#Stop pretending anti-Semitism only comes from the right

[lifeisnowx]

To all those who are German or understand German: Listen to the song "Oktober in Europa" by the Antilopen Gang.

It's about anti-Semitism in the left-wing scene. Important and right.

Gute Nacht.

[anthonybialy]

Reviewing Basics About War and Everything Else

Explaining everything gives us a chance to review what’s taken for granted as we help those who never granted access to basic facts in their skulls.  Simple tones aren’t just for first contact with aliens.  Liberals could avoid feeling they’re being condescended to if they started grasping simple notions.  Declaring Israel needed to cease firing at terrorists who certainly won’t respect the honor system serves as yet another failed test.

Defining what war is may help those confused about which side to back.  We all agree it is very bad.  The rather unpleasant state involves explosions that may damage more than hearing.  People who end up dead and stuff that ends up broken.  The only thing worse may be not fighting one on account of how the diabolical other side may continue to wage it.  

World War III’s Axis fans don’t notice the corpses that spurred a righteous response.  Oh: it’s like inflation.  Missing steps like the Underpants Gnomes is essentially their doctrine. The difference is that liberals don’t end up discovering how commerce works.

It’s mean to make residents leave.  Tacit or active Hamas allies avoid encountering a reason Israel got bossy.  The evictors don’t need to root out the human demons who want to prevent their continued existence or anything.  Pondering why there’s an evacuation might lead to the end of sanctimony, and feeling superior is how liberals fuel themselves.  Their solar panels don’t work.

Time moving forward may seem restraining.  But at least noticing there’s only one direction allows for knowing which events happen first.  Take noticing just when a war began, which we call the Pearl Harbor factor.  For Earth’s present major conflict, recall just which side flew in to a music festival on a contraption too primitive for Mad Max and slaughtered everyone they could for the crime of not eating bacon for the wrong reason.

Locating terrorists before they go on another serial killing rampage through your streets might just be a legitimate reason for displacement.  I’m sorry for the disruption.  Finding something to drink requires excessive effort for some right not.  But primary victims will never have water or anything else again.  The Hamas Mutual Aid Society is stingy with Evian.

Determining who started this is a distinction that’s as important as it is easy.  Even amateur conflict detectives can uncover the most crucial aspect with minimal scrutiny.  There shouldn’t be any worry about something so obvious to spot, yet the answer eludes the self-proclaimed smartest amongst us.

Ask if one side turned water pipes into rockets.  The weapon of primitive losers who don’t even use protractors to aim is acceptable to fiends who want to kill anyone they might hit.  Condemning practices that are savage in every way shouldn’t be this hard.

Board the tour bus at any stop.  Noticing where the loop starts is too difficult to grasp for phonily high-minded types who cherish chances to condemn the cycle of violence without noting where said cycle began.  

Liberals never follow consequences, which explains why they’re liberals.  Grasping what comes next is for soothsayers.  The most sophisticated analysts believe in rationality and not magic about predicting tomorrow, which is why they’re always shocked when printing money doesn’t cure poverty.  

Pondering just why Israel is fighting would mean acknowledging a certain religion maintains a terror problem.  College professors reflexively thought that means Judaism.  Attacking civilization charms those living far away while benefiting from cushy protections.  Total non-anti-Semites are suspiciously eager to harvest grievances against a country that seems like America in its decadent love for gun rights and true tolerance.

Foes of the only place they’d want to live in the Middle East adore making up tales.  Pretending a rather broad-minded nation is a group of seething Islamophobic colonialists on occupied land who run their own open-air concentration camps doesn’t conform with reality, but that’s never stopped Democrats from maintaining their beliefs.

Leftists figure Israel must be the violators if they can win wars.  Equating strength with violation is as foolish as Donald Trump declaring power is all that matters.  They surely enjoy thinking on his terms.  They also don’t grasp how bearing arms allows the virtuous to outmuscle fiends if you’re seeking consistency.

The only debate is whether they’re unaware or familiar.  The result is the same, so figuring out why one of the two sides opposes the most just war possible is academic.  Condemning the republic fighting back against terrorism makes it seem as if the conflict is simply a matter of sadism.

Good guys try their hardest, which is the one time villains’ apologists aren’t into appeasement.  Israel is already at an infinitely higher standard for protecting the innocent, and the entity fighting to continue existing is still never good enough for liberals preening like it’s a serious Steven Spielberg movie.  Stick to special effects.

You simply can’t start a binge on season four.  Confused viewers are missing important context.  Don’t they wonder how characters got to the present situation?  Liberals don’t grasp drama or anything else.  Trying to explain what’s happening to the clueless means nobody can follow, which they sickly seem to enjoy.  The inattentive sure seem to enjoy others being as oblivious.

[hjellacott]

What trans women, feminists and Jews all have in common.

A/N: I originally wrote this as a response to a reblog, but then I realised it's perhaps the most important post I've ever written, and I know it's very long, but I hope that you, whoever you are, will read it. That's why I wanted to give it a voice of its own, shortening it a tad. This post discusses, in a kind, friendly and polite manner the whole fight between trans and feminists, the debate about Hogwarts Legacy and the problems of anti-semitism and transphobia. And it does so lovingly, and without an aim to brainwash, hurt or offend. So please, if you have ten minutes, please do read. Whoever you are. Thank you.

----

1. FIRST LET ME TELL YOU WHO I AM, SO THAT YOU KNOW THE KIND OF PERSON YOU'RE READING FROM.

I am very much sick of the fights between people who at the bottom, all just want to feel safe, and I am very much sick of the lack of actual polite conversation between us. I come from a Jewish background, from Sephardic Jews (meaning ethnically Jews, which makes me ethnically a Jew both in my maternal and paternal lines), but I also come from a city that has historically been Roman, Iberian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Arabs, Visigoth, Phoenician, Tarshish and many more, which means I am aware that I am only alive because my ancestors mixed with people very different from them, and repeatedly survived persecution because their religion and/or civilization wasn't the "right one" to stay alive in depending on the historical time. My Jewish ancestors were likely prosecuted to such an extent, and not even that long ago, but during World War II, that they hid and pretended to be Catholics and kept quiet to save their lives. And then there's the fact that I'm bisexual, and whenever I've been in a same sex relationship (one of which lasted me several years) I had to hide, keep it quiet, and keep it a tight-lipped secret because I knew even on this day and age a lot of my loved-ones wouldn't understand, not because they're right-wingers (which they're not), but for other reasons. And I'm saying all of this because I want it to be understood that I know what it is like to be persecuted because of who you are and to never feel entirely safe. I never even felt I could hold my girlfriend's hand in public without receiving some kind of backlash. I never even dared to go into a LGBT march without wearing something to conceal my identity. And on top of things, I'm a woman, and I've never, ever in the decades I've been in this world, in no city I've ever visited, felt safe to be alone out in the street at night. I know I'm talking a lot, and I'm sorry, and I know you'all just want to shout terf, antisemitic and transphobe at me and stop reading, but I beg you to keep reading, even if it's long, because I'm hopeful that we can finally reach some kind of understanding.

Let's forget what divides us. What unites us is that we all feel unsafe. We all, women, gays, trans people, POC people, Jews, we all feel like just because there's something about us that we can't change, we're more likely to die than anyone else. To be raped, beaten-up, abducted and taken from the face of the Earth, just because of who we are.

So what I'm saying is, you're afraid? I understand. So am I. Too afraid to walk alone at night, too afraid to date anyone who isn't a friend of a friend (therefore pre-approved), too afraid to go around in my real life outside the internet telling people how multi-ethnicity I am, simply afraid. All of the time.

I am a fairly cultured person. I'm not the kind of person who simply goes online, believes whatever without evidence, and on and on. I am the kind of person with several higher education certificates, with studies both locally and abroad, the world-traveller, the ferocious reader, the one who reads all the news every day (Spanish, English and French) in several newspapers both right wing and left wing so that in the end I have all sides of the story, I come from a well-educated and very humble family, and I am not someone who blindly decided to support J. K. Rowling. I was horrified when I read the first people saying she was transphobic. But hey, I'm the kind of person who, if I disagree with someone, I read them to bits, because I want to know exactly what they think and why, and why I think differently, and I know that's not something a lot of the people you read do. And I'm in the arts, so half my friends are gay, another are trans, and a very small minority are straight and cisgender, so I promise you, that if I had any sincere belief that Rowling went against any minority, I would've been ferociously against her. I would've. And with that aim I set out to read her every tweet, and you know what I found?

She never actually says anything wrong about transgender people. Never. In fact she doesn't speak against them, she speaks in favour and defense of women and against sexist, violent men. Not against trans people. And I had this conversation with my transgender friends, asking them why they'd gotten offended exactly, and when they looked at Rowling's tweets, you know what they told me? That that wasn't what they'd been told she'd said. Because like many of you, they'd read some rumour in social media, some article in the press, and got so angry they never bothered to actually read what she'd really said, in their context (meaning, following the Twitter conversations and everything, not isolated tweets either). But when I showed them? They were baffled. And they understood she wasn't transphobic. It's been years, and I still don't have a friend who does not stand with J. K. Rowling. And that, listen, that includes Jews, trans, gays, lesbians, and so on, because like I said, I work in the Arts, which as you know is one of the most diverse collectives. And another thing that I noticed was how much had been lost in translation. English is not my first language, but as you can see I mostly manage all right. But when I read translations into Spanish and French, they missed so much about what Rowling had really said, and twisted so much. So let me give you a brief summary of what she actually believes:

2. LET'S DELVE DEEP INTO ROWLING'S ACTUAL WORDS.

Sex is real. If you're born with female or male sex that cannot change. We know this to be scientifically and medically true, which is why when you have surgery to transition, for which a friend of mine is preparing right now, you need to have lots of hormonal medications to try and keep your body behaving as the gender you identify with and against your sex, and the minute you stop, your body will naturally begin behaving like your sex again. And this doesn't change even if you have surgeries, this is for life. If you don't believe me, simply check medical websites, I promise you this is true.

It is dangerous to have transgender women who have not undergone a physical transition in the same private spaces as women. I know this point is very contentious, but before you get angry, hear me out. This is not because anyone thinks transgender people are dangerous. This is because men have proven to be dangerous. What's more common, for a man to rape a woman, or for a woman to rape a man? how often do you hear of women who were murdered by their male exes or even partners, or relatives? I mean, I've gone to several of those funerals and vigils for women and girls killed like that. So the idea behind not wanting trans women and women to share spaces where trans women might have it easier to rape women is that perhaps those trans women, if they haven't physically transitioned, still have the physical advantages of the male sex: more strength, bigger body, and a penis. Imagine my shock if I was getting naked in my prison cell and then I found a person physically stronger and bigger than me, with a dick, naked next to me, in a perfect opportunity to rape me. Would I call them a trans woman? No. But they would call themselves that, and use it to get into that space. That's why Scotland had to backpedal in their laws allowing people to identify themselves as trans women and go into female prisons, because they had several cases in which this resulted in women being raped by trans women, or by people who claimed to be. Because as we all know. plenty of men who are sexual predators will identify as women not just to have access to women, but to have access to transgender women as well, and rape them, and kill them. So it appears that in order to keep trans women and women safe from male predators, we need to make sure that no one with biological advantages of men can share private spaces with them. And if this means having a separate prison for people with the physical built, strength and sexual organs of men, so that they cannot predate on anyone, I vote we do it.

Women won't wheesht. This refers to the fact that achieving rights for someone shouldn't mean removing them for someone else. So in order to give transgender people rights, we cannot take them from another collective, in this case, women. If women are shouting they're terrified of being raped and killed, we need to listen. It is a disrespect, a sexist, female-erasing, cruel thing to do, to ignore them and force them to accept sharing spaces they don't want to share with anyone else. And the only thing that imposing transgender women in their spaces is going to cause is what's happening now: violence, harassment, and an imposibility to have peaceful conversations, not to mention an immediate dislike and fear of transgender women. So instead of achieving transgender rights by harassing someone else, we need to give them their own things. For example, say you have a sibling and you want their room, right? well, harassing them into letting them share it is not going to work. You'll never again get along with your sibling. But asking your parents to build you your own bedroom will keep both sides happy. That's what Rowling and people like me believe in. That fine, if you don't feel safe sharing spaces with people with a dick because you don't want to be raped and murdered, hey, neither do we. So why don't we respect each other's fears and safety wishes and each have our own spaces? And then we can all feel safe around people exactly like us.

Transgender CHILDREN shouldn't be able to go through life changing, irreversible surgeries to remove their sexual organs without plenty of check-ups with doctors and psychiatrists or psychologists who can make sure the child fully understands the risks. This is due to the avalanche of feedback we have from detransitioners who spoke up about having been brainwashed, having given "informed" consent that wasn't actually very well informed, and having deeply regretted surgeries they did without really knowing what was going to happen, and that have now caused them chronic pain that cannot be cured and irreversible physical, mental and emotional damage.

That's all Rowling has said. Nothing against transgender people. She's only worried about the safety of children and women. Period. And I can tell you that with my hand on my heart because I have read her every tweet, and I have also read her open letter against cancel culture, and plenty of articles on the matter.

3. LET'S TALK ABOUT JEWS.

Now about the Jewish thing. Rowling is NOT an anti-Semitic. The first person who called her anti-Semitic was a Jewish man called Jon Stewart, who did so jokingly, and who was immediatelly appalled by the harassment Rowling received from people that took him seriously, forcing not just him, but also multiple Jewish celebrities, Jewish organisations and Jewish charities, to speak up in support of J. K. Rowling and publicly state that they don't believe she's anti-Semitic.

I bet you've only been reading from people who think like you. Many of you, the second you've heard something you didn't like, shut the other person out, called them insults and names, labelled them as Terfs, transphones and anti-Semites, and refused to listen. And if you never hear the people you disagree with, you're never going to hear anything but validity, even if your ideas are insane. Like the flat-Earthers. And all you've been reading from Rowling have been things taken out of context, or told to you by someone else. Do your people ever encourage you to read extract from the source? no. Do they ever show you receipts? only if they've been carefully trimmed.

But people have agendas, you know? That's what happened with Nazism. So you get a collective of Trans Radical Activists, radicals who might not even be actually trans, but know that if they fight women, people like Rowling, and put enough pressure in the governments, they can make laws change so that men, not trans women, but men pretending to be trans women, have easy access to rape women and trans women. Think about it. Wouldn't it be incredibly smart for alt-right men to infiltrate the Transgender activism to start violent fights against women, calling them cunts, telling them to kill themselves, and telling them to suck dick, making women the bad guys, convincing trans people that women are out to get them and to kill them, and getting lawmakers to make laws that allow anyone to simply say they're women and go into female prisons or lockers? Hold on. That's exactly what's happened. I don't believe for a second that the TRAs are all transgender. I believe many of them are alt-right men. And you'll identify them easily by their sexist, violent behaviour and speech, and their whole discourse against women and claims that women like Rowling actively threaten trans people's rights, when none of it is true.

So now say the TRAs, who want women to have less rights and men to have more, and who want to easily be able, as men, to infiltrate spaces that were previously private to women, so that they can no longer have their own spaces, find something else that gets people furious towards their enemy. Rowling has stood against alt-right men her whole life. Naturally, when they saw someone call her anti-Semite, they jumped into that waggon. Another opportunity to get someone cancelled. To demonise a defender of women, until there's none left. So that's what they did. They called her anti-Semite, came up with the whole BS about the goblins, made lots of things up, took more stuff out of context. And because they were in the trans collective, aka, "the good guys", the perceived victims, people have been far more inclined to believe them, to listen to them, and to be compassionate to them. But let me tell you, if these men are allowed into female spaces, and actual trans women find themselves in those spaces with them, they'll be in as much danger as any other woman, if not more.

Now you probably think we're crazy and paranoid. Question. Is the transgender collective telling you that? and if so, isn't it a little suspicious that someone wants to convince you that someone else is being paranoid? that they're out to get you? Because that's what they're doing. Me? Rowling didn't convince me. Nobody had to. I just had to read the news, like I told you I do all the time, and see all of this coming true. See women being repeatedly harassed, sexually and physically, threatened, often by men, far-right men who are strangely, suddenly, very interested in trans rights (isn't that also suspicious?), and seeing all the news and personal stories around me of women being raped because a man was allowed to identify as a trans woman and put into their space, where they had freedom to rape and murder. This is out in the news. The real news. And it's happening all over the place, which tells you I'm not being paranoid or dellusional, I'm telling you what's going on.

This is how Nazism worked as well. It started with Nazis who wanted a kind of economical power that at the time was in the hands of Jews. Do you remember when people tell you immigrants take jobs! women are transphobic! black people are criminals! All that is classic far-right speech. And it's all studied in the Nazi propaganda techniques, which had been long studied and employed by all politicians across the globe. What you do is identify one minority you can blame for current problems, and turn the world against them, in such way that the public doesn't realise all you're doing, supposedly to erase the problem, that is actually just to make you more powerful. The Nazis decided Jews shouldn't be having so many businesses and thriving economy, so they demonised them, said they were greedy, thieves, the inferior race, less good than aryan people, criminals, that they didn't deserve to live. The Nazi was a legal party that was elected to remove the problem, much like Trump was elected to end the problem of the immigrants and the POC. And legally, Hitler got his people to vote for him to have more and more power, until he could rule the world, on the basis that he'd do it to rid them of the Jews. Only that then he didn't stop with the Jews. He went after "traitors", after gypsies, after LGBT, after POC, and so on. And they took or burned art and books along the way.

So now think again of who's supporting Hitler-like conducts. I'm not supporting anyone who's telling me not to listen to opposing opinions, who's telling me to spread a message of threats, harassment and sexual insults, nor who's telling me to burn books, culture, and cancel, silence, erase, eliminate anyone who has an opinion other than mine. You are. And that's what's Hitler-like. That's what's fucking dangerous, and a threat to freedom of speech, to democracy.

Going back to the bloody videogame. You know why they call it anti-Semitic or blood libel? first was with the goblins. Now that speech seems to have died down because we're pointing out that seeing goblins as Jews is more Nazi-like, than non-Nazi. That they're simply folklore. So now they shut up about that. Now they tell you that the Avalanche developers (that's the company behind Hogwarts Legacy) are anti-Semites. That's based on the fact that an alt-right, Troy Leavitt, was the lead designer of Hogwarts Legacy. Well, you've been pleased to know he's lost his job now, and also, that Avalanche is full of normal people just like us, and that the alt-right was a minority. This guy, perhaps one or two more we're yet to know about, which, given the amount of alt-right worldwide, it's safe to say that every big company has at least a small amount of alt-right employees or even bosses.

But it takes thousands of people to make a videogame as big as Hogwarts Legacy, and just because two or three are alt-right, it doesn't make the game anti-Semitic. We're taking the game from them. We're making it ours. And personally, I've been playing for a few days now, and there's nothing even remotely far-right or anti-Semitic. Any war game I've ever played is far more anti-Semitic and racist and sexist than this one will ever be.

And in any case, before you go like dumb sheep simply believing what people say, I encourage you to make your own informed opinions. Don't be lazy. Empty your brain from judgement and make your own research. Be like scientists. But believing whatever BS you hear from people who've never played the game about said game, from people who've never read Potter about Potter, and so on... That is such a stupid thing to do. Such a brainwashing. You don't believe someone can cure you if they don't show you a CV and reputation as great doctors, so why do you believe a word from people who haven't even researched the thing they criticise, on their own, not through other's comments and ideas?

But hold on! Don't just take my word for it. Don't just believe me. Please, do research. It's time-consuming, but you're going to want to read the news, who are TRAs, their links to the alt-right, Rowling's actual tweets, who Troy Leavitt is, what Avalanche Software is, and you're going to want to read the news about female violence, legal changes, and detransitioners, and a horrible thing called transmaxxing, which will really open your eyes. I won't tell you to burn books. I'll tell you to open books, newspapers, everything... And get really informed. Knowledge is power.

[crazyintheeast]

1. You didn’t block me. If I can still see your account and send you messages, I’m not blocked.

2. I don’t think you actually know what Zionism is if you believe anything you’re saying is legit. Which is why I’m willing to educate you. Because if you keep going around saying Zionism is bad when you’re misusing the term, the only thing that’s going to happen is every Jewish person around you will start to believe you’re not on their side and that you can’t be trusted. Everything happening in Israel right now is NOT what Zionism means. You’re using the Russian propagandist definition of the word, which is (again) why I even commented on your post in the first place. You’ve been lied to and I’m trying to help you not make a fool out of yourself.

3. I do not know how many times I need to explain to you that calling Jewish people Nazis is deeply antisemitic. And if you don’t think you’ve been doing that, that is the problem I’m trying to fix. Zionism is not akin to Nazism. Zionism has nothing to do with this war. And the country of Israel is not supportive of what Netanyahu is doing.

You’re using misinformation Russian trolls fed you and I’m willing to educate you so you can correct your mistake and not be unintentionally antisemitic. I am not trying to advocate against helping the Palestinian people, or denying that atrocities aren’t being committed.

What’s the worst that can happen if you actually have a discussion with me?

Nope you are definitely blocked

2. Again your justifications of genocide showed what a monster you are . You can’t spin it away no matter how much you try .

3. Again stop trying to use Jewish people as a shield . This is a truly disgusting tactic . Jewish people do not represent the genocidal zionist monsters anymore then Christians represent the KKK or atheists represent Stalin’s atrocities . If comparing to Nazis is anti semitic then you should be even more enraged over the fact that they are acting like Nazis . Tell you what . Come back after the next election in Israel . If that monster is taken down from power , put in prison alongside the thousands of IDF monsters who commit I will believe you . But considering you already defending the genocide I doubt your words

Well I have a bachelors degree in political science , follow multiple news stories and independent international organisations and I can actually use my own eyes to see the literal genocide happening in real time meanwhile you are parroting zionist propaganda and defending the genocide … so yeah you don’t strike me as very informed . You strike me like the average Nazi during WW2 who parroted Hitlers propaganda and constantly went on about how every criticism against the Reich is just enemy propaganda

You literally did . You gave some vague “yeah a few bad things “ but you immediately went on about how the genocide is a lie

Again I gave you two chances and you ignored me and told me the only you will stop is if I block you and now you are playing the victim and pretending to be oh so reasonable ( while still defending genocide ).

But hey tell you what . Admit publicly that Israel is committing genocide , demand that your entire government is arrested as well as any soldier who had active role in the genocide and deman that they are tried at a Nuremberg type of trial and I will unblock you

[progressivejudaism]

I want to share with you an exchange that I had with a Messianic “Rabbi.”  If you are not Jewish, I especially suggest skimming this.

Hi friends,

Rabbi Josh here (he/him) with an installment of “let’s learn why Messianic ‘Judaism’ is problematic and dangerous.” 

Last week, I contacted an organization that calls themselves the “Jewish Voice Ministries” - an Evangelical Christian, far-right group cosplaying as Jews with the goal of using humanitarian work to convert as many Jews as possible to their ministry.   You can learn more about their “white saviorist” message that they use as a cover for their three major goals - which conflict with each other; the first two being the goal to convert Jews, while the third being to support Jews and the State of Israel.  (Hot take- one cannot simultaneously want to eradicate Jews and Judaism; while also supporting Jews and the State of Israel.)

I’ve included both screen shots of the respones and my own commentary below.

I would love to hear your compassionate thoughts on this organization and this figure in reblogs and comments.  All antisemitic, racist, and otherwise inappropriate responses will result in a ban from the PJBlog.

I sent the following message to the organization, hoping for answers to why they do what they do:

Hi there, I’m a little confused regarding your messaging here. Why are you identifying as Jews but yet preaching about Christian theology? As I’m sure that you’re aware, this is a classic antisemitic trope that is not okay. I’m a rabbi with now ten years of academic schooling. I would absolutely love to come to your Church and teach about how to be a better friend to the Jewish People. Please let me know how I can support you on your journey to eliminating antisemitic and bigotry aimed at Jews. L’shalom, Rabbi Josh

A “Messianic Rabbi” responded to this message.  Instead of directly replying to this figure only to get into an ethical stalemate, I would like to use this as a learning opportunity for all of us.  (See this to better understand why the title in quotes)

Below I have provided their responses to my inquiry, to which I will include my own commentary so we can unpack and learn how problematic “Jewish Voice Ministries” and “Messianic Judaism” is and how these kinds of Evangelical Groups effect our safety as Jews:

Shalom Rabbi Josh,

Thank you so much for writing and reaching out to us; it’s a blessing to hear from you. [Jews rarely use “it’s a blessing” in our correspondence.  Unless using Hebrew, culturally I’ve never seen it, especially from Jewish clergy. Similarly, very few Jews in my experience begin emails with “shalom.”  It feels like they’re trying to prove something.]

I appreciate your question and comments and will be happy to reply to them.

We identify as Jews because many on our staff, including myself and Rabbi Jonathan Bernis, are Jews. [This is inappropriate.  Just because a few staff members are Jewish, does not mean that you are a Jewish organization. ESPECIALLY if said staff members have chosen to live life as a Christian -- and thus become a Jewish Apostate.  As an example, should the US Senate identify as Jews because Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, and Jackie Rosen are three of eight Jewish members? No, the answer is no.]

The theology we preach, is Biblical Jewish theology, which was later adopted (and in many cases, unfortunately twisted), by Christianity. [“Biblical Jewish theology” can no longer be practiced. Biblical Jewish life centered around the Temple.  And we have no Temple.  The line of ordained Koheinim (ritual priests) has ended.  And even if we as Jews all collectively agreed and decided to actually build a Third Temple in Jerusalem, we can’t due to political, social, and ethical tensions with Palestinians, Jordanians, and our Muslim siblings - we cannot *just* build the Temple again. Read more here.]

Interestingly, to this day, many in Christianity do not realize that the foundation of their beliefs, is from Judaism. [This is an interesting way to say that "Messianic Judaism” was formed by Evangelical Christians in the 1970s, and use that theology with some Jewish language to pretend to be Jews!  More here.]  And while there has been much in Christian theological teaching that fits the pattern of antisemitic tropes, such is a reflection on the errors of such churches, and not on the very sound Jewish theology we teach and espouse. [This also is frankly not true. Their entire goal is to convert Jews and eradicate Judaism.  There is a long history of Christians attempting to do this-- with the most famous being during the Inquisition where Jews were forced to “convert or die.”  This is the definition of antisemitic theology.  And they are not the only group preaching this harmful theology.  Read more here.]

We appreciate that you would love to come to our church, and we would be honored to host you, were it not for the fact that we do not have a church. [Well if this isn’t a Church, whatever they preach about is certainly not recognized as Judaism by any major Jewish organization. See here for rabbinic responses to the movement. ] Indeed, Rabbi Jonathan and myself do what we've been doing since childhood, and attend Shul on Shabbat. [It was an interesting and non-inclusive choice to use Ashkenormative language here. And that said, while it is true that they might have attended a synagogue as a child, what they are doing now is certainly not Judaism.  For more information about differences between Jews and Christians, see this article on Bible interpretation.]

And while some of our employees are Gentile and do attend churches, such churches are those which understand and uphold the importance of blessing Israel, which includes standing with Israel against anti-Semitism [This is code for “Anti-Israel” sentiment, which is often code for equalizing any critique against far-right leaders in the Knesset to antisemitism.  One could always critique Israel without being antisemitic.  And conflating all critique of Israel as antisemitism is extremely dangerous.  Also, the term “anti-semitism” is not correct with the dash.  Read more here.] and helping raise awareness that (when it comes to ongoing conflicts with Hamas), Israel is not committing genocide, is not an apartheid nation, is not occupying supposed "Palestinian" territory, and any Christian who is truly following what their religion teaches, would and should be appalled by the efforts of the BDS Movement, and folks like Bernie Sanders, who - up until recently - was intent on stopping a $735 million arms sale to Israel, so that the nation could purchase more iron domes from us, to continue to protect the innocent citizens who simply, as you know, just want to live in peace. [I am fascinated by this chunk.  Firstly, I want to identify the clear and obvious antisemitism here in naming Bernie Sanders as an enemy of the State of Israel while using a financial figure to prove how “bad” he is for the State of Israel.  Secondly, it’s fascinating that this “rabbi” chose to lay out all that he preaches about Israel in such a broad way - most likely to make me “feel better” about his stances.  He knows how scared so many Jews are about their movement, and made MASSIVE assumptions about my politics, using poorly written talking points that really do not mean much, and frankly some that are wrong.  As an example, the US does not sell “iron domes” to Israel (not in the plural, or in the present tense).  The US helped to create the Iron Dome System (singular, past tense) which protects innocent civilians in Israel from rocket fire often from Hamas.  The system is singular, and the US helps to maintain said system.  I point out this small thing here because, it is a very clear example of how ignorant this individual is of the real challenges that Israelis and Palestinians, and Jews and Palestinians in the diaspora, face.]

I can tell you though, I do know of a number of churches that would benefit from what you desire to teach. Especially those which erroneously blame our people as the sole purveyors of Deicide. [This is a fascinating way to attempt to emotionally spin this conversation.  (Deicide is the false claim that the Jews killed Jesus, as poorly understood from the Book of Matthew).  Instead of recognizing his own harm in being a part of a system that for now nearly 1700 years has attempted to convert Jews in order to eradicate Judaism, he is focused on something that most Christians *already* agree on.  As an example, this was formally adapted in the Catholic Church in the mid-60s.] 

They would learn much from you, dear friend. [This is a rhetorical tactic designed to make us equal- so that they can continue to preach harmful things about Jews, Palestinians, and the State of Israel.]  And if you need me to suggest some to you, just email me back; I'd be happy to do so.      

Thank you again for writing; I wish you well in your continued spiritual journey as a fellow Rabbi. [See comment above.]

B”H  [Another interesting move.  In my experience, mainly Orthodox and few Conservative rabbis will use this “Baruch Hashem” (Blessed is God) in a meaningful way in correspondence.]

Jack

I really want this to be a learning experience for us all- including me.  I am really curious what you learned from this exchange.  How might you have spoken to this figure?  What did you learn about the movement from this small interaction?  (Also check out their website on incognito mode to learn more)

So what did I learn from this experience?  This organization cares about pushing a particular right-wing and particularly dangerous narrative about Israel rather than actually helping Jews, or frankly helping people on their missions.

From this experience, what do I feel is the most dangerous part of this organization?  In claiming to be the “Jewish Voice,” they are silencing *actual* Jewish voices in the process.  If you cared about Jews, you would learn the history of antisemitism (i.e. do your homework), not pretend to be Jews, not seek to perpetuate antisemitism by converting Jews, and you would always raise up Jewish voices (especially Jews of Color, Jews with disabilities, LGBTQ+ Jews, non-neurotypical Jewry, and Jews-by-Choice).

I hope that you enjoyed learning alongside me with this experience.  I would love to hear your compassionate thoughts below.

[screamingshark]

I read j k Rowling had no input on the new game. Also she replied to that woman once, a pat reply to her tweeting support at her. It’s not that unusual for celebrities or other high follower count people to miss who they are replying to and i can find similar for everyone including good people. Just wanting to be against misinfo because it makes our own side criticizing her for real shit look weaker

I understand where you're coming from with this ask, but I do want to point to the top part of it. It frankly does not matter if she has any input in the game or not (which, considering how white-knuckled she is on every other aspect of Harry Potter, I highly doubt there isn't at least some input coming from her)

The fact remains that this is her universe, her IP, and the game is entirely based on it. She is 100% responsible for this depiction of Goblins and how heavily it leans on anti-semitism, how house-elves are a glorification of slavery cause they "love being slaves", the werewolves being AIDS/HIV metaphors like there is just so much nasty stuff in there that is impossible to ignore once you see it.

So, sure, she has "no-input", but even if that is true, its still a deeply messed up premise to focus a game on! They could have literally made that game a hogwarts simulator and people would have eaten it up but no, it's about a Goblin rebellion that you have to oppress. You have to put Goblins back in their place, like come on!?

To address the rest of your ask - you are denying that JK Rowling doesn't know exactly what she is doing. If that tweet had been at some random individual then sure, it may have been a misfire, but this is a campaign director for a huge conservative advocacy group. (I'm assuming you are talking about the tweet to Caroline Farrow as you did not specify)

I found that tweet on her twitter, it's still there despite the number of people rightfully calling her out for supporting a homophobic nightmare like Caroline Farrow so i'm wondering what you mean by misinformation? Is it misinformation to call her homophobic? Is it misinfo because you think she "may have been mistaken"? I'm confused because when I look at this tweet I see JK Rowling thanking a homophobe and it falls in line with her actions considering she just recently went off on the south wales police LGBT+ Network doing outreach after an incredibly violent homophobic murder happened.

I think it's time we stopped pretending that this ends at Transphobia. While it plays a huge role in her deranged tweet-fests it is very much not the only thing she condemns. JK Rowling is a right wing conservative dream. She has the admirations of millions despite being a homophobic, transphobic, anti-semitic, racist drone of a woman. She makes billions of dollars off liberal millennials who "can't bare to let go of their precious comfort books/merchandise/theme park visits/movies" and she uses that money to fund laws that ruin peoples lives.

Hmm, I went on a bit of a ramble but if anything I just said proves to be "misinfo" as you say then I will apologize and delete anything that is misinformation.

TLDR: As it stands, it is not misinfomation to call her out for these things. She is responsible for the game regardless of input and i don't feel it's misinformation to call her a homophobic, transphobic, racist anti-semite based on her tweets and the books she has written/responded to.

[mithliya]

I never understand where the bottom line is for some radfems. There are easy tells when someone is going to be a dumpster fire of a human being. The first is acting shocked we don't encourage neoliberal economic representation bc a woman in power under today's standards relies on the exploitation of other women for her own financial independence. Women with center or right political views are first comfortable voicing their disagreement with us over radical feminism's Marxist views. The next tell is when they lament the visibility of lesbians as taking something away from them. Apostle-of-sappho started drama with lesbians everyone who wasn't a lesbian overlooked, then pretended to care when she spouted off racism. Same for Girlsfrommars and her xenophobia. The next tell is when they disavow intersex women with XY chromosomes. Deny their womanhood or experience of misogyny. Lie about Caster Semenya's upbringing or diagnosis. The GC conservatives on Ovarit were obsessed with their own conspiracies and took it out on other intersex women. The anti-semitism and racism follow once the waters were tested with an unpopular view and discrimination against other women they got away with. Rad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know hit almost all these notes immediately and I wondered if she wasn't Rad-and-I-dont-stop. Most of us are old enough to know the difference between someone who needs more information to unlearn their biases and someone expressing prejudice. We don't have to keep giving these women the benefit of the doubt! A lot of us had rad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know blocked but blocking someone doesn't stop the spread of their platform. We have to point out to others the reasons we aren't interacting with the post and it's not because we're witch hunting and censoring like the tras. We know what the person is talking about. We know who the user is. We are opposed for real reasons not suspicions which exist only in our minds.

“blocking someone doesn't stop the spread of their platform”

exactly this likeeee do we all just silently block and ignore TRAs? no, we engage with them and their arguments and show how they’re wrong so we can get somewhere. but i feel like the general attitude here when it comes to racism, homophobia, and so on from “radfems” is to just ignore or block which does absolutely nothing to combat them or make them or others like them feel unwelcome on the basis of their beliefs in rfeminism. it’s baffling to me that rad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know was openly racist for months, she was very openly deranged in a Bad Way and morally questionable for probably years and people only cared when it turned out she was lying about her financial situation to emotionally manipulate other women into giving their money… like as bad as that is, we could’ve probably put a stop to her exploitation early had people cared about her being shitty in other ways. and i hate to sound like a broken record, but no woc is given this kind of lenience. when i was 20/21 and asked for help on 3 diff occasions bc i was in an abusive relationship where i was literally being stolen from, people harassed me for months. the money i got was from mutuals i largely paid back or gave something in return to, and randos that hated me for prejudice-related reasons still harassed me instantly. suddenly i baselessly became a rich woman living in a gated community with several servants and w/e else instead of a middle class student living in the UK and broke because of being stolen from, and thus required a small amount of money to buy a meal on 2 occasions and meds on 1 occasion. people invented lies about my social class and my living situation as a student living alone in a foreign country. but this woman has been e-begging since 2016 when she was in her own family home as a woman in her 30s and no one cared for yearsss until she started lashing out at others and threatening w suicide!! it bothers me that white women are obviously sympathised with and given more benefit of the doubt than woc can ever imagine to have on here.

[baeddel]

@dialectrician replying to this post

1. this is what Zizek means when he says that “their apparent ‘objectivism’ is the form of appearance of its opposite, the thorough subjectivism.” Yes, we “dare to say ‘my worldview is objectively correct, and theirs is wrong and both are irreconciliable’ “, in other words, I have my opinion and you have yours. Zizek’s point is that which of us was objectively correct cannot be known in advance. You make your argument, I make mine, and we’ll never really know who’s right until it’s too late.

So yes, we have to lay down our chips, declare our bet, and act on the principles we believe in. All of this is not troubling. You pull a bit of a fast one however when you then go on to say that the views of the Republicans were irreconcilable with their Monarchist enemies. They probably disagreed on matters of governance, but this isn’t what brought people into the street and made them take up arms; that was class struggle, which is neither an argument nor a belief. Our subjective views on what is objectively true could be reconciled in principle, our class interests can’t be. But what those ‘objective’ interests are cannot be known in advance because neither the interests nor the interested class even exist until they articulate themselves in class struggle.

2. “... in cases where religion comes into unsolvable conflict with the secular worldview, for example in matter of law, education, healthcare, which should we choose, religion or secularism? Secularism of course.” What you say here isn’t found in Marx or Lenin but in Maimonides.

By now we’re using ‘secularism’ the same way fundamentalists do, where even medicine can be ‘secularized’, when in fact it has never been a religious institution. Religious communists aren’t trying to replace vaccinations with faith healing. If the argument is only that medical discourse should make use of the scientific method then we can all stop arguing. But I think our friends have a bit more in mind when they argue for the return of a left anti-clericalism.

3. “Basically I don’t think [antisemitism etc. is] really a failure mode of anti-religious politics because I think it’s orthogonal to religious politics. Antisemitism in the Soviet Union wasn’t out of principled anti-theism so the opinion on religion of the Bolshevik didn’t cause Soviet antisemitism.” I think this is just our biggest disagreement & the reason that most people who talk about this are talking past each other. Anti-theism didn’t cause anti-semitism, but it also isn’t adequate to the problem of anti-semitism. The movement against theism just doesn’t seem to have the answers. You can’t have a line on religion and then, separately, a line on antisemitism. Judaism is a religion, and Jews are oppressed for being Jews. Anti-religious leftists would like to domesticate the Jewish question to the national question, subtract ‘religion’ from ‘ethno-religion’, and pretend the situation is no different to Northern Ireland or Cyprus. I just don’t buy this.

[docholligay]

Doc Loves A Series of Unfortunate Events

You should read this book series to your children. Or your nieces and nephews. Neighbor children. 

Do NOT watch the Netflix Series, which I tried VERY hard to like. 

This is one of the few series I know that isn’t even really YA, it’s truly a children’s series, written with very simply prose, and is incredible. 

The prose is simple, as I said, but that does not mean it is in any way boring, or lacking in its own flavor of poetry. The narrator, Lemony Snicket, has an incredible way of telling stories, that is immediately recognizable as its own patter, in the same way that Rod Serling or Stephen King have an easily recognizable style, not something I generally find in children’s stories. 

If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, "Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!

It’s the sort of thing that presents ideas, and themes, and really, very difficult things, to children in a way that is understandable to them without talking down to them. It’s what I think all children’s literature should aspire to be. The narration is funny, but often poignant, and it manages to define terms for children in a way that perfectly falls into the story, without seeming a moment’s out of step:

A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.

A child not knowing what a passport was would then immediately know, without having to stop and ask, without any sort of pause or confusion. It’s done so artfully, so many times within the series, that it becomes almost a joke or a style within itself. 

One of the reasons I love the story is that bad things continually happen to the children in it. It is not a story of being loved, and having triumph. It is a story of never giving up, against impossible odds, when all the world is against you. How great resourcefulness will carry you to the next tragedy, which is also something you can handle. I so rarely see things like this, that truly teach children that life is meant to be fought on, and no matter how young you are, you are completely capable of doing so. It never feels like the children will win, but it never feel like things are hopeless, either. It’s a strangely realistic children’s series, in this way, and I think presenting that level of resilience to children is important, and incredible. 

And it never shys away from using that simple yet elegant prose to highlight difficult things as well, things that I don’t know most children’s books go into. Not only the bad happenings themselves, but the feelings behind it. Death and moral complexity and saving face. The way tragedy has a tendency to worm its way into your heart, and lie there. I always think of this quote: 

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

And this one: 

People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.

And this one okay I am done now: 

When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.

This is all I can say in the way of convincing you to read the books without spoiling anything for you

Spoilery below the cut:

You know what I never saw coming, as a full grown adult reading these books? Lemony Snicket being a character and not simply the author. I don’t know that I know many adult novels that are the particularly clever. And this is part of what I love so well about ASOUE, is that it is uniquely clever among children’s books, while still managing to remain within a child’s wheelhouse, and making good use of a formulaic book style, that allows children to experience the pleasure of getting “the same thing, but different’ which we all look for as adults, really. 

The way it handles grief and misery as given parts of the human experience absolutely floors me. It’s not a blink and you’ll miss it sort of thing, it’s woven through the fabric of the whole series, that the children lose over and over again, and that it absolutely affects them. But losing their parents from the outset doesn’t ruin them, and they don’t need to be rescued (Which is good, because they never are) they are their OWN rescuers. This isn’t a Cinderella story where some wish fulfilment comes out of the gloom. This is about the three of them having to band together, and save themselves. 

I love how the mystery gets deeper and more complicated as you go on, while still having to deal with the threat of Olaf. I love that a great deal of the mysteries are left unsolved, I love that we have no idea what happens to the Baudelaires. I love the sense of uncertainty that weaves itself throughout the piece, the way that it, like life, leaves us to tie up the loose ends. I think it’s such a valuable lesson as well as just a damn good series. 

I’ve talked, from time to time, about how I think this book, written by a Jewish man and stated to be about Jewish children, uses Count Olaf as a stand in for anti-Semitism. It strikes me so powerfully, how they can always recognize him, and how it should be obvious to anyone, but the adults REFUSE to see what it is until he tries to kill them again, ad then of course the adults promise that they will protect the children, again. And that, my friends, is a fucking Jewish-ass mood. Only they can see that the same threat is just now wearing a new disguise, over and over again. 

And that the children, after everything, have another orphan with them, another person that they must carry on, and the story really does not stop but just moves forward, I love that. They will care for Beatrice in a way that they themselves were never cared for. I think The End is a really strange book in a lot of ways, and how I feel about it very often comes down to the day, but I do love that. I love that the children are willing to be the protection they never had, and I think there’s something very winning in that. Despise everything, the children never become the evil that seeks them. I think that’s the most hopeful thing of all, and the most JEWISHLY hopeful thing of all, Not that they will be safe, but that they will be GOOD, against everything.

[milfbro]

ok I need to complain about my grandmother projecting on me for a minute I swear this is just for the emotional catharsis no need to read

My grandma is perpetually trying to buy me off, but it isn't working cause she doesn't know me. And I can't just tell her that, right, cause I'm trying to be polite...

and it sucks because it ends up doing the opposite, with me having to fake that I like the junk from the 70s pretending to be antiques she keeps gifting me, even tho if you take one look at my bedroom you'll see I have no room, or the inclination, for decor. Like my bedroom is a bed, a closet, and a bookshelf that is filled to the absolute brim with books piled on top of each other cause I can't fit them all in. I have no decor that wasn't a gift I didn't want and I can't throw or give away

It ends up with me mentally having to astral project whenever she comes over and it sucks. If she just stopped trying to buy me and talk about all her enemies who conspire against her I know we could get along. She graduated in sociology and physics, we can talk about that! I love to talk about academia it's basically my favourite thing, but noooo she has to say anti-semitic shit about her co-workers and give me a hideous clock with a porcelain ballerina on top because 'girl like pink' and ughhhhhhh I hate that thing. It drives me absolutely nuts. What am I going to do with that? It doesn't even work it ONLY takes up shelf space

or the million cheap jewels that she hasn't noticed I don't wear, because I don't wear jewellery (besides the earrings that I buy myself cause they're gaudy and ridiculous)

or the dresses she gave me that she hasn't noticed I don't wear because I don't wear skirts or dresses

or the heels she gave me that I don't wear cause I CAN'T PHYSICALLY WEAR HEELS EVEN IF I WANTED TO. MY ANKLE HURTS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. PLEASE ACTUALLY TAKE ONE LOOK AT ME BEFORE YOU GIFT ME SOMETHING

Besides, she always starts trying to drag you into her conspiratorial nonsense and suddenly you can't do the things you were planning because she shows up uninvited and she takes up all the time of your day and suddenly it's 8pm and you haven't done anything and you're late with you projects that you actually care about

-

What if I told her I was a trans man even tho I'm not, would she leave me tf alone? If I came out to her as a completely fake LGBT thing would she disown me? please?

I just want her to stop trying to buy my affections with stuff that forces me into a gender identity and expecting me to reciprocate doing work for her for free like some kind of family vending machine

[rametarin]

It’s not a fun position to be in.

I’d like to clarify, again. I’m not an ethnonationalist, ethnoseparatist, white supremacist, or any of those things. I actually quite dislike them. That’s WHY it makes me mad to see overpolicing of white people or whiteness as inherently oppressive and bad, and anybody else as inherently oppressed and good.

They enshrine and put it into words and ideology that white people and other people exist and should exist on two different levels of society, and their preferred solution is to disestablish one as not existing because races and race-culture doesn’t exist, while empowering everybody else, and pretending that’s not hypocrisy. And since they later updated what they define as racism, technically, it no longer is.

You have to understand. When I was coming up in the late 80s/early 90s, the discourse on race was simple: For anyone to consider themselves by their race first, was to be a racist. The highest tier racists were Nazis, the next step beneath them were KKKlansmen, and then loosely affiliated neo-nazis beneath them, then ‘vaguely white supremacist and hostile towards non-English speakers, brown people and Asians’ people that weren’t loud, screaming hate mongerers came next. But, for a person to think of themselves separate or of themselves or their families as a member of an extant community defined by their race and background, was to be a racist. And that was socially taboo/faux pas.

At least, for white people. Of which in the US, they are/were the majority (even today) and the conversation was deliberately just broadbrush to assume it applied to white people by default.

It did not, however, apply to “oppressed minorities,” conveniently. So, if you were black, or your community/heritage didn’t speak English and wasn’t a “white country” (Latin American, basically) you could be as insular and think about the welfare and integrity of your own little microcosm and diasporic ethnostate that you wanted. One need only look at media and entertainment in the 90s geared towards keeping that spirit of separatism in the American black community to see that double standard. But it was justified and defended by, “We need this, we are under threat of racists, klansmen and hostile Southern confederate-sympathetic gentlemen every day of our lives.

And as vaguely progressive people in the 80s and 90s, yeah, we conceded that roaming bands of horrible southern monster-men were probably a thing black, Hispanic, Indigenous North American and Asian people worried about a lot and had to deal with constantly. Since the news made damned sure to publish every single instance of a hate crime against a minority, and later public school would hold special sessions to talk about such a horrible thing.

Always white-on-somebody-else, always seguing into conversations about how prevalent white supremacists and white supremacism, the actual confederate flag and [your choice of specific and purpose made white supremacist club/militia symbol here] used to be, and in many ways, still was.

At the time, common public discourse was not, “the United States is memetically a white supremacist oppressive shithole based on the very culture and roots, it’s just there are a lot of suppressive, hateful, bigoted people, most of them are in the majority demographic, and most of them are male.” The US was not considered, “white supremacist/racist” by default.

And on paper, taking the moral high ground on racism meant implicitly that you hated racial discrimination, in theory, in all forms. That included favoring people for their real or perceived racial background as well as disfavoring. So preferential treatment to hiring practices were as taboo as preferential treatment for hate crimes.

In practice, many of the same Woke Folks that today said one thing but applied it only to reprimend white people, do so today while saying, proudly, “you can’t discriminate or be racist against white people.” But at the time, they feigned, “just hating racists” to ignore any such racism, bigotry or intolerance from any other group towards whites. They might, however, recognize it if, say, black people did a hate crime towards Asians, but they did so begrudgingly. They HATED having to proactively come out and police that as racism and declare it as such, because they wanted the discourse to evolve into, “it’s ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY racism when it’s white-on-others, because ONLY whites can be racist.” But that wouldn’t be for another 25+ years.

Even that stupid, safe, classic, “haha stupid insecure white man; there’s no such thing as Reverse Racism!” line? That’s a save.

Privilege Theory existed back then, you know. it was published in the late 80s, and the radicals had been using it unofficially for decades before then. But it was a radical school and in deep, and only peeked its head out to try and make cultural headway the way radicals try to make anything radical the mainstream. It just so happened that academia at the time and society at large was not willing to accept that permutation to the racism discourse or dialog. “All white people are racist and racism is an intrinsic quality of white people, nobody else can be” was tested, like a spank on the ass.

And it almost blew the illusion. So, they ran damage control and hid for a while, putting out feelers only for those so deep down the rabbithole or so gullible they’d accept that. And they gaslight anybody that experienced dealing with a radical asshole that said shit like that by saying, “oh that’s just Patty. She’s a meaningless extremist and has no power.” Or, “Haha are you really going to take that anecdote as signs progressive people are all like that bro? omg come on. XD.” Or, “You must have misunderstood her. I know how progressivism and anti-racism can seem when you’ve been raised your whole life by society and the media to think white people are by default superior, so any taste of equality feels like you’re being singled out and discriminated against. :^)”

But the fact is, “haha there’s no such thing as ‘reverse racism’“ had two endings. If you mentioned you experienced someone saying, ‘only whites could be racist and nobody else can be,’ you’d hear either:

1.) “lol no. They were just confused. Racism is the discrimination of anybody on the basis of race! So calm down, the established definition applies to all. :^)”

2.) “there’s no such thing as reverse racism, because racism is the phenomenon of the white supremacist power structure lording and oppressing People of Color. You cannot be racist to white people if you are black, Indigenous or Hispanic, because you have no privilege and no centuries worth of oppression. Cry more.”

Way back in the day we’d SEE these glaring contradictions. And in truth? Most of us hated racism, so we stomached the glaring, disjointed bullshit. But, we ALSO grabbed up that anti-racism stick and BEAT the privilege theorist types subversivelyu hijacking the culture over the head with that anti-racism, too. You wanna claim you hate something because it’s, “racist,” AKA, involves race in the cricteria of something at all? FINE. You’re also going to hate affirmative action and when people come down on the side of not-white people specifically because they’re not-white. You will ELIMINATE race from consideration in any aspect of secular modern civic society and private enterprise and protect everybody equally on the basis of being a person. And any instance that is not the case we’ll come down on you with all the heavy handed spite we see and experience of you fuckers coming down on us, showing us off on soap boxes and sacrificing us on the altars of public socialization to shame and belittle us for the bigotry of generations passed.

You want to hit me with that stigma and smear me as some sort of white supremacist because I object to a thing, dismissing my objection and chalking it up to white supremacism? Then by god I’m going to point out the hypocrisy in the supposed “progressive far left” and their tolerance of anti-semites like Farrakhan, their tolerance towards the polygamy, misogyny and religious fundamentalist patriarchy in Islam, and how non-white communities act and think the same way to protect their own respective ‘brands,’ and the only people you seem to go after for these crimes are the white ones.

Which was fair. After all, we all just, “hate racism :^)”, right? So if you’re going to be an aggrandizing asshole and make a big to-do about castigating a lowbrow joke as a “teachable moment�� that involves making every progressive woman hypersensitive and reject men based on how taboo something is to say, then that lack of forgiveness and hypersensitivity and the results of that intolerance will also apply to YOU, god damnit.

But the supposed “progressive” people would not stop. Anti-”racism” was their new toy, aka, their stick to choose their targets and seem absolutely morally right for doing it, and they were going to play that social tool down to the hilt. They did not like being beaten at their own game by being flagged and forced to acknowledge glaring instances of hate crimes in the news when groups of roaming black men found and randomly beat up gentile whites and Jews. They did not like being forced to acknowledge those. So they’d object and scowl at the people bringing them up, like, “Why are we discussing the hate crimes of black men specifically?! You have a problem with black men!?”

Because remember, they were playing the defacto ‘whites are considered default Americans’ to the hilt when it suited them, and using it against people in the discourse suited them. You could talk about generic hate crimes that appear on the newspaper, because those were just regular hate crimes. Their mentality was, if you brought up hate crimes of Asians or black people, then clearly you were just a white man motivated by spite and insecurity to even be tabulating those in the first place, and that meant your opinion and point should be disregarded. You horrible anti-black/Asian racist.

So, please bear in mind, my case is not that white people are in any way better than anybody else. I don’t think that. But by god, in an era when the supposedly progressive, far-leftist, “woke” people are running around saying Europe and North America and Australia are by default white supremacist “cultures” that need “dismantling and replacement,” and simultaneously declaring, “white people do not exist,” and “there are no ‘white countries,’ just cultures and nations without race’ while ABSOLUTELY enshrining that EVERY country in Africa, even ones that are majority Semitic or Arab, are in fact, “black countries.” Or Asian countries being Asian. Or North America as still belonging to the native inhabitants and unjustly stolen land.

I absolutely abhor the doubletalk, I absolutely abhor the mentality that ONLY white people doing things is a problem. I hate that something ISN’T a problem when another group does it, but it’s JUST an issue when white people do it.

I want consistency. If people are going to enshrine and respect the existence, difference and integrity of a black culture in the USA, that is, a culture that exists purely because the people in it have black African features and characteristics and aren’t too “light skinned” to be part of it, and in an era supposedly trying to “get over” race and racial identity, tolerate that from everybody BUT white people, tolerate the idea of a, “chocolate New Orleans” but openly say New Hampshire or Maine being so majority white is an actual problem, then yeah, I’m going to expect one of two things:

1.) The woke/progressives actively discourage black Americans from considering themselves a separate or distinct culture from mainstream America. They stop secluding and culturally isolating themselves in their own hearts and minds and just be fellow countrymen.

OR

2.) They acknowledge, enshrine and respect the fact whites do have their own specifically white cultures of which other races cannot be part of, they’re a distinct people that have their own communities and need their own communities to remain white.

They will do neither and would prefer if white people just disappear. The same sort of disappearance that they see as so disgusting and horrible if it were to happen to literally any other group of people on planet Earth.

When a Chinese immigrant arrives to the US, takes a wife (we’ll just assume white in this instance) and miscegenates, people later chalk this up to, “being colonized in a white supremacist pressure cooker culture.” And mourn how his kids and grandkids, “wash away his culture and background with every generation.” Instead of growing the Chiense-American community. They talk about him like he was enslaved and colonized and his culture eliminated from the American fabric by some schmoozing, destructive white plague cutting it down.

They talk about white Americans like we’re just originless, rootless vermin, and no such distinctness or integrity is to be respected. If we treated other groups in the US the way we treat white people that talk about their background, distinct cultures and etc., we’d be denying them any identity but mainstream American identity. If we treated black Americans that way, we’d be calling them black supremacists every time they wanted to have any sort of civic or educational or societal or community meeting to talk about blackness and the struggles of being black.

It’s just.... absolutely disgusting and frustrating, dealing with the hypocrites, the double standards, and the people maliciously using social justice values to sell policies and top-down application of cultural values the way used car salesmen try and sell people lemons. I dislike them.

I dislike that if a white person talked about their background or group the way a black person in the US does, they’d be called out for their insularity and eurocentrism in a heartbeat, shut down, deplatformed, become an effigy of conversation about, “the growing tide of white supremacism in America.” When all they’d do is take someone like DL Hugely or Cedric the Entertainer or Bernie Mac, and make it, ‘white ethnic’.

Imagine having your racism and in-groupcentrism excused because, “THAT’S PART OF YOUR CULTURE,” and immune to criticism or critical thought. But then, that’s exactly the mentality foisted on us by dialectic materialists and Marxists.

My preferred solution to all of this isn’t to respect white community or white sovereignty or white identitarianism. My preferred solution is the complete dissolution of race as a culture or background in the New World whatsoever. The Old World, you have indigenous cultures and communities across Europe, Africa and Asia that should NOT be expected to “mix” themselves up and out to where the indigenous featues and characteristics are marginalized or ‘bred out.’ That’s where they MAKE those people. But the New World is 100% different. Space should be 100% different.

But I’m also not going to accept, “well only half of us should kill ourselves.off :^)” either. While other communities across the Western World insist on having their communities and insular, demographically concentrated, demographic-culturally-conscious people respected and accommodated, I’m going to expect parity. And not an equality that uses privilege theory ow considers population size being disproportionate as, “they need it more than you.” No. You want to respect peoples, “cultures,” and consider black a culture in the US, then by GOD you will also respect and acknowledge those of European extraction as their own culture in the US. It’s all or nothing, you don’t get to single out one group as not existing or irrelevant and say, “race doesn’t exist” one minute, and then go on about how blackess, cultural and genetic, are “very real things that affect people very much and very really.”

These people would throw public money and social services at immigrant communities, hoping they demographically grow, maintain integrity and spread their numbers- preferably to red states, where they can start turning them purple, or blue. But they’d balk and consider it racist colonization if a white community moved to Niger or Chad and did the same for their own community interests. They’d call that racial supremacism and soft apartheid.

And I absolutely hate all of this.

[jewish-privilege]

...[John] Cusack defended his tweet, arguing that “a bot got me” and that he thought he “was endorsing a pro-Palestinian justice retweet.” But in screenshots compiled by Yashar Ali, the actor had defended the tweet initially while noting, “shouldn’t have retweeted.” He had subsequently tweeted defenses of the tweet, arguing that “you think Israel isn’t committing atrocities.”

Later he sought to mollify the criticism by claiming it was a “careless dumb thing to retweet”... Cusack claims that he’s been “digging in deeply to the complexities of the history of antisemitism and fascism for years” and that he has been antifascist for 35 years.” He appeared to argue that the use of the Star of David "even if it depicts the state of Israel committing human rights violations” is antisemitic and antisemitism has no place. He said he was sorry to Palestinian friends. “I know the star itself is deeply meaningful to Jews.” ...Cusack’s tweet is similar to a long list of similar racist antisemitic incidents, from the New York Times posting a cartoon of a dog with a Star of David, to Congressional candidate Valerie Plame who once retweeted an article claiming “American Jews are driving America’s Wars.” Or there is the incident of Oberlin professor who pasted numerous anti-semitic comments on her Facebook page, one claiming the Rothschilds were behind AIDs. In each instance the excuse is someone made a mistake, was just being “dumb” or quickly tweeting, they didn’t “notice” the anti-semitism. Which is a more reasonable explanation; that large numbers of people hold put up racist posts and say racist things and it’s all a mistake, or that large numbers of people in the US and the West in general are routinely anti-Jewish because it is considered a norm in their milieu? You think that a member of the DC city council claims the Rothschilds control the weather and an academic at a prestigious college like Oberlin think the Rothschilds caused AIDs, and it’s just a coincidence? These are not coincidences. We know they are not because no other group in America or the West is subjected to such systematic, daily abuse from well-known sources on social media, as Jews. No one thinks the Jackson family controls the weather, or that wealthy Buddhists created AIDs, no one retweets memes constantly using Buddhist or Hindu symbols with quotes about “who you’re not allowed to criticize.” It’s not about the Star of David also being on the Israeli flag and that is why people “make mistakes” because they can’t tell the difference. If that were true then we’d be more likely to see the Islamic crescent in numerous racist memes being put up by these same “anti-fascists” as we see the Star of David. But we don’t. The Cusacks of the world, the Plames, and others, they don’t ever tweet other religious symbols or claim that “Muslims run America’s wars.” The West’s shame is that just decades after the Holocaust, racism against Jews, which everyone should be educated about and know about, is used “by mistake.” No one is racist by mistake. They are racist either because they are subconsciously racist or because they are overtly racist. People don’t tweet blackface images “by mistake.” They do it because they either are racist or don’t care about racism. There is no other reason. No one draws a cartoon with a Star of David “by mistake.” You have to consciously insert the symbol, just like you’d put a cross on the dog’s neck instead of it, if one wanted the dog to represent Christians and not Jews. But how many dogs with crosses appeared in New York Times cartoons? Someone has to add the “follow the money” to the tweet, and that is when the racism is clear.

The thing about antisemitism in America is that ostensibly we have a scandal like this every month almost. In February US member of Congress Ilhan Omar was criticized for adding “it’s all about the Benjamins.” In April the NYT ran the anti-semitic cartoon. How can people still not recognize and be educated about racist antisemism? It’s like if we had a new black face scandal every month. The fact is that people consciously choose to ignore the importance of being anti-racist when it comes to Jews. Jews are the only group singled out again and again and again by politicians, actors, the largest newspapers. No other minority group receives such constant hatred with such a low level of expectation that the offender will learn and stop doing it. Hiding behind words like “mistakes” is a way to excuse it. Hiding behind “it was stupid” or “I messed up,” reminds us of kids who make “mistakes.” Racism isn’t a mistake. Racism is a worldview. Racism is how people think, it’s a poison in the mind. Kenan Malik at The Guardian complained that the NYT stopped running cartoons after the incident, claiming it would “lead to a world where we say nothing at all.” He claimed that “we all make mistakes.” He also writes that the cartoon was “widely condemned as antisemitic.” This is way not to acknowledge that it was antisemitic. These are the Orwellian words used to sidestep the need to stop racism. Imagine saying of the KKK burning a cross that it was “widely condemned as racist.” Sorry, say that again. The KKK lynching was “widely condemned as racist.” Ummm, was it racist or not? By saying “widely condemned” is a way to not have to take ownership of the incident and make a decision. Using the term “mistake” implies that the racism is, well, a mistake. ...For years antisemitism was considered normal. When people say they don’t “see” racism it is because they have ignored it for too long. Western societies have been better at seeing racism against black people for instance. It’s a long learning curve. But how did a civilization that put people into gas chambers for being Jewish and forced them to wear Stars of David before mass murdering them, suddenly not notice the Star of David after? One million Jewish children were murdered in the Shoah. You’re telling me that 1 million Jewish children could be systematically murdered by the German Nazis in a crime that has become the most common cultural reference in most western countries, and that somehow the Star of David they were sent to their deaths in doesn’t automatically leap out when you see it and make you think twice about putting it on cartoon dogs or on memes? This is a lie, not a mistake. No one ever tweets or draws a Star of David in any western country without knowing exactly what they are doing. They would be as likely to do so as to draw a swastika and then pretend it was just a mistake. When you tweet a Star of David you know you’re symbolizing Jews. So if you tweet it in a positive way then you are being positive about Jews, if you have a Star of David hand crushing people, you know exactly what you are doing. When people claim they don’t “see” antisemitism, or that it’s a “mistake” it is because their society has conditioned them in whatever milieu they live in to not care about Jews. Many of these self-styled “antifascists” or “progressives” care deeply about other minority groups. There is one group they don’t include in their united front against racism. Jews. Here’s how people can stop themselves from being racist anti-Semites. Stop tweeting anything with a Star of David that is a negative tweet. Just stop. Just like you don’t post photos of blackface, you can stop using the Star of David to frame things you dislike. So, you don’t like Israel. You should ask yourself first why, out of 200 countries, you obsessively hate only one that happens to be Jewish? But ok, let’s say you honestly just oppose Israel. Here’s a thought: Write the word “Israel” instead of a Star of David. Educated, wealthy people who are professors, city councilmen, congresswomen, actors, can figure this out. There is no excuse.

[ilovemygaydad]

title: grown

summary: I am the spirit of the small brooke in the woods.

pairings: moxiety (pre-romantic to romantic), toxic anxceit

warnings: first person pov, abusive relationship, deceit is an abuser, religion, homophobia, mild anti-semitism, angst with a happy ending, implied depression, crying, kissing, anxiety, mentions of a prosthetic, sadness, catholic stereotypes (?), possibly something else

a/n: the second part of a series that i’m going to write as a writing exercise!

you - ao3 link

I am the spirit of the small brooke in the woods. I don’t know my age--time is an odd concept that I’ve never been able to master--but I would say that I’m neither old nor young. I am neither powerful nor mundane. I just am.

However, in all of my time on this earth, I had never been so fascinated by humans until the two of you showed up. You were young. You had small faces and hands and high-pitched voices, which I found truly adorable. The happy one always had so much energy, running forward and back toward the quiet one, who was much slower than he was. I’ve since figured out that it was due to the odd, metal bar that he had instead of part of his leg. 

You two would always hold hands and smile at each other with those innocent faces and missing teeth (you wouldn’t believe how shocked that I was the first time I found out humans lost teeth as humans). The happy one giggled loudly as he splashed in my water, and the quiet one would gently tell him to be quiet, but in the caring way that his voice always tended.

There were many times that you would visit my brooke as you grew; however, there was one day that changed things for a long while. I believe that you were sixteen years old, and you had been visiting the brooke for around seven years. The happy one had mellowed into a lovely young man, and, sadly, the quiet one had become anxious and scared. On that day, the quiet one was even more anxious than usual; the smell of his fear overpowered nearly all of the happy one’s emotions. You sat on your usual rocks, and a silence fell over you. I remember the conversation that followed so vividly...

“Patton,” the quiet one said, folding the sleeves of his large hoodie over his hands. “I have something to tell you.”

“Aw, Virge, you know that you can tell me anything! There’s no need to be nervous.”

The quiet one waved his hands around in a vague, wild motion. “I know. I know. It’s just... I like you.”

“I like you, too! What is it that you needed to say?” The happy one tilted his head, and I watched as the quiet one stiffened.

“No, Pat, I like you. As in, I have a crush on you.”

Realization dawned on the happy one’s face, and he frowned. “You can’t have a crush on me. Boys aren’t allowed to like boys. That’s what the priest at my church said. ‘Being gay is one of the worst sins.’”

There was a pause--one that most likely felt much longer for me as I watched the tiny bit of light left in the quiet one’s eyes die out--before the quiet one spoke again. “You’re right. Of course. I wasn’t thinking correctly.”

“Y’know,” the happy one said, perking back up. “Maybe you could come by my church on Sunday, and we can get all of your feelings corrected! It would be fun.”

“I can’t. I have temple, remember?”

“Can’t you just skip it? It’s not like it’s important.”

I could almost feel your friendship die as the quiet one said. “I’ll ask my mom tonight... I’ve got to be going for dinner.”

You exchanged good byes and went your separate ways, and it was a long time before I saw you together again. The happy one only came by occasionally; he would throw stones into the brooke and talk about his day before going back, but the quiet one... you came back often. After a short while, you began to bring the liar with you. I didn’t like him from the moment that he stepped foot into the forest. His words were too heavy and too loaded to be true, but you couldn’t see past his pretty face. And you were angry. Your best friend had betrayed you, and you wanted to prove him wrong with this new boy. The liar. 

I was forced to watch as the liar took advantage of your anxious nature time and time again. It pained me to see love become so tainted and spoiled. When I thought that you couldn’t get any lower, you fell even deeper. I wanted to reach out and stop you so badly...

Then, a while later--far too long, in my opinion--you came sprinting to my brooke, tripping over your false leg and sobbing. You nearly pitched forward into the ground as you came to a sudden stop at the side of the brooke, but I was able to coax the wind into righting you just in time. You fell to your knees, and I sent the water up to lap at your knees in the only comfort I could offer. I knew that the liar had hurt you in some unimaginable way.

And then the happy one came strolling into the forest. He found you crying, and he was at your side in an instant. He comforted you, and in that moment, there were no longer two singular “you”s sitting in front of me; you became one plural “you” once more. Isn’t English interesting? How you can have two singulars and one plural? Your human languages are so odd, but I digress.

You were a whole pair once again, and I was so relieved. When the quiet one’s sobs died down, it was the happy one’s time to cry. He begged forgiveness for his actions, and it was no surprise that forgiveness was given. You hugged and caught up on the past year and a half (I am loath to believe that the liar had been around for that long) and discussed your plans for after high school.

Your visits slowed down after that, and eventually they stopped altogether. I suspect that it was due to “college,” but it hurt nonetheless. I missed hearing your voices and seeing your gentle interactions. It was lonely for a long while, but I was lucky enough to have the company of the trees and animals.

When you returned, you looked much more grown up. The happy one had grown even taller, almost towering over the quiet one, who had cut his hair a bit shorter and found a signature style in purple and black. You also brought along another person, whom I dubbed “the nerd.” I mean, he wore a tie into the forest. If that doesn’t scream “nerd” to you, I don’t know what will!

But the thing that I noticed most out of everything was your hands. They were clasped together. Finally. I had almost given up hope that you two would fall in love. 

I think that the best part of that day was when I realized your intentions. If I were able to cry, I definitely would have as you said your vows, and again when you shared your first kiss as husbands. The nerd pretended that he was disgusted by your affection, but I saw the soft smiles that he forced down. He cares a lot for you. He’s a good friend, even if he is someone who wears a tie in a forest.

Now, I watch as you visit with your children, and I’m happy for you. I’m glad you’re together. Love always prevails, even if it endures some hardships along the way.

[kelvintimeline]

STEPHANIE’S POST ACTUALLY SEEING ENDGAME REVIEW--SPOILER FILLED LIST OF EVERYTHING WRONG WITH TIHS MOVIE I COULD NOTICE IN BETWEEN MENTAL RANTS

 okay, so, during the movie, i spent hafl the time compiling rants in my brain about eveyrthing wrong with it and then emailed myself every point so i would not forget what made me mad

this is one of the most passively racist and sexist movies i have seen in a while it was just... completely devoid of any meaningful women or people of color (or... women of color) for so much of the film? and those who were present got shafted a lot. like... literally all of the women except for nebula existed to tell a man’s story.

which brings me to the point that we NEED to talk about the theme of family in this movie--it’s constantly brought up. clint misses his family, tony now has a family (because just dating someone isnt’ a family? this is a very nuclear famiyl oriented understanding of family), gamora and nebula are family, natasha never knew her family but the avengers are her family

and tha’s the crux of it--natasha calls the avengers her family, steve calls avengers family, but that’s not good enough to save her

when natasha and clint are on the cliff, clint makes a great point about why he should die--he’s become a terrible person (he spends half the movie just killing “evil people” who are all people of color, see: talking about how racist this movie is--literally “ronin” clint is better at a samurai sword than a japanese man and now speaks japanese?? why?? it felt like a bad martial arts parody movie--like those racist movies ppl would make about white men slaughtering samurais just not GOOD) and natasha has finally erased the red in her ledger by doing good. natasha dies anyways (literally forces him to kill her) because she’s stopped being useful to her “family” and his family is an actual family.

which brings me to--steve and natasha explicitly talk about two things--how they are family and how it is important to move on.

moving on is a CENTRAL part of this movie--the time travel works in large part so everyone can move on from their losses. thor moves on from his mother’s death, tony gets closure with his father, clint gets what should have been a last moment seeing his happy family, etc. steve gets to see peggy.

steve does not move on. steve LITERALLY HAS MULTIPLE LINES ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO MOVE ON AND STEVE DOES NOT MOVE ON. steve tells a gay man mourning his dead husband while trying to date someone new that moving on is important and steve still goes back in time to stay with peggy.

what’s worse, steve goes back in time and tells bucky to wait for hima nd not do anything stupd KNOWING HE MIGHT NOT MAKE IT BACK BECAUSE HES CHOOSING TO LIVE OUT HIS ENTIRE LIFE IN TEH PAST.

what’s EVEN WORSE THAN THAT--literally right the fuck after bucky and sam gets dusted he’s alreayd thinking about peggy? he never once mentions sam/bucky besides a quick mention of bucky being alive to trick past steve.

more fucked up shit around sam/bucky/steve--sam offers to go back with him but bucky doesn’t?? when old man steve returns, bucky doens’t even try to talk to him? despite being the one to notice him? steve doesn’t stand with bucky and sam at tony’s funeral why?

steve and bucky and sam and so many otehres are FAMILY but not enough family to make steve stay

steve aint worthy

steve apparently DID STAY IN THIS FUCKING TIMELINE? since he didn’t return via the pym particles or wahtever he literally aged into the present AND LET EVERY BAD THING HAPPEN YOu DON’T DO THAT TO PEOPLE YOU LOVE HE LET HYDRA AND TEH WINTER SOLDIER PROGRAM HAPPEN??

unless i don’t udnerstand the time travel--> separate unierse thing which is possible BECAUSE ITS’ FUCKING STUPID

if the universe splits into a different universe when the stones are removed--this would be an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TIMELINE WHEN THANOS DESTROYED THE STONES which means when tehy returned hte stones, they actually would’ve reverted back to the timeline before he destroyed the stones-an infinite loop

why couldn’t they snap tehir dead back to life?

where did thanos’ army come from?

when his army disappeared why didn���t gamora disappear too?

did they think i would forget that they could de-age people? scott was turned young again--why can’t they make steve young agian, lmao

why didn’t steve take every single vial of particles he could get? like he only took a couple ie as many as were necessary for the plot

how did thanos/gamora/nebula travel on only one vial? why werne’t other ppl sharing vials then??

why was okoye gone all film? like the answer is misogynoir but like... seriosuly why?

WHY DID TONY BLAME STEVE FOR THE SNAP HAPPENING?

WHY DID STEVE SPEND LTIERALLY THE ENTIRE FILMT ELLING TONY HE TRUSTS HIM, THAT TONY IS RIGHT (EVEN WHEN HE WAS EXPLICITLY WRONG AND WAS PROVEN TO BE WRONG), AND THEN CRYING OVE RHIM?

also they still fucked up the timelines?? the timelines are changed AFTER they removed the stones nad yet they did shit to fuck up the timelines trying to get the stones--which means every dumb ass thing they did to get eth stones remains in the timeline. unless steve returns the stones to BEFORE they actually took the stones, in whcih? that makes no sense?

nebula’s “network” connection between her prsent and past self made no sense either

thor literally made valkyrie (who hadn’t been with the asgardians from many years) queen so that they could write her out of his movies as he’s not a member of GOTG

ltos of girl power moments actually worked like that--every time a woman did something cool, it was to harm her in some way. valkyrie is “queen” so she’s no longer relevant to thor’s plot

the moment where all of the girls (besides the dead ones :) ) teamed up just had them get beaten down in teh end? like it was for nothing? that’s not... girl power. also, they wouldn’t even be able to fit all of the important men into one screen so it’s just embarrassing

talking about weird shit about women--EVEYR woman EVER in the series comes back but they don’t even mention sharon, the girl steve was dating, at all, like even confirm if she was dusted or not, beacuse they know that makes steggy look bad

literally even JANE got new moments but sharon couldn’t come up

talking about jane--making thor hung up on her is fucking weird he has a girlfriend? who he treats like shit, tbf. thor’s character was an extended fat joke. he liteally says he isn’t fit to be king and that he was just pretending aftter getting a speech from his mother saying that isn’t true. ragnarok thor was killed off in the worst way. also his mother literally existing just to be like... an emotional spport woman was misgoynistic as fuck lmao

like thor’s cahracter WHOMST?

also, like, the hail hdyra moment was the nastiness shit i’ve seen in a long fucking time?? including antisemitism in your movie just ot reference a comic book run that was panned by both people who hate antisemitism and also antisemitic fanboys who like good writing (like it just wasn’t written well) is just... antisemitic. it was a reference for anti semitism’s sake

the moments they choose to get this shit was also so fuckign arbitrary? you couldn’t retrieve half these stones at like... normal times? also how did they know where to find them in the shield vaults or like where to find the pym particles

the writing in this movie was just ‘what is most convenient for moving the plot along/fanservice/humanizing tony’

talking about humanizing tony did pepper give birth like the sceond after the snap? their child is so old for a five year time skip like... i guess since tony didn’t lose anyone in the snap besides peter it didn’t affect how horny he was

also the peter/tony stuff was so oevrblown???????? THEY WEREN’T CLOSE?? TONY TREATED HIM LIKE SHIT FOR 80% OF HOMECOMING??

its so nice and convenient that ned got snapped too--all of peter’s friends get snapped so no one is 22 and out of high school (also i refuse to watch far from home because i feel like old man steve dying is just gonna be a fly by comment)

talking about the snap--the list of names in the graveyard made sense but it felt like a war/actual genocide memorial and it felt... cheap and gross and also why teh fuck was it placed in that random part of town?

ALSO LIKE?? wanda and clint talk and they make it seem like vision and natasha’s death are equally bad the mcu rly does just ahte women

also the women all get make overs?? why is natasha dying her hair in the middle of the end of the world

why did tony get a funeral but natasha doesn’t?

the guardians having a funny moment with thor instead of discussing gamora felt........ bad

there were two steves in the main universe how the fuck does that make sense?????? how does that not affect the timeline also what happened to peggy’s husbAND?

there are other things wrong with it but this is all i wrote down in my emails to myself. there were a lot of individual moemnts that pissed me off but then something else would happen to piss me off and i would forget what i was mad about before that

[dukeofriven]

Hussie, Hitler, And Boy I’m Tired

I said earlier that I didn’t want to put on my hip waders and muck about in the Homestuck tags. *pulls off hip waders* I went anyways. I went even though I was feeling pretty good because I had a nice dinner and got to watch the New Years Bake-Off special. I went anyways, and I did it for you, my eight followers who aren’t pornbots. It turns out the Homestuck fandom of Tumblr is as scary and hyperbolic as ever, and has taken one lousy bit of badly written crap and extrapolated that backwards into ‘Homestuck has always been a racist anti-semetic pile of garbage and everything about it is terrible and Andrew Hussie needs to die.” I’m not paraphrasing, by the way. Someone out there is chanting ‘die Andrew Hussie die,’ because he had the gall to... clumsily dunk on Hitler like a fifteen year old trying to impress his English teacher with edgy comedy? This new stuff is too dumb to be offensive, especially in an era with, y’know, Hitler-praising alt-right Neo Nazis actually being mainstream media figures.  Hey Tumblr fandom? Can you... mm not chill, chill’s not the word I’m looking for what is it... oh yes. Can y’all fuck off for once?

Tumblr doesn’t deserve to enjoy things because it doesn’t know how to enjoy things responsibly. It lurches from adoration to hatred without pause, and as a writer it gives me nothing but an anxiety. I cannot produce anything imperfect, I cannot ever write crap because if I do then all my work will be tainted by it forever. On Tumblr you are always judged by your worst effort, which is a fucking god-awful standard for large media franchises of any kind. You know who one of the greatest, most thoughtful, socially-driven authors of the twentieth century was? Terry Pratchett. You know what’s kind of sexist and lazy and awful? The Colour of Magic. You know what’s weirdly colonialist and smug and all-around shit? Snuff! Neither of those shitty books invalidate the forty other Discworld novels. The existence of Anchorman’s bloviating nothingness doesn’t erase Will Ferrel’s warm and desperately human performance in Stranger Than Fiction. The Forced Kiss Equal Romance kiss in Blade Runner doesn’t erase the rest of the movie piercing question on the nature of what it means to be human. And on and on and on. Andrew Hussie’s sneeze-shart dogshit history rewrite that was so embarrassingly bad it got pulled from the internet didn’t erase Rose/Kanaya, or gay Dave, or Joey Claire tap-dancing her little heart out to try and defeat a monster. And even if Andrew Hussie does a JK Rowling and produces nothing but ill-thought-out crap from here until the day we all die in the great Disney Final Merger of 2023, it still won’t invalidate the good moments that made you happy. I mean if Andrew Hussie toddles out of retirement onto a talk show in a bathrobe to discuss his new revelations on the Puppetgrandmasters of Scion who all have worryingly Semetic names, I’m not going to be so naive as to pretend that his earlier media can be consumed in some kind of vacuum, that the future cannot affect the past. but I am saying that the good that happened in it - the things that affected you in positive ways - are not ethereal. It mattered to you then, and that’s okay. Tumblr’s hyperbolic responses seem to be rooted in embarrassment and self-flagellation. People seem so terrified by the thought that anyone might associate them as a fan of something - gasp - linked to controversy that they... well, they say shit like “die andrew hussie die.” Hey dude. Hey. You need to redirect that anger, my friend. There’s actual Neo-Nazis in the streets. On the TV. In the US government. I guess what I’m trying to say is... Woof. Okay. You know, to give Andrew Hussie partial credit here, its nice to see someone actually write Adolf Hitler the way he really was - a pant-shitting constantly whiny toddler of a human being who endlessly threw tantrums and got to where he was largely on the strength of other people’s bad decisions. Remember kids: the biggest myth Neo-Nazis have ever perpetrated is that Germany under Hitler was well-run, well-organized, and anything other than a collection of squabbling dysfunctional fiefdoms run by party hacks propped up by a bureaucracy and military too bound by inertia, ego, and cultural racism to do anything to stop a lunatic from ripping their country to shreds. That whole ‘trains running on time’ thing? It’s nonsense. Go study the conduct of the war once Germany had exhausted all its pre-war stockpiled resources and ran out of useful shit to loot, once it had to start relying on its leadership for the things that make wars winnable - supplies, reinforcements, fuel, winter clothing. Watch the way from 1942 onwards Germany stumbled from one disaster to the next, as Hitler fired more and more generals and drew more and more authority to himself and his fellow party cronies. Hitler should not be feared as a man of competence or skill - he was a buffoon, a clown of a human being fuelled entirely by petty, vindictive spite and an unlimited capacity for cruelty. And before anyone goes ‘well if he was so objectively pathetic how the fuck did he take over Germany’ I direct you to google the last two years of American politics and the words ‘Donald Fucking Trump.’ [I recommend, on these war subjects particularly, Sir Antony Beevor’s bleak and sobering works, particularly Stalingrad, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, and Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble.]  Sorry this... kind of got away from me somewhat, but I really hate it when people get mad that someone didn’t take Hitler seriously (and, to be strictly fair, this is not what everyone is mad about in regards to Andrew Hussie, either). You should never take Hitler seriously. Take hate seriously - take violent words, and calls for purity, take his ideas of superiority and racial preeminence and anti-semitism seriously as the evils, the horrors as they are. But the man himself? He literally stank - a combination of his halitosis, chronic flatulence, and was constant diarrhea. [I am not exaggerating] He was a sad pathetic clown, and Andrew Hussie chose to write him as such. He just... went too far. It happens. It’s not good writing. It’s fucking shit, to be honest. Boring shit. The Minions movie decided to have the Minions sit out the entirety of WWII by having them get stuck in a cave or some such. Honestly that’s a better option than what Andrew Hussie went with - and ‘be more like the Minions movie’ isn’t advice I give that often. You want to be disgruntled that an author wrote something this bafflingly tone deaf and tedious? Sure. I know I am. But to chant for his death? Are you fucking kidding me? Look! Look out your window at those marching Neo-Nazis trying to establish a white supremacist state? What the ever-loving fuck are you people doing in here getting ready to string-up a man whose crime was making Adolf Friggen Hitler too petty???????? Tumblr. Tumblr, for the love of god this has to stop. This ‘Ceasar’s wife must be above reproach’ shit has to stop - it’s killing fandom, it’s killing good media critique, it’s burying proportional fan response, and its just exhausting. Why can’t you ever just let something be lousy without it being literal death warrant? There’s real demons out there - I can see them out the window, and every time I turn on the TV. Maybe - just bloody maybe - not every single crime deserves the exact same level of disapprobation and punishment? Maybe we could read some content and say “boy that sure had some lousy implications and also was just really poorly written” and then... stop there? Wouldn’t that be nice, for a change? We could dislike something without feeling like it required activism on our part. We could say ‘this piece of media was shit, but it didn’t advocate for a white ethno-state, so I will continue to think of it only until the end of this sentence.’ I am not advocating for an end to media criticism for anything that isn’t openly hate speech (but if you think that I am I am going to assume you’re already so needlessly enraged about this whole matter that I’m a bit puzzled why you’ve bothered to read this far since its obvious we don’t agree on many fundamental issues.) What I am calling for is the end to death threats against people who don’t mean you harm. Because that’s lunacy. That’s beyond the pale, actually, that’s really disturbing and sickening and you should seriously reconsider your relationship with media. Because there are people out there who do want to hurt you. Their lives are fuelled by hate, their philosophies are driven by it, as are their politics. I assure you that when a time traveller steps through a portal trying to prevent the rise of ‘the great Trump War of 2020′ the inciting incident will not be ‘Andrew Hussie trivialized the holocaust by citing its origins as a grudge Adolf Hitler bore Albert Einstein over a rivalry in secret clown ninja school before being taken on as an agent of a baking-obsessed alien space witch and bumped into power by the Peters principle.’ Because just by writing that sentence I have already reaffirmed a very simple truth: this is way, way too stupid to give the slightest shit about. So let’s tell Andrew Hussie that his new work is... mmm.... kind of like a shit if a shit had a shit that was itself shat out by a shit and then vomited on by another shit who had eaten nothing but shit since Sunday. Let’s tel lhim “hey dude, your clownish work summoned the spectre of anti-semetism, and you can do better.” Frankly, I think that message was already sent, since in the two hours between me going to make and eat dinner and then coming back to my computer, the new material was discovered, read, disseminated, and removed. Two hours. Sure, maybe a bit of lag due to what does and does not hit my feed but come on - this all took place in an afternoon. It’s already down. Our voices were heard - we didn’t think this was very good, and apparently Whatpumpkin agrees enough that they didn’t mount a defence of it. Rather than take the next logical step, though - which seems to be calling for the death of Andrew Hussie and removing all of Homestuck from the internet and maybe nuking Toby Fox from orbit just to be extra-sure? - we could do... something else. Talk about the release date for Stranger Things, maybe. Track down some local Neo-Nazis and punch them. Read some Antony Beevor books and really educate ourselves on what a smelly fuck-up Hitler was so we can chant that at Neo Nazis at their next rally. Or you could watch the New Years Bake-Off special. It was pretty good.

[schraubd]

Election 2018: Post-Mortem

We're not 100% "post-" yet, as there are still a decent number of races outstanding. Here in California, the mail vote could yet push around some House race numbers (though Montana just was called for Jon Tester!). Nonetheless, we've got enough of a picture to give a pretty solid account of yesterday's events. Here are my takeaways: * * * Dems winning the House is huge: This was not something to take for granted. Let's not forget, there was a good chunk of time where people thought GOP gerrymandering had placed the House out of Democratic reach. And control of the House doesn't just prevent Congress from ramming through far-right pieces of the Trump agenda. It also gives Democrats a key fulcrum from which to launch investigations into the deep cesspool of corruption that characterizes the Trump administration. On that score, I actually don't recommend starting with Trump necessarily. There are so many targets to choose from, and if there's one thing I think we learned from how the GOP handled the Benghazi (non-)story, it's that a steady and constant drip-drip-drip of scandal is far more powerful than blowing everything in one shot. Start with easy marks like Zinke, and the noose will slowly begin to tighten around the inner circle. This was a continuation, not a reversal, of 2016's trend: One theory about 2016 was that it was a fit of temporary insanity, whereby good-hearted Americans had a bout of temporary insanity or rage or anti-Clinton derangement and chose a President whom they didn't really endorse or even like. Under this view, 2018 would be a "snapback" election, where these voters would revert to form and go back to supporting sensible candidates while repudiating Trump's extremism. Another theory about 2016 takes Trump voters more seriously. It posits that in certain very conservative parts of the country -- generally more rural, generally less-educated, concentrated in Appalachia and the American southeast -- they liked Trump, and they continue to like Trump. All the lying and racism and extremism and utter off-the-wall demagoguery -- the love it. Meanwhile, other parts of the country -- more suburban, more diverse, and especially in the southwest -- were moving away from Trump and Trumpism. Last night, I think, decisively ratifies the second theory. By and large, the people who like Trump still like Trump. Rick Scott's numbers in Florida were almost perfectly correlated with the 2016 presidential race. And at the same time, we saw a more decisive shift away from the GOP in the sort of districts where people already didn't like Trump. From what I saw, Democrats did better in Romney-Clinton districts than Obama-Trump ones, which verifies this instinct. And Democrats are continuing to make big strides in Nevada and (yes, even in defeat) Arizona and Texas. The partial exception to this view is the midwest (where Democrats won governorships in Wisconsin and Michigan, and a decent clutch of House seats as well). But even here, the news was mixed: Democrats lost the Senate races in Indiana and Missouri, the governorship in Iowa (albeit while winning 3 of 4 House seats) and Ohio, and their two pickups in Minnesota House races were offset by at least one and probably two GOP flips (which were some of the only such GOP wins nationwide). There is a truth that is important for pundits to get through their head: conservative Americans like Trump. He's not an aberration. He's not deus ex machina. He's not someone they begrudgingly tolerate. American conservativism, right now, is Donald Trump. If that's a scary thought -- and it is -- start reporting it like something scary rather than pretending that most Republicans basically pine for Gerald Ford but somehow got sucked into an authoritarian nightmare they wish they could escape from. State Races Matter The national focus also has somewhat obscured how Democrats did on the state level. A bucket of governor's mansions have just turned blue -- Maine, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, and Kansas -- and there were no blue-to-red flips (solid holds in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado). And it looks like they've turned over at least six state legislative chambers too -- not bad! Priority #1 in any state with Democratic majority: lock in voting rights. It's embarrassing that a state like New York has a train wreck of a voting system, and it needs to end immediately. Republicans really did overperform Senate side Yes, it was a brutally tough map for the Democrats. But Republicans nonetheless exceeded at least gameday expectations. Democrats taking back the Senate was always a longshot, but if the GOP holds onto their leads in Arizona and Florida (likely), then they'll have come close to running the table on their best realistic Senate scenario (with only Montana and Nevada as the blemishes). That's legitimate GOP ammo for the spin cycle. And, of course, it does give Trump the ability to continue to pack the courts with right-wing ideologues, which is substantively terrifying. The Democratic Party Neither Needs To Pivot Left Nor Pivot Center The favored post-election parlor of any pundit after an election is to explain why the results decisively demonstrate why a given party needs to adopt the political positions they already supported. Among Democrats, this has typically shaken out along the Bernie/Establishment divide that we're apparently doomed to relive forever because this is The Bad Place. But the fact is, there was no clear trend in which sort of Democrats were winning and losing last night. A bunch of more conservative voices went down in the Senate, but in states which were already punishing turf. And some progressive darlings -- like Ben Jealous in Maryland and Andrew Gillum in Florida -- lost too. On the other side, some establishment picks did their job and won their race (think Jacky Rosen in Nevada, or Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan). But progressives had their stars too -- Beto O'Rourke's campaign in Texas certainly performed better than Texas's red tint should've allowed, and there were a bunch of more progressive challengers who are among the entering House class. Which is to say: different races are different, and different candidates are good fits for different districts. The Party isn't the enemy here. What I think has been shown is that the more extreme "Bernie" accusation -- that there were a bunch of winnable races that Democrats were quasi-deliberately letting go Republican because something-something-corporate-money, and if we only ran Real Democrats they'd be ours -- has been decisively refuted (I don't think Ben Jealous necessarily did worse than Rushern Baker would have done in Maryland, but he certainly didn't do better). But that was a colossally stupid take anyway. Which probably means it still won't die the death it deserves. Briefly on Beto -- Yes, He Deserves Praise This isn't even a hot take anymore but obviously O'Rourke deserves a ton of credit for how he performed in his race against Ted Cruz. I'm seeing some mockery from the usual conservative suspects on this, since he lost, but that's a dumb take. Yes a loss is a loss, and yes everyone hates Ted Cruz, and yes Texas has been slowly purpling. But a sub-three point victory in a statewide race in Texas (by contrast, Governor Greg Abbott -- no political superstar -- won reelection by 13 points) is a monster performance. And his tailwind likely carried a few House races over the finish line as well. The New Redemption is (Sort of) Upon Us I'm by no means the first to come up with the idea that we're going through a "second redemption" to undo the "second reconstruction" that was the civil rights era. But I think there is something to be said about the re-energizing of White racist attitudes that's occurred in America over the last few years. People have talked a lot about Trump and, before him, the Tea Party, not so much creating prejudice as "activating" it. I think that in places like Georgia or Florida, there was some demoralization among the White racist crowd where they had basically given up on the possibility that open racism was something they could "do" anymore. Now, they're downright jazzed -- and from that we get both Kemp and DeSantis likely entering a governor's mansion. That said, the story does seem too pat in some ways -- especially with the passage of Amendment 4 (felon re-enfranchisement) in Florida. It's no exaggeration to say this might put Democrats firmly in the driver's seat in a state as evenly divided as Florida (a full 40% of Black male adults in the state regained their right to vote through this measure), which makes it all the more surprising that it managed to clear the 60% threshold. And to be fair, some amount of credit thus has to be given to those voters who punched a ballot for both Amendment 4 and DeSantis/Scott (there must be a lot of them). One-State Wave! With Rashida Tlaib's victory in Michigan, we not only have our first Palestinian-American Congresswomen, we also will have the first Democratic Representative to openly support a one-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. She will join approximately 2/3 of the House Republican Caucus in taking this view (and if you're a pro-Israel type who's about to respond "that's not fair -- Republicans only support a one-state solution where Palestinians aren't allowed to vote!" stop and listen to yourself). Mixed Results for Anti-Semites Tablet did a whole bit on "antisemites running for Congress", but I found their list far too restrictive (or in a few cases -- most notably Rep. Andrew Carson and GOP challenger Lena Epstein -- too expansive). Overall, it seems like the worst-of-the-worst antisemites -- the open Holocaust denier sorts -- lost, but some more "moderate" cases did fine. I may do a more in-depth exploration of this later. Early Frustration is Misleading There did seem to be an extent which last night felt like a letdown for Democrats. Obviously, the Senate is a clear case where that sentiment is justified. At the same time, it seemed like the night got better for Democrats as it went on -- a couple of races which seemed to be slipping away (Wisconsin, Connecticut) broke blue late, and some of our biggest victories (Nevada) were also well into the evening. On net, there's no question this was a big night for the good guys. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2AQsRAy