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POTUS Election '24...you heard it here first!

jimmydean

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
42,611
14,710
Portland, OR
A

Avy

Turbo Monkey
Jan 24, 2006
1,351
458
Changleen said:
You sit bestride a mighty steed. You were able to name it, so its name is Horsey von Horseface. Its name makes it no less mighty.

Atop a hill, you watch as the sun sinks behind a distant, muttering storm. The wind ruffles the sheepskin fringes of your greatcoat and sighs through the trees, followed by a light scatter of raindrops.

On the plain before you, little dapples of light spring from the homesteads and campfires of fellow travellers. One of them belongs to the gang who kidnapped your friends. They do not know it yet, but they will soon play host to rough justice.

Unconsciously, your hand goes to the hilt of your gun. The other gently tugs the reins of your steed. Horsey von Horseface whickers, eager for the battle to come.

You ride into the gathering night.

You could still try heroism. But it probably wouldn’t go well. Any attempt to emulate the heroes of popular media franchises would almost certainly see you in jail, or shot. The unrealism of heroics might be more tolerable were we not beset by overt Saurons, Palpatines, Voldemorts and Lex Luthors; evil emperors waging vicious war on defenceless civilian populations and mad billionaires intent on colonising Mars. We have villainy to spare, on a scale that screenwriters would consider cartoonish.

Meanwhile (I am correctly assuming no-one reading this is a billionaire) our actions never seem to have mattered less. In fact, for most people, they seem increasingly restricted to two options: to consume, or not to consume. Is your university investing in oil companies? Write them a polite letter asking them to stop.Is your coffee company sponsoring genocide? Don’t buy Starbucks.

I’m not mocking boycotts and divestment campaigns, as they have real effects - but they seem a poor substitute for more direct justice, which world leaders have decided cannot be allowed. And even this paltry power, to use what little agency we have left to decide what to buy, is often threatened or outright outlawed.

Attempts to be more heroic, even in the mildest ways imaginable, are meeting with more and more repression. All over the purportedly democratic world, non-violent protest is being violently outlawed.

In the UK, both Labour and the recently-ousted Conservatives are aligned in their furious opposition to people putting paint on the glass protecting paintings, or chalk dust on rocks, to highlight the very real danger of climate change; Attempts by (again, non-violent) protestors to highlight the ways in which humanity is unwisely challenging the laws of physics are increasingly being met with draconian jail sentences, after the traditional police beating.


The only actions permitted, according to fossil fuel’s political enablers, are to sign petitions, or vote — either for the Bad Party or the Worse Party. On special occasions, we may walk down a road with a few like-minded people at an appointed time, as long as we inconvenience no-one.

With protest neutered, we are taught to mock and deride those earnest enough to persist. Silly schoolchildren, striking for their futures! Don’t they know that all we need to do is create carbon credits, and let the market work its magic? Scolded sternly by our economic betters, we are told to take individual action, and consume our way to a stable climate.

And there is always the stultifying, inert, impossible fantasy of heroic agency to distract us from the real horrors that beset us.

Sad, isn’t it? Now, now. Don’t be upset! Here is a video game in which you’re the hero and your actions matter. Agency can be yours for just $110.

(Or $150 for the premium edition. It comes with a unique set of armour for your horse.)

You stand on the shores of a great still lake, the moon rising swiftly above the scudding silver clouds. The lake reflects, and so do you.

You wish none of this had happened, but that is not for you to decide. All that you get to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you. There’s a Dark Lord that needs defeating. If you don’t find a way, no-one will.

A boat glides out of the shadows, and ripples spread out ahead of it, marrying your reflection.

Your hand goes to the backpack sitting by your side, which contains your weapons. Bottles, rags, petrol, a lighter.

Your companions help you into the boat, and you take an oar. Your destiny awaits.

Getting the world hooked on time-consuming heroic fantasies that are impossible to live out in real life isn’t some conspiracy by the fossil fuel industry. But it may as well be, because we now have a broken society that has been given faulty instructions for how to fix itself.

There are two problems. One is that when heroism is called for, few are willing or able to make the sacrifices that heroism demands. And there’s a great danger that those who do see themselves akin to the heroes of pop-culture and are willing to sacrifice others often act in the most villainous ways possible.

I don’t have to reach to find examples, and neither do you.

The second problem is that while villains might be real, heroes mostly aren’t — at least not the ones we’re presented by mainstream entertainment. I argue that, while heroism has never been more necessary, real heroism is so far removed from popular motifs that being heroic will require some concentrated unlearning.

To my mind heroism is activism, it is journalism, it is mutual aid; it seeks justice and avoids violence; it recognises that individual action alone cannot win the day, but that collective actions are made of many individual ones.

The reason superheroes are given superpowers in movies is because it’s a screenwriting shorthand for people power, of investing the strength of tens or hundreds of people in one person. When struggles against injustice were won in the past, it happened because of mass movements. (Of course movements have talented figureheads and leaders who are later held up as heroes, but plenty of that is post-hoc justification.)

Where our popular conception of heroism is correct, it is that it is anti-hegemonic, pro-justice, pro-diversity, anti-Empire. The problem remains that, when held up against mass-media templates, real heroism is also fallible, bureaucratic, boring. It is organisation and committees and funding drives and arguments over meeting minutes rather than pulse-pounding action.

If we rediscover a crucial fact – that true heroism lies in the many small individual actions that add up to a collective movement – then maybe we’ll still be able to take down the very real villains that are destroying the Earth.

If it works, there might still be a civilisation around one day that might make a heroic movie about it.

-Joshua Drummond

(I don’t know who Joshua is, I just liked this).
Click to expand...
Dam Brother,it took me a minute to read and understand this long ass post you put up. I like it. I think a Hero in Real Life will be Kilt. I’t was so true and hit home at the same time. It is how my brain was thinking but not able to express. Thank You for the post.

Where is Joshua now?

Avy
 
mandown

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
21,116
8,597
Transylvania 90210
apnews.com

Trump tells women he 'will be your protector' as GOP struggles with outreach to female voters

From former President Donald Trump to Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, male Republican candidates are struggling to speak to female voters, using language criticized as tone deaf and patronizing as they try to win support from women and speak to issues important to them.
apnews.com apnews.com

INDIANA, Pa. (AP) — From former President Donald Trump to Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, male Republican candidates are struggling to speak to female voters, using language criticized as tone deaf and patronizing as they try to win support from women and speak to issues important to them.

On Monday night, Trump cast himself as a “protector” of women, saying in battleground Pennsylvania that he will save them from fear and loneliness and they will no longer have to think about abortion.

“You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger. ... You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today,” Trump said. “You will be protected, and I will be your protector.”

At a town hall event on Friday, Moreno bemoaned the fact that abortion has become the deciding issue for many suburban women, calling the notion “a little crazy, by the way, but especially for women that are like past 50. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t really think that’s an issue for you.’”

Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley responded with exasperation to Moreno in a social media post. “Are you trying to lose the election?” she asked. “Asking for a friend. #Tonedeaf #DonLemonVibes.” The latter was a reference to former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s suggestion during the 2024 campaign that Haley, at 51, was “past her prime.”
 
Westy

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
55,708
21,734
Sleazattle
mandown said:
apnews.com

Trump tells women he 'will be your protector' as GOP struggles with outreach to female voters

From former President Donald Trump to Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, male Republican candidates are struggling to speak to female voters, using language criticized as tone deaf and patronizing as they try to win support from women and speak to issues important to them.
apnews.com apnews.com

INDIANA, Pa. (AP) — From former President Donald Trump to Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, male Republican candidates are struggling to speak to female voters, using language criticized as tone deaf and patronizing as they try to win support from women and speak to issues important to them.

On Monday night, Trump cast himself as a “protector” of women, saying in battleground Pennsylvania that he will save them from fear and loneliness and they will no longer have to think about abortion.

“You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger. ... You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today,” Trump said. “You will be protected, and I will be your protector.”

At a town hall event on Friday, Moreno bemoaned the fact that abortion has become the deciding issue for many suburban women, calling the notion “a little crazy, by the way, but especially for women that are like past 50. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t really think that’s an issue for you.’”

Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley responded with exasperation to Moreno in a social media post. “Are you trying to lose the election?” she asked. “Asking for a friend. #Tonedeaf #DonLemonVibes.” The latter was a reference to former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s suggestion during the 2024 campaign that Haley, at 51, was “past her prime.”
Click to expand...

Screenshot_20240925-061933.png
 
mandown

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
21,116
8,597
Transylvania 90210
mandown said:
At a town hall event on Friday, Moreno bemoaned the fact that abortion has become the deciding issue for many suburban women, calling the notion “a little crazy, by the way, but especially for women that are like past 50. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t really think that’s an issue for you.’”
Click to expand...
:clapping:
Desi Lydic (and/or her writer) - How dare a woman who can''t get pregnant care about abortion. Only men who can get pregnant are allowed to care about abortion.

 
A

Avy

Turbo Monkey
Jan 24, 2006
1,351
458
She’s going to loose. Fucked up Dems,with their Fucked up shit. How could they do this? Right In Their Face! Still not enough,so Avy shall bow out now.

Avy
 
mykel

mykel

closer to Periwinkle
Apr 19, 2013
5,386
4,143
sw ontario canada
jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
87,936
26,305
media blackout
mandown

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
21,116
8,597
Transylvania 90210
Is this some elaborate Dutch Rudder with him and Musk where Twitter needs activity so Trump says something that drives people to the platform to search for details and updates, which then triggers certain items to trend, which then creates memes that people believe, which then becomes a future Trump talking point and the cycle continues?
 
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jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
87,936
26,305
media blackout
mandown said:
Is this some elaborate Dutch Rudder with him and Musk where Twitter needs activity so Trump says something that drives people to the platform to search for details and updates, which then triggers certain items to trend, which makes then creates memes that people believe, which then becomes a future Trump talking point and the cycle continues?
Click to expand...
never stop never stopping. grift until the end.
 
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