#falling for the most obvious of terror propaganda

[queenwille]

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this is how your protests against the only democracy in the middle east, instead of focusing your energy in condemning a terror organization, are helping gaza’s civilians.

[catbountry]

It has been 22 years since 9/11; I was 15 years old in second period art class when a kid, who'd been running down the hallway, opened the door and announced a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and then ran off down the hall, leaving everyone confused. The principal advised teachers not to turn on televisions for us when this was happening, leaving us in further confusion as he tried, feebly, to carry out the rest of the day. We were dismissed before lunch, before fourth period ended.

There are people who are able to legally drink that weren't born yet when this happened and let me tell you, the actual event was fucked up but what happened afterwards, the decisions made in the wake of this fucking event, are a big reason why everything is so fucked up now.

I remember the color-coded terror threat chart, explained by Tom DeLay, who would become a minor internet meme just because of a weird photo of his face. I remember the phrase "known unknowns" in regards to justifying the invasion of Iraq. The "yellow cake" uranium. Being assured that there were weapons of mass destruction. Shock and awe. Bush in a flight suit in front of that "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" sign. The 2000's was the decade of neo-conservatism and 9/11 was a glorious and golden opportunity to have what America had lost with the fall of the Soviet Union; an ideological enemy that hated us because of how great we were. A perfect vessel to pump patriotic sentiment into the public. And it worked... kind of. Not so much for us younger people, those of us who were teenagers or in our 20's. You have to understand that we were at a point where Jon Stewart, the host of the Daily Show, was considered to be some sort of beacon of truth. We would rather get our news from a satirical news program than the actual news, because Stewart would at least recognize the absurdity of it all. A lot of artists did. Green Day's American Idiot is considered to be their most important album and the whole thing was a protest album. I've always had a soft spot for Radiohead's Hail to the Thief for the same reason. Counterculture was dark and bitter and cynical and brooding, and often incredibly edgy, flying directly in the face of the propaganda about how great America was. Counterculture was more queer, more atheist, dressed in black and online, making memes about 9/11. 9/11, this day that was supposed to be symbolic of the nation's greatest modern-day tragedy since the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was being photoshopped to make it look like Hulk Hogan was taking down the Twin Towers through sick wrestling moves. 4chan seems to have since been infected with reactionary brainworms over the course of the 2010's, but in the 2000's, counterculture wasn't conservative. It was making conservatives upset. We saw destruction and mass human death played on repeat over and over and we grew numb to it. Desensitized. We saw the obvious emotional ploy that was being used as an excuse to inflict even more violence and oppression on people on the other side of the globe. We reveled in shock sites, in edgy jokes, in transgression, in scaring the normies.

The young men who fall into the alt-right rabbit hole, who might not even be old enough to remember 9/11... I can't help but wonder what they think of it. Because they still want to be edgelords, but now to own the libs. To work in service of the very same people that we were trying to piss off 20 years ago. Trump spoke on 9/11 about how now, the Trump Tower, which had once been the tallest building in Manhattan, was now back to being the tallest building in Manhattan. He's a completely different breed from Bush, Cheney and company. Completely self-interested. Not even bothering with the pretext of things like conviction or truth. Truthiness incarnate. Embrace it. Feel it. Be it.

I think back to a few years ago, I posted a doge meme with the child doge in front of the Twin Towers, with a joke about how great the future was going to be in the coming decade. I had a teenager try and educate me on how insensitive this was. They hadn't even been born yet and I snapped at them that the meme was a real sentiment, that all of us who were old enough to remember essentially watched our futures explode on television, over and over, in a fireball of jet fuel.

This went stream of consciousness again. It always does. It's hard to summarize 9/11 and its aftermath in a cohesive way because we're still living in the shadow of it. COVID-19 is now the big historical event that traumatized us all that we will have to reckon with for decades to come, and how it affected young people growing up at the time. The new scar on our collective psyche. But 9/11 will continue to be that formative scar. Before that for me, it was Columbine, but only because the aftermath did directly affect me. Before that? Princess Diana's death, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the O.J. Simpson trial, and of all of those, the bombing was perhaps the most actually impactful on us. Before 9/11, it was the largest terrorist attack on the United States, carried out by a far-right racist retaliating against the FBI firebombing a compound because a pedophile cult leader with a bunch of guns refused to give up and used his child brides as human shields. That'd be Waco, by the way.

There was another bombing of the World Trade Center that happened in 1993. It was much smaller, using a bomb inside a van in a parking lot underneath; it's the reason Biggie rapped about "blowing up like the World Trade." Osama bin Laden was also behind that one but that wouldn't be fully realized by us until 1996. It only killed six people. It was considered a failed attempt; it was supposed to take down the entire North Tower. It didn't come out of nowhere. The CIA knew that this was in motion since Clinton was in office, and this ball got rolling because of training the United States offered to resistance fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 80's. I remember the shock I felt first seeing that photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand, knowing about the Gulf War and living through the War in Iraq. All these puzzle pieces are scattered on the floor and my brain is making connections between all of them as I try and fit them together. I'm looping red string around push pins and asking who Pepe Silvia is, except it's not a conspiracy, it's just me trying to fully grasp this event that happened in my lifetime, before I was an adult but after I'd started paying attention to the news regularly and had developed an interest in politics. Just as I was forming my own political beliefs. 9/11 and its aftermath has informed so much of who I am politically, and what my values are. George W. Bush is my Nixon, and yet, somehow, things got so much more cartoonishly worse as I entered my 30's that I was in denial about it until COVID. Trump's presidency felt like a clown show. How on earth was I supposed to take this man seriously? This motherfucker made the neoconservatives appear restrained and reasonable by comparison, and those motherfuckers are actual war criminals.

I can only really tell people who are too young to remember what this era was like what it was like. It's hard to explain if you weren't there in that moment. We're seeing Y2K nostalgia become a thing, which fits, because of the 20 year minimum big nostalgia cycle, as those whose childhood was 20 years ago are now young adults. And some of those adults were born after 9/11. They never knew the world before it. I knew, but I was a child and couldn't really fully grasp it. The 90's felt very distinct from the 2000's, with it's very open cynicism and even nihilism in the very first years of a society with no Soviet Union.

If only we knew how bad things really would become.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Now Putin is trying to avoid responsibility for his previous crimes by committing new ones—even more serious ones. Meanwhile, official propaganda deceptively presents Putin’s special military operation as Russia’s “existential struggle” or even as a global confrontation with the “satanic West.” In fact, this war is meaningless and destructive for Russia itself. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as of February 19, the losses of the Russian army have already exceeded 400,000 people. But it is not only about the death of people whom Moscow is pushing for a criminal war. The final transformation of Russia into a dictatorship, which occurred after the beginning of the full-scale invasion, has already provoked mass emigration, the volume of which may amount to 1.3 million people. The militarization of economic, cultural, and political life, as well as growing international isolation, are all signs that Russia is deliberately turning itself into an exile state, incapable of productive and mutually beneficial cooperation with the world. This, and not the mythical “conspiracy of the Anglo-Saxons,” which Putin claims, puts an end to the future of the Russian Federation.

The Ukrainian website, UKRINFORM, in an important piece called 10 Facts about [the] Russian-Ukrainian War. The article documents Putin's neverending sewage pipe of lies used to justify the most obscene, genocidal crimes against Ukraine, all for the sake of protecting his dictatorship.

The key quote here is: 'this war is meaningless and destructive for Russia itself'. The death toll of 400 000 soldiers is staggering, and just shows that the Russian terror state places no value whatsoever on human life.

Remember that Putin told Russian soldiers that they would be greeted in Ukraine as liberators, that they were 'denazifying' the country, and that they would quickly gain victory. The Russian Orthodox Church backed these claims, and bathed them in pseudo-religious justifications.

All of these claims were complete lies. And that's precisely why Putin won't visit any of his soldiers on the war front. The lies and death toll are too obvious.

The Wagner Group terrorist chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, discovered far too late that the problem was the Kremlin. He paid for his disagreement with his life.

It is important for Westerners not to fall for these lies, especially the claim that Moscow seeks peace. Russia had the option for peace for at least nine years. Instead, Putin's Mafia regime planned for further war. Russia has the option right now to immediately withdraw from all Ukrainian territory and reinstate the Minsk Agreements. It has refused to do so. So it is Russia that is blocking peace, not Ukraine.

And, as this quote shows, Putin is destroying Russia for his own imperialist delusions. This is always the case with dictators.

[deathlygristly]

Sometimes I see things that are so obviously propaganda, and then I’m not sure why it’s not okay to say that sometimes people need to take responsibility for falling for it and that we can’t excuse people for falling for really really obvious propaganda forever.

Anyway, here are some Quick Tips For Immediately Spotting Propaganda:

Does it shout about how omg, no one’s talking about this? Probably no one is talking about it because it’s not real. If it is real and you have confirmed it from other sources, then I’d still take anything else the OP says with a grain of salt and I still wouldn’t trust them in general as a source.

Is it loud and outraged and self-righteous? Then it’s probably one of these three things: propaganda, an asshole, or someone acting like an asshole due to rage/terror but who might cool down after a while and be more sensible. To decide which it is you gotta look at behavior patterns from the source of the post over time. If it’s all reblogs and no personal text posts or anything, then it’s propaganda. If it’s years and years worth of shouting and outrage and piling on, it’s an asshole. If it’s a few posts interspersed with normal personal posts and things, then it’s probably just someone having a particularly bad time of it at the moment.

Does it talk about “elites” who are manipulating everything and does it paint the reader as a “little guy” who apparently these elites spend all their time plotting against? Run the hell away because you have wandered into a fascist troll breeding ground.

Is it quite obviously calculated to make you think about your most hated outgroup doing The Worst Things to who you perceive to be the most vulnerable of your ingroup, particularly your children or your young women? Is it riling up your anger and hatred and fear towards your most hated outgroup rather than offering you ways to support the vulnerable? Is it painting your local authorities as ineffective against and/or complicit in your hated outgroup’s crimes against your vulnerable ingroup members? If so, guess what? It’s propaganda!

Basically, while you’re browsing the internet keep an eye on your emotions. If a post is making you feel rage, fear, self-righteousness, hatred against an entire group of people, inciting you to violence, or telling you that you’re being manipulated, well....you are being manipulated, but not by who you think is manipulating you.

[cabiba]

Following ISIS’s demise, Islamists around the world have been forced to radically reassess their strategy against the West. Dashing the utopian hopes of its sympathisers, the fall of the Caliphate has set back the Islamist cause for decades. Just as when many Communists became disillusioned once their ideology had been implemented in the Soviet Union, ISIS’s barbarity can no longer be ignored.

True, even in 2021, some groups such as the resurgent Taliban and Boko Haram — to say nothing of the Iranian regime — remain committed to a type of Islamist militancy that includes an emphasis on violence, with all the human suffering that entails. But for the most part, jihadist militancy has proved unpopular among Muslims, often inviting a violent counter-reaction. Its promise of an Islamist dream state has lost its appeal.

Yet Islamists in the West appear to have found a possible solution that sidesteps, at least for now, the use of explicit violence. The core of this alternative strategy is to focus as much as possible on dawa.

Nearly 20 years after 9/11, Westerners still remain unfamiliar with dawa. In theory, the term simply refers to the call to Islam, a kind of invitation; Westerners would recognise it as part of a proselytising mission. In practice, however, Islamists rely on dawa as a comprehensive propaganda, PR and brainwashing system designed to make all Muslims embrace an Islamist programme while converting as many non-Muslims as possible.

Among Western analysts, dawa — which became a tool of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 20th century — has traditionally received far less attention than militant jihad, though observers have emphasised its importance in the “humanitarian” activities of Hamas.

In Unveiled, the ex-Muslim Yasmine Mohammed compellingly describes her difficult marriage to the Egyptian jihadist Essam Marzouk. Yasmine commented on the rivalry that exists between jihadists (such as her ex-husband) and ostensibly “non-violent” Islamists:

“The truth is that Essam hated the [Muslim] Brotherhood: he thought Islamists were a bunch of pansies. He was actually aligned with a more militant group in Egypt called Al Jihad, who were the Egyptian wing of Al Qaeda. Both Islamists and jihadis have the same goal — to spread Islam — but they have different methods. Islamists want to do this through passive means such as politics, immigration and childbirth.”

This important point is often lost on politicians in Western countries. For no matter what misguided retired CIA officials may claim, groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood are neither moderate organisations nor pluralist partners in civil society. Islamist groups are certainly not likely to prevent the radicalisation of young Muslims. Instead, as one observer noted more than a decade ago, “the history of the Brotherhood movement shows, in fact, that it has operated by and large not as a firewall against jihadism, but as a fertile incubator of radical ideas in a variety of locales”.

In a cynical way, Islamists achieve far more through dawa than when they confine themselves to simply blowing things up and stabbing people to death. The threat is not as obvious. Jihad and the use of violence tend to provoke an immediate response. With dawa, on the other hand, it is possible to talk about charity, spirituality and religion — and then compare it to normal religious proselytising missions. In a free society, what reasonable person would take issue with that?

But dawa is also about building networks: local, regional and international. In The Call, Krithika Varagur revealed both the enormous global scale and opaque nature of these efforts. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has channelled billions of dollars into dawa — with much of it directed into the US.

In the West, these regimes are not given much thought, nor is the Islamist infrastructure in the United States. Nonetheless, Islamism is spreading within Western institutions, and it’s largely thanks to an unlikely alliance: dawa has recognised the alluring power of ���woke”, and has started to adopt the language of civil rights and multiculturalism.

Of course, this is not an entirely American phenomenon, but the energy in our progressive movement has taken this cooperation one step further. In France, by contrast, “Islamo-gauchisme” (Islamo-Leftism) is much more likely to be correctly identified as a threat to the model of universal, secular and republican citizenship. In Britain, it remains less prominent, confined to fringe politicians such as George Galloway, who believes that “the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies”.

Yet as historian Daniel Pipes has noted, the relationship between Islamism and extreme Leftism is nothing new. In 2007, Oskar Lafontaine, former chairman of Germany’s Social Democratic party, noted: “Islam depends on community, which places it in opposition to extreme individualism, which threatens to fail in the West. [In addition,] the devout Muslim is required to share his wealth with others. The Leftist also wants to see the strong help the weak.”

But the internal tension between “wokeism” and Islamism is never far away. Just look at Al Jazeera, which uploads documentaries about transgender rights on to its social media channel, while broadcasting sermons suggesting husbands should beat their wives on its Arabic station.

Nevertheless, the two movements do share objectives. Both are anti-West and anti-American. Both have a critical attitude towards “capitalism” based on individualism. True, the Islamists have been around for much longer. But Islamist ideologues are willing to co-operate with non-Muslim Leftists as long as it serves their purposes.

To their credit, some on the Left refuse to countenance Islamism, as they become increasingly aware of the contradiction between supporting universal human rights (including women’s rights) and the demands of Islamists. In France, for example, the centre-Left former Prime Minister Manuel Valls courageously denounced Islamo-Leftism without the least hesitation.

In the United States, however, such vocal opposition from the Left is increasingly rare. Indeed, at the 2019 Netroots Nation conference — America’s “largest annual conference for progressives” — multiple panel discussions and training sessions reflected the Islamist agenda, frequently coalescing around a critique of Israel while neglecting the toxic role played by Hamas in perpetuating the conflict. Meanwhile, Linda Sarsour, a feminist organiser and co-chair of the “Women’s March”, has made her support for Islamism more explicit: “You’ll know when you’re living under Shariah law if suddenly all your loans and credit cards become interest-free. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

In government, too, Islamism’s capture of progressivism has become increasingly clear. Turkey’s Islamist President Erdogan might lead one of the world’s most brutal and repressive regimes, but that hasn’t stopped Ilhan Omar, the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, from expressing support for him. No doubt she was inspired by Erdogan last year when he proclaimed that “social justice is in our book”, and that “Turkey is the biggest opportunity for western countries in the fight against xenophobia, Islamophobia, cultural racism and extremism”.

Erdogan, in effect, was explicitly using progressive rhetoric. It’s a move that’s since been mirrored in Iran. The Tehran Times ­— which describes itself as “a loud voice of the Islamic Revolution” — recently attacked former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his “deep-rooted Islamophobia”. And in March, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif “lauded the determination of Islamic countries to address Islamophobia as one of the main challenges facing the Islamic Ummah [community in the West]”. Islamists, in other words, are becoming skilled at wrapping themselves in a mantle of woke words, while engaging in systematic brutality and repression within their own countries.

To this new alliance between Islamism and progressive rhetoric, there is no simple response. Dawa, by its very nature, is inherently more difficult to fight than jihad. But those who believe, as I do, in a free, open, pluralist society need to be aware of the nature and magnitude of this new challenge. After two decades of fighting Islamist terrorism, we have a new and more subtle foe to contend with. Wokeism has long been regarded as a dangerous phenomenon — but only now are we starting to see why.

[honeyfreckled]

a messy ramble/rant on what tfatws is tryna pull here. ik i was told this would happen, but a stupid hoe can still be pissed

ok where are my well spoken leftists who know how to explain things and aren’t bumbling dumbasses like me? need yall to do me a solid and help me compose my jumbled thoughts enough to form actual sentences and make a coherent analysis on exactly what we are all watching tfatws do here. 

yes, yall warned me this was gonna happen bc big media will never portray anarchism as anything other than violent, dangerous, and misaligned. bc the media corp would cease to exist under anarchy. it directly profits from capitalism, neoliberalism, and imperialism. they are the real villains but this is their narrative to spin, their content and platforms. the franchise must be protected at all costs and continue netting profit- which they need capitalism in order to do, so they must present themselves on the right side of history. they push for supposed reform nowadays, they say we won’t achieve anything w direct action. that anarchists are a terror group hellbent on inflicting violence on the innocent when in actuality that is DISNEY/MARVEL’s gig when u take into account how they run and operate by taking advantage of their marginalized, minimum wage workers and being in cahoots w the govt agencies they feature in their media. they keep the status quo by getting the individual to either fear anarchy, believe it to be a moot cause, or grow tired/complacent w any political discussion and instead only show interest in the otherworldly/fictional parts of these shows. 

yes, im aware of the way mega media pivots when popular opinion changes. but im not able to put my finger on how they achieve it so insidiously and without snags. how they move w the times w/out addressing or rectifying their own despicable practices. capitalist media like disney/marvel is able to do this a lot more covertly than others imo. u have to catch yrself from falling down into the distraction trap and remind yrself that marvel is about as left as jeff bezos. but god how they warp the political stances to make themselves seem on the right side of things can be invisible to ppl who dont have any previous knowledge of real anarchism or even leftism and how neoliberalism like this is effective propaganda.

esp to the stans who are just there to watch their favorite yt actor and ride for his character so hard they’ll eagerly buy into whatever message is being pushed out of sheer fanaticism. doesn’t help that this show is definitely more palatable to the “woke” section of the audience who thinks marvel is rlly doin something radical here. plus like i said, we have to consider the fact that so many members of the target audience aren’t looking out for propaganda like this. they have been taught to recognize only blatantly obvious propaganda that goes against their more liberal principles. they don’t recognize this as propaganda bc they like it and don’t feel a knee-jerk reaction against it. the show seems convey a message they view as a “finally someone said it! finally marvel is woke and i can watch without shame! this is how our heroes should be!” what the mcu is doing in this phase is rlly fucking scary bc imo this kinda presentation is more dangerous. it’s harder to pin down and extremely easy for folks to give props to and not wanna critique. it will age better than other mcu phases which makes critical left analysis seem nit picky and folks dont wanna hear it.

idk if it’s a matter of them not seeing this as propaganda at all, or just not caring that it is bc they are too devoted to who they stan they’re able to use cognitive dissonance w shows like this bc he’s in them. perhaps most of them are liberals, so they have no problem w a media conglomerate whose billion dollar franchise operates w govt contracts and is required by fractions of the armed forces/pentagon/fbi to get final script, edit, and cut approval from those govt agencies. 

before yall hardcore leftists and anarchists tell me anything, ik i shouldn’t be watching this ok. at least im p*rating it rather than helping to feed the beast. it’s just. disappointing and sad to see them vilify and lie on a group who rlly isn’t the problem irl, and does more to combat terrorism than fucking enact it. that has always been an argument against anarchism. one that holds less and less weight nowadays when the majority of domestic terrorism is committed by white supremacists, who belong to a fucking variant of fascism, which is what anarchists are fucking against! AHHHHH! wtf dlkjfalkdjfkls!!!! (btw yes ik my educated leftists don’t fuck w any disney media bc the valid critiques on the disney oligarchy as a whole is enough reason to just know it’s all trash but maybe someone else is watching this and ready to analyze it too)

[painted-crow]

I'm confused by something you said. You said you have a thing against dehumanization and "the idea of devaluing someone as a person based on their beliefs is Very Icky". I agree. But, isn't that The Big Difference between idealists and Loyalists? Both will dehumanize when pushed to the limit, Idealists either for the "Greater Good" or the other person's beliefs being "wrong". Loyalists because the people they're loyal to were hurt.

There's a difference between dehumanizing someone and having them as your enemy.

Having someone as your enemy means this person has to be stopped, they're causing harm and so it's right to act against them, within reason.

Dehumanizing someone is different. It means you are no longer viewing this human being as a person. They're now vermin, or a monster, or even an idol or evil overlord.

tl;dr: dehumanization can lead us to act without thinking, and I don't like that.

Philosophical rant ahead

(Get out while you can, lol.)

The reason (well, a reason) I have issues with dehumanization in general is that it gets used to circumvent moral discussions about dealing with enemies. War propaganda is an obvious one: "of course it's okay to kill these people, they're nothing more than a plague of cockroaches." But it shows up in a lot of more small-scale ways, too.

Sometimes the group being dehumanized really is a valid enemy and should be acted against, BUT the dehumanization means that any action taken against them will not be considered as carefully as it would if the enemy were still seen as "people." There is such a thing as reasonable force.

Dehumanization makes it emotionally easier to act against your enemies. Sometimes that's helpful, like if you're emotionally attached to your enemy and that makes you too forgiving. It might be easier to leave an abusive relationship if you see the abuser as a monster rather than a really screwed-up person. But more often, it's used by the abuser to justify the abuse.

"Force is all they understand."

Seeing someone as inhuman also closes off a lot of options for dealing with them. You can't negotiate with a monster. You can't reason with rats. Vermin can't ever recover or stop being vermin. Human motivations are complex, and human perception is limited, and sometimes the person who's against you is against you because they're in a bad situation. Do you dehumanize Draco Malfoy because he's working with the Death Eaters, or do you pull a Dumbledore and offer to protect him and his family? This tactic might have worked if they'd had more time.

Sometimes, people are gonna be wrong. Give them a chance to come around, if you can.

Of course, sometimes it's not as easy as that, and direct action is the route you have to take. But you should think about it first. You should try other things, if doing so doesn't put people in immediate danger.

Relying on dehumanization

On the other side of the coin, if you *need* to dehumanize someone in order to justify acting against them, you're going to get a lot of false negatives. People can cause harm without stepping over whatever line you've drawn before you dehumanize; they can cause harm without even being malicious. You need to be able to confront those people.

It's everywhere

Once you start looking for dehumanization, you see it everywhere. It lives in how we talk about prisons, for example. It lives in how people view all kinds of marginalized groups. It lives in how we view international conflict. It's a big part of a lot of issues I won't name because I don't want to get into specifics, I hate discussing politics on the Internet.

If you really want to see how many things it touches, read Brene Brown's books (I'd start with Daring Greatly) and look at all the different things people feel shame about. Appearance. Money. Aging. Mental health. Shame is a form of dehumanizing yourself, and it's horribly destructive--but also, all of those are things we might dehumanize others over, consciously or not.

So basically

I try not to use or listen to dehumanizing arguments, and keep it out of my internal reasoning process. I understand why people do it, but I don't think it's a good habit to fall into. For me, it's enough to see my enemies as harmful, and act against them; they don't have to be rats.

Notes and disclaimers

1. Please don't use this as a jumping off point to rant about examples of specific political crap. If you have to, make your own post, and don't tag me--this subject is exhausting for me, and this boundary is a self care thing. If you want to talk about dehumanization in general, that's fine, I just don't want to get into touchy flamebait stuff about the death penalty or terrorism or any of that shit.

(Just now realizing that the primary reason I hate political discussions on the Internet is largely *because* of the ubiquitous shame- and dehumanization-based arguments. Oof.)

2. These are general rules and there will be exceptions. Don't @ me about edge cases.

3. You can come to a different conclusion about this issue. If you've thought this through and you have a different opinion, or if you use dehumanization but you're really careful about when you use it, I respect that.

This post may be some of the most Ravenclaw primary shit I've ever written.

[canchewread]

Author’s note: well, my week has sucked, how about yours? 

Right, no rest for the wicked then. So as I mentioned at the tail end of last month, I’m working on a new kind of Recommended Reading blog feature here on Can’t You Read. 

The tl;dr is these posts are designed to combine a sharable info graphic (or meme, if you must) with some short burst analysis and an important link to a related and often overlooked story by someone else. Ideally, all of this fits into an 800 or 1,000 word package that actually gives you enough time in your undoubtedly busy day to read the article I’m linking to.

Got it? Good, let’s get cracking.

American Fascism and Networks of Power

Well my friends, the last nauseating funeral gasp of the Trump era is almost over. With the recent news that (soon-to-be) former swine emperor Trump’s own Department of Justice can find no evidence of widespread election fraud, we all appear to be getting collectively closer to the final resolution of the Klepto Kaiser’s “chicken coup” and perhaps, the waning of his political influence even on the reactionary right. 

Good riddance to bad rubbish I suppose, but as I’ve repeatedly tried to explain to virtually anyone who would listen, the end of Trump is most certainly not the end of fascism in the larger Pig Empire, or even just American fascism. The reasons for this are of course myriad but a short list might look something like this:

the pre-existing and increasingly normalized strain of ideological white nationalism in our society and ingrained into non-elected portions of the state (think police, ICE, and Trump’s complete transformation of the American judiciary; similar processes are also occurring in places like India, and Brazil of course.)

A weakened incoming, center-right administration (and its “liberal” establishment lackeys) that not only lacks the courage to purge fascists from public service but also attempts to weaponize far right violence against the American left, and regards antifascist street action as being akin to terrorism or crime.

the indefinite survival of an objectively fascist opposition party that probably has a better than even chance of retaining control of the U.S. Senate.

the existence of multiple right wing, mainstream media outlets and personalities that propagate fascist ideology, which are in turn buttressed by a seemingly endless wave of Astroturfed online media and internet psyops funded and controlled by fascist, or at least hyper-capitalist to the point of being reactionary, billionaires and their lobby networks.

the continued existence of violent, reactionary street gangs, far right neo-fascist militias, fascist conspiracy cults, and of course, roughly seventy-four million people who just gleefully voted for an open fascist and in some cases, continue to agitate for what would effectively be a coup.

the need for elite capital to defend itself against social upheaval and acquire soon-to-be scare resources in the face of evidence that capitalism is simply not compatible with avoiding the impending climate apocalypse our current political and economic course is actively ensuring will come to pass.

Naturally, I could have also mentioned the ongoing political, social and economic fallout from the still-raging coronavirus crisis, but I saved that for last because I want to unpack the ways we know many of the above forces function together in action - and as luck would have it, the Covid-19 anti-lockdown protests provide an extremely clear and documented example of what might otherwise look a little bit like a conspiracy theory. 

Now as you may well be aware, a concerted and sustained disinformation campaign conducted by not only President Trump, but the larger Republican Party and right wing media has successfully weaponized the response to the coronavirus as a culture war issue in America; and that conflict is rapidly spreading across the entire Pig Empire. 

This in turn was combined with a purely Astroturf protest movement, and judicious application of billionaire reactionary funding to literal white nationalist and fascist militias, to churn out thousands of cultists, chuds and other members of the reactionary “Volk” who demanded the economy be “re-opened” no matter how many elderly, marginalized or otherwise compromised people it might kill. Which as we’ve learned the month’s since, is quite a lot.

While each of these groups would vehemently deny it, it’s quite obvious that the billionaires and their media, are working with reactionary politicians in the Republican Party to marshal an aggressive, potentially violent protest movement against their political enemies and policies that threaten their profits. The rich guys get to keep raking in the cash, the politicians (who work for the rich guys anyway) get power and support from the chuds, and the Volk get to disguise a backlash against equality, decolonization and social advances as a battle against tyranny. All of which is wrapped up in a neat little bow under the auspices of covert white supremacy, in a situation that looks a little bit like eugenics, and bears all the hallmarks of historically racist (and obviously, false) attitudes in America about the genetic and more importantly *hygienic* superiority of whites over non-whites.    

Of course and as I mentioned above, all of this might sound like a conspiracy theory, but if you’ve been clicking on the links as we go along you know that it’s all true; unfortunately, a bipartisan billionaire-owned media interest in protecting the power and influence of elite capital in the Pig Empire, by and large prevents the mainstream media from presenting all of this information in its proper context. To counter that problem, let’s turn to investigative journalist Alex Kotch, an anti-corruption muckraker of considerable ability and someone who exists at least partially (but not entirely) outside the corporate media sphere.

On October 21st, 2020, Kotch and the Center for Media and Democracy published an extraordinary story that laid bare the inner workings of American fascism (and its capitalist roots) - we’re talking about exposing the direct financial connections between billionaire propaganda networks, fascist chud militias, right wing think tanks, GOP politicians and Astroturfed anti-lockdown protests; dark money meets dirty deeds done dirt cheap in a fake uprising that ends in obstructive lawsuits, partisan impeachment recommendations and a plot to kidnap and maybe even execute the governor of Michigan for... saving lives, apparently.

This is what the fascist alliance of elite capital (DeVos Family, Koch Network,) political power and street violence looks like in direct application; this is why I’m certain American fascism will outlast Trump’s fall - it’s all there in black and white. 

Unfortunately, hardly anyone noticed it at the time because the election consumed all of the oxygen in the room; as anything involving Trump is want to do. Let’s not make that mistake again - to check out Kotch’s incredible story, click on the title header below:  

GOP Politicians and Conservative Groups Set the Stage for Attempted Kidnapping of Michigan Governor by Alex Kotch

-nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

[tark-msi]

IS CENSORSHIP THE DEATH OF CONTENT CREATIVITY?

Censorship, unquestionably, is not just a deterrent to an individual's expression of creativity, but in fact, the very curtailment of their freedom. Since ages past, Censorship has been a tool utilized by ruling bodies, be it kings, queens, priests, religions, or in the present case, democratic governments, to curb expressions of dissent either by an individual or communities. Although an ancient tool, it is still quite popular and in wide use by modern governments worldwide, granted its severity differs from nation to nation. However, foremost, presenting facts: Censorship is always a product of the essentially dominant zeitgeist, which is without exception defined by the ruling social class (more often than not conservative), which wants to maintain the status quo of a specific region. Censorship is no new subject, and to better understand, we have to study both the present and the past. Even today, this is an issue that will undoubtedly affect our country's future.

Let us first state the precise definition of Censorship: "Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.” This is a standard definition of Censorship. However, what people fail to realize is that Censorship's scope spans far and wide beyond the scope of just entertainment and news media. Not to mention the methodology of implementing censorships.

Nevertheless, how about we first trace the history of Censorship up to the present date. The first, most famous instance of Censorship is known to have happened in ancient Greece, where the great philosopher Socrates was charged with "corrupting" the youths and was henceforth executed. ‘Censorship by death’ might seem a thing of the past but is still very much a part of the present world. Censorship keeps reappearing as a blot in the history of humankind, as a sinister spectre. We remember the brutal killings by the church in the 16th century against the progress of science, the mass Censorship of literature in the 17th century by James I, the bloody Censorship in the 18th century during the Reign of Terror, not to mention the censorships implemented by Great Britain when India began its freedom struggle. Even in recent times, Censorship is an ever-looming presence. It was only 40 years ago when Indira Gandhi had implemented the emergency curtailing any and all criticism against the Government. Unfortunately, it is no revelation that India is right now going through a phase where a new kind of Censorship might emerge. A Censorship where there will not be a need to suppress the truth since the truth itself might stop existing hidden under the dirty disguise of propaganda and the veil of patriotism. This Censorship is the courtesy of ******** **** belonging to *** party.

From the examples, it can be easily surmised that no single incident exists where Censorship as a practice led to a positive result. More often than not, Censorship has been a product of conservative social practices and orthodox morality. It is always geared towards thwarting the path of progress. In maintaining the status quo. Several justifications are given in favour of Censorship. All valid reasons in themselves, but the rampant misuse made by the privileged few seriously casts a shadow of doubt on the systemic of Censorship. As previously mentioned, Censorship is subject to a conservative morality, and furthermore, a tool by the Government. These two forces combined only work to hinder the freedom of speech of the average citizens. Severe direct criticism against the ruling body or the upper class is not taken kindly. The so-called 'sentiments' being hurt belong only to the Savarna Heteronormative world, when they feel an 'attack'. But when it comes to the straight-up unconstitutional portrayal and slurs against the Queer and economically depressed classes, our democratic system invariably fails at protecting their constitutional rights.

Censorship is beyond a doubt the bane of content creativity. The combination of the psychological aspect and malignancy of censorship further create sinister dynamics worth our study. In an environment riddled with Censorships, there is psychologically established a safe zone and a danger zone in the individual's mind, creating an isolation of ideas and further constriction of mind. For fear of physical and mental harm, the user/creator remains within the arbitrarily made safe zone, created and defined by those in power. Once the zones are psychologically established, they start taking social roots. The safe zone creepily and silently becomes the core of social values. Hence, in essence, Censorship, in proxy with social values, becomes unquestionable. This further extends the safe zone in the social environment. Stepping out of that safe zone results in facing the wrath of the society itself. It, of course, is an obvious fact that societal norms are ingrained in an individual since infancy and hence get rooted inside the mind. Again, gaining a psychological aspect and here we witness the vicious circle of isolating the information and categorizing it as right or wrong, not through any critical judgment but simply because it becomes a predefined entity by an arbitrary authority (The ruling body). A fixed societal system then leads to a stale system of information where nothing new or creative can exist; rather, nothing new or creative is allowed to exist.

Additionally, Censorship is not merely an act of banning or removing certain content or proliferation of specific ideas. It is a sheer exercise in redacting the truth and hiding it behind a veneer of lies. Just like creativity can be expressed in multitudes of ways beyond the limited scope of media, similarly there exist nuanced censorship practices aimed at crushing deviant and creative modes of thinking. Censorships aimed at creating only one designated path. The different types of Censorship are: Censoring certain content (Removal), spreading false information to overshadow facts (Misleading), capturing means of information (Hijacking), Destabilising communications (Isolation of areas), Interference in collecting data, active prevention of expressing of one's views (Banning protests), ignoring or refusing to acknowledge specific outlets of expression (Disregarding), the threat of harm to relatives or the personnel themselves, and in the most extreme case Censorship by Death. With the coming of the digital age, the act of Censorship has become far more nuanced and harder to detect. And while the people keep struggling to find new ways of expressing their creativity\ the hounds of censorship keep up the chase. The freedom of the Internet is like a double-edged sword. Finding accurate facts among the propaganda and Whatsapp forwards is like trying to find a needle in the haystack. Perhaps part of the issue lies with the overload of information that has become possible with the Internet culture of our time.

Without a doubt, all the blame and critical talk surrounding Censorship should fall on the Government, regardless of the party. The Government's responsibility is to listen to the people's voices, not dictate that voice. A common argument in favour of Censorship is that Government is trying to protect the people from harmful, negative or disturbing media and discouraging its promotion. Media such as child pornography, disturbing and traumatizing videos of murder and gore, texts which might not be suitable for specific age groups. Fair enough. But my question is, why doesn't the Government try to eradicate the problems themselves? How is it that no action against the crime itself is taken? The very existence of such media is proof of how miserably our Government is failing.

Moreover, when someone raises these issues explicitly, those people are silenced on the grounds of spreading 'disturbing' content. Media handles spreading hate violence against communities, and misogynist content are allowed to do what they want willy-nilly, but porn websites are like the ultimate taboo, Oh! What a ruin of 'Indian values’. The ‘disturbing’ content which so endangers our peace and freedom is nothing more than the artist holding a mirror to the society. The artistic freedom exists in the fact that the artist can hold the mirror in any angle to show the dirty side-lines which nourish our established societal foundations. Censorship only exists to break those mirrors. It is an inability to confront the rotten reality, to face the cost of maintain the status quo. We are concerned about the children seeing the scars on a woman’s naked body; Mind! We are not concerned about the scars but about the nakedness! But why ashamed now, when you so proudly beat her up in front of your own child? We are concerned about an abuse in a TV show; Mind! We don’t care about the abuse, but about the fact that it is being hurled at our shining, virtuous culture! But why worried now when the abuses you threw on the young Dalit boy, are being thrown back on you? His are the abuses which are probably the fairest.

An interesting incident comes to my mind, which will also serve as a nice metaphor. Back in February, one of our glorious leaders invited a foreign leader for a political visit. They were supposed to tour certain parts of the country, to show its beauty. In preparation, we made walls along the roads! For very good reasons surely, and not to hide the dirt and the poverty lining the streets. So, the tour continued and our leaders travelled our beautiful country through those clean, immaculate, and wonderful roads, lined with walls on either side. I think the name of the walls was ‘Censorship’. And so it is, that we kill and wall off creativity and the truth. Because the fact is there is no one truth. The diversity and the creativity are all their own forms of truth. All those paths exist for us to explore and learn. But censorship allows only one road. The clean one. Which only the virtuous, the rich and the clean can walk.

Baudrillard's insight into the creation of reality is incredibly useful and a much-recommended read. His much-acclaimed theory has been, how in the present age of information explosion, the one who controls the flow of information is the one who controls reality. We have already witnessed how dangerous Censorship can be during Stalin's reign, where around 80000 people simply vanished. A similar pattern can be seen today with mob lynching and murders of journalists and reporters who dare to raise their voice against fascism. The riots, the protests, the beatings and the killings are the signs of our time. Hence it is not just the threat of ‘Death of creativity’ that we face, but it is almost a matter of life and death. Only us, the people can stand against it and openly raise our voices by our Freedom of expression and speech. The question remains: When will we come together to fight it?

By- Aditya Singh

[apenitentialprayer]

The Grim Reminder

Attack on Titan and the Perpetual Crisis

(x) tl;dr: the fascist believes that the nation is continually under threat, finding enemies in other nations, but the worst and most dangerous enemies being dissent originating from within. This is currently a problem in the United States, especially (but not exclusively) with the Right, which often interprets disagreement as irrational, childish behavior that is destroying the nation. From the very first episode, the characters who inhabit the world of Attack on Titan are people in constant danger; some threats are obvious, like the nearly two hundred foot tall Titan that compromises the integrity of Wall Maria; others aren’t so much, like the incompetence and corruption of the city guards. But in any case, the one consistent thing you can expect in this story is that the very world itself seems to act as an obstacle that prevents the main characters from achieving their goals. There are enemies at every turn, because the world itself is an enemy. Opponents are inhuman, strangers are potential threats waiting for you to let your guard down, and even friends are ultimately not reliable. The world is in crisis, and the only person you can trust to fix these issues is yourself. This continuous crisis is a key part of any fascist narrative. If there ever was a golden age, it is long past; the golden age, a mythic period where the fascist’s group was the best, is something that must be regained. If it is based on an actual, historical epoch, the seedier qualities of society in that time period will be de-emphasized, if not ignored. And, luckily for the people living now, the golden age is something that can be brought back; it may even be on the verge of returning, were it not for the Perpetual Crisis, the way the enemies of the state always seem able to place a new obstacle that just barely prevents the total victory of the fascist movement. The golden age is definitely a rhetorical device deployed by Eren’s father in the episodes centered on his flashbacks, and thus by Eren as well. Ignoring the history of conquest, slavery, and eugenics of the Eldian Empire, Eren’s father presents a vision of the Eldian past where his ancestors brought civilization and progress to an otherwise backward world. The ancestors of Marley and all enemies of the Eldian Empire (which seems to have been pretty much everyone) were jealous of this past, and any and all criticism of the Eldians is best viewed as propaganda weaponized against the legitimate rulers of the world. The Eldian Empire must return; it is a matter of bringing the world back to an order that has been lost. The fact that the author has made it clear that this is a rhetorical device even in-universe may actually imply that the author is critical of the distortion of the past to support a present political agenda. But even if the use golden age rhetoric is implicitly criticized, the Perpetual Crisis is a reality of the world of Attack on Titan; the story, as presented so far, makes it clear that the multitude of enemies perceived by the main characters are truly there, and are truly obstacles preventing the fulfillment of their goals. First, we have Titans who have violated the sacred boundaries of mankind by breaking through Wall Maria. Second, we have Titans who have infiltrated humanity itself, sowing discord and paranoia from within. Third, we have leaders who oppose the views of the main characters, and are thus viewed as self-serving and incompetent. It’s never the main character’s fault when something goes wrong; what prevents the main character from achieving what he wants is always a ferocious enemy, an insidious plot, or a failure to trust in one’s own feelings over the opinions of others. That’s a dirty secret of the fascist view of the world; I’ve already said that the fascist cannot abide the thought of living in peace with a rival nation. But a fascist movement thrives off of the momentum of the perpetual crisis, and thus cannot exist without the rival to define itself against. As Ernest Gellner points out, if everyone in the world was to convert to Christianity or Islam, the concept of Christianity or Islam would still have meaning - these identity labels can exist meaningfully even without an Other to define itself against. This is not the case with a nation, which defines itself as a distinct set of people, and this is even less true of a fascistic nation, which thrives best when it has enemies both within and without. We see this clearly in Nazi Germany with the concept of the lebensraum, or “living space.” Simply put, according to the Nazi regime, the Germanic peoples did not have the room it needed to thrive, and thus needed to expand. The German people were supposedly in a seminal point in history, where it either had to both expand and purify itself, or go extinct. This was an apparently urgent need, something that had to be accomplished soon, a desire so strong that the two groups acting as obstacles to fulfilling this goal were oppressive by means of their very existence; namely, the Slav already living in the lands that the Nazi regime wanted, and the Jew living among the Germanic peoples. But these weren’t the only enemies, either; anyone who questioned the need for or methods of attaining this lebensraum were also enemies, and this category would expand to include basically anyone who didn’t explicitly affirm the idea. Communists, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, non-Aryans; all of these interior enemies added to the crisis, necessitating witch hunts to “purify” the Germans, with horrific results. Now, there are a lot of groups and organizations that thrive on the concept of the perpetual crisis; the Catholic Church positions itself as the Ark of Noah, keeping the faithful safe in a sea of modernist heresy; the feminist movement in recent years has emphasized chronic feelings of fear that women experience in masculinized environments, with some prominent figures taking some pretty strong positions on the #MeToo movement (Michael Che’s Kavanaugh statement comes to mind). Neither of these stances are inherently fascist, though both have the potential to become fascistic. But let’s use a slogan that wraps both the Golden Age and the Perpetual Crisis up nicely: “Make America Great Again.” The slogan clearly presupposes two things; first, that America was great at one point, and second, America is no longer great. The “greatness” America experienced seems to be located sometime before the sixties, usually during or shortly after the Second World War; we fought the Nazis and won, after all! And we came out of the Depression. Things weren’t great for many Americans, but the subgroup that was usually identified with the nation itself (middle-class, White, native-born) was doing pretty well for itself. The groups associated with America’s fall from greatness (Marxists, civil rights activists, leftist politicians) are usually those groups that challenge this Golden Age narrative. The Nazis depicted the German nation as a defeated, emasculated nation that was suffocating under the weight of the pressure placed on it; it needed more living space. The less optimistic sections of conservative Americans depicts the American nation as a declining power, rotting from the inside because of people bashing the pillars that had allowed America to stand in the first place; the Christian nation is allowing more and more Muslim immigrants even as it faces the threat of Islamic terrorism; the primarily White nation must pander to black civil rights activists and Mexican immigrants even as these populations continue to increase; a proud nation of tradition is finding its traditional ways of life slowly eroding because of modernity and an enabling, multicultural, secular liberalism. I’m not saying that America doesn’t have problems. The way it is depicted above, however, encourages the suppression of minorities and encourages conservatives to see themselves as the True Americans defending what is left of Authentic America. Like the Eldians, who depose a king because of his policy of non-violence, some Americans would like to live in a world where agitating activists are at least silenced, if not eliminated (“If you don’t like it here, move somewhere else”). Faced with the possibility of allowing power to reside in a family that would rather keep the Eldians isolated from the world and at peace in the Walls, Eren opts to murder that family in order to seize power for himself. Having finally eliminated the threat of the Titans on the island of Paradis, Eren shifts his view to Marley across the sea. The survival of the in-group is what matters most, and in a fascist worldview you must be willing to do whatever it takes in order to ensure that survival. Every disagreement is a matter of life or death, every inconvenience an existential threat; the stakes can never be too high, and your side can never be too zealous in its actions. I’m not sure how to solve the problem of dealing with enemies from without; I’m not going to touch that. But in terms of dealing with struggle from within, I’d suggest first and foremost an elimination of the us vs. them attitude. The fascist sees disagreement as malicious sabotage. We have to see political opponents as people who are equally as invested in this nation, and whose disagreements with ourselves is coming from a place of authentic concern. We have to stop attributing malicious intent where other explanations are possible; a pro-choicer declaring that pro-lifers ultimately wish to control and punish women distorts their argument and demonizes them; declaring someone who doesn’t want limits on immigration to be pro-white genocide distorts their argument and demonizes them. As a final topic, it should be noted that fascists often claim to represent the true feelings of the people, and are thus justified in accomplishing their goals as ruthlessly as possible. One of the dangers of claiming legitimacy through the people, however, is that the people are more than capable of disagreeing with you; the fascist may ignore this, overriding the general will and choosing to do what they think is best for the people. Rabindranath Tagore wrote a book back during the first agitations for Indian independence, a book called The Home and the World. Using the metaphor of husband and wife, it argues that if you are going to treat a person or group of people as if they have the right to self-determination, you have to be prepared to accept decisions that you feel don’t reflect their best interests; if you’re going to treat a government as if its power ultimately comes from the people, you have to put your money where your mouth is and take their decisions and requests seriously. Just something to think about.

[arecomicsevengood]

QUARANTINE MOVIES PART FOUR

It’s wild to watch any movie knowing that none will be made for the foreseeable future, and that the whole collective experience of filmgoing might be dead. I tend to have a certain sad, scared lonely feeling when I contemplate the future at night, and while I attempt to put off by watching movies, it only partly works. Now, more than ever, movies are a larger part of my processing of the world than the ongoing conversations I have with friends.

Smithereens (1982) dir. Susan Seidelman

There is something particularly powerful about movies where people run around, socializing. These things are pretty resonant with my youth, but “youth” in this broad sense that just means “the before times,” because if there’s anything quarantine is bringing home it’s the importance of a form of adulthood based around domestic partnerships with someone you like and having “real jobs” that can translate to telecommuting. Of course, socializing of the sort no longer allowed is really useful, and shouldn’t be written off as youthful frivolity. Smithereens is not a particularly romantic movie: While it might be famous for being “punk” in a “cool” way, documenting young New York nightlife in a way where David Wojnarowicz’s band 3 Teens Kill 4 is on a club’s marquee, it’s really about young people as these sort of upwardly-mobile opportunists with no real talent trying to exploit one another for a mixture of sex and social clout, and ignoring those who are not actively useful to them. It’s a useful document of people being shitty where the appeal now is how cool they look, and it’s interesting to watch in this moment where I’m worried that the whole idea of community will be lost very soon, in a way we won’t even be able to articulate. We’ll all be scrambling for jobs and security but everything will be further hollowed out, and we’ll be left with an even more vicious and dog-eat-dog citizenry. So a movie like this has nostalgic appealing, but by depicting the seeds of what will only become more widespread problems, it avoids feeling dated or idealistic.

Gloria (1980) dir. John Cassavetes

Oh shit this movie rules! I was under the impression I disliked Cassavetes, based on the others I had seen, and watching the first twenty-odd minutes reminded me of why: Sort of circular conversations, involving a lot of people being upset with one another. But this ends up feeling more like a movie, and less like a play. Once Gena Rowlands kills a carful of people I was completely on board. She’s great in this, playing opposite a child, who is also amazing in it, tons of dialogue that should be quotable: “You’re not my mother, my mother was beautiful” being but one amazing bit of poetry. Both extremely cute and extremely badass from moment to moment, the parts of this movie are in tension with one another where it also feels like it’s going from strength to strength, and ever scene, every moment, is great. Incredible music, and also great documentation of a world that doesn’t exist anymore, of telephone booths, smoking sections, and places that’ll develop photos for you. Highest possible recommendation.

The Naked City (1948) dir. Jules Dassin

Seemingly the first movie to be shot on location throughout New York, rather than studio backlots, and it milks the city for all its worth, shifting frequently from one location to another, introducing to new characters. Initially guided by omniscient narration but quickly focusing to become a police procedural. I knew Dassin from Rififi but this feels more exciting, I would gladly watch movies bite the techniques from this every few decades, though Gloria does a good job of moving through the streets of New York in a less-contrived way. There was a Naked City TV show ten years later, shot on location and focusing on a police precinct.

Near Dark (1987) dir. Kathryn Bigelow

I consider this Kathryn Bigelow’s best movie, but circumstances have not led me to watch it as many times as I’ve seen Point Break, so the memories I’ve retained of it were kind of inaccurate: Specifically, the thing I thought of as the climax, the part at the hotel where light is getting shot through the blankets taped up to cover windows, happens like halfway through. Screenwriter Eric Red wrote this at the same time as he wrote The Hitcher, and that’s another one that just GOES, moving from one scene to another where they all have this climactic intensity constantly but the scale is shifting of what you’re invested in? The Hitcher is a nightmare and this is more of an action movie. People point out this movie has a bunch of the cast from Aliens but I didn’t realize there’s a shot where Aliens is actually on the marquee of a theater. I also wonder if this whole horror/action/western/but with vampires thing was an inspiration to Garth Ennis? I kinda feel like the pacing I find so powerful could not really be sustained over the length of an extended comic run.

Hero (1992) dir. Stephen Frears

Dustin Hoffman plays a criminal schlub, doing a weird voice. It’s almost like he was told that the role was written for Sylvester Stallone, but Stallone’s insistence on getting a writing credit on every movie he acts in complicated the premise in a weird way, so Hoffman just attempts a Stallone impression. One of his few redeeming characteristics is he’s a loving father, but that isn’t why he’ll remind you of your dad. Maybe most men are just Dustin Hoffman doing impersonations of Sylvester Stallone! From 1992, so Hoffman’s I guess in a post-Rain-Man mode, but the film also feels very early nineties in its commentary on television news turning stories into celebrities, and an analysis of the problems with professional cynicism that seem very much of their time. It’s not like a more sophisticated critique has found its way into any mainstream film I can think of, we’ve just stopped thinking about these issues, as they’ve become much worse. Joan Cusack’s good as his Hoffman’s ex-wife, and Susie Cusack’s good as his lawyer. I would like to see Susie Cusack in more things! Geena Davis plays a television reporter, Andy Garcia plays a decent guy who is a contrast to Hoffman, there’s also small roles for the likes of Stephen Tobolowsky and Tom Arnold, really placing this in a moment of time.

The Age Of Innocence (1993) dir. Martin Scorsese

I didn’t like this one, for all the obvious reasons: I don’t like costume dramas about rich people, and I don’t like Daniel Day-Lewis. It’s an Edith Wharton adaptation, all about a world of well-mannered old money with very rigidly defined rules of behavior. Michelle Pfeiffer plays the true love Day-Lewis is kept from by the mores of the day, and part of her romantic appeal is she’s able to see through the rituals and make fun of them, while Winona Ryder fully buys into them, and thus reaps the benefits. Everything is repressed, all behavior is affect, this is of course the point but very much not my thing. There’s also a lot of a narrator reading the text of the book while the camerawork fades between lavishly composed image, while the cinematography probably looked great on a big screen I would still be very anxious about getting to the storytelling.

Experiment In Terror (1962) dir. Blake Edwards

This one starts off super-intensely, with a home invasion scene, the sense of horror in this is palpable but the fear is just used as this blackmail structure for some noir stuff? It straggles the genre line pretty well, feeling weird because of this horror energy of sheer creeping malevolence defines it. This is also considerably longer than most of the other film noir I’ve watched recently, because those moments extend and take away from the sense of a building plot, to instead feel like they might derail it. Lee Remick is the lead, and she is this terrified victim, which makes the film more interesting than if it were focused on the cop played by Glenn Ford. The main character’s younger sister gets kidnapped at one point, it gets creepy. The climax occurs at a end of a crowded baseball game, and there’s shots that I assume were done via helicopter, which seems like it would’ve upped the budget considerably.

The Harder They Fall (1956) dir. Mark Robson

Humphrey Bogart stars as a former sports writer, working to drum up publicity for a fresh-off-the-boat boxer who does not know how to fight, but is naively participating in fixed matches, for the economic benefit of the mob. While the boxer is being exploited and making no money, despite his celebrity; Bogart is being well-compensated to sell out his conscience and he is very good at playing a dude in moral conflict with himself, struggling to do the decent thing. While this isn’t the best boxing movie, or the best Bogart, it’s still pretty good.

The Devil And Miss Jones (1941) dir. Sam Wood

Heard about this one in the context of it having good politics. It’s about a rich guy who goes undercover at a department store hoping to bust the union only to realize that the guy organizing the union is supremely decent and the middle manager should get fired. It has some scenes that feel like they might play for “cringe comedy” but also are just so fucked up? One where the rich dude is forcing shoes onto the feet of little girl who is crying saying “I don’t like it! I don’t like it!” feels way too much like a pervert’s fetish for me to be comfortable with. The female lead is played by Jean Arthur, who is very good at playing a genuine, kind, and idealistic person. I am very grateful she dates the union organizer and the old rich dude’s love interest is someone age-appropriate. Interesting to see a pro-union movie from a time when unions were popular, so it functions as populist entertainment while Sorry To Bother You gestures at being radical propaganda for self-congratulation’s sake.

Human Desire (1954) dir. Fritz Lang

Another noir from Lang, with the same leads as The Big Heat. This one made me worried about age-inappropriate relationships too, as it begins with a dude being back from war, moving in with his friends, and their daughter having “become a woman” while he was away. Luckily the title refers  to a desire he ends up feeling for a married woman who as an accomplice to a murder committed by her abusive husband. Glenn Ford stars in this one, and he has this very boring morally upstanding male lead quality that makes these well-made movies feel generic. This thing is happening to me watching movies where I get kind of hung up on how no one ever explains themselves or their feelings: I don’t think they should, I think the whole thing of watching a movie where you watch it thinking like “Why don’t you just tell her you love her??” is interesting because… a writer doesn’t need the characters to explain their feelings to each other if the viewers understand them, these feelings are the most obvious things and so can go unspoken, and so you would really only have them say these things if they were lying or being manipulative? But maybe in more modern movies people really do state their motivations because screenwriters are dumber now? I don’t know.

Fail Safe (1964) dir. Sidney Lumet

I have talked about this movie a lot since watching it, and in a way that doesn’t even mention that the opening is amazing, and the title and credits sequence are all-time greats. Instead I mention that Henry Fonda’s performance seems to have inspired David Lynch’s performance of Gordon Cole, and how the weird, fucked up nightmarish ending doesn’t really change the fact that watching it in 2020 it feels like a sort of pornography of competence when contrasted against our own reality. The whole movie is about an accident that leads to a U.S. military plane flying to Moscow to drop a nuke, and everyone (except for the pilots) realizing this is a mistake and trying to avert global nuclear war. The ending is pretty astounding in its darkness. Walter Matthau plays a guy whose role is to argue for the pragmatic value of mass death, but the moral calculus that ends up being embraced is far beyond the nihilistic death drive he advocates for. Mutually assured destruction is such a motherfucker of a concept. I am really hung up on the idea that unilateral nuclear disarmament never became a thing really set a precedent for how political parties in this country will never unilaterally dismantle their propaganda machines. 24-hour news is a nightmare, not really on a par with nuclear weapons, but similarly something that should be illegal, but for the calculations made. We would be a different country if we were willing to make these kinds of sacrifices but we really are not.

The Deadly Affair (1967) dir. Sidney Lumet

James Mason stars in this John Le Carre adaptation. He plays a spy whose wife is cheating on him, with another spy. None of the twists in this are unforeseen, in fact, the title alone explains a bunch, but the title is also so generic you might forget what the movie is called while you’re watching it. James Mason is good in it, although it’s weird that he’s playing a likable guy who sort of doesn’t seem to understand why everyone can’t get along or be honest adults with one another considering his work in the intelligence community. Another solid Sidney Lumet movie.

Three Days Of The Condor (1975) dir. Sydney Pollack

This movie does a very good job of not explaining things up front, and then portioning out understanding as it goes on. The movie begins with Robert Redford getting his office getting shot up, and we eventually learn he works for the CIA, but he cannot rely on them for his protection. It doesn’t introduce the female lead, played by Faye Dunaway, until like halfway through the movie, when our hero takes her hostage. Redford can’t really explain the situation to her, and just sort of acts like a psychopath, but they are able to have a quasi-romantic relationship where she trusts him because he’s played by Robert Redford, who is in some ways the seventies’ answer to Glenn Ford. The movie star aspect allows him to sell his agreeability, although he’s also supposed to be something of a nerd, a guy whose job is just to read books and analyze the information. Max Von Sydow plays the villain.

The Third Shadow Warrior (1963) dir. Umetsugu Inoue

Watched this because it’s made by the dude who made Black Lizard, it’s a samurai thing about a warrior who employs body doubles. It follows one such body double, overshadowed by the man whose existence he supports, at the expense of his own individuality or happiness. Interesting enough, feels like it occupies the solid middle of samurai movies- Something sort of common to stuff on Criterion is something that doesn’t blow you away but it is definitely a “real movie” at the very least.

La Cienaga, (2001) dir. Lucrecia Martel

That said, you kind of do need to be careful with newer Criterion channel stuff, because some things feel more like they’re just trying to engage with an art house history in order to earn their place in the canon. This movie isn’t bad, but I do feel like the reason it’s interesting stems from a context the film itself has nothing to do with: After Martel made Zama (2017), there was talk of her being asked by Marvel to do a Black Widow movie, which is insane. The studio also volunteered to handle the action for her, which she said she would actually be interested in learning how to do herself, but she had no interest in working with Marvel. Let Lucrecia Martel make a big-budget action movie without corporate properties you cowards! This movie is pretty difficult to follow, with no clear narrative thread, a lot of characters, weird pacing, etc. There’s moments of poetry or tension but this is one of those things that’s just beyond my preferences enough to remind me of a certain aesthetic conservatism I possess. I didn’t finish Zama, though I had read the book. It’s honestly tough to imagine Martel making a movie with straightforward plot that can easily be followed, it doesn’t seem to be what she’s interested in, even in terms of editing a movie so that you have a sense of where scenes stand in relation to one another in time. Many scenes still maintain a sense of beauty or mystery but at there’s no velocity. She’s closer to Apichatpong Weerasethakul or Carlos Reygadas or Bi Gan, to name three people whose names I absolutely had to Google because I couldn’t think of them off the top of my head.

All these movies are streaming on The Criterion Channel, if you want me to recommend things on other streaming services, please DM me your login information.

[gigilberry-wips]

ROTBTD Hogwarts AU: Worldbuilding

Topic: Muggles, Magics, and Squibs

Here’s the worldbuilding I’ve thought up so far concerning the relationship between the magical and non-magical communities:

Muggles can't see the magic cast by magical creatures. What more, they can't be effected by it either. A witch or wizard can be in the presence of muggles and perform spells and cast it on other objects and that's fine. But the muggle will see none of it and said witch/wizard can't cast any spells over the muggle either. Of course, a witch or wizard could cast spells on themselves while a muggle is present, like healing spells and such but on a muggle? No effect.

And any magical items held in the hands of a muggle becomes completely non-magical. Give a muggle an enchanted teapot? Ordinary teapot. Bewitched keys? Ordinary keys. If a muggle were to walk through the greenhouses in Hogwarts they'd just be met with entirely non-magical plants and nothing else, even if a witch walking through that same greenhouse would have to watch out for the creeping vines of the Venomous Tentecula.

A good comparison I could make to the thing that’s going on here is the Mist in the Riordan universe, but with some variations here and there.

The effect this has had on the magical community I've cooked up is this: muggle hate is pointless. You try to shoot a forbidden curse at one of them and it'll do absolutely nothing and you'll look like an idiot. The four houses never had this disparity on the "pureness" of blood because there exists such a large, physical barrier between the magical and non-magical world that even if a muggle-born wizard went running out into the muggle streets and started blasting spells everywhere no one would see it and the things it would effect would look like ... ordinary destruction. They’d look violent and crazy but it wouldn’t be because of the magic.

This is why it's possible for muggles and magical creatures to live side by side and interact on the daily. It's much harder for muggles to go around killing magical people and other magical entities because for them there's literally no difference.

It also makes it so that witches and wizards have little reason to physically hide themselves or their magic from muggles - unless it's, like, the Dark Ages and the church thought it would be really smart to take over the government and enact mass killings on whichever randos they want because science and logic are illegal now then yeah maybe don't go advertising that you've got magic on you even if no one can see it.

This has the effect of the magical population being much, much larger than it was in the canon universe. There's not just one magical village - there is more than one, and magical towns and even cities (not in england bc england is tiny) as well. There's more than one magical community existing in a place. In many parts of the world their populations are large and thriving.

These two worlds are so completely separate from each other, and this is exactly why Squibs are so important. Squibs cannot practice magic but they can see it and experience it. It is only through Squibs that muggles can witness magic too.

(There is a particular ceremony for this to happen. It is very secret, and as Squibs are the ones who came up with it they are the only ones who know it.

But even after this ceremony muggles still can't be effected by magic because to be effected by magic you have to be of magical descent - you have to have some percentage of magical blood in you; Squibs have that, muggles don’t. If you want to hurt a muggle really badly just go the old fashioned route and stick your wand in their eye lmao)

It is through Squibs that magical people and muggles can marry, and it is through them that the gap between the magical and non-magical communities is bridged. One of the effects this has is that there is a lot more sharing that goes on between magical and non-magical cultures, be it in clothing, inventions, media, etc. There are things integrated in magical communities that have very obvious muggle origins, and there are things that muggles use that came from magical people, even if the muggles who use these things don’t know it.

Thanks to the legends told from the end of the Great War that happened millions of years before, Squibs even have certain connotations like being seen as inherently holy, good omens, and the bringers of good fortune. For these reasons it is traditional for a Squib to be a member of the magical "religious" community - and I'm using that term very loosely. What the magical humans have got going on is a little bit different from the traditional sense of the word; you know, less cult-like qualities and all that.

(At the moment I’ve mixed some of it up with Pagan traditions as a placeholder until I’ve got more material to work with, but since these are witches/wizards we’re talking about, their culture does have strong influences from Paganism, Satanism, and Nordic beliefs.)

(If you’re wondering, this also means that Christianity is blocked from this group chat - listen, those witch burnings really made an impression, okay. Even if the muggles were confused and mostly ended up killing their own bc really all of it was just propaganda made by the government for woman hate you can’t just expect an entire society to forgive something like that.)

It is traditional for Squibs to be present for births, coming of age ceremonies, marriages, deaths, and all the festive days that are interspersed throughout. And if they get the necessary training, they are guaranteed places in the government to help with diplomatic relations - magical governments across the world consider it a necessity to have Squibs present at their meetings regarding international affairs, because it is usually Squibs who are the most knowledgeable on the various magical and non-magical societies, customs, current news, systems of law enforcement, bureaucracy, languages, and even the magical version of anthropology, and are trained in those things specifically.

They are the interlopers between the two worlds. They are ambassadors, translators, peacemakers, the givers of knowledge and enlightenment. In these societies they are important, needed, vital.

And as for how the magical communities keep the peace amongst each other ... that specific role falls onto an independent, long-standing, non-government affiliated group called The Guardians. The details that pertain to who they are and what they do will be explored in another post.

*

This might come off as too personal, but the main reason I came up with a canon like this is, aside from giving a stronger and more prominent role to Squibs who are seen as the equivalent of the disabled in the HP universe, I think I just really wanted to read a story where the struggles of people like mine isn’t used as a plot device. Oh yes, I know that things like war, terrorism, prejudice, inexcusable cruelty, mass genocide, and such are all very fun concepts! Very interesting, so creative, really. I’m sure that lots of people in the western worlds are always thrilled to eat up things like that. And maybe in other circumstances I might’ve been too. Maybe I would’ve been perfectly okay with seeing all those things everywhere and anywhere since they are supposed to be such an inevitable and completely normal and necessary part of any world that’s ever been created because we can explain all of that away with it just being “human nature”, right?

But this fanfiction I’m writing ... I’m writing it to have a good time. I want some place I can go to that makes someone like me feel good, too. I just ..... I’m tired. I’m tired.

Tagging:

@rose-sparks13 , @iamlongstockings

[militant-holy-knight]

On a fall day in the early 8th century, somewhere between the French cities of Poitiers and Tours, a Muslim army crashed into the serried ranks of a force led by a powerful Frankish noble: Charles, Mayor of the Palace and son of Pippin of Herstal. In the ensuing battle, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi — governor of the Muslim territories in Al-Andalus (Spain) — was slain, and his troops were routed. This confrontation between two Dark Age warlords echoed through the ages and acquired a potent symbolism, all despite the fact that medievalists know relatively little about the principal protagonists and the respective orders of battle, let alone how the fight actually unfolded.

We do actually know sufficient details about everything in regards to the battle and considering the author used a BBC link (from an outlet infamous for historical revisionism) to prove his point, I really shouldn’t take what he claims seriously. And even if any of these things are true... Should they be dismissed? There are important battles whose details are still obscure like the Battle of the Cataluniuan Fields where the Romans fought Atilla the Hun, but no one knows who won. Yet no one ever complains about it because it isn’t a thorn on the author’s skin. But again this is pointless because we know how the battle played out.

Edward Gibbon famously speculated that, had Abdul Rahman prevailed at Poitiers,

“the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.”

The French romantic writer Chateaubriand made the equally dramatic claim that, “if it were not for Charles Martel’s valor, we would all be wearing turbans.”

“Oh yes, how I wish these Islamophobes had just bowed down their heads and let the Arabs walk over them, violate their wives and daughters, destroy and desecrate their churches. Europe would have been so much more tolerant than today.” - Iskander Rehman, the author of this piece of shit.

Perhaps most importantly, Charles Martel has become an enduring icon of fascist and far-right movements, in France and other Western states. The Vichy regime, for example, reveled in its warped reading of Charles Martel and of medieval French history more broadly. The francisca, an early Frankish throwing axe, featured prominently in Vichy iconography and propaganda, and Charles Martel was presented alongside Joan of Arc as an embodiment of pre-revolutionary Catholic virtue. Meanwhile, a notorious division of French volunteers to the Nazi SS was named the Division Charlemagne after the great Carolingian Emperor and grandson of Charles Martel. In the years following France’s bitter war in Algeria, a far-right group — the Cercle Charles Martel — conducted a string of terror attacks against Algerians and citizens of North African descent in France. More recently, the founder of the French Front National party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, reacted to the Charlie Hebdo killings by proudly claiming “Je suis Charlie Martel,” in defiance of the more republican and inclusive slogan “Je suis Charlie.” “Je suis Charlie Martel” has since become one of the rallying cries of French far-right activists.

This sinister historical crush extends far beyond France. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian neo-Nazi who slaughtered 77 people in 2011, claimed in his online rants to have “identified” with the figure of Charles Martel. In the United States, a group called the Charles Martel Society funds the publication of a pseudo-intellectual and deeply racist journal, The Occidental Quarterly. Charles de Steuben’s famous 19th-century painting of the Battle of Poitiers flashes through one of Richard Spencer’s slickly edited “alt-right” videos, providing a brief and jarring backdrop to a long stream of nativist gobbledygook.

These two paragraphs can be summed up as “Racists, bigots and hate groups love Charles Martel, so you cannot too or else you are one of them”. The irony in all of this is that Adolf Hitler hated Charles Martel for defeating the Arabs because he felt that if they had won, they would have brought Islam to Germans and they would have become unstoppable, since he felt Islam was a more appropriate religion for the Nazis.

Most modern historians are skeptical of the notion that the battle of Poitiers constituted such a watershed moment. While the defeat of the Andalusian army by a Western European force was certainly significant, it was not unprecedented. Only a few years prior, Odo of Aquitaine crushed another Muslim army outside Toulouse, but this battle never acquired the same mythological symbolism of the battle of Poitiers.

The difference is that Odo’s victory was merely temporary while Charles’ stopped any more invasions - that is exactly what makes it decisive. If Arabs had retreated back to Spain after the Battle of Tolouse, you’d be writing this same article except condemning Odo of Tolouse instead of Charles Martel. The Battle of Poitiers happened because Odo asked Charles for his help and in exchange he’d swear his allegiance to him.

The academic consensus now appears to be that Al Ghafiqi’s foray into what was then referred to as Northern Gaul was a long-distance raid or “razzia” motivated not so much by an ambition for conquest as by a desire for plunder. Indeed, we are told that the prime target of this raid was a wealthy religious sanctuary located at Saint Martin de Tours and filled with gold and precious fabrics. Hugh Kennedy has noted that the defeat seems to have had little resonance in the wider Arabo-Muslim world, and he views it as one symptom of many that marked the steady decline of the Syrian-based Umayyad Caliphate. Others have pointed to the Caliphate’s overextension into Spain and to the growing tensions between local Arab and Berber forces as well as rival tribes and clans. 

A lot of Islam apologists use this argument of “plunder” to whitewash it’s militarist expansionism and not name it what it actually was: colonialism. There is no such thing as being there “just” for plunder when Arabs are actively settling the region and governing over it (Septimania was already occupied by this point). The Vikings were motivated solely by plunder and didn’t care about ruling their victims (the Danelaw over England being the exception). I love how he uses “academic consensus” because that is dogwhistle for “what me and my SJW friends agree with”, as well as “Arab Muslim world didn’t care for this battle, but I am so mad about it I am going to write everything I can to discredit it”

Although the destruction of Al Ghafiqi’s field army depleted the Ummayads’ local reservoir of military strength, Moorish troops lingered in some southern French cities such as Narbonnes for two and a half more decades. Meanwhile, Muslim raiders continued their “ghazawat” across the Pyrenees for at least another a century, long after the fall of the Ummayads.

Minor skirmishes don’t mean a whole lot if they can’t even launch another full-scale invasion again.

It would be reductive to present the battle of Poitiers as the military manifestation of some age-old existential struggle between Christendom and Islam. Charles Martel’s Europe was a continent of many faiths and philosophies, not a religiously bipolar system. 

OMFG. You actually went there, you son of a bitch.

Religious differences could cut across tribes, kingdoms, and ethnicities. For example, along the Pyrenees resided the fiercely independent Basques, some of whom were Muslim, some of whom were Christian, and a portion of whom practiced more ancient forms of belief. The “Song of Roland,” a medieval ballad familiar to all products of French middle schools, recounts the cowardly ambush of one of Emperor Charlemagne’s retainers, the noble Roland, by enemy forces in a narrow mountain pass. For centuries, schoolchildren were told that the Carolingian knight had been killed by “Saracens” — Muslim forces based in Spain. It is now believed that Roland — whose prolonged death scene famously inspired Boromir’s in Lord of the Rings — was actually killed by Basques, rather than by Arabs or Berbers. This historical gaffe provides yet another indication of our tendency to overlook the rich tapestry of political and religious actors in early medieval Europe in favor of more binary models.

Admittedly, the Song of Roland is very historically inaccurate - this is obvious to anyone who reads it since Muslims worship Muhammad the same way Christians do with Jesus - but this is explained due to an unfamiliarity the people at the time had with other religions. Rehman expect us to believe that Europe was like this bastion of religious tolerance when the authors of the Song of Roland can even get other people’s religions right.

I am honestly done, this guy is beyond retarded and I feel like genocided more braincells than I should have trying to refute his bullshit. I strongly mulled on whether or not to post this, but I feel like it would have been a waste of time to not expose this shit. Iskander Rehman is the kind of guy who would criminalize celebrating the Battle of Poitiers, the Siege of Vienna or any “triumph of the cross over the crescent” battle (even an obscure one, like the Battle of Vaslui) if he had the power to do so.

[thinkveganworld]

Friendly Fascism

The following are updated excerpts from an article I wrote on “friendly fascism” in the U.S.  This is information our schools should be teaching on history, so that the average citizen is well-informed enough to participate in the nation’s political life and make knowledgeable choices. The article relates to the Iraq War, but it also applies to fascism in the U.S. today.   Not all kinds of fascism have to equate precisely to the classic form represented by Hitler or Mussolini. Fascism doesn’t have to involve mass genocidal slaughter, nor does it have to be equal in degree to the fascism practiced by members of the Axis powers.   Traits of classic fascism include: strong nationalism, expansionism, belligerent militarism, meshing of big business and government with a corporate/government oligarchy, subversion of democracy and human rights, disinformation spread by constant propaganda and tight corporate/government control of the press. Today all of those conditions exist in the U.S. to a degree. Let’s focus on corporate/government control of the press, specifically corporate control of U.S. television news networks. According to a March 24 article, “Protests Turn Off Viewers” by Harry A. Jessell, 45 percent of Americans rely on cable channels as their primary source of news, and 22 percent get most of their news from broadcast networks evening newscasts. Only 11 percent rely on other forms of media as their principle source of war news.

Our corporate controlled TV networks might as well be state controlled, because they promote war and policies of the oligarchy fairly consistently and have virtually eliminated all dissenting voices.  NBC fired Phil Donahue despite his good ratings, saying in an internal network memo they didn’t want to air Donahue’s antiwar views. Reporter Peter Arnett was fired for giving an interview to Iraqi TV and merely stating the obvious on a number of issues. For example, Arnett said media reports of civilian casualties had helped the growing challenge about the conduct of the Iraq war.

According to William Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich), the Reich Press Law of October 4, 1933, ordered editors not to publish (among other things) anything which tends to weaken the strength of the German Reich … or offends the honor and dignity of Germany.’ The Nazis forced dissenting journalists out of business and consolidated the press under party control. U.S. television news networks have been consolidated under the control of a handful of corporations. America doesn’t need a press law'prohibiting the airing of anything which might weaken the strength of U.S. war policies, because the corporate owners of today’s television networks are in total agreement with the state. It is irrefutable that corporate owners of American television networks want only pro-war opinions aired, because those are virtually the only views that are in fact aired.  The Phil Donahue and Peter Arnett firings, especially when coupled with the NBC internal memo explaining the Donahue firing, also indicate this is true. Do the various TV networks do a good job of informing the public, or do they more often propagandize? Propaganda is aimed at the emotions, while news sources that disseminate factual information aim toward reason. In Nazi Germany: A New History (Continuum Publishing, 1995), Klaus P. Fischer says Hitler promoted a system of prejudices rather than a philosophy based on well-warranted premises, objective truth-testing, and logically derived conclusions. Since propaganda aims at persuasion rather than instruction, it is far more effective to appeal to the emotions than to the rational capacities of crowds. If you’ve spent much time watching the pro-war cable television news programs, you cant help but notice they manipulate (whether deliberately or not) the viewing audience’s emotions rather than appealing to viewers’ logic.That is, instead of providing the American public with a broad range of necessary facts and varied viewpoints about our wars, the TV networks exploit emotions by urging the audience to focus on and identify with the day-to-day plight of individual soldiers and their families. There’s nothing inherently wrong with empathizing with the troops. However, when that aspect of war news is heavily emphasized at the expense of hard facts and varied debate, the networks serve the purpose of managing the public mood rather than informing the public mind.

According to Klaus Fisher, the Nazis eliminated from state media any ideas that clashed with official views. He writes that permissible media topics for public consumption included war itself and the Nazi movement; support of Nazi soldiers; praise for Hitler and celebrating the thrill of combat and the sacredness of death when it is in the service of the fatherland.  

Today’s war-promoting TV networks have also deemed only certain subjects permissible,‘as evidenced by the irrefutable fact that they only cover a narrow range of subjects. Coincidentally, the proverbial network list'would read virtually the same as the list mentioned above. Permissible topics include praise for U.S.  war policies, support for our soldiers;  and celebrating the thrill of combat and the sacredness of death when it is in the service of’(in this case) the homeland, even though there is no rational link between attacking countries designated for regime change and defending our soil.

Of course, who needs rationality or facts from TV news when the American public already has enough information about world events?  In a March 26 article for Editor and Publisher, “Polls Suggest Media Failure in Pre-War Coverage”, reporter Ari Berman refers to a Knight Ridder/Princeton Research poll. This poll showed 44 percent of respondents believed most'or some'of the September 11 hijackers were Iraqis. Only 17 percent gave the correct answer: none. In the same poll, 41 percent said they believed Iraq definitely has nuclear weapons. As Berman points out, not even the Bush administration has claimed that. Berman also refers to a Pew Research Center/Council on Foreign Relations survey showing that almost two-thirds of people polled believed U. N. weapons inspectors had found proof that Iraq is trying to hide weapons of mass destruction.’ This claim was never made by Hans Blix or Mohammed ElBaradei. The same survey found 57 percent of those polled falsely believed Saddam Hussein assisted the 9/11 terrorists, and a March 79 New York Times/CBS News Poll revealed that 45 percent of respondents believed Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. TV news reporters have done little to correct the public’s misconceptions. On the contrary, network reporters and their guests have often helped bolster the false impressions by mentioning September 11, or the threat of terrorism by al Qaeda, and the threat posed by Saddam in the same breath.

Individual TV reporters aren’t always free to choose the information they pass along to the public. CNN now has a relatively new script approval'system, whereby journalists send their copy in to CNN chiefs for sanitizing. In his article, Guess who will be calling the shots at CNN,'British foreign correspondent Robert Fisk quotes a relatively new CNN document (dated Jan. 27), Reminder of Script Approval Policy.The policy says, All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval … Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved … All packages originating outside Washington, LA or NY, including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW [a group of script editors] in Atlanta for approval.  

William Shirer comments on the Nazi party’s control of press, radio and film, “Every morning the editors of the Berlin daily newspapers and the correspondents of those published elsewhere in the Reich gathered at the Propaganda Ministry to be told by Dr. Goebbels or by one of his aides what news to print and suppress, how to write the news and headline it, what campaigns to call off or institute and what editorials were desired for the day. In case of any misunderstanding, a daily directive was furnished along with the oral instructions.

In an interview with TomPaine.com, Janine Jackson of the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), said that the group examined two weeks of nightly television news coverage. FAIR found that 76 percent of all news sources or guests on ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS’s NewsHour were current or former government officials,'leaving little room for other diverse voices.In addition, FAIR found that only 6 percent of those sources were skeptical about the war. Jackson noted that on television news at night, there’s virtually no debate about the need to go to war. It would further public understanding if the TV networks would offer substantial debate on the following: The Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq has alienated many world leaders and lost this country the respect of millions of citizens around the globe. The Bush team has created instability in the Middle East and risked retaliation. They’ve undercut the U.S. economy with the financial cost of this endeavor. They’ve increased the likelihood that worldwide nuclear weapons proliferation will increase. And, according to a recent Red Cross report, they have likely helped create a horrifying number of human casualties and a rapidly expanding humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

The content of television news lacks range and diversity, but the way the news is presented is also disturbing. Television reporters often deliver news of the war'with apparent breathless excitement, as if they’re giving play-by-play descriptions of football games.

People are dying in this conflict. Civilians are caught in the middle, being blown to pieces or losing loved ones. Children are left behind when their soldier-parents are killed. Instead of presenting news of this war'with giddiness, wouldn’t it be more appropriate, more human, for network reporters to take a somber, respectful approach?

On TV, we see bombs dropping from a distance. Network commentators seldom offer the public close-ups. In his article, Military precision versus moral precision,'Robert Higgs, writes that the much-used JDAM bombs dropped in Iraq kill most people within 120 meters of the blast. According to Higgs, such a bomb releases a crushing shock wave and showers jagged, white-hot metal fragments at supersonic speed, shattering concrete, shredding flesh, crushing cells, rupturing lungs, bursting sinus cavities and ripping away limbs in a maelstrom of destruction.

Just yesterday I heard a TV reporter describe certain casualties with the sterile phrase, “This is what war does”.Well, it isn’t “war” that bursts sinus cavities and rips away limbs - nothing as nebulous as that. George W. Bush and his administration have done these things. They have directly ordered that these things be done. The bombs’ shredding of flesh and crushing of human cells didn’t just passively happen.

In an April 5 article for The Mirror, “The saddest story of all,” reporter Anton Antonowicz describes an Iraqi family’s loss of their daughter. Nadia was lying on a stretcher beside the stone mortuary slab. Her heart lay on her chest, ripped from her body by a missile which smashed through the bedroom window of the family’s flat nearby in Palestine Street. Nadia’s father said, “My daughter had just completed her PhD in psychology and was waiting for her first job. She was born in 1970. She was 33. She was very clever. Everyone said I have a fabulous daughter. She spent all her time studying. Her head buried in books. Nadia’s sister Alia said, “I don’t know what humanity Bush is calling for. Is this the humanity which lost my sister? It is war which has done this. And that war was started by Bush.”

Today we’re again getting a whiff of fascism from U.S. promoters of regime change war, including war with Iran,  This isn’t the equivalent of Hitler or Mussolini - just sort of a creeping fascism light, and the corporate controlled television news networks are only one example of the way even light fascism undermines what little democracy remains in the U.S.  

[goldingoldout8]

Parasite

A friend said this movie won an award or something for its political messages so I watched it today. It came out in late 2019. The trailer is intriguing as hell.

The movie moves quickly and it never lulls. I was always wondering what would happen next. I’m not sure if the movie is supposed to be funny, and it never made me laugh, but it is funny in a strange way. It falls just short of being a thriller comedy.

SPOILERS AHEAD The story begins with my introduction to the main character’s family. The son is the main character but the whole family plays a prominent role. Mom, dad, son and daughter live in this underground shit hole where homeless people like to pee on the front porch. Our wi-fi stealing family sits on the floor while they fold cardboard pizza boxes together for a tiny bit of money. A man fumigates the street above and the father instructs the family to leave the window open so the fumes will kill the bug infestation in their house. They cough through the fumes as they continue to fold boxes.

It’s hard for me to imagine that this isn’t supposed to be a little funny. This family of four able-bodied adults somehow can’t find better work than folding pizza boxes and can’t afford to eat more than a piece of bread for breakfast? The poverty is exaggerated beyond believable. But I’m happy to suspend disbelief for a good story. The purpose of the exaggeration becomes clear later on. It’s meant to create a stark contrast between the poor and the rich. This is a story about class.

The son is hopeful, driven to improve his station in life and that of his family. His rich college friend visits to give him a lucky rock and a job. The friend has been tutoring a 16 year old girl. He makes it clear that the job is less about tutoring and more about keeping other guys away from his unwitting crush until he returns. After some lying and forgery regarding his qualifications, the main character begins tutoring the girl in her home. The girl’s family are multi-millionaires. They live in a designer house. The dad spends most of his time away for work while the mom stays at home. She uses the family’s money to hire housekeepers, tutors, drivers, caterers and more. 

The girl’s little brother is a highly creative and eccentric boy whose every whim is entertained by the doting mother and dutiful housekeeper. The girl knows her brother is pretending for the attention.

While the main character is tutoring the girl, they kiss and develop a secret relationship.

So the main character agreed to keep guys away from his friend’s crush, which is a pretty sketchy thing to agree to in the first place. And then he betrayed his friend and pursued her anyway. After learning about the artistic boy, the main guy recommends an art tutor. The art tutor happens to be his sister, the same person who helped him forge his credentials. The sister gets hired and now 2 members of the main poor family are working for the rich family. You might see where this is going.

The poor dad gets hired as the new driver. The poor mom gets hired as the new housekeeper. They’re all using fake names and credentials. Each member of the poor family has access to different bits of intimate knowledge about the rich family and its household employees, and uses that information to sabotage the jobs of the previous employees in order to create a job opening for another member of the family. The poor family then collaborate at home about how to continue manipulating and lying to the rich family for economic gain.

The rich family is not overtly portrayed as evil, just oblivious. The dad is hardworking and mildly neglectful. The mom is good-natured and easily misled. The story seems to imply that the rich family is unfairly privileged by juxtaposing the ridiculously horrendous conditions of the poor family against the carefree conditions of the rich family. Which seems to justify the predatory behavior of the poor family.

This theme is explicated by the poor mom. She tells her family that rich people are only kind because they’re rich. And that if she was rich she would be kind too. 

It turns out the original housekeeper was also impoverished, and keeping her husband hidden and fed in a secret basement under the rich family’s house. After being fired she returns to feed him and a fight breaks out.

The poor family’s resentment for the rich family culminates in a very bloody birthday party for the eccentric little boy and his rich family.

Very interesting and entertaining movie. And Marxist propaganda. I love this kind of sociological storytelling. We get to see how society’s incentives produce the behaviors of the characters. And that shines a light on the moral inconsistencies in myself and the audience. No matter which family I think are the good or bad guys, neither of them come out completely clean or completely unsympathetic. Or they shouldn’t.

The problem is that they do. The poor family are utterly unsympathetic sociopaths who terrorize the rich family for the crime of being rich. I’m supposed to assume that the poor family are only poor because they’re oppressed by a corrupt society, but considering their behavior it seems obvious to me that their poorness is entirely earned.

People who think it’s okay to lie, cheat, and sabotage the lives of hard-working people in order to climb the ladder are exactly the kind of people who I would expect to be poor in a healthy society.

Likewise, the rich family is never suggested to have earned their wealth dishonestly or nefariously. They aren’t a perfect family but they’re reasonably kind, generous and hard-working. To place these families side-by-side as if it is remotely ambiguous which ones are the villains is a feat that can only be accomplished by a person who has a pathological hatred for the rich. Parasite is a fun watch but its message is nothing short of disturbing, especially in a political climate when freedom is in a struggle for its life against communist narratives like this. It’s no mystery to me why the socialist elites who run the academy awards like it so much. Snowpiercer is still this director’s best movie in my opinion.

[timeisacephalopod]

The criticisms I’ve seen for Captain Marvel are fucking stupid. I’m so sorry for the long rant!

Number One: ‘But the skrulls are antagonists in the comics, its insulting to comic fans that they changed it!’ Yes, skrulls are comic villains. But I read I run of Guardians of the Galaxy that had this EXACT storyline. Cosmo (the dog in a space suit we see in GoTG) was hiding skrull refugees who didn’t agree with the skrulls overall goals and Drax deadass killed everyone on the ship for 30 seconds to determine who was and wasn't a skrull, resulting in Cosmo having to defend them to the Guardians because these particular skrulls didn’t agree with their people’s ways and were looking for safety. The refugee storyline is literally CANON. Just because its not a popular storyline doesn’t mean they didn’t pull it from the comics. And we’ve never particularly cared how faithful something is to comic canon before either.

Number Two: she’s over powered. So was Thor when he took the full force of a dying star in Infinity War, so was Tony Stark when he fell out of the sky and smashed into the sand going more than fast enough to break every bone in his body in Iron Man, so was Bucky when he didn't die falling off that train in Captain America, Bruce Banner- no further argument needed. And its worthy to note Peter Quill, who never used his powers before meeting Ego, was able to conjure them almost immediately and use them with a small level of control. Arguably, Loki is overpowered too. Carol Danvers had extensive combat training on TWO planets and already had a decent control on her energy blasting powers, PLUS she was shown to mess up a few times in her final battle but her powers made up for that. Not unlike Captain America in all HIS movies, or Tony Stark for that matter.

Number Three: bUt I dOnT lIkE tHaT iT gOt pOliTiCaL. Oh, you mean like Iron Man talked about US sponsored terrorism and criticized the military and weapons use? Or like Infinity War had Thanos go on and on about over population and resource scarcity? Or IM2 talking about green energy and referencing climate change? Or how about the explicitly political entire third Captain America movie or you know, C A P T A I N  A M E R I C A as an entire character. The guy is literally walking American propaganda in the movies and in real life, plus his first movie criticized war propaganda. Thor 3 touched on historical revisionism and imperialism, it also criticized prison slavery. Political commentary is integral to both the comics and the MCU- the political backdrop of the times shaped how the fucking stories got told. Comic villains are literally whoever America doesn’t like at the time of writing- we know this.

Number Four: ‘but I don’t like that Brie Larson talked about feminism and critics being diverse, this is a bad thing for some reason!!!’ Oh, but we’re going to ignore Chris Evan’s left wing politics and how he’s pretty open about it too, often criticizing Trump and making other left wing criticisms of America? I’ve never seen anyone say they don’t want to see Captain America or that they don’t like Chris Evans so much that they try and bomb a Cap movie before it even comes out due to his politics. And Evans’ political stances are more radical than her critic comment, and even if it wasn’t they have similar politics. Given that no one is trying to boycott Chris Evans I’ll assume that’s total bullshit, otherwise there’d be no difference in Larson’s backlash and his crickets.

Number Five: ‘it wasn’t that good, its only mediocre’ or alternatively ‘the trailer/movie didn’t convince me’ argument. Sure, because Ant Man was mind blowing and not at all a Filler Movie, and Doctor Strange totally doesn’t feel like Magical Iron Man, and Peter Quill totally isn’t Space Iron Man, and Thor’s first movie was totally new and original and memorable. Shit, even First Avenger was mediocre. Now, none of these movies are bad- I liked them all fine but lets be real. Ant Man was a money making venture with no value to the MCU and Scott Lang felt like the sidekick in his own story. The first two Thor movies were DC level Dark and Edgy for no reason and, unpopular opinion, I hated the third. The first two Thor’s were dry and lacking in characterization, and the fact that the third was hilarious and made Thor relatable is the reason for its success and the redemption of Thor as an MCU character in fandom eyes regardless of my personal opinion of it. Doctor Strange was a filler movie too, and while it wasn’t nearly as obvious as Ant Man that it was, it sure shit didn’t add anything amazing to the mix either. The time stone was more important than Stephen Strange to MCU canon. It was a Standard Hero Arc with lackluster villains that Strange deadass annoyed into fucking off. That’s how he won the fight in his movie. He was very annoying. Again, I liked this movie fine but the magic was the only new thing. So where’s the ‘well it wasn’t THAT great, it didn’t blow my mind because I guess that’s what we expect out of a fucking superhero film now’ for these movies? Did we expect any of these movies to have off the wall super amazing the best ever never seen before and will never be done like it again storylines that we... honestly don’t see in most any movie? No. And we know why. But given its genre CM was good, exceptionally within its franchise. Is it the most amazing movie ever? No, but not a single MCU film could qualify for that spot either so why do we expect movies led by minorities like CM and Black Panther to?

These are the things I see brought up the most and not one of them even holds. The movie was good and yet critics are like ‘we don’t wanna seem not progressive because we ranked it bad :(((((( But sometimes its not a good movie :((((((( I know I liked Doctor Stange even though its not nearly as good :((((( And CM is one of the best origin stories in the franchise :((((( and we didn’t scrutinize Ant Man, Doctor Strange, and Thor like this even though they were blatantly filler movies :(((((( But sometimes its not good :(((((( I’m a feminist I swear!’ How about admit that you had STUPID high expectations for no reason at all and were looking for a reason to hate the movie. We’ve been handed much worse than this, and the story was just fine. Carol was compelling and interesting as a character, her hero journey is just different enough to make her stand out, I loved what they did with the kree, and the skrull storyline was unexpected, but interesting. We’ve never expected total faithful adaptation to comics before, people didn’t scream that Civil War deviated pretty hard from the comic counterpart, but I guess the fucking skrulls were too much. Not to mention this movie is one of the very few MCU films that doesn’t have a boring villain. All around it was a solid movie, why are people bitching?