#and its talking about fascism and riots and stuff

[beeincactus]

My mom just finished Arcane.

She's talking to me about the socio-political aspects of the series.

I'm yapping to her about Timebomb.

[centrally-unplanned]

Re that post about Kenzaburo Oe, you mentioned the term 1968 kids, talking about him and Hayao Miyazaki, how would describe that group? I get the gist of a certain kind of utopian artist from that generation, but I haven't heard it before, wondered if there was any other traits/anyone else you'd put in that group?

Definitely worthy of a fuller write-up, and I wish I had a concrete "unifying" source for all this, but Japan had a rapidly growing leftwing radical movement in the 1960's. The Anpo protests, a huge series of demonstrations against the US-Japan Security Treaty (which gave the US military bases in Japan) from 1959-1960 were the launching point, and they built on growing movements of unionization, environmental activism, and anti-militarism. It culminated in the 1968 seizure of much of the campus of the University of Tokyo by the 'Zenkyōtō' student activist faction, which was part of a global wave of student activism in 1968.

And like in so many places, 1968 was this movement's high water mark - they were awash in factionalism, police broke up their occupation, and support for them plummeted in the face of the violence they both initiated and recieved. In the 1960's members of these factions thought that they could seize political power, change the state, all that jazz. By the 1970's that dream was dead.

Most political-style artists were part of this movement, and shaped by that break - as political opportunity faded, they saw in their art a way to express their concerns, visions, etc that the political system would not. Since I am an anime person, this is where a lot of leaders of 70's and 80's anime would emerge from. Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata were both animators at Toei Animation during this time, got heavily involved in the union efforts there - Miyazaki was the union's general secretary in 1964 - and were avowed Marxists. Mamoru Oshii was similarly active, participating in the Shinjuku Riot over the Vietnam War and identifying as Trotskyist-Left. There is an entire genre of Japanese cinema called New Wave which was part of and shaped by this movement - director Shūji Terayama would be a notable for films like 1971's Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets, which I will mention because its creators included theatre director and music composer J. A. Caesar (real name Takaaki Terahara) who composed the soundtrack for Revolutionary Girl Utena, for the anime connection. There are of course hundreds more I could name.

I think their themes are well known - what united them as a 'movement' was A: they all mutually saw themselves that way, and B: they are the last generation to believe that their art could truly change minds. Miyazaki is making Nausicaa because he actually thinks it will turn people away from techno-fetishization, stuff like that. Creators after that make works about society, but they don't view them the same, their ambitions are different - insight vs activism, or reform vs revolution. Of course these creators will age and change - Oshii for example did so, he would famously criticize Miyazaki of being a typical "Anpo man" in feeling like his films were responsible for society and the world, saying such responsibility was itself a form of fascism (its Oshii, he says shit like this all the time). In his criticism you can see the identity of the 1968 generation reflected back. They were more-or-less wrong, of course - art can change things, but not that much, and it turns out politics is way more complicated then their visions could contain. But I respect their conviction dearly and find the art they made to have something irreplacable due to that conviction, so its worth remembering.

[luxlightly]

I'm not sure you read my post because you're saying a lot of unrelated stuff and putting a lot of words in my mouth. I'm not even remotely defending America so not sure why you're trying to argue that. I never said you shouldn't hate America. Frankly, you probably should. At least as a country. Most of us don't particularly like it either. Between major corporations, an extremely restrictive media industry, a government in the pocket of both, and news media that ranges from "heavily censored" to "outright lies", this country sucks. And the power of those entities expands far beyond our own borders, as you've said. I literally said in the post that we have a huge problem with racism and fascism and it makes me very worried for our future Not sure how you got "America is great actually and you should like it" out of that. What I'm discussing here is specifically why people switched from "you're all so racist!"(real legitimate problem) to "you have weird bread!"(weird benign misunderstanding) which is confusing people here because we have much much more serious problems to criticize than something like bread. And its because continuing to call us out for the issues of racism and fascism and destruction of culture (which by the way if you think Americans don't suffer from destruction of culture by American government I invite you to look up literally any of the history surrounding the treatment of indigenous Americans by America) has become increasingly hypocritical from other countries who have been more and more exposed as having the same issues but many have been avoiding any introspection about their issues by using "whataboutism" which is to point out flaws in someone else and say "well what about this other thing? At least we're not that!" Also, you assume a lot about the average American's relationship with our country and its actions. We don't ask to be given shitty food. We don't want to have no infrastructure. We don't hold media executives at gunpoint and demand that only 3 companies control all our media. It sucks. People starve to death and die from lack of access to medical care every day because our government would rather let 99% of us suffer and die than take a cent away from the 1%. Hundreds of thousands died and are still dying from a pandemic our government did nothing to prevent and companies that refuse to prioritize the safety of their workers. Our government is passing law after law that the vast majority of the country doesn't want. The actions you see "America" taking are not the actions of the American people. They're the actions of a sliver of the population that's crushing the rest of us under its heel and trying its best to do it to the rest of the world, too. There are protests and riots about the kind of stuff you're talking about all the time which are violently put down by our private army of a police force. But that's not my point. My point, as it always was, is that the reason people are criticizing things that don't matter is because they're seeing the real issues they could criticizing are happening around them and they don't want to take responsibility for that. Also, for the love of god: You get sliced bread like this from walmart:

Bread like this:

At a BAKERY. Many supermarkets also have bakery sections that have much higher quality bread, especially if you shop local. I know for a fact sliced crap bread exists in other countries and I know for a fact they have bakeries that sell different things than the grocery store. The serious issue of the lack of access by Americas to good quality food and the fact that large food corporations do their best to crush all smaller, more sustainable food businesses aside, this is just a willful misunderstanding of how shops work.

"Why have people from other largely white countries been so weirdly obsessed with insulting harmless American stuff lately? We've done way worse stuff and yet there's a wave of people insulting harmless or even positive things like 'overly friendly'. Why are people doing things like taking videos of saying there's no fresh baked bread in the bread isle at walmart while blatantly ignoring the bakery section then saying there's no 'real' bread in America?" It's because they're being outed as doing the worse stuff and they desperately want to hold on to their sense of superiority to ignore their own systematic issues. That's the long and short of it. Now I'm sure not every single person is doing it for that reason but that's where the shift happened. For years, especially during the Trump presidency, we were getting constant "Those racist Americans! They're all fascists!" pretty hard from places like England, Canada, and other largely white countries. "We can't be racist! Just look at America! We're not them so we can't have a rising fascism problem!" was the go-to excuse to dismiss any concerns about issues of fascism, racism, etc. Then, rapid fire, we started seeing things like the discovery of the atrocities in indigenous schools Canada. The Tories making a mess of English government. The refusal of England to allow Scotland to pass an lgbtq equality bill. More and more vocal fascist movements. "We're not racist and stupid like America!" stopped being an easy way to maintain a sense of superiority and lack of accountability very quickly. And Americans, especially in online spaces have largely become aware and heavily critical of these problems in our own country. When people pull out the "Well maybe there's something wrong in my country but Americans are so racist!" the response is often "Yeah it's a real issue here. It makes me very worried for the future of our country". Which doesn't fit the "All Americans are so stupid and ignorant and will get violently angry to defend their prejudiced beliefs and that's why the problems there could never happen here" stereotype that's been used to avoid introspection about their own ingrained problematic ideas. So it's shifted to things that are benign enough that most Americans will actually say "Hey that's not really fair. I'm not sure why you're upset about that." Or that are just blatantly untrue but enforce the stereotype about Americans being stupid and culture-less. It a form of "Whataboutism" and it's done all the time here in America, too. Realize the exact problems you criticized the middle east is rampant here, too? "Well...their food is weird, right?? And what's with the way they...dress? Their culture is so ignorant and off-putting!"

[favoritefightingfrenchgoth]

 huge masterlist of leftist (mainy, some lib) videos, some docs, some articles, divided by topic: that i will edit and add more to later:

Far Right/Alt Right/Fascists:

Charlottesville: The True Alt Right (Goes over the entire Charlottesville rally while using footage/images from the rally and march, including footage from the Nazis that they had livestreamed, how the Nazis began assaulting antifascist protestors, responses to the incident, and how ALL of them are Nazis)

The Cult of Tradition (Goes over the myths and truths of the Founding Fathers/ colonizers, slave owners, American Revolution. Argues against the defenders of statues and monuments)

Philosophy of anti-fascists

Decrypting the Alt Right, how to recognize a fascist + Debating the Alt Right + How to Never Lose a Debate with a Fascist + The Alt Right Playbook series

Handmaids Tale: Spotting Fascism (shows clips from the show including gore),

How to lose an argument

Fox News keeps breaking its own rules

Why the Alt Right is Wrong + What the Alt Right fears + The Lies of Red Ice TV (don’t go into comments, full of Nazis) and part 2

Pewdiepie and the rebranding of white nationalism + The PewDiePipeline: how edgy humor leads to violence    Part 2 + Pewdiepie is a Nazi + Pewdiepie and the problem with (fake) racism + Pewdiepie mask off + Pewdiepie doesn’t understand hate symbols

How Cultural Marxism became the Far Right’s scapegoat + Hbomberguy’s Cultural Marxism 

Debunking the Alt RIght: Pool parties +  + The Golden One: A measured response

How PragerU is lying to you    Part 2    Part 3 + Brexit: PragerU vs Reality + PragerU - Big Joel + Dennis Prager is a dick to Holocaust victims + PragerU is conservative junk food + PragerU and Poverty: Misinformation Amateur Hour + PragerU and Justice: a conservative nightmare + PragerU and Marriage: a conservative fever dream

Guns in the Third Reich: A response to Shapiro + others  + Ben Shapiro and the politics of Imagination + Leftist’s response to Ben’s 10 tips 

The Easy Answers of Youtube Conservatism

Who’s at fault for the refugee crisis? + Stochastic Terrorism and Christchurch

Is Black Panther Alt Right? (No)

Fox News: How to whitewash an atrocity

Getting Sweaty about globalism

The West + Does the West hate itself? + Why do They hate The West?

How societies turn cruel

Were the Crusades defensive? (No) 

Stefan Molyneux’s Fall of Rome + Stefan Molyneux, Star Wars The Force Awakens + Stefan Molyneux, The truth about the truth about Wonder Woman + We don’t talk about Elliot Roger - response to Stefan Molyneux + Stefan Molyneux, Aboriginal Australian History and ‘White Guilt’

Racists only have one solution

Trump

Jordan Peterson and The Story of Jordan Peterson + Peterson doesn’t understand Nazism + PhilosophyTube’s Jordan Peterson & The Meaning of Life  + Peterson is not profound + Peterson is everything he criticizes and can’t read + The wasteland of Jordan Peterson

Taking feminists out of context + Power fantasy, male objectification, & lady fanservice + Anita Sarkeesian and the people who hate her + InnuendoStudios Why are you so angry? series

Do women destroy civilizations? (No)  + She-Ra broke the brains of Anti-SJWs + Does Intersectionality destroy Individuality?

Anti feminism (Ableism abound) + Anti feminism (Warning: Lauren Southern) + Anti feminism (guy uses ableist slurs) + Anti feminism vs facts  + Red Pill: Strange Art of Men’s Rights Activism and part two + Women in video game history - The Serfs + Lauren Southern is wrong about tradition

Why Paul Joseph Watson is wrong about everything

The Serfs Steven Chowder

Outrage News + Soyboys: A measured response

How to fall down the Anti SJW rabbit hole

Stonetoss and how hate speech spreads

Sargon of Akkad can’t read (Anti feminism, racism) + Sargon’s petition: a measured response + #FreeSargon: a measured response + Big Joel’s Sargon of Akkad + On Sargon

Joe Rogan Gateway into the Alt Right  and part 2  + Pakman gobbles Joe Rogan

FarradaySpeaks - My descent into the alt right pipeline

Dave Rubin gets Orbed + Dave Rubin: Lazy Propagandist

Can women chess? (Yes)

What is virtue signalling?

Bolsonaro & Brazil’s struggle for truth & memory + Bolsonaro & Latin American Fascism + Why Pinochet Apologists Are Wrong (RIP Allende) + Venezuela: The True Face of the Opposition and this + Bolivia is descending into Dictatorship, here’s why and part 2 + Joanna Hausmann is lying about Venezuela (also, German name, south american heritage... 👀👀👀)

Snowflakes-- The Right's War on the Individual

Sports

Hats off to Tim Pool + Tim Pool completely unraveled and backfires bad (self own)

Debunking Steven Crowder on Universal Healthcare

Cuphead: The Fake Outrage

The Boy Who Cried Racist

Denial as a tool of the radical right

The Limits of Logic - Examining Right Wing Logic Through Star Trek and Wittgenstein

Refugees and Human Rights and Part 2 (ties into far right) + Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Laws

Was Hitler a Socialist? (No) + Were the Nazis Socialist? (No) 

I can go a bit over Nazis not being socialists also bc I have gotten into arguments about this topic.

 Nazis cuddled up with monopolists/big business, protected private businesses, the English word “privatization” was invented to describe their economic policy by the magazine The Economist. They were always anti socialist and anti communist and combined it with antisemitism often using the phrases “Jewish Bolshevism” and “Jewish Marxism”. 

Quotes from Hitler’s Mein Kampf, (there’s much more than these, he got very angry over Marx and other Jewish leftists, equating Judaism and communism/Marxism) warning: some antisemitism:

“In the years 1913 and 1914, I, for the first time in various circles which today in part faithfully support the National Socialist movement, expressed the conviction that the question of the future of the German nation was the question of destroying Marxism.”

“While the Jews in their Marxist and democratic press proclaimed to the whole world the lie about 'German militarism' and sought to incriminate Germany by all means, the Marxist and democratic parties were obstructing any comprehensive training of the German national man-power.”

“Marxism represents the most striking phase of the Jewish endeavour to eliminate the dominant significance of personality in every sphere of human life and replace it by the numerical power of the masses.” 

Hitler on coopting leftist language and symbolism to get the workers on their side:  “The fact that we had chosen red as the colour for our posters sufficed to attract them to our meetings. The ordinary bourgeoisie were very shocked to see that, we had also chosen the symbolic red of Bolshevism and they regarded this as something ambiguously significant. The suspicion was whispered in German Nationalist circles that we also were merely another variety of Marxism, perhaps even Marxists suitably disguised, or better still, Socialists. The actual difference between (National) Socialism and Marxism still remains a mystery to these people up to this day. The charge of Marxism was conclusively proved when it was discovered that at our meetings we deliberately substituted the words 'Fellow-countrymen and Women' for 'Ladies and Gentlemen' and addressed each other as 'Party Comrade'. We used to roar with laughter at these silly faint-hearted bourgeoisie and their efforts to puzzle out our origin, our intentions and our aims. We chose red for our posters after particular and careful deliberation, our intention being to irritate the Left, so as to arouse their attention and tempt them to come to our meetings – if only in order to break them up – so that in this way we got a chance of talking to the people.

“First of all they appealed to their followers to ignore us and keep away from our meetings. Generally speaking this appeal was heeded. But, as time went on, more and more of their followers gradually found their way to us and accepted our teaching. Then the leaders became nervous and uneasy. They clung to their belief that such a development should not be ignored for ever, and that terror must be applied in order to put an end to it.”

Here’s a 1923 interview transcript with Hitler saying the “Socialist” in National Socialist isn’t about socialism  and how he tried to redefine socialist in a nationalist and a “by Aryan people, for Aryan people, while everyone still has private property and stuff” way.  Here he also kinda goes over this in Mein Kampf.

Nazis who were left economically only are Strasserists, Strasserists in the Nazi Party were killed in 1934′s Night of the Long Knives with George Strasser being killed while Otto Strasser had been in exile from 1930. In 1933, Nazis came up with Reichstag Fire Decree + political prisoners (mainly communists and socialists) were rounded up and were put in the first concentration camps)

Canada’s 10,000 person Antia Riot - Battle of Christie Pits

Manufactured Milkshake hysteria + Revenge of the milkshakes + The Ballad of Andy Ngo

Free Speech:

Freeze Peach + The fatal effects of Hate Speech + Ur-Fascism, Free Speech, and those who forgot

The Snowflake Generation? A Response

It’s Just a Joke + Just be nice you nerds

The Marketplace of Ideas: Germany vs USA + Why Political Correctness kinda rules + Steven Crowder and the silencing of dissident media + The Serfs on Deplatforming

Race:

America is racist + Is the 2nd Amendment racist? (Yes in its implementation)

Systematic/normalized racism + Race, Law, & Politics - PhilosophyTube and Part 2

Implicit bias + Group Bias & Black Pigeon Speaks

The danger of white moderates + Friending and forgiving racists - Kat Blaque + Be honest, you don’t care if they’re racist + Jeffree Starr and performative activism

What is race?  + What is white supremacy? + White identity + History of whiteness  Also this +  'Humans Are Not Equal': The Dishonest History of Race  Genetic Betrayal: The Truth About Race  Behind The Misconceptions of Race

Why we have a black history month

Book Chat: "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race"  + Robin DeAngelo’s wonderful paper on white fragility

What is Blackface? + Blackace: A cultural history of a racist art form + Montage from the ending of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled + The New Jim Crow Museum 

Racial comparisons

Quebec Mosque Shooting: Manufacturing a conspiracy

The fate of the frog men (Pepe) + White supremacist propaganda vs truth + Do racists “just love their country”? (No)

Moderate Muslims and terror attacks

Abusing statistics (immigration) + The Bell Curve (isn’t real) + The Great Replacement isn’t real +  Germany’s demographic demise: a response

Immigration and the fall of Rome + Stefan Molyneux’s Native American Genocide

The Many Lies of Lauren Southern’s Borderless

The killing of Trayvon Martin

on alllivesmatter + on privilege

Shaun’s response to “People of color: You are not oppressed”

European histroy is not white history + Does the Left want to destroy history? + Is Philosophy Just White Guys J3rk!ng Off? + A white man’s war? A response to NoBullshit (People of color and women fighting in MY WW2? More likely than you think)

LGBT (mainly T) stuff: 

What is gender? + There are more than two human sexes + Bill Nye vs Pseudoscience and part 2 (Bill said trans rights!!!)

Transphobia in the UK + Transphobia: an analysis by PhilosophyTube + Ben Shapiro’s weapons grade bad takes + Joe Rogan is an idiot and a transphobe  + Debunking Trump on LGBT rights

Debunking trans athletes myths (8 video playlist) + Is Trans Inclusion a Threat to Cis People in Gendered Spaces? (No)

Why Trans Roles for Trans Actors?  + Trans male visibility

Kat Blaque’s monologue on cis nonsense: “Cis people please stop doing this” + Kat Blaque’s take on JK Rowling

What is a TERF? (Don’t go into the comments!!!) + The Transphobe’s Paradox + Why is the trans suicide rate so high?

Red Scare:

Red Scare and xenophobia + racism + Why they still need their big lies about socialism

“Socialism no food”  CIA even said Soviets eat abt the same as Americans , short video going over food shortages

Animal Farm is commonly used in schools to teach about the evils of socialism/communism like mine did:

George Orwell was a socialist anti Stalinist writing about the dangers of authoritarianism. The pig named Snowball (Trotsky) was depicted as good: he wrote the original commandments, was at odds with Napoleon, and he was forced to flee after being attacked by Napoleon’s orders. But Orwell was also a snitch that happily gave out a list of suspected communists to the govt while dying of TB so

McCarthyism

Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders, domino theory and containment, Eisenhower doctrine, Kennedy doctrine, Johnson doctrine, Reagan doctrine.

CIA funded anti-leftist propaganda campaigns like this

The American Govt often supported coups, wars, and other interference against countries that tried to implement socialism, had strong leftist movements, otherwise just elected leaders that were leftist, many from Operation Condor: Chile, Argentina, Vietnam, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia (1971 and 2019), etc

COINTELPRO targeted American leftist, Civil Rights/Black Power, antiwar, Native American rights, and environmental protection movements among others. The FBI targeted and threatened MLK. Spied on and kept files of Einstein and Helen Keller. The FBI drugged and then murdered Black Panther Fred Hampton. Etc

Socialism/Communism:

Before their revolutions, Russia and China were pre-industrial, agricultural, largely illiterate societies whose masses were peasants spread out over truly vast expanses of land. From their revolutions, they rapidly industrialized, became largely literate, and became world powers. With the Soviet Union even flourishing and doing great from their planned economy (5 year plans) while the rest of the world was suffering from the Great Depression. 

Important to note so I don’t get accused of being a Tankie: Soviet Union + China also did terrible things, for example there was the persecution/oppression of minorities under Stalin (like Cossacks, Jewish people, his govt was kinda antisemitic), Stalin would also have his political opponents killed (mostly anti Stalinist comrades), they weren’t good on LGBT rights: Lenin decriminalized gay sex in 1917, Stalin recriminalized it in 1936, Stalin reversed a lot of Lenin’s gender equality policies, Mao getting citizens to smelt their own steel and iron wasn’t smart or efficient,  etc. Critical support.

Modern day China is state capitalist. China has the second highest number of billionaires in the world just behind the USA. And Former Soviet countries are now also capitalist with Russia #4 on the list of most billionaires.

Cuba

Cuba has a literacy rate of 99.7%, one of the highest in the world thanks to the Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961 right after the Cuban revolution. Universal, famously high quality healthcare (doctors are their biggest export, plus they have medical internationalism) and education. Almost half of parliament members are women, Cuba has made great strides in gender equality. Cuba is a direct democracy, while the US is more of an oligarchy, with people mainly winning elections based on their wealth or the wealth of their supporters.

Cuba’s biotech industry is considered the best in the world among developing countries, and has generated important innovations in cancer research, HIV/AIDS research. Cuba created the world’s first vaccine against meningitis B.

Discrimination against LGBT people is illegal in Cuba. It is legal in 30 US states. Cuba has healthcare for all, including trans people, and allows trans people to legally change their gender without surgery. From my understanding, the rights and treatment of LGBT people aren’t perfect but better than US.

Assata Shakur:  “Revolution is a process, so I was not that shocked to find sexism had not totally disappeared in Cuba, nor had racism, but that although they had not totally disappeared, the revolution was totally committed to struggling against racism and sexism in all their forms. That was and continues to be very important to me. It would be pure fantasy to think that all the ills, such as racism, classism or sexism, could be dealt with in 30 years. But what is realistic is that it is much easier and much more possible to struggle against those ills in a country which is dedicated to social justice and to eliminating injustice.”

Book  Another Book The Cuba Libre Story 

Who Did Che Guevara Murder? + Che Guevara: Homophobic racist?

Majority of East Germans miss socialism warning: article is biased red scare stuff. Krupp und Krause, a nice pro East song from West Germany that also explains surplus value. Ich suche die DDR, a nice pro East rock song from Feeling B, which was a band of former East Germans, saying they are looking for the GDR and it had been stolen. Two members are now in the famous rock band Rammstein, the whole band is leftist.

People who actually lived through the Soviet Union miss it, while young people who haven’t say the Soviet Union collapse was good. Far majority of Soviet citizens voted to keep the Union in 1991.

Human nature & socialism + Why the web is communist

In defense of socialism + “X Socialist Country has failed!” is a stupid argument

Authoritarianism in socialist countries

Soviet Union through the eyes of an American + Socialism gives a better quality of life + Soviets had a better record of training women in STEM than modern USA + Space race meme

But how come revolution? + How to defeat your boss + A Beginner’s Guide to Overthrowing Capitalism + The Socialist case against billionaires

Intro to Anarchy + PhilosophyTube’s series on Marx +  What 'To each according to their need' Means + Private vs Personal Property + V For Vendetta - What is Anarchism? + Was the CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) a living heck?

How would anarchism work irl part 2 part 3 part 4

Witchcraft, Gender, & Marxism + Black Rad Leftism vs Black Liberalism

Internet archive with Marxist texts + Easy direct action + Speech Synthesis: Bernie Sanders reading Communist Manifesto, Alex Jones reading Communist Manifesto + Communist Maniesto Summary video with quotes

Black Panthers

The good man himself, President Thomas Sankara

Sankara declared the objectives of the “democratic and popular revolution” to be primarily concerned with the tasks of eradicating corruption, fighting environmental degradation, empowering women, and increasing access to education and health care, with the larger goal of liquidating imperial domination. During the course of his presidency, Sankara successfully implemented programs that vastly reduced infant mortality, increased literacy rates and school attendance, and boosted the number of women holding governmental posts. On the environmental front, in the first year of his presidency alone 10 million trees were planted in an effort to combat desertification. 

Socialism in America doc

Albert Einstein? Socialist.  “Why Socialism?” Video Summary and Quotes

“Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before..

...I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.”

Stephen Hawking? Socialist. “If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”

Martin Luther King Jr? christian socialist. an interview with him about a year before his murder, he goes over wealth equality, slave reparations. mainly 16:30 to the end

he supported labor strikes, unions, workers. 

‘You are reminding, not only Memphis, but you are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.

...“Do you know that most of the poor people in our country are working every day? And they are making wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation.

...”If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she, too, will go to hell.”

“This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream—a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.”  AFL-CIO Convention, December 1961

In a story published a week before his assassination, King told Jose Yglesias in the New York Times magazine, “In a sense you could say we are engaged in the class struggle.” The civil rights movement had not cost a dime, he said, but the movement to uproot poverty and inequality throughout the country would “be a long and difficult struggle, for our program calls for a redistribution of economic power.”

Paul Robeson was a socialist and supported the Soviet Union, saying (since the Union had Article 123, banning racial discrimination)  "In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.. Where I did not feel the pressure of color as I feel in this committee."

When asked why he didn't move to Russia, he replied: "Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you. And no fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear? I am for peace with the Soviet Union, and I am for peace with China, and I am not for peace or friendship with the fascist Franco, and I am not for peace with fascist Nazi Germans. I am for peace with decent people." Here he is singing the USSR anthem and Warszawianka

Muhammad Ali on the Soviet Union: Ali had just returned from a twelve-day visit to the Soviet Union at the invitation of the Soviet Ambassador to the United States to promote the upcoming Moscow Olympics. Ali prayed in Uzbekistan with Soviet Muslims. He sparred with Soviet heavyweights in training for the Olympics. He met with Brezhnev at the Kremlin. 

When he returned to the United States he reported back that “they give a man free medical and hospital care, low rent and a job . . . I never felt so free of being robbed.” He expressed disbelief that so many Americans were afraid of war with the Soviet Union. “It’s hard to believe that such a peaceful country wants war.”

Helen Keller? very into socialism.  (also unfortunately she was into eugenics)

also js bc I was taught differently as a kid: how she’s portrayed is super ableist. for example: she could always communicate, she and the household had home signs and anne sullivan was just there so she could get an education. 

Famous leftists/ leftists in history:

Rory McCann, Liam Cunningham, Danny Devito, James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Kwame Ture, W.E.B. Du Bois, civil rights activist James Farmer, Frederick Vanderbilt Field was disowned by the Vanderbilt tycoon family for being a communist, King Camp Gillette creator of the Gillette company/razor, Leslie Feinberg,

Victor Gruen architect who first designed American shopping malls (hated the modern ones), Woody Guthrie, activist and co-creator of the NAACP Florence Kelley, pioneer of the birth control movement Antoinette F. Buchholz Konikow, Rage Against the Machine, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Albert Schatz who discovered a treatment for tuberculosis,  suffragette and founding member of the ACLU Rose Schneiderman, feminist activist Mary Heaton Vorse, editor who compiled slave testimonies George Rawick, 

feminist activist that helped change NY labor laws Theresa Malkiel, writer and abolitionist Lysander Spooner (published pamphlets with legal defenses for escaped slaves, would offer legal services for free, supported John Brown),

Capitalism+Liberalism:

What’s wrong with capitalism part one  Part two + Noncompete’s why capitalism sucks and part 3 + Why do you work 8 hours per day? + How rich countries rob the poor + Your democracy is a sham

1960 Harvest of Shame documentary, covering plight of migrant farm workers living with atrocious conditions and no living wage. As one worker says at 41:32, "Sure you can get a job, but if you can’t live on what you make, what good is the job?”

Abolish the Monarchy! +  Why does Britain Still have a Queen?

How Privatization Fails: Railways + Influencing an election + You are expendable + Misinformation for fun and profit + Manufacturing Consent: How the Media Distorts Reality: Summary of Michael Parenti and Noam Chomsky + Manufacturing Consent Full Noam Chomsky Documentary

Venezuela: myths and Argument ad Venezuelum + The Myth of Capitalism - Dr. Michael Parenti

UN investigating the US for extreme poverty UN report on horrific US inequality and poverty UN condemns Trump admin for exacerbating poverty levels + The American Dream is rapidly becoming the American Illusion says UN expert + Doc Priced Out: LA’s hidden homeless

Stranger Things has some bad politics in it + What if they threw a purge and noone came? + Marvel sucks, Disney sucks (their workers lives)  + HBO’s Watchmen and Liberalism + Forrest Gump - What are American values? + TV Show ‘Cops’ Copaganda + Bob’s Burgers and Class Conflict

White Working Class? Part 1: Class, Culture, Capital +  White Working Class? Part 2: Race, Class, Migration + Landlords are Bad + Utopia + “Good” Billionaires 

Fake Materialism for Real Transphobes on leftist transphobes. “You want to unite the working class? You have to stand up for the whole working class. All of them! All of their struggles! Otherwise, you’re the one being divisive. You’re the one excluding people. Identity can only divide us if we choose not to care about the struggles of others. If we decide that the problems of others can wait, while we sort out the ones that we share: how can we expect people to extend class solidarity to us while we withold our solidarity from them?

Capitalism is built on white supremacy, it’s built on patriarchy, it’s built on cisheteronormativity, on ableism, on settler colonialism, on imperialism, it’s an interlocking and mutually reinforcing system. We don’t get to pick and choose! You either fight the whole thing or you’re fighting none of it! You’re giving quarter to it. And if you want to hold up the fight until everyone agrees to exclude one vector of oppression or another, until we dismiss the concerns of trans people or indigenous people or women or disabled people or whomever, then you’re no different than any other reactionary.”

50 ways capitalism is hurting you part one   Part two + PhilosophyTube on How to fix the housing crisis + Is Capitalism Voluntary? (No.) + Should the Rich help the Poor? (Yes and neither should exist) + Healthcare, Ethics, & Postmodernism + How to Succeed in Capitalism

Capitalist Entitlement + Woke Brands + Case study of Capitalism: Ukraine + Capitalism is great (not really) + Is Capitalism destroying healthcare? (Yes) + Overpopulation is a capitalist lie + Mental health under late stage capitalism

Pete Buttigieg + Trump and the problem with Politics + America never stood or freedom + How Unions died in America (Reagan) + Evo Morales on Trump and Obama + Whistleblowers in America

My First Job/Lazybones Manifesto + Second Job + Third Job

Destiny and the Liberal Mind Prison + Civility +  Kat Blaque’s Why Liberals annoy me + ThoughtSlime’s Are liberals our enemies? + Why Conservatives can’t stop lying

“Law & Order” And Civil Disobedience + What was Liberalism? Part one  Part two  Part three  Part four + The Dark Side of Liberalism (5 part series) + You can’t beat Trump: Frost/Nixon and the Liberal Lie

Sex Work + Sex Workers and Police, Prison Abolition 

Documentary “The Story of American Slavery” from the settlement of Jamestown on + Doc “Slavery and the Making of America” + Doc “Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters” + Doc “The Heritage of Slavery” 1968 w  Fannie Lou Hamer & Lerone Bennett, Jr.

Doc “Life of the Rez” goes over horrible conditions on Indigenous American reservations due to colonization, capitalism

Problems with American Police, Examples, Solutions, and BLM 1 hr, 43 minutes long Hasan Piker coverage. Contains videos and imagery of police violence and corruption, including murders. 

Parts of his coverage are not good: In at least 2 points in this almost 2 hr coverage, he refers to killer cops as mentally ill/”having personality disorders” and “sociopathic”. At one point refers to an AR-15 as an assault rifle, which is incorrect. + Why Police Brutality is hard to prosecute

Havin Fun + Keeping Hope Alive

Yakko's world but countries that were bombed by the USA after the fall of Germany are bombed

Yakko's World but each time the US invaded or coup'd the country (since the Cold War) it gets louder & more distorted / Yakko’s World but every country the US overthrew since 1945 makes it louder

[honeyrose-tea]

this has been a strange start to the new year for sure. how are you doing? what did you think of the situation in the capitol? any thoughts or worries about the rest of the month? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on everything. -🌙

thank you so much for the ask💞 almost every day I check my inbox anticipating the next time I'll hear from you. just knowing that someone cares.... it really does a lot for my self-esteem. I don't have many friends right now and the few I do are very busy and have a lot of things they would rather do than talk to me. thank you for making time to listen to me and ask me how I'm doing. you wouldn't believe how many people don't. I haven't always been the most consistent presence for you and I'm sorry. I'm trying to do better and be less selfish because I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of that. thank you for always being kind to me, pen pal.

there is a lot I want to say regarding the capitol and the situation in the country in general. as a social science student (and hopefully one day a professor!) these situations are of great academic interest to me. as a bisexual woman and an informed US citizen who cares about my rights I am also very personally vested in American issues. but first I would like to tackle your question regarding how I'm doing:)

I'm doing pretty good. classes have started back up but most of mine are online. I'm thinking of switching to online exclusively because of how much emotional (and sometimes physical) labor in-person classes are, and also for the sake of my health and my parents'. it's funny how so many things we did with ease before the pandemic seem so burdensome now. even small interactions are anxiety-inducing now, and I find myself having a hard time socializing even casually. like a muscle that has atrophied without use, my social skills are awful now. on a happier note, my productivity and creativity are both at all-time highs since social interactions aren't using up all my energy anymore. I brought my record player to my dorm room and I've been listening to a bunch of music, I've also been writing and recording some music of my own. I have a couple of demos and if you or anyone else is interested, I'll post them on here. once I record and edit full band versions I'll put them up on my soundcloud. I've tried sharing some of my stuff with some friends but none of them really care and I don't want to annoy them. besides, it's more for myself anyway. I wang to prove to myself that I can make music and that I can say something worth saying. a lot of my struggle over the past 6 months has been that I feel as though nothing I do or say can change anything, that none of my actions matter. I struggle a lot with control and I've been working on it for years, but it's still really hard for me. anyway. I'm enjoying class and what I do outside of it. I've been in my element living alone again (in my dorm) and feeling free to wear/do/say what I want, when I want. I wash my dishes and sing to myself and manage my time and drink lots of artificially sweetened and heavily flavored coffee without anyone around to judge me. and I get to cry and masturbate when I want, both of which are helpful in regulating my moods. I don't know. it's not like I'm doing anything exciting, but I am doing each thing I do well and with a happy heart. I feel like this portion of my life is something of a hibernation- the winter seasons combined with the pandemic have me in a cozy little daydream, reading and self-reflecting and getting back in tune with myself and my passions. I have a feeling that the spring and summer will be very vibrant bustling months so I am trying to enjoy my rest and soak in as much knowledge about myself and the world around me as I can. it's hard for me to live in the present and not get antsy (connected to control issues, I think) but I'm getting better at it. on the subject of the future, I've also been using this time to look into grad school and prepare for the GRE (a standardized test required for most grad school applications, similar to the ACT/SAT). I'm learning a lot that I didn't know since neither of my parents went further than undergrad, and I'm getting excited. I'm really looking forward to doing research. I've already been collecting some thesis ideas for an undergraduate-level thesis that I have to complete next year for the honors college, and hopefully I can turn that into a masters and/or PHD thesis when the time comes. now, on to more important matters than my silly little life.

I have very complicated feelings about america. I do have some attachment to some of the original ideas that are at the foundation- "bring me your huddled masses...", "all men are created equal", the general spirit of democracy, etc.- all of these are valid and worth keeping (in some form) to me. I think a lot of good people and ideas exist around us and I believe that we must be as empathetic and kind as possible to one another in order to navigate the current climate and preserve the good that we do have. that said, america was also founded on some pretty terrible, bigoted principles and our history- as well as our present- is marred by injustices. our society has become highly individualistic because of capitalism, and it has resulted in considerable division on every level. the competition that fuels capitalism is like an invasive species of plant, it does not only exist within our economy but it slithers out into our social world and the way we relate to others. I think capitalism coupled with our post-enlightenment founding is the source of most all of our problems as a country. capitalism has taken root in america in a way more malicious and all-consuming than in any other culture, because it was there at the beginning of our country and all of our social norms have grown out of it. many other cultures have existed long before capitalism and though it has modified their culture, it has not altogether become it. because america was founded on capitalism, we have no cultural identity outside of it. america is, itself, capitalism. that is precisely why america is experiencing all of the best and worst parts of capitalism at their most extreme. it is why, as I mentioned previously, we are perhaps the most divisive and competitive society in the modern world, and probably in history. we are the richest and most powerful country but we have the largest wealth gap and incarceration rate, among many other extremes.

all of this is to say that the rise of Trump and fascism in this country has been a long time coming, and unmistakably inevitable. to defeat it we will have to break america down to its fundamentals, throw out everything that is unethical and unjust, and rebuild our entire society from there. this is radical and hard to imagine, it will also be very difficult to execute, but I strongly believe that much of our societal systems just cannot be reformed, they must be thrown out and replaced.

the capitol riots were inexcusable and sickening but decidedly inevitable. this has been steadily building for america's entire existence. I think it will get worse before it gets better, as there are already plans for bigger and more numerous protests across the country in the following weeks. that said, I feel hopeful as I see the anti-fascist movement grow in the wake of fascism, I am hopeful as I see many people being radicalized and awakened to the realities of this country's failings. I don't know how exactly we will even begin to rid ourselves of the biases, prejudices, and downright hatred that plagues our country. I don't know how we will relate on an individual level to those with such deeply-ingrained hate in their hearts. I don't know how we will change our systems of government and economy to reflect new cultural values that we begin to build together. I am not sure what the future will hold. I do believe, however, that we will triumph over this moment and that the future will be better. I think that the only way to radically change and unite so many vastly different people and remove the blinders from their eyes is through a terrible, historic awakening like the one we are having now. the situation itself is awful, but I am hopeful that out of this mess we become a nation more committed to justice and to some of the ideals which we have falsely claimed to be emulating for our entire history.

so yes, I am worried about the next few weeks, months, and even years. there is no end to the pursuit of a just society, and I think every informed citizen is always a bit apprehensive about certain aspects of their culture. there will always be problems to combat and injustices to rectify, but I think that we will soon be moving to a better place, that we will remember these moments and say, "never again". I am hopeful, despite seeing some of the worst of humanity in recent days, that these atrocities will bring positive change.

I know that was long and instead of discussing issues about the capitol, or even just current political issues, I expanded the scope considerably and dragged in a lot of things from history and grander sociopolitical theories. still, I think it is hard to talk about the insurrection attempt without talking about a lot more. thank you for reading my takes and caring about them. I spend a lot of time thinking about these things, and it feels nice to share them with someone other than my annoyed professors who want me to shut up so they can finish the lecture and stick to their semester schedule.

I hope you're well and that you're staying safe and healthy. are you in school now too? have you or your family had the virus? thank you for coming to talk to me, I always enjoy it. I'll talk to you again soon💞

[tinylittlecubby]

The results just confirm my 'fascism for who' theory.

People keep saying that the USA is becoming more and more fascist and is getting worse when this is the same country that:

-exported fascism to Germany during world War 2 in the first place via Jim Crow Laws

-bombed itself in order to kill black activists

-only country to use atomic bombs on another

-some of the white citizens of the country hated a black made music genre so much that they literally rioted about it and 'ended the genre' (talking about disco)

-manipulated the housing market and literally changed the architectural landscape in order to oppress black people

-has embedded dangling the carrot of true independence from women into their culture in various ways

-invaded multiple countries to 'install democracy' but has failed at that mission every time (because that was their PR spin. They were taking down communism)

The USA is becoming more fascist not because there was a time it was never fascist or even minimally fascist. Its becoming worse because it is coming for people who used to benefit from it because fascism is inherently a flood ideology. These people just were not on the bottom floor before and might have even been laughing along and are now all pickachu faced that the water has now reached their floor.

Also, as a non US resident, everyone outside of the USA has recognized that it is fascist. Personally there is not a narrative that the US is becoming worse. Cause worse from what? When were the glory days of the US that people are desiring to return to? I literally have a professor right now that left the country in the 80's because of the political landscape at the time.

The 70's were not better when women could just open a bank account (1974,so this is progress but holy hell is it late and we are STILL having the cultural argument on whether women should be STAHM or work or do both or be a girl boss -which unsurprisingly is the most villanized option out of the bunch- ) the Vietnam War is just starting to wrap after over 9 years (meaning we will just start to see how little the US thinks of veterans again. Also when you get a minute, take a moment to check if any of the major serial killers have had any experience in the military. The people that appear on those lists are some big names) and red lining is very much in place.

The 60's? The civil rights movement was not some peaceful please listen to me mr. pwesident ass movement. It was horribly violent, many activists died senselessly and very publicly and there a multitude of atrocities that took place at the time that have been lost to history cause they can't be spun into a profitable story today.

Ah the 50's, the time people seem to bitch and moan about the most. The time when house wives were drugged up on barbituates, your fathers raging alcoholism was justified because he is the bread winner and little timmy fears telling his parents about the neighbor boy because he knows he will be kicked out the house or worse."But that stuff still happens today?!" And thats exactly my point. Just because our tools have advanced dramatically does not mean we as a group of people have advanced dramatically. If you say 'politically correct' or 'woke' I know what the hell you are getting at. Despite being terms for specific times in history usually, they serve the same function socially.

"But people could get jobs and houses so much easier then!" The same jobs that had absolutely no regard for you if you became disabled because of a work related injury (and still dont) The same jobs that somehow still had people being very poor (homelessness is not a new phenomenon) The same jobs that had a "no women, blacks or jews above the 6th floor" policy (extra fuck you if you are all 3 but then again people forget you can be all 3" The same houses that were riddled with asbestos (dont touch the popcorn ceilings in your house if you still got them fyi) the very houses that had lead pipes that has harmed people so much! The same houses in neighborhoods that have people living in them that if they see a black teen they feel comfortable killing them (this has happened time and time again so I can't even name a specific decade) And the same houses your black ass ain't getting because the mortgage man said your skin is the wrong hexadecimal code. And about that community we are supposedly lacking because of social media? It's not social media, they were systematically dismantled in order to undermine the civil rights movement. The 'social media is inherently evil' argument is just a profitable narrative for social media companies at the end of the day because an antagonist is integral to any story, america loves a villain and especially one that is teeing up for a redemption arc (check on how differently Mark Zuckerberg is dressing these days and how much of a 'wive guy' he is positioning himself to be)

It has never made sense to me that people are accepting of the fact that the USA is the most powerful nation on the planet because of its violent tendencies, the violence it has maintained throughout its entire history,but then will either act scared in a surprised manner when it continues to act as such. This is not a decline, this not a shift to the right. This is simply a continuation. No matter which candidate won, no matter for which election cycle, this will always be the case.

The flooding has been occuring for centuries. It begun as soon as Christopher Columbuses stank ass arrives.

Unfortunately I am not optimistic and if my hereditary hoodoo shit acts up now ill be so fucking pissed off

[fapangel]

And what is your take on the media finally reporting on Antifa, and the people who have gone strang my silent while comparing them to Indiana Jones or th soldiers of Notmandy

It's a perfect time to answer this question,because in the last few days, the media has begun to tentatively trydigging up Charlottesville again, such as this utterlybugfuck headline in the Atlantic, lastweek's WaPo op-ed digging it up again, and CNBC's horrifiedscreeching over Trumppointing out how his comments on Antifa were vindicated. Thusthere's no better time to stuff this narrative right back down thebastard's throats by reviewing how they went from praising anddefending violent anarcho-communist insurrectionists as freedomfighters to condemning them as thugs in the space of only two weeks -all because of Trump.

Nobody seems to have grasped the significance ofwhat happened in the last two weeks of August. It's high time thatchanged.

The Power of the Media

It all started, of course, on August 13th,when Trump's initial statement on Charlottesville pointed out thatthe IllinoisNazis weren't the only ones that came to Charlottesville looking tostart trouble. The ensuing savage attacks by Democrats and theirmedia establishment was routine and expected - as was the usualgibberingpsychopathscalling Trump a jackbooted Nazi - but then theestablishment GOP rushed to gore him in the back in a veritableRINO stampede, followed by CEOs on his “advisory councils”resigningwith grand flourishes of self-righteous back-patting. The“mainstream” media and associated attack dogs had been callingTrump Hitler from day one, andyet people that had stuck by himthrough monthsof that unrelenting slanderwere now running scared.

The biggest tellwas Trump himself - the man who'd weathered over a year of beingcalled a racist, homophobe, Islamophobe, sexist, and rapistwithoutoncebacking down, flinching or even blinking, utterlycaved after only 48 hours of constant attacks. Thethorough shredding of their own credibility and the democratizationof information has stripped the media of most of their onetime power,but their ability to tell lies of omission - to exclude entire topicsof conversation from the public sphere - was still enough to sendTrump's most loyal admirers and the majority of the establishment GOPrunning in a panic,andbring to heel a man that'd shrugged off a 13-month campaign ofnonstop hate, character assassination and viscous slander. Thisis also the power of the label “Nazi:” once the media finallymanaged to make it stick - even a little - they got exactly what theywanted; Trump standing before the nation reinforcing their narrativethat Illinois nazis, and onlyIllinoisnazis, were the problem.

Itwas a mistake, of course - the media rewarded Trump by squealing withdelirious glee, then attackinghim allover again with twicethe frothing, foaming-at-the-mouthsavagery, as anyone with a brain could've told him would happen.

Trumprealized his true error almost immediately - andsaid so in as many words on Twitter, stating the obvious: Thatthe Fake News Media were malicious bastards that would never, ever besatisfied by any capitulation he made. Thatpublic tweet was a harbinger of things to come - but not even Iexpected the sheer brass balls Trump displayed when he walked intothe next day's press conference swinging.

The Absolute Madman Actually Fights Back

On August 15th, Trump walked into aTrump Tower press conference and didsomething no careerpolitician would've had the sheer steel balls to do -he stared down the mainstream media jackals that had routed hispolitical and social allies in only 48 hours, and calledthem out as the partisan, lying bastards they were. Thetruly incredible thing was that he didn't walk in with preparedstatements - he counterattacked into the inevitable bad-faithquestions that had fuck-all to do with the point of his pressconference (infrastructure.) He started by calling out the fleeingCEOs out for being job-exporting thieves putting their personalprofits before the national interest, pointed out the partisanship ofreporters and their penchant for timeliness over accuracy, and thenhe dropped the bomb.

Hecalled out Antifa and theblack bloc.

Hechallenged their never-questioned blanket slur “alt-right,”demanding they define it, hepointed out that there was an “alt-left” at Charlottesville thatcharged into the fray swinging clubs,he called a reporter Fake News, like it was their name, (whiletelling them to shut their yap,) and nailed the media for theirdeliberate omission of truth regarding “both sides” atCharlottesville. He even got digs in at McCain and Obama withoutbreaking stride - all of it completely unscripted and in full-contactconfrontation with a hostile media gaggle.

Butby far the most important thing he did was call out the black bloc:

“Now, in the other group also, you had somefine people but you also had troublemakers and you see them come withthe black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats.You had a lot of bad people in the other group too.”

It was arguably betterthan calling them out by name - because he was describing whathe'd seen, as he said, “in the same pictures” we'd all seen. In afew minutes, Trump had blown months of willful media silence andconcealment wide open.

The media did what theyalways do, of course.

They doubled down.

Withindays, the WashingtonPost was stridently defending Antifa, painting them as heroic“anti-racist” activists, their savage violence, oppression anddomestic terrorism as self-defense, and comparing them to WWIIfreedom fighters. That boot-licking pack of lies - written by self-admitted Antifa ally and apologist Mark Bray (a Californianprofessor, of course,) was regurgitatedad nauseum by this long-winded screed as well. Then there's thisalleged “news” story painting Antifa as mostly a fantasy oflunatic right-wing media, (including those dreaded murders theNRA!) and thisopinion story striving to deny any moral equivalency between onegang of race-obsessed, club-swinging totalitarian thugs and theother. Oh, andthis opinion story which shed more whiny bitch tears thanHillary's campaign staff on Nov. 8th. And thislong-winded pile of lies again trying to label antifa thugs asinnocent “protesters,” offering as evidence a twitter video clipby “Unicorn Riot,” a packof left-wing propagandists who leaked the Denver PD's riotmanagement manual, an especially helpful bit of intel for theviolent assholes in Antifa who's black bloc tactics revolve aroundfighting, assaulting, and escaping police riot control techniques.Theyhave a complete fucking tactical manual for such things. (It'sa real scream to read, too.) Therewas also thisarticle claiming Trump was foolish to try fighting the media -this one, as they say, “didn't age well.” Andif all of that wasn'tenough, havethis stirring call from another extremist professor tellingpeople to “start throwing rocks” to stop the “ancientevil now standing unhooded.”

Andthat was the Washington Post alone.The truly insaneoutlets, like Slate, didn't mince words - outrightpraising Antifa as heroic defenders of the innocents against the eviljackbooted fascist stormtroopers, in addition to thisass-kissing, massive feature article that's little more than amouthpiece for an antifa activist to - and I quote - “explain[Antifa's] strain of left-wing militancy to a fascinated but deeplywary wider world.” Fascinated.You can hearthe drool dripping fromthis writer's slack-jawed, star-struck awe. Thenthere was oldreliable the Atlantic asserting the “no moral equivalence” lieonce again. Time magazineexemplified the standard tack for any media (i.e. most of them) lessbatshit fucking loco than the WaPo inthis article, introducing Antifa as some milquetoast, generalized“anti-fascism vibe, man,” whitewashed their violence and savagebeatings of bystanders as mere “window-breaking” vandalism (alongwith parroting their apologies, “the media's picking on US!” and“but they fight back sometimes!”) and talking about the blackbloc's black clothing without naming the actual reason for it - toevade police arrest via anonymity. (CNN'ssimilar puff piece was so savaged for its “peace through violenceheadline” that they hastily changed it.)And it didn't stop there, of course - theRINOs caved again like the craven cowards they are, Trump simplydissolvedhis business advisory councils before any more CEOs could makeself-aggrandizing shows of their resignations, and the arts committieresigned en-masse completewith grade-school theatrics in their maudlin resignation letter.But the absolute best partwas when they started comparing violent anarcho-communist thugs toAMERICAN SOLDIERS STORMING THE BEACH AT D-DAY.

Yes,really - startingwith the Editor In Chief of the Atlantic himself, butsure as hell not stoppingthere. Even CNN couldn'tresist the dank meme. They had gone all-in, lionizing theseCommunist thugs - adherents of the ideology that'd go on to murdertens of thousands of American soldiers and servicemen in Korea,Vietnam and elsewhere - as American heroes. Within a few days ofTrump's doubling down, the mainstream media was erecting Antifa onthe plinths they'd just torn Confederate statues down from, anointingthem with the blood of fallen American soldiers, and praising them asfucking heroes.

Two weeks later, it blew up in their goddamn faces.

That Didn't Age Well

On August 27th, a small “No Marxismin America” rally in Berkeley, consisting entirely of unarmed,peaceful protesters, weresavagely set upon and beaten by a much larger pack of Antifa blackbloc thugs after Berkeley riot police let the bastards into theprotest site without a fight. Since the violence waswitnessed by an AP wire reporter, even the WaPohad to mostly report the facts for a change. That AP footageshowing single conservative rallygoers being viciously beaten andkicked by five or six masked, black-clad thugs apiece proved Trumpright in dramatic and undeniable fashion - but more importantly, itproved the media absolutely, utterly, and horrifyingly wrong.

After piling thatpack of lies as high and wide as they possibly could for weeks, themedia was forced to swallow every ounce of their own shit.

Amere two weeks after churning out that disgusting pack of lies,apologies and outright praise for Antifa I partiallysampled above, the WaPo had to publish thisofficial editorial board op-ed condemning them. The Berkely PD'swillfully allowing the violence to take place must've been especiallyawkward, given the WaPo's twoseparate articlesblaming the Charlottesville PD's lackluster response for the earlierviolence.

Theshit-eating just kept going and going. Mark Bray, the aforementionedAntifa historian, apologist, and cheerleader, was himself disavowedby his own college's president forsupporting a pack of violent thugs, followed by the WaPo'slengthy review of his book which ended with the telling line“The inherent contradiction of antifa is that, if America isindeed so irredeemable and hypocritical that violence is the answer,then what exactly are you fighting to preserve?” Theyalso ran thiscolumn explicitly refuting their earlier denials of moral equivalencybetween antifa and Illinois nazis, which pointed out that theUnited States defeated Nazis andCommunists (onetime ally of the Nazis) but that only Communists areroutinelydefended by the New York Times. Even this defense of antifa bythe WaPo's own media columnist (which blames antifa's sudden bad rapon a Vast Right Wing Meme Machine) opens by admitting that antifa'snewly-tainted name was suddenly everywhere- anda week later they were running demandsfor specific Democraticpoliticians todo the ritual denouncing of The Enemy,for a change. EvenNancyPelosi herself jumpedon the condemnation bandwagon. Even the Mayor of Berkely, JesseArreguin (opensupporter of one of the most violent and cultlike of Antifagroups, By Any Means Necessary,) whowas responsible for ordering Berkeleypolice to stand down on prior occasions (resulting in violence,)went on-record to demand Antifa be classifiedas a “gang.” (The FBIopted for rather stronger labeling.) Eventhe partisan, serial liars at the Southern Poverty Law Centercondemned them, though they refused to apply the “hate” labelthey rubber-stamp almost everyone else with. Even the Chicago fuckingTribune, one of the most consistently rabid anti-Trump publicationsI've seen this side of the WaPo openly criticized Democratsfor their conspicuous silence regarding the Communistinsurrectionists among them.

Theentire debacle was a glorious comeuppance without peer - the entireDemocratic party and mainstream media smear machine caught dead torights in their ghastly, bald-faced lies and forced to choke themdown again.

Amedia smear machine powerful enough to coerce CEOs of massiveinternational corporations, powerful career politicians and even -momentarily - the most powerful man on the planet.In the waning days of August, two weeks after they bent the Leader ofthe Free World to their will, they weren'tjust humiliated and discredited - they were also forced to openlyacknowledge the violent political terrorists that had benefited sostrongly from their willful veil of silence, de-masking them forever.

Andit was all the work of Donald J. Trump.

Hope Rides Alone

Trump knew exactly what he was doing.

His tweet the night before his bombshell Aug. 15thpress conference proves his (most impressive) loins were well-girdedfor combat before he walked before the cameras in Trump Tower - hewas ready and willing to offer battle. He knewthe press (as they always, always do)would be launching questions at him completely unrelated to the topicat hand, questions calculated to do him the most damage - and hechose that as hismoment to engage, rather than working it into his speech as preparedcomments. He countedon their malice to give him the openings he needed - and in a fewminutes of unrehearsed, ad-hoc debating, gave the mainstream mediathe poke needed to set their zealots fervor ablaze. I hate the mediawith such horrific passion that I've said nicer things about anglerfish and Windows ME andeven I wasleft astounded at the media's rush to lionize club-swinging communistterrorists as freedomfighters and heroes - butTrump wasn't. Thecourage to take on the people - and the lies - that'd sent hispolitical allies running like craven cowards not 48 hours earlier isnothing short of astounding, and the kind of risk no careerpolitician would ever entertain. I could've told you that the mediawould paint themselves into a corner with their hysterical, manicscreeching, and that they'd be proven for fools (again)when Antifa inevitably committed a new act of barbaric thuggery, butTrump hadthe sheer brass balls to bankhis very fortunes on it.

And he hitthe jackpot.

Anyonewho thinks Trump isn't playing “4D chess,” or that he's “cavingto pressure” after the lastweek of August is either a boomer crewman, Amish, or a raging idiot.The metric asston(ne?) ofshit the media was forced to eat was absolutely, entirely thanks toTrump's August 15thpress conference. He took their greatest victory over him to-date andturned it into their most bitter defeat in only two weeks time. Onlya fool could doubt the man's brilliance at this point.

Thenext time you hear some Bannonite drone screaming to the high heavensabout DACA, remember the last week of August.

[scifimagpie]

Political Oroboros: Why Marx Is Not Enough

First of all, I realise the title of this piece is inflammatory, so let me lay out some caveats.

I am absolutely not conservative. (One of the first things to know about leftist fighting and discussions online is that 'liberal' has two different meanings; the broad sense in which conservative commentators use it, and the more specific and technically correct sense that leftists sometimes use it - as well as the tertiary sense of, "anyone who isn't quite radical enough.') 

I wouldn't necessarily call myself a liberal in the sense of condoning a capitalist system; I do find the most common ground with proponents of democratic socialism. However, some elements of communist ideology do seem solid, although I tend to like many of the ideas I've seen from anarcho-syndicalists more.

Confused by those terms? You're not alone, but some of the hippest trends among the youth of today are not just trap music and street wear - it's political and philosophical discourse. Different streams of communism and anarchism and debating the concepts of idealists through the ages is pretty great, but treating those ideas as a firm road map and, perhaps, the only acceptable solution or map, is not so excellent.

After several weeks of careful surveillance and investigation, I also came to some unsettling and unsavory conclusions.

Source 

There's a weird and disconcerting mix of progressive and regressive ideas in this new wild west of a political movement; using "gay" and "retard" as insults in this year, and talking about second-wave feminist gender concepts (Penis =  man! Vagina = woman! are not scientifically validated ideas anymore, even if they have held sway for a long time) as though they're based on reality is...a special kind of confusing, frankly.  The person mentioned below isn't actually the "leader" of Antifa (antifacism is a general belief and approach, not an organization; the Black Bloc is something different) but the points they're making shouldn't actually have to be made. And yet, here we are. (To clarify: this person's opinion is, as far as I'm concerned, correct, because it's a summary of historical facts.)

We can try to tweak the perspective on things and change the way someone is seen, but facts have this tendency to assert themselves. And when those facts take the form of thousands of dead bodies, politely covering them up or scootching them out of the way is a bit harder. In the case of leaders such as Winston Churchill, it's been easier to laud their successes and forget the death toll because they were victorious, but it doesn't erase his contributions to the Bengal Famine and his decision to test gas weapons on Kurdish villagers. 

Yet even when we debate the value and leadership of dictators, history tends to reassert itself. 

“History isn’t like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always—eventually—manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve.”  ― Terry Pratchett, Mort

 Nobody is good enough

Of course, just because someone agrees with history (!) and is willing to unflinchingly consider mass murderers as guilty of their crimes doesn't mean they'll avoid participating in the cannibalistic discussions of leftist politics. A particularly difficult issue has been criticism of the Youtuber Contrapoints, who has both been lauded for her very real effects in de-radicalizing extremists, and criticized for fumbling her way through understanding non-binary genders (and struggling to deal with the flood of online criticism afterwards.) But merely liking a figure who is problematic (or worse, Trash, if they have failed one time too many) can be grounds for a friendship breaking up or the sort of extremely tense, stressful discussion that keeps one awake for hours afterwards.

As I said on Facebook one night, "Whiny comment of the night: it would be easier to unite the left if the radicals weren't so dead-set on everyone just converting to their beliefs as much as possible.And Seems like you can learn about Marxism, cultural history, feminism, and all of that...but it's impossible to unlearn American cultural hegemonic approaches and seeing violence as the default/best option."  But to clarify, this isn't speculation without sourcing. I did a bit of an investigation into a few leftist pages, and it was really unnerving to see the number of pro-gun and "eat the rich" and "fetch the guillotines" sorts of remarks and posters. The thing is, we've all done that dance before, and it's going on in other countries at the moment. Riots and protests are excellent when they work, but sometimes, they don't - and we don't talk about what happens when they don't. 

The risk of small government

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old lady, smaller governments are still governments. People who think some military junta of kids with guns can replace all the architecture and organizational levels of "the state" are welcome to try working in a city planning office as an admin assistant some time. Having done that myself, I would welcome anyone who wants to just replace and rewrite all those land laws, which by the way exist for reasons, to maybe take a civil engineering course or two.

And if you DON'T want to replace all that architecture, just get rid of the bad stuff - congrats, that's actually just reformism, which is still a far cry from "just accepting things the way they are." 

As a fan and casual scholar of cults, I've had many opportunities to see examples of small, ideologically-driven communities turn rotten. Frankly, I wouldn't trust my own town to just secede and govern itself, even though I'm very pleased with our mayor's decisions. I know too much about white people and sociology and Christianity (as well as other religions and groups) to trust that small, self-governing, autonomous groups will be fine on their lonesome. We're kinda in a globalized society with many, many supply chains. If you don't like that, get working on a time machine.

Yet even if one were to travel back in time, we've always had international trade and whatnot, and isolationism has never worked especially well. Also it's how you get fascism in the first place, so...history says it's how you make the exact monster you're trying to fight. Worst of all, these defenses of fascists and murderers do nothing but divide us along sectarian points of conflict. 

Sometimes I worry the Revolution will just be online and never actually get offline

— 🏴🛡Justin🛡🏴 (@sharkle82) July 19, 2019

What do we do? 

Honestly, my approach lately has just been to ignore Leftbook and debate spaces and not engage. Trying to discuss theory and concepts has led to some arguments over the applications of violence that have, honestly, made me stop trusting and just lose certain friends altogether. One otherwise brave and locally committed person said, "violence is neither good nor bad. It's a tool." Although I agree that self-defense actions are not exactly violent, I just don't think we should glorify aggression, or be eager to shed blood. It tends to lead to bad results, and it's uncomfortably similar to the stance we're opposing. My take?

Personally, I don't trust anyone who thinks the problems will all be fixed if we just kill a few of the right people.

The people who sit around day-dreaming about 19th century revolutionaries aren't necessarily the ones helping to, say, actually fight the battles that need fighting here and now. It may seem ridiculous to say, "hey, watch out for this," and also, "but you can basically ignore it," but frankly, that approach has worked extremely well for me in real life. 

The key is this. What do you want to accomplish, in practical terms? Forget about "praxis" and "theory"; what are the concrete, fundamental changes you want to see, and the results you want in society and your community? Every change comes incrementally. Evolution is unavoidable. However, we have an existing system that we can use - and dare I say it, that we can apply our strength to if we're determined enough. 

How to change the world 

Writing actual letters to politicians in my city, province, and country, engaging in the community fight for preservation of a local Safe Consumption Site, signing petitions for various environmental protection causes, and applying pressure to politicians, as well as keeping an eye on actual local white supremacists, fascists, and extremists has done more and had a greater impact than anything in my decade or so of arguing with people on the internet. 

My only regret is that I didn't start using my skills in the real world much, much sooner. It turns out that all the people who insist that those in power won't listen to "us" are, unequivocally, wrong. And while I do have white and cis privilege to thank for some of my results, I would also argue that we on the left must not presume our own helplessness and confine ourselves to training arenas online.  Get out there. Talk to politicians. Stay up to date on the news and follow multiple sources, rather than reading 150-year-old essays. And above all, embrace the power of both individual actions and solidarity. 

I have more to say about this topic, but instead of creating another series, a few essays may be cropping up. Until then, however, I have real work to do, both in the political world and out of it. For one thing, books aren't going to finish themselves! 

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people’s manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

[chiseler]

THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD GIRLS

Putting "acceptable" limits on depravity in the name of compromise and "reality" is how fascism eventually triumphs. Or so said Professor Yvonne De Carlo of 'Miss Yvonne's Academy for Wayward Hussies' also known as 'The Frankfurt School' --  a place of higher learning for delinquent, pregnant scholars. "Your new president is merely proof that the depraved nature of power is given license by tolerating all but its excesses" said Professor De Carlo as she powdered her ample cleavage in full view of the astonished, pinafore-clad undergrads gathered for her lecture on the 'Dialectic of Fascism and French Manicures Made Easy-Peasy'.

"You want to know what brought Trump to power? Hint: It wasn't a sudden, inexplicable, sewage-strewn wave of raw hatred poised to strike down public schools, libraries and national parks at the behest of a braying, stupid mob of "privileged" former factory workers. It wasn't merely insanity wrought by decades of institutional neglect or unchecked greed -- although that was a big part of it. It was *nice* people willing to accept certain 'realities' to ensure their place at the proverbial table remained a pristine space of individually apportioned, locally sourced food; a place where rhetorical restraint replaced actual political solutions to any given problem.

You chose 'safe' over actual justice -- meaning someone else's kid will take a police bullet to the chest so that we can all read heavily redacted versions of Mark Twain in the peace and comfort of a colorful ball pit of higher learning like our own Frankfurt School, which I should mention was only made possible by a generous corporate donation from a multi-national purveyor of processed pork by-products with vaguely German origins. At the end of it, you'll all be awarded a certificate declaring you free from venereal diseases, and the skills necessary to lower live poultry into a vat of ammonia in a subsidiary facility owned by our trustees. At your age, I was performing burlesque numbers on the mean streets of my Canadian homeland at the behest of my stage mother. But I'll tell you all about that later in the term when we cover 'Hoochie-Coochie Cave Dancing of the Early Ottoman Empire - as Explained by a scantily-clad Miss Yvonne Waving a Jewel-Encrusted Saber'. Consider that your 'trigger warning'. Now let's proceed:

It was enough that we embraced Caitlyn Jenner and applauded Meryl Streep giving the phone book version of the Gettysburg Address to her wealthy patrons -- I could give a better soliloquy while swallowing a sword and balancing a cobra on my head, but I digress . . . It was enough to sprout a 'dad boner' over Pussy Riot to declare ourselves -- "punk rock", even as we devised ways to make earth's human and animal life redundant during brainstorming meetings that took place in an indoor ergonomic playground that served wheat grass martinis on tap. My dear friend Frederick Marcuse who took me under his bosom . . . or was that the other way around . . . argued that the technocratic efficiency of advanced, industrial societies had rendered it 'one-dimensional', and as such, resistant to all critiques of it. Our "aversion to introspection" according to Adorno -- another generous benefactor to the Frankfurt School -- renders left-opposition to Trump little more than an elite-led, sour grape authoritarianism that is unable to contemplate its own role in a paradigmatic shift towards a more 'unprincipled' and unpredictable variety of global aggression. If you don't believe him, just ask a white feminist how writing 'rape culture' on her boobs in sharpie will 'shame the patriarchy', and this will give you some idea about why I start every afternoon coughing up a ball of mentholated phlegm into my cornflakes.

Let me tell you what brought us to this precise moment of imminent planetary collapse: It was "nice" people with library cards and rescue pets accepting the kind of compromises that result in bulldozing homes in the occupied territories of Palestine, imprisoning whistle blowers, putting indigenous land everywhere under threat, and even sodomizing a half dead Pan-African leader while he lay dying in a drainpipe.  

It's the 'realists' who sign off on nearly $40 billion in military 'aid' to Israel so that it can build more settlements in defiance of International law, and the similarly counterproductive reasoning that blames Russian hackers for the DNC's corrupt maneuvering to install its preferred Wall Street-friendly candidate in defiance of roughly half the voting population. The same folks who cry foul the loudest when an asshole takes his rightful place on the golden, Imperial throne after they have spent years polishing it for him, and expanding its powers to flush away civil liberties and environmental protections. Now all of a sudden that reclining, ermine-trimmed commode in the Oval Office is a "hot seat". Back in the day when I was bumping and grinding on the Paramount lot for chump change, Charlton would grab me by the pussy and . . . well, never mind that now. Let's just say that my jungle cat put up a fierce resistance that left a permanent scar on his manhood and not a single scratch on my lady mandibles.  Not sure where any of this is going, but anyhoo . . .

It's the 'nice' -- meaning the technocratically-minded gatekeepers of the 'left', who perform the linguistic feats necessary to justify, say, the involuntary sacrifice of dozens of dead Bedouin wedding celebrants in Yemen to maintain cordial relations with a despotic petrostate that helps prop up a neighboring Apartheid regime equally ill-disposed towards its benefactor. 'This is why we can't have nice things like brutalist revolving restaurants atop Manhattan office towers', they will remind you. Ingrates like you always second-guessing the stuff we do to prevent maniacs from seizing power here at home'. The nice among us, whom we used to call 'Good Germans', prefer that you don't bring 'false equivalency' into reasoned discussion about state-sponsored murder, and focus on the positive . . . like . . . um . . . 'At least under Trump, my sad face selfies will have all the political urgency of Guernica'.  

It's the "nice" that refused to hold Obama's feet to the fire, giving him carte blanche to capitulate wholly to the more clamorous and opportunistic voices of his inner circle without ever troubling his conscience. The guy was so cool he could grant clemency to Chelsea Manning AND bomb a failed state into further oblivion all in the same week. "Nice" folks would never venture into the treacherous waters of condemning or even criticizing your country's first black president for reasons entirely to do with the sort of career-minded, self-preservation that says "Bummer about Leonard Peltier, but Michelle Obama sure rawked that Zac Posen dress on the cover of Vogue!"

When someone *reaches across the aisle*, it's usually to grasp at the last straws of power allotted to them by whichever democratically elected fascist regime happens to control Congress. Or it's a hands-y director trying to cop a feel on a red-eye flight from LA. Yes, Otto Preminger, I'm talking to YOU!

To make a long-winded lecture only as long as it takes to dry one's nails after the second coat of Revlon's 'Dead Roses on a Dusky Tomb': Trump didn't win in spite of your 'reasoned' acceptance of the outgoing president's expanded powers, but because you were willing to rationalize its unsavory aspects long enough to ensure its unchecked and unbridled form reached its inevitable conclusion".

Professor De Carlo then flounced out of the lecture hall with the scent of Shalimar, and two or three shirtless Cabana boys trailing behind her discarded veils. "I'm off to powder my you know what. Class -- and I mean the particular one that conflates legal weed smoking with political resistance - dismissed"!

by Jennifer Matsui

[the-luckiest-guy-thanks-to-you]

This guy is really cool. He has a few podcasts: it could happen here, Behind the Bastards, and they just started The Worst Year Ever. Its all political stuff and it's all incredibly important. Robert has also moved to Portland recently I think to get coverage of the riots there, has been following the rise of fascism especially on sites like 4chan and 8chan and all that, and even went to Northern Syria to report on the region's govt and situation this summer right before Turkey started invading. Id definitely recommend following and listening to his work

He also writes for a site called Bellingcat and gives talks about the state of the world and fascism in the modern era

[free-voina-en]

«OUR KIDS WERE KIDNAPPED BY EXTREMISTS IN BASEL» — VOINA INTERVIEW TO ‘WOZ’ IN ZURICH

The leaders of the Voina art group Oleg Vorotnikov and Natalya Sokol tell about the organizers of the kidnapping of the Voina children in Basel and explain where the Voina art archives robbed by the ‘Wasserstrasse’ extremists are now. The interview to the ‘Die Wochenzeitung’ magazine in Zurich

Merièm Strupler: — I read and heard in different interviews that you wanted to seek for asylum in Switzerland. In other Interviews i heard that you never wanted to seek for asylum in Switzerland. What is true now?

VOINA: — We never planned to ask for the political asylum in Switzerland since it would limit our political activity in future. Natalya Sokol said it clearly in the interview for WATSON at the press-conference at ‘Cabaret Voltaire’ April 28, 2015: ‘Weil der Asylstatus mich in meinen politischen Aktivitäten einschränken würde, möchte ich in erster Linie in der Schweiz eine Aufenthaltsbewilligung beantragensaid’.

The disinformation that we came to Switzerland to ask for asylum was made and spread by self-proclaimed human right activist Sonia Bischoff. On behalf of 'Cabaret Voltaire' Bischoff fraudly presented herself as a swiss art curator of the Voina group and even as a personal curator of Natalya Sokol in media and social nets. Bischoff also started the fake 'Project of Voina in Switzerland'.

After we discovered this fraud we contacted Adrian Notz, the director of ‘Cabaret Voltaire’, and asked him to stop the fraudster: 'There's no 'PROJECT Voina' and therefore there's no curators / 'co-curators' of it'.

The goal of Bischoff was to get the copyright to the Voina works and to get rid of us after the asylum request since we would be sent for a couple of years to the underground refugee camp which is a private prison in Aesch in Basel-Land.

She started to be aggressive after we refused to introduce her to Pussy Riot member at the lecture in Zurich.

In the interview to the Russian TV-channel REN Bischoff talked about her involvement into the organizing of the attack on our Family. She asked the journalists to hide her face 'in fears of revenge from Russian actionists'.

So in the end, after the attack and kidnapping of kids, we were transported to this underground camp in Aesch and Bischoff got the Voina archives on our macbooks and hard drives robbed by the attackers for her.

— Before you came to Western Europe, you did in Russia spectacular actions against the Putin regime. But in an interview you published on youtube (04.12.2016) you say that you are pro Putin now. Why did you change your political ideas so much?

— Our actions are anti-authoritarian but not anti-Putin. Notice that we did the most actions in between 2008—2012 when Putin was not in power. It is very sad that people in Europe don't understand this and are not able to accept this fact. When we are in Russia we fight against Russian circumstances but when we are in Europe we are still free to strugle against European authoritarian tendences too. It is clear for us that Europe turns its ass back to fascism, again. It may lead to the new catastrophe in next 10 years. And our swiss case is a bright exapmle of it. People, called themselves left-wing human right fighters for refugees and against repression, made pogroms and attack the families at their houses. The attack on us was not their first attack on family with kids. They did completely the same with another family of Roma people a year before.

The attackers started to hunt us months before the crime. They threw out our baby buggies, they came up to the attick and stole toys, food, clothers. When we realized this we started to lock the door. All the time we carried laptops and hard dirves with us so they couldn’t steal them before.

This is true that the kidnappers used 'Putin' as a reason to attack us. Later they tried to present the crime as some 'domestic incident’ in media. But in court they mentioned Puin as a reason again.

Now it is clear that 'domestic conflict' was fake reason. From the fist days at Wasserstrasse we were very surprised to find ourselves in the community of shoplifters and drug addicted psychopaths. See the poster on the door to the appartment of one of the organizers of the attack Almut Rembges 'Shoplifters of the world unite!’

The kidnappers are also accused of stealing, destroing the state property, attack on the authorities and the police. You can find this in the Indictment.

— Why did you install the camera in the attic of Wasserstrasse 21? For how long time did you install the camera in the attic?

— We always film our kids for 2-3 hours a day. And we always carry cameras with us. We do it first for the artistic reasons and second for the security reasons. Since Oleg Vorotnikov spent 6 years in Interpol Red list and Russian secret services still look for him we acquired this habbit as a kind of a protection for us and kids. The attackers knew about this so they were trying to search cameras after they kidnapped kids but they were too stupid to find the video recorder on the wall. That's how it is described in the Indictment — Der Familie sollte gemäss dem gemeinsamen Tatplan alle Computer, Laptops und allfällige Kameras weggenommen werden, um allfällige Aufzeichnungen des Angriffs aus der Welt zu schaffen und um sich mit den Geräten unrechtmässig zu bereichern.

— In a video, which shows how you take back the UBS-Stick (with the video of 20th March 2016 on) from your own lawyer, Oleg Vorotnikov says «We take our art back!». Would you consider the video of Wasserstrasse, 20th March 2016, as art?

— Oleg didn't say this. He said: "Суки швейцарские! Хотели отнять у меня искусство мое современное! Не выйдет!.."

After the police arrived to the crime scene and confiscated the video of the attack from Natalya Sokol by force, the Procesecutor Office kept the video secret. We wasted a year and half trying to return the video recorder with the files on it back. But Camilo Cabrera, the Basel city prosecutor, refused to give our stuff back in an unacceptable form. He issued several prohibitive decisions which just despise the Right as It is. We published them all.

We tried our best to explain him that we have not only the record of the attack but much more files on the recorder and they belong to us and they are art pieces but he didn't even want to listen. After we realized that the Procsecutor Office will never give us our files back not in any form, we created a scenario as we normally do when prepare a new Voina action and performed it at Markthalle in Basel October 30, 2017.

— Did you send the video of Wasserstrasse, 20th March 2016, to different Swiss medias? And why?

— We wanted to attract the media and public attention to the violent and sadistic crime made by an armed group of extremists against three small kids and thier parents and also to our statement to the Basel court that was refused to be pronounced. We were shocked to see that no one cares, no one answered us and the swiis media still support the kidnappers.

We are literally in the streets in Berlin now, without any help, we sleep on a boat with no electricity, heating, water, WC and are slowly getting frozen. This situation around us was built by the Wasserstrasse kidnappers. Within all this time past from the crime — more then a year and a half — the  perpetrators were free, not detained and were able to spread defamation about Voina. Just after the crime they started to spread their 'warning' about the Voina Family among the lawyers, art curators, politicians, leftists, activists and people from housing projects all over Europe. In this 'warning' they ask everybody not to help or support us, not to host and not to provide us any legal aid. The 'warning' was also published on the German Indimedia site before the authorities closed it on charges of extremism in August this year. It is still avaliable in Internet.

In the end they managed to destroy our reputation in Switzerland and all over Europe with this 'warning' or the publications like in Basel Tageswoche.

First, the Tageswoche article was written by their close friend Matthias Oppliger, a guy who just lives next door to them at Wasserstrasse, 19. Second, this publication is very much propagandistic as you can see — the journalist gives our names but he does not give any name of the attackers, he gives only the arguments of the anonimous figures. In the end he adds this:

"Die Version von Woina klingt haarsträubend und unglaublich. Worotnikow, Sokol und ihre drei Kinder seien von den Bewohnern der Wasserstrasse mit Gewalt vertrieben worden, weil diese sie loswerden wollten. Insbesondere an den Kindern hätte man sich dort gestört. Weshalb ausgerechnet die linksalternativen Bewohner der Wasserstrasse, die sich unter anderem für Flüchtlinge und Sans-Papiers einsetzen, gegenüber einer Familie mit drei kleinen Kindern gewalttätig werden sollen, kann Sokol nicht erklären. Von den Attacken würden jedoch Bilder existieren und Videos, insistieren Sokol und ihr Begleiter Grey."

But now we have the video of the attack and kidnapping!

Third and the most important one is that the prosecutor Cabrera built his Indictment based on this Tageswoche publication only! Because the perpetrators refuced to answer questions at the official questionings, refuced to collaborate with the detectives from the Criminal police and didn't say a word. So the prosecutor coudn't take the info about our 'bad behavior’ from the perpetrators but only from the Tageswoche publication.

Which is of course not that good for the Prosecutor Office. It is not professional.

— Former supporters of your family say, there was a similar incidence as in Basel happening before in Italy and Oleg Vorotnikov would have attacked some squatters with an axe. Former supporters say the situation escalated, because you refused to move out after several deadlines, similar to the happenings in Wasserstrasse. Why didn’t you move out before?

— We don’t know who you mean by ‘former supporters’ since we never have supporters in Europe. The Italian case is very clear: our two kids — 5 yo boy Kasper and 2 yo girl Mama were kidnapped by the local gang and locked in the palazzo at Santa Marta in Venice July 27, 2014. We, the parents, were attacked by 20 armed bandits when we tried to release kids. We were very lucky to survive after the attack. Oleg was transported to the Ospedale the Venetian hospital, for the operation on his head. He was arrested by the Interpol officers in the hospital. You can find Natalya Sokol’s story about that crime in The Russian Pravda.

Oleg Vorotnikov in the Venetian Ospedale after the attack of armed gang. July 27, 2014, Venice

While Bischoff was preparing the attack in Basel she got in contact with the Italian gang. She admited this in her letter to Natalya Sokol March 22, 2016, two days after the Basel attack.

After the consultation with the Italian kidnappers Bischoff decided to choose the same scheme of the crime: to kidnap children.

— On a facebook post, a day before the process started, Miss Sokol writes that Miss Sonia Bischoff and the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland was involved in the eviction in Wasserstrasse. Where do you have this information from? And why would the co-ruling Social Democratic Party of Switzerland do something like this?

— We talked to some experts from Switzerland and abroad and they confirmed our suspitions. The attackers and the 'Wasserstrasse' project got a political lobby. The same experts say that the Basel city prosecutor Cabrera supports the kidnappers, it is clear from the Indictment and his decisions. It is also very worrisome that the court believed in our ‘bad behavior’ with no proofs of it. In Russia we call this corruption.

— In the post from 4.8.2017 on your twitter-account you public some documents of the Swiss prosecutor. He writes in these documents that there will be a court case against people from Wasserstrasse. But you write above the documents, that Switzerland opens a court case against you. Why did you publish on Twitter this wrong informations?

— It was not wrong. After the Indictment was published on the Photo.Yandex Voina account the swiss journalist Andreas Maurer wrote a short article based on the info from the Indictment.

The next day the lawyers who did not answer our letters for months started to flood us with letters asking to delete all the info about the kidnappers from the Internet. They informed us that in case we wouldn't do it the prosecutor will satisfy a criminal charge against us. Then they sent us the letter with confirmation of it.

In a phone conversation they confirmed the criminal case against us. Voina published this info on Twitter and shared the Indictment against the kidnappers because the publication of this document was the reason for the criminal charge against us.

Merièm Strupler

[nothingman]

Courtesy of the progressive media collective Unicorn Riot, the public now knows about the unnerving contents of a private chat room where the white supremacist extremists who marched on Charlottesville, Virginia, planned violent action.

These images display the fuzzy line between the online rhetoric of the extreme right and their behavior. Their constant pretense of humor—”we were just joking”—masks a process of radicalization that has claimed lives, and will almost certainly continue to do so.

The logs—which show the content of a white supremacist chat room on the popular messaging site Discord—reveal that, in the days and weeks leading up to Charlottesville, there was ample chatter about violence, as well as several instances of the by now ubiquitous conservative “joke” about running over protesters. With users sporting screen names like “kristall.night,” it doesn’t take a degree in PoliSci to discern their affinities.

In addition, as Unicorn Riot’s article on the subject points out, “Discord users also discussed how to bring various kinds of weapons to the rally, with some of them giving instructions on how to embed screws into flagpoles or sign handles that could later be used as a stabbing weapon.”

Further:

Talk of stabbing antifascists was met with enthusiasm from many participants in the Unite The Right chat room, with one user, “Kurt – VA” quipping “impaling people is always the best.” Another Unite The Right attendee replied to this with a gruesome image of a field full of bodies impaled on stakes, and then called for this treatment to be extended to Muslims and refugees.

For now, there is no evidence that James Alex Fields Jr., the young neo-Nazi who murdered counter-protester Heather Heyer and seriously injured 19 others, was in the Discord chat room in question. But he had plenty of fans there after the fact. One user posted a photoshopped image of the press photo that captured Fields’ speeding car, edited to look like the famous DeLorean from Back to Future, and captioned it “Back to the Fhurer” [sic]. Another posted a racist image that mocked one of the Black men run over by Fields before writing, “the woman killed was a coal BURNER anyways.”

Discord has shut down the room in the wake of this report. But the cruelty and hatred expressed there is the “free speech” that countless liberals, a number of leftists, and even the American Civil Liberties Union have wrung their hands over and defended as vital to the liberty of all. But this is not merely about directionless expectoration of words that then dissolve into the “marketplace of ideas”; this is about language that foretells action, meant to ratchet up feelings of violent hatred to a point where words become deeds and self-fulfilling prophecies kick into high gear.

We must revisit the fascist tactics underlying the self-proclaimed “alt-right” and its meme culture; this particular variant on 4chan-style memetics is descended directly from classic fascist Big Lie propaganda, after all. As I wrote for the Baffler, both seek to repeat lies often enough until a critical mass of people take them as factual, but also seek to simply cause confusion about what is actually true.

Eli Mosley, of the white supremacist group Identity Evropa, says of the chat logs that his critics are “hysterical” over the “dark humor” of neo-Nazis. “The idea that little tractor meme is somehow a call to run people over is ridiculous,” he says. This, of course, is of a piece with neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer calling the “Heil Trump” salutes he led at a conference “ironic exuberance.”

Meme culture is, of course, not inherently awful. It’s simply a style of humor that trades in layers of irony and posturing, with a Dadaist flair for the absurd. Like a color film negative, it lays multiple meanings on top of one another, flattening them into a new image. But its nature as a floating signifier that admits multiple interpretations means it’s a useful vehicle for those who wish to mask concrete intentions that might otherwise be unpopular or repulsive.

Consider the example of “White Sharia,” a popular, memetic joke among young Nazis and those sympathetic to their ideology, helpfully analyzed by the AngryWhiteMen blog. It pivots off of Islamophobic right-wing hysteria about “creeping Sharia” to say that a form of “White Sharia,” which oppressed women in a “civilized” way, would be more desirable. This is positioned as a joke, a form of exaggeration meant to highlight how “brutal” Sharia law is. But like all “alt-right” memes, it bespeaks sincere desire masked by 4chan humour.

A white supremacist podcaster Sacco Vandal (a pseudonym) had this to say about the subject:

“In our skeptical, jaded postmodern milieu, humor is the most effective way to reach people. Satire is the language that American youths speak. [Nazi podcast] The Right Stuff has shown the effectiveness of extremely edgy and convolutedly layered irony.

The White Sharia meme, like the helicopter and oven jokes before it, is an extreme form of edgy and ironic humor. It has caused so much controversy only because it has become so popular. It serves as a distant beacon of the patriarchy we as a people need and will one day have. It is both a rallying cry for the disillusioned young men in our movement as well as their guiding light. The inspiration it is giving these young men will assist them in their future culture creation.” (Emphasis mine).

The “helicopter” joke is a reference to crimes committed by the Pinochet regime, where dissidents were thrown to their deaths from helicopters. Right-wing extremists online will nowadays talk about giving someone a “free helicopter ride” as a subtle way of threatening them with murder. The “oven jokes” are, of course, about the Holocaust. This is what passes for edgy humor among the so-called alt-right.

Sacco Vandal is quite clear here: These are “humorous” ways of expressing desire and intent, not hyperbolically joking around about something they’d never actually want to do.

Thus, everyone should consider the memes in the Charlottesville Discord chat, which featured ‘”jokes” about running over activists, in a similar light—especially as we learn a KKK “Imperial Wizard” fired live ammunition at non-white counter-protesters in Charlottesville. The logs, “humor” and all, prefigured the violence of the event itself.

These are not jokes; these are promises.

In future discussions about the “free speech” of these groups, we must attend to that reality. The discussion must be broadened to include the all-but-inevitable actions these words are meant to incite. It is not merely a matter of spoken words, it’s about words that create deeds, which are specifically crafted to inspire actions like Fields’.

A slew of morally spineless hot takes and editorials, such as the caterwauling that followed supposed “antifa violence” in Berkeley, all testify to this obsession with a theory of speech that is increasingly unmoored from reality. The scapegoating of antifa activists as unilaterally violent, which breathes life into a right-wing mania, must cease, as should any propagandizing on behalf of Nazis that casts them as “well dressed” or “peaceful,” a notion that the Discord logs should belie in any case. We should not rush to aid these white supremacists in a court of law, nor valorize them as the ultimate rampart guarding the rights of left-wing dissidents. We should also not obsess over the minutiae of their internal squabbles. We should, further, contrast counter-protesters’ self-defense with the genocide promised by Spencer, Mosley, and their allies.

Let me be plain: People who repeat the “peaceful right-wing activists” myth are being played.

There should always be vigorous debate about speech in a democratic society, but the current discourse, even after the surge in far-right terrorism we’ve seen in recent years, remains stubbornly abstract and content-free, retreating to the same tired cliches we’ve all heard countless times before. “You’re the real Nazi,” “their speech rights guarantee yours,” “it’s just words.”

That has to change if we’re to present an effective response to the rise of neo-fascism. What transpired in Charlottesville will almost certainly happen again.

The post As Chat Logs Show, ‘Peaceful Right-Wing Activists’ Are a Myth appeared first on Rewire.

via Rewire

[politicalfilth-blog]

An Honest Conversation with Pro Trump and Anti-Trump Supporters on Impeachment Day

We Are Change

Luke reports live from outside of the Trump Tower on the “day of impeachment”..

Luke:  “There was a lot of comments online about how this was going to be a crazy day with Antifa taking over the streets. Here on the ground it’s quite the contrary, so far we only have a few Trump supporters and around forty anti-Trump activists. So it will be interesting to open up a discourse with these different individuals. I’m going to question both sides logic and discuss their mutual hypocrisy. I want to see if they want to impeach Trump for the right reasons or for the reasons that the media manipulated them.”

On the anti-Trump side Luke saw a lot of people with signs saying things like “Abuse of Power”, some people chanting, “Hey Hey Ho Ho, Donald Trump Has Got to Go”, some pink hats, a make America literate again poster and a guy with Trump puppet coming out of his pants.

Vladimir Putin was also apparently in attendance with the anti-Trump activists , or at least his masked look-alike.

Luke decides to start interviewing on the Trump supporter side, he speaks with a man who identifies himself as Red Pill Ken from Twitter. Luke asks him “Why are you out here supporting Trump?”

Ken responds, “Because an attack on Trump is an attack on Americana, it’s all about red, white and blue regardless of what background your from, if your from Americana, there is nothing wrong with being American first, the other side lost this debate in November when we elected Donald Trump, they seem to be on a pattern of trying to disrupt this man who we put in office and I am out here to give Mr. Trump my support. Also to let people know that most mainstream media is fake, it’s like CNN that’s why I have this t-shirt here, you know what Kathy Gifford did they are fake news, you have to go to different websites like Infowars, Drudge Report and Breitbart to get your news on an alternative point of view.”

Luke, “Are there any policies of Mr. Trump that you are disappointed in?”

Ken, “I’m disappointed that he has not repealed the ‘unaffordable care act’ and also upset about the strike on Syria that wasn’t Mr. Assad’s fault. I wasn’t in support of that at all.”

Luke, “What do you think of Trump aligning himself with the Kurdish rebels near Syria?”

Ken, “This is a mistake that Mr. Trump makes, he likes to give people the responsibility to take over their jobs. McMaster has a different viewpoint than Trump, the president has to get rid of McMaster because he is a globalist that wants to put boots on the ground, that is his mindset. It’s these people that are responsible, although it’s Trump who will be responsible in the tail end. I am asking him to get rid of McMaster. I will be the first one to call our president out when I think he’s crossed the line.”

Luke heads back to the anti-Trump side for an alternative perspective, he speaks with a gentleman who is wearing a black cape, Jesse Jackson for President pin, and a red eye mask.

Luke asks him why he is at the protest, the masked man responds by saying “There are 193 countries on the planet and this is the worst one.”

Luke “Why is it the worst one?”

Masked Man, “Which country causes the most destruction to the planet and to America, than the United States of America?” Luke comments, “Well if you looks at pollution it is the U.S. the military does produce a lot of pollution.”

Masked Man, “What about the metal monster cars.”

Luke, “What would you say is your biggest problem with Donald Trump, if there was one issue that was important enough.”

Masked Man, “Actually it’s not really against, its sort of sympathetic, the man has an extreme medical problem, every indication is that he’s addicted to cocaine and it’s making him wild and mad and he’s not responsible. Aside from the meat and the alcohol, that he’s a cocaine addict, it’s an excellent excuse for him to get off, what else explains his behavior.”

Luke comments afterwards, “That may not have been the fairest guy to interview. I want to talk to more people to try an get a coherent answer as to why they want to impeach Trump.“

He then interviews another person in a pink hat, who says “I am out here because Donald Trump is a threat to this country and the world.”

Luke, “What do you think the biggest issue you have with Donald Trump, that you think he should be impeached for?”

Pink Hat, “He colluded with Vladimir Putin to become president and he is an unstable narcissist who is incompetent and has no qualifications to be president and I do not believe he won the election fairly.”

Luke, “When you look at Trumps foreign policy, he looks very aggressive towards Russia especially in Syria. Does it worry you that the moves he is making with Saudi Arabia and Israel against Syria and Russia.”

Pink Hat, “Well, it would take awhile for me to explain, but yes I am very unnerved about what he is doing in foreign policy. Not just Russia but also he has been selling us out to China he has been selling us out to the Saudis, he is conducting foreign policy for hire. His son-in-law’s company was basically selling Visa’s to rich Chinese people at the same time that he is deporting working undocumented people, he is selling immigration access to the rich.”

Luke says, “He has also been colluding with Saudi Arabia having donated 100 million dollars to his daughter after a major weapons deal, do you believe the Russian collusion with Putin is really a legitimate reason to impeach him though?”

Pink Hat, “I think that after Robert Mueller releases his report with all of the evidence it will be enough to initiate something.”

Luke returns to the Trump side of the protests, “Let’s see if they are going to stand behind him no matter what, or call him out for some of the mistakes he has made as President.”

Luke spots, a man carrying a Polish flag and introduces himself, Luke asks “Why did you come out here to support Donald Trump?”

Polish Flag Man, “I voted for him obviously, but today there were reports that there would be riots, that there would be a group of Antifa who are basically the communists kids trying to destroy everything, so when I heard they could riot and cause damage to the cities across the country, I’m not having that. Even though I disagree with the anti-Trump people, I disagree with Antifa a hell of a lot more… They don’t want to listen to anybody, even if you mildly disagree with them.”

Luke, “Are there any policies of Trumps that you feel disappointed in?”

Polish Flag Man, “At the moment not really, I was really hoping they would take care of health care though, that has been a severe problem for this country and you see the effects of it on a lot of people. The conservatives have had eight years to come up with a solution and now they are in conflict and can’t come up with something, you guys had all this time…”

Luke, “Are you concerned about him aligning with a group of anarchist and communists, the Kurds inside of Syria in order to fight the Syrian government?

Polish Flag Man, “That was an action of his that I did not really agree with, to attack Assad, especially over that chemical attack, there is conflict about what happened. I wasn’t in support of that, we see the pattern in taking down countries like these and taking down their leaders and the substitution for that will become ISIS. He understands why Putin is aligning with Assad to keep the greater evil out…. I was hoping we could focus on ourselves and fix stuff within.”

Luke, “I know a lot of people like to shift the blame on to McMaster but Trump is the one that appointed him. McMaster is hungry for war with Russia, while Flynn wasn’t, he was kicked out. I think unfairly on some levels and now he has a very pro war guy. They released a memo a couple of days ago saying they will strike Syria again if they use chemical weapons.”

Polish Flag Man, “I completely disagree with that policy, God I hope Trump doesn’t do something stupid… like that.”

Luke speaks with another young man named Tommy, Tommy says “He is just here to protect America, and to protect freedom of speech. These people want to completely change it into some sort of hybrid between communism and fascism. We weren’t expecting a riot this is just a way to protect against the potential of a riot.”

A man sporting an Uncle Sam style costume pulls out a large poster of ‘Michael Moore as Uncle Sam’ that says “I Want You For the Army of Comedy”.

He then he says “We need to control ourselves, because we can not win against ignorance. Let’s dress up, let’s make a mockery of this mockery, this is what we need to do guys. The question is not the answer ever.” to which a anti-trump activist asks “Your with Vladimir Putin right?” to which the man replies, “Pointing at Trump tower, he is with Vladimir Putin, I am very much not with Vladimir Putin.

Luke asks, “Do you think the Russian ties are the main reason for impeachment?”

Army of Comedy man, “I think the Russian ties have got to make us think about impeachment but we also need to think about that, we have eliminated freedom of the press by selectively lying about truths. We are discrediting people by race and religion, the last time that happened was under Adolph Hitler. Everything is a false truth to discredit people that say the truth.”

Luke asks a woman, “What is the most impeachable offense that Trump has committed?”

She says, “The most recent one is his tirades against Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, he has been stalking them, threatened them, harassed them and tried to extort them by threatening them with publishing bad news on them in the National Inquirer. If you or I did that we would be locked up for stalking.”

Luke “Do you think the tweets are the most important aspect of having him impeached?”

She says, “I would say there is a lot of evidence of his crimes in his tweets, the tweeting itself is not a crime, but there is your evidence, right there.”

Luke “A lot of people on the right make the argument that the media has been attacking him unfairly in some instances, whether appropriate or inappropriate what do you make of that argument?”

She replies “I never like to bring up Obama, but the truth is no president has ever been more harassed by media in general than Barrack Obama. How did he take it, like a man, this guy (Trump) takes it like a 12 year old boy that needs to wear diapers. He’s sick….”

Luke “What do you think of Trump’s foreign policies?”

She replies, “What foreign policy, to collude with our enemies, and disrespect our allies, that foreign policy?”

Luke discusses how Trump appears to be making foreign policy moves against Syria and Russia.

She responds, “I feel like that is just a distraction, he is looking to start a war, he is a psycho with the nuclear codes in his pocket and it’s very very dangerous.”

Luke, “who do you think the war would be between.”

She responds, “Probably North Korea…. I don’t know what news your listening to but I listen to the mainstream news. MSNBC and CNN”

Luke, “Do you think they are honest?”

She replies, “Yes I do actually, and him calling them fake news is a complete lie.”

Luke, “By the way, this is the same mainstream media that told us there was weapons of destruction in Iraq.”

She replies, “Well they were fed that information from the Bush Administration and Hillary Clinton believed it to. They often repeat the news as it’s fed, they didn’t lie, when you repeat something that’s given to you as truth from a reliable source such as United States Intel, it’s the U.S. Intel that’s the lie.”

Luke wraps up the video by commenting:

Not too much logic there, I can’t believe people still believe the mainstream media or the Russian collusion delusion, these things will only lead to more war and more Balkanization. These things are a big distraction put on my the mainstream media and that’s coming from a fair perspective because I think there are legitimate reasons to criticize Donald Trump. Let me know what you think in the comment section below. We keep seeing the continuation of the foreign policy that was done by Bush and Obama now with Trump. Sadly most of the anti-Trump activists do not seem to be aware of this, many of the Trump supporters however are. They are also hopeful and optimistic about Trump’s policies which can be a fault when you give someone the full benefit of the doubt. These conversations need to happen more often so we can understand each others sides.

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The post An Honest Conversation with Pro Trump and Anti-Trump Supporters on Impeachment Day appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change https://wearechange.org/honest-conversation-pro-trump-anti-trump-supporters-impeachment-day/