#genocidal rhetoric pointed at literally every single one of us

[unsolicited-opinions]

You frame yourself as a well-meaning stranger offering a gentle correction. But your response was neither accurate, nor helpful, nor intellectually honest - and the fact that you continue to frame it that way suggests you're more invested in your self-image as a reasonable man than in actually engaging with the argument at hand.

Let's start with the facts.

You claim the original post was factually incorrect because diplomats from other countries have been murdered too. You cited:

Andrei Karlov (Russian ambassador to Turkey, 2016)

31 Turkish diplomats killed by Armenian militants (1970s–1990s)

An Iranian embassy staffer killed in Syria (2024)

A Pakistani diplomat murdered in Afghanistan (2017)

You now concede these examples were not analogous.

I think it is extremely important to note here that I did not provide examples that I felt were directly analogous to the murders in the US. I provided examples which I felt contradicted the statements made in the post.

That admission alone should've ended the exchange. If your examples weren't comparable in motivation, frequency, symbolism, or geopolitical resonance, then they don't "correct" anything. You may have offered facts - but they didn't disprove the point. They dodged it.

You accuse me of refusing to engage with your argument, when that's literally all I've done. I'm sorry it displeases you, but this is how intellectually honest disagreements actually work.

Let's look at a specific argument you just made:

You cite the tragic killings of 31 Turkish diplomats by Armenian militants as if this number alone contradicts the original post's claim - but context matters and these (again) are not analogous and your framing is a dishonest rhetorical misrepresentation of the original argument.

First, there's a false equivalence: you’re treating two phenomena as comparable based solely on a superficial similarity (diplomats were killed), while ignoring every relevant difference - time period, scope, motivation, frequency, and global reach. Those assassinations were part of a finite, historically specific campaign tied to the Armenian Genocide, and occurred almost entirely between 1973 and the early 1990s. They ended decades ago and were not part of a global, sustained, or ideologically diffuse pattern of targeting Turkish identity.

Second, you’re engaging in what’s called a red herring - distracting from the core claim (the unique pattern of obsessive symbolic violence directed at Israelis) by pointing to unrelated data that sounds impressive but doesn't actually address the argument.

And third, there's a kind of category error at play: the original post is about the symbolic singling out of Israel in present-day political violence, not the historical count of diplomats ever killed. You're responding to a claim that was never made, and refuting a version of the argument no one advanced. That's not fact-checking - it's fact-drifting.

Teitelbaum's post wasn't denying that diplomats from other countries have ever been killed - it was highlighting how uniquely and consistently Israelis are hunted down, not because of a narrow historical grievance or isolated conflict, but because of a broader, obsessive hostility toward their identity and presence. Israeli embassies, tourists, athletes, and students have been bombed, stalked, and gunned down from Buenos Aires to Istanbul to Los Angeles to DC - often by actors whose ideological motives span Islamist extremism, far-left anti-Zionism, and conspiratorial antisemitism. That pattern, not raw body count, is what sets Israel apart - and your response doesn’t challenge it. It simply avoids it.

Your examples:

Are either decades old (e.g., Turkish diplomats killed by Armenian militants),

Context-specific and not part of a broader trend (e.g., Karlov killed by a Turkish policeman angry about Syria),

Not even confirmed as targeted diplomatic killings (e.g., the Iranian staffer in Damascus).

None of them represent a persistent pattern of symbolic targeting of a nation and its representatives across continents and decades - which is precisely what Israel has experienced.

Second, let’s address the logic.

You argue that the original post implied "only Israel has ever had a diplomat killed." It didn’t. That's a strawman. The post listed a series of nations with well-documented histories of human rights abuses or state-sponsored violence, noting that despite their records, their diplomats are not hunted or murdered with the obsessive hatred that Israelis are.

That point isn’t undermined by your examples. If anything, your examples reinforce it. You had to reach decades into the past or into obscure regional incidents to find even marginally relevant counterpoints. You brought a water balloon to a grease fire and insisted you were putting it out.

You also accuse me of "making false claims" when I noted that attacks on other diplomats are rare and not ideologically motivated. You point to Turkey’s 31 assassinations. But again: those ended in the early 1990s. The murderers were specifically targeting Turkish officials over the Armenian genocide - a tragic but time - and cause-bound campaign. It is not comparable to the multi-decade, transnational targeting of Israelis and Jews simply for being Israeli or Jewish.

There is no equivalent to:

The 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires (by Iran-backed Hezbollah),

The 2012 attempted attacks on Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia,

The 2022 foiled Iranian plot to assassinate Israeli diplomats in Colombia,

Or the 2024 murder of two young Israeli civilians outside a museum in Los Angeles — not during a war, not in a conflict zone, not amid any Israeli military operation.

But your intellectual dishonesty doesn't stop there:

i stand by what i said, especially since a lot of your criticism comes from ideas that were not mentioned at all in the original post. i’m sure they seem like logical progressions to you, but from someone who is not deeply connected to the issues, they are not things that you will immediately think of.

You say that my criticism relies on "ideas not mentioned in the original post," because your interpretation stripped the post down to a literal sentence fragment and ignored the clear thrust of the message. The post wasn’t a Wikipedia entry on "deaths of diplomats by nationality." It was a rhetorical argument about Israel being uniquely singled out for symbolic violence - a pattern anyone even loosely familiar with global politics, antisemitism, or recent history would recognize as the core point. That’s not a logical leap, Cowboy - it's the frame within which the post was written.

Your claim that, as someone "not deeply connected to the issues," you couldn't have known that is part of the problem. If you didn't understand the point being made, your role in the conversation shouldn’t have been "fact-checker." It should have been "listener."

Instead, you confidently and smugly:

"Corrected" a claim that wasn’t made

With examples that weren’t analogous

While overlooking the actual message

Then you doubled down when called on it.

It's okay to miss the point of something which comes across your dash that you know nothing about - but missing the point while insisting you're clarifying it is what makes your intervention not just unhelpful, but actively dishonest.

Let's talk more about your argument's dishonest, ego-saving rhetoric:

You keep returning to the tone of my response. You say I "insulted" you, that I could've responded with more warmth or openness. I responded to the substance of your argument in great and thorough detail only after clarifying with you that I had correctly understood your point - just not with the tone you would've preferred.

You made a smug, misapplied fact-check under the guise of helpfulness. You didn't ask a question or seek clarity from people who know an awful lot about the subject and are "deeply connected to the issues." You made a flat assertion: "This is factually incorrect," followed by a list of links. That's not neutral helpfulness. That's performance.

And when I called that out clearly, your response was to:

Claim you were being charitable (proven false)

Shift the conversation to my tone (rhetorically dishonest)

And frame yourself as the one under attack (rhetorically dishonest AND false)

It's not about your feelings being hurt. It's about trying to recast the dynamic to make it seem like the real problem was how I spoke to you, not the factual, logical, and rhetorical errors in what you said or in what you failed to understand. That's an impressive degree of commitment to rhetorical dishonesty - even on social media.

To be clear: disagreement isn’t hostility. When someone misrepresents the argument, offers irrelevant rebuttals, and then refuses to acknowledge the mismatch, that isn’t disagreement - it's obfuscation. You weren’t insulted. You were corrected - sharply, yes, but not unfairly.

So I’ll reiterate what I said before to be sure you can't claim to be confused about it:

Your "fact check" was neither factual, nor relevant, nor helpful.

You admitted your examples weren't analogous.

You failed to engage the core argument.

You dishonestly framed your own condescension as generosity.

The appropriate response to seeing an argument you're not invested in, haven't researched, and don't understand wasn't to jump in with tangential examples and misplaced certainty. It was to either ask questions or to listen. Instead, you misread the claim, misframed the context, and then faulted others for responding to the argument that was actually being made - not the one you projected onto it.

i won’t respond any further...

I'm glad, my Quaker Friend, that you're re-learning to value of silence.

It can be golden - especially when the alternative is confidently, smugly, repeatedly, dishonestly missing the point in public.

Take care.

Russia started a war that’s killed over a million people. Russian diplomats aren’t murdered. China runs concentration camps. Chinese diplomats aren’t targeted. Iran funds terrorism across the globe. Iranian diplomats aren’t gunned down. Turkey bombs civilians and jails dissidents. Turkish diplomats aren’t hunted. Sudan is collapsing in genocide and famine. Sudanese diplomats aren’t executed. Pakistan harbors terrorists and persecutes minorities. Pakistani diplomats aren’t ambushed. Syria used chemical weapons on its own people. Syrian diplomats aren’t shot outside museums. North Korea starves its citizens and threatens nuclear war. North Korean diplomats aren’t attacked. The list is endless. But out of all these countries, only Israel provokes such obsessive hatred that someone would throw away their entire life just to murder two innocent Israelis in their 20s. Today is a terribly sad day. May their memories be a blessing.

Yehuda Teitelbaum

@chalavyishmael

[mythica-ithaca]

the fact that I see some of y'all posting more about how important it is to vote for Biden than you ever have about Palestine just shows that you fucking "vote blue no matter who" people genuinely don't give a fuck about anyone but yourselves.

you only choose to speak up when YOUR hypothetical rights are threatened. you love to fear monger about how much hypothetically worse it would be under trump than acknowledge the actual atrocities that Biden is committing and condoning every single day. how exactly is he the "lesser" of two evils for?

do any of you actually look at the images coming out of gaza, or are you too fucking ~triggered~ to fully acknowledge other peoples suffering rather than your own. have you seen the video that came out recently of the little boy whose brain is exposed, about to be laid next to his dead family members, only to twitch and seize in his fathers arms as he screams and runs in horror to find a doctor, because his son is alive. his brain is literally falling out of his skull but he is still alive. that is one brief example of the most horrific shit you've ever seen in your life coming out daily for almost a year. how on this earth can you watch that and possibly claim that Biden is in any way shape or form "less" evil.

instead of demanding that the dnc force a different candidate, you're trying to guilt trip people who have actually seen the mutilated bodies of children on their timelines every single day and watched the press briefings of bidens administration denying genocide and defending Israel at the expense of literally everything else for the last 8 months, into voting for a man who supports it 100% and has not and will not be convinced otherwise.

this is where allowing them to push widely unpopular and centrist candidates has gotten us. it didn't work with Hillary in 2016. it BARELY worked in 2020. and hate to break it to you, but its probably not going to work again. so congrats. your "vote blue no matter who" rhetoric has got them thinking that they can push the most right leaning liberals on us and think that we'll vote for them just because they're in a blue tie instead of a red one.

if you care about democracy like you say you do, then the Democrats should be fucking TERRIFIED that you won't vote for them if they don't deliver. not constantly reassured that they can commit literal fucking genocide and still get your votes if they dangle abortion rights over your heads. you realize they see those posts too right? the ones that say "Yes! protest vote in the primary but make sure to actually vote for the guy in the general!!" like. you are literally telling them how performative your activism is.

if every election at this point is the one where democracy is on the line then we are already fucked. if they don't get it through their heads now that we will not support this shit, then every election to come will be between a fascist and a fascist who cares slightly less about whether gay people get married or not. but that's all you care about right? as long as your domestic policy is in your favor then the rest of the world can suffer at your tax dollars.

this isn't about morality voting. this is about recognizing that there is not actually a "lesser" of two evils in this situation, just because you think that the causes that you personally care about will be less affected one way or the other. because what if it was abortion rights? what catholic Joe Biden was firmly against abortion and was threatening to ban it completely and throw anyone getting or giving one in prison for murder. what if it was videos of lgbt people being slaughtered coming out every single day for a year. genuinely fucking ask yourself if you'd still be saying "vote blue no matter who" and that he's the "lesser" of two evils.

vote for whoever the fuck you want. and I do genuinely urge you to vote for the most progressive candidate you can for the house and senate and your local elections. but for the love of god, stop trying to convince people that there is, in any sense of the word, a "Lesser" evil in this situation. stop trying to absolve yourselves of the fact that you are CHOOSING evil. it's genuinely sick.

[hesperocyon-lesbian]

you want rightful criticism? how about her saying cis people shouldn’t speak for trans people when that’s exactly what she’s doing? how about her choosing exactly one political issue to hinge her entire vote on and doing exactly nothing for the queer community that she wants to claim as her own after dating men her entire life and almost marrying her last boyfriend? i too am against genocide, but her silence on literally every other issue speaks VOLUMES. i realize that comphet is real especially with where she grew up but she has zero involvement in any sort of activism outside of saying “oh both sides are bad :(“ or the fact that she, as a cis woman, thinks she has a right to tell trans people under the age of 18 that they shouldn’t want or get gender-affirming surgeries. being bipolar isn’t an excuse for being a shit human being and using her bipolar disorder as excuse is a disservice to bipolar people.

Anon you’re fucking embarrassing yourself. Seriously. I could post this without even responding to you and it’d still be embarrassing for you.

You start out by whipping out gold star lesbian rhetoric. Seriously? You really think that plays to a trans crowd? Step up your rhetoric, you’re still so transparent.

Second, you’re not gonna fool anyone here with your whining about “single issue voters” when I’m literally a single issue voter on this. I’m not voting for Copmala unless she stops sending money and weapons to Israel, and she’s never going to do that. Frankly Chappel Roan’s stance on that is a lot softer than mine, if anything I’d criticize her for saying she’s still voting for Kamala. More than 100,000 Gazans have been slaughtered by Israel at this point. That is the key issue, and it’s one on which there is no substantial difference between the two candidates. No, that doesn’t mean I want Trump to win, it just means I won’t endorse genocide.

Third, what are you even talking about re trans surgeries???? I haven’t heard anything about this? Do you have proof or are you just gonna claim random shit. Since everything you’ve said has been in bad faith I’m gonna assume that’s a lie or a deliberate misconstruing of her words until proven otherwise

You need to understand that this isn’t primarily about me defending an artist who I think is in the right. It’s about me defending anyone who stands up against this genocide. But to you it’s on the same level as petty shit talking about someone’s dating history

[butwhatifidothis]

The fact that someone in 2024 can say "a person is bad because the blood from another race mixed with theirs and made them bad" without any shred or irony or self awareness is ghastly.

Probably comes from the idea that they are "good people," so they can't say racist shit or be racist because racism is bad and they are good people.

Which leads to shit like Shandale and multiple other people repeatedly saying shit like "The Nabateans as a race are ontologically evil and deserve the genocide that happened to them and the humans who genocided them were the good guys." "The Nabateans need to have their rights stripped away from them and live as second-class citizens to atone for what other Nabateans did." "The Nabateans are so savage and violent and evil that having their blood mixed with yours makes you evil like them." The Nabateans are evil, so they deserve to be erased. They deserve to be oppressed. They deserve to be killed. All of them. Even the children. No exceptions.

But they're not a "real" race so it's fine to advocate for their genocide. It's fine to cheer on their genociders and wish they were "properly" portrayed as the good guys they clearly are. It's fine to say "only humans should rule over humans" as if that isn't an ear-bleedingly loud dog-whistle for racial supremacy. Shandale is a good person so Shandale can't say Bad Person things, of course.

And the worst part is that Shandale knows what they're saying sounds bad. They fucking hate it whenever anyone with enough nuts in that cesspit of a discord directly tells them "hey yo this is some racist ass shit you're spewing out, can you like, stop?" They and the people who agree with them pull the "YOU'RE pulling the real world into this, and THAT'S so distasteful and bad!!" because Shandale knows that they only have that cover to hide behind. Shandale isn't saying what they're saying because they aren't aware of what they're saying or don't know why what they're saying is bad, they're saying what they're saying because they found the race they can scapegoat into getting away with saying this.

They all very clearly desperately want to say this shit. They will all go on for hours upon hours at a time vehemently going to bat for this hateful rhetoric, to the point that they will quite literally make shit up about what the Nabateans have done to make them evil. They owned slaves! They destroyed culture! They were tyrants! All of them! Genuinely every single one of them! All that shit is the CORNERSTONE to Shandale and their buddies' rhetoric, and they fucking made it up! It makes you wonder why they're so desperate for this clearly untrue thing to be true, and none of the answers to that question do them any favors to put it kindly.

And everyone in that server with the means to kick Shandale and all the other people who are clearly fucking racist and are using Nabateans as a scapegoat to vent their clearly fucking racist views would rather DM me to tell me ~oh so kindly~ that I should stop airing their moldy tattered laundry (in exchange for the mods following their rules of their server that they've been ignoring for fucking years) than do fucking ANYTHING about the mod that is peddling the racism. Shandale and their buddies don't need any shred of awareness - or more accurately, any shred of acknowledgement - because they know the second they bare their asses to the world the other mods will fucking scramble to cover for them. It's all beyond pathetic and disgusting

[walks-the-ages]

You convinced me to vote for Jill Stein. I was feeling so defeated about voting no preference or not voting but I'm a single issue voter on genocide I guess and couldn't bring myself to vote for a party and administration that was perpetuating it. So it was kind of liberating to vote third party and vote FOR something instead of just against something. All those people saying just vote and some of those same people saying you shouldn't vote third party, it's like does my vote count or doesn't it? So hypocritical. If you're not willing to vote for something better than what's the point? And the Dems haven't moved left and haven't done all the things in the last four years they're promising to do in the next four so again, we need to let go of that dream that we can "move them left." Anyway I guess just thanks for being thought provoking on this issue!

yep, last two elections I was so full of anxiety the entire time, absolutely terrified of what was gonna happen come election night and after...

but this time, after seeing a full entire year of genocide, of learning more and more about US history and the things our government has done and explicitly continues to do under both democrats AND republicans, I voted third party for the first time for the Green Party and I will probably continue to vote Green for the rest of my life, honestly.

I did Early Voting in my state, and here on election day, I am calm, knowing one of the main two is going to win, but knowing that I am also one of the people who won't go down in the history books as embracing the genocide.

I'm doing what I can to help, both online (signal boosting) and in my local community .

The people who spend their entire life frothing at the mouth about "we just need to vote blue no matter who just one more time! The canidate doesn't need to be perfect!They can commit genocide even! They just need to be wearing a blue hat while doing it!" every 4 years online.... I really can't say that I confidently believe these people engage with their local communities.

and yeah, you hit the nail on the head.

"Every vote counts! But no, don't vote like that! That doesn't count!"

"Every vote counts only when its in favor of my blue-hat-wearing genocidaire, any vote for literally any third party is just you literally voting for the red-hats! Ignore the complete lack of logic in this statement! Don't even ask if conservatives voting for a conservative third party are also somehow voting for the red-hats, or if by my logic, their vote is magically going to the blue-hats when they vote yellow-hats instead of red!"

Vote Scolders and genocide apologists really need to come to grips with the reality that if you're constantly, for almost a decade now, being "forced" by a two party system to "choose the lesser evil" and that "lesser" evil continues to push right wing policies, lose national protections for abortion and queer rights including trans healthcare, and is literally currently committing genocide and bombing multiple countries who actually try to stop the genocide, and embrace literal modern day hitler by inviting Netanyahu, a literal war criminal with an arrest warrent out for him in multiple countries to come speak directly to congress where the "good, lesser-evil" party gave him over 20 standing ovations for spouting genocidal rhetoric....... uh, first of all, you're not voting for a 'lesser' evil of any kind, you're just voting for an evil you think will be slightly more convenient for you, and you will happily throw entire nations into concentration and death camps if it makes you feel slightly more cushy and secure and two --

we don't actually live in a democracy if we are "forced" by a two-party system to vote for two equally genocidal fucks who don't represent any of their constituents and live on lies, lies, and more lies.

Democrats continually refuse to even consider raising the minimum wage and happily embrace funneling millions of dollars to Cop City so we can even further militarize the police here so they can better kill people every single day, while Trump gains voters by making wild promises that he's gonna make overtime be paid out in triple pay instead of time and a half that he, clearly, being a fascist billionaire fuck, never intends to fufill, but sounds good to the people who have been voting Democrat their entire life but never seen any material benefit from it (and yes, that is a real example a coworker gave me of why they were initially considering voting for trump, but then decided they're just not going to vote at all because none of the candidates actually feel good for them, and their family is split down the middle calling anyone who doesn't vote for their favorite side a traitor, ) etc.

Anyways, thank you for the anon, I am glad I could be of help!

Endlessly voting for "The lesser evil" just leads to anxiety and despair; actually putting your vote in for a candidate you want to vote for is one of the most freeing experiences possible if all you've been old enough to vote in is these constant Doomsday Elections.

There's a lot of ways to get started making connections in your local community, and the one I have started with and inspired many others to as well, is to simply start a garden, learn how to grow food and save seeds, and start sharing that with first your direct surrounding neighbors, then your neighborhood via online groups, and beyond! I've gotten many people into growing their own food and then beyond to sharing their harvests just by simply informing people "if you are buying colored bell peppers or tomatoes, or bags of dried beans, you can literally just plant all of those seeds" and watching their faces become full of wonder.

Oh and if you want a theme song for voting third party after voting for the lesser evil all this time lol:

anyways for anyone who hasn't voted yet, here's Jill Stein with the Green Party's ballot access map:

and here is their platform:

To all the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" crowd who actually do care about Gaza, but you're absolutely terrified of this election because of what everyone has been saying about Trump ending the world if Democrats don't win:

Remember, you are allowed to change your mind.

No one else can see who you voted for.

You do not have to decide 5 months in advance of an election that you're going to be voting for x and then have that decision written in stone.

The only time its too late to change your vote is after you've already cast your ballot.

You can go into that voting booth thinking you're gonna vote for x, and then see the screen or the paper and realize you really, really do not want to support the ongoing genocide.

After you have cast your vote, if someone asks who you voted for and you don't wanna say you voted for the Green Party........ you can literally just lie. Especially if its going to protect you from predatory friends or family who are part of the doomerist "vote blue no matter what they do" crowd.

Same goes for Republicans, or people who think they have to vote for Trump because their entire family is strict MAGA supporters.

You do not have to vote for Trump. You can vote for whoever you want, including third party. No one needs to know who you are voting for. If your maga friends and family demand to know if you voted for Trump too, you can..... just say yes.

No one is obligated to know who you voted for. If you want to vote for a party that is actually trying to make a difference in how much shit there is in the world, but you need to protect yourself from friends and family, you can simply lie and say you voted for their favorite candidate "of course!"

[iamnotawomanimagod]

welp. time to just get this off my chest.

on tumblr it's "support Palestine or you are the scum of the Earth" but literally everywhere I go and everyone else I talk to is spouting the "there's two sides to this" "there are no good guys" rhetoric

so no, I'm not surprised that people who aren't chronically online in the deepest left spaces on the internet support Israel.

does it piss me off? of course it does. do I understand the omnipresent and pervasive nature of Western propaganda and the way very few people in Western culture are interested in confronting that? yeah, I do. is it fucked up that that's a reality in Western/American culture? yeah, it is. do I think screaming and mud-slinging at every person who even slightly suggests that there could be no good answers in this is even remotely productive, useful, or helpful? no. I'm not going to end the war by calling my chronically-ill, dying mother a genocide supporter.

I do not support the genocide and I am part of those that see the absolute need for an immediate ceasefire. I am the only one I know in my offline life that feels this way. My friends and family are all left-leaning.

it's difficult not to see the attitude here on tumblr as virtue signaling. it's also difficult to have any meaningful conversations with the people in my life about Palestine when this issue has been ongoing since before I was born. since before my mom was born. yes, people feel overwhelmed and scared and unsure of what the right thing to do is. that's a very human response to war. it's awful.

I don't think we should stop talking about Palestine. I do think tumblr has distilled this issue down to a single talking point that does not allow for any meaningful conversation to take place with the people who could actually have their minds changed, because if you step even the tiniest bit into the "two sides to every 'conflict'" discourse, you are labeled a supporter of genocide.

even posting this is going to get me some major side-eye, I know that. and yes, I am speaking from a place of enormous privilege, safety, and distance. I know.

I just think of all the other horrific shit going on in our world, every single day, and of how little impact me and my family and friends can actually have on any of it, and then I come on tumblr and every other post is about abhorrent actions taken against people who I cannot help. an absolute deluge of human suffering, graphic violence, and traumatizing images and stories that I can do absolutely nothing about.

geopolitics is not something I've ever had any hope of having significant impact on. it's so so so far above my head. it's so far out of my control. and I'm too sensitive of a little bitch to just keep swallowing the bad news and knowing I can never really fix it or even help in a meaningful way.

I don't want to visit a blog about bears and see images of children crushed under rubble. I don't want my favorite fandom blog to post video of victims waving white flags and being shot down.

who is this actually helping? whose mind is this actually changing, when you're on the "there is ONE side to this and if you think anything even a little bit otherwise, you are Evil" website?

I get two options when I vote. less genocide or more genocide. voting is the only thing I can do to influence my country's politics, and I was going to do it already anyway. my president is 100% culpable in this and he's STILL the better option.

and how people posting on tumblr lowkey do seem to think that they're going to stop the war that way. you aren't. this is a fucking echo chamber, and I know that's true because the moment I step outside of it, the discourse changes completely. you cannot and will not save the world by blogging. people who aren't blogging about it are not contributing to the genocide.

I guess if this is upsetting to you and you think I'm a bad person because I feel this way, you can unfollow me. if you're a mutual, at least soft-block me on the way out.

[floralovebot]

I was on instagram and saw this random pro-israel thread and i just,,, i feel so sick. honestly there was a point where i thought "this has to be some weirdo trying to rage bait people right?" but no this bitch is genuinely just like that

I'm sure there are tons of people who could dissect this much better than I can but the one thing that I really want to say is I fucking hate how so many zionists act like they're the only ones being rational, composed, and "civilized" in this discussion. Like first, Palestinians have the full right to be angry and not rational when you're bombing them. Second, the audacity to side with a genocidal apartheid state that is actively gunning to kill every single person in Palestine and threatening the rest of the Middle East,, and then act like YOU are the one who's being normal and rational??? Like... I'm not surprised to see a zionist be that entitled and it's almost humorous how far up your own ass you have to be to not see it for yourself.

Siding with the genocidal maniacs who have been murdering Palestinians for decades and then getting Offended when people call you out for yknow. siding with the murderers. Acting like you're coming from good faith when you say out loud that you support the murderers. "... view details of the conflict differently" meaning "I'm a brainwashed zionist who blindly believes everything the Israeli government says out of fear of the Palestinian boogeyman and won't do any critical thinking on why that's an issue". Centering this entire conversation on the Hamas group and acting like Palestinian civilians deserve to be bombed, murdered, raped, torn apart, and erased just because of a quote unquote terrorist group that Israel literally helped to create and ONLY exists in response to Israel's violent occupation and murder of Palestinians.

"Israel works very hard to evacuate civilians." Yeah? Telling them to go somewhere safe and then bombing those areas too? Being oh so gracious and giving them a couple of hours to leave their homeland forever and never be able to go back? After Israeli civilians cheer and fantasize about building hotels and theme parks over the graves of thousands of innocent people? "There were unspeakable war crimes committed against Israel". Oh yeah I get it now. War crimes and murder only matter when it's Israel but not when it's Palestine. Thanks for putting that so clearly!

"I think there's a lot of trust that needs to be built up before that is possible. You can't live side by side with people you believe want to kill you." Wow, it's almost like that's a perfect reading of how Palestinians feel after decades of being murdered by the Israeli state oh oh what? No, she was talking about Israel? Oh yeah okay.

The audacity to treat Palestinians like children who can't help themselves around the cookies like BITCH you are insane. Outwardly saying that Palestinian people can't be trusted to act normal in society. The exact same rhetoric that white people used to justify not freeing enslaved people. The same rhetoric they used to justify not giving land back to indigenous people. The same rhetoric used to bomb Vietnam and Japan. It's almost like violent colonizers have a history of viewing their victims as violent, uncontrollable savages who would immediately do to their colonizers what was done to them. That fear of violent Palestinians is your own spiritual guilt haunting you for supporting their murder and oppression. That will live with you no matter what happens to the people of Palestine or the state of Israel.

I just... I'm sorry for ranting about this random ass person on a failing app they probably only used so they wouldn't get ratioed on twitter but something about it just really got to me. The only comfort is that their replies were littered with people calling them out and,,, attempting to educate them.

It's ironic that so many of their gotchas for why we should support Israel could actually be applied to Palestine and these zionists just,, never get that? They never see the irony. They don't get it. They refuse to get it. How anyone could listen to this and think this is a rational person who doesn't support genocide is beyond me. This is 101 genocidal colonizer.

[fedorahead]

we spend our entire lives being taught how to identify phishing and nigerian prince and love scams but never taught why they work, only derision for the people falling for them

they work by exploiting our compassion for our fellow man, and a little bit our greed

if someone is asking for your support and not offering anything in return, it's not a scam, it's just a request.

if someone is on the main drag flying a sign, you can just walk past, you can give em something, you can make a new friend, or you can harass them. if you care that their spaceship probably didn't actually run out of fuel, that's kind of a you problem because the rest of us understand that the spaceship is a rhetorical device used to represent their real life struggles. and either way, the odds that you're gonna stop walking, stand and point, screaming about spaceships and liars, are pretty slim to none because you're a coward even if you did feel some major ethical violation for their sign being representational rather than literal. also because you know that some dude spanging is already in a lower position than you in society, doing what he can to try to survive. you understand that, and maybe you don't support his spacecraft habit, and you walk on by and none of this takes more than five seconds of your life. and fuck it, maybe he really did have a spaceship and it really did run out of fuel. it's not like you can cerify that.

so when you log onto tumblr and you see a bunch of requests for assistance for people in a warzone, it can feel really weird if you've lived a life of privilege and never seen people trying to survive before. when you think making rent is the biggest stressor in your life, it can be hard to understand there's a level below where getting a bottle of water is the line between life and death. your life is hard and nobody can take that from you, but you still have to recognize there are people on a lower rung with lives that are also hard and that fucking with them would be extra shitty and really unnecessary.

and maybe you see something that seems suspicious. maybe it's not a rhetorical device like a spaceship, but something that alerts your compassion scam sense like a gofundme being based in a different location than the person in need, or someone seeming to coordinate a huge amount of money to "several families" that you aren't sure are real. and it's not a spaceship, so they're not being upfront with their misleading if that's what they're doing, and so it makes you extra uncomfortable because you see others throwing as much care and compassion at these people as they can while you sit with an eyebrow quirked wondering how they could be so stupid to fall for these scams.

but you've skipped a few steps here. you have decided they are scams based on some red flags, which is fine when you're making a decision for yourself. but some red flags aren't enough to discredit someone, just enough to keep yourself safe. so scroll past and live your life.

if you want to start a campaign to tear them down, you have a lot more work to do! you have to actually do some digging! maybe even talk to strangers for more information!

when you come at someone, you gotta come correct. because whether you destroy their life or not, your oversight is gonna destroy you. and if you did not get absolute fucking proof that the person you're targeting is a genuine scammer, ignoring all of the ethical ramifications of attacking innocent people, you've chosen to alienate every single one of those passionate compassionate donors who are pouring their lifeblood into trying to make the world a better place. and they've been fighting for these people in the face of genocide (as far as they are concerned), so why the fuck would they back down in the face of someone on tumblr?

it's pretty weird to insist someone is scamming the greater internet for spaceship parts when there's an actual spaceship parts vetting process going on by volunteers specifically designed to rule out the people who don't actually have spaceships vs the ones who genuinely crash landed and need a hand. and there's photos of the spaceships. and you can converse with the people, actually talk to them, about their spaceship experience. hell, even have a friend also talk to them and see if you both get the same story. maybe look into the people aggregating all the spaceship requests into a spreadsheet of legitimate spaceship victims and see if their stories add up. communicate with the donors who say they talk to the people requesting parts every day. learn how the effort is going, how the money is getting to the families.

i'm sure there are some very real scams happening as these situations are rife with people trying to take advantage, and maybe you'll uncover some of them with your digging and then people can actually step in and help. but until you've put in that work, you're just kicking wildly into a crowd with better vetting and more community work than "dude sitting on the corner with a sign".

and if you wanna call the whole thing a conspiracy or flawed or whatever, do that without pointing the finger at people who are likely also victims of that conspiracy. do it honestly and with integrity instead of being an outrage culture harnessing little bitch.

[whetstonefires]

i thought the narrative did allow for sympathizing with jet and hama? hell, the narrative structure with jet and hama has their sad backstories and motives placed first, then after that they do things that make katara more and more uncomfortable until it gets to something horrifying. jet even tried to make a new life afterwards and his death is nothing but tragic. azula was introduced as a terrifying sociopath and wasn't given sympathetic attention until season 3.

Weirdly this ties in to some of the themes from the Vietnam War ask I just answered! Let’s see what I can do.

The thing is. You’re allowed to pity Jet and Hama, but they aren’t presented to us in sympathetic terms, no. We aren’t meant to empathize too closely with them, or even see them as immense tragedies. Jet’s death is sad, but it’s also a relief; it isn’t framed to stick with the viewer as even a major story beat.

We are explicitly discouraged from identifying with both of them; their role in the story is as negative examples, warning the main characters away from senseless violence and extremism.

Putting their sad backstories first and then following it with a Dark Twist actually works against making them sympathetic, because it means the motion of the narrative is away from them--we start out with a positive impression that gets worse, which leaves a much more negative psychological imprint than starting with bad and getting even a little better. It draws the attention and the story away from what was done to them and toward what they did, while the order in which Azula is shown to us moves the other way.

So their traumas are provided as context for their actions, though in a very outline version in Jet’s case, but they aren’t dwelt on; we don’t get into their heads and feel their agony with them; the narrative’s engagement with their motives is restricted to explication, and the assertion that their suffering does not justify their actions.

Which isn’t exactly wrong--they both were targeting noncombatants in a way that wasn’t likely to be terribly helpful to anyone, and that really is something that deserves warning away from because it’s very tempting when you have a lot of pain, and the proxies for your real enemy are so much easier to reach with the strength you have.

(Lateral violence is born from this process of reframing, though what they were doing was not that--they both were managing to target the actual group they had beef with, which is better than a lot of people in real life manage rip.)

But that’s a specific narrative choice that was made with these characters, to create them and deal with them as dark-reflections-in-the-world of other people’s (mostly Katara’s) wounded anger, and nothing more.

While Azula got a whole episode wherein the emotional arc of the A-plot centered largely around her feelings about her own social awkwardness and relationship with her mother.

And like. This is, for the most part, a side effect of Azula’s centrality in the story and her relationship with Zuko!

And of the way the Fire Nation royal family is used as a narrative microcosm of how the ideology behind Fire expansionism is toxic and abusive all the way down, and has to be dismantled.

So it’s not bad, exactly.

But it does mean that we’re encouraged to engage far more closely and in a much more nuanced manner with the self-image and lived experience of the homicidal, consciously sadistic young fascist from the industrially developed expansionist empire...

...than we are with the experiences and decisionmaking of the oppressed people victimized by the system of which she is a leading part. 

And that’s kind of a pattern in American media, and deserves to be pointed out and critiqued where it crops up. It’s kind of inevitable, but it would be better if it could not be an unmarked default.

The narrative, in part because of the perspective from (and to) which it was being written, can more comfortably engage with Azula’s experiences because they’re ultimately personal--they interface with the broader, institutional reality in terms of allegory and in terms of consequence, but they are built on and about, and can be discussed in terms of, the interactions of individual persons.

While otoh Jet and Hama’s formative traumas are institutional in nature--it was the Fire Nation as military power that took their families and their homes and the lives they should have had away from them; it was the Fire Nation as administrator of colonial-political prison that destroyed Hama inch by inch.

And how do you resolve that? How do you parcel that down and let that go and make peace within yourself, when the thing that destroyed you is still there in the world, still taking and hurting and still beyond your reach? It hurts and it expands as if to swallow the whole world, that question, that irreconcilable need.

Katara only comes to terms with her own, in-comparison contained, experience of being traumatized by that same institution by drilling down until it’s a grudge against a single human person, who isn’t worth it.

But of course it really was the Fire Nation that took her mother away from her. And that’s difficult. That’s beyond the scope of the children’s cartoon. So they lock it away.

And Azula is locked away in the end, too, but she’s locked away as a person, whom we came close to and watched very intimately as she broke. While Jet and Hama are to a considerable degree locked away as ideas, not allowed to escape the confines of their rhetorical roles.

Making Hama a serial kidnapper/torturer/maybe-killer and locus of horror, and sending her back to Fire Nation captivity in a community with every reason to hate and fear her, and abandoning the character there with no follow-up (except using her legacy as a characteristic of villains in the sequel series) was a narrative decision that the people writing Avatar made.

There were good reasons for it in terms of the plot and Katara’s arc and it was even good storytelling! It doesn’t Ruin Avatar and there’s not an easy fix for it.

But it was a decision, and it has reverberations in terms of the history of representation of institutionally wronged people and particularly indigenous people in American media.

Having Jet be first almost a straw man of a resistance fighter, then betrayed and victimized by his own people, and finally literally disposed of, and take his rage and struggle with colonial aftermath with him, was a choice that was made, and which also has implications and an impact on the worldbuilding.

It’s a children’s series, and it’s a plot that needs to be resolvable on Aang’s terms; there’s only so far they could pursue either thread, but those decisions--especially with Hama--carry a certain subtext, and stand in stark contrast to the depth Azula in all her glorious shattered monstrosity was permitted.

And it’s worth talking about!

I mean...Korra had a lot of writing issues, like the pacing and the horrible love triangle, but a major underlying one (at least in Season One I didn’t get any further haha) was that it tried very hard to get out of realistically engaging with the aftermath of colonial violence in any depth whatsoever, despite specifically choosing to set season 1 in a place founded on the aftermath of colonial violence.

You cannot have America without genocide and colonialism, and when you try to have expy-America without talking about the genocide and colonialism you already established in the setting...you’re shooting your narrative in the gut. 

And this situation was created out of the same limitations that let Azula be more human than Jet or Hama, and dug into the ethical complexity of her situation with far more care than either of them merited.

[ingek73]

01-22-2112:00 PM

‘Time is running out’: Prince Harry calls for social media reform after U.S. Capitol riot

In a Q&A with Fast Company, The Duke of Sussex responds to social media’s role in the Capitol attack and explains why the next step must be to hold social platforms accountable.

[Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images]

BY KATHARINE SCHWAB

LONG READ

Over the past year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have become increasingly outspoken advocates for healthier social media—a topic that is clearly near to their hearts, given the horrendous vitriol and harassment they have faced online and in the press.

By partnering with organizations that aim to understand technology’s impact on society and vocally critiquing the state of online life in the media, the couple are using their clout to push for change in the current digital ecosystem. In an essay for Fast Company last August, Prince Harry called on business leaders to rethink their role in funding the advertising system that underlies the misinformation and divisive rhetoric that’s often shared on social platforms.

“This remodeling must include industry leaders from all areas drawing a line in the sand against unacceptable online practices as well as being active participants in the process of establishing new standards for our online world,” he wrote.

Now, social media is facing an inflection point, just weeks after a violent mob stormed the Capitol in an attack that was conceived, plotted, and stoked primarily online. Powerful platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube responded by suspending Donald Trump’s accounts, while Amazon and Apple cut ties with Parler, a social network that was used by the rioters. But experts and regulators believe that more must be done to reform social media.

Against this background, Prince Harry is once again imploring people to pay attention to the problems social media have wrought. In a wide-ranging interview with Fast Company, he explains why social platforms must be held accountable for the Capitol attack and the circumstances that enabled it, and why we must remodel the digital world before it’s too late.

FC: Six months ago, you wrote an essay for Fast Company in which you asked companies to take action to ensure the meaningful reform of our “unchecked and divisive attention economy.” How has your perspective on social media’s role in society changed over the last few weeks since the attack on the U.S. Capitol?

Prince Harry: When I wrote that piece, I was sharing my view that dominant online platforms have contributed to and stoked the conditions for a crisis of hate, a crisis of health, and a crisis of truth.

And I stand by that, along with millions of others who see and feel what this era has done at every level—we are losing loved ones to conspiracy theories, losing a sense of self because of the barrage of mistruths, and at the largest scale, losing our democracies.

The magnitude of this cannot be overstated, as noted even by the defectors who helped build these platforms. It takes courage to stand up, cite where things have gone wrong, and offer proposals and solutions. The need for that is greater than ever before. So I’m encouraged by and grateful for the groundswell of people who work—or have worked—inside these very platforms choosing to speak up against hate, violence, division, and confusion.

FC: Why is this topic so important to you? How was your outlook affected by the well-documented online harassment you and your wife have faced in the U.K.?

PH: I was really surprised to witness how my story had been told one way, my wife’s story had been told one way, and then our union sparked something that made the telling of that story very different.

That false narrative became the mothership for all of the harassment you’re referring to. It wouldn’t have even begun had our story just been told truthfully.

WE ARE LOSING LOVED ONES TO CONSPIRACY THEORIES, LOSING A SENSE OF SELF BECAUSE OF THE BARRAGE OF MISTRUTHS, AND AT THE LARGEST SCALE, LOSING OUR DEMOCRACIES.”

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX

But the important thing about what we experienced is that it led to us hearing from so many others around the world. We’ve thought a lot about those in much more vulnerable positions than us, and how much of a need there is for real empathy and support.

To their own degree, everyone has been deeply affected by the current consequences of the digital space. It could be as individual as seeing a loved one go down the path of radicalisation or as collective as seeing the science behind the climate crisis denied.

We are all vulnerable to it, which is why I don’t see it as a tech issue, or a political issue—it’s a humanitarian issue.

From an early age, the guiding principle in my life has been about the duty to truth, the pursuit of compassion, and the alleviation of suffering. My life has always been about trying to do my part to help those who need it most, and right now, we need this change—because it touches nearly every single thing we do or are exposed to.

FC: Where do we go from here? What do you think needs to change to create an online atmosphere where truth, equity, and free speech are all prioritized?

PH: I ask the same thing every day and lean on the experts to help give guidance on how to reform the state of our digital world—how we make it better for our kids, of course, but also for ourselves—now.

The avalanche of misinformation we are all inundated with is bending reality and has created this distorted filter that affects our ability to think clearly or even understand the world around us.

What happens online does not stay online—it spreads everywhere, like wildfire: into our homes and workplaces, into the streets, into our minds. The question really becomes about what to do when news and information sharing is no longer a decent, truthful exchange, but rather an exchange of weaponry.

WHAT HAPPENS ONLINE DOES NOT STAY ONLINE—IT SPREADS EVERYWHERE, LIKE WILDFIRE: INTO OUR HOMES AND WORKPLACES, INTO THE STREETS, INTO OUR MINDS.”

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX

The answer I’ve heard from experts in this space is that the common denominator starts with accountability. There has to be accountability to collective wellbeing, not just financial incentive. It’s hard for me to understand how the platforms themselves can eagerly take profit but shun responsibility.

There also has to be common, shared accountability. We can call for digital reform and debate how that happens and what it looks like, but it’s also on each of us to take a more critical eye to our own relationship with technology and media. To start, it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Consider setting limits on the time you spend on social media, stop yourself from endlessly scrolling, fact-check the source and research the information you see, and commit to taking a more compassionate approach and tone when you post or comment. These might seem like little things, but they add up.

Finally, there’s a responsibility to compassion that we each own. Humans crave connection, social bonds, and a sense of belonging. When we don’t have those, we end up fractured, and in the digital age that can unfortunately be a catalyst for finding connection in mass extremism movements or radicalisation. We need to take better care of each other, especially in these times of isolation and vulnerability.

FC: Since the Capitol riot, big tech companies from Twitter to Amazon have exercised their power by making determinations about who gets to use their products. Do you think companies should have the power to make decisions about who has access to some of the most prominent platforms on the internet?

PH: We have seen time and again what happens when the real-world cost of misinformation is disregarded. There is no way to downplay this. There was a literal attack on democracy in the United States, organised on social media, which is an issue of violent extremism. It is widely acknowledged that social media played a role in the genocide in Myanmar and was used as a vehicle to incite violence against the Rohingya people, which is a human rights issue. And in Brazil, social media provided a conduit for misinformation which ultimately brought destruction to the Amazon, which is an environmental and global health issue.

In a way, taking a predominately hands-off approach to problems for so long is itself an exercise in power.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about Speakers’ Corner, an area in London’s Hyde Park which is home to open-air debate, dialogue, and the exchange of information and ideas. I used to go past it all the time.

This concept of a ‘public square’ isn’t anything new—it can be traced back to the early days of democracies. You get up there and speak your piece. There are ground rules. You can’t incite violence, you can’t obscure who you are, and you can’t pay to monopolise or own the space itself. Ideas are considered or shot down; opinions are formed. At its best, movements are born, lies are laid bare, and attempts to stoke violence are rejected in the moment. At its worst, intolerance, groupthink, hate, and persecution are amplified. And at times, it forces lines to be drawn and rules or laws to emerge or be challenged.

I THINK IT’S A FALSE CHOICE TO SAY YOU HAVE TO PICK BETWEEN FREE SPEECH OR A MORE COMPASSIONATE AND TRUSTWORTHY DIGITAL WORLD.”

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX

I’m not saying we should abandon technology in favour of Speakers’ Corner. Rather, it’s that we should avoid buying into the idea that social media is the ultimate modern-day public square and that any attempt to ask platforms to be accountable to the landscape they’ve created is an attack or restriction of speech. I think it’s a false choice to say you have to pick between free speech or a more compassionate and trustworthy digital world. They are not mutually exclusive.

With these companies, in this model, we have a very small number of incredibly powerful and consolidated gatekeepers who have deployed hidden algorithms to pick the content billions see every day, and curate the information—or misinformation—everyone consumes. This radically alters how and why we inform opinions. It alters how we speak and what we decide to speak about. It alters how we think and how we react.

Ultimately, it has allowed for completely different versions of reality, with opposing sets of truth, to exist simultaneously. In this, one’s understanding of truth does not have to be based in fact, because there’s always an ability to furnish some form of “proof” to reinforce that version of “truth.” I believe this is the opposite of what we should want from our collective online community. The current model sorts and separates rather than bringing us together; it drowns out or even eliminates healthy dialogue and reasonable debate; it strips away the mutual respect we should have for each other as citizens of the same world.

FC: How do you plan to use your platform to push for change when it comes to hate speech, algorithmic amplification, and misinformation in 2021? Since you’re not a trained expert on these topics, why do you think people should listen to your perspective?

PH: I know enough to know that I certainly don’t know everything, especially when it comes to tech—but when you see this as a humanitarian issue, then you see the spread of misinformation as requiring a humanitarian response.

This is why my wife and I spent much of 2020 consulting the experts and learning directly from academics, advocates, and policymakers. We’ve also been listening with empathy to people who have stories to share—including people who have been deeply affected by misinformation and those who grew up as digital natives.

What we hope to do is continue to be a spotlight for their perspectives, and focus on harnessing their experience and energy to accelerate the pace of change in the digital world.

FC: Your Archewell Foundation has collaborated with several groups and institutions that aim to rethink technology and study its impact on people. As a philanthropist, why are you supporting research efforts within this space?

PH: If we’ve learned anything, it’s that our dominant technologies were built to grow and grow and grow, without serious consideration for the ripple effect of that growth. We have to do more than simply reconsider this model. The stakes are too high, and time is running out.

WE HAVE TO DO MORE THAN SIMPLY RECONSIDER THIS MODEL. THE STAKES ARE TOO HIGH, AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT.”

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX

There are a lot of incredible people and digital architects thinking about—or already working on—innovative and healthy platforms. We need to support them, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it can make commercial sense. And we have to look at the state of competition and ensure that the landscape doesn’t indiscriminately squeeze out or incentivise against fresh ideas.

I believe we can begin to make our digital world healthier, more compassionate, more inclusive, and trustworthy.

And it’s time to move from rethinking to remodelling.

FC: Given your concerns about divisiveness, misinformation, and hate speech online, how have your views on using social media yourself changed over the last few years? How do you approach it now and are you planning to make any changes?

PH: It’s funny you should ask because ironically, we woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago to hear that a Rupert Murdoch newspaper said we were evidently quitting social media. That was ‘news’ to us, bearing in mind we have no social media to quit, nor have we for the past 10 months.

The truth is, despite its well-documented ills, social media can offer a means of connecting and community, which are vital to us as human beings. We need to hear each other’s stories and be able to share our own. That’s part of the beauty of life. And don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that a reform of the digital space will create a world that’s all rainbows and sunshine, because that’s not realistic, and that, too, isn’t life.

There can be disagreement, conversation, opposing points of view—as there should be, but never to the extent that violence is created, truth is mystified, and lives are jeopardised.

We will revisit social media when it feels right for us—perhaps when we see more meaningful commitments to change or reform—but right now we’ve thrown much of our energy into learning about this space and how we can help.

FC: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to build a healthier online ecosystem?

PH: Optimistic, of course, because I believe in us, as human beings, and that we are wired to be compassionate and honest and good. Aspects of the digital space have unfortunately manipulated (or even highlighted) our weaknesses and brought out the worst in some.

We have to believe in optimism because that’s the world and the humanity I want for my son, and all of us.

We look forward to being part of the human experience—not a human experiment.

[theinquisitivej]

‘Avengers: Endgame’ – A Movie Review, and a Reflection on Endings

Endings are rarely the definitive final word.

A person’s story can come to an end, but the stories of the people around them and the world they live in carry on, even if that one person isn’t there anymore. That realisation conjures up a whole tangled mess of emotions, but it is the natural way of things. It’s not right to want everything to end with you. In life, we make the most of the time and energy we’re given, and if you make enough right decisions, get lucky, and dedicate enough of yourself, you’ll hopefully get to go with the sense that you did okay, and that those you leave behind are going to be alright. Endings in fiction are as infinitely variable as any other feature of artistic expression, but in narratives with expansive casts or fleshed out worlds, they often leave us with the feeling that we’d only have to stay a little longer and there would be more stories to explore. Just as the real world is bigger than any one lifetime, successfully-established fictional worlds feel much larger than any one set of characters and their narrative.

         For the last eleven years, audiences have enjoyed a series of blockbusters featuring an impressively varied range of stylistic approaches. At their best, these films are deeply satisfying and affecting, delivering poignant moments about characters coming to terms with their own flaws and trying their best to do the right thing. But when considered together, these films have never entirely felt resolved, with each one going out on a lingering note of “just wait for what comes next”. The story was never over for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because another film was never far away. And now that the grand conclusion has finally come and $2.5 billion worth of us have watched and re-watched it, things are just the same as ever, and yet we’re at a moment that we’ve never seen before and are unlikely to see again for a long time. We’ve reached an ending of the story that begun with Tony Stark and his box of scraps in that cave in 2008. The story is over. But there are more stories to come.

Yes, there will be spoilers ahead. But I say again: this film has crossed over the two and a half billion dollar mark. I’m pretty sure if you’re reading this, you’ll have contributed your drop or two to Marvel’s bucket. So let’s talk about the movie.

         I appreciate the efforts of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely as screenwriters, Joe and Anthony Russo as directors, and the input of every person involved in deciding the final shape of Endgame’s story to make its structure noticeably different to that of Infinity War. The previous Avengers film is a constant juggling act, relying on the viewer taking to Thanos as a central thread around which the rest of the film is hung. We’re either seeing the various steps Thanos is taking along his journey, hearing about what kind of man he is and what he intends to do, or seeing characters who are consistently on the back foot as they frantically scramble to strategically and mentally prepare for an opponent they’re not ready for. By this point in the series, we’ve been conditioned to expect to see things primarily from the point of view of the dozens of characters aligned with the Avengers, but Infinity War is messy and fractured when you look at it from the perspective of the heroes. And that’s the point – our heroes are fractured, and so there’s no unified effort against the villain as he single-mindedly pursues his goal with continuous success. The Avengers are a mess, and they lose. Thanos is the one who seizes control of the narrative, undoing the decisions and sacrifices made by the heroes as he dictates what his ambitions are and why they are so noble… and because viewers are susceptible to sympathising with the person who names themselves the hero and takes the reins of the narrative, far too many people bought Thanos’ rhetoric. For a year there, we really were seeing think-pieces that said “maybe the genocidal zealot who emotionally manipulates people is right”!

         But Endgame’s structure deliberately contrasts against Infinity War’s. Whereas Infinity War is about heroes being separated and the catastrophe that follows in the wake of this disunity, Endgame presents its heroes as a group of grieving people who are unified through their shared regrets and resolve to overcome their despair together and work towards a singular objective to try and fix everything. The Avengers are disassembled in Infinity War and reassembled in Endgame. As a result, the structure is comparatively more uniform. You can clearly differentiate the film into three distinct thirds – the five-year time skip that shows life on a mournful Earth still coming to terms with half of life being eradicated, the Back to the Future Part II time-travel mission as characters revisit scenarios from previous films, and the big blowout battle where every surviving main superpowered character in the entire franchise is dumped into one battle for your viewing pleasure. Each third offers something different, meaning you cover all of the ground that you’d want to in a dramatic, energetic, and emotional close to a blockbuster saga with literally dozens of characters who are all key players. Each third is impressively balanced, and they all act as strong supporting columns for the film as a result.

         However, because these thirds are as distinct as they are, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll come away saying “I preferred these two parts over that third part, which felt okay but a little unnecessary”. Personally, I think there are plenty of themes (grief and a desire to revisit the past, putting guilt and trauma to rest, and of course, the strength of unity) and character arcs (Nebula finally choosing to integrate herself into a group of people who value her and literally killing the old version of herself who wanted only to please her abusive father-figure being the stand-out one) which help gel each of the film’s three segments together without much resistance. But I have encountered multiple people who have expressed the sentiment that they really liked two thirds but they could take or leave another third – inevitably, which third is which always varies. I can imagine that, if you’re not getting a lot out of one of the segments, Endgame will certainly make you antsy for the film to return to what you felt it was pulling off more successfully. The three distinct thirds can result in a fragmented viewing experience for some audience members. On the other hand, I felt that the clearer, more focused structure not only made the film seem less jumbled than its predecessor, but also made it a suitable companion-piece to Infinity War and its Thanos-centric structure.

         The emotional response I have to Endgame is not the same electric glee I had from seeing the first Avengers, though moments like Cap picking up the hammer, the cinematic equivalent of a double-page spread of every single MCU hero charging towards Thanos’ army in one image, and “she’s got help” all sparked that feeling off inside me with more intensity than I’ve felt for a long time. No, what I feel more than anything about the MCU right now is a paradoxical sense of melancholic yet nevertheless delighted satisfaction. A part of that comes from the strengths of that first third, which, despite my sincere claims that all three sections gel together successfully, is nevertheless my favourite segment of the film (with the possible exception of the epilogue, but we’ll get to that). In this review’s opening paragraphs, I talked about endings not being the definitive final word as life and the world must always carry on. My reflection on that was primarily positive, but in this opening hour, we see the sad alternative form that this concept can take. Thanos killed half the universe and was killed in retaliation – the conflict ends, as does the hope of repairing the damage done by this tragedy. But the universe doesn’t end even with half of its inhabitants being gone. As Steve succinctly says, the survivors have to keep moving forward, “otherwise Thanos should have killed all of us”. It’s an outlook that Steve encourages, even if he can’t fully believe it himself, because he thinks it’s the best way for people to regain control over their unthinkable circumstances. The setup for Endgame presents us with a universe that died a half-death – everything ended for half its population five years ago, while life for the other half of the population persists, and they are trying their best to make sense of that.

         That struggle with grief, both on a colossal and a personal scale, is what unifies every single character, but the difference lies in how they respond to that grief. Black Widow throws herself into her work to try and keep the good that superheroes can do going, but her efforts feel as if they aren’t enough, being told by Okoye that the natural tectonic shifts she’s reporting on aren’t something you actively address with a strike squad and that you have to “handle it by not handling it”. Hawkeye was always the simple guy involved in the Avengers who was kept grounded by his family. Without them, he has nothing to keep him rooted, no home to return to, so he goes in the complete opposite direction and becomes a dedicated avenger in a literal sense, dolling out punishment fuelled by his frustration without any of the purpose and direction that he gained from his connections to friends and family. Hulk / Banner actually come out of this having made some progress, deciding to meditate on what they learned from their losses and literally come together in their grief to become one being, Professor Hulk. Tony and Pepper make the most of the luck they managed to find together, but are both keenly aware of all those who weren’t so lucky, wanting to get back what they lost but keep what they’ve found, which is remarkably human and understandable. Thor… hm. Okay, yes, Thor is a mixed bag. In all honesty, I loved Thor in this film and was empathetic towards his depression and anxiety attacks. I also love that Thor gets to stay as he is and still be shown that he is indeed worthy to wield Mjolnir and fight in the battle alongside all these other heroes without having to change who he is. But I do acknowledge the issues that numerous viewers have raised about some of the jokes made by the other characters being at the expense of Thor’s weight, and how they found it uncomfortable, and, in instances, meanspirited and harmful. I love the current version of Thor and feel Chris Hemsworth injected even more bubbly charm and infectious spirit to his character while blending it with the genuine pathos Thor was going through with remarkable talent. But the film’s tendency to use the character’s weight as an opportunity to make jokes about him being fat is not ideal. I’m glad to see Thor continue as he is into further movies (though it is possible that they’ll say he lost weight between Endgame and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3), but I sincerely hope we DON’T see the fat-jokes continue as they are. The lighting, music, and performances of everyone in the cast all contribute to this palpable sensation of immense loss, which communicates not only what’s at stake in this epic conclusion, but also how each character involved has been changed by what they’ve had to go through since Infinity War.

         But that only touches on the melancholic side of things; why do I also feel delighted and satisfied as I take in these sombre themes? Well, to put it simply, this one sticks the landing by closing the right doors in the most appropriate way while keeping other doors open in a balanced approach that seems so right. Tony Stark sacrifices his life after declaring “I am Iron Man” one last time, putting everything of himself into doing the right thing when so long ago he enjoyed a life of zero-accountability and kept his work on weapons technology at a safe distance. The image of his first arc-reactor in its memento case reading “Proof that Tony Stark has a heart” floating on the water at his funeral destroyed me at both viewings, because not only have his actions proved this fact as well, but we see numerous people all around this site as they pay their respects, showing the hearts of so many characters we care about who were connected to his. And Steve Rogers, the soldier who could never sit down if he saw a situation pointed south, after standing up against a galactic tyrant and his army, first alone and then with the support of countless men and women rallying to him, finally lets himself rest. Not many people have talked about the new horizons Steve takes in in this film; when the surviving heroes take Rocket’s ship to the Garden Planet, the camera makes a point of focusing on an extreme close-up of Steve’s eye as they travel through hyperspace. Even after nearly a decade of familiarity with this new era, the man out of time, a kid from 1940s Brooklyn, is seeing things that he could’ve never imagined. He’s come so, so far. I can think of no better conclusion than for him to return back home.

          But the film’s epilogue isn’t just concerned with closing the curtain on these heroes as they sit down to rest. Just as these stories end, we see hints of what stories are yet to come for other heroes. In the sequence where the camera pans over the countless faces attending Tony’s funeral, it’s fitting that the last hero we see (before Nick Fury steps into frame under the veranda, concealed in the shadows at the very end, much like his very first entrance as a post-credits tease at the end of Iron Man) is Carol Danvers. Having made her debut just months ago, she is the most recent addition to this universe, so her position at the back of the line reflects that. Her placement halfway up the steps she’s standing on suggests that she’s acting as an embodiment for the road to the future – she is literally on the next step for the series of films Marvel will make as they move forward. And she’s not alone, because other heroes will continue to thrive and flourish as their stories continue. Sam is handed the mantle of Captain America, and what’s achingly beautiful about this exchange is the attitude of the two men involved. Sam views Steve as his friend first and foremost, so he is sincere when he says he’s happy for him. But Sam also respects Steve so much as the man who deserves to be Captain America. Much like how Mjolnir can only be wielded by those who are worthy, Cap’s shield becomes a sacred relic that should only be worn by the right man for the job. And when Steve gently encourages Sam to try the shield on, knowing full well what it means to the world and to both of them, he does so as both Captain America finding the right man to fill his position, and as Sam’s friend Steve, telling him with assurance that he really is one of the best people he knows. When Sam confesses that he feels like the shield belongs to someone else, Steve responds with elegant purity “it doesn’t”. Everything at the core of Captain America, the bravery, the conviction to always stand back up and fight no matter how much it pains them to do so, and the responsibility to always look out for the little guy, are all qualities which never belonged to Steve and Steve alone; those virtues can belong to anyone, and Steve tells his friend that he recognises them in Sam. I cannot wait to see the good that Sam will do as he follows his promise to do his best.  

         Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has been developing a mentee / mentor relationship with Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man since Civil War, and here it culminates in a bittersweet arc that lays the groundwork for what I expect will be some fascinating and impactful characterisation in Far From Home in a few months’ time. Tony mourns for Peter most of all, viewing him as a surrogate son who has much of the same inventive genius and drive that he has, with the addition of some compassionate heart and level of responsibility that is far beyond his years. Peter has it in him to be better than Tony, and Tony knows this. So it’s understandable why the loss of that kind, youthful spirit and his limitless potential would hurt Tony so much. In Tony’s dying moments, we share Peter’s tears as we see how much this connection means to them both and realise what is being lost. But we know this is exactly what Tony fought for – the chance for the next generation to live and grow. Holland’s performance when we see Peter return to school hints at his sense of disconnection, as his expression creates the impression that he feels like a stranger in a place with which he once felt so familiar. With the support of his friends, especially Ned, he will find his way in the next step of his journey.

          Endgame provides definitive endings for the journeys of characters we’ve been following for more films than we see most actors get to play Bond, but it also manages to cast a hopeful eye towards the future without compromising its position as a neat conclusion to everything up to this point. In fact, its simultaneous handling of reflective closure and moving forward with renewed purpose makes for a remarkably poignant milestone. Stories rarely strike such a balance between meaningful finality and the uplifting excitement of wanting more stories and knowing you’re going to get them. And that probably sounds shallow and frivolous because, at the end of the day, we’re talking about a successful studio delivering a hyped-up film that promises to be a finale but also serves the financially driven purpose of pitching you a dozen other films and TV series. But through the efforts of over a decade’s worth of dedicated storytellers and creative artists, this series has come to mean more than just another substantial drop in Disney’s bucket. It’s become a fictional world that a massive audience has fallen in love with in the same way that people did with Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia, Mass Effect, and a hundred other worlds. We’ve rooted for these characters and cried at some of their most emotional moments, and we’ve grown to care so much about the MCU that it represents a living, breathing world for us. And this kind of ending just makes that proximity to reality that much closer. Stories end and lives come to a close, but they often do so in the middle of other people’s lives and stories. After all, Yinsen’s sacrifice in the MCU’s first film, Iron Man is the end of his story, but his death acts as a foundational moment for the man that Tony would grow to be – his ending is a part of Iron Man’s beginning. In Endgame, heroes pass away, lay down arms, or choose to step down from a position they no longer feel a need to hold onto. At the same time, other heroes move onto the next step of their journey, accept new responsibilities, and accept the titles passed onto them from those who know they will do a fine job. It’s a beautiful encapsulation of the natural balance between life and death, between the end of the old and the beginning of something new. It’s the balance that Thanos strived for but never fully understood, as he wanted to cultivate life but in his obsessive crusade ended up sewing nothing but death. It is only right that the heroes are the ones to achieve that balance through their actions and connections with one another.

Final Score: Gold.

Avengers: Endgame is overflowing and self-indulgent, but it has every right to be and more than earned it. There are missteps, and there’s room for disappointment over the direction that certain characters are taken in, most notably the original version of Gamora ultimately staying dead and staying the victim of an abusive father-figure who seizes all agency away from her, or Thor arguably continuing to veer away from where he was at the end of Thor: Ragnarok and his new weight being an excuse to make cheap jokes that feel uncomfortable. But it is also a well-structured film that offers three distinct tones that are all equally engaging, and its delightful moments of humour and momentous action strikes a grand and immensely satisfying chord with its examination of grief and the natural interrelationship of the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another. It is as significant a landmark for this fictional series as any invested viewer could hope for. It’s a hell of a thing to have come this far, and I can’t wait for whatever comes next.

[weemietime]

I have had more productive conversations with actual Palestinians living in Gaza than fucking leftists in north America lmao.

That is how I know they are full of shit, that idiots who have never even seen a Palestinian in real life feel confident shitting on Jewish strangers. Every single Palestinian I have spoken to wants peace, there's none of this bullshit globalize the Intifada garbage lmao that's straight up IRGC propaganda.

Ppl feel so comfortable mourning the same Hezbollah terrorists who fucking destroyed the Palestinian diaspora communities in places like Yarmouk, in the name of Palestinian liberation LOL.

but they'll be like oh yeah I know more about the history of the Middle East than you :-) yeah please do fucking go on. I have heard some awful shit too. One guy was dejected bc the IDF wrote "LOL" on his house (which was destroyed), another lady talked about how they destroyed her house (prior to the war, and this is something that does happen) bc her brother threw molotovs at the soldiers and wound up in prison.

I said like, if that had happened to another military soldier ur bro unfortunately would have been shot on the spot like you can't just throw a molotov at a cop and expect to get away unscathed. (I said this bc she hadn't mentioned her house at that point) and she wound up being like oh yeah I admit that they showed him mercy but they also punished our whole family.

Which is wrong! And when ur having a discussion with someone who isn't regurgitating literal Nazi rhetoric and blood libel and are just talking about their lives, it's a much different vibe. I don't need some fucking white college kid to explain what is going on to me in my own fucking homeland in my own language, sorry I don't feel educated by being spoken over and called a Nazi or a kapo lmao. I can do the work my GD self, like they should be doing.

None of the Palestinians I know believe in this death to Israel shit. They understand that the only way out for them is peace. It makes it a lot easier to relate on a human level when this nonsense is stripped from it, because you know you aren't having to suppress basic empathy to address the virulent antisemitism that should not even have a place in the discussion.

I'm not gonna sit down with some leftist terrorist simp and talk about all the damage the IDF has done and how we need to address it when they start the conversation by calling us all genocidal Nazis and dogs and deny our history and our reality, I'm going to fucking tell them to shut the hell up. I would rather just talk to Palestinians, and center their voices without the bullshit.

There are obviously extremists but those ppl aren't willing to talk to you anyway. and that's not even touching on Syrians and Iranians who are some of the most pro Israel people in ME. Iranians fucking know that the resurgence of people reading Osama Bin Laden's fucking letter to America on Tik Tok has nothing to do with Palestinian civilians.

It's all IRGC astroturfing meant to poison the well and encourage westerners to embrace fundamentalist religious extremism. You know what else that letter says that they never repeat, that aids was a satanic american invention so yeah go ahead and wear your they/them pin and keffiyeh you fucking moron while literally platforming some of the most violently antisemitic and anti LGBT shit that currently exists lol.

I really can't overstate how massively tired I am of western leftist children chanting globalize the Intifada. Truly, it's mind-blowing that anyone takes these Tik Toks seriously. It's always someone who couldn't point out Gaza on a map, doesn't know from what river to what sea, doesn't speak a Middle Eastern language, doesn't practice any Middle Eastern religion.

Hasn't ever been involved in armed conflict, hasn't ever experienced combat first-hand yet somehow they have magically become the authority on what constitutes genocide in an urban warfare scenario where the enemy is asymmetrically embedded into the civilian population.

Positively stunning that these folks with their BLM posters in the background start reading Osama Bin Laden's Letter to America which is some of the most profoundly, virulent antisemitic gibberish, with complete and utter sincerity. Never seen a gun in real life, never been homeless or brutalized by the police. Yet they somehow bestowed upon themselves the qualifications with which to speak about this extraordinarily complex subject.

Sorry, man. I don't give a shit what some 21 year Christianized Californian white person who couldn't say a single sentence in Hebrew or Arabic thinks about fucking Israel and Palestine. Have you ever considered the possibility that you should listen more than you speak? Listen to actual Jews, actual Palestinians. These people, they don't even know any Palestinians, lmao. They couldn't name five Palestinians they personally know off-hand.

And yeah someone will probably reblog this like oh blah blah blah I'm this and that - - what I mean is that even if you can say you've had a lived experience, the vast majority of the people around you who are spewing the same takes as you, who you're reblogging from and platforming - - a majority of these dudes genuinely could not even tell you who the president of Israel is.

Am I gate-keeping a centuries old ethnic and religious conflict steeped in highly nuanced, intricate layers spanning generations? Yeah. Maybe that dude on the college campus with the watermelon hat spouting off how much he loves the literally genocidal Houthis ("based Houthis," even) screaming "Zionazis go back to Europe," isn't the fucking four-star General Douchebag we need right now.

[language-escapes]

*cracks knuckles* Okay, so we’re doing this.

Let’s talk about Sherlock North.

Sherlock North is a new Holmesian adaptation that was announced yesterday.  It is described as a contemporary crime fiction series, taking place in Finland during Holmes’ Hiatus.  While on the run, he ends up solving some cases in a small town with the help of someone named Johanna Watson.

In the space of twenty-four hours, the tag is FULL of people saying it’s going to be awful, that it’s homophobic and engaging in ‘het-swapping’, that Watson being a woman is boring and overdone, etcetera etcetera.  The entire tag is full of this.  Twenty-four hours old, not even close to being filmed or produced, and the tag is full of people decrying it as bad.

I mean, we know NOTHING about this adaptation.  There’s a Holmes, there’s a Watson, takes place during the Hiatus, that’s it. Boom.  What the hell is there to hate yet?

Those of us who are veteran Elementary fans are familiar with this, of course.  We’ve lived through this before, and still live through it because people continually fail to understand that if you’re ragging on something, you should avoid landing it in the tag.  But let’s go ahead and address some of the things people are saying about Sherlock North.  Let’s take a look at the claims and see if they hold any water.

Because Watson is a woman, it means that Holmes/Watson won’t be a homosexual pairing; that’s homophobic.

Come here.  Sit down.  I’m going to hold your hand through this, because this is going to hurt.

Holmes and Watson aren’t a canon gay pairing.

I wanted to say it quickly, like ripping a bandaid off.  It’s going to hurt, it’s going to sting, but it also needed to be done.  The truth of the matter is that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, in the original canon, aren’t a homosexual pairing.  Now, we can certainly talk about how we interpret the text (I am a lifelong Holmes/Watson shipper; I will go down with that ship), and subtext, and coding, and all of these things, but the fact of the matter is that, in canon, Holmes and Watson are never actually written as romantically together.  Again, in terms of subtext and the way we interpret it?  Absolutely, it is easy to see them as being in love and so married and all.  But it isn’t canon.  It’s all interpretation.

What this means is that making Watson a woman is not, in itself, homophobic.  They are not ‘het-swapping’ because neither character was written as explicitly gay.  It’s just not possible.  No one is removing a real homosexual relationship from the story.

I know, it fucking sucks that it’s 2017 and we’ve never had a mainstream media Holmesian production with an explicitly queer Holmes or Watson, LET ALONE an explicitly queer Holmes and Watson that are in a relationship together.  I know that a lot of the people in the Sherlock North tag right now are angry, betrayed, bitter BBClock fans who thought that their show would make the subtext text, only to find that that didn’t happen.  And it sucks, I get that.  But that doesn’t make a totally different show homophobic.  And being hurt doesn’t excuse lashing out at a show and making unfounded accusations when, again, it was literally announced twenty-four hours ago and we know nothing about it.

If this is your argument against Sherlock North, how about you go watch some adaptations with queer characters?  How about The Adventures of Jamie Watson (and Sherlock Holmes), which is on youtube?  In that show Watson is bi, and Holmes is ace, and a number of the supporting cast also have LGBTQ identities.  Or S-her-lock, which can also be found on youtube.  Watson is trans and Holmes is an aro-ace.  I can recommend both of those adaptations wholeheartedly.

Watson as a woman is boring; a woman as the sidekick and help-meet, how original.

That’s primarily a matter of opinion, and you’re welcome to it, but I have to say, I’m offended on canon Watson’s behalf.  That’s all you think Watson is?  A sidekick? A help-meet?  I know Holmes calls him that in canon, but it’s also Holmes who claims that all emotion is useless and then tries not to cry when Watson gets shot.  I wouldn’t think of him as a reliable narrator, is all I’m saying.

And Watson as a sidekick is… I mean, I guess technically Watson COULD fit into that role, but that rather diminishes what a good Watson is.  A good Watson is brave, and loyal, and stubborn, prone to a temper at times, clever, a full partner in the investigations, compassionate and insightful, generous, self-sacrificing… what I’m saying here is, if you read the canon and just saw Watson as a sidekick, I suggest you go read it again.  And bring along the lenses that help you interpret the text as queer, because those lenses will definitely help you remember that narrators are often unreliable.

Watson as a woman is overdone.

Let’s see, in terms of mainstream media adaptations, I know of FIVE where Watson is a woman while Holmes is a man.  FIVE. They are:

They Might Be Giants (1971), with Joanne Woodward playing Mildred Watson; The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective (1976), with Jenny O’Hara playing Joan ‘Doc’ Watson; The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1986), with Margaret Colin playing Jane Watson; 1994 Baker Street (1993), with Debrah Farentino playing Amy Winslow; and Elementary (2012-), with Lucy Liu playing Joan Watson.

Five women Watsons. If we expanded the selection to include women Watsons against women Holmeses in mainstream media… we have six. That sixth one is Russian, btw. Not sure how mainstream it actually is, given that it doesn’t even have a Western world release.

If that’s your idea of overdone, I hate to break it to you about men Watsons and men Holmeses…

They only ever make Watson a woman so that Holmes and Watson can be in a romantic relationship together without having to incorporate a gay romance- THAT’S homophobic!

See point one regarding the homophobia.

But in the adaptations where Watson is a woman, IS there always a romantic relationship between Holmes and Watson?  Is this actually a thing?  This is a rhetorical question, I know the answer- no, they’re not always a romantic item when Watson is a woman.  In the most popular of the five adaptations above, They Might Be Giants, yes, Watson and Holmes are in a romantic relationship by the end.  The film is a cult classic, so I can see why it has imprinted on everyone’s mind, and why the heterosexual-appearing (bisexuality is a thing! As is pansexuality! As is asexuality! Not all of these are visible from the outside!) relationship between a woman Watson and man Holmes is something everyone remembers.

But in the other four? One can maybe argue sexual chemistry in some of them (it would take some arguing, though; it’s more subtext than text), but there is no actual romantic relationship between Holmes and Watson.  So if the creators of these productions made Watson a woman in order to have a romantic relationship with Holmes without queerness, they did a horrible job of it, because they forgot to actually include the romantic relationship.

(Fuck, those of us who watch Elementary just want Holmes and Watson to fucking HUG.)

Making Watson a woman isn’t progressive, it’s regressive; even if you get rid of the romantic relationship stuff, they often remove Watson’s key characteristics, like Watson being a doctor, or Watson being in the military.

Every single woman Watson is a doctor of some form.  Some of them aren’t practicing doctors, it’s true; neither was canon Watson when we first meet him, and in the stories he doesn’t actually start practicing medicine again until after he marries Mary Morstan, which happened in ~1887/1888 (don’t get any Holmesian started about dates…).  1888 was a full seven years after he met Holmes.  So even canon Watson, while having a medical degree, was not a doctor when we first meet him.

As for the military stuff… look.  In the first place, in the US military, women couldn’t serve in combat until 2013.  For the UK, restrictions on women in combat weren’t lifted until 2016 (though they could serve as combat medics and join other, technically non-combat groups).  But in the second place, and more importantly, our canon Watson served in the imperialist, colonialist British military in the Victorian era, a deeply awful time when the military engaged in genocides.  England is somewhat ashamed of that heritage, at least on some level (not on enough levels, of course, and not enough to get them to knock it off even now, but that’s neither here nor there).  Why the fuck would we want Watson serving an imperialistic goal, especially if a show doesn’t have the time or resources or, hell, interest to unpack what all of that means?  Very few shows can engage well in the complexities of military service, even ones ostensibly centered around them (*squints at NCIS*).  Frankly, I’d rather my Watson not serve in the military this time around if it means not having to deal with showrunners struggling and failing to make sense of the military mindset.

(ETA: Winslow was with the Red Cross during the Panama invasion. Thanks @sanguinarysanguinity!)

(Disclaimer: my entire family is military; believe me when I say this shit is complex, and needs a lot of energy devoted to it to do it right.)

The name fucking sucks.

Well.  I won’t argue with you there.

(Anybody know if this is just a translation of what the name is???  Because then I understand why it’s so bad.  Is it just a working title?)

The sum up

Take a look at all of those complaints I listed.  These are the complaints I saw over and over and over again when I went through the Sherlock North tag today.  Are you sensing a theme here?  Is there something in common with all of these arguments?

I want an explicitly queer Holmesian adaptation as much as the next H/W shipper.  I dream of it.  If someone gave me money to make my own adaptation, hells to the yeah would make them queer and in love.

But that doesn’t actually seem to be anyone’s main problem, to be honest.  The main problem people seem to have is that Watson is a woman.  

Someone can argue till they’re blue in the fact that the reason they’re upset about a woman Watson is because they want a gay Holmes and Watson relationship, but the fact of the matter is, we don’t have that relationship in any media, at all, and yet people still watch that media anyway.  And you can certainly be sad about the potential for a gay relationship being gone.  I do get that, and respect that.  

(Sidebar: in the world of things I find hilarious is the fact that, in this adaptation, Holmes and Watson COULD BE a gay couple!  They could be happily married!  Because John Watson could be back in London, sad because his husband was killed by Moriarty because THIS TAKES PLACE DURING THE HIATUS. Johanna might be a totally separate character!  Or Johanna IS our Watson, and Holmes didn’t know Watson before the Hiatus in this adaptation.  You know why that’s a possibility?  BECAUSE WE KNOW EXACTLY THREE THINGS ABOUT THIS ADAPTATION.)

But the hate?  That’s some bullshit right there.

If your issue is that Sherlock North is yet another adaptation where Holmes and Watson won’t be a gay couple, I do understand that disappointment. I would also like to point out that just because Holmes and Watson won’t be a gay couple in Sherlock North doesn’t preclude queerness, so you will want to rephrase that argument.  Watson could be a lesbian.  Holmes could be ace.  One or both could be bisexual.  Remember that queerness is this whole big range of things.  We don’t know enough about this production yet to say one way or another.  Just remember that two white dudes touching isn’t the only way to be queer, and that disappointment over the lack of white dudes touching shouldn’t lead to woman-bashing.

And if a woman Watson is your issue you don’t need to worry.  There are literally hundreds of other mainstream media adaptations with man Watsons.  In some of them, there are barely any women at all!  You can avoid women to your heart’s content.

Ultimately, most of the arguments against Sherlock North are just ridiculous.  It may suck.  It may be brilliant.  But it doesn’t have a cast, or a production crew, or any fucking funding yet, so we literally know not a single thing other than a general, broad concept.  So take a deep breath and step back.  Go hate women elsewhere.

(You know what I would like to see?  Some of this same outrage if Sherlock North ends up being a predominately white cast.  But if it has a white cast, suddenly we’ll hear all about how Scandanavia is just so white, it only makes sense for the cast to be white… and if folks got upset about race problems, they’d need to examine their own favourite Holmesian adaptations more critically, and we all know that ain’t gonna happen.  *sips tea*)

[transcriptroopers]

This person's reply contributes nothing new or of value to the conversation and in fact repeatedly strawmans OP, but it's precisely because of these points that I'm choosing to respond to this banal novel of a reblog. They're very common points so hopefully someone else here will be able to use it as a learning exercise.

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I see the propaganda's already ramping up for the next US election cycle. Under all the outrage here is what amounts to an argument of "only vote for the perfect candidate" which is just one step shy of the conclusion you're left to make on your own: why bother voting? It's clearly pointless.

This is the biggest strawman of the post, right off of the gate. OP says in the original post: "instead of wasting time scolding progressives (AGAIN) when we point out extremely valid criticisms of Genocide Joe, put that fucking energy toward canvassing for a new Dem/progressive candidate." The fact that you read any criticism of the DNC's favored candidate as an urge not to vote at all or an assertion that "voting is pointless" is all on you. That's the conclusion YOU made. Reading comp 101.

Furthermore, you respond to this post by scolding progressives for pointing out valid criticisms of a genocide-enabling colonizer, (what OP explicitly said not to do) but by calling it PROPAGANDA! As a disabled veteran I'm aghast at the idea that it should be considered propaganda to ask voters to weigh their options before picking a president. Unfuckingbelievable.

I appreciate why some people are single-issue voters, but frankly that's a luxury most of us actual americans can't afford. Especially when you're arguing we should die on any hill that plays directly into Republican hands.

That's how we'll get Trump again, just like we did in 2016.

I will address your misconception regarding "luxury" in a later reply but Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. Trump won via the electoral college. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Right, the guy already spouting clear and obvious neo-nazi rhetoric; the guy (and his cronies) who've effectively promised there won't be another election after them, who see warfare on anyone and everyone as in the cards. Any ground anyone gained in the past four years will all be destroyed under the new permanent Republican authoritarian theocracy.

the implication that Biden ISN'T "already" spouting clear and obvious neo-nazi rhetoric is minimization at best. Every election liberals say "if the Republicans win this time they'll install an authoritarian theocracy!!" more on this later.

In comparison, Biden has really never has been a noisy politician.

Losing my FUCKING mind. Biden was so war-hawkish in the 80's that even fucking Reagan told him to calm down. You are ignoring 50 years of this man's political history.

If I were to rate his weaknesses, the worst has got to be that he's achieved incredible cross-partisan victories in the US' polarized environment, but he's never thrown a parade about any of it. (Unlike the opposition, who do it even when they lost, even when it was actually a Dem-driven win.)

You... You can't name any other of Biden's weaknesses, huh? Notaone, huh?

I think it's not that you can't, (since his political career is very public) but I think because you know that acknowledging his past would mean potentially losing him voters, and at the end of the day that's your only goal. Not truth or a fair democracy. You are literally incapable of thinking about politics except in an us vs them mentality. You cannot even discuss politics without talking talking about incoherent "wins" and "the opposition" like this is a sportsball tournament. This is why you are not able to actually talk to leftists about politics so you have to talk down to them.

In four years, Biden's achieved important legislation for marginalized people, women, queer communities, and working-class folk.

-holding you by your shoulders- listen to me. Whatever little smoke and mirrors political illusions are going on right now that are somehow convincing you of otherwise, women, queer communities, and working class folks are not being helped by this government. They never have and never will be. Justice for the marginalized cannot come at the hands of an imperialist state, a settler-colonial entity that only exists to prop itself up even if it has to sacrifice its citizens. Occasionally throwing us marginalized folks a bone by graciously allowing to suffer less is a trick to keep us loyal. Our shitty tyrant boss keeps throwing us a pizza party and we keep buying it. "Stop caring about these other issues because we might get ours first." No. I won't.

Being a person of numerous marginalized identities, the fact that my life may (and that's a big may) be marginally improved as long as I keep a genocidal party in power is not acceptable to me under any conditions. If you are okay that others die so that you get yours, if you view that as harm reduction or progress, you are part of the problem.

Maybe you're only in one category, or several, or none, but that doesn't make those wins any less important for the many, many Americans he helped. And the complaint that since you weren't helped for one specific issue, that you'll freely disregard all the other people who were helped? That strikes me as having the flavor of a selfish Republican-style whine. For all that, fine, I concede this much: Biden will never be perfect -- just like every single goddamn president before him.

Because you can only see things in terms of Republicans versus Democrats, you may be unaware of what leftists see you as. We see you as complicit in settler-colonial culture. What you call "a selfish Republican-style whine," I see as standing up the implicit white supremacy in American culture. Aside from enabling a genocide, Biden's policies actively harm BIPOC. He has deported more people than Trump. He is okaying oil pipelines. He is allowing anti-Islamophobic legislature to pass. Any microscopic gains we have are dwarfed by his material policy, which is to uphold a white settler-colonial state. So, from my perspective, you are completely disregarding the many people who are not and will not be helped as long as you yourself benefit. It is only harm reduction to the privileged.

Voting isn't a marriage, it's a bus ride. Smart money says choose the bus that can get us closest to where we want to go. Getting halfway there is still always better than a bus that will carry us all straight into a living totalitarian hell.

We already live in a totalitarian hell, to say otherwise is to minimize our reality. To say "but it'll be worse under Trump!" minimizes reality. I think it's pretty apathetic to say "well we've only got two options and none of them are what we want" and to just accept that rather than do literally anything that might improve your situation, and then to fight and ridicule anyone who might suggest otherwise.

On top of all that, Biden is one guy. Like, literally ONE GUY. No president will ever be your messiah. Meanwhile, each american citizen has a mayor and local representatives, state-based representatives and senators, and Federal representatives and senators. And that's not counting the various cabinet members and advisors, at local, state, and Federal levels.

See, here, this is pretty much what the fascist does to the enemy. To the fascist, the enemy is simultaneously all powerful (a threat that must be eliminated) and completely ineffective (because our own guy is the best!!).

If Trump became president, hoo boy!! President is so important, it's such a big important role, we can't let him have it! Theoracy authoritarian incoming!!

But if Biden is president, well... :(:( president is One Guy, cannot Do It All, not fair to blame only him, he doesn't actually have much power actually...

This is why we call you guys fascist-lite.

The President of the United States is ~just one guy~ who could end the Palestinian Genocide with a single phone call, or at least put a ceasefire to it. We know this because he did exactly that in 2021. We see what you're doing when you pump a Republican president as apocalyptic but a Democrat president as helpless.

But perhaps OP missed the protests going on across the US (and the world). Or the many articles and opinion pieces and editorials pushing the US govt to make Israel end this genocide, and to broker a peace that isn't just another open-air prison. This isn't our first rodeo either, as a country. We marched and protested to get women the vote, to end segregation, to make abortion legal, to fund AIDs treatment, to enact marriage equality. On and on. This is the work we do, as members of a democracy.

This is classic ~shining city on a hill~ rhetoric and I'm not even going to bother.

Granted, such protests have to be on a massive scale to influence the president -- but the real influence will always be through our direct representatives, at local, state, and Federal levels. They answer to us, directly, as their constituents. They're the ones who repeat our voices until we're deafening, and to keep going until the President takes this bus in the direction we want.

Which is why OP is asking people to at least consider other options before doubling down on Biden. Reading comp 101.

I find it telling that you expect political parties to do the job of enforcing our various representatives and senators into providing some outcome. That says a lot about your actual position on being part of a democracy -- because what you said is pretty much the opposite. The ones who keep our representatives and senators doing their jobs to represent us is, and always has been, us. If you think democracy means you can just sign off and leave everything to others to handle, you're either a fool or a propagandist.

You don't understand what you've actually said here, because it's a very good point, but not the one you think you made.

You are right. The ones who keep the politicians doing their jobs is us. Which is why you, who continue spouting "voting blue no matter who," who has sworn to never withhold your vote no matter what line is crossed, have abandoned your power for change, and exchanged it for personal gain. You are currently, at this moment, enabling a genocide in not just one, but half a dozen countries around the world because you would rather fight for marginal gains in your immediate circle. "The ones who keep our representatives and senators doing their jobs to represent us is, and always has been, us." Yes. That is why so many people are so angry. You are representing apathy and selfishness and willingness to tolerate genocide as long as you and yours are taken care of. You and people like you who keep voting on the spineless liberal mindset that keeps this country chained because you don't believe in anything better.

(You're certainly parroting the arguments we heard from bots and propagandists in '16 and '20. The names may have changed, but functionally, you're still playing the same game.)

I'm so tired to see a "Bot Propaganda!1!!!" post in 2023. You dumbass. You fucking numpty.

The rest of us will stay in reality and make the best choice we can, and that's to choose our best bet for who'll keep this bus moving in the right direction. But that comes with the caveat that one person alone can't get that bus very far. Judging by age, wit, or looks are just a propagandist's smokescreen.

The "best choice you can" is not to lie down and die serving a political party that doesn't care about you and doesn't represent your interests. Your reality is that you live in a forgone conclusion of helplessness? That those who would be your comrades - if you only listened to us rather than demean us - are just "bots" specifically built to discredit you? And I'm supposed to be inspired by your lack of creativity, passion, or motivation? You are like an abused dog who has only ever had to crawl so as not to get hit. Try to fucking run.

Election after election, our most productive leaders have always been those with the clout, experience, and connections to get the bus a little closer to our goals. And even with all that, a president is just one guy. One person can't do it all, and definitely can't do it alone.

And this is it. This is where we inherently disagree on politics as they exist. The idea that you think any of our presidents have been "productive." I do not think that it is "purity culture" to be opposed to the imperialist. You have immense privilege to think of any presidential action in the last 200 years as "productive" just because of some minor concessions that benefit you. We are still killing and displacing Natives to this day, as we have for hundreds of years. We are still mass incarcerating Black people and have yet to even entertain the possibility of reparations for slavery. To this day we are teaching in schools that slavery wasn't so bad. Many Black Americans are themselves descendants of slave-owning presidents. We are still torturing and deporting Hispanic people and we're seeing a wave of islamophobia that has not been this bad since 2001. Under your Blue.

I genuinely do not think even one American president has been "productive" in the sense of globally benefiting humanity. None of your previous shining hill examples represented a president that did anything to improve those situations; it was all riots, all people. Fuck presidents; we got us gay marriage. We got women the right to vote. Which by the way honestly even saying it that way is ahistorical and told from a white lens. Wealthy white women earned the right to vote in 1920. Black women had to wait another five decades and do the work themselves because spineless liberals like you who only follow the party line allowed it to remain that way, because at least we were getting concessions in other regards!! But maybe it's kind of Republican for them to complain that they didn't get the right to vote since white women did, after all :/ :/ the bus is getting there u kno :/

But I just. I don't know what you're talking about. "Get the bus closer to our goals" you speak in nothing but half-baked analogies and ideological bullshit but this sounds like you actually think the US collectively has a goal and we're moving toward it. We've moved toward nothing but climate disaster, oligarchy, imperialism, and wholescale genocide denial. This bus is not going anywhere I want to go and you are not going to convince me that I want to go there by promising that all of the bad stuff that's already happening will only happen to the other guys (lie) as long as I vote for Your Guy.

For our democracy to work, it has always taken all of us doing our part to keep things going in the right direction. We speak up at town halls, write letters, make phone calls, or join protests, or all of the above. We're all on this bus together. Democracy has never been a spectator sport.

You are currently the worst kind of spectator - one who can't even read the whole post before shaming people for expressing discontent with their oppression. But every four years you press the blue button and see what happens, then four years later you press the blue button and see what happens. You're an active participant in genocide abroad and at home. I do not care about your boring analogies, your Marvel-esque soliloquys and clapbacks, and I don't care about guaranteeing myself fleeting comforts at home if it means abandoning everyone else in the world.

I know this is a big ask on the Reading Comprehension Website but I am begging people to move on from 2016 cheetoh man bad politics. I don't want to crawl and beg for scraps that might come for me and me alone if only I follow the master's whim. We want to live. We want to live.

i can't fucking believe it's literally a year out of the election, in the middle of a genocide that the whole world is watching, and I'm seeing democrats already scolding people (some of whom literally have family being killed in occupied Palestine) to vote for Biden.

are you fucking kidding me?

not only is he backing a genocide, perpetuating lies to justify this genocide, and directing domestic resources to repress people here objecting to said genocide (which should be enough already), he was also already unpopular before now, has barely done anything to counter the rising tide of Christian fascism you're all worried about, not to mention that he's old as shit and can barely get a sentence out

just from a purely logical, facts-based perspective, anyone trying to push Biden as a viable candidate right now not only doesn't care about the lives of Palestinians, but also actively wants marginalized people here to lose liberties. as far as I'm concerned, advocating for Biden is advocating for a second Trump term, because that man absolutely cannot win in the general election.

instead of wasting time scolding progressives (AGAIN) when we point out extremely valid criticisms of Genocide Joe, put that fucking energy toward canvassing for a new Dem/progressive candidate. we're a year out from the election. if you actually care about the lives of the marginalized not just internationally, but domestically as well, you have to put some fucking effort in instead of relying on the consistently-failing strategy of yelling at voters instead of demanding representatives do their fucking jobs and represent us.

[englishchinesetranslations]

By Henry Kissinger.... Henry thinks you are the third world. We are all members of the third world in the eyes of the elite. Not a day goes by when we are not reminded that we are nothing but 'useless eaters' who have been given the temporary right to exist on this planet by the generous elite. However, our continued existence is predicated on the notion that we have no rights, and as such, we should have no expectations. Through the tenets of Agenda 21, we are constantly reminded that we have no right to the resources on this planet. The elite own the water, the food and all other material assets. Enslaving Humanity, One Sheep At a Time Never before in the history of mankind, has a people, such as the citizens of the United States, enjoyed such political freedoms, resulting in self-determination over their lives as well as having enjoyed the affluence of the most prosperous middle class in human history. This experiment in American self-governance and resulting freedom, is nearly over. Both your perceived assets and even your life belongs to the minions representing the elite on this planet, for as we transition from an industrial based economy to a post industrial society, most of us will no longer needed because the size of the labor class will dramatically shrink. Now, we know the meaning of Kissinger's proclamation that we are nothing but a bunch of useless eaters. It should be abundantly clear that when several officials and prominent people on this planet state that the planet would be better off if the human population was reduced from 7 billion to 500 million, that they really mean it. Do you think that they are really kidding when the elite make such statements? It Is the Same Everywhere Everywhere on this planet, the elite are asserting their authority over the 'useless eaters' who occupy space and consume 'their' resources on this planet. The bulk of humanity are kept in metaphorical zoo-like cages on the planet and exist for the mere entertainment of the elite. Literally, nothing belongs to the common people. The elite own the food, the water and all the shelter on this planet. In every country it is the same. The elite, by hook or crook, appoint their minions to government positions. The government subsequently creates the conditions whereby the whims of the elite are enforced, thus, enslaving the people. The elite's strategies slightly differ depending on the local politics. In China, in order to enforce Agenda 21 dictates of moving the masses from rural to the stack and pack ghost cities, the whim of the elite is brutally enforced at the end of the barrel of a gun. In Uganda, when villages are needed in order to plant trees in carbon offset programs, the Uganda military simply burns down the villages and declares the inhabitants to be mere trespassers. And in America, when the elite wants what you own, there is a pretense of going through the constitutionally based courts under the guise of pseudo justice. However, the result is still the same, the Constitution is not followed and you lose. America, there is an important question to consider. If we are so free, as we are constantly reminded that we are by the mainstream media, then why are we spied upon without provocation or cause? And if we are so free, then why is our ability to raise objections to the manner in which we are governed being systematically eliminated? The Global Awakening Must Be Crushed Zbigniew Brzezinski likes to keep his hand on the pulse of humanity. In the middle part of the last decade he warned his elite colleagues that Americans were beginning to wake up the elite's agenda and that they must proceed with all due haste. Most recently, Brzezinski warned of a global awakening that was very dangerous to their agenda. It is abundantly clear that the elite fear humanity's sheer numbers and they know that the mainstream media is losing its control over humanity as the ratings of such MSM mainstays such as CNN are in the proverbial toilet. The blinders placed upon humanity by the MSM are slowly, but surely coming off. If the elite want to maintain control, they must act quickly, according to Brzezinski. The Pattern of Genocide The numbers of humanity are a threat to the ruling elite and these numbers must be radically reduced, and reduced quickly. The pattern leading to genocide, throughout history, is remarkably consistent. In each case, the government attempts to stop the communications between dissident forces which could evolve into an opposition force which would oppose the unfolding tyranny. We are witnessing just such a movement as the government has repeatedly tried to close down the free expression on the internet. Jay Rockefeller (D WVA) has attached a cyber-security amendment to the NDAA 2014 bill in Congress to mandate that precautions be taken to protect America's cyber infrastructure and private entities. Those of us who represent private entities, will soon find our free access to the internet eliminated. The fact that this internet control bill is attached to the NDAA is no accident because this means that dissidents, posting anti-government rhetoric on the internet, can be snatched off the street and held indefinitely for their 'terrorist' views. There is a second and equally disturbing development in that the government has declared that the people of this country do not have the right to challenge the government on its unconstitutional actions. This is a position which fully exposes the fact that America is no longer a democratic republic, but rather a dictatorship which serves the elite. At issue is the ACLU's right to sue the NSA for the unconstitutional and unwarranted intrusions into the private lives of all Americans by spying on their every communication and their web-surfing habits. This position, taken by the government, validates my earlier point that we have no rights and are living under a dictatorship. The Most Important Question of All There is even a more important question. Why does this government feel that it needs to spy upon all the people? Billions if not trillions of dollars are being spent to this end. Why? We should all be concerned that the police state practice of gathering private information on its citizens represents a practice that has never failed to result in genocide against at least a segment of its population. Therefore, if we use history as the judge of the NSA's actions, we should all be hiding under the bed. Although, as an aside, I think it would be appropriate to imitate the anti-gun crowd in Colorado who stalk and harass the activists who are trying to recall politicians who are attempting to seize the guns of law abiding citizens. The police have told the Colorado activists that these stalking behaviors are acceptable. Therefore, I would propose that we make the NSA feel the same heat. Perhaps residents in the area of an NSA facility should subject the NSA officials to the same level of harassment as are the activists in Colorado.The NSA harasses citizens, American citizens act in kind. On a more serious level, we need to all ask where this is leading. We should all consider the fact that there is a certainty that the information being gathered by the NSA will be used against 'undesirable' Americans. This is a civilized description for genocide. Does this allegation have any further substantiation than merely using the lesson of history? A cursory examination of the statements of the global elite, both past and present would indicate that we should all be a little more than concerned. Voices of Depopulation I have come to believe that a great culling is in our future. Before you dismiss this statement as the words of a lunatic, maybe we should see if there is any corroborating evidence from people in positions of authority, both past and present. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, enthusiastically promoted the Thomas Malthus' philosophy as she stated, 'The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.' Perhaps these were merely the musings of two twisted individuals which do not represent any type of central philosophical belief. Unfortunately the theories of Malthus, Sanger and other population control advocates did not die with them. As I discovered, this is a reoccurring theme contained within the personal words of several dozen global leaders. 'Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind'. Theodore Roosevelt 'Malthus has been vindicated; reality is finally catching up with Malthus. The Third World is overpopulated, it's an economic mess, and there's no way they could get out of it with this fast-growing population. Our philosophy is: back to the village'. Dr. Arne Schiotz, World Wildlife Fund Director of Conservation, stated such, ironically, in 1984. 'A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal'. Ted Turner, in an interview with Audubon magazine 'There is a single theme behind all our work-we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it….' 'Our program in El Salvador didn't work. The infrastructure was not there to support it. There were just too goddamned many people…. To really reduce population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females….' The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black Death….' Thomas Ferguson, State Department Office of Population Affairs 'In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself'. Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider - Founder and Secretary, respectively, The Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, pgs 104-105,1991 'A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people…. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions'. Stanford Professor, Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb 'In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it is just as bad not to say it'. J. Cousteau,1991 explorer and UNESCO courier 'I believe that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on Earth Today' and, 'We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox'. Dave Foreman, Sierra Club and co founder of Earth First! 'We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage.' Mikhail Gorbachev 'Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government'. Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France,1991 'The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer'. Dr. Henry Kissinger New York Times, Oct.28,1973 'Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries'. Dr. Henry Kissinger 'Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, ' and 'The elderly are useless eaters'. Dr. Henry Kissinger 'World population needs to be decreased by 50%'. Dr. Henry Kissinger 'We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order'. David Rockefeller 'War and famine would not do. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved. AIDS is not an efficient killer because it is too slow. My favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola (Ebola Reston) , because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. 'We've got airborne diseases with 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that. 'You know, the bird flu's good, too. For everyone who survives, he will have to bury nine'. Dr. Eric Pianka University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert, showed solutions for reducing the world's population to an audience on population control 'No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation'. David Spangler, Director of Planetary Initiative, United Nations 'The present vast overpopulation, now far beyond the world carrying capacity, cannot be answered by future reductions in the birth rate due to contraception, sterilization and abortion, but must be met in the present by the reduction of numbers presently existing. This must be done by whatever means necessary'. Initiative for the United Nations ECO-92 EARTH CHARTER 'In South America, the government of Peru goes door to door pressuring women to be sterilized and they are funded by American tax dollars to do this'. Mark Earley in The Wrong Kind of Party Christian Post 10/27 2008 Women in the Netherlands who are deemed by the state to be unfit mothers should be sentenced to take contraception for a prescribed period of two years'. Marjo Van Dijken (author of the bill in the Netherlands) in the Guardian 'Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature'. Anonymously commissioned Georgia Guidestones 'If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels'. Prince Phillip, Queen Elizabeth's husband, Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing'. David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club 'The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes'. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes 'Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of'. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg 'The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.' Obama's science czar John P. Holdren, Co-author of 'Ecoscience' Deny If You Must, but….. In this article alone, there are 27 quotes from individuals representing the global elite who speak clearly on the desires of the elite who seek to significantly reduce the population. There are literally hundreds of more quotes which should concern the average 'useless eater'. There are people who will undoubtedly dismiss these quotes as the musings of people with too much idle time on their hands and they really don't mean what they say. To these naive people, I would say that various governments, on behalf of their elite masters, murdered over 260 million of their own citizens in the 20th century. I contend that these 260 million people are merely the prelude of what is on the horizon. Consider the following quote from the late Congressman, Larry McDonald. 'The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control…. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.' Congressman Larry P. McDonald,1976, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that was shot down by the Soviet Union Conclusion I have related how recently retired members of FEMA and DHS have sought the company of like-minded people as they have sought refuge in remote locations in preparation for what is coming. Maybe we should pay closer attention to what people say as well as what some people are doing. There can be little doubt that depopulation is a consistent theme of global leaders and the idea has been around for a very long time. Preaching drastic population reduction may be one thing, but when the actions match the stated intent, all of us would be fools to not pay close attention and act accordingly as circumstances warrant. Significant contribution by, Dr. Henry Kissinger

[chi-is-bored]

Rant

And wow this is long, and i have no idea how to keep reading it so I apologize in advance,

Just watch the Omar interview with Trevor and wow, does the trolling JUMP on the comments.

Alas, these american idiots be like, tHeiR rEliGioN is vIoLenT, iN tHe bOok theEy sAy tHis, aLL mUslIm haTe us, Isis is iSlam. -_- i mean they are probably troll cuz I just can't believe that someone from the US would actually believe an organisation (terrorist no less) is representative to all religion. Like that's literally saying the blue / the red are representative to all american. Like come on.

I mean as muslimah who spent most of her internet time in foreign english-speaking domain (which is dominated by america), I aint new on islam-hating words. But like it has and always been alittle frustatingly hilarious to me.

Also disclaimer i aint from english-speaking country so im translating the terms of my language, cuz y'know i dont know what english-speaking people would called them, i only know the terms in my language. Also im pretty sure my experience and lessons I get are island or even small city-oriented, but you may be surprised (like i did) but the islamic lessons that are taught have small differences in each country or nation based on cultures or even country's history.

Cuz it's always the same thing. AND the hilarious thing for me is that their arguments most often are similar to the radical or the terrorists. Just swap the people they called the devil worshipper / the enemy. Like the terrorist/radicals would say that the Jewish people (which honestly is very telling how they never say israeli) is a satanic / genocidal / evil etcetra, while these islamic-hating comments would say Islam is a satanic / genocidal / evil etcetra.

Which, huh, maybe those comments/posts are the reason why I never paid much to the radicals.

Like judging from those rhetorics where 'Islam as a religion hates christian and/or jewish people' etc, many non-muslim seem to not know this, but like there's this 6 elements that you HAVE TO truly and wholeheartedly believe (put faith on) in your heart to be muslim. And one them is having faith (as in truly believe) that Torah came from Prophet Moses and Bible came from Prophet Isa. So, whenever I spy these rhetorics, I just can't!! Because we were supposed to also learn from Torah and Bible too. But, I also think it's understandable, cuz it's probably an awkward thing to openly say right? Esp in these tension-filled interaction between religion where aLOT of things has been said to attack. Or maybe it's not an awkward thing, but words that cannot penetrate the walls that was built from conflict and hatred.

Also

I was taught that Qur'an is the last Holy Book to round-up or finish off all lessons from previous books that came from previous prophets. But I did come to realize that the lessons I was taught were only words they parrotted without meaning. Why? Because I was taught that in my single digit year old, now I'm on my twenties and I never learn what's in Bible or Torah. Even tho, the holy books we were supposed to learn, understand, and apply were Torah, Bible, and The Quran.

You maybe wondering if I do believe that why don't I research those holy book myself. Well I did, but the young me got confused at the bible versions that pop out from my initial search that I give up because I aint touching that without any Christian with me., Thats just a disaster in waiting, cuz I wouldn't be able to spot whats true or not since I have no base knowledge on it ya know? But, I did get that children book of Christian's prophet stories. Tho, I can't mention it willy-nilly cuz people would think I'm converting. T.T amd nobody would want to read it for fear, but like if anybody ask me I would say you are not afraid of the christian tales, you are afraid to find out how fragile your faith is.

I get to that point after many of these news that are viral on the islam part of internet where they glorify and amplify the news whenever someone converts to islam or whenever someone 'owned' non-muslim's in debate or whenever someone get non-muslim to convert.... Not gonna lie, at first, I did join on these people in amazement and happiness until I realized these people were only using these stories to back up their choice of religion. Like they scream while acting humble, I am right in choosing Islam, see it is undeniably the truth, those are the proofs!, look non-believers got converted the islam is true!. And my fellow muslim you would thought there was nothing wrong with these words (like I did) until you realize these people don't actually believe in Islam. They only interest to be saved or want the benefits of Islam, but they only filmsy believe the religion so they use as many of those stories to prop it up. They are in denial, deep deep denial how fragile their believe is so they seek these stories to prop up their faith.

How do I get there? Well, one of them is flat earth. Bro, I have interact wih these fools who jump on flat earth because apparently a quote in the Quran said so. At first I was like bro what? I did say that the word used for implying flat earth is ambiguous before I realize I don't have the authority nor accredited knowledge to say that. But I did jokingly say 'what are all the fusses with the earth shape and the Qur'an quote? What, you gonna stop being muslim over that? Lmao, can't relate' before i realized that THATS THE THING. These people have used those stories and believe blindly and narrowly that everything in the Qur'an is true and applicable to everything to prop and use as a foundation for their believe, that when they found any surface disperancies, they lost it.

I can already feel muslim frowning at me saying what's wrong with having these stories affirming their faith. you see, on the panic over the fragility of their believe they went on full stupid and just swallow ANY SENTENCES without any thought whatsoever abt Islam that would strengthen their faith. Girl, some ustad be saying that islam prohibits drinking while standing is proven scientifically right because when drinking while standing will make the water fall hard straight to your bladder and cause the water to not be absorbed and just pee out. And people be subhanallah God and God's wisdom. And when some profesor be like 'sir, please be careful on spreading these info cuz that's not how our body work', she got blasted and labeled as a non-believers, or proof that getting higher education is to be corrupted and losing ur faith.

Which, yo muslim fellow, was I dreaming this thing or did Prophet Muhammad did actually said 'to pursue knowledge, even to China' ( i am paraphrasing this)? I can't believe how I was taught this at young age, as a girl, that it is very important for mothers to pursue education as highly as possible because mother is the first person children are gonna learn from. To be at this age of mine, where some muslims be dissuading muslim from learning higher. Like what?! Actual religious muslim man be telling me I shouldn't get a master degree because no man would want to marry me. The muslim man who was taught like I was that every person on earth has their 'soulmate' that is predetermined before our birth by Allah. Seriously? He didn't even say that my 'soulmate' would not be attracted to me, which is how i know he was taught the same thing as me. He also went quite when I hit him with 'is he questioning Allah's decision and power over my soulmate? That a mere master degree will over overcome my predetermined 'soulmate' that Allah has chosen for me?'

(and yes, idk whats the English word for it so im using soulmate)

And no, he did not stop pursuing me, he just stop using religion as flirting method. He downright stop saying any religious thing around me, and straight on asking me on a date, as an 'uber' driver on my way home, at night, almost midnight, note: i was a restaurant waitress. That muslim getup really be accessories for him.

Wait, my main point is Islam lessons isn't as perfectly similar as alot of people believe. Like I said the islam lessons really be different. Like the foundation is the same, but the details differ.

One simple example is how I found out that English speaking country (idk which one) use he, him as god pronoun, when I was taught that Allah is genderless and is referred as ?substance? (idk the english term, just that Allah is not humanize ya know? Someone help me explain), and the mere thought of implying Allah's gender be a huge blapsemy (notice how i never use one) let alone using the pronoun he,him. But honestly I figured it's because english doesn't have neutral gender he/she/they like my language.

Also, yes I have a joke I thought when I first learn of non-binary people, but it is very blasphemous so i can not say it. Been hoping someone else say it, but alas I have not see it. :(