#and also people who hyperbolize them being held accountable for their actions as being ‘like a witch hunt’

[nerdyenby]

As much as I enjoy fiction and folklore surround witchcraft, I feel like it often distracts from the very important and horrific reality of that time. Women (usually minoritized women, often with disabilities) were demonized, mocked, and publicly murdered for the crime of existing in a way deemed “unnatural.” It’s disgusting and sickening and it’s happened all throughout history and it makes me want to cry for all the people who were taken from their lives and from the world just for being. Anyone who discusses “witch hunts” without acknowledging the actuality of these horrific events rubs me the wrong way.

[transfemlogan]

idk if you were being serious lol, i have trouble with tone. but whats wrong with some of the ts critters?

which ones are "right" and whos just "shitting on anything"?

i am finally off of work & just ate a sandwich so now i can finally talk abt this.

please note: I am referring to a small group of fans within the critical side of things.

On both sides of the community, no one (hyperbole) can ever settle with a middle ground or have any sort of grey area. it's always extreme. it's always "thomas is the worst person ever & all of his actions r terrible" or "thomas is the best person ever & all of his actions are good", when in actuality human beings are complex and cannot be contained in one absolute or another.

Some TSS critical fans focus on things that absolutely do not matter or have the most wild takes I've ever seen. I was one in a sasi critical discord server awhile back and everyone was complaining about Thomas' posting his clothed ass on instagram ... he quite literally underpaying his employees. i think one of these is more important than what he does with his own body.

and the thing is there are some things that he does in regards to his body that IS weird, such as: why is he posting sexually as velma, a teen character, on his patreon which (at the time, idk if it is still now) is not age restricted.

but him posting himself in a spiderman suit where if you look REALLY hard you can "see his underwear" is not the biggest issue in the world. or him not wearing a dance belt in the same costume. sorry, but actually i think you're the weird one if you're focused so heavily on how his genitals look in cosplay! the way you guys talk about it is lowkey leaning towards sexual harrassment, and I don't know if Thomas has an opinion on it or not, but's its incredibly weird regardless.

Shitting on thomas & co, current & past, employees for breathing. there's a new blog going around mentioning how they "hate brei" bcuz she "always starts drama" and the drama that they're talking about is her getting laid off... like. thats not drama, i think an artist is allowed to speak about their experiences with a certain job.

I feel like certain TSS critical fans have such an unrealistic view on creators, in the same way certain non-critical fans do. where non-critical fans think he shouldn't be held accountable for anything that he does, critical fans think every single thing he does is inherently evil or whatever.

"thomas shouldn't be attacking people in his twitter replies" this is an inherently true statement, however there's certain things that really depend on what's happening.

What is this person saying under thomas' posts? Who is saying it? How is thomas reacting specifically?

someone who comments unhelpful & rude ass comments underneath thomas' posts, such as infantalising him by telling him "thomas, thomathy, my sweet child, learn how to wear a skirt!!!" does in fact deserve some heat back because that's fucking weird. telling thomas advice on how to pose for a photoshoot is also probably fucking weird. but a child (or even an adult) commenting how much they miss sanders sides because it's been 4 years? that's fine and deserves a lot more compassion than thomas gives them.

& then you see how some people dm him about certain things or comment on his posts about it, when none of it is warranted. yes it's fucking weird for you to dm him, a REAL HUMAN BEING, and tell him to "hurry up and finish the fucking video"!!!! but its ALSO weird for him to post your username publically knowing how big his fanbase is and knowing how they will react.

im sorry but some fans are, in fact, fucking rude ass cunts. & thomas is allowed to tell you to fuck off. but its important to know when thomas is allowed to do that and when some fans are not being rude ass cunts. thats the point of critical thinking.

and there is some entitlement within the critical side of the community. yes thomas does owe his fans things, no he doesn't owe you certain things.

it's not surprising that he gives sasi upsets on his patreon, it's almost like that's what the point of a patreon is. but he does owe those patreon users something, since they are paying him Money For promised content that never comes.

it's not surprising that he got upset you provided unwanted critique on how he's posing? in a photoshoot? and then didnt... "credit you for the advice" ... thats not exactly how advice works. he does not owe you that. But it is weird how he does take from fan creation and headcanons. after Joan (& thomas, im pretty sure) talked about how they don't like reading fanfiction because they don't want to steal from fans, only to go on and make logan's eyes orange.

(note: i do not know what that user's advice even was, since they never go in depth about it. so maybe it was warranted some credit and not a rude response, but i have no idea so I am going off what I know.)

A lot of fans, again on both sides of the community, think it's a very black & white situation. if one thing applies then everything else does to, when in actuality like .... situations are more complex than you guys expect.

sometimes there's just not a lot of nuance or fucking thinking that goes into some of these takes, and it's one of the reasons I dislike looking at TSS critical blogs now. its why i dislike the concept of a "critical discord server", because no one here can use critical thinking.

i want nuanced, intriguing takes and criticism. not random fucking baseless hate just because you want to shit on him. its annoyingggg!!!

[fanonical]

Writers of HP content: Draco is bad and terrible and there is no reason for him to have fans he could never be redeemed or feel sorry for the actions he took despite being a literal child born into a cult Also writers of HP content: we are 90% sure everyone wants to fuck Snape. He is the best character ever written. It's perfectly okay that a man in his 30s abuses kids. Feel sorry for him because he called a girl a slur and she wouldn't have his children after that

wait.... i get what you’re saying and i also fucking hate Snape but... Snape was Also a kid who was groomed into a fascist hate group (i wouldn’t call them a cult tbh) and Draco used the word “mudblood” MUCH more than Snape did from the evidence we have in the books.

i also don’t think the same people glorifying Snape are the ones demonising Draco, or at least not on a large scale. if this was aimed at us, we’re Certainly very critical of Snape (i hate his guts as a person even if i enjoy him as an anti villain) and we’re pretty lenient on Draco.

i think this take is pretty misguided. i agree with the substance of what you’re saying but... Draco is responsible for his actions and gives no evidence of remorse for being a fascist throughout the books. i like to draw from Cursed Child for some of his older characterisation in my thoughts about him, because i think he’s one of the better written characters in it, but this still doesn’t really account for his actions as a teenager — and teenagers are old enough to know better. Draco was forced into being a death eater, yes, and this must’ve been an incredibly traumatic experience... but nobody FORCED him to be a fascist. he treated everybody around him as lower, from people poorer than him, to people who struggle academically, to people who are of a different heritage as him.

this fandom is full of people with cold takes and awful opinions, so i wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve seen people with these hyperbolic Cold Takes simultaneously but... i haven’t.

tl;dr: Draco should be held accountable for his actions (and is redeemable, altough not redeemed in the books) and also the Harry Potter fandom is not a monolith and shouldn’t be treated as such

[desirableendings]

Cancel culture

I’m so upset right now. I’m gonna try to put my thoughts in a coherent form but I’m afraid I won’t be completely capable.

This is about cancel culture and about how unhealthy and toxic it is both in the realm of cancelling people and cancelling works of fiction.

This is about in particular two situations that triggered this reaction on me that I consider both really dangerous, and though both probably came from an initial place of worry and accountability what they both achieved was the opposite.

I also come to tumblr, where probably almost no one will read me, but where I know cancel culture it’s more in hype. This is why I want this text to be on my blog, for anyone that follows me and anyone that might come after to see.

I’ll start with the problem of cancelling fiction. Because there’s a difference between being critic and wanting something to disappear from the face of the earth and fall into oblivion. You might think I’m exaggerating or using hyperbole to establish an argument, but I’m not. Cancel culture fueled by rage doesn’t look for reparation, doesn’t look for growth, doesn’t look for real accountability it looks to burn and destroy. Cancel culture it’s fueled by shame because those who foment it cannot stand something problematic to exist, but even worse cannot stand that to exist within them. Now tell me, how is this not close to burning books, something most conservative cultures have done several times when disagreeing with a particular posture or when fearful of the reaches of fiction to critical and open minded thinking. 

Fiction is not there to paint you pretty worlds in which every single character it’s perfect for you, fiction it’s not there to be morally acceptable to you, fiction is not there to rewrite history and tell you an unproblematic version of it. Fiction is there to be read critically, to be interpreted, to be questioned and to question as well, that’s why it is highly feared by dictatorships and extreme governments. You read something (and by this I mean book, tv show, movie, audio, ANY type of fiction that its read when its interpreted) and you can point its flaws, see its blind spots, learn from its characters and then maybe get inspired and write something that speaks more closely to you. What cancel culture does, though, is not even read it critically, but just throw it to the fire pit and watch it burn while warning anyone else to not ever read it again, not form your own opinions, not create new critics, NOT held it accountable, because how can someone hold something accountable without having the chance of reading it? No, just ignore it, forget it, burn it, because it’s problematic.

My example for this is Hamilton. I’ve been hearing for ages that it has become problematic and thus it should be canceled, but until now I haven’t been able to reach the arguments behind it. But of course with the whole release from Disney everything exploded, and by everything I mean a weird mixture between the people that want to cancel Lin Manuel Miranda and the ones that want to cancel Hamilton, and the ones that mix both and conclude the best way of doing it it’s canceling Hamilton first. For the sake of this argument I will focus only in the canceling of Hamilton which gets based in four principal arguments: 1. It portrays as main characters problematic people who were real life slavers, and shows them instead as the heroes founding fathers of the USA, without addressing their problems one by one. 2. Lin Manuel Miranda’s relationship with Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico’s policies and the way he brought Hamilton to Puerto Rico. 3. Some well done critical articles that don’t cancel either, but rather present what happened and what both Lin Manuel Miranda and Hamilton should be held accountable critically, but instead are used to cancel both of them. 4. The fact that Alexander Hamilton, the real figure, it’s portrayed free of charge of also engaging in problematic behaviors specially those related to slavery and the creation of banks and kind of the capitalist culture of the US.

Now, in the sake of criticism and holding things accountable but NOT cancelling them, let’s address each one by one: 1. Hamilton its based in real people that were problematic, and slavers and racist, BUT that also coincidentally fought for the independence of the US and were the founding fathers, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can cancel them and want to forget they existed but the truth is that the US it’s what it is because of them and their actions, and actually most of today’s issues with race and capitalism are because of that history, and until we all accept the US comes from that we wont be able to change it and move on, REMEMBERING were it came from. Believe me, being a person of color that comes from colonialism and that had to come to the hard truth that I am what I am because of the people that came and killed and raped and stole, and that I even carry part of their blood because most latin American population is mixed race, and that just is what it is, I understand how hard but necessary this process is. Do I think Christopher Colombus should be praised each year and celebrated in statues all across the world? HELL NO, do I think we should all kill him in our memories forever and cancel him? HELL NO, because I come from that, it’s part of who I am, and I’ll remember him, but holding him accountable for the genocide and exploitation of the land and people of America, and for in the end forming part of the mixed race I belong to. Denying or canceling this or him would be canceling a part of myself that I HAVE TO LIVE WITH FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. So, yes. The founding fathers were problematic, hell yeah, they were racist as well, but the musical Hamilton addresses this in some ways that the story Lin Manuel Miranda is trying to tell allows, without only focusing on it because that’s one of its flaws we have to hold the musical accountable for even if its out of the reach of the musical. What the musical actually DOES is that it casts people of color in their roles as a criticism and a way of saying that the US of now is not the white US they were trying to make back then, and that the power should shift, and OF COURSE he is criticizing slavery not only by the verses in the Cabinet Battle that everyone seemed to conveniently forget, but also in this subversion of casting and the way he decided to tell this very traditional part of history through RAP, a genre that comes and its largely belonging to black culture. This is actually a clever way of holding a history you cannot change, accountable for its previous violences, and also calling out current violences that people will only come to notice by watching the musical and questioning themselves about why they expect other cast, music and history, and that’s all in the nuances you can only get from READING through it. 

While we are at it let’s address point 4: I don’t know which musical these people has been seeing but Hamilton is hardly a saint, neither presented as one, in the musical, he is a tragic character at best, he has a lot of qualities but these same qualities are the ones that condemn him to disgrace and ultimately early death. But he is mostly shown as a human, and I honestly don’t know in which part of cancel culture “human” started being equivalent to pure and free of charge but that’s far from it. Human means conscious, capable of mistakes and capable of causing hurt, but also capable of growing and reparation that heals oneself and others. Do I wished the musical would have been more critical of the way Hamilton introduced a capitalist culture as the best one and the way he criticized slavery but did nothing about it personally... yes, but the only way I can make this criticism and hold it accountable is because I watch and listened to it, took the good and identified the bad, and recognized both.

The second and third point have absolutely nothing to do with the musical whatsoever, but with its creator and the poor interpretation of proper criticism. And thus is that what should be held accountable, Lin Manuel Miranda as a person, and the situations that happened related to him and his decisions. Now, about the link of profit and “supporting” Hamilton, by all means don’t do this if you think him and the people involved (because a musical it’s never done by just one person), doesn’t deserve it. I, for one, I’m certain that Disney does not need or deserve a single dollar more, they are quite rich already. But not watching Hamilton when its eventually published in Disney + is miles away from erasing Hamilton from existing, not listening to its songs and forgetting about it because it is problematic. These last things are the equivalent of burning it, and I recommend listening to the song Burn from the same musical to learn about what fire does to words.

Now, the problem of cancelling people. If in fiction cancelling it’s equivalent to burning books in human beings its equivalent to murder, and I’m not exaggerating here either, because it is. And again here there’s a difference between holding people accountable for their mistakes and just erasing them from the face of the earth because they fucked up. And here the same problem as before stands, if you cancel them you are also taking away the opportunity of holding them accountable, because if there’s no one there to listen, then why would they even bother saying sorry and trying to fix their wrongs. Basically, cancelling people not only murders them but also gives them a free pass to be someone else and not repair those they hurt with their problematic behavior before. Like, what the fuck do you think happens in peace treaties after wars and process of reparation and restitution are in place? THE OPPOSITE OF CANCEL CULTURE. In reparation processes after a lot of violence has been done to victims, the process is to listen and hear words of repentance, that help victims heal and forgive, so BOTH parts can continue living a better life. Because turns out in the end we are all human beings that want to live and continue to live and we only get ONE life to do so, and if you take the chance for a person to live their lives, then how is that not taking also their lives away? How is not giving the possibility of growth and forgiveness not burning them alive, as if you get to choose over their future??

My example for this case is Jenna Marbles, and how ridiculous and upsetting is that people really wanted to cancel her from mistakes she made AGES ago, that she clearly grew from, as it’s evident from the person she is now and her everyday current actions, and also from the way she is clearly ashamed and upset about it, as it’s clear from the fact she had private the offensive videos so people didn’t reach them and get hurt by them. Jenna is a human being, that’s also clearly hurt by what she did but mostly from the fact that no matter what you do, how you repair, how you grow, the internet is fixated in letting you drown in your mistakes forever, and I’m sorry but how is that not killing someone and not letting them live their life to be a better person? How is that not as problematic as the so judged original behaviors?

In the end I just want for all of us to stop being so hypocritical at aiming judgements and cancelations at everyone else before looking at ourselves, our own violences and problems and understanding if we could grow and be critical of them to continue living, then so can others.

How about we let them do so.

[wiseabsol]

WA Reviews “Dominion” by Aurelia le, Chapter 11: The Chase

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6383825/11/Dominion

Summary: For the Fire Nation royal siblings, love has always warred with hate. But neither the outward accomplishment of peace nor Azula’s defeat have brought the respite Zuko expected. Will his sister’s plans answer this, or only destroy them both?

Content Warnings: This story contains discussions and depictions of child abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and incest. This story also explores the idea that Zuko’s redemption arc (and his unlearning of abuse) is not as complete as the show suggested, and that Azula is not a sociopath (with the story having a lot of sympathy for her). If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I would strongly recommend steering clear of this story and my reviews of it.  

Note: Because these were originally posted as chapter reviews/commentaries, I will often be talking to the author in them (though sometimes I will also snarkily address the characters). While I’ve also tried not to spoil later events in the story in these reviews, I would strongly recommend reading through chapter 28 before reading these, just to be safe.

Now on to chapter 11!

CHAPTER 11: THE CHASE

Alright, so on to chapter eleven, “The Chase.” I think I know why I stalled on this one, besides life getting in the way: there’s a game in this chapter, in which the readers are challenged to find all of the trope names that Aurelia has snuck into Sokka’s POV sections. And, despite being one of the betas for this story (which renders the reward for finding all of the tropes meaningless), I still want to win. So let’s put on ATLA’s soundtrack and get cracking!

 We start with the Gaang arriving at the Royal Palace. Toph still has a crush on Sokka, which both Sokka and Suki are aware of. He describes Katara and Aang as “Sickening Sweethearts” for the first trope. I like that Aang has a “gusty” laugh here—it’s a nice pun. Aang is in such a good mood and I’m like, “Oh buddy, you just wait, the angst is imminent.” Sokka thinks that it’s been two weeks since they last visited, which might be a hyperbole on his part, but if so, boy have things changed quickly.

 “Little lump of baby fat who was heir to the Burning Throne” is a great description, though I have my doubts that Lu Ten is going to sit on that throne, given that there’s a chance that he’s a non-bender (which, along with the sexism that has made it so that they’ve never had a woman ruler before, is something the Fire Nation will need to get over at some point, since it could be seen as a fantasy equivalent to ableism).

 “Having gotten to know Zuko a little better since then, he concluded it would probably actually suck to be royalty.” Yes and no, Sokka. Definitely don’t doubt how sweet—okay, to interject for a second, “Leaves on the Vine” just came on and it hurts my heart—but anyway, Sokka, don’t doubt how sweet being royal is. There is a reason that people fight for that title. Being a responsible ruler, on the other hand—one who works their butt off to serve the people—yeah, that can be rough, because you need to go to those meetings and listen to those complaints. Doing so is, hopefully, also rewarding to the soul, but in Zuko’s case…hard to say. I think he prefers to be directly involved in making things better, rather than being in a managerial position. I think I’ve mentioned before how he should have been sent on rebuilding and reparations missions, with someone like Iroh doing the governance side of things…though putting Iroh in charge might have been scandalous after the Siege of Ba Sing Se. There were no good choices there.

 “Missing Mom” for the second trope. “He found himself wondering if dysfunction was some kind of prerequisite for royal families.” No, though I can’t imagine that the pressures of living in the public eye, making decisions that affect an entire land and its people, and trying to build a legacy helps. Doing that for a few years is probably fine, but not for your entire life.

 Sokka makes an amusing fish pun in this section. “First Love,” “Manly Tears,” and “Vengeful Spirit” for the third, fourth, and fifth tropes.

 The Gaang arrives at the throne room, where Zuko and Iroh are arguing. Zuko mentions something about selling Azula to someone, which must be the Earth Kingdom, since he had a tense conversation with them last chapter. Zuko is in a foul mood, snapping at his friends as they walk in.

 “Visual Pun” and “Clean Cut” for a sixth and seventh trope. The Gaang and Zuko then start talking, with Katara quickly catching on to the fact that Zuko was in a fight with Azula. Zuko explains that Azula slashed his face with a pin, and almost mentions that he and Azula slept together, before cutting himself off and blushing. Sokka notices the blush and is confused by it.

 “Aang breezed up to him”—I see your pun, Aurelia.

 Toph asks where Mai is, and Zuko tells them that Mai and Lu Ten are staying with Mai’s family. You know what, totally fair, Mai. I’d want space too. Zuko goes over Azula’s escape and mentions that they fought, and Sokka points out that Zuko should have been able to track her afterwards, since he’s a “Scarily Competent Tracker” (for an eighth trope). Zuko lies and says that Azula knocked him out, which Toph notices.

 “I’m kinda starting to doubt her resolve,” Sokka says about Azula killing Zuko. This is both funny and sad, because, well, Azula and Zuko are siblings. No one should have to worry about one of them legitimately wanting to kill the other, even in the games of thrones. It doesn’t even occur to Sokka that Azula might care for Zuko. And why would it? As far as he knows, she tried to kill Zuko during their Agni Kai, and before that sounded excited about the prospect of becoming an only child.

 Sokka is annoyed that things aren’t adding up in this conversation, and Zuko bursts out that he doesn’t know why Azula does the things that she does, which is another lie. Toph catches on to that one, too, but isn’t sure what it means. What’s notable here, though, is that Zuko is so used to calling Azula crazy that he says this as an outburst, even though he knows better. It’s a kneejerk reaction for him.

 Zuko tells them that the Earth Kingdom is planning to execute Azula if they catch her, which offends Aang, since the tribunal agreed that life in prison would be Azula’s maximum sentence. Zuko explains that the politics around her case got dirty, shocker. Aang matured a lot during the show, but in some ways, he’s still rather naive.

 “‘I gave them everything they ever asked!’ Zuko raged helplessly, glaring at the black stone floor. ‘Why can’t they just give me my sister?’”—This is sweet, though I think that Azula would be offended by the idea of anyone giving her to someone else.

 “Mismatched Eyes” for a ninth trope. Toph tells Zuko that he’s just going to have to find a way around the Earth Kingdom’s sentence, which Iroh and Zuko agree with her on. Zuko mentions that they’re having their lawyers look into the court case, and then turns on Suki, asking how Azula got slapped with a torture charge.

 Sokka says that Zuko is out of line for accusing Suki here, but honestly? Getting slapped with a torture charge is huge, especially when there’s no evidence that the accused did it. It’s slanderous and I’m not surprised that Zuko is reacting poorly to it. The implication here is that Suki’s comrades lied about the torture out of spite, or, if they were tortured, that it wasn’t on Azula’s orders. The Fire Nation absolutely did torture people, namely the Southern Water Tribe’s benders…but so did the Earth Kingdom, since they psychologically tortured and brainwashed their own civilians in Ba Sing Se. One crime doesn’t negate the other—they both need to be held accountable for their actions—but there is definitely some hypocrisy here from the Earth Kingdom.

 Suki seems to think that her comrades were tortured, or at least she didn’t want them to “lie on [Azula’s] behalf.” But Suki, do you know for a fact that it happened? Obviously, I think that you should believe your comrades, since it’s better to believe the victims than not. But if it happened, who tortured them? Has the person who gave those orders been brought to justice? Because letting Azula be scapegoated for someone else’s crimes isn’t justice, it’s vindictiveness, and it means that somewhere out there, an actual torturer went free.

 “Ridiculous accusations”—no, Sokka, this is a fair accusation, and it’s something that should have been brought to Zuko’s attention during the court case, or at least to the attention of Azula’s lawyers. They have the right to know what their client is being accused of and the evidence against them. That is, in fact, how the law is supposed to work. Mind you, I’m speaking of modern law practices, but it seems like their law practices are analogous.

 Sokka says that Azula getting beheaded would be a favor for everyone, and Zuko snaps. He lunges at him—Sokka gets his boomerang out—and Iroh steps between them. Iroh scolds Zuko for being so aggressive with his friends, which is fair. He’s lashing out a lot during this conversation. Zuko then breaks down, with Suki and Katara hugging him in response. Toph sighs in a “Surrounded by Idiots” way for a tenth trope.

 Sokka feels guilty over making Zuko cry. “He guessed that even if she was a crazy bitch, she was his sister, too. Of course that was what Zuko would think of, when it looked like she was going to die. Zuko had got this way when she starved herself too, Sokka recalled, and thought that he should have remember that sooner.”—Yeah, no kidding, Sokka. A little empathy and tact would have served you much better in this conversation.

 Sokka apologizes shortly after this and Zuko apologizes in return. Katara promises that they’ll always help Zuko, and I wonder if that would still be true if they knew that he’d raped Azula (which he definitely did, even if he didn’t realize it at the time, since Azula wasn’t able to consent).

 Sokka “wondered idly why [Katara] couldn’t forgive him that quickly when he said something tactless.” While Sokka assumes that it’s because Zuko is crying, I’m pretty sure that it’s because Katara has an unacknowledged crush on Zuko, so she’s more inclined to cut him some slack.

 “It would be like Toph shoe-shopping. No one would buy it.”—This is very funny.

 “Sokka reflected again on the idiocy of investing this much time, emotion, and debate into someone as damaged and dangerous as Zuko’s psycho little sister.”—I see what you’re doing here, Aurelia.

 Sokka asks what they should do if Azula tries to kill them, and Zuko says, “She’s crazy. And scared, and alone.” And on the one hand, that’s true, but on the other hand, he shouldn’t be infantilizing her.

 “‘Please just—remember that, if she does anything too desperate, or,’ he practically choked on his words, ‘says anything too desperate.’” This is a bad look for Zuko, since he is, essentially, trying to give himself a cushion against any accusations that Azula levels at him. He is trying to plant a seed of doubt so they’re less inclined to believe her about the rape. But I think that this will backfire on him, because he’s priming them to pay attention to what she says instead. The cold truth is, if he hadn’t done this, I don’t think they would have believed her. They’d think she was trying to slander him, because A.) They like and respect him and want to believe that he’s fully redeemed and would never do such a thing, B.) They believe that she’s a lying villain who wants to take him down, and C.) Many people don’t believe sexual assault victims anyway, regardless of the evidence they have to support their claims. But now he’s drawing arrows to her accusations, and a few of them will probably remember that, and how weird he was acting during this conversation. They’ll wonder why he said that they should dismiss what she says, which would have normally been a given for them.

 The conversation wraps up as the Gaang goes to their rooms, and Zuko and Iroh continue to talk offscreen. We shift over to Azula’s POV. She’s riding an ostrich horse past an abandoned mill. She’s being rather nasty to her mount, using her fire whip to make it do what she wants. It seems like she hasn’t grown out of being cruel to animals yet (though I just re-watched the introduction to June in ATLA, and she liberally uses her whip on her mount, so I’m not sure that this is an uncommon treatment of animals in this world, just distasteful).

 Azula didn’t stop to grab provisions, which is a surprising mistake, coming from her. Granted, she had to escape quickly in the last chapter, and was probably scattered from a fresh dose of trauma. She fantasizes about eating Rai’s potato and leek stew, rather than some of her favorite foods from the palace. To be fair, if that was my most recent, tasty meal, I’d probably be doing the same. But also, I think the kindness of that meal has probably gotten under Azula’s skin.

 “She had been discovered. She knew how that would end. So why did she stay? She had asked herself that a dozen times since the cook betrayed her, and now thought she knew. Not for Rai’s company, certainly. Azula ought to have her traitor’s tongue out just for the presumption she showed.”—Okay, Hot Stuff, have you ever actually ordered for someone to have their tongue taken out, or are you just repeating something nasty Ozai that threatened to do? Because I’m betting it’s the latter. Also, I bet you stayed because you liked being shown some basic human kindness.

 “No, worse still, it was to eat food that didn’t taste the same every day, and lay her head on a pillow at night, and take a bath—an actual bath—without unwelcome supervision…”—You mean the things that every human being should have? Especially the unsupervised baths part? I understand why Azula was watched, since she might have tried to hurt herself if she was left alone in the asylum, but still, that’s terrible.

 “If she let such base considerations drive her, she would be no better than her hedonist uncle. Far better she had been betrayed now and so incompetently, then continue that way. It was that kind of complacency that would get her captured, or killed.”—Oh good, you’re going to deny yourself basic human comforts to get the job done, that’s healthy for you, Azula. You want to know who I bet never did something remotely similar to that? Ozai. I bet he’s always slept with a pillow and always had a cook on hand and was always able to bath in private. Good lord, child.

 “Her father was counting on her. Her country was counting on her. She could not make these kind of mistakes.”—That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself, my dear. Sadly, I think that the Fire Nation might have forgotten about her, since no one tried to break her out.

 Azula unloads her mount of supplies and sends it running in another direction—with more fire whips, shame on her (though is she hurting it or just scaring it? That isn’t clear)—to leave a false trail for anyone who might be pursuing her. She then thinks, “It was too bad about losing the ostrich horse though, especially after Mother gave her so much grief—" So she’s still seeing Ursa. To be specific, Ursa was chiding her about stealing the ostrich horse. There are a couple of things of note about this. One is that Azula is committing the same crime that Zuko did in the show, and will probably get more flack for it. The other is that the voice of her mother, in this moment, seems to be her conscience—meaning that Azula feels guilty about stealing.

 “They never did anything for me either . . . So what do you imagine I owe them?”—Azula shuts down her guilt by saying something that sounds suspiciously like something Ozai would say. That because someone wasn’t kind to her, that gives her the right to be cruel to them. Which…really isn’t how you should treat people.

 “She didn’t talk to it. Wasn’t that her rule?”—Does that help you, Azula?

 “How could she expect to rule anyone when she couldn’t even rule herself….”—Another thing that I’m certain Ozai said to her at some point.

 “She had a mission. Everything else was immaterial. This was her one chance. No room for mistakes. No room for distractions. She had to focus. She had to get better. She would not be as effective as she could be, until she was whole again.”—Again, that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself, Azula. Sadly, you might be right, though. The Earth Kingdom isn’t going to give you a second chance to find your mother. They don’t even want to give you this one.

 Azula then burns down the mill and escapes by boat, hopefully widening the distance between herself and those searching for her.

 Back to the Gaang! Toph and Aang are practicing earthbending, while Sokka preps the war balloon and inwardly gripes about them not helping. Aang and Katara are searching for Azula on Team Appa, while Suki, Sokka, and Toph are on Team War Balloon (which has been dyed black for the occasion).

 Sokka makes a basket case pun about the balloon as he and Suki argue over how he treated Zuko the previous day. Suki points out that he missed the fact that Mai left Zuko, which Katara is peeved about. Katara, you don’t know and don’t want to know the full story there, trust me. Suki agrees with me. Katara reveals that she tried to talk to Mai, which Suki is horrified about, because good lord is it none of Katara’s business. Tact does not run in this family.

 Zuko comes charging in, upset by this. Zuko and Katara argue, and Suki, hilariously, “looked to Sokka in clear disbelief that this much tactlessness could be contained in one family.” I knew that Suki and I were on the same page.

 “Since when does she need to cool off? She shows all the emotion of an ice cube.”—Hey, Katara? This is super rude. Just because you don’t like Mai and are lowkey jealous of her relationship with Zuko does not give you the right to insult her.

 “‘She had every reason!’ Zuko hotly defended, and implicated himself by saying so.”—Whoops, Zuko. Good job. “I brought you here to find my sister, not play marriage councilor! So why don’t you just stay out of problems that don’t concern you?”—Ho boy, so he shouldn’t have said this as hotly as he did, but he’s also not wrong? Focus on the problem that he’s asked for help with, Katara. His marital problems are none of your concern.

 Katara responds equally hotly to this, but she’s in the wrong here, even if it will probably take her some time to realize that. What she’s most upset about is Zuko acting like he summoned them to his side, rather than them coming because they’re friends, and like…I can see why that would be insulting, but you also just tried to interfere with his marriage, Katara. I think you messed up worse in this fight.

 Katara and Aang head out, or in Katara’s case, storms out. Team War Balloon leaves soon afterwards, with Sokka thinking that he’d rather deal with Flaky Aang over Angry Jerk any day, which is fair. Zuko and Katara were both poorly behaved here.

 “He guessed they’d all be happier once Azula was back in her straightjacket. But first he had to make it happen. Right. No problem.”—I doubt that you’re going to make it happen, Sokka, and I think that you doubt it too.

 And that’s the end of chapter eleven! Next up is chapter twelve, “The Seal,” which is my favorite chapter in this fic so far. I’m excited! As always, thank you for the read, Aurelia.

 Sincerely,

WiseAbsol    

[taylorscottbarnett]

2020

I'd also like to be very clear on one thing:

Barring credible child molestation charges, I'll absolutely and full heartedly back whoever becomes the Democratic nominee. George W. Bush could wear a bad fake mustache, win the Democratic nomination, and I'd vote for him. Dick Cheney could run and he'd have my backing. I'd vote for Ronald Reagan, reanimated, cloned, or zombified, or his long dead and shriveled corpse over Trump2020. Biden could drown a puppy infront of me and he'd still have my vote. Warren could endorse trickle-down economics and I'd still vote for her.

Because whosoever is running on the Democratic ticket; faults, values, virtues, and shortcomings, is realistically, mathematically, and literally the one and only alternative to Trump being reelected.

They are the only chance to bring sanity and any respectability back to the Republican party. They are the one and only chance to stop a lifelong takeover of the federal court system by hard-right conservative judges. They are the one and only way to save the respectability, and reputation of the Supreme Court.

The GOP is quite literally the Trump party at this point. He commands their loyalty. We saw that with how he treated Comey, we saw that during the Russia investigation. We saw that in how he treated those who testified against him and those who refused during the Muller investigation. We saw how he treated McCain, and Republicans did nothing about it. Veterans did nothing. Military members still staunchly supported him.

Donald Trump is not a conservative. He's not a Republican. Donald Trump is quite literally a cancer to democracy. He criticizes our allies, he practically worships dictatorships. He lusts for unchecked power. He attempts to tear down any institution that would dare attempt to even remotely be a check on him.

Independent investigators. Opposition parties. Fellow Republicans. Judges. The media. American allies. The Federal Reserve.

Donald Trump is a very real, and very dangerous threat to the US Constitution, American sovereignty, as well as the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branchs.

And this is why, calling Clinton and Bush, and Obama the antichrist, evil, the worst ever, is dangerous to our democracy. We might disagree, but not one of those comes even close to the dangers of a despot-wanabe like Donald Trump being re-elected. People grow numb to these accusations and they don't recognize actual fascism when it's infront of their own eyes.

Not only would his re-election doom what's left of the Republican Party to racist, fascist, nutters, not only would that doom the federal court system to enforce Donald Trump's polices long after he's dead and far into Generation Z's lifetime, it would risk completely destroying the rest of the world order that America has painstakingly built since World War II. It would risk the entire global economy.

Worse still it would solidify precedents. Hiding your financial records. Outright attacking other branchss of government. Attacking a free press. Attacking veterans that don't bend to your will. Targeting minorities. Targeting literally anyone and anything that might possibly pose a threat to white power, white dominance, and white supremacy.

We are up against an ideology that has the full backing of evangelicals like never before, because not only of his policies, but they believe he'll bring the United States and world one step closer to armageddon, the literal Rapture, Tribulation and End Times. (Ironic because he's literally closer to the antichrist than anything America has seen.) -- and don't @ me on that.

I'm a Pentecostal. I was reading and understanding prophecy and the Book of Revelation in particular when I was 13. I not only read the bible, I intentionally looked for the gnostic gospels, and compared and contrasted them. Just because I follow an evangelical religion doesn't mean I'm not fiercely liberal, especially with social issues. Most of the liberal stances I take are directly inline with Pentacostal, not to mention Christian in general, beliefs. Including my staunch support for LBGT+ rights, abortion, the poor, and immigration. The first two I've cited a number of times in previous posts, and while my faith is firm, I absolutely stand by scientific, evidence-based data, the age of the world, evolution, climate change, etc. Faith doesn't negate evidence-based scientific beliefs.

If any world leader in the past 50 years filled the described role of the Antichrist better than Trump, I don't know of them.

You can't fight ideologically driven zealots, who are willing to disregard everything that their own senses can clearly observe, that any and all rational thought would lead you to conclude Donald Trump would have not only been preached against by Jesus Christ, he would openly and fiercely rebuke every single Christian who supported him.

This is not hyperbole. This isn't even a liberal stance. This is basic, observational conclusion.

Donald Trump's attacks on American values, on Christian values, on Republican values, on Democratic values, on moral and decent values, must end. He must be held accountable for his actions and American must stand up and say no. No more. This isn't what we stand for. This isn't our values. This isn't us. We are better than this.

Donald Trump has never once faced even the slightest repercussions for his actions. He is the poster-boy for rich, white, male, Christian privilege. Sure he's not the last one, but enough of them think he is to still get that privilege.

For once in his life he must be held accountable for his words and actions, and we must be the ones to ensure that happens.

And in closing, if you wonder at all what our founding fathers would actually think of Donald Trump:

"Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments." - Alexander Hamilton

"If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." - Thomas Paine

"Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck." - Thomas Jefferson

"A government of laws, and not of men." - John Adams

[mindlessselfdeprivation]

The Nothing

It’s just like The Neverending Story. It’s not darkness, it’s not even a hole, because even hole would be something. No, this...this is just nothing.

That’s depression. That’s what true despair is, it’s The Nothing that eats up your everything. It bleaches your life, nothing has any color or flavor or texture anymore. Food sucks, company is annoying, being alone is excruciating and substances exist only as a shit-ass temporary floaty. Recreation means nothing anymore, every desperate action during the day is taken only to distract me from myself for a little bit longer. Sleep will come soon, and in sleep there’s just that sweet fucking nothing. 

Which is what you feel like you constantly have, at any given time. Nothing. The Nothing has it now. And now every memory is covered in spikes, too painful to even go near.

Nothing can make you feel ok anymore, and your good days are the ones where you only brood and lament your life for a few hours out of the day. You know, as opposed to every second you’re awake. 

Those days happen so much more often. I swear to fucking God, some days I feel like the pain inside me is gonna open a fucking hole in the earth. Like I’m no longer going to be able to keep this horrible monster at bay anymore, and the scream that finally peals out of me will shred my lungs and crack open an abyss that swallows me once and for all. 

I fear for anyone that might be around when that bomb goes off. Which is another problem. Although I’m desperate to be seen and heard and known and loved, I’m fucking terrified of getting near anyone ever again, it seems like an absurd idea to even say it out loud. I’m a goddamned hurricane, I’m a fucking natural disaster on legs, an extinction level event taken human form. All of my relationships....it’s just a festering sewage basin, that whole area of my life. Everything there, flies and pestilence, disease and rot. 

That’s my heart in there too. Fucking rotten, like an old forgotten tree stump wasting away in a swamp somewhere in whogivesafuck. Thinking on it, can I even love anymore? Do I even know what that is anymore? 

An older woman I work with asked me for a hug the other day cause she was a little sad, thinking about her brother that died...and I was happy to oblige, she’s the sweetest little thing. And I realized - holy shit, this is the first real hug I’ve had in an entire year. I’ve hardly touched anyone for ten months outside of a handshake or a friendly bro-hug. 

And afterwards she thanked me and said I gave great hugs, and it dawned on me...I remembered being a guy who loved hugs, remembered a guy that was very romantic and affectionate, that insisted on using physical touch to remind those around him that he loved them dearly....then I looked over from that guy to the one that’s in there now. What a shadow, what a husk he’s become. Empty and hollow and discarded. A lost soul...an inevitable consequence of The Nothing.

The worst thing? I mean, if there is a blacker black than all the rest...

The Apathy. That’s what The Nothing shits out and leaves behind for you. You just don’t....fucking....care...anymore.

I used to have passion, play music, learn language or just about any damn thing else (I was always such a junkie for knowledge), write stories or poetry or music or any one of a dozen other things that enjoyed. And I don’t even write this out of sadness or with some sense of self pity, this is just a cold, apathetic recall of facts. There was a guy who knew love and there’s the guy sitting there now. And those are simply two different guys. And the insurance adjuster in me is fairly certain that at this level of damage, it’ll cost more to repair the existing vehicle than it would to just buy a new one.

I don’t have any real relationships anymore. I have the ones that are necessary to maintain normal social function, but even those I put in just enough to get buy and no more. I’ve lost too much and hurt too deeply and hurt others far too much to let anyone close anymore. It’s hard to describe how it feels to look around you and realize you’re standing alone, no one around. 

The only times I hear from someone is when they need something from me. I’m like a tool for rent. Why buy this thing when I only ever need to use it once in a blue moon?

Family? No, two sisters and two brothers in law that I don’t know anymore and they definitely don’t know me. A mom that taught me to use people like pawns and a dad so devoid of emotion and connection that it’s impossible to communicate, a daughter I never see or speak to anymore and an ex that swore we’d remain amicable for the sake of our daughter but slowly, methodically, and fucking brilliantly shut me out of her life completely...and my daughter with her by extension. Friends? No one there that knows me either, just people I talk to on occasion to spend a little bit of my distraction time with someone else.

But no one around me knows this. I put on a pretty decent mask I suppose, my boss apparently thought I was a really happy guy and married with kids. Ha. Cool, it’s working. I’ve gotten good at camouflage. It’s just another form of lying, and I’m incredibly good at lying. 

Talking about it, is like...what’s the fucking point? This is a tar pit, baby. I’m not bringing anyone else in this. Even if you were standing right next to me with a brilliant torch, this darkness, this Nothing around me is far too thick to see it. 

I miss writing though, maybe that’s why I’m finally doing this. Putting something down. I’m going to commit to talking to this fucking thing everyday. No one knows me here, I barely use this website. I only ever got onto it for....well, another person who eventually left. Maybe that’s why I feel I can be ok here, being naked and bleeding and fucked up and real.....no one who knows me by my mask will have to know what lives underneath it. This is my tree of trust.

I don’t want this to just be a dumping ground for depressed Emo bullshit though, I can go listen to Dashboard Confessionals while cutting myself if I wanted to go there. What I want is a true exploration and record of The Nothing as it grows stronger, what it’s taking, what fuels it, can I escape. I don’t want help either, I don’t think there is any such thing (see tar pit reference above). Maybe you’re always alone too, maybe you’re also constantly afraid that the house of cards will get blown down and people will see the real ugly inside. 

Maybe this is just me yelling into the wind that you’re alone, but not so alone. Maybe all of us are and none of us. Maybe I don’t know what to believe anymore.

I’ve tried to remember it, you know. Happiness. I’ve tried to find that motherfucker like Sherlock and his dear Watson, complete with cocaine and violins. You ever try to think of a nice warm fire while you’re soaking wet and freezing your balls off? And how’d that work out for ya? Same idea - “Just think happy thoughts” is like telling someone that just fell into arctic waters that they should “Just think of a nice warm fire”.

Hopefully, they’re still giving you the finger when their body gets frozen in place. It’d be a bit of justice, if there is such a thing.

That happiness is like the thought of a warm blanket when I’m currently buried in snow. Doesn’t actually exist.

There’s not a day where I don’t wake up wishing to fuck that I hadn’t. And there isn’t a night that I go to sleep that I don’t pray that I won’t wake up this time. Life has become a grueling marathon of pain and most days I have trouble figuring out why I fucking bother. 

Even as I’m writing this, I’m constantly stopping to wonder what’s the fucking point. 

I’ve gone on dating apps, funny enough. But every time I actually think about having a connection with someone, it honestly freaks me the fuck out. I’m so fucking damaged, there’s just no fucking way I’ll find someone with a back strong enough to help me carry all this baggage. I freak out and delete the account.

It’s completely not about the sex for me, if you can believe it. I’ve got such a low libido recently that even the idea of it lately gives me paralyzing anxiety. I don’t want to have sex if it’s not with someone I have a good intellectual connection with, and I never have. The problem with that is that sex in my mind is held on this strange pedestal where it straddles the line between sacred entity and foul beast, and it’s gotten so complicated and ridiculous that I just don’t care anymore. 

There isn’t anything even tempting or alluring about sex anymore. Even masturbation is almost completely without enjoyment, used every so often as a tool for general upkeep. And even this The Nothing has it’s hands on. The other day, I stumbled on a video that looked almost exactly like my child’s mother with another man...and I got physically ill. After throwing up 3 times and shaking for nearly an hour, I slowly pulled myself back from the panic attack I was having.

I didn’t eat for 3 days and I couldn’t get another erection for more than a week. Suppose it’s safe to say I’m still in love with that woman, I guess. Not only did I feel like absolute shit that whole week, I felt like shit for feeling like shit. My Yin and my Yang were both very very pissed off. This is just one of a number of broken fuses and faulty wires inside this broken machine.

Sometimes I wish we had the ability to do a form of Vulcan Min-meld, but with emotions and empathy. Especially when someone asks what’s wrong. Just grab their hand and rest it gently over my heart and let it tell the story for which I’ll never have the words. 

That’s also why I’d be scared like hell if that were possible, I’d be afraid the weight of it would crush them. I’m not trying to be really morose or hyperbolic, I’m fairly certain the vast majority of people walking around out there don’t carry this. I’ve talked to them, I know them. When you’ve spent a fucking lifetime perfecting your camouflage and your tower of lies, you can spot someone else playing that game from a mile away. And I’m not saying everyone else out there is skipping through a magic pixie lolly-pop fairyland or anything, but most people out there are general pretty stoked about being alive and doing stuff. People like me are out there, but I don’t see very many people that are under the spell of The Nothing.

I fucking hope not, this is an existence I wouldn’t wish on anyone, friend or foe. On that note, I also hope you aren’t going through that as well if you’re reading this right now. If you’ve never counted the different ways you could choose to end your life instead of counting sheep to fall asleep at night, you are truly blessed. 

I hope you stay whole. And with whatever capacity I’m still capable of feeling it, I love you. Cause maybe you don’t hear it that often either, and for that I’m sorry. I’d rather go without food than love, and I’ve been in both spots before.

I hope The Nothing never finds you.

Until next time.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Any thoughts on the "Trump hates children" hysteria?

Hello! I don’t like kids being separated from their parents. I have no doubt of the fear and stress it causes on both parent and child. But I also don’t like parents using their kids as bargaining chips to cheat the system. We also have to remember that many of the adults caught sneaking in with children aren’t related to the child whatsoever. As much as it’s justified to have real concerns of what’s happening, we also have to be honest in order to be able to find a solution. Even if the policy is misguided, the administration isn’t “kidnapping” or “snatching” little children from poor, innocent immigrant parents. Nor is the policy equivalent in any conceivable way to the Holocaust or human rights abuses of third world nations.

Democrats and the media offering hysterical analogues, comparing temporarily separating illegal parents from their children in order to keep kids out of the rough and poor conditions of detention centers while cases are being heard with Auschwitz guards leading children to gas chambers, all they’re doing is creating a moronically hyperbolic and trivialized conversation that makes it increasingly impossible to fix anything. These children deserve better, yes, but there is also no evidence that they are being willfully mistreated.

We also have to be honest about what is happening at the border. Those who claim asylum at ports of entry are not being separated from their children, only parents being charged with sneaking into the country illegally and then claim asylum after being apprehended are detained are. Adults who choose not to be deported have to wait for adjudication of their case and while this happens, the law prohibits children from being held in the same detention centers as adults, not because we hate brown people as Buzzfeed believes, but because we don’t like seeing children held in Obama’s cages.

Defining “children” is crucial. A child is defined in this legislation as any individual who has not reached 18 years old. Just like the mass imports of “child” refugees in Europe, most of them ain’t kids. Many in the media are also misleading the public by conflating unaccompanied under 18s with separated under 18s, making no distinction by age or circumstance. The majority of kids in care of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, most often teenagers, are apprehended because they’ve come without any parents. It’s a growing problem. In 2013, a little fewer than 40,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended by the Border Patrol. That was a historic high. In 2016 there were nearly 60,000. This year there are likely to be more than 80,000.

An Obama administrator described the reason children ended up in cages under the former president’s watch: “In 2014, we saw an enormous spike compared to what usually happens every year in the number of kids crossing into the United States. We didn’t have enough shelter facilities because we had a huge increase, so kids ended up piling up in Border Patrol lock-ups.” Democrats and the media say ‘fair enough’ to Obama’s management of the massive child crossing influxes, but when that already history high number doubles, and Trump creates more comfortable conditions for the kids as they temporarily wait, it’s being compared to the Holocaust. Really?

We also have to acknowledge the role Mexican cartels are playing in the problem. Since Trump’s crackdown and the legalization of marijuana, they’re putting more time and effort into human trafficking. The cartels use these people to flood the system and clog up border patrol resources, functioning as human pawns to distract from their efforts to smuggle opioids and other drugs across. It’s exactly what happened in 2014. U.S. authorities were well aware the cartels were taking drugs just a few miles upstream while they dealt with the huge amount of minors, but there was nothing they could do about it due to their own humanitarian policies.

It’s true that some Republicans act as if everyone coming over the border is an MS-13 drug mule, but most on the left act as if there is no criminality associated with unregulated immigration and a picture of a child tangled up in their group’s illegal actions is all it takes to erase our borders, law and security.

Unless your position is that anyone who wants to walk over the border should be able to do so, there will be detention centers, and there will be children involved. It’s clear we can’t place the children in temporary comfortable homes and safe shelters as that’s “kidnapping.” We can’t keep children in detention centers with their parents as that’s inhumane. We’ve tried releasing them into the U.S. if they promised to show up at a hearing at some later date, unsurprisingly that didn’t work out either. We can’t deport them, we can’t separate them, we can’t detain them, we can’t prosecute them. By coming in unmanageable numbers, there’s one hell of a stand-off with many corrupt groups hoping that humanitarian guilt-tripping will become their “get into America Free” card.

So what’s the solution? We just allow the ones in with children? Do we maintain the definition of a child being anyone under 18 years old? And what do we do when cartels and desperados begin rounding up kidnapped kids to throw into their human trafficking package deals? Because that’s already happening, imagine if Democrats had it their way and anyone traveling with children were welcomed into the country. There’d be no kids left in Mexico. No matter what Trump does, he’s going to be attacked for it. Unless we let the families of children into the country with no questions asked, or house all 200,000 groups in five-star hotels as they await their adjudications, Trump is going to be accused of being inhumane and evil towards children.

The majority of Americans aren’t ideologically rigid on the issue. We’re all open to immigration but most also want secure borders and for the laws to be followed. None of us should be proud of what’s happening at the border, but we also shouldn’t be ashamed of our borders and upholding the rule of law. So far the whole thing has been ham-fisted but I’m a firm believer of a tough reaction to illegal action. At the same time there has to be a better way to manage the actual children. Maybe tough love against their parents is the answer? Who knows? I’m not sure what the answer is but for as long as both parties remain stubborn and deflect accountability, we’re never going to find out either xx 

[knightofbalance-13]

Boss Battle: VS. RWBY-Rabts-And-Theories

http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/160335007521/rwby-rants-and-theories-dudeblade-replied-to

Yeah, no.

I want them to make a public post, or have kob make a public apology to all those he harassed. And like I daid before, he never gave any indication that he was being sarcastic in that anti-yang post. Like none at all.

I have told you before about fucking hyperbole: AT this point, your blindness to sarcasm is either intentional of you have such severe Autism that it’s pointless and try to explain it to you.

But I will point out that this is the same as before: You are using terror tactics through continuous harassment and empty threats to try and get a result out of this. Whether it be trying to alienate me from my friends, force an apology out of me or antagonize me until I pop on the rwde tag: It is terrorism. And one thing I agree with the american government is this: I don’t negotiate with terrorists. So too fucking bad.

It’s the bare minimum to fucking holding yourself accountable.

Oh so the group is now held responsible for the actions of one person? Okay then, by your logic, everyone in the rwde tag is responsible for slandering my name, everyone is responsible for harnessing me, everyone is responsible for calling me a pedophile, an abuser, a homophobe, a racist, a member of the KKK ect. Everyone is responsible for the TWO times have been suicide baited.

On those grounds, due to the rwde tag being much bigger and having DONE more things than I did, they would be the ones in the wrong. If not then I and I alone can be held accountable and the heat death of the universe isn’t enough time for me to even consider an apology.

And even then, it wouldn’t come close enough to making amends. The whole group can find it easy to brush off his actions because they likely haven’t been directly affected by them. It must be such a boon to be neutral.

Again, several of your members have done far worse things than me and none of you have responded, in fact some of you egged it on so you’re even deeper in shit than before. Also they have been directly affected, this whole debacle is proof and thus that sentiment doesn’t work.

Telling KoB to just knock it off doesn’t magically make him a better person. Unless he takes every necessary step to acknowledge his wrongs, right them, and learn about the world around him I’m going to keep “slandering” him and show the hostility he’s brought upon himself.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Fuckwads, I know I’m a better person than all of you. I’ve never ganged up on one guy for months on end simply because he was calling me out on my bullshit. I’ve never called someone a pedohile ore an abuser seriously and I’ve never told someone, let alone a self admitted formerly suicidal person, to go kill themselves. Course, that says more about you than me.

If righting your wrongs and learning the world makes you a better person then the people using fear tactics, calling for my suicide and trying to alienate me from my friends and still don’t see they’re bad people, let alone terrorists, are still in more wrong than you put me in.

PS: And how much hostility would you say? Because so many of you have lied about me in the rwde tag to each other and accepted exhagegrations and lies so much that I don’t think I’ve met a group of people so far from knowing who I am. And I enjoy seeing how far you fall.

He’s not a victim. No one should think so.

Mind showing me the proof on that because, considering the fact that the rwde tag has done the following to me alone (Called me a racist, homophobe, pedophile, abuser, attacked my friends, harassed me and my friends for associating with me, used terror and fear tactics to alienate and control me and told me to kill myself) and act like I’m some big bad guy, you’re the ones with the victim complex.

Once again, come at ME bitches. You’ve knocked off about 0.00000000001% of my health so far, try again.

[sinrau]

I’m here to tell you something that you already, but might not want to admit. Trump is going to try to steal the next election. Yes, really. No, it’s not some kind of paranoid fantasy.

There is now every reasonable possibility that American democracy comes to an end in a matter of months.

Yes, Trump is a narcissist, who craves power. Sure, there’s nothing he fears more than being a loser.

But we don’t have to resort to psychology to explain it.

The evidence that Trump is going to try to steal the next election is hiding in plain sight. That evidence is his very own actions.

If you were Trump, and you really expected to lose power over the next months, what would you do? Well, you’d probably fill your coffers. Begin to walk away. Whistle and shrug. Give up on any of the larger projects that are so obviously authoritarian fascist, like building a paramilitarized state where the rule of law has broken down, cleansing a nation of the impure, and so on.

You’d say to yourself something like: “Well, that was fun. But now it’s coming to an end. Let me at least get rich, and put all these bigger agendas aside now. Why bother with them? My Presidency’s coming to an end.”

Only Trump isn’t acting like that. At all.

What is he doing?

While no one much has noticed, Trump has gone right on doubling down on making America an authoritarian-fascist state. He is more committed to that project than ever. He isn’t acting like someone who’s about to give up power. His behavior is that of someone who’s consolidating power. Who’s amassing it. Who’s doubling down on long-term, generational projects, to reshape a society along authoritarian lines.

To those, like me, who’ve survived authoritarianism before, this is an alarm, blinking red, blaring at top volume. People who expect to lose power, to cede it peacefully, to give up office…don’t behave like Trump is now.

Let me give you a few examples.

Take Coronavirus. Trump is…totally indifferent. Have you noticed how strange that is? Why would a President not care about mass death, when it’s beginning to tank him in the polls? The reason he doesn’t care is that…what Americans think doesn’t really matter to him much anymore. It is a clear and dead giveaway that he is not planning to contest an election in a fair or democratic way. Instead, Trump’s indifference to America’s greatest catastrophe in generations couldn’t be a clearer sign that he intends to thwart, forestall, cancel, or poison the next election.

Figures who intend to simply give up power don’t act indifferent to tragedies. They know they can be held accountable, that a reckoning will shortly be had. Only figures who expect to keep power, and remain above the law, who think they have all the branches of government, from the Senate to the Judiciary, in their pocket act this way — with shrugging indifference.

One of the major authoritarian-fascist projects is always ethnic cleansing. If Trump were getting ready to give up power, he’d also be letting things like bans go. What do they benefit him, really? He’d just be cashing it at this point. But he isn’t letting this cherished supremacist goal go — not one bit. While nobody much was paying attention, Trump banned whole categories of visa holders from legitimately re-entering the country. That’s thrown whole sectors into chaos, who depend on such employment — this is skilled employment, by the way. But that’s almost besides the point. Trump hasn’t given up one bit on his dream of a pure ethno-state: he’s pursuing as vehemently as ever. That’s not the behaviour of someone who expects to give up power.

Just last week, Trump purged the Voice of America. If you’re American, you might not know it — it broadcasts around the world, its mission to spread peace and democracy. It is a major and crucial global American institution. And yet Trump purged its leadership — who were decent and sane people — and replaced them with a coterie of Bannonite neo-fascists, the goal being, to build something like a state-run Breitbart. Trump is building a global propaganda wing for American authoritarian-fascism — one to last for a generation or more. That’s not something you do if you expect to give up power — it’s something you do if you expect to keep power for a long, long time.

Then there’s the purge at the Justice Department. Trump fired his own investigators. If you really thought you were going to lose power, you wouldn’t do that: you’d only make the situation worse, because the next President would obviously just appoint new ones, who’d add this new charge of obstruction to your sheet. Again — that’s not the behavior of someone who hopes to give up power. But someone who expects to keep it.

Everywhere you look, every time you look, Trump is behaving in a way that those of us who’ve lived through authoritarianism know all too well. Like a dictator who knows that he can seize power, with impunity. No one will ever hold him accountable for his actions. And so no longer-term goals of transforming a society have been ceded, not one bit. The grand projects of authoritarian-fascism haven’t decelerated one bit — they’ve accelerated: from ethnic cleansing to purges to destroying the last few remaining functioning institutions in government, so as to consolidate power, and accomplish the task of building a new society, led by an all-powerful demagogue.

I want to warn you as strongly as I can.

When authoritarians make moves like these, they are sending a clear signal — to those who know to listen. They are telling you that they don’t expect to lose power. That they don’t intend to give to up peacefully. That they will not go without a fight. That they will use every means at their disposal not just to thwart democracy — but to prevent it from even fully having a next election.

Leaders who intend to accede to a peaceful, smooth transfer of power do not behave like Trump is behaving right now. Their behaviour is just the opposite. They act conciliatory, regretful, they try to make amends — if only to forestall the inevitable reckoning, and minimize the personal fallout and consequences they face. Trump is doing none of that. Instead, he is doubling down, every single day, on power and control, through destruction and chaos.

I want to put that in a broader context for a moment, to really drive the point home.

Americans have undergone what’s obviously — to the rest of the world — an authoritarian implosion over the last five years. Yet at every step of the way, they’ve been behind the curve, perpetually surprised, bewildered, shocked. “It can’t be happening here!!” cries the good, sensible American. But isn’t it? It did happen in America. All that’s left now is the last step — for Trump to steal the next election, and democracy to die. Because we all know that if that happens — there isn’t going to be a next next election.

But Americans are cautious, hesitant, conservative people. Culturally, though, that makes them sitting ducks for authoritarians like Trump. Because such people will ignore every warning, and act surprised, instead, by authoritarians doing the things they usually do, whether bans, raids, purges, camps, or hatred. For the last several years, Americans dismissed the warnings as “alarmism” or “hyperbole” and so forth. When I predicted all that’s come true now, sadly, with eerie precision, I was told things like I was “causing panic” or I was “being irresponsible.”

And yet here America is. On the brink of the final implosion of a free and democratic society.

The game of self-deceit Americans have been playing with themselves is now coming to an end — whether they want it to, or not. This is it, the last chance. There is only more time left to be shocked and surprised, and this time, if Americans are still shocked and surprised, it’s going to be too late. Trump will have stolen the Presidency, and this time, all bets are off. Any pretense of being a functioning democracy will die, probably for good, at least for a generation, as Trump builds a dynasty to rule America. He will finish the job of building the institutions of a fascist-authoritarian society — camps, bans, raids, purges, Gestapos, paramilitaries on the streets — and Americans will have to live under their thumb, for a generation or more, subjugated, abused, and cowed into submission, by the man who, improbably enough, became their sneering, hateful dictator, in just four short years.

Yes, Trump is going to try to steal the next election. Few things are as obvious to see in the world today. And if he gets away with it, America is never going to be the same again. Those are the stakes, my friends. But do Americans really understand them yet?

Umair June 2020

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

Twitter users outraged to learn David Simon, creator of 'The Wire,' has reportedly been banned

David Simon, creator of HBO's The Wire, Generation Kill, Treme, The Corner, and more, was reportedly banned from posting on Twitter after wishing death on several users in politically charged tweets.

On Friday, following the death of famous celebrity chef, and Simon's close friend, Anthony Bourdain, the television writer shared a short tribute, along with news of his Twitter ban, on his personal website.

"I have been banned from Twitter, and as I am at this moment indifferent to removing the tweets they insist are violative of their rules, it is unclear when I will return to that framework," Simon wrote. "So I’m hoping that if I post anything remotely meaningful about Tony, others will do me the favor of linking it beyond this digital cul de sac."

SEE ALSO: Twitter's new troll filtering might actually prevent more abuse than any ban

Though Simon's Twitter profile is still intact and online, he's reportedly unable to post new tweets. And while he didn't identify which specific tweets inspired the restrictions, several of his political tweets seem to violate Twitter's "Violence and physical harm" guidelines, which clearly state: "You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people."

On June 5, Simon told a user to "die of a slow moving venereal rash that settles in your lying throat."

You empty shitcrest, "this kind of thing" is a new policy announced proudly by Jeff Sessions and adopted only by this administration. You should die of a slow moving venereal rash that settles in your lying throat. https://t.co/WubQkkXtk1

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 5, 2018

And on June 6 he told another user to "Die of boils."

Making it simple? You're lying.https://t.co/g6XSUGUr8p This is fresh and uglier hell. And by intent. Die of boils. https://t.co/P4Utq65jed

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 6, 2018

Simon went on to challenge Twitter's rules in the post on his website, questioning why other tweets that he sees as harmful are not in violation.

"Suffice to say that while you can arrive on Twitter and disseminate the untethered and anti-human opinion that mothers who have their children kidnapped and held incommunicado from them at the American border are criminals — and both mother and child deserve that fate — or that 14-year-old boys who survive the Holocaust are guilty of betraying fellow Jews when there is no evidence of such, you CANNOT wish that the people who traffic in such vile shit should crawl off and die of a fulminant venereal rash," he wrote.

"Slander is cool, brutality is acceptable. But the hyperbolic and comic hope that a just god might smite the slanderer or brutalizer with a deadly skin disorder is somehow beyond the pale."

Simon then went on to address Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, telling him to also "die of boils."

"As far as I’m concerned, your standards in this instance are exactly indicative of why social media — and Twitter specifically — is complicit in transforming our national agora into a haven for lies, disinformation and the politics of totalitarian extremity," Simon wrote. "The real profanity and disease on the internet is untouched, while you police decorum."

Many users responded to the ban with outrage, calling on Dorsey to fully restore Simon's account or take the same action in all instances of rule violations.

Yesterday David Simon (@AoDespair) was banned from Twitter. Please read his post & share. When you do, tell @Jack to get his shit together & right this wrong. It’s America that’s dying of boils. Twitter is becoming one of the most pestilent. David is the medicine, not the poison. pic.twitter.com/Dye7gYmVLS

— Beau Willimon (@BeauWillimon) June 9, 2018

Uh, David Simon (Yes, from "The Wire") is banned from Twitter currently. It is very bizarre who is allowed to remain on this site and who isn't. https://t.co/KnDjDYBbIK pic.twitter.com/6rfUTLLFTq

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) June 8, 2018

@jack Restore David Simon @AoDespair to Twitter immediately. To ban a renowned writer while allowing racist slanders & slurs such as those promulgated by the likes of Roseanne Barr is hypocritical & makes your so called code of conduct not worth the paper it is written on.

— Joe Guglielmelli (@BorchidJoseph) June 9, 2018

@jack Seriously, if you’re going to ban David Simon but allow so many hateful trolls to remain (including @realDonaldTrump) I have to seriously consider whether @Twitter is worth my time and energy. https://t.co/NBVcWs8yJZ

— Steve Perlstein (@ChefStevePerl) June 8, 2018

They banned David Simon from Twitter? JFC. This place is an ever-widening garbage pile. I literally got hundreds of harassing tweets over the last week and Twitter saw fit to deal with maaaaaybe five percent of them. Fucking hell. Nice job, @jack. https://t.co/8D3TgH56Aa

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 8, 2018

i am not a huge David Simon fan for a variety of reasons but banning him from twitter while the incels and pizzagaters and QAnon tools and white nationalists remain is just fucked up.

— Peter Krupa 🌹 (@peterkrupa) June 8, 2018

Hey @jack: Banning @AoDespair is like banning Mark fucking Twain (he was a writer from the pre-digital days. Wired did a thing on him). BRING DAVID SIMON BACK.

— Brian Koppelman (@briankoppelman) June 8, 2018

Really, @jack — this is the kind of platform you want? There isn’t a part of the vast media landscape that wouldn’t kill for the participation of David Simon (@AoDespair). Simply foolish. @Twitter @TwitterSupport https://t.co/ClRR2I0Rp9

— Bill Prady (@billprady) June 9, 2018

Apparently David Simon is banned from twitter. Hey @jack — there’s not a false word in David’s statement. You are complicit. https://t.co/RIEO7Lzuyz

— Jordan Horowitz (@jehorowitz) June 8, 2018

David Simon has been banned from Twitter, while the most vile of people remain. This platform is literally the worst thing to ever happen to civil discourse. It’s ruining us.

— Arwa Gunja (@Arwa_Gunja) June 9, 2018

The brilliantly outspoken & fearless writer @AoDespair has been banned from Twitter. David Simon lacerates those who spew reprehensible hate speech, bigotry, bat shit crazy conspiracy theories, & destructive lies. Silencing Simon’s voice sends a clear message from @Jack pic.twitter.com/eW0aZdJ8rx

— Marg Helgenberger (@MargHelgen) June 9, 2018

Several people brought up the fact so many other accounts that violate Twitter harassment rules — white supremacists, and big names like Roseanne Barr, who recently tweeted an extremely racist remark that led to her show being cancelled by ABC, and Donald Trump himself, who's been accused of violating Twitter policies several times and threatening violence against North Korea— have not been restricted.

In the past, Twitter has explained its refusal to ban the U.S. president by declaring his tweets "newsworthy."

While the platform wants to work to further prevent the spread of hate speech and has recently taken steps to crack down on bots and prevent on-site abuse, users seem to feel Twitter still has some serious issues to work out.

It remains unclear if Simon's posting restrictions are temporary or if his account could be restored if he deletes the tweets in violation of the rules. Mashable reached out to Twitter for comment and will update this post once we hear back.

WATCH: 11 facts you didn't know about Twitter

[annoyingcherryblossomnight-blog1]

Excursions Of Greece

In the New Testomony we are given a number of parables that Jesus used to reveal truths about The Kingdom of Heaven. Collectors this morning agreed to proceed to finance Greece as the disaster drags on. "Greece has carried out an enormous a part of what it was alleged to do, adopted an bold reform program and a funds for 2013 that's impressive," Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker informed reporters in Brussels late morning now we have seen the EURO slip to a two month low towards the greenback all the best way right down to $1.2681. Athens and Sparta became essentially the most famous metropolis-states. There are lots of packages that cater to all sorts of budgets, interests and timescales. Safety degree is the bottom in the developed a part of Europe, however usually it is not going to consists of direct bodily violence, but most of stealing issues due to certain levels of poverty. 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Most of the vacationers from completely different locations are drawn to this fashionable spot simply because of the big selection of customs and cultures are found here and likewise on account of its unique historical past. Utility: God does not need us to provide out of a way of strain or guilt, however with joy. All of us noticed what happened in Greece when their financial system crashed, and when it happens right here, in the perennial "land of loads", it'll make the Athens riots look like a day at Disneyland. The world is fascinated however it takes particular folks just like the Bredons, the Fleur Ng'wenos and the Wangari Maathai's to show that surrealism in nature. Town has this amazing range of theaters and art galleries that offer not just massive amount of knowledge to its visitors, but also is succesful to entertain with an interactive and zealous method. 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So it is a nice experience to enjoy the recent and non-polluted air of Santorini by traveling with open-roof vehicles. The village of Limni Keri, inside strolling distance from Keri, is house to a fantastic seashore with calm seas and comfortable sand that's good for households and couples. The phrase Spa comes from the well-known celebrated Belgian health resort, which has a pure Sizzling Spring and it's stated by some to be quick for "solus par aqua," and as Solus stands for Health and par for and aqua water then we appear to get in the English language "well being through water." In ancient instances, there have been small water swimming pools, which had warm water piped into them from pure sizzling springs. Dishes like Gyro, Souvlaki, Saganaki, Revithokeftedes, Tirokroketes, Mousakka, Feta Me Meli, Tzatziki, Greek Salad, Kebabs, Dolmathakia, Spanakopita and lots of extra are the best to be discovered in the metropolis of Athens and have flavors that are uncommon to be found wherever else in the world. There are plenty of locations to go, but the city of Interlaken is a highlight. Carratraca has been renowned for lots of of years for the pure curative properties of its sulphur-water hot springs. In those days these were often simply small pools of water with the advantage of having heat water piped into them usually from a natural sizzling spring. With adventure based mostly excursions, boat excursions, biking excursions and more tours of Greece you possibly can customize a vacation that means that you can explore the ancient past, expertise the exciting nightlife, have heart pounding action or just absorb the native tradition. From 1994, the video games of various seasons had been held in separate years. Allowing households the flexibility to take lengthy walks, tan, go crusing and snorkeling, go to the volcano on Santorini Island and stop by the recent springs. Most of the occasions, these spending are basically done on things like flight prices, food and lodging costs, other additional prices, to call a couple of. You'll love its untamed white sandy beaches, previous houses, and historical churches. Sea taxis ply at common intervals between Symi harbour and the various close by beaches - Aghios Nikolaos, Aghia Marina and Nimborio - whereas Pedhi Bay can be reached by bus. This morning's meetings prevented one other flareup in the debt disaster that has been going on for the last three years in Greece.Greece needs to chop the deficit by 2%, but this is very difficult when your residents don't want to pay greater taxes. So if you're planning on utilizing a car arranging it forward of time is always good selection. Distinctive pottery that ranks as art was produced on some of the Aegean islands, in Crete, and within the rich Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily. See Parthenon and admire every handmade sculpted design on the marble.

[benrleeusa]

[Eugene Volokh] Can accusation of lynching be ordered taken down as a supposed threat of lynching?

Duke University professor Jeff Powell sent me the following response to my post on Brummer v. Wey, the “stop speaking about plaintiff” New York injunction case. I’m of course delighted to publish it and to offer some reactions:

Professor Eugene Volokh is an expert on First Amendment law, and one disagrees with him at one’s peril. Still, if even Homer sometimes nodded, then Professor Volokh too may occasionally make a mistake. I think he has done so in his recent comment on an ongoing defamation case in New York, Brummer v. Wey. The plaintiff in that action, Christopher Brummer (a professor at Georgetown Law School) is suing a wealthy entrepreneur, Benjamin Wey, and his businesses for attacks on Brummer posted on Wey’s “online tabloid” TheBlot. The case’s origins go back to late 2014, when Brummer served on an adjudicatory body of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) that barred two stockbrokers from future involvement in the industry; Wey apparently has had dealings with them. In response to the FINRA action, TheBlot began what Brummer believes is a concerted attempt to destroy his reputation as a scholar and his standing as a decent person. The New York trial court has denied Wey’s motion to dismiss but the case has not yet gone to trial.

Professor Volokh is concerned about an unusual development in Brummer v. Wey, the trial court’s decision on June 6th to enjoin Wey and his corporate co-defendants from posting articles about Brummer to TheBlot while the suit is ongoing and requiring them to remove all existing posts. Brummer, who is African American, moved for a preliminary injunction in response to TheBlot’s publication of a series of articles and comments employing violent images and language in a racialized context. In one instance, an article about the FINRA action was prefaced by what appears to be an actual photograph of an early 20th century lynching, with photos of Brummer and others associated with FINRA superimposed and labeled “FINRA racists;” the text purports to quote one of the ousted stockbrokers (both of whom are African American) as saying that “FINRA deliberately picked Chris Brummer, unqualified moron to lynch us by the tree.” Another example is a comment attributed to an otherwise unknown “Bill:” “These FINRA motherf–––––s ruin lives! F––– them or shoot them? Both perhaps.” Brummer filed an affidavit accompanying his motion for an injunction describing his great fear about “harm to me and my family from Mr. Wey or generated by his grotesque calls to others to do harm.”

It’s obvious why Brummer, and the trial court judge for that matter, find TheBlot’s grotesque attacks deeply offensive, but the court’s decision to issue the injunction was surprising as a legal matter. The usual rule is that preliminary injunctive relief is not available in defamation actions, although many American courts will now enjoin the continued or repeated publication of statements after they have been held defamatory. The New York court’s decision appears out of step with this general practice and is in obvious tension with the bedrock First Amendment principle that only the most pressing governmental interest can justify a prior restraint on protected speech. Professor Volokh, an admirable defender of First Amendment freedoms, is alarmed about the implications of what he believes is the Brummer court’s failure adequately to respect those freedoms.

I agree with much of what Professor Volokh has written. But Professor Volokh also dismissed as constitutionally unacceptable the argument, advanced by the plaintiff’s lawyers but essentially ignored by the court, that it was appropriate and consistent with the First Amendment for the court to enjoin the specific speech in question because it presents a constitutionally-unprotected “true threat” to Brummer personally.

True threats, as the United States Supreme Court defines them, are “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” It isn’t necessary that the speaker “actually intend to carry out the threat;” the idea is that the law ought to be able to protect people “from the fear of violence” as well as “from the possibility” that the threatening speech will lead to someone (not necessarily the speaker) carrying out “the threatened violence.” As Justice Samuel Alito explained a couple of years ago, the First Amendment “does not protect true threats” because they “inflict great harm and have little if any social value.” There is, in other words, no reason to conclude that the Constitution forbids an injunction limited to speech that falls within the unprotected category of true threats.

In his comment, Professor Volokh does not directly disagree with this conclusion, but he doesn’t believe that TheBlot’s lynching photo-and-broadside is a true threat in the constitutional sense. He makes two points: first, in the article it is Brummer who is the racist and perpetrator of the (metaphorical) lynching of the two stockbrokers; and, second, “an accusation, however hyperbolic, that someone is guilty of lynching isn’t itself tantamount to a threat to lynch” that person. He goes on to give what he thinks is an analogous case, calling someone a Nazi “for being complicit as an Israel-supporting Jew in supposed crimes against Palestinians.”

At first glance, Professor Volokh’s argument seems logical, but its logic is abstract: A::B as C::D. Abstraction here is, however, a constitutional error. As the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote less than a year ago: “Context is crucial to identification of a true threat. The context here bespeaks danger.” In the context of the tragic history and present-day reality of racism in this country, a speaker who employs the imagery and language of lynching in a virulent attack on an African American — and who juxtaposes his victim’s picture to the ghastly image of a lynching — has gone far beyond the hyperbole and caustic language protected by the First Amendment.

Lynching is our paradigmatic image of private racist violence against African Americans. TheBlot’s article was expression coolly calculated both to frighten its victim and to rouse in susceptible readers racist and potentially violent sentiments about Brummer. The fact that the article’s “argument” was that Brummer is the racist and lyncher is beside the point: racism is not logical, and in any event the accusation that the victims or racism are guilty of race hatred is a long-standing feature of American racist rhetoric. Professor Volokh’s hypothetical ignores the crucial importance of context: his imagined slur would not draw on the history of American racist violence that gives the image of lynching its frightening power.

Taking into account the contexts of American history and society, and of TheBlot’s hosting of attacks on Brummer laced with racial and violent imagery, I think the trial court in Brummer v. Wey can properly conclude that the lynching photo/article was a true threat, whatever Wey’s personal intentions about carrying through on the threatening message. The First Amendment allows government, and specifically the courts, to protect the victim of such a threat from the fear and the possibility of violence to himself or his family while the victim is pursuing a legal action against the person issuing — or insinuating — the threat.

The American legal system affords freedom of expression extremely broad latitude, and rightly so. Determining whether the First Amendment permits a court to issue any injunction restricting the Brummer defendants’ choices about what to say, at least in advance of trial, requires consideration of what Justice Harry Blackmun once termed “the broad right of the press to print” and “the very narrow right of the Government to prevent” expression for any reason. Blackmun wrote those words in an opinion dissenting from the Supreme Court’s refusal to permit an injunction against speech in the great Pentagon Papers Case, which is a reminder (if you agree, as I do, with the Court’s decision) how important it is to err on the side of speech. But true threats are not protected speech, and the First Amendment gives them no shelter.

For the moment, the defendants have obtained a stay of the trial court’s order, and Professor Volokh has expressed the hope that ultimately the appellate court will vacate the injunction “preferably by making clear that such an injunction violates the First Amendment.” I disagree: I think that the right outcome, in terms of fidelity to the First Amendment, is for the appellate court to modify the injunction so that it is a ban on those postings that, viewed realistically and in context, are true racist threats. The Constitution is not offended by relieving Brummer of the alarm he understandably feels at TheBlot’s intimations of violence while he pursues his case against Wey, and the legal processes of trial and appellate review should ensure that Wey’s right to engage in constitutionally protected speech is safeguarded.

Here are my thoughts in response (in addition to a thank you for the kind words and for the willingness to debate):

1. It seems to me that Powell’s response mixes together two First Amendment exceptions — the exception for threats and the exception for incitement.

If the concern is that the articles that accuse Brummer of “lynching” the two black stockbrokers will “rouse in susceptible readers racist and potentially violent sentiments about Brummer,” that’s a concern about incitement: This speech should be punished, the argument is saying, because it may persuade readers to do bad things. But incitement of violence is punishable only if it is (a) intended to and (b) likely to lead listeners to engage in © imminent illegal conduct (Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)). A mere “bad tendency,” or a danger of misconduct, is not enough. (This is why, for instance, harsh criticism of many people — police officers, politicians, businesspeople and others — is protected even if it’s possible that some listeners who hear the criticism will decide to attack the targets as a result.)

Here, there is no evidence that Wey specifically intended to get people to violently attack Brummer. There’s no evidence that such an attack is likely. And in any event, it is clear that this did not contemplate an imminent attack (the classic example of that is the speech in front of the grain dealer’s house, aimed at riling a mob that is present there and then). See, e.g., Hess v. Indiana (1973) (noting that “advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time” is not punishable incitement).

Nor can this fit within the narrow exception of solicitation of crime (U.S. v. Williams (2008)). Even if that exception applies to solicitation of specific crimes against specific targets at some unspecified future time, criminal solicitation has historically still required a purpose to cause the crime — no evidence of such a purpose on Wey’s part was introduced. And in any event, if the imminence requirement is relaxed for solicitation of a specific crime against a specific target, such a relaxation would have to be matched by at least some requirement of a concrete call for action (or else the solicitation exception would swallow the limitations on the incitement exception). Setting aside the anonymous (and likely hyperbolic) comment, there is no such call in the Brummer-lynched-Harris-and-Scholander accusation.

2. So I think the merging of the threats argument with the incitement argument is unsound here. But what about the threats argument on its own?

The problem is that, regardless of “context,” the post accusing Brummer of lynching Harris and Scholander just can’t be seen as “the speaker mean[ing] to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence” to Brummer. Again, the post depicts the image of a lynched black man, but the text makes clear that the image refers to Harris and Scholander, Brummer’s alleged victims. “FINRA deliberately picked Chris Brummer … to lynch us by the tree.”

Brummer isn’t shown with a noose around his neck; indeed, he is shown alongside two white men, all three in standard business photographs, with the captions “Sicko!” and “FINRA Racists” (and, as to Brummer alone, “Dr. Bratwurst”).

I agree that “Lynching is our paradigmatic image of private racist violence against African American,” but here it is being used to accuse Brummer of figurative racist violence — and of literal racist adjudication — not to threaten Brummer. The “tragic history and present-day reality of racism” can’t justify, I think, categorically labeling images of lynching associated with a person as threats, when the person is accused of being the perpetrator of lynching (not urged as a target for lynching).

In this respect, Watts v. United States (1969) is instructive. There, Watts, at a public rally during the Vietnam War, said “They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.” “They are not going to make me kill my black brothers.”

There, too, was a tragic history and present-day reality of political assassination: John F. Kennedy had been assassinated a few years before; by the time the Supreme Court decided the case, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed, too; in 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists tried to kill Harry S. Truman and in 1954 wounded several congressmen on the House floor.

But the court concluded that only “true ‘threat[s]’” can be punished, and they must be distinguished from “political hyperbole,” even “very crude offensive” hyperbole. Even when the statement expressly (though conditionally) stated a literal desire to kill the president, it still wasn’t a true threat. And I think this is even clearer as to the accusation of lynching by Brummer, which doesn’t expressly refer to lynching of Brummer.

Likewise, consider NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982). The NAACP had organized a black boycott of white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Miss. To enforce the boycott, the organizers stationed “store watchers” who would write down the names of black customers who weren’t going along with the boycott and the names would then be published in a local black newspaper and read aloud in church. Unsurprisingly, there were some incidents of violent retaliation against blacks who didn’t comply with the boycott.

Yet the court refused to conclude that statements that “if we catch you going in any of them racists white stores, we’re gonna break your … neck” and “You can go in [to the white-owned store], but the sheriff here isn’t going to sleep with you at night” were constitutionally unprotected. The court did note that this was “extemporaneous rhetoric” and perhaps less latitude would be given to prepared written material. Still, the fact that even such statements, which seem pretty threatening on their face, could be seen as protected shows that speech that lacks such explicit threats shouldn’t be lightly interpreted as implicitly containing the threats.

Lynching is a horrible crime. But accusations of horrible crime — lynching or otherwise — aren’t the same as threats of horrible crimes, even when they involve “racial and violent imagery.”

[nancyedimick]

Can accusation of lynching be ordered taken down as a supposed threat of lynching?

Duke University professor Jeff Powell sent me the following response to my post on Brummer v. Wey, the “stop speaking about plaintiff” New York injunction case. I’m of course delighted to publish it and to offer some reactions:

Professor Eugene Volokh is an expert on First Amendment law, and one disagrees with him at one’s peril. Still, if even Homer sometimes nodded, then Professor Volokh too may occasionally make a mistake. I think he has done so in his recent comment on an ongoing defamation case in New York, Brummer v. Wey. The plaintiff in that action, Christopher Brummer (a professor at Georgetown Law School) is suing a wealthy entrepreneur, Benjamin Wey, and his businesses for attacks on Brummer posted on Wey’s “online tabloid” TheBlot. The case’s origins go back to late 2014, when Brummer served on an adjudicatory body of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) that barred two stockbrokers from future involvement in the industry; Wey apparently has had dealings with them. In response to the FINRA action, TheBlot began what Brummer believes is a concerted attempt to destroy his reputation as a scholar and his standing as a decent person. The New York trial court has denied Wey’s motion to dismiss but the case has not yet gone to trial.

Professor Volokh is concerned about an unusual development in Brummer v. Wey, the trial court’s decision on June 6th to enjoin Wey and his corporate co-defendants from posting articles about Brummer to TheBlot while the suit is ongoing and requiring them to remove all existing posts. Brummer, who is African American, moved for a preliminary injunction in response to TheBlot’s publication of a series of articles and comments employing violent images and language in a racialized context. In one instance, an article about the FINRA action was prefaced by what appears to be an actual photograph of an early 20th century lynching, with photos of Brummer and others associated with FINRA superimposed and labeled “FINRA racists;” the text purports to quote one of the ousted stockbrokers (both of whom are African American) as saying that “FINRA deliberately picked Chris Brummer, unqualified moron to lynch us by the tree.” Another example is a comment attributed to an otherwise unknown “Bill:” “These FINRA motherf–––––s ruin lives! F––– them or shoot them? Both perhaps.” Brummer filed an affidavit accompanying his motion for an injunction describing his great fear about “harm to me and my family from Mr. Wey or generated by his grotesque calls to others to do harm.”

It’s obvious why Brummer, and the trial court judge for that matter, find TheBlot’s grotesque attacks deeply offensive, but the court’s decision to issue the injunction was surprising as a legal matter. The usual rule is that preliminary injunctive relief is not available in defamation actions, although many American courts will now enjoin the continued or repeated publication of statements after they have been held defamatory. The New York court’s decision appears out of step with this general practice and is in obvious tension with the bedrock First Amendment principle that only the most pressing governmental interest can justify a prior restraint on protected speech. Professor Volokh, an admirable defender of First Amendment freedoms, is alarmed about the implications of what he believes is the Brummer court’s failure adequately to respect those freedoms.

I agree with much of what Professor Volokh has written. But Professor Volokh also dismissed as constitutionally unacceptable the argument, advanced by the plaintiff’s lawyers but essentially ignored by the court, that it was appropriate and consistent with the First Amendment for the court to enjoin the specific speech in question because it presents a constitutionally-unprotected “true threat” to Brummer personally.

True threats, as the United States Supreme Court defines them, are “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” It isn’t necessary that the speaker “actually intend to carry out the threat;” the idea is that the law ought to be able to protect people “from the fear of violence” as well as “from the possibility” that the threatening speech will lead to someone (not necessarily the speaker) carrying out “the threatened violence.” As Justice Samuel Alito explained a couple of years ago, the First Amendment “does not protect true threats” because they “inflict great harm and have little if any social value.” There is, in other words, no reason to conclude that the Constitution forbids an injunction limited to speech that falls within the unprotected category of true threats.

In his comment, Professor Volokh does not directly disagree with this conclusion, but he doesn’t believe that TheBlot’s lynching photo-and-broadside is a true threat in the constitutional sense. He makes two points: first, in the article it is Brummer who is the racist and perpetrator of the (metaphorical) lynching of the two stockbrokers; and, second, “an accusation, however hyperbolic, that someone is guilty of lynching isn’t itself tantamount to a threat to lynch” that person. He goes on to give what he thinks is an analogous case, calling someone a Nazi “for being complicit as an Israel-supporting Jew in supposed crimes against Palestinians.”

At first glance, Professor Volokh’s argument seems logical, but its logic is abstract: A::B as C::D. Abstraction here is, however, a constitutional error. As the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote less than a year ago: “Context is crucial to identification of a true threat. The context here bespeaks danger.” In the context of the tragic history and present-day reality of racism in this country, a speaker who employs the imagery and language of lynching in a virulent attack on an African American — and who juxtaposes his victim’s picture to the ghastly image of a lynching — has gone far beyond the hyperbole and caustic language protected by the First Amendment.

Lynching is our paradigmatic image of private racist violence against African Americans. TheBlot’s article was expression coolly calculated both to frighten its victim and to rouse in susceptible readers racist and potentially violent sentiments about Brummer. The fact that the article’s “argument” was that Brummer is the racist and lyncher is beside the point: racism is not logical, and in any event the accusation that the victims or racism are guilty of race hatred is a long-standing feature of American racist rhetoric. Professor Volokh’s hypothetical ignores the crucial importance of context: his imagined slur would not draw on the history of American racist violence that gives the image of lynching its frightening power.

Taking into account the contexts of American history and society, and of TheBlot’s hosting of attacks on Brummer laced with racial and violent imagery, I think the trial court in Brummer v. Wey can properly conclude that the lynching photo/article was a true threat, whatever Wey’s personal intentions about carrying through on the threatening message. The First Amendment allows government, and specifically the courts, to protect the victim of such a threat from the fear and the possibility of violence to himself or his family while the victim is pursuing a legal action against the person issuing — or insinuating — the threat.

The American legal system affords freedom of expression extremely broad latitude, and rightly so. Determining whether the First Amendment permits a court to issue any injunction restricting the Brummer defendants’ choices about what to say, at least in advance of trial, requires consideration of what Justice Harry Blackmun once termed “the broad right of the press to print” and “the very narrow right of the Government to prevent” expression for any reason. Blackmun wrote those words in an opinion dissenting from the Supreme Court’s refusal to permit an injunction against speech in the great Pentagon Papers Case, which is a reminder (if you agree, as I do, with the Court’s decision) how important it is to err on the side of speech. But true threats are not protected speech, and the First Amendment gives them no shelter.

For the moment, the defendants have obtained a stay of the trial court’s order, and Professor Volokh has expressed the hope that ultimately the appellate court will vacate the injunction “preferably by making clear that such an injunction violates the First Amendment.” I disagree: I think that the right outcome, in terms of fidelity to the First Amendment, is for the appellate court to modify the injunction so that it is a ban on those postings that, viewed realistically and in context, are true racist threats. The Constitution is not offended by relieving Brummer of the alarm he understandably feels at TheBlot’s intimations of violence while he pursues his case against Wey, and the legal processes of trial and appellate review should ensure that Wey’s right to engage in constitutionally protected speech is safeguarded.

Here are my thoughts in response (in addition to a thank you for the kind words and for the willingness to debate):

1. It seems to me that Powell’s response mixes together two First Amendment exceptions — the exception for threats and the exception for incitement.

If the concern is that the articles that accuse Brummer of “lynching” the two black stockbrokers will “rouse in susceptible readers racist and potentially violent sentiments about Brummer,” that’s a concern about incitement: This speech should be punished, the argument is saying, because it may persuade readers to do bad things. But incitement of violence is punishable only if it is (a) intended to and (b) likely to lead listeners to engage in © imminent illegal conduct (Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)). A mere “bad tendency,” or a danger of misconduct, is not enough. (This is why, for instance, harsh criticism of many people — police officers, politicians, businesspeople and others — is protected even if it’s possible that some listeners who hear the criticism will decide to attack the targets as a result.)

Here, there is no evidence that Wey specifically intended to get people to violently attack Brummer. There’s no evidence that such an attack is likely. And in any event, it is clear that this did not contemplate an imminent attack (the classic example of that is the speech in front of the grain dealer’s house, aimed at riling a mob that is present there and then). See, e.g., Hess v. Indiana (1973) (noting that “advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time” is not punishable incitement).

Nor can this fit within the narrow exception of solicitation of crime (U.S. v. Williams (2008)). Even if that exception applies to solicitation of specific crimes against specific targets at some unspecified future time, criminal solicitation has historically still required a purpose to cause the crime — no evidence of such a purpose on Wey’s part was introduced. And in any event, if the imminence requirement is relaxed for solicitation of a specific crime against a specific target, such a relaxation would have to be matched by at least some requirement of a concrete call for action (or else the solicitation exception would swallow the limitations on the incitement exception). Setting aside the anonymous (and likely hyperbolic) comment, there is no such call in the Brummer-lynched-Harris-and-Scholander accusation.

2. So I think the merging of the threats argument with the incitement argument is unsound here. But what about the threats argument on its own?

The problem is that, regardless of “context,” the post accusing Brummer of lynching Harris and Scholander just can’t be seen as “the speaker mean[ing] to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence” to Brummer. Again, the post depicts the image of a lynched black man, but the text makes clear that the image refers to Harris and Scholander, Brummer’s alleged victims. “FINRA deliberately picked Chris Brummer … to lynch us by the tree.”

Brummer isn’t shown with a noose around his neck; indeed, he is shown alongside two white men, all three in standard business photographs, with the captions “Sicko!” and “FINRA Racists” (and, as to Brummer alone, “Dr. Bratwurst”).

I agree that “Lynching is our paradigmatic image of private racist violence against African American,” but here it is being used to accuse Brummer of figurative racist violence — and of literal racist adjudication — not to threaten Brummer. The “tragic history and present-day reality of racism” can’t justify, I think, categorically labeling images of lynching associated with a person as threats, when the person is accused of being the perpetrator of lynching (not urged as a target for lynching).

In this respect, Watts v. United States (1969) is instructive. There, Watts, at a public rally during the Vietnam War, said “They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.” “They are not going to make me kill my black brothers.”

There, too, was a tragic history and present-day reality of political assassination: John F. Kennedy had been assassinated a few years before; by the time the Supreme Court decided the case, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed, too; in 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists tried to kill Harry S. Truman and in 1954 wounded several congressmen on the House floor.

But the court concluded that only “true ‘threat[s]’” can be punished, and they must be distinguished from “political hyperbole,” even “very crude offensive” hyperbole. Even when the statement expressly (though conditionally) stated a literal desire to kill the president, it still wasn’t a true threat. And I think this is even clearer as to the accusation of lynching by Brummer, which doesn’t expressly refer to lynching of Brummer.

Likewise, consider NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982). The NAACP had organized a black boycott of white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Miss. To enforce the boycott, the organizers stationed “store watchers” who would write down the names of black customers who weren’t going along with the boycott and the names would then be published in a local black newspaper and read aloud in church. Unsurprisingly, there were some incidents of violent retaliation against blacks who didn’t comply with the boycott.

Yet the court refused to conclude that statements that “if we catch you going in any of them racists white stores, we’re gonna break your … neck” and “You can go in [to the white-owned store], but the sheriff here isn’t going to sleep with you at night” were constitutionally unprotected. The court did note that this was “extemporaneous rhetoric” and perhaps less latitude would be given to prepared written material. Still, the fact that even such statements, which seem pretty threatening on their face, could be seen as protected shows that speech that lacks such explicit threats shouldn’t be lightly interpreted as implicitly containing the threats.

Lynching is a horrible crime. But accusations of horrible crime — lynching or otherwise — aren’t the same as threats of horrible crimes, even when they involve “racial and violent imagery.”

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/21/can-accusation-of-lynching-be-ordered-taken-down-as-a-supposed-threat-of-lynching/

[wolfandpravato]

Can accusation of lynching be ordered taken down as a supposed threat of lynching?

Duke University professor Jeff Powell sent me the following response to my post on Brummer v. Wey, the “stop speaking about plaintiff” New York injunction case. I’m of course delighted to publish it and to offer some reactions:

Professor Eugene Volokh is an expert on First Amendment law, and one disagrees with him at one’s peril. Still, if even Homer sometimes nodded, then Professor Volokh too may occasionally make a mistake. I think he has done so in his recent comment on an ongoing defamation case in New York, Brummer v. Wey. The plaintiff in that action, Christopher Brummer (a professor at Georgetown Law School) is suing a wealthy entrepreneur, Benjamin Wey, and his businesses for attacks on Brummer posted on Wey’s “online tabloid” TheBlot. The case’s origins go back to late 2014, when Brummer served on an adjudicatory body of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) that barred two stockbrokers from future involvement in the industry; Wey apparently has had dealings with them. In response to the FINRA action, TheBlot began what Brummer believes is a concerted attempt to destroy his reputation as a scholar and his standing as a decent person. The New York trial court has denied Wey’s motion to dismiss but the case has not yet gone to trial.

Professor Volokh is concerned about an unusual development in Brummer v. Wey, the trial court’s decision on June 6th to enjoin Wey and his corporate co-defendants from posting articles about Brummer to TheBlot while the suit is ongoing and requiring them to remove all existing posts. Brummer, who is African American, moved for a preliminary injunction in response to TheBlot’s publication of a series of articles and comments employing violent images and language in a racialized context. In one instance, an article about the FINRA action was prefaced by what appears to be an actual photograph of an early 20th century lynching, with photos of Brummer and others associated with FINRA superimposed and labeled “FINRA racists;” the text purports to quote one of the ousted stockbrokers (both of whom are African American) as saying that “FINRA deliberately picked Chris Brummer, unqualified moron to lynch us by the tree.” Another example is a comment attributed to an otherwise unknown “Bill:” “These FINRA motherf–––––s ruin lives! F––– them or shoot them? Both perhaps.” Brummer filed an affidavit accompanying his motion for an injunction describing his great fear about “harm to me and my family from Mr. Wey or generated by his grotesque calls to others to do harm.”

It’s obvious why Brummer, and the trial court judge for that matter, find TheBlot’s grotesque attacks deeply offensive, but the court’s decision to issue the injunction was surprising as a legal matter. The usual rule is that preliminary injunctive relief is not available in defamation actions, although many American courts will now enjoin the continued or repeated publication of statements after they have been held defamatory. The New York court’s decision appears out of step with this general practice and is in obvious tension with the bedrock First Amendment principle that only the most pressing governmental interest can justify a prior restraint on protected speech. Professor Volokh, an admirable defender of First Amendment freedoms, is alarmed about the implications of what he believes is the Brummer court’s failure adequately to respect those freedoms.

I agree with much of what Professor Volokh has written. But Professor Volokh also dismissed as constitutionally unacceptable the argument, advanced by the plaintiff’s lawyers but essentially ignored by the court, that it was appropriate and consistent with the First Amendment for the court to enjoin the specific speech in question because it presents a constitutionally-unprotected “true threat” to Brummer personally.

True threats, as the United States Supreme Court defines them, are “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” It isn’t necessary that the speaker “actually intend to carry out the threat;” the idea is that the law ought to be able to protect people “from the fear of violence” as well as “from the possibility” that the threatening speech will lead to someone (not necessarily the speaker) carrying out “the threatened violence.” As Justice Samuel Alito explained a couple of years ago, the First Amendment “does not protect true threats” because they “inflict great harm and have little if any social value.” There is, in other words, no reason to conclude that the Constitution forbids an injunction limited to speech that falls within the unprotected category of true threats.

In his comment, Professor Volokh does not directly disagree with this conclusion, but he doesn’t believe that TheBlot’s lynching photo-and-broadside is a true threat in the constitutional sense. He makes two points: first, in the article it is Brummer who is the racist and perpetrator of the (metaphorical) lynching of the two stockbrokers; and, second, “an accusation, however hyperbolic, that someone is guilty of lynching isn’t itself tantamount to a threat to lynch” that person. He goes on to give what he thinks is an analogous case, calling someone a Nazi “for being complicit as an Israel-supporting Jew in supposed crimes against Palestinians.”

At first glance, Professor Volokh’s argument seems logical, but its logic is abstract: A::B as C::D. Abstraction here is, however, a constitutional error. As the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote less than a year ago: “Context is crucial to identification of a true threat. The context here bespeaks danger.” In the context of the tragic history and present-day reality of racism in this country, a speaker who employs the imagery and language of lynching in a virulent attack on an African American — and who juxtaposes his victim’s picture to the ghastly image of a lynching — has gone far beyond the hyperbole and caustic language protected by the First Amendment.

Lynching is our paradigmatic image of private racist violence against African Americans. TheBlot’s article was expression coolly calculated both to frighten its victim and to rouse in susceptible readers racist and potentially violent sentiments about Brummer. The fact that the article’s “argument” was that Brummer is the racist and lyncher is beside the point: racism is not logical, and in any event the accusation that the victims or racism are guilty of race hatred is a long-standing feature of American racist rhetoric. Professor Volokh’s hypothetical ignores the crucial importance of context: his imagined slur would not draw on the history of American racist violence that gives the image of lynching its frightening power.

Taking into account the contexts of American history and society, and of TheBlot’s hosting of attacks on Brummer laced with racial and violent imagery, I think the trial court in Brummer v. Wey can properly conclude that the lynching photo/article was a true threat, whatever Wey’s personal intentions about carrying through on the threatening message. The First Amendment allows government, and specifically the courts, to protect the victim of such a threat from the fear and the possibility of violence to himself or his family while the victim is pursuing a legal action against the person issuing — or insinuating — the threat.

The American legal system affords freedom of expression extremely broad latitude, and rightly so. Determining whether the First Amendment permits a court to issue any injunction restricting the Brummer defendants’ choices about what to say, at least in advance of trial, requires consideration of what Justice Harry Blackmun once termed “the broad right of the press to print” and “the very narrow right of the Government to prevent” expression for any reason. Blackmun wrote those words in an opinion dissenting from the Supreme Court’s refusal to permit an injunction against speech in the great Pentagon Papers Case, which is a reminder (if you agree, as I do, with the Court’s decision) how important it is to err on the side of speech. But true threats are not protected speech, and the First Amendment gives them no shelter.

For the moment, the defendants have obtained a stay of the trial court’s order, and Professor Volokh has expressed the hope that ultimately the appellate court will vacate the injunction “preferably by making clear that such an injunction violates the First Amendment.” I disagree: I think that the right outcome, in terms of fidelity to the First Amendment, is for the appellate court to modify the injunction so that it is a ban on those postings that, viewed realistically and in context, are true racist threats. The Constitution is not offended by relieving Brummer of the alarm he understandably feels at TheBlot’s intimations of violence while he pursues his case against Wey, and the legal processes of trial and appellate review should ensure that Wey’s right to engage in constitutionally protected speech is safeguarded.

Here are my thoughts in response (in addition to a thank you for the kind words and for the willingness to debate):

1. It seems to me that Powell’s response mixes together two First Amendment exceptions — the exception for threats and the exception for incitement.

If the concern is that the articles that accuse Brummer of “lynching” the two black stockbrokers will “rouse in susceptible readers racist and potentially violent sentiments about Brummer,” that’s a concern about incitement: This speech should be punished, the argument is saying, because it may persuade readers to do bad things. But incitement of violence is punishable only if it is (a) intended to and (b) likely to lead listeners to engage in (c) imminent illegal conduct (Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)). A mere “bad tendency,” or a danger of misconduct, is not enough. (This is why, for instance, harsh criticism of many people — police officers, politicians, businesspeople and others — is protected even if it’s possible that some listeners who hear the criticism will decide to attack the targets as a result.)

Here, there is no evidence that Wey specifically intended to get people to violently attack Brummer. There’s no evidence that such an attack is likely. And in any event, it is clear that this did not contemplate an imminent attack (the classic example of that is the speech in front of the grain dealer’s house, aimed at riling a mob that is present there and then). See, e.g., Hess v. Indiana (1973) (noting that “advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time” is not punishable incitement).

Nor can this fit within the narrow exception of solicitation of crime (U.S. v. Williams (2008)). Even if that exception applies to solicitation of specific crimes against specific targets at some unspecified future time, criminal solicitation has historically still required a purpose to cause the crime — no evidence of such a purpose on Wey’s part was introduced. And in any event, if the imminence requirement is relaxed for solicitation of a specific crime against a specific target, such a relaxation would have to be matched by at least some requirement of a concrete call for action (or else the solicitation exception would swallow the limitations on the incitement exception). Setting aside the anonymous (and likely hyperbolic) comment, there is no such call in the Brummer-lynched-Harris-and-Scholander accusation.

2. So I think the merging of the threats argument with the incitement argument is unsound here. But what about the threats argument on its own?

The problem is that, regardless of “context,” the post accusing Brummer of lynching Harris and Scholander just can’t be seen as “the speaker mean[ing] to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence” to Brummer. Again, the post depicts the image of a lynched black man, but the text makes clear that the image refers to Harris and Scholander, Brummer’s alleged victims. “FINRA deliberately picked Chris Brummer … to lynch us by the tree.”

Brummer isn’t shown with a noose around his neck; indeed, he is shown alongside two white men, all three in standard business photographs, with the captions “Sicko!” and “FINRA Racists” (and, as to Brummer alone, “Dr. Bratwurst”).

I agree that “Lynching is our paradigmatic image of private racist violence against African American,” but here it is being used to accuse Brummer of figurative racist violence — and of literal racist adjudication — not to threaten Brummer. The “tragic history and present-day reality of racism” can’t justify, I think, categorically labeling images of lynching associated with a person as threats, when the person is accused of being the perpetrator of lynching (not urged as a target for lynching).

In this respect, Watts v. United States (1969) is instructive. There, Watts, at a public rally during the Vietnam War, said “They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.” “They are not going to make me kill my black brothers.”

There, too, was a tragic history and present-day reality of political assassination: John F. Kennedy had been assassinated a few years before; by the time the Supreme Court decided the case, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed, too; in 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists tried to kill Harry S. Truman and in 1954 wounded several congressmen on the House floor.

But the court concluded that only “true ‘threat[s]’” can be punished, and they must be distinguished from “political hyperbole,” even “very crude offensive” hyperbole. Even when the statement expressly (though conditionally) stated a literal desire to kill the president, it still wasn’t a true threat. And I think this is even clearer as to the accusation of lynching by Brummer, which doesn’t expressly refer to lynching of Brummer.

Likewise, consider NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982). The NAACP had organized a black boycott of white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Miss. To enforce the boycott, the organizers stationed “store watchers” who would write down the names of black customers who weren’t going along with the boycott and the names would then be published in a local black newspaper and read aloud in church. Unsurprisingly, there were some incidents of violent retaliation against blacks who didn’t comply with the boycott.

Yet the court refused to conclude that statements that “if we catch you going in any of them racists white stores, we’re gonna break your … neck” and “You can go in [to the white-owned store], but the sheriff here isn’t going to sleep with you at night” were constitutionally unprotected. The court did note that this was “extemporaneous rhetoric” and perhaps less latitude would be given to prepared written material. Still, the fact that even such statements, which seem pretty threatening on their face, could be seen as protected shows that speech that lacks such explicit threats shouldn’t be lightly interpreted as implicitly containing the threats.

Lynching is a horrible crime. But accusations of horrible crime — lynching or otherwise — aren’t the same as threats of horrible crimes, even when they involve “racial and violent imagery.”

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/21/can-accusation-of-lynching-be-ordered-taken-down-as-a-supposed-threat-of-lynching/

[theresgloryforyou]

The pro-Israel group accusing Chicago’s Dyke March of anti-Semitism for asking several people, including its Midwest manager, to leave, has a history of fabrications about attacks against Jews.

A Wider Bridge made global headlines this weekend with its claims about the incident in which several individuals were asked not to display “rainbow Jewish flags” at the Dyke March in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood on Saturday.

The flags had blue stars similar to those on Israel’s flag, on a rainbow background.

The group is demanding that the Dyke March “issue a full public apology for dismissing LGBTQ Jews,” and that it engage in “a constructive dialogue about how anti-Semitism and calls for the disappearance of the Jewish state are creating an unsafe environment for LGBTQ Jews and allies.”

The Human Rights Campaign, the Washington gay rights lobby group that endorsed Hillary Clinton, added its criticism, calling the Dyke March’s actions “not right.”

Founded in 1996, the Dyke March Collective describes its annual gathering as a “grassroots mobilization and celebration of dyke, queer, bisexual and transgender resilience.”

Often seen in contrast to the corporate and gay-male dominated official pride march, usually held the same weekend, the Dyke March calls itself “an anti-racist, anti-violent, volunteer-led, grassroots effort with a goal to bridge together communities across race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, size, gender identity, gender expression, sexuality, culture, immigrant status, spirituality and ability.”

The Dyke March Collective is not apologizing to A Wider Bridge and laments that “our celebration of dyke, queer, and trans solidarity was partially overshadowed by our decision to ask three individuals carrying Israeli flags superimposed on rainbow flags to leave the rally.”

The group said that the decision to ask three people to leave “was made after they repeatedly expressed support for Zionism during conversations with Chicago Dyke March Collective members.”

“The Chicago Dyke March Collective is explicitly not anti-Semitic, we are anti-Zionist,” the group added. “We want to make clear that anti-Zionist Jewish volunteers and supporters are welcome at Dyke March and were involved in conversations with the individuals who were asked to leave.”

What’s in a flag?

The group For The People Artists Collective, whose members were present at the Dyke March, offered a similar account.

FTP Artists Collective said that the marchers carrying the flags “were approached and engaged by both Palestinian and Jewish anti-Zionist participants of the march” in order to “find out more about the intention behind the flags, as they are often seen at Israeli pride parades, are widely used in pinkwashing efforts and were visually reminiscent of the Israeli flag due to the color and placement of the star.”

“We recognize and affirm that the Star of David is a Jewish symbol and not inherently connected to Israel or Zionism,” FTP Artists Collective added. “The cooptation of the Star of David by the state of Israel is deeply saddening and makes it hard to distinguish between imperialist ideology and non-state, religious belief.”

The Star of David is not only a symbol of the Israeli state, but of its army, which carries out the kind of mass violence against Palestinians that is currently being examined as possible war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Stephanie Skora, who works with Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago and organizes with the Trans Liberation Collective, was part of the discussions that led to the three people – two of them had been carrying flags – being asked to leave.

Skora told The Electronic Intifada that the rainbow flag emblazoned with the Star of David “is being argued across Facebook as either a Jewish pride flag or an Israeli pride flag as if it could never have both meanings.”

“They were asked to put the flag away and then they could stay,” Skora said, but “one of the persons refused and became increasingly hostile and then the organizers asked them to leave.”

“Organizers were right to prioritize safety of traumatized people over the right to display a flag that has ambiguous connotations in a space that’s supposed to be safe for everyone,” Skora said.

Denying pinkwashing

Caleb Wagner, a queer anti-Zionist Jewish activist, was also part of the discussions. He rejected the claim that the individuals were asked to leave because they were Jewish, noting that most of those opposing the display of the flags were also Jewish.

The objections to the flag, he insisted, were also based on its use in Israel’s pinkwashing.

Pinkwashing is the public relations strategy that deploys Israel’s supposed enlightenment toward LGBTQ issues to deflect criticism from its human rights abuses.

It often involves gross exaggerations of Israel’s progressive policies, accompanied by outright lies about Palestinians.

A recent example was the national US tour of Israel’s “first trans officer” which aimed to present the Israeli army in a favorable light to LGBTQ - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer – communities, neglecting to mention the officer’s role in Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Bedouins.

Wagner said those carrying the flag refused to acknowledge that the symbol could have any association with pinkwashing. “They refused to acknowledge how that association with Israel – not Judaism – is not welcome in this space that is anti-colonial and pro-Palestine.”

A Wider Bridge’s Midwest manager Laurie Grauer insisted on putting forward pro-Israel arguments, Wagner said. “But that’s like coming into this space and saying you want to have a dialogue about anti-gay marriage or anti-trans,” Wagner said. “You coming into this space and trying to have a dialogue about the merits of Zionism is wrong and immoral in this space that is designed for queer people of color.”

“From my perspective, she came in there with a particular agenda to open up a dialogue about Zionism and be pro-Zionism,” Wagner said of Grauer.

False claims

This is not the first time A Wider Bridge has made false accusations of anti-Semitism against Chicago activists expressing solidarity with Palestinians.

Last year, A Wider Bridge was at the center of fabrications that protesters had disrupted Shabbat prayers during the National LGBTQ Task Force’s annual Creating Change conference.

In fact, the activists protested a reception for A Wider Bridge – an Israel lobby group.

Although the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, one of the media organizations that spread the false claim, later retracted it, the damage was done.

A Wider Bridge itself helped to fan misinformation and hyperbole about what happened.

This story is taking on a familiar pattern, where A Wider Bridge’s distorted version is making headlines and setting in place a false narrative.

A key goal of Israel and its lobby groups in recent years has been to inoculate Israel against criticism by obscuring the line between anti-Jewish bigotry, on the one hand, and criticism of Israel and its state ideology Zionism, on the other.

“I really think people are ganging up on this situation because it looks bad on the surface, but it was not like that in reality,” Skora said. “It didn’t help that A Wider Bridge was involved and their propaganda jumped on it immediately.”

Skora said that members of the Dyke March Collective she’s been in touch with “have spent the last 36 hours fielding personal attacks from Zionists, including rape and death threats,” and that “international news has had a field day.”

A Wider Bridge says it is “building a movement of pro-Israel LGBTQ people and allies.” It also opposes what it claims are the “demonizing and delegitimizing” of Israel – terms habitually used by Israel and its surrogates to justify repression of the Palestine solidarity movement.

In 2014, A Wider Bridge sponsored rallies addressed by Israeli government officials in support of Israel’s 51-day bombing campaign that devastated the Gaza Strip and left 2,200 Palestinians – more than 550 of them children – dead.

Among its major funders is the Jewish Federation of Chicago, which has led efforts to combat activism for Palestinian rights.

A Wider Bridge also has a history of working with StandWithUs, an Israeli government-funded lobby group with ties to right-wing anti-LGBTQ activists.