#but we’ve all seen it. leftists who try to out-woke one another

[thebleeding-heart]

I have to laugh when people who live in cities tell me it’s too hard to go vegan. You think I live within an hour’s drive of a Whole Foods? A Trader Joe’s perhaps? A place with vegan takeout that isn’t just the one tofu dish from the local Chinese restaurant? I don’t. But I make do with what I have because the alternative is murder.

I know many people struggle trying to go vegan for various reasons, since we are all in such different circumstances, and I respect the struggle. I won’t say going vegan is easy, because many times it’s not. We’re just asking you to care. To take some time out of your life to do the research and align your actions with your beliefs as much as possible. Just give an honest effort. It’s all any vegans are asking you to do. Complaining online about how you (or more often, others) “can’t go vegan” (meaning you aren’t even aware of the definition) isn’t activism. And if for some reason you must eat meat to survive, why in the goddamn hell would you scream at vegans for asking others not to? If you gave a shit about animals you would advocate for the same.

Changing our consumer habits certainly won’t destroy capitalism. It won’t even really dent it. But why wouldn’t we at least make an attempt to reduce the harm we cause? Eating dead bodies every day is one of the most obvious manifestations of violence to normalize. How will we ever free ourselves when our entire culture normalizes slaughtering others and using them as commodities because they are different from us? How can we destroy all oppression when the very basis of oppression dominates our everyday lives?

[inqilabi]

hope youre doing well, and wishing you peace 🌸 i wanted to hear your opinion on this pls because i think youre one of the smartest, most eloquent women on "radblr" and i dont mean this in a parasocial way bc i know i don't know you, but i do look up to you ... what do you think is to be done abt this western queer nonsense? how are we going to get out of this? do you think people will start to wake up, or are we going to be stuck with it getting worse and worse? its gotten to such a ridiculous level. i dont know anymore how feminism or hell rationality is supposed to exist when its becoming the dominant idea among liberals/leftists that youre a nazi for knowing bio sex exists or for saying i shouldnt be forced to suck dick as a lesbian. going so far as to change medical books and terminology concernes me greately. ive been in the west for a decade, ive seen trans ideology and choice feminism rise before my very eyes, and im still shocked at the level its gotten to. it feels a bit like allah is playing some practical joke on us, like this many otherwise "woke" ppl cant possibly lack critical thinking so hard and be so indoctrinated. and while it brings me comfort that radical-like feminism is the norm around the world and this queer theory isnt that prominent back home, i does freak me out that i see it being imported into the non-western world too.... it scares me to see this movement that is so incredibly sexist and homophobic keep growing. it scares me that "liberals" "leftists" "progressives" are selling all this shit as liberating and progressive when its some of the most regressive stuff ive ever seen.... i dont know how to have much hope or see a way out when even the libs&leftists have become such a big part of the problem

Yea actually the ngofication & importation of this non-sense backhome concerns me because I would have liked to see a native lesbian & gay liberation develop. This liberal NGO supported imperial BS you see backhome is only in the liberal urban city centres anyway.

Imo unfortunately in the west we’re going to have a large number of destransitioners. And this will be the internal checkpoint to bring us back to so,e level headedness. Because there’s a lot of permanent harm being done to a lot of children who obviously do not fully understand the life long consequences of the hormones and how it makes them an eternal lifelong medical patient. So in time, may be next 5-10 years I anticipate a large pushback to the liberal non-sense we’ve seen since 2010.

I think in the GS, we’re not going to see this stuff catch on. Because most of the GS communities already have gender variant communities that are not medicalized. The fafafine for instance think the western trans id is ridiculous, to them it is a weird concept to try to transition to be accepted as another sex. Because to them, you can’t change sex. For better or for worse, the third gender communities back home have an actual community role etc. which was actually afaik their roles and support systems were degraded after colonialism. But all this to say, many third genders have a social role and are accepted, and do not see themselves as women.

[levyfiles]

not sure if this is really that relevant but do you have any thoughts re: one of watcher's investors being the b*ba guys (who are steven's friends but have been consistently dragged by AsAm activists over the years for being anti-poor/anti-black)? i realize this is contentious bc we simply Dont Know what the business side of things is & its unfair to judge sth we cant see...but this fiasco just reminded me of it again orz. thanks for all the nuanced discussion today btw! hope ur holding up ok

it is contentious but it’s still relevant in the sense of what an allyship from someone active in the Asian American activism front means. I grew up in a mostly Asian household with family members and step family members in the Asian community and when I say there is a Lot of anti-blackness rampant in different Asian cultures that is cultivated in both appropriation and in active participation in hate speech. A lot of it used to go unchecked and in some very vocal public figures, there is a tendency to lean into respectability politics. 

Now of course in the wake of the recent news about the Boba Guys and the way the news covered it. I think the paragraph in the article about it that stood out was this 

Literally four months ago, black voices weren’t being heard and while some people will act like it’s a brand new thing to be conscious of the way we speak of black people in the work place only because of BLM finally gaining tractions in circles outside the black community; now that it’s gone corporate, now that it is no longer financially lucrative to not speak out in support of BLM, every company that does is getting scrutinized to make sure this isn’t just lip service, so I will be holistically unsurprised every time a company has an article like this released about them and I once again, wanna press people to be serious about where they stand. I get what it is to be queer, to be in the LGBTQ community and feel unsafe around neutral people, but I also will tell you guys that if you knew what it is to be black, to watch creators and the regular ass companies like this just breeze through systemic issues in their own staffing because it has no impact on them until suddenly the tide turns and it’s hurting their money. 

The rest of my take under the cut

As a mixed black woman, this doesn’t mean crap to me either way. Many non black creators and companies are experiencing an existential whiplash and a period of growing pains as they discover they aren’t as hearty and woke as they thought. We’re watching a learning curve so I’m in a state of observation and a lot of compassion while people are trying versus people who don’t give a fuck. The ones who don’t give a fuck are the one who are my problem.

I’m just being real with you guys. Don’t just say you’re hurt by a shitty allyship and wait around for allies to do the most. Keep them accountable but focusing your whole energy and ire on getting your apology your way specifically when it’s not gonna change shit, when shit like this can happen casually and no one is required to do anything except post this

To loop this around and make this relevant to yesterday’s discussion, I have some more thoughts on the matter directed more at the people who are still posting anti-Steven content in the tag and on twitter.

The person who can look at Steven’s mention of hypothetical friends (who we don’t even know!!)--which he amended at this point in his statement --and reject an opportunity for us as a community to examine what the leftist echo chamber sometimes makes us do and say in regards to changing the minds of people and turning the tide in our direction and it says a lot about that person that they want to derail and call Steven racist and homophobic and halt the conversation altogether. Do you want a lip service apology or do you want to keep the channels of discussion open? Are you more satisfied bullying and meme-ing this person you’ve put on a pedestal expecting them to self-flaggellate in front of you so you can feel you made a change? Is this worth all of it? Where is the bigger conversation leading because you’re stuck in your personal feelings about it? 

Do you genuinely believe Steven isn’t an ally to his friends who are in the LGBTQ community? Do you not think they saw this shit and asked him about it? Do you think you personally are the only people he’s met who would be stung by this? And here’s another quesiton. Can you really be so far up your own ass that you don’t notice that their demographic is mostly people in the queer community and a Lot of people of colour and a lot of them are a lot older than you despite the fact Watcher seems to think their fanbase is only kids and we’ve worked through acitivism; we’ve seen failures and fuckups and we work to make the best of an ugly situation. 

[neurotichunter]

Yes, I don't read the news anymore. Yes, i don't give a fuck anymore. I know the system is shit as fuck. I have been saying this for years and years. I have tried to educate ppl on the idea of real anarchism (not the one on TV), I've tried to tell them how capitalism is bad, I have tried to convince them that we need a big change and that it starts with every little single gesture. I have watched my politically active (former) friends rip each other apart in endless running battles over some minor shit, e.g. "is 'fuck yourself' politically correct". I have tried to tell ppl that political activism from the left needs to be more "ppl friendly" - leftists are seen as the enemy not only by the state, but first and foremost by society. We can be radical when the revolution is over, but we will have to fight our own ppl if we want a revolution that makes it look like as if we wanted to take something away from "normal" ppl. As long as the state has the power to kill ppl, we need to be smarter than the state. Yes, violence is the answer, but it has to be used wisely. Read books by Gustav Landauer and such, you'll learn a lot about "Eigenverantwortung" (to act in a self-responsible manner) and "Fremdverantwortung" (to be responsible towards others).

Long story short, I'm tired. I'm tired of ppl fighting over pronouns, over whether or not ppl belong in any community, over the tiniest bullshit instead of just leaving ppl be and worry abt the bigger picture. Nobody can make assumptions about things like gender, culture, society and so on IN GENERAL. The general basis must be: Don't be an asshole, let ppl live, do no harm. Everything else must be dealt with in the tiny spaces problems occur. You're running a safe space of any kind for women*? You make the rules for only this space, not in general. In your space there are no transwomen allowed bc you decided so to avoid triggers for cis-women rape victims bc you have your reasons and made them clear? Great. Do that. It is your right to do so. BUT PLEASE DON'T GO ON THE INTERNET OR ELSEWHERE AND BE A TERF! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??? YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE WHAT OTHER PPL THINK. If there are transwomen in your community who want to join - talk to them. Figure something out. Resolve problems where they occur!! Use the internet to educate ppl who generalize. Nobody gets to do that.

Racism in your community? Do something! Use the internet? Great! BUT PLEASE DON'T ASSUME EVERY WHITE PERSON IS CONSTANTLY RACIST. THAT'S A GENERALIZATION AND JUST NOT TRUE. In Europe, we had Nazis since the late 1900s. And we have fraught them ever since. Not only in Germany, but in Italy, Spain, etc. as well. We dealt with our history. Not always in a good way, but at least we tried. I have been on marches against the NPD in Germany when I was as young as 15 or so. We skipped school to go to demonstrations. I am tired of being called a racist by a Tumblr community which can't look past the boarders of their own country. Dear ppl from the USA, there is a world out there! And where we're already at it, in Europe we've had an Antifa-movement for decades, it is deeply rooted in our history. Nice of you to discover this now, but please, don't try to educate us abt our own movement. And also, anarchism is not something you recently invented. Just so you know. I'M NOT SAYING, EVERY PERSON FROM THE US THINKS LIKE THAT, I'M NOT GENERALIZING, BUT THE ONES I'M TALKING ABT WILL KNOW.

Also, I'm sick and tired of leftists of all kinds, may they be Antifa, activists, idc, telling me I'm not enough - not radical enough, not punk enough, not woke enough, not feminist enough, not idk what else enough. That is the reason I'm not in any political motivated groups anymore bc they are as restrictive and narrow minded as the ppl they're working against. If you don't take in any ally, you will not succeed in the revolutionary plans you have, bc, like I said earlier, you will always fight against your own ppl.

I am just sick and tired. I know that how I see the world politically and in general is the "right" way (as in not racist, not sexist, and so on so forth), but I will not continue to be told otherwise just bc I say: we have the same goal, I just think there is another way to get there. The path might be different, but that doesn't mean it is a better one. We just need to go many ways to get to where we want to go.

I can't tell you how done I am. The amount of done-ness is amazing. I can't take any more bullshit.

I am tired of fighting. I am tired of being accused. I am tired of having to defend myself against "my own ppl". I will fight every racist, sexist, etc. person to the last bit, but I am tired of wanting the right thing and still being excluded.

I'm done. I will lay my weary head to rest now.

(I will not discuss anything written here. You can hate me for that. I don't care. This is my personal opinion, resulting from my personal experiences. I am very disappointed of how certain ppl treated me, and this is just a sweeping blow in any and all directions. I don't mean any specific person, it is nothing personal, except if you're a terf, a racist, or in any other way an asshole.)

[shmreduplication]

semi-coherent thoughts about leftist antisemitism rn

anyway it’s so frustrating when like............................Jews are everyone’s favorite Woke White Person, as long as their Jewishness is being ignored ofc

Leonard Nimoy, Carrie Fisher, RBG, Jack Kirby, Bernie Sanders, etc, etc, etc, etc

there’s a post going around w/tweets from white politicians condemning Charlottesville and half the politicians are Jewish and the caption is something like “these white guys get it!”, and the OP blocked people who pointed out that ofc the JEWISH politicians would condemn NAZIS

and then Love Life of an Asian Guy posts this rant about ‘I won’t speak up for WHITE Jews because when have they ever done something for anybody but themselves?  look at these WHITE JEWS who are RACIST *screenshot of ScarJo, Shia Lebouff, Lena Dunham (who I literally didn’t know was Jewish and tbh I’m VERY DOUBTFUL that she is but I’m not looking it up to protect myself from having to think about her)*

and the Democratic Socialists of America embrace BDS even tho a founder was a zionist Jew, and Chicago D*ke March bans ‘zionist’ symbols (in this case zionist=Jewish) even tho one of their founders was a zionist Jew.  They kicked out an Iranian Jewish woman, and on their instagram they posted about drinking white zionist tears or some shit like that.  We’re not Jewish when you like us, and white when you hate us

OBVIOUSLY YOU DON’T THINK JEWS HAVE DONE ANYTHING FOR ANY OTHER MINORITY BECAUSE YOU KEEP ERASING US WHEN WE DO

Rabbi Heschel was literally omitted from the movie Salem even tho he was on the front lines with Dr. MLK Jr. 

I’ve seen a massive increase in debates about whether Jews are white, both in Jewish circles and out of them.  But that debate is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy less important than the fact that A LOT OF FORMS OF ANTISEMITISM ARE IDENTICAL TO FORMS OF RACISM.  and literally every time I’ve ever pointed that out to a goy, they’ve been like ‘hmmm, that’s so true but I’ve never thought of it that way’.  lol wow it’s almost like goys never fucking think about antisemitism ever.  the only point of asking if Jews are white is to determine if we need defending, but we DO so the question is not even worth asking at all.  Like, blah blah blah it’s interesting to consider it in different places thru-out history and how times have changed blah blah blah.  But that fucking poem of “First they came for [a group that wasn’t Jews], and I said nothing because they weren’t coming for me”  THEY ARE LITERALLY COMING FOR JEWS NOW AND SHOUTING LAST STOP AUSCHWITZ AND YOU ARE SAYING NOTHING BECAUSE JEWS ARE WHITE AND YOU THINK WE’VE NEVER DONE ANYTHING FOR ANY OTHER GROUP EVER BECAUSE YOU KEEP ERASING OUR CONTRIBUTIONS BECAUSE YOU’RE AN ANTISEMITE

anyway lets consider a world where all racism has been eliminated, but antisemitism hasn’t been.  You think hatred of our large noses won’t be backwards applied to hatred of large noses on POC?  You think hatred of our wild hair won’t be backwards applied to POC?  College admissions essays+listing your extracurriculars has *already* shifted from being a form of antisemitism to being a form of anti-Asian racism

WE EXIST AND WE ARE IN DANGER AND I’M SCARED AND HOW CAN I BE FOR MYSELF AND FOR OTHER PEOPLE WHEN IF FEELS LIKE NO ONE IS FOR ME

and like if you have a problem with Jews saying that antisemitism exists then you are an antisemite!  and if goyim fucking acknowledged antisemitism then Jews wouldn’t have to constantly be saying ‘hey antisemitism exists’, so like....this is another on a long list of problems that goyim create and when Jews try to fix it then Jews get blamed for it

if you only listen to Jews when we’re afraid for our lives, like fucking obviously you’re gonna hear a lot of us talking about the danger we’re in and less about problems that we don’t face, but that’s because of fucking maszlo’s hierarchy of needs!

[glimpseofamemory]

Persona 5 as antifascist political allegory

Tremendous Persona 5 end-game spoilers follow. Like, all kinds of spoilers for everything.

Friends, Persona 5 has some politics. I wrote a bunch of words about them for another site! But I thought I’d edit that post up a bit and post it here, too, because I suspect many others will find it extremely relevant. The long and short of it is, the entire last third or so of the game is essentially a leftist political allegory for the rise of fascism in Japan (and even abroad), and a call to action for us to rise against it. I’ll hide the Big Stuff past break.

Shido's relevance to this allegory is obvious, as a nationalist and populist right-winger promising to #MakeJapanGreatAgain. His whole story is a pretty direct jab at political corruption in Japan, and more broadly, the dangerous rise of “populism” around the world. Everyone loves Shido because he says he’s gonna fix everything and make Japan the strongest, most beautiful country in the world! He’s also a rapist and a murderer who’s really only interested in himself, but he sure knows how to speak to a crowd. The whole metaphor of a cruise ship of the wealthy and elite floating carelessly over the sunken ruins of the rest of the country is both extremely on the nose and extremely apt for what’s been going on in the world lately. But of course, taking down Shido doesn’t even really solve the problem. The people around him are corrupt, too! And they know how to play the media to downplay his confession and discredit the Phantom Thieves, how to control the narrative to make him look like a martyr, and how to push their agenda through anyway. Boy, all this hits a little close to home, doesn’t it? Anyway, time to go change the heart of society itself, because a full-on democratic revolution is gonna be the only way to change this. So, the Prison of Regression at the bottom of Mementos. The metaphor here is also fairly direct: society is afraid of change. The prisoners - us! the people of society! - allow themselves to remain "captive" because they believe that they will get what they want in life as long as they keep their heads down and don't try to challenge the status quo. Change is scary. The status quo is comfortable. Why bother going against the System, dude? The System always wins anyway. The Holy Grail is that status quo. The grail of legend is claimed to grant you immortality, or to heal all your wounds, or any number of miraculous things if you are to drink from it, fitting with that previous metaphor of people putting up with the status quo to get what they want out of their lives. However, the Grail is also sucking the life force out of all the prisoners. The status quo survives both off of our complacency - our willingness to let ourselves stay prisoner - and off draining us so dry we don’t have the energy to fight back. It’s hard to find the time or effort to fight the power when you’re barely making it by flipping patties at Big Bang Burger, folks. The game says that Yaldabaoth/The Holy Grail (they are the same being) is the Treasure of Mementos, and that it used to be just that - a Treasure. But society grew more and more corrupt, and our desire for “comfort” and “safety” grew so distorted and fucked up that The Grail became basically a god. I think some people, particularly those new to the series, interpret the way the game refers to Yaldabaoth as a “god” as if it were a god as we think of them - some higher plane of existence. In Persona lore, though, they’re really more like extremely powerful Shadows formed by the collective will of people. In this case, people became so dependent on the status quo that their collective wish for a world where they can just depend on the System and not think for themselves manifested into an extremely powerful Shadow, Yaldabaoth. Yaldabaoth (unsubtle metaphor for fascism that he is) at some point decided, hey, I think humanity might just be happier if they just shut the fuck up and stopped thinking for themselves and did whatever I tell them to. After all, he was formed by the collective wish of people who’d given up on going against all the problems in the world and just wanted to leave a peaceful life under the current order. But Yaldabaoth wants to be a “fair” god, so he goes up to Igor like, let’s play a game. Let’s give these two kids Personas and see what happens. Akechi will represent the current order (as he goes around murdering people in the Metaverse to help Shido and those in power), and Joker will represent the hope for people to change (as he uses his Metaverse power to help the weak and suffering). j/k, fuck that, I’m gonna kidnap Igor and hijack the Velvet Room and have Joker murdered if he’s too successful. Fascists don’t actually care about playing fair, it turns out! So, anyway, Yaldabaoth/The Grail decides to subplant the Metaverse into the real world, where Mementos and Tokyo become one. Giant ribs and bones and spines start bursting from the ground, blood starts raining from the sky, and no one even gives a fuck. I’ve seen multiple people saying the game doesn’t clearly explain why nobody sees what’s going on at first, but it actually does, and the answer is: they do see it. It’s just normal to them. Again, political allegory: the world is going to shit around us but we’ve gotten so used to it that we don’t even react anymore. But the Phantom Thieves and our confidants (here, standing in for those of us in the world who DO care that everything’s going to hell) definitely react. People, the world is literally transforming into a nightmare hellscape all around us! Why aren’t you all doing anything about it? So the Phantom Thieves set off and start killing some archangels, and slowly but surely, people take notice. Is that the Phantom Thieves fighting over there? Wait, is there blood falling from the sky? Oh shit people, are we in an apocalypse right now? As your confidants start spreading the word, and more and more people take notice of what you’re doing, they start waking up to what’s going on in the world. It’s a metaphor for political activism (and one which the game will revisit more directly in a bit). The battle against Yaldabaoth is a battle against the powers that be. The whole game, really, is the weak fighting against those in power, escalating from a creepy volleyball coach to the next prime minister of the country. The Yaldabaoth battle is more metaphorical. You aren’t fighting an individual. You are fighting the society that allows those people to rise to power. You are fighting the system that protects them and shelters them and lets them get away with all the shit they do. And it seems unwinnable. But once you’ve woken up enough people, and raised enough support for your cause, and gotten the votes— Did I mention this is all a political allegory? Because even the Phansite meter is used here as a political metaphor. Anyway, the point is, you can win against the powers that be. You can summon a ridiculously massive Satan from the sky and put a fucking bullet through the System’s face. If we all get together, and make our voices heard, and cast our votes, we can stop the distortions and save the world from ruin. The game ties this whole theme together with the final story, which is getting Joker out of prison. This is where all that metaphor gets put into actual real-world action. Joker is unfairly held prisoner even though he saved the world, and even though his original probation was unjust from the start. But the Thieves and your Confidants all get together and spread the word, and with enough hard work and activism, they get Joker freed just in time for his girlfriends to murder him for cheating on them. tl;dr the phantom thieves are all antifa SJWs trying to make the world #woke, the end