“[L]et’s be crystal clear about this: Liberals are not the ones who are out of touch. Conservatives are. Virtually every poll I saw showed healthy pluralities and sometimes outright majorities opposing Kavanaugh’s confirmation. An NPR-PBS-Marist poll had it 52-40 against. News reports didn’t often provide this context I’m about to give you, but this was astonishing. Historically, most people don’t pay close attention to Supreme Court nominations, and they just assume that if the president chooses someone, there must be a good reason. Strong pluralities continued to back Clarence Thomas in 1991 even after Anita Hill testified. It’s extremely unusual, and possibly unprecedented, for most Americans to oppose a Supreme Court nominee. But it’s the case here. It is also a fact that more Americans believed Christine Blasey Ford than believed Kavanaugh. That same NPR-PBS poll had it at 45 percent believing Ford, and 32 percent Kavanaugh. Republicans, not Democrats, are in the minority. Yes, they do have a majority in the Senate, which is why this happened. And Kavanaugh passed by one vote. His 50 votes may have represented in this case the bare majority of the Senate, but the senators who voted to confirm him do not represent 50 percent of the country. It isn’t even close. Assigning half a state’s population to each voting senator and doing a little rounding produces the result: Senators who voted for Kavanaugh represent around 145 million Americans, while senators who voted against him represent 181 million. That’s 56 to 44 percent, with the will of the majority brazenly thwarted by the most unrepresentative legislative body in the democratic world. And of course let’s not forget, and yes it’s fair and entirely relevant, that Kavanaugh was nominated in the first place by a president who lost the popular vote and of whom a minority of Americans approve. Angry? You bet we are. But crazy? Out of touch? Absolutely not. We who oppose Kavanaugh are the majority. We are the decent people of the heartland.”
I’m just going to highlight this, because it’s so important to remember and to understand:
His 50 votes may have represented in this case the bare majority of the Senate, but the senators who voted to confirm him do not represent 50 percent of the country. It isn’t even close. Assigning half a state’s population to each voting senator and doing a little rounding produces the result: Senators who voted for Kavanaugh represent around 145 million Americans, while senators who voted against him represent 181 million. That’s 56 to 44 percent, with the will of the majority brazenly thwarted by the most unrepresentative legislative body in the democratic world.
It’s easy to be angry and feel that “America” has lost its way, but the truth is that America has been taken over by a minority of people, backed by neofascists. AMERICA is populated with good people. AMERICAN GOVERNMENT is corrupted by money and power, and does not accurately or fairly represent the overwhelming majority of us who live here.
I got some cynical responses to my last post where I encouraged people to vote.
I got meme’d and GIF’d. Probably some eye-rolling was involved.
Yes, I am an optimistic idealist. I understand that some may think voting will not do any good at this point. They think I am being unrealistic.
Though compared to more militant approaches, I think my approach is still a bit more realistic.
The violent overthrow of the government is not happening any time soon. That’s most likely a quick death for the few willing to try. I doubt you’ll convince many people to give up everything for a hopeless fight.
Ridding the US of capitalism overnight ain’t happening either. Your fantasies of billionaires lining up for the guillotine are probably going to stay in your head for now.
Not to mention any drastic and immediate transition on this scale has always been accompanied by blood and misery and generations of painful recovery.
That would literally kill me. I could not survive it. So pardon me if I want to try voting first.
The thing is, our voter turnout has been abysmal. Too few of us have been participating.
At the moment, they can only rig the system if the results are fairly close. I do not believe they can handle a landslide. Not yet. And we have the numbers for a landslide.
I think Trump and his supporters have been quite the motivator. I am hopeful that enough people will choose to vote so we can move things back in a better direction.
No, the Democrats are not perfect. But they are still the right direction. And as a new generation of politicians enter the fray, maybe they can inject more modern ideas into the system. We can slowly introduce socialist programs over time. We could start with healthcare. Maybe education. Slow and steady.
This is a game of inches. Wanting to change overnight with a bloody revolution… well… let’s just say I should be the one memeing you. I should be the one sending passive aggressive GIFs to you. My eyes are not rolling… they are spinning around in circles.
Since your way = my death… no, I’m probably not going to be on board with that.
I’m gonna continue to tell folks to vote.
And I’m not going to give up hope because your edgy ass thinks everything besides “burning it all down” is pointless.
I used to hate using ‘love’ liberally. I felt it was a sacred word only to be used in very special occasions. Now that I’m older, I’ve come to the realization that love should be shared and felt and received with reckless abandon. Love these characters, love this food, love things in the moment, even if they may seem tiny and insignificant to others. I think it makes life a little more soft around the edges.
Stop the belief that misidentifying with a sexual/gender orientation is a “hurdle” or a “setback” in your journey of finding your true identity and instead realize that misidentification is a common consequence of living in a culture where being cis and straight is supposed to be a norm and access to any information and resources about the existence of non cis and straight identities is quite limited and restricted by one’s peers,institutions etc
Stop blaming and demonizing already marginalized communities for your misidentification when all they did was accept you and provide you a safe space to discuss your experiences and explore your identity.Its not their fault that you didnt feel like you belonged with them.
It’s not bi/pan people’s fault that you identified with their label because of your internalized homophobia
It’s not asexual people’s fault that you identified with their label because of your internalized homophobia
Its not trans/non binary/gender fluid/agender people’s fault that you identified with their label because of your internalized homophobia or your issues with the gender roles imposed on you
Its not lesbian/gay people’s fault that you identified with their label because of your internalized transphobia
There’s nothing wrong with misidentification. There’s nothing wrong with exploring your identity. Hold the cis heternormative society and institutions accountable for your misidentification instead of invalidating the existence of identities which give thousands of people to around the world comfort and solidarity just bc you had a bad experience with them.
I just wanna give a special shout out to all the people who write nice things in the tags when they reblog gifsets. It takes so much work to make a set and y’all simply saying “pretty!” or “beautiful!” or “I love this!” really makes gifmakers feel appreciated. We love u all
Videogames:you can choose from twenty different eyelashes!!!! oh but you can’t be fat
Yeah, whine about how you can’t have a fat character that can scale walls, or sprint. Please whine more.
you’re so right kiddo….. games are very realistic……. like the parts where you die and then come back again? classic realism.
but we can’t have fat people in videogames because fat people are the real fantasy creatures and not like… the dragons. and of course, every thin person can scale a wall. sure sure.
Y’know what, here’s something that’s been pissing me off for a while.
Fat? Easy to gain. So so easy. Our bodies want to keep fat around, because we’re designed not to starve.
Dropping fat? NOT so easy. When people talk about “losing fat,” what they’re saying is “I need to override millions of years of genetics to convince my body I’m not dying and it doesn’t need this carefully-stored fuel.” Dieting? Your body thinks it’s starving. Work out like crazy? Your body thinks it’s in a situation where it needs to bring the hammer down on the regular, and that means you need more fuel – speaking just for myself, I want to eat the world after I lift. That shit doesn’t melt away, even if you’ve been training like a motherfucking monster for months and eating right, because the body wants to keep it.
So yeah, the “eat less move more” doctrine can fuck itself right in the face.
There are very, very active fat people, fat people who are experts at every sport and physical activity you can imagine. But because fat rests on top of the muscle, you don’t know when we’re jacked. Oh, sure, sometimes you can get a idea, if a person is WILDLY active, like for a fucking living. Here’s Samoa Joe, the NXT pro wrestling champion who was literally dethroned last night:
Yeah, you can see there’s a lot of power there.
But a lot of times you can’t. Here’s Vince Wilfork, two-time Superbowl tackling champion:
And here’s Holley Mangold, 2012 superheavyweight division Olympian:
These are people who fight (and flip, and do all kinds of crazy shit in Joe’s case), and run, and lift for a living.
And they’re not unusual, as much as you’d like to think so. The world is full of fat powerhouses, of fat runners, of fat Crossfitters, and they’re just as good at doing the thing as their smaller counterparts.
So realism? Fuck off. The only reason we don’t have fat game characters is because society is fatphobic as fuck.
Also? Saints Row lets you be fat, *and hot,* so don’t even come at me with “nobody wants that.”
“fat people can’t climb though”
(Exhibit A: Fezzik carrying 3 people up a cliff)
“yeah but that’s fictional!”
and video games aren’t?
Apparently weight weighs differently if it’s fat instead of, like, eight different machine guns and a rocket launcher?
Video games let you carry all sorts of shit, they can let you carry your own body.
(This got better) -V
I love whenever people are like “ugh, fat people can’t climb a wall”.
Cool story, quick question: can you?
Because plenty of people aren’t into climbing. Being skinny isn’t what allows people to climb. Training is.
I had this exact experience. I worked in a bookstore and although the sci-fi/fantasy section was filled with books I’d read, I had to admit to a customer that I hadn’t read LOTR.
Her eyes got wide and she gave me a big smile and said, “Oh! I’m so jealous of you! I wish I could it read it again for the first time.”
I’m sorry but I really can’t believe that there isn’t a single Death Eater (apart from Severus Snape) who can produce a Patronus. Am I supposed to ignore the idea of Lucius Malfoy producing one thinking about the first time he kissed Narcissa at Hogwarts or the first time he held Draco in his arms? Or about a picnic they had at Malfoy Manor during which he was lying in the grass with Narcissa, whispering things into her ear and making her laugh while Draco pulled his hair and climbed on him because he wanted some attention?
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