Nothing Stein or Johnson say matters. At all. Their platforms are meaningless because neither of them will ever be called to do any of it or have to answer for the promises that they made to voters. Theirs is a consequence-free existence. Politifact is never going to check them on the Johnsonmeter or the Steinmeter like they did for Barack Obama and will certainly do to whoever wins this long-ass trudge to the future of the country.
“[CN: abuse, police violence]
Today, when I saw this video which has gone viral these past few days as a “feel-good” cop story, I finally made the connection. The video is of a black woman being pulled over by police. There is terror on her face as the officer walks up to her car. His gun is at her eye level. But the officer doesn’t reach for the gun—instead, he reaches for two ice cream cones to hand over to her and her passenger. Her terror gives way to the almost tearful relief that she is not going to come to harm at the hands of these officers. At least not today.
This fear is what they want.
Watching this video, I was suddenly 19 again, trying not to cry while my boyfriend toyed with a sword and told me that I was lucky he’d never hurt me. And I was also the scared mother I was a few months ago, flooded with relief that the cop who followed my baby and I had let us get to the store alive. Watching this video I understood what these “feel-good” video and picture campaigns put on by police departments really are—abuse. They are designed to remind us that they are in charge, and that they are capable of taking our lives in an instant—but if we are good and they are feeling benevolent, they won’t.
These videos, combined with the countless videos of black men and women and children shot dead by cops, serve to remind us that we should both fear and love them if we want to survive. And if we don’t survive, we have nobody to blame but ourselves—see how capable of not killing us they can be?”
Her terror gives way to the almost tearful relief that she is not going to come to harm at the hands of these officers. At least not today.
This wouldn’t work without the terror. Without fear, there’s no relief. And I’d imagine nobody bothered to ask her beforehand if a pair of ice cream cones are worth the terrifying lead-up of being pulled over when you have no idea what you did wrong.
Pulling someone over to be nice to them is bullshit, period. The amount of “oh SHIT, what did I do wrong and how much am I going to suffer for it” associated with that action, even before you throw in the possibility of being killed, is unpleasant enough—scolding enough, threatening enough—to negate any positive thing they might do, and to use it just to hand out ice cream makes it an extremely backhanded “friendly gesture.” It’s at least the equivalent of being yelled at, and generally with more threat value.
It’s deliberate use of a fear tactic, a threat display, and then following it up with an unsolicited favor so that the person is obligated to say “thank you” instead of “that sucked.” With, again, no agreement on the value of the trade, just one person deciding on the terms and enforcing the transaction, and if the other person refuses they’re still out what was taken from them.
There’s a variety of mean-spirited pranks that fall under this type. I recall hearing of a guy who faked a car accident to propose to his girlfriend, had her called to the scene and told he was dying, in order to surprise her with a ring. There’s the shitty pick-up line joke of shoving a napkin in someone’s face with “Does this smell like chloroform to you?” There’s people who’ve faked arrests or kidnappings of their prospective fiancees in order to stage a proposal. There’s the bully fake-out of walking up menacingly to a habitual victim only to surprise them with a hug or present or apology. Destroying someone’s car right before surprising them with a new one. False fire alarms. Fake terrorist attacks. I’m sure I’m missing a few.
It’s all deliberately invoking feelings of terror and helplessness. It deliberately uses the already-present infrastructure of oppression to set up the relief porn. It deliberately calls to mind feelings of helplessness and impending catastrophe in its targets, bringing nightmares (and sometimes memories) to the fore. It deliberately pushes people into an uncomfortable, if not terrifying, situation, so somebody can play the benevolent god by taking them out of it.
Thing is, even if you’re playing a benevolent god, you’re still playing god, which is something nobody should be doing to each other without explicit prior consent.
i keep seeing this and FYI the gif of Hillary Clinton is her being surprised by the balloons, the gif of Donald Trump is literally him mocking a disabled person
bolding for emphasis
i keep seeing this and FYI the gif of Hillary Clinton is her being
surprised by the balloons, the gif of Donald Trump is literally him
mocking a disabled person
Ladies and gentlemen: ableism vs misogyny.
Trump actively mocking a disabled person, and Hillary being mocked for having the audacity to actively enjoy one of the high points of her entire life.
And they’re being shown as equal.
Ugh.
The reason people dislike Hillary is not misogyny. FYI some of her actions have directly led to the death of many people, including women.
And yeah I too realized the difference between the two occasions depicted one being Trump mocking a disabled person and the other Hillary enjoying the balloons. But frankly that is not the point, the only reason OP chose those images is because they were making “funny” faces. They might have as well chosen the one vine in which Hillary is howling like a dog, or literally any other of the stupid faces Trump makes.
You are trying to obfuscate the fact she is a bad candidate by focusing of the faces they chose, why not actually address the reasons people dislike her? Like the wars and military interventions she has supported?
Still prefer her to Trump, tho.
Nope, I’m not trying to obfuscate that at all, nor do I claim Hillary is a perfect candidate. If you’ve looked at my politics posts at all, you’ll know I donated to and voted for Bernie.
If the meme were discussing bad decisions, support for wars which have killed many civilians, or anything other than HA HA THEY’RE MAKING FACES THAT MAKE THEM LOOK ST*PID, then I wouldn’t assert, rightly, that this meme’s “funniness” depends on misogyny and ableism.
Because it does. And trying to claim “this meme isn’t ableist or misogynistic” simply because there ARE legitimate critiques of Hillary as a candidate is deliberately obtuse.
There are many legitimate critiques of Hillary as a candidate which do not rely on sexism or ableism, and are not sexist or ableist, but legitimate and necessary critiques of her past actions and policies.
I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.
They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.
Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).
By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.
You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.
The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.
“Hippopotamus.”
This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned
Imagine being the next crew to go down to earth and thinking “it’s fine, we got this. We have the weapons and equipment necessary to deal with bears and *shudders* hippopotamuses. We’ll be fine.”
And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.
But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.
Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.
You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.
The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.
You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.
It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.
Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.
When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.
“Badger.” they say, with a solemn nod.
One word: Moose
“Our vehicles are far superior to the local human models, in range, speed, armament, and any other metric you care to name! Nothing could possibly-”
BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!
“That’s called a moose.”
“We should be free of the threat of the ‘moose’ here on our new floating accommodation”
*humans start sniggering*
“… they can swim, can’t they”
*humans start laughing louder*
….
*mid-winter*
‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED! K’T'SURKIK WENT OUTSIDE AND A MOUND OF SNOW ROSE UP AND ATE HIM’
“What is this ‘wolverine’ you speak of?”
Tell me the story of the unpleasantly surprised alien invaders and their captive human remnant, getting more smug the more the aliens fail at basic scouting…
I know we’re all talking the big smash-‘em-up type animals, but what about the little ones? Are aliens prepared for spiders? Mosquitoes? Fleas? Ticks? Even humans get sick or die from some of those, who knows what the fuck they’d do to an unprepared alien.
So, this one’s a little more serious than most of my stuff. I was watching the 2016 SDCC Steven Universe panel, and hearing Rebecca Sugar speak so beautifully about what was important to her inspired me to make this.
I hate all this political correctness. I honestly think we're walking around trying to be too careful of other people's feelings, when we should just say what we think. Honestly, if it hurts someone's feelings to be called a racist, that's just too bad. Suck it up and deal.
But he's onto something, because secretly everybody's getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody's walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren't called racist. [...]
You know, he's a racist now because he's talked about this judge. And yeah, it's a dumb thing to say. I mean, to predicate your opinion on the fact that the guy was born to Mexican parents or something. He's said a lot of dumb things. So have all of them. Both sides. But everybody—the press and everybody's going, "Oh, well, that's racist," and they're making a big hoodoo out of it. Just fucking get over it. It's a sad time in history.
The boyfriend's cat seems to be mostly OK, as she's got that desert cat kind of coat. Super ButtButt, on the other hand, is something like 97% fur, and has spent most of the summer "just happening" to end up in whatever room I'm in, where upon she falls over and passes out.
if straight people gotta change pronouns when they’re singing covers so they don’t sound gay, then asexual singers have every right to replace any and all pronouns with “chicken nuggets”
No no no. This is so problematic because chicken nuggets has a different number of syllables, and it’s going to throw the whole song off. You have to pick a one syllable word. Like bears.
“Then he looks at bears, bears look at me, I look at bears and we look at bears.”
- R. Kelley, Trapped in the Closet ch. 7
I KISSED A BEAR AND I LIKED IT
doncha wish ur bearfriend was a freak like me
HEY HEY YOU YOU I DON’T LIKE YOUR BEARFRIEND
Bear was a bear, bear was a bear, can I make it any more obvious
Bear’s so tall and handsome as hell, bear’s so bad but bear does it so well
somebody told me that you had a bearfriend who looked like a bearfriend
bears love bears and bears
And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII will always love beeeeaaaaaarrrrssss.
This is giving me ace envy because bearfriend sounds like having Paddington move in.
Don’t worry allosexual friend! You can hang out with our bearfriends anytime. :-)
Double dates might get awkward though.
(Also, allosexual sounds like allosaurus, and dinosaurs are cool.)
The Badlands region in the Utah is famous for its arid and unforgiving landscape, which is decorated by sharp and eroded spires of stone. If you catch it at just the right moment and in the right conditions, however, these apparent wastelands can give birth to an extraordinary explosion of color and life in the form of beautiful wildflowers.
Plants in American desert or desert-like areas have evolved to make the most of their challenging environment. In the spring, when they receive moisture, they spring into action, doing what they can to conserve as much water as possible and to bloom and reproduce quickly. These blooms can be very short-lived to conserve moisture, which is why they can be a rare sight. (Source)
Another one. Paul O’Neal was an Black unarmed teenager from Chicago.
…And people wonder why there’s Black people like the late 23-year-old Korryn Gaines who are mentally drained and can no longer withstand to keep fighting and protesting against senseless killings of unarmed or armed Black people because the only thing that’s recurrent is the paranoia and anxiety that brews out of this. It’s fucking hard to keep it together and keep fighting time and time again. It does so much to our mental state. The fuck man…
Black Lives Matters means STOP KILLING US!!!
I know he stole a car but he didn’t deserve to die. Arrest him and punish him but don’t fucking kill him. To think this happened in my born city of Chicago but then again it really ain’t a good place to be but still… :(
And about Korryn Gaines. I put that incident she had on her tbh.
So because a mentally unstable woman could no longer cope with the reality of Black people continuously being murdered by police and the injustice of it, clung to the paranoia within her mind that came from all of this, spoke with negotiators on the phone during her standoff with police who in turn spoke to mental health professionals, before a cop decided to open fire on her and her son, she brought her death onto herself?! How fucked up are you…
Every damn body has an “opinion” on that young woman with no regard in looking into why she was the way she was. In my first comment above yours, I embedded a link that directs to an in-depth analysis I put together, which gets to the root of what happened and not just those little surface facts of “Oh, but she had a shotgun.” Read it.
"Knowing the ending can be useful because it allows you to focus on other aspects of the narrative" These people have never heard of the concept of reread/rewatch? Honestly, everybody gets to define how much they want their story spoiled. I do not want my stories spoiled. I don't want someone else to put something about the story I'm engaging in into my head. I won't even read blurbs on the backs of books. In my entire life, there has been exactly one case where I was glad I had a story spoiled for me, and it was a case of the "OMG, they're dead" fakeout, which is a trope that, well, I've read a LOT of fantasy and I've just overdosed on it and hate it. So having that one specific story spoiled because it contained that one specific thing that I hate for that one specific reason was OK. Otherwise, I don't want to know A N Y T H I N G.
But should we be working so hard to avoid spoilers? Do they actually ruin stories?
We’ve long assumed that the suspense makes a story interesting and the reason we keep on watching (or reading) is because we don’t know what happens next. Removing the element of surprise intuitively seems like it would make fiction less enjoyable.
Yet people rewatch their favorite movies all the time and read classic stories like “Romeo and Juliet,” even though they know what’s going to happen.
UC San Diego psychology professor Nicholas Christenfeld wanted to put spoilers to the test in the most straightforward way possible: by spoiling stories for people.
According to his research, spoilers should really be called “enhancers”: people consistently enjoyed spoiled stories more than unspoiled stories in experiments.
But this doesn’t mean that plot doesn’t matter.
“The plot is in some ways like a coat hanger, displaying a garment,” said Christenfeld. “If it’s just a crumpled heap of fabric on the floor, you couldn’t admire the garment.”
Knowing the ending can be useful because it allows you to focus on other aspects of the narrative (characters, themes, style, symbolism) and to more easily understand how the story is unfolding.
I want him to lose the presidential election he never deserved to be a part of, and lose it by a huge margin. I want him to throw a massive fit about it being rigged and go down a massive sore loser. I want to see the pictures of crying sunburned Americans as he crashes and burns and Hillary is elected.
I want him to run out of money. He seems to have spent so much already that he’s starting to crowdfund. He ran on the gist of ‘I’m a billionaire so I can pay for everything myself’ and he’s crowdfunding. I want him to go broke by self-financing his failed election bid. I want there to be a huge scandal over his tax return, I want him to finally reveal it and for there to be consequences.
I want him to lose a trail for fraud over Trump University, which scammed people. I want him to lose trials over sexual offenses that women claim he’s committed, and he probably did them. I want to see him dragged publically and constantly for the weird shit he makes up and pulls out of his ass.
I want his wife to realise she can do better than being married to the laughing stock of the world and someone people seriously compare to Hitler, and divorce him. I want her to get a chunk of his fortune despite it not existing any more. She never has to do public speaking again and she gets to keep a little dignity.
I want Trump to end up so poor he has to choose between fake tan and eating that month.
There is a more important reason for a President HRC to press her advantages on all fronts to put in place the policies she committed herself to run on: For the good of the nation, the Republican Party as it is presently constituted has to die.
Ever since the late 1970s, when it determined to ally itself with a politicized splinter of American evangelical Protestantism, having previously allied itself with the detritus of American apartheid, the Republican Party has been reeling toward catastrophe even as it succeeded at the ballot box, and taking the country along with it. Crackpot economic theories were mainstreamed in the 1980s. Crackpot conspiracy theories and god-drunk fantasies were mainstreamed in the 1990s. Crackpot imperial adventures abroad were mainstreamed in the 2000s. And all of these were mainstreamed at once in opposition to the country’s first African American president over the past eight years.
it’s not about that i know how to do laundry. it’s that when i was four i knew how to fold clothes; small hands working alongside my mother, while my older brother sat and played with his toys. it’s that i know what kind of detergent works but my father guesses. it’s that in my freshman year of college i had a line of boys who needed me to show them how to use the machine. it’s that the first door they knocked on belonged to me. it’s that they expected me to know.
it’s not that i know how to cook. it’s that the biggest christmas present i got was a little plastic kitchenette i never used except to climb on. it’s that my brother used it more, his hands ghosting over pink buttons and yellow dials. it’s that when my work needs cake for a birthday, they turn to me. i get it from costco. i don’t even like cooking. a boy burns popcorn in the dorm microwave and laughs. a week later, i do the same thing, and he snorts at me, “just crossed you off my wife list.” it’s that i had heard something like this so many times before that i laughed, too.
it’s not that i don’t love being feminine. it’s that i came home with bruises from trying to be a trick rider on my bike and heard the word “tomboy,” felt my little mouth say, “but i’m not a boy, i’m a girl”. it’s that they laughed. it’s that until i was sitting in my pretty dress and smiling with a big pretty smile and blinking my big pretty eyes, i wasn’t given back the title “girl”. it’s that until i wore makeup and styled my hair i was bullied; it’s that when i don’t wear makeup i’m a slob, that my mental health diagnosis hangs on the hook of being dressed up. it’s that my therapist sees me returning to bright red lipstick and tells me i am looking happier and i have to explain that i am more sad than i have ever been. it’s that i dress myself in as many layers as i can every time i ride a train because it’s better to be laughed at than harassed.
it’s not that i know how to clean, it’s that my brother’s chores were outside where i wanted to be, and mine were inside. it’s that i would have weeded the garden better than he did if they had just let me. it’s that i am put in charge of fixing other’s messes, expected to comply without complaint.
it’s not that i can’t open the jar. it’s that you ask my brother first every time. it’s that i am pushed into docile positions, trained to believe that my body when it’s strong and healthy is ugly, trained into being less, weaker. it’s that the jar is also science, is also engineering, is also every job, every opportunity. it’s that you laugh faster when he tells a joke, that you take him seriously but wave off me, that when he raises his voice he’s assertive but when i do i’m hysterical. the jar is getting into a car with a stranger as a driver and wondering if this is our last ride. the jar is knowing that if something happens to us, it’s our fault.
it’s that i’m weak and i don’t know if it’s because i just am or i was trained to be. it’s that we need to sit pretty with our pretty smiles and our pretty words trapped pretty and silent in our throats, our hands restless but pretty when idle, our bodies vessels for nothing but a future white dress. it’s that we are taught someone else needs to open the jar for us.
here’s the secret: run metal lids under hot water, they’ll expand faster than the glass they’re around. here’s the secret: when you keep us under hot water, we do more than boil. we expand over our edges. and we learn how to open our mouths, our claws, our screams hanging in kites over cities. just give me a chance. give me a chance when i am four when i am seven when i am twenty-three. i promise i can be amazing. give me the jar. i’ll show you something.
