THE OC - The Gamble

it's extremely critical that you see the photo of the perp walk for luigi mangione as being propaganda. i've seen so many people wave it off and instead fawn over his looks. and trust me, i know it ended up being kind of pathetic and weird - but please don't brush it off as a "modelling opportunity" for him. it's a fucking terrifying message the police are sending.

i want to make a few comparisons here, in case you're not from the US or familiar with why the perp walk thing is something to pay attention to. just to set the groundwork for why this is a purposeful, unusual, and cruel act by the nyc police - for why this is not a common occurrence and for why that matters.

the prosecution alleges the show of force is due to the charge of "terrorism." for comparison, in june 2015, tsarnaev was found guilty for the boston marathon bombing, which killed 3 people and injured hundreds. his actions are considered to be an act of domestic terrorism. i have spent the last hour looking through google for pictures of similar to mangione's perp walk - and so far, i have found zero. i also just do not personally remember a moment like that, despite living in boston at the time.

they allege that luigi is a stone-cold killer who carried out a longterm plan, making him particularly dangerous. again for comparison: in nyc, recently cory martin was found guilty of the killing of brandy odom. the murder was planned and premeditated to steal insurance money. and yet no staged perp walk. why didn't her life matter enough for a "show of force"?

but mangione gets paraded by a veritable army of police officers as if he is a rabid animal. for a single citizen who allegedly killed one other single citizen, the "largest perp walk ever" occurs.

so what is the "strong message" that the mayor and the police were trying to send here? the mayor speaks as if mangione is already convicted of terrorism. there is a very thin number of people who feel threatened by the CEO's death. none of us felt like mangione needs to be under massive armed guard.

the message is that you shouldn't resist. they are trying to "make an example" of him - that if you behave badly and kill a single rich person, you'll be treated as if you killed hundreds of people. you will be treated worse than a man who was found guilty of terrorism. you will be considered guilty without trial. the message is that the rich are a protected class, and you cannot touch them without massive punishment. they are trying to prevent a revolution by showing dominance and force against you.

the message is that the police are a puppet of the wealthy and that the law is not equally applied across class disparity. it is "some are more equal than others." it is "one life is more precious than another."

the show of force wasn't for luigi. it was for us. it was a warning. they are trying to remind us who is really in control.

it was not on wheat...

Touchscreens do not belong in cars

Every black girl is so pretty

*reblog if you agree*

now that reddit has gone to shit and like half their users are protesting, how do you react to the idea that more creditors might spend their time on tumblr?

all websites fall but tumblr, like a cockroach, still stands

We have lived through this before.

People said Gore wasn't good enough, that he was Bland and uninteresting and middle of the road and something had to change. So they voted third party or they didn't vote at all. And the Democratic party didn't wake up, and we got George W Bush and all the absolute hot garbage that came with him.

And they said Hillary Clinton was the wrong candidate, that she was middle of the road at best and conservative for the Democrats at worst, that she was entitled and they were going to vote for a third party or they didn't vote at all or worse yet, they voted for the other candidate as a joke because it's not like those votes change things, you know? And the Democratic party didn't magically wake up, they didn't majorly change, and we are still dealing with the fallout from that.

And that's not only twice in my lifetime, but twice in my voting lifetime. One of the important things you learn in therapy is that you cannot change other people, and you cannot set your expectations based on how you think they ought to react to certain things.

If you are refusing to vote, or voting third-party because of what you think it's going to make someone else do, please reconsider.

If you want to make the liberals or the centrists or whatever you want to call them wake up, you're going to need to do something that hasn't already been done twice in the last 20 years.

Southern Raider's discourse has been done to hell and back, and maybe one day I'll expand more concretely on my own thoughts but till then, I think some of you dislike the idea of zutara so much its leading you to the most bad faith interpretations of both of their characters and their interactions in that episode

shoutout to the "foolproof" bread recipe I fucked up entirely for inspiring this

you belong with me

Morning Doodle: “I will put a plaque on the palace wall commemorating this date as the morning on which Nikolai Lantsov took leave of his senses.” (Leigh Bardugo’s King of Scars CH 9)