In my experience (two mothers, three fathers, one change of family and adoption) it has rather harmful consequences when parents try to stay together "for the sake of the kids". That rarely works, and it places the child in the position of envoy and mediator which produces its own form of neglect and emotional turmoils thereof. Rather, people should separate responsibly, quickly, and don't treat their children as the reason for inconvenience or cause of the breakdown of the relationship. Thus, separation and divorce I understand. What I do not understand is the time it takes until parents go through with the separation.
Embed this noticesimsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 24-Mar-2025 00:10:48 JST
simsa03I feel little pity for progressives in the US. They first enabled Trump in 2016, marched for Palestine in 2023, and now are too lazy or too afraid to turn out in numbers to protest fascism in their country. You know what? You don't deserve better. Get out and stand up or acquiesce and be a collaborator. Vichy-Democrats.
As I said a few times: Get out! And don't choose Europe, we'll have a major landwar this or next year.
Embed this noticesimsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 03:15:55 JST
simsa03This fucking internet and its moronic tech monopolies: There is still no easy way to get a website read aloud to you. You need this or that and, most egregiously, a keyboad with a fucking windows-logo-key. If you don't have that, you cannot start magnifier which has an auditory function as well. Why the shit do I have to behave like a fucking web crawler to get elemtary information? I'm still not your unpaid customer, you fucking freaks. And, yes, I know: You call *that* "ecology" or "environmentalism". Gee! Entertain yourself to death, you idiots on supplier and consumer side!
«For all three legal firms — and for others eyeing these developments with alarm — there is a near-certainty that they would lose significant numbers of clients if they lose their security clearances. In the case of Perkins Coie, the Trump administration has signaled it will not do federal business with the firm’s clients — a massive pressure point that could call the firm’s existence into question.»
The crack down on the legal sphere – one of the few potentially effective aereas of opposition – is a main goal of the Trump regime.
«It was not just this client [of psychoanalyst Arutyunyan] who was living in a state of constant anxiety: the entire country [i.e., Russia] was. It was the oldest trick in the book – a constant state of low-level dread made people easy to control, because it robbed them of the sense that they could control anything themselves. This was not the sort of anxiety that moved people to action and accomplishment. This was the sort of anxiety that exceeded human capacity. Like if your teenage daughter has not come home – by morning you have run out of logical explanations, you can no longer calm yourself by pretending […] and you are left alone with your fear. You can no longer sit still or reason. You regress, and after a while the only thing you can do is scream, like a helpless, terrified baby. You need an adult, a figure of authority. Almost anyone willing to take charge will do. And then, if that someone wants to remain in charge, he will have to make sure that you feel helpless.»
— Masha Gessen, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (2017), p. 467 f.
The perfidy of this mechanism is that the person who instills the insecurity and anxiety poses as safeguard against it. And while people trust him to "restore" "stability", all he does, under the guise of stability, is create more instability. The war never ends and is not allowed to ever end. This is true of Putin as it is of Trump.
Embed this noticesimsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Saturday, 22-Mar-2025 22:21:13 JST
simsa03The cruel, erratic, and contradictory character of Trump's and his coterie's actions is intentional. It's "strongman", i.e., mobster behaviour, to keep opponents in a reactive mode. In its unpredictability it serves as Rorschach test for everybody's fears and anxiety. And people spend their time and energy on trying to make sense of it all and on reducing the cognitive dissonance put upon them. Become a Rorschach test seems to be the most effective tool in power plays, esp. when you didn't gain it fully yet. Sadly, mostly intelligent and knowledgeable people fall for it. In case of Trump this is his main base of opposition.
Without malicious intent, I think your post is a good example of how the actions of Trump and his coterie serve primarily as a Rorschach test for everybody's fears and anxiety. Become or be a Rorschach test looks to me to be the most effective tool in power plays. And it's mostly intelligent and knowledgable people who fall for it.
« Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security. »
That is: Even the proclamation of an Article 5 incident doesn't mean a military combat situation for each and every member state of NATO.
And so when Russia is said to be willing to test NATO in the near future for its readiness to adhere to Article 5, the supposition that this means Russia will be testing whether each and every member state is willing to engage militarily is an erroneous depiction of the situation.
Likewise, Russia's threat to reserve the use of nuclear weapons should this or that red line be crossed, which lead some European states (foremost Germany) to self-deter from support of Ukraine, displays an erroneous understanding.
Article 5 is way too "weak" to oblige any member state to contribute armed forces in a conflict with Russia. And that means that Russia cannot "test" the willingness of NATO to follow through on Article 5 simply by attacking a small city like Narva in Estonia with a considerable Russian minority. Every NATO member reaction would be an Article 5 contribution, and Russia cannot assess thereof what the NATO member states are furthermore willing to do to act in compliance with Article 5.
Thus these kind of war-gaming makes no sense for either party.