I wear it at least a few times a week now, and even work out in it because it’s so darn comfy that I sometimes forget I have it on. Plus, while my breasts naturally have an interesting cone shape, this bra creates a rounder look, which I love, and it looks great under most of my blouses. I’m obsessed with this bra and barely want to wear anything else now. —J.Y.

Historically, I tend to avoid bras as much as possible. I rarely buy tops that require them, and dread wearing them to work. Usually, I stick with bralettes or my go-to unlined underwire bra, especially because my size fluctuates. But despite choosing what I thought were the comfiest bras in the past, they always wound up being the first thing to come off when I got home, even before my shoes. The Vibrant bra has certainly changed my outlook. Its extended cup fits snugly without digging in, and its lack of underwire is right up my alley. It is much less visible under my clothes than any of my other bras, and it’s actually comfortable. I’m still not completely converted and continue to avoid wearing bras, but having one that doesn’t dig in throughout the day to remind me that I’m wearing it reopens a section of my wardrobe that I’ve been avoiding. —D.K.

Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:

Women Are Getting Plastic Surgery to Look Like Ivanka Trump

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Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.

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fapangel · 7 years

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Isn't Kushner and Bannon fighting or is this some WWE button pushing acting/hyped up by the media thing? I don't know all the details. BTW, since you seem to have a lot of support for trump has there been anything you wish he can improve on or anything that he did that you didn't quite approve of but either don't care/par for the course?

I honestly haven’t paid muchattention to the Kushner/Bannon thing; this kind of internal cabinetpower-play personality clash is the kind of super in-depthpsychoanalysis bullshit I’ve never been good at - and, I havealways found prone to being twisted by the biases of those doing theanalysis, and that was before the current mediapersonalities that do it went totally apeshit.

However, this:

>has there been anything you wish he can improve on or anythingthat he did that you didn't quite approve of but either don'tcare/par for the course?

YEAH I GOT SOME SHIT TO SAY ABOUT THIS.

For starters, I feel a deep, deep, deep ambivalencetowards the Trump administration’s “war on global warming.”I can see their reasons for it, but Ireally, really don’t think their approach is going to accomplishanything. Furthermore, I’m deeply suspicious of the motives behindit - it might be entirely due to The Decent Reason,but I doubt it, because there’s a very powerful, widespreadsentiment of “global warming denial” in the right wing thatis nothing but knee-jerk reactionary bullshit; where they reject theentire idea just because THE OTHER SIDE is pushing it. This is theexact kind of shit conservatives detest and loathe when used by theleft wing, and yet they happily employ it themselves. At bestthey’re indulging in the same kind of hypocritical blind tribalismthat defines the left, and at worst they’re actively lettingthe opposition frame the debate in stark terms of opposition; a falsedichotomy that only serves their goals. In short, conservativesreally need to unfuck themselves on this issue.

Trufax: Once Upon A Time, I was aglobal warming skeptic - and contrarianism was a significantmotivator for me. I had learned by that time never to give an inch onanything ~THE LEFT~ supported; to challenge every precept they putforth, because so often even the very foundations of their arguments- and thus the frame defining the entire scope of the debate - wereartificial and false. Under this paradigm of “challengeeverything,” my objections were three-fold:

A. I doubted that Global Warming washappening.

B. IF it was happening, I doubted thatit was anthropogenic (caused by human activity.)

C. If it was both happening andanthropogenic, I doubted that any left-wing policies would dojack shit to address the dire consequences they predicted.

Atthe time - ten years ago, or so - there were Science Reasons to fuelthis doubt.The data was questionable, the models, imperfect, and the question ofpoliticized bias up in the air. There were two main camps ofscientists who openly questioned global warming. The first weregeologists and geophysicists who contested the validity of citingvarious physical phenomena as proof of anthropogenic global warming,(such as melting ice sheet, etc.) when it happened to involve theirgeographic area of study. The second were physicists/geophysicistswho questioned the math behind it, especially the energy balanceequations - most famous of them,IvarGiaever,winnerof a Nobel prize for physics, who famously said“Iam a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.”Saidquote comes out of the U.S. Senate Environment And Public WorksCommittee's minority report, which had over 650 actual honest-to-godscientists on record expressing actual, serious doubts vis a visglobal warming. Thenthere was some theories being kicked around that held global warmingto be happening, but not from anthropogenic sources - the mostconvincing (to me) at the time was the possibility of stellar cycles.A lot of levelheaded scientists wondered if we were coming out of aMaunderMinimum,a 60-70 odd year “super-cycle” in solar activity that might beconnected to the “LittleIce Age.”This struck me as the most likely alternate explanation simplybecause of the limited amount of historical data available; it wasquite likely our current observations on global warming just didn'thave a big enough sample size,so we were over-emphasizing the significance of the data bump. Inshort, I had plenty of reason to scoff at the idea of “scientificconsensus” the left constantly invoked.

Thenthe scientists went and didmore scienceto answerthese objections. You know, like they're supposed to. They diddue diligence, they replicated results, they refined models, and inthe end presented a convincing argument - global warming ishappening,and it iscausedby human activity.

However,that still leaves point C: namely, left-wing policies aren't going todo shit to stop it. Justconsider this graph:

Guesswhich nations didn't even have emissions targets set for them?Developing ones, including China, India, Brazil, South Africa, etc.Yes, China. Slowclap. Andyet, the Kyoto protocol - which set an average target of about 5% CO2emissions for most Western nations - was talked up as the greatmoral crusade of our time, asif a measly 5% reduction was going to do jack shit with China pumpingout enough pollution to create a semi-permanent browncloud visible from fucking space.

Thenecessity of these pissweak efforts are justified with the mostoverblown Chicken-Little sky-is-falling bullshit you can conceive of.From Al Gore's theatrically released power-point presentation thatwept for “drowning polar bears” and predicted global catastrophein ten years (complete with a doomsday clock) to media reports ofManhattandrowning by 2015, the constant flow of emotional fearmongeringbullshithasbeen constant, hysterical, and loud.They'vebeen promising us that the end is nigh for twenty-fivefucking years andyet the apocalypse keeps taking a rain-check. The ObamaAdministration's EPA published atypical example:

If climate change goes unaddressed, the report predicts morethan 2,000 storm-mangled bridges, 57,000 deaths from poor air qualityand 12,000 fatalities from extreme temperature between now and theyear 2100... the report argues that the U.S. will save 7.9 millionacres from wildfire, and prevent more than $10 billion in damage toMidwestern farming counties and coastal communities alike.

The reportitself (which you can download in its entirety) has some realgiggles, such as solemnly including damage to coastal properties -you know, those houses that rich morons build on literalfucking sandbars - I'm sorry, I meant “barrier islands” - andact surprised when thishappens. Oh, and the US taxpayer picks up the tab, too. And of course the seas willswallow the land, the rivers will flood, a plague of kekking frogswill go around slaying first-born trust fund inheritors, etc. But thereally notable thing is the more prosaic things in the report; thesimpler predictions of general economic impacts caused by highertemperatures and the resulting long-term weather patterns andecosystem shifts. These are the things that'd actually change life aswe know it in the long term... but MSNBC's story went straight todemolished bridges and body counts. If it bleeds, it leads.

It'snot just the media filter pushing the hype, though it helps - it's adeliberate debate strategy. In formal policy debate, the“affirmative” team argues for a plan of action, and vindicates itby establishing 1. there's a problem, and that 2. Bad Things happenif the problem's not addressed by their plan. The “negative” teamargues that the plan is bad, because implementing the plan will alsolead to Bad Things.Ergo, victory often goes to whomever's predicted Bad Things are theworst. Thisis known as “impacts outweigh,” i.e. my impacts are worse,therefore avoiding them is more important- hundreds dead in aheat wave is preferable to thousands dead in a war, for instance. Theinevitable heaver-impacts arms-race naturally means that almost every“disadvantage” (negative consequence) in policy debate is GlobalThermonuclear War. Everysingle one.

Thisis precisely why greenies wholeheartedly parrot these lurid doomsdayscenarios with the fervor of religious nuts promising that Armageddonis nigh: the impacts outweigh. The warming mitigation policies theychampion come at real and serious costs to the economy, standards ofliving and ultimately people's lives - so theirimpactsmust outweigh that to hold any water. Thetheocratic tones don't end there, as Megan McArdle of Bloombergpoints out in her excellentarticle on how alarmism poisons the global-warming debate:

The arguments about global warming too often sound more liketheology than science. Oh, the word “science” getsthrown around a great deal, but it's cited as a sacred authority, nota fallible process that staggers only awkwardly and unevenly towardthe truth, with frequent lurches in the wrong direction. Icannot count the number of times someone has told me that theybelieve in “the science,” as if that were the name of someomniscient god who had delivered us final answers written in stone.For those people, there can be only two categories in the debate:believers and unbelievers. Apostles and heretics.

In short, the politics of global warming have fuck-all to dowith the actual science most of the time. Scientistsaren't infallible, andthere is some complicity but for the most part thisisn't even the scientists fault. They'renowhere near“controllingthe narrative.” Becausethe politicians and the greenies are speaking for them, theconservative knee-jerk reaction is to throw the baby out with thebathwater and ignore allthescience and everypossibleconclusion as politically tainted; the result of collusion,conspiracy and cherry-picking to serve an agenda. This is theattitude Trump's administration is taking towards it, and whilethey're not wrong to assume that the existing science data on allthose government websites - and the still-serving employees that madethem - definitely have an agenda, justblanking the pages is the wrong approach. Globalwarming isactually happening, andit is actuallycausing problems, andwe will haveto find solutions for it - and since any conservative will agree thatthe left wing's solutions will cripple the economy and do fuck-all toactually stop warming, those solutions had damn well better be ours.

Theglobal warming debate is not about empirical proofs and causes, butabout consequences and mitigation policies. Asthis briefsearch on Slashdot shows, people are finallystarting to really talkabout geoengineering - active mitigation approaches - on a regularbasis, and many are starting to re-think the benefits of nuclearpower, which conservatives have historically championed as reliable,CO2-free baseline load generation. Climate science data will be vitalin pushing these initiatives, both in the horrifically complex andhigh-stakes considerations we must work through thoroughly beforeattempting geoengineering, and in making the economic case fornuclear power. Theadministration's current approach to “The Science” treats it asinnately hostile; already a permanent possession of the Enemy Camp,when it's anything but.More than playing intothe left wing's hands, it's actively ceding them ground without afight, which is ludicrous. Even if the intent is to “nuke andpave,” blanking all the climate data pending a full review andre-write by a new, more conservative bureaucratic science staff, it'sstill a poor way to do it. The resistance seen from the EPA and othergovernment climate-science related agencies has notbeen the blatantinsubordination and borderline treasonous defiance of lawfulauthority displayed by Swamp Thing bureaucrats in other agencies.It's stuff like tweeting about unclassified, non-security relatedclimate science data and appealing to public opinion - rather tamestuff.

Trumpisn't a very conservative conservative on most any of theconservative “social issues,” which means he's either entirelysidestepped or paid mere lip service to a lotof the Usual Suspectswhen it comes to the usual tribal-savage litmus tests (abortion,etc.) Unfortunately climate change isn't one of them, as far as hisadministration goes. The left wing's been allowed to defile climatescience by using it as a shield for their politics. The naturalreaction is to punt that political football back, but that's stillletting the left wing define the terms of the debate. It's badstrategy, ineffective politics and it all leads to ineffectualpolicy.

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themikithornburg · 7 years

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Football and Politics

Now that the news and commentary on Yellowstone Public Radio and my Facebook newsfeed are full to bursting with one subject – the Trump administration – I'm hearing and seeing almost nothing about the Super Bowl. Thank heaven!

I should explain. Football, American or otherwise, is right down at the bottom of my list of favorite things. Given the choice, I'd far rather sit through ten hours of Senate debate on C-Span than watch a football game. In fact, watching paint dry might entertain me as much. Watching grass grow would actually be preferable. This isn't an argument against football; it's just me.

But what I have heard recently about the big game has led me to a troubling conclusion. Americans who talk about football know a lot more about their subject than do Americans who talk about politics.

Why is this? Well, for one thing, as complicated as football might be, it's nowhere near as complicated as politics. And there's another reason, maybe even a more important one. If you don't care about football, it doesn't affect you (unless your spouse watches it all weekend, so you either have to find something else to do or learn to enjoy it yourself, which means you have to learn about it). But, although politics, the art and science of government, does affect you greatly, you've never had to watch it. You could let it fly right over your head and it wouldn't make any discernable difference – or at least the difference wouldn't be discernable to you.

Things all began to change, though, with the recent U.S. presidential campaign, and they're changing even more rapidly now, in the early days of Donald Trump's administration. People who never before saw their civic duty as going any further than showing up to vote a straight ticket every two years (or every four years, or never) suddenly fell in love with politics, went to rallies, waved signs of delight or outrage, wore t-shirts emblazoned with "their" candidate's name, and got into heated arguments, singing the candidate's praises or insulting the opposing camp, at every opportunity. You'd think they were talking about a football team.

This could be a good thing. Many Americans of the last several generations have paid so little attention to their government and how it works that people from other countries are shocked at our apathy and, yes, our ignorance. More importantly, our version of participatory democracy requires not only that we participate but that we understand what we're doing. People who don't vote, or who simply vote without knowing why they're making the choices they're making, have no business complaining that their elected government is yanking them around. They're leaving themselves wide open to being yanked around. So it's nice to see that some of us are waking up at last to the realization that it all does concern us.

The trouble is, most of us have a lot of catching up to do. This has never struck me with so much force as it did during a lengthy discussion about the President's immigration ban, via Facebook, with a friend whom I haven't seen in person for almost twenty years. Our opinions on the issue are almost diametrically opposed, but we struggled on, trying to express them accurately and in some detail. Nevertheless, while we argued with logic and zeal, it soon became apparent that we were both out of our depth. I had a few more specific facts at my disposal, so it looked for a while as if I were ahead on points. But my facts – and my knowledge of dependable sources, along with the terms I'd need to search for those sources – ran out all too quickly. Fortunately we let each other off the hook and didn't wind up calling each other ignorant jackasses. But a lot of other folks, reaching that point, might have done exactly that and worse. Families have broken up over political arguments when, if the truth were known, none of the participants had a real clue what they were talking about. Fistfights have started. Murders have been contemplated.

If you know me, you know I have a strong liberal bias. But I'm talking about civic ignorance here, and I'm definitely not saying that Trump's supporters have a corner on that market. I've seen too many comments and rants and memes – especially memes – posted by my fellow liberals that are misleading, wrong-headed, or simply untrue. The fake news, the cherry-picking of data, and the snarling or patronizing emotional bias are equally distributed, right and left. Sometimes the people who spread this stuff are aware of what they're doing; sometimes they're simply ignorant.

In fact, and I hereby freely admit it, we are all too ignorant. Like the guy in the old song, we don't know much about history. We think it's old stuff, sort of fun in costume movies but basically trash we can toss out and ignore otherwise. We don't realize that historical events shape our present and can shake it to the bone. It's the past, so how can it make any difference now?

We don't know much about other parts of the world. We think of their people as "them" – odd ducks that gabble in strange accents, cartoon characters that look almost human (especially when they're babies) but are impossible to understand. And who cares, anyway? They either hate us or they want to be us, but they're not real enough to hurt us so they don't matter. Or, on the other hand, we think they're just like us, really. We're all humans, so deep down in their hearts they believe the same things we believe; we're really just one big family, aren't we, so why don't we all just get along?

We don't know much about how the planet we live on works. That's all too complicated to be bothered with, as long as everything is going well on our little patches of it this morning. That's for other people – scientists, the professionals – to worry about, and if something goes wrong somewhere they can somehow wave their hands and fix it. Or it could be they're lying to us anyway, pretending for some reason that things are going wrong. Why would they pretend that? Who knows. They're scientists, so they have strange minds, way beyond our understanding!

Really, we don't know much about our own laws or about how our government works. It's a well-oiled machine, checks and balances and yadda yadda yadda. It's worked since 1776 or whenever, so it won't stop working now. When we don't like what it does we complain loudly; when we like what it does we're happy, so why rock the boat?

When you come right down to it, we don't know much about anything but our own little specialties, the work we do every day, how to get there and back, how to operate the machines we own. Football, maybe. Our favorite celebrities. We don't have time to know much more, and we certainly don't have time enough to go to the library and check out a couple of books, let alone time enough to read them. Anyway, reading is hard, unless it's a real page-turner, fun and relaxing. Reading history calls for thought and focus. Reading about science is like reading in a foreign language. Reading dry explanations and commentary on constitutional questions makes our eyes glaze over. Reading and understanding thoughtful opinions we don't immediately agree with is difficult and unpleasant.

But we're not going to get what we need – an understanding of how things have worked in the past and how they work now – in any other way. Especially, we won't get an understanding of how our country and our democratic system is supposed to work, and how its workings depend on our knowledgeable participation – in any other way. We need to make the time, and somehow to summon the determination, to do it.

In the meantime, we can at least stop posting mindless memes and spreading false information, information contrary to fact, on social media, taking up each other's time with worthless blather and passing it on. If we don't know something and can't find out, we don't have to agree and comment on it just to be saying something. We can tell the truth, not just the part of it we happen to like. We can be polite to each other. We can stop attacking people on the basis of their looks. And we can behave like adults. I don't enjoy seeing Donald Trump's head photoshopped onto the body of a pig any more than I enjoyed seeing Hillary Clinton's head on the same pig, and I find it difficult to respect the person who thinks that's clever or amusing. If we've never learned the value of knowing something is true before repeating it, of putting our brains in gear before we start running our mouths, it's time to learn it now. If we have real respect for our country, we can remember that we are each part of our country and must have respect for each other and ourselves. We're not stupid; we can learn. And the more we know, the less likely we are to be frightened and confused and angry. We can stop lashing out at each other and turn our attention toward positive action.

We've been ignorant for a long time. It may even be too late to repair the damage our ignorance has done to our democracy, but if we're going to minimize that damage we'd better begin now to repair our ignorance. And we'd better be quick about it. We can't start all over again next year.

This is not a football game.

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itsjustkp007 · 7 years

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Trump Rant/Plea #1

I try to not be too political on social media in general, and I try to hold my tongue. I try to hope for the best. I try to be optimistic. I try so hard to not let things that I cannot change not bother me, but the last 5 days have gotten so out of hand and I am so disappointed that I find myself needing to say something. I want to give the new President the benefit of the doubt. I am trying to so badly, and you have no idea how much I want to be proven wrong or told that the media is villainizing him, but...it’s not. By signing for those pipelines, by signing for the reversal decision of Roe v. Wade, by making decisions without even consulting the people for guidance, I would feel that the Founding Fathers would be disappointed if I didn’t say something. I know that America has a controversial past (to say the least) and I know that we’re nowhere near perfect, but we were founded by standing up for our beliefs, for seeking opportunity in a new world (wasn’t ours, but that’s a whole other issue), and for fighting for what we believed was right. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Declaration of Independence is one of the first documents where we established, as a country, what every person in the United States should be guaranteed. Abraham Lincoln stated that the country should be of the people, by the people, for the people. JFK stated that we should ask not what our country could do for us, but what we could do for our country. Despite any mistakes we made, despite our disagreements, despite everything that we have faced, there was this underlying belief that we are in this together, as cheesy as it sounds. Trump has made it clear that we’re not a united front anymore; we are more divided than ever, and that’s how he wants it. This isn’t just a critique anymore; this is what I have gathered from his actions over the last five days. I have disagreed with Presidents before, and I will disagree with all Presidents at some point, but I was at least heard.

I know that long text posts aren’t a lot of people’s “thing,” and I’m sorry. I have a Tumblr to share the things that I enjoy, share the random thoughts that I have, and whatever else comes to mind. I don’t claim to be a certain type of blog because I want to have the freedom to post what I want. If someone reads it, great. If someone ignores it, that’s fine, too. I just want to have an outlet where I can be whatever version of myself that I want. Yes, I’m a fangirl of a lot of things. Yes, I’m a book nerd. Yes, I watch way too much YouTube. Yes, I am very passionate about a lot of things, but I learn from what I post here. I learn from seeing others’ opinions. I love sharing similar likes and dislikes with people over the Internet, but I also love being real. I want to be real about my emotions and not hide in fear. I want to share my worries and concerns. I do it rarely because I prefer to be positive, but hey, if it makes one person feel validated, then I’m happy. No regrets. Anyway, now that that “disclaimer” is out of the way, here’s what I posted on Twitter (seeing as that’s where the President goes for opinions).

My Tweets: “1) I usually try to not be bothered by the things that I cannot change, and I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but... 2) ...I cannot accept Trump’s behavior. I cannot accept his total disregard for humanity as a whole. I cannot accept his inability to listen. 3) We are a country made of the people, by the people, for the people, and he used his power for his own personal gain and to boost his ego. 4) I know that America isn’t perfect. I know that we have our problems, but I love my country, and I hate seeing my fears become reality. 5) I know God is in control and I know that I can trust Him, but how can I feel peace when the POTUS is going against what America stood for? 6) I get that America has a controversial past; who doesn’t? I can forgive and forget. Not every POTUS before him was perfect, but they tried. 7) At least if I disagreed before with a President, they explained their thought process towards why they made that decision... 8) ...I think I’m just disappointed that everything I was worried about with Trump has happened, and it’s only been 5 days. 9) I have never wanted to be proven wrong so badly in my life, and my worst fears became reality. I may sound bitter, but that’s because I am.”

Granted, I meant my worst fears of Trump being POTUS, but you get the gist of it. I want to be wrong about Trump. I want him to do a good job, and I want him to change his ways and do the best that he can. But actions speak louder than words. He has made it clear to me who he is looking out for, and I know it’s not me. It’s not Democrats. It’s not Republicans. He’s not looking out for anyone but Donald John Trump. Out of all of the hate that his family has received, he has only responded to those who oppose him. He has not stood up for his wife. He has not stood up for his son. He has only taken the hate thrown at him and delivered hate back. Donald Trump has fought fire with fire. He has no problem trying to defend himself and bring people down with him, but he has failed as a husband and a father. If I was married or had children and I saw someone talking shit about my family, you better believe they will hear back from me. I defend my loved ones. Honestly, I would be more likely to respond to hate towards my family rather than hate towards me. It’s not because I won’t defend myself; it’s because I don’t have time for comments about me from strangers that will not help me grow as a person. If Trump won’t defend his family, what makes anyone think he’ll defend us? If Trump won’t fight for his family, what makes anyone think he’ll fight for us? This is why I did not vote for him. It was not just because I disagreed with him, and it had nothing to do with his political party. It had everything to do with the fact that he has failed to show love and compassion to his family. I can’t expect someone to love and support my country and its people when they can’t even love and support their loved ones.

The parenting in my house was 50/50. My parents were, and still are, a team. They’re not perfect, but they always had my best interests at heart. My dad worked 7 PM-7AM for the first 14 years of my life, and he was still as involved in my life as he could be. He’d skip a nap to pick me up from school if I was sick. Whenever he got the chance, he would tuck me in at night, read me a story, goof off with me, and tell me to have sweet dreams before I fell asleep. If I had a nightmare, he would get up and check under my bed for monsters or stay in my room as my pretend bodyguard and protect me from any evils until I went back to sleep. My dad was busy and he did work a lot, but I could count on him. He worked hard to provide for me, but he also made me feel loved and protected. When was the last time Trump helped Barron with his homework? Did he ever take his kids to the park to play because he knew how much they loved it there? Did Trump ever spend time with his kids one-on-one? How many times did he attend a sports game, a dance recital, or anything that his kids were in to show how proud he was of them? These are legitimate, not rhetorical questions, and I don’t ask them to make him look like a non-existent father or to make him feel bad. I ask them because...I’m worried that he didn’t make an effort. If you can’t spend time with your kids, help with the kids, or even try to get to know your kids, that is lazy to me. I don’t remember my father ever saying he was too busy for me. I realize that I’m lucky to have two loving and supportive parents, and I get that my father was never as busy as Trump is/was, but I don’t understand how Trump doesn’t seem to think about his family for a second. How can I expect him to serve our country as President and make decisions for the benefit of our country if he doesn’t even think about what would benefit his loved ones? I hope that these observations are proven false and I really hope that I am wrong about Trump only caring about himself, but I’m not holding my breath. I stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.

#personal political post #I just needed to get these thoughts out I'm sorry #long ass post because I'm full of feels and I just want to put them out there #there may be a bit of repetition but I got out what I needed to #please Lord let me eat my words #I want him to succeed #I just wish that he stopped signing bills like autographs and tweeting #focus on the people and listen rather than blocking them out

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lorajackson · 4 years

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‘Slipping and Sliding down the Polls’

This is an excerpt from episode 233 of The Editors.Rich: So Jim Geraghty, I have the RealClearPolitics Biden versus Trump polling page up right here. I’m just going to read you some numbers going back to … This is a CNBC poll from the 10th and 12th of June. And I’m just going to run through to the latest poll. Biden plus ten. Biden plus eight. Biden plus twelve. Biden plus nine. Biden plus twelve. Biden plus 14. Biden plus nine. Biden plus eight. Biden plus four. Biden plus eight. Let’s look at Wisconsin, Jim. Wisconsin. Biden plus twelve. Biden plus 14. Biden plus nine. Biden plus eight. Biden plus four. Biden plus eight. Sorry, that was the general election again. Florida, Biden eleven. Biden plus seven. Biden plus six. Biden plus nine. These are the real Wisconsin numbers. Whoops, now I’m on Florida. I’m back on Florida 2016 for some reason. Wisconsin, here it is. Biden plus nine. Biden plus eleven. Biden plus four. Biden plus eight. Trump plus one. Let’s do Pennsylvania just for fun. Pennsylvania, Biden plus ten. Biden plus three. Biden plus five. Jim Geraghty, what do you make of it?Jim: Well, for all the listeners who lost track of all those numbers in there, let me summarize what Rich just laid out over the last couple of minutes. Everything is bad. The polls are bad.Rich: There was a Trump plus one in one of these states. Florida maybe. Was it Florida or Wisconsin?Charlie: Wisconsin. It was the Trafalgar poll in Wisconsin.Rich: Trafalgar. I think Trafalgar has him up in one of these other states, too. I won’t bore our listeners by trying to find where it is.Jim: Broadly speaking, the big three swing states up in the upper Midwest, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, they all look pretty bad. Florida, maybe not looking bad but still not looking great. Every now and then Arizona, which everybody kind of thinks of as a Trump state, not looking that great. Iowa and Ohio, two states that Trump won by pretty sizable margins last time, not looking great. Well actually, there’s a fairly consistent movement across all the polls, across all the country of anywhere I would say from two to five to ten points against Trump towards Biden. Now, when you have this discussion with Trump supporters, they’ll jump up, and they’ll say, “Hey, there are some people out there who don’t want to tell a pollster that they’re voting for Donald Trump, but they’re going to vote for him anyway.” I think that’s true. I think that’s probably … I don’t know what percentage of the population that is. I don’t know what percentage of the electorate that is. I think it’s probably worth one or two points easily. Five points? Not so sure. The idea that it’s going to overcome a ten-point deficit we’re seeing in these polls, I’m rather skeptical of it. And I certainly would not want the Trump campaign to walk around saying, “Oh don’t worry; we’re totally doing fine.”And I think probably what might have been a particularly useful canary in the coal mine, for weeks and months we’ve been hearing, “Oh, don’t worry; don’t worry about these polls. Polls were wrong in 2016.” Brad Parscale is building the Death Star. By the way, if you’re going to compare your campaign to some sort of science fiction device or instrument, please don’t pick one that blew up twice when a small underfunded band decided to go after it. Probably what I think was the steam coming out of the engine for the Trump campaign was the Tulsa rally last week. The turnout was nowhere near what the Trump campaign expected. Parscale himself was saying a million tickets had been requested. And yeah, maybe some people were afraid of the protesters. No doubt I think some people were understandably worried about catching coronavirus at a large indoor event with crowds. Maybe some of the factor was people who ordered tickets who had no intention of showing up. But let’s face it; it’s Tulsa, Okla. It’s Trump, it’s a Saturday. There’s really no good reason for him to not be able to put a decent crowd together. And the fact that this was so much lower than they expected, I think that convinced even the skeptics on the Trump campaign that no, they’re not winning this race. Everything is not fine.The interesting thing is, I actually think one of the most encouraging headlines I saw, even articles that I saw in the past week was by Politico, June 27th, “Trump Knows He’s Losing.” Trump admits that he’s losing and the story begins, “The president has privately come to a grim realization in recent days. People told Politico, amid a mountain of bad polling and warnings from some of his staunchest allies that he’s on course to be a one-term president.” You can’t solve a problem unless you see a problem and unless you recognize it’s a problem. And I think the worst possible thing for the Trump campaign between now and November would be to walk around saying, “We don’t have to worry about any of these polls. These polls are meaningless. We’re still doing fine. We’re still doing great.” Look, there’s a very simple way to explain why Trump would be in lousy shape up against Joe Biden at this point. When in fact, at the beginning of the year, he was not in that rough shape.For a long time the idea is: Okay, these Democrats have taken over the suburbs. There’re a whole bunch of white soccer moms and minivan-driving dads out there who abhor what the president does. They just don’t like what they see. They can’t stand what he’s saying on his Twitter feed. But that’s okay because we’re going to make up for it amongst blue-collar whites in those key swing states. Well, that works when unemployment is between 3 percent and 4 percent. That doesn’t work when unemployment is in double digits, and it’s easy to see some white blue-collar workers saying, oh, you know what, I’m pretty disappointed with this presidency; maybe I should give this guy Biden a try. I don’t think the cake is fully baked yet. I don’t think that Trump is actually defeated yet. He just needs to run a very different campaign from here on out. And I thought your observation on the Corner the other day, Rich, where you know, asked by Sean Hannity this ultimate softball, what do you want to do in your second term? And Trump gives this meandering Mississippi River of an answer that talks about how experience is good and I didn’t think experience was good before. John Bolton’s a real SOB.If I had the chance to talk to the president, I would say, “Mr. President, you need to start talking to people about what will happen in your second term and what you can deliver. People need a sense of what will happen. You need to lay out an extensive second-term agenda.” I think this argument you’ve seen from … I don’t often agree with Sohrab Ahmari about all these other guys who are saying, you got to put up a forthright defense of the American Founding, the American principles. You need to say, this is a good country. We have laws, and we’re not perfect, but we are seeing this violent anarchist movement that wants to tear down everything we have, and I will not stand for it. That’s a message that can win. But you can’t wake up every morning, watch the TV and complain on what you see on cable news. And you’ve got to get rid of … Anyway, so I’ll stop for my usual … I think the polls are that bad. I think he is on course to lose. I think there’s time to fix it, but he’s got to get focused, and time is ticking away right now.Rich: It’s kind of funny. Some of Trump’s worst moments have been on Hannity. And they’re so bad exactly because Hannity has zero intention of making them bad. It involves whiffing on a softball. But Charlie, what do you make of the general terrain?Charlie: I really like that the impression that Jim did of Trump was actually of Chris Mathews. They have similar hair maybe. That’s such a good Chris Mathews impression, Jim. What do I think? I think Biden is winning and is likely to win. I don’t think that Biden will win by ten points when it comes to Election Day. There’s a small part of me that wonders if we’ve been here before, but that’s not based on any intelligent analysis. It’s just the lizard part of my brain remembering how sure I was that Hillary Clinton was going to win and also remembering seeing some similar—Rich: You weren’t 100 percent. In your defense, you weren’t 100 percent sure. There’s that moment I starkly remember we were sitting in your office. We might have been recording a podcast. We were recording a podcast. You had the sizable office back in the old NR world headquarters, and you were playing around with 270 to win or the RealClear electoral map. And I remember you pointing to 270 on the Trump side. And it involved those blue wall states. Playing around with those blue wall states.Charlie: Yeah, so I should probably separate out the year because at this point in the summer of 2016 I was absolutely convinced that Hillary was going to win. And we were seeing similar polling at the state and the national level, and we were also being told that Republicans were going to lose the House and the Senate. I would need to look up the numbers, but I distinctly remember them being down by about seven on the generic ballot in the House. As it got closer to it, yeah, I started to play around with the map and to wonder. And then there was one incident which I think I texted you about, Rich, where I went to get a haircut in Connecticut, and all of the people who worked in this old-fashioned barber shop were either second- or third-generation Hispanic immigrants or Italian Americans. And all of them were for Trump. Every single one. And it made me wonder. Not that he won Connecticut, but there’s just something about the way they were talking about Trump and Hillary that made me wonder. But I didn’t think that Trump was going to win even on Election Day.And I’m not saying that this is the same. I don’t think it is. But there’s a part of my brain that’s just been humbled by that experience. I also remember Romney being up seven points in the Gallup poll a lot in 2012. And I look at these Florida polls and sure, maybe Biden’s up eight. Entirely possible. It’s also true that Andrew Gillum was up over Ron DeSantis by seven points on Election Day in 2018. And that’s partly because of who votes in Florida. So there’s a part of me that is of the view that this is a bit early and that we don’t know. And the other contrarian view that I have is that Donald Trump is losing the people he is best suited to win back. If Biden were 80 to 15 or 80 to 20 with Hispanic voters, I would think, game over. But he’s not. Trump’s actually not doing as badly with Hispanic voters as you would assume. He seems to have kept about the same amount of black support, which is very low. But he hasn’t gone to a 1 or 2 percent. He’s at 8 or 9, and enthusiasm for Biden seems to be lower than usual. Where he’s really suffering is with seniors. Especially white seniors and white working-class women.Now, I don’t think he’s going to, but if the election becomes an actual election, those are the people you would assume he would be best placed to win back. My problem in seeing him winning and the reason I think Biden is winning and will win, is that as Jim says, I’m not really sure what he can do. The economy’s not going to go back to where it was by the end of the year. He’s not going to gain a reputation for having guided us through the coronavirus storm by the end of the year. He is unable to articulate why he wants to be president for four more years. He’s very easily distracted. And although I understand why he’s criticizing the Supreme Court for its decisions over the last two weeks, “vote for me and I’ll appoint different justices than the ones I already appointed” is less likely than not to be a winning message. So I can’t quite see how he gets on track. I am nonetheless a little bit hesitant at this stage, both because of what happened last time but also because of who it is that he seems to be losing.Rich: Yeah, so Jim, my problem is given what happened in 2016, I just don’t think I could ever count Trump out again. If these were the polls a week out, yeah. I guess I’d count him out. But we’ve got four months to go. The difference though is the nature of the opponent. Biden is not as hateable as Hillary Clinton. There was a stark number I believe in the last New York Times/Siena poll that had Trump down 14, which kind of seems like a lot. But just had Biden’s very unfavorable number. And it’s 20 something. I don’t know, 23 something. And Hillary’s at this point, I believe it said it was like at 46. And Trump is about 46 very unfavorable. So he’s where Hillary was. Now he was also where Hillary was in 2016 with a very a … But still managed to win. And the other thing that’s going on now is Trump’s a known quantity. He’s not the change candidate anymore. And he’s had these two crises that people have a really negative view of his handling of them. And absent having some other crisis that he handles in an unquestionably confident and deft manner that people really approve of, it’s hard to see how he can unring the bell of his numbers on the coronavirus and on police/race relations.Jim: Yeah. Look, you’re not running on potential and promise anymore. You are a known quantity. I have a suspicion that a key ingredient of that unexpected 2016 victory came from the sense of, people who were not thrilled about the course of the country under the two terms of Obama, including quite a few Obama voters. People forget, the year heading into Election Day 2016, we had the San Bernardino shootings, we had the Orlando shootings. We had the shooting of the cops in Dallas right before the convention in Cleveland. I remember heading out to that Republican convention in Cleveland and being really afraid there’s going to be some mass shooting or some sort of terrible terror attack. There was a sense … If you look in the right places, there was a sense that the country was coming apart at the seams in 2016. Of course now it looks like the good old days. This is where the president has to govern where he is, and he cannot keep running this sort outsider insurgent campaign because you’re the president now. You’re in charge. You are the status quo whether you like it or not.You need to make the case either that things are going well, which is going to be very, very tough considering the circumstances or probably the better argument is, I had things going really, really well and then this terrible virus came over here from China. And it’s a challenge like we’ve never seen before and haven’t seen in 100 years. And it forced us to shut down the economy that was the goose that was laying the golden egg. If you keep me in charge, once we get this virus under control, I can keep government policy in a direction to restore the golden goose. I can get us back, and you know the Democrats don’t do that. You know the Democrats are going to want to raise taxes. You know they’re going to want to do the crazy New Deal. Sooner or later, Joe Biden will succumb to the Bernie Sanders side. Joe Biden was not put on this earth to stand up to the left wing of the Democratic Party. Joe Biden is a back slapper. Joe Biden wants everybody to get along. Joe Biden will not stand up for you. He couldn’t even stand up for the businesses that were being trashed by rioters.There’s an argument to be made. Except the president needs to focus and do that, and he can’t run on his own personal grievances. I think it was Ramesh who made this very good point. The Trump campaign of 2016 was about doing things. Building the wall, immigration security. We’re going to bring back U.S. domestic production. Just on the issue of China alone there was an enormous potential for the president to get on this. But he’s got to stop thinking about like, China is merely a—Rich: I can’t believe you did this, Jim. I was just about to steal Ramesh’s point, and you stole it before I could get to it. I would express Ramesh’s point a little differently, or maybe this is a different point. Some of my best punditry is based on stealing Ramesh’s points, Jim.Jim: Here you go.Rich: Don’t hone in on my territory here.Jim: I’ll spike the volleyball over to you.Rich: I don’t know whether Ramesh has written this or just said it. But the thing about the 2016 campaign is Trump was hitting on issues that were under-discussed in our politics, underappreciated among the political elite. Fears of terrorism, concerns about illegal immigration, concerns about de-industrialization. Whereas this time around, very often his obsessions are just totally his obsessions or the obsessions of a very small group of people that might include us on this podcast. Probably includes a lot of our listeners. But Obamagate and Section 230 and these are not things that hit people where they live, and what I wonder about, Charlie, going back to Jim’s point in his first answer, that’d be great if Trump gave a speech about how this is a good country. You know, we have this wonderful Constitution. We need to defend our heritage. I certainly think he should give that speech. Any president should give that speech at any given point in time. But I just wonder if the toppling of the statues and all the rest of it infuriating and appalling to us, whether the average voter cares about it so much.I’ve basically been on board Jim’s theory. There’s going to be some sort of backlash to what’s been going on. But I wonder if it’s just not top of mind enough for the average voter.Charlie: So we have the opinion of the cause delivered by a Ponnuru, R. and joined in concurrence with Geraghty, J. and Lowry, R. I feel I should dissent just to make it a proper case. I think Ramesh is right, and I think that there is something to what you just said, Rich, but I think that that is only the case if you look at this narrowly. One of Trump’s problems is that he’s not eloquent. He is incapable of developing an argument, and he is incapable of nuance. And this is a moment that requires both. Now, four years ago just by talking about, just by mentioning topics that had been swept under the rug for so long, he had people sitting at home for better or for worse and saying, “I think that. I want to talk about that.” You could distill the entire immigration question, which is a complicated topic, down to “build the wall.” And people would hear, he cares about this. You could distill the question of China into a few soundbites. You can’t do that when you’ve been in charge for four years. Because you have to defend your record and explain why it’s different than the aspirant’s. But also this is a moment which calls for Trump to thread needles. The coronavirus question is complicated. You can’t just say, open up our businesses. You have to acknowledge this is a real threat. People have died.And the same is true of these protests. You have to acknowledge that what happened to George Floyd was terrible, and historically African Americans have been persecuted legally, systematically. But also to defend some of America’s great figures and to defend America’s virtue. And Trump’s contributions thus far are to tweet three- or four-word sentences in all caps. LAW AND ORDER. KEEP THE STATUES. I think that there is a real appetite out there for a defense of America. But he hasn’t made it. He’s been oddly silent. For all of the worry about Tom Cotton, and for all the, in many cases, correct anger at what happened in the park outside the White House, Trump’s been fairly hands-off. There’s been no real moment where he has become the avatar of a movement that doesn’t think America is rotten to the core. At least not beyond his usual platitudes. And one of the problems with being so effusive as he is, is it loses its currency. If you say all the time, this is the best, this is the greatest, this is the most influential, this is the … People say, “all right, whatever."You look back to presidents that have capitalized on this, you look back to Ronald Reagan when he first ran for governor of California, and he ran against the students at Berkeley and indeed the faculty at Berkeley. Find the video on YouTube of him telling them that they were in charge of spoiled children. If you look at Richard Nixon in 1968. They were pretty clear. They weren’t battering rams, and they weren’t just mouthing platitudes or shouting three-word slogans. They were clear about what it is that they thought. I do think maybe the statues per se aren’t American’s No. 1 concern. But I do think that the sort of sentiment that was expressed by Drew Brees about the importance of the flag, what it meant to him, what he thought about when he looked at it. The generational argument. The Burkean argument for America. I think that is extremely poignant and extremely poignant for a majority and extremely poignant for what it’s worth, for an awful lot of minorities. I don’t like this narrative that we’re seeing. The white person’s country. That’s absolute nonsense.It’s very important that we acknowledge disparities and historical persecution. But let’s not pretend that there aren’t lots and lots and lots of non-white people in this country who love it very dearly and who are glad to be here. Trump has an opportunity to be that guy. Joe Biden is not going to be a caricature. He’s not going to be a stereotype. He’s not going to burn the flag. So Trump if anything has to do it more than he would otherwise. But he’s not. He hasn’t sent in the authorities to shut down what’s happened to these statues. He hasn’t made a big speech about it. He hasn’t had a great sister–soldier moment where he just says no. He’s absent. And for all the talk about Joe Biden being in his basement, so is the president. And without that sort of action there’s just really no rationale for him beyond people saying, well we need him as a bulwark against Joe Biden. But that just doesn’t sell in the way that it did against, say, a Hillary Clinton.Rich: Yeah Jim, there are, I’m going to say it, things that I don’t understand about Trump’s view of the presidency. But I think I do understand them. But rhetorically I don’t understand why given the opportunity to give a national speech about American history and our heritage and our heroes, I’d love to do that. I wouldn’t want to do any other presidential duty, but I want to do that. And by the way, our listeners are wondering, we’re going to talk about the Russian intelligence thing probably later in the week when we have a firmer bead on it. But I’d love to read the presidential daily brief every day. The best gossip basically around the world gathered by the most adept spies in world history and surveillance techniques served up in a binder on your desk every morning. Who wouldn’t want to read that? And the president of the United States, you can have dinner with anyone you want, you can reach out to anyone you want. Any historian. Any issue expert at your beck and call. And instead of sitting and watching Fox News, which I can do as an ordinary American every night not being president of the United States.But these things don’t appeal to him because what he’s really … He’s in the job for the show. He wants to be the center of attention every day and to vent and say whatever he’s feeling at any given moment, no matter how reckless or heedless like that villages thing he retweeted. And be the center of attention and watch people talk about him every morning and every night and during a lot of the day on cable TV.Jim: Yeah. Maybe we’ll talk about this a bit later in the podcast when we start talking about the coronavirus stuff, but there’s considerable evidence that Donald Trump doesn’t actually enjoy the job part of being president. He likes all the pomp and circumstance. He likes the title. He likes being the center of attention. But it’s not like you see him spending a lot of time hashing things out with legislators and trying to put together some sort of majority to pass a bill. He clearly has very little interest in the details of policy. At one point you had said something about all the different things he could talk about, and Charlie mentioned the tweets of three or four words all in caps that he does. Do you know what’d probably be helpful, guys? If he’d stop retweeting videos of his supporters shouting “white power.” That’s probably not helpful at a point of a national conversation about racial inequities and stuff like that. That’s probably not helping. Yeah, I know the other guy said you’re not supporting him, you’re not black. Somehow we’ve managed to pick the two least self-aware, sensitive, erudite septuagenarians to run for president this cycle. But there is a …At the end when Trump couldn’t articulate that second-term agenda … Basically what is the cause? What does America get if it reelects Trump? More Trump. Him. Him being in the White House is the victory. So you’ve had some very interesting arguments of what does Trump really want to do in a second term? I think the first attack against Barack Obama from the John McCain campaign that drew blood was the celebrity ad. And Barack Obama was not merely a celebrity president, but he definitely leaned into it. Doing the picks on ESPN and doing the wacky videos with BuzzFeed and all the appearances on late-night talk shows and slow-jamming the news with Jimmy Fallon. Barack Obama was a full-spectrum celebrity for a good portion of his eight years. And I have a suspicion that’s part of the job. That may have been how Trump thought the job was. And guess what? Being president involves a heck of a lot more than that. Particularly when you’re facing major crises of urban unrest and this terrible pandemic going around.And if Trump doesn’t win reelection, I think a big chunk of the reason will be, he never really understood the job and never really wanted to do the parts of the job that are necessary to succeed in the job.Charlie: I have never wanted to be president, which is good because I can’t be. But watching Trump gives me that strange instinct. You know when you’re watching sports and you just sort of kick your leg out to try and kick the ball in soccer or if you’re watching baseball and you see they’re just going to miss catching it, you sort of put your arm out? I just sit there watching Trump so often and sort of just wish I could substitute myself—Rich: Yeah. I can do that better.Jim: You just got this yearning for mind control. Just for a short period of time.Charlie: I never felt like that before.Rich: I can see as Charlie’s striding boldly in a black and white picture from the White House to St. John’s Church after the protesters had been tear-gassed. You’re like, I could have done that better.Charlie: Yeah. I mean for a start, I think I would have said, if anyone is liable to get hurt or moved in order for me to do this, let’s not do it. It is a different feeling because with Barack Obama, I opposed almost everything he did. He was built in a laboratory to annoy me politically. But I never thought, “well I would do it better.” I thought, you have an ideology that I don’t share and I really wish you weren’t there. But with Trump it’s like watching someone drop the ball all the time. You just want to stand up and say, oh no, don’t say that. Oh no, don’t do that. Here’s … It’s just genuinely frustrating.Rich: Jim Geraghty exit question to you. At this juncture, which is more likely in November, a Joe Biden landslide or another Donald Trump narrow Electoral College victory without winning the popular vote?Jim: Joe Biden landslide. Didn’t take me very long to make that decision.Charlie: Yeah. I think it’s more likely that there’ll be a Joe Biden landslide.Rich: I’m going to say more likely narrow Trump victory because I think the race will close up, and I don’t see the landslide happening at this juncture. But I don’t totally discount the possibility that ten days out this race could really flip and could be an utter catastrophe for Republicans. But at the moment I’m more likely a Trump narrow victory, but obviously the most likely scenario is just a solid, non-landslide Joe Biden victory.

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Wendy McElroy: Interview with Jeffrey Tucker on All Things Crypto, Part One

Interview with Jeffrey Tucker on All Things Crypto, Part One Conducted by Wendy McElroy

The multi-faceted Jeffrey Tucker is an American writer who focuses on market freedom, anarcho-capitalism, and cryptotech. He is the author of eight books on economics, politics and culture, a much-sought after conference speaker, and an Internet entrepreneur. Jeffrey is editorial director and vice president of the venerable American Institute for Economic Research, founded in 1933. His career has focused on building many of the web’s primary portals for commentary and research on liberty, and is undertaking new adventures in publishing today.

I have incredible good fortune, as Jeff has written the preface to my book “The Satoshi Revolution,” which will be published in early 2019 by bitcoin.com. Meanwhile, a rough draft of the book is available online for free, compliments of bitcoin.com. Be sure to come back for the substantially-rewritten and thoroughly-edited book. I expect there will be a forum established here for me to chat with readers and answer their questions.

Let the interview begin…

Wendy: You have written extensively on Austrian Economics and cryptocurrency. Can you sketch out how cryptocurrency fits in with that economic tradition?

Jeff: The most obvious point concerns the capacity of the market to produce money as if were a normal good and service. This is remarkable, unthinkable 20 years ago, life-changing, epic.

Governments have mostly monopolized money for a century, and have been dominant in the monetary sector for some 6,000 years. We are living through a shift now that we know for sure that monetary secession is possible and operational.

Most Austrians in the 20th century worked toward reestablishing the gold standard. That’s good, but it never happened. It was Hayek who first threw down the gauntlet: get government completely out of the realm of money and let innovation take its course.

I would say that crypto has five Austrian founding fathers: Menger for showing that money has a market origin, Mises for his warning against central banking, Hayek for coming up with the idea of radical competition in money, Rothbard for his emphasis on money as property, and Kirzner for showing how entrepreneurship can defy our existing knowledge to reveal something completely new.

Aside from money, crypto’s core tech is the best innovation in history for definitely tracing provenance, which is the documented history of trades in private property. You need a technology for this. In the ancient world, it was clay tablets. Much later it was papyrus and then parchment and vellum. Databases were a glorious innovation. But all these technologies suffered from a problem which had heretofore been insoluble: they had a central point of failure. Blockchain has fixed that.

For this reason, the innovation of crypto is even more fundamental than giving us a new form of money. It is a technology of documentation. It scientifically tracks ownership rights. It has thus given us a better way to conduct human affairs in a more peaceful and prosperous way. I suspect it will be another ten years before this point is widely understood.

Wendy: You knew and worked with Murray Rothbard for many years. What do you think his take on crypto would have been? What would you have said to him in return?

Jeff: People always ask me: what would Murray say? My answer is that Murray was always learning, adapting, reapplying principles, discovering new information, just like any great intellectual. There is not one Murray. There are many, simply because he had such an active mind. That process ended when he died in 1995. He left us an enormous legacy. I don’t think it is fair to him or his legacy for anyone to pretend that he or she has a precise fix on what he would be thinking right now about current politics.

Some people claim Murray would be wildly pro-Trump, for example, but I think it is just as likely that the experience so far with the Trump administration would have rekindled his 1960s-style loathing of rightist authoritarianism and his burning critique of revanchist politics, particularly on the trade point but also on immigration. For forty years, Murray wrote for free trade and free migration. In his last years, he wrote a few sentences that raised some doubts about migration based on the political implications. Which Murray is the true one? I think this is the wrong question. The right question is: how can we apply in our times the principles that Murray stood for in his long career?

On the matter of crypto, I will say this. Murray did not agree with Hayek on money. In fact, Murray didn’t believe that a new money could ever compete with an older money once that money has become generally accepted. He cited Mises’s theory of money’s origins to support his position. For this reason, he only approved of the path of reforming the dollar. His view of money was rather static and rationalistic, and I know this because I held that view also, for many years. I saw many attempts at private e-money fail, and this reinforced my opinion.

I’m guessing, then, that Murray would have been slow to recognize what Bitcoin achieved, just as I had been slow. I had seen digital money fail but I didn’t precisely understand why they had failed: none had solved the problem of double spending. If you get that wrong, you set up a situation in which money becomes as reproducible as anything on the Internet, which is to say it is unsound. Bitcoin solved that problem. It enabled the creation of a scarce good which has all the features of money, plus building in a payment system into the architecture itself.

Might Murray have been convinced by the evidence? If he had the right person to explain it to him, possibly yes. From 2009 until about 2014, it was actually difficult to find material written for the economist who could explain why Bitcoin was money. Most everything available was written in the language of computer science, and so economists were generally left out.

In 2013, I undertook a major effort to educate myself about cryptography, distributed networks, hashing technology, and digital ledgers. I combined that new knowledge with my existing knowledge base and gradually came to understand. It was a big project. One of the most exciting of my life. By the time I was ready to write about it, I had not prepared myself for the reality that most economists were nowhere near the point of comprehending what this was all about.

So after I wrote my first article – February 2013, I believe – I faced a tremendous avalanche of attacks from old colleagues. I was stunned. This is a huge problem with intellectuals actually. They think they know, and so their knowledge blinds them to new understanding. It’s the opposite with the market, which is always in discovery mode. This is why Hayek constantly emphasized that a seriously pro-market economist must adopt a stance of humility and openness to the boundless creativity of the market. The market must be our teacher. The market teaches more than textbooks but you have to be willing to have a teachable spirit and look outside the window.

Wendy: What is your impression of how crypto is being received by most Austrian economists? Which ones, if any, seem particularly enthusiastic about it? Which ones seem particularly hostile?

Jeff: Many Austrians had come to misapply Murray’s own theory in the crudest possible form: no new money was ever possible. This is wrong on its face. We have countless examples of new money being produced. For example, every prison has its own money. It could be mackerel cans or ramen noodles. Doesn’t matter really. It happened in school when we were kids: people trade marbles or bathroom passes or anything as money.

The penchant to invent money flows from the needs of trade. Remember the definition of money: something acquired not for consumption but for later use in indirect exchange. There are, as Menger said, degrees of moneyness based on the range of acceptability. Something can be money in one context and just another exchangeable good in a different context. The whole concept is far more fluid than is generally supposed.

By 2013, most economists, Austrian or not, had become complacent in believing that they had money figured out. Bitcoin was just too new and bizarre for them to comprehend. I don’t think a single article from an economist had been accepted on the topic in any conventional academic journal. George Selgin, I think, was the first serious economist to write competently about synthetic money as a new form of money and payment system. Why Selgin and why not the others? I think it is because he is among the most empirically aware and institutionally curious of all the Austrians. He truly understands monetary history. He wrote an entire book on private monies in the Industrial Revolution, so he was profoundly aware of how failed public services inspire private monetary entrepreneurs.

Other Austrians just dug in their heels in those days and screamed: gold is money. Speaking as a matter of history, this is a correct statement. But the gold standard had been gradually destroyed by governments over the course of the 20th century. There are conditions under which gold could become money again, but governments and central banks don’t want that. Crypto came along as a kind of digital gold. Even the metaphors of the crypto world (think of the term mining) come from the history of the gold standard.

Another problem is the lack of technological sophistication of old-school Austrians. Many of them can’t explain why Facebook is valuable or anything else about information economics. They are too quick to observe any facet of the digital world and deem it a bubble because it is not grounded in physical things. That’s a very strange attitude for Austrians who are supposed to believe in subjective value but there it is.

I recall being completely befuddled by the tremendously dopey things that Austrians were writing in those days, even on once-respected venues. I called up one prominent writer and tried to explain crypto to him. He kept saying over and over again: “Bitcoin is not real; it is only digital.” I was having this conversation with him on Skype. I said: “Do you think this conversation is real?” He said yes. I then asked him if he understood that both the voice and the visuals were entirely digital. He just blinked his eyes in confusion. Then he went right back to writing dumb things.

These days, matters are much better. We have an entire team of economists at the American Institute for Economic Research – including people like William Luther, Max Gulker, Pete Earle, Scott Burns, Brian Albrecht, J.P. Koning, Lawrence White, J.P. Koning, Alexander Salter – who are super sophisticated on the topic of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. They don’t all agree with each other but they get the core of it. They don’t pretend to know things they do not know.

There are still people extant whose primary objection to Bitcoin is that it is “not backed.” They still don’t understand that it is possible for the digital world to reproduce value relationships that exist in the physical world. Unless you get that intellectual, you will never understand how markets can produce and manage money in the 21st century.

[To be continued next week.]

Reprints of this article should credit bitcoin.com and include a link back to the original links to all previous chapters

Wendy McElroy has “published” her new book The Satoshi Revolution exclusively with Bitcoin.com. However, things aren’t over yet. Every Saturday you’ll find another installment in a series of interviews about sections of the book with people like Doug Casey, L.Neil Smith, Jeff Tucker, Carl Watner…and so on. Altogether they’ll make up her new book ”The Satoshi Revolution”.

The post Wendy McElroy: Interview with Jeffrey Tucker on All Things Crypto, Part One appeared first on Bitcoin News.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

#cryptocurrency

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innominatewritings-blog · 6 years

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If you are smart, then you’ll know that some journalists are extremely bad at their jobs. I was going to say that the media is whack, but it really isn’t and I’m not going to diss the platform I am able to write this on.

Before I throw around facts and examples, I am going to write about my truth and why I love the media and then my beliefs on the simple thing that is representation. As, once the facts and examples come in to play, they will fully support the truth.

Love and Truth: Mine

I think back on my childhood and I realise the views I hold to this day, have always been with me. I honestly do not know how this has happened or what impacted me to have these views. All I done was watch a lot of TV and read fair few books.

I attended a mixed primary school, it was a Church of England school, and we truly treated everyone as equal. From what I remember there was no racism on the schools part. We were children so we never saw each other as what adults with judgement would see.

Being a white person, when I think back on how things are I don’t think much difference of me and my friends. I have foreign friends and friends of colour, but it is hard for me to understand if I blend us together because of the privilege that comes with my ethnicity. But the fact that I have these thoughts is a safety net for me. It helps me realise where I stand, and allows me to always be cautious. So I do not succumb to the ignorance. I care for everyone like I care for myself. If they are not allowed to do something that I am, younger me would blindly defend them not knowing the real issue, whereas, adult me? She is woke and ready to set you ignorant bigots in your place.

My friend and I are planning to go to America sometime soon and she jokes that she hopes she can get through customs. At first it didn’t click, then I realised, she is mixed-race and UK customs is bad enough as it is, imagine what American customs are like especially when a bigot runs the country. Trump truly does put the C(o)unt in Country.

OK, this is already pretty lengthy and I am nowhere near done. Please leave me your thoughts on this, as I am after all, a white person speaking up on something I can never fully understand, so when I overstep I would like to be shoved back into my place..

Love and Truth: Media

The reason I love the media so much is because you can access it from anywhere and get your little fix of information. Currently we are in a media divide and it is hard to find any reliable sources. You think you have found one and then this obscene article promoting malicious views pops up. #cancelled.

The media used to be a place you could go to find out genuine facts and information but now all it seems to be is made up articles for clicks and reads. When did it all become so childish?

I’m going to skip to the more important factors now.

I saw the sentence “#CrazyRichAsians is a reminder that representation is important” and although I am yet to see it, I completely agree on that front. (I will be referring back to this at some point.)

Currently the media I am seeing is people fighting for things not to be whitewashed, and all though there has been a lot of accurate casting done and people are happy, there is a behind the scenes; how much did they fight for the truthful representation that they needed?

Examples and Facts: Media

Tim Burton was an artist I once admired, but his views on representation saying that POC weren’t a demand to be had cast in his projects, well that’s because he’s in his own little bubble of privilege and only thought about his norm. No one asked for us whites to come and take over everything. We have never been the only ones to interact with one another. Movies are supposed to represent life right? So you’re telling me you have never once interacted with a person of colour? OK, lets think about this: I am white. I live my life from a white perspective. If I was played in a movie you can cast me as any ethnicity. This is because there is no experience I go through that someone else hasn’t also experienced. A POC lives their life as one. PERIOD. You cannot taint that by making a white person play that, because that instantly gets played down and washed out.

We cannot portray lives where we cannot truly empathise with their experiences.

I am obsessed with art, books, films, paintings/drawings, etc. The lot of it makes me over the moon with joy. I would love to write a book. Then I saw that sentence: “Crazy Rich Asians is a reminder that representation is important“. It got me thinking about my book, I personally didn’t have anything in mind about what the characters I wrote about looked like, but then I remembered something: any book I have read, unless stated otherwise, my mind has subconsciously whitewashed it. That is an accident on my part as that was the originality of my minds programming. Once aware I would focus on the words blocking out any false imagery. But, this is a minor part.

Jenny Han has had her book, ‘To All The Boy I’ve Loved Before’, turned into a Netflix original. Upon watching the film, because of its strong representation with Lana Condor’s portrayal of the movies lead character, Lara-Jean Covey. The tea here is that Jenny took the book to numerous Casting Directors and they all wanted to whitewash Covey even though her ethnicity was a crucial part of the story. Does the cover suggest otherwise?

Thankfully, Jenny found some professionals willing to develop her work exactly as she had written it, thus began Lara-Jean’s journey with Netflix. Thank you to those of pure heart who saw the greatest potential was to keep the character as her true self.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Remember that film briefly mentioned ^? #CrazyRichAsians? Despite it’s name, people also tried to diminish its reality and tarnish it with white people. I know, its SHOCKING. Do they have brains? I know my brain doesn’t exactly work properly, but I’m glad it isn’t that broken. The images in the slideshow are taken from Emma Stefansky‘s article on Vanity Fair. I am currently tearing up at the powerful statement in the last slide: ‘What makes these people think that all we want to do is see the same white actors or actresses on screen?’.

That statement really caused me to breakdown and just think. I hope it had the same affect on you.

Sincerity to all of You

There are so many powerful, and influential artists I admire and look up to. If you’re a person of colour in any industry related to the media, you are a step in the right direction to putting bigots in their rightful place. It all starts with people noticing what’s wrong and standing against it to make it right; even if it means not getting paid. As long as you are not taking someone else’s rightful place, then its worth it. We have to speak up for those who need us to, but remember not to speak for them or over them.

This has been a very long post and I am sorry for that. I just wanted to write about this on my blog. I am still, quite literally shook, from reading about Kevin Kwan’s experience. As someone who one day hopes to be in the film industry, I am stunned that there are shameful people like this still thriving in the industry. I am hopeful and uplifted by this change, that they won’t be for much longer. I pray that once the new generation are grown that there are very little bigots in the industry. One can only hope.

I thank and love you if you stayed with me through all 1392 words. So much love xo

It's 2018 and this is still happening..?! If you are smart, then you'll know that some journalists are extremely bad at their jobs. I was going to say that the media is whack, but it really isn't and I'm not going to diss the platform I am able to write this on.

#action #celebrity #inspiration #knowledge #life #media #netflix #personal #representation #writing

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