#And it’s how leftists have been in this country for too long

[thisismenow3]

A lot of people ignoring the fact that when democracy is at stake you have to REALLY do all you can to stop authoritarians. Will Wheaton almost sounds sensible until you think about how George Clooney ain’t a great medical authority and that there is no alternative. Honestly just that last point is what matters. We’ve seen time and again that the conservative justices will make shit up to create the conservative theocratic oligarchy they crave. Why wouldn’t they speedrun a case lodged tomorrow that wants to say you can’t sub in a nominee for president this close to the election? Actually having merit, following precedent, not going against the constitution in spirit or plain text are all things this right wing court and most federal bench below them don’t give a shit about. Changing Biden out even for Kamala Harris begs this to happen.

And then you get into what previous posters have said; the people with power closest to the top democratic officials mostly don’t want Harris (at least the ones openly trying to dump Biden), the only candidate with track record, with squint and it’s kind of precedent for subbing in, who is a part of or associated with the mostly unsung wins of the last 4 years. So dumping Biden for someone who ain’t Harris is foolish and that’s what getting rid of Biden gets us.

When Republicans wanted to keep packing courts and deregulating business, and killing unions and killings schools, did they drop Reagan before his second term because of his obvious and far along Alzheimer’s? No, cause a president is only as important as the people they surround themselves with through appointments. The lion’s share of things that an administration does is thought up and executed by these people and their subordinates. A second term president can just sit there and have very little to offer other than broad strokes things like “fix economy and climate change but don’t hurt non white people to do it,” and it ends up not too different from a very involved president who doesn’t have experience directly in the related fields. Is it ideal? Obviously not, but we have to resist the urge to shoot ourselves in the foot when fighting authoritarian takeover. Waiting for perfect lands us with worse. If our democracy is to survive we have to bite the bullet and vote for a “Harris behind the throne” presidency at worst, dude with a life long stutter who is also 81 at best. Based upon Biden as he’s presented the last 15 years, neither choice is really that different, especially in regards to fixing what needs to be fixed. George Clooney may not be a news anchor, but he’s acting like one with this stunt attempting to make the Democratic Party act unstrategically cause even a small chance of getting exactly what he believes is better is more important to him than taking no chances and protecting people with less money, privilege, etc. Will Wheaton is being similar frankly in that by being rich he can afford to be moronic about how the media and Supreme Court would fuck this because of his privileges. I don’t believe either are doing this on purpose, they just ain’t the source of strategic wisdom for shit like this. And dems HAVE to win for us to have any chance fixing things for non white people, the climate, our economy for workers, etc.

“Clooney wrote of the “profound moment” the country is currently in, noting how just last month he hosted the “single largest fundraiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Biden’s re-election.” “I love Joe Biden,” Clooney wrote. “As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.” “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” he continued. “None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F—ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” Regarding the debate, in which the 81-year-old President stumbled continually, Clooney wrote that “our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw.” “We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question,” he wrote.”

—

George Clooney calls on Biden to drop out to “save democracy” — just weeks after hosting fundraiser

George Clooney has nothing to gain and everything to lose, by telling the truth right now. Politicians and their supporters hold grudges for eternity. He’s speaking up and saying this now, knowing exactly what the stakes are for him, and for our country.

This is what I’ve been wanting to know. This is what the campaign has been hiding from us: WE all saw that President Biden had a bad night. The question the demands an answer is: was it a bad night? Or has time and age caught up with the president? Are we going to believe our lying eyes, or clap louder?

We don’t vote for just a president; we vote for an administration. For the most part, this administration has been fantastic, more progressive than I ever dreamed, to say nothing of rebuilding a nation out of the wreckage of four years of Trump.

And all of that is going to be burned to ash if President Biden can’t mount an effective campaign to defeat fascism and its leader. Since the debate, the campaign has kept him behind teleprompters and away from unscripted interactions. That’s alarming, and a tacit admission that he can’t fight like he once did, that the person we saw at the debate is the person he is most of the time.

If we lose this election, America will be plunged into decades of authoritarian, theocratic, christian nationalist fascism. The stakes will never be higher, and President Biden and his team need to do what is best for the country.

We will not win this election by clapping louder and gaslighting ourselves. We need — this crisis demands — a candidate who can clearly and easily refute Trump’s lies, and simply and clearly explain to voters what the stakes of this election are. The 2020 Joe Biden could do that; the 2024 Joe Biden doesn’t seem to be capable of that, anymore, and that puts our entire nation and way of life at risk. George Clooney is telling us that he literally just saw, privately, what we all saw in public, and it was not a one-off. He also reveals that every single elected Democrat he talks to agrees with him, but they are too afraid to speak up. That’s horrifying, and I desperately hope it isn’t true.

But if George Clooney is telling us a hard truth, risking the wrath of countless powerful political players, and we should listen to him; not because he is rich and famous, but because he was literally in a room with President Biden and his supporters, and is now on the record that the President Biden we saw at the debate is not a guy with a cold or whatever, and now journalists can follow up with other people who were there to confirm or deny George Clooney’s observations.

These are tough questions that demand answers, now, because we are four months out and this shouldn’t be close, at all. America hates Trump, and he has lost every election since 2018 as a result.

President Biden and the Democrats need to run up huge margins in Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and Ohio, to overcome the inevitable MAGA fuckery. We need a candidate who is fifteen points ahead of Trump, not someone who has been in the margin of error for his entire presidency – which is fucking insane when you look at all of Trump’s felonies, judgments, impending trials, and all of his corrupt criminality that the SCOTUS MAGA Majority twisted itself into knots to protect.

This should be a landslide against Trump and MAGA. It’s close because the candidate running against him isn’t – likely can’t – be out there, every day, banging the podium and forcing a change in the narrative. 

Did you see my governor after the debate disaster? He was on fire. That guy would destroy Trump in a debate. Vice President Harris would be laser focused on prosecuting the case against him. President Biden is the only candidate who Trump could drag into a fucking dick waving contest about golf scores when the fucking future of American Democracy is at stake. There is not a single other credible candidate who would take that bait. My god.

President Biden has done so much more than I ever thought possible. He doesn’t get credit for all his progressive achievements, for pulling America out of a economic calamity (caused by Trump and his allies), forgiving student debt, his appointments to the FCC, FTC, and other regulatory agencies that had been captured by industry during the Trump regime.

All of that will be wiped out in a matter of days, if Trump seizes power again.

George Clooney is warning us that President Biden doesn’t have the stamina and focus to win reelection and secure not just his legacy but the future of our country. He is saying out loud and as publicly as possible that we are not crazy, that we really did see what we saw.

This is DEFCON 1 for Democracy. This isn’t politics as usual. This is a moment of tremendous existential danger that only gets worse with each passing day. IF President Biden remains the candidate, I will vote for him, obviously. But I hope that he will fire everyone involved in preparing him for the debate, because they failed him, they failed America, and if Biden is going to take the fight to Trump and MAGA the way he needs to, it he needs a team who understand who they are fighting against, how to punch Trump in the nose, and what the stakes are.

[chaos-coming]

I'm annoyed and have been stewing in these thoughts for a few weeks, it's time to get it off my chest.

Despite their enthusiasm, i think i will not he working with the local marxist group here after all. Ive met with them a few times and honestly they fall into all of the classic shortcomings of white european leftist groups.

This group of upper middle class white swedes seem really and truly convinced that they will be the leaders of the great global revolution. They openly told me the first time we met that they are studying the literature to train the future leaders of the movement (the ego is just...wow). Dogmatic and enthusiastic, yes, but aware of the global currents happening right now, no. They dont see that capitalism is reliant on imperialism, and the idea that they might not be center stage when the workers of the world (most of whom live in the global south) rise up has never crossed their minds. They say they only want members who are serious and committed to the cause, but it really looks like they just want to create an echo chamber to boost their egos.

They think that boycotts and direct action are meaningless, as if disrupting the capitalist war machine is antithetical to their "great revolution". They use protests and demonstrations as opportunities for recruitment and to prosthelytize about reading theory. I watched them stand in front of a group of mostly migrants and refugees from syria, iran, palestine, and talk at them about the situation as if everyone showing up to a demonstration organization meeting wasnt already aware. As if refugees with family in the region wanted to hear this blond guy with a mustache posturing for Woke Points(tm) and say nothing constructive, dominate the conversation and ignore suggestions for action from people who have lived through the imperialist wars in SWANA.

Besides going to marxist conferences aka paid field trips, these people dont talk about any action if it's not directly about the great revolution and recruiting more communists, and place way too much emphasis on reading "the classics" (dont get me wrong reading theory is useful but its not the end all be all they think it is). And they dont read literary response/criticism to the classical theory, or modern interpretations, it's not "pure" enough. Theyre not just reading it for theory either, theyre literally and uncritically looking to 100 year old descriptions of society for instructions and methods for creating a revolution in the current day - descriptions which do not acknowledge climate change or indigenous sovereignty or the hyperconnected global economic system we live under - with no critical thought to how it must be adapted to the current epoch (i watched them shoot down all suggestions for organizing online and on social media, or provocative visual demonstrations, insisting that the only and best way to spread awareness is to stand in the hallways and pass out fliers to passersby like its still 1980 and sweden isnt already a paperless cashless society).

I made a comment about how soviet agriculture in west asia wasnt sustainable and got blank or disappointed faces in response. Which leads me to suspect that they idolize the ussr and have no intention to look at non european perspectives. I even tried to bring up the fact that we are currently on occupied sami land, sweden still has a literal actual monarch, living off of taxes and the imperial conquest of the sami people and neighboring countries. It got quiet, they did not want to have that conversation, they dont care beyond lip service about the rights of the indigenous people in their backyards (literally, theyre camped outside the city with their reindeer right now). Getting rid of the monarchy is not a priority, the concept of a monarch in the 21st century is not offensive or antithetical to their beliefs because the "great revolution" will take care of it anyway. Theyre not interested in actions, anything short of their fantasy of a total revolution is meaningless to them. These self proclaimed leaders of the revolution arent even interested in leading a push for an end to the monarchy which takes the workers' taxes to uphold an imperialistic remnant.

Like its basically a pay to play book club, theyre super insistent on the member fee being 10% of your income (even if you have no income you still pay) and it needs to be paid to participate in any of their group meetings etc. Like i get that they have a newspaper and printing press and a full time newspaper employee to pay for, but how is that not capitalistic? How is it not a class barrier, and especially when non-european students have to pay 5 figure tuition costs and they get to go to uni for free. The fact that their group is entirely 100% white and almost all swedes says volumes. And the fact that the palestine organizers have stsrted to schedule their meetings at the same time as the marxist group regularly does, almost like they dont want to work with these white guys who are trying to control the local solidarity movement.

When all you do is sit around reading literature and patting yourselves on the back for being special, when you look a refugee in the face and talk about revolution like theyre not the ones who have literally lived through it, when you are completely uninterested in taking action to fight imperialism in your own country, when you staunchly refuse to get with the times, why are you surprised nobody wants the 'revolution' youre offering them.

[boreal-sea]

So from what I've seen there are four main excuses American leftist non-Jews use to deny indigeneity for diaspora Jews.

Most of them agree Jews were indigenous 2,000 years ago, but some think the Jews who were forced out of Israel during the past 2,000 years have "lost" their indigeneity in some way. In other words, they don't think diaspora Jews have a right to claim indigeneity to the Jewish homeland.

Some of them think that converts and/or external marriages have "diluted" diaspora Jewish bloodlines too much, and diaspora Jews are now a "different race" or "different ethnicity" from the "original Jews". They may even consider some diaspora Jews to be "white", which means they think those Jews definitely can't claim indigeneity.

Some of them think the fact that diaspora Jews absorbed parts of other cultures means they are no longer the "same kind of Jews" that originally came from the region, and this means they have changed too much to be considered the same culture, and thus they cannot return to their homeland.

Some just think "too much time has passed". It doesn't matter that diaspora Jews didn't choose to leave, nor does it matter that people prevented them from returning until very recently. Time is time, and too much time has passed. Indigeneity gone.

Finally, I have seen some argue that birthplace or citizenship is what matters. They say, "you can't be indigenous to a place you weren't born in". I've seen some claim that being born as a citizen of a country or becoming a citizen of a country erases any prior ethnic, cultural, national, indigenous, or religious ties they and their family may have had. For example, they think Jews born in America are American, and have zero right to say they have any ties to anywhere else.

Basically, for whatever reason, they don't think diaspora Jews are "native Jews" anymore, and thus they don't belong in their homeland.

...

I wonder though.

Do they know the difference between an ethnicity and a race? Do they know what an ethnoreligion is? Do they know how Jews view converts?

Do they think certain Jewish ethnic groups get to have a claim to indigeneity while others don't? Why do they think that as a non-Jew they get to have any say in that?

If they think the indigeneity of diaspora Jews has "expired" due to how long Jews have been living in the diaspora, do they think the indigeneity of ALL displaced indigenous peoples can "expire", or does this rule only apply to Jews?

If they believe indigeneity expires, when does it expire? After 200 years? What about 500 years? 1000?

If a colonized country with a displaced indigenous population waits long enough, will it be OK to tell those displaced people, "Sorry, you've been gone from the parts of the continent you were originally from for too long. Even though it wasn't your choice to leave, and even though we have prevented you from returning, you have no right to claim that as your homeland anymore". Is that acceptable?

When does a population living in a forced diaspora have no right to return home?

[mahoutoons]

i'm feeling controversial today so here's another hot take. and before you type away at your keyboards, know that this is all coming from a south asian.

white leftists have got to stop acting like christianity is the only religion that deserves to be criticized and you cannot touch any other religion because that'd be racist and bigoted. because as an indian who's watching my country progress towards hindu nationalism, this attitude doesn't help at all.

white people see hinduism as this exotic brown religion that's so much more progressive but don't know the violence of the caste system, how it others a large portion of the population on the basis of caste, literally branding them as "untouchables". they teach us in school that this problem is a thing of the past but the caste system is still alive and shows itself in violent ways. and that's not even covering how non hindus are treated in the country. muslims especially are being killed, have their houses bulldozed, businesses destroyed, and are being denied housing, our fucking prime minister called them infiltrators and there's this fear among hindu extremists that they'll outnumber the hindus in the country. portraying hinduism as this exotic religion does a disservice to all those oppressed by the hindutva ideology

similarly, white people see buddhism as this hippie religion that's all about peace but have no idea how extremist buddhists in myanmar have been persecuting the rohingya muslims for years and drive them out of the country.

if anything portraying these religions as exotic hippie brown religions is a type of orientalism itself.

and also y'all have got to realize that just because christianity has institutional power in america doesn't mean there aren't parts of the world where they are persecuted on the basis of religion. yes karen from florida who cries christophobia because she sees rainbow sprinkles on a cake is stupid but christian oppression DOES exist in non western countries where they're a minority. pakistani christians get lynched almost on a daily basis over blasphemy accusations. just look up the case of asia bibi, a pakistani christian woman who was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges because of something she said when she was being denied water because it was "forbidden" for a christian and a muslim to drink from the same utensil and she'd made it unclean just by touching it (which is ALSO rooted in casteism and part of pakistani christians' oppression also comes from the fact that a lot of them are dalit but that's a whole other discussion). and that's just one christian group, this isn't even going into what copts, assyrians, armenians etc have faced and continue to face. saying that christians everywhere are privileged because of american christianity actually harms christian minorites in non western countries.

and one last thing because this post is getting too long: someone being anti america doesn't automatically mean they're the good guys. too many times i've been seeing westerners on twitter dot com praise the fucking taliban just because they hate america. yes, the same taliban who banned education for women, thinks women should be imprisomed at home, and consistently oppresses religious and ethnic minorities in afghanistan. yes, america's war on afghanistan was bad and they SHOULD be called out for their war crimes there. no, the taliban are still not the good guys. BOTH of them are bad. you cannot pretend to care about muslims and brown people if you praise the taliban. because guess what? most of their victims are BROWN MUSLIM WOMEN. but of course white libs who praise them don't rub their two braincells together to make that conclusion.

this post has gotten too long and i've just been rambling so the point of this post is: white "leftists" whose politics are primarily america centric should stop acting like criticism of ideologies like hindutva, buddhist extremism, and islamic extremism BY people affected by these ideologies is the same as racism or religious intolerance because that helps literally no one except the extremist bigots. also america is not the centre of the world, just because something isn't happening in america doesn't mean it isn't happening elsewhere

[sharp-rosee]

A lot of "radfems" continually peddle the idea that Middle Eastern men are more misogynistic than white, "Western" men and either do not realize or purposefully do not mention that this rhetoric was started by the far right to popularize white supremacy/Neo Naziism and is a dogwhistle to "The Great Replacement" theory.

They start off at first framing their worry with immigrants by spinning a story of how Middle Eastern men are coming into Europe and raising the incidents of rape to an extremely high degree. They show false statistics and reports that have been faked to further convince you of this new rape epidemic.

After watching crazy exposes of these supposed incidents you continue to "research" more and more into this phenomenon, why nobody is acknowledging it, etc. and after they radicalize you into hating these men specifically, they introduce escalating ideas of racism to you until the idea of the "great replacement" is acceptable to you - and that we shouldn't accept immigrants and refugees because rapists are coming through the border to Rape our Women and Convert them to Islam (and to get rid of white people) and we hate the Men, not women! (Ignore that a majority of refugees are women and children; ignore that immigration is a lengthy process, and "Illegal immigrants" are just refugees, those who have been on the waiting lists for years, or those who are technically considered "illegal" because they didn't renew their visas; ignore that the sources we provided are made up, ignore that we only ever talk about black and brown people, we can't have white people going extinct- being replaced!)

How do I know about this and the things they say? I was introduced to a big part of alt right propaganda by Lauren Southern, which led me down what online leftists called the "alt-right pipeline." I wasn't looking for this, I was introduced after watching more and more misogynistic content. It happened slowly, and before long, I knew of the theory. I knew of the Evil Jews destroying the Earth. I awaited the Boogaloo. Overall, though, I didn't care much for these theories - I just wanted to indulge in my self hatred, and yet bigotry was instilled in every misogynistic content they produced. Every word and line they said implanted the seed of what they were really fighting for. And although I enjoyed letting my mental illness fester by watching this content, I couldn't ignore the racism/homophobia/etc. and, in a way, I suppose that made me realize that misogyny was illogical just like any other bigotry, too.

I was going to link to Lauren Southern's video popularizing this term further and how she uses the rhetoric above, however, she's since deleted it. Another Youtuber has called her out in this video here, which clips some of her original video:

More examples of her peddling the Rapist Immigrant rhetoric:

Seeing the same propaganda pop up in the space I've learned to love myself in is terrifying. Seeing the beginnings of what became an awful ideology I found myself in whenever I festered in my own mentally ill thoughts is terrifying.

This is a racist talking point you are promoting. It is false. It has been disproven time and time again and yet here you are, still believing in it.

And to any radfems still questioning that this is propaganda, I urge you ask yourselves:

What sources gave you this information?

Why is it only this specific group of men?

If reports of rape are rare compared to actual incidents of rape, and if the concept of "false accusations" are always brought up whenever any incidents of rape do get reported/do occur, why is it only in this specific instance that rape is being called out at all?

If the sources that gave you this information truly cared about women, why do they never report similar "spikes" when referring to immigrants/refugees in other countries or just in other countries in general?

If you can believe it is all men, then why do you assume that one culture is worse when there are similar or even higher misogyny rates in every single country on planet Earth?

If you still cannot introspect on your racism and the origins of the ideas you are peddling, whether ignorant to it before, you are not a radical feminist, let alone a feminist at all. You are a white supremacist. You are not welcome here, and never will be.

And above all else, you are actively harming and making it unsafe for black and brown people, especially black and brown women, to be here on Tumblr and make it unsafe for them to exist at all.

[alaiis]

So I want to talk about the Olympic games opening ceremony.

Apparently it's been watched by 1 billion people around the world, so this spectacle promoting queer relationships, women and revolutionary ideals must show quite a progressive picture of France. The fact that so many fascists are crying over it must make it good, right? Right?

We saw statues of important women in the ceremony, like Simone Veil, Louise Michèle and others. I'd like to remind people that today, many of these women would be on the file compiling terrorists and potential terrorists. You know, like so many people who happen to be leftist activists and learned they would not be able to work for the Olympic games or attend them when they tried. For past acts of activism that date years and never resulted in convictions most of the time.

All around the ceremony, LVMH, that luxury brand, was everywhere. Bernard Arnault (currently richest man on earth) surely grabbed the spot for these games. What a great ad for his brand.

The ceremony, which was presented as a "street ceremony for the people" actually only included a few privileged people able to spend 2,000€. The city was empty. The city is empty.

They locked up kilometres and kilometres of the city, where only few can go. Paris is barricaded. Some hospitals have become inaccessible.

They sacked so many homeless people so that the tourists wouldn't see them. Who knows where they are now. They sacked students from their homes too, before even the end of exams. And when the police came and took their rooms, they complained about the housing conditions. Well that's how our students live all year, but that's not a problem then.

And then I could talk about the surveillance conditions, Macron's friendship with the worst world leaders, that they tried (and failed) to make the Seine swimmable by spending billions on it meanwhile people in the colonies over-sea regions still don't have drinkable water. I could speak about the work conditions, that most of the work was made with undocumented workers and so. Much. More.

But that would be a very long post.

So after seeing this opening ceremony and all the great, progressive messages it carried, what you need to remember is this.

France is a police state.

France is a classist country.

France almost elected the far-right to power less than a month ago, and the far-right is still more powerful than ever.

France is a queerphobic country. And a very, very transphobic country.

France is a racist country, where Arabs get murdered while barely making regional news.

France is nothing like what we showed.

That was propaganda at its finest.

[anexperimentallife]

The US far right has been working on their plan since AT LEAST the 1960s, when I was a kid listening to evangelicals talking about their plan to take over the US, and eventually the world. It's called "Christian Dominionism," and it's a fascist ideology which goes hand in glove with the GOP's plans.

Although it was not expressed so much to the world at large, this plan was OPENLY and FREQUENTLY discussed in far right circles. We kids, if we asked about it, were told that it was "God's Will." Ask any exvangelical about it, and they'll confirm. (Part of why I know so much about these dangerous and deluded folks is I WAS ONE OF THEM in my youth.)

And where has that plan gotten them? Well, the GOP recently released a hundreds of pages long document filled with their intentions if they win--including a nationwide abortion ban and a repeal of anti-discrimination laws, among other things.

Trump has already signaled his intent to create a military dictatorship if elected, by repealing laws against using the military against US citizens on US soil sp he can deploy them against dissenters, etc., and if the GOP pick up a few more congressional seats, he can do it. The GOP has already pushed to repeal presidential term limits, and Trump has indicated he'd like to be president for life.

So I'm amazed at all the people who think withholding their vote and letting the GOP win is going to somehow fix things and "push the Dems left."

You wanna know how to push US politics leftward? You're not gonna like it, because it takes actual work beyond stomping your foot and pouting and performatively showing everyone how "pure" you are by refusing to vote.

You have to start the same way the far right did (and again, they've been OPENLY talking about and pursuing this plan since I was a kid in the 1960s, AT LEAST)--they started by getting the most extreme right wingers they possibly could into any position they could. Positions like school board member, police chief, sherrif, city prosecuter, city council member, municipal judge, mayor, governor, hell, fucking dog catcher.

They encouraged far right extremists to become police officers and military personnel and work their way up the ranks to the point at which even the famously-racist FBI reported that major city police departments across the nation were pretty much taken over by members of white supremacist organizations.

In formerly reasonable churches, right wingers pushed for the hiring and training of more and more right wing pastors and mire right-wing theology.

More affluent right-wingers bought local papers and broadcasters, and as their political power grew, they changed laws to make it easier for a single entity to control the news--until now a mere handful of entities own nearly every major media outlet in the US.

And then they used every victory as leverage for the next one, and worked their way up. I mean, there's more, like the capitalization on economic and social anxiety and their inentional exacerbation of same so they could take advantage of it, but that's intertwined with the rest.

Essentially, they got this far because they put the work in.

If the US left is going to turn things around (and if it's not already too late), we've got to do the same, but it takes RESEARCHING and PROMOTING your local and state candidates, attending city council and school board meetings, and shit like that. It's actual fucking work to fix a country.

And then, after you've done all that--and after you've shown up to primaries to try to get any non-authoritarian leftist candidate you can nominated--then you vote for the leftest folks you're able to in the general. If there are no remotely leftist candidates, you vote for the centrist or right winger who will do the least damage.

Again, that's what the US far right has been doing for decades. Taking action. Wherever possible, taking new ground, but when they couldn't do that, ceding as little ground as possible. If they couldn't win, they made damn sure to do everything in their power to try to keep actual decent human beings from winning.

Actually doing the work doesn't have the emotional satisfaction of a grand gesture, but it definitely shows who is serious about making a difference and who would rather let everything burn than sully their imagined purity by voting for anything less than perfection.

Listen, Trump is not going to end the genocide in Gaza--in fact he increased tensions between the Israeli occupation and Palestine. And the GOP will never be persuaded. Hell, they want to let Russia take Ukraine and declare open season on asylum seekers.

The Dems suck. But the GOP is far, far worse, and will do MORE damage, and kill FAR MORE innocents. And if allowed to do so, will make it even harder to change the system than it is now. They've already PUBLICLY ADMITTED that their only chance of victory is keeping people from voting. Don't play into their hands.

Under current circumstances, you know what the Dems are going to do if Biden and a bunch of other Dems lose for not being pure enough? You think they'll be all like, "Oh, no! The left sure taught us a lesson by handing the country to the GOP! We'd better shift to the left!"

No. They're going to sip champagne in their multi-million dollar mansions and have meetings about how they need to move FURTHER RIGHT to win elections, because the left doesn't vote.

And if the US becomes a military dictatorship, most of the high ranking ones will simply take their fortunes and leave.

Yup, it'd sure teach ol' Joe a lesson to force him to spend the rest of his days sipping cocktails on the Riviera.

Look beyond the single battle and think strategically. That's how the GOP keeps gaining power. And refusing to act strategically is why the left is losing. We cannot take the hill we want right now. But if we lose the hills we've already taken, we risk losing the entire goddamn war.

So fucking vote. Work to get every leftist you can in any office you can. And if you can't do that, support the one who will do the least harm.

And if it takes voting for that shitbag Biden to keep Trump and the GOP out, hold your fucking nose and pull the goddamn lever.

[doberbutts]

I remember reading a post that men are the oppressor class so why would they bother to dismantle systemic patriarchy when they actively benefit from its existence? And as I read it, I thought, Damn, so an entire half of the population can never conceivably help us, and the people who love men in their lives are doomed. It wasn't a helpful post. It basically felt, here's some actual material analysis on feminism and said, That trying to educate and make men be part of feminism is fundamentally a flawed effort, because again, they are the oppressor class, why should they care about uplifting the oppressed?

And it made me think about this very good pamphlet I read, explaining how the white worker remained complacent for so long because at least they weren't a Black slave. And that the author theorized the reason labor movements never truly created exceptional, radical change is because of internal racism (which I find true) and failure to uplift black people. And the author listed common outlooks/approaches to this problem, and one of them was: "We should ignore the white folks entirely and hold solidarity with only other POC, and the countries in the Global South. Who needs those wishy-washy white fragile leftists who don't care about what we think or want?" (roughly paraphrased.)

And the author said, This sounds like the most leftist and radical position, but it's totally flawed because it absolves us of our responsibility to dismantle white supremacy for the sake of our fellow marginalized people, and we are basically ignoring the problem. And that blew me away because this is a position so many activists have, to just ignore the white folks and focus entirely on our own movements. I wish I knew the name of the actual pamphlet, so I could quote entire passages at you.

But I feel this is the same for men. Obviously, we should prioritize and have women-led and women-focused feminism. But saying that men are an oppressor class so they can't reliably be counted upon in feminist activism--it's such a huge oversimplification. And mainly, I'm a Muslim, and I've been treated with plenty of misogyny from Muslim men. And also plenty of misogyny from Muslim women. And I love my male friends, I want men to be part of the movement, and I dunno. Thinking about communities, movements, and the various ways we fail each other and what it means to be truly intersectional keeps me up at night.

I don't know the pamphlet you're talking about but I've read and been taught similar. There's a reason much of my anti-racism is so feminist and most of my feminism is anti-racist. Many people coming at this problem from a truly intersectional angle have seen that there is no freedom to be had without joining hands across the community. Not picking and choosing our allies based off of identity but off of behavior.

As used in a previous example, a white abled moderately wealthy man saying "wow Healthcare sucks in this country, why does this system suck so bad" should be told "hey, this system sucks so bad because it's built off of sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. You want to improve the system? Fix those things and it will be much better in the long run" and not "shut up you're a man. Healthcare is always going to be better for you". The second response doesn't fix that Healthcare is still a problem even if you are at the "top" of the privilege ladder. If we want true change, we have to dismantle the entire system at it's core and build it up without the yuck, otherwise you're gunna get to the top and realize this place sucks too.

Something something if the crabs worked together to hold each other up, they could all get out of the bucket and be free.

[crimeronan]

hey kitkat, if its not too much trouble, could you make a propaganda post for the silt verses? I've been seeing you talk about it a lot (i have spoilers marked dw) but im afraid to look up anything about it. is it horror? all i know about it is val <- horrible woman(?) so im intrigued. was wondering if it'd be possible for a silt verses post a la that trc post you made a while back

OH, ABSOLUTELY. i think about 95% of my followers have no idea what this media is about, so this ask is very exciting. i'll preface it by saying that i think it's edged out the dreamer trilogy for my favorite story Ever -- it's exactly on par with the first two books in terms of Reading My Heart Off The Page.

the premise:

the silt verses is a now-complete horror-tragedy narrative podcast set in a fantasy world that has many parallels to our own. this fantasy world is embroiled in late-stage corporate capitalism and is ravaged by the effects of colonialism, war, and oppression.

in this world, gods are created through sacrifice and belief. there are thousands of them, with thousands of individual religions.

the problem is that gods must be fed through human sacrifice. and if they aren't fed, they die.

and people are very invested in keeping their gods alive.

sacrifice is considered a necessary part of society, something that's as essential as breathing. the idea of simply not making sacrifices is considered a violent, radical, leftist anarchist position that is simply unsustainable. or so the state would have you believe!

but. SOME gods have been outlawed, and worshiping them WILL get you killed by the government.

the state says that it's because these gods are uniquely evil, and too dangerous or sadistic or wild to be fed.

in actuality, gods are outlawed when they don't serve the state or corporations' purposes. the question at the heart of the worldbuilding is always, "is Anything you've been told about the gods and the magic true? how much of this world is socially constructed? who benefits from the way things are?"

Metaphors Abound.

-

the cast:

the first season follows four key narrators; the second season introduces a fifth; the third a sixth.

-

carpenter - sister carpenter is an older woman who was born into an outlawed river-worshiping faith. she has seen her entire family murdered by the state, including her brother, parents, and grandmother. she briefly left the faith but returned to the parish because she had nowhere else to go; her relationship with her river and her church is complicated at best.

carpenter begins the series as a """devout""" disciple of the river parish. in actuality, her faith has been slipping for a Long Time. she's no longer certain that she loves this god she's been killing for for her entire life.

she begins the series investigating some unexplained "miracles," aka Deeply Fucking Horrific Murders, that appear to have been done by her god.

alongside her is brother faulkner.

-

faulkner - faulkner is a kid, somewhere around 19 or 20 years old when the story starts. he was NOT born into the river faith, but was instead called to it, back when he was still a rural farm boy living with his father and brothers. his first sacrifice was his brother, who he drowned on the farm. he later left home to find the parish.

faulkner has been with the parish for a pretty short period of time, but he truly IS a devout fanatic. because of this, he does not get along with carpenter. the two of them bicker a lot. carpenter thinks that faulkner is a stupid country bumpkin who's naive and full of starry-eyed optimism, and he annoys the piss out of her.

faulkner is not a dumb country bumpkin.

but he knows how he sounds and he knows how he looks. so he plays the part of the starry-eyed child with ease.

he is planning to kill carpenter.

he knows she's slipping, he knows she's losing her faith, and he wants her dead. he's been asked to keep an eye on her because the parish knows she's slipping, too.

uh oh!

-

hayward - investigating officer hayward is a police officer in the religious homicides division of the greater glottage police force. this police force has jurisdiction over outlawed gods. hayward's job is to find outlawed gods, arrest/kill their worshipers, and report them to the government.

he is the main antagonist of season one. crucially, he's a Good Cop - he's friendly, affable, funny and likable. he's kind of a dickhead bastard, but in the way that the protagonists of Cop Tv Shows (TM) often are. he offers to "help" the people he's arresting. he's good at playing the role of a good guy who just needs to uphold the status quo for the good of society.

but. he is, first and foremost, a cop. and the narrative has a Lot to say about cops. and about other people whose job is to Enforce The Law.

so. don't think that him being a Good Cop means that he's Actually a good guy or that he's not dangerous to the protagonists. Hoo Boy.

-

paige - paige duplass is a corporate boardroom executive who works for a marketing firm that creates gods. her job is to do all the marketing and branding for new corporate mascots. what does the god look like? how does the worship work? how are the sacrifices made?

but her company's profits are waning. and they need to return value to the shareholders.

so. they're going to kill their employees.

not paige, of course! she's a highly valued member of the team. she just has to keep everyone calm and be a kind, upbeat manager while the Layoffs approach. everything is fine, everyone. we aren't going to kill you :) don't worry :) just keep smiling :)

the horror of this gives her a crisis of conscience; after all the murder goes down, she leaves to go on a long drive.

which becomes longer still when she's taken hostage by carpenter and faulkner.

-

shrue - season two introduces shrue, a spineless liberal politician who runs on a """left-wing""" platform but really could not care less about anything except polling numbers. they're willing to do rotten, ugly propagandist things for their campaign -- including killing the river god. and all of its followers. for the good PR! :)

not great news for carpenter, faulkner, or their people.

but then shrue experiences Actual Violence up close for the first time. and it Shakes Them To Their Core.

and, well. suddenly they're not so comfortable being a spineless liberal politician anymore.

too bad they've locked themselves into their role and cannot fucking escape it!!

-

val - introduced in season three, VAL is the saint of a god of liars, purposefully created by the government for use as a weapon. she is the remnants of a woman who killed herself to serve her country. she does not remember who she is or what else she wanted, aside from her mother's approval.

as the saint of a god of liars, whatever VAL says becomes true..... as long as someone is there to listen. you're a loyal soldier? no, you died of a tumor as a child. you're a politician begging for mercy for the sake of your infant child? no, your baby has an insatiable taste for flesh and ate your sorry ass. etc

she's a monster and a sadist; she enjoys killing people to try to fill the emptiness in her. she is in terrible pain all the time and does not understand why. and she is becoming increasingly disillusioned and sick with herself, the government she serves, and the Utter Pointlessness of all this systemic violence.

but how do you break a cycle when you Are the cycle?? how do you get better?? how do you change anything??

much to consider.

-

overall, it's as close to a perfect story as it gets imo. literally every detail is carefully, painstakingly chosen to further the themes, arcs, characterization, etc. the plotting is suspenseful, the horror is Deeply Fucking Scary, the storylines are gutwrenching, the voice acting is spine-chilling, and the characters are So Fucking Compelling.

also, i get frustrated by representation-first fiction recs, but if you get this far and want to know: it's Deeply queer. faulkner, paige, and shrue are all trans (shrue is they/them, paige is a post-transition trans woman, faulkner is a trans guy who's recently started T). carpenter is aroace, there's casual representation and normalization of trans n gay people throughout the ensemble cast.

and more importantly, it's just. So Damn Good.

@valtsv @deermouth you two are the other main silt verses bloggers i know, so if you want a pitch for your followers.... here is this!

[vintageseawitch]

i get this sick feeling that certain leftists, especially white leftists, who are abstaining from voting or voting third party & are still encouraging others to do the same while being the loudest at complaining about "vote shaming" 🙄 will be the type, if heaven forbid trump wins, to suddenly go silent on them being far left & will GLEEFULLY turn in their neighbors a la the 1940s if only to save themselves.

they've made it clear that only certain types of genocides count to them, they're ignoring actual Palestinians who are BEGGING people to vote for Harris, & they've been glossing over how trump is bibi netanyahu's preferred candidate because they need to focus really hard on punishingnthe black woman. these leftists are death cult accelerationists who are okay with fascism as long as it affects those who "deserve" it, such as citizens of the US & Ukraine & eventually the rest of Europe should trump win, NATO gets abandoned, & putin gets to do whatever the fuck he wants.

these leftists are vile. i don't care that you claim genocide is your hard line because i don't believe you. say as much as you want on your privileged soap box but i'm not seeing you go to prison for not paying your taxes because last i checked ALL of our taxes are funding this so like it or not you're just as complicit & your shiny slogan words won't be able to cancel that.

I DON'T BELIEVE YOU'RE THE HERO YOU CLAIM TO BE. you will ABSOLUTELY throw neighbors, acquaintances, hell maybe even friends & family under the bus after a period of time in order to save your own skin & please the authoritarians in charge. you're a dangerous enemy.

you have no plans about how to handle a trump presidency & all i hear when y'all claim we're already in a fascist country is you saying that without facing any consequences & you being too stupid to miss the irony. you don't know what that word means & you just want to see this country burn while conveniently forgetting you'll be burned right along with thr rest of us. it's stupidly short-sighted. you're hardly a revolutionary if you're so inclined to suicide. please be for fucking real.

[hussyknee]

it’s rare to find a sinhalese person (online atleast) who is supportive of tamil self-determination. genuine question: among leftist circles in sri lanka, how common is such a stance?

I don't know whether I'm a reliable source to answer this question because I'm very jaded about this in general. A couple of days ago, someone on the Sri Lanka Reddit started up discourse about Maitreyi Ramakrishnan's choice to reject identifying with the country that tried to genocide her people, which I'm still chewing wire about. I'm a very isolated person with a very small social circle of like-minded leftist friends. They're mostly not SinBud and anti SinBud nonsense, but none of them are Tamil and I'm the one who really convinced them about Eelam I think. The people I learned from, who are out there doing the work of building inter-ethnic dialogue and overturning Sinhalese propaganda, might have a more hopeful view.

Thing is, there's no one "leftist" faction here because "left" doesn't mean the same thing as it does in the West. The Rajapaksas' party SLPP is socialist, a legacy of their ancestor the SLFP who was the party aligned with the USSR. They and their voters and their saffron terror acolytes (Buddhist priesthood) are all for public infrastructure they can rob blind and central government they can use to crush minorities, and build on the nationalist fervour of genocidal Sinhalese Buddhism that's served both major parties independence. There's quasi-communists, descendants of the ethnonationalist Marxist JVP that rose in opposition to the class corruption of ethnonationalist USSR-aligned socialist SLFP and enthonationalist US-aligned neoliberal UNP. They've since distanced themselves from their ethnic myopia, possibly due to suffering much of the same state terrorism as minorities via militarisation and policies like the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act. They're the most vocal about the abolition of the executive presidency, the defunding of military and police, and restructuring and executing the long-mismanaged socialist infrastructure. These are usually the working class and university students, but their base has been growing in other demographics too, since we "held our noses and voted" for the Yahapalana government in 2015 and it ended up fucking us over. But despite their sympathy with the suffering of Tamils and Muslims and favouring the devolution of power, most still cling to the idea that Sinhalese majoritarianism is a fair result of democracy.

The kind of pro-LGBT, anti-racist, feminist liberals that would pass muster with the western left otoh, are a minority of urban, English-speaking professionals. Their panacea for enthofascism is voting for the neoliberal party, whose idea of reducing corruption and increasing efficiency is privatizing everything, are against racism because it's bad for tourism, and coasts on the promise of never actively feeding ethnosupremacy, even if they won't do anything about it either. Both these groups hate each other but are equally deeply uncomfortable with if not entirely resistant to the idea that the North and East are Tamil lands colonized by the Sinhalese. Both groups are aware of the corruption and complicity of the Buddhist priesthood and are prepared to do exactly nothing about it.

What I'm trying to say is that Sinhalese Buddhist ethnosupremacy is baked in to the Sri Lankan political fabric. "Left" means jack shit when it comes to whether Tamils have rights, in much the same way that the western left agrees on everything except Palestine. It's a political no man's land everyone tries not to look at.

The fundamental problem is that Sinhalese people who know enough about 1958, 1983, or the full scope of genocide perpetrated against Tamils during the last push of the war, let alone all 26 years of it, are very much in the minority. It takes a particular education to understand that "Sri Lanka" is a post-colonial invention that took over from "Ceylon", which was nothing but a construct for the ease of British administration. As far as I know, this education is confined to activist organizations and whoever followed my sociology program. So my kind of anarchist leftism that calls the war a Tamil genocide with their whole chest and the priesthood saffron terrorists and recognises Eelam is, afaik, vanishingly small.

To be honest, I never really questioned the propaganda and narrative we've been spoon fed myself until I went to Canada when I was 23 to complete my anthro degree (became disabled and dropped out after). One thing that struck me was how racist the Sinhalese diaspora was. I was raised SinBud, my school didn't admit any non-Sinhalese, half my uncles were in the military, but these people that had left the country decades ago still hated Tamils and Muslims in a way that nobody else I knew did. I wondered whether this was what it had been like when it had all started; whether this hatred that seemed to have been preserved in amber was a true taste of what had ignited Black July. Suddenly the attitude of the Tamil diaspora towards the Sri Lankan government and Sinhalese people didn't seem so unreasonable.

Then, later in the same uni term, I went to an art exhibition of a white artist who travelled the world collecting information about their genocides and made art about them, and found a painting depicting Sri Lankan Tamils in 2008. Promptly had a meltdown. Went to the lady and told her tearfully that it was all propaganda, we didn't really hate Tamils, not even my uncles in the army hated Tamils, it was a war, the LTTE had terrorized us for my whole lifetime. Bless the woman, she didn't fight me, just let me cry at her and patted my hand and pretended to take me seriously. This made it easier for me to really think about what I knew once I'd stopped wailing and stamping. It prompted a years-long self-interrogation and fact finding that made me unearth how much brainwashing had been done to us by everyone, from our families to our school textbooks to news media. It's like the air we breathed was propaganda. And I still didn't know a fraction of what life had been like for Tamils (or Muslims) and the scope of atrocities perpetrated by the Sinhalese until I began my Society and Culture degree at the Open University when I was 30. The first year textbooks were only broadstrokes facts, but at last I found out about Gnananth Obeysekera, Prageeth Jeganathan, Stanley Thambaiya, Malithi DeAlwis. Their work on nation-making, ethnicity, historical revisionism, genocide and ethnic conflict and state terrorism...everything I should have been taught as a child. The chapters on the rapes and murders and shelling and war crimes and IDP camps were..indescribable. That was what properly radicalised me about Tamil self-sovereignty, because there's clearly no possible way the Tamil people will ever be safe and safeguarded under a Sinhalese majoritarian government.

I had to drop out of that programme too because of my health. But during the mass protests against the government in 2022, I learned even more about Tamil indigeneity, the extent of JR Jayawardena's crimes, and the persecution of Marxists and victims of the '71 and '89 insurrections. So much of the protests and their encampments were directed and galvanized by social media, that organised online and in-person lectures, teach-outs, and live discussions that anyone and everyone could attend right alongside the protests. I've never seen that kind of truly democratized, free, egalitarian civic education and discourse before. That was the very first time I saw academics, survivors, refugees and human rights activists being given a respectful platform, the masses hearing firsthand accounts from people of the North and East and witnesses of Black July. April to July 2022 was a truly golden bubble of time where I saw people finally start listening, believing, and challenging all their convictions. It was the closest we ever came to realising the hope that things could be different; that we could, as a society, understand how Sinhalese ethnosupremacy had been the black rot killing this country from the first, stop being racist Sinhala-first cunts and actually hold any of these murderers accountable.

Teach us to hope, I guess.

But I suppose it's no small thing that I learned about the Tamil resistance and struggle and taught all my friends about it. I'm sure they're informing their own circles in small ways too. These tendrils are hard to see, but they exist and grow. Especially with the fall of the Rajapaksas and their Bhaiyya contingent, more people can see ethnosupremacy for the grift that it is, and the younger generations are less defensive, more willing to listen and eager for justice and change. So I guess the answer is: not very common, but less uncommon than it used to be.

[captainjonnitkessler]

I think there's something to be said for just how frequent a situation it is that there has been some kind of revolution in another country, only for the people who take power to immediately begin murdering anyone who disagrees with them. The citizens of the country may not agree with all of their ideas, and rather than working to change peoples' minds, execution becomes the way to deal with it. (I know it's a lot more complicated than this in many instances, but this specific thing is really important to discuss, I think, in light of the amount of these performative online leftists who simply refuse to entertain anyone who does not share their exact ideas down to specific details)

None of them seem to have a plan or want to work with others, because that's far less glamorous than fantasizing about burning everything down and building their utopia

I think the problem is that once you've decided "violence against people I disagree with is a good way to obtain power" it's very easy to conclude "violence against people I disagree with is a good way to *maintain* power".

And look, sometimes you're in a situation where violence really is the only option, but America is a democracy. We already HAVE a non-violent way to enact change, the problem is just that too many people disagree on what change that should be. (Spare me the rant about how "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" bullshit, if you genuinely believe democracy cannot result in positive change then a) explain how no social mores have changed in the last 200 years and b) we may as well just pull the plug on humanity then. jesus christ what a bleak view of the world).

Anyway persuading people to change their minds is an extremely long, awkward effort that you probably won't live to see the end of, but fantasizing about violently seizing control of the country (whereupon everyone just starts agreeing with you automatically) is easy and fun!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

One more from (mostly) climate journalist David Roberts:

"I haven't written much about politics since the debate, mainly because I'm so overwhelmed by disgust & contempt toward this country's media & commentariat that it has rendered me inarticulate with rage. Twitter probably doesn't need more rage. I do just wanna make one point tho.

To be clear up front: I don't give one tiny hot fuck who the Dem nominee is. I truly don't. Biden's fine. Harris is fine. A warm puddle of vomit is fine. *There is no conceivable resolution to the nomination fight that could change the basic calculus of this race.*

Preventing a fascist takeover of the US is my top priority--as a journalist, as a voter, as a human. If it isn't yours too, you should feel bad about yourself. If you haven't made the stakes of this election clear to everyone within the sound of your voice, you should feel bad.

But I'm not gonna rant. [breathes deeply] Just gonna make my one point, which is this: the idea that that the process of jettisoning Biden & choosing someone else will go well -- will be *allowed* to go well -- is a deeply deranged fantasy.

The idea that Dems will do this & will end up feeling unified, that Harris will come out popular, that "the dynamics of the race will shift," all of that ... fucking deranged. Deranged in such a perfectly characteristic Dem way.

"This person/policy/slogan/approach has been irredeemably slimed by Republicans & a hostile media -- let's throw it overboard!" That's the Dem way. Always with this starry-eyed hope that they can reset, start over, get it right this time.

Just as one example -- other people have aggregated these -- there have been "calls" for every Dem nominee of the last 30 years to step aside. Dems practically delight in abandoning their own people, policies, & principles in response to bad-faith pressure. They f'ing love it.

But, as I've been saying for, oh, 20 years now, the situation is structural. The current situation is an outcome of a particular incentive structure & that structure will remain exactly the same if Harris takes over the ticket.

For centrists, journalists, pundits, *even Dem electeds*, the way you prove you are a Reasonable, Serious Person in DC is by shitting on Dems. For the left, the way you prove you are a true radical is by shitting on Dems. For the right ... well, obviously.

Everyone's professional incentives are to shit on Dems. Dwelling on Trump & his fascist movement -- however justified by the objective facts -- just doesn't bring that juice, doesn't get the clicks & the high-fives, doesn't feel brave & iconoclastic. It's just ... no fun.

So, say Biden stepped aside in favor of Harris tomorrow. How long until the vapid gossips we call political reporters find something wrong with her, some alleged flaw they just have to write 192 stories about? How long until the hopped-up mediocrities we call pundits ...

...find some "counter-intuitive" reason that the new Dem ticket is flawed after all? How long until the irredentist left gets over the temporary thrill of its new Harris memes & remembers that she's a cop & turns on her? How long before the ambient racism & misogyny in the US...

... lead center-leftists to conclude that, sure, they'd support a black woman, just not *this* black woman? In other words: how long before everyone reverts to their comfortable, familiar identity & narratives?

About 30 f'ing seconds, is my guess.

Dems uniting, feeling good, telling a clear story, receiving credit for their accomplishments--all of that is *impossible* in the current environment. It won't be allowed. Dems can punch themselves in the face all they want, abandon whoever they want, apologize all they want...

... they simply will not be allowed to turn the page & start fresh, because everyone's incentives remain the same. If they did that, elites, including media elites, would have no choice but to openly & frankly grapple with Trump & what he represents & they *don't want to*.

Everyone feels comfortable shitting on Dems -- it's just a cozy professional space. You get to feel brave & independent (just like all the replacement-level pundits around you) with zero risk.

Yes, it's abysmal, contemptible cowardice on a genuinely embarrassing scale ...

... but it is what it is & we should have no illusions that it will change with a change in the top of the ticket.

As @whstancil has been trying to tell you people (good god how he tries), the information environment is thoroughly corrupted.

@whstancil For some reason, left pundits are pathologically averse to acknowledging that fact. And so they grasp at these straws -- if we could just get rid of Biden, we could have a reasonable conversation! Yeah, sure. You absurd summer children.

@whstancil This election is not a choice between two individuals, it's a choice between worldviews, between futures. Do we want to continue down the path to multiethnic democracy or do we want to impose a white patriarchal Christian autocracy?

@whstancil At stake is the entire federal civil service. The machinery of state built since WWII. Freedom & dignity for millions. Yes, democracy itself. That's not an exaggeration. Yet this country's elites have utterly failed to convey those stakes to the populace. A *grotesque* failure.

You can not look at this extraordinary media freakout this last week and not psychologize, not see all kinds of displacement. They can't or won't be serious about Trump & so they are fucking *giddy* at having permission to scold Dems again. Their safe place.

Anyway, my point is just: none of this will change if Harris replaces Biden at the top of the ticket. The idea that the media -- with these soulless careerist court gossips in charge -- will allow it is just fantasy. They *need* Dems in disarray & so they will engineer it.

The US is right on the precipice of falling into bona fide fascism & *the vast majority of the voting public doesn't even know it*. That speaks to a deeply diseased information environment. Until Dems do something about that, all their self-flagellation will buy them nothing.

Not knowing what else to do, Dems shit on their own

(Rebecca Solnit)

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Any time someone condemns the actions of Israel killing children you accuse them of hating Jews. That only makes sense if you think killing children is inherently a part of Judaism.

Hoo boy, you are very dumb, for real.

Okay, I'm going to explain this to you even though you either, already know it and you're just pretending not to because that's the only way you can avoid having to admit how wrong you are, or you're too stupid to grasp basic English conversation. So I know it's pointless and I know you're still not going to get it. But here we go anyway.

Israel is a majority Jewish country. Anti-semitism, or hatred of Jews if that's too big a word for you, is often dressed up in "criticism" of Israel. Since October 7th, a lot of people who claimed to not be anti-semites because they were only "criticizing" Israel have been loudly celebrating an attack where Hamas terrorists raped, murdered, and kidnapped people who were mostly Israeli Jews. They have taken up chants of "Globalize the Intifada" (The Intifada is a Palestinian movement to eliminate Israel and all the Jews in it, so this is a call for the global elimination of all Jews) and "From the river to the sea" (which is a call for the destruction of Israel and all the Jews in it so "Palestinians", which are not a real cultural or ethnic group by the by, can occupy all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea). Since these people are cheering a brutal attack on Jews, and supporting the destruction of the only majority Jewish state in the world along with the murder of every Jew who lives there, and calling for the global extermination of the Jewish race, they are anti-semites. (Remember that means they hate Jews).

Following along so far?

Probably not, but let's continue anyway.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. In 2007 it was elected into power. Shortly after, it won a civil war to stay in power. That makes it the ruling power in what's called the self-governing territory of Gaza. That ruling power sent soldiers into Israel, a legitimate nation recognized as such by most of the world, and attacked its citizens as well as the citizens of other countries. Israel responded by declaring war. Now, if this had happened with any other nation in the world, there would be very little debate about Israel's justification in defending itself and the abhorrent nature of Gaza's attack. But since Israel is a mostly Jewish state, that's not what's going on. Western leftists are gleefully showing their hatred of Jews by demanding Israel not strike back and not defend itself and instead just sit there and let themselves be destroyed.

Now, by any sane standard, Israel would be justified in turning the entirety of Gaza into molten slag. Remember, the 10/7 attacks were carried out by the ruling power that was originally voted into that position of power. When the terrorists returned from their attack, where they raped and/or murdered some 1,200 people, many of them children, the citizens of Gaza celebrated. They cheered as Hamas terrorists led naked hostages who were bleeding from their vaginas from being brutally gang raped through the streets. They cheered as their children surrounded Jewish children who had been kidnapped and taunted them and threw rocks at them. Ever since Israel freed Gaza and allowed them to govern themselves, Gaza has supported terrorists who want to kill every Jew in Israel. But Israel has no interest in destroying Gaza completely. They just want to wipe out Hamas and let the Gazans go back to governing themselves. They even went so far as to let the enemy know where they were going to attack so civilians could evacuate.

And what did Hamas do in response?

They refused to allow anyone to leave.

Because Hamas has a long history of hiding behind Gazan civilians. They build their terrorist bases under schools, hospitals, and mosques specifically so Israel would have to choose between attacking those locations or allowing Hamas to attack them with impunity. They make sure civilians are in the path of every Israeli bomb because they believe that Gaza is a "nation of martyrs" and they know that every dead Gazan civilian is a prop they can show to the largely Jew hating western media as "proof" that Israel is some kind of evil, genocidal country. They want that perception to flourish worldwide so, when they do finally manage to kill every Jew in Israel, they can say it was justified. They were just fighting back against their oppressors. They were decolonizing. (Ignoring the fact that the Arabs were the ones who colonized the Jewish land and then began exterminating all the Jews that still lived there, or who fled to live in other lands, to the point where there are almost no Jews left anywhere in the Middle East except in Israel)

So when people ignore the mountains and mountains of proof that Hamas are the ones responsible for the civilian deaths in Gaza, because their strategy relies on dead children and dead civilians, because they do everything in their power to make sure children are between them and Israeli bombs and bullets, they are doing so knowing that they're giving support to a terrorist group that wants to murder all the Jews in Israel. They are showing their hatred of the Jewish people by promoting lies and joining the cries for "global Intifada". So yes, when people blame Israel for the dead children that Hamas killed by forcing them into the line of fire during a war, they are doing it because they hate Jews.

And if you think calling out that hatred means anyone thinks killing children is a part of Judaism, then you're either stupid, or you hate Jews too.

[aparrotandaqrow]

A lot of folks, especially in the Jewish community, have mixed feelings about Harris picking Walz as her VP over Shapiro. Some wanted Shapiro for the Jewish representation, especially a Jew who is Zionist and yet decries Netanyahu and expresses the desire for peace that so many of us have. Some worried that having two Jews in the White House would provoke yet more antisemitism and possibly even sink the ticket, given the massive surge in leftist antisemitism recently.

Many of us were frustrated and angered by seeing leftists campaign for Walz being the pick over Shapiro more or less entirely because Shapiro is Jewish—and felt a sense of dismay that perhaps Harris had caved to the antisemites.

I'm a Jew but I'm also a Minnesotan. I was glad to see the Walz pick for many reasons unrelated to my Jewish identity or Israel. But I want to also submit that Walz, uniquely among the politicians Harris could have picked, brings something to the table that is desperately important both to the nation more broadly and our community more specifically.

I present as Exhibit A, this archived NYT profile of Walz from back in 2008:

The teacher, Tim Walz, was determined that even in this isolated place, perhaps especially in this isolated place, this county seat of 9,000 that was hours away from any city in any direction, the students should learn how and why a society can descend into mass murder.

...

“The Holocaust is taught too often purely as a historical event, an anomaly, a moment in time,” Mr. Walz said in a recent interview, recalling his approach. “Students understood what had happened and that it was terrible and that the people who did this were monsters. “The problem is,” he continued, “that relieves us of responsibility. Obviously, the mastermind was sociopathic, but on the scale for it to happen, there had to be a lot of people in the country who chose to go down that path. You have to make the intellectual leap to figure out the reasons why.”

My ancestors immigrated to the US around the turn of the century from Mariampol, Lithuania and Luboml, Ukraine. When the Nazis arrived in those towns some 40 years later, the Jews there (many of whom would have been my ancestors' relatives) were massacred not by Nazi soldiers, but by their neighbors, who welcomed the Nazis with open arms. You cannot truly help protect the Jewish community from antisemitism if you don't understand this crucial detail about how the Holocaust happened.

So Mr. Walz took his students [...] and assigned them to study the conditions associated with mass murder. What factors, he asked them to determine, had been present when Germans slaughtered Jews, Turks murdered Armenians, the Khmer Rouge ravaged their Cambodian countrymen?

...

They read about civil war, colonialism and totalitarian ideology. They worked with reference books and scholarly reports, long before conducting research took place instantly online.

...

When the students finished with the past, Mr. Walz gave a final exam of sorts. He listed about a dozen current nations — Yugoslavia, Congo, some former Soviet republics among them — and asked the class as a whole to decide which was at the greatest risk of sliding into genocide. Their answer was: Rwanda. The evidence was the ethnic divide between Hutus and Tutsis, the favoritism toward Tutsis shown by the Belgian colonial regime, and the previous outbreaks of tribal violence. Mr. Walz awarded high marks. The next April, in 1994, Mr. Walz heard news reports of a plane carrying the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, being shot down. [...] Mr. Walz’s students, now juniors, saw their prophecy made into flesh and blood.

...

“You have to understand what caused genocide to happen,” Mr. Walz said, with those grim anniversaries in mind. “Or it will happen again.”

Y'all, Tim Walz is not Jewish. He's a white guy who grew up in Nebraska and then lived in one of Minnesota's smaller cities, up until going to Congress and then the Governor's mansion. No, he does not provide us with representation, nor will he ever truly understand what it feels like to be Jewish in America in 2024.

But he gets it. He understands not just academic history but people, and understands that "Never Again" is only feasible if we look at root causes, and strive to nip the factors that lead to genocide in the bud. We have all understood that allyship for Jews is only meaningful if you're here defending us before it gets violent.

Governor Walz represents an opportunity to have someone in the White House, on the national stage, who understands the big picture and the history well enough to actually be able to navigate incredibly complex and painful issues like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, like the regional conflicts within the Arab world, like the experience of progressive Jews in the US who would have found ourselves ostracized and alienated from increasingly hostile leftist movements. I cannot begin to explain how rare it is to have a politician at this level who also carries an experienced teacher's grasp of both history and empathy.

Maybe Josh Shapiro would have also brought that. But honestly, I'm not so sure. Walz may not be Jewish. But I think we're going to find that he'll be an ally, and a deeply learned and wise one at that. And I think we really need that right now.

[qqueenofhades]

I can't tell if part of the reason people don't recognize Biden's accomplishments is because society is so shallow and easily swayed by loudness over depth, or because Biden is just too quiet and prone to focusing on the idea that his actions speak louder than his words.

Like yeah, the latter thing is important, but we live in a REALLY shallow society; maybe a bit more bragging about your substantial achievements would be helpful here.

I get what you're saying here, but this kind of thing always seems to hinge on "the Democrats need to be doing more/Biden needs to be saying more/the Democrats are not doing it right/etc," and I just don't think that's the actual problem. Yes, in the past the Democrats have relied on the tactic of just doing good things and hoping that people will notice enough to vote for them, but that TORPEDOED them in 2010 (they didn't aggressively defend/market the Affordable Care Act, the Tea Party crazies got to set the narrative about GOVERNMENT OVERREACH, and they got shellacked so badly that they didn't control the House again for the rest of Obama's time in office). Fortunately, they have awoken to the fact that we live in a corporate noise machine owned and operated by cartoonishly villainous billionaire oligarchs who don't care if the country is pushed into fascism as long as they get their tax breaks, and where the average voter is well conditioned by said media to accept the BOTH SIDES BAD narrative without question.

Whether it's true or not is beside the point; if you flood the zone with enough BS, people act as if it is. See all those polls about how people think the Democrats are "too liberal" more than they think the GOP is "too conservative," even though only one of those parties is actively trying to end democracy. See the people who think Trump and Biden are equally ethically compromised. Etc. etc. Biden has already been considerably vocal about his accomplishments, has given several major speeches about the danger to democracy (which he did just the other day), but it is already so filtered and twisted in a radioactively toxic media atmosphere that just talking more or trying to trumpet more isn't going to help.

The DC media is full of a bunch of narcissists who like to make false equivalences and also openly hanker for Trump to be back in office because it makes them more relevant; they get to break juicy exposes and shocking headlines and whatever else, that gets more clicks, they get more exposure, etc. Biden is (as noted) boring, as in he's not on Twitter every day saying something ludicrous (and if he said even ONE ludicrous thing, far less the nonstop stream of BS that Trump constantly spews and which somehow still makes the media yell about how BIDEN should be the one to step aside, he'd be toast), and just does the job. That's not very Sexy and Marketable. When he talks about how he's doing the job and what he plans to do next, the media is too busy commissioning a dozen bullshit Horserace!!! polls and talking about how, in case we haven't noticed, he is 80 and that is somehow, implicitly, a more disqualifying fact than Trump's 91 goddamn serious treason-level felonies, including for literally trying to overthrow the government. Our politics and civic society have been so irreparably poisoned that actual competence is completely beside the point and makes a normal president less appealing than one who's just insane all the time. Everything's just a game show! Everyone's opinions are equal! Live in all the alternate universes you want! Who cares if we accidentally end democracy? Just another headline!

This is likewise not helped by the fact that in this relentlessly commodified social-media universe, Republicans are constantly on message and united behind their candidates, no matter how openly fucking awful they are, while leftists/liberals/Democrats (and people who claim to be) are constantly tearing into and criticizing their candidates in a way that makes Joe and Jane Low Information Voter even more susceptible to believing the "Both Sides" narrative -- after all, if the Democrats are attacking the Democrats, they really must be bad! Yes, we are not in a cult and therefore are able to have an actual discussion about things, but this falls into the "We're Just Holding Them Accountable!!" line that is just an excuse for ripping the Democrats even more than any of those people ever criticize or actively oppose the Republicans.

Hence all these braindead takes about how Biden should step aside, Biden should drop Harris, Biden should do X Y and Z and this is all his fault, instead of anyone remotely trying to come to grips with the extreme polarization and fascism of the other side. I keep yelling about it, and a lot of other people I respect keep yelling about it, because yet again, we've learned fucking nothing from 2016 and we're teetering on a repeat of it. See how all these Online Leftists want to scream and yell about Biden ending the train strike, and then somehow never seem to have heard that he kept working with the unions for months afterward and got their sick days. Even the people who, in a remotely more functional political landscape and/or if they possessed one (1) working brain cell, would vote for the Democrats get their endless jollies and moral holier-than-thous by absolutely incinerating them. Who needs the Republicans, when these guys will do it for you?

Anyway. Because America is a land of morons manipulated by billionaire corporate interests, just doing the right thing and hoping people notice enough to vote for you is not enough. That's why, indeed, the Democrats have learned that you have to talk about it and push back and argue for what you've done. But when it still exists in this environment that will twist and taint and misrepresent and grind it into tiny pieces, because said billionaire corporate interests are genuinely afraid that the Democrats' current policy plans could dismantle their hegemony if allowed to continue, that's only a very small part of the problem, and we have to recognize that.