#and actually based on how much its served as a scapegoat for men to go <<see feminists are all just man bashers>> and getting away with it

[slidehead]

hello online feminist do you hate men as an extension of the hierarchical class they create, uphold and coercively enforce in society or do you hate men because you genuinely believe they are evil through an inherent biological heritage that cannot be mended

[freyfall]

Hey sorry to bother, but i don't thing I've really seen any sexism in the fandom? I might have just missed it, but would you be willing to elaborate on it a bit? You don't have to if you don't wanna

CHOKES

I’ll elaborate under a cut because a lot of the sexism I see is rooted in the ns/fw side of the fandom. I’ll be talking explicitly so don’t click if you’re not prepared for a conversation about sex and ectoplasmic genital shit. Also... it’s long.

God, where do I even start? This post covers a lot of the base issues with the fandom, though most of what OP said had to do with queerphobia. The issue with writers and magic genitalia in the fandom boils down to the fact that so often - so often - I click on a fic to read and heteronormativity slaps me in the face. One dominant (male-identifying) partner with male genitalia, one submissive (male-identifying) partner with female genitalia. And okay, I get it, some couples are like that. It’s not bad to write something like that as long as it doesn’t rely on sexism or queerphobia to explain away the choices. But then it’s... every fic. Every. Fic. I click on. 

Actually, I’ll give you some numbers! I’m going to look at the UTMV kinktober fics I’m keeping up with and see what kind of ratios there are. I won’t name them out of politeness, but here we go. Out of 4 Kinktober 2020 series on A03 with, so far, 23 or 24 chapters each, here’s how the gender and sex of the characters play out:

In terms of biological sex, the majority were male/female* with two partners, making up almost half of the fics read (42 out of 94). Out of said fics, 35 had a dominant** male and submissive female dynamic, 4 had a dominant female and submissive male dynamic, and 3 were unclear or there was no such dynamic. Only one out of the 42 fics had the female character identify as a woman. (Furthermore, she was genderbent.) 

The runner-up was the ‘other’ category, which encompassed the following: no genitals present, only one set of genitals present, odd genitalia (such as tentacles), or unspecified. This category made up 26 out of the 94 fics. Of the 26, 20 of them fell into the ‘one set of genitals’ category, with 14 male and 6 female. The male fics were split evenly between dominant and submissive males, and the females were all written as submissive. 

None of the other categories were nearly as popular, with the next one down the line only having 9 fics out of the 94. This category was male/male with two partners. The next one, male/male/female with three partners, had 8. Of the 8 fics, all of them had dominant male and submissive female dynamics.

The female/female with two partners category only had 3. Only one of the three fics portrayed a lesbian relationship where both characters identified as women. 

The other categories were as follows: m/m/m with three partners, m/m/m/f with four partners, m/m/m/m with four partners, m/m/f/f with four partners, m/m/m/m/f with five partners, and m/m/m/f/f with five partners. These categories only had 1 fic each. Each and every fic with a female partner had the female partners playing submissive roles.

It’s important to note that out of the entire roster of fics, there were 3 women. One of them was a genderbent character in a m/f fic, and the other two were in a lesbian f/f fic. Why the lack of women? Why constantly portray those with female genitals as men?

Going back to the post I linked at the very beginning, I do want to cover my bases - I understand that male characters with biologically female genitals and sex characteristics can be a hugely needed source of rep for transgender people, especially those who are transmasculine. As a transmasculine person myself, it’s important to me that male characters with female bodies exist. Having a casual environment where men can have whatever genitals they want is, in theory, rather progressive. However, three things:

Never in all my time in this fandom have I ever seen one of these characters stated explicitly as transgender. None of the fics in the study above did, either. 

In the UTMV, when writing skeletons with magical genitals, having male or female genitalia is seen as a choice. It erases the need for transgender characters. It erases transgender narratives that deal with transition, discomfort, coming out, and dysphoria. If you can pick whatever kind of body you want, why would there be a need for being trans? There’s no easy way to determine a ‘male’ or ‘female’ skeleton, erasing the concept of gender assigned at birth and erasing the struggles that trans people may face.

None of the characters have bodies that might align more closely with transgender folks who medically transition. No top surgery scars, no bottom growth. No breast tissue growth on male bodies, nothing. Of course, why would that exist in the first place? Magic erases the need to portray bodies with quote-on-quote ‘imperfections.’ None of the bodies portrayed even step a toe out of the cisgender box - such as perhaps portraying female genitals with a flat chest or male genitals with breasts. None of that was found in the study, and I don’t recall fics like that outside of the study, either.

So clearly, most if not all authors are not attempting to portray any sort of transgender character when writing them this way - which begs the question, why write men with female bodies? 

While I was taking these statistics, I had a conversation with my partner in which they said something that applies here:

“[Every AU character] being Sans is a problem on its own, but when you have the power to make whatever character a woman, how you approach that says a lot. What people do is that they give a male character female parts and it’s only for sexual purposes. So like, the entire existence of [the female body] in the UTMV serves only for sex and that’s just kind of not good.”

Keeping this quote in mind, the short answer to the question I posed above is this: sexism. In this fandom, the female body, femininity, and being a woman in and of itself is objectified, hyper-sexualized, and exoticized... in that order, respectively. I’m not just using these as buzzwords, I promise you.

The female body is objectified. The same as the quote above, female bodies aren’t seen as something that someone will just have in a non-sexual context. After reading 94 smutfics, their treatment of the female body tends to start looking the same. The female body is for sex. That’s it. Giving or showing a character with breasts, even clothed, is seen as the display of a sexual object, even though breasts are visible on (cis) women in everyday scenarios. In sexual scenarios, the female body is never portrayed realistically, either. Female arousal and preparing the female body for sex - compared to its counterpart, the male body - is wildly unrealistic. Yes, this is porn, and there’s bound to be realism issues, but in comparison, female sexuality is much more unrealistic.

Femininity is sexualized. Characters act feminine for sexual appeal... and only for sexual appeal. Because a character acts feminine, they’re more sexually appealing to their partner. Feminine clothing, such as dresses or skirts, are seen as sexual. 

Being a woman, in and of itself, is exoticized. This isn’t even a staunchly NSFW issue. I’ve been asked if my male characters, explicitly stated to be bisexual, would have sex with a woman. My partner has received asks about ‘what would happen if (insert male character here) met a woman.’ Genderbends of male characters into female characters are seen as cringy, childish, or fanservicey by default. Women aren’t treated as a normal occurrence. When genderbends do happen and people like them, it’s often in a sexual way. “She’s so hot/sexy.” “Step on me, queen.” 

It most likely doesn’t help that all of the popular AU characters in the fandom are men. It creates an environment where women are scarce and hardly represented, leading to unnatural assumptions about them.

I’m not sure how to close this off, so... TLDR; women are normal people. Stop exoticizing them. Stop objectifying the female body. Don’t use trans/queer characters as a scapegoat for your sexism. 

Sincerely, a bigender lesbian who’s sick and tired of all this.

-

*‘Male’ and ‘female’ are used to refer to biological sex. When I talk about gender, I will say men and women.

**When I say dominant, I mean ‘in control’ of the sexual situation. This was determined by considering factors such as written personality, physical position, and how they behaved. Vice versa for submissive. I don’t intend to use these terms as an equivalent to what they mean in BDSM language, though several of the fics attempted to or did portray BDSM relationships. I also do not mean these terms to be equivalent to ‘top’ or ‘bottom’. 

[kolbehq]

FILE // BASIC INFORMATION

Name: Aurora “Rory” Lindon.

Age: 28 years old.

Gender: Female.

Pronouns: She/her.

Species: Human.

Home Planet: Lysander.

Job: Medical officer.

Criminal Record: Voluntary manslaughter, conspiracy to commit an act of terror, criminal negligence, obstruction of justice, perjury.

Sentence: Life.

Faceclaim: Eliza Taylor.

FILE // BACKGROUND

Aurora Lindon should’ve had a perfect, beautiful life.

Her parents, both scientists of different disciplines, were transferred to Lysander before her older sister had been born. Their mother, Alexis, was feisty and stubborn, attributes she claimed had been positively endearing to her husband Alton, who was always the more level headed of the two. Adorably in love and passionate about what they did, Alexis and Alton Lindon sought not just a better life, but the perfect life for their perfect family. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for two Antigone natives; their affluent backgrounds simply eased an otherwise grueling immigration process, and seven months later, the first of the Lindon clan was born exactly where her parents wanted her to be, in the heart of the most breathtaking nature preserve in the galaxy. Aurora would soon follow, less than a year after her sister was born, and their perfect nuclear family had been created, ready to plant roots and grow - but a family of scientists should have known that nothing in space can grow the way it should.

It began with their father. The truth of what happened to him would forever remain shrouded in mystery to the Lindon girls - one day he went to work at the Chemistry laboratory, and then he didn’t come back. Aurora was only eleven, and more than anything, she just remembered going through the motions of what grief was supposed to be based off what she saw around her - shock, sadness, anger, guilt, grief. Blonde girls cloaked in black gowns, no burial because there had been no body, no closure because there had been no story. Even as she got older, there were no whispers from her peers or her mentors about what had happened that fateful day, what caused her father and allegedly three others to pass away so suddenly. There had been no alert of disease, no explosions, no fires - just poof, and her father was gone, leaving only questions for his daughters to inherit. Her mother was the most quiet of them all, a stark change from the woman who had raised them, and although Aurora was more than content with letting the dead ends die, her sister was much less forgiving.

The oldest Lindon daughter had become a teenage conspiracy peddler, sneaking out at all times of the night to do god-knows-what, and breaking almost every law an underage native could, the punishments for her infractions always just short of youth detention. Breaking and entering, theft of petty goods, hacking government systems, the laundry list of criminal deeds her sister had racked up before the age of eighteen was nothing short of shocking. Aurora couldn’t put enough distance between the two of them; she once had been her sister’s shadow, wanting to be just like her and their mom, but Aurora had come to realize that their father’s death, especially the sheer lack of closure, had affected her sister in ways she could never understand.

Adulthood was supposed to be her new start - with an inherited love of biology from her mother paired with the sheer intelligence of the Lindon genes, Aurora got into medical school with hopes of helping those who couldn’t be helped by anyone else. She loved a good puzzle, and diagnostics became her strong suit, although she was required by the Lysander government to have more than one marketable skill in her field - so she chose infectious diseases and the study of all things micro, inspired to follow in her mother’s footsteps as she neared retirement, although Alexis’ focus had always been plant diseases and viruses. Aurora didn’t make much of an effort to keep in touch with her family after leaving home - her sister was a lost cause, as far as she was concerned, and her mother was merely the shell of a woman she knew. It was selfish of her, but Aurora couldn’t stand to see the people she once placed on the highest pedestals fall before her very eyes, and so she left, on her own path to make a better world for herself.

She should’ve known better.

She had been working on a top-secret contract for a new biowarfare agent, originally commissioned by leaders on Antigone for the ongoing war before the project was hijacked by her own government on Lysander, most likely as a deterrent against any new colonization developments. She didn’t agree with bioweapons, but orders were orders, and she knew better than to not comply at this point in her career. Aurora walked into the lab one day, only to find the usual top-security safety protocols in place had been breached without a single security personnel in sight. She remembered what happened next like it was a dream, even if it was the subject of her worst nightmares.

Aurora heard them first. The chorus of wet, soft wheezing noises - the sound of men dying as their lungs filled with fluid - punctuated by a half whispered, half hissed argument. Rounding the corner, her eyes fell on her mother and sister, alone in her lab, covered in the burgundy splatter of drying blood, bodies scattered around them. Her bioweapon out of its safety container, held in the air like the deadliest trophy as her sister whipped around and caught Aurora’s gaze over their mother’s shoulder for the split second before she pulled the trigger, and Aurora watched a hole burst out where Alexis Lindon’s heart had been. They were surrounded by military police only a moment later, but of course, it was too late.

The official story went as such - after the mysterious disappearance of their father, the Lindon sisters did everything they could to uncover the truth about what happened to him. While the eldest did this in any capacity she could, often illegal, the yougest opted for a more conventional route to infiltrate the enemy from within. At some point, the Lindon sisters had discovered that the Lysander government had found their father guilty of treason to sell secrets of the state to an independent militia group on Hermes, which had been accidentally reported by his wife, who thought she had discovered a mole leak. This was enough grounds to deport him back to Antigone, where he was executed for capital treason. The Lindon sisters recruited their mother to aid them in an act of penance to their father’s memory - to destroy Lysander’s most expensive medical laboratory, where the youngest Lindon was stationed, using the very same research her parents had worked on. She had inside knowledge of the lab, the security detail, the weapon, and all possible exits. With Aurora’s help, they broke in to steal the bioweapon to be unleashed on the lab itself, but something in the plan went amiss, leaving Alexis Lindon dead and her daughters without an escape route.

This wasn’t even close to the whole truth, but the truth didn’t matter once the government’s version of the story came out. Almost instantaneously, the Lindon family were the poster children for anti-immigration idealists of Lysander, already milking the tragedy in an effort to remove any further colonization of the planet to protect the nature reserve. Aurora had literally nothing in her favor, including an “accomplice” who was more than happy to implicate her - her sister had disabled all of the lab’s cameras, looked enough like her that passerbys had assumed she was her, and had even programmed an incriminating amount of evidence into Aurora’s personal devices. It had been her fail safe, lest something go wrong and she needed a scapegoat, it had to be enough information that Aurora would spend the rest of her life fighting it, allowing her sister all the time in the world to roam free. Without their mother to testify another side, it was literally Aurora’s word against hers, and Aurora’s word apparently didn’t count as much. It didn’t help that the story of their father broke right alongside theirs, terrorism apparently running in the family. Behind closed doors, the prosecution was happy to give Aurora the plea deal she sobbed for, given how much circumstantial evidence they were relying on and how little she fit the criminal profile of a long time conspirator, murderer, and terrorist, they knew she might be able to win empathy points with a jury if put on a public trial. She was given a choice, and she chose happily - to escape the life she had been subjected to by the hand of her kin on Lysander as well as put as much distance between herself and her sister as possible.

FILE // CURRENTLY

Aurora Lindon died that day on Lysander, and Rory rose from the ashes to board the ship. Unlike many of her co-inhabitants, Rory actually enjoys life on an exploration ship, despite the whole “space grave” inevitability. As part of her contract, she is allowed to serve as a medical officer to the greatest of her abilities except in the presence of a raw contagion - apparently, she’s considered a potential risk for bio-terrorism, who knew? She’s mostly utilized for diagnostics and petty tasks, her “violent” past making some of her superiors wary to give her more responsibility. Although Rory isn’t happy with how life panned out for her on Lysander despite her best efforts, she’s trying to accept the things she cannot change, and is enjoying the peace of mind that has come with escaping her home planet once and for all. She especially enjoys being able to help people who cannot help themselves, her original purpose for becoming a doctor before the expectations of adult life muddled her path, and certain other people simply destroyed her ability to have a path in general. Rory is haunted by the things she saw in the lab, and has recently come into a bout of insomnia after her dreams left her more haunted than rested. Most days, she keeps to herself aside from polite conversation with her co-workers and patients. Rory understands she has a pretty “impressive” rap sheet despite her innocence, and she allows it to precede her for now instead of establishing a new reputation. It’s taken her whole life, but she believes she has finally learned she can’t trust or rely on anyone but herself, and she needs to watch her own back at all times, making her a little paranoid aboard the ship.When she’s not required to work, she spends her free time reading and drawing, though she often doesn’t share what she’s working on. If it seems like she’s a little spaced out, it’s because she is - after what happened, Rory feels stuck, unable to stop replaying and analyzing every moment of her life since her father disappeared to see if she can find the tiniest detail that could help her appeal her conviction and maybe set her life back to normal.

[nebris]

Gun Violence Isn’t a Problem—it’s actually 5 Problems, with Different Solutions

Thom Dunn Nov 8, 2018 

Naming something gives you power over it.

That’s the basic idea behind all the magic in every folktale dating back for centuries, from “Rumpelstiltskin” to the Rolling Stones’ “Hope you guessed my name.” Ancient shamans didn’t practice “magic”; they just had knowledge, and names for things like “eye of newt” that no one else could understand. To name something is to know it, and knowledge is power. Think about the relationship between “spelling” and “spells” and you won’t be so surprised that Harry Potter has been all over the gun violence conversations lately, on both the Left and the Right—which makes sense, considering that they have a word you memorize and practice reciting in order to kill people.

But when we talk about gun violence—or gun control, or gun reform, et cetera et cetera ad nauseam—we’re all too busy tripping over words to see the problems that we’re trying to address. And no, I’m not talking about “gunsplaining,” or even about the eye-roll-inducing “assault weapon” terminology (which is a distinction that I have come to understand and appreciate, and also a debate that is nothing but distracting on every single side of it). It’s hard to deny that gun violence is a problem in the United States of America, but it’s in our attempts to name that problem where we start to lose our footing, and thus, our focus (and I know a thing or two about focus). Perhaps if we learned to name the individual issues of gun violence that need to change, then we can start to identify specific solutions — one at a time, without infringing on civil rights or liberties. Then maybe then we could have some real conversations about how to make our society safer.

Instead of seeing at gun violence at One Big All-Encompassing Monolithic Problem, let’s look at the isolated areas where gun violence needs to be addressed: Domestic Violence, Suicides, Mass Shootings, Gang Violence, and State Violence.

1. Domestic Violence

An existing history of violence against family or loved ones is the greatest indicator of a person’s penchant for gun violence. An American woman is shot and killed by her partner every 16 hours, according to the Trace, and more male shooters attack their own families than schools or public places. In terms of the sheer number of deaths, the money we spend on terrorism would be better focused on the threat of husbands.

Perhaps none of this is surprising—but for some reason, we still don’t do anything about it. While the NRA loves to whinge on about self-defense, they ignore the fact that abused women are five times more likely to be killed by partners who own firearms, and 90% of women imprisoned for killing men had previously been abused by those same men.

That’s what I mean when I say “We have a problem.”

Felony offenses for domestic violence are supposed to mean that an American loses their right to gun ownership. But this requires the person to willingly turn their private property over to the government, or for the ATF to actively pursue civil asset forfeiture on those guns—neither of which is a very practical solution.

So what can we do? Legally, it’s complicated. But states like Rhode Island, California, Washington, and New York have recently enacted laws to prevent guns from even failing into the hands of misdemeanor* domestic abusers, and quite frankly, I don’t see a reason why that can’t be enacted everywhere. It’ll save lives, and it won’t infringe on the rights and freedoms of law-abiding gun-owners, or people at greater risk of being victims of violence. We can also improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (which even the NRA has mockingly acknowledged to be flawed) by standardizing the information that states and military are required to submit, under threat of financial penalty.

(*The one caveat I will acknowledge: this requires people to actually press charges. And that’s easier said than done, for a number of social reasons that are difficult to legislate.)

2. Suicides

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, nearly two-thirds of all gun deaths are suicides, and almost half of all suicides are gun deaths. The majority of those victims are men, often with military backgrounds, and mostly over the age of 45.

This is the one place where mental health really enters the gun reform debate, and it has nothing to do with a risk of physical harm to others.

Suicides of all kinds are unfortunately difficult to prevent. But most attempts are impulsive, and 70% of people who survive an attempt won’t try again. Unfortunately, only about 10% of people survive a suicide attempt by gun — which means the trick is in screening those deadly impulse buys.

Some gun sellers in America have already started taking the initiative to spot suicide warning signs in customers, using grassroots activism to empower more community intervention. And in fact, when Australia enacted its gun ban, the country saw a drastic drop in suicides as well. If we want to focus our energies on saving lives, that might be a place to start. (Of course, this will also require investing more money in community resources and social work, too — but I think the return on investment is worth it, ya know?)

3. Mass Shootings

Mass shootings get the most attention, because they’re massive and tragic. More often than not, the circumstances around them are almost too absurd to wrap out heads around, so we search for scapegoats such as “mental illness.” But mass shootings account for less than 1% of firearm deaths—which unfortunately makes them kind of hard to plan for and around to base legislation upon.

Now, to be fair: mental illnesses do figure out one-quarter to one-half of mass shootings. But anyone who knows anything about data will tell you 1/2 of 1% is not really a good indicator of anything, especially when about 20% of the population has a mental disorder, and those people are still significantly more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of violence. It’s also important to point out that, while gun violence in general is on the decline, mass shootings are becoming deadly—but not necessarily more frequent.

Now that all that data is out of the way, we still need to talk about the fact that mass shootings—especially in schools—are a problem. Given that small statistical sample, however, it’s harder to find solutions that will be applicable in enough situations to make a difference. This is about more than “walking up” and bullying initiatives. Because the most bullied people are LGBTQ+, or Muslim, or poor, or physically unattractive, while most school shooters are white men. But you know where we can start? Increase funding and training for social work, especially at schools, and give people the tools they need to express their frustrations.

See that? None of it will infringe on civil rights and civil liberties. It will infringe upon the people who don’t want to pay taxes and/or want to harm social services and public education. Poverty, opportunity, and violence go hand-in-hand, and they all require some financial investment to upend.

4. So-called “Gang-Related” Violence

This one is particularly frustrating, because it’s often racially charged — and thus, often used as a racist deflection (STOP👏BRINGING👏UP👏CHICAGO👏 ). Even without the racialized aspect, it’s still quite complicated.

Unfortunately, it’s also true that 80 percent of gun homicides (but not all gun deaths) are gang-related killings, which affect mostly young men. And while there is a racial element, it has more to do with the survival tactics that people are forced to go through in order to survive in a racist society.

If you ask me, much of this connects back to the same problems of toxic masculinity that lead to domestic violence. Even financial struggles or other markers of “manliness” can drive men to violence, lashing out at the world for their own perceived failures. Simply put, violence is a byproduct of anger, not of general mental health. That alone is not a legislative solution, but perhaps it can serve as a guide for the ways in which we cultivate our culture with compassion, empathy, and understanding—oh, and not automatically treating teens who misbehave like they’re already criminals, damned for life, as often happens in our racist education and justice systems.

Luckily, there are already educators and social workers trying to address these problems. Perhaps we should consider increasing their support and resources; after all, it’s better to address a problem before it starts than to spend all your money trying to clean-up the mess after the fact. But it has to start within the communities first. They know what’s best for them more than any government or police interference could help—they just need allies and support to make it happen.

[My one comment here: the vast majority of this violence can also be laid at the door of the failed War on Drugs. End that and much of this particular form of gun violence will abate. Nebris]

5. State Violence

Neither the military nor the police should be excused from unnecessary acts of violence. History has shown time and time again that the use of violence as a tool of persuasion only engenders more fear and anger among the general public, and that in turn leads to more violence every time. The state should not have a monopoly on violence, and violence committed at the hands of the government is just as bad or worse than violence between civilians. This harkens back to the original intentions of the 2nd Amendment, too—to defend against a tyrannical government, a.k.a., state-sponsored violence.

Militarized policing, for example, is known to harm both police reputations, and community stability, without actually make anyone safer. The FBI has been watching and warning of an increase in violent white supremacists infiltrating police departments for years, and nothing’s happened to stop it.

Or consider the fact that 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, according to the National Center for Women and Policing. And yet, the Blue Fraternity all but ensures that charges are never brought against the officers involved, even though it’s been established that patterns of violent behavior almost always lead to more violent behavior. The same goes for the rising problem of police brutality (or as the passive-voiced PR prefers, “officer-involved shootings,” a phrasing that’s intentionally designed to absolve the officers of any responsibility). Thanks to police union laws, officers who do commit excessive and unnecessary acts of violence are often transferred to or hired by another nearby department, with little to no consequences for their actions—despite the fact that they are likely to repeat them.

We should not excuse these acts of violence simply because they are committed by police officers. By doing so, we just enable more violence—which empowers more cops to act with extreme prejudice, which leads to more violence, which is met by more violence.

Much of this goes back to mental health as well, and the way we treat our veterans after subjecting them to the horrors of war. If a history of violence is the best indicator of future acts of violence, then training our soldiers to commit acts of violence—with little support for the PTSD they endure when they come home—is simply setting them up for more violence. That’s why veterans tend to be more susceptible to joining the ranks of white supremacists, or committing acts of domestic violence: it’s an outlet for the violence that we inflicted upon them by sending them to war in the first place.

(This especially true of men who receive other than honorable or bad conduct discharges. The military has their reasoning for their categories, which don’t impact a discharged veterans ability to purchase a gun in the future, even if the reason for their discharge had to do with violence. An improved FBI background check system would find a way to address this loophole, too.)

Unfortunately, this makes it easier for those same veterans to seek out the camaraderie and power of the military by joining extremist militias, or to seek solace in suicide, as mentioned above. Our society (rightly) likes to talk big of honoring our veterans, but there’s nothing honorable about subjecting them to these horrible fates.

We can’t find common ground unless we can actually identify the problem to solve—and we can’t see the problem if we don’t share the same words to describe it. That’s the source of our gun debate.

Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, I hope that we can all agree that reducing death and violence is a good thing for everyone. But we can’t just throw our arms and shrug after every awful shooting tragedy; nor can we throw our arms up and scream about every single death like they’re all the same.

Sometimes, the best way to tackle a larger problem is to break it down into smaller ones, and to make sure that everyone’s using the same words to refer to all the same things. If we’re ever going to deal with our gun violence epidemic, then I think this could be a good place to start.

I’ve written extensively on gun violence, spoken on international TV and radio on the subject, and even pursued a gun license in the strictest city of one of the strictest states in the country. Despite my first-hand experience, the most ardent defenders of the Second Amendment will still tell me things like, “We don’t need more laws! We need to enforce the laws on the books!” or “We can’t stop every shooting because that’s just the price of freedom.” However, those #2A Avengers will still acknowledge that yeah, okay, maybe NICS has some problems, or maybe those Parkland cops should have done something earlier — that is, until they swiftly retreat back into the same tribalistic mindsets that always prevent human progress. But I wrote this, because I truly think that maybe—just maybe—we can find more common ground.

https://medium.com/@thomdunn/gun-violence-isnt-a-problem-it-s-actually-five-problems-with-different-solutions-63f58e93da08

[itsiotrecords-blog]

http://ift.tt/2vcMjpp

The Nazi Reich is rightfully looked upon by history as one of the worst crimes of the last few centuries; a brutal, totalitarian regime which kept its citizens living in fear and tortured millions just because they didn’t fit with their leader’s image of the ideal German. But fascism doesn’t start with concentration camps and grandiose empire-building. The Nazis, like many other fascist movements, started out as a group of disgruntled guys looking to pick fights and find someone to blame. From their small-scale beginnings at the start of the 1920’s, the National Socialists went through a monumental rise in size and power in not such a long amount of time and no one in Germany saw them coming. This was largely down to the leadership of Adolf Hitler. We may think that this is the past and that the horrors committed by the Nazis will never be repeated, but with far right movements on the rise once again across the globe, it would be a mistake to be as complacent as many were at the time. There are lots of things to be learned from studying just how Hitler became the Führer.

#1 As A Spy, Hitler Was Sent To Infiltrate The Nazis’ Precursor You may already know that Hitler had been a soldier during the First World War, and took part in the fighting on the Western Front. However, in fact, it was his continued service with the Reichswehr, the German army, which brought him into contact with the party he’d go on to lead. Returning from the war, Hitler had no friends and no job prospects, so he opted to stay in the army. He was recruited by the political department of the Reichswehr, where his public speaking skills and extreme anti-Semitism caught the attention of a superior officer. He was made an intelligence agent and sent on a mission–to infiltrate the DAP (or German Workers’ Party), a small Munich-based far right movement that was causing the army concern. Hitler went in disguise as a civilian to one of their meetings and spoke up against an audience member who criticized the speaker, leading to the party’s leader Anton Drexler inviting him in to be a member. In hindsight, he may not have been the best choice for the mission.

#2 He Ruthlessly Took Charge Of The Party It didn’t take long for Hitler to make an impression on the DAP, or for him to become representative of the nationalist anti-Semitic views they espoused. Soon, his ability to command a crowd led to him being put in charge of many of the party’s meetings and their program of propaganda. In fact, it was around this time that Hitler changed the party’s name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis for short) and designed their new logo, the swastika against a red background. Unsurprisingly, he was discharged from the army when it became clear that he was no longer simply acting as a spy, but Hitler was happy to be able to devote himself full-time to the party. And not long after this, he took over the leadership in a crafty coup. Disagreeing with members of its committee who wanted to merge with another party, he handed in his resignation. Realizing that losing their main public figure would doom the party, the committee tried to get him back, and his one condition was that he replace Drexler as chairman. Not long after, he was granted absolute powers over the party.

#3 The Failed Military Coup Though he may have been cunning when it came to taking control of the National Socialists, Hitler’s first major action as leader wasn’t quite the success he’d hoped. Inspired by Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome, he decided that the best way for the Nazis to take power was through a violent coup d’état. With General Erich Ludendorff and 3000 SA (the Nazi’s military division) troops on his side, Hitler made his move on November 8, 1923. 600 of these Nazis stormed a beer hall in the center of Munich, where other right wing politicians were holding a meeting. At gunpoint, Hitler forced these leaders to agree to rebel against the government. Across the city, the SA took control of other important buildings, including the headquarters of the army and the local newspaper. The next day, Hitler and his 3000 men marched into Munich, thinking they’d triumphed, but army reinforcements had been called in and fighting broke out. Not having expected the government to fight back, Hitler fled, and was arrested two days later.

#4 He Ranted For Hours At His Own Trial As a consequence of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler was put on trial for treason. And that should have been the end of it all as organizing such a violent revolution would put a man away for life, condemned by the country, right? Apparently not. Many of the judges at the trial were actually sympathetic to the Nazis’ politics, and so Hitler only got a five-year sentence, of which he served about eight months, while several of his co-conspirators were let off entirely! Perhaps their bigger mistake was allowing him to speak at his own trial. His opening speech lasted three and a half hours and his closing one lasted two. The effect of this was to grant Hitler attention in the national and international press, spreading his politics to a wider audience than ever before. In these speeches, Hitler tried to turn the tables, putting not himself, but the government on trial and outlining his dream for his small army to grow into an incredibly powerful one. He even said that it wouldn’t be this court who would eventually try him but the “Court of History” which has arguably turned out to be true, though not in Hitler’s favor.

#5 Newspapers Reported That Jail ‘Tamed’ Hitler Hitler spent his eight months in prison writing Mein Kampf, the autobiographical book which outlined his hateful ideology, and plotting his political strategies for the years to come. As armed revolution had failed him, he decided that the Nazi party would stick to legal methods of building power. The establishment at the time thought they had defeated Hitler. One New York Times report observed that Hitler looked “a much sadder and wiser man” on the date of his release. It went on to say that his organization was “no longer to be feared” and that Hitler would probably “retire to private life.” Both turned out to be very wrong predictions. As we now know, the threat of the National Socialists had not even really begun. When it comes to stopping fascists like Hitler, complacency is one of the biggest mistakes that can be made.

#6 Nazi Campaigning Manipulated Anger At The Establishment After his release from prison, Hitler concentrated on building up the National Socialists as a political force. The timing became right for him, though Germany had in fact prospered under the Weimar government through the 1920’s. The depression of 1929 created much poverty and unemployment, and consequently, people had little faith in the democratic system. It’s at times like this that citizens turn to the more extreme parties. Hitler shared people’s anger towards the government, criticizing in particular their continued payment of reparations for damage done in the war. He also provided a handy scapegoat, saying that the Jews were in control of the nation and are to blame for its problems. Once people’s anger had been directed towards the government and the Jews, they could unite as a political force with a clear enemy. Thanks to the Nazis’ overwhelming propaganda campaign, people fell under this sway, falling behind Hitler’s ideas of restoring Germany to its apparent former greatness, and by the start of the 1930’s, the National Socialists were beginning to gain power in the parliament.

#7 Terror On The Street During Elections Though the National Socialists may have ostensibly restricted themselves to legal forms of politics after the failure of the Munich Putsch, this didn’t mean that their campaigning was free from violence. In fact, it’s far from it. During the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, violence often broke out on the streets of Germany over political rivalries, particularly between the Nazis and the KPD, the communist extremist party at the opposite end of the political spectrum. One particularly violent episode came in 1929. After communists interrupted one of Hitler’s speeches in Nuremberg, SA thugs opened fire in return, killing two bystanders. The Nazis then went on to storm KPD meetings in retribution, even starting a gunfight between the two forces in the streets of Berlin. The fistfights that we see erupt at today’s political events can get nasty, but these guys went for full-on shooting the town up.

#8 The Nazis Were Financed By Big Business Since the beginnings of capitalism, there’s always been dubious connections between politicians and big businessmen. That was certainly the case when it came to the Nazis. Frightened by the potential that communism would rise as a political force, many industrialists turned to the exact opposite of the communists (the far right) and so queued up to fund Hitler’s campaigns. They were also lured in by Hitler’s promise that he would suspend trade unions which is an odd promise, given that he’d told the working classes that he’d protect workers. Many historians have since commented that the businessmen who helped the rise of the Nazis were too short-sighted to see where the nation was heading. The Nazis continued to have ties with many major German businesses during their time in power, including some names you may recognize today–Kodak, Hugo Boss, Siemens, and BMW are just some of the still-existing brands that had ties to the Nazis!

#9 Foreign Sympathizers – Including British Royals You might think that it was only the German people who fell under Hitler’s sway and the rest of the world could easily see that he wasn’t to be trusted, but that wasn’t entirely the case. The Nazis had many supporters across the world, even when they came into power, no less than some members of the British Royal family. In 2012, a British tabloid unearthed an image of the current queen, Elizabeth II, as a six-year-old giving a Nazi salute. She may have only been a child, but what kind of family would encourage such behavior? It turns out her uncle, King Edward VIII, was a buddy of Hitler’s. In 1937, after his abdication, Edward visited Germany to hang out with the Führer in the Bavarian Alps. Even in 1970, after the true horrors of the Nazi regime had been revealed, the former King told a friend that “I never thought Hitler was such a bad chap.”

#10 Hitler Actually Lost The Presidential Election Despite all the political gains the Nazis had made, however, Hitler was never actually elected to the highest office of Germany, that of the President. In 1932, he ran in a Presidential election. It was one of the most violent campaign periods yet, characterized by fighting in the streets and the beer halls. Hitler’s main opponent was Paul von Hindenburg, an independent politician who was coming to the end of his first term as President. Hindenburg, who was 84 and in poor health, was uncertain about whether to re-run, but all the moderate parties convinced him to, believing him to be the only candidate who could stop the rising power of the Nazis. Hindenburg’s popularity won out. He got 53% of the votes compared to Hitler’s 36.8%. Nevertheless, the Nazis made great gains that same year, winning 230 seats in the Reichstag (the German parliament), significantly more than the 12 they’d had just four years earlier.

#11 Hitler Became Chancellor Through Seedy Deal Though Hitler had failed to become President, the position from which a lot of political power was controlled–that of Chancellor–was still in his targets. After the 1932 elections saw the Nazis become the biggest party by far in the Reichstag, Hitler asked Hindenburg to make him Chancellor. But Hindenburg refused, instead giving the role to Franz von Papen. Papen offered Hitler the position of Vice Chancellor, but he turned that down. Soon, Papen found himself unable to control the largely Nazi parliament, and lasted less than half a year in the role. Hindenburg still held out on giving in to Hitler, and made Kurt von Schleicher the next Chancellor. He, too, didn’t last. In January 1933, Hindenburg finally made a deal with Hitler that appointed him as Chancellor, but with von Papen as Vice Chancellor and a majority conservative cabinet. With those precautions in place, Hindenburg thought, the excesses of the Nazis could be curtailed.

#12 Other Parties Missed Their Chance To Stop The Nazis The famous saying goes that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. This can certainly apply when it comes to the beginnings of Nazi Germany, as the other political movements in the country consistently failed to curtail the rise of Hitler. Indeed, even when he was made Chancellor, Hindenburg and von Papen still believed that Hitler could be ‘tamed’, a belief they soon came to regret. But could the other parties have stopped Hitler if they’d known what was coming? There was no individual party strong enough to contest the surge in Nazi popularity, with two of the main parties of Weimar Germany, the People’s Party and the Democrats, fast losing support to the Nazis, and others stunted by ineffective leadership. Some historians have concluded that a stronger union between all these parties could have presented an opposition strong enough to prevent the fascist takeover…but that’s the benefit of hindsight.

#13 Nazis May Have Burned Down Their Own Parliament On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was engulfed in flames caused by an arson attack. Shortly afterwards, a young communist called Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested for the crime; he was found guilty and then, got executed. But historians have since argued that it may have been the Nazis themselves who set the Reichstag alight. As recently as 2001, a new investigation uncovered Gestapo files implying that Nazi agents committed the crime and framed van der Lubbe. However, there’s still no certainty on what really happened. Why would the Nazis do this? Well, shortly after the fire, Hitler booted the communists, previously one of his main rivals, out of the Reichstag. He went on to further curb civil liberties, using this crisis to push towards passing an Enabling Act which gave him emergency powers to act without the consent of parliament–one step closer to being a full-on dictator. He then went on to outlaw all non-Nazi parties. Times of violent crisis, it seems, can be of great benefit to fascist leaders.

#14 The Night Of The Long Knives Hitler may have held an unprecedented level of power by 1934, but he still had many enemies in the political system. These included establishment conservatives, anti-Nazis, and even the leaders of his own SA, who he was becoming distrustful of. And then, in one shocking and brutal move, he dealt with that problem. In the early hours of June 30, soldiers of the SS, Hitler’s new paramilitary organization, and the Gestapo, the secret police, rounded up and executed all those figures Hitler saw as his opponents. This violent purge became known as the Night of the Long Knives, a German term meaning an act of vengeance. This was far from the type of political maneuver that the likes of Hindenburg had expected from the ‘tamed’ Hitler, but the Nazi leader now had enough power to be able to get away with it. He claimed that those executed had been traitors to the nation, and that he’d made the decision to act in order to protect Germany’s security, a claim which way too many people bought into.

#15 He Abolished The Role Of President So He Could Be Führer After the Night of the Long Knives, only one thing stood between Hitler and total dictatorship–Hindenburg was still President. But Hitler knew that the old man was on his last legs, and so he didn’t need to act. Indeed, in August 1934, Hindenburg died of lung cancer. Knowing that this had been coming for a while, Hitler had prepared a law to be passed after Hindenburg’s death, which removed the office of the President. The reason he gave publicly was that Hindenburg had been such a popular president that he was “inseparably united” with the role and it would be unsuitable for anyone else to take over. Right? Wrong. What this meant practically, of course, was that only eleven years after his first attempt to take power had failed dramatically, Adolf Hitler was now both Chancellor and President of Germany. Actually, under the new title he had devised, he was in fact Führer, which means ‘leader’. And then the atrocities of Nazi Germany could truly begin.

Source: TheRichest