Just because you donât look like somebody who you think is attractive doesnât mean you arenât attractive. Flowers are pretty, but so are sunsets and they look nothing alike.

Discoholic đȘ©
noise dept.
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

Origami Around

Product Placement
hello vonnie

Andulka

pixel skylines

Kaledo Art
Aqua Utopiaïœæ”·ăźćșă§èšæ¶ă玥ă
Claire Keane
h
will byers stan first human second
Cosmic Funnies

⣠Chile in a Photography âŁ
Jules of Nature

JVL
Misplaced Lens Cap

tannertan36
taylor price

seen from Ireland
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Germany
seen from United States

seen from Singapore

seen from United States

seen from United Kingdom

seen from United States
seen from Czechia
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
@charmantou
Just because you donât look like somebody who you think is attractive doesnât mean you arenât attractive. Flowers are pretty, but so are sunsets and they look nothing alike.
Something that really bothers me about peopleâs hatred towards Ron is that unless you grew up really poor you have no idea what itâs like and how much it affects you. Especially if you grow up poor surrounded by rich friends. The jealousy seriously eats you alive and the way Ron acted was perfectly understandable.Â
Over twenty years later, Iâll still never forget the day one of my classmates told me to just ask my parents for more money, as though I was literally too thick to work out the obvious solution. Because in her world, it was that simple. Or the day my teacher gave me an âare you even trying for a believable lieâ? look when I had to tell him my parents couldnât afford to send me on a low-cost excursion. Or how for an entire school year, I had to wear a school uniform skirt so small it left angry marks on my waist every day, because my mother begged me to make it last just one more year. The day everyone thought it was hilarious to ruin my pencil case, and even more hilarious that I was so upset and claimed that my parents would be furious with me - LOL, that silly girl! Theyâll just buy her a new one, itâs not that difficult! (Spoiler, they couldnât and it was). And yeah, I had my fair share of second-hand underwear too, like another character who grew up in poverty. The utter shock I felt when I realized other families not only had air conditioning, but also used it regularly⊠the jealousy I felt when everyone else had nice formal wear and I had whatever my parents could manage to get⊠the list goes on and on. And thatâs on top of a bunch of other struggles and disadvantages I had.
But to hear Ron critics talk, he was the worst person alive if he ever even dared to want nice things for himself instead of just nobly being happy other people had them. âWhy is everything I own rubbish?â is not a permissible attitude, not even for a moment.
I see a lot of people making fun/disapproving of how Ron is always stuffing his face with food and it INFURIATES ME. When you grow up fucking poor you learn to take advantage of free food when you have it. Asshats.
Also does anyone realize the sheer fortitude Ron had to have to invite Harry over to his house!?
I could not invite my better off friends over to my house because things were literally falling apart inside of it and my family didnât have the means to fix it and it ate me up inside to not be able to have my best friend over to my house when I spent the better half of my teenage life sleeping over at her house because my parents and I didnât want her to see how rundown the inside of our home was.
Ron was so nervous about what Harry would say about his house and was embrassed by the state of it but he saw Harry needed somewhere to stay and he opened up his home to him. People who have always been well off wouldnât understand the magnitude of that action.
Ron is a damn treasure and anyone who hates him because of his jealousy canât understand the deeper meaning behind it.
snapchat, insta, and quidditch=games that gryffindor just canât lose.Â
amazing illos & hilarz captions created exclusively for SparkNotes by the awesome @sasmilledge
That was a long 12 years for Wormtail.
Can you imagine how differently their lives wouldâve gone if Ron, in trying to transfigure Scabbers, had actually transfigured him back into a human? Just take a moment to imagine McGonagallâs reaction if Peter Pettigrew had abruptly appeared in her classroom from Ronald Weasleyâs rat. Take a moment.
Or if Ron had fucked it up a little worse and couldnât get âScabbersâ back and McGonagall had take him to disenchant him and next thing we know thereâs a naked Peter Pettigrew sitting on McGonagallâs desk and the kids in that class learn six new swear words, a hex they will never dare to use, and a fear of Minerva McGonagallâs wrath that will be with them until the day they die.
Ten and twenty years later first years are being pulled aside and warned never mess around in Transfiguration seriously the last time a kid mucked something up in that class Professor McGonagall used two semi-legal hexes, took down a Death Eater and sabotaged the rise of the Dark Lord before Potter had time to get his wand out.
What most of Hogwarts learned first on that otherwise-unexceptionable day was that Professor McGonagall could sure scream loud.
Professor Flitwickâs Charms 5th-year Charms class was close enough to catch the full effect, and the door had been left open besides; en masse the students recoiled with shock and a miscast Hiccuping Charm broke one of the windows (out which the entire flock of ravens they were practicing on escaped to the Forbidden Forest where they only had to worry about centaurs, rather than annoying young humans with wands).
Up in the Divination Tower, Sibyl Trelawny preened over her foresight to have warned her students of an unprecedented catastrophe likely to occur before the hour was out.
Out in Greenhouse Five, a NEWT-level Herbology class looked up in puzzlement, and most of them were subsequently bitten by the Venomous Tentaculae they were attempting to propagate. It does not do to ignore a Venomous Tentacula when youâre prodding at its intimate parts with a cotton ball held in tweezers, so the class was cancelled while two-thirds of the students headed for the infirmary and the rest of them headed into the castle because if they stayed with the Venomous Tentaculae theyâd be outnumbered, and nobody wants that.
And down in the dungeons, Professor Snape turned away from comparing Lee Jordanâs Pepper-Up Potion to spoiled cream at what sounded like a woman screaming from the entrance hall. At the second scream, he ordered the class to remain where they were and behave, sweeping out of the room just in time to miss Theodore Nott suddenly jumping up and yelping as if someone had put a crocodile heart down the back of his robes.
Fred Weasley stepped back from the unfortunate Slytherin, shared a smirk with his twin, and stuck his head out the door to make sure Snape had rounded the corner before leading the way out of the classroom.
-
Back in the Transfiguration classroom, about four minutes ago, it had started innocently enough. Ron Weasley, possessed of a broken wand and a lurking suspicion that most of the familyâs magical talent had been soaked up by his siblings before he was around to get any, had attempted to turn his pet rat, Scabbers, into a teacup.
Scabbers had not become a teacup.
Scabbers, blast his useless furry little backside, had become a furry, vaguely teacup-shaped monstrosity out of which absolutely no one would have been tempted to drink, and to make matters worse, he still had a tail.
It was moving.
Harry was hiding a smile behind his hand. Dean and Seamus werenât even trying to hide, elbowing each other and laughing. Parvati and Lavender were looking with disgust and horror at either Scabbers or him, and Hermione was opening her mouth, no doubt ready to tell him exactly what heâd done wrong.
Which only made it worse that he really thought heâd done everything right this time.
He snatched Scabbers off the desk (eww, the base of the cup had the same texture as rat feet) and turned away from Hermione. He made the wand movement again, picturing in his mind the way McGonagall had demonstrated it. âErreverto.â
âErreverto. Erreverto. Erreverto.â
It didnât work. It didnât work when Professor McGonagall stopped by and gave Hermione two points for Gryffindor for getting the spell perfect in both directions. It didnât work when Harry made his successful transfiguration (Ron looked; the pattern was a little bit furry but it was definitely a teacup). Ronâs lips formed the shape of a word that wouldâve made his mother box his ears had she heard it and attempted the reverse transfiguration, which didnât work either.
Finally, faced not only with the indignity of failure but the threat of Scabbers being stuck like that, heâd gone up to Professor McGonagallâs desk.
âUm, Professor?â
Professor McGonagall looked up from the paper she was grading and looked from him to the squirming teacup. âProblems, Mr. Weasley?â
âUm, yeah, Professor. I canât get it to work in either direction and itâs not fair to Scabbers to make him stay as a teacup just because I canât do a spell right and can you maybe âŠÂ ?â
âI suppose so, Mr. Weasley,â she said, and waved her wand in the exact manner Ron had been doing all along.
Nothing happened.
Professor McGonagall looked very, very puzzled.
âNow thatâs odd,â she said softly.
As one, the other students rose from their seats and quietly moved closer.
She did not attempt the transfiguration in the other direction. Instead, she made a complex motion with her wand and murmured an incantation that possibly only Hermione recognized. The teacup squeaked. Professor McGonagall looked more puzzled than ever, and made a sweeping wand movement that ended with a sharp jab and uttered, âArcanum finite!â
And there was a loud bang, and there was a pale, pudgy, and very naked man sprawled out on her desk, and she jumped back hard enough to knock her chair into the wall and screamed.
-
Having taught a particularly rigorous course of magical study to children and teens for quite some time now, Minerva McGonagall had become accustomed to certain things. Students who didnât listen. Students who did rude things to the mice when they thought she wasnât looking. Students who accidentally turned a frog or a raven into a flock of starlings or a school of strange slimy South American fish (and tried to solve the immediate problem by filling the classroom with two feet of water, neglecting to consider the gap under the door). Students who tried to transfigure their noses into a more appealing shape and wound up in the hospital wing regrowing their nostrils.
Naked men on her desk was something Minerva McGonagall had never had an occasion to get used to. What made it worse was that she recognized this one, and heâd been dead for more than a decade.
Inferius! was her first thought, followed shortly thereafter by Animagus, which collided with Peter Pettigrew! and produced the utterly horrifying thought of what if all four of them were Animagi? which didnât bear thinking about at all, so her brain jumped to if he wasnât killed by a Dark Wizard then why didnât he say so? and realized there was only one possible explanation why, and about that time her eyes registered that parts of Peter Pettigrew she really doesnât want to know about were flopping about in front of her face, and she was screaming as she jumped back.
The flow of invective which followed somehow failed to surprise her one bit. Some part of her registered, peripherally, the shocked faces of her students, but most of her attention was directed at Peter Pettigrew, who at very least faked his own death and at worst framed Sirius Black and if Black didnât betray the Potters then who ⊠did. And the words poured out of her, filthy English and filthier Latin while Pettigrew squirmed on the table, his face rage and guilt and fear and something shifty and contemptible, and he turned to look at the stunned students and lunged for Ron Weasleyâs wand.
-
Severus Snape had reached the Entrance Hall by the time the scream died away and the invective replaced it. He almost smirked, amid the alarm; of all the things heâd never expected to hear from Minerva McGonagall ⊠he took the stairs two at a time, still not noticing the students who followed.
He did notice the Herbology class, which had stopped on the way to the Infirmary and were staring transfixed in the direction of the Transfiguration classroom, but pushed his way through them, getting Venomous Tentacula pollen all over his robes in the process.
From the other end of the corridor came Professor Flitwickâs Charms class, with Professor Flitwick bringing up the rear and pushing his way between students.
-
Ron looked stunned as the man whoâd been his pet rat snatched the wand from his hand; Professor McGonagalâs expression shifted to one beyond fury and when the entire class recoiled, it wasnât from the naked man with the wand.
âLaedo!â Minerva McGonagall roared.
-
Ron Weasleyâs wand cast a Splintering Curse many years beyond its rightful ownerâs abilities, and it did Peter Pettigrew the poor favor of eliminating the door, which might have slowed him down a bit.
-
Severus Snape flailed and skidded to a halt as the Transfiguration classroomâs door shattered. He stepped back just in time, and stared, jaw dropped in shock, as a naked man he recognized from his school days flew past him and bellyflopped against the wall, bounced, and collapsed to the ground just in time to avoid the âExitium!â which followed and vaporized an impresive chunk of the castleâs stone wall.
Fred and George and Lee Jordan, determined to stay at the front of the crowd, had been pushed almost against Professor Snape by their fellow Potions classmates and some pollen-coated Hufflepuffs. Fred squirmed aside hastily as Professor McGonagall appeared in the doorway, the look on her face so utterly livid that Professors Snape and Flitwick both reflexively stepped back.
Snape tripped over Georgeâs foot and fell against a knot of Hufflepuffs, releasing another cloud of pollen and knocking them backwards. Pettigrew saw his opportunity and took it, scrambling to his feet, stumbling sideways, and launching himself towards the gap.
And Minerva McGonagall made a thrust with her wand and said, âPerdo.â
In the very loud silence which followed, Filius Flitwick squeaked, âThe Splinching Charm, Minerva?â
She mightâve looked embarrassed for a moment, and then she smiled as she looked down at Pettigrew, who lay on his belly, his arms and legs lying akimbo some distance away.
âUnorthodox,â she said, âbut useful in a pinch. If someone would inform the Headmaster, and send an owl to the Ministryâ-not Fudge, not Crouch, someone competentâ-Shacklebolt, perhaps. Students, return to your classrooms, please. Mr. Weasley, Iâm very sorry, but I do believe itâs impossible to return you your rat. However, the zero I was going to have to give you for the dayâs work is entirely undeserved, as you were not transfiguring a normal rat. You may make the lesson up any time this week.â
-
The story was, of course, much embellished by the time it reached all the students. Versions of it had the intruder peppering Snape with a Glitter Hex or transfiguring Ronâs rat into a pair of boxers, and people had to be disabused of the notion that it had been Voldemort whoâd been hiding as a rat all this time.
Snape gave both Weasley twins detention for tripping him, and took forty-seven points total from Gryffindor over the next few weeks for various pretend-subtle pollen references.
Kingsley Shacklebolt showed up with a team of Aurors in time to meet Professor Dumbledore; the Wizengamot launched an investigation into the events surrounding the Pottersâ murder; the results turned into a scandal which saw the release of Sirius Black and the forced resignation of both Director Bartemious Crouch and Minister Cornelius Fudge. Director of Magical Law Enforcement Amelia Bones was confirmed as Minister of Magic shortly thereafte, and the Daily Prophet reported that Sirius Black (âGodfather to the Boy-Who-Lived!â âFramed, Abandoned, Condemned to Living Hell!â âHeart-Wrenching: His Release In Pictures, Page 17!â) was considering applying for a teaching position at Hogwarts, âbut just for a year, Iâve been cursed enough for one lifetime.â (âThe Prophet reminds its readers that the so-called âcurseâ on a certain Hogwarts teaching position is almost certainly a mere string of coincidences.â)
And, Minerva thought with relish some months later, it was almost three weeks before anyone attempted messing around in her class.
A personal record.
Iâve probably reblogged this before but Iâm going to do it again right now
I think this is literally the best au this entire fandom has produced
Iâve only seen this legendary bit of writing in memes and screenshots. I feel so blessed to see it in person.
Yep. Human zoos were a thing. Not only in America, but in a lot of countries in Europe. Matter of fact, it was Europe that started the terrible exhibits back in the 1800s, then New York started having the âzoosâ in the 20th century. Over 28 million white people would go to these âzoosâ to see hundreds of black and indigenous people as a âmajor attractionâ.Â
People who suffered in these zoos might still be alive today. Do not let this be lost in history.
And how do you tell them you feel so empty without making it sound so sad?
fckedupfray (via wnq-writers)
the phrase âcuriosity killed the catâ is actually not the full phrase it actually is âcuriosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it backâ so donât let anyone tell you not to be a curious little baby okay go and be interested in the world uwu
See also:
Blood is thicker than water The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.
Meaning that relationships formed by choice are stronger than those formed by birth.
Letâs not forget that âJack of all trades, master of noneâ ends with âBut better than a master of one.â
It means that being equally good/average at everything is much better than being perfect at one thing and sucking at everything else. So donât worry if youâre not perfect at something you do! Being okay is better!
These made me feel better
Also, âgreat minds think alikeâ ends with âbut fools rarely differâ
It goes to show that conformity isnât always a good thing. And that just because more than one person has the same idea, doesnât necessarily mean itâs a good idea.
what the fuck why havenât i heard the full version to any of theseÂ
âBirds of a feather flock togetherâ ends with âuntil the cat comes.â
Itâs actually a warning about fair-weather friends, not an assessment of how complementary people are.
Iâve always felt like these were cut down on purpose.
I really like these phrases and plan on spreading this knowledge.
The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I want to make designs out of these.
Funny how all the half-finished ones encourage uniformity and upholding the status-quo, while the complete proverbs encourage likeâŠliving exciting, eclectic lives driven by choice and personal passion.
nicknames/mottos (a more truthful version): countries
As a Scottish person I can confirm that this is 100% accurate
As an English person I can confirm that this is 100% accurate
As an American person I can confirm that this is 100% accurate.
This isenât a post, this is an experienceÂ
A simple guide to picking a great color palette. No matter what the colors are, using colors that are certain distances from each other on the color wheel result in a great contrast of colors. The simple color schemes shown above are used in the most popular logos, posters, websites, paintings, and even movies and television.
What she says: I'm fine
What she means: In Legally Blonde, Elle only gets accepted because she's hot and sent a video, but she had a 4.0 and got a 179 (out of 180) on her LSATS. Sure, her major was in Fashion Merchandising but that's a business major, and the fake school she was at was supposed to be UCLA so she had a business degree from a major college, probably went to a great high school, had a 4.0, and a 179 on the LSATS and at that point she would have been automatically accepted so why did they make it sound like she was such a bad risk? She even had leadership experience as president of a major chapter of what is apparently a huge sorority, since Delta Nus are shown as everything from cheerleaders to senators. Harvard should have been desperate to take her. She should have been able to get in if she turned in a cocktail napkin with her name written on it. So why make up the bullshit excuse of "multiculturalism" to justify letting in an extremely qualified and highly driven candidate just for laughs? Elle Woods deserved to go to Harvard and she earned that place with academic excellence and not by being hot.
1. I know letting go may feel like hitting pavement but sometimes staying is like getting hit by a train youâve seen coming for miles. 2. There are symphonies that are screaming it is going to get better. Listen to the music. 3. The most fight youâll ever feel is from inside your heart. 4. Nostalgia is only good for telling you bedtime stories. Donât let it tuck you in at night, donât let it keep you warm. 5. Keep the moments that you wish could live on for a gazillion years close to your heart, never let them burn out. 6. Youâll find someone thatâs not them. Youâll love again and itâll be pure and significant in its own way. 7. They remember it all. Theyâll see how much you impacted their lives much later. 8. You may hate high school, but itâs when itâs almost over that you get flashes of when you were young and passed notes with your first love in art class and had talks with teachers that really mattered and youâll want it to slow down. Take it in, thereâs good in everything. 9. Sometimes the one that was your perfect match will be the one to watch you burn. 10. Whatâs meant to be yours will always find its way home. 11. Itâs okay to change without them. Remember that you are the main character of your story. 12. Music cures it all. 13. Telling the story of how I fell in love with you still warms me from the inside out. Teach me how to let go of you. 14. Falling out of love makes you feel like youâll never want to do it again, but the feeling of your heart dropping when he tells you heâs wanted you all these years is worth the stab at the end. 15. You jump off the cliff hoping there wonât be daggers at the bottom, and when youâre young you think you know how much itâll hurt. When it comes, youâll realize you had no clue. 16. My biggest fear was not being with you. Iâm becoming someone without you, and it doesnât feel right. 17. The nicer you are, the more beautiful you become. 18. One day youâll meet again, and itâll be just as scary and beautiful as the first time. 19. Youâll find your person. You may not recognize them at first because theyâre not as shiny as they are in the movies, but youâll know by the calm they bring. 20. Thank God for him. 21. The boy who runs in my dreams isnât as dishonest. He holds my hand whenever I need to feel less alone and I sit around his kitchen table and talk to his mother about poetry. She goes on to say something about how statistically people are more afraid of love than anything else and the things I donât say- tell her all there is to know about me. That Iâm afraid beyond measure of what love can do to a person. Because I spent the last two years loving someone who didnât know anything other than tearing apart the sole purpose of my existence. The boy who runs beside me in my dreams convinces me that love isnât always teeth and bite marks. In my dreams, my scars arenât there because I never tasted a bitter love before. The boy in my dreams loves me enough to let me meet his mother and destroys the idea that love is what I came here to die for. 22. Maybe love stays, maybe love canât. Maybe love shouldnât. 23. I glance off in another direction, but I always glance back at you. 24. Things that are sweet like this attract the worst kind of hungry. 25. I donât think youâll ever realize you changed everything for me. 26. I found faith that summer. The lips told stories I fell asleep to, the hands promised to hold on. But bliss is temporary when you pull your hands away from your eyes, and summer only lasts 3 months. 27. Let it pass; April is over, April is over. There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice.
27 Things to take into 2017, roseyheartbeats (via wnq-writers)
the right thing is sometimes the most difficult
To the one who loves me next: Thank you for seeing me and adoring me for every burned out star you saw in my soulâ I hope youâre able to bring a few back to life.
like-a-secret-or-a-sin (via wnq-writers)
Hey runners (and walkers)! Thought this might be helpful :)
Shoelace Voodoo
The heel slipping one is awesome if you have to wear orthotics because it stops them from slipping round inside your shoe
you make waking up at 4 am worth it. and waking up beside you makes the butterflies in my stomach flare up. exploding of orange and pink as it overcomes my blues and purple. just like sunrise. you are my sunrise. your touch crawls inside my body. tingling every inch of my temporal soul. your baby blue eyes gives me warmth and joy. just like sunrise. you are my sunrise. then you wrapped me in your arms. your presence became my blanket of security. i felt like home as we watch the world together. then you said Iâm the only one in this world that matters. then you kissed my lips and i touched your face. and our souls danced together as we become one. and when you look at me you reach my deepest trench. and when i look at you i see an embodiment of paradise. you said i touched your oceans. i said you touched my skies. and the world witnessed everything. i am your twilight and you are my sunrise.
secnarfile (via wnq-writers)
This December Iâm planning on letting you go, but itâs like the wind on a cold dayâit sends a chill that makes my heart beat faster, the goosebumps and shivers part of that exhilaration. Think of it like thisâI take off on long runs and I still come back to the place we met, replaying memories like old film reels in my head. Theyâre already tinged with sepia, one year ago and it feels like forever. Do you play them back, too? Do you ever miss the way we used to make each other laugh? Do you miss us? Because lately all I do is think about where I was a year ago, meeting you for the first time and making you laugh, and talking so fast that we ran out of breath. I miss you this December. And I donât want to miss you. Leaving has become less of a distant daydream and more of a reality, and the only certain thing now is that neither of us will be where we are now. The new year will separate us, finally sever that last thread linking us together. And I donât want to hurt. I donât want to miss you like this. Like late night poetry, and the dizziness of a blow to the head whenever you walk by without a glance. I donât want to be the girl who canât let go of something she lost a long time ago, or begrudge you any happiness you might find. I donât want to miss you like a weight on my chest, like a physical thing resting behind my eyes, watching you as though from far away, watching you recede like my hometown in my rearview mirror. This December I am letting you go, I tell myself. I cloak myself in âI donât care,â put up shields of nonchalance and make excuses about work like I canât be bothered. This December I want to be better. And maybe one day I will forget about you, like I forgot the first boy I fell in love with. Maybe one day it wonât hurt to see you, like claws raking across my chest. Maybe Iâll get to a place where Iâm okay with you walking out of my life. Maybe Iâll be okay. But what if I donât want to let you go? What if the idea of forgetting you fills me with incredible remorse? What if Iâm tired of breaking my own heart? What if Iâm tired of the pressure of plans and scraping my heart out, of replaying old memories and telling myself I canât want you anymore? What if Iâm tired of just okay? What if this December, Iâm just yours?
jasminawritespoetry, âDecemberâ (via wnq-writers)
I hope one day that history looks back on ronald reagan as one of the 20th centuryâs most vile and disgusting serial killers
may i ask why
Remember when like 6 Americans had ebola and it was an international emergency, and Obama flew out to meet survivors? Here is a list of things the United States government did in response: -Increasing the number of Ebola testing labs throughout the U.S. that can quickly and safely screen a potential Ebola specimen -Educating more than 150,000 health care workers on how to identify, isolate, diagnose, and care for patients under investigation for Ebola -Developing countermeasures â including the first Ebola vaccine to progress to Phase 2 testing â to prevent and treat Ebola -Converting at least 10 of the Ebola Treatment Centers into long-term Regional Ebola and Pandemic Treatment Centers for long-term readiness for years to come -Helping state and local public health systems accelerate and improve their operational readiness and preparedness for Ebola or other infectious diseases Source: https://whitehouse.gov/ebola-response
When the Reagan administration was faced with tens of thousands of gay men dying, they did nothing. They made jokes. They laughed. They caused an epidemic that killed 40 million people, because they hated gay men and thought we deserved to die.
There is so much more to it.  There is a myth perpetuated by Reaganites that he was an historically significant  President, in some positive sense.  If you are old enough to have voted in 1980, you probably know differently.  If you were born after 1980 you have been raised on this myth.  He sold Americans a fable about a Hollywood movie-like exceptional past and destiny, and led ordinary people around with portrayals of that mirage while his reactionary robber-baron friends set about dismantling 50 years of progressive advancements for working men and women, on their way to returning themselves to the position of unfettered economic domination they held between the Civil War and the Great Depression.  He was a union buster.  He gave us Scalia â need I say more?  He tried to give us Robert Bork (does anyone under 30 even know who he is?).  He lied about Iran/Contra.  He avoided dealing with AIDS.  He sealed the political sham-show between right wing capitalist kings and the evangelical thought-control snake-oil salesmen.  Americans donât want to hear that they are ordinary citizens of the world, and they donât want to hear that the arenât anointed by some deity to lead the world to salvation.  They lapped it up, and they continue to do so. Â
I have to wonder how the response of a more competent presidency to the AIDS crisis might have changed even the global impact of the disease. Where might we be today? How many millions of people would be alive and not suffering? Yes, Reagan was historically significantâfor fucking things up in a globally devastating way.
When you hear how he slashed Income taxes, he did on the Wealthy, but he increased the lowest tax rate from 10% to 15%.
His campaign was funded by Christian radicals, whose entire goal was to dismantle Roe vs. Wade and see American women relegated once more to back alleys and dirty knives. Â He opened the door to religion in politics in a way the postwar McCarthyists never dreamed possible. Â Now, 36 years after his election, maybe a third of American medical schools offer proper access to even first-trimester abortion training (in an era where that should mean a pill or vaginal suppository), and there are currently fewer doctors trained to perform late stage abortions for the entire US than there were pre-RvW (when such operations were only performed as a heroic measure).
And no one has even touched on his legacy of racial hatred, deliberate destruction of black communities and establishing of COONTELPRO to destroy the lives of black panthers and black activists, his actual murder of black activists and more. He was actually a demon.
If you want to know how many lives could have been saved if the Reagan government had just fucking BUDGETED for AIDS research instead of telling AIDS researchers that they had to beg, borrow or steal any money for AIDS from other programsâthen read And The Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition by Randy Shilts. And be prepared to have your heart broken at the unadulterated and wildly irresponsible waste.of time and human lives.Â
Other shitty things Reagan did:
1)Â He almost tripled the National Debt. And you need to see the difference with zeroes:
When Reagan took office in 1980: $909,100,000 Â owed.(909.1 billion)
When Reagan left office in 1988: Â $2,601,300,000,000 owed. (2.6 trillion)
2) He raised taxes on the middle class and the poor ELEVEN TIMES while in office.Â
3) Unemployment soared after Reagan passed his tax cuts for the rich, and it took decades to get back down again.
4) He turned the U.S. into an illegal weapons dealer.
5) He funded terrorists, helping create the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. From NewsOne:
After Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981, U.S. funding of the mujahideen increased significantly and CIA Paramilitary Officers played a big role in training, arming and sometimes even leading mujahideen forces.
The CIA trained the mujahideen in many of the tactics Al Qaeda is known for today, such as car bombs, assassinations and other acts that would be considered terrorism today.
6) When his economic policies began wreaking havoc on the government, Reagan stole from Social Securityâto the tune of 2.5 TRILLIONâtreating it for eight years as the private slush fund of himself and his rich friends.Â
7) [T]he Reagan administration demonized opponents of apartheid, most notably the African National Congress, as dangerous and pro-communist. Reagan even vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on South Africa, only to be overruled by Congress.
They called him the Teflon president for a reason. All this shitâand none of it stuck to him. He got away clean every single time.
Reagan is also almost entirely responsible for making colleges in California tuition-based. College used to be far more accessible to more people before Reagan saw to that. Most of what makes Reagan popular today (especially among conservatives) are actually the result of popular myths.
My mother has a lot of tales of life in NYC in the 1970s-80s. And she will talk endlessly about how the Reagan administration closed NYCâs state-run mental hospitals and asylums, which meant that the previously institutionalized âcrazy peopleâ* simply went onto the streets. There was a huge, unsustainable boom in the homeless population. Some of the displaced people were violent and had been committed to institutions due to criminal behavior. Some were just painfully lost and abused or brain damaged or disabled. Some were recently returned Vietnam vets who had been receiving treatment for PTSD when the hospitals closed. All of them - being formerly institutionalized mental patients - were completely unequipped to be dumped on the frankly filthy, violent streets of NYC.
Of course, since mental institutions in NYC were LITERAL HELL HOLES OF HORROR, there were a lot of good reasons for closing them down and de-institutionalizing was genuinely meant to be a good thing but it was unfortunately implemented by TOSSING THE PATIENTS INTO THE STREETS, which is not âreform.â
Reaganâs chirpy explanation (apparently) was that this would save lots of money. (And there were some Supreme Court decisions that ironically made this easier, such as the SCOTUS ruling âYou canât just imprison people for being sick or disabledâ which was immediately interpreted as âLiterally throw the sick and disabled into the streets! All of them! yay! saving so much money! The community will take care of them!â)
The community did not care for the former patients. The community was terrified and hateful and resentful and afraid.Â
So youâd be walking to work with a spatter of light incomprehensible violence breaking out (shit is that a knife shit is that blood, oh no I donât want to get AIDS). Or scenes that really stick with you like walking past an amputee war vet, triggered and dissociating, crying and dragging himself along and grabbing for your ankles and begging you to help him find his legs AND YOU HAVE TO WALK PAST OH GOD OH GOD as you kind of ascend to another plane of anxiety because you will be fired if youâre late for work so this man just has to deal with his own shit. WHICH DID NOT CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE OF SERENITY, especially for a mentally ill person like my mother who still isnât over it.
And there was AIDS. And some cold fucking winters. And bodies in the streets.
This contributed greatly to Americaâs fear of the mentally ill. So many stereotypes about homeless people and neurodiversity came from this. So much of the fear of this incredibly vulnerable population came from this. And the needed reforms didnât happen. âOh, we put them in asylums but that was bad, apparently, so we let them out and that was AWFUL, so.â
This has mostly been forgotten, anyway. But you can read articles like this one which talk about how instead of leading to mental healthcare reform this whole bright idea just ⊠ended up channeling mentally ill people into prison, and weâre still paying for that in America, because prisons arenât actually for that.
SO IT DIDNâT SAVE ANY MONEY, IS WHAT IâM SAYING.
* A lot of this memory/imagery is filtered through my mother and she was accurately reporting her beliefs and experiences but was not coming from a politically informed place at the time.
This is what annoys me about people who say stuff like âhow bad can trump be?â âHeâs just one manâ âpeople wonât allow anything too bad to happenâ