The Skellingcorner

the-world-of-erit

Hey. Hello.

I am monumentally tired of fighting. But I’m going to continue to do so for as long as I can.

Right now I am seeing long-time followers attack Kamala Harris and Joe Biden for picking her as a running mate. I know a lot of people look at this duo and see “more of the same.” I’ve seen so many intelligent people saying they are not going to vote.

It is absolutely critical that you vote the Biden/Harris ticket. I want you to remember that while you are pointing out the flaws, and here is why.

The current president is literally a fascist. He’s slow-burning, meaning he’s slowly moving the goalpost farther right. The only reason he’s slow-moving is because the Republican party still has the barest semblance of a conscience. Think of what would have happened if #45 said “we should delay the election!” and McConnell said “yeah okay that sounds cool.”

Do you know how terrifying that is? Because if he got congress to delay the election somehow, there would be no reason to ever have a federal election again. He could just keep delaying it forever.

“But CK,” you say. “The constitution says we can’t delay a presidential election!”

Checks and balances say a lot of things. Checks and balances say that bills are supposed to be voted on and go to the president for signing or veto. Currently McConnell has found a loophole and just has 400 bills sitting on his desk, ignored.

I want you to keep this in mind: Under fascism, the constitution does not matter. They will find a way around it. They’re trying to find ways around amendments, too, poking and prodding at free speech until they can find a way to shut it down.

And if #45 decides he doesn’t want to play anymore, he’s got a whole fucking army, and he’s just proven that the secret police he has in his employ will do whatever the fuck he says. I need you to recognized that this throwing people in Portland into vans thing wasn’t the ultimate violation of freedom. It was only one step in a massive authoritarian takeover. You cannot trust the secret police to do the right thing and say no. #45 has just proven they’ll listen to him like trained dogs.

He has already started talking about more terms. If he discards the constitution, there will be nothing stopping him from taking them. He’s currently, blatantly trying to rig a free and fair election. This has happened in other countries across the globe, and the same people who are posting “NEVER VOTE FOR BIDEN” are the same ones who post things like “JUSTICE FOR _______” when a despot steals an election.

If the incumbent president wins another term, this will be the last election we have. This will be it. This is how fascism works. This isn’t slippery-slope talk. This isn’t “potential worst case scenario.” We are in the middle of the worst case scenario now.

Please. For the sake of the millions of people who will die under #45. For the sake of people who cannot survive another 4+ years. Think of Biden/Harris as a road block. A barricade. Right in the middle of the road. It stops traffic and doesn’t do anything to get people where they’re going, but at least it stops them from careening off a bridge.

If you never want to have to make this choice again, you have to fight to abolish the US’s First-Past-The-Post voting system, but it is TOO LATE to do that now. No third party candidate can win. Study the election results from the last 40 years and you’ll see.

Please. Wise up. This is our last chance.

sonneillonv

As someone who is in local leftist circles, I’m seeing a lot of people mocking “vote blue no matter who”. Lately, even comparing those people with the Back The Blue movement which sides with the police against protesters. They’re saying that if you insist people vote Democrat, you’re basically a boot licker. I’ve been hearing, “time to burn it all down”.

Mmkay. When?

When is your glorious revolution going to start? Please explain your plan to me. Explain how it will topple the current government. Explain how you will install something better in its place. Explain how the new government will legitimize itself and stay in power. Now, Explain how you will do this without killing millions of poor, disabled, and marginalized people.

Oh. You don’t have one of those plans? Then you have to deal with the government we actually have, not a fantasy version of it. You have to look at what you can realistically accomplish within the two party system that we have, not the fantasy multi-party system you want. You have to look at the REAL, ACTUAL candidates and say, “which one starts closer to my eventual goal, and which one can be moved by a sustained concerted effort?” And you have to say, “which one will kill the fewest people while we’re trying to fix the problems that gave us this system we hate in the first place?”

Because you cannot campaign for a ranked voting system in the eleventh hour. It’s too fucking late. That choice isn’t on the table for you anymore. Don’t whine and kick your feet and refuse to take the first step towards fixing things because that step isn’t big enough for you. There are hundreds of notches on the needle between Biden/Harris and all the things we want: racial Justice, indigenous land reparations, universal basic income, socialized medicine. Hundreds of notches. But if we cannot even agree to pull the needle ONE NOTCH FURTHER LEFT in unison, how the fuck are we supposed to get there? How do we ever reach a destination when half of us turn our noses up at a first step?

The Right got us here because they pull in unison. They’ve been doing it for decades and every election, the whole country slides. There are more of us but we refuse to work together. We refuse to just decide on a first step and take it. We refuse so hard we’d rather say “burn it down” than comprise our political purity. But I am here to tell you that no amount of philosophy is worth an ounce of praxis and your purity will not absolve you from the moral laziness of deciding your neighbors are acceptable sacrifices in the name of a brave new world.

Change requires realistic goals and sustained effort. It requires responsibility and involvement. It is measured in increments. It isn’t glorious.

“Burn it all down” only requires you to stand back and watch. So. I see y'all.

abschaumno1

I remeber telling friends from the US four years ago that they need to watch carefully what Trump does and that everything about him makes my alarm bells ring because it matches up so well with Hitler’s rise to power and what I learned about my own country’s history.

Reactions were mixed back then. Some agreed, some felt I was seeing things too pessimistic.

Four years have passed and he’s only gotten worse and more blatant about it. Now I know a lot of y'all don’t like Biden’s and Harris’s pasts for completely valid reasons. But I cannot stress this enough: You have to vote for them. You still have a chance right now, however small it is, to do something and stop him.

So vote Biden/Harris. Vote out as many Republicans as you can. Get over yourselves. You don’t have to like it. But you will like (even more) open authoritarianism and fascism even less.

writerswritecompany

In this infographic, we share 14 tips and tricks to make your writing stronger.

Jennifer Frost writes: ‘Dear fellow writer,

Basic writing follows rules and is more of a science. Advanced writing, on the other hand, is more of an art form.

As your reading and writing skills improve, you’ll start to form opinions about the quality of others’ writing—and others will form opinions about yours.

The way you write is called your “voice”. Just like your speaking voice, your writing voice is unique.

Hemingway, Proust, and Joyce are all considered great writers, but they sound nothing alike.

So, while we can’t offer any “rules” on how to write like a pro, we can give you some tips to try.

Experiment. Take what you like and leave the rest.

Let us know how our tips worked for you. Can you share a tip of your own with the community? If so, comment below.

Happy writing.’