Well, the likely next president of the United States, soon to be President-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton, has described me as a member of a Basket of Deplorables:
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables.' Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."I readily admit that I'm arguably all of those things (and "you name it" would cover it even if not). I've certainly been called racist, sexist, homophobic, and Islamophobic and I have little doubt that Clinton would consider me so, even if I'm also arguably NOT those things.
deplorable
Given that the future leader of the country views me like that, I think it's perfectly reasonable to feel that I'm not welcome in my own country and don't fit in, pretty much by definition.
60 comments:
Given that the future leader of the country views me like that, I think it's perfectly reasonable to feel that I'm not welcome in my own country and don't fit in, pretty much by definition.
That's true if the leader = the country.
Sure, but it's also true if the leader is a reflection of the ruling class of the country and, in my opinion, that's absolutely true.
It is deplorable that the elites have taken over and We, the People are no longer in charge.
I see a far worse scenario than Hillary's election. I see a Soros et al. take over with the election called off and martial law declared completing our descent into third world status with Obama remaining in the White House as the symbol of our fecklessness.
Erp,
Why would you take by force what you can take so easily by other means?
... it wouldn't be by force. Martial law merely means a suspension of ordinary law although they have armed federal agencies like the IRS should it come to that. All it would take is an escalation of terrorist attacks, the media stepping up their drum-beating of police brutality, etc. to cause more rioting.
Don't forget it's all very well funded with rent-a-mobs ready to pop up anywhere needed.
Hillary pulling out of the race or dying before election day would cause an unprecedented situation that could be used to pull off the coup.
I'm pretty sure the one world crowd won't step aside for an orderly transfer of government like those we're used to.
No one I know is sanguine about the future.
Erp,
It is called hedge.
The 'one world crowd' has safe bets whatever the outcome. Only we little people worry about elections.
Well, if you aren't, then she wasn't referring to you.
On the other hand, 1) no question Trump is the leading publicist for neo-nazis; and 2) if you believe polls 2 in 5 voters don't mind that.
Define neo-nazi? Hillary is the poster child for crony capitalism aka nazism.
I'd love to see how that poll was worded. :-)
1) no question Trump is the leading publicist for neo-nazis;
I question that. Explain, remaining within shouting distance of objective reality.
Harry wrote: "Well, if you aren't, then she wasn't referring to you."
Well, I am*, so she is referring to me and it's a dangerous spot to be in to have one's supreme leader think one is deplorable, where "deplorable" is not all that far from "subhuman" in word graphs and we all know what happens to those thought to be subhuman throughout history.
* I'm racist since I find white women more attractive than women of other races, I'm sexist because I believe there are some innate differences between the sexes, I'm homophobic because I simply do have a adverse visceral reaction when I see men being physically affectionate and intimate, and I'm Islamophobic because I think it reasonable to at least have a conversation regarding immigration. I'm all of these things but I don't believe them to be inherently deplorable like Hillary does.
Trump and his sons have repeatedly retweeted statements from the vilest neo-nazi groups, using their celebrity status to introduce these white supremacists to Americans who were unaware of them.
Chuck Johnson at Little Green Footballs has been documenting this for over a year; then there was this:
http://wonkette.com/606469/nazis-guys-who-want-to-murder-coeds-and-trump-junior-all-love-this-one-weird-meme
Bret, you're quite sure Clinton defines sexism based on physical attraction? I'd give a purty to see you document that.
Harry, who and what are these neo-nazi groups?
... Chuck alias Charles Johnson? Didn't he used to be somebody?
Harry, let's call Mrs. Clinton, Hillary, or we can't know if you mean bubba or the little woman? BTW - don't you wonder why all of a sudden, Hillary, is being referred to as Clinton? Given the level of ignorance in the polling public, perhaps the pollees think they're opining on the impeached member of the family.
Harry asks: "...you're quite sure Clinton defines sexism based on physical attraction?"
No, especially since I said I'm sexist "because I believe there are some innate differences between the sexes..."
Bret, has the new information that men menstruate changed your mind about innate differences ... ?
[Harry:] Trump and his sons have repeatedly retweeted statements from the vilest neo-nazi groups, using their celebrity status to introduce these white supremacists to Americans who were unaware of them.
Harry, you are such a tool.
From that laughable Wonkette link -- you just won't learn, will you? -- is this gem:
Pepe The Frog, who has recently become a symbol of the new White Nationalist/Alt-Right movement.
You have been punked. For the third time. I can supply cites, in case you are in denial.
Progressives have a touching, child like, faith in comforting stories. Well, it would be, if it wasn't for the inconvenient truth that child like faith is engaged in trying to put the rest of us under their thumb.
Turns out that Pepe the Frog meme was invented to wind progs up.
THE DEPLORABLES. Front and center is Donald Trump père; to his immediate right is the face of Pepe, drawn with a Trumplike mop of yellow hair.
“Please explain,” writes Elizabeth Chan of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, in the voice of an imaginary questioner. And does she ever:
Here’s the short version: Pepe is a cartoon frog who began his internet life as an innocent meme enjoyed by teenagers and pop stars alike.
But in recent months, Pepe’s been almost entirely co-opted by the white supremacists who call themselves the “alt-right.” They’ve decided to take back Pepe by adding swastikas and other symbols of anti-semitism and white supremacy.
“We basically mixed Pepe in with Nazi propaganda, etc. We built that association,” one prominent white supremacist told the Daily Beast.
That Beast story, which ran in May, turns out to be “more or less a complete troll job,” according to an extensive investigation by Jonah Bennett of the Daily Caller. Its main victim was author Olivia Nuzzi—but even she didn’t get trolled as ridiculously as Mrs. Clinton’s campaign did.
Never mind Wonkette, and the ever credulous Harry Eagar.
(Odds of you owning this: zeeero.)
Like Bret, I'm a deplorable.
I don't think guns are racist, but rather that urban black culture is toxic.
I don't think evolution stopped at the neckline.
In the outdoor freestyle recipe for evil contest, I think the Quran beats Mein Kampf at the wire, and devout non-citizen Muslims have no more business in the US than devout non-citizen communists.
And I think gay promiscuity has killed almost 700,000 people.
Since you are a self defined bien pensant, I'm sure you disagree with each of these.
[erp:] Bret, has the new information that men menstruate changed your mind about innate differences ... ?
Wait. HuhWot?
A long-lost chapter of the mad hatter's journal.
You have been pwned, Skipper. It starts at 1:43.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-employs-symbols-of-us-racist-fringe-767279683702
Harry:
Did you read the the link?
Bennett concludes on a cautious note: “The stewards of this Twitter world are notoriously capricious and trolltastic. They could even retract this mea culpa of sorts.” That is, maybe the revelation that Frog Twitter was a prank is itself a prank. It also could be that some Trump supporters who actually do hold invidious views were among those fooled by the prank, so that some of the ugly Pepe memes were created unironically.
Put that down to confirmation bias. As “Swift” tells Bennett: “The idea that every major Trump supporter online is secretly a neo-Nazi, for one. I mean, it’s just not true. But it’s the kind of thing that a journalist will readily believe.” So too, it appears, will the most qualified man, woman or child ever to seek public office anywhere.
“Either way,” Bennett writes, “this is almost certainly the case: A journalist with a clear lack of healthy skepticism and an added dose of internet dopiness got duped.”
(Oh, and that image that has Wonkette all worked up is a joke; and neither you, nor Wonkette, nor Elizabeth Chan, get it.)
Oh, I see, another one of those I-was-only-joking jokes like the Tea Party made a hundred times showing Obama as a monkey.
Really, I get it. I get all of it.
And I see you did not watch the video.
Harry, I watched the entire thing. Twice.
And since the Tea Party made I was only joking jokes a hundred times, I'm sure it won't be but a second's work to provide plenty of links.
Also, since the joke eludes you, as it does the completely humorless Rachel Maddow, I'd love to explain it to you. But I'm traveling, and have to resort to the iPad, so that chore is just going to have to wait.
(Apparently it is perfectly okay to depict Bush as Hitler, or a chimp.)
It's a free country, you can depict a president any way you like, but if you do it as a racist and people call you a racist, you're a racist. That does not seem to bother many people; in fact, the point of all this is that they are proud of being racists.
That's Trump's appeal: after a generation of being racists but pretending to be like other decent Americans, Trump's campaign has made it cool to be a racist. The white supremacists are celebrating.
Harry, what were the people who depicted W as a chimp or Hitler?
It's a free country, you can depict a president any way you like, but if you do it as a racist and people call you a racist, you're a racist.
The first part isn't in question; the second part is. Which is exactly what erp is asking.
That's Trump's appeal: after a generation of being racists but pretending to be like other decent Americans ...
Trump's appeal is solely to racists? I've asked you elsewhere to provide some things that Trump has said that are, according to the definition found in the dictionary, racist. So far, you have declined. Why?
How about we put that stinking show on the other foot. What is Hillary!'s appeal, other than sexist?
My question is whether it's inherently impossible for a racist to be a decent person? I think the answer is no and that most racist are quite decent people. Are next president disagrees strongly and I think THAT'S the problem, not that people are racist.
... and the next president is ?
Hillary!
Alas, I agree.
Since Skipper and Bret are open racists, I don't get why Skipper objects to carrying the label, There's an easy way to avoid that if you deplore it.
I grew up in an openly, and judically, racist society, and I did not know any decent racists. If a white person behaves politely to another white person, that is of no significance, is it? erp, feel free to substitute black for white there.
To give an example that ought to be too obvious to need explanation, if someone has the power to allocate jobs, it is indecent to do it on the basis of skin color.
[Harry:] Since Skipper and Bret are open racists ...
That is a very serious charge, Harry. Please, using exact quotes and the dictionary definition of "racist", demonstrate how it is that either Bret or I are open racists.
To give an example that ought to be too obvious to need explanation, if someone has the power to allocate jobs, it is indecent to do it on the basis of skin color.
So, I can take it that you have also branded all affirmative action advocates as racists?
To give an example that ought to be too obvious to need explanation.
Hey Skipper,
LoL. You added the clincher to show that just about everybody is racist by some definition.
I've been called racist so many times in the last decade that I simply don't take it seriously anymore, and I disagree that it's a serious charge. The word simply doesn't mean anything important anymore. Ignore the dictionary. In name calling, the dictionary is meaningless. Words are picked to provoke, and you've let Harry succeed in provoking you. Do you really want to give him that success?
So. On a slightly different note, I've been thinking of changing the blog name from "Great Guys" to "Deplorable Guys." :-) What do you think? Howard, how about you?
... and I disagree that it's a serious charge.
The seriousness of the charge is with respect to the one making it. Harry clearly thinks it serious, sufficiently so that people whom he charges should be struck from the list of people who are allowed to speak.
I want Harry to justify his charge, or admit, if only by default that he is a lying vista.
I'm starting to get Trump. If they hit, hit back harder.
And I'm also starting to think Trump should have a black belt in Judo.
BTW, I vote to stay with Great Guys.
Harry, do you know or ever talk to real people?
Just came back from a local store where I got to chatting about quilting* with a middle-aged black woman who was also waiting for the sales clerk at the fabric department, a long-time employee who BTW is also black. We were lamenting the new atmosphere of rudeness and violence in the country. Other shoppers of all hues stopping to nod their heads in agreement.
*I don't quilt. I was buying fabric for the quilting club who are making quilts for the 133 children in the foster care program in this county.
Hey Skipper wrote: "Harry clearly thinks it serious, sufficiently so that people whom he charges should be struck from the list of people who are allowed to speak."
Oh? I missed him saying those he calls racists shouldn't be allowed to speak.
Welp, good thing we got that 1st amendment thang then!
... fer now.
Bret — it is why progressives are so promiscuous with the word: it serves to first demonize, then ostracize. But wait, there's more! It also lets them weasel (and here I apologize to weasels the world over) out of an argument.
Think of all the times progs use racist/sexist/homophobe/islamophobe.
The goal every time is to shut someone up, or force someone into a defensive crouch.
I know Bret well enough to call total BS on Harry. It's just a case of gratuitous demonizing. Also, it's another example of "often wrong, but never in doubt."
Hey Skipper wrote: "...it serves to first demonize..."
Only if you let it. Harry calling you a racist is simply laughable so why not just laugh it off?
Hey Skipper wrote: "It also lets them weasel ... out of an argument."
Only if you let them by getting distracted and defending yourself against the silly name calling. To me, it looks like you're letting him force you "into a defensive crouch." Why do it?
Here's the thing. A real racist wouldn't care less that someone called them on it. Do you think anyone in the Klan would care about being called racist?
And lastly, as you pointed out with the affirmative action thing, Harry is racist by his own definition! Not only that, he's prejudiced against racists (there are no "decent racists" apparently including us or himself) making him that sort of bigot to boot! No, I just laugh and find it impossible to take Harry seriously when he throws around the word racist.
Only if you let it. Harry calling you a racist is simply laughable so why not just laugh it off?
Because I like watching Harry flounder with his typically progressive evasions. And I'm sick to death of promiscuous defamation that progs have made into their go-to tactic. Hence, instead of defending myself against the charge, I demand Harry prove it.
Which he won't be able to do, thereby showing himself to be a liar. Which I can then add to Harry's Big Bag o' Bollocks, for future googling.
And then there is the constant amazement at how exactly alike progressives are. Among many other things, in order for them to shoulder the burden of superhuman intellect and moral acuity, they really to have to be the smartest people in any room they are in.
'Tis a shame they keep stinking the place up.
'Oh? I missed him saying those he calls racists shouldn't be allowed to speak.'
You did for sure. In this very thread I said just the opposite.
As for erp and the other old ladies with failing memories deploring the new rudeness, this is how polite people were 60 years ago:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1142&bih=589&q=maddox+ax+handle&oq=maddox+ax+handle&gs_l=img.12...1550.10880.0.20505.16.9.0.7.7.0.144.1068.0j8.8.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..1.8.1066...0j0i10k1j0i30k1.iSdY9KFT3Es#imgrc=hGw8jWc5PfTjLM%3A
For the edification of Clovis, the chicken restaurant owner who passed out the ax handles was elected governor.
Yes Harry, your finest hour.
What you refuse to admit is that things got a LOT better from that low point. It started with the soldiers coming home after the war spent with men they may have never met if they had stayed home. It continued with Eisenhower sending troops to guard the kids during integration of their schools ... After that were very popular TV shows like "I Spy" and others. Then the commies got scared and realized their plan for world domination wasn't working, so the Soviets financed the anti-war movement of 60's, Kennedy allows public sector unions, they take over the schools and now after three generations and counting, we have the opposite of an informed citizenry, we have a deliberately misinformed citizen and a harridan like Hillary will most likely be the next Soros puppet in the White House.
Job well done by your cohort Harry.
They got a lot better because people like me marched in the face of rightwingers with shotguns to make them better. I didn't see you there, erp.
I don't see you there now either.
No, Harry that's not why things got better. That's another myth. Read Horowitz' book to get the real skinny. You and the other bobble heads were played. Your claim to have have marched with King is on the same plain as the 10 million people who claim to have been at the Polo Grounds when Bobby Thompson hit his famous home run.
I was in the real world. In 1963, when a black family moved next door a couple of months after we moved from NYC to a Connecticut suburb with three kids under six, it was my husband who stood up at a neighborhood meeting and said to those who were agitating, "We're not moving." He has a commanding voice and presence, so everybody shut up and peace reigned.
Funny thing our melanin enhanced neighbor was far more conservative than we and the guy who sold them the house, the Chairman of the County Democratic Party, fleeced them for at least double the value of the house. When we moved to Vermont 15 years later, the neighborhood hadn't changed much.
[Bret:] 'Oh? I missed him saying those he calls racists shouldn't be allowed to speak.'
[Harry:] You did for sure. In this very thread I said just the opposite.
Really? Where? Perhaps you could help me out by cutting and pasting what you said, because I can't find it.
Regardless, it is false on its face. The whole point of calling someone a racist etc is to shut them up -- it happens on college campuses all the time. Otherwise, there is absolutely no point in calling Bret and me open racists, is there?
A charge I can't help but note you have avoided substantiating.
I'm in the middle of reading a fairly lengthy article, Post-Enlightenment is just the Counter-Enlightenment rebooted.
It has you pegged:
In internal Western status games, Haan history gives the Virtuous instant moral superiority over any of their fellow citizens who express any attachment to the society in which they were born; the society whose success and stability is the crucible for the hopes and aspirations for them and their families. Such instant moral superiority is, of course, the point of the exercise.
For the moral posturing involved is precisely that--moral posturing. The purpose is to buttress the collective normative narcissism of Tribe Virtue. Hence the patent inconsistencies in moral concern, including the endless excuse-making why Western sins (and especially Western "white" sins) get so much weight, and anyone else's so little. It produces remarkably closed minds and, even better, easily transmittable techniques for closing minds.
...
...in a situation where moralism is compulsory, how do you signal your membership of the Truly Virtuous? By embracing any required level of inconsistency--which facts count, which don't; what sins count, which don't; what critiques are acceptable, which aren't. The Counter-Enlightenment's trumping of identity and emotion are made for that; while its deprecation of reason (and especially reasoned debate) are necessary for the specific Virtue signalling strategy's success.
...
The Virtue Game weaponises morality--it imposes genuine costs on those who fail to publicly acquiescence; especially reputation costs (pdf). Particularly given that, since adherence to the various claims signals Virtue, contradicting or criticising them signals Viciousness. The dialectically false, but rhetorically extremely powerful, syllogism of:
X is done/advocated to stop Y
You are against/criticising X
Therefore
You are for/insufficiently against Y
Making you, except for all the other progs and SJWs fundamentally nasty and dishonest. After all, what do bourgeoise values such as honor and factual integrity matter when The Narrative is at stake?
IMHO, one of, if not the, major reason Trump as had such astonishing success is that a great many people aren't fooled by, and are completely fed up with, progressive's monkey poo flinging -- which you have done four times in this thread alone.
Socialism On Parade
Typical erp. I did not say I marched with King. I marched with the SCLC but he wasn't in our town.
And, as usual, you contradict yourself. In one comment, you say thingsw ere getting better, in the next there is still white flight and racism in the Northeast in '63.
I do not believe your story. Your husband may have stood up and spoken (how many shotguns were pointed at him?), but did that stop blockbusting? Too ridiculous to imagine.
Skipper, don't you read your own comments? About evolution from the neck up, for example? And over the years you have several times given the nod to those genteel racists Walt and Meatsheimer.
If calling people racists is supposed to shut them up, then the politburo will have to devise another strategy, because it isn't working.
Things were getting better and your disbelief doesn't surprise me. You and the truth aren't on speaking terms. I don't want to be bothered looking up your comment about King, but I'm sure that's what you said.
Guns at his head???? You've seen too many movies.
There was some white flight, but there was also a lot of white fight-the-lefties-fomenting-hatred -- you know, same old, same old -- just like they're doing now.
Skipper, don't you read your own comments? About evolution from the neck up, for example?
I'm not at all certain how noting that, contra 3rd wave feminism, evolution didn't stop at the neckline has anything to do with racism. Perhaps you can explain it to me?
And over the years you have several times given the nod to those genteel racists Walt and Mearsheimer.
Harry, here's a pro-tip: Before you accuse someone of giving the nod to racists, no matter how genial they might be -- and since you are the one making the accusation, there is every reason to believe they aren't racists in the first place -- do make google your friend.
Which would save you the bother of giving everyone the impression you are both ignorant and obnoxious.
And, as usual, you contradict yourself. In one comment, you say things were getting better, in the next there is still white flight and racism in the Northeast in '63.
And, as usual, Harry, you commit nearly unmentionable logic against evidence and reason. (Pro-tip: look up false dichotomy.)
I do not believe your story.
What the hell is it with you progs? Really, this needs explaining. You did it with Robertson, as did your rabid cohorts at Crooked Timber. You did it with Joni Ernst (erp, in particular, please read that link. I'm curious to know if you think that reached peak Harry. Granted, that is a very high bar.). and you are doing it again with erp. There is almost nothing more vile than disbelieving someone else's first hand experience without contradictory evidence. Like, oh, say, pictures of Hillary! not under sniper fire. Or the glaring absence of indigenous Americans in Elizabeth Warren's genealogy.
And right on the heels of that question is this: Who the heck do you think you are fooling with this transparent nonsense?
If calling people racists is supposed to shut them up, then the politburo will have to devise another strategy, because it isn't working.
Oh for Pete's sake Harry, that is some serious ignorance going on there.
Do you not have any, as in zero, zilch, nada, squanto moto idea what is going on in college campuses? Do you not read newspapers, ever?
It is time I come clean. I need to go to rehab, because I have relapsed. I have, despite the fevered lamentations of friend and family, waded into the fevered swamps of Crooked Timber yet again. (Page search on [Hey Skipper]. There will be 225 results, but if you stop on my replies, the actual number is fewer. Harry -- did you notice my scrupulous reliance on direct quotes?)
(Here you will find that all progs are alike: hatred of free speech other than their own; appalling ignorance of Constitutional law; even more appalling stupidity about Constitutional law; question begging; assaults against logic; perverse attraction to passive voice; assuming facts not in evidence; inability to distinguish means from ends; conceptual idiocy; did I mention conceptual idiocy?; did I mention conceptual idiocy?; irresistible impulse to classify disagreement as mental illness and sheer nastiness.)
Dealing with idiots who think themselves geniuses is so exhausting that I can only bear it ever year or so.
Skipper, I remember the Joni Ernst string and thought at the time they were grasping at straws to find fault. Wearing bread wrappers inside or outside of one's shoes??
Here's a very disturbing quote from the Ernst string written by a person who gets paid by a newspaper for writing in the English language:
Harry Eagar January 28, 2015 at 9:34 AM
The best-known Iowa newspaper columnist, Chuck Offenburger (who I used to work with),...
Harry, don't they have editors over there in paradise?
***
Dealing with academics for 25-30 years is why my husband retired at 53 and since he was in the finance end, he wasn't even treated to the worst of their childishness. Their obvious disdain for middle class students, especially scholarship kids was disgraceful, while they condescended to the AA kids and, to use a word I abhor, they s*cked up to the rich and famous kids of which there were many.
I started working in the liberal arts area of the college right at the beginning of computers for faculty, and it wasn't easy to get them on board. Everyone got a Digital Rainbow and used EDT-RNO -- memory lapse here -- not sure if that's the right terminology -- not exactly user friendly.
They were the opposite of intuitive. Since the computer didn't work on the blather that was their everyday language and declaring they were the smartest person in any room didn't work either, it was very difficult for the little darlings. More than once I had to go up to a faculty office in the middle of night for fear a suicide would occur because one of the geniuses didn't follow the guidelines I wrote out for them.
Good times.
Why don't I believe erp? Because I know our history.
http://www.wbur.org/news/2014/09/05/boston-busing-anniversary
So, rudeness just started, eh?
[Harry:] The best-known Iowa newspaper columnist, Chuck Offenburger (who I used to work with),...
[erp:] Harry, don't they have editors over there in paradise?
That got a laugh. (And it is a good reason not to end a clause or sentence with a preposition, where practical.)
Why don't I believe erp? Because I know our history.
So, rudeness just started, eh?
No
[Harry:] And, as usual, you contradict yourself. In one comment, you say things were getting better, in the next there is still white flight and racism in the Northeast in '63.
As usual, Harry, you aggravate your profound shortcomings in reading comprehension by failing to quote exactly what erp said.
How about you provide the exact quote, and re-attempt that comment.
Which I am certain you will not do, in just the same way you didn't show that Trump is the leading publicist for neo-nazis, provide any documentation of retweeted statements from neo-nazi groups, or the Tea Party one hundred times showing Obama as a monkey, substantiated your accusation that Bret and I are open racists, showed where in this thread you said racists should be allowed to speak, shown where I have given the nod to genteel racists, or explained how a comment on evolution with respect to the sexes is racist.
And that is just in this thread.
Which once again raises the question: who the heck do you think you are fooling?
Harry, you know your version of reinvented history, but you don't know bubkas about reality.
Here's the real skinny:
The riots in Boston as well as all the other racial riots were and are financed and orchestrated by socialists/progs/one-worlders (call them what you want) to foment racial discord and hatred to divide and conquer us.
[Skipper]: And it is a good reason not to end a clause or sentence with a preposition, where practical.
Also a good idea to use "whom," not "who," when the object of a preposition, especially if one proports to be a professional word meister.
Exactly -- but writing it as "with" in front instead of at the end of the clause not only reads better, it also makes it harder to make the who/whom mistake.
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