#fires of liberation

[sparkspartart]

Man's giving me major Jack Skellington vines for some reason.

[tomorrowusa]

Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.

In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).

Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.

Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.

Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.

Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.

Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.

Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.

Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.

Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.

Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.

Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.

It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.

[radykalny-feminizm]

I just watched a documentary about Audria Bowman and I'm shocked and disgusted beyond any measure.

Context: This 14yo girl went missing in the 80s. Her adoptive family searched for her, but it didn’t lead to anything. Years later, her biological mother started her own investigation. It turned out that Audria was killed by her adoptive father, who already had a criminal past. A story like many others, right? It's always a man. But oh my God, there's so much more to it.

His wife defended him the whole time. Even after it came out that he had killed another woman before Audria. Even after she found out he had sexually assaulted many women. She said she still loved him, no matter what. As for Audria, for a long time, he refused to say what he had done with her. When he finally admitted he had killed her, he still wouldn't reveal where her body was. He made up a story for his wife, telling her he had given Audria a proper, beautiful funeral. Later, it turned out he had put her body in a barrel and buried her in the backyard, like a piece of trash. When his wife asked him why he lied and how he could so convincingly describe the funeral (she was crying the whole time) he replied with something like "well you wouldn't stop BITCHING about her and how you wanted to find her remains so I thought you would feel better if I said that she had a proper funeral". Yes, he used the word bitching.

Do you understand this?

This woman was grieving her lost daughter for more than 30 years, and her husband WHO KILLED HER says that she's bitching about it.

For me, this is it. This perfectly illustrates all the reasons why I keep saying that men are evil. Because they keep doing such unimaginable things and THEY'RE NOT EVEN SORRY ABOUT IT!!! THEY DON'T CARE!!! THEY DON'T GIVE A FUCK!!

Honestly, the fact that I have to live among these monsters called men genuinely makes me wanna kill myself because what the fuck. What the actual fuck.

[tortoisewithoutashell]

On this 4th of July I am thinking of the families In Palestine that are hearing the sounds of bombs instead of fireworks

[miscellaneouscanine]

I heard we were drawing our comfort characters supporting Palestine, thought I’d join in!

Pineapple says FREE PALESTINE!!!

I had a bit of trouble deciding which character to do, but I chose my sweet yellow boy in the end.

[readyforevolution]

Earth,Wind & Fire

[alohamoramylove]

don’t hate me for this but i lowkey think that the people that hate gale read thg as a love story

[queerliblib]

Pulp Fiction anyone??!

Here at Queer Liberation Library we’ve got you covered! from Beebo Brinker, to the Gay Detective, this was such a fun collection to put together for our readers

they are flying off our digital shelves though, so get your holds in when you can! 🌈

[lyselkatzfandomluvs]

Liú Tao 劉濤

For the variety show 王牌對王牌

Bringing back my Nirvana in Fire 瑯琊榜 FEELS! Mù NíHuáng 穆霓凰 !!!

(Which reminds me that her character in the Advisors' Alliance is the mother of both Xiao ShùnYáo and Tán JìanCì's characters!)

[divine-motion]

i'm the only motherfucker who understands armored core 6 fully and completely actually

[alicentalicent]

Women’s Captivity - Alicent’s liberation in the context of her different prisons

Alicent’s liberation arc may seem rushed to some, too humiliating for others, maybe the ideas were there and the execution was not the best, perhaps it is a bit on the nose. But I think the themes explored so far are part of a bigger structure where Alicent becomes the vessel of all the roles a woman can be expected to perform in society. And in trying to find her freedom and extricate herself from the burden of being a woman, she could find both her liberation and her doom.

The concepts from this essay are taken from “Women's Captivity: mother-wives, nuns, whores, prisoners and madwomen” by Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos. This is her doctoral thesis, a pioneering text in Women’s Anthropology that attempts to understand, with a feminist gaze, the conditions of women’s oppression and domination.

Translations are mine, the original text is in Spanish.

The generic condition of women has been built historically, and it’s one of the creations of patriarchal cultures and societies. Power defines the condition of women. And the condition of women is oppressive by the dependence, subjection, subalternity and willing servitude of women in relation to the world. It is also oppressive by defining women as lacking beings, capable of renouncing, whose basic attitude consists of being capable in every moment of consummating their surrender to others, and incapable of becoming autonomous. This difficulty of women to constitute themselves in subjects is called “learned impotence”.

Marcela Lagarde has named captivity this political-cultural expression of the condition of women. Women are captive of their condition in the patriarchal world, because they have been deprived of vital autonomy, agency, and the possibility of choosing and deciding over the fundamental facts of their lives and the world. This captivity is expressed in the lack of freedom, conceived as being protagonists in the social subjects of history, and the particular subjects in the society and culture.

There are few and defined ways of being a woman, and Lagarde groups them as follows:

The mother-wife: is a captivity built around the essential and positive definition of women: procreation, motherhood and conjugality. The erotism of the mother-wife vanishes to prioritize procreation. Mother-wife is  monogamous, virginal, good, faithful, chaste.

The whore: embodies the eros and denied feminine desire.Their being-of-others expresses itself in the availability (historically accomplished) to establish the vital bond while being used erotically by diverse men, which do not establish permanent bonds with them. Whore is the opposite of a mother-wife and her traits. 

The nun: simultaneously embodies the sacred denial of the mother-wife and the whore. Nuns do not procreate or bond with others through eroticism. But this mutilation finds its social realization through the sublimated conjugal bond with the divine power. That way they realize their femininity. The denial of the body and the eros, the renunciation and surrender define these women that abandon their protagonism and the direct benefit of their acts of service, instead giving them and themselves to others.

The prisoner: concretizes the generic prison, both material and subjectively; the household is a jail. And when they are prisoners in the literal sense, they are objectively re-imprisoned by the power institutions. Their crimes are an assault on what a woman should be, so their imprisonment sets an example to teach the rest of women.

The madwoman: they act the generic insanity of all women, whose paradigm is the masculine rationality. But madness is as well one of the cultural spaces that come from both the accomplishment and the transgression of femininity. Women are driven mad for being too much of a woman, or for not being enough of a woman, or to not be a woman. 

House, convent, brothel, prison and asylum are specific places where women are held captive. Society and culture compulsively make each woman take her place in one of these places, and sometimes more than one simultaneously. When women try to escape from captivity finding new types of life, they are evaluated within the rigid feminine stereotypes and if they do not conform, are classified as bad women, sick, incapable, weird, insane.”

Alicent and her captivities

It becomes pretty clear Alicent’s main captivity is being a mother-wife. Married at 15, without the chance to say no, her purpose in life became birthing the children of the King through marital rape she endured for years. She tried to embody all mother-wife traits: faithful, chaste, good, monogamous. She could not explore eroticism in this role, it was secondary to her main purpose of motherhood.

Then I would argue that when Viserys' sickness advanced, her marital duties changed from providing children to being the main caretaker of the King. Fulfilling her femininity through her acts of service and not through a sexual relation, like the Nun. She also poured herself into the Faith of the Seven, and by centering the divine power in her life, she tried to quench the guilt she felt about not being a better mother, or succumbing to anger (see: Driftmark), both failures on her duty as a mother-wife.

Once Viserys dies, Alicent turns to the eroticism and desire she couldn’t embody in her conjugal bond, becoming the Whore. Her short-lived relationship with Cole showed her that in trying to reclaim her body in this way, she only made herself available to be used erotically by a man that wanted her to maintain her place as a woman.

We see Alicent becoming more and more exhausted by her captivity, and that’s when she decides to go to the woods, the physicality of leaving the Red Keep giving her breathing space to visualize a life where she is free from these shackles. I could write an entirely different essay focusing on her relationship with Rhaenyra and what those feelings mean for her as a person, as a woman. But for now I just want to bask in the poetry of Alicent going to Rhaenyra instead of just running away, deciding to put her life on the line, in a final act of surrender. Is it really different, this captivity?

We know the Queen in Chains arc is coming, but we don’t know how it will play out. I think it could be categorically different in some ways. Alicent chose herself and her feelings, she wanted to go to the one person who loved her just for being who she is, not because of the role she performed in life. Maybe the captivity of being an actual prisoner during the Queen in Chains arc could give her a freedom she hasn’t experienced: not being bound to a duty, not being obligated to perform, and just be. Alicent has never been able to just be, and exist. I’m not really sure of any of this, I just enjoy thinking about the possibilities, and the subversion of what a regular imprisonment arc could be.

The final captivity is being the madwoman. We also know this is where Alicent's story ends, but I also think there’s a lot of room to interpret how she gets there, and how losing insanity could be a complete refusal from her to partake in society, once all the horrible things that will happen in the future play out. Not to mention that the bar to classify women as lunatics in medieval times was very very low. 

The most important part of what they're doing with Alicent’s liberation arc is that she is trying. If she is successful or not, we are yet to really see. But at least she is fighting against the “learned impotence” mentioned by Lagarde, she is trying to be an agent with voice, with the power to affect the tides–for better or for worse, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that she found that strength within her to resist. 

[stardust948]

Fun little outting

[anarcho-smarmyism]

@kindn35s hey dipshit the old lady you're referring to is one of the only people in this county who DIDN'T vote for Trump, in this election or any other, and the only person i grew up around who told me to support unions and labor rights; she was physically disabled before the fire, and now as a result moreso, as well as coping with PTSD. the tumblr user you're being condescending to with your lame, tired, self-righteous twitter Gotcha-ass replies was one of the only openly trans, anti-racist and anti-fascist youth activists in the area attending our local high school during the 2016 election. I watched my peers and teachers actively becoming radicalized by fascists, got sent to the office for tearing down Confederate flags when my former friends started showing up with them on their trucks, but you arrogantly and ignorantly think that being born middle-class and/or in a more fashionable part of the world means you're somehow more progressive or enlightened while gleefully laughing at actual oppressed people dying and losing everything.

most of the victims of that fire who also lost their homes and/or livelihoods were also people of color, since here like in most of the poor rural South most of the population is made up of a diversity of poor people, but with most of the land and political power held by people with the $ to insulate themselves from natural disasters like the Smokehouse Creek Fire. if you bothered to learn anything about anything before opening your mouth and acting like a piece of shit, you'd already know that.

from your dumbshit classist liberal blog:

yankee libs really are all the same! "kindness" my Texan ass. democrats continue to lose elections directly because of people like you, not because of people like my family or the other victims of this tragedy, least of all my PROGRESSIVE grandmother. I take it back, a bullet's too good for you, why don't you go ahead and either burn your own house down and die there like old lady who died in this fire, or walk right out of your car into flames like the Hispanic (butch lesbian, I'm pretty sure) woman whose horrific death you're also mocking.

[kropotkindersurprise]

September 18, 2023 - Fighters of TPNPB, the West Papua National Liberation Army, rip apart an Indonesian flag after carrying out an attack on an Indonesian military position. Papua Merdeka! [video]

[gaylactic-fire]

We've evolved from crossdressing to fursuiting. Zelda has gone woke : (

[nappingpaperclip]

“People who tell you not to vote Biden are psyops trying to steal left votes” type posts are pro-government propoganda.

Last time y’all spread that bullshit around the blogs getting deleted for being “Russian spies” were black leftists.

NOT EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH YOU IS A PSYOP. Get real!!

Not everyone who criticizes Biden or says they won’t be voting for a genocider and that you shouldn’t either wants you to vote for Trump or not vote!! Third party candidates exist!!! Write ins exist!!! If we actually organized instead of y’all pulling the “lesser evil” bs about a GENOCIDAL RACIST RAPIST OLD MAN we might actually see some fuckin progress!!

Did y’all forget Biden is a rapist?????

Btw is the “left” in the room with us? Where is the left? Where is the progress y’all keep claiming Biden is making?

Last time I checked Biden has not let those kids out of cages, has personally approved more huge pipelines that run through Indigenous lands and speed up climate change, has ex-BlackRock leaders (yknow, the top 10 climate change villains company who also funds most American private prisons as well as funding arms manufacturing companies, who spend millions lobbying politicians on environmental regulations, immigration and drug policy) in his cabinet, increased police and military budget, didn’t codify Roe v Wade, in fact he held it hostage for votes, hasn’t codified gay marriage or trans rights, hasn’t legalized marijuana, hasn’t raised the federal minimum wage, oh and also is DOING GENOCIDE in case y’all forgot or wanna tiptoe around the “some bad policies” y’all always talk about

Did y’all forget about his “nothing will fundamentally change” policy?

Y’all heard that and thought “left”?? Babes he’s a right leaning centrist AT BEST.

There are actually left candidates btw! Ones who care about things like Landback and reparations and free healthcare and education and sustainability! The ones y’all are telling people are throwaway votes/votes for Trump!! (Which isn’t even how the electoral college works btw)

So us telling y’all not to vote for a genocider makes us Russian psyop spies but y’all telling us not to vote for leftist third party candidates doesn’t? K.

Vote for who you want, I don’t give a fuck anymore, BUT DONT TELL HIM HE STILL HAS YOUR UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT WHILE HES COMMITTING GENOCIDE IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT HIM TO STOP

The only way to get a politician to stop doing WAR CRIMES is to tell them you won’t vote for them or give them money or otherwise support them until they stop!

You can fucking lie if you want!!! All we’re asking is for y’all not to publicly announce Genocide Joe still has your unconditional support WHILE HES DOING GENOCIDE

His approval ratings are literally less than Trumps!

He has no one to blame but himself.

If he loses in November, I don’t want to hear y’all bitch and moan and blame black people or disillusioned voters or third party voters or “Russian spies” again like y’all did in 2016, I don’t want to see y’all blame anyone but him, BLAME BIDEN FOR HIS OWN ACTIONS. HE IS A GROWN MAN AND HAS THE MONEY AND POWER TO STOP IT IF HE ACTUALLY WANTED TO.

Y’all keep saying he’s doing his best to stop it, that he’s working behind the scenes, that he’s trying, IF HES TRYING WHY ARE WE STILL SENDING ISRAEL MONEY?

IF HE IS TRYING, WHY DID HE SEND ISRAEL MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN SMALL PAYMENTS TO AVOID NOTIFYING CONGRESS?

IF HES TRYING WHY HAVE WE NOT SANCTIONED ISRAEL?

IF HES TRYING, WHY HAVE US SOLDIERS BEEN SEEN FIGHTING ALONGSIDE THE IDF?

IF HES TRYING WHY ARE WE SENDING EXPIRED MREs AS AID? EXPIRED FOOD DROPS THAT ARE NOT ENOUGH TO FEED MILLIONS OF STARVING PEOPLE, WITH FAULTY PARACHUTES THAT KILL CHILDREN?

IF HES TRYING, WHY DID WE BUILD A PORT CUTTING THE GAZA STRIP IN HALF, A PORT THAT NETANYAHU SAID WOULD BE USED TO DEPORT PALESTINIANS?

IF HES TRYING WHY DID HE SIGN OFF $14 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS ON TOP OF THE ANNUAL CONTRACT AND SMALL SECRET PAYMENTS TO GO TOWARDS ISRAELS BOMBS AND GUNS AND FREE HEALTHCARE WHILE IGNORING THE PEOPLE HERE WHO NEED FOOD, HOUSES, AND HEALTHCARE???

DONT MAKE UP RUSSIAN SPIES TO POINT FINGERS AT! IF HE DOESNT WANT TO LOSE HE SHOULDNT DO GENOCIDE

IF GENOCIDE JOE LOSES THE ELECTION FUCKING BLAME HIM FOR DOING A GENOCIDE!!