This is sickening. Trump and his Republican allies are committing gross human rights abuses, right here in America. Trump and his Republican party are the party of child abuse.
“I [Carole A. Stabile] was looking at a documentary interview with Hazel Scott that I found at the Schomburg. She was incredible. She did not back down from a fight. She tells this story in the interview where she had been performing in a USO show, and they stopped in Pasco, Washington. It was cold, everyone was tired. They were miserable. And she and her traveling companion were refused service at a restaurant because they were black. She went to the police station, and she tells this story about the police chief saying to her, you better just leave this alone or I’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace. But then she went back to the hotel, talked to her agent and said to her agent, I want three things: I want a hot bath, I want a cold drink, and I want a lawyer. And she sued the state of Washington, she got a record settlement, and she gave all the money to the NAACP.”
Fredi Washington, Shirley Graham Du Bois,and Lena Horne are also mentioned in the interview.
It was a grisly scene inside Apartment 3722 at the Hamptons, a gated community in Tampa, Florida.
One body lay face up on the floor, wedged between a wall and an air
mattress. A handgun was stuffed in a holster on the dead man’s waist.
The other body, clad in a black T-shirt and shorts, was slumped back on a
futon, a shattered and bloody iPhone on his lap. A police investigator
would later write that the two men had been “shot multiple times at
close range with an assault rifle.”
There were some obvious clues that this was no ordinary double
homicide. Tacked to the wall near the bodies was a large black-and-white
flag bearing the insignia of the Schutzstaffel, or SS, Adolf Hitler’s
elite paramilitary unit. On a nearby shelf was a black Stahlhelm, the
distinctive helmet worn by Nazi soldiers during World War II. There were
multiple copies of “Mein Kampf” and a prominent place was
reserved for “The Turner Diaries,” the infamous novel of race war in
America that has inspired generations of terrorists, among them Timothy
McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. A framed picture of McVeigh sat on a
dresser.
On that night in May 2017, the police quickly took two suspects into
custody and developed a rough outline of what had happened. One of the
suspects, Devon Arthurs, 18, said the victims were his roommates, and
members of a neo-Nazi group called the Atomwaffen Division. Arthurs said
that he’d decided to leave the group, and that he’d killed the men to
keep them from carrying out what he said were their plans for violence.
The second suspect detained by police, Brandon Russell, also lived in
the apartment. Russell told the authorities he’d just returned home
from a weekend of training with the Florida Army National Guard. And
then Russell revealed something that should have set off alarms among
federal investigators assigned to track the growing threat from armed,
violent right-wing extremists. He said, and the police quickly
confirmed, that the single-car garage attached to the apartment was full
of explosives.
Explosives experts from the Tampa Police Department and the local FBI
field office soon found components of a crude pipe bomb as well as
radioactive materials. The search turned up ammonium nitrate and
nitromethane, the mixture used by McVeigh to destroy the federal
building in Oklahoma City in 1995. There were sacks of explosive
precursors, including potassium chloride, red iron oxide and potassium
nitrate. There were homemade fuses fashioned from brass 5.56 mm rifle
cartridges. In a closet, they found two Geiger counters.
And there was a cooler with the name Brandon scrawled on the lid in
black marker. Inside, the investigators discovered HMTD — hexamethylene
triperoxide diamine — a potent, highly volatile peroxide-based
explosive. It has become a favored tool of terrorists both here and
abroad, who cook it up in small batches using recipes circulating on the
internet and in improvised weapons manuals.
At Tampa police headquarters, investigators put Arthurs and Russell
in separate interrogation rooms. They wanted to know about the killings,
about the neo-Nazi group and about the explosives.
Arthurs said the apartment had served as a nerve center for
Atomwaffen Division, a white supremacist organization of 60 to 70 people
that has spoken openly of its hopes of igniting race war in the United
States. If the authorities could access the group’s encrypted online
chats, Arthurs said, “it’d be easy to track down each member.” The
interrogation was videotaped, and a recording was obtained by ProPublica
and Frontline.
“The things that they’re planning were horrible. They’re planning
bombings and stuff like that on countless people, they’re planning to
kill civilian life,” Arthurs said. A detective asked if Atomwaffen had
drawn up a list of specific targets. “Power lines, nuclear reactors,
synagogues, things like that,” Arthurs replied.
“I’m telling you stuff that the FBI should be hearing,” Arthurs said, adding that he thought lives could be saved.
To this day, it is unclear if the FBI talked with Arthurs or what
steps it took to shut down Atomwaffen. The FBI declined repeated
requests to discuss the case. But this much is clear: Within months of
Arthurs’ warnings, Atomwaffen members or associates had killed three
more people.
“Our experience accustoms us to seeing how at a word of command a mass of soldiers will enter into an organised fury of carnage and into the lottery of life and death, and how at another command they will again become peaceful. The same thing is required of a people that has armed itself. Here the word of command is liberty, the enemy tyranny… But there is a great difference between the passivity of ordinary military obedience and the ardour of an insurrection: between obedience to the order of a general and the flame of enthusiasm which liberty pours into the vein of every creature. . These efforts are the enjoyment of liberty, and you wish it to be renounced; these occupations, this activity is for the public cause, this interest is the driving force, and you want the people to sink into inertia and boredom once more.”
– G.W.F. Hegel
These words were written a hundred years before the 1914-1918 war, yet they capture the sentiments of the forgotten men and women of that period who decided to take a hand in their own destiny. Hegel drew attention to the timeless urge to self-determination and to the joy which accompanies a victory of mutineers or insurrectionists over tyrants, bureaucrats, manipulators, and sanguinary generals. In the following pages I have tried to uncover some of the conveniently forgotten moments of freedom which flowered in the shadow of total war.
“They make believing sexual assault allegations seem like just another partisan activity in our hideously polarised public sphere. Until sexual assault becomes something that someone’s base – be it Juve fans, be it Republicans – believes their own side capable of, we really haven’t inched meaningfully along this road at all. Not through want of trying, you understand. But until people stop placing team loyalty over everything, sexual assault will continue to be treated about as seriously as diving in the penalty box. Which is to say, only a big deal when your opponents do it.”
In the spring of 1932, in Compton, California, an unemployed World War I veteran walked out to the farms that still ringed Los Angeles. He offered his labor in return for a sack of vegetables, and that evening he returned with more than his family needed. The next day a neighbor went out with him to the fields. Within two months 500 families were members of the Unemployed Cooperative Relief Organization.
People assume that AI is inherently an outgrowth of computer technology, but the whole point of the “programmable general purpose Von Neumann machine” is that its principles are technology-independent.
We have had AI for a at least a century.
Modern corporations are paperclip-maximizing AIs running in human wetware on an operating system of contracts, regulations, and other social constructs, and capable of self-programming by modifying that underlying operating system. They have partially migrated to a digital platform, which has allowed an increase in the speed with which they can assimilate environmental feedback and manipulate their surroundings (vis. high-speed trading).
Back in early grad school, I strongly suspected there was a good paper to write about corporate personhood and the Turing Test, but was dissuaded by my teachers. Silly academia.
At 18, everyone receive a superpower. Your childhood friend got a power-absorption, your best friends got time control, and they quickly rise into top 100 most powerful superheroes. You got a mediocre superpower, but somehow got into the top 10. Today they visit you asking how you did it.
“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully. in the background, a tv is reading out what the Phoenix extremeist group has done recently. bodies, stacking.
tim nods, pushing his salad around. “it’s kind of annoying.” he’s gone vegan ever since he could talk to animals. his cheeks are sallow. “yesterday i absorbed static and i can’t stop shocking myself.”
“you don’t know what from,” shay is detangling her hair at the table, even though it’s not polite. about a second ago, her hair was perfect, which implies she’s been somewhere in the inbetween. “try millions of multiverses that your powers conflict with.”
“did we die in the last one?” you grin and she grins and tim grins but nobody answers the question.
now she has a cut over her left eye and her hair is shorter. she looks tired and tim looks tired and you look down at your 18-year-old hands, which are nothing.
they ship out tomorrow. they go out to the frontlines or wherever it is that superheroes go to fight supervillains; the cream of the crop. the starlight banner kids.
“you both are trying too hard,” you tell them, “couldn’t you have been, like, really good at surfing?”
“god,” shay groans, “what i’d give to only be in the olympics.”
xxx
in the night, tim is asleep. on the way home, he absorbed telekinesis, and hates it too.
shay looks at you. “i’m scared,” she says.
you must not have died recently, because she looks the same she did at dinner, cut healing slowly over her eye the way it’s supposed to, not the hyper-quickness of a timejump. just shay, living in the moment when the moment is something everyone lives in. her eyes are wide and dark the way brown eyes can be, that swelling fullness that feels so familiar and warm, that piercing darkness that feels like a stone at the back of your tongue.
“you should be,” you say.
her nose wrinkles, she opens her mouth, but you plow on.
“they’re going to take one look at you and be like, ‘gross, shay? no thanks. you’re too pretty. it’s bringing down like, morale, and things’. then they’ll kick you out and i’ll live with you in a box and we’ll sell stolen cans of ravioli.”
she’s grinning. “like chef boyardee or like store brand?”
“store brand but we print out chef boyardee labels and tape them over the can so we can mark up the price.”
“where do we get the tape?”
“we, uh,” you look into those endless dark eyes, so much like the night, so much like a good hot chocolate, so much like every sleepover you’ve had with the two of your best friends, and you say, “it’s actually just your hair. i tie your hair around the cans to keep the label on.”
she throws a pillow at you.
you both spend a night planning what you’ll do in the morning when shay is kicked out of Squadron 8, Division 1; top rankers that are all young. you’ll both run away to the beach and tim will be your intel and you’ll burn down the whole thing. you’re both going to open a bakery where you will do the baking and she’ll use her time abilities to just, like, speed things up so you don’t have to wake up at dawn. you’re both going to become wedding planners that only do really extreme weddings.
she falls asleep on your shoulder. you do not sleep at all.
in the morning, they are gone.
xxx
squadron 434678, Division 23467 is basically “civilian status.” you still have to know what to expect and all that stuff. you’re glad that you’re taking extra classes at college; you’re kind of bored re-learning the stuff you were already taught in high school. there are a lot of people who need help, and you’re good at that, so you help them.
tim and shay check in from time to time, but they’re busy saving the world, so you don’t fault them for it. in the meantime, you put your head down and work, and when your work is done, you help the people who can’t finish their work. and it kind of feels good. kind of.
xxx
at twenty, squadron 340067, division 2346 feels like a good fit. tim and you go out for ice cream in a new place that rebuilt after the Phoenix group burned it down. you’ve chosen nurse-practitioner as your civilian job, because it seems to fit, but you’re not released for full status as civilian until you’re thirty, so it’s been a lot of office work.
tim’s been on the fritz a lot lately, overloading. you’re worried they’ll try to force him out on the field. he’s so young to be like this.
“i feel,” he says, “like it all comes down to this puzzle. like i’m never my own. i steal from other people’s boxes.”
you wrap your hand around his. “sometimes,” you say, “we love a river because it is a reflection.”
he’s quiet a long time after that. a spurt of flame licks from under his eyes.
“i wish,” he says, “i could believe that.”
xxx
twenty three has you in squad 4637, division 18. really you’ve just gotten here because you’re good at making connections. you know someone who knows someone who knows you as a good kid. you helped a woman onto a bus and she told her neighbor who told his friend. you’re mostly in the filing department, but you like watching the real superheroes come in, get to know some of them. at this level, people have good powers but not dangerous ones. you learn how to help an 18 year old who is a loaded weapon by shifting him into a non-violent front. you get those with pstd home where they belong. you put your head down and work, which is what you’re good at.
long nights and long days and no vacations is fine until everyone is out of the office for candlenights eve. you’re the only one who didn’t mind staying, just in case someone showed up needing something.
the door blows open. when you look up, he’s bleeding. you jump to your feet.
“oh,” you say, because you recognize the burning bird insignia on his chest, “I think you have the wrong office.”
“i just need,” he spits onto the ground, sways, collapses.
well, okay. so, that’s, not, like. great. “uh,” you say, and you miss shay desperately, “okay.”
you find the source of the bleeding, stabilize him for when the shock sets in, get him set up on a desk, sew him shut. two hours later, you’ve gotten him a candlenights present and stabilized his vitals. you’ve also filed him into a separate folder (it’s good to be organized) and found him a home, far from the warfront.
when he wakes up, you give him hot chocolate (god, how you miss shay), and he doesn’t smile. he doesn’t smile at the gift you’ve gotten him (a better bulletproof vest, one without the Phoenix on it), or the stitches. that’s okay. you tell him to take the right medications, hand them over to him, suggest a doctor’s input. and then you hand over his folder with a new identity in it and a new house and civilian status. you take a deep breath.
he opens it and bursts into tears. he doesn’t say anything. he just leaves and you have to clean up the blood, which isn’t very nice of him. but it’s candlenights. so whatever. hopefully he’ll learn to like his gift.
xxx
squadron 3046, division 2356 is incredibly high for a person like you to fit. but still, you fit, because you’re good at organization and at hard work, and at knowing how to hold on when other people don’t see a handhold.
shay is home. you’re still close, the two of you, even though she feels like she exists on another planet. the more security you’re privy to, the more she can tell you.
you brush her hair as she speaks about the endless man who never dies, and how they had to split him up and hide him throughout the planet. she cries when she talks about how much pain he must be in.
“can you imagine?” she whispers, “i mean, i know he’s phoenix, but can you imagine?”
“one time i had to work retail on black friday,” you say.
she sniffles.
“one time my boss put his butt directly on my hand by accident and i couldn’t say anything so i spent a whole meeting with my hand directly up his ass,” you say.
her eyes are so brown, and filling, and there are scars on her you’ve never noticed that might be new or very, very, very old; and neither of you know exactly how much time she’s actually been alive for.
“i mean,” you say, “yeah that might hurt but one time i said goodbye to someone but they were walking in the same direction. i mean can you imagine.”
she laughs, finally, even though it’s weakly, and says, “one time even though i can manipulate time i slept in and forgot to go to work even though i was leading a presentation and i had to look them in the face later to tell them that.”
“you’re a compete animal,” you tell her, and look into those eyes, so sad and full of timelines you’ll never witness, “you should be kicked out completely.”
she wipes her face. “find me in a box,” she croaks, “selling discount ravioli.”
xxx
you don’t know how it happens. but you guess the word gets around. you don’t think you like being known to them as someone they can go to, but it’s not like they’ve got a lot of options. many of them just want to be out of it, so you get them out, you guess.
you explain to them multiple times you haven’t done a residency yet and you really only know what an emt would, but they still swing by. every time they show up at your office, you feel your heart in your chest: this is it, this is how you die, this is how it ends.
“so, like, this group” you say, trying to work the system’s loopholes to find her a way out of it, “from ashes come all things, or whatever?”
she shrugs. you can tell by looking at her that she’s dangerous. “it’s corny,” she says. another shrug. “i didn’t mean to wind up a criminal.”
you don’t tell her that you sort of don’t know how one accidentally becomes a criminal, since you kind-of-sort-of help criminals out, accidentally.
“i don’t believe any of that stuff,” she tells you, “none of that whole… burn it down to start it over.” she swallows. “stuff just happens. and happens. and you wake up and it’s still happening, even though you wish it wasn’t.”
you think about shay, and how she’s covered in scars, and her crying late at night because of things nobody else ever saw.
“yeah,” you say, and print out a form, “i get that.”
and you find a dangerous woman a normal home.
xxx
“you’re squadron 905?”
“division 34754,” you tell him. watch him look down at your ID and certification and read your superpower on the card and then look back up to you and then back down to the card and then back up at you, and so on. he licks his chapped lips and stands in the cold.
this happens a lot. but you smile. the gatekeeper is frowning, but then hanson walks by. “oh shit,” he says, “it’s you! come right on in!” he gives you a hug through your rolled-down window.
the gatekeeper is in a stiff salute now. gulping in terror. hanson is one of the strongest people in this sector, and he just hugged you.
the gate opens. hanson swaggers through. you shrug to the gatekeeper. “i helped him out one time.”
inside they’re debriefing. someone has shifted sides, someone powerful, someone wild. it’s not something you’re allowed to know about, but you know it’s bad. so you put your head down, and you work, because that’s what you’re good at, after all. you find out the gatekeeper’s name and send him a thank-you card and also handmade chapstick and some good earmuffs.
shay messages you that night. i have to go somewhere, she says, i can’t explain it, but there’s a mission and i might be gone a long time.
you stare at the screen for a long time. your fingers type out three words. you erase them. you instead write where could possibly better than stealing chef boyardee with me?
she doesn’t read it. you close the tab.
and you put your head down. and work.
xxx
it’s in a chili’s. like, you don’t even like chili’s? chili’s sucks, but the boss ordered it so you’re here to pick it up, wondering if he gave you enough money to cover. things have been bad recently. thousands dying. whoever switched sides is too powerful to stop. they destroy anyone and anything, no matter the cost.
the phoenix fire smells like pistachios, you realize. you feel at once part of yourself and very far. it happens so quickly, but you feel it slowly. you wonder if shay is involved, but know she is not.
the doors burst in. there’s screaming. those in the area try their powers to defend themselves, but everyone is civilian division. the smell of pistachios is cloying.
then they see you. and you see them. and you put your hands on your hips.
“excuse me, tris,” you say, “what are you doing?”
there’s tears in her eyes. “i need the money,” she croaks.
“From a chili’s?” you want to know, “who in their right mind robs a chili’s? what are you going to do, steal their mozzarella sticks?”
“it’s connected to a bank on the east wall,” she explains, “but i thought it was stupid too.”
you shake your head. you pull out your personal checkbook. you ask her how much she needs, and you see her crying. you promise her the rest when you get your paycheck.
someone bursts into the room. shouts things. demands they start killing.
but you’re standing in the way, and none of them will kill you or hurt you, because they all know you, and you helped them at some point or another, or helped their friend, or helped their children.
tris takes the money, everyone leaves. by the time the heroes show up, you’ve gotten everyone out of the building.
the next time you see tris, she’s marrying a beautiful woman, and living happily, having sent her cancer running. you’re a bridesmaid at the wedding.
xxx
“you just,” the director wants to know now, “sent them running?”
hanson stands between her and you, although you don’t need the protection.
“no,” you say again, for the millionth time, “i just gave her the money she needed and told her to stop it.”
“the phoenix group,” the director of squadron 300 has a vein showing, “does not just stop it.”
you don’t mention the social issues which confound to make criminal activity a necessity for some people, or how certain stereotypes forced people into negative roles to begin with, or how an uneven balance of power punished those with any neurodivergence. instead you say, “yeah, they do.”
“i’m telling you,” hanson says, “we brought her out a few times. it happens every time. they won’t hurt her. we need her on our team.”
your spine is stiff. “i don’t do well as a weapon,” you say, voice low, knowing these two people could obliterate you if they wished. but you won’t use people’s trust against them, not for anything. besides, it’s not like trust is your superpower. you’re just a normal person.
hanson snorts. “no,” he says, “but i like that when you show up, the fighting just… stops. that’s pretty nice, kid.”
“do you know… what we are dealing with…. since agent 25… shifted….?” the director’s voice is thin.
“yeah,” hanson says, “that’s why i think she’d be useful, you know? add some peace to things.”
the director sits down. sighs. waves her hand. “whatever,” she croaks, “do what you want. reassign her.”
hanson leads you out. over your shoulder, you see her put her head in her hands. later, you get her a homemade spa kit, and make sure to help her out by making her a real dinner from time to time, something she’s too busy for, mostly.
at night, you write shay messages you don’t send. telling her things you cannot manage.
one morning you wake up to a terrible message: shay is gone. never to be seen again.
xxx
you’re eating ice cream when you find him.
behind you, the city is burning. hundreds dead, if not thousands.
he’s staring at the river. maybe half-crying. it’s hard to tell, his body is shifting, seemingly caught between all things and being nothing.
“ooh buddy,” you say, passing him a cone-in-a-cup, the way he likes it, “talk about a night on the town.”
the bench is burning beside him, so you put your jacket down and snuff it out. it’s hard sitting next to him. he emits so much.
“hey tim?” you say.
“yeah?” his voice is a million voices, a million powers, a terrible curse.
“can i help?” you ask.
he eats a spoonful of ice cream.
“yeah,” he says eventually. “i think i give up.”
xxx
later, when they praise you for defeating him, you won’t smile. they try to put you in the media; an all-time hero. you decline every interview and press conference. you attend his funeral with a veil over your head.
the box goes into the ground. you can’t stop crying.
you’re the only one left at the site. it’s dark now, the subtle night.
you feel her at your side and something in your heart stops hurting. a healing you didn’t know you needed. her hands find yours.
“they wanted me to kill him,” she says, “they thought i’d be the only one who could.” her hands are warm. you aren’t breathing.
“beat you to it,” you say.
“i see that,” she tells you.
you both stand there. crickets nestle the silence.
“you know,” she says eventually, “i have no idea which side is the good one.”
“i think that’s the point of a good metaphor about power and control,” you say, “it reflects the human spirit. no tool or talent is good or bad.”
“just useful,” she whispers. after a long time, she wonders, “so what does that make us?”
xxx
it’s a long trek up into the mountains. shay seems better every day. more solid. less like she’s on another plane.
“heard you’re a top ten,” she tells me, her breath coming out in a fog. you’ve reclassed her to civilian. it took calling in a few favors, but you’ve got a lot.
“yeah,” you say, “invulnerable.”
“oh, is that your superpower?” she laughs. she knows it’s not.
“that’s what they’re calling it,” you tell her, out of breath the way she is not, “it’s how they explain a person like me at the top.”
“if that means ‘nobody wants to kill me’, i think i’m the opposite.” but she’s laughing, in a light way, a way that’s been missing from her.
the cabin is around the corner. the lights are already on.
“somebody’s home,” i grin.
tim, just tim, tim who isn’t forced into war and a million reflections, opens the door. “come on in.”
xxx
squadron one, division three. a picture of shay in a wedding dress is on my desk. she looks radiant, even though she’s marrying little old me.
what do i do? just what i’m best at. what’s not a superpower. what anyone is capable of: just plain old helping.
Written art. Beautiful. Better than most movies. Please read and share.
this is one of the only long posts on this hellsite that i bother reading properly every time. It’s beautiful and powerful adn I’m in love with it and will never not reblog
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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