It is said that wars are not necessarily won by the boots on the ground, but moreso the men behind their leader. The palm-greasers and rumour mongers, the flagbearers and back-stabbers; the them who do the moving and shaking from backrooms and smoking parlors. The ones with tongues that dangle heavily over others in office, like a proverbial sword of Damocles.
We'll be taking a look at four games that let you crawl into such skin; games where you're not winning by having more dudes or bigger guns, but where you're instead trying to outmanoeuvre the other players while silently (or publicly) trying to exert your influence over the winner. Let's get started!
So why these games? All these games have the players influence a central board on which units are represented and interacted with which do not belong to the players. That also usually means that players can interact with most of or all the pieces on the board, rather than only the pieces that belong to them as a player. They also all feature area control to some extent, where you are trying to determine the winning faction in specific areas in order to determine who wins overall.
The interesting thing for these games, to me at least, is that all of them (at least to some extent) necessitate players trying to figure out what the other player's plans are. They're a little abstract in that sense, as you see players move pieces around to work towards plans that often don't immediately reveal themselves. The key difference with something like chess though, besides not being a two-player head to head duel, is the fact that players can have overlapping goals. Determining to what degree you're more successfully accomplishing this shared incentive is key, as these games usually allow you to pivot in some sense - you need to be able to figure out if your plan of sticking with faction A is going to pan out, or if it's better to abandon ship and start working towards empowering faction B. This idea, the idea of factional alliances that can shift, is key to these games. It's what differentiates them from something like a social deduction game - your team usually isn't static until you've invested too deeply.
Now that we have set up that thematic and mechanical framework, let's take a look at the games!
Turncoats Turncoats is probably the lightest of these four games. Played on a cloth board that can be cinched shut into a bag of holding, Turncoats (by design) has something ancient to it, like it was recently rediscovered after having been played for hundreds of years. This game has quite a bit of similarities with The King is Dead, but there's enough differences (luckily) to consider them apart from each other.
You start the game with eight stones in your grippy little paw that represent your influence with the four factions on the board. Each turn, you can use those stones to do one of four actions, three of which affect the board by either introducing new pieces, removing pieces or by moving pieces from one space to another. The fourth space has you draw a stone from the bag, and returning one from your hand to the bag. Once all players consecutively draw and return a stone on their turn, the game ends and you score.
In a bit of genius (again, similarly to The King is Dead), empowering a faction's position on the board means you'll have to reduce your influence with that faction. Moving pieces to a stronger position costs you one of the srones in your hand, weakening your score at the end of the game. That means that you've theoretically got only eight chances to affect the board, although you've got fewer than that in practice. It turns the game into this tight little game of chicken where you're redrawing stones maybe a little earlier than you should in order to bait your opponent into investing resources that they can't really miss, hoping that instead they won't also be satisfied with the state of the board. It's a game where you've got to reflect and wonder how lucky this punk really feels.
Even if this game's presentation help make the game feel ancient, it's also made the game feel the most abstract. While the inclusion of specific symbology and the map geography help make the game approach feeling like a kind of war game, I can't help but occasionally zoom out and realize that I'm just shuffling glass beads on a piece of cloth rather than set in motion wheels within wheels from my Machiavellian ivory tower. Plus, the tie-breakers in this game are crushing. I've won more than one game because my opponent had mis-remembered one of the many tie-breakers, and that never feels good. For being the lightest and leanest of these four games, it somehow does not end up being the cleanest. That said, it is really great and I love supporting a small designer who puts these games together by hand.
Of these four games, Turncoats is the game I feel most comfortable springing on a group of people who play few or no games. Yes, the ties get a little messy sometimes, but it's easy enough to digest while being beautiful, tactile and direct. Plus, I've seen zero other games that look like this and that has to count for something.
The King is Dead, 2nd ed. The King is Dead is our next step up in rules weight from Turncoats. Still small, still pretty lean, but now we have eight small contests and a hand of cards rather than one big struggle and a hand of beads. And we've even got a narrative hook - we're trying to influence who gets to be the next king of England! Will it be a Briton, a Scot, a Welshman or a Frenchman?
You start a game of the King is Dead by giving each player an identical set of cards to play, along with two public cubes in one of the three colours in the game (red for Britons, blue for Scots and yellow for the Welsh). You then shuffle a set of eight cards and deal then along the board to see in what order you will be resolving the necessary power struggles to see who will be the king! On your turn, you can either play one of the cards in your hand (all but one of which will influence the distribution of cubes on the board, while the remaining one changes the order in which you resolve power struggles) or pass. When all players pass, you resolve the contested region by looking to see which of the three factions is most powerful. If there's a winner, you place a disk of that colour in that region - it's now locked and worth one point of influence for that colour at the end of the game. If there's a tie, you instead place a black foreign invasion disk in that region, indicating that the French are using the discord in that region to make inroads into conquering the island! When all power struggles are done, you either look to see who has the most cubes of the most powerful faction in front of them, or whoever has the most sets of cubes in all three colours in front of them if the French invaded. And there's a bunch of tie-breakers too, more on that later.
So right off the bat, this game touches on a lot of similar mechanics as Turncoats, especially when it comes to taking actions. Both games have you sacrificing your win potential in one way in order to ensure you'll be able to win at all. In this game it's because of a rule I haven't talked about yet - whenever you play a card, you also take a cube off the board and add it to your court. Being tied to played cards means that nobody will ever have more than ten, as you'll never play more than eight cards in a game (and you of course start with two in yourp court), making every choice in this game deliciously agonizing.
And that agony is where the game distinguishes itself. You only have eight chances to affect the game, and (except for one action) those will all be different. This means you'll want to pass as often as possible, but you also don't want to give the whole game over to your opponents as they will just sculpt the game to goozle you as badly as they can. This dynamic usually forces players into a position where they are biding their time for certain power struggles that look like they're never going to go their way while playing a flurry of cards on a struggle that looks like it's the key to their kingdom. This tension is exacerbated by the fact that each player's hand is identical (in the regular game), meaning that you would know exactly what they could do next if only you had paid more attention.
Compared to Turncoats, this game has a more clearly defined feel of politics. That's partially aided by the artwork and graphic design, and partially by the theme. The game feels historic in its presentation and execution, but immersion is aided by the fact that this conflict has shown up in popular culture as well; people who don't know the War of the Roses can just transpose Game of Thrones onto this game and get exactly the same feeling out of it. There's also more political manoeuvring here because your affiliations are public. True motives are secret and people pivot HARD when the faction they were secretly gunning for gets locked out of contention. It's a much more... I don't necessarily want to say stressful, but definitely more high-pressured experience. It's the rare type of game where you get given the choice to not act on your turn and even that feels awful.
That said, there is some criticism to be levied against it as well. The early turns of The King is Dead, while being consequential, don't always feel like they matter. It's much easier to watch the board develop early on and base your strategy on that, even if in practice you need to make every card count which leads to situations where people feel locked into the late game without really understanding what they could have done differently. This is also the most tactical of all the games on here. That's not a problem for me personally, but I've played with people who hated this game because things would always change too quickly for them to make any actual plans. And lastly - the tie-breakers. More than once has a player lost a game at my table because they misunderstood the tie-breaker, and I can't seem to find a way to teach it without ambiguity. It sucks to see someone play a blinder only for them to realize they were playing to a different set of rules from the rest of the players. For a game that's so svelt and clean otherwise, this particular bit of messiness sticks out like a sore thumb.
That said though, The King is Dead is a very easy recommendation. Not as accessible to true beginners as Turncoats, The King is Dead is still really accessible and filled with good, agonizing decisions. It's a classic in my eyes, very easy to recommend.
A War of Whispers Taking a step up in both difficulty and size, we arrive at A War of Whispers! Another game of political manipulation, this game explicitly casts you and your compatriots as the wormtongues in this fight for power. Five factions, a circular board, clever cardplay and plenty of intrigue to be found.
As stated, you'll be playing the role of advisors to five nations who are at war. At the start of each round, you all place two advisors on spaces that correspond to different actions you can take with each of the five factions. These can include rallying troops, combat, movement or some other action that comes with a unique spin put on it by each of the factions. The goal here is to influence the board in such a way that the factions you care about have a strong board presence while the ones you don't care about have a small one, seeing that each faction scores you points. These points range from four points for each area they control to minus one point for each area they control. Most points at the end of the game wins!
Truthfully I enjoy A War of Whispers the least of these four games, even if it does do some very clever things. The action selection mechanism is very clever and has a fun push-your-luck element to it. All the actions are resolved in a set order (as indicated on the boarder around the board), and each time you reach an action that has a player's marker on it they get to do that action. However, if there are unchosen actions to the left of their marker, they get to do those actions as well. This leads to some fun jockeying of positions when choosing actions, and blocking other players is a big part of this game. The asymmetric factions are cool, although they're a bit of a double-edged sword.
The cool thing about each of the factions is that they're all good at specific things. One faction is good at fighting or mobilizing, one is good at mustering and another has action cards that make them powerful at wrestling control of fortifications from a faction's greedy hands. The problem that I run into here is that factions that take their turn earlier in the resolution phase are inherently weaker than those who act later, as the factions that act later can see how the dust settles before having to act. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem of players get to place their own bets at the start of the game, but these are instead placed randomly. The thing I like about both Turncoats, The King is Dead and Pax Pamir (which we'll talk about next) is that you have a very high degree of control over who you're supporting, but this is not the case here. Players do have an opportunity to swap their faction tokens (controlling how they want to score those factions at the end of the game), but that isn't free - you can only swap tokens you haven't revealed, and you can only swap unrevealed tokens.
Thematically it makes a lot of sense to make swapping tokens (and therefore allegiances) be costly - the game of politics bears a heavy price. My problem is that this isn't fun. Putting it bluntly, this game is hard enough as is. It's difficult to suss out exactly what your opponents are doing (seeing that there's now five factions to contend with), and this system makes improvising very difficult. So, this makes it entirely possible that other players will just kneecap you for the entire game or for you to be dealt a set of tokens that will just never win. It's frustrating is what I'm saying. A War of Whispers does a lot of very cool things, but as a game of factional politics I don't like the fact that it just sometimes offers you setups that you can't win and then punishes you for trying to get out of it. But, to be fair, that could be the side of me that's much more tactically rather than strategically-minded speaking.
And that's probably important to say: I flourish much more in tactical games rather than purely (or primarily) strategic ones. And that important to note, because A War of Whispers does give you a lot to strategize with. You get to see the actions your opponents are taking before you take yours, and table-talk is actively encouraged. There's also no hidden info except for the limited number of cards that players have in their hands (most of which do the same things if they belong to a specific faction) and combat is deterministic. This means that players who are able to plan ahead and band together with other players will have a much better time with this than I've had so far. Plus, choosing the right moment to swap tokens is most definitely key to doing well - it can even provide some delicious drama when done especially timely. I just feel that this game isn't necessarily one that I will gravitate to in the future. I'd much rather play this next game if given the chance.
Pax Pamir - 2nd edition And we end on the heaviest and (in my opinion) prettiest of these four games, Pax Pamir. Although The King is Dead is arguably about real-world history, Pax Pamir is the only one of these games that genuinely feels historic. Based on The Great Game, Pax Pamir explicitly aims to model a real-life political conflict. With that comes a lot of baggage; historical, cultural and ludological all at once. Pax Pamir is the hardest game in this list by far, and will also be the most abstractly discussed by force of necessity.
In Pax Pamir, you play an Afghani tribe during the time of The Great Game, a time period where Afghanistan was thrown into a power struggle between Russia, England and itself. You publicly ally your tribe with one of these three factions at the start of the game, hoping to position yourself favourably when one of the game's dominance checks rolls around. Pamir has a card market that forms the engine that the game runs on - it is both its engine and its enigma. The core of the game is simple though; players get twicely buy a card from the market (a Pax-series staple) or play a card from their hand. Played cards come equipped with symbols that can trigger when the card is played or as an action on your turn. These actions tend to affect the board by placing your tribes on regions, neutral blocks that either represent roads or armies of the faction you support, or by giving you some much needed spending money. There's a lot more going on in this game, much more than I can really do justice in this paragraph, but suffice it to say that the cards are where the magic happens in Pax Pamir.
But what about the politics? Pax Pamir, like The King is Dead, has you wear your allegiance on your sleeve. It's emblazoned on your cards, it's smacked on your player wheel and it is pinned on the prizes you've killed to curry favour with local and foreign warlords alike. It's a game about politicking in slow motion, almost; there's a much bigger sense of audiences and of greasing palms than in the other games. Part of that is due to length, of course, but it's also because most big plays in Pax Pamir don't happen out of nowhere. They're stemming from parts being put into place until the moment where the jaws snap shut; it happens slowly then suddenly all at once.
That said, this game really is about politics. It's also the only one of the games on this list where politicking with your opponents is even somewhat of a viable option. Bribing other players is as much of a thing as waving a tax is an incentive to do what someone wants. A single coin really can make all the difference in an economy as tight as Pax Pamir, so talking to the table is essential. By the same token, pivoting is a real option here as well. Allegiances can be discarded like dirty laundry when the tides of war turn, with as much or as little drama as is necessary. It can be as simple as letting a new alliance join your court, or as dramatic as an assassination attempt on someone in your own court. Where switching allegiances felt utilitarian (or sometimes even futilistic) in the other games I've talked about, here it feels both frivolous and monumental. Frivolous because it's potentially both temporary and easy, and monumental because it warps the remaining landscape around it nonetheless. It's a fascinating look at what foreign bonds and geopolitics actually look like.
Having said that, Pax Pamir is genuinely not for everyone. It is the hardest sell on this list, I feel, both in terms of cost and rules weight. While I personally feel that the product is worth the price, it really isn't cheap. That's mostly important if you don't have a group that's willing to put in the muscle for something that's genuinely hard. The game can't fare on looks alone; if your gaming group gets glassy eyes at the notion of considering the consequences of shifts in political climates, this is not for you. Then there's the difficulty. I've played Pax Pamir about eight times, and I'm only sure I've played it correctly, like, twice. Most of those were solo, so it's not too bad, but that's still not great considering the time I'm asking other people to invest in this. Playing improperly is much less of a problem if what you're playing is quick; people are much less willing to forgive that when they just lost a three hour game because you forgot that losing your political cards in a region also means you remove all your tribes from that region. It's an investment is what I'm saying, and one I can't promise will pay off.
Having said that, Pax Pamir is great. It's not my favourite Pax game (that would currently be Pax Renaissance), but it is one of my favourite solo games and arguably the best of these four games if your group can deal with actual, genuine and tremendous weight.
So what would I like you to take away from this? If the idea of playing a party outside of a power struggle who influences the outcome appeals to you, there's a bunch of options for you to choose from! If you want something relatively light, portable, beautiful and unique, get Turncoats. If you want something quick, tense, more classical in design yet still accessible, get The King is Dead. If you want something medium-weight, strategic and are willing to ride the waves of outragious fortune, get A War of Whispers. And if you want something heavy, singular, beautiful and truly historic, get Pax Pamir.
That's my TED talk, thank you for reading.
Other notes I think it's only fair of me to state that I've played A War of Whispers the least of all these games. All the others I've played, like, at least seven times, but I've only played AWoW twice. I just don't really like it all that much, but I do want to be transparent in why that is.
Some of these games might be hard to find at retailers, but you can get them on the websites of either the publisher or the designer. Turncoats, as far as I know, is only really available on Milda Mathilda's website. She uses a Google Form to process orders, which seems insane to me but works for her, and I had to wait about six months for my copy. That said, I feel it was most definitely worth the wait.
If you have any titles of this ilk that you think I should try, let me know! I've obviously missed games, but I'm always interested in trying new things of this ilk.
Lastly, I make no apologies for the reference I used when talking about Pamir. They were the right words in the right place.

Athletics @ Pirates - Wed, Jun 07

Game Status: Game Over - Score: 9-5 Athletics

Links & Info

• MLB Gameday
• Game Graphs
• Savant Gamefeed

	Athletics Batters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	LOB	AVG	OBP	SLG
1	Noda - 1B	4	2	2	2	2	1	2	.255	.415	.473
2	Brown, S - LF	4	2	3	1	2	1	0	.200	.281	.375
3	Rooker - DH	6	1	2	2	0	1	6	.263	.363	.505
4	Laureano - RF	5	1	1	0	1	1	4	.225	.284	.391
5	Peterson - 2B	4	1	2	2	1	0	1	.225	.320	.343
6	Bride - 3B	4	1	2	1	1	0	1	.304	.407	.348
7	Bleday - CF	4	1	2	1	1	0	4	.221	.316	.395
8	Langeliers - C	5	0	1	0	0	2	8	.217	.290	.392
9	Smith, K - SS	5	0	2	0	0	0	2	.195	.214	.317
	Totals	41	9	17	9	8	6	28

Athletics
BATTING: 2B: Peterson (3, Contreras); Brown, S (5, Ortiz, L.L.); Rooker (10, Ortiz, L.L.). HR: Noda (7, 7th inning off Ortiz, L.L., 0 on, 1 out). TB: Bleday 2; Bride 2; Brown, S 4; Langeliers; Laureano; Noda 5; Peterson 3; Rooker 3; Smith, K 2. RBI: Bleday (4); Bride (2); Brown, S (10); Noda 2 (23); Peterson 2 (20); Rooker 2 (36). Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Laureano 2; Peterson; Langeliers 2; Noda 2. GIDP: Rooker. Team RISP: 7-for-18. Team LOB: 13.
FIELDING: DP: 3 (Bride-Peterson-Noda; Smith, K-Peterson-Noda; Peterson-Noda).

	Pirates Batters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	LOB	AVG	OBP	SLG
1	McCutchen - DH	3	0	1	0	2	0	3	.269	.381	.435
2	Reynolds, B - CF	4	0	1	1	1	1	3	.278	.341	.475
3	Joe - RF	3	0	0	1	1	0	1	.251	.347	.474
	b-Marcano - PH	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	.270	.325	.459
4	Santana - 1B	4	1	0	0	1	0	6	.226	.323	.349
5	Hayes - 3B	5	1	3	0	0	0	3	.250	.295	.404
6	Castro, R - SS	4	1	2	3	0	1	2	.268	.360	.436
7	Mathias - 2B	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	.255	.364	.298
	a-Palacios, J - LF	2	0	0	0	0	2	1	.250	.325	.417
8	Bae - 2B	3	1	1	0	1	0	1	.276	.333	.362
9	Delay - C	2	1	0	0	1	1	1	.301	.366	.425
	Totals	33	5	9	5	7	5	22

Pirates
a-Struck out for Mathias in the 6th. b-Singled for Joe in the 9th.
BATTING: 2B: Castro, R (7, Harris, H). 3B: Hayes (5, Erceg). HR: Castro, R (6, 2nd inning off Harris, H, 0 on, 2 out). TB: Bae; Castro, R 6; Hayes 5; Marcano; McCutchen; Reynolds, B. RBI: Castro, R 3 (21); Joe (21); Reynolds, B (38). 2-out RBI: Castro, R. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Hayes 2; Bae; Palacios, J. GIDP: Castro, R; Reynolds, B; Santana. Team RISP: 3-for-11. Team LOB: 9.
FIELDING: Outfield assists: Joe (Smith, K at 2nd base). DP: 2 (Hayes-Mathias-Santana; Santana-Hayes).

Athletics Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	P-S	ERA
Harris, H (W, 1-0)	5.0	4	3	3	3	2	1	75-44	6.46
Erceg	0.2	1	0	0	0	1	0	11-8	4.50
Lovelady	0.1	0	0	0	0	1	0	3-3	3.93
Waldichuk	2.1	3	2	2	4	1	0	54-25	7.24
May (S, 1)	0.2	1	0	0	0	0	0	8-6	5.93
Totals	9.0	9	5	5	7	5	1

Pirates Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	P-S	ERA
Contreras (L, 3-5)	0.1	6	7	7	2	1	0	38-22	5.91
Zastryzny	1.2	0	0	0	3	1	0	32-15	4.97
Ortiz, L.L.	5.0	10	2	2	2	1	1	91-54	4.23
Moreta	1.0	1	0	0	1	1	0	17-12	1.61
Perdomo, A	1.0	0	0	0	0	2	0	13-8	0.00
Totals	9.0	17	9	9	8	6	1

Game Info
HBP: Delay (by Waldichuk).
Pitches-strikes: Harris, H 75-44; Erceg 11-8; Lovelady 3-3; Waldichuk 54-25; May 8-6; Contreras 38-22; Zastryzny 32-15; Ortiz, L.L. 91-54; Moreta 17-12; Perdomo, A 13-8.
Groundouts-flyouts: Harris, H 7-3; Erceg 0-0; Lovelady 0-0; Waldichuk 3-0; May 1-1; Contreras 0-0; Zastryzny 1-2; Ortiz, L.L. 4-3; Moreta 2-0; Perdomo, A 1-0.
Batters faced: Harris, H 21; Erceg 3; Lovelady 1; Waldichuk 13; May 3; Contreras 9; Zastryzny 8; Ortiz, L.L. 24; Moreta 5; Perdomo, A 3.
Inherited runners-scored: Lovelady 1-0; May 2-0; Zastryzny 3-2.
Umpires: HP: Edwin Moscoso. 1B: David Rackley. 2B: Chris Guccione. 3B: Nate Tomlinson.
Weather: 69 degrees, Sunny.
Wind: 4 mph, Out To CF.
First pitch: 12:38 PM.
T: 2:59.
Att: 14,550.
Venue: PNC Park.
June 7, 2023

Inning	Scoring Play	Score
Top 1	Brent Rooker singles on a line drive to center fielder Ji Hwan Bae. Ryan Noda scores. Seth Brown to 3rd.	1-0 OAK
Top 1	Jace Peterson doubles (3) on a ground ball to right fielder Connor Joe. Seth Brown scores. Brent Rooker scores. Ramon Laureano to 3rd.	3-0 OAK
Top 1	Jonah Bride singles on a line drive to center fielder Ji Hwan Bae. Ramon Laureano scores. Jace Peterson to 3rd.	4-0 OAK
Top 1	JJ Bleday singles on a line drive to left fielder Bryan Reynolds. Jace Peterson scores. Jonah Bride to 2nd.	5-0 OAK
Top 1	Ryan Noda walks. Jonah Bride scores. JJ Bleday to 3rd. Kevin Smith to 2nd.	6-0 OAK
Top 1	Seth Brown walks. JJ Bleday scores. Kevin Smith to 3rd. Ryan Noda to 2nd.	7-0 OAK
Bottom 2	Rodolfo Castro homers (6) on a fly ball to center field.	7-1 OAK
Bottom 4	Rodolfo Castro doubles (7) on a fly ball to center fielder JJ Bleday. Carlos Santana scores. Ke'Bryan Hayes scores.	7-3 OAK
Top 7	Ryan Noda homers (7) on a fly ball to left field.	8-3 OAK
Top 7	Brent Rooker doubles (10) on a sharp line drive to center fielder Bryan Reynolds. Seth Brown scores.	9-3 OAK
Bottom 7	Connor Joe walks. Jason Delay scores. Andrew McCutchen to 3rd. Bryan Reynolds to 2nd.	9-4 OAK
Bottom 9	Bryan Reynolds singles on a line drive to right fielder Ramon Laureano. Ji Hwan Bae scores. Andrew McCutchen to 2nd.	9-5 OAK

Team	Highlight
OAK	Bullpen availability for Oakland, June 7 vs Pirates (00:00:07)
PIT	Bullpen availability for Pittsburgh, June 7 vs Athletics (00:00:07)
OAK	Fielding alignment for Oakland, June 7 vs Pirates (00:00:11)
PIT	Luis L. Ortiz's outing against the Athletics (00:00:23)
OAK	Brent Rooker's RBI single (00:00:23)
OAK	Jace Peterson's two-run double (00:00:30)
OAK	Jonah Bride's RBI single (00:00:17)
OAK	JJ Bleday's RBI single (00:00:15)
OAK	Ryan Noda's RBI walk (00:00:08)
OAK	Seth Brown's RBI walk (00:00:06)
OAK	Noda's over-the-shoulder catch (00:00:24)
PIT	Rodolfo Castro's solo homer (6) (00:00:28)
OAK	A's score seven runs in the 1st (00:02:09)
PIT	Pirates turn two to end the 4th (00:00:12)
PIT	Rodolfo Castro's two-run double (00:00:23)
OAK	Ramón Laureano steals second (00:00:30)
PIT	Connor Joe's amazing throw (00:00:29)
PIT	Ke'Bryan Hayes' triple (00:00:22)
PIT	Roansy Contreras K's Langeliers (00:00:07)
OAK	Ryan Noda's solo homer (7) (00:00:23)
OAK	Brent Rooker's RBI double (00:00:18)
PIT	Connor Joe's RBI walk (00:00:06)
OAK	Parrot joins anthem standoff (00:01:04)
OAK	Hogan Harris strikes out two (00:00:44)
PIT	Bryan Reynolds' RBI single (00:00:16)

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E	LOB
Athletics	7	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0		9	17	0	13
Pirates	0	1	0	2	0	0	1	0	1		5	9	0	9

Decisions

• Winner: Hogan Harris (1-0, 6.46)
• Loser: Roansy Contreras (3-5, 5.91)
• Save: Trevor May (1, 5.93)

Division Scoreboard

LAD @ CIN 07:10 PM EDT
BAL @ MIL 07:40 PM EDT
STL @ TEX 08:05 PM EDT
CHC @ LAA 09:38 PM EDT
Next Pirates Game: Fri, Jun 09, 07:05 PM EDT vs. Mets (2 days)
^{Posted: 06/07/2023 03:38:24 PM EDT}

Asking purely out of curiosity. I am a beginner at learning japanese so forgive me if I don't understand some things initially, but from what I do understand there are some things that can't be translated directly into English. I'm also a big fan of Deadwood which has this kind of "Frontier Shakespeare" dialogue which it's famous for: mixing very proper English with NSFW words like "fucking" and "cocksucker." What I was curious about is how this kind of tone would be translated into Japanese and what manner of speaking would match the tone. I also gave some choice quotes from the series, as well to illustrate a better idea of what I'm talking about.
"Hearst won't take long before he honors the rigors of his putrid, fucking nature."
"When I say, 'fuck yourself,' Sheriff, will you put that down as 'drunkenness' or a high estimate of your athleticism?"
"And we who have pursued our destiny outside law or statute will be restored to the bosom of our nation" "Does 'bosom' mean tit?" "Same thing."
"Disperse this riotous assembly!!"
Anybody who can give me insight on how to properly get this tone across in Japanese would be greatly appreciated.

Found on Nextdoor (app)
————-
Allan Gardens Encampment Update. (PLEASE SHARE WIDELY.)
City Councillor for the Allan Gardens area, Chris Moise, agrees that the situation is dangerous and unsustainable. His office is doing bi-weekly Allan Gardens Task Force meetings. Visit his website for further updates.
Here is his last update message: ​ "The situation in Allan Gardens has become untenable.
Warmer weather has arrived and, as anticipated, the encampments in Allan Gardens have increased to the highest number there have ever been, 40 structures - not including the tents supporting the Sacred Fire.
Let me be very clear, this is not at all about the Sacred Fire and the tents associated with it. There are about eight tents associated with the Sacred Fire. I am supportive of and respect Indigenous ceremony and will continue to work with our colleagues in the Indigenous Affairs Office with respect to managing the Sacred Fire program in Allan Gardens.
This public park has become a private party grounds with music blaring, regular campfires, and rampant open drug dealing day and night. The park is unsafe for everyone. There have been sexual assaults, stabbings, and overdoses happening regularly. Residents have reported to me that they have witnessed and experienced racist, sexist, and homophobic verbal attacks, intimidation, as well as aggressive and violent behaviour, including physical assault. I have personally experienced this as well, on my own walks through the park.
Earlier this year, I was hopeful as some progress was made. At one point, the park was down to 16 structures (not including the tents supporting the Sacred Fire) and 11 people; 24/7 corporate security was deployed; and on the west side of the park after Streets to Homes services have been refused new encampments are removed immediately.
I believe I have done everything within my power as a City Councillor to compel City staff to prioritize those living in the encampments in Allan Gardens for shelter and housing. I have walked through the park with city outreach staff to witness the challenges firsthand. I made numerous suggestions including opening up additional spaces at Seaton House as well as in nearby Toronto Community Housing buildings as soon as I took office in November 2022. I have convened regular Allan Gardens Task Force meetings with senior City staff from several departments including the City Manager, Deputy City Manager, Office of Emergency Management, Shelter Support and Housing Administration (SSHA), Indigenous Affairs Office, Parks, Forestry, and Recreation, Toronto Police, and Toronto Fire for the purpose of prioritizing the park and escalating outreach operations so the park may be enjoyed by everyone this summer. Allan Gardens is the largest encampment in the City of Toronto and deserves direct and immediate attention.
We all know that the only solution to address homelessness is through permanent housing and City staff have tried using the Dufferin Grove model, as recommended by the City Ombudsman.
Unfortunately, this model has been taken advantage of by a small group of people who are actively obstructing outreach efforts, evading outreach staff, or outright declining all shelter and housing offers altogether. Our exhaustive efforts now conclude me to believe we are wasting city resources on prolonged and ineffective “engagement”, rather than providing a framework that would ensure the safe transition into stable shelter even in the event of refusal of services.
Without City staff taking concrete and regular enforcement actions, the City is actively sanctioning this park as an encampment site. Everyone in the park has either been engaged by SSHA staff on numerous occasions or has declined offers of housing or shelter. It is time to enforce our bylaws and make it a safe destination once again for local residents, families and anyone who wishes to enjoy all that this destination park in the heart of our downtown has to offer.
I really appreciate the support that has come in from residents regarding my approach and the work my office has done so far. I am committed to continuing my bi-weekly Allan Gardens Task Force meetings to ensure this remains urgent and top of mind for city staff."

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 74%. (I'm a bot)

A section of a strategically vital Ukrainian dam and hydroelectric powerplant under Russian control has been blown up.
The Nova Kakhovka dam, which was built in 1956 and traverses the enormous Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, suffered an explosion overnight at approximately 2 a.m. local time as a deluge of water could be seen bursting through the dam that had previously held back more than 18 cubic kilometers of water - comparable to the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
The dam's breach could have a massive impact on the wider war effort between Russia and Ukraine.
A defiant President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held an emergency meeting of his National Security Council on Tuesday and blamed "Russian terrorists" for the dam explosion.
The reservoir provides cooling water to the plant and the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it is "Closely monitoring" the situation surrounding the dam.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi noted that Ukraine had carried out stress tests following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, including the scenario of the Nova Kakhovka dam failing.

Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: dam^#1 water^#2 plant^#3 Russian^#4 Ukraine^#5
Post found in /worldnews.
NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.

Previously posted The Ultimate ‘Outside the Wire’ (OTW) Shirt Guide about a year ago. Three more OTW style shirts have entered the market since then. Given the original post is now archived, and the quality of these shirts worth noting, here's an additional post with the new shirts added.
Again, not profiting in any manner from this. Just wanted to share options on products as we roll into summer. Details on testing and legend explanation in original post.
5. CP Gear OTW Gen #2
Material, torso: 96/4 cotton/spandex; olive drab green
Material, sleeves: 100% cotton CADPAT combat cloth
Moisture-wicking: okay
Ventilation and drying: okay
Weight: 345g (426g with hood)
Fit: fitted
CADPAT: issued
Features: YKK zipper; mesh ventilation armpits; two large shoulder pockets with Velcro; shoulder pockets close via Velcro flap and ECU tunic style zippers; pen slots on shoulder pockets; hood; Velcro slot for elbow pads; and Velcro wrist cuffs
Pros: real CADPAT; shoulder pockets have internal divider to form two pockets; mesh ventilation armpits; very soft and lightweight
Cons: hood is tight and pulls down on neck when worn; zipper shows when hood removed and collar is zipped up; shoulder pockets only have 2x one inch wide Velcro strips instead of an patch; shoulder pocket zippers are small and difficult to manipulate; pen slots are positioned to the rear of the top of the pocket and difficult to reach; elbow pad slots are low and too outward facing (do not line up with elbows); and expensive
Note: this appears to be the same CADPAT material used in the CAF Shirt, Hot Weather, Hybrid, but just thinner (not triplicated)
Made in: Canada
Price: $230.00
Source: https://cpgear.com/products/otw-shirt-v2?variant=43805046178021
https://imgur.com/VdvXNSc
https://imgur.com/Qp1TIkW
7. Iron Sights Tactical Stitch OTW Gen #2
Material, torso: 90/10 polyestespandex; coyote brown
Material, sleeves: 50/50 nylon/cotton ripstop
Moisture-wicking: excellent
Ventilation and drying: excellent
Weight: 418g
Fit: loose
CADPAT: great
Features: YKK zipper; two shoulder pockets with Velcro and zipper closure (ECU tunic style); Velcro slot for elbow pads; and Velcro wrist cuffs
Pros: quality of CADPAT print is great from a distance and if you ignore the ripstop lining up close; and dryfit torso is highly moisture-wicking and quick drying
Cons: fits big; ECU tunic style shoulder pockets have a small zipper opening which makes it difficult to access contents; coyote brown torso is a little bait for the RSM; and dryfit torso poses a melting risk
Note: I recommend to order one size smaller than your normal t-shirt size. The small felt like a medium
Made in: Pakistan
Price: $80.00
Source: https://www.istcshop.ca/shop/clothing/shirts/iron-sights-tactical-stitch-cadpat-dry-fit-moisture-wikking-otw-shirt/
https://imgur.com/5ircamM
https://imgur.com/QYnnSaA
11. Tacti-Code OCS Hybrid Dryfit Shirt Gen #2
Material, torso: 60/40 cotton/polyester dryfit; Marine olive drab green
Material, sleeves: 50/50 nylon/cotton ripstop
Moisture-wicking: excellent
Ventilation and drying: excellent
Weight: 465g
Fit: compression
CADPAT: excellent
Features: YKK zipper; two shoulder pockets with Velcro, and flap opening; extended Arc’teryx-style CADPAT ripstop material on upper chest and back to prevent wear-and-tear from vests; and Velcro slot for elbow pads
Pros: quality of CADPAT print is excellent from a distance and if you ignore the ripstop lining up close; shoulder pockets are sized perfectly for a small notepad; shoulder pockets have an additional hook-side Velcro to close with the loop-side Velcro of the pocket flap so that you aren't scratching your hand on hook Velcro reaching into the open pocket; dryfit torso is highly moisture-wicking and quick drying; and affordable
Cons: no pen slots; dryfit torso poses a melting risk
Made in: Pakistan
Price: $50.00
Source: https://tacti-code.com/products/ocs-gen2-dryfit-tc?_pos=1&_sid=b9e080591&_ss=r
https://imgur.com/1OqWRkr
https://imgur.com/upCPpFh

Howdy swappers! Got a spicy little fixie today for this awesome Humpday. No trades at this time please, price includes USPS priority shipping within CONUS, PayPal F&F for payment.
Yolo is king!!
BP Wasp SV: 180
Brandon Parks has been making waves as a new up and coming maker in the fixie world. This is an earlier custom - not one of his batch/runs. Full flat grind in 1/8" stock CPM-154. About 8 thou behind the edge. Gray G10. I'm the second owner with it seeing minimal use. Still crazy sharp and in beautiful shape. An absolutely amazing piece that I’m only letting go of to make up for a couple of his smaller pieces I just snagged! Thank y’all for looking and have a great day!!
Timestamp and Noods: https://imgur.com/a/chTeSy6

Nations as of the 5th Era
#The Nations of the Iai
#Ialre
Ialre is the nation of the Ialiai, the "Last Bastion of the Old East"; they are golden of skin, the people that still have the magic from before the sun rose, and are incredibly smug and isolationist about it. Until mid-4th Era, the Stormguard Barrier kept anyone that wasn't a Ialiai out of Ialre, unless they had a special magical token that allowed them to pass through. They are ruled by the Ialsaiclafte, basically a turbo-pope, the Saiclafte, the priests, and the nobles. The nation has a caste system, with six true castes and an untouchable caste.
#Dunne
Dunne is the nation of the Duniai, the "Only Nation Worth Saving!"; they are a jet-black 'warrior race' of warrior poets, who worship Codôliś, the goddess of sex and victory. Each citizen is a member of one of the seven Houses of Dunne, each founded by one of the mythical foundresses of Dunne. They are ruled by an elected monarchy, with the houses vying for political power during the lifetime of the king, in order to prepare the throne for a member of their own house. Classic warrior-poets, with some very distinct differences.
#Canne
Canne is the nation of the Caniai, the "Great Heart of the Wood"; they are the grey-skinned spiritualists of the Grey Wood, who made, at the founding of their nation, a pact between their own Iai gods and the half-dead feral gods of beast and blood of the Beastfolk, giving them a foothold in the Grey Woods. They are ruled by their Dragon King, an avatar of the Preserver, until mid 4e, when he died maintaining the timeline for Canne during the Time Between Time. As of 5e, his second son, Airon, ascended to the throne and rules. His older brother, Sawalle II, became the embodiment of the Grey-Green covenant, the pact between the gods and the Iai.
#Côr
Côr is the nation of the Cóiè, the "Great Vault"; they are the blue-skinned pirate bankers of the oceans blue, whose Godpact is between them and the Lord of True Lies; they are pirates par excellence, but also the preeminent traders of all of Feiluar. Only their men are seen by other races; they keep their women naked, in their homes, or allow the Windsingers aboard their boats, but never among other races. The men wear veils over their mouths, attached to the many piercings in their ears; if a client can't *see* the lie, it wasn't a lie at all, ne? They are ruled by the Plutocrat, the richest Cóiè of them all; he sets the tariffs and taxes. It's basically ancapistan, with each boat a kingdom of its own, and is more of a federation than a true nation.
#The Nations of Man
#Algebedon
Algebedon is the nation of the Dûmâ; The Algessel and the Algejali, and have a significant Déomanif population, as well as a host of triracial isolate groups. They are ruled by the Algessel Godking, who wears the Shackle-Crown. Most of their nation is jungle, with King's Paths between the cities and hamlets; the King's Paths are paths through an afterlife, making navigating the jungle unnecessary. The Algessel rulers look like Masaai, with the Algejali being stouter and squatter. The Déomanif population resembles red-headed east asians.
#Iolrim
Iolrim is the northern nation of Iolmin.
#Iolle
Iolle is the eastern nation of Iolmin, and had a Déomanif minority ruling class until mid 4th era.
#Ipa-Osachî
Ipa-Osachî is a western nation of mixed ethnicity, with various "Tribes" being "Recognized" by the government, and given a spot in their government thereby.
​
I can edit this stuff, so I will add more on the human nations later on.

\*\*\*Hello,As so many on here demand, when sending your FIRST D..M please include your Name, Location, Age and a photo. Please do not just say hi.\*\*\* 99% of you explicitly ignore this I am only interested in something longterm with the right person. I am in no way shape or form looking for, flings, one night stands, to be 1 of 12 in your rotation etc. Please no games or drama, that stuff was ok 20 years ago lol. I honestly am leaning towards NO children as I find it near impossible to find someone to take out for coffee, let alone have a child with. So atm anything child related is a hard pass unless for some reason you are in fact so different from everyone else that you completely change my outlook on life, then and only then can we perhaps entertain the thought of children ( this also includes people that currently have children, no thanks). I do work full time, just starting a new job. I do enjoy to cook and bbq and would love someone who is also capable of cooking and or can bring something new to the table. I am looking for the ride or die type, someone I dont have to walk on eggshells around, someone who doesnt support the alphabet army or go along with any of those mainstream woke psychosis. Someone with a great and very dark sense of humor, you can take it and give it right back. Just someone who's fun, likes to travel, and actually wants to build a life together.-------------------Hard NO's; 1. Cigarette smokers 2. heavy drinkers 3. History of physical / sexual abuse 4. mens haircuts 5. Anyone remotely close to any possible viral clip you can imagine 6. Single moms 7. New Profiles / BRAND NEW accounts \--------------------Please be 420 friendlyComedians : Tom Segura, Dave Chapelle, Jim Norton, Bill Burr, Tim Dillon aka The Pig, Mark Normand, Christina P, Ali Wong, Joe Rogan, William Montgomery aka the big red machine, kill tony, etc to name a few--------------------Shows : Trailer park boys, Letter kenney, simpsons, forensic files ( anything crime related especially serial killer documentaries ), Brooklyn 99, schitts creek, Seinfeld, southpark, breaking bad, better call Saul, Shoresy , Paradise PD, Brickleberry, Banshee, Ozarks blah blah---------------------Music : literally all over the place, mostly prefer metal / edm , changes by mood.---------------------variety of podcasts : YMH, Radio Rental, Crime Junkie, Tim Dillon show, Congratulations, stuff you should know, All over the road, tuesdays with stories, park after dark , Ramsey show, JRE, chip chipperson , Haiyaa with Nigel Eng, long days, history hyenas etc

I’m work Mon-Thurs from 8-4 as a nanny for two boys - 3 yrs old & 9 mths old. I’ve been with this family since January of this year. Overall they are a great family. They listen to me, give me days off when I need it, pay me for (most holidays) but man this week has been ROUGH….mom and dad like for me to do some educational stuff with the 3 yr old so he’s not just playing all day long, which is fine by me and they’ve provided a ton of workbooks and school supplies, but the 3 yr old hate doing “activities” as we call them. On Monday morning I kept trying to get him to trace some letters & he wouldn’t, all he did was scribble on the workbook so he lost park privileges & his transformers to play with & when I asked him why wasn’t listening he replied with “I don’t wanna listen today” then at lunch while I’m taking his plate and trash into the kitchen, he starts pouring apple juice all over his high chair tray & then playing in it with his hands. At this point it’s nap time and I don’t have another things to punish him with/take away so I said after your nap you can wait in your room for daddy to get home & talk with you (30 min time out). After he goes down for a nap, dad texts me asking how things are going so I tell him about the juice box incident & dad replies with “I don’t want him isolated, please take him outside and get some of his energy out. I just sat there staring at my phone in disbelief..so it’s okay that he’s been acting out and has been disrespectful to me ALL day yet now he gets to go outside?? What the heck?? Then Tuesday morning comes and I walk in & mom says “we had an idea we would like for you to try, if you don’t mind… we would like for you to take him to the park BEFORE he does his school work, we think maybe it’ll help him focus”. I disagree but I do it anyway to appease mom & dad. We go to the park for a while, he has a great time then we head home & he gets a snack and is playing for a bit before we start school work. We sit at the table and I get his workbook out and he starts fussing about how it’s too hard & he doesn’t want to do it.. eventually we stop because he’s not listening & I’m getting nowhere. Then we get to today - the 3 yr old is struggling again and mom has to intervene multiple times before she has to go to work so I know this is only going to get worse when she leaves but impress on & try to get him to do some work but he refuses.
This has been the most frustrating week I’ve had in awhile :/ plus not to mention these same three days the baby hasn’t slept well at nap time sooo it’s been challenging ☹️ felt like ranting and hopefully getting some support - thanks guys!!

I've been doing a ton of research on all three of these different bikes (and the competitors), and I can't figure out which one I really should go for. I want all three, but obviously can't afford it. My background is everything two wheels. e-MTBs, MTBs, I have a R1200GS that I rip offroad, 2 stroke dirt bikes, etc.
What I want to do:

• Explore dirt/forest roads and OHV singletrack
  
• Do camping trips with the bike (bikepacking-ish?)
  
• Get to places that motorcycles typically can't get to
  
• Maybe commute if I can make the bike legal
  

What I don't want to do:

• Ride through parks or MTB areas
  
• Rip thru urban areas/bike lanes
  
• Hit massive wheelies in traffic
  

Those things make great youtube videos that I love to watch, and if I was 18 again I would be out there doing it. But at 30 I just have zero desire to crash or catch looks from the 5-0.
So I've looked at all three. I like the idea of a higher powered and longer range dirt bike like the Storm Bee, but if I'm trying to find and get to some super off-road places, a small bike like the light bee would be best. The ultra bee straddles between the two but also seems to compromise on the biggest stongsuits of either and doesn't seem to fit (super light or super powerful/range). In an ideal world, I could just get a street legal Storm Bee and make it my legal commuter, but that path doesn't quite seem established. Also have been considering the Talaria Sting R since it's above the Light bee, but below the ultra bee. Seems like a good mix between the light bee and the ultra bee.
What should I get?

\*\*\*Hello,As so many on here demand, when sending your FIRST D..M please include your Name, Location, Age and a photo. Please do not just say hi.\*\*\* 99% of you explicitly ignore this I am only interested in something longterm with the right person. I am in no way shape or form looking for, flings, one night stands, to be 1 of 12 in your rotation etc. Please no games or drama, that stuff was ok 20 years ago lol. I honestly am leaning towards NO children as I find it near impossible to find someone to take out for coffee, let alone have a child with. So atm anything child related is a hard pass unless for some reason you are in fact so different from everyone else that you completely change my outlook on life, then and only then can we perhaps entertain the thought of children ( this also includes people that currently have children, no thanks). I do work full time, just starting a new job. I do enjoy to cook and bbq and would love someone who is also capable of cooking and or can bring something new to the table. I am looking for the ride or die type, someone I dont have to walk on eggshells around, someone who doesnt support the alphabet army or go along with any of those mainstream woke psychosis. Someone with a great and very dark sense of humor, you can take it and give it right back. Just someone who's fun, likes to travel, and actually wants to build a life together.-------------------Hard NO's; 1. Cigarette smokers 2. heavy drinkers 3. History of physical / sexual abuse 4. mens haircuts 5. Anyone remotely close to any possible viral clip you can imagine 6. Single moms 7. New Profiles / BRAND NEW accounts
\--------------------Please be 420 friendlyComedians : Tom Segura, Dave Chapelle, Jim Norton, Bill Burr, Tim Dillon aka The Pig, Mark Normand, Christina P, Ali Wong, Joe Rogan, William Montgomery aka the big red machine, kill tony, etc to name a few--------------------Shows : Trailer park boys, Letter kenney, simpsons, forensic files ( anything crime related especially serial killer documentaries ), Brooklyn 99, schitts creek, Seinfeld, southpark, breaking bad, better call Saul, Shoresy , Paradise PD, Brickleberry, Banshee, Ozarks blah blah---------------------Music : literally all over the place, mostly prefer metal / edm , changes by mood.---------------------variety of podcasts : YMH, Radio Rental, Crime Junkie, Tim Dillon show, Congratulations, stuff you should know, All over the road, tuesdays with stories, park after dark , Ramsey show, JRE, chip chipperson , Haiyaa with Nigel Eng, long days, history hyenas etc

Last month, I was driving along the highway, coming back from a trip to my grandpa's house. I can't remember the exact second, but as I was driving, apparently a truck collided with my car and I was knocked unconscious. While I was out, I fell into a dream. One that will stick with me.
I need to type as many details as possible, so here's every single thing I remember.
I was a 7 year old boy, living in New Jersey rather than my real world home state of Massachusetts. My parents would drop me off at a school I never went to in the real world, and I would play with friends I never met.
2024 and 2025 were calm, upbeat years for me. I didn't care much for world events, so I barely paid attention to the news. It was just my toys, Disney Plus, and my friends, Josh, Emily, and Ryan. We played war and crime themed video games and watched hilarious videos on social media.
2026, however, was when things took a bit of a downturn. In March, my friend, Josh, died in a car accident, and they noticed his eyeballs were missing from their sockets after the wreck. I was shown a picture for god knows what reason, and I teared up as I saw my friend's red eye sockets and lifeless face.
That night, I kept my bedroom light on. I don't know exactly what time it was when this happened, but I was lying on my back, staring at the wall when a pair of black pants popped up out of nowhere at the foot of my bed. Sidetracked, I looked up and saw a rusted face. The thing, whatever I saw, vanished as I made eye contact with it. My heart dropped and I called for my Mom.
I chalked it up to the thing having been a ghost. I brought it up to my friends, Ryan and Emily, the next day. Emily told me she was in the car behind the one Josh was in, and saw a man with a rusted-looking face running towards the car, but for some reason she doesn't remember what happened next. Chills ran down my spine as I realized the man was real.
Together, my friends and I decided he was a ghost we needed to avoid. This pact made me feel less alone, and being as afraid of the ghost as I was, decided to never break it.
I slept under my covers to avoid seeing him, and I didn't see him again until the trip I took to Canada's Wonderland that summer. I was riding the Leviathan when I swore I saw a man a few rows ahead of where I sat, with a rust-coloured neck. The adrenaline I felt riding the coaster turned to panic. Time slowed and I wanted off the ride.
This man stole my friend's eyes and was probably after mine too. Once I was off the roller coaster, I looked around frantically for him. I managed to catch him walking into a bathroom. Was he following me? I begged my Mom to take me home as soon as possible.
My friends and I decided to go hunting for the man one day. I think before the end of August 2026. We walked into a nearby forest and waited for an hour. We didn't know where he came from, but Emily pointed out he was around at times we felt the most emotional, and we were telling each other how scared we were of him, which had to count.
Fortunately, he didn't show up. I was overwhelmed with chills, and told the two I didn't want to search for the rusted man anymore, and began walking home.
2027 and 2028 were my preteen years. I took my mind off of the rusted man by focusing on my favourite shows and musical artists. For the sake of getting all the details down, I watched a lot of Simpsons, Gumball, and this show called Camedon that went viral in 2027. The music I listened to was a rapper named Pestilence 40 and a pop singer named Rhonda Miller. In the Spring of 2028, I realized I was Asexual and Aromantic, meaning I didn't feel a sense of attraction towards anybody.
I spent a lot of time researching my favourite things while I'd overhear my parents freak out over a war that involved China. I have a hard time remembering anything more about said war.
The next time I saw the rusted man was shortly after I turned 13 in 2029. I was going through the pictures of my trip to Chicago, and, at the bottom of my camera roll, there was a picture of his face. I jumped.
When did that happen?
I went into the photo's details tab and found out it was dated February 5, 1950. Odd, considering there's no way the phone I was using was manufactured anytime around that year, but I sent it to my friends. Both of them responded by telling me the image was coming up blank. I went back to my Gallary, intenting to study the image closely, but it was gone.
A lot of the time after that were just casual memories of being dropped off at school, playing GTA 6 with friends, watching my favorite shows, listening to my favourite music, and joking about Secret Wars on Reddit and a viral app called BL. Nothing much about the man...
That is, until sometime in 2032, when I saw him walk by my bedroom window while I was right in the middle of a depressive episode. The chills I felt were one of the four emotional highs I felt that year. For the rest of the year, and for a lot of the following year, I felt numb, anxious, and mentally vacant. I barely cared about anything. Not even the man, or the flu epidemic going on at the time.
My friends were going through the same thing, so we exchanged affirmations and shared quotes from singers who were part of an indie wave trying to bring music back to its Billie Eilish phase. I was pretty much over the man at that point. I cared so much less about him, I considered seeking him out to let him kill me. I didn't think I was going to make it to 2034 anyway... so, why not?
Then in 2033, my depression began to lift, and I started to dread the thought of him again. I started drawing pictures of him and posted them on BL. Over the course of months, I gained a following who claimed to have seen him too. Some told me they saw him in their dreams, some told me they spotted him in a crowd, and others saw him in the window of a house they happened to be driving or walking by. Then there were a few people who told me they saw him running across roads and ripping eyeballs out of the heads of homeless people. By the end of the year, I had 10,000 followers.
In 2034, articles were being published about him. He became one of those big internet mysteries with dozens of videos and posts revolving around him and his actions, with some specific autobiographical drawings of mine being used as artistic renditions.
Some people made and posted highly vivid AI generated videos of him performing various tasks like midnight break-ins, murders, and to be jokingly relatable, cooking and cleaning. The videos looked like big budget movies, and, as I watched each of them, I got a deeper sense of dread. I avoided watching the videos altogether, as they began to scare the living shit out of me.
There was a popular form of technology at the time that let people share thoughts and feelings with others. Aside from, joking around with my friends, I used it to let people feel exactly how I felt during my encounters with him. I told them I hoped we'd get to a point where we'd be able to share memories with others, in order to give them the full observer experience.
In the fall of 2036, the FBI announced they were on the case of the rusted man after a string of murders across the US left victims without their eyeballs. I was overwhelmed with chills as I read the announcement. It was official confirmation of the rusted man's existence. I called the police, reporting my encounters with the rusted man. They told me they'd keep a look out for him.
Throughout 2037, 2038, and 2039, I'd hear reports about more victims being robbed of their eyes, yet no official photos or video of the rusted man ever surfaced. There were dozens of fakes all over the internet that were debunked, and I just wanted an official one. At the same time, however, I wanted it to be a hoax. I wanted it to turn out the man with a rusted face was just a murderer trying to become notorious by cosplaying an internet legend. I distracted myself from the whole fiasco by keeping up with the mission to Mars.
In 2040, the lack of photo and video evidence of the rusted man began to bug me. That was until that summer, when something was found. The FBI released security cam footage showing a man with a rust coloured face beating a police officer in a parking lot. His face resembled a mask, but looked organic at the same time. It was him. I knew it in my gut. Comments from other victims commented the same.
"That's him! I can't believe it took this long to get official footage of him."
"Yep. Definitely him. Right down to his eyes. I feel cold watching that."
"Yes, that is the man who stalked me when I was 7."
I too felt cold watching it. I deleted it from my search history and closed all my blinds. He was real. It was confirmed. I knew needed to hide away, even though I hadn't seen the man since I was 13. My friends told me they felt the same way.
The early 2040s were full of fear and doing as many things from home as possible. I made most of my money from making videos about music and movies. Occasionally, I'd make a video about the man, but only whenever he hit the news. I decided to share part of my revenue with my friends so they didn't need to go out as much and risk another encounter with the man. Luckily, most people just ordered food online anyway, which solved the hunger thing.
Sharing revenue with my friends became more important amidst a recession I only barely remember taking place in 2041 through 2043.
I began to go outside more in late 2043/early 2044. The man hadn't been in the news for a year, so I joked the FBI had caught him and found out he was an alien. It found it weird he was only reported in Canada and the US. Maybe it wasn't so weird in actuality, but it was as if something was missing. Like he was present in other places, but no reports had gotten out. I chalked it up to a random assumption and went along with my days.
In the summer of 2044, I discovered a conspiracy forum dedicated to the rusted man. I can remember some of the post titles quite vividly.
"The 'Rusted Man': what is his face really made of?"
"Is the Rusted Man the Last Resort for the US Government on Homelessness?"
"DNA CONNECTS THE RUSTED MAN TO DINAH CORTEZ"
I got out of that forum right away and blocked it from my search results. There was no reason to read any of that bologna...
Throughout 2045, Pop singers would insert references to the rusted man into their promotional music videos, but they usually either butchered him, had him get arrested, or portrayed him as a metaphor for the singer's own mental health issues.
While I was glad he was getting attention, I kinda regretted giving him so much coverage, as it meant I had to hear about him everywhere all the time. I brought it up to Emily.
"Yeah, but, I feel the same way," she said. "I sometimes wish I could hit a button and give everyone amnesia for a week."
While I kept hearing about him, I sure as hell hadn't seen him for a while. I thought I was free of him. Maybe he just left me alone... Maybe he leaves certain people alone after teasing them for a bit...
I was wrong. On one especially sunny afternoon in September 2045, I was jogging along the sidewalk on a road not too far from where I lived. I couldn't help but notice the sky looked like a painting. A really good one at that. As I stared up at the oddity, I bumped into somebody. My face colliding with theirs. Their complexion was odd. It was rough and almost felt like duct tape at the same time. I looked at him and told him I was sorry, but that's when I saw his face.
It was him. The fucking man with the fucking rusted out face. I went cold and felt I needed to force myself to step backwards. When I did, the man let out a chilling shriek. It sounded metallic, but like the climax of a sneeze at the same time. He stared into my eyes, which began to tingle. My heart dropped and I broke the stare, turning around and sprinting along the sidewalk.
Once I got home, I shut all my curtains, reported the man to the police, and texted my friends about the encounter. All I could think was, how long do I have to go through this? At least I was 29 years old, so people would believe it when I say it happened to me. I wasn't a kid anymore, but even then, I wished the rusted man was nothing more than a normal childhood hallucination.
I went to my doctor for my eyes, just to make sure they were alright. He found an odd transparent substance under each of my eyelids and referred me to a specialist. Some tests were done and I was told substance was the same one found in every crime scene involving the rusted man. They concluded I needed to be quarantined in my home for upwards of 20 years. I'm not kidding. That was the protocol.
During quarantine, the man never showed up at, or in, my house. I could only wonder what he was doing other than probably killing somebody. I dreaded the idea of him showing up. I had nightmares once a week... other than that, I still had access to the internet, so I watched as society developed while I was unable to go outside.
A political uprising happened in favour of conservatism in 2046, which was met with equal push from the liberal side due to proclaimations of violence towards those that wanted science to be taught in school.
In 2050, Russia collapsed and fell into a civil war, but was avenged by China and India.
By 2053, we were able to use MRI-like devices to project imagined images onto a screen. I ordered one for $100 and used it to recreate my memories of the rusted man and share them online. They were chilling to look at, so I considered not opening them for a while.
In 2056, a major cyberattack brought down various websites. Luckily, no archival sites were taken down.
Personally I just spent the years making content and building a fanbase that sent me emails all the time. The switch from foldable phones to perfectly flexible phones in the late 40s was fun. The phasing out of laptops due to phones becoming ever more useful was welcome.
Things were pretty normal for that stretch of time, aside from the quarantining. I got pretty used to it though, and developed a habit of jogging on the spot for exercise.
Throughout the 2050s, the rusted man made the news once a month. Throughout the early 2060s, he was making the news once a week. This I wanted to look at the news less often, but I had to because it was important. It didn't matter how dreadful the increased volume of attacks was.
Throughout the mid 2060s, reports came out about him destroying AIs, possibly because he didn't have high tech glasses that identified AIs as one of its features, so he likely thought they were human. This led to an upping of security around AIs and advancements in their security protocols. By 2067, a report came out stating less AIs were getting attacked by him.
The man spent the rest of the 2060s and the beginning of the 2070s continuing his murder spree without much to be discovered about him. He was still an unsolved mystery, and had become one of the most notorious figures of the 21st Century.
In 2071, reports about the rusted man's eye thieving became daily and worldwide. Major news talking heads began pushing the idea the rusted man is an alien who could attack a major celebrity or politician. Or course, celebrities and politicians upped their security ten-fold during the mid-2060s due to the weekly attacks, so nothing could go wrong, right?
That's what I thought, until May 2073, when a famous rapper named Fenny DON was found dead, inside his Atlanta mansion, without both his eyes. The security cameras caught the rusted man popping out of nowhere (in a very specific way that's difficult to explain. Either way, I went cold watching it,) restraining the rapper to their bed, removing their eyes, then vigorously ripping their brain out of their head. It was mortifying, and many people said they refuse to watch it, recreate it, share it, etc, but everybody had to have seen the screen shot of the man standing in the rapper's bedroom one second after appearing out of thin air. It was shared all over the internet for months. The video itself was proof this guy could teleport and move objects telekinetically.
The Pentagon released a report soon after, which included speculation about the rusted man's intentions. It was thought the rusted man was after people's eyes because they are impossible to reproduce alone and nothing beats them in terms of perception.
That wasn't the only thing I was wondering, however.
"Why he needs them is still very unknown and multiple theories so far haven't passed the merit test."
There it was. It needed to be figured out soon, because I wanted to know. I anticipated the day the truth came to be known. I needed the damn closure so bad.
In March 2074, I started to thinking of my life as wasted by the rusted man and my fear of him. I was 59 and rotting from the inside out. I didn't open up to my friends about it until I started slipping into a depression in May, despite my quarantine having just ended. That was when my friends told me the most assuring thing they could.
"Remember the little things, and we're here for you," Emily said.
"Yeah, all we can do now is whatever we want to do, because we're probably going to be killed at some point anyway," Ryan said.
It was cliche, but true. The emptiness lingered on through mid 2075, then it sorta lifted. Maybe I was desensitized, but at least I had my friends and the emotionally cathartic shows I was watching.
By the end of that year, I was thinking of upping my dosage of anti-depressants. Emily, Ryan, and I, were hanging out a lot more to make each other happier in spite of our emptiness and fear the rusted man would barge into our homes, randomly appear on the foot of our beds, or chase us down a road. And it was working. On December 29th, I felt the emptiness lift. Who needed pills? We just needed to stick together, like we always had. Emily suggested covering our heads to confuse the man, but I pointed out we'd need to know when he would arrive. We can't wear bags on our heads forever.
"We'll figure something out," Emily said.
In mid April 2076, I was eating dinner when I started hearing a loud rushing water-like sound coming from outside. I went outside to check out what was going on, but I couldn't find the source. I watched as my next door neighbor walked out onto their front porch, then the neighbor directly across the street stepped onto their porch, both of them looked up at the sky with looks of confusion.
I checked the news later on to find the sound was being reported all over Canada, all over the US, in the UK, Australia, Spain, Japan, South Africa, Chile... then pretty much everywhere else. The entire world was hearing this thing. The noise went on for days, then weeks, comments under articles were mixed about the sound. Some thought it was annoying, others enjoyed its fuzzyness. Both Emily and Ryan both told me they thought it was ear-piercingly horrible. Comedians joked about aliens, and NASA started to theorize it was actually extraterrestrial in nature. The sound finally faded in June 2076, and Emily, Ryan, and dozens of people across the internet expressed their relief.
Around August 10, 2076, I was mowing my lawn when I noticed him standing across the street from my house. The rusted man. He stared my way, not moving an inch. As he stared sinisterly into my soul, I was overwhelmed with chills. But that wasn't it. I noticed something off about the my surroundings. The trees, bushes, grass, were no longer moving in the wind. The man even looked static himself. I couldn't help but stare at the oddity. Everything that should've been moving just seemed so two-dimensional all of a sudden.
I pulled my digital glasses out of my pocket and attempted to call the police, but the numbers weren't in the right order. Attempting to dial 9-1-1 brought up a different combination of three numbers each time.
I sprinted back inside and shut all the curtains again, except for the ones in the kitchen, as they refused to move when I tried to shut them.
Over the following week, the fleeting rushing sound returned to the sky. This time, it sounded familiar. Not just because I heard it for two months straight not too long before. It seemed as if I had always known that sound. I realized it more and more as the weeks went on. In early September 2076, I went to the Museum. On my way to there, I noticed the trees were still static and fake looking. I tried my best to not even think about them, but rather on the technology of the early 21st Century.
When my phone decided to work, I texted Emily. Apparently, I had missed 20 messages from her, but I was too freaked out about my surroundings.
"Does anything seem off about the trees?" I asked.
"No? They look fine to me," Emily responded.
"They look fake all of a sudden. The grass too," I said. "Also, I feel like I've heard The Buzzy Static long before this year, and sometimes my phone looks off, which is why I missed your messages."
"Have you told your doctor about this?" she asked.
I hadn't, but I decided to make an appointment. On the day of the appointment, my doctor immediately diagnosed me with Schizophrenia, but I knew there was more to what I was experiencing. The day after my visit to the doctor, Emily and Ryan came over. I showed them the trees across the street and the grass on my lawn. I told them how fake it looked to me. They told me it all looked normal. They didn't notice anything unusual like I did, which only made my obsession deeper. I looked around at everything for a while. My friends tried to convince me to do stuff with them, but I refused. Eventually, they left, and I stood there, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Every day, I stood in my front yard for two hours, looking at the trees, bushes, and grass. In late September, the Buzzy Static began to feel more localized to my heart, and I could hear a subtle wooshing along with the buzzing. It too came from the sky.
By mid October, the sound dissipated, but the ambient noise was still going strong. People would walk past my house like there was no sound coming from the sky at all. On October 15, 2076, I stood on my front lawn, listening to the wooshing noise, and watching the trees cease to convince me they were normal. Then, the wooshing sounded localized to my lawn, and then it hit me.
None of this is real.
Suddenly, I immediately alternated from standing to laying down on my lawn without having moved a muscle. I was staring up at the sky, which was getting brighter. I could feel my heart beating. I began to hyperventilate, as this was new to me.
Where the hell am I going?
I looked at the unrealistic trees, then everything went blurry. Pain erupted in my chest, then I was lying on a stretcher. I wanted to move, but I was in shock.
What the... hell...? What's happening right now?
Then I remembered my life. My real life. Then the drive... The crash... I fished my phone out and looked at the date. May 23rd. I checked the calendar for the year. It was 2023. I was overcome with a heavy feeling of sadness. I thought I had spent 53 years being friends with two amazing people, but I was really just... unconscious for a short time?
I can't stop thinking about Emily and Ryan. The whole thing about the rusted man was crazy, but some things will never make sense. Last Thursday, I was sweeping my room, still feeling like I had lost real friends, when I turned around to sweep near the door and saw... the rusted man standing right outside my room. I went cold. It was really him... that rust coloured face... those eyes... I thought I was hallucinating at first. I knew I wasn't dreaming though, as you know when you're awake when you're dead awake. The rusted man lunged at me, and, before I could react, I was being tackled to the ground.
This isn't a hallucination at all... Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Dread overcame me as I struggled. Pain shot up through my back. At some point, I managed to get him off of me, then I sprinted into the living room and out the back door. I didn't have my phone with me, so I couldn't call the police. I looked back and saw the man's silhouette in the door frame. He lunged at me through the dark of the night. My heart sunk and I sprinted away, but tripped and fell face first onto the grass. Not a second later, I felt a painful thump.
I woke up in the hospital with that unexplainable liquid under my eyelids. The liquid I had in the same spot in the dream. My heart sank even further. Great... The doctors told me I'd be going in for testing, and asked me what happened. I told them, describing the man to them as well, but in a plausible way.
"He probably had face paint on or something. Something that made his face look like rusty metal."
Later that day, one of the doctors told me my tests have been scheduled for the 9th.
Just yestarday, I heard Emily's voice in a dream, but she was nowhere to be seen. I woke up with tears streaming down my face, wondering why the rusted man had to be real, but not the two people who were always there for me, or the other victims of the man himself.
My curtains have been shut for days now, I've informed my neighbors of the madman, and the police told me they're still on the lookout. All I want to know is who this man is, what he wants with my eyes, how much longer I'm going to live with him stalking me, and how dreaming truly works.

In 1957, when the Soviet people were called upon to study and discuss Khrushchev’s ‘Theses on Economic Reorganization,’ we witnessed a truly remarkable operation. The underlying theme of it all was, of course, that everything is being decided by the people. How can the people then not be in agreement afterwards? How can they fail to comply completely with what they have decided in the first place? The Theses were submitted to the people first. Naturally, they were then explained in all the Party organizations, in the Komsomols, in the unions, in the local soviets, in the factories, and so on, by agiton-propaganda specialists.
Then the discussions took place. Next, Pravda opened its columns to the public, and numerous citizens sent in comments, expressed their views, suggested amendments. After that, what happened? The entire government program, without the slightest modified-tion, was passed by the Supreme Soviet. Even amendments presented and supported by individual deputies were rejected, and all the more those presented by individual citizens; for they were only individual (minority) opinions, and from the democratic (majority) point of view insignificant. But the people were given the immense satisfaction of having been consulted, of having been given a chance to debate, of having—so it seemed to them—their opinions solicited and weighed. This is the democratic appearance that no authoritarian government can do without.
Beyond that, such practices lead the government to embrace a method which derives logically from the principle of popular democracy, but which could develop only as a result of modem propaganda: the government is now in the habit of acting through the masses as intermediary in two ways. First, it goes to the people more and more frequently for the support of its policies. When a decision seems to meet with resistance or is not fully accepted, propaganda is addressed to the masses to set them in motion; the simple motion of the mass is enough to invest the decisions with validity: it is only an extension of the plebiscite.
When the People's Democracy installed itself in Czechoslovakia after a police coup, gigantic meetings of the working population were held—well staged, organized, and kindled—to demonstrate that the people were in full agreement. When Fidel Castro wanted to show that his power was based on democratic sentiment, he organized the Day of Justice, during which the whole population was called upon to sit in judgment of the past regime, and to express its sentiments through massive demonstrations. These demonstrations were meant to “legalize" the death sentences handed down by the State courts and thus give a “democratic sanction" to the judgments. In doing this, Castro won the people’s profound allegiance by satisfying the need for revenge against the former regime and the thirst for blood. He tied the people to his government by the strongest of bonds: the ritual crime.
That Day of Justice (January 21,1959) was undoubtedly a great propagandists discovery. If it caused Castro some embarrassment abroad, it certainly was a great success at home. It should be noted that such provocation of popular action always serves to support governmental action. It is in no way spontaneous, and in no way expresses an intrinsic desire of the people: it merely expresses, through a million throats of the crowd, the cry of governmental propaganda. Second—and this is a subtler process—governmental propaganda suggests that public opinion demand this or that decision; it provokes the will of a people, who spontaneously would say nothing. But, once evoked, formed, and crystalized on a point, that will becomes the people's will; and whereas the government really acts on its own, it gives the impression of obeying public opinion—after first having built that public opinion.
The point is to make the masses demand of the government what the government has already decided to do. If it follows this procedure, the government can no longer be called authoritarian, because the will of the people demands what is being done. In this fashion, when German public opinion unanimously demanded the liberation of Czechoslovakia, the German government had no choice but to invade that country in obedience to the people. It yielded to opinion as soon as opinion—through propaganda—had become strong enough to appear to influence the government. Castro's Day of Justice was cut from the same cloth: it was prepared by an excellent propaganda campaign, and the people who had been aroused with great care then demanded that their government carry out the acts of “justice." Thus the government did not merely obtain agreement for its acts; the people actually demanded from the government incisive punitive measures, and the popular government merely fulfilled that demand, which, of course, had been manufactured by government propaganda.
This constant propaganda action, which makes the people demand what was decided beforehand and makes it appear as though the spontaneous, innermost desires of the people were being carried out by a democratic and benevolent government, best characterizes the present-day “Mass-Government" relationship. This system has been put to use in the U.S.S.R. particularly, and in this respect Nikita Khrushchev liberalized nothing—on the contrary. However, the emergence of this particular phenomenon was predictable from the day when the principle of popular sovereignty began to take hold. From that point on, the development of propaganda cannot be regarded as a deviation or an accident.
The State and Its Function. From the government point of view, two additional factors must be kept in mind—the competitive situation in which democracy finds itself in the world and the disintegration of national and civic virtues. Why a totalitarian regime would want to use propaganda is easily understood. Democratic regimes, if we give them the benefit of the doubt, feel some compunction and revulsion against the use of propaganda. But such democratic regimes are driven into its use because of the external challenges they have to meet. Ever since Hider, democracy has been subjected to relendess psychological warfare. The question, then, is which regime will prevail, for both types claim to be of universal validity and benefit; this obliges them to act upon each other. As the Communist regime claims to be the harbinger of the people's happiness, it has no choice but to destroy all other regimes in order to supplant them. But for the Western democracies the problem is the same: in their eyes the Communist regime is a horrible dictatorship.
Thus one must intervene against one's neighbor, mainly through propaganda and also, so far as the Communists are concerned, through Communist parties in non-Communist countries. This in turn forces the democracies to make internal propaganda: if they are to prevail against those Communist parties and against the U.S.S.R., economic progress must be accelerated. In fact, the competition between the two regimes unfolds partly in the economic realm. We all know Khrushchev's economic challenge. This acceleration of the economic development demands an organization, a mobilization of the latent forces in the heart of the democracies, which requires psychological work, special training; and a permanent propaganda campaign on the necessity for increased production. It is one result of the competition between regimes. But this competition takes place on another level as well: no man in the world can remain unaffected by the competition of the two regimes. Unfortunately, this is the result of global solidarity that some welcome: no people can remain outside the conflict between the Big Two. Democracy feels that it must conquer and hold all the small nations, which otherwise would fall into the Communist orbit. In the pursuit of this objective two means are used in conjunction: the economic weapon and propaganda.
In the days of classic imperialism, the economic weapon, supported on occasion by brief military action, was sufficient. Nowadays, the successive failures of the United States prove that the economic weapon is ineffective without propaganda. For example, in i960 the United States gave three times as much assistance to underdeveloped nations as did the Soviet Union; thanks to propaganda, it is the Soviet Union who is regarded as the great helper and benefactor in whom one can put one’s trust. The hearts and minds of the people must be won if economic assistance, which by itself has no effect on opinion, is to succeed.
Similarly, propaganda by itself accomplishes nothing; it must be accompanied by spectacular economic acts. Without doubt, the democracies have lost out so far in the contest for the African and Asian peoples only because of the inferiority of their propaganda and their reluctance to use it. Thus, the democracies are now irresistibly pushed toward the use of propaganda to stave off decisive defeat. Psychological warfare has become the daily bread of peace policy. The psychological conquest of entire populations has become necessary, and nobody can escape it. One no longer must decide whether or not to use the propaganda weapon; one has no choice. Good reasons exist for analyzing this new form of aggression. Military aggression has been replaced by indirect aggression— economic or ideological. Propaganda saps the strength of the regimes that are its victims, depriving them of the support of their own public opinion.
Austria and Czechoslovakia had been reduced to impotence by Nazi propaganda before they were invaded; other countries with not a single expansionist aim are constantly subjected to this aggression. They cannot defend themselves except by using the same means of psychological warfare, for no international organization or court of justice can protect them against this form of aggression; psychological action is too protean, too hard to nail down, and cannot be legally adjudicated. Above all, in legally defending against psychological aggression, one must not deny the freedom of opinion and speech guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The problem thus springs directly from the given situation. Every State must accept the burden of defending itself against propaganda aggression. As soon as one country has taken this road, all other countries must eventually follow suit or be destroyed.

“They understand that one cannot permit a man of free choice to let himself be captured by a doctrine that would reduce him to an object. . . . They know that a possible future war would include an attack against the mind, more precisely against one of the minds functions: the will. . . . Psychological action in the army aims only at furnishing the men with adequate means for the defense of freedom where it still exists. To this end it is enough to strengthen the will of the resistance if that will to resistance comes under attack. The endangered men must be taught our aims, our mission, and our means of attaining them.”

Here psychological action is presented in its most favorable light. We cannot even object to the reasoning: it corresponds to the feelings of most liberals. Here psychological action presents itself as a sort of national education. According to another French writer, psychological action “is designed to shape and develop and sustain the morale, and to immunize the soldiers against enemy psychological attacks.”
This is intended for wartime, when the first task is to shape an army which “must preserve its proper internal spiritual cohesion.” It is described thus: . . . a civic and moral education of all people placed under military command, within a context of objective information, opposed to propaganda, designed only to spiritually arm the citizen of a free democracy. . . . The methods employed are those of education and human relations; their principal aim is to engage the cooperation of the individual to whom they are addressed, to explain to him and make him understand the different aspects of problems that confront him.”
In other words, the aim is the civic education of the troops. The soldier must learn the civic realities and the values of civilization. This is not just a French problem, incidentally; in Germany we find precisely the same orientation. But it is obvious that the education of the army cannot restrict itself to the troops. Such work becomes infinitely easier if young recruits are already indoctrinated. On the other hand, if the army were alone in maintaining the civic virtues, it would feel isolated. For such work to be effective, it must be done by the entire nation. In this fashion the army will be tempted to become the nation's educator; a psychological action by the State on the entire nation then become a necessity.
The Provisional Proclamation on Psychological Action of 1957 stated that neutralism on the part of the government invited subversion and placed it in a perilous position; that the absence of civic education leads young people to a lack of patriotism, to social egotism, and to nihilism. This shows the perfectly good intentions, the legitimate concerns, and the serious objectives behind psychological action. But is there not a considerable amount of illusion in the rigorous distinction between psychological action and propaganda, between the enemy’s methods and one’s own? In fact, one is faced with a mass of individuals who must be formed, involved, given certain nationalistic reflexes; a scale of values must be introduced by which the individual can judge everything.
If one had a great deal of time, a vast supply of good educators, stable institutions, and lots of money, and if France were not engaged in war or in international competition, it might be possible to eventually rebuild civic virtues through information and good example. But that is not the case. Action must be fast, with few educators at hand; therefore only one way can be taken: the utilization of the most effective instruments and the proved methods of propaganda. In a battle between propagandas, only propaganda can respond effectively and quickly. As a result, the effects of one’s own propaganda on the personality are exactly the same as those of enemy propaganda (we say on the personality, not on some specific opinions). These effects will be analyzed at length later. In any event, one cannot possibly say: we act in order to preserve man’s freedom.
For propaganda, regardless of origin, destroys man’s personality and freedom. If one were merely to say: "The enemy must be defeated, and to this end all means are good,” we would not object. That would mean recognizing and accepting the fact that democracy, whether it wants to be or not, is engaged in propaganda. But the illusion that one engages in psychological action as a defense, while respecting the values of democracy and human personality, is more pernicious than any cynicism which looks frankly at the true situation. A thorough study of Information, Education, Human Relations, and Propaganda reveals that in practice no essential differences exist among them. Any politically oriented education which creates certain "special values” is propaganda. And our reference to “special values” leads to yet another consideration.
The inclusion of such special values as patriotism in the struggle for civic reconstruction excludes such others as internationalism, anarchism, and pacifism. One assumes that one's national values are given and justified in themselves. And from that one concludes that one faces only the problem of education because these national values are the only values. But this is not so. In reality, the affirmation of certain values which one wants to inculcate, and the rejection of others which one wants to eradicate from the minds of the listeners is precisely a propaganda operation. Thus, by different roads, we keep arriving at the same conclusion: a modem State, even if it be liberal, democratic, and humanist, finds itself objectively and sociologically in a situation in which it must use propaganda as a means of governing. It cannot do otherwise.

Everytime one of you lies about how much you make you give the rest of the industry more sway over these younger guys to be suckered in and in the process assure that it'll never get any better.
The fact is, the majority of trucking jobs are a joke.
Too many employers have gotten comfortable with expecting outlaw runnin without paying outlaw money.
The food ain real, depending on what you haul and where showers are a pain in the ass to get, may not be able to grocery shop or even have room for a fridge or a way to cook,
Parking fees, trailer washes, supplies, not every company gets you these on the spot.
The math doesn't lie. I can go do any other job and a side gig and make the same money or better in most cases.
When I say this I'm looking at just the hours I work that I'm definitely paid for vs all the time I've been gone and the little money I'm given for just the driving portion of my job.
Tarp pay sucks if you even get tarp pay, trailer wash outs aren't paid, ya don't get paid to work on or fix anything, 1 breakdown, 1 wait at a customer, 1 storm, 1 traffic jam, etc can have you making less than minimum wage the rest of the week.
I'm a runner, no wife, no kids, no bills except a vehicle payment (which I also use for a business) a phone bill and hotspot. I've stayed gone for 3 years in one swoop before. It has not been worth it.
I wouldn't recommend being an O/O. The overhead and the responsibilities are not worth it in most cases, it's just hyped up to pass the buck to the driver.
I'm tired of being a target for DOT and law enforcement, I'm tired of my income being tied to my license and/or how much sketchy shit I'm willing to pull off.
Roadway transportation jobs in general do not pay very well.
Having your time wasted, being expected to have perfect everything 24/7, don't you dare have a air leak at a port, even if you've got a guy on the way to bring ya more line or quick connect.
Don't get caught in some fuckery that the permit took you to (because bots and college kids in the permit office don't know shit)
Don't expect much from truck stops... There's a fuck ton of useful things you won't find there anymore, but you can buy a lava lamp and a viking helmet.
I rarely park at truck stops anymore. It's a 50/50 deal... There's almost no incentive to.
There's just too much wrong with the industry for me to pretend there isn't.
And I'm waiting for a handful of you 1 month to career long door swingers to try and tell me anything about how awesome it is and how much money you make and how I don't run hard or... 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 I need to trip plan better 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
That'll just illustrate to me how little you know. but I was new once too. You'll learn. And it'll suck.
It was great at one point to just live in the truck and save, but you can't really do that anymore, not with any guarantee.
The trucks get shittier every year, the rules get dumber, the pay isn't just stagnant, it's actually shrinking.
The federal government considers us unskilled labor, at least they did for a long time.
The other problem is so many of you newer guys think you're making great money but have no idea what great money even is.
I can't think of any other job where you can work 70 hours or more in certain cases, not be paid for all of it, possibly make less than minimum wage and always be on the hook for anything that goes wrong all while you're on the job 24/7.
I honestly think sleeper time should be paid. You're not at home. You're still at work.
But stop lying about what you make, stop lying to these new guys about pay and opportunities.
When you know it's a struggle and you still lie about it whether it's for ego or because you wanna buy a truck and put some kid in it so you can extort him... You're lower than whale shit.
It's become the kinda job that people do because they either can't or won't do anything else.
If there's ever another oil boom I'm gonna laugh my ass off.

Hello! I would like to start 75 hard as it seems great to instill some much needed discipline in me, but my only worry is for the weather. Its so hot outside, its 11pm now and 90 degrees outside! In the daytime it gets to 102, and will be getting worse in the next month where I live. Should I be walking outside at all or just do a workout at home or gym and call it a day? I could get up much earlier to go out but I dont know what it will be like. Any advise is welcome!