ck4829
ck4829's JournalKeep Omelas Great?
When I was a kid, I read the story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin, it stuck with me, I read this story before Trump, before Obama, before George W Bush even to give you an idea, and it stuck with me, that's why I'm bringing it up now. It haunted me so to speak.
I suggest reading it, I will say this though, Omelas is a place of greatness and wonder, but something dark and evil powers that greatness and wonder.
And then I see the US, I see how great and wonderful we're supposed to be, but what is the cost of that greatness?
This is made all the more apparent in the conditions the detained children are in. How squalid these conditions are or dealing with angry and sadistic guards. "We" are expected to feel better about ourselves, safer, more secure, superior because "we" can and do this to children.
The "Great Again" in "Make America Great Again" is our Omelas.
But I'm not content with just walking away from Omelas, Omelas should fall.
The same people who ate up a video that made Pelosi look drunk and stories about pizzeria satanists
Are now urging war over a Totally Authentic Video that shows Totally Iran doing Totally Bad Things.
Don't let 2019 be a repeat of 2003.
"Socialism" is not toxic or poisonous, but I can tell you what is...
It's the wing of the political spectrum that says valuing human lives over confederate statues, that getting vaccinated, that buying supplies before a potential disaster, and, oh right, not wanting to get shot in school are all examples of "socialism" today.
It's weird how this isn't obvious to everyone.
Making a child give birth is an attack on the concept of childhood
Our system isn't perfect, it could always use more and more reform, but not letting 11 year old girls become mothers is a step in the right direction.
Let's work to ensure it wasn't a step in the right direction.
Childhood is a social construct, but it's one that has created a degree of social equality... that it doesn't matter if you are poor or rich, if you are a CHILD, you shouldn't be working or being a mother, you shouldn't be worried about money or carrying children, you should be learning, socializing, and having fun.
This isn't a coincidence, this isn't a bug, an unintended consequence of the right wing agenda. The concept of a universal childhood is a blow against social stratification, the child of a richer-than-God parent has something in common with the child of a poorer-than-dirt parent. And of course if these bans go through, the child of a richer-than-God parent won't be forced to give birth, it's not going to happen, we all know that.
The right wing at it's core likes social stratification, it desires it, it sees it as normal and even a good thing. Heck, this goes back to the very root of left vs right in the French Revolution; somebody is supposed to be a king and somebody is supposed to be a peasant.
It's funny, we're being told people on the Democratic side and the Republican side need to stop being divided and come together, yet here we are, creating divisions between the rich and the poor, making the class system more and more real, more palpable.
A lot of people, a lot of institutes believe in nature over nurture in the nature vs nurture debate
That's the point of genetic testing for example
That's the point of "racial science"
That's the point of calling something "human nature"
It's the backbone of racism, sexism, and classism
When we hear that homosexuality isn't natural, it's because the people who do say it believe that heterosexuality is natural and that non-heterosexuality is a "learned perversion"
Could go on with more examples of how nature in the nature vs nurture debate is gets a head start in our rhetoric, policies, history, debates, etc. (Full disclosure: As you can probably tell, I'm biased for nurture in the nature vs nurture debate and another reason I think nature gets this head start is because I consider "nature" to be conducive to the status quo, but that's another story for another time)
So then it makes me wonder, why then, when it comes to rape and women carrying their rapist's babies and the recent debates we've been having now that the right to abortion could end soon, does the nature vs nurture debate suddenly stop? We can use gene editing, the CRISPR for example, to make sure a rapist's genes are not passed on by making them so different the baby might as well not be the rapist's baby anymore. If I was on the nature side, I wouldn't want this to happen, a rapist shouldn't be rewarded with having a contribution to the gene pool and did so using anti-social acts.
It makes me think of two reasons:
We use the CRISPR gene editor to get rapist genes out of the gene pool and we'll have to use it for everything. Universal healthcare. Can't have that now! 
Perhaps worse. People don't care. A lot of people in power and on the street may not want to admit it, but they see rape as more "normal" than perhaps they would care to admit. It is an exercise of power of men over women. It's domination. It's functional even. A rapist's baby is a feature, not a bug, of the gender power status quo.
It's baffling why people vote GOP when it's quite clear that Democrats have SUPERPOWERS!
Let's go over the roster of some of these superpowered Democrats...
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez AKA The 30% Destructor - Whatever she does, a chunk of the population will become diametrically opposed to it to the point of them not even knowing why they do it. She wants a clean environment, the chunk will resist it! She wants progressive taxation, this chunk will THROW their own money at CEOs! She makes a statement against cannibalism, well... Amazing!
Hillary Clinton AKA Miss President - Has numerous superpowers. Constructed emails that Republicans are UNABLE to get over. SHOCKING psionic powers that helped her escape Republican inquisitors several times. However, taken out of commission when she apparently manipulated reality to somehow make 63 million greater than 65 million! How did she do it though?!
Rep. Ilhan Omar AKA Doctor Muslim - She has the superpower where ANYTHING she says becomes Pro-Terrorist, Anti-American, and Anti-Israel all at the same time! Incredible!
(Identity Unknown) AKA The Future Democratic President - Right now, impeachment of a President is impossible with a moving goalpost that will not stop and a bar that is unattainable. The Future Democratic President will have a shrink ray though that will shrink the measure of what is needed for impeachment down to practically nothing. When the standard is shrunk, impeachment will not be about high crimes and misdemeanors, but about "cleansing the office", according to Senator Lindsey Graham. Unbelievable!
I used to say the Republican Party at the federal level is not legitimate, now...
I'm starting to move that belief to the state level as well.
For example: I will not under any circumstances contact a legislator if that legislator is Republican, doing so would say that they represent me, they do not.
Why you ask? How about this...
A new bill would ban most private insurance coverage for abortions. But opponents say it would also ban effective methods of birth control.
One fifth of the representatives in the House have signed on to a bill sponsored by Republican John Becker that would prohibit most insurance companies from offering coverage for abortion services.
...
And Becker says the bill also speaks to coverage of ectopic or tubal pregnancies where the fertilized egg attaches outside of the womb. “Part of that treatment would be removing that embryo from the fallopian tube and reinserting it in the uterus so that is defined as not an abortion under this bill," Becker explains. (That's not a thing, there's no medical procedure where this happens. That's not how medical procedures work)
Becker (also) insists his bill does not target birth control. “When you get into the contraception and abortifacients, that’s clearly not my area of expertise (How telling) but I suppose, if it were true that what we typically known as the pill would be classified as an abortifacient, then I would imagine the drug manufacturers would reformulate it so it’s no longer an abortifacient and is strictly a contraceptive," Becker says. (So just change the formula from X to Y and it will have a different desired effect? That's not how biochemistry works, that's not how chemistry works period)
https://www.statenews.org/post/ohio-legislature-considering-abortion-bill-more-restrictive-heartbeat-bill
This man is where he is today because we continue to view the increasingly dangerous Republican Party as a legitimate political party, that was an error on our part, it's time to fix it.
I'm sorry, but the only way to stop authoritarianism is through disobedience
Voting won't fix this mess, it's that bad, this will require other actions by the people.
It will require the usage of direct action and disobedience. And it needs get to the point where today's authoritarians give up, future potential authoritarians will feel uneasy about trying it, and people resisting other authoritarian regimes in places like Russia, Brazil, or Hungary feel inspiration and solidarity from what we do.
Now I understand lots of people are afraid of that... that they don't want to be seen as troublemakers, they are afraid of what it means when it comes to employment, that they will run afoul of that family member they only meet at Holidays who talks about waiting "day when all the Democrats, queers, and Muslims get executed", and so on. It's time to erase that fear; it's not just Trump's authoritarianism that needs to be stopped, but it needs to be destroyed in general. Time to stand up.
Fortunately, our reality is not black and white, and this applies to obedience vs disobedience to authoritarianism as well, there is nuance. There are things people already do and are willing to learn more every day, let's all learn and apply this, it's time to shut that whole authoritarian thing down.
Things other than obedience:
Reluctant and slow compliance
-Pay your taxes, if we get Trumpcare then medical bills as slowly as possible
Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
-When the authoritarian says "Jump", you ask "How high? In centimeters?"
Popular nonobedience
-Make it into a campaign, "Not Paying" if Trumpcare makes medical bills higher and deceases access to service
Disguised disobedience
-Pay your taxes with pennies or one dollar bills
Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
Sitdown
-Civil rights movement of the past did this one
Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
-Support counter-recruitment.
-Don't sign up for Operation Iranian Liberation
Hiding, escape, and false identities
-My name? It's... Jacob Wohl.
Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/browse_methods
We say it a lot, but for them it is 100% true. No reason for any medical professional to vote GOP
Republicans are pretty much attacking the whole practice of medicine every day now.
"Vaccines are a conspiracy!"
"Nurses sit around playing cards all day!"
"They deliver the baby and then the doctor and mother decide if the baby should be executed!"
"We have the greatest healthcare system in the world... and it will all come crashing down if we let immigrants in with their DISEASES! It's that weak!"
This isn't ribbing, this isn't teasing, this isn't joking around, and it's not even political anymore... this is outright hostility to the calling and profession of medicine itself.
Nobody who works in a hospital or clinic should vote for the Republicans and if they want to come out against the Republican Party and the right wing ideology supporting this hostility against them, then we need to support them.
Once again: Race is a social construct
There is nothing natural, biological, divine, and even physically real other than the color of skin about "race" and even that has limits... the black race, the asian race, and the white race.
Social constructs, we have power over them. We can ignore them. We can tinker with them. We can expand them. We can destroy them, obliterate them completely. We can also let them control us... as white nationalists and the angry white/right wing people we're seeing under Trump are being controlled by. But it's something we let happen!
When we're seeing these people all but declare an unqualified white man is somehow "better" than an eminently qualified non-white person, when violence by white people is seen as somehow more acceptable than violence by immigrants, when white people "deserve their welfare" but non-white people are all lazy junkies, etc. You know what that is? That is being controlled by the social construct rather than controlling the social construct.
We need to control this social construct; this white nationalism, this angry white/right wing male syndrome needs to be called what it is... weakness.
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