#(or politely demanded)

[prolibytherium]

I will say I get the vibe that a lot of peoples interest and support for strikers is a bit too much for a vicarious ‘burn it down’ thrill, rather than for the actual goals of a strike.

Like UPS has agreed to come back to the table and it is very possible they will concede to Union demands and avert a strike. And if that happens (so long as the union does not make concessions on its key demands) it’s a good thing. It’s a victory for the laborers. It is the same ultimate conclusion that a strike would intend to produce except without the workers having to go on (not so great) strike pay for a week or two.

[thefloatingstone]

Appleseed PDA montage to save you from reading endless pages of unimportant politics that don't amount to anything

also because I have nothing better to do, I'm bored, I'm moody, my gaming laptop is still broken so no BG3, and it's too late at night to start drawing after doing animation clean-up all day.

[nrc-ramshackle-prefect]

Spread awareness. Demand a recount.

Trump shouldnt have gotten to 270 that fast.

[still-searching-for-something]

Today was Yom HaShoah, the day that Jews remember the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945.

This is a really simple opening statement, but bear with me--I think it gets a lot more... 'yeah, buts' than most people may realize. And I think a good way of illuminating that is to break down the difference between how gentiles and Jews commemorate and remember it.

In my experience, gentiles seem to view the Holocaust as the ultimate example of mankind's barbarity to mankind. Like, the distillation of evil, the most obvious example of dehumanization and bigotry brought to its horrifying and extreme conclusion. They emphasize Nazi Germany's responsibility, elevate the instances of non-Jewish Frenchmen and Poles and Germans who made efforts to save Jewish lives, and generally view Nazi oppression as a catastrophe of whom Jews were one of many victims. And they emphasize the Allied Powers' role in ending it by liberating the camps and invading Germany. Hence why International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on January 27th, the day Auschwitz was liberated.

But Jews have a different perspective.

We view the Holocaust as the most extreme manifestation of--but far from the conclusion to--mankind's barbarity to Jews. Not to his fellow man, per se, not to some universalized insert minority here slot, but to Jews, particularly and deliberately. The Nazis could never have accomplished their genocide were it not for the two millennia of anti-Jewish hatreds and dehumanization embedded deep in the institutions and political structures of European society. They didn't have to persuade Europe that the Jews were incurably evil, the Europeans already believed that. The Nazis had 99% of their work done before they'd even come to power, work that was done by the the Russian Empire, the Romans, Martin Luther, Christian Passion Plays, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the centuries of blood libels, the Fourth Lateran Council, the New Testament, the Spanish Empire, and on and on and on and on. It's as if some people think Hitler just woke up one day, out of the blue, with a total hatred of Jews and managed to use propaganda to convince the previously 100% tolerant Germans to hate Jews, too. Antisemitism did not begin or end with the Holocaust.

The sole responsibility of Nazi Germany in the Holocaust is also just... not true. Vichy France rounded up 13,152 Jews in the Vel' d'Hiv roundup, with not a single German participant, and sent them off to be murdered in Auschwitz. Vichy passed antisemitic legislation without any outside coercion--French Jews were hiding as much from the French police as they were from the Gestapo. France, of course, was the home of the Dreyfus Affair--antisemitism was and is a deep part of French society. And it isn't just France. Ukrainian nationalists participated in the Lviv pogroms, killing maybe around 8,000 Jews, Poles perpetrated the Jedwabne pogrom, and that doesn't even bring in that countries like the US, Switzerland and Ireland and Britain blocked Jewish emigrants, and I could just keep going on, but I think you get the point. Quite simply, six million Jews interspersed throughout Europe don't get murdered if it isn't without the collaboration of--or at minimum, silent assent and indifference--of all of their neighbors. The Nazis were the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, of course, but almost all of Europe collaborated on some level, too. And this is a history that gets wiped away in favor of the comforting narrative of the Allied Powers bursting into Auschwitz, killing Nazis, and being horrified by what they've found, and then the poor people in the surrounding towns having NO IDEA about what had been going on. I think this narrative is why gentiles have International Holocaust Remembrance Day when Auschwitz was liberated--when they 'came to the rescue'--and why we have Yom HaShoah on the day in the Jewish calendar that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began--when we died on our own terms in spite of our murderers.

Think of the tiny, unwritten, centuries old minhagim of small Jewish shetls and towns like Trochenbrod, which were entirely annihilated. The end of the burgeoning Yiddish cinema. Yiddish going from 13 million speakers to 600,000 today. See how many entries in this list of shetls end with "town/city survived, but all/most Jews exterminated." Imagine for a moment, the potential rabbis and scholars and actors and scientists and artists who could have lived, had they survived or been born of Jews did. Three and a half million Polish Jews, to around 15,000 to 20,000 Polish Jews today. Imagine if Thessaloniki were still a majority Jewish city. How many Jews worldwide would be alive today had the Holocaust never happened? I've heard estimations of 32 million, compared to the real life 16 million. To kill such a massive number of people from an already tiny minority group--that has real consequences. The cultural loss for the Jewish people is staggering and beyond human comprehension.

And yet, the Nazis deliberate targeting of us is, in many ways, being pushed aside. Magnus Hirschfeld was gay, yes, and advanced the Institute of Sexology way ahead of its time and yeah, the Nazis were homophobic. But they were homophobic for antisemitic reasons. They viewed his work as Jewish perversions BECAUSE Dr. Hirschfeld was Jewish. In fact, they viewed homosexuality as a creation of the Jews. But so many progressive queer people, especially those who run in antizionist circles, seem to be trying to co-opt the Holocaust as being their trauma, downplaying Hirschfeld's Jewishness and holding the Institute up as proof that queer people were the 'real' victims of the Holocaust, entirely shutting out the millions of Jews, Sinti, Roma, and Slavs who were murdered. You can also see this in anti-mask conservatives comparing masking mandates during the pandemic to anti-Jewish legislation in the Holocaust, or the comparisons of the ongoing war against Hamas as being a 'modern day Holocaust.'

This phenomenon, Holocaust universalization, gets so much pushback from Jews for a reason--it downplays the anti-Jewish character of the Holocaust. It's softcore Holocaust denial. And it's so ridiculous we even have to say that, as the whole point of the Holocaust was to be anti-Jewish, to be the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." It's 'All Lives Mattering' the Holocaust. Holocaust universalization, and Holocaust inversion--the phenomenon of talking about Jews, Zionists, or Israelis as perpetrating a 'new Holocaust'--minimizes and trivializes the astounding damage and traumas and death and destruction wrought by the Holocaust. It's a polemical lie, so incendiary and so insulting--imagine telling a sexual assault survivor that they're morally no better than their rapist--that the only thing it can be is antisemitic. It is beyond reprehensible to talk like that, but it's so mainstream and acceptable to do it. Activists who say these things need to examine their own rhetoric, because it's dangerous, antisemitic, and adjacent to Holocaust denial. Not a place I think anyone should want to be.

The Holocaust is not a lesson Jews should have learned, an educational seminar, a 'card' Jews play, a choose your own adventure novel, a philosophical meditation on the nature of mankind's evils, or an empty slate upon which to project modern politics, warfare, or your ideology onto.

The Holocaust is, quite simply, the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945. And today was Yom HaShoah, the day we remember that.

[grandapplewit]

Harem AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into one of Bingge’s wives shortly after he returns from the other world. After a brief (and frantic) realization that’s she’s a woman (and always has been, but we’re not getting into that right now), she delves deep into this harem drama she’s been thrust into. It’s not until she comes face to face with Luo Bingge that she realizes just WHICH harem drama she’s living, and immediately sets about making his life as good as she can manage. Oh, harem infighting is causing strain on his containers? Simply nudge Liu Mingyan and Sha Hualing into working together to manage the harem. The Northern Desert is hinging on disaster because of clerical neglect? One of her harem sisters has a brother who’s in need of a job, no stress. Luo Binghe’s kids are unruly and there’s no clear successor? She has a college degree and a little sister, teaching a dozen or so demonic children is a breeze! All in the name of giving Luo Binghe the time to find a new wife, of course, one who will disperse with the need for this sprawling harem, and once that happens she’s free to travel and document monsters to her hearts content.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Who is the person waiting for Chappell Roan's endorsement before deciding whether to vote for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump?

[mercisnm]

put these two in one graveyard and they shall end up being best of friends, i think

[uncanny-tranny]

One of my perhaps unpopular opinions is being a full-time at-home caregiver (to a parent, a child, whomever) should absolutely be considered work and should absolutely be paid like having a conventional job.

Giving caregivers the financial stability and freedom to live as independently as possible is important, especially in terms of being somebody's caregiver. Both the carer and caree deserve to be stable, independent, and have their needs met.

[captain-casual]

🤞 Please, please, PLEASE let the US just shut the fuck up again….

[lavenderspence]

you know, I find it extremely funny, how some of you all come on here whining about the smut to angst and fluff ratio, but don't bother to engage with the content you all demand writers write for you.

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but there's been a big ass drop in interactions for angst and fluff fics (fluff specifically, and I speak from experience).

so, before you all bash on smut writers, and make demands, how about you show some love to the already exciting fics that writers push out for you every day.

and before you all come to bash on writers for wishing people interacted more with their works, remember. fanfic is a free labor, the least you can do as a thank you, is show the writer some love. Okay?

woke up and decided to be controversial today, go me

[alexandraisyes]

For all my followers feeling despair or doom

THE ELECTION ISNT OVER

KAMALA CONCEDING IS A SOCIAL CUSTOM NOT A LEGAL ONE

TRUMP IS NOT OUR PRESIDENT

DEMAND A RECOUNT

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concession_(politics)#:~:text=A%20concession%2C%20usually%20in%20the,or%20constitutional%20need%20for%20it.

I have seen PROOF from my friends that he has CHEATED! Emails telling them that their signature doesn’t match the one on record when this is their FIRST YEAR VOTING! Ballots were burned! Mail in ballots were thrown away! Machines had been tampered with! People were calling bomb threats and intimidating people at the booths! Elon was paying people to vote trump!

All of this is ILLEGAL

TRUMP IS NOT MY PRESIDENT

[feiofthefae]

I've been seeing more posts like this on various social media platforms and it's very concerning:

If you want to call for a recount, this is the link!The closest topic would be "election security." Be sure to mention relevant issues like delayed mail-in ballots, bomb threats & ballot box fires:

[mollysunder]

For once I actually went through the Arcane AMA and found those quotes about Silco's motivation. It's kind of wild to see it in full context.

First, I didn't even know the "dirty little thing" insecurity was an agreed upon perspective, I just thought it was one writer's opinion but no, Christian Linke (Praeco) let us know that was Silco's thing. Ok. I can see how that can tie in to how Silco and Jinx connected, personal insecurities from a hard life.

But then Amanda Overton (leeloo104) goes into detail.

I already know the creative team said they don't think political struggle is "relatable" (yikes), but I've never seen this extra tidbit before!

What do you mean this all so Vander will respect Silco again?!!??!? First of all I could really go in about how Arcane's team seem incapable of having any character fully articulate an actual in-depth explanation about on their grievances with the status quo and what changes should be applied that isn't somehow about familial validation. *looks at Jinx*

Instead, we need unpack how this motivation is at best, very weird, or flat out doesn't make sense. The quote makes it sound like Zaun was fully Silco's idea to win back Vander's love and respect, but Silco said a free Zaun was their shared dream. And regaining Vander's respect seems like a moot point when Silco killed Vander.

Unless Silco knows Vander isn't dead, and that Singed's been slowly turning Vander into Warwick. But then why does he talk to the Vander statue like Vander is dead? I don't doubt Silco wouldn't visit Warwick even in Warwick's confused state. Either way, the Vander that Silco wanted to receive validation from doesn't exist anymore.

I get that they probably wanted to connect Silco's motivation to Jinx's obsession with Vi, but that can be problematic too! It just ends up where Silco and Jinx are written in a way where their search for emotional validation takes precedence over any attempt for them to communicate a coherent and detailed observation on the surrounding politics of their environment.

It would be one thing if they were minor characters, or this was just related to Jinx because she's the youngest in the cast and her story is about understanding who she is. But it's both of them, Silco's at least in his forties, and they're a part of the main cast. On top of that, I'd say their the two most politically influential Zaunites in the cast, and we know NOTHING about what they stand for, what they think the future should look like. Nothing, just vibes.

[girafeduvexin]

En train de repenser à ce mec.

[mai-komagata]

We wanted the Democratic Party to EARN our vote — none of this “vote blue no matter who” BEFORE THE PRIMARY WAS OVER. Always use your leverage to negotiate. Walz acknowledges the uncommitted vote. We got two people who are genuinely good people that are energetic and amazing and the republicans have NOTHING ON THEM. Everyone from Ilhan Omar to joe manchin loves them. No compromising on labor rights, on gay rights, on women’s rights. Minor movement on ceasefire talk (not enough but not joe Biden). A politician who is not a career politician that everyone loves is on the ticket.

In November, you vote for the best thing in the ballot. But every day before that you need to demand your politicians do better. And we can get better when we ask for it. Look at how different things are today than 3 weeks ago!!

[the-northern-continent]

Oh so when the Inquisitor temporarily allies with soldiers from a hostile, conquering foreign nation and the battle goes south, they’re allowed to call the retreat to save their own people. But when I, Loghain Mac Tir-