#fuck israel and anyone who even vaguely supports it

[ben-10-setting-omnicrom]

Hello 🤝🫶👋

      I hope you are in good health

       I write to you with a heart full of hope

      I am asking for your urgent help. 

      The family is in great danger due to the war, and

      I am running a fundraising campaign to provide money for them

      Please can you donate or reblog my post

      Campaign on my account?

       Each share can

      Make a difference in my family's life.

      Can you reblog the post pinned to my account?

      An account titled Please Save Me, My Family, and My Future from Brutal War 

  Do not hesitate to save a family with children

      Women and newborn children, death and war.💔💔💔🙏🙏💌

What you're going through isn't war. It's genocide and always has been. Unfortunately I can't donate directly due to basically having no money myself. I'll definitely reblog your post though.

Anyone who supports Israel's genocidal actions and atrocities is a sick piece of shit completely undeserving of an iota of influence or power in any facet of society.

[grison-in-space]

Has Biden actually done anything at all? There's evidence going around and I think it's compelling, the alternate to voting is instead doing actual social work and participating in protests and organizing political action, which is a good idea i think

1) Yes. Inarguably this has been the most effective progressive domestic administration since I have been alive, and I'm in my thirties. What in the fuck are you talking about? It's not perfect, but it's better than we've seen in fifty years: Obama tried, but Democratic Congressional organization was just not yet used to working with a completely obstructionist GOP Congress in the wake of the tea party.

Even in terms of foreign policy, this is also pretty much as good as US involvement gets. Sorry. Our foreign policy has been shaped by monsters for decades, and that's even without dealing with our huge and active branch of Christian doom cultists. There ain't a candidate in the world that could stop the entire accumulated momentum of geopolitics with a snap of the finger, and I'm not really willing to pretend that Biden is particularly notable for not managing to fix Israel/Palestine relations.

2) In your own words, anon, what precisely does organizing political action entail without participating in the political process? Do you think that abstaining from the part of the gig where you, the citizen, get to say which official gets the job somehow makes your opinions matter more to your elected public officials? Have you ever organized to get so much as a municipal one-time library project budget expanded? Are you perhaps only skilled at political argument with people who already agree with you on the Internet?

What is your leverage, and could it reasonably be described as "extortion" or "blackmail" or "political corruption?" Because those are pretty much the only things on the table that can work more effectively to drive an elected official than a disciplined coalition of political allies (who can be purchased with, you guessed it, votes) or a reliable bloc of voter support. Your vote matters less than the ones you bring with you, sure. Do you think that not voting yourself somehow helps people organize to drive more votes? Have you perhaps replaced your complex reasoning skills with a rapidly dying jellyfish?

3) Holy passive vagueness, Batman! "Evidence is going around." What a masterpiece of a sentence! How it suggests everything while providing nothing! What evidence? Who collected it? Who is talking about the evidence "going around?" Who is listening? How many of them are there? What did they think before? The more I think, the more questions I have, and damn if they ain't predisposing me to be even less charitable.

Like, this is so catastrophically poorly supported that I have to confess that I not only believe this is probably an ask in bad faith (i.e. by someone who is expecting to piss me off or otherwise engage with me adversarially, probably spammed to a whole host of blogs at once with no expectation of response) but I actively hope that it is. The alternative is to have to grapple with the reality that some people are so uncomfortable with the responsibility of moral agency that they're willing to release useful levers of legal and social power just so that they never do anything problematic with that power. Much better, of course, to wash one's hands of anything that might have the stink of responsibility clinging to it. Might fall from the membership of the Elect if you actually get yourself all muddy by doing things, I reckon.

I don't even believe that voting is the only lever we have when it comes to our elected officials or that votes are necessary to secure change, and I am certainly not talking about the presidential ticket alone when I talk voting. What I do believe is two things: one, that voting is a potential lever of power on the emergent chaos of the society in which we live. And two, that anyone telling me to leave a lever of power on the ground without a damn good reason is either incompetent, malicious, or both.

[bougiebutchbitch]

Okay, I don't wanna reblog unsubstantiated claims. I visit Twitter once per blue moon and am not on any other social media, and have only seen accusations flying around rather than screenshotted evidence. So.

Does anyone more knowledgeable than me have Substantial Info regarding the whole 'Taika and Con are pro-Israel 'Zionists' (a word I am very wary of using as it ties into antisemitic conspiracy theories and can mean so very much), and this is specifically why Guz Khan got fired' thing?

I heard about it vaguely on Tumblr posts but all I can see people quoting as evidence is Taika signing That Letter (which.... yeah is pretty shitty) and Con following a journalist's Twitter who he later unfollowed (which... doesn't really mean anything?)

Guz absolutely should not have been fired for being pro-Palestine. But a post just showed up on my timeline claiming Taika specifically caused his firing and should face consequences. Am I missing More Evidence here? If so, please do let me know.

My disclaimer is: I believe actors shouldn't be pressured to have opinions on complex political issues, and it's kinda fucked up that we have them on a pedestal. But 'should Israel be committing genocide on innocent civilians?' is NOT in any way a complex issue. It's pretty fucking clear cut.

And obviously, it goes without saying that the opinions of various actors is hardly the biggest issue when looking at this whole horrific genocide. I'll keep loving the characters regardless of the actors' opinions, but I do wanna know if several actors are pro-Israel because.... firstly, I'm a firm believer in Not Stanning. And secondly, it makes me even less inclined to support Season 3 of OFMD, no matter what happens plot-wise.

[transmascpetewentz]

Was talking abt this with my family and decided this needed to be a post on the webbed site:

A fundamental way that antisemitism operates that makes it so difficult to remove from leftist spaces is by taking the broad scope of problems in the world and finding a couple that can be vaguely tied or related to Judaism in some way, then taking "this is tangentially related to Jews" to mean "Jews are 100% responsible for this." It's particularly this sentiment that I see echoed in most of the antisemitic posts that I see on the dash.

It's one of the reasons, imo, why the west is so focused on Israel as opposed to the situation in the Congo, Sudan, or Ukraine. All four of these situations suck and are very clearly, to any person observing, bad. However, only one of these awful situations where war crimes are being committed is one that I hear about every day, that I am told if I so much as block some tags relating to it that I am a bad person. And that's the one where people can blame The Jews for it.

Despite Russia currently committing what I would call a genocide against Ukrainians, many westerners who preach anti-colonialism are completely silent or worse. I thought that silence meant you are directly complicit? Odd, huh? Does this principle of being against historical imperial powers committing genocide against colonized people not apply when the colonized nation has more than three times the relative Jewish population compared to the colonizer?

Yep. And many of the most prominent antisemitic antizionists are completely pro-Russia because Russia claims to be against quote-unquote "western degeneracy," which is literal Nazi shit. As a Russian who regularly speaks out against slavophobia/russophobia/anti-Russian people sentiment on the left and the right, I am horrified by westerners' complete disregard for human life and basic moral principles to defend my country's genocide.

And this idea of blaming all tangentially-related problems on Jews isn't just showcased in how much people focus on Israel, but also in who gentiles tend to call "zionists" and the attributes that they prescribe onto anyone who is labeled a zionist. Zionism is a political movement with historical basis in Judaism, but the actual definition of zionism is irrelevant to the critique I am about to make. My issue is with how some gentiles define, or don't define, zionism.

I have said this before, but when some leftist gentiles are asked to name a few qualities that all zionists share, they might give a list that's something like this: they are pro-Israel, they support Israel's genocide of Palestinians, they are completely anti-Palestine, and they do not have nuanced takes on I/P. Of course, this is a batshit insane and very ahistorical take on zionism, but I would have less of an issue if these gentiles would stick to that definition and only call people zionists if they shared all of those qualities.

Instead, these same gentiles who claim that all zionists share these opinions will claim that any Jew, convert-in-progress, or ally that doesn't hate Jews is a zionist. This circles back to my first point about how antisemitism takes anything where Jews are involved and turns it into "Jews are The masterminds behind this." And that's exactly what this is. The label of zionist being applied to a non-zionist turns their views from nuanced and neutral to racist and genocidal in the eyes of antisemites.

The idea that all Jews one doesn't like must be behind some child-murdering conspiracy is an antisemitic one, no matter how real the child murder happening in Palestine is. Random Jews, even Israeli Jews, are not responsible for the actions of their government (which is being backed mostly by gentiles overseas, btw). Stop fucking taking any instance of a bad thing being tied to Jews or Judaism and blowing it up into calling Jews the masterminds behind it. There is no global conspiracy, no matter how much you wish there was for your daily dose of emotional support antisemitism.

Reading Comprehension Questions:

What do you think that OP means when they say "The Jews" with both the "t" and "j" capitalized? Is he using that language seriously, or is he trying to get another message across?

Is this a post about Israel and Palestine, or is this a post specifically addressing antisemitism within the pro-Palestine movement on the left? Additionally, does OP give any meaningful indication of his views on I/P within the post?

Why does OP talk for two paragraphs about the situation in Russia and Ukraine? How is OP more qualified than the average Tumblr user to have an opinion on Russia?

Why is OP, despite not being Jewish, making a post about this subject? How might OP be more qualified than the average gentile to make a post about antisemitism?

Does OP blame Palestinians for antisemitism on the left in this post? Does OP single out any specific ethnic or racial group as opposed to just gentiles?

Have I sat with and mentally answered to myself the above questions before I clicked on OP's page to send him an anon telling him to kill himself?

[rjalker]

I think we're gonna need a bigger bingo sheet. I literally just got done making a new one for July 2024 but then that. reblog. just came along and blew all of it out of the water. not even combining it with the original one from November can encompass the sheer what-in-the-absolute-fuck of it.

Well. Here's the new one anyways.

[ID: A bingo sheet titled, "Vote Blue No Matter Who 2024: Genocide Joe Biden, July edition!". It has a dark blue border with small stars, and the squares are in alternating pale red white and blue.

The squares read, from top to bottom and left to right: "Project 2025!" with many exclamation marks. "Genocide Joe is the most progressive president we've ever had!" "I just can't figure out why people are mad at poor sweet Joe" with an exaggerated sad emoticon. "Trump won in 2016 because people split the vote!" "It's only fascism if it threatens Americans!" with many exclamation marks "I don't give a single shit about anyone who's not an American and you shouldn't either. This is a progressive stance." "I'm going to reduce refusing to support genocide to vaguely being a 'single-issue' voter which I'm gonna pretend is childish and immature". "Israel-Hamas conflict". "Not voting for Biden is stupid!" "Not supporting genocide makes you a Cultural Christianity Puritan!" "Foreign election interference is when people make fun of the President of the United States" "Just because Biden isn't perfect is no reason to throw a tantrum!!" the free space in the center "Trump is actively pro genocide! Unlike Biden, who's literally comitting genocide." "The Most Powerful Man in the Most Powerful Country in the World™ is actually a weak helpless baby if he's wearing a blue hat" with a crying emoticon. "This is a democracy! That's why you have to vote for genocide or else!" "If you fucking Queers don't vote for my favorite genocidaire I'll laugh when you get put in concentration camps!" "You're being selfish by refusing to support genocide!" "You're the Real Racist™ if you refuse to support genocide", with an angry emoticon "Voting for genocide is the logical choice!" "If you don't vote for my favorite genocidaire, you're a Foreign Invader Threatening Real Americans!" "Voting for a third party is the exact same thing as voting for Trump!" "This is a democracy! That's why it'll instantly turn into a dictatorship if Trump wins. Don't question it!" "If you don't vote the way I want, you deserve to be publically executed!"' [in all caps, with extra exclamation marks] "Stop telling people not to vote!" End ID.]

[ghostonly]

The Western Christian Understanding of Israel

So, there's something I haven't seen much said about and I wanted to address it briefly. But, first, I want to be absolutely clear that this post is not condoning or excusing what I'm writing about. It's simply to shed some light on something I think a lot of people may be unaware of.

So, I grew up in a baptist household and was taught pretty much everything you would expect from one. One thing I was taught was to support Israel.

I hope it's obvious I don't anymore, but it doesn't hurt to be clear.

Anyway, supporting Israel is something that's taught in, I would guess, just about every conservative Christian household in America, or close to it. And in their churches. This isn't purely family politics; it's church politics. The American Christian church (meaning, like, "the church" - all of the American Christians collectively) is in support of Israel. This you may know. But this isn't about the collective, this is about how it spreads on a smaller scale.

I was taught from a young age to support Israel, not through direct communication, but through hearing the adults in my life talk about it. This included at church, where it was more explicitly referenced and spoken of with respect and admiration. It was called the holy land, it was spoken of as basically the most revered land in the world, because it's, you know, God's Holy Land. And the Jews are the ones who belong there. That's what the Bible says. So, that is what was preached to us.

There was never ANY mention of government. Everything was spoken of in the abstract. Jews belong there, they have to reclaim it because the land has been stolen, etc etc. It was honestly not something I could reasonably differentiate from biblical lore as a child.

I think this inability to recognize Israel as a real and modern country with real and modern politics is something that continues on for many people into adulthood, especially those who stay away from current events and news (which is a HUGE amount of Christians, because "news is a constant stream of negative secularism that we don't need to expose ourselves to")

So, what I'm saying is, an absolutely massive number of Americans - pretty much anyone who was raised particularly Christian and who hasn't Gotten Out of the Bubble (which can also mean those who are no longer practicing but haven't made any effort to find new circles or challenge their views on the world) - is going to view Israel as a holy place made up entirely of Jews - and obviously, we support the Jews. Duh.

So what you end up having is, a huge chunk of people with this very vague, biblical understanding of what Israel is, who want to blindly support "The Land of the Jews" - especially after the holocaust - and they're very particularly susceptible to propaganda about this. If anyone even suggests that the Israelis (read: Jews in the Holy Land) are under attack or are being prevented from land that is, by God's Word, theirs) it is not going to be looked upon with favor. It is going to translate to anyone raised like this, who isn't keeping up with current events online (which is a lot more people than you think) as: The Jews Are Being Attacked Again (And in the Promised Land No Less)

And then you can go ahead and just factor in the ungodly amount of racist propaganda that has been fed to all Americans about middle-easterners. You end up with the perfect cocktail. A bunch of brown people are attacking the poor Jews in God's Holy Land. Sounds fucking terrible, doesn't it?

The reason I want to explain this is because I think it would really empower people to make stronger arguments in favor of Palestine if they understand that a lot of the pro-Israel people in their offline lives are supporting Israel from a good place. A lot of them think they're supporting an oppressed minority. They hear about the bombing of the music festival and they immediately think this is an attempt at a second holocaust and they don't look any further into it than what their local news station has to offer - which, you know, is probably a crock of propaganda laden shit.

So, if you know people irl who are saying that they're pro-Israel, it might be more beneficial to inquire a bit about what they actually know before laying into them with accusations. You may find a few resources and an understanding explanation is a lot more effective at winning more allies. People are a lot more receptive when they're being reached out to in good faith, on a 1-on-1 human level (and not at the dinner table, I'm begging you).

I know it's hard to be patient right now and I know it's hard to have good-faith interactions with people who you feel should have already been properly educated on this topic, but I also promise you that if you come in, guns blazing, accusing someone of supporting genocide, they are going to immediately stop listening and dig their heels in, regardless of whether they would have listened and understood, given the right opportunities to learn.

And no, this does not apply to people yelling on the internet who are already knee deep in online political warfare. I'm talking about your Aunt Sarah who doesn't know anything political outside of who the current president is and is just repeating things she thinks are good because her pastor said them. You know the people I mean.

Please also remember that there are a lot of people vocally calling those who are anti-Israel antisemites. If you know someone who is only just slightly "online", they probably have seen this and used it as a cornerstone of their continued support of Israel. It is a strong fear-based reinforcement of their existing understanding of events. I mean, the last thing "good people" want to be is "one of those neo-nazis." They adopt this understanding of what it means to be pro-Palestine without question. If you're pro-Palestine, it means you're antisemitic. They're not antisemitic, therefore, they are not pro-Palestine.

If you want to help them understand the reality of the situation, I think it would be extremely helpful to remember, in your sources, to include a lot of content outlining just how many Jews are speaking out against the actions of the Israeli government. Make sure to give them that understanding that the Israeli government and Jews as a collective are not synonymous. The Israeli government is not the formal representative of all things Jewish and Good. Being able to bring their understanding of Israel into a modern framework, rather than a biblical one, will be a great starting point.

Do your best, and good luck. #freepalestine

[plaguedoctormemes]

This blog and the plague doc community, for me, is temporary relief from real-world hot-button issues and politics- not to say that this blog is neutral or that I refrain from being political (far from it) but due to some things ive noticed from some in this community im just like… *gestures vaguely* …stating this just to get this out there.

I think, no matter how much you may have personal stake in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, (apologies if this is almost over-said at this point but) there is absolutely no excuse for genocide. There’s plenty of info out there to indicate that the Israeli government is corrupt, and by extension the United States’s government, feeds its corruption like a gluttonous pig. It’s completely fucked up and I hate this damn country worse than I ever have before (The us i mean). So much it’s rage-inducing. Jewish Israelis and Palestinians are capable of living in peace, but everyone seems completely happy with taking away that peace, to push their own zionist or antisemitic agendas- ordinary people and politicians alike. It’s fucked up. And I know the United States government, aside from some representatives of color, couldn’t ultimately give less a shit about Israel nor Palestine after all is said and done, and regardless of whether or not Israel “”””wins”””” with their billions upon billions from the US and Palestinians “lose” (read: are eradicated). The US could, and likely will, wipe its ass of the entire affair.

And I absolutely hate to see otherwise well-meaning people, so-called progressive people, excuse or even support a genocide just because they think that speaking out against the IDF and the US support of it is somehow synonymous with antisemitism, or synonymous with doing a disservice to their jewish heritage. Last I checked, government entities and malicious organizations are not synonymous with an entire ordinary people. And in turn, ordinary people are not synonymous, and should not be synonymous or held accountable for the actions of those that govern them when they clearly voice opposition.

I’m not going to be answering asks about this nor am I going to engage with discussion about this on this blog since it’s not this blogs purpose, and instead im going to continue to try to carry this energy in more meaningful action outside of social media couch-activism, and i encourage anyone who happens upon this to also do the same. Shit’s fucking maddening.

[mozillavulpix]

Israel

If you're a progressive activist who likes to write call-out posts and permanently excommunicate from people who don't share your political opinions, please don't read this post. For my own sake.

I'm a Jewish person who gets upset at a lot of the discourse surrounding Israel, especially at the moment.

Don't you want an immediate ceasefire?

I do, but I get the feeling that's not happening because it's not exactly practical. If you ran a country and knew that a neighboring region had access to militants and weapons to go over to your country and murder and kidnap your citizens and civilians whenever they wanted (and in fact, that's what they just did), I think it's...practically the point of having an army to make sure something like that doesn't happen again. If you stop, you give them time to regroup and escape to try another time.

But what about the lives of the Palestinians?

It's a pretty awful situation, yeah. But Israel has already told them to go to the south so they don't get caught up in the fighting, and Egypt doesn't want to accept any of them as refugees, so I don't know how else you'd even get them out of the area.

But isn't Israel bombing in the safe zones, too?

This is a war. I'm sure the Israeli army wouldn't bomb other places unless there was some practical reason. Like there was access to weapons in one of those areas. I really wish they wouldn't do that, but I'm also not a military strategist with intelligence on the area, so it's not like I know what's around there.

Listen, if the reasonings are "Israel had intelligence that there were resources in that area used by militant groups" or "Israel are cartoon villains who purposely bomb civilian targets to make sure they inflict as much pain on Gaza civilians as they can", the first one just seems more likely to me.

What about the hospital that was bombed?

Several Western countries have all said from their independent intelligence that it wasn't Israel that did that.

But what if they're all just lying and saying that because they're working together?

Now you sound like Qanon

Why do you call us anti-semitic? We just want peace. We don't support terrorism and we're not telling people to hate Jews.

You're going around and using words like 'genocide'. Even if you don't think you're inciting violence, when you make such a powerful plea to people's emotions and empathy, some people are going to feel powerless and try to take it out on an 'easier' target that's only vaguely related to it. Like those Jews living in your country who happen to have family in Israel and so want to support them.

You're all really pissed off at the moment. Pissed off people get violent.

Wow, I can't believe I used to respect you.

I think it's a very dangerous mindset to be so willing to do a complete 180 on someone just because of one situation where they play devil's advocate. I'm not going around and yelling that all Palestinians are terrorists and should be killed, I hate people in the Israeli government as much as you do. I just want people to stop treating Israel like some one-dimensional cartoon villain responsible for all the evils in the world because you heard they're the 'occupiers'.

anyway, this isn't gonna stop anyone, just really me rationalising my thoughts and why i keep having to mute people on twitter until this all hopefully dies down

i'm literally just some girl on the internet, i'm not a political expert and don't fucking put me on blast because my arguments don't have all the facts

[bowtiepastabitch]

Every day is a terrible day to be reminded that you cannot treat celebrities the way you treat your friends. I adore Michael Sheen in that vague internet para-social sense, and I am incredibly disappointed, but I'm not entirely surprised. People online are not perfect, and you cannot expect them to be.

Celebrities are just people. It sucks, but they're guaranteed to disappoint at some point. They have big platforms and even if they really do have the best intentions, which I choose to believe anyone does until proven otherwise*, they WILL fuck up. I think he's handled this extremely badly, I don't think that's really up for debate, and I do hope he realizes that and apologizes.

I also think we hold celebrities, especially those who do activism work, to insanely high standards. If someone said "hey a million people are about to read what you say about this extremely important subject you know nothing about" I would fully panic. I go to vigils and protests, I hug my Palestinian friends a little closer and give them a space to grieve, but I don't make statement because yeah, I don't feel educated enough to have people reading my words. I educate myself the best I can, but there's a lot of fake news and censorship and propaganda right now, and I never want to accidentally spread something that's untrue. There's also genuine danger, at least where I live, with people at my school getting doxxed left and right by zionists and threats of actual physical violence as well. (Reminder that if you're at a protest you should always be in nondescript clothing and wearing a face mask and follow organizer lead)

Michael is human, and humans fuck up. From what little I know of him, he's an incredibly kind person, and I can guess that he probably was trying to avoid doing unintentional harm by 'taking a side'. Yes, it made it an incredibly weak statement that doesn't properly acknowledge the horrors of the genocide happening to the Palestinian people right now. Yes, that did cause unintentional harm. I do not take that lightly.

He did, however, call for an immediate ceasefire and a free Palestine. That is something in and of itself, especially compared with how many celebs have (for some god-forsaken reason, either in willful ignorance or active hatred we may never know) put their names behind Israel. An immediate ceasefire is what we want, and it's what we've been instructed by community organizers to demand from our elected officials. His inclusion of Israeli civilians in his hopes for peace doesn't cancel that out. There is nothing inherently wrong with wishing for peace for innocent people. I also wish nothing but peace for the civilians living in Israel who are not responsible for this. The Israeli government is NOT the Israeli people.

In summary: yes he could have handled the situation better, and yes his statement could have been stronger. But celebrities are not perfect people, and idolization only leads to heartbreak. I choose to believe he's doing his best. If I were in his shoes, I cannot promise I would do a lot better, because I am also just a human doing my best.

The world is in an incredibly difficult place right now, and, at least where I am, there is a lot of tension and anxiety. This conflict has been going on longer than nearly any of us have been alive, and the increase in violence is horrific to watch from the other side of the globe. I know someone who lost 14 extended family members in one day. That is more than I think I could bear. We're all doing the best we can to support the people we love who are suffering more than we can imagine, and to do whatever small thing we can against the immense, unfathomable horrors taking place right before our eyes without end online. It's scary and awful, and I hope you take time to take care of yourself today, hold your friends close, but don't totally detach from what's going on. We must, at the bare minimum, bear witness. The Israeli government does not want us to see, so we must.

It's a scary time, and I cannot expect anyone to get everything right all the time so long as they're at least trying.

*this is obviously a statement that has like ten different qualifiers, there are obviously situations in which open hatred is identifiable and inexcusable, please do not take this as me excusing harm done

I'm sorry that came out so long, but I had a lot of thoughts and it just kept going.

well fuck michael sheen and his weak ass statement. sorry if you fashion yourself an activist and spend more time defending yourself than genocide/apartheid then genuinely what is the point ???

Yes he said Free Palestine, kinda - but we are going to hold him to a higher standard than other people. Anyone defending this - please take off off your fan tinted glasses and realise it’s a rubbish, defensive statement and he should lose your respect. Honestly his silence was better than this so

do better

[evilelitest2]

100 Days of Trump Day 56: Animal Farm

Welcome back to 100 Days of Trump where we try to explain WTF happens in 2016 through 100 Works.  And fucking Animal Farm, this is almost too obvious but I think it needs to be talked about anyways.  First off, let me make this clear right away, George Orwell was a socialist, when ever rightists bring him up, rub it in their faces that George Orwell was tremendously left wing and anti capitalist, he just also happens to be a critic of communism.  And that is good, the left needs to be much critical of communism and other Utopian leftist movements and we will get into that more in later posts (episodes?  I don’t know what to call this).  

   Ok so beyond that, I am assuming all of you have read it, go read it, its a classic for a very good reason, why is it relevant to us today, why is the rise of a far right leader related to the rise of a communist dictatorship?  Well totalitarianism looks similar no matter what system you are in because it relies on the same basic urges, and takes advantage of the same internal ideological tricks that you see everywhere else. The actions of the characters really do serve as examples of ‘What behavior lets you be taken advantage of by dictators” and it applies to both the left and the Right 

Lets go through a few

1) Love of Simplicity.  

A lot of people ideologically seem to believe that simplicity is a virtue, and I’m not talking Taoist here. People think the Tax Code should be simple, people think national debt should be simple, foreign policy, the military, Healthcare, religion, race relations, immigration etc should be simple, that these things are just being needlessly complicated by “EVIL” goverment types for its own sake.  And while that does sometimes happen as we saw in Yes Prime Minister, over all the fact remains things will never be simple, life isn’t simple, it never will be, and anyone telling you is taking advantage of you.  This desire for simplicity “Four Legs good, two legs bad” is evident in Trump’s supporters, they really want these complicated problems to have a simple problem with a simple solution?  Flat Tax, Border Wall, Bomb ISIS, Muslim Ban, the Natioanl Debt, all of this stuff is coming from a place of “Lets just done one simple thing and the problem goes away right?  Well no....no it doesn’t, none of those issue are remotely solved by any of those solutions because they are simple.  For example, most illegal migrants wouldn’t be stopped by a wall anyways.  The problem with a desire for simplicity is that if you have it strong enough, people can take a simple truth and alter it easily, like “Four legs good, two legs better”.  Things are going to be complicated.  The left does this too btw, like a lot, my tumblrs original goal was challenging the left’s love of simplistic reductionist definitions.  LIke “Racism equals power plus prejudice” or “America are the real terrorists” or of course thinking because capitalism is bad that means communism is good right?  We don’t live in a simple world, we never have and we never will, until you accept that you are what is politically known as a sucker. 

2) Pandering 

The fact is people like to be told that they are special and that they are in fact the most correct, that their way of seeing things is totally correct and true, and everybody else needs to come around to how great they are.  And when you have a politician come to you and says “yes, guess what, you are great, you have it totally wrong” most people indulge that rather than questioning it uncritical.  Obviously the Republicans have perfected that to a fucking art form, the whole “Rural Smalltown American”, “Good Christian Culture” and the entire “Real American” nonsense (you know, a minority of the country).  And we really see this with the whole “American Christian notion”  I like Christianity but the Bible Belt form is a fucking perversion because it isn’t about an actual ideology or theology, its about being smugly superior to the outsiders, its turned into a fucking cultural identity.  And if you just say the right phrases or close enough (Two Corinthians) then they will vote for you despite how many women you sexually assault.   ANd of course this is totally true among the left as well, I mean that is where these bullshit cult like left wing pseudo hippies conmen come from telling liberals that Vaccines are bad, that GMOS are this evil thing inherently (again see #1).  BTW, this is why Neoliberals centrists hacks keep being able to win primaries and then lose elections, because they will utter the words without any substance behind them.  

3) The Leader is your Friend 

“Napoleon is Always Right”.  Mindless support of a leader is something most of us laugh at as ‘those people so stupid” when talking about North Korea or the Soviet Union, but we do it all the fucking time, because when we like somebody and feel he understands us, we don’t like to see that person get criticized.  Like you know...Obama.  I like Obama, I like that he is a huge dork, I like how charming he is, I find myself thinking back on statements he’s made when i’m feeling down, I internally enjoy it when Obama does something silly and when ever he stands up to somebody I don’t like I go “FUCK YEAH, OBAMA FOR THE WIN”.  And when somebody says “Dude, Obama’s approach to TPP or his Drone Policy is really fucked up” I instinctively try to rationalize it, I either work hard to look at things from his perspective and try to explain it using his logic, which i’d never do for a Republican, or I try to distant him from the thing I don’t like, “Oh well Drone Strikes is more the military industrial complex” or “Oh well the NSA overreach started under Bush anyways” because I want to like Obama and make him an extension of my own mental identity.  A lot of Russian people do this with Putin.  Because the thing you should do, aka “I really like Obama as a person and I love all of these aspects of him while these other things are really fucked up” is hard.  People don’t like to think complexly of their leaders.  This is even more difficult if you have an identity connection to the person, African Americans have a lot invested in Obama, women, particularly women over 45 have a lot in Hillary Clinton, and that personal identification makes it difficult.  And before you think i’m opposed to identity politics oh wait look, Donald Trump, who does the same thing but for white men who are clearly the most oppressed people in the world...

That was sarcastic btw.   But no i’m not calling Clinton or Obama authoritarian, I”m talking about the psychological effect here.  

 And that is what Trump is relying upon for his core audience, that people feel like they know him, he is that one jackass at the bard who everybody thinks is kind of a prick but says what they are all thinking and ultimately stands up for them against the “Bad People”.  And that is how you get this sort of mental assumption of protecting a single person, because any blow to them is by extension a blow to you.  

4) The ENEMY/The Victim

Key to the creation of this world view is “The enemy” this vague nebulous external force of BADNESS that exists to do the bad things to you and are responsible for everything bad.  Because people love simplicity and are you know...stupid they want all the bad things in their life to be linked.  Terrorism is bad and so is Reaganomics corporate capitalism?  THEY MUST BE LINKED?  I don’t like atheists and I don’t like Obama?  HE MUST BE AN ATHEIST.  The notion of all evil things being part of one vast giant “other” (often just called Jewish because of course they are) is extremely easy to take advantage of, because it allows the leader to attack the universal enemy.  This is much better if you happen to be legitimately persecuted in some way, and that persecution justifies all of your behavior.  And in order to connect all these things, you get into conspiracy theory logic After all, I suffered, therefore anything I do is acceptable, particularly when THOSE Guys are out to get you.  And this is why this is so dangerous as a concept, because often times there is a group that is out to get you, just not a single nebulous one.  The left totally falls into this of course, which is why internationalist is so difficult pitting poor whites against blacks is an age old tactic of the rich and when the Left gets really crazy when there is an external force challenging them.  When the entire world is “US vs. them” there is no room for nuance, and the whole world gets toxic real quick and hey look, Maoism.  They will always appeal to the time when we fought the great battle and overthrew the great threat, and link what is happening now with that previous great conflict.  

 This is especially true of Say Israel, who are fighting against legitimate anti antisemitism and external threats in such a way that makes the whole conflict gets so demented that the ISraeli Far Right are siding with actual Neo Nazis. 

5) Nostalgia/Cultural Symbols

As we discussed in Bob Roberts, the right survives by co-opting other concepts, because their core principles are usually things people can’t really get behind, so they need to take advantage of existing cultural effects to justify and spread their ideology.  This is almost always be common cultural symbols we can get behind, and then they will use “defending” that thing to justify their behavior.  Founding Fathers, Patriotism, the American Flag, Christianity, Capitalism, all things that are far more complicated and not inherently bad that are kinda tainted because of this association.  This is why Gamergate calls its movement “Ethics in Games Journalism” because that rhetoric allows them to gain adherents even if it is paper thin.  Never give blind loyalty to something for its own sake and never trust nostalgia or sentimentalism, because those are the avenues where somebody will take advantage of you.  

   Animal Farm is a story about how something good is co-opted and morphed into something evil because of people’s desire for naive optimism, and when it comes to politics, you don’t have the luxury to look at things uncritically, because if you don’t you will find yourself made into glue. 

Basically what i’m saying is we should be like Benjamin not Boxer 

This...don’t do this