Hey guys it's been awhile since I wrote a historical related journal, but after witnessing history rhyming to itself, I had to post. It's a tragedy of what happened to Afghanistan both for the Afghan people and for the US at first went there to get rid of Osama Bin Laden and his fanatics, but now those same fanatics are back because of an inept and corrupt Afghan government that the US has had a hand in, much like South Vietnam, we may talk of freedom and liberty, but quite often pursuit of profit has often had us ignore our own principles(whether its related to human rights at home, or abroad) and we reaped what we sowed. Still for Afghanistan up to the 1970s it was a functional modernizing state, it wasn't always a failed state that it is now it was well on the road to become modern but one factor after another pummeled it into the ground and keeps getting knocked down every time it tried to get back up.

Here are videos that gives a good rundown of a modern history of Afghanistan

How Afghanistan fell apart.



How the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan started a terrible chain of events.



And how we f*cked up
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-b.....ed-afghanistan

I find this quite amusing, also just letting y'all know I'm still alive :P

Hey guys long time no see, well one of my favorite Youtube channels, Rare Earth is back and better than ever, the story of Italy in the 20th century is probably something that seems familiar to many of us even if we're not Italian. This is quite good and I recommend it to everyone.

I'd like to take a break from politics and go back to talking history. I want to introduce one of the greatest admirals in history, a hero in Korea, his name is Yi Sun-Shin and this is his story as presented by Extra History.

Today for the first time in 206 years since 1814, the Capitol building was breached not by the British but by delusional and angry Trump supporters thinking the election was stolen as Trump never shuts the fuck up about it. There's no evidence of mass voter fraud, when 60 lawsuits failed, the governors said no, and the Supreme Court all rejected his claims of voter fraud due to the fact there was no evidence. This is the consequence when we're faced with a part of the population who can't even agree on reality. A malignant narcissist like Trump will never concede and he's perfectly willing after exhausting all his legal venues and his illegal ones too including that phone call to Georgia where he threatened the secretary of state of Georgia to find him 11,780 votes, that inciting violence is not beyond him, he's obviously nuts and we need to impeach him..again with the 25th amendment. I wouldn't put all the blame on Trump though, he'd otherwise be a rambling old man, someone's racist elder who says crazy shit if not for all of the enablers around him. For a party that says they have family values, law order, small government and Jesus, they sure are perfectly fine throwing all that away for nationalism and fascism. Make no mistake, Trump is a fascist, and those who enabled him are supporters of fascism, seem totally fine with the idea of throwing out democracy to stay in power. The Democrats especially the establishment Democrats with the likes of Pelosi and the like have their problems too with corruption and the like, but the GOP are in a much worse state with major problems, they're no longer conservative with a few exceptions, but mostly now reactionaries with a significant portion flirting with fascism. The only reason we dodged a bullet this time is Trump's ego and incompetence prevented all this from being much, much worse. I was at work when I found out about this happening and I was shocked but then again I'm fairly numb from scandal after scandal happening and this man never being held accountable for his criminal and unethical behavior. After Biden is inaugurated, if Trump is not held accountable, there's a clear two tier justice system, one for the rich and one for the rest of us.

In the end, we need to all look in the mirror, our system needs some major reform, like why the hell a president can't be indicted while president? Along with we should reform the pardon power, which Trump abused heavily(including pardoning war criminals), we have fought for independence from a king, but the president sure seems like a king in some aspects. We can't afford another Trump-like presidency, we much prevent this from ever happening again, and not to mention we should limit the powers of the president that both Republican and Democratic presidents have gained over the last few decades. Still the current situation is toxic, and it's shocking to see how a large portion of Americans are willing to throw away democratic principles.

Still I wanted to wish everyone a happy New Year but it seems 2021 is telling 2020 to "hold my beer" Still this isn't the first time there was an attempted fascist coup, last time I can think of was the 1934 "Business Plot" where industrialists were forming a private army of veterans and mercenaries to oust president Franklin Roosevelt and install a fascist dictatorship, this was stopped by Marine General Smedley Butler, here's his story as told by Knowing Better.

The US is weird, most countries vote for their leaders through popular vote, and do it just fine. But the US you don't really vote for your leader, you vote for what your state's electors should vote for(though rare, they have the power to vote for whoever they want, regardless of what the people wanted). And with math, if you get just the right states, you can win the election with just 22% of the popular vote at its most extreme. So using math and quirks of the electoral college, abolishing it has a strong case.



Though on the other hand, realistically despite 61% of Americans are in favor in abolishing the Electoral college according to a Gallup poll, despite several proposals to get rid of it, I highly doubt it'd be politically possible to do so. So what is the alternative? At the very least we need to reform our voting system and the electoral college needs to change or be abolished. In the end people vote, not land.

Interestingly we have no constitutional right to vote, mostly because in the beginning only landowning white men can vote, though slowly but surely we extended the right the vote to everyone else with a long struggle. So here's a couple ways we can improve our election system(I got a lot of these ideas from Extra Politics):
1. Abolish(at least) the "winner takes all system" in the Electoral College, so that like Maine and Nebraska, they'd distribute their electoral votes so that being a conservative in California and being a liberal in Mississippi actually matters.
2. Ranked choice voting, again like Maine and Nebraska they basically "rank" their preference for president so they can actually vote their conscience, so say someone ranks a libertarian candidate as their first choice and say a democrat as their second, if the libertarian candidate doesn't get enough votes, it'll get passed on to their second choice, etc. It'll lessen the effect of people being forced to vote for the lesser evil.
3.Restore the Voting Rights Act to its full strength, cause since it's been struck down by the Supreme Court, states have been using it to curb people's right to vote and gerrymander. Though we can go further and make an amendment to make voting a constitutional right, and have minimum standards on every state, to make it easier for people to vote, and have access to voting that means states can't just close a bunch of polling places right before an election.
4. Automatic voter registration at 18, as soon as you turn 18 and eligible to vote, you should get registered period, none of this bs that states often do to make people jump hurdles to vote.
5. Election Day should be a national holiday and must be convenient for all people to vote.
6. Vote-by-mail and the like should be a normal thing, and make it available to anyone who wants it(from what I read, people don't wait for hours to vote in Western Europe)
7. Bipartisan, Universal standards for ballots and districting to combat gerrymandering.
The fact a lot of the GOP has tried to make it harder for people to vote, there's no reason to discourage voting other than to retain power



We also should break the two party system, and establish proportional representation, along with ranked voting so that in essence our congress would be more diverse. The Democratic party realistically is two parties, a liberal party, and a progressive party, and should be represented as such. The Republicans at least split between a Conservative Party and a Nationalistic Party along with the Libertarian and Green Parties realistically as well.

Here's an illustration of what that would look like, at least if it was back in 2016: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck8pfo9WUAIZnSD.jpg

The US that espouses being a Democratic Republic often falls short in terms of its performance according to a study here:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co.....research-shows

The current system is fundamentally uneven and we need to level the playing field for everyone. The GOP gets considerably more representation in the Senate despite not having as many votes which is a huge problem in having a free and *fair* election, this illustrates it well:

Trump needs to give it up already and concede, as much as he wants to, he can't have alternative facts to math. He's acting like a five year old and needs to be a man and admit when he lost, but then again he hardly ever has admitted a loss and he never admits to mistakes or wrongdoing he's done so this is shocking but unsurprising. On the other hand, part of me would pay-per-view to see him get dragged out of the white house, kicking and screaming like the manchild he is, it would be a fitting ending to his legacy and a nightmare for a malignant narccissist.

Anyway, so of now according to the Associated Press, Biden has clearly won, he has 77.2 million votes popular wise, compared to Trump's 72.1 million votes, a 5 million vote lead, that's a fair bit higher than Hillary's just under 3 million votes. In the Electoral college it's 290 to 217 where it's very likely once Georgia finishes its recount will go to Biden and North Carolina should be called for Trump by now, giving a final tally of 306 to 232, a similar number to how Trump beat Hillary in the 2016 election plus Biden has a significant popular vote lead, driving home that he won. In 2016, Trump said he'll accept the results of the election...if he won, well...he lost this one, and he does what he does and whines like a bitch about it. Trump has been trying to file lawsuits and trying to overturn the election results but the courts have been tossing them out cause of no evidence and he made little in the way of progress about it. It's terrifying there's so much misinformation now and the GOP continues to enable Trump, and it's looking like since it seems they're more interested in power than to be fair or to actually stick with their principles. The GOP is no longer conservative anyway, they're reactionaries with some fascists mixed in, I'll do another post in my assertion that Trump is a fascist, since he seems to check all the boxes, since he reminds me heavily of Mussolini. Anyway, I'm linking some videos to dispell these misinformation myths and Trump like always often make claims without evidence.


There is no proof there was election fraud. Despite the pandemic, despite the voter surpression, Trump still lost and even if he disqualifies some of the votes, it won't be enough, Biden has clearly won and he either needs to accept it, or the GOP does the right thing for the country and remove him from power either through impeachment or using the 25th amendment cause I think at least Pence would know when he lost. This will stain their party for years to come and the fact a large number of people support him despite everything he's done is scary. Voter fraud is rare, from what I read about 0.0006% of cases or something like that, yes it should be taken seriously but this justification of dangers of voter fraud has often been used for voter supression in a lot of GOP controlled states. I will probably post about ways of reforming our election system to be a level playing field for all voters cause after the mess that was the Trump presidency of the last 4 years, I think we need major reforms from the bottom up.



His lawsuits won't turn over the election cause...math.



Here's the details on those lawsuits, courtesy of legal eagle.



Also one more vid by John Oliver on the matter, I find him quite amusing.

Alhamduillah(the Arabic equivalent of Hallelujah)! The election is over! Biden will become the next president in the US.
Thank God I don't want to hear mango Mussolini ever again after January, let's actually listen to the scientists and take on this pandemic head on instead of pretending it doesn't exist.
Biden won by 4 million popular votes and it's looking like he'll defeat Trump in the electoral college similar to what how Trump beaten Hillary in 2016, but Biden also has the popular vote to back it up, around 306 to 232 electoral votes.
Any other first world nation Biden would've won handily but because of the electoral college it was close and it was absolutely anxiety inducing but the US has given me hope that it hasn't been totally consumed by reactionaries and fascism. To drive home that point, while I was in class, my professor shared us an email he got of a new executive order from Trump that wanted to control how professors teach, it may say they want to give every opinion equal weight but in his words that means technically say a holocaust denier would have an equal platform, and that isn't right, or he would refrain from talking about US history in a negative way.
This to me is just turning history into propaganda, nationalism I agree with Einstein when he said it's an infantile disease, the measles of mankind. Nationalism is different from patriotism, the thing is we need to own up to the fact that systematic racism exists, that the US has major problems now and in its history it has to reckon with, and only then we can become more just. We often said that the US is for liberty and justice for "all" we're still working on who to include in the "all" category and we must work to truly be consistent with it. The US despite believing all men are created equal, we never lived up to it for the first 200 years of our history, sure we finally got rid of slavery after a century, but it took another century before we finally made an effort to include everyone in that all category(after the Civil Rights Movement) and still struggle with it when dealing with voter surpression, police brutality and the like.
We got a long way to go to make the country work for everyone, Biden is...in my assessment, a potato, I would've preferred like Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg or someone but I mean by world standards he is a centrist or a conservative(and a lot of the GOP that supports Trump are pretty much reactionaries, some are fascist, a big part of the GOP unfortunately is a reactionary party, conservatives like McCain and Romney I'd rather work with than a lot of the others). Biden at least admits his past mistakes(something Trump never does cause he has no humility) and he wouldn't leave his supporters literally in the cold, or ignore experts cause chances are, someone who studies a field for years knows more about that thing than you do. So I mean he's at least *workable* but we'll see.
Also I think nationwide we should adopt what Maine and Nebraska did this election, Ranked choice voting and distribution of their electoral votes according to proportion of the vote for whatever candidate, and we should have proportional representation in congress cause in reality, we should have six parties at least. The Democrats should be split in two between the liberal establishment democrats, and the progressive/social democrats, and the Republican party split between a conventional conservative party and a nationalist party, along with the Libertarians and the Greens, with ranked choice voting people can vote their conscience and probably get more accurate representation. Lastly we should make voting easier for everyone so then we have a level playing field. But I'll talk more on that later.
For now it's a sigh of relief and Trump is just losing it, and I have to admit I have a case of schadenfruende.
Anyway, take care, stay safe, and may we heal our nation and become the diverse democratic republic we were meant to be.

Hey guys I've been refraining of talking about politics, mostly cause frankly, it's been...overwhelming. Everyday there was something crazy going on, or the president acting like a spoiled brat again with his enablers just giving him what he wants. Let's be frank, el presidente is a toxic, abusive person, if he were in any other job, he would've been fired, but apparently the law applies to different people based on their income and in some cases ethnicity, gender, orientation what have you. I have over 20,000 reasons why I want him to lose this election, but the most prominent of which is, he's a habitual liar(he's lied more than any other president in recent memory, Democrat or Republican), he's sociopathic narcissist, only caring about himself. He has no humor(he has thin skin from hell), he has no curiosity, he hates intellectualism. He ignores and insults anyone that contradicts him, or crosses him(no matter how deserved it is), the fact he puts down Dr. Fauci, someone who served under Democrat or Republican presidents, did perfectly fine but because he threatens' Trump's ability to control the narrative, he wants to get rid of him and pretend COVID-19 doesn't exist. His reaction is however...not surprising though he had every chance to step up and do the right thing which would've probably secured his re-election, but he messed up every chance because his ego was too big. This man is nothing but a showman, with the documents that talk about his taxes he's either a shitty business man or committed tax fraud or both. Furthermore, this was something that worried my history professor, was Trump's idea of "Patriotic History" which to me any nation that talks about a "patriotic" interpretation of history is not an interpretation, it's propaganda, end of story. But still he's only a *symptom* of the problems we have, even if he loses, we won't get rid of the problems the US has, that COVID has exposed. We must reform our healthcare, justice, education, and our economic system, the whole system must be reformed in order to benefit Americans as a whole and not just a wealthy minority. As for Biden, yes he's a potato, he's again, the worst choice of the Democratic line up(I dislike the Democratic establishment but the GOP is far worse), but even their worst choice is better than what we got now, any choice is better.

So please guys, go vote, it's about one nation, with justice and liberty for *all* the debate we're having now, is who is in the *all* category, I think unambigously we must include *all* if we are to be a respectable nation again through justice not dominance and nationalism.

Here's a few vids that'll further my points.

Hey guys, just want to give you all an update. So I had my whelpday, I'm now 30 years old, wow....I survived 30 orbits around the Sun! I have no idea what to think of now entering my 30s other than my body's warranty has expired, and I guess I feel *slightly* wiser(not really). Psychologists do say most people mentally mature by 25-30 though I don't feel that much more mature to be honest! Anyway, having a birthday in the middle of covid-19 was pretty low key, my partner gave me a nice take out dinner(and some of my coworkers gave me a cake), as I took him to dinner when he had his birthday last month. I mostly been working, and studying my first semester in graduate school, wanting to get a Master's in History which I'm taking online. And I've been spending time with my partner, my dog and the like. it's a bit of a life juggling act, but I have to say I've been very fortunate throughout this whole covid-crisis, having an income and doing everything I can to protect myself, and I hope you all are doing well.

I again, apologize for not posting much, but currently...just..so much going on with the worst possible leadership in power while a once-in-a-century pandemic is going on(When the Spanish Flu was here, we had pretty bad leadership back then as well under Woodrow Wilson). For everyone, please, please listen to the experts(this goes for most other issues as well). If your doctor says one thing and a reality TV show host says another, for the love of God listen to your doctor! The amount of anti-intellectualism with the current administration drives me nuts, and just...it's draining and just plain toxic. I can go on and on, but I don't even know where to begin, I'd recommend you all please vote, the candidates aren't ideal(the first debate was the worst I've seen, just watch the debate between Obama and Romney and see what I mean), but between a malignant, corrupt narcissist and a potato, I think the choice is obvious. I'll probably do follow up journals on my assessment of the whole thing if I can squeeze in a few posts between work, school, and family.

But on a more positive note, on the side I've been slowly working on a sci fi roleplaying game, mostly inspired by DnD and similar tabletop systems. The setting itself is heavily inspired by The Expanse, Children of a Dead Earth and other hard sci fi stories, my main idea with this is how would real, sapient animals as we see in furry art can realistically come to be? But also how it would fundamentally change from human society, to a more diverse society of different sapient species involved, and the ups and downs of that(means some places get along, others are at each other's throats). It's still a WIP and got a few plots figured out, once I get the mechanics down might choose a few volunteers that I know might be interested in playing it and see how it goes from there. But anyway, hope you're all staying healthy(and sane) in a very insane year.

I will end this with the theme song of 2020.

For the occasion of the Fourth of July, I hope all of you are all doing well and staying healthy. The Fourth of July is a weird feeling for me, one hand, my partents came to this country in search of a better life and opportunity which from their hard work, certainly established themselves. Being born at the beginning of the 90s, life was quite good for me as a pup, never knew much in the way of hardship. But with 9/11 that I barely understood at 10, to when I graduated high school in 2009, I have read a fair bit since then and the image of the US in my head began to change. Year by year there was hope we might get over a lot of the blatant problems we have but now it's all laid bare with all the recent developments. From my readings of history, the US was often depicted as a city on a hill, a place of freedom and prosperity but scratching the surface, it's mainly an image.

The US was a place of freedom yes...for mainly white men for nearly 200 years. The phrase often put forth by the founding fathers "all men are created equal" well...those words were hollow for the first 100 years of the US' existence with the contradiction of tolerating slavery, which didn't go unnoticed at that time, an abolitionist at the time named Thomas Day wrote in 1776:
"If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves."
This problem was the original sin that went with the founding of the US, and it took a very destructive civil war that killed more Americans than any other war America was involved in combined. Even after emancipating slaves, they would have second class status for another century before it took massive protests, and political pressure to end the Jim Crow laws. But just before the civil war, Frederick Douglas, born a slave and upon gaining his freedom became one of the foremost African American figures in American history. And his speech "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" is a must hear, and the echoes of its critique of the United States can still be relevant today.

I think to believe in this country is to believe we can do better, we can overcome what MLK calls the three ills of our nation: poverty, racism and militarism, we must change for the better and overcome these illnesses or else all men are created equal will be just an empty phrase, we certainly are doing better than we did decades ago but we have a long way to go, and we must keep pushing forward and bettering ourselves as a nation.
Anyway, here's Frederick Douglas' Fourth of July speech, voiced by James Earl Jones.

A quick history on Juneteenth and how African Americans have been free-ish since 1865.

Hello guys,
Quite a few things have happened over 2020, having a once in a century Pandemic similar to the Spanish Flu in many ways(I'll post on that later), and now the current unrest that we haven't seen since the 1960s. I waited for a fair bit to make sure I at least have good enough information but the fact is most of the protests going on in all 50 states is justified against the systemic racism that the US seemingly just cannot shake off. It was the original sin when the phrase "all men are created equal" has been nothing but an empty phrase for most of the country's history. Though we definitely have improved over the years but it took 100 years to get rid of the enslavement of African Americans after the bloodiest war in American history, another 100 years to get rid of their second class citizenship under the Jim Crow Laws with nationwide protests during the Civil Rights movement(MLK may be respected now but back then, people accused him of being a communist, and despite his calls for peaceful revolution, he still got shot). They are some blatant problems and corruption in our justice system and law enforcement institutions where minorities especially African Americans are disproportionally harmed by police, and the god awful private prison system who have a profit motive to keep their beds full, and exploit prisoners for labor(using a loophole in the 13th amendment).

People often talk about looting and violence by the protesters which I say I don't condone it and I'm against that, however, the same people who argue that, often ignore the excessive force and violence committed by the police who are armed to the teeth, teargassing, beating and shooting rubber bullets at the protesters and numerous journalists as well, and really we're looking more and more like any typical 3rd world authoritarian nation that deals with protesters, and im very worried we might have a Tiananamen square moment given how ruthless the president has been towards them, all violence must stop, especially to the more powerful party that has all the gear, we expect a higher standard on those with power. What really shocked me, yet didn't surprise me was when Trump ordered police to force peaceful protesters from Layfayatte square and the church nearby just so he can walk there and do a photo op, which pissed off the local priest who was ousted along with the other protesters. Trump has and always have been a bully, not much different from a schoolyard bully, and not to mention an obvious narcissist and sociopath, though systemic racism has been a problem both under Republican and Democratic leadership, Trump just is making it worse, as General Mattis said he's not even pretending to unite the country. The fact that several conservatives, General Mattis, head of the pentagon, Amish, witches even Pat Robertson all are criticizing Trump for that action.

The fact we have solidarity protests in several countries around the world shows that despite the movement is far from perfect it is just to expose our militarized police who shield themselves from accountability has gone too far for too long, they are many policemen out there just doing their jobs but when you have a corrupt system, it's hard for a good person to make a difference in that. In the human body all bones matter sure, but you have to tend to the one that's broken, if one part of society is hurting the rest is hurting either directly or indirectly. We must do reforms that'll truly provide liberty and justice for all Americans regardless of their ethnicity, sex or orientation. These protests are all about that we all must be treated equally under the law otherwise we are lost. The police are necessary to have, but not like this, other police forces do their jobs without having to kill hundreds of people per year, we have to do better than this, we can do better than this.

Here's a few videos that can express this better than I can.
LegalEagle really had me thinking for someone who provides educational videos about law on youtube where you usually have to be impartial in a case, the fact that the recent events moved him to tears to firmly take a side I think is worth a watch.



Hasan Minhaj shows that systemic racism effects us all and must be fought.



Domestic and Foreign journalists are also being targets of police violence, they seem to forget about the 1st amendment both for the protesters and the journalists. And it inspired solidarity protests and protests in their own countries against their own issues.



To me this is not a political issue, it is a human rights issue, human rights transcend politics, ideology or religion, we must stand against injustice and authoritarianism, doesn't matter if it came from the right or the left, secular or religious, it must be stood up against and it must be fought, because no one should have to be harmed or die unnecessarily, and that we all benefit when everyone is treated equally under the law and everyone has equal opportunity to fulfill their potential.



Though let's not forget this is in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a big worry justifiably so is the protests can help spread it, so one can do their 1st amendment right to protests but please do it safely, wear a mask, gloves etc and do what they can to keep themselves safe.

Prophet Muhammad(PBUH) once said if you see something unjust, change it with your hands, if you can't do that, speak out against it, if you can't do that, then dislike it in your heart.

I will do a post to follow up on this one on the history that led to the unrest we see today, nothing happens in a vacuum, and there's a cause an effect to everything.

Hello all,
Taking a break from the current affairs, this is a very well done video on how Islamic civilization contributed to philosophy and the social sciences. Enjoy and learn.

Hello everyone,
just letting you guys know I'm alive and well, temporarily unemployed due to the coronavirus(though I do have a job to go back to when its over), my partner, our dogs are doing fine too and I hope all of you are keeping yourselves healthy and sane.
It's been a year since I wrote last, there's a lot of reasons why, fighting depression and anxiety, and simply I'm burned out, I see the society around me and I'm burned out on America.
As I try to find a path forward, the pandemic of covid-19 just exposed all the weakenesses the world system has and especially the United States, dealing with a once in a century level pandemic with the worst leader possible to deal with it.
I have hoped he would step up, he had a brilliant chance to step up and help the nation get through the worst pandemic impact wise in a century, last time we had anything near this was the Spanish flu of 1918. Yet...his ego was too much, he had a chance to do a good job as a president but he did not, ignored warnings, downplayed it, until it was in his face that it cannot be ignored and explicitly said he takes no responsibiltiy and it shows. He blames everyone else but himself for his failures and instead even the truth of covid-19 has gone political.
Every other 1st world nation has dealt with this more maturely and now you have a bunch of idiots protesting their right to go out there and do what they want jeopardizing everyone else, I swear I have never seen so much stupidity, narcissism and just plain selfishness. Our country has lost a lot of its solidarity in exchange for the selfish pursuit of materialism at the cost of everything else. Covid-19 is seen by some as an inconvenience, sure it's an inconvenience I know it is, it sucks, but it's temporary, if everyone do their part we can get over this by now if we tested and prepared when we had three months to do something about it. But it was ignored, and covid-19 exposed all the inequalities and in a lot of ways, the call of Bernie Sanders for universal healthcare, and a comprehensive social system to help the most vulnerable among us has been proven right. As one article put it, reality has endorsed Bernie Sanders.

The Free market has proven to be not very useful in a crisis, it's a false god that our country has worshiped for too long, making money is fine but not at the expense of others, with millions now out of the job, they need to still pay rent and the like, the US government had no choice but to provide money for those that lost their incomes lest they want a mass revolt. But it seems the government is so steeped in corporate money it bailed out the corporations again, and only giving breadcrumbs to the people and small businesses who are the real engine of the economy. The people we ridiculed and paid as low as we legally can have proven to be "Essential workers" despite their pay and their rights didn't reflect that. There's just so much to unpack here that I need to probably write another article after this. Furthermore we're not even fully locked down but just a patchwork of states doing measures on their own when the US Federal government isn't doing much to help, Trump still being a vindictive asshole even in a crisis shows he's not fit to be president, and this is what we get for electing an incompetent narcissistic reality tv show host but then again, the Democrats play a role in this too, the Republicans maybe steeped in corruption, the Democrats aren't far behind. The backstabbing they do to insist upon quite often, the least qualified of their candidates to go against the least qualified the GOP had, it seems like a race to the bottom if anything.

At times it put me in despair, that it seems universal healthcare, an affordable higher education system and basic worker's rights such as paid sick leave which we temporarily achieve seems too much even for the Democratic establishment(though that might change), and it shows really they couldn't give up on that sweet sweet corporate money, despite none of these ideas are radical, none of it is, it's normal in every first world country, but here I guess you might as well try to advocate gender equality in Saudi Arabia, it ain't gonna go very far for a long time. Seeing reform seems to be years away and showing the established parties are corrupt(though one is way more corrupt than the other) and see us as expendable as some politicians explicitly wanted people to sacrifice themselves at the altar of the dollar. It makes me want to make long term plans to emigrate, cause it's something my parents did, they didn't like what was going on in their countries and felt they couldn't change anything there, so they left to a country that upheld human rights better at least at the time. It's amazing the year I was born the US was the best country to be born in but it's clearly an empire in decline with an inept and corrupt political establishment, with crumbling infrastructure and can't even provide basics for its citizens nor protect them properly in the event of a pandemic, it is essentially as someone said on Facebook a third world country with a gucci belt.

However, there is still hope, I hope that maybe after going through this crisis people will see what's really going on and perhaps inspire positive change that'll benefit everyone, they are some signs of it, as voices for reform get louder but at the same time clashing with individuals with a cult-like mentality to their dear leader who conned them hard, like a very abusive relationship. It's a very troubling time and I hope goodness will prevail, but I have lost faith in the country, I have lost faith in capitalism, I have lost faith in this culture, I'm frankly disillusioned and full of anger, disappointment and a lot of times despair yet, I feel I need to continue to hope and have faith that a better society going beyond our outdated look at life. I think there needs to be something better, we need to do better, we can do better if we really want to. Because the direction we're going in frankly unsustainable, and I hope we learn solidarity and that we cannot call ourselves moral unless we love our neighbor what we love for ourselves, then perhaps we will find a much better society based on equality, justice and freedom for everyone, regardless of their ethnicity, gender or orientation.

Still I pray we all will come out of this okay, I wish all of you to keep your health and stay safe, we will get over this crisis, I just hope we will learn from it and become better after this.

Peace.

Also bonus read:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-.....bernie-sanders

Data on the Coronavirus, which proves it is quite comparable to the Spanish Flu and much more dangerous compared to the common flu:
https://informationisbeautiful.net/.....phic-datapack/

It's been awhile since I posted here, but it's about time I update y'all on what's going on. So I'm moving to another state with my best friend who became my partner, it was totally unexpected and we weren't even looking but it just, happened. With us and our two dogs between us, we have a nice little pack and it's been a learning experience since I moved out of my parents place and learned to adult and be responsible and all that stuff that's vaguely talked about in school :P
Now I'm starting a new chapter in my life with a shoulder to lean on along the way, we've helped each other a fair bit and went through our hardships together for almost two years now, and hoping we'll bring out the best in each other and help each other improve as we navigate life, accepting each other both our strengths and flaws, I'm especially grateful for the blessings that I often feel I don't appreciate enough now that it's near the end of Ramadan(it'll be over in a week), I felt the need to count my blessings and contemplate. I'm still figuring out what I really want to do in life career wise, for a long while felt adrift going with the flow, but this relationship im in now is helping me find direction and that neither of us have to do this alone.

But yeah, so definitely new, I hope to get back in the groove of writing again and researching for fun or just sharing information and learning things with you guys.

Voter surpression to some, Voter ID laws to others, on the surface to many it makes sense but when the numbers come into play, it is plain just not worth the effort, the amount of voter fraud is minuscule compared to how many people were barred their right to vote in states that wouldn't want to touch the right to bear arms but would tamper with people's right to vote.

Also for my fellow Americans out there, tomorrow is the mid term election, if you want to contribute to how our government is run, VOTE!

Here's an educational video on the correct use of the terms "Liberal" and "Conservative"
Here's your PSA for today :P

Well as of today I survived 28 orbits around the sun on pale blue dot in the Milky Way called Earth. Overall just a relaxing day, taking time off of work and such, gave me time to reflect a little. The past year has been a year of just rapid change. I moved out of my parent's place, got my first dog who's quite a handful but a reward to be around, working full time, managing everything an adult should have living with with my best friend and his dog, it's just been an experience, but realized I'm not really fulfilled as I thought I would.

I think the biggest part of that despite I'm grateful for my family, my close friends, my dog that I'm living fairly comfortably being paid enough to cover my essentials and access to basic things, I feel almost without direction in terms of a long term goal for self development. My dream for a long time was to become a scholar, after getting a Bachelor's in History and a hefty debt from that, it discouraged me from pursuing it further because of cost which left me a bit bitter of the whole system we set up that we insist is the best despite evidence of the contrary. I'm thinking about alternative paths I can take but have a hard time making up my mind. Still they are times were I'm often feeling too tired or too busy to write and pursue things I enjoy doing. It often seems like an endless cycle and I feel stagnant.

But still I should focus on trying to improve myself and push myself to write and research, I'll try my best to post when I can, I and have requests I need to fill so I'll be working on that whenever I have the energy.

But before I end this journal gotta do a "This day in history" for October 17th, in Haiti they are celebrating Dessalines Day, when the slaves of Haiti had enough being treated as property and after years of abuse and injustice, rising up and rebelled led by Desallines who won but after winning their freedom, becoming the most successful slave revolt in history, in 1804 they turned on their former slave owners and massacred them and their families.
Anyway, let John Green explain it!

Here's a very informative video speaking about the other North Korea, which was Albania under communist rule between 1946 and 1992 especially under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha who had a cult of personality and absolute power like Kim Jong Un does today. He also uses Albania's example as to how extremism, denial of basic facts, and "alternative facts" something that authoritarians love, was often used.

Hey guys, I'm alive still!
Sorry I haven't posted anything in a long while, but it's just been a crazy couple months, a cycle of full time work, caring for my dog, hanging out with my best friend and my family, etc.
The job I currently have pays decent, with benefits but, it's just been very stressful and dealing with anxiety, I've been making use of my health insurance to try and take care of myself and take care of things that have been put off. Recently for the sake of my bettering my health, I for the most part quit soda as a first step, and doing some exercise more with my dog. Since it'll help with dealing with my anxiety a bit better and ive seen some small improvements so far.

It's been about a year since I moved out and it all has been a learning experience and had me sit and reflect on how things have changed. My dog is nearly full grown and he's improved a whole lot in terms of his training and getting better everyday, it certainly was a learning experience for me too! My best friend, his dog and my dog and me are pretty much working as a pack, from what I've seen when you're starting from 0 and up, cooperation is the best way to thrive and certainly makes things easier. The job I have I see it as a stepping stone rather than a career, looking around and im gonna be 28 soon I think I really should try and push to get a rewarding job in my field(history), since ive gathered a bunch of job experience, and completed my degree last year. Cause I certainly don't want to stick with it forever. I lately have been seeing a therapist the first time since my sophmore year in high school to really get an idea, what do I do from here. They are so many things I can't make up my mind about, a solid career in a job that I can find fulfilling rather than being a wage-slave for some psychopathic CEO, I feel I want to do more, contribute to society. I remember I used to write here often, writing articles and such, to me that'd be great if I can do that and get paid to do research and write since those two things I consider is what I'm best at when I'm focused. But atm I feel at a crossroads where I have to make some big decisions soon but I think I'll try to get back to writing and see where it goes from there.

But anyway, that's where I'm at now, and also, im gonna put up some commission art I haven't put yet :P

Hey guys, it's been awhile, how you all doing? It's been such a crazy past few months, moving out of my parent's place, getting established, having my first dog and learning other adult stuff. Now I have a regular full time job complete with a cubicle, being a cog in the capitalist machine :P Well anyway, it does pay well but it's stressful but at least the coworkers are cool and the supervisors are very helpful and I've been performing quite well. I now make twice as much as I used to as a library assistant. Just trying to preserve my soul in the process. But trying to balance that, taking care of my dog, and having free time to write I needed to re-orient myself.

From what I've seen this isn't a job I want to make a career out of it but it'll do for now since im getting a load of software and tech experience from it which can help me get a lot of different, better paying jobs later. Despite I studied for history, finding a good job in one has been tough, so I've been figuring out how I can use the skills I got from it to make enough to make a living so I wouldn't have to work corporate. Though interestingly being out in the "real world" I couldn't have done it without my best friend and packmate  taladrian together we roughed out the tough part, but we're both working and he has his dog and I have mine formed a nice little pack of ours. Despite things are tougher, I feel overall better about moving out of my parent's place and the freedom associated with that. I still keep in regular contact with my parents though since they live nearby.

Personally I've been improving myself, my work ethic and all that mostly out of necessity and apparently have become a good cook, just a hidden talent I never tapped into I guess since now I enjoy cooking. So a fair amount of self development and being able to handle the stressors that I deal with now.

As for the dog, he's my first dog, a male black lab/shepherd mix that I rescued from a couple that couldn't keep him anymore so I paid them some money and took him in, and had to train out the bad habits and train in good ones, and he's a troublemaker and quite a handful but he's improving overtime and he turned 1 last Wendnesday but still in that puppy stage with a lot of energy and I got worn out at times, several times just crashing to sleep with work and him to take care of. But he too has taught me responsibility and for the first time having a dog, my packmate helps me train him which was a huge help. And really all this has been life changing and gained a lot of life experience from what I've been through so far.

Spiritually I still consider myself Muslim but mostly in the sense that I think religion is an approximation of who we think God is and what he(or she really) desires of us. So to me we won't be able to know exactly, but I think Islam as a language to try and make sense of something that's beyond our senses, beyond form, gender and matter. A being like that would be very difficult to understand with our own limitations. And I realize I can be wrong about all this but it's what I got given experience and what I'm able to figure out now. So I take a very Sufi like approach to truth and the universe, that people of other spiritual paths all go to the same way, just in different means. I think theology is secondary in importance to ethics, cause whether you worship Allah(God) or Jesus or Yahweh or none, what you do in the here and now and how you treat yourself and others is what matters, you may think you have the "right" theology but be a jerk and vice versa.

Politically lately since really over the last year or so, I used to be Socialist in my teen years but then went Social democrat but realized the failures of modern neo-liberal state capitalism, and that the Democrats compared to Republicans are just less authoritarian neo-liberals. Mostly disillusioned with the corruption of both parties the Republicans being worse, but also in the election Bernie Sanders being pushed aside for Hillary Clinton which they could've easily beaten Trump and just totally dropped the ball. Since then I learned of the problems of State socialism(and I need to emphasize this, Obama was never a socialist as many insist that he is) in history and state capitalism is failing as well since the 2008 financial crisis. So on the political compass that leaves left wing and right wing libertarianism.

Right wing libertarianism as what Americans call Libertarian is really just classical liberal, since Classical Liberals of the 19th century believed in individual rights and laissez Faire capitalism, though their philosophy is often tainted by the likes of Ayn Rand who thinks that selfishness is a virtue which goes against my morals. But also American style right wing libertarianism gives too much power to the owners of wealth and property since it often seems to proritize property rights over life and needs.

So you have what the rest of the world calls Libertarianism, that is Left Wing Libertarianism, Libertarian Socialism, Anarchism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, Anarcho-Communism they are several different types and interpretations but are all Left Wing Libertarianism, They too believe in individual liberty along with limiting the power of the state(many want to abolish the state alltogether) however they would argue when a small minority owns the means of production(that is owning the factories, the land etc) it gives an unfair advantage that they are not entitled to and effectively another kind of tyranny they would argue. The Left Libertarian take on Liberty can be summed up as.

"A libertarian socialist would argue that a society based on such huge disparities of wealth is unfree. If you wish to enter into employment, you choose first and take orders later (as with liberal democracy). Libertarian socialists believe in voluntary association and economic democracy. This will allow the individual to reach his/her full potential. "

So they would envision the cooperative model of how a company should run, so lately I have been leaning that way since it seems to be an alternative between state socialism, state, neo-liberal globalist capitalism and right wing libertarianism which often goes into xenophobic and anti-Muslim territory as many of them ended up supporting Trump, though many don't.. For more information of Left Wing Libertarianism, Noam Chomsky is probably a good place to start.

But still this has been my thoughts lately and I'll explain more in later journals which I hope to write more regularly.

Anyway, this was a summary the latest developments of my personal, spiritual and political world view and as I said I hope to write more of my reflections more often and have more discussions and actually answer them faster and keep it going. So I hope you're all doing alright and hoping this wasn't too long wind, anyway, chiao!

As someone who currently been working for a library for over a year and a half this post is gold. The Public Library still does good for the local community and I think well worth the tax dollars in terms of the positive impact they have.

https://imgur.com/gallery/COfTC

My brain is still processing this but...as of a few days I got a dog! I always wanted a dog since I was like...10, and now I finally got a dog, he's a 7 month old male black lab/shepherd mix and he's adjusting to the new place and got along with my friend's dog fine. Hyper as hell though, and trying to take care of him and juggle work will certainly be a challenge(not to mention lack of sleep but getting better on that overtime)! But Im excited, anxious and thankful all the same time, with some work im sure he'll become a good companion dog but I have to say he's a lot of work! Though it seems despite his antics, the longer I have him the more attached to him I get. This is definitely gonna be a new life experience and I think for the better.

Hey everyone, sorry I've been silent for awhile, just been a very busy first few months since I moved out of my parent's place to live with my best friend and his dog after we got our own place. It's been an interesting experience learning to adult, working full time and all that but I've learned quite a bit and continuing to learn.

As of today I'm now 27 years old, and started to forge my own path, it's a bit later than a lot of people but I think making progress is still good at whatever pace. But this is definitely been a learning experience. Now im searching to get my own dog atm, and trying to get a better job than what I have now, we'll see in the coming months but for now I'll reflect upon the progress I made, and stuff I still need to work on and enjoy my whelpday :P

I still wanna write and do educational stuff but finding ways to make money off of what I like to do, which I think is better than working for a boss if you can make enough to not depend on selling your labor(unless you can find a cooperative business which would be great too). But that's the challenging part!

Also this new movie is coming out, Isle of Dogs, definitely would wanna see this!