#anti fascist at birth

[alphie-in-the-sky]

[surviving-the-next-4-years]

Why Republicans want you to have kids and how they use your kids to control you.

[batboyblog]

I have this low level fantasy, how that all the shit is happening and Trump signed the mega transphobia EO, and is sending ICE to elementary schools and arresting Americans, and tried to take away birth right citizenship, and force all the public health and medical research of the US government to shut down and his getting rid of black history month and so on and so forth.

I have this fantasy that the young people who fell for anti-Democrat propaganda will learn a life long lesson that even if the Democrat running for office isn't their favorite cup of tea, it sure beats being forced to drink liquid shit.

of course sadly I know in my heart most of them will learn nothing and will either not know about this stuff because TikTok is now controlled by Trump allies and won't spoon feed them stories about Trump's evil, or if they do know about it they'll be so brainwashed they'll claim that Democrats would have gotten rid of the trans rights they passed or they'll be mad that Democrats didn't stop it through witchcraft or something. And when all else fails "they need to earn my vote" they did earn it by saying they wouldn't brutally victimize people while the fascist party said they would, duh.

[romanceyourdemons]

these days film is such an established cultural fixture that virtually every artistic and political leaning interfaces with film in some way, but in the 1910s-30s film was new and niche enough that it was generally associated with a single group in each film industry, and it’s interesting to see how that plays into the skeletons in the closet of the film world.

in europe, the birthplace of the moving picture, film was an intensely innovative artistic technology, and as such it was largely associated with avant-garde artistic groups. in italy that artistic movement was futurism, which, innovation- and masculinity-obsessed as they were, infamously threw their lot in with the fascists as a movement, and italian film made the smooth transition to being almost exclusively fascist propaganda, with cabiria (1914) standing as the unfortunate but indisputable gem of early italian filmmaking. by contrast, in germany the primary avant-garde artistic movement was german expressionism, which attracted many jewish, queer, and mentally ill artists, as well as many who sympathized or were artistically interested in them. as such, early german film experienced a hard reset in the mid-30s, with the traditions of early greats like metropolis (1927) transplanting wholesale to america as a new, more italian-style tradition of greats like the triumph of the will (1935) muscled into the void.

on another hand, in america, birthplace of the movie, film arrived on the west coast not as a new technology but as an entertainment technology, and as such it interfaced smoothly with the existing entertainment infrastructure, both on the artists’ and the audience’s side. vaudeville-trained audiences looked for newer and bigger visual spectacles, which could only be provided by a corporatized film industry with lots of capital and a willingness to cater to the lowest common denominator of audience interest and belief. as a result, the hugely innovative cornerstone films of the early american film world were largely either deeply conservative and bigoted (the birth of a nation (1917)) or fundamentally rooted in vaudeville and minstrelsy (the jazz singer (1927)).

on a third hand, china received film technology fully developed from europe and america the same way europe received printing from china in the 15th century. as a result, film was intrinsically western, smacking slightly of colonialism, and the only people who had both knowledge of and interest in filmmaking were paris-educated to some degree—in a similar way and to a greater extent than running a newspaper, making film was a behavior of anti-traditionalist leftists. i have not seen a single pre-1966 chinese film that is not consciously leftist, progressivist, feminist, and anti-traditionalist, and i’ve seen the names of some of china’s most significant revolutionary thinkers and actors in the credits. and so, put bluntly, this means that most of the pillars of early chinese film were hunted like dogs by three governments in a row before being posthumously rehabilitated in the mid 1970s. by that time most of the pillars of early european film were dead, blacklisted as fascists and collaborators, or retired in america, and most of the pillars of early american film were getting bit parts in the worst slop movies you’ve ever seen in your life. interesting stuff!

[himboskywalker]

fucking insane to be posting anti fascism and leftist political posts and then it turns out your one of those master padawan pedophile freaks.disgusting pervert

“Italian fascism pursued what it called "moral hygiene" of youth, particularly regarding sexuality.[280] Fascist Italy promoted what it considered normal sexual behaviour in youth while denouncing what it considered deviant sexual behaviour.[280] It condemned pornography, most forms of birth control and contraceptive devices (with the exception of the condom), homosexuality and prostitution as deviant sexual behaviour, although enforcement of laws opposed to such practices was erratic and authorities often turned a blind eye.[280] Fascist Italy regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation before puberty as the cause of criminality amongst male youth, declared homosexuality a social disease…”

Baby girl I can see that you’re new here so I’m gonna say this real slow and loud so it’s easy to understand. Your policing and moralizing of other people’s fictional interests is in itself a tenant of fascism. Just because what I write about two fictional characters that don’t exist disgusts you,does not make me a pedophile nor does it make me a bad person. Here’s a reading rec list for you that might be helpful.

The Plague of Fantasies-Slavoj Žižek

Public Sex:The Culture of Radical Sex-Pat Califia

Why are people into that? A cultural investigation of kink-Tina Horn

Dubcon-Milena Popova

Also maybe get laid? The only kind of person I can imagine checking out my blog from an Andor post and then getting that mad over someone else’s fanfiction is someone who desperately needs an orgasm lmao

[crossdreamers]

CDC Orders Mass Retraction of Research Over 'Forbidden Terms' Affirming Transgender People

In an unprecedented move, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has instructed its scientists to retract or halt the publication of research manuscripts under review at medical and scientific journals, Inside Medicine reports.

The directive, aimed at ensuring compliance with new language policies, requires CDC-authored studies to remove references to terms related to gender and sexual identity before publication.

A leaked email to CDC employees reveals a list of banned terms, including "gender," "transgender," "pregnant person," "LGBT," "assigned male at birth," and "biologically female."

The sweeping censorship applies to manuscripts already accepted for publication but not yet released.

This policy expands on a previously reported halt on the CDC’s own publications, such as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which has experienced its first publication gap in 60 years. The directive also extends beyond a general communications gag order, further restricting CDC scientists from sharing new findings with the public.

This means the end of open, critical and free science at the CDC. Uncertainty and fear now grip researchers, with many unsure whether studies mentioning gender disparities or demographic health data will be allowed.

Censored website

CDC also removed or edited references to transgender people, gender identity and equity from its website Friday, the Washington Post reports. Pages about HIV testing for transgender people, guidelines for use of HIV medication and information on supporting LGBTQ+ youth health were gone. They had also removed international research data, including data regarding health disparities among transgender youth.

In a Jan 29. email from Charles Ezell, the acting director of the U.S. office of personnel management titled “Defending Women,” CDC employees were told that they are no longer to make references to or promote “gender ideology” (i.e. the rightful existence of trans people) and that they are to recognize only two sexes, male and female, NBC News reports.

A war against trans people

This censorship is part of the Trump-administration's attempt at removing all language and arguments that confirms the legitimate existence of transgender people. This is a fascist policy of erasure.

This policy follows up a transphobic executive order published Wednesday, barring federally funded schools from recognizing transgender students’ names and pronouns.

Teaching of racism and gender variation is now seen as "indoctrination”, “anti-American, "subversive”, “harmful” and “false”, and is to be replaced by "patriotic education" (meaning white nationalism). See our article Trump presents plan for using K-12 schools for racist and transphobic propaganda for more.

More abut the CDC ban here.

See also: Erasing Trans Lives: Inside Trump’s Federal Website Purge

Jack Molay.

Main image: Getty

[beyond-crusading]

Thinking about the scene where Paul enlists the Southern Fremen in Dune part 2. I really love this scene, and, let's not kid ourselves, there's an element of power fantasy to it.

But there's something much sinister going on there. Paul specifically screams "I am Paul Muad'Dib Atreides, Duke of Arrakis". The mere fact of calling the planet Arrakis instead of its original Fremen name Dune, and the fact that he claims to be the legitimate Duke of the planet because he's the heir of House Atreides is an insult to Fremen independence. What he was allegedly fighting for this all time...

There's a consistent theme in this scene of Paul refusing to follow Fremen customs, like when he refuses to kill Stilgar and speaks anyway. Paul is doing that on purpose. He asserts his dominance by showing Fremen rules don't apply to him. He can dismiss anything he dislikes about their culture and remake it according to his will.

This scene shows simultaneously the crowning of Paul as a Fremen Messiah and the death of traditional Fremen culture. Paul is pursuing by other means what the Harkonens started.

What Paul is asking of (or rather demanding of) the Fremen, is that they join him in a revolution. But not a revolution towards more freedom, justice and equity. A revolution meant to create a society based around the supreme power of a tyrannical leader. And that's a central component of fascism.

Which can make us question the ethics of Villeneuve's film. This scene shows the birth of a fascist movement in a very epic and heroic light. The intended message of the film is clearly anti-authoritarian, but cinematography leaves much room for misinterpretation.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Russell at LGBTQ Nation:

As public awareness of Project 2025 has increased in recent weeks, Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from the troubling set of policy plans for a potential second term crafted by the far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ Heritage Foundation. In a July 6 post on his social media platform, Truth Social, the former president claimed to “know nothing about” Project 2025, writing that he disagrees with “some of” the plan’s proposals while he considers others “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” Of course, by now we’re all well aware of Trump’s propensity for telling lies and spreading misinformation, so it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously believing his claims about Project 2025, which, among its many proposed regulations and executive orders aimed at radically reshaping the federal government in its far-right, Christian nationalist authors’ image, also aims to dismantle federal protections for LGBTQ+ people. [...]

The Trump campaign has posted many of its own anti-LGBTQ+ plans and proposals on its website, in a section called “Agenda 47,” featuring videos of the former president outlining his plans and pledges. On one page, Trump promises to pass a federal law banning what he characterizes as “child sexual mutilation” — despite the fact that gender-affirming surgeries are almost never performed on minors — and to “ask Congress to permanently stop federal taxpayer dollars from being used to promote or pay for these procedures.” He also pledges to “ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female — and they are assigned at birth,” and says he will direct the Department of Education “to inform states and school districts that if any teacher or school official suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body, they will be faced with severe consequences, including, potential Civil Rights violations for sex discrimination, and the elimination of federal funding.”

Donald Trump’s Agenda 47 is just as fascistic and harmful to LGBTQ+ Americans as The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

[mochifiction]

I Saw Transformers One Early Last Week. Let’s Talk About It!!! (SPOILER FREE)

EXPECTATIONS

I’m going to be honest, I had very very low expectations for this movie for a multitude of reasons. The first was the cast, particularly choosing celebrity hires instead of professional voice actors for a franchise where dialogue delivery means SO MUCH historically and the present. I like Chris Hemsworth, I do, but I am so attached to Orion Pax that I did NOT see him as someone fit for the role. I was also afraid of it becoming a WFC situation where the VA tries TOO HARD to be Peter Cullen. I am also a huge fan of Elita One, and Scarlett Johansson was not my first choice by any means. The one thing giving me hope was the fact that Scarlett and Chris interact SO WELL in their films together and in press releases and they do give off that Orion and Elita energy sometimes. Regardless, I was skeptical.

Now for the big thing: I was very nervous how they were going to handle the politics and the buildup that leads to Megatronus and Orion’s separation. It is no secret that Pre-War Cybertron in many continuities begins with a very corrupt and fascist Senate. Corrupted Senators, capitalistic manipulation and unethical abuse, dehumanization, corporal punishment, you name it, Cybertron had it. The concepts of functionalism, shadowplay, mnemosurgery, and empurata also come to mind. It is also no secret that the United States is on the brink of total fascism. A lot of Pre-War Cybertron’s themes, particularly the Decepticon cause in its early days as a movement, emphasized the elimination of the oppressive regime and reconstruction with an end to the very infrastructure that caused class division and brutalization of Cybertronian bodies. Not only this, but Megatronus and Orion’s schism often comes because of class, particularly privilege and lack thereof, which is something that often happens in revolution. Those with more privilege often think that reform can happen underneath the system that looms over them, just with a switching of a guard and elimination of a few policies. They are often ones who partook in and benefitted from the system by birth or for the sake of survival. Those who come from the lower classes want to burn the entire system down, understanding in its entirety that its very infrastructure is unstable and is not sustainable, no matter who is in power. Examples of this divide despite deep friendship and similar ideas is Andres Bonifacio and Jose Rizal of the Philippines (as a Filipino). Orion, in most cases coming from a privileged background, saw hope in simple reform after extracting the corrupt portions of the federal structure. Megatronus, who fought his whole life to be deemed as sentient, understood that the entire system was diseased and could not go on. It would just eventually continue its horrid practices. I can go on a tangent about this, as someone who studies and writes on anti-colonialism, but that’s another post for another day. My concern based on the trailers was that it would address NONE of that and there would be some watered down conflict that removed the nuances and political passion behind a lot of other continuities. The trailers, to me, were not giving me enough proof that it would be handled correctly.

Initial Experience

My theater was filled with mostly adults of various ages who were fans of different continuities. Some people were even talking about how they thought the movie was going to suck, including me with my dad, who has been a fan since G1 in the 80s and was going in blind. However, throughout the entire film, the whole theater was laughing, gasping, cheering, clapping, and screaming. Afterwards, there were people who were literally talking about how it was the movie they’d been waiting for after years of disappointment. Someone literally shouted when leaving the theater that he was so excited for September when everyone else could see it. My dad, who has not been a fan of recent Transformers material, talked nonstop about how much he loved it. Me personally, I was BRIMMING with excitement afterwards, which is huge given that I was ready to criticize the movie’s every move. Let me get into why- note this is SPOILER FREE.

Orion Pax

Believe it or not, I really liked TF1’s Orion. He was witty, had the snark of Aligned Orion, and clearly had a goal in mind: to entirely shift the status quo by breaking the class distinction. He was extremely optimistic like most versions, something that is often criticized in the fanbase, and is also criticized in the film. However, the qualities that G1 created and the Bayverse destroyed were THERE. Orion was a DORK. He was KIND. He CARED for people deeply, even if they weren’t necessarily thinking about him. He was a KNOWN PROBLEM-SOLVER. His intelligence is noted MULTIPLE times. He really is authentically Orion. I’ll do a more in-depth analysis in September.

Megatronus/ D-16

Now, THIS MAN WAS AMAZING. I am so used to the source of his anger being solely lower class-based oppression amongst other things relating to that. The film offered another option, which I will not disclose, but I thought it was a wonderful addition. I will keep my mouth shut about D-16’s personality in this film because it’s a secret, but just know this new take on Megatronus was a bit refreshing and gives new material for both fan continuity writers and fanfic writers.

Elita

I was honestly scared to see how they would portray Elita, especially with their track record of solely making her Optimus’s love interest and killing her off. I also was afraid that they would turn her into a white feminism caricature, which I can go into depth about for clarification if anyone needs it. However, the writers take feminism for Elita and take a much more in-depth route. I found her well done. She was giving mother in this film, absolutely brilliant. There will be an analysis on her as well in September, especially since they have so much intended room for her.

Worldbuilding and Additional Characters

I think that with about an hour and a half, it would have been SO HARD to create an entire world of deep political brutality and nuance like the comics directly. So, I think the writers created a framework that was good enough to convey the fascist undertones of Cybertron while also leaving so many avenues to explore and elaborate on for future films, whether they be prequels or sequels. Some characters were added in with a bit of context, but no in-depth explanations. While I would normally say that’s a downside, I think that it was actually really smart on their part. If you tried to add all of these complex stories from the comics in an hour and a half film combined with everything else, it would have likely been underdeveloped and left more questions and holes than answers. By removing that, I think that it was a smart move to expand on in their own time and with good pacing. Besides, the presence of some characters was very enjoyable and kept the audience I was with wanting more from them. Not in a “there wasn’t enough of them” way at all, but instead a “they were so cool in the short time they were here I need more now” way. Everyone in this continuity gets a new and different start. I honestly think it would give fan continuity writers motivation to continue what they’re doing, now that basic and consistent pre-war plot lines have been redone. I think for how long the movie is, they did a great job.

Additional Thoughts

I think that everything was pretty well done. The pacing was especially important, given we were supposed to witness a buildup in such a devastating “divorce”. That isn’t done lightly, and they made sure that they built it up enough to where the final blow was devastating. It was SO DEVASTATING that people in my theater were gasping left and right. The comedy was well done, as someone who hates poorly-written jokes for laughs. It fit into the characters’ personalities well, that’s what made it work well. It didn’t feel forced because that’s just how that particular character is. I also think that, as a fandom, sometimes we get too wrapped up in very specific characterizations of these individuals to the point where we refuse new ideas. I was extremely guilty of this. However, this film was truly made by someone that loved the franchise and knew exactly what the fans wanted. Brian Tyler, who did the score for TFP, also doing the score for this film was proof of that (as someone who absolutely ADORES film scores as a musician) There was a good amount of brutality within the rating of the film, so bayverse fans who are itching for something shockingly horrible are in for a surprise. I also think that it knew its boundaries well and moved not to push them while also being considerate of certain audiences who may be a bit younger. It was a good restart, especially for animated Transformers films, and I think that they can really build it into something great. This was a very sound foundation and I was not disappointed.

ALSO, THERE IS A MID AND POST-CREDIT SCENE SO DON’T LEAVE IMMEDIATELY

[metamatar]

So the real crime of fascism was the application to white people of colonial procedures "which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the 'c***s' of India, and the 'n***s' of Africa." (p. 36) Here we must situate Cesaire within a larger context of radical black intellectuals who had come to the same conclusions before the publication of Discourse.

As Cedric Robinson argues, a group of radical black intellectuals,including W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R James, George Padmore, and Oliver Cox, understood fascism not as some aberration from the march of progress, an unexpected right-wing turn, but a logical development of Western Civilization itself. They viewed fascism as a blood relative of slavery and imperialism, global systems rooted not only in capitalist political economy but racist ideologies that were already in place at the dawn of modernity. As early as 1936, Ralph Bunche, then a radical political science professor at Howard University, suggested that imperialism birth to fascism. "The doctrine of Fascism" wrote Bunche, "with its extreme jingoism, its exaggerated exaltation of the state and its comic-opera glorification of race, has given a new and greater impetus to the policy of world imperialism which had conquered and subjected to systematic and ruthless exploitation virtually all of the darker populations of the earth." Du Bois made some of the clearest statements to this effect: "I knew that Hitler and Mussolini were fighting communism, and using race prejudice to make some white people rich and all colored people poor. But it was not until later that I realized that the colonialism of Great Britain and France had exactly the same object and methods as the fascists and the Nazis were trying clearly to use." Later, in The World and Africa (1947), he writes: "There was no Nazi atrocity-concentration camps, wholesale maiming and murder, defilement of women or ghastly blasphemy of childhood which Christian civilization or Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race born to rule the world. The very idea that there was a superior race lay at the heart of the matter, and this is why elements of Discourse also drew on Negritude's impulse to recover the history of Africa's accomplish ments. Takirng his cue from Leo Frobenius's injunction that the "idea of the barbaric Negro is a European invention," Cesaire sets out to prove that the colonial mission to "civilize" the primitive is just a smoke screen. If anything, colonialism results in the massive destruction of whole societies-societies that not only function at a high level of sophistication and complexity, but that might offer the West valuable lessons about how we might live together and remake the modern world.

Robin DG Kelley's A Poetics of Anti Colonialism, published as introduction to a new edition of Aime Cesaire's Discourse on Anti Colonialism

[mesetacadre]

apologies if this isn't really your area of interest, but how would you describe the relationship between fascism and (anti-) imperialism? (asking because my far-right father just watched a video about Kamala Harris right next to me which had very similar points to what I've seen on Tumblr; specifically how liberals/democrats will even ally with their "enemies" if it means they can keep the war machine going)

One way to understand fascism that's very common in the imperial periphery has been to conceptualize it as colonialism/imperialism turned inwards, it ramps up exploitation by any means necessary. This does two things, it curbs worker organization by exerting more violence, and it increases capitalist profits. This last thing is also related to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, since fascists in power tend to be destructive towards capital, especially to human capital, and the rate of profit can only be increased considerably through the destruction of capital. As for the more specific aspects of fascism in power; forced labor, concentration camps, the trampling of any kind of liberties, mass political repression, etc. were already established in the colonized world well before any fascist you can think of was even born.

Take a look at this map:

This is a propaganda piece [the title says "Portugal is not a small country"] from 1934 during Portugal's Salazar dictatorship, one of the forgotten fascist states of Europe during this time, along with Austria and Spain. When fascists do have colonies and would be considered an empire, they do not really differ from non-fascist imperialism. This integralist notion shown by the poster really isn't that far from the integration attempted by France on Algeria, and Italy had similar rhetoric when it came to Libya and East Africa. What I mean to say is that fascists do not have that special a relationship when it comes to "normal" imperialism (apart from that internal imperialism I mentioned), and it therefore does not have that special a relationship with anti-imperialism. Nazi-fascists did not inherit any colonies from the Weimar Republic, but their ambitions in the east (look up generalplan-ost) and for the Balkans were also extremely similar to most colonial projects you can find for Africa and Asia in the 19th and early 20th century.

Fascism is an imperialist ideology, not because of any inherent quality, but because it is the most destructive and exploitative elements of liberal democracy emphasized and expanded. It was, after all, birthed by the moribund corpse of European imperialism, as it entered a general crisis that spelled its end (in the form imperialism took at this time, of course imperialism mutated and transformed to a system that doesn't require a direct administrative control of colonies), and this crisis was only delayed by WW2.

Fascists nowadays protect imperialism insofar as they protect capitalism. Fascists are only really enemies with liberalism when it comes to parliamentarism and its socially progressive elements, but we can't forget that any liberal party, whether it's republican or democrat or third party, ultimately only serves to manage capitalism in the country they administer. I'm not really sure what's the point that that video was making, but I don't think it's this. Fascists are not the enemies of a capitalist state, imperialist or otherwise, they're the most extreme, violent and repressive expression of what's already present in liberal democracy. If usamerican fascists take the position of a "great america" and support the continuation of its interference worldwide, and the democrats or republicans also do, this is a case of fascism reflecting liberalism, not the other way around. Fascism is not an evil entity one candidate chooses to ally with or not. It always represent the most extreme needs of capital, and in every case that it has taken power, it has happened once those necessities were widespread enough and they recieved ample support from those capitalists.

[myfandomrealitea]

You're the one making an assumption here... I never said everyone who ships is bad. I mean that there's enough of a problem with shipping that I and others feel uncomfortable associating with shipping culture. I'm saying more people should try to address issues with bigotry in their fandoms instead of acting like reality and fiction *never ever* interact. Proship is just a bad term and I hate that it's so common (so is anti)

Where did I make the assumption?

When you said:

"I'm not an anti, but I'm still going to criticize people for ignoring female characters or characters of color for the sake of only ever shipping boring white men"?

How about when you said:

"Proship sounds like you just ship totally uncritically which isn't any better than ONLY criticizing"?

And then there's:

"Proship is a bad term and I hate that its so common."

If you can't even recognise, understand and respect the literal definition of and history of a term, you are simply not ready or in a position to be trying to grandstand about it or argue about it. If you want to talk about bigotry, how about the female actors who get paid a fraction of what their male co-stars do?

How about authors of color who are told to use a white-presenting pen name in order to sell more books?

How about the fact that abortions are being controlled by religious fascists who are coming for birth control next?

How about the fact that China won't allow any form of queer representation in movies even if its only implied?

No? You're just mad that people aren't buying into the ship where the female character's sole role in the movie is to be the 2D love interest who's entire personality boils down to owning breasts and being either quirky or hypersexual?

I see.

[surviving-the-next-4-years]

Texas Pro-Forced Birthers have gone mask off and showed they're Pro-Domestic Abuse.

Oklahoma has gone full Religious Nutjob with thinking they can curb Divorce Rates via "Marriage and Child Incentive" bills that will give a $1,000 for a child of a "natural marriage". Essentially trying to trap women in a marriage.

Oklahoma is also trying to ban 99% homeless shelters and programs except for the ones in TWO cities. The bill bans any city that doesn't have 300,000 citizens from funding homeless shelters and programs for the homeless. Only two cities have 300,000 citizens.

Very Christian of you Oklahoma.

[whencyclopedia]

Munich Agreement

The Munich Agreement, signed on 30 September 1938 at the Munich Conference attended by the leaders of Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, handed over the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany in the hope that this act of appeasement would prevent a world war and end the territorial expansion pursued by the leader of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).

Greater Germany

To understand why world leaders acted as they did at Munich, it is necessary to go back to 1935 and follow the trail of Hitler's land grabs. Hitler, ever since gaining power in 1933, had promised the German people that he would retake those territories the country had lost after the First World War (1914-18) and the humiliating Treaty of Versailles (1919). Further, Hitler wanted Lebensraum ('living space') for the German people, that is, new lands where they could prosper. Hitler's aggressive foreign policy saw a run of territorial 'recoveries'. First, Germany took back the coal-rich Saar region on Germany's western border, an area that had been governed by the League of Nations (the forerunner of today's United Nations) since the end of WWI. In March 1935, voters in the Saar decided overwhelmingly to rejoin Germany. Hitler, encouraged by the lack of an effective international response to Japan's invasion of Chinese Manchuria in 1931 and Italy's invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, next occupied the Rhineland, an area between Germany and France which the Versailles Treaty had stipulated must remain demilitarised. German troops entered the Rhineland in March 1936.

Hitler formally repudiated the Treaty of Versailles and embarked on a programme of rearmament. In 1936, he made alliances with Italy: the Rome-Berlin Axis and the Anti-Comintern Pact. In 1938, Hitler turned to neighbouring Austria, the country of his birth. Anschluss ('fusion') with Austria would tie in another 6.7 million German speakers into what Hitler called his 'Greater Germany'. Austria had significant natural resources and foreign currency reserves. Possession of Austria would also give Hitler an excellent strategic platform for further expansion. Hitler mobilised his army, which crossed the border on 12 March. Crucially, Hitler had three factors in his favour: the support of half of the Austrian population, the Austrian army was incapable of effective resistance, and the fascist dictator of Italy Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) had promised he would not interfere. The Austrian government capitulated, radio messages urged people not to resist, and Austria became a province of the Third Reich.

Britain and France, now whole-heartedly pursuing a policy of appeasement towards Hitler in the hope he would settle for the gains he had made already, did not feel this expansion could justify a world war. After all, the lands taken so far contained primarily German speakers, and the majority (as a plebiscite in Austria showed) were happy enough with the move. The problem was Hitler was not satisfied. Now the dictator turned to Czechoslovakia, in particular the Sudetenland region, although in May 1938, Hitler told his generals he intended to occupy the whole of Czechoslovakia.

Continue reading...

[weaselandfriends]

K-On! and Fascism

Cool discussion on the Alexander Wales discord today about how slice of life and pastoral fantasy has become commonly associated with the alt-right and fascism (see various memes about how everyone who likes K-On! is a fascist). This led to Gazemaize, the author of Chili and the Chocolate Factory, to post this excerpt from Orwell's review of Mein Kampf:

Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.”

This assessment of course makes sense. Actual fascism, i.e. Hitler and Mussolini, was an outgrowth of futurism, and had an almost fetishistic love of the machine and its power, even (or especially) its power for war and destruction. The fascists saw themselves as "new men," ubermensches who turned away from Christian traditionalism toward a new ideal suited for modernity. Fascism was, in effect, a modern (at the time) philosophy, not one positing a glorious retvrn to some pre-industrial pastoral existence.

Compare that to today's conception of the fascist and alt-right as retvrners who want to reachieve some "lost" past ideal. It's actually the complete opposite ideology. Is K-On! fascist (or do fascists like it) for its idealization of a traditional core, clean and secure and devoid of any "other"? Because based on Orwell's conception of fascism, K-On! and other slice of life shows are actually anti-fascist. The girls of K-On! are tin pacifists for people to play with - and people actually choose to play with them over tin soldiers.

This aesthetic confusion of fascism and traditionalism reminds me of this meme:

A mixing of wires where idyllic, pacifistic entertainment can be seen as a launching point for either the far-left or far-right makes me wonder what is truly causing these groups to cleave apart, what causes people to believe the things they believe. I can't say I know the answer, or even have any definitive conclusions beyond pointing this out. It's something to think about, at least.

[junglejim4322]

I’m serious it’s not a coincidence that a fuck ton of anti cultural appropriation movements were majority Indians like yeah this borderline segregationist movement to preserve culture based on your birth right to it as to avoid it being tarnished by foreigners is being spearheaded by a group of people that has a prominent fascist ideology that revolves around your birth right. Which could mean nothing