#but this is anti Paris propaganda

[sarafangirlart]

I hate when ppl write Helen and Paris as a tragic love story in the same vein as Romeo and Juliet bc it’s crystal clear that Helen hates Paris in the Iliad and Aphrodite straight up threatens her to have sex with him, yes Aphrodite is involved in all romantic love but I feel like Helen is the exception bc Helen’s “love” for Paris isn’t a natural occurrence, Aphrodite had to personally manipulate persuade Helen to flee with Paris, she could’ve told Eros to shoot Helen with an arrow and that would be it, but she doesn’t, Helen was forced into this situation.

Also it makes Helen seem like a love sick moron, yes she went with Paris “willingly” at first but she soon regrets it bc literally anyone in that situation would, especially considering that Paris is a cowardly little bitch who lets his brothers fight his battles for him and rarely engages in the war unless Hector bullies him. To have her firmly choosing to remain with Paris bc loooooove when any sensible person would return to the Greeks to end the war and bloodshed if they had the power and means to do so. This is how we get the narrative that Helen is an evil whore who started the war for her selfish desires, by making her still love Paris after all these years of bloodshed when it was actually mostly his fault makes her look selfish and stupid.

[psychologeek]

It's long and incoherent, bc I'm sick (39.3 bb) and tired and everything hurts. Might try to edit/make a more organised about it later. But anyway.

[ID: a twitter screenshot of a poster in Paris, France, showing an olympic podium. On the the first place, there's a bodybag with two Israeli flags waving on it. The second and third place has missiles on the podium. Under every number (1,2,3) is written "Israel". The whole podium is flooded with blood, dripping and staining it. There's a big writing: "when it comes to killing for sport, there's no competition". Smaller writing: "from using starvation as a weapon of war to bombing hospitals, there's no war crime off limits for the team"./ID end].

So, this is not only wrong and inaccurate (on all accusations), this is also antisemic af. Historically, this is where I'd be telling ppl to be super careful. But I guess we all are. Also love how ppl ignore the bloody history of Olympics. Murder of 11 Israeli participants rings a bell? No? Ah of course. Why would it. Jews being murdered is no news.

Why is it antisemic?

Oh, hello OG blood libels! Didn't miss you at all.

Subtext of this poster is: (The Jews Israelis) Kill for profit (ritualic reasons, sports).

Which is. You know. Very normal thing to do TM.

Why is it problematic?

In England in 1144, the Jews of Norwich were falsely accused of ritual murder after a boy, William of Norwich, was found dead in the woods with stab wounds. William's hagiographer, Thomas of Monmouth, falsely claimed that every year there is an international council of Jews at which they choose the country in which a child will be killed during Easter, because of a Jewish prophecy that states that the killing of a Christian child each year will ensure that the Jews will be restored to the Holy Land. According to Monmouth, England was chosen in 1144, and the leaders of the Jewish community delegated the Jews of Norwich to perform the killing, after which they abducted and crucified William. The legend was turned into a cult, with William acquiring the status of a martyr and pilgrims bringing offerings to the local church. This was followed by similar accusations in Gloucester (1168), Bury St Edmunds (1181) and Bristol (1183). In 1189, the Jewish deputation attending the coronation of Richard the Lionheart was attacked by the crowd. Massacres of Jews at London and York soon followed. In 1190 on 16 March 150 Jews were attacked in York and then massacred when they took refuge in the royal castle, where Clifford's Tower now stands, with some committing suicide rather than being taken by the mob. The remains of 17 bodies thrown in a well in Norwich between the 12th and 13th century (five that were shown by DNA testing to likely be members of a single Jewish family) were very possibly killed as part of one of these pogroms.

~

At Bösing (Bazin, today Pezinok, Slovakia), it was charged that a nine-year-old boy had been bled to death, suffering cruel torture; thirty Jews confessed to the crime and were publicly burned. The true facts of the case were disclosed later when the child was found alive in Vienna. He had been taken there by the accuser, Count Wolf of Bazin, as a means of ridding himself of his Jewish creditors at Bazin.

~

The Massena blood libel was an instance of blood libel against Jews in which the Jews of Massena, New York, were falsely accused of the kidnapping and ritual murder of a Christian girl in September 1928.

On September 22, 1928, two days before Yom Kippur, four-year-old Barbara Griffiths went for a walk and did not come back home.

After a long search by townspeople and state police, a rumor began to circulate that the girl had been kidnapped and killed by the town's Jews for a religious ritual associated with the impending holiday

.....

Barbara Griffiths was found in the woods later that afternoon roughly a mile from her home. She told authorities she had become lost during her walk and slept in the forest. Nevertheless, some citizens of Massena continued to believe that Griffiths had been kidnapped by the Jews. They attributed her safe return to the discovery of the Jews' plot. The mayor may have led a boycott of businesses owned by Jews.

Does it sounds familiar?

"oh, but it was long ago!"

The Matzah of Zion was written by the Syrian Defense Minister, Mustafa Tlass in 1986. The book concentrates on two issues: renewed ritual murder accusations against the Jews in the Damascus affair of 1840, and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The book was cited at a United Nations conference in 1991 by a Syrian delegate. On 21 October 2002, the London-based Arabic paper Al-Hayat reported that the book The Matzah of Zion was undergoing its eighth reprinting and it was also being translated into English, French and Italian.Egyptian filmmaker Munir Radhi has announced plans to adapt the book into a film.

~

In 2002, the Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi said, "People always talk about what the Germans did to the Jews, but the true question is, 'What did the Jews do to the Germans?'"[140] Gilad Atzmon stated, "Jewish texts tend to glaze over the fact that Hitler's 28 March 1933, ordering a boycott against Jewish stores and goods, was an escalation in direct response to the declaration of war on Germany by the worldwide Jewish leadership."

~

In 2003, a private Syrian film company created a 29-part television series Ash-Shatat ("The Diaspora"). This series originally aired in Lebanon in late 2003 and it was subsequently broadcast by Al-Manar, a satellite television network owned by Hezbollah. This TV series, based on the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, shows the Jewish people engaging in a conspiracy to rule the world, and it also presents Jews as people who murder the children of Christians, drain their blood and use it to bake matzah.

~

In an address that aired on Al-Aqsa TV, a Hamas run TV station in Gaza, on 31 March 2010, Salah Eldeen Sultan (Arabic: صلاح الدين سلطان), founder of the American Center for Islamic Research in Columbus, Ohio, the Islamic American University in Southfield, Michigan, and the Sultan Publishing Co. and described in 2005 as "one of America's most noted Muslim scholars", alleged that Jews kidnap Christians and others in order to slaughter them and use their blood for making matzos. Sultan, who is currently a lecturer on Muslim jurisprudence at Cairo University stated that: "The Zionists kidnap several non-Muslims [sic] – Christians and others... this happened in a Jewish neighborhood in Damascus. They killed the French doctor, Toma, who used to treat the Jews and others for free, in order to spread Christianity. Even though he was their friend and they benefited from him the most, they took him on one of these holidays and slaughtered him, along with the nurse. Then they kneaded the matzos with the blood of Dr. Toma and his nurse. They do this every year. The world must know these facts about the Zionist entity and its terrible corrupt creed. The world should know this." (Translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute)

~

In April 2013, the Palestinian non-profit organization MIFTAH, founded by Hanan Ashrawi apologized for publishing an article which criticized US President Barack Obama for holding a Passover Seder in the White House by saying "Does Obama, in fact, know the relationship, for example, between 'Passover' and 'Christian blood'...?! Or 'Passover' and 'Jewish blood rituals?!' Much of the chatter and gossip about historical Jewish blood rituals in Europe is real and not fake as they claim; the Jews used the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover." MIFTAH's apology expressed its "sincerest regret".

~

In a sermon broadcast on the official Jordanian TV channel on 22 August 2014, Sheik Bassam Ammoush, a former Minister of Administrative Development who was appointed to Jordan's House of Senate ("Majlis al-Aayan") in 2011, stated (as translated by MEMRI): "In [the Gaza Strip] we are dealing with the enemies of Allah, who believe that the matzos that they bake on their holidays must be kneaded with blood. When the Jews were in the diaspora, they would murder children in England, in Europe, and in America. They would slaughter them and use their blood to make their matzos... They believe that they are God's chosen people. They believe that the killing of any human being is a form of worship and a means to draw near their god."

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Lauren Bacall (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Key Largo)—"Just put your lips together...and blow" excuse me ma'am i'm briefly going to turn into a kettle. She's the quintessential Femme Fatale who may betray me in the end but I'd let her it'd be worth it

Diahann Carroll (Paris Blues, Carmen Jones, Porgy and Bess)— Face of an angel. She had the range. She brought chemistry with every romance she portrayed. She also had a great fashion sense, and was so pretty Mattel made a doll based off of her.

We are in the quarterfinals of the Hot & Vintage Movie Women Tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Propaganda is not my own and is on a submission basis. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Diahann Carroll:

Another groundbreaking black actress, although she might be better remembered for her television roles. She was also an activist and worked with charities to support women in need.

here she is hanging out with shadow prince anthony perkins :3

Lauren Bacall:

"She is soooo neat. And hot. And everything. That one scene in To Have and Have Not where she says "you know how to whistle don't you? You just put your lips together and blow" altered my brain chemistry during media archaeology class and here we are."

"The VOICE, the SLINK, the EYES. Woof."

"Lauren Bacall was a major lesbian awakening for me. Every picture of her makes it look like she’s about to destroy you physically and emotionally (why is that so hot, I may need help). She had incredible long running chemistry with her husband, Humphrey Bogart, but was an absolute star in her own right. I’ll never be over my crush on her."

"She's got that confident, no-nonsense air about her. She's a boss babe who knows what she wants and gets it DONE. Staunch liberal Democrat her whole life. Campaigned for RFK. From Wikipedia: "In a 2005 interview with Larry King, Bacall described herself as "anti-Republican... A liberal. The L-word". She added that "being a liberal is the best thing on Earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind."" Beautiful hair. Beautiful eyes. Beautiful lips. She's just beauty. LISTEN TO HER VOICE. TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF."

[matan4il]

I am at a loss for words.

A Jewish woman in Paris was kidnapped, held for several days, and raped for being a Jew, and her mother was psychologically taunted and tormented, as "revenge for Palestine."

And while the perpetrator is the main person responsible for this horrific crime, every single person denying or justifying the Oct 7 sexual violence is guilty of contributing to this normalization, making this antisemitic terrorist think his excuse is in any way an acceptable justification for this atrocity. Every single person who didn't believe Jewish victims, every single person who demanded proof, but turned a blind eye to the visual evidence Hamas terrorists themselves provided, every single person who called the films and pictures and testimonies from countless Israelis "propaganda," every single person who justified it and claimed that "rape is resistance." They're all complicit. They all have to know they've helped make Jews everywhere in the world less safe.

Speaking of complicity, even though a UN report found credible evidence for the sexual crimes committed by Hamas on Oct 7 and against Israeli hostages since, the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has personally decided to leave Hamas out of the annual report on sexual violence in conflicts around the world. Israeli commentators expressed their belief that this was done, because had it been included, then the UN would have no choice but to finally recognize that Hamas is a terrorist organization. The UN is complicit. Guterres is complicit. Hold them accountable.

Speaking of the UN's known anti-Israel bias, what a surprise, their report on UNRWA, their own agency, claimed not to support the charges against it, though they did find that UNRWA has "some issues" maintaining its neutrality...

Just to make it clear, "staff publicly taking sides" refers to UNRWA employees being openly anti-Israel, antisemitic and pro anti-Jewish violence, and the "problematic content" in UNRWA textbooks is incitement to terrorism and educating Palestinian kids to be antisemitic. This alone constitutes more than "some issues with neutrality." But there's more. Out of the 12 Gaza UNRWA employees first identified by Israel as having participated in the Hamas massacre, at least three were killed inside Israel on Oct 7 itself, and at least one more was captured on film while helping to kidnap an Israeli young man's body from an Israeli kibbutz into Gaza using a vehicle with UN license plates. I'd say that's a bit more than "difficulties with neutrality". In fact, the UN itself implicitly recognized the evidence was damning, or it would not have fired nine of the twelve right away, and admit a tenth UN worker was dead following the invasion and attack on Israeli communities, while claiming they're still "clarifying" the identities of the other two killed employees who participated in the Hamas massacre. BTW, it's been about 3 months of the UN "clarifying" the identities of those other two dead employees (screenshot below is from the article published 2 days ago, link with same claim on "clarification" is from Jan 27).

UNRWA is complicit. There are other humanitarian aid NGOs, which can do better. Dismantle UNRWA. But we know the UN will not be dismantling the cash cow that this agency is, even though no other refugee group gets an equal treatment to that. At what point do we say out loud, that if more and more UNRWA employees are found to be complicit in a massacre or being embedded with Hamas, if Hamas terrorists have continuously used UNRWA infrastructure to store weapons and shoot at Israelis, if UNRWA was found to be providing a terrorist organization with internet and electricity, and if the UN can't hold its own agency accountable, then the UN is also complicit in UNRWA's collaboration with Hamas?

In Israel itself, as the biggest Jewish community in the world is celebrating Passover, attacks on Israeli Jews continue.

Two days ago, on the Eve of Passover, a combined terrorist attack took place in Jerusalem, in an ultraorthodox neighborhood, with two Palestinian terrorists driving their car into a group of visibly Jewish young people, then the attackers left their car and tried shooting at their victims, but the weapon thankfully malfunctioned. Three people were lightly wounded. (the vid below shows most of the attack, but not the graphic parts of the car hitting the young Jewish men)

Yestrday, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization Hezbollah launched three suicide drones at Israel's northern communities, along its Mediterranean shore. This attack comes on the heels of the news that out of 18 Israelis wounded in a previous Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli Arab Bedouin town, one has died from his injuries, after fighting for his life for 5 days. It's 27 years old Dor Zimel, an officer who was stationed in that town to protect it. Dor was set to get married next month, and he had proposed to his fiancee with a ring donated by a bereaved father (his son, 23 years old Addir Messika, was a jewelry designer, and the ring was one he designed before he was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on Oct 7). Dor's organs were donated and saved the lives of 7 people, including an injured soldier, who's also the father of a girl. May Dor and Addir's memory be a blessing.

And today, on the second day of Passover, an attempted stabbing attack was stopped before the Palestinian female terrorist managed to harm anyone. She was neutralized at the scene.

I'm sure all those who decried Israel having to continue its war against Hamas during Ramadan are being extra loud about this wave of anti-Jewish violence during Passover, which is actually just a partial list of the on going attacks on Israeli Jews during this holiday.

In other news, the preparations for the IDF's ground operation in Rafah have actually already started. Reports suggest 250,000 Palestinians who have come to the southern city as they left other war zones in Gaza, have already left Rafah, and that Israel has already started building encampments to house those it will evacuate from the city before the ground operation begins.

Trying to remember when have I ever seen an army building an entire camp city for the enemy's civilian population. I'm coming up blank.

This is Miri Gad Mesikka.

She lives in kibbutz Be'eri, together with her husband Eli and their 3 kids. On Oct 7, they locked themselves in the bomb shelter from the invading Hamas terrorists. They were in there for 12 hours, fighting for control of the bomb shelter's door, until the terrorists set their house on fire, and the Gad Messika family had to make an impossible choice: stay and maybe suffocate to death from the smoke (or worse if the fire got in), or jump from their second floor window, probably be injured and maybe be shot to death by the terrorists. Eventually, they chose to jump out. They all got injured, and one of her sons got his leg broken, but the terrorists didn't spot them, and this decision saved their lives. During the time they were locked inside the bomb shelter, Miri recounts how she would see some of her friends and neighbors not responding anymore, and she couldn't know why. She kept hoping it was because their phone batteries ran out. "Today I know some of them were being kidnapped, while others were being murdered. It was a massacre, happening in countless different spots at the same time." One of her friends told Miri, that her daughter, a baby who was less than one years old, was shot in the head right in front of her. Then the friend's husband was murdered as well, and despite being shot with a bullet in her lungs herself, the friend somehow managed to get herself and her two other kids away.

Never forget.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[the-olympics-olympics]

Weird Olympic Moments Tournament

To celebrate (?) the Paris 2024 Olympic Games starting in a few weeks, I thought I'd run another Olympic-themed poll tournament. This time, we're diving into history and getting to know some of the stranger, lesser-known stories of the Games.

Polls will run for a week, and the tournament should last until around early September if I'm doing my math right. The first polls will begin Monday, July 15th.

At the end, we'll award a gold, silver, and bronze to the top three.

After many hours on Wikipedia and the IOC website, here's the list of moments I came up with:

Horse vaulting

Pigeon racing

Sarajevo venues damaged in war

Mayor of Montreal says "The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby," then proceeds to host one of the most financially disastrous Games in history

George Eyser wins six medals after being run over by a train

Solo synchronized swimming

Crowd gets pooped on by 25,000 pigeons

Flame is taken to top of Mount Everest

Margaret Abbot dies without knowing she made history as the first US woman to win gold

Brazilian team has to sell coffee to afford the trip to Los Angeles

A teenager's "dumb idea" becomes Olympic tradition (athletes marching together in closing ceremony)

St. Louis experiments with "purposeful dehydration", denies water to marathon runners

Kanakuri Shizō takes 54 years to finish his race

Mt. Vesuvius moves the Olympics to London

They stop doing the Olympic salute for some reason

IOC President compares a terrorist attack to a vote to ban a racist country

The Olympics goes 88 years without letting women run marathons

Olympic flame transmitted via satellite

Northern Rhodesia declares independence during Olympics, changes name to Zambia

Vancouver 2010 cauldron malfunction

Montreal 1976 stadium is finally paid off in 2006

The curse of the Beijing 2008 mascots

Everest climbers get gold medals

Sochi snowflake malfunction

They hold the Olympics in 1906, then later say it doesn't count

Colorado kicks the Olympics out

Flame hidden from view after anti-gay law

Summer Olympics held during Winter

Haiti and Liechtenstein discover they had the same flag

Riot at the 1924 rugby match

McDonald's gives out more Big Macs than they expected

Chamonix 1924 retroactively named the Winter Olympics

Doves burned during cauldron lighting

Torchbearer takes olympic flame down a ski jump

Medals made of e-waste

Shooter aims for wrong target, loses gold

Olympic torch passed on International Space Station

Alien addresses crowd

Figure skating debuts at Summer Olympics

Olympics held on two different continents

Rio organizers lose key to stadium gate

Baron de Coubertin wins a gold medal under false identity

1960 winter games held in city named for an ethnic slur

Obstacle Swimming

North Korea considered to co-host 1988

Housing complex for American soldiers during the occupation of Japan becomes the Olympic village

Torch design changed mid-relay

Cauldron lit by flaming arrow

Last three seconds of basketball final replayed three times until results changed

St. Louis threatens to hold their own Olympics if they don't get named host city

Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat

Balloon racing

Delirious man carried over finish line by coaches, wins marathon

Summer Olympics held in November and December

Olympics postponed for COVID

Blue screen of death appears during opening ceremony

Marathon runner attacked by priest

Guy kicks referee in the face and (maybe) ends up on a stamp

Jet pack flies over stadium

Centennial games not awarded to a very confident Athens

LA 84 gets in trouble for commercializing the torch relay

Olympic flame relit with cigarette lighter

Rower stops for ducks

Nazi propaganda becomes Olympic tradition (torch relay)

Did I miss a great weird moment? Send it to me in an ask and I might do a round 2 or something!

I chose the moments based on my own personal bias (lol)

Heads up that there is one that involves the death of animals, but I will tag any polls with that #tw animal death

Please don't hesitate to let me know if you need anything else tagged, and how to tag it!

Also, a disclaimer that I'm tired and scatterbrained and I work full time, so if this gets a little disorganized I apologize. Shouldn't be too bad though.

Let the games begin, and whatnot

@tournament-announcer :)

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 2

Propaganda why Marinette Dupain-Cheng is insufferable:

She easily gets away with bad, stalkerish behavior, it always feels like she can ‘do no wrong’ unless the show wants us to pity her, and the show writers want us to think she is a quirky and socially awkward girl when throughout the series we see her be friends with basically everyone in Paris with many connections to high up places.

I get she has social anxiety but the way she goes about stalking Adrien is kind of the worst like she even has creep shots of him hanging in her room? That’s weird. I think Adrien’s going through enough without having to deal with the main character being his stalker lol. I know they’re (spoilers) at this point but in the beginning it was so sus

In the newest season, Marinette hides the fact that Hawkmoth was Adrien’s dad. This leads to the bastard getting a statue and honored as a hero after his death. Adrien now never gets to know the fact that his abusive and neglectful father was the one trying to kill him and is instead proud of him.

Her crush on Adrien is like a black hole for her character. Things she’s done because of it:

1) stolen property

2) ruined dates

3) humiliated other characters

4) has a chart of Adrien’s daily schedule for the next year in her room (this is stalking)

5) broke into his room and sniffed his pillow (also a crime)

6) sniffed, took the hair from, and tried to kiss what she thought was a wax statue of Adrien

7) convinced her parents to let her go to China. Why? Not because she wants to connect with her mother’s heritage, not even because she’s a budding fashion designer and Shanghai is considered a fashion hotspot. It’s because Adrien was there.

I started the show, watched one episode, and never tried again. I simply do not vibe with her.

shes annoyinng anf shes a stalker

I love fanon miraculous but by god she has got to stop obsessively stalking her crush and generally making a ton of other terrible decisions. I’d submit Adrien too but he’s more of a deuteragonist

More propaganda

Anti propaganda

Propaganda why Aelin Ashryver Galathynius is insufferable:

Your basic Mary Sue. Styled as the incredibly cool best-assassin in the land at only 18, she nevertheless is constantly snuck up upon, distracted by pretty boys, and possesses not an ounce of wit. In a competition between murderers and thieves to win a place as the King's Champion, she sees a bag of chocolates on her bed that she didn't put there and immediately starts eating it and gushing about how much she adores chocolate - nevermind that they just had a trial involving poison, which several of her competitors are adept at. She's always right, and other characters exist just to tell her how awesome and beautiful and wonderful she is. And then she turns out to be a super special magical fey princess!

I generally don't believe that a Mary Sue is a bad thing, but the only thing I remember about this book was how she had been in prison for years but was super young but was also still the most super-specialest assassin. And she kept reading when she should have been training or sleeping. Like, girl, this is not final exams where you can stay up all night and then roll into class in your pajamas and still squeak out a C. It's supposed to be life and death. Her character traits didn't make her relatable, they made her a moron

Heir to a kingdom plus turquoise eyes plus best assassin in the world plus protagonist centered morality

Anti propaganda

[shotofstress]

I have just seen the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The announcement of the usa as the next host of the Olympics was a tragedy, I'm not going to lie, and we went from a ceremony that spoke of the history of the games, the unity of nations and the celebration of sport, the arts and humanity's ability to live together to the yankee spectacle.

With the fascist cultist who thinks he can't die (and every one of his films is a celebration of fascism, usa paranoia and its anti-democratic intelligence services) carrying the flag of the games and throwing himself from a plane and landing in holywood, the world's biggest military and fascist propaganda machine. Next we move on to the beach where there is a concert of the band with the paedophile vocalist and a drum that looks like copper, the metal that when tried to be nationalised in South America usa made a coup and created a dictatorship, one of many they made here. Introducing Billie Elish, the young woman the gringo newspapers were counting down until she came of age, i.e. legal. We move on to Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dree who were censored, prevented from singing their songs with the original lyrics.

It's all reminiscent of a promotional video, an advertisement in the worst possible way, like a parody of itself, so usa.

We return to the solemnity of the closing in Paris, like going from the cable ad space to the film you were watching. The closing artist sings a song that was originally neither Frank Sinatra's nor usamerican, but as usual the gringos take things that are not theirs and pretend they are.

Usamerica is going to make propaganda, show its military, the holywood show, probably elon musk, zuckerberg, actors and directors (remember how holywood is the world of horror where beings like wenstein and many others more than known grow, gather and party), the monopoly and machinery of the evil mouse, all those sinister characters that have corrupted culture, arts, image, imagination and life. Their musicians, writers and actors created by their machinery. They go not to present culture but spectacle because the united states is a regime that despises its artists because they were and are indigenous, queer, communist, black, brown, Afro, Latino, Asian, Europeans, migrants from all countries, anti-fascist in one way or another, anti-war, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism. They cannot show their history because it is one of shame and imperialism. If they will do it, they will not, they will show a spectacle version of it, lacking the terrible parts and the revolutionary parts, devoid of sincerity, of truth, of meaning, of art and culture. Only spectacle.

And unlike France that kicked students and homeless people to other cities, usa will probably put them in jail or someone will go to kill them.

The first thing the us regime does is to put a white male fascist sectarian millionaire and censor a cultural artistic expression of two black men of proletarian origin. That says it all.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Billboard project

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 07, 2024

One of the things that came to light on Wednesday, in the paperwork the Justice Department unveiled to explain its seizure of 32 internet domains being used by Russian agents in foreign malign influence campaigns, was that the six right-wing U.S. influencers mentioned in the indictments of the Russian operatives are only the tip of the iceberg. 

Since at least 2022, three Russian companies working with the Kremlin have been trying to change foreign politics in a campaign they called “Doppelganger,” covertly spreading Russian government propaganda. “[F]irst and foremost,” notes from a meeting with Russian officials about targeting Germany read, “we need to discredit the USA, Great Britain, and NATO.” Through fake social media profiles, their operatives posed as Americans or other non-Russians, seeding public conversations with Russian propaganda.

In August 2023 they launched the “Good Old USA Project” to target swing-state residents, online gamers, American Jews, and “US citizens of Hispanic descent” to reelect Donald Trump. ​​"They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream,’” one of the propagandists wrote. “It is these sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.” Using targeted ads on Facebook, they could see how their material was landing and use bots and trolls to push their narrative in comment sections. 

“In order for this work to be effective, you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information,” the propagandists told their staff. “At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”

According to the documents, one of the three companies, Social Design Agency (SDA), monitors and collects information about media organizations and social media influencers. It collected a list of 1,900 “anti-influencers,” whose accounts posted material SDA workers thought operated against Russian interests. About 26% of those accounts were based in the U.S. 

SDA also identified as pro-Russian influencers more than 2,800 people in 81 countries operating on various social media platforms like X, Facebook, and Telegram. Those influencers included “television and radio hosts, politicians, bloggers, journalists, businessmen, professors, think-tank analysts, veterans, professors, and comedians.” About 21% of those influencers were in the U.S. 

YouTube took down the Tenet Media Channels associated with the Justice Department’s indictments, and last night, Tenet Media abruptly shut down. In The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last noted that the Tenet influencers maintain they were dupes, although they must have been aware that their paychecks were crazy high for the numbers of viewers they had. He asks if, knowing now that their gains are ill-gotten, they are going to give them to charity. 

Earlier this week, former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson hosted Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper on his X show, where Cooper not only suggested that the death of more than six million Jews was an accidental result of poor planning, but also argued that British prime minister Winston Churchill, who stood firm against the expansion of fascist Germany in World War II, was the true villain of the war.

Cooper’s argument puts him squarely on the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who insist that democracy undermines society. During the recent summer Olympics, Cooper posted on social media an image of Hitler in Paris alongside another of drag queens representing Greek gods at the Olympic opening ceremonies, an image some on the right thought made fun of the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples. “This may be putting it too crudely for some,” Cooper wrote, “but the picture [of Hitler in Paris] was infinitely preferable in virtually every way than the one on the right.” 

The idea that Churchill, not Hitler, is the villain of World War II means denying the fact of the Holocaust and defending the Nazis. It lands Carlson and Cooper in the same camp as those autocrats journalist Anne Applebaum notes are “making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world.” Elon Musk promoted the interview, saying it was “very interesting,” and “worth watching,” before the backlash made him delete his post. The video has been viewed nearly 30 million times. 

Carlson told Lauren Irwin of The Hill that the Biden administration is made up of “warmonger freaks” who have “used the Churchill myth to bring our country closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history.” Carlson is on a 16-day speaking tour, on which he will interview Trump allies, including Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr. 

Trump today continued his effort to undermine the democratic American legal system in a “news conference” of more than 45 minutes, in which he took no questions. Although Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts, decided today to delay sentencing until November 26 to avoid any appearance that the court was trying to affect the 2024 election, Trump nonetheless launched an attack on the U.S. legal system and suggested the lawsuits against him were election interference. 

He spoke after he and his legal team were in court today to try to overturn a jury’s conclusion that he had sexually assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll, a decision that brought his judgments in the two cases she brought to around $90 million. He began with an attack on what he said was a new “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax, and promised he had not “spoken to anybody from Russia in years.”

Aaron Rupar of Public Notice recorded what amounted to close to an hour of attacks on the American Justice Department and the laws of the country, and also on American women (he not only attacked Carroll, he brought up others of the roughly two dozen women who have accused him of sexual assault). He attempted to retry the Carroll case in the media, refuting the evidence the jury considered and suggesting that the photo of him and Carroll together was generated by AI, although it was published in 2019.

Attacking women was an interesting decision in light of the fact that he will need the votes of suburban women if he is to make up the ground he has lost to Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.

For her part, former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) appears to see this moment for what it is. Although a staunch Republican herself, she is urging conservative women to admit they’ve had enough. Referring to both Trump and Vance in a conversation sponsored by the Texas Tribune, she said: “This is my diplomatic way of saying it: They’re misogynistic pigs.” She assured listeners, quite accurately, that Trump “is not a conservative.” “Women around this country…we’ve had enough.” “These are not people that we can entrust with power again.” 

Her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, agreed that Trump “can never be trusted with power again” and announced today that he will be voting for Harris. “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” he said. Eighty-eight business leaders also endorsed Harris today, including James Murdoch, an heir to the Murdoch family media empire. Citing Harris’s “policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a sound business environment,” they said in a public letter, “the best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy” is by electing Harris president.​​

Meanwhile, at his event with Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel yesterday, Trump embraced the key element of Project 2025 that calls for a dictatorial leader to take over the U.S. That document maintains that “personnel is policy” and that the way to achieve all that the Christian nationalists want is to fire the nonpartisan civil servants currently in place and put their own people into office. Trump has tried hard to distance himself from Project 2025, but last night he said the way to run the government is to “get the right people. You put the right person and the right group of people at the heads of these massive agencies, you’re going to have tremendous success, and I know now the people, and I know them better than anybody would know them.”       

One of those people appears to be X owner Elon Musk, whom Trump has promised to put at the head of an “efficiency” commission to audit the U.S. government. 

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, then a candidate for the Senate, warned that the arguments against democracy and in favor of a few people dominating the rest were always the same. In his era, it was enslavers saying some people were better than others. But, he said, those were the same arguments “that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.” 

In our era, Indiana Jones said it best in The Last Crusade: “Nazis. I hate these guys.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[eelhound]

"Nearly half of the US population uses TikTok. It’s the most downloaded app in the country and the world. And last Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed its ban into law.

Members of Congress backing the anti-TikTok bill from both sides of the aisle have tried to emphasize that it’s 'not a ban' — it’s a forced sale. The 'ban' requires Chinese tech company ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to sell the app to a US-based company within twelve months or the app will be banned in the United States.

ByteDance has responded saying that it will refuse to sell, and that it will instead fight the ban in court. ByteDance believes it can win the court case, based on precedent from federal courts blocking an attempted ban in Montana in November 2023. Former president Donald Trump also tried to ban TikTok twice by executive order when he was in office; those efforts were struck down by the courts too.

Lawmakers are citing data privacy and national security as the primary concerns behind the ban. But others have been more explicit — they are worried about how the app is influencing Americans’ political views, particularly among young voters.

Discussion of the TikTok ban in Congress has been rife with red-baiting and anti-Chinese fearmongering. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, referred to TikTok as a 'Communist Party propaganda tool.' And Senator Pete Ricketts, a Nebraska Republican, said:

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas hashtags are generating fifty times the views on TikTok right now. . . . These videos have more reach than the top ten US news websites combined. This is not a coincidence. The Chinese Communist Party is doing this on purpose.

The senator went on to blame TikTok and the Chinese government for the student protests that started at Columbia University and have since spread to dozens of college campuses across the country on TikTok and the Chinese government.

There is no concrete evidence supporting the idea that political ideas shared on TikTok are more progressive or pro-Palestine than what you find on other platforms or that it skews more progressive than the overall population — with nearly 70 percent of voters now supporting a cease-fire in Gaza. It’s unclear how TikTok’s algorithm handles political content. But one of lawmakers’ greatest concerns is that the platform has offered a new avenue for people to virally spread political messages outside of traditional media.

This is not to say that TikTok doesn’t pose data-privacy concerns. But as Paris Marx writes, TikTok’s opaque data-privacy practices are not specific to TikTok or China. TikTok is a private company. Like all profit-driven social media companies, US- and Chinese-owned alike, there are genuine concerns over data usage — but the TikTok ban won’t fix those.

'The US government’s desire to ban TikTok instead of taking industry-wide action is a good indication that its campaign isn’t really about national security or data protection,' Marx points out, 'but something much deeper: namely the preservation of American economic and geopolitical hegemony.'

In this regard, the federal government sees a lot to gain from banning TikTok. Asserting control over highly profitable Chinese tech companies will help US companies like Meta maintain dominance in the social media space, an important consideration given the United States’ growing Great Power rivalry with China. The ban may also allow the US government tighter control over media narratives, particularly around Israel’s increasingly unpopular war on Gaza and government repression of protests.

I’m a content creator on TikTok, alongside millions of others. TikTok has allowed me to reach millions of people to share ideas about movements for social and economic justice. Recently, I’ve covered the wave of student protests calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and university endowment divestment from weapons manufacturers and other financial ties to Israeli apartheid by interviewing students on the ground in New York City. If TikTok is banned, it means shutting down my voice and the voices of many others who are loudly opposing our government’s support for Israel and spreading awareness of the growing protest movement.

It’s unclear if the ban will be upheld in court. And if the forced sale is upheld, it’s also unclear if twelve months will be enough for a sale to make it through the legal and financial red tape. In any case, it will be at least a year before we see any changes to the app and its availability in the United States.

If the TikTok ban is successful, though, it will serve as a major blow to free speech without actually protecting users’ data. It will mean restricting access to news and political ideas simply because the federal government wants to suppress the ideas that are being shared and popularized on the platform — like opposition to US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza."

- Caitlyn Clark, "The TikTok Ban Is an Egregious Assault on Free Speech." Jacobin, 29 April 2024.

[katerinaaqu]

Hi! I’m the anon who asked about Odysseus’ character changes and how you deal with them. Tysm for such a detailed and knowledgeable answer!

I’ve got another question if that’s alright. I’ve fallen in love with the complex and flawed but ultimately good Odysseus I read about in the Iliad and Odyssey. But when I started reading the other myths I kinda hated him lol (the myths themselves were good but Odysseus was…morally grey at best). I’m not one for liking villain-coded characters, complex or not. So I guess what I want to ask is would it be offensive to anyone if I decided to ignore certain myths and accept as “canon” per-say others? I know these myths are part of Greek culture and history so I just want to ensure I’m being respectful in my enjoyment of the characters

Thanks

My oh my thank you very much! Of course it is alright! I always love questions or comments to my fics and all. That is why I am here hehe.

Why would it be "offensive"? Honestly the only thing I would consider "offensive" is someone who uses the modern day adaptations to form "fandoms" about the Greek gods or myths as if the modern day is somehow "correcting" them or something apart from that as you can see from my previous answer I also do that when I write my stories.

Like I said before I should link the "anti-Odysseus wave" to the different wars or challenges faced during the time which called for war propaganda (or antiwar for that matter) so the idea of a guy using indirect methods didn't agree with the spirit of "noble war". Which was further enriched by popularity of guys like Eurypedes (pretty much like the overhype of things like Epic the Musical or Percy Jackson in modern day)

Some popular creators didn't particularly favor Odysseus methods, made him their anti-hero, got popular and so many other creators followed tye same spirit while Romans blasted it out of proportion due to their own propaganda against the guy that took their mythical city. Quite frankly even the ancient Greeks made choices among the versions they favored.

For example there is no doubt for most myths that Helen was at Troy. Homer says she willingly followed blinded by love to which later on Helen justifies that Aphrodite blinded her with passion so that Paris could have his new wife. Other accounts say she was abducted. Either way Helen herself was at Troy, no doubt about it. But Eurypedes wanted to justify Helen even further thus creating his play "Helen" to which Helen was never there, but her copy and that Helen was suffering from the unjust anger of the world plus the advances of the king of Egypt.

Even the ancient Greeks had "favorite versions" of the myth. I see no reason why not you too make the selection of your favorite versions and stick to them. I do too.

For instance the only other creator of antiquity so far that gives me somehow the same vibes (not as complete of course) as Homer is Sophocles. Many people pick their favorite material of mythology to enjoy. Quite frankly most homeric fans ignore for example Telegony and that is for obvious reasons. I am one or them. Telegony is not a continuation of Odyssey but rather a different tale that takes the Odyssey as a starting point. 😉

I hope that helps. Personally I get tired of people who only hear one version and claim it as the only truth (see for example Ovid and Medussa) but I just called that "ignorance" rather than "offensive" but I cannot see why someone would be ashamed that after a thorough research of the ancient sources they just settle more with those that resonate with them better.

I hope that makes sense.

[misfitwashere]

September 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 07, 2024

One of the things that came to light on Wednesday, in the paperwork the Justice Department unveiled to explain its seizure of 32 internet domains being used by Russian agents in foreign malign influence campaigns, was that the six right-wing U.S. influencers mentioned in the indictments of the Russian operatives are only the tip of the iceberg. 

Since at least 2022, three Russian companies working with the Kremlin have been trying to change foreign politics in a campaign they called “Doppelganger,” covertly spreading Russian government propaganda. “[F]irst and foremost,” notes from a meeting with Russian officials about targeting Germany read, “we need to discredit the USA, Great Britain, and NATO.” Through fake social media profiles, their operatives posed as Americans or other non-Russians, seeding public conversations with Russian propaganda.

In August 2023 they launched the “Good Old USA Project” to target swing-state residents, online gamers, American Jews, and “US citizens of Hispanic descent” to reelect Donald Trump. ​​"They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream,’” one of the propagandists wrote. “It is these sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.” Using targeted ads on Facebook, they could see how their material was landing and use bots and trolls to push their narrative in comment sections. 

“In order for this work to be effective, you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information,” the propagandists told their staff. “At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”

According to the documents, one of the three companies, Social Design Agency (SDA), monitors and collects information about media organizations and social media influencers. It collected a list of 1,900 “anti-influencers,” whose accounts posted material SDA workers thought operated against Russian interests. About 26% of those accounts were based in the U.S. 

SDA also identified as pro-Russian influencers more than 2,800 people in 81 countries operating on various social media platforms like X, Facebook, and Telegram. Those influencers included “television and radio hosts, politicians, bloggers, journalists, businessmen, professors, think-tank analysts, veterans, professors, and comedians.” About 21% of those influencers were in the U.S. 

YouTube took down the Tenet Media Channels associated with the Justice Department’s indictments, and last night, Tenet Media abruptly shut down. In The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last noted that the Tenet influencers maintain they were dupes, although they must have been aware that their paychecks were crazy high for the numbers of viewers they had. He asks if, knowing now that their gains are ill-gotten, they are going to give them to charity. 

Earlier this week, former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson hosted Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper on his X show, where Cooper not only suggested that the death of more than six million Jews was an accidental result of poor planning, but also argued that British prime minister Winston Churchill, who stood firm against the expansion of fascist Germany in World War II, was the true villain of the war.

Cooper’s argument puts him squarely on the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who insist that democracy undermines society. During the recent summer Olympics, Cooper posted on social media an image of Hitler in Paris alongside another of drag queens representing Greek gods at the Olympic opening ceremonies, an image some on the right thought made fun of the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples. “This may be putting it too crudely for some,” Cooper wrote, “but the picture [of Hitler in Paris] was infinitely preferable in virtually every way than the one on the right.” 

The idea that Churchill, not Hitler, is the villain of World War II means denying the fact of the Holocaust and defending the Nazis. It lands Carlson and Cooper in the same camp as those autocrats journalist Anne Applebaum notes are “making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world.” Elon Musk promoted the interview, saying it was “very interesting,” and “worth watching,” before the backlash made him delete his post. The video has been viewed nearly 30 million times. 

Carlson told Lauren Irwin of The Hill that the Biden administration is made up of “warmonger freaks” who have “used the Churchill myth to bring our country closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history.” Carlson is on a 16-day speaking tour, on which he will interview Trump allies, including Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr. 

Trump today continued his effort to undermine the democratic American legal system in a “news conference” of more than 45 minutes, in which he took no questions. Although Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts, decided today to delay sentencing until November 26 to avoid any appearance that the court was trying to affect the 2024 election, Trump nonetheless launched an attack on the U.S. legal system and suggested the lawsuits against him were election interference. 

He spoke after he and his legal team were in court today to try to overturn a jury’s conclusion that he had sexually assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll, a decision that brought his judgments in the two cases she brought to around $90 million. He began with an attack on what he said was a new “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax, and promised he had not “spoken to anybody from Russia in years.”

Aaron Rupar of Public Notice recorded what amounted to close to an hour of attacks on the American Justice Department and the laws of the country, and also on American women (he not only attacked Carroll, he brought up others of the roughly two dozen women who have accused him of sexual assault). He attempted to retry the Carroll case in the media, refuting the evidence the jury considered and suggesting that the photo of him and Carroll together was generated by AI, although it was published in 2019.

Attacking women was an interesting decision in light of the fact that he will need the votes of suburban women if he is to make up the ground he has lost to Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.

For her part, former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) appears to see this moment for what it is. Although a staunch Republican herself, she is urging conservative women to admit they’ve had enough. Referring to both Trump and Vance in a conversation sponsored by the Texas Tribune, she said: “This is my diplomatic way of saying it: They’re misogynistic pigs.” She assured listeners, quite accurately, that Trump “is not a conservative.” “Women around this country…we’ve had enough.” “These are not people that we can entrust with power again.” 

Her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, agreed that Trump “can never be trusted with power again” and announced today that he will be voting for Harris. “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” he said. Eighty-eight business leaders also endorsed Harris today, including James Murdoch, an heir to the Murdoch family media empire. Citing Harris’s “policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a sound business environment,” they said in a public letter, “the best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy” is by electing Harris president.​​

Meanwhile, at his event with Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel yesterday, Trump embraced the key element of Project 2025 that calls for a dictatorial leader to take over the U.S. That document maintains that “personnel is policy” and that the way to achieve all that the Christian nationalists want is to fire the nonpartisan civil servants currently in place and put their own people into office. Trump has tried hard to distance himself from Project 2025, but last night he said the way to run the government is to “get the right people. You put the right person and the right group of people at the heads of these massive agencies, you’re going to have tremendous success, and I know now the people, and I know them better than anybody would know them.”       

One of those people appears to be X owner Elon Musk, whom Trump has promised to put at the head of an “efficiency” commission to audit the U.S. government. 

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, then a candidate for the Senate, warned that the arguments against democracy and in favor of a few people dominating the rest were always the same. In his era, it was enslavers saying some people were better than others. But, he said, those were the same arguments “that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.” 

In our era, Indiana Jones said it best in The Last Crusade: “Nazis. I hate these guys.” 

—

[dailyanarchistposts]

A.5 What are some examples of “Anarchy in Action”?

A.5.7 The May-June Revolt in France, 1968

The May-June events in France placed anarchism back on the radical landscape after a period in which many people had written the movement off as dead. This revolt of ten million people grew from humble beginnings. Expelled by the university authorities of Nanterre in Paris for anti-Vietnam War activity, a group of anarchists (including Daniel Cohn-Bendit) promptly called a protest demonstration. The arrival of 80 police enraged many students, who quit their studies to join the battle and drive the police from the university.

Inspired by this support, the anarchists seized the administration building and held a mass debate. The occupation spread, Nanterre was surrounded by police, and the authorities closed the university down. The next day, the Nanterre students gathered at the Sorbonne University in the centre of Paris. Continual police pressure and the arrest of over 500 people caused anger to erupt into five hours of street fighting. The police even attacked passers-by with clubs and tear gas.

A total ban on demonstrations and the closure of the Sorbonne brought thousands of students out onto the streets. Increasing police violence provoked the building of the first barricades. Jean Jacques Lebel, a reporter, wrote that by 1 a.m., ”[l]iterally thousands helped build barricades… women, workers, bystanders, people in pyjamas, human chains to carry rocks, wood, iron.” An entire night of fighting left 350 police injured. On May 7th, a 50,000-strong protest march against the police was transformed into a day-long battle through the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter. Police tear gas was answered by molotov cocktails and the chant “Long Live the Paris Commune!”

By May 10th, continuing massive demonstrations forced the Education Minister to start negotiations. But in the streets, 60 barricades had appeared and young workers were joining the students. The trade unions condemned the police violence. Huge demonstrations throughout France culminated on May 13th with one million people on the streets of Paris.

Faced with this massive protest, the police left the Latin Quarter. Students seized the Sorbonne and created a mass assembly to spread the struggle. Occupations soon spread to every French University. From the Sorbonne came a flood of propaganda, leaflets, proclamations, telegrams, and posters. Slogans such as “Everything is Possible,” “Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible,” “Life without Dead Times,” and “It is Forbidden to Forbid” plastered the walls. “All Power to the Imagination” was on everyone’s lips. As Murray Bookchin pointed out, “the motive forces of revolution today… are not simply scarcity and material need, but also quality of everyday life … the attempt to gain control of one’s own destiny.” [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 166]

Many of the most famous slogans of those days originated from the Situationists. The Situationist International had been formed in 1957 by a small group of dissident radicals and artists. They had developed a highly sophisticated (if jargon riddled) and coherent analysis of modern capitalist society and how to supersede it with a new, freer one. Modern life, they argued, was mere survival rather than living, dominated by the economy of consumption in which everyone, everything, every emotion and relationship becomes a commodity. People were no longer simply alienated producers, they were also alienated consumers. They defined this kind of society as the “Spectacle.” Life itself had been stolen and so revolution meant recreating life. The area of revolutionary change was no longer just the workplace, but in everyday existence:

“People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.” [quoted by Clifford Harper, Anarchy: A Graphic Guide, p. 153]

Like many other groups whose politics influenced the Paris events, the situationists argued that “the workers’ councils are the only answer. Every other form of revolutionary struggle has ended up with the very opposite of what it was originally looking for.” [quoted by Clifford Harper, Op. Cit., p. 149] These councils would be self-managed and not be the means by which a “revolutionary” party would take power. Like the anarchists of Noire et Rouge and the libertarian socialists of Socialisme ou Barbarie, their support for a self-managed revolution from below had a massive influence in the May events and the ideas that inspired it.

On May 14th, the Sud-Aviation workers locked the management in its offices and occupied their factory. They were followed by the Cleon-Renault, Lockhead-Beauvais and Mucel-Orleans factories the next day. That night the National Theatre in Paris was seized to become a permanent assembly for mass debate. Next, France’s largest factory, Renault-Billancourt, was occupied. Often the decision to go on indefinite strike was taken by the workers without consulting union officials. By May 17th, a hundred Paris Factories were in the hands of their workers. The weekend of the 19th of May saw 122 factories occupied. By May 20th, the strike and occupations were general and involved six million people. Print workers said they did not wish to leave a monopoly of media coverage to TV and radio, and agreed to print newspapers as long as the press “carries out with objectivity the role of providing information which is its duty.” In some cases print-workers insisted on changes in headlines or articles before they would print the paper. This happened mostly with the right-wing papers such as ‘Le Figaro’ or ‘La Nation’.

With the Renault occupation, the Sorbonne occupiers immediately prepared to join the Renault strikers, and led by anarchist black and red banners, 4,000 students headed for the occupied factory. The state, bosses, unions and Communist Party were now faced with their greatest nightmare — a worker-student alliance. Ten thousand police reservists were called up and frantic union officials locked the factory gates. The Communist Party urged their members to crush the revolt. They united with the government and bosses to craft a series of reforms, but once they turned to the factories they were jeered out of them by the workers.

The struggle itself and the activity to spread it was organised by self-governing mass assemblies and co-ordinated by action committees. The strikes were often run by assemblies as well. As Murray Bookchin argues, the “hope [of the revolt] lay in the extension of self-management in all its forms — the general assemblies and their administrative forms, the action committees, the factory strike committees — to all areas of the economy, indeed to all areas of life itself.” Within the assemblies, “a fever of life gripped millions, a rewaking of senses that people never thought they possessed.” [Op. Cit., p. 168 and p. 167] It was not a workers’ strike or a student strike. It was a peoples’ strike that cut across almost all class lines.

On May 24th, anarchists organised a demonstration. Thirty thousand marched towards the Palace de la Bastille. The police had the Ministries protected, using the usual devices of tear gas and batons, but the Bourse (Stock Exchange) was left unprotected and a number of demonstrators set fire to it.

It was at this stage that some left-wing groups lost their nerve. The Trotskyist JCR turned people back into the Latin Quarter. Other groups such as UNEF and Parti Socialiste Unife (United Socialist Party) blocked the taking of the Ministries of Finance and Justice. Cohn-Bendit said of this incident “As for us, we failed to realise how easy it would have been to sweep all these nobodies away… .It is now clear that if, on 25 May, Paris had woken to find the most important Ministries occupied, Gaullism would have caved in at once… . “ Cohn-Bendit was forced into exile later that very night.

As the street demonstrations grew and occupations continued, the state prepared to use overwhelming means to stop the revolt. Secretly, top generals readied 20,000 loyal troops for use on Paris. Police occupied communications centres like TV stations and Post Offices. By Monday, May 27th, the Government had guaranteed an increase of 35% in the industrial minimum wage and an all round-wage increase of 10%. The leaders of the CGT organised a march of 500,000 workers through the streets of Paris two days later. Paris was covered in posters calling for a “Government of the People.” Unfortunately the majority still thought in terms of changing their rulers rather than taking control for themselves.

By June 5th most of the strikes were over and an air of what passes for normality within capitalism had rolled back over France. Any strikes which continued after this date were crushed in a military-style operation using armoured vehicles and guns. On June 7th, they made an assault on the Flins steelworks which started a four-day running battle which left one worker dead. Three days later, Renault strikers were gunned down by police, killing two. In isolation, those pockets of militancy stood no chance. On June 12th, demonstrations were banned, radical groups outlawed, and their members arrested. Under attack from all sides, with escalating state violence and trade union sell-outs, the General Strike and occupations crumbled.

So why did this revolt fail? Certainly not because “vanguard” Bolshevik parties were missing. It was infested with them. Fortunately, the traditional authoritarian left sects were isolated and outraged. Those involved in the revolt did not require a vanguard to tell them what to do, and the “workers’ vanguards” frantically ran after the movement trying to catch up with it and control it.

No, it was the lack of independent, self-managed confederal organisations to co-ordinate struggle which resulted in occupations being isolated from each other. So divided, they fell. In addition, Murray Bookchin argues that “an awareness among the workers that the factories had to be worked, not merely occupied or struck,” was missing. [Op. Cit., p. 182]

This awareness would have been encouraged by the existence of a strong anarchist movement before the revolt. The anti-authoritarian left, though very active, was too weak among striking workers, and so the idea of self-managed organisations and workers self-management was not widespread. However, the May-June revolt shows that events can change very rapidly. “Under the influence of the students,” noted libertarian socialist Maurice Brinton, “thousands began to query the whole principle of hierarchy … Within a matter of days the tremendous creative potentialities of the people suddenly erupted. The boldest and realistic ideas — and they are usually the same — were advocated, argued, applied. Language, rendered stale by decades of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, eviscerated by those who manipulate it for advertising purposes, reappeared as something new and fresh. People re-appropriated it in all its fullness. Magnificently apposite and poetic slogans emerged from the anonymous crowd.” [“Paris: May 1968”, For Workers’ Power, p. 253] The working class, fused by the energy and bravado of the students, raised demands that could not be catered for within the confines of the existing system. The General Strike displays with beautiful clarity the potential power that lies in the hands of the working class. The mass assemblies and occupations give an excellent, if short-lived, example of anarchy in action and how anarchist ideas can quickly spread and be applied in practice.

For more details of these events, see participants Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit’s Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative or Maurice Brinton’s eye-witness account “Paris: may 1968” (in his For Workers’ Power). Beneath the Paving Stones by edited Dark Star is a good anthology of situationist works relating to Paris 68 (it also contains Brinton’s essay).

[cycledbyadummy]

After the 2nd listen I love Paris the Musical. It's so much, it's so 80s, it's insane, Helen's cool in it because she's not just a pretty statue or a complacent paris-follower, she's yelling, she's like "this is stupid" and everything is so clearly Paris' fault. Like it's anti-Achaeans pro-Paris propaganda but there's keyboards and electric guitars and everyone's just kind of goofy, I love you rock musicals.

The whole Iliad takes place in a SINGLE song. Amazing.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Niger president defends French involvement in Sahel region - FT

Paris has been blamed for triggering the crisis in Libya, for failing to quell the jihadist threat and for backing unpopular leaders.[...]

On France, [Bazoum] said: “Its adversaries want to project an image of France as a neocolonialist power. Some people stick to that cliché, which is not true, but which is very useful for propaganda.”[...] Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, a senior Sahel analyst at the International Crisis Group, said Bazoum’s pro-western stance had received a mixed reception at home, where he had taken “quite a hit”. “The same anti-French discourse that has proliferated in Mali and Burkina Faso is also present in Niger,” he added.[...] Bazoum, whose administration was rattled by a coup attempt two days before his inauguration in 2021, said institutions were strengthening despite persistent problems of instability, poverty and hunger in some parts of the country. There was “zero chance” of a military takeover, he added.

20 May 23

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 3

Propaganda why Marinette Dupain-Cheng is insufferable:

She easily gets away with bad, stalkerish behavior, it always feels like she can ‘do no wrong’ unless the show wants us to pity her, and the show writers want us to think she is a quirky and socially awkward girl when throughout the series we see her be friends with basically everyone in Paris with many connections to high up places.

I get she has social anxiety but the way she goes about stalking Adrien is kind of the worst like she even has creep shots of him hanging in her room? That’s weird. I think Adrien’s going through enough without having to deal with the main character being his stalker lol. I know they’re (spoilers) at this point but in the beginning it was so sus

In the newest season, Marinette hides the fact that Hawkmoth was Adrien’s dad. This leads to the bastard getting a statue and honored as a hero after his death. Adrien now never gets to know the fact that his abusive and neglectful father was the one trying to kill him and is instead proud of him.

Her crush on Adrien is like a black hole for her character. Things she’s done because of it:

1) stolen property

2) ruined dates

3) humiliated other characters

4) has a chart of Adrien’s daily schedule for the next year in her room (this is stalking)

5) broke into his room and sniffed his pillow (also a crime)

6) sniffed, took the hair from, and tried to kiss what she thought was a wax statue of Adrien

7) convinced her parents to let her go to China. Why? Not because she wants to connect with her mother’s heritage, not even because she’s a budding fashion designer and Shanghai is considered a fashion hotspot. It’s because Adrien was there.

I started the show, watched one episode, and never tried again. I simply do not vibe with her.

shes annoyinng anf shes a stalker

I love fanon miraculous but by god she has got to stop obsessively stalking her crush and generally making a ton of other terrible decisions. I’d submit Adrien too but he’s more of a deuteragonist

More propaganda

Anti propaganda

Propaganda why Aelin Ashryver Galathynius is insufferable:

Your basic Mary Sue. Styled as the incredibly cool best-assassin in the land at only 18, she nevertheless is constantly snuck up upon, distracted by pretty boys, and possesses not an ounce of wit. In a competition between murderers and thieves to win a place as the King's Champion, she sees a bag of chocolates on her bed that she didn't put there and immediately starts eating it and gushing about how much she adores chocolate - nevermind that they just had a trial involving poison, which several of her competitors are adept at. She's always right, and other characters exist just to tell her how awesome and beautiful and wonderful she is. And then she turns out to be a super special magical fey princess!

I generally don't believe that a Mary Sue is a bad thing, but the only thing I remember about this book was how she had been in prison for years but was super young but was also still the most super-specialest assassin. And she kept reading when she should have been training or sleeping. Like, girl, this is not final exams where you can stay up all night and then roll into class in your pajamas and still squeak out a C. It's supposed to be life and death. Her character traits didn't make her relatable, they made her a moron

Heir to a kingdom plus turquoise eyes plus best assassin in the world plus protagonist centered morality

Anti propaganda

Propaganda why Dean Winchester is insufferable:

Really mean to Cas (called him a child, zero respect for him, calls him family and casts him out when the angels are looking for him), and an absolute dick to Jack (threatening to kill him CONSTANTLY)

>Was a misogynist (loved to call women skanks, bitches, hoes)

>Used gay as an insult multiple time during the show's run (idc if he's gay an homophobic, that's still insulting)

>Beat up his brother for being possessed

>Beat up his brother for losing his soul (not his brother's fault)

>Used dubious consent to get his brother possessed in a different unrelated possession incident after possession was being used (badly...this is supernatural after all) as a metaphor for SA

>Threatened to murder his brother when he was hallucinating (yay we aren't ableist)

>Locked a child up in a box

>Threatened to kill the child he locked up in a box

>Made a creepy, sexual comment about a barely-legal high school girl

>Got the woman and kid he was living with memory-wiped

misogynistic scumbag. theres also a few different times that dean finds teenagers sexy with the most recent and prominent example that i can recall being the scooby doo crossover episode in season 13 where hes super into daphne who in the version they chose for the episode is 15-16 and is interacting with her as if shes a real person cause they got magicked into the episode. he treats everyone around him like shit and the only time the narrative agrees that thats a bad thing is when he has the mark of cain put on him and hes acting no differently than he does usually its just now acknowledged that hes treating others like shit. ive been rewatching the show for shits and giggles with a friend and wow he really does not treat anyone well but i wanna focus on how he treats sam for a second cause dude's hobby seems to be ignoring what his brother wants and lying to sam about doing stuff that directly concerns him the demon blood and souless things are reasonable cause those were both Bad for sam but theyre still part of a wider pattern and the most prominent example of this being when dean tricks sam into letting gadreel possess him and actually gaslights sam about it with the whole ordeal ending when its revealed gadreel lied about who he was and while possessing sam murders a friend of theirs. his voice is just also stupid as fuck im sorry this is just petty but he just sounds like hes trying so hard to be gruff n intimidating but he just sounds like a kid pretending to be batman

Dean’s list of sins is crazy long because of how long the show ran, but the key thing for me is that post-locking Sam in the bunker (season 4 I think?), I just can’t enjoy their relationship anymore. I normally love their sibling dynamic, but Dean’s ultimate worst past-the-point-of-no-return moment for me was demonizing (pun intended) his little brother for being “addicted” to demon blood, which only happened because of a series of events that were either Dean’s or someone else’s fault, not Sam’s. I also really dislike how the fandom treats Dean like this angel (pun intended) who has done no wrong and even tries to justify the MULTIPLE times he’s beaten up and otherwise abused his little brother. Canon Dean is like the polar opposite of fanon Dean: he’s homophobic and racist (jokes about a Black man being sexually assaulted in prison), misogynistic (take a shot every time he calls a woman a slur and you’ll die of alcohol poisoning), and abusive.

[whileiamdying]

Iranian Filmmakers Face Fight or Flight Amid Political Turmoil

By Nick Vivarelli

Credit: Les Films d'Ici/Berlinale

The wave of protests sparked across Iran by the death of Mahsa Amini by Iranian morality police in September came amid a banner year for Iranian cinema. 

But as 2023 kicks off, more than 500 people who have protested her death and called for justice have been killed while prominent members of the Iranian film industry were either arrested, put on trial or banned from making movies. The result being that the country’s cinematic community has largely ground to a halt. 

Which raises the question: unless something changes, how many films actually shot in Iran will be surfacing on the international festival circuit going forward?  

In 2022, Iran-based directors landed slots in all major international film festivals and won major awards. Revered auteur Jafar Panahi took the Venice Special Jury Prize for “No Bears” and Houman Seyyedi’s tragicomedy “World War III,” which was Iran’s candidate for the international Oscar, scooped two statuettes on the Lido. 

But 2023 is kicking off with only films by Iranian diaspora directors launching on the fest circuit. Case in point: native New Yorker Maryam Keshavarz’s “The Persian Version,” which bowed at Sundance. 

And the widening divide between Iran’s expat directors and Iranian filmmakers living in the country is stark at the Berlinale. 

Berlin’s Panorama section, which is titled “Films as Tools of Resistance,” is opening with Paris-based Sepideh Farsi’s feature “The Siren” which provides a timely take on the Iran-Iraq war. Incidentally, the section also features a doc by Indian director Sreemoyee Singh titled “And, Towards Happy Alleys,” which is about Panahi, who was recently released from Tehran’s Evin penitentiary after spending seven months behind bars on charges of “anti-government propaganda.”   

But the only film in this year’s Berlin selection that is by an Iran-based director is Negin Ahmadi’s doc “Dream’s Gate” which depicts an all-female Kurdish militia in Northern Syria.  

Berlin’s artistic director Carlo Chatrian says this year he actually received more submissions from Iran than ever before. But the fest’s selection committee was leery of Iranian films, many of which came from companies affiliated with the government. Why? “Because for them it’s a statement saying: ‘OK, this is not true what people abroad are saying about us,’” he said.  

Chatrian added that “at times films [from Iran] that from the outside look independent are not fully independent,” so they can still be seen as a form of government propaganda. 

In solidarity with the protests sparked by Amini’s death, the Berlinale has banned Iranian government film industry entities such as the Farabi Cinema Foundation, Iran’s national film promotion outfit which has been attending Berlin’s European Film Market with a stand for years.  

And on Feb. 18 there will be an event on the Berlinale Palast red carpet to shine a spotlight on the fest’s position against Iran’s repressive regime.  

Berlin’s executive director Mariëtte Rissenbeek pointed out that it’s bound to be more difficult these days for filmmakers in Iran, most of whom are anti-government, to make films. “They are for freedom of expression, which is exactly what the Iranian state is trying to fight right now,” she said. 

That, of course, is indeed the case.  

“Iranian cinema is now under attack in Iran,” noted “World War III” helmer Seyyedi, in an email interview from Tehran. “As a middle-aged man who is deeply involved with the present problems, I have no idea if I will really be able to start making another movie in future. We will have to wait and see what happens.” 

According to Mohammad Attebbai, head of Tehran-based sales company Iranian Independents, at the moment “Iran’s nearly 50% inflation and its severe censorship codes dissuade anyone from investing in a movie.” 

Attebbai added, “There are lots of filmmakers who, like many others in the country, believe it is impossible to keep living in Iran and are trying to immigrate.  

“They simply cannot tolerate the situation any longer, with censorship getting much worse and film production slowing down dramatically,” he said.  

Most artists at present are banned from travel outside Iran.   

Significantly, two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi, Iran’s best-known director, is currently working on his new film in Los Angeles and Europe. Farhadi was at the Zurich Film Festival when protests following the death of Amini erupted. He voiced support for the protests and has returned to Iran since. 

As an Iranian diaspora director, Paris-based Farsi said she now feels a greater responsibility “to carry on the flag of making films that are relevant and have to do with Iran, though maybe not directly.”  

“I don’t know how ‘The Siren’ will travel,” she pointed out. “But for sure I would really love people in Iran to see it. 

“The end of the film has hope, and I really would like them to feel it as glow of sun for the near future of Iran. Because I’m really hoping that we will reach a victory soon.”