#Im just thinking about all of the anti religious posters

[heavydyke]

There's a million "you shouldn't fear death" catch phrases I could drop at any moment but it would never translate; it would never bridge the gap in understanding between myself and a person who does fear death.

Ive never felt what they feel. I'll likely never feel what they feel. I've never looked at death as anything but the greatest relief. I can't comprehend being afraid of it. What is there to fear?

[automatismoateo]

is it okay that there are christians advertising their church outside my flat building? via /r/atheism

is it okay that there are christians advertising their church outside my flat building? for context, i live in the student village of my university. the student village is on campus but slightly separated from the other buildings. recently there's been people standing outside my block of flats every saturday asking people if they believe in god, do they want to join their church, and will they go to the church on sunday. they hand out flyers and do the same smiley bullshit talking about how love is rooted in god and vice versa, etc, etc, etc. ive tried putting my headphones on, hood up, and actively looking in the opposite direction to them whilst ignoring them signalling to me to talk to them. they just tap me on the shoulder and do the whole "this'll just take five minutes!" thing right in front of my face so there's no way to get away from them without having to be somewhat confrontational about it. at first i thought maybe they just wandered the whole campus talking to people, but i realised that all the university buildings are closed on weekends, so i know for sure that they are intentionally targeting the entrances of student flat buildings. im not even completely anti-religious, i might even consider myself 'spiritual' in some ways, but i can't be the only one that thinks this is just invasive and inappropriate? i mean they're literally standing like two metres away from the only entrance to my building. its very manipulative in my opinion, they could easily just leave a poster on the window advertising their church but they probably know that if they did that, nobody would give it a second glance, so instead they have to send people to force students to listen to their bs. Submitted March 16, 2024 at 07:07PM by cowboy-captain (From Reddit https://ift.tt/syVXMpu)

[sophiexrph]

@artcmisrpt wanted to know about them so i’ll give a little tldr !!

samuel (was originally a max irons fc, now an alex fitzalan fc) is the son of a preacher (? reverend? idk im jewish i dont know the difference) in small town upstate new york. he’s the second of five brothers and his mom died when he was in middle school. he and his brothers take care of the church and help their father run the services - they’re well-known around town and thought to be the picture-perfect religious boys, purity rings and all. samuel doubts his religion, though; he’s closeted gay and doesn’t even know where to start going about exploring his sexuality, especially not the crush he has on his older brother’s best friend.

riley is ex-airforce. (originally a mike vogel fc, but you can pretty much put any semi-muscular beefcake/himbo in mike’s place and riley’ll still work). born and raised in louisiana, he’s got a younger sister and is pretty much the epitome of the Older Brother stereotype. he played football in high school and could have continued on into college if he didn’t want to join the military as badly as he did -- his father and grandfather were also military men. he suffered a bad injury in the field and was forced into early retirement. he’s now a volunteer at an animal shelter while working at reception for a law firm for actual money. pretty much a golden retriever in a human’s body. also likes flowers but cannot take care of them for the life of him.

caspian is....a disaster bisexual. (david corenswet fc this is not changing) he was born into an incredibly wealthy family with a pretty large age gap between himself and his older brother. his brother is a shining star, everyone loves him, it seems as if he’s done nothing wrong in his life. no matter how hard caspian tries, he can’t seem to live up to his brother’s spotlight. so he started acting up for attention. in high school he was a heavy partier, would go to any party he knew about. in college, that got worse - he developed an addiction to cocaine and lost the scholarship he’d earned because of his now-low gpa. he took up bartending lessons to pay his own way through school without his parents finding out about his failure. now he’s still working as a bartender and his favorite part of the job is that people just talk to him thinking he’s a brick wall, thinking he won’t remember their little secrets... but he does remember. he remembers very well. and he’s still got that little habit he hasn’t kicked quite yet.

gil is a revolutionary. (michael evans behling, reece king, etc; he’s a poc who looks a little Too Pretty) he’s tired of america’s inequality and he wants to fight back against all forms of it. anti-capitalist, acab, you name it - if there’s a left-leaning protest, he’s there, making a lot of noise. he’s got a tight-knit group of revolutionary friends, they’re the sort to go around the city and plaster posters about the statistics of police brutality in their city anywhere they can find. also he’s queer and Does Not Fuck With gender roles. catch him in skirts and flowy blouses especially in the summer !

margaret (lucy boynton, elizabeth debicki, sophie turner, literally anyone with Powerful Woman Vibes) owns her own literary publishing company. she takes no shit from anyone ever. she takes her coffee black and owns at least three pairs of louboutins. she is the exact opposite of soft -- except for when the girl at the coffee shop on the way to her office hands her her coffee every morning.

shira (beanie feldstein, zoe kravitz) works at a local bookshop. it’s almost as if she’s read every book that they have for sale. she’s always in a good mood, is practically the equivalent of a ray of sunshine. she also has a passion for volunteer work (animal shelters, food banks, pretty much anything, anywhere, at any time). she went to columbia for undergrad and speaks three languages fluently, also will not drink coffee if it isn’t at least 50% cream

[drumpfwatch]

False Equivalency: Antifa vs the Nazis

    I realized after last week that there might be some people who want to argue “BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT THE LEFT IS EVIL TOO!! THEY DO BAD THINGS TOO!!! WHAT ABOUT BLACK LIVES MATTER!!! AND ANTIFA!! THEY DO BAAAAD THINGS TOO!!! WAH WAH WAAH! IM SO TRIGGERED I NEED MY SAFE SPACE” so let’s nip that in the bud.

    Honestly, this claim is, in and of itself, ridiculous. Regardless of the rest of this argument, there’s one very big point that needs to be stated up front and that makes the rest of this moot.

    The Alt-Right wants to kill people. They want to commit genocide. They will not be happy until every single Jew, Black, Homosexual or whoever they don’t happen to like is dead. I’ll get into the details there in a moment, but right now I just want to focus on that. Their ideology is existentially threatening to people who are not in the demographics they have decided are qualified to exist. If they get into power, which they are already to an extent, then they will tweak the system to deliberately harm those people. We have proof of that already. This was the entire premise of the Jim Crow era. Anti-fascist actions are self defensive actions, and those of you who don’t see that I’m willing to be are privileged enough that you have the luxury of ignoring it.

    But let’s get back to that point of escalation. That’s a slippery slope, I hear the devil’s advocate say. A lot of them just want to stop immigration, stop people from coming into the country to prevent the white race from being lost and mixed away into nothing. And if you believe that, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you, or a mace I want to smack you upside the head with. Think about it - if, say, Mexican Americans mixed with “Whites” to the point where the “white race” no longer exists then the Mexican-American race won’t either. Unless they’re suggesting that, say, a collective of Mexican-Americans will distinctly not have mixed-raced children because CONSPIRAAACYYYYYYY.

    Anyway, I’m sidetracking again. That’s a whole other thing. We have proof historically that this is the case, and consider it. If these people are really afraid of having their blood diluted then it can’t just stop with non-whites being disallowed into the country. Sure, that keeps them out, but what about the people already in your country? Well, they have to be removed from the country. This is how it started in Nazi Germany - Jews were “encouraged” to leave with laws that made it difficult for them to own businesses or be politicians. But sometimes, they don’t. Other times, they can’t. A rich Jewish person might have stayed in Nazi Germany because they thought it was their duty to keep Germany from getting worse. A poor person stays because they can’t exactly afford to leave. There were also plenty of people who actually didn’t even know they were Jewish by Nazi standards - the Nazis considered anyone who had at least 3 Jewish grandparents a Jew, even if they didn’t practice the religion. Either way, not everyone is going to leave. So you have to forcibly move them and separate them from the people you don’t want them mixing with. But that doesn’t always work either, because people might escape those ghettos and take a new identity.

    This is why the Nazis called their executions the “Final Solution.” The only way to solve the Jewish problem was to kill all the Jews in the country. That way they couldn’t possible cause problems. And this is the point where I would say the slope for certain stops. If you believe that certain people are lesser and are destroying you by trying to mix you away, then there’s no way to stop that for certain without killing any of them in your country and stopping new ones from getting into the country.

    But there’s another step that’s fairly easy to take which makes it even worse. Other countries may not have such rigorous standards for identifying what the racists consider to be a race “polluter”.  For instance, England may only identify a Jew as someone who practices the faith, so when they apply for German citizenship, none of that “insidious jewry” comes to the surface. Suddenly the race is being polluted discreetly from outsiders pretending to be insiders. So you have to kill Jews in other countries too.

        We know this because we’ve seen this happen before. Every country that focuses on racial purity has more or less followed this same path. Even if they say they don’t want this, they do. Either because they actually do want genocide and are lying, or they don’t realize that the only way to get what they want is genocide.

    Stopping fascism is a self-defensive action. End of discussion.

    But hey, just because you’re defending yourself doesn’t mean you’re allowed to do whatever you like. It’s no fair if I shoot a man 27 times before breaking his skull just because he made a sexist threat, that’s just excessive.

    To that end, and I’m gonna put this in big bold letters, I DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL ANTI-FASCIST VIOLENCE. Sometimes punching a Nazi is okay, sometimes there are better choices. There’s a lot of problems with the machismo being waved around by some Antifa folk and I think that if anti-fascist movements are to be effective, it needs to be made clear that violence is used as a last resort. Of course, the fascists will always try and make it look like that’s not the case, and the news media is surprisingly interested in spreading the viewpoints of fascists (that’s another topic I’ll talk about some day). But if we don’t do things without reason, then there’s less wiggle room for them to convince us otherwise. Especially with the fascist grasp on the media, it’s important that Antifa put on a good face, at least to an extent.

    But let’s talk usual tactics. What most people don’t know is that most of what Antifa does is background work. Tearing down posters to prevent people from knowing about their meetings, informing gathering places that the people coming there are Nazis, usually causing them not to be able to hold their meetings, data mining information to dox Nazis. All of these, and a few more like them, are the most common tactics of Antifa. In short, Antifa isn’t really interested in doing physical violence. They’re interested in stopping Nazis from doing violence. If they can’t get together because they’re being stopped at every possible turn, then they can’t grow.

    A part of that means coming up and counter protesting when the Nazis show up to ruin the fun. In the same way the Patriot Guard Riders show up to drown out the noise of the Westboro Baptist Church with their motorcycles to keep their message from being heard, the Antifa protesters show up to fascist rallies not to start a fight, but to drown out the noise so people can’t hear it. One of the best anitfa protests I ever saw was a youtube video of a Nazi going on about the white race on a soap box while an anti fascist stood right in front of him and screamed at the top of his lungs every time he tried to say something, drowning him out.

    Sometimes, though, you need to get your hands dirty. While Charlottesville was a mess, I only ever saw Antifa spraying mace into the eyes of fascists when the fascists tried to enter areas not designated for their use, or after their assembly had been called unlawful. They were interested in holding their ground, while we have evidence of the fascists gathering groups to send them out to heckle and perturb the counter protestors.

    Also, note that while both sides exchanged barbs and the occasional fist, only one side drove their car into people. Which brings me to my next point. In the past 10 years, only 2% of extremist driven deaths were caused by extremist leftists, with 72% percent being right wing. (The empty space in between is represented by religious extremists, for those wondering).

    Of course, Antifa will fight back. They have to. The right will also commonly incite violence by feigning attacks, doing things specifically to agitate - like holding a rally in a Jewish part of town - or even spit on Antifa counter protestors. This is a common tactic employed by the police and the right - creating a situation where violence is either perceived as necessary or is made to be inevitable. Which isn’t to say Antifa hasn’t instigated. That famous video of Richard Spencer getting decked in the face was more or less completely unexpected.

The point is, there are times to use violence, and times not to, and Antifa recognizes that, even if they don’t always make the “right” decision. I’ve talked before about when and when not to set your proverbial foot down in that regard, but that’s just my opinion.

But here’s the kicker. Antifascists only congeal out of ordinary people when fascists begin to crawl out of the scum sucking abyssal ponds they belong in. Their primary objective is to stop fascists, and once the fascists go away and back into hiding where they belong, they will spread back out where they belong. Antifa exists not as an organization with an overarching goal and with leaders, but instead as a counterpoint to fascists. If there aren’t Nazis and their ilk going about operating in the open, then antifa won’t need to.

    Now, knowing all of this, can you honestly tell me that the antifa and the right are the same?

[viralhottopics]

Nashville lies at the heart of a divided country: Trump got bubbas to the polls

As the president staged a rally attended largely by out-of-towners, Democratic-leaning denizens of Tennessees Brooklyn pondered an urban-rural rift

Men in stetsons, check shirts and jeans swing their partners around to the thrum of drums, fiddle, keyboard and steel guitar of Mike Oldham & The Tone Rangers. The walls at Roberts Western World in Nashville, Tennessee, are coated with beer logos spelled out in neon or on lampshades or mirrors, old concert posters, photos of country music greats and three rows of cowboy boots for sale. The tiled floor is barely visible under the heaving crowd.

At this and other honky tonk bars on Broadway, Nashvilles main tourist drag, the music is old country: songs about drink, divorce, hardscrabble heartbreak, the miserable struggle to make ends meet. It is a playlist that has taken on new resonance in the era of Donald Trump, like a requiem for white working class voters in small towns who, feeling left behind with nothing to lose, propelled him to the White House.

But Nashville is a booming city where southern civility, religion and conservatism collide with a young, creative and liberal population. Paradoxically, the heart of country music is increasingly at odds in class, culture and politics with the heartland that surrounds it. In this it mirrors the dislocation of other burgeoning American cities that are islands of Democratic blue in deep red Republican states.

There is a vast gulf in ideology and approach to the world, said Bruce Dobie, a Nashville-based media entrepreneur. Its just crazy right now. My street and city are overwhelmingly Democratic. Were astonished by everything we see at the moment.

Dobie estimated that when the US president rolled into Nashville on Wednesday for a campaign-style rally, around 80% of the crowd was from out of town. Trumps warm-up acts were country singers the Gatlin Brothers and Lee Greenwood, whose rendition of God bless the USA earned a cheer with the words to the hills of Tennessee. Trump joined him on stage, grinned, shook his hand and raised two thumbs up as the crowd chanted USA! USA!, some with fists raised, in a near-religious frenzy.

So Im thrilled to be here in Nashville, Tennessee, the home of country music, southern hospitality and the great president Andrew Jackson, Trump said, referring to the 19th-century populist described by the state museum as champion of the common man and notorious for forcing Native Americans off their land.

The crowd waved signs including Promises made, promises kept, Lefty media lies and Women for Trump. Carma Williams, 63, a retired office manager who had travelled from 70 miles away, said: I love him because hes honest. Hes doing everything he said he would do during the campaign. I think hes the first president whos done that.

Inside Roberts Western World after Trumps rally in Nashville, Tennessee. Photograph: Jon Morgan for the Guardian

Outside the Nashville Municipal Auditorium there was a modest gathering of protesters. One stood out. James Walker was wearing a red Make America great again baseball cap, sunglasses, a beard, a black North Face jacket and khaki trousers. He held aloft a sign that said: Ive made a huge mistake.

The 31-year-old explained: I voted for Trump. I thought it would be a positive change, a change that Obama didnt come through on, and it would shake things up. It has shaken things up but in a bad way. I realise now that some of the things that were just campaign promises seemed to carry on beyond the election and become a reality.

Walker, who grew up in California and spent two years in the military, said he ordered the trademark Make America great again hat many weeks ago but it had only just arrived. So that was the spark: I know what Im going to do with this.

He expressed a desire for atonement. I dont know what thats going to be but this is the first step: showing up and being honest.

Walker now works as a wine broker and lives across the Cumberland river in east Nashville, dubbed the citys own Brooklyn with its embrace of beards, tattoos and artisanal foods, along with Jack Whites record label and an explosion of diverse guitar bands and songwriters. Walker added: Its mostly Democratic, blue territory. Only a few of my friends admitted to voting for Trump and did so in confidence. Today is the first day Ive gone public.

Beside him at Wednesdays demonstration was Lisa Kaas Boyle, an environmental attorney holding a bag that posed the question: What would Dolly do? a reference to country music hall-of-famer Dolly Parton, who supports gay rights but said of Trump and rival Hillary Clinton: I think theyre both nuts. Surveying the queue of thousands of Trump supporters that snaked up and around and down a grassy hill, she said: Im shocked by this huge turnout. It really feels like a gut punch for me. Im sure they came from far and wide. Its shocking to me that people have no regard for their fellow Americans.

Boyle has just returned to Nashville after 30 years, partly to be close to family and partly in response to Hillbilly Elegy, author JD Vances personal insight into problems of the white working class including alcoholism, divorce, domestic violence, drugs and hopelessness. As the Washington Post put it, elites in both parties are studying the book as a sort of Rosetta Stone to understand the conditions that enabled the rise of Trump.

The 52-year-old, said: After reading Hillbilly Elegy, I feel progressives have to be involved. I cant just hang out in California with my like-minded friends. I have to make a difference here.

In last years election, Trump trounced Hillary Clinton by 26% in Tennessee, a Bible belt state that was the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan and was last won by a Democrat when Bill Clinton, a southerner, carried it in 1996. Among the few counties he did not win were those containing Memphis and Nashville.

There are a lot of liberal artists

Now, Nashville is thriving with an influx of young professionals priced out of other cities. A record 13.9 million people visited the area in 2016, up 45% over the past decade. The music industry is worth $10bn to the region, according to a 2013 report commissioned by the Music City Music Council, and includes Americana, jazz and other genres as well as country.

It has come a long way since the Grand Ole Opry barn dance became a radio hit in the 1940s, leading to a recording industry and stars from Hank Williams then to Taylor Swift today. It has long been seen as music of the conservative heartland when Elton John denied a rumour that he would perform Trumps inauguration, he suggested, Why not ask … one of those fucking country stars? Theyd do it for you but its relationship with politics has always been more complex than often assumed.

Downtown Nashville. Visitors to the area, drawn by its famous music scene, are up 45% over the past decade. Photograph: Jon Morgan for the Guardian

Bob Dylan, the troubadour responsible for some of the 60s defining protest songs, spent the end of the decade in Nashville and collaborated with Johnny Cash, the man in black who performed for presidents and prisoners. Merle Haggards 1969 Okie from Muskogee was regarded as a conservative anthem but he later defended the Dixie Chicks after they condemned George W Bushs invasion of Iraq and recorded a song in support of Hillary Clinton.

During last years presidential election an informal survey conducted by the trade publication Country Aircheck found that 46% of industry professionals supported Trump while 41% favoured Clinton. But unlike Hollywood, most prefer to remain silent, perhaps fearing that any declaration of allegiance risks losing half their audience.

Earlier this month an analysis by BuzzFeed found that of the 87 artists currently on either Billboards Top Country Albums or Hot Country Songs charts, only five Sturgill Simpson, Justin Moore, Chris Janson, Maren Morris and the Brothers Osborne have gone on the record with clear pro or anti-Trump views.

Sitting at the bar at the Red Door Saloon in east Nashville, Clay Johnson, 29, a composer, said: Trump probably got a lot more support from country music artists than hip-hop artists. But there are a lot of liberal artists. It would be wrong to paint them all as conservatives.

Musing on the urban-rural divide, he added: In rural Tennessee youll see people whove lived there and grown up there. In Nashville people tend to come and go like in any city. Its population versus space. Its shitty how one side can dictate how the other side lives because they live different lives. Its the same anywhere. When you live in the city, its different from living on a farm.

At another table as the clock ticked past 1am was Zie Campbell, 25, a freelance illustrator and teacher. Tennessee is a red state, Nashville is not, she said. Its a melting pot, as much of a New York as its going to get down here. This has been very hard for our specific community because we are surrounded by ignorance and bigotry.

In the rural areas theres not a desire to experience anything else. My dad smokes Marlboro Reds, Ill smoke Marlboro Reds. My dad listens to Johnny Cash, Ill listen to Johnny Cash. In the city you dont have that option any more: whether or not you are seeking it, youre forced to see others.

Zie Campbell, an illustrator and teacher in Nashville: This has been very hard for our specific community. We are surrounded by ignorance. Photograph: Jon Morgan for the Guardian

Campbells parents live 220 miles away in Knoxville. Her father voted for Trump but she found Clintons defeat devastating. She continued: I am an example of the exact opposite of my dads opinions. When the sexual harassment allegations against Trump came out, my dad and I had a long conversation. I cried. We decided were not talking politics after that.

If the other side is willing to bomb Dresden, how do you fight that?

How can the rift between urban and rural, between blue and red, be healed? I dont know if there is something to be done, Campbell said. I dont think anyone is trying to sway anyone else. I dont think theres a whole lot of grey area.

Dobie, the media entrepreneur, said: Thats the $64m question. If youre a modern Democrat youre not in the mood to pussyfoot any more, having been subjected to what amounted to the bombing of Dresden in the last election. Trump committed Dresden. No one is in the mood be accommodating or easy.

Were now in a moment when I dont see much room for sitting around the campfire and holding hands. If the other side is willing to bomb Dresden, how do you fight that? You really have to take it to the streets.

Both parties are likely to compete fiercely for what might be described as the country music constituency. Dobie said: Struggling to meet bills, shooting a deer, breaking up with your girlfriend the lyrics of the country song speak the needs, desires and concerns of the conservative folk and thats why its been successful.

Thats the crowd were all talking about. Thats the demographic thats up for grabs in America and Clinton couldnt harness. Trump got the bubbas to the polls; Clinton did not. The bubbas are listening to country music.

Clay Johnson, a composer in Nashville: Its shitty how one side can dictate how the other side lives. Photograph: Jon Morgan for the Guardian

The divisions here are reflected across America, after an election that exposed brutal faultines and the education split among whites was said to be the critical factor.

Nadine Hubbs, a professor of music at the University of Michigan and author of Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music, said: In the US, our cities are places where many of us go to prosper while small towns or exurbs or suburbs are often places where people are left behind.

Nashville and Austin [in Texas] are really good examples of this phenomenon. To bridge the gap there are economic inequalities we need to pay attention to. Often the most unbridgeable gaps are the ones created by contempt for another group: lack of respect and stripping of dignity.

The way people who are prospering look down on folks who are in rural spaces, often associated with country music, creates the kind of divisions that are really hard to bridge.

The elites talk about the need for education of people in rural spaces; well, we know almost nothing about them. The economic and social segregation of the classes is worse maybe than its ever been in our history.

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from Nashville lies at the heart of a divided country: Trump got bubbas to the polls