#because how stupid are people that they believe their propaganda????
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Two takeaways right now that I really cannot stress enough: 1) We cannot afford to keep spouting the "The American public is fucking stupid" and "Republicans are dumb and uneducated" rhetoric. I have already seen a new resurgence in the past 24 hours. Yes, it's true: One in five Americans are functionally illiterate. Many of them live in states like New Mexico and Mississippi, below the poverty line, with underfunded educational institutions, and very little access to resources to help them. A staggering amount of USAmericans read below a sixth grade level. This is not a moral failing. This is not their fault. This is a societal failing, an infrastructure failing. We've been failing the rust belt for decades and it's only getting worse. And it does not help our cause if we continue to turn up our noses and say they're all stupid cousin-kissing hillbillies who deserve what they're getting. That only helps Trump. That is how we got here. The division only helps the people in power to keep up the grift. As long as we continue to disparage and underestimate working people from the Midwest and the American South, we will continue to lose. They are tired of being condescended to, and that is why they like Trump. He at least pretends (badly, but he at least pretends) that he cares about their interests.
Remember this bit of propaganda?
All the way back from 1754?
We have to stop fighting each other. We cannot afford to continue saying 'Trumpers are stupid and hateful and uneducated' and continue this us-against-them mentality. It is JUST as bad as my Midwestern parents who say that Democrats are evil satanic child-killing communists. I grew up steeped in that environment. I fully believed it. Many people are just as scared as you are. They are working with the information they have. They believe they are doing the right thing, just as you do. They are watching their communities literally disintegrate and the only person that promises to bring them jobs is Donald Fucking Trump. And he is employing every propaganda tactic in the book to grift them. A big part of the lies the Republican party loves to spout is that they're persecuted and they're underdogs -- I grew up in this environment. It stems from an Evangelical worldview that to be righteous is to be persecuted. Disparaging these people, insulting them, condescending them, only feeds this narrative. The only way I got out of this mentality was by having access to community college, meeting kind people outside my bubble who were willing to have a conversation with me, and finally getting education that wasn't steeped in evangelical propaganda.
I invite you all to go and watch Megan Phelps-Roper's TEDtalk (or read her book, it's excellent) about how she left her family's cult. The only thing that broke through that fog of 'We are persecuted and therefore righteous' was when people stopped throwing cups of hot liquid and piss at her (when she was a child!), and started being kind and empathetic. We all can stand to learn a lot from stories like hers. The second that evil god-hating people started being kind to her was the second she began to question everything she'd been taught.
Yes, it's very easy to look at these people spewing hateful rhetoric and label them as evil. But they're not. The people exploiting all of us are evil. The people exploiting fear and division are evil. We need to call for accountability with news outlets, to fund grass-roots efforts to give adults with educational gaps access to help. Many of them simply could not continue going to school because their families were impoverished and they had to work so they could fucking eat. Many of them have undiagnosed disabilities because they do not have insurance to even go to a doctor. To be ignorant is not a moral failing. Willful ignorance? Absolutely. But ignorance, no. The only thing we can do now is be kind, invite people into discussion, and remember that the only enemy is the oppressor in power who views everybody as pawns and dollar signs. We are all the same to them.
2) Please do not fall into the trap of thinking this means that your vote does not count. Voting is more important than ever. You need to vote in your local elections. You need to. The Senate and the House are the lawmakers and the people in charge of declaring war. They have term limits. They are not untouchable. They are the only people now who are capable of checking Trump. And your local mayors, councils, etc are the people who are going to make the real difference between public healthcare, good education, censorship, civil rights, housing, etc. States have an immense amount of freedom to operate. That is how I have access to incredible free healthcare in mine. That is how we have one of the best public transit systems in the country. That is how we placed penalties on industries and got rid of smog and heavy pollution in the 70s. That is how we have gay bars and drag brunches and well-funded libraries. That is all local-government stuff. If you want your communities to change, you HAVE to vote locally. Please, please, please do not give up and think your vote doesn't matter. It does. It matters immensely.
97 notes
·
View notes
Text
Okay, my thoughts right now:
I live in a state in Germany with literal Neonazis in its parliament, people who don't just reject democracy but the German state as a whole, because they deny World War II was ever lost. Yes, sounds crazy, but it's real and many of these people had a decent education in school before they fell off. I watch people repeat history every day just by going out and being subjected to the people who vote for a party that admires Hitler, wants women and queer people to die, wants immigrants to be killed or sent back to war and that LOVES to copy what Republicans are doing in the US. I hear their misogyny, their racism, their homophobia, their transphobia, just casually on the street, some from my very own family members. I am sure many other Europeans can relate, it is scary existing in these areas of our countries, it's scarier looking at the areas where it's even worse.
And I think that's why it's bad to say "oh those stupid americans". I think alot of us do know very well how these things work and that it's just not easy like that. It's a machinery, designed to erode democracy, it's a path they've been on for a long time and it is not easily visible for many, many people. They prey on lack of education, withholding transparency, they prey on desperation, on making the poor poorer so they are more eager to believe their lies of easy solutions. And boy do they lie and lie and lie, even when it's obvious that they are lying, even though they do not believe any of what they're saying themselves. Propaganda through ways you can't even see, on messengers, tiktok and other sites that do not give a FUCK if the content they push at you is real, that drag you further and further into these dangerous believes. It's selfishness but it's also the blatant disrespect for democracy, it's the loopholes, the way to corruption, away from constitutionality. And it's happening everywhere. We are not on the precipice anymore, we are already in the trenches, we have been for a while if we're being honest with ourselves.
I don't want to be all negative, because we know through history that humans are resilient, love is the strongest force and there is always a way forward, but now we also know there will be many many lives lost on the way to mending any of what's happening in the world right now. And there is no glory in that, not at all. But we will keep going, even though it will get worse before it ever gets better again, we will keep fighting, we will wake up and do good and love each other. That's the one thing that will never stop. That we love each other, that we love humanity and the world we live in, and if this is anything it should be a wake up call to support the most vulnerable whenever we can, to protect our planet, to protect each other. We have to keep going, we simply have to.
#us elections#i put it under a cut bc i know this is a very triggering issue right now feel free to scroll
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
These are the victims that everybody is telling us to pray for? "God is with us" Are you serious? How can anybody believe them playing the victim everywhere on social media when they're in festivals celebrating Palestinians' death and making tiktoks putting on makeup and mocking them and the dead children?
I cannot take anyone seriously who's like "pray for israel, we're at war 🕊" like use your brain.
#this makes me so angry#because how stupid are people that they believe their propaganda????#children in gaza are in PIECES#a man carries his kids in bags!!!!#a father cries after finding his son's body: I can't find his arm i can't find his arm#a little kid carries a backpack with his brother's remains in it#wtf is this???????!!!!!!!#palestine#gaza#israel#important#current events#ethnic cleansing#free gaza#free palestine#gaza strip#gaza under attack#gaza under genocide#israel apartheid#israel is a terrorist state#we are not numbers#video#usa#about the last picture it's a child who was killed in gaza by israel#it's a screen recording which is why it popped up
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
. probably gonna delete this later
#not to rant in the tags or anything but i honestly cannot BELIEVE some of you still follow or reblog vaspider content#they are a Zionist and have spread blatant pro-israel propaganda#theyre a white convert to judaism and they actively support israel whether or not they acknowledge that is their material impact#they have spread conspiracy theory nonsense about ‘Hamas operatives in Gazan hospitals’ and justified war crimes#they also have actively accused just regular Muslims of being antisemitic#theyre the worst kind of crybully ‘leftist’ and they do their crybullying in favour of FUCKING GENOCIDE#like what the FUCK y’all i cannot believe anyone is willingly circulating their posts & additions to other people’s posts#this is someone with an easily observable habit of spreading extremely pernicious and harmful misinformation#someone who has jumped on bandwagons to accuse Palestinians of being scammers#fucking hold your friends accountable because spider is a pro-empire islamophobe who supports genocide in the middle east#idk why americans and westerners in general just give zero shits about Zionism among leftists but uhhhh i’m assuming it’s white supremacy#it can’t be said enough that Zionism is a white supremacist ideology#and a white american who supports zionism is a white supremacist regardless of if they are jewish or queer or poor or claim to be an ally#y’all are so fucking stupid for falling for ‘progressives’ and ‘queers’ and trans people who are literal white supremacists#sorry but it has to be said#so so fucking stupid#pay better attention#also dont get me started on spider being repeatedly transmisogynist it is so fucking bad#just because youre anti radfem and a transmasc does NOT give you a free pass to hate trans women publicly#OBVIOUSLY#being a transmisogynist transmasc is so fucking evil its not even funny#and the whole thing where people hide their transmisogyny and misogyny in general under the guise of ‘supporting transmasculinity’ is gross#i really really cant stress enough how reactionary spider is and the harm that they do on here because of their shitty politics
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
normal woman separatist I don't know wanna hear another rich white opinion
#'Im not poisoned by Zionist propaganda I just don't care care about palestinian genocide because I believe PALESTINIAN WOMEN don't have#higher education'#I would say racism makes you stupid but I know it's pure dishonesty over how much colonialism has and keeps serving you#but what proof you don't know shit about Palestine one of the most educated people in the world in both sexes despite all odds
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Everytime I tell someone I'm independent/no party and they immediately start spouting bullshit to me about the importance of voting and why I should vote and that "a vote for third party is a vote for x" an angel loses its wings
Like sorry I wasn't aware that only Republicans & Democrats are allowed to vote for their respective parties and independents can't and that if they see you're registered independent they fucking rip up your ballot in front of you and don't count it
I AM STILL GOING TO FUCKING VOTE SHUT YOUR BITCH ASS UP.
#Honestly it really goes to show how deeply flawed the 2 party system is#People can't fathom that you can vote outside of the system without also signing yourself up for the propaganda fest of your chosen evil#Like you're never going to believe this but you're allowed to have your own thoughts and opinions#without aligning yourself with a large conglomerate that ultimately doesn't have your best interests at heart#and still vote for that large conglomerate when it's in your personal favor#PLEASE DO NOT FUCKING MISINTERPRET THIS POST#YOU SHOULD GO VOTE#Also the “third party vote is a vote for x” bullshit is exactly why third party never works :/#It's a self filling prophecy and we're trapping ourselves in this stupid 2 party cycle#God I hate this country#Fuck the US#Fuck politics#Sweden I miss you so deeply#I miss not having to hinge my entire life on the whims of one fucking guys#I miss when my entire life didn't hang in the air every 4 years#I miss not being scared of politicans :(#So many Americans can't even comprehend how awful it is because they've never lived in a place where you simply... AREN'T scared of politics#where they DON'T matter#where your rights aren't up for grabs every 4 years#I don't understand how this country is allowed to function this way#It's so cruel#US Politics#Much needed rant
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
it only took 12 interviews i guess for somebody to bring up 9/11 to me
#longer than I expected! I appreciate that. I guess.#anyway we should make a rule where these people don’t get to speak about 9/11 anymore. ive heard enough from White Man From Carolina. stop#there are actually other things you can speak about to a person from nyc. hard to believe but it’s true!#it didn’t happen to him it happened to me! and I know better! I know better!#one of the most insane things about the culture surround 9/11 is that it is simultaneously#valorized in this histrionic performance of grief (for propaganda purposes)#and also like. not treated as a real thing that happened to people. like as if it was a news-only event#it exists in the white american consciousness SOLELY as a rhetorical device. an excuse for islamaphobia hate and violence. war propaganda.#but not as the worst day of my childhood. not as an incredibly tacky topic to introduce in a 20 minute interview with a relative stranger#it only exists on tv. just like all of the monstrous wars we used it as an excuse to start!#who was it who wrote… im thinking of a passage I read about our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq#where the author said because of their distance and the lack of impact on american day to day life the american people experienced them#primarily as a media event#that’s how it always goes I guess! so it fucking goes#I really should know better than to post this but i needed to vent. vent what a stupid word.
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
ONE OF THESE DAYS IM GOING TO FUCKING EXPLODE/NEG
#guys guess who got jumpscared by the kosa bill again (me)#A FEW DAYS????? MY ONLINE PRESENCE IS DETERMINED IN A FEW DAYS???? kms/NSRS#the internet is like a safe haven for me if KOSA passes i may lose my marbles for fucking real#at least i have my qpps phone number#im not losing my qpp regardless of what bills pass#( i say this trying to be hopeful im so scared im gonna lose everything i have on here)#to top it off my ALREADY strict parents literally block so many things from me on their own I DONT NEED THE GOVERNMENT TOO#ive just been so stressed out of my MIND this past week the KOSA bill isnt HELPING.#i read a post abt KOSA a few minutes ago and let me tell you my heart DROPPED#back on the internet save haven place for me thing#it is literally the only place i can express myself like say that im trans because i dont trust anybody else angel emoji#AND ive met some of the most wonderful people on the internet#the fact that it could all be over because some 65 y/o politician says that we need to 'protect the kids' is so fucking messed up#like bitch you KNOW what youre doing you KNOW how bad this is you just want to control kids#into believing stupid things!!! why do you think LGBTQIA and mental health topics are being blocked bc of KOSA!!!#NEWSFLASH!!!! YOU WANNA POUR PROPAGANDA INTO PEOPLES MOUTHS#ughhh#closet rambles again on tumblr
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
My idea for a meta about war and propaganda in IDW actually requires me to do some rereading so I can find specific citations for things IDW Optimus says, which is part of why I've been procrastinating so much on it. But I'm honestly really excited about it because war stories and the effects/trauma of war have always been one of my favorite genres of story, I even took an entire class on them in college. If you've read Pay Unto Evil, you know that themes about propaganda and cult of personality as justifications for war, ends don't justify the means, and violence as inherently corrosive is something I've already written about with great feeling.
Um, the exact structure of the meta isn't clear, but basically I wanted to look at IDW OP and the evolution of his attitude towards violence/war/the Decepticons as an archetypal (anti) war story. A lot of my ideas of young OP are based on how he's written in the Autocracy trilogy, so I would be putting special focus on those stories as a wah to characterize OP when he's younger (since I want more people to appreciate those stories) as a contrast to how he is when he's older.
And basically the idea is that in real life, a common story among war veterans is the fact that they went into it young and idealistic, believing that war is good or at least trusting that war is good when you're fighting on the right side of things, glorifying battle and violence and such ("dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"). And it's only when they experience war and are traumatized by it that these young soldiers realize lessons about how the soldiers on the other side are exactly the same as they are, that the reason they're fighting is for ultimately pointless reasons, and that their whole lives they were lied to in order to buy into the idea of "glorious war".
The meta would basically be centered on how IDW OP goes through this particular archetype of war story character development (not an official term), with me pointing out how IDW OP's morally dubious past is a necessary part of his lore in this continuity. Because IDW OP's position of "we have to move on from the war and stop seeking revenge, or else it will never end" is most meaningful when it comes from someone who WAS a member of the state and DID used to believe in propagandistic ideas. And it doesn't make IDW OP uniquely stupid or evil because the entire point of his kind of war story is to point out how society raises you to believe in the righteousness of violence and war and it takes FUCKING UP to realize you were wrong, that there are so many people in the world who didn't realize how deeply they were being deluded until they found themselves in the thick of pointless bloodshed. THAT'S part of why I cling so insistently to IDW OP and not erasing his "problematic" backstory, because he's so much more interesting and paints a figure so much more true to real life if you accept everything about him instead of sneering at him and calling him an idiot or an asshole.
#squiggposting#meta#idw op love#it does kind of annoy me how fast ppl shit on idw op for being privileged and ignorant and making mistakes#'he's privileged' and you arent?#'he's ignorant' so you were born immune to propaganda and never participated in harmful social practices?#'he hurt people' so you've never hurt people because you hadn't unlearned your bias and harmful views?#ppl would rather paint OP as a complete simpleton who doesn't know anything than face the uncomfortable reality#that you can be a good person but still do bad things or be part of harmful institutions#better to distance yourself from such characters hm? better to act as if idw op and others like him are uniquely ignorant and stupid#better to pretend that only stupid evil people could do bad things and only stupid ignorant people could possibly#believe in harmful social institutions without realizing they're harmful. REAL good ppl came out of the pussy knowing everything
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
not sure how to characterise this position as anything but basic pragmatism.
(1) you should not call people you disagree with bots simply because even if that one specific person was actually a bot, the small possibility of treating a real person as a bot is so dehumanizing that it should stop you from doing so. and if you are wrong, you are actually pretty irredeemable as a good faith interlocutor in everyone's eyes.
(2) you cannot possibly function in any community or further your own intellectual growth by being arrogant enough to believe that all disagreement with you is incoherent propaganda. there is real stupidity in the world to blame!
(3) it is not particularly convincing to be conspiratorial about very run of the mill ideas like pessimism about politics.
4K notes
·
View notes
Text
I understand the immediate emotional recoil, and the need to defend humanity and/or the self. You read "we each have a nazi in us" and it's perfectly reasonable for the emotional part of your brain to think "that word means evil and I don't want to live in a world where I have evil inside me -- I might not be a good person, but I'm not evil." It makes sense that this fear would naturally override calmer analysis of what's actually being said.
"We all have evil within us" doesn't mean we all act on that evil. It doesn't mean we all have an evil phase where we're cruel and bigoted until we see the light. It doesn't mean we all have a curse that transforms us into were-nazis on a full moon.
It means that "hatred, rage, fear, narcissistic self-regard and contempt for others" as actions and beliefs that harm others are the building blocks of what we call evil by another name. It means that everybody gets mad, finds things or people to hate, gets scared, gets too much in their own head, and forgets that others deserve patience and respect. Everybody has the capacity for these things in normal, manageable, human degrees.
Everybody also has the capacity to have these things turned up full volume in their own heads until nothing else gets through. There are people whose internal slider goes up the less they're exposed to the humanity of others, and in their isolation they become so bitter and hateful that they look down on others in a way that becomes outright cruel. There are people whose internal slider goes up the more they're exposed to other people's cruelty, and in their fear they decide to fight fire with fire. Become cruel or die. This is the impact of trauma that the author is talking about.
We are not all evil by default. We are not all good by default. We are all human by default, and that means all of us have emotions that can be turned into actions and all of our actions can be cruel or kind or otherwise if we let them.
It's our responsibility, individually, to check on our emotional state and our emotional history (with whatever guidance we need to make it safe, some people need workbooks and others need groupchats and others need to try a few times to find a good therapist) and make sure our sliders are set at safe and reasonable levels. It's up to us to avoid having the evil that's within us become evil that acts on the world around us.
If this helps, it's a little like saying all cats are dangerous because they have claws. It's true that claws are dangerous, even a small cut can become easily infected. It's true that having claws is the normal state for a cat. It's not true that all cats will scratch no matter how you treat them. It's not true that all cats need to he declawed to be safe around humans, and the declawing process is actually actively harmful to cats. It's not true that all cats are dangerous to humans any more than it's true that all humans are evil. What is true is that it's important to treat our cats with patience and understanding, and teach them proper claw control so they don't scratch us by accident. We find compromises that are the least harmful to both cat and human in those cases where claw control can't be taught.
To say "we each have a nazi in us" is to say "cats each have claws within them." We don't need to defend ourselves against the statement. We don't need to apologize pre-emptively for being evil. We need to treat ourselves with patience and understanding, and learn proper emotional and mental control so we don't fall into hateful doctrine or lash out emotionally.
We all have the capacity for cruelty. Every person in the world. No matter what. It's up to us how to manage that, and whether we want to break the cycle of cruelty that already exists.
im gonna be real with you guys a little but you are all deeply fucking stupid
#sonder speaks#is this philosophy or politics or something else#how do I tag this in an archival sense#regardless#I didn't want to distract in the main body of the post#but this also isn't a “you people are so stupid” issue either#it's an issue of reading comprehension yes but it comes from multiple sources and none of them are outright stupidity#it's fear of being labeled as evil in a society that jumps on rumors before learning facts and punishes perceived evil thoroughly#a person's life could be destroyed if the wrong internet influencer said “lol this person's a n*zi doxx 'em chat��� without checking#but they'll get praise for pointing the finger back at the person who seemingly pointed a finger at them first if they do it fast enough#which is infinitely preferable to being doxxed or otherwise harmed as far as their fear's concerned#it's also propaganda#most countries after the last world war decided in some capacity or another that they wanted to pretend the victory was over all evil#not one singular regime that was taken down but everyone who believed in it#the way of evil was no more#and that wishful thinking turned into propaganda turned into cultural background noise#many of us in many countries (though I only truly know the lens of usamerica) have lived our lives with this noise#and now it's a core belief that you're either one of the disgusting evil momsters who refused to die or you're normal#to hear that challenged is naturally alarming#to hear that falling into doctrines of cruelty is easy and we always have to examine our biases is alarming#that's not people being stupid#that's not even people refusing to read#not really#that's people having their beliefs about the nature of good and evil questioned#and not being able to immediately process their own answers#which is bad on social media sites where immediacy determines relevance#it's knee-jerk fear and confusion under time pressure#which sucks and shouldn't have to happen and may constitute a type of brainrot#but it's not stupidity in a vacuum just because people “are stupid these days” or something#it's another thing we all have the capacity to do and need to watch ourselves for if we want to communicate clearly
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
"This is what such and such was about"
...but... it wasn't
Like I was there, I wasn't directly involved, but I was in that general space at that time and keeping up with the news on it... and it's not at all what you're saying it was
You're totally missing the catalyst and... and the notable events and... all of it
Funny thing is there's more than one things I can say this about
It's never fucking worth weighing in, people have already made up their minds it's just... it's frustrating when it's like... I directly remember this happening, I was following it at the time and... I get sick of it
#you know; for all the complaints about it; it was the people against it who celebrated a guy dying of cancer and harassed his wife#all because he said 'I'm not seeing the behavior you're saying is there'#it's not worth getting into arguments over it's just... fuck do you people (people in general) twist your memories around#it's less serious than this; but it would be like 10 years from now hearing what the invasion of Ukraine was 'actually about'#and... having it basically all be russian propaganda; and having that be the narrative seen as 100% true#and me being to myself 'but I was there; that's not how the lead up was'#and... the fucked thing is that's probably a prophecy of the future#even though it's more meant to demonstrate the frustration of it all#... I think the part that frustrates me most is I know my friend would probably believe random strangers over me about this#but it's like... I could be stupid; crazy; or have just the worst most twisted memory#but what I'm saying is exactly what I remember to the best of my ability#just... just frustrates me and wears me out#frustrates me when a narrative overwrites the truth
1 note
·
View note
Text
I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.
Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.
It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.
It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.
How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.
It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.
It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.
It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?
It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.
Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.
14K notes
·
View notes
Text
I don't believe the people who say the atla live action show is good.
the most they seem to say is "just turn your brain off and you'll enjoy it-" and "it's for kids! it's supposed to be braindead."
the reason atla has endured as long as it has, is because people are still finding intelligent discourse to have about its mature themes and its thoughtful story and expansive world building. it's a timeless classic because it found a balance between being light hearted and humorous, when appropriate, and completely serious when exploring its darker material. There are no fucking jokes about katara's mom dying or the genocide of the air nomads. but they are a cast of kids/pre teens and they definitely feel like kids. they grow and mature, and they joke around and have a good time, but the fucking show never felt the need to dumb itself down because it thought kids were too fucking stupid to appreciate character growth or a nuanced story.
it's actually embarrassing to be here and say well atla is supposed to be for kids, so having the emotional depth of paw patrol is fine-
I'm so sorry that kids these days can't handle a story about redemption and genocide and imperialism.
I'm so sorry that kids are being fed slop under the guise that they're too stupid to have anything else, because God knows those of us who grew up with avatar sure didn't appreciate how smart it was.
that's why WE STILL TALK ABOUT IT YEARS LATER ACKNOWLEDGING HOW MANY LITTLE THINGS WE BOTH OBSERVED AND MISSED IN THE SERIES WHEN WE ORIGINALLY WATCHED IT.
go ahead, write paw patrol the last airbender.
kids definitely don't need to know what genocide and imperialism are. they're definitely not very fucking relevant topics of the modern day!! god knows American kids in particular shouldn't know how genocides and propaganda and the total annihilation of oppressed cultures work!!
2K notes
·
View notes
Note
I sympathize with you wholeheartedly because of how disappointing it is to have to change around the flatland-inspired lore of the fic because bill's homeworld doesn't seem to follow it. I will however say that as someone who was forced to read the book in high school geometry and hated it entirely for its powerful sexism, I'm kinda glad that it's not exactly the same thing, even if I do think a lot of the lore is cool. It was just such a male-centered book and seemed so smug about it, it was really hard to ignore.
The book is satire & critique of Victorian era social conventions, including the rigidity of its class system and how people defended it by saying the nobility were inherently "better" than the commoners (number of sides); the abuses of the poor & disabled, including euthanasia, and how they were written off as inherently stupid & criminal to justify their low position (isosceles triangles & irregulars); and, the way women were trapped, talked down to, treated like unthinking irrational animals, ignored when they spoke so they couldn't prove their rationality and dismissed when they got furious about this as just being too emotional.
In the book itself, the Sphere openly looks down on the Square's society for its disregard of women.
The book isn't smugly sexist; the book is mocking guys who are smugly sexist by exaggerating it to enough of an extreme that even Victorian era men would be able to see how messed up the system is.
And it apparently worked, since in a later edition of the book Abbott had to add in the intro that he doesn't believe those things about women, perhaps Mr. A Square has absorbed too much of his culture's propaganda about women? (Which means it succeeded in riling up readers—and also it sounded similar enough to the extreme end of real Victorian-era attitudes that some readers thought it was the real thing instead of satire, which tells you what kind of culture Abbott was up against.)
The book is openly advocating for increased respect for women's intelligence and autonomy by pointing a light on how horrible their treatment is.
154 notes
·
View notes
Text
It’s time for me to have another rant! 👇
Buckle up!!! ⚔️🛡️
The State of America:
I am angry. As an American, I am sick and tired of what this country has become. I do probably curse more than I should, but I am pissed off.
Our schools: Children are being indoctrinated by school teachers about sexual activity rather than things they should be learning about. You know, like civics, math, real history and science? What grown ass adult wants to discuss sexual intercourse with a minor? I’ll tell you, a social deviant fucking pervert. That’s who. I will not expose any child to that madness ever.
Our military: Our military is the weakest it has ever been. I have friends that are still in the military and they cannot wait to get out. Not because of their lack of service to this country, but the lack of leadership. The good ones are tired of getting slammed with “woke” PowerPoints on shit that doesn’t even matter to military readiness. It’s dumb. And our adversaries are laughing at us. I can’t even recommend someone to join the military until it is returned to its rightful place as the strongest military in the world.
Our southern border: The southern border is a dumpster fire. More illegal aliens and fentanyl are pouring through the border at record rates. The saddest part about this is the Democrats are wanting ILLEGALS to vote for any and all elections. Democrats only use their party for votes to continue their reign of power, while their own districts are literal shit-holes. Republicans are not safe from this and they really aren't much better. If they wanted the border shut down they would too. Always remember that Americans being murdered was never enough to shut the border down.
Joe Biden: I will never accept the thought that Joe Biden got 81 million votes. You cannot make me believe that the alleged President of the United States of America got the most votes in American history, then was kicked out from running by his own party. Give me a fucking break.
Kamala Harris: This Indian American woman locked up more black men than I have ever seen in my life. She doesn’t care about black people. Never has and never will. She just wants your vote.
Mainstream Media: These retards have been fed so much propaganda that they actually think Donald Trump will incite a civil war if he doesn’t win the 2024 election. You all have an extra chromosome if you truly believe that. There are some that are just gaslighting but a large portion of the population is too stupid to vote if they can’t decipher this.
Speaking of Donald Trump: This man has been given more bullshit to a public servant that I have ever seen in my life. For crying out loud, it has been over 2 weeks since the Deep State almost took his life and no one has been held truly accountable. They are all behind it until proven otherwise. Imagine if that was the other way around. Democrats would want to put the nation on lockdown like they did during COVID.
National debt: As of today the United States is at $35,000,000,000,000.00 in debt. How irresponsible of adults. I will never be gaslit to send money overseas anymore especially since Americans are struggling to put food on their table. How outrageously treasonous.
And to top all of this off. I am a white male that was in the military and now I'm considered a domestic terrorist by some. How unbelievable is this? The same ones that are backing the Military Industrial Complex. The same “elected leaders” that I served, don’t have our backs when we return home. The military are the ones that uphold and defend the Constitution, not them.
This is not what America should be about. This is not the country I served. Not anymore.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! 🤔
God Bless America. 🇺🇸
#pay attention#educate yourselves#educate yourself#knowledge is power#reeducate yourself#reeducate yourselves#think about it#think for yourselves#think for yourself#do your homework#do your own research#do some research#ask yourself questions#question everything#rant#im pissed#i'm pissed off#agree or disagree#my opinion#spilled thoughts#spilled ink#spilled words#america
151 notes
·
View notes