Here is how this goes. All this Epstein shit comes to a head under Trump 1. While there is popular support for investigations, the elites push it to the side while actively covering it up. Dems get in and treat it like a dirty sock they don’t want to deal with because it’s not serious enough. Four whole years go by with nothing but trials. Then Trump 2 happens. Predictably, they are going to destroy and cover up as much shit as possible. Trump’s government is full of the same Floridian dipshits that were dealing with the case at the state level. Trump is involved.
The criminals are in charge of the evidence of course they’re not going to release it. But now there also has to be a synthesis to resolve the contradiction. Thesis: Trump is a white-hat who will drain the swamp and arrest the elite pedophile ring. Antithesis: Trump and his closest subordinates are all part of the ring and are actively sabotaging the case. Synthesis: Trump is a good pedophile and the cost of arresting him is just too great. We need to move on.
Child abuse is now just a partisan talking point. We can’t do anything about the problem, so we just do the best we can and understand that solving the problem costs too much political/economic capital. Just like with shooting kids or teaching them or feeding them.
What happens when we treat childhood poverty and violence as the cost of freedom and stability? It grows. It becomes worse. It affects more kids. What happens when we treat sexual violence the same way? Any guesses?
In 10-20 years are there going to be openly pedophile Republicans? In 2040 are they going to be pushing for a federal eradication of consent laws like they do with Roe or other stuff? Robber barons of the gilded age were probably pretty pedophilic. So we’re just going to do that again? It’s not enough that the rich get everything else they want, they need us to be okay with them stealing our children too.
To ask for the names is to ask for America to become a failed state.
To ask for the names is to ask for America to become a failed state.
releasing the Epstein client list would destroy America
Me to my coworkers at the old water cooler “Hey did y’all hear Steven Pinker is a pedophile”
Them: "who the fuck is Steven Pinker "
releasing the Epstein client list would destroy America
Yeah, Good. Okay
Yeah I’m failing to see an issue with this plan
“ok then, did you hear trump is a pedophile?”
“yeah we knew that already”
If your country requires child abuse to function, your country shouldn’t existUnited States
Crimes against children
Who the fuuuck is this bootlicking loser
[CW: nazi, misogynist, racist]
Pro hitler or pro pedophilia?
Silly question, they’re a libertarian.
Pinned tweet is an ai slop video with an openly antisemitic screed captioned over it.
The America Party will succeed if it combines an America First immigration policy with healthcare and education benefits for productive American citizens, along with an end to foreign aid and foreign lobbying. Common Sense National Socialism is the only way to save America.
“Common Sense National Socialism” is going to be the democrats’ 2028 slogan.
Literally Omelas but worse and more stupid.
Reverse omelas, where we all suffer so that one person can actually have a good time.
I’ve always imagined that was the genesis for the basic idea behimd the story. Situations where a small elite class can live lavish lives over a massive underclass that is suffering horribly is too prevalent in reality to even be labelled a trope, it’s gotta be a common situation for an author to think about. You can ask what a role reversal would look like, where the suffering class is the extremely tiny one, and then the most extreme possible conception of that role-reversal is the extremely tiny class is literally just one person.
Le Guin is actually making an even more subtle point. She first posits a utopia, and then dismisses it as unrealistic to the audience.
It’s more of a meditation of the state of those who are unsatisfied with even utopia, for not being more than that, who undergo great uncertainty and suffering to progress history.
About those who in the lack of contradictions will seek them out because a society not in progression is intolerable.
I wasn’t trying to say that has anything to do with the messages and philosophy woven into it, I just meant that I picture that as where the idea for the core plot mechanic came from before it was developed into a story with actual meaning. I imagine it as the kind of idea that could have sat around in her head for years before she had an idea to convey and made the connection that this setting was a fit for it.
It’s definitely a philosophically deep story and my thought above had zero depth whatsoever, other than observing that “reverse omelas” has basically been reality for forever if you allow the tiny generalization from one single individual to a class of people still comparatively insignificant in number to the population as a whole.
Salemo
I would like to walk away from Omelas’ Wild Ride.
Going from all that QAnon & Save the Children hysteria to defending pedophilia as a critical load-bearing structure of the US
I want the QAA boys to react to this development, they’re gonna lose their minds
oh boy, two cakes
Cool story bro, release the names.
In other words they do know that their entire administration is filled with pedos and revealing it would crash it.
“I’m sorry”
Yeeeeeeaaah no you’re not
Should just come out and say that he is an aspiring exclusive child abuse cult member instead of beating around the bush like a coward
CHOMO COUNTRY
I mean good god there are so many awful things happening in plain sight. It’s truly earth shattering the level of injustice we must topple in our lifetimes.
This is the end of that one episode of Rick and Morty but unironically (sorry).
