‘The Democratic party is the racist party’…

… Is what dumbfuck reactionary Americans will say.

I am not going to talk about the southern strategy as I cannot cite evidences other than an excerpt of Lee Atwater’s interview  and the fact that GOP apologised in 2005 for committing it.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think the Democratic party is as inclusive as many think it is. While not all of them, many Dems -both the voters and voted ones- are pseudo-progressives who believe the upholding of the status quo is worth the broken promises and tokenism. Biden is basically a conservative and if Buttigieg is not a young, gay military veteran, he would not be as popular.

But, under a  two-party system, the absence of hateful rhetoric can be appealing to not only young, aspiring progressive politicians, but also members of marginalised communities.

In fact, not only there is a recent increase of actual young progressive Dems who make centrists nervous (yes, I am thinking of the squad), the data also shows Hispanics (of any race), blacks and Jews are more likely to vote blue than red.

Okay, I am one of those people who can feel wary about social statistics; poor samplings can result in extremely misleading results. But, I still have yet to find any counter-evidences, both quantitative and qualitative.

Oh, and there are documented cases of bigots voting for Republicans or running for office as ones. There are lots of Republican voters, Trump ones in particular, caught on camera racially abusing any non-whites and/or any non-English speakers they run into. Arthur J. Jones is not only white supremacist  member of the Republican party. David Duke is not the only white supremacist who openly support Trump. Supporters of the confederacy and whitewashers of slavery are mostly Republicans.

I refuse to say all Republicans are racist. But, I can definitely say the genuinely non-racist ones are so mindless with their rhetoric, they have inadvertently give the racists a comfortable home within the party.

What I am saying if you want discredit the Democratic party as the racist party, you have to expose what both parties are, not what they were in the fucking bygone era.

Studying the past is not the same as living in it.

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The Coronavirus pandemic reminds me that…

… Virtue signalling exists.

Opponents of lockdown love to claim that their opposition is based on their concern about people with low income.

What they are doing is virtual signalling.

They love accusing the supporters of disparaging low-income people and dismissing their plights… which is, of course, dishonest because I have yet to encounter fellow lockdown supporters who do exactly that; believe it or not, we are also concerned about the economic crisis, which would definitely happen even without lockdowns (do you seriously fucking believe the economies would stay hunky-dory with people dropping dead?).

Prior the pandemic, those people were not concerned with poverty. If anything, they were the extreme opposites of social justice warriors. They blamed poor people for their hardship, they glorified inequality and they would do anything to keep the incomes of lower-class people low.

They oppose lockdowns NOT because they care about people’s prosperity, but because they are selfish fucktards who believe partying and haircuts are more important than the public health. They virtue signal because they want to mask their ungodly egoistic selves.

They remind me of Americans who care about homeless veterans ONLY when refugee crisis is a hot topic. They virtue signal because they know being racist and xenophobic is no longer cool.

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Riots: my Indonesian perspective

Martin Luther King said it is the language of the unheard. I am not 100% on board with it.

In the case of the still on-going Black Lives Matter riot (as of at the time of writing), I do think it is the language of the unheard. It is undeniable black Americans are disproportionately targeted by the justice system. Considering how every single one of their peaceful protests is condemned as ‘inappropriate’ by the establishment, it is no surprise race riot is still a semi-regular feature of the American life to this day.

Even if I dismiss the reports of white instigators (I don’t), I still cannot blame the rioters for being violently angry… while also acknowledging that small business owners also have the right to be bitter when their properties are burned down. Yes, you can do both.

Regarding the Hong Kong riots, I also think they are languages of the unheard. Contrary to popular belief (and I notice its prevalence among online Singaporeans), the Hong Kongers don’t rebel against the authorities just for the sake of it. They rebel because they truly appreciate the liberty they have enjoyed for decades, the liberty that citizens of mainland China (and Singapore) have never experienced.

The citywide legislative council has functional constituencies which allow special interest groups like corporations (many of which are Pro-Beijing) to vote and their votes have more weight than the ones of geographical constituencies. The city’s chief executive is directly appointed by Beijing. Pro-democracy camp is only dominant in the district councils.*

In Indonesia, it is a different case.

There are the infamous ‘wrapped rice’ protesters, those who join protest rallies simply because they want the free lunch and cash. The presence of organised and extensive logistical support, akin to a meticulously-planned event, is a dead giveaway.

Even though many of them are working-class people, their acts are not languages of the unheard. They do not represent their own causes, they represent the determination of certain parties to keep destabilising the public life.

Then, there are the Islamist protesters, who may or may not overlap with the aforementioned people.

They protest because they claim to be against the second-class status of Indonesian Muslims… even though we are a predominantly-Muslim nation that have never embraced state secularism, let alone the laïcité type; we were never banned from openly expressing our Islamic identity.

If anything, Islam is the golden child in Indonesia and has always been. Muslims do have privileges that non-Muslims lack.

Basically, the Islamist riots -which there are quite a lot of them- are not languages of the unheard. They are languages of fucktards who demand even more rights to oppress the religious minorities, who think protecting them is the same as oppressing the majority.

If you want to find Indonesian riots who are legitimate languages of the unheard, I will refer to the ones committed by Indonesian Papuans.

They are a marginalised racial and cultural group who have never benefitted from “joining” Indonesia. Their heritage is nothing but a mere cultural prop, their existence is a mere tokenism to our national diversity.

When they aggressively protested against a racism case in which Papuan students were called ‘monkeys’, the majority of Indonesians condemned the Papuans for rioting and not once acknowledging the root of the problem. Sounds familiar?

I am writing this essay (and pretending to have lots of readers) because I don’t want well-intentioned yet gullible people to defend the wrong parties. I don’t want them mistaking the oppressors as the oppressed ones.

We already have assholes who intentionally flip the narrative. We don’t need people to do it accidentally.

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*Yes, under the British rule, the governor of Hong Kong was appointed by the Queen and not by the Hong Kong people and all of the governors were white. But, the legislature was already dominated by Hong Kongers and it had far less functional constituencies.

Oh, and the government did not actively try to stifle freedom of speech. Don’t forget that.

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Eating like an Indonesian 1: feeling (in)validated

There is no such thing as Indonesian cuisine. There are Indonesian cuisines. Plural.

This country, an archipelago sandwiched by two continents, literally has hundreds of ethnic groups. The government officially recognise six religions and there are more unrecognised ones. Our traditions are also laced with Arab, Indian, Chinese, Dutch and Portuguese influences. Diversity means there are lots of cultures and lots of cultures means lots of ways of cooking.

Javanese and Sundanese cuisines are mostly indigenous in style with minimal foreign influences, even though Javanese and Sundanese arts are heavy with Indian influences. The former is (in)famous for its sweetness due to the heavy use of palm sugar and sweet soy sauce. The latter is known for its earthy taste due to the heavy presence of raw vegetables.

As a Sumatran city, Palembang  is unusual for the Javanese influences in its dishes and their restrained use of spices. They also heavily utilise both freshwater and saltwater fish; in major Indonesian cuisines, it is usually either or.

Minangkabau and Malay cuisines are known for their rich, cholesterol-inducing and spice-heavy coconut milk gravies. Both are heavily influenced by India and the Middle East. The latter is also influenced by China and it is related to Peranakan cuisine, a Chinese fusion cuisine also existing in Singapore and Malaysia.

While there are Peranakan dishes in Indonesia, non-spicy Chinese-influenced dishes are more popular here. They share more resemblances to the ‘original’ Chinese ones.

Batak cuisine is notable for its use of the tongue-numbing andaliman, a relative of Sichuan pepper, and there is one dish that use cow’s cud as an ingredient. Christian Batak people -well, some of them- are also infamous for their consumption of dog meat.

Minahasan cuisine is more infamous because, apart from being one of the spiciest cuisines in the country, it uses way more ‘exotic’ meat from animals like bats, jungle rats, snakes, macaques and yes, even dogs.

Betawi cuisine is the most fusional of them all. It is heavily influenced not only by other regional cultures, but also foreign ones. Remember the foreign cultures I listed earlier? Betawi covers all of them! Due to the high eclecticism, I still don’t know what makes Betawi dishes uniquely Betawi. For some reason, I associate them with the smell of lemongrass, even though not all of them use it.

I have tried only a handful of Indonesian dishes. Yet, my limited experience already reveals how diverse Indonesian cuisines are and how I have only scratched the surface. Heck, I am sure people who haven’t eaten a single Indonesian dish in their lives would acknowledge the diversity just by reading online sources that get the basic facts right.

The variety means one crucial thing: Indonesia could have catered to a wide range of taste buds. Regarding popularity, our foods could have beaten the ones from Japan and South Korea, two highly homogenous countries. We could have been a global culinary powerhouse!

Sadly, reality says otherwise.

Popularity is achieved through confident self-promotion. The promotion must be consistently done and the promoters must believe their own words. Even I know that and I am awkward as fuck!

Our self-promotion is pathetically lethargic. We are lazy and we even don’t believe our own words. We are ashamed of our own cultural existence. We only feel validated when foreigners openly commend our cultures.

There is a reason why you can find lots of foreign Youtubers who make videos eating Indonesian foods.*

I do know Indonesians who are proud of their foods. But, more of than not, they can only enjoy Indonesian foods; in some cases, they can only enjoy ones from their ethnic homelands.

Basically, they are bubble dwellers who have yet to live a truly cosmopolitan life.

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*I make it sound like the presence of foreign Youtubers (many of whom are Koreans, for some reasons) who make a living eating Indonesian foods is an inherently bad thing.

I don’t think it is. In fact, I genuinely adore some of them. I just want to make a point that Indonesians still crave outside validation like insecure teenagers.

While we are it, there is a concern about foreigners exploiting our insecurity. I personally believe the concern is legitimate. But, just because it is legitimate, that does NOT mean all of them are guilty!

If you want to publicly accuse them, make sure you are backed with solid evidences. And no, your feeling is not a fucking evidence!

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How to determine the validity of rape allegations?

*puts on a mask*

It is easy: just simply label every single one as false!

Why? Because false rape allegations exist! If they exist, that means literally every rape allegation is false! It is just common sense!

In fact, I believe this logic should be more widely-used, even for murder cases! Yes, I do think we must dismiss every murder allegation as false and we must condemn the dead murdered victims for slandering the living!

If you want to prevent false accusations, you must accuse the accusers of slanders! That’s literally how presumption of innocence works!

That’s the only way to achieve justice!

*takes off the mask*

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As a stutterer, what do I think of non-stutterers?

It depends on the non-stutterers.

If you are patient with me and never belittle my speech impediment, then I appreciate you. I truly do. Even though you have the opportunity to punch me down, you are too dignified to do so. Your understanding show you are indeed special human beings… and I am not being sarcastic.

If you treat me like shit, then you can ram cactuses to your unwiped asses, you fucking pigs.

The King’s Speech is not that impressive artistically and I cannot comment on its historical accuracy. But, I can definitely say it is very relatable to me.

The main character is mocked and bullied for his stuttering by people who see themselves as the so-called real victims for having listened to his stuttering, resulting in his bouts of anger… which actually help him speaking articulately.

And that’s literally my life!

While I don’t think my stuttering is the sole cause of my short temper, I do think it is certainly a cause. I stop stuttering only when I forget about my condition… or when I am so fucking pissed, I have to restrain myself from popping fucktards’ heads like fucking water balloons.

I don’t know why anger works. Maybe anger boosts my confidence. Maybe being emotionally-intense in general improves my articulation. Who knows?

And those victim card players…

I am the fucking stutterer. I am the one who gets his fucking self-worth bled out of himself, I am the one who fucking experiences the defect and emotionally fucking suffers as a result. In what retarded world is it logical to deem the listeners as the fucking victims here?

Framing themselves as the victims means they are implying that I am deliberately fucking abusing them with my defect, that I stutter by fucking choice, that I fake my fucking stuttering.

And, in my case, they are not just mere implications. They are the things people have confidently said to my face.

I have encountered people who accused me of enjoying torturing people with my defect by making them feeling ashamed for being associated with me!

I have encountered people who still insist to this day that my stuttering is just all just in my head, which means it is easily curable and people who still stutter don’t have the desire to be cured from it.

I even have encountered one person who literally accused me of faking my defect because I wanted people to pity me, even though he/she knew damn fucking well that they mocked me because of it.

It is infuriating how those retarded mongoloids inhumanely dismiss my suffering… and it is disturbing how they treat my speech impediment like the average people AKA idiots treat mental illnesses.

I did mention how anger helps me. The older I get, the more obvious it is how I have no incentive to lengthen my fuse.

Why should I when anger enhances my verbal articulation? Why should I when people like those animals constantly want to subjugate me with their barbarism? It is cheaper and more effective than therapies and if it wasn’t for my explosive temperament, I would have no means to protect myself.

I make it sounds like I am surrounded by such creatures. I am not. Most people I have encountered actually never abuse me for my impediment; they are either empathetic or very good in hiding their snake-ness.

Un-fucking-fortunately, people still don’t realise how their heartlessness can negatively affect their fellow human beings (whom probably they don’t consider ones). Apart from becoming an angry person, I also grew up as a obedient little bitch who gave too much fuck about what other people thought.

While I am still struggling to stand up for myself and stop caring too much, I am now way better at them… much to my abusers’ disappointment.

And, the best of all, I am using my short temper -which those bastards exacerbate- as my personal weapon against them.

After I think of it, The King’s Speech has one thing that I cannot relate. Unlike me, Bertie actually found the right therapist.

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Tired of the ‘political correctness’?

It’s easy: blame the bigots!

You may argue there is nothing inherently wrong about using make-up and the likes to look like you are from a different race. But, people in the past used blackfaces, yellowfaces and the likes to perform racist caricatures.

You may believe there is nothing inherently wrong about a non-Native American wearing a Native American headdress. But, Native Americans had their native identities literally beaten out of them in residential schools while white people freely wore the headdresses for their own hedonistic purposes.

You may believe there is nothing inherently wrong about making ‘offensive’ jokes. But, people have been using ‘offensive’ humour to express and justify their bigotry since forever.

Blame the bigots for the political correctness. They are the reasons why things that can be argued as inherently harmless end up attached with extremely adverse connotations.

They are the reasons why Social Justice Warriors exist.

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What I learned from the ongoing pandemic

No, I did not learn about governmental incompetence, human selfishness, the flaws of neoliberalism and unwillingness to learn from past mistakes; students of history already know that.

What I learned is that extroversion can be a liability during pandemics.

You have definitely heard about how citizens of various countries do not conform to social distancing. It shows how people with a gregarious personality can have a problem following the advice, which is a governmental ruling in some places.

They love socialising so much, they believe satisfying their desire for it is more important than the collective well-being. Who gives a fuck about the pandemic? I just want to party and pretending to be good friends with anyone!

Growing up, I was shamed into believing that introverts like me were ‘abnormal’ and ‘damaged’ while extroverts were the ‘healthy’ and ‘well-rounded’ ones; it took me years to find out about the truth and attain self-acceptance.

Now, it feels almost sadistically-gratifying to witness how genuinely abnormal and damaged those extroverts are, to witness how those who call us ‘anti-social’ have exposed themselves to be the anti-social ones; if you know what ‘extrovert, ‘introvert’ and ‘anti-social’ actually mean, you would not find anything oxymoronic about ‘anti-social extroverts’.

I respect socially-responsible extroverts for putting public well-being first and sacrificing their love of social interactions.

Incoming dark and potentially-pseudoscientific musing:

If we experience a few more pandemics in the incoming years or even decades, would the incoming human generations become more introverted or more tolerant of introversion?

Obviously, introverts are experts in social distancing; unless resource-depletion is a problem, we can definitely survive pandemics and therefore, passing down our introverted genes.

Socially responsible extroverts will inevitably learn how to appreciate solitude; if they survive the pandemics (and they very likely will), they will be able to procreate and pass down the appreciation to their descendants.

Anti-social extroverts have a high chance of getting terminated in a pandemic; they will get themselves killed either by the diseases or by angry mobs who accuse them of siding with the diseases. If they do survive, they either change their behaviours out of peer pressures or not changing at all, but they will have a harder time passing down their genes because there will be fewer living beings who want to cum with them.

But then, I know extremely little about evolution and natural selection. This will always be my personal and unnecessarily-dark musing.

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Parasite rightfully won

I have seen way too many people attributing Parasite’s victory at the Oscars to its popularity and it being a foreign-language film.

They are so smart, it hurts.

Not every award is like the Kids’ Choice Awards. Believe it or not, some awards like the Oscars are presided by a handful of (presumably snobby) juries who judge the nominees’ objective merit, NOT their popularity. One can argue the juries are misguided with their judgement and they have been criticised for it. But, it is very certain they don’t care about popularity.

And the data backs me up.

Avatar, one of the most highest-grossing (and one of the most overrated) films ever, was (idiotically) nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars… and yet, it was defeated by Hurt Locker, a film I would never heard of if it wasn’t for its victory. Don’t forget that Marvel Cinematic Universe, the highest-grossing film franchise of all time, have yet to won a single Oscar; they are more successful in awards that specialise in speculative fiction.

Oh, and don’t forget that film snobs looooove Parasite. On Youtube alone, you can find lots of them ravingly reviewing the film… and mind you, those people do not care much about popularity. They don’t have problems berating films they deem dreadful, no matter how popular they are! In fact, I feel alone because it is hard for me to find people who enjoy both Parasite and Marvel films like I do.

The thematic analyses are even more plentiful. Thanks to those Youtubers and their equally passionate audience, the surge of its cinematic exegeses feels never-ending, proving how Parasite is a dense and meticulously-crafted work.

Those who dismiss the legitimacy of its victory are either driven by xenophobia, anglo-centrism, neoliberalism or a combination of some or all of them. I am confident with my assertion because their dismissiveness contradicts the observable facts and I have seen many people hating on the film because it is non-American, non-anglophone and critical of capitalism.

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Monarchists

Straight up, many know nothing about how government works.

For starter, most monarchies nowadays are constitutional. In those countries, monarchs are NOT the heads of governments, they are heads of states. Whether they are elected or they get the positions  because of their long-dead ancestors, their jobs are simply meant to be personifications of their respective states. Their duties are mostly entirely symbolic.

As a result, for every political progress and deterioration that occurs in a constitutional monarchy, it can only be credited and blamed on the judicial, legislative and executive branches of the government.

In the specific case of the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, he was credited for being a unifying force for his ability to douse conflicts in his country. But, if he was indeed a unifying force, wouldn’t he successfully prevent any future conflicts from emerging ever again, even after his death? I mean, at this point, coup has become a Thai tradition.

While I am clearly annoyed by monarchists in general, the British ones are a ‘special’ breed: they believe once Great Britain becomes a republic, they will refer to the prime ministers as ‘presidents’ and it is too outrageous to imagine.

Two problems why it is a stupid sentiment.

First of all, why does the title fucking matter? Why is it so personally hard for them to refer to their leaders as ‘presidents’? It is extremely petty to make a big deal out of such an inherently inoffensive title. A president is literally someone who presides over things, for fuck’s sake!

Second, it is just another symptom of their political ignorance.

The UK is one of the countries that embrace parliamentary system. In such set-up, the heads of government are elected by the parliament; with some exceptions, they and the heads of state are two separate positions, with the former having actual executive powers and the latter having almost entirely ceremonial roles. Hence, why constitutional monarchies are parliamentary; the presidential and semi-presidential ones have no rooms for centuries-long, so-called divinely-approved nepotism.

What’s the point of this article?

It is simple: I just wish monarchists admit their love of the monarchs is anything but rational. No, they cannot claim rationality when their arguments defy basic facts about politics and, most importantly, when they behave like cult members.

In the UK specifically, not only they take criticisms of the monarchs too personally, they also think Meghan Markle, whose so-called sin is defiance against the status quo, is a bigger monster than Prince Andrew, who cannot convince the world that he and Jeffrey Epstein did not share the same hobby.

Don’t forget there are countries where insulting the monarchs is literally illegal.

Many will laugh when someone admits that him/her approval of certain things (e.g. monarchism) is entirely emotional. But, I cannot laugh at that someone because it would be hypocritical of me

My embrace of theism and Islam are also entirely emotional and that acknowledgement is a sign of self-awareness and self-awareness kills the zealots, apologists and even potential-extremists inside us, including the ones inside me.

As a result, not only I have acknowledged other people’s inherent right to hate the things I love, I have also acknowledged the potential soundness of their hatred.

If monarchists accept their monarchist stances are emotionally-driven and accept their beloved monarchs are their ‘nationalised waifus’ (as Oliver Thorn of Philosophytube nicely put it), they would stop behaving like cult members.

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