#THE LIBERAL GUN CLUB

[jose96853]

HOLY$H!T!!!! LIBERAL GUN OWNERSHIP IS GOING UP!!!!

Well there is a story I found on FOX News who found it from The Wall Street Journal that says that pretty much liberals the (Democrats)are outpacing the Conservatives (Republicans) for 2022. They also go on to basically say that is probably why Kamala Harris is backtracking her stance from where she said in 2019 she would have mandatory gun buybacks (even though the didn’t buy them—she was…

[compacflt]

What does Ice (or Mav) think about the Obama gay rumors? Will they be tuning in to hear the story of the man who allegedly fucked Obama? Are they bi Obama truthers? Is Rooster? Is Hangman? Any other Icebama interactions you're hiding from us? His cameo cracked me up and I need to know more...

the obama gay rumors

first im hearing about this

[beauty-funny-trippy]

Supporting Blogs that Support Democracy

The 2024 election is among the most important elections of the last 160+ years. It's going to be a historic election that could dramatically change America — and the World. This is an "all hands on deck" situation.

As such, I want to spotlight these tumblr blogs in order to reach as many voters as possible.

The following Tumblr Blogs do a great job defending Democracy, Women's Rights, Social Justice (for People of Color, the LGBTQ Community, etc), Climate Concerns, Education, Taxing the Rich, Commonsense Gun Laws, Affordable Healthcare, Social Security, etc. (in alphabetical order):

@beauty-funny-trippy, @comeonamericawakeup, @crazyworldhuh, @foreverlogical, @grrlscientist, @gym-jordan-wrestling-club, @izooks, @justsayin59, @liberalsarecool, @makingdonalddrumpfagain, @mcnfps, @my-midlife-crisis, @not-safe-for-democracy, @oldfordv8, @politicalantibody, @purple-ladys-stuff, @reagan-was-a-horrible-president, @rejectingrepublicans, @republicansaredomesticterrorists, @republikkkanorcs, @saywhat-politics, @seymour-butz-stuff, @sloops-stuff-blog, @soberscientistlife, @socialjusticeinamerica, @sped67, @truth-has-a-liberal-bias, @unloved-hufflepuff, @vote-democrat-president-congress, @whosurisold

...if you have a blog with a significant number of posts that support Democrats and democracy (or you know of other blogs that I've missed), you can add them to the list in your reblog or put them in the comments. Please check out some of these blogs. We have to reach as many voters as possible! Together, we can save democracy!

Thank You Very Much and PLEASE VOTE!

[whatsaninterestingplacethisis]

Hot Stuff

Imagine

Nico Hischier x Latina!Reader

Synop: y/n and friends go out to a 80s theme night club because why not.

cw: drinking

a/n: this is very “cheesy”, very movie magic, does not happen in real life

+++

You were dressed in boot cut jeans with black booties and a satin button up blouse, with the top buttons unbuttoned.

“Do I or do I not look hot?” Your friend walks into your room posing in her 80s themed skimpy outfit.

“You look hot.” You say with lack of emotion as you zipped up your boots.

“Wow thanks I really believed you there.” She nudges your shoulder and looks at both of your reflections in the mirror.

“I look hot. You look hot. So cheer up and let’s go to the kitchen, everyone is taking pre gamers!” She hugs your shoulders tightly before joining the rest outside.

“I’m not drinking tonight!” she was long gone to hear. You weren’t much the drinker, other nights you would participate but tonight seemed better sober.

You walk out to the kitchen to see everyone in their get up and truth be told everyone did look hot.

“Cmon y/n/n! Take at least one shot!”

“Yeah how do you expect to dance tonight without being intoxicated?”

One of your friends was right, to dance to 80s jams without any alcohol in your system seemed futile.

“Alright,” You swished the drink down and the Uber was ready to pick you guys up.

+++

To your surprise the club had a lot more people than first to be expected. There were many madona blondes and Michael Jackson thrillers. It was the month of October, so in a way tonight was kind of a Halloween celebration.

As soon as you and your friends walked in, one dragged all of you to the bar, swiftly ordering tonight’s meal.

So much for not drinking, because before you knew it you’re three beers in, starting to feel inebriated, dancing your heart out with friends to Hot Stuff by Donna Summers.

“I need some hot stuff baby tonight!” Your friend screams.

“I need some hot stuff baby this evening!” You scream.

Screaming horribly pitched singing and dancing but having the time of your life in this moment. You and your friend laugh at your guy’s antics.

“I’m gonna get a beer! You want something?” You yell

“I’m good!”

As much fun and liberating dancing is, it’s a goddam workout. Surely alcohol will keep you hydrated.

+++

“I’ve never seen Top Gun.” Nico stares at Jack whose holding a green aviator jumpsuit for him. An exact replica of what’s he’s wearing with a white t-shirt under and sunglasses propped on his head.

“I know but we will look cool together, like maverick and goose.”

“What the hell is a maverick?”

“Just put the suit on.” Jack throws the suit towards Nico and pushes him to change.

Nico walks out twining like his teammate, with his sunglasses on.

“Hell yeah, I’m maverick and your goose.” Jack says all excited.

“Okay.” Nico states blandly.

“We’ll watch the movie after tonight so you can understand. Now let’s go and boogie.”

“Should’ve watched it before tonight” Nico murmured.

+++

Nico wasn’t one to go out and dance, especially not a decades theme dance. But here he is standing in the corner of the club because his friend dragged him to dress up as pilots. When he first walked in he admired everyone’s costumes and understood most 80s references, the music on the other hand was interesting to say the least

It’s 80s music, it’s hard to not stomp to the beat. Jack was somewhere else, probably talking to one of the madonas in the building, and Nico just people watching while sipping his drink.

Then the beat of the music started to kick up and his eyes caught on two girls dancing and singing the lyrics of the song. He couldn’t help but laugh at the site, not in a bad way but in awe as he saw people having fun. Maybe he should have fun tonight too.

+++

As the bartender brings you another beer, Donna’s melody comes to an end and the classic slow song of the 80s begins.

“…my foolish lover's game,” you mouth to sing along right before you take a swig.

You turn to see couple gathered at the floor swaying to the music and you couldn’t help to sway as well, it really is something about 80s music!

Watching in slow motion as you turn around and say

You decide to people watch as you cater your glass bottle and your eyes land a pair of brown eyes across the room as the chorus lands.

Take my breath away

You and this annoyingly handsome man who is ironically dressed in an aviator outfit, hold eye contact as the chorus ends.

You being the first to break eye contact, turn to the bar and talk to yourself, “what the hell was that.”

+++

That was weird, Nico thinks to himself. He didn’t notice as he was people watching, his eyes followed on one of the girls that were dancing to the bar.

They held eye contact what seemed like forever with the slow song blasting through the room. Nico hiccups his beverage and looks to find Jack.

+++

One of your friends finds you at the bar,

“All these couples make me gross and sad for being single.” She leans her head on your shoulder.

“I think I fell in love with an aviator.” You yell calmly.

“Huh?” You’re drunken friend asks

“Like from Top Gun, I don’t know if he was maverick or goose but what just happened was too real to ignore.” You say looking forward replaying the moment back and forth in your head.

“We’ll where is he!?”

You quickly turn around to see if he’s still there but he’s gone now. You scan the dark room for his green jumpsuit but to no avail.

“He’s gone now.” You thought to yourself maybe you imagined things.

“Wait I see him!” Your petite friend points out an aviator but it’s not him.

“That’s not him, he was taller.” You sulk

Then the other half pops into view, the maverick you held eyes with taps on goose’s shoulder to talk with and again makes eye contact with you and they both look in your direction.

“They’re looking at you.” You’re friend whispers as if they could heard across the loud room.

“I know.” You grit and make a gesture to the boys to follow you off side the dance floor.

“Follow me,” you demand as you drag your short friend to meet the men.

+++

“Hi ladies” the shorter aviator says as he styles his sunglasses on top his hair.

You and your maverick still continue this unofficial game of holding eye contact and observing one another’s style and presence.

“Yours guy’s costumes are so cute.” You drunken-tired friend says, making you lose this round of the game.

“Yeah let me guess, are you goose and he’s maverick?” You ask the dark blonde

He’s taken back as he stutters to correct you, “actually I’m mav and he’s goose, it’s not oficial or anything.” He mutters the last part.

Your mouth makes an O shape to understand but kept to yourself that the man directly in front of you looked more like a maverick than a goose.

“Y/n Im gonna find the girls, I think the night is coming to an end, at least for me.” She covers up her yawn

“Okay I’ll be there in a bit.” She leaves you with the duo

“I’m y/n by the way” you extend your hand to your maverick, curious of his name.

“I’m Nico” he shook your hand softly but noticed your strong grip.

Both of you stand in awe in one another, rethinking of the eye contact and the tension across the busy room.

A forced cough could be heard, “yeah I’m Jack.” A quick second passed before you turned to acknowledge the blonde, “hi” you swiftly say before locking eyes again with Nico.

Jack stands beside you two with googling eyes, “Okay then, I’m gonna go back to the dance floor.”

No one heard Jack’s dismissal.

“That song, the song we made eye contact with, a bit ironic isn’t it?” You ask looking up at the gorgeous man.

“Why is it ironic?”

You started to slightly panic, “because you’re dressed as a pilot from Top Gun, are you not?”

“Oh yeah I guess I am. Is the song in the movie?” Nico tilted his head in curiosity

“The song is the movie. You never seen Top Gun?” You ask in bewilderment

“No, jack made me dress like this to match him. I still don’t know what a maverick is.” He laughs nervously

“Maverick is the nickname for the main character, essentially. You should watch the movie, it’s good.”

“Maybe we could watch it together” Nico shyly but boldly says as he scratches the back of his neck

You were stunned at his boldness but didn’t let it show. A smile crept up on your face and you nod your head, “I would love to see it with you.”

a/n: lazy ending but I tried.

[wayouts123]

To those on the left, part of the reason those MAGA nuts live to threaten is because they have guns and they know the left hates guns and those of us that shoot are few and far between. As a friend once told me, “they don’t want a gay man shooting back.” Became as poster @bbwmilfnhtr writes “See you Nov 6th 2024. Nothing can stop what is coming, nothing can stop it” they want violence, they want to hurt you.

I’m not African American or LGBTQ but as a supporter and as MAGA has stated that win or lose they want violence, I sadly suggest it is time you start learning to shoot. Here are a few clubs that are worth checking out.

The Liberal Gun Club: https://theliberalgunclub.com

Pink Pistols. A primarily LGTBQ gun club: https://www.pinkpistols.org

National African American Gun Club. https://naaga.co

Trigger Warning a LGBTQ gun club. https://m.facebook.com/triggerwarninggunclub/?profile_tab_item_selected=about

[panafricanambassador]

𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 to FBA, ADOS, Indigenous Black America, Pan Africans, Pro Black Folk, The Conscious Community, African Americans, "n*ggas", Black Hebrews, FOI, Black Christians, Black Catholics, Black Buddhists, Black Anarchists, Black Alt., ghetto & ratchet Black Folk, Black nerds, Black Caribbeans, Africans, American Africans, Children of the Sun, Black Gun Clubs, Black LGBTQIA+, Black Conservatives, Black Democrats, Black liberals, Black Republicans, Black Socialists, Black Marxists, Black Survivalists, Black Professionals, Black educators, Black Men, Black Women, Black children, Black Elderly. Continental and Diasporic Africans:

[roguekhajiit]

It's been a minute. I had some stuff going on in my life (a story for a different post), but I have a funny story to share.

Today, after I had finished my mail route, I was cleaning up my case. When I "clean up" at the end of the day, I sort the undeliverable first class mail (no such numbers, insufficient addresses, etc) from the undeliverable junk mail. One such piece of junk mail caught my eye. It was this:

[Image pulled from the internet]

I, of course, had a nice chuckle before I tossed it in with the rest of the non-returnable mail to be shredded. So this is how the NRA is brainwashing the cultists into believing; "Biden is going to take our guns away! Prepare your houses for a siege!"

The lie works because the NRA knows that the same people who are stupid enough to pay a membership fee just for a bumper sticker are the same ones who are too stupid to recognize a con when it's staring them in the face. I mean, they did vote for the biggest con man of our time, after all. They gave him the codes to our nuclear missiles and everything. Even after he was convicted on 34 charges, they still blindly believed everything he said. "The prosecutors are corrupt! The entire case was rigged!"

I mean, just look at this reddit post from an NRA member who received this very same letter.

If it's any consolation, we at the USPS know this is a fake. Also, I highly doubt that you would be sent a warning letter giving you ample time to hide your 500 guns and 50 crates of ammo.

But the best part about this is that he is actually contemplating canceling his membership. But it's not because the NRA is lying to him. No, the cult brainwashing is too strong for that. It's because the "left has infiltrated" their sacred club.

Even now, they refuse to see that their supreme overlords are lying to them. Anything they don't agree with is automatically the result of "leftist infiltration." The liberals are working from the inside to tear apart their sacred institutions.

[write143]

✨Reading Master List (PART ONE)

Here's a masterlist of what I have read and/or am reading on AO3! Currently everything I'm reading is primarily SKZ fics (some have referenced TxT or ATEEZ and it's cute) but I'm generally just reading to read and learn what people are writing/passionate about. It's honestly enlightening, in a good way (most times). Reviews are below the cut. ♥

You can find change notes in the QRTs, where I list if anything was added, removed, edited, etc.

Also apparently this post got SO LARGE that I now have to break it up into pieces...will likely make a Google Doc of the Other Finished Fics section.

Number of fics I've finished reading: 114

my ao3: think143 🔖 - unfinished work 📗 - completed work 📖 - currently reading/tracking

My Favorite (Finished) Fics

(In order of completion, not best/worst or anything like that)

hands-on learning 💖 (E) 25.2k Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Porn with Feelings, Friends to Lovers My Notes: I thought I would have more to say about this one but it's just really really good. A nice quick nighttime read before bed. There's just something about the ones with "feelings revelation" that make me sooooo happy. And yes, all of the smut is *chef's kiss*.

MFA (Most Fuckable Ass) 💖 (E) 53.2k Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: Teacher-Student Relationship, Professor Lee Minho, Student Han Jisung, Slow Burn, Daddy Kink My Notes: I burned through this fic in an evening and I am fanning myself like a Southern woman in the heat of summer on her front porch. So incredibly well-written, and I've found a fic author that I'll be following closely for a long time.

don't leave me tongue-tied 💖 (E) 57.5k Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends to Lovers, Friends With Benefits, Porn with Feelings, Light Angst, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Slow Burn, Misunderstandings, Fluff My Notes: This was honestly really endearing to read and see actual feelings come to light. Author commented to say that it's based on a manga called "My Quiet Best Friend's Just Tongue-Tied", but without the dub-con elements. Well-written and reads easily; comical when it needs to be!

Haebang 💖 (E) 193.6k Relationship(s): Stray Kids Ensemble/Stray Kids Ensemble Notable Tags: Fluff, Smut, Porn With Plot, Sex Work, Dom/sub Undertones, Daddy Kink, Explicit Consent, Subspace, Porn with Feelings, BDSM, Polyamory, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Possessive Behavior, Feelings Realization, Safewords My Notes: Okay, hear me out; there is a LOT going on in this fic. A lot. The point of the Haebang retreat is that each member specializes in helping you find liberation with one aspect of sex; be it intimacy, dom/sub, etc, and each chapter follows each member at the start before things start to get a bit more involved. However, any time I try to word why I like this fic so much, I simply cannot. Also Seungmin is a nerd and we love him for it.

instinct 💖 (E) 53.4k Relationship(s): Bang Chan/Reader Notable Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Alternate Universe - College/University, Light Dom/sub My Notes:This was the first ABO fic I read and it makes every other one I've read after it pale in comparison. I love how the author describes what's going on in the reader's head without over-explaining or spoon feeding it to us. The relationship between Reader and Chan, plus all of the other housemates, is so so so good.

come on home 💖 (E) 206.7k Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: Angst, Smut, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Violence, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Denial of Feelings, Referenced Homophobia, Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Feelings Realization, POV Alternating, Gangs, Guns, Shitty Exes My Notes: The guns are there for a split second, but this fic is very centered on a incredibly difficult to read domestic abuse situation, and the liberation from said relationship. There's also the orientation realization of another character, but that instills a lot of angst and fear of loss while reading. However, the fic is still incredible, a powerful read, and definitely on the recommended list.

Wannabe Poet 💖 (E) 134.2k Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: Bad Poems, Bullied Han Jisung, Friends with Benefits, Loss of Virginity, Exhibitionism, Smut, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Sexual Assault. My Notes: I'm all about found family and I feel like this fic really hit the nail on the head for it. I loved the concept of this fic from the beginning. Han texts a bad poem to a random number and makes a friend in Minho. Most of this fic seems centered on Han becoming comfortable with his true self and what he wants, not what his family wants for him. I really love the love that he finds not only in Minho, but in everyone around him. ♥

Five Stars 💔 but 💖 (E) 420.7k Relationship(s): Hwang Hyunjin/Yang Jeongin, Han Jisung/Lee Minho, Lee Felix/Seo Changbin, Bang Chan/Lee Minho Notable Tags: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE, DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT, Cannibalism, Dismemberment, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Some Fluff, Explicit Sexual Content, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Grooming, Murder, Mutual Pining, Minor Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Implied/Referenced Suicide My Notes: I have to stress so so so so much that the writing on this fic is one of the best I've ever read. HOWEVER, it's also one of the most fucked up pieces of fiction I've ever read. Mental health issues are at the center of this bloody, sexy, kinky fic. It would truly be a horror movie if it were put onto screen. Please please please make sure to read ALL OF THE TAGS on this fic before deciding whether to read it or not. I had to take frequent breaks but it was difficult to make myself look away because I wanted to know what the hell was going on. I have never screamed so much at a fic before in my life. I cried at least six times and four of those were in the last 50k words.

Heart Song 💖 (E) 63.1k Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho, Bang Chan/Lee Felix, Hwang Hyunjin/Seo Changbin, Kim Seungmin/Yang Jeongin Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Physical Disability My Notes: I just...I cried so much during this fic. In this universe, soulmates are identified by a dream that people have on the night of their 16th birthday. They dream about a significant memory from their soulmate's life, and when they awaken, their soulmate's first impression appears on their body written in their handwriting. The only problem is that...Han Jisung is blind, so he has never seen anything. Lee Minho leads his whole life thinking that he doesn't have a soulmate, because he saw nothing in his dream. I LOVE the author's storytelling style, the way they use angst in believable ways, and the way that they bring the characters together.

Speak With Your Eyes 💖 (E) 164k Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - Space, Hybrids, Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Space Corps, Miscommunication, Slow Burn, ONLY ONE BED, Found Family, Smut My Notes: A ROMANCE IN SPACE?! Lee Know is an android hybrid, and unfortunately this universe has a lot of not very nice things that are in place regarding people who are not fully human. Lee Know saves Han's life, then Han saves Lee Know's life, then Lee Know saves Han's life again...you get the picture. It's incredibly well-written, a lovely drop into a different setting than I'm used to, and devourable in a day. Will be following this author for a while!

so sweet like chocolate 💖 (T) 71.7k Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Fluff My Notes: I cannot stop gushing about this fic. The mutual pining is written incredibly addictingly and just aaaagh! Lee Know is a librarian, Jisung is a student who has never visited the library before, Jisung may have accidently thrown a pencil at Lee Know...it all becomes very fluffy at just the right pace. I read this so quickly and when it was over, and the author's note popped up saying "and that's the end!" I had to check the % progress on my kindle. I would devour any further stories written about this story, but I am also okay with how it ended, and imagining what happens next.

The Curse of Saturdays (T) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

opposites attract (E) Relationship(s): Bang Chan/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

chances taken (E) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

Let Your Love Walk In (E) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

LMCat_98 has joined the chat (E) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

i need you now, but i don't know you yet (M) Relationship(s): SKZ Ensemble/SKZ Ensemble Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

he ain't heavy, he's ours (M) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/SKZ Ensemble Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

A Beautiful Mess (E) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

strawberry chapstick (E) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

Promises to keep, we won't ever need Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

Loves Me, Loves Me Not Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

After Lust Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

abode of the saints Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Hwang Hyunjin Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

why did we ever meet Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

Lonely Street Relationship(s): Lee Felix/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

break in case of emergency Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

Finger Lickin' Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

Poles Apart Relationship(s): Bang Chan/Hwang Hyunjin, Lee Felix/Seo Changbin, Han Jisung/Lee Minho, Han Jisung/Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

boys, biology, and other inconveniences Relationship(s): Lee Minho/Yang Jeongin Notable Tags: TBA My Notes: TBA

To Be Read/Reading List

Charmer 📖🔖 (E) Relationship(s): Stray Kids Ensemble/Reader

Quaver and Storm 📖🔖 (E) Notable Tags: SKZ Member/Reader, Dom/Sub, Fluff, Smut, Polyamory, Non-con elements

Leap of Faith 📖🔖 (M) Relationship(s): Stray Kids Ensemble/Reader

Kerosene 📖🔖 (E) Relationship(s): Bang Chan/Reader

The Stray Kids Gang 📖🔖 (E) Relationship(s): Stray Kids Ensemble/Stray Kids Ensemble

In Too Deep 📖🔖 (M) Relationship(s): SKZ Member/Reader

We'll Be Alright 📖🔖 (E) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho

Connected 📖🔖 (E) Relationship(s): Stray Kids Ensemble/Original Female Character

I like the view right now 📖🔖(E) Relationship(s): Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix

The Force that Drives the Flower 📖🔖 (E) Relationship(s): Lee Felix/Lee Minho

Animals Without Direction 📖🔖 (E) Relationship(s): Stray Kids Ensemble/Reader

Everything you Crave 📖🔖 (E) Relationship(s): Stray Kids Ensemble/Reader

A Crack in the Glass 📖🔖(E) Relationship(s): Stray Kids Ensemble/Reader

Sin 📗 (E) Relationship(s): Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix

Boyfriend for Hire 📗 (M) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho

Waiting For Us 📗 (M) Relationship(s): Bang Chan/Yang Jeongin, Han Jisung/Lee Minho, OC/Hwang Hyunjin, OC/Lee Felix

You Are My Safe Space. 📗 (NR) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Reader

Ocean Sounds 📗 (E) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho

I Kiss Boys 📗 (E) Relationship(s): Various ATEEZ/ATEEZ and SKZ/SKZ pairings

The Pink Rose's Promise 📗 (E) Relationship(s): Bang Chan/Lee Felix

Stalking Tiger 📗 (M) Relationship(s): Lee Minho/Yang Jeongin

Wandering Eyes, And Spreading Thighs 📗 (E) Relationship(s): Han Jisung/Lee Minho

Other Fics I've Finished Reading

Due to Tumblr being a general jerk about post size, this is now in a google doc. You can view the list by clicking here. Sorry, I wish I could make this work better!! :(

[dailyanarchistposts]

Morality in movement

Don’t be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn’t do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.

—Malcolm X[158]

Liberal morality seeps into movements in the form of incessant regulation and pacification of struggles. It replaces the transformative power of dignity with moral indignation and its tendencies of shame and self-righteousness. It pathologizes anger, hatred, and destruction, turning non-violence into a moral imperative rather than a tactic. This is the morality of the cop who tells you to calm down with one hand on his gun; the sympathizer whose “support” for you evaporates as soon as things become “violent”; the citizen who says you had better vote or you can’t complain. People in struggle are constantly told about the “correct” way of conducting themselves if they want to be respected and heard. The liberal morality of whiteness converts racism and sexism into matters of individual prejudice. Conversations about violence and oppression are constantly derailed by individual emotions and the erasure of power relations where white feelings matter more than Black lives.

Under the stifling weight of liberal morality, anti-liberal morality has grown in reaction. The targets and the enemies change, but the structure remains, and radical morality can reach new heights of corrosive self-righteousness and punishment. From this perspective, things are always in danger of becoming infected or diluted by liberalism. Liberal or oppressive sentiments must be attacked wherever they are detected. Call-outs and radical take-downs proliferate. Indignation grows: everything is corrupt and tainted; nothing is as it should be. This “as it should be” is no longer determined by Christian priests, or politicians and good citizens, but by a radical certainty that one is on the right side of a moral drama between good and evil.

Like the old Christian morality, new forms of moralism subsist on the evils they decry: to remain pious, the priest must reveal new sins. This can surface as an incessant search for oppression and a ceaseless attack on anyone who is found guilty, including oneself, through new forms of confession, trials, and punishments. The new Other is the not-radical-enough, the liberal, the perpetrator, the oppressor.

A number of our interlocutors have pointed out how these moralistic tendencies toward punishment can end up excluding many of those who are supposed to be centered by anti-oppressive practices: poor people, people without formal education, and others who haven’t been exposed to the ever evolving language of radical communities. In a compassionate way, Kelsey Cham C. shares their experience with call-out culture and language policing upon being introduced to radical communities:

When I came out as queer in Montreal … I started to find accurate words to describe how I felt about the world. Even though this skill was my entry into more political communities, I still felt incredibly judged. It was like an ultra-heightened experience of not being allowed in the cool-kid club in high school — but with all new rules that I had not learned and that no one took the time to explain to me. The language I grew up with could no longer be applied and would sometimes get me kicked out of social settings. My entire experience of growing up was judged and I felt totally isolated in trying to figure out why. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve figured out the “right way” to navigate in these communities by learning language protocol and radical terminology while dropping the offensive and oppressive slang. I don’t disagree with changing language to support systems we care about. I do disagree with judging people for not knowing the rules—especially since radicals are often organizing in favor of marginalized communities who are generally not aware of these rules. If I wanted to fill out a form to describe my identity, I could check a bunch of boxes that would make my experience worth standing up for: Queer. Trans. Person of Color. Former Sex Trade Worker. Ironically, the biggest advocates for people like me—the people ready to throw down stats about harm reduction and youth, gender queer folks, and the vulnerable people in society—many of them had no patience for me. I came into their communities looking for support, friends, and direction. I came having left abusive and sexually manipulative partners. I came in hella lost, unaware, and not very educated. But I came in agreement with their political perspectives, because I knew society was fucked from the time I was twelve—maybe even younger. In high school, while other kids wrote about teen heartbreak, I wrote about injustices I saw everywhere. I came into these radical communities wanting to make change, but all my habits and the language I had learned to protect myself with got me in shit.[159]

Cham C.’s story gets at a common experience in radical milieus, in which language and conduct are intensely scrutinized, and those who fail are often forced out. Far from arbitrary, these rules are often earnest attempts to root out oppressive behaviors, with the aspiration of creating spaces where everyday habits and language are less laden with structural violence. In a world where white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and other forms of violence are incessant, the desire to create spaces that feel a little safer makes a lot of sense. Yet as Cham C. explains, they can become stifling and exclusionary in the enforcement of a “right” way of being.

What reinforces rigid radicalism, we think, is not the attempt to change language or behavior, but the way these attempts can be subsumed by moralism and reinforce shame, blame, punishment, and guilt. Morality is dangerous not only because it can reinforce oppression, but because it can divorce people from their own power. People are reduced to their statements, becoming symptoms or examples of violence, rather than complex and changing beings. Moral indignation can promote stagnation, encouraging complaints and condemnations that lead nowhere. The desire to be morally right can get in the way of here-and-now transformation.

[taggedmemes]

SENTENCE MEME RED RUM CLUB / THE HOLLOW OF HUMDRUM

you've been flying higher than i've ever seen.

every time i tell myself i'm over you.

my heart is on my sleeve.

you're putting my through hell.

you were my liberation.

lover lift me up.

i always wanted something more.

we take the low to get the high.

i'll give you yours, give me mine.

money, power, sex, excess, i need it all.

we share our shame.

there's a world outside.

i don't wanna go outside no more.

what a night to be bold.

watch me break free from the mold.

it's just you and me.

tell me how can this be wrong.

we dance just like lovers do.

i'm on my way to our secret hideaway.

i got a new addiction.

we've got a certain understanding of what we both want.

better believe you're still my girl.

i'm feeling safe and warm.

if you could see what i see.

when you leave, the world becomes a miserable place for me.

everywhere that you go, i go.

god forbid the seasons every change.

if you could stop this world, i would jump right off it.

you're the girl i've been seeing in my darkest dreams.

you'll be the death of me.

maybe i'm the trigger, but darling you're the gun.

what have you become?

we're too young to be dying.

you could have it all if you'd just start trying.

we're trying to run without walking first.

i wanna pick you apart.

you can see right through me.

i think you'll love this place.

won't you leave with me?

do you think you love me?

you could be my true romance.

i woke up higher than a mountain peak.

i won't admit defeat.

we're not the same people as we were last week.

[halfbakedspuds]

Here's a rundown of the main cast for Echoes of Shadows 'cause I've just now realised that I haven't done it yet.

Johan Suiderkloof: A private investigator and occult detective from Zuurveldt who moved to Ost-Rietland for the employment opportunity. He has been slowly dying for years, his body withering away from a barely understood ailment which he is the last survivor of, and always wears a strange pendant around his neck. He has been known to create profiles on random people in his life as a pastime, with no intention to act on any information he gathers, although he only gathers info that is publicly available, only sticking his nose into people's personal lives if it's for a job. The group's brains and problem solver.

Anastasia Retvenko: Johan's second in command and best friend (Although both are too vain to admit their friendship). She fled to Ost-Rietland after a failed rebellion in one of Rostov's satellite territories, and quickly found employment stealing secrets and anything else pertaining to Johan's cases that he is either too old or too battered to get himself. Despite living in a world where guns are common, she refuses to even pay hands on a firearm, instead sticking to her knives. She's the group's thief and spy.

Maire Aitkin: An Angeheim born bioworker who came to the Rietland Republics as a volunteer medic during the last frontier war, and after being exposed to the more liberal thinking and culture of these people, decided to stay behind where people like her were more widely accepted, working as a doctor during the daytime, and an enforcer for an ethnically Angeheimer gang run by one Malcolm Fahey. She's the group's healer and source of running, unfiltered commentary.

Sasha Devin: The youngest member of the main cast at only seventeen. She was born in Eastern Rostov, and from a young age demonstrated immense skill with fire magic, cultivated in secret beneath the nose of the church who raised her. A church which acted as a front for the cult she is a part of. By order of prince Grigorii of Rostov, she was sent to the republics to investigate a new cult and its potential use to the endless political games in her homeland. The group's source of detailed occult information and their occasional pyrokinetic enforcer.

Hans von Nirgends (Yes, his surname means 'of nowhere', there's a reason for that): Hans and his friends, Mariette and Anselm come from the Neureich frontier and had recently begun their budding and promising career as musicians on a Vosch cruise ship. After a (somewhat illegal) trip portside to make more money performing at a sketchy club, the trio ran into trouble with Rostovan scouts fighting Anastasia, and in the ensuing firefight, Anselm and Mariette were killed. Hearing that this person he'd just rescued worked with a detective, he returned with her to give Johan a case to find the bastards who killed his friends, unwittingly getting wrapped up in the growing web of intrigue. He is the marksman of the group, and the person who gets over shock fastest.

[mikuplushes]

in 2021, i made a post promoting the band set it off that i have since deleted, praising them for being kindhearted individuals who cared deeply about their fans without an ounce of toxic masculinity involved. so how the hell did they lose the core of their diehard fans in the past 2 years? as someone who would have done anything for them at some point in time, allow me to explain.

midnight era was set it off’s peak as a band. they had come back after their last album flopped a bit and were bigger than ever. they also won a fan power award from rock sound magazine, praising them for having such a dedicated fanbase. they’d already kicked sexual misconduct-ers out of their band and off of tours — they felt safe. and when the pandemic hit, this brought another golden era i was involved in — maxx and cody’s twitch era. i was a moderator for cody and i’m close friends with maxx’s former mods (and am dating one of them). with this, many of the band’s most diehard fans felt rewarded.

the beginning of the end started with maxx. maxx did not pay his emote artist, taking advantage of a minor who was just dazzled to do work for ✨maxx danziger✨ and when the artist eventually realized their error and asked for either payment or to take the emotes down, maxx took the emotes down. my partner also did free videos for maxx for a while, but eventually asked for an extremely low payment per video. when they realized how badly they were underselling themself, they asked for more or for the paid videos to be taken down, and maxx took down all of them.

the asking for payment was happening amidst it coming out that maxx had been cheating on his ex, lindsay, for almost the entirety of their relationship. maxx refused to reach out to anyone about it, including lindsay, and has not said a word to this day. it also came out that he had cheated on his current girlfriend, who has shown forgiveness.

this is when i started losing hope in the band. at first it was kind of funny seeing maxx look miserable in all of the promotional stuff coming out since their album elsewhere was releasing. it was funny thinking about how many of sio’s songs were about being cheated on and kind of infuriating at the same time. i hoped he would feel embarrassed every time he had to perform bad guy. but no. he was smug.

at some point in time maxx tried to start up his discord and twitch again after his previous mods left, but boy oh boy. anyone who tried to call out any of his actions or criticize him at all was banned from his server! i remember all i said was it was kind of pathetic of him to delete the mods’ very sweet goodbye message to the community, and i was banned just for that.

my own personal problems with cody aside (a whole other story), i started feeling truly bad about the band as a whole when they revealed their paid fanclub with exclusive content. things went exactly as it seemed they would — the club was overpriced and updated sparsely. it was, in short, a money-grab.

back in october, they released a few parody merch designs based on horror franchises, including a fnaf design made by an artist that did not give them permission to use the artwork. i don’t know what ended up happening to the artist/the merch design.

not long after the elections in november, cody made a really awful tweet. that’s when it was revealed that he was registered as a republican, and all of the remaining faith i had in the man shattered. sorry, this is the only screenshot i could find of it.

when he received backlash on the post, he doubled down on it. it’s pretty clear at this point he’s socially liberal and fiscally republican but it hurts to see him support such a harmful political view. he deleted his tweets but he hasn’t been back on twitter since. he also eventually took the republican view off of his facebook.

as if to double down on losing fans, sio announced a show with machine gun kelly, known for sexualizing minors, and then recently a tour with all time low, known abusers. the mgk show felt a bit “well, do they know?” at first, but all comments of concern were ignored. the tour with all time low being announced felt like a slap in the face. what happened to the band that cared about their fans more than anything else? what happened to that fan power award? this feels malicious. it feels like they’re alienating fans on purpose. they deleted comments calling atl abusers. i’m sure they took this tour for the money, and it hurts knowing they value that more than the safety of their fans.

in short, we can’t trust these guys anymore. they’re not here for their fans, they’re against them. so much for the fan power award!

[darkwood-sleddog]

This is a honest question, but what is your opinion on the class of "Pitbull" dogs? In my experience they often seem to be like Malinois with being a "loaded gun intense dog" with how some owners talk about them, yet also aren't seen as able to do anything but fight.

Do you think they'd be good with sports? Like pulling, or sledding, or agility? Also on the Malinois, what do you think of the videos of them scaling walls, or put through such intense workouts?

I like American Pit Bull Terriers and other pit bull type dogs. I think they have a pleasing shape and I love their fat heads and how easily they seem to build muscle. If you're active, and don't need a dog that can be off leash or with other dogs necessarily, not into socializing with weird dogs yourself, they can be great companions. They are successful in weight pulling and generally love pull sports (all the weight pull clubs 'near' me are run by pit bull people). Overall I think many people have worked hard to maintain the dog as an active breed while finding other ways to satisfy the dog's need to work without falling into dog fighting. Weight pull, back packing, joring, wall climb and other individual sports are great options for these dogs. Hell I also know a ton that do hog work. In this way they are a lot like malamutes (besides the hog work, but one could argue this is very similar to the way indigenous sled dogs are used for hunting/polar bear security).

Where I feel the breed falls short is when people try to "de-intensify" the way they are talked about to combat breed bans and negative stigma (think 'velvet hippo' and 'it's all how you raise them' mentality). I think white rescue people get a big high over taking pit bulls out of what they deem as negative environments when in reality this dog is owned in majority by people of color in urban places. I think that LESS people need to own pit bulls because they are NOT velvet hippos or nanny dogs, they are instead an active, dog aggressive breed. There's nothing bad about that fact, it's just the truth. Like literally think of the nastiest Jack Russel Terrier you've ever met (and i think many people have met at least one REALLY ornery small terrier dog in their lifetime) and then make it 40-60 pounds. That's what a pit bull is at its core. A big ass terrier. I think the people that talk about these dogs in a way that is HONEST about the actual nature of these dogs (intense, strong, active and dog aggressive) are doing the breed a kindness. I think shelters and rescues trying to down play these very real, very breed standard in well bred pit bull types traits in these dogs to get them adopted are putting people in real danger. I think a lot of random bred pit bull type dogs have human aggression and I think we need to be more liberal with behavioral euthanasia for those individuals.

I like pit bull people that are in the breed for what the breed ACTUALLY is and respect that while not continuing the dog fighting horrors of their past and finding other, more positive ways to honor the dogs abilities. I HATE pit bull people that see them as capable of doing nothing wrong ever ever ever. The breed has, at its core, two very different types of camps that own them and unfortunately the later is more prominent.

And regarding Malinois I don't think that there's anything wrong with putting a dog through an intense workout. Malinois are truly incredible dogs and capable of so many things. The problem comes in for me when handlers expect and desire the dog to be overly stimulated and engaged 100% of the time. That's not healthy mentally for the dog and I also don't believe a dog can perform those tasks safely when they are quivering from stimulation. From a big dog owner perspective, I do wonder about the joint health of these dogs though honestly.

And to finish off, I do think there is a difference between talking honestly about a dog breed and the "loaded gun language" I so frequently complain about. Talking honestly about a breed is about acknowledging the differences and challenges a specific breed or type of dogs may have. Not every breed is suited for every person or situation and it is important to recognize this. "Loaded Gun" language, as often used with Malinois and Pit Bull types, is bragging about a dog's lack of manageability as if that is a good thing, as if the dog needs some super human or some sort of ridiculous schedule to act composed. In reality it feels like these people are overwhelmed by the dog they have created, a dog that has never been taught to settle, and are ignorantly talking pridefully about this to convince themselves that THEY are correct and there's nothing wrong. It's not bad to do intense dog sports, or to have a dog that loves and is driven to do said sports, but a good sport dog and/or working dog should be able to compose themselves. Without this ability they are not able to truly be a dog, existing simply as dog kind, and are just a tool with which people stoke their egos. If you're in it for the dog you will allow them to relax and settle, even if that has to be taught.

[antoine-roquentin]

The previous part of this series, Part 2, is available here.

In the world of internal Democratic Party politics, the chosen party of the professional-managerial class, fighting for a role in the party hierarchy is done by resume-padding. You have to have worked the correct jobs under the right managers with subsequent letters of recommendation from your patrons, showing both that you care but your primary commitment is to the job itself, not to the cause you were purportedly fighting for in that position. In that sense, Allard Lowenstein fits the bill as a typical upwardly mobile member of the party in the same way Pete Buttigieg does today. If America knows Lowenstein at all, it's from his role in the popular PBS documentary series on the civil rights movement Eyes on the Prize, especially episode 5. The emotional climax of the episode comes over the party machinations to keep the alternative slate of black voters from being seated at the 1964 Democratic convention, which LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, and his protege Walter Mondale succeeded in because of their superior knowledge of debate club tactics. A series of copyright claims by rightsholders for whom licenses had expired kept this show off the air in the 90s, but early filesharing advocates got to work promoting the show across the internet. After all, if they were trying to ban it, it must be important. The clip here is from that episode.

Lowenstein got his law degree at Yale, did his stint in the military like an honorable American, and then got a job from Eleanor Roosevelt directly, always the most powerful player in the party from her husband's death to 1960. However, Lowenstein also cared to an extent. He wanted the black people of the American south to have a chance to vote, based to a large extent on what he witnessed on a fact-finding tour of Namibia, then an internal colony of Apartheid South Africa. His passion was such that he was a major player in the movement to prevent LBJ from being renominated in 1968, recruiting Eugene McCarthy to run against him. This was because they were both politics nerds in the West Wing sense. Young guns, they believed they knew better than the Democratic machine politicians what voters wanted. They knew the people wanted an anti-war candidate who satisfied liberal pieties and who thumbed his nose at the old hierarchies. The result was three unsuccessful campaigns for presidential nomination and Lowenstein himself becoming a one-term congressman. As Gus Tyler, president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (himself a young rebel against an old guard at one point, now an old man leading younger women) said, Lowenstein was leading politics "away from economics to ethics and aesthetics, to morality and culture", and ultimately "to the Republican Wolves".

The problem here wasn't that Lowenstein cared too much, as most of his contemporaries wrote. Rather, he'd performed like a racer trying to slipstream/draft who had spun out of control. This was because of Lowenstein's background and training. As the consummate liberal striver, he'd managed to become president of the National Student Association in 1951 (note this in particular for future posts). This was a union of students' unions, which was basically the debate club to end all debate clubs because that's all student unions are. Even today, but especially so in the 40s and 50s, the only reason to get involved in student politics was because it was a training ground for how parliaments and congresses work. All they do is argue over arcane resolutions on mundane subject matter, until one manages to land a blow strong enough to gain a majority in favour. It's a weirdo politics junkie's dream.

Lowenstein brought that energy to organizing black people in the American South. Even before his role in organizing 1964's Freedom Summer in Mississippi, the project for which Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered, he was already getting on the nerves of more radical black people. James Forman, right of MLK in the pic below, ended up on the wrong side of Lowenstein at the 1956 NSA convention. Lowenstein didn't want passage of a more progressive civil rights platform than the one the Democratic Party had adopted. At one point, he literally shoved a black man to the microphone to speak on his behalf, according to Forman. He won, of course, because he knew his debate club tactics better.

7 years later, Lowenstein and Forman butted heads over the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's work in Mississippi and Alabama. Forman notes that he arrived almost unannounced, and yet many of the white volunteers suddenly claimed that they were under his orders to do what they were doing, including going to towns that were centres of white violence and had no organizing done. As a Yale alumni, Lowenstein probably had links to major white supremacist orgs to protect these people given that Yale was the university of choice for white southerners in the Ivy Leagues. On the other hand, Lowenstein's line was against black radical politics and towards conciliation. Forman found that Lowenstein often worked hand-in-hand with Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, and John Lewis (far right in the pic above), and were close to Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington's Socialist Party (eventually Democratic Socialists of America), bankrolled by Walter Reuther of the United Automobile Workers union. He was particularly piqued when they went to the Dominican Republic as supposedly independent observers and certified the election of the pro-American candidate not long after an American invasion, despite the well-known popularity of his opponent Juan Bosch.

This rankled Forman because the struggle in America for the civil rights of black people was part and parcel of the decolonization struggle abroad, or so he thought. To have America going around and imposing governments on nations through its military industrial complex and arcane intelligence apparatus reeked of what South Africa was doing in Namibia. After all, there was a reason the SNCC had adopted the phrase "one man, one vote" for its 1964 Freedom Summer campaign: it had been a slogan of the 1958 All African Peoples' Conference, the first meeting of black revolutionaries from all of Africa in history.

This conference was convened by the newly independent Ghana, the eighth independent nation in Africa and the first of a long wave which gained independence between 1958 and 1994. The resounding waves of this action were felt in America. Martin Luther King Jr explained in an interview that year "This event will give impetus to oppressed peoples all over the world. I think it will have worldwide implications and repercussions—not only for Asia and Africa, but also for America… At bottom, both segregation in America and colonialism in Africa are based on the same thing—white supremacy and contempt for life". But "Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent", incoming Ghanian prime minister Kwame Nkrumah declared, which is why the All African Peoples' Conference had to be held.

Nkrumah did not learn his debating skills from the NSA. As a student in America in the 30s, he'd given sermons in churches across New York City and Philadelphia, talking always about Africa. Yet it was his experience of American segregation that radicalized him. Being told he was only fit to drink from a spittoon was one of many insults he faced from white Americans. At times, he would buy a subway ticket so that he had a place to sleep. He knew the civil rights struggle was the same as his own, and this followed to the rest of his government. When Ghana became independent, it had virtually no skilled workers because universities in the country barred black students and everybody who had the ability travelled to America to learn. In 1958, Nkrumah spoke at an NAACP dinner in Harlem, telling black American dignitaries that the next step in their fight for civil rights was to send their well educated members back to Ghana, where they would receive a warm welcome and teach their fellow Africans to build a strong, independent nation that could one day bring together a united Africa to rival America.

The opening salvo in this project was the call for all freedom fighters of Africa to send representatives to the AAPC. Nkrumah welcomed them personally. First came Tom Mboya (keep your eyes on this guy) from Kenya, a trade unionist official and future Minister of Justice who one day soon would ensure a member of his tribe, Barack Obama Senior, made his way to America to attend university. Future successful and failed revolutionaries like Joshua Nkomo, George Padmore, Kenneth Kaunda, Hastings Banda, Frantz Fanon, Dr. Felix-Roland Moumie, and Holden Roberto, as well as notable black US Congressman Charles Diggs, were among 300 delegates. Perhaps the most important delegate was accidental. Joseph Kasavubu had initially been invited as the representative from the Congo. However, when the plane to Ghana stopped in Leopoldville/Kinshasa, Belgian authorities had stopped him from getting on, recognizing him from anti-colonial speeches earlier. However, they did allow Patrice Lumumba and two comrades who had impressed the plane's passengers with their rhetoric at a bar to join in. When Nkrumah met Lumumba, he was deeply impressed and called for a photographer to record the moment.

Also among them was Horace Mann Bond as a representative of the African American Institute, a group funded by western mining interests but staffed with academics from major American black universities like Howard and Lincoln. He brought along a reporter named Bob Keith, who was arrested during a closed session of the congress with bugging equipment. Bond was also president of the American Society of African Culture. AMSAC had deep pursestrings, bailing out a number of black groups soon after it was founded, and sponsored Bond as well as CUNY professor John Aubrey Davis, who reported on all the proceedings to former National Student Association president and current AMSAC leader James Theodore Harris Jr, according to AMSAC's archives. A third group that attended the conference was the Congress for Cultural Freedom, who sent white AFL-CIO leader Irving Brown. AFL-CIO in turn sponsored International Ladies' Garment Workers Union member Maida Springer, one of the few black women. One thing that AAI, AMSAC, AFL-CIO, and CCF shared was an explicit commitment to anticommunism in their charters, even as some claimed apoliticality otherwise. CCF sent its future president, South African poet Ezekiel Mphaphele. Some CCF funding came from the Fairfield Foundation, a charitable organization that sent its own observer Patrick Duncan, a white member of the South African Liberal Party. Other funding came from the Ford Foundation, which sent white University of California Santa Cruz professor John A. Marcum on its own. Marcum and Brown helpfully offered to translate ad hoc between French (spoken by Lumumba) and English (spoken by Nkrumah), and the two report an unknown American helping them with all their conversations.

I note these people because they or the organizations that sponsored them were all revealed to be CIA fronts or conduits by the magazine Ramparts in 1967 (Brown's one time boss at the CIA's International Organizations Division, Thomas Braden, wrote a response entitled "I'm glad the CIA is 'immoral'"). Many of them defended themselves by saying they were unaware of where the money was coming from or that they did not know the people they reported to were compromised. As Ramparts was drawing primarily on IRS information that had been leaked as well as corroborating testimony, they did not know the full extent of their integration into the intelligence apparatus. As many of these organizations folded in the 70s and 80s after these revelations their archives were given over to universities for preservation. They were rarely perused, two notable exceptions being by Frances Stonor Saunders and Hugh Wilford in the 90s and 2000s respectively. What they revealed was not wholesale domination or complete innocence, but rather a joy that the CIA was funding them to do what they knew was the right thing combined with strident insistence to the conduits for their funding that they not be forced to do anything that would contradict with their politics. When Farmer, of Forman's Lowenstein faction at CORE and SNCC, went on an AMSAC-sponsored tour of Africa, he criticized Malcolm X's beliefs as "apartheid and… worse", then got into arguments with diplomatic staff for his criticisms of American policies towards South Africa, Portugese Africa, and most of all the Congo. He later claimed that seeing apartheid abroad helped to calcify his opinion the American government. When Brown became harshly critical of Nkrumah, Springer, his subordinate and mentee at AFL-CIO, explained decades later that the 1958 conference gave her "goosebumps" and was more significant than the fall of the Berlin Wall in her opinion.

Evidently, many of these liberals, like the more radical leftists they battled, viewed the American civil rights struggle as an anti-colonial one. So too did the CIA, given the similar manner in which they infiltrated both through the liberals. However, portrayals of the struggle in popular culture like Eyes on the Prize show nothing of the sort. They tend to show a struggle from the streets right into the Democratic Party. This pattern also befits all of the above named associated with the CIA, albeit with the ones less inclined to support whoever the current president was also ending up becoming less powerful. Typically, they emerged in academia rather than politics, ie the other glorified debate club. In contrast, the radicals tended to find themselves sidelined or shot. Forman was an early supporter of the Black Panthers along with his associate at the SNCC Stokely Carmichael, but as the group descended into factional infighting, his former comrade stuffed a pistol in his mouth and threatened to shoot, giving him a nervous breakdown. He went into academia and helped ensure his son, now a Yale Law professor, could do the same. To co-author his autobiography, "The Making of Black Revolutionaries", Forman picked Julian Bond, son of Horace Mann Bond.

‘Irving Brown was never a CIA agent’, said Cord Meyer, the head of the International Organizations Division of the CIA. ‘The very notion is laughable. He was as independent as you could get, and very strong-willed. What the CIA did was to help him finance his major projects when they were crucial to the Western cause. But in his operations he was totally on his own’.

[decolonize-the-everything]

Your dykecore post reminded me of the time I saw some people argue that cishet women wearing flannel was cultural appropriation because it was "lesbian culture". REALLY need baby queers to understand that just because you do something or like something (or it's popular among queer people you know) doesn't make it queer culture. And queer culture isn't closed ffs. People, including queer people, are diverse and limiting that hurts us. How many times do we need to run through this? The point of liberation is to be free not to be the king of shit mountain.

Exactly.

Like some people like fitting the stereotype and that makes them happy and that's amazing. But a lot of very queer people don't. And they aren't less queer because of it.

Some people just dress casually without any particular care for fashion or have normal/common interests. Sometimes gay and trans people are even libertarian conspiracy theorists who like guns and hate other queer people ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ They aren't less gay just because their beliefs about it are harmful to themselves.

I need the community to remember that being queer and queerness isn't an exclusive club with a bouncer at the door who will kick out everyone who isn't on the list. It's an identity label. That's it. That at the end of the day the only thing people can infer from someone saying "Im a dyke" or similar... Is that they're a dyke. That's it. Everything else is guesswork and assumption.

Next person to assume I'm an uwu-cinnaroll garbage gremlin who likes frogs and bad music cuz I'm non-binary for example is getting beheaded.

Not all of us are happy about being auto-grouped into those boxes. Boxes are like cages. And that's not liberating. And yeah the whole point of our community is liberation so seeing my own community try to box me in like the cishets do is... I can't put my finger on it. It's like they absorbed the bigotry of homophobes and decided to use it on the community themselves but in a Fun and Quirky™ way.

There are no non-binary traits except for being non-binary tho. There are no lesbian traits other than being lesbian, there are no trans traits other than being trans, there are no bi traits other than being bi, etc.

Being queer is queer culture. Not all that other shit. So yeah like you said, doesn't make sense for Shit Mountain to define us.

[momxijinping]

By 1965, the PKI had three million party members – adding a million members in the year. It had emerged as a serious political force in Indonesia, despite the anti-communist military’s attempts to squelch its growth. Membership in its mass organizations went up to 18 million. A strange incident – the killing of three generals in Jakarta – set off a massive campaign, helped along by the CIA and Australian intelligence, to excise the communists from Indonesia. Mass murder was the order of the day. The worst killings were in East Java and in Bali. Colonel Sarwo Edhie’s forces, for instance, trained militia squads to kill communists. ‘We gave them two or three days’ training,’ Sarwo Edhie told journalist John Hughes, ‘then sent them out to kill the communists.’ In East Java, one eyewitness recounted, the prisoners were forced to dig a grave, then ‘one by one, they were beaten with bamboo clubs, their throats slit, and they were pushed into the mass grave’. By the end of the massacre, a million Indonesian men and women of the left were sent to these graves. Many millions more were isolated, without work and friends. Aidit was arrested by Colonel Yasir Hadibroto, brought to Boyolali (in Central Java) and executed. He was 42. There was no way for the world communist movement to protect their Indonesian comrades. The USSR’s reaction was tepid. The Chinese called it a ‘heinous and diabolical’ crime. But neither the USSR nor China could do anything. The United Nations stayed silent. The PKI had decided to take a path that was without the guns. Its cadre could not defend themselves. They were not able to fight the military and the anti-communist gangs. It was a bloodbath.

Red Star Over the Third World Vijay Prashad, November 2017

The fourth way that anticommunist extermination programs shaped the world is that they deformed the world socialist movement. Many of the global left-wing groups that did survive the twentieth century decided that they had to employ violence and jealously guard power or face annihilation. When they saw the mass murders taking place in these countries, it changed them. Maybe US citizens weren’t paying close attention to what happened in Guatemala, or Indonesia. But other leftists around the world definitely were watching. When the world’s largest Communist Party without an army or dictatorial control of a country was massacred, one by one, with no consequences for the murderers, many people around the world drew lessons from this, with serious consequences. This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask: “Who was right?” In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party? Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington. Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported—what the rich countries said, rather than what they did. That group was annihilated.

The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade & The Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World Vincent Bevins, 2020