#especially radical leftists

[shaftking]

Super weird (read: telling) how radfems constantly talk about how aggressive they think men are but also are constantly trying to push men’s buttons in order to make them react. It’s almost like they are acting specifically in a way to confirm their bias about men being prone to violence and anger by intentionally provoking those normal human emotions to an extreme. Almost as if going out of your way to treat people like shit makes those people upset. They are literally using basic crybully techniques (read: methods of emotional abuse) to make people lash out and then frame themselves as the victim and the other person as evil when it happens.

[madamtrashbat]

If I see one more thing that says "hey please don't vote for Trump it would be really bad" and the response on it is "oh so you support genocide? You expect me to vote for an old warmongering fascist? Joe Biden is a fucking murderer and you hate Palestinians how does the boot taste Zionist must be nice to only care about poor widdle white Americans asshole" I'm gonna start throwing ninja stars.

[radelenagreco]

i'm #newtoradblr i've spent so much time these past two weeks scrolling through radfem blogs i knew i had to make an actual radfem side of tumblr blog for my own sanity. the way i "peaked" is kinda funny 3-4 months ago i liked a radfem post without realizing and all of a sudden i had other radfem posts recommended to me by the algorithm and i was so annoyed because i was very anti-terf etc but for a couple days i read through a bunch of radfem blogs and it was actually such a relief to encounter FEMINISM not some watered down version of it but i felt guilty due to 5+ years of conditioning (and also because i had a nonbinary friend sitting right next to me in class as i was doing this) and i also didn't like the prominent use of the word moid? but anyway, 3 months later, i'm not sure why but the mra nature of the trans movement has grown so much more apparent to me i have like three mutuals who are trans men on my other blog and i would find myself rereading the few feminist posts i would reblog/write because these people are literally reblogging shit like "don't think like a terf. men aren't your oppressors, they're your friends/neighbors/brothers/fathers. if you think that any man could harm you you have been fooled by terf rhetoric" like actual morons/meninists. anyway two weeks ago i saw a post made by someone i knew was a radfem on my twitter tl and i don't know why i knew i was ready i went through her blog and through many others and now here i am.

[oldmanlogan]

ok so i know like all these corporations like google meta apple etc dont actually listen thru our phone microphones to know exactly what targeted ad to enrich our beautiful baby Online Experience with.... i know its all like crypto/metadata footprint whatever....... but like. they can. they absolutely have the ability to. or at least, with like, every new gen of iphone or whatever the fuck they get closer and closer to just marketing straight up spyware as a the hottest most expensive elitist bs... like its a shitshow now but i cant help but be paranoid abt how much of our privacy rights are already mere pen strokes away from being entirely decimated

[cakemoney]

i don't want to put my uninformed foot in my mouth or get involved with the Discourse but i've been seeing the two extremes of reactions to the korean low birth rates issue (on tumblr and twitter both) and i'm just kind of like. look. i feel like "low birth rates (in many countries but especially japan and korea as part of this conversation) are more broadly the result of capitalism/a culture of overwhelming overwork that makes social relationships and having families incredibly inaccessible to young people" and "low birth rates are very much a part of the current conversation about misogyny and social expectations for women in korea especially in the context of reproduction as 'unpaid labor' for women" are statements that can both be true

[louisdotmp3]

that pipeline of anti-intellectualism to the worst/most lukewarm political opinions on leftist politics. like actually maybe you guys should know a little bit about what you're talking about and then you won't sound so foolish or have to constantly reinvent theory & discourse that was already covered extensively in the 20th century

[vital-information]

"[M]ost often the figure representing the impersonal logic of protocol is Andy’s deputy, Barney Fife. Played by the immensely talented Don Knotts, Barney is both the comedic relief and bureaucratic foil to Andy’s localism. Running gags are built upon Barney’s trigger-happy nervousness and open love of the Law, with all its binding rules and jargon. He often urges Andy to modernize, to embrace the latest crime-fighting methods and gadgets. Barney’s flaw — and what makes him hilarious — is that he tries too hard to be a serious police officer in a rural town untouched by hard crime. He quotes legal codes to Andy, who either doesn’t know or has forgotten them. Andy doesn’t need to remember the technical name for a minor offense. He understands that townspeople, not codes, are the governing factor, even if that logic sometimes backfires on him.

Watching this show as an older viewer, I came to realize that Andy and Barney symbolize two competing ways of life that struggled against one another in the 20th century and continue to do so today.

...

Though Andy exhibits strength and virtue, he is not hotheaded. Nor is he the brawny hero that busts in at the last minute with guns blazing to vanquish the villain, who almost pulls off the caper. It may take him until the last minute to carry out his plan, but he does not represent the kind of heroic machismo so prevalent in superhero films today. More often than not Andy fights with his mind, inasmuch as he fights at all. He is strong in a silent way, a stoic fortitude without the sturm und drang of Brando or the social Darwinism of late-career John Wayne. Barney, on the other hand, is loud and quick to flashes of emotion. His wiry frame and nervous energy make him a wreck of a deputy, and it’s hilarious to watch him and Andy at odds, however low the stakes. Barney is a ludicrous figure, a clown, blissfully unaware of his arrogance, insecure and egotistical, and desirous of the kind of rules designed to control situations without thought. He exemplifies the neoliberal manager, the one that assumed control in the late 20th century. And though this figure was initially lampooned in American media, it came to be accepted as the only one to rule over a complex world.

¤ When several American television networks dropped most of the country-themed programming in the early 1970s — a move referred to as the “rural purge” — the likelihood that another Andy Taylor or Mayberry might be seen on TV was slimmed. In an attempt to market to suburban and urban audiences, major television networks mostly forgot about aging and rural populations. Suddenly there were fewer shows reflecting their lives. The kneejerk reaction is to consider rural audiences and their shows hillbilly, retrograde, simple-minded, or even racist. But it would also be callous to ignore other audiences altogether just to have around-the-clock Westerns and episodes of Red Skelton. I began to wonder what my parents would have watched without reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. Could it be, like some have said, that people enjoy the series because it presents a whitewashed utopia, a conservative paradise before Soul Train, MTV, and BET? In her article “Remembering Mayberry in White and Black,” memory studies scholar Kathleen McElroy writes about African Americans like herself who identify with The Andy Griffith Show even though only one episode in the entire series features a black actor with a speaking part (“a Chopin-playing football coach in Season 7,” McElroy notes). She cites several black writers who watch the series because it reflects their own experiences living in the rural South and who were not alienated by the paucity of black cast members. But even though some African-American viewers like McElroy conjure these “extra-memories,” as she calls them, to “complement […] Mayberry’s narrative,” what about the white viewers who voted for Donald Trump because they believed him to be a white, wealthy savior who could return the country to the conservative 1950s — in other words, to a time before civil rights? Why should anyone have to fill in the gaps of a television series with extra-memories to enjoy it? A site of both memory and oblivion, The Andy Griffith Show can be pleasing to some and uncomfortable to others. It’s a show that some might enjoy because it presents a white utopia and one that others can identify with because of its themes of doing good, serving communities, and reducing one’s ego. And viewers like McElroy and the writers she cites in her essay manage this tension by conjuring extra-memories to account for the erasure. It is possible that some people see in Donald Trump’s nativist message a return to Mayberry. But those who may suppose that miss the entire point of the series and equally misunderstand the philosophy of the character Andy Taylor. Writing for The Awl, Shani O. Hilton mentions that Griffith was often called “white trash” as a kid. When he created his series, Griffith didn’t “take a crack at edgier storylines involving race or gender,” which other series of the time did and usually failed offensively. Instead, he crafted a show about life in a small, working-class town where a given day’s itinerary might include little more than napping and watching the evening’s program on television. Mayberry is obviously utopian and overwhelmingly white, but Sheriff Andy Taylor not only believes society can always be made better but also understands no social project grand or local could usher in some kind of everlasting peace. The best you could do in Mayberry is good enough, and doing good is a daily job."

Grafton Tanner, "Make America Mayberry Again" for the Los Angeles Review of Books

[explainslowly]

It's always so weird how people are so quick to ascribe trends and ideas they don't like within the broader queer community to "terfs". It's like the terfs have acquired this mythical status, towering above all, calling the shots for anything and everything lgbt but at the same time no one can pin point them. They are nowhere, they are no one.

like queer people are fully capable of being stupid, annoying, small minded, conservative etc without being terfs

sure there might be ideological overlaps (many ideas are pretty traceable to like, founding radfem texts, or mumsnet, or terf private chatgroup leaks) and if such connections exist I *do* wanna hear about them, but if your contribution is just gonna be "idk feels terf-y/this thrity year old queer elder said it was terf-y" about some fucking discourse that (unbeknowst to you) has been going on for decades between multiple disparate ideological corners of the community, then maybe you should think before you post

[rotzaprachim]

new possible aspect of extended andor-erso family Dynamics include galen and lyra’s protracted awkward divorce (it starts to happen the moment that jyn is out of the house, either age, like, 6 or 18 you can decide) where galen for whom she’s like he only real human connection to the Outside World is like *this is Fine* *opens vodka bottle* meanwhile lyra keeps talking about living her Best Life. she’s actually finishing her geology master’s degree that got put on pause by galen, galen’s career, and jyn. she’s invested in a bunch of new-age hippy sweaters and scented candles and taken up hot yoga. she’s got the space!joy of sex and assorted manuals on the female orgasm sitting up on the bookshelf with all her baking books. she goes hillwalking for weeks at a time. she keeps bringing her collection of nubile younger lovers ‘round to family events and they are all her age or younger, which is to say, at least eleven years younger than galen 

[my-vanishing-777]

Male counsel on pornography, especially from leftist lawyers, has also been abundant. We have been told that pornography is a trivial issue and that we must stop wasting the valuable time of those guarding "freedom of speech" by talking about it.

[orcboxer]

one of those things you really gotta learn is that it's insanely easy to get people to get mad at anything if you just phrase it the right way. slap the word "woke" on anything you want conservatives to hate. call something "extremism" or "radical" to get a centrist to fear it. say that a particular take "comes from a position of privilege" to get leftists to denounce it (that's right, even us leftists are susceptible to propaganda that uses leftist language). all these are simplistic examples of course, but it's all to say that certain terms, slogans, and phrases just kind of turn off people's critical thinking, especially ones with negative connotation. there are so many words that are just shorthand for "bad." once a term reaches buzzword status, it becomes practically useless.

it goes for general attitudes too. "this piece of news is a sign that the world is getting worse" is a shockingly easy idea to sell, even when the "piece of news" in question is completely fabricated. I'll often see leftists uncritically sharing right wing propaganda that rides on the back of the "humans bad, nature good" cliche, or the "US education system bad" cliche, or even the current "AI bad" cliche. most of the details of a given post will go entirely unquestioned as long as they support whatever attitude is most popular right now. and none of us is immune to this.

(the funny thing is that I'm kind of playing with fire here even making this post. folks are so used to just reacting to shit that I have no way of predicting which buzzword I included here will trigger a negative association in someone's mind and convince them I'm taking some random antagonistic stance on a topic that they've been really fired up about lately.)

[leftistfeminista]

Gaza's women are just like any other women: they are wives, lovers, partners and feminine beings with desires, interests, drives and needs. The mocking of their lingerie by dozens of IDF soldiers isn't just a depraved and childish act; it's indicative of a dehumanization trend in which Palestinian women are viewed as entirely alien and otherized - that the presence of lingerie in their bedroom drawers is so shockingly surprising & unexpected, it is worth playing with and showing off as battlefield souvenir. I remember vividly how widespread lingerie stores were throughout Gaza City and how they were such a casual thing. In fact, I remember numerous instances of seemingly religious men with beards and the Quran playing in the background having or operating underwear and lingerie stores and stands, with their wives or female salesladies even helping them with customers.

These images by IDF troops will have long lasting consequences and will undermine de-escalation and de-radicalization efforts, particularly in a conservative society that views female-related spaces, items and topics as particularly sensitive and private/sacred. This isn't about worn out soldiers blowing off steam during battle; it is a sick lack of discipline & lackluster standards & operational security protocols. These images are deeply disrespectful and offensive and further alienate a civilian population that is paying the price for circumstances over which it has no control.

A Revolutionary Feminist Hip Hop collective released this diss track to the IDF. Inspired by the fierce lioness dignity of PFLP women commanders who have had their underwear publicly displayed. The IDF pigs have been hanging the lingerie of Marxist-Leninist women from the PFLP and DFLP to distance them from their Islamic comrades. Women from the secular leftist revolutionary organizations of Palestine have had their underwear especially targeted. The IOF had worked very hard to "otherize" Gaza as medieval, playing down Marxist-Leninists like PFLP who showed solidarity with Heather Heyer and BLM. They want to distance Gaza from western leftists. But women Marxists who dress like western women have their underwear paraded by IOF.

Yes it is mortifying for Marxist-Leninist PFLP commanders like Shireen Said to be waging guerilla war in the ruins of your homeland. While IOF pigs taunt that they can taste your juices on your stolen underwear. But she fights on with more determination in spite of it all. They can't take away her revolutionary dignity. And even if her panties are something very private, personal and intimate to the proud Marxist commander. It has been the IDF chauvinist pigs who have been more shamed before the world by their behavior.

Shireen Said's brave, dignified, courageous response to the IDF's attempt to humiliate her with her stolen panties, was turned into this hip hop anthem.

[186-3]

courting antisemitism

so i recently decided to take a look at the latest stonetoss comics (probably because i love suffering). and while i was expecting some content on the israel palestine conflict, what i did not expect was how... standard it seemed. well, most of it at least, but i'll get to that in a second.

for context, if you don't know what stonetoss is, it's a (poorly drawn) webcomic known for having radical alt-right views - meaning it's incredibly racist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, antisemitic. all that fun stuff.

so while i was expecting to see bad stuff, one of the first things i saw on the topic of israel was this:

terrible art aside, this comic is making a point that i usually see in left wing circles: that israel is pinkwashing genocide.

curious if there was more like this, i kept looking, and the comic right before that one was this:

again, this makes points that i usually see in left wing circles. that american healthcare is crazy expensive, that canada tells poor people to commit suicide, and that israel is bombing hospitals.

why does stonetoss, this well known alt-right nutjob, now seem to be bringing up left-wing talking points?

curious, i kept going deeper:

well this is... odd. clearly, stonetoss is trying to say that israel is on another level of bad, even worse than russia, iran, and north korea. i can possibly see someone on the left making the argument that the russian invasion of ukraine isn't as bad as what israel is doing in gaza, or that at least north korea isn't invading any other countries, but... iran??? the country that has a police force designed to enforce religious law, and gets away with murdering women who do not properly cover their hair? the country that props up paramilitary groups in countries all over the middle east, including lebanon, yemen, and yes, palestine?? that's completely ridiculous

but, given how much more israel is in the news nowadays than any of these other countries, i could see why someone would buy this

and now, we're starting to get to the crux of what stonetoss is trying to do. when someone sees this, they might be inclined to agree with it. they might begin to think that israel is the worst country on the planet

and that might not seem so bad at first. but the more you hate israel, especially irrationally, the more you feel allowed to dehumanize those who support it. the more you might be willing to agree with this comic, which came out two days prior to the one above

this comic says that jews, as a whole have no desire to exist with other people. it is blatantly antisemitic

i'm sure you could imagine some young leftist who sees the comics above this one and thinks, "this guy makes some good points". and then, when they get to this one, they might realize that this is antisemitism

or, they may not.

and that would start them down the road to becoming an antisemite.

this is what stonetoss and other alt-right nutjobs are hoping to achieve. to take left wing fury at israel, and direct it at jews.

we saw it with those neo-nazis at the palestine rally, and we're seeing it again here.

and if you've found yourself agreeing with what stonetoss has said so far, i would like you to see the last comic stonetoss put out before october 7th:

this horrifically racist comic is in reference to an environmental activist who was murdered by a black man in early october. this blatantly racist garbage is the kind of stuff stonetoss usually puts out.

but as soon as october 7th happened? these were his next two comics:

stonetoss completely changed the comic's tone as soon as the current crisis started. why?

to get as many people as possible to get on board with hating jews.

and i know many of you might be thinking that "well, everyone knows that stonetoss is racist garbage. nobody is going to fall for this"

except, as we saw with the neo-nazis at the rally for palestine, it's not always that obvious who the antisemites are and who is just rallying for peace. they are often a lot better at disguising it than stonetoss is.

AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE AWARE OF THAT

EVERYONE, no matter HOW much experience you have, can fall victim to propoganda. EVERYONE needs to be aware of what people around them are saying, and able to pick out hateful rhetoric, because even the stuff that is just kind of toeing the line of what's hateful is still putting your foot in the door

be cautious, everyone. and stomp out hate where you see it.

[etz-ashashiyot]

I know I'm gonna regret posting this, but I just can't not say something: I'm so sick of people who are actively contributing to the ongoing oppression of and violence against Palestinians calling themselves "pro-Palestinian."

In the same way that so many people in the anti-abortion movement are actually pro forced birth rather than pro-child, there are a lot of you who aren't pro-Palestinian, you're just violently antisemitic or in it for yourselves.

If you aren't:

Also angry with the other countries that abuse their Palestinian populations, refuse them citizenship, keep them in displaced person camps under horrific conditions, and/or close their borders entirely to them;

In support of genuine grassroots movements that aim to create some kind of stability, peace, and safety through diplomatic relationships and community building, because that's ""normalization"";

Willing to condemn antisemitism in the diaspora, which helps fuels right-wing rhetoric in Israel;

Willing to shut down lies, propaganda, and disinformation even if it "supports" Palestinians in theory, because lying repeatedly associates the Palestinian movement with lying and makes it harder for survivors to tell their actual stories and be believed outside of the far left movements (and also the truth is bad enough - there's no need to lie);

Willing to focus on practical problem solving over political posturing, especially when it will save Palestinian lives;

Willing to condemn Hamas, which started this most recent disaster, steals aid meant for civilians, uses civilians as human shields, and has been torturing dissenters for years;

Willing to work with Israeli leftists who hate their current government and want peace and full equality for Arab Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors, and also have the best shot at making that change happen; and/or,

Willing to learn about Palestinians as living human beings and value their lives over using them as a political cudgel, whatever that looks like on the ground;

.............then maybe you're more interested in looking radical and jerking off to some fantastical version of The Revolution, and/or hurting Jews than you are in promoting peace, safety, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinians.

Like seriously with "friends" like these, do they even need enemies??

Anyway you should call out the Israeli government for its very real abuses of Palestinians and nothing in this post should be construed otherwise. But if you genuinely care and aren't just in it for internet cool points or leftist cred or feeding your Jew-hate boner or whatever, you gotta prioritize solutions that have a realistic shot at short-term relief and long-term possibility over whatever fits some idealistic goal that will only ever end with more dead Palestinians.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Working class Dems who campaign on economics beat Trumpists in elections

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me FRIDAY NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The Democratic Party Pizzaburger Theory of Electioneering is: half the electorate wants a pizza, the other half wants a burger, so we'll give them all a pizzaburger and make them all equally dissatisfied, thus winning the election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

But no one wants a pizzaburger. The Biden administration's approach of letting the Warren/Sanders wing pick the antitrust enforcers while keeping judicial appointments in the Manchin-Synematic universe is a catastrophe in which progressive Dem regulators (who serve one term) are thwarted by corporatist Dem judges (who serve for life):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

The Democrats – like all parties in two-party systems – are a coalition; in this case, a "progressive" liberal-left coalition with liberals serving as senior partners, steering the party and setting its policies. These corporate dems like to color themselves as "neutral" technocrats with "realistic, apolitical" policies that represent what's best for the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

This sets up the left wing of the party as the starry-eyed, unrealistic radicals whose policies are unpopular and will lose elections. But for a decade, grassroots-funded primary challenges have made it possible to test this theory, by putting leftist politicians on the ballot in front of voters, especially in tight races with far-right Republicans (that is, exactly the kinds of races that the corporate wing of the party says we can't afford to take chances on).

The 2022 midterms included enough races to start testing these theories – and, unlike traditional midterms, these races enjoyed high voter turnout, thanks to the unpopularity of GOP positions like abortion bans, book bans and anti-trans laws. Jacobin teamed up with the Center for Working-Class Politics, Yougov and the Center for Work and Democracy at ASU and analyzed those races:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11134429/CWCP-Report-2024.pdf

Their conclusion: candidates from working-class backgrounds who campaigned on economic policies like high-quality jobs, higher minimum wages, a jobs guarantee, ending offshoring and outsourcing, building infrastructure and bringing manufacturing back to the US won with a 50% share of the vote in rural and working-class districts. Dems who didn't lost with a 35% share of the vote:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-03-18-how-actually-existing-democrats-run-for-office/

In other words, in the kinds of districts where Trumpist politicians are beating Democrats, running on "left populist" policies beats Trumpist politicians.

That's the good news: if Dems recruit leftist, working class politicians and put them up for office on policies that address the material reality of voters' lives, they can beat fascist GOP candidates.

Now for the bad news: the Democratic establishment has no interest in getting these candidates onto the ballot. Working-class candidates, by definition, lack the networks of deep-pocketed cronies who can fund their primary campaigns. Only 2.3% of Dem candidates come from blue-collar backgrounds (if you include "pink-collar" professions like nursing and teaching, the number goes up to 5.9%):

https://jacobin.com/2024/03/left-populists-working-class-voters

All of this confirms the findings of Trump's Kryoptonite, an earlier Jacobin/CWCP research project that polled working-class voters on preferences for hypothetical candidates, finding that working-class candidates with economically progressive policies handily beat out Republicans, including MAGA Republicans:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/08125102/TrumpsKryptonite_Final_June2023.pdf

Since the Clinton-Blair years, "progressives" have abandoned economic populism ("It's not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money" -T. Blair) and pursued a "third way" that seeks to replace half the world's of supply white, male oligarchs with diverse oligarchs from a variety of backgrounds and genders. We were told that this was done in the name of winning elections with "modern" policies that replaced old-fashioned ideas about decent pay, decent jobs, and worker power.

These policies have delivered a genocide-riven world on the brink of several kinds of existential catastrophe. They're a failure. The pizzaburger party didn't deliver safety, nor prosperity – and it also can't deliver elections.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/20/actual-material-conditions/#bread-and-butter

[strezzedanddeprezzed]

It baffles me how radical feminists are considered conservative when the idea of female separatism is 10x more radical and far left than most of the beliefs held by left-wing parties. I will not listen to anyone who calls radical feminism a conservative ideology because it means they haven't done any research or reading.

We don't hate porn because we think women should be pure virgins who only commit to one man, we hate porn because it degrades women and is the product of sex trafficking, coercion, and propaganda.

We don't hate tight clothing and makeup because we think women should be covered from head to toe, we hate it because it restricts movement and makes day to day life uncomfortable for women.

We don't criticize the trans community because we think everyone should conform to gender roles and there should be no attempt to break the gender binary, we criticize the fact that transition is based on stereotypes, norms, roles, clothing, and other things women have fought for years to be free from.

Radical feminism does a better job at attacking actual oppressive structures and frameworks than most other leftist ideologies and I am done with ignorant people online comparing radical feminism to trad wife life or traditional conservatism. Especially when this criticism comes from losers who spend all day watching porn that promotes racism and classism.