Cruelty Never Serves The Cause Of Justice

Also it brings me zero pleasure to be Cassandra here, but “mass deportation” is a synonym for murder. I need you all to understand this. Even in the absolute best case scenario, it means large numbers of people being warehoused in slapdash facilities where illness spreads quickly and medical care is inadequate. It means government contractors providing food, trying to make a killing, and inevitably cutting corners on costs/quality/safety. It means police violence against people being rounded up. It means US citizen children being removed from their families or deported with them. It means people being returned to countries they fled in fear of their lives, and killed by domestic abusers/gangs/governments. It means bureaucratic mixups (/apathy/malice) that result in people getting dropped off in dangerous cities that they’ve never even visited late at night.

It means all of this and more, and if the government comes for your neighbors you should respond as if you are witnessing an attempted murder.

God. What a horrible world.

not all ships are For wanting them to be in a happy healthy relationship together. sometimes shipping two characters means you want them to be erotically obsessed with each other and become entwined in a mutually toxic love affair for a few months and then horrifically break each other's hearts and never speak again. sometimes you want them to be codependent best friends with enough repression to explode a submarine who only make out/have sex when they're at their worst. sometimes you want them to pine after each other for years, never say anything, and then die. sometimes you want them to kill each other. this, too, is shipping

sometimes i go into an ao3 ship tag and im like genuinely devastated by how fluffy all of it is. like. heartbroken about it.

i think the worst thing in the world is seeing two characters with something weird as hell going on between them and you think to urself "wow i love the weird as hell thing these characters have going on between them" and you open archiveofourown.org and find out everyone else thinks they would actually be in a very normal romantic relationship

like i'm literally trying to put this as simply as humanly possible. the way that you are taught to view what it means to be a canadian or american or brit or whatever, the idea of Who you are, has built into it that by being From There you are fundamentally different or better or more Real than the rest of the world, and this is conveyed to you both overtly and subtly from an extremely young age, sometimes passively and sometimes directly, and you are taught these basic assumptions about the world, they become part of the way you navigate the world before you really have the words to explain or describe it. and i'm telling you that people born in the global south are typically not told these things, not conveyed this about ourselves from childhood, this is not something we are taught. the assumption, from an extremely young age, is that the world is full of "real people" and "real countries", whatever that means. there are more specific sectarian or communalist things taught to us depending on where we live and other aspects of the material conditions we are born into, but the basic assumption of "my country is the only real country in the world" and "only people born in my country are real people" is not universal, you did not enter this life thinking that way, it is something ingrained in you. and you can choose to unlearn that, or you can choose not to, but if you whine on the internet about people from the developing world being mean to you because you are insisting on your right to not view us as human beings i think you are too far gone

the worst thing that will happen to you for expressing western chauvinistic ignorance is to get bullied by people from the rest of the world online. the worst thing that happens to us because you have this ideology is that we, Real People all over this whole world, get killed en masse, and then you go online and complain about having to see that too. i don't even know what to say anymore

Cost of a passport: $160

Cost of an international flight: $500-1000

Sundry while traveling: $50-100

Cost of accommodation: $20 per night at a hostel if you’re aware hostels exist, $50-$10 per night at a hotel if you’re not

Food costs: experienced travelers $10, vacation on a budget $20, most people $50

The continental US is 3000 miles across. It’s 500 to 700 miles north to south. Each state has sovereignty and requires either air travel or a long drive to reach each other.

Why on EARTH would US citizens prioritize foreign affairs? Vienna and Amsterdam are closer than Atlanta and Chicago and easier to get to.

If you are in the South? Chicago is a foreign land.

I’m just sick of points like this being touted when the gerrymandered to hell and back corporate car and airplane lobbies running US transit has made Americans unable to get to members of their own country let alone across two different oceans or far enough from itself by car.

This a big land island and that’s by design.

you are completely missing the point. being able to travel has nothing to do with this as you can pay attention to and care about foreign affairs without actually having to leave the country.

the issue is that, due to the United States being the undisputed cultural and economic world power for over half a century as well as its geographical isolation, most americans are afforded the privilege to ignore world affairs and are allowed to essentially exist in a bubble where we don’t have to consider what’s happening in other countries.

however, due to the internet/social media as well as current events we are experiencing now, this position is becoming increasingly untenable and I believe that most americans are in for a very rude awakening when they realize this.

I can hear when Americans talk about other countries' problems with an implicit "Unlike us" hidden in their tone. It's not subtle!! It's so annoying trying to talk about actual issues while also having to deal with the biggest cultural chauvinists on the planet being like "It's so sad that you have to deal with this problem that we're too advanced for"

Idk how to describe it it's like there are two categories for all countries, Good and Bad. And you can hear when, while talking about issues in a country, they slowly start clicking and dragging it from the good side to the bad side. It's VERY PALPABLE

highly recommend keeping a small portrait of a historical figure who met a grisly end on your work desk. for perspective.

me: oh thomas cromwell, we're really in it now. every day i get emails.

the postcard of thomas cromwell i keep on my desk: i was on committees with the duke of norfolk. and they beheaded me.

me: yep. good point.

me: cromwell. cromwell this post has got too big and famous and people are starting to misunderstand me on it.

the postcard of thomas cromwell i keep on my desk: oh no! you achieved too much fame and status? and now people are misrepresenting you? should we strip your lands and title? have you been beheaded?

me: YES ALRIGHT FINE

me when I'm not watching black sails: I should be watching black sails

me when I'm watching black sails: oof -1 ouch -1 ouch -1 ough -1 yowch -1 my heart -1 owww -1 ouchie -1

me after watching black sails: +1000

guys the scary fascist state thing happening might happen to REAL PEOPLE next. spread AWARENESS

every single article, post or mention of a Muslim or Latino person on a Visa or Green Card getting dragged off the street by masked men in broad daylight has the same exact comments: "wow, they're gonna start doing this to citizens soon." some of these people have lived here since they were 8 months old and have lived here for over 30 years. it's very telling that Americans are still are managing to separate them in their head from a "citizen" and that their outrage will be far greater when it's someone who "actually lives here" as if 3 decades in the same country shouldn't qualify you for the same rights as everyone else.