#i just wish communism was a widely accepted political ideology

[magpiereplika]

im so bad at sharing political takes but i hate capitalism so goddamn much. i hate the culture of "you're literally a communist shut up" so what if i am?? your perception of communism is so ridiculously flawed and fueled by harmful capitalist rhetoric. if you are not part of the ruling class you are being exploited by them. there's no way around this because you live in an economy built off of your exploitation.

and i'm not going to act like my ideal communist world can realistically exist because it probably can't and it probably won't. humans are not fundamentally evil but we have been so brainwashed with pro-capitalism that the majority of people actively hate alternatives , so there's no way they're going to accept this ideal or allow it to exist because even the "wait . this is fucking great" would be overshadowed by "This Is Communism I Hate Communism" even though you DONT you hate STALINISM which is a completely different thing and your perception of it is also fueled by propaganda. as is mine. i also hate stalinism. i don't fully know if my opinion of it is well founded. as a communist, though, that is sure as hell not what i want

but i just wish that being a communist was like an accepted political ideology because why shouldn't it be?? i'm not a dirty commie that wants everyone to starve i am a Human Person that realizes that people are actively starving because of capitalism and real actual communism would be a good solution

and if your employer is making it so that you are suffering. if your employer is making it so that the people around you are suffering, you have every fucking right to burn his goddamn business to the ground. literally or metaphorically. the ruling class is a plague and i actively advocate for tearing their business and homes down if they refuse to meet your needs. i could go on more about how much i hate capitalism but i am tirednow

[fernthewhimsical]

Pride Witchcraft

Happy Pride everyone! It’s the rainbow time of the year again… This will be the first time for me where I will incorporate Pride month actively into my witchcraft practice. As I’ve written about before, self-discovery and self-love is a big part of my daily and monthly practice and exploring gender- and sexual identity has dominated that over the past two years or so. I learned a lot, not just about myself but about queer history and the queer community as well. Which is why I decided that this year, in a year where everything still sucks, I will take Pride month as a sacred celebration, not only to celebrate my own identity and the journey that I’ve made, but also to celebrate how far we’ve come, as a community, and the things that we’ve already achieved.

But there is still quite a way to go. Homophobia and especially transphobia is on the rise again. There is a lot of infighting in the community as well with the rise of TERF ideology and purity politics based on white, Christian values ingrained in our societies and cultures. Which is why @madamehearthwitch commented that for her Pride had a very double feeling this year. We talked about how we both looked forward to it, and didn’t, because of these issues and struggles. We also talked about doing some community magics, where we as a community practice our witchcraft to better the queer community, which I will talk about below (And make into a seperate post for easier shareability).

So, what are my plans for Pride? (My Pride bucketlist, if you will)

Celebrate

Journal about what Pride means to me and the journey I went through

Shop locally and in small, queer owned businesses for some queer merch

Finish my “acceptance” tarot spread, and use it

Read/watch/or listen to something related to queer history, -people or -education topics every day

Donate to a queer cause

Join an online queer event

Read Arcane Perfection, an anthology by queer, trans and intersex witches that is now 0.99 on kindle!

Do a binding/banishing spell (see below)

Do a community protection spell (see below)

Watch some fun queer shows and movies

Celebrate some more!

So let’s talk about the community magic. We invite everyone to join us on a witchy Pride weekend! June 18 to 20 we will be doing various spells to help the queer community, and the more people who cast them, the more powerful they will be! We’ve also chosen this date because we can harness the potent energies of the Summer solstice into our workings.

Binding and banishing On June 18 we will perform a binding and banishing spell to bind queerphobia, harmful laws, and any other personal things you might want to include. Use your own binding/banishing method, or use the following, which is my preferred method. Take a piece of black paper, or paint one side of a white paper black (protection/banishing). Write down the things you wish to banish, think of things like homophobia, police brutality, job inequality, the names of certain laws, TERFs, or more personal things like people using your deadname or the name of a homophobic uncle (for example). Make sure the black side is on the outside. Focus on binding and banishing every point as you write them down. Now fold it up in a way that the black is the only colour that’s shown. Wrap your folder paper in some black twine, wool, thread, laces, whatever you have. Focus on binding the things you’ve written, say some words if you wish. I like to bury my bindings/banishings, but you can also dispose of them by simply tossing them in the trash where they belong.

Protection Sigil On June 19 we will cast a protection spell for the queer community. I designed a sigil for this to function as a focal point for your magic. You can print it out or redraw it yourself. Place a candle over it, use it as a base of a crystal grid, place it on your altar and meditate, make it the centre of a (digital) moodboard, whatever feels right for you. The centre of the sigil is the Pride flag, symbolizing our community (you can redraw the sigil and place a different flag inside, if you wish to focus on a specific part of the community). Around it is a circle (protection, community) which is made by five stickfigures holding hands (people, community). Around them is a square (protection) and then a ring of intertwined briar branches with the thorns pointing outwards (again, protection). On the right side I also snuck the rune Thurisaz (briar, protection) into the ring of briar branches. The pentacle in the centre stands for magic as well as, surprise, protection. Customize this for whatever you need, the pentacle is optional, place more stickfigures, change the flag, whatever makes it work for you.

Celebrate and Remember On June 20 we will celebrate! Celebrate our own identities as well as the community and all we’ve achieved so far. Watch a fun movie, shop for some fun merch, eat and drink something rainbow, dance to music of queer artists, whatever you want! We do also want to acknowledge and remember those who we’ve lost, those who have paved the way before us. You might want to do this by making a toast to your queer ancestors (by blood or – more often – not). By saving a place for them at the table and inviting to join you. Or by using a Beloved Dead sigil and burning a candle in remembrance. I will also be making a list of names of those I wish to honour, which is at the same time a nice excuse to dive deeper into queer history!

So please join us for a witchy Pride weekend! Share your thoughts and experiences with #PrideWitchcraft and share this post far and wide so we can have as many witches adding their magic and power.

[keplercryptids]

nonfiction LGBTQ+ books i read this year

i read a lot this year, and a good chunk of it was LGBTQ+ nonfiction. so i thought it might be nice to list what i read. as a note, many of these books deal with LGBTQ history in the United States. too often, mainstream US-centric LGBTQ texts focus on white middle-class cisgender folks, though I’ve done my best to balance that as much as possible with other perspectives. (that being said, if you got ‘em, i would LOVE book recommendations that tackle worldwide/non-white LGBTQ issues!)

Accessibility notes: Given the nature of the genre, there’s a lot of intense discussion re: homophobia and transphobia. Basically every book listed covers those things to some extent, and I’ve specified where there’s additional potentially triggering content. (If you have specific questions about triggers, please let me know!) also, some of these books are on the academic side. I’ve done my best to note when a book was very academic or when I found it to be more readable. (full disclosure on that note: I’m a college grad and voracious reader without any reading-specific learning disabilities, so my opinion may be different than yours!) as a final note, I was able to access most of these as e-books/audiobooks through my local library. I live in a major metropolitan area, if that gives you any idea of how easy it’ll be for you to find these books. I’ve noted when a book was more difficult to get my hands on.

History

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940 by George Chauncey. As the title suggests, this book focuses on gay male communities in NYC pre-World War 2. Even with that limited scope, this is an important read to better understand gay male history in the early 20th century. Gay communities thrived in the early 1900s and this snapshot of that is really wonderful. This is definitely more of an academic read, but I highly recommend it. while it definitely focuses on white middle-class gay men, there was more discussion of poor and/or gay men of color than i had actually expected, so that’s nice. (CW for rape and sexual assault, homophobic violence and medicalization of homosexuality.)

Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture by Siobhan B. Somerville. Finally, a book about queer history that actually talks about black people! I was expecting more of a history book, whereas this was more of a critique of specific novels, plays and movies of the early 1900s and was way more focused than i was expecting. don’t get me wrong, I majored in English lit so i’m super into that kind of analysis as well, it just wasn’t as far-reaching as I would have liked. Also, it’s very academic. (Only the print version was available at my library.) (CW for racism, mentions of slavery.)

Transgender History by Susan Striker. This book describes itself as an “approachable introductory text” to transgender history in the US, which I agree with. It’s a pretty short read given the enormity of the topic, so it doesn’t go into much detail about specific groups or events, but imo it’s a good introduction. Especially interesting to me was the information about where and when TERF ideology began. Academic but on the easier-to-read side. (CW for transphobia, gross TERF rhetoric, brief mentions of the AIDS crisis, police violence.)

Gay Revolution by Lillian Faderman. okay so, I gave this 1 star. it’s probably a good book if you know absolutely nothing about US LGBTQ history and want an intro, but a review on goodreads said that it should be called Gay Assimilation instead and i completely agree. Faderman focuses on white middle-to-upper class gay and lesbian assimilationists, often at the expense of radical queer and trans people of color. The latter is hardly mentioned at all, which is ridiculous given trans folks’ contributions to the LGBTQ movement. When radical people ARE mentioned, it’s often in a disparaging way, or in a way that positions the radicals as too extreme. Faderman constantly repeats the refrain that the fight for LGBT rights was “just like what black people did for their rights” without any addendum about why that is...not a good take. There’s no meaningful discussion of race, class or intersectionality. She lauds Obama as a hero for the gays and there’s a ton (I mean a TON) of content about how military acceptance + gay marriage = we won, or whatever. anyway, i wasn’t a fan, although many of the events and organizations discussed in this book are important to know just from a factual basis. (CW for all the stuff I mentioned, plus police violence, medicalization of homosexuality. it’s also fucking LONG so i recommend the audiobook, lol.)

Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States by Joey L. Mogul,  Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock. This is “a searing examination of queer experiences--as ‘suspects,’ defendants, prisoners, and survivors of crime.” A frequently upsetting but super important read about how LGBTQ identities have been policed in the past, and currently are policed today. i wish there was more focus on trans folks, but other than that it’s a solid read. (CW for all the things you’d expect a book about policing and imprisoning LGBTQ folks to include: police and institutionalized violence, sexual assault, transphobia, homophobia.)

Stonewall by Martin Duberman. This book follows the lives and activism of six LGBTQ folks before, during and after the Stonewall riots. Note: Stonewall itself is only discussed in one chapter about 2/3 of the way through, the rest of the book dedicated to the six individuals’ lives and activism up to and after that point. It’s a history book with a strong narrative focus that I found to be a fairly accessible read. (CW for minors engaging in sex work and sexual predation by adults, sexual and domestic violence, police violence, drug and alcohol abuse, mentions of suicide.)

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts. This is a HEAVY but really important read about the AIDS epidemic in the US, tracking the disease and the political/cultural response from about 1980-1985. It’s journalistic nonfiction, so although it’s a very long book I found it easier to read than more academic-y books. the only thing i really disliked was how the book demonized “Patient Zero” in quite unfair ways, but it was originally published in ‘87 so that explains part of it. I want to stress again that it’s heavy, as you’d expect a book about thousands of deaths to be. (CW: oh boy where to start. Graphic descriptions of disease/death, graphic descriptions of sex, medical neglect, republican nonsense.)

Memoirs, essays, etc

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan E. Coyote. i felt mixed about this one! i appreciated the different perspectives regarding gender and desire, especially since this anthology contains a lot of essays by people who came of age in the 60s-80s (so there’s a historical bent too). but some of the essays feel dated, at best, and offensive at worst. there was more than one instance of TERF-y ideology thrown in. probably 1/4 of the essays were really really great, and i’d still recommend reading it in order to form your own opinions--also, imo it’s useful to see where TERF ideology comes from. this book was harder to find, and i had to order a print version through interlibrary loan. (CW for a few TERFy essays. i read this earlier in the year so it’s possible i’m forgetting some other triggers, sorry!)

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by (editors) Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman. Serving as a follow-up of sorts to Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw, this is a collection of narratives by transgender and gender-nonconforming folks. While not “history” in a technical sense, many of the writers are 30+ and give a wide array of LGBTQ+ experiences, past and present, that are important. I didn’t agree with every single viewpoint, of course, duh! But some of the essays were really powerful and overall it’s a good read. (CW for one essay about eating disorders, some outdated language/reclaimed slurs as to be expected--language is one of the main themes of the collection actually so the “outdatedness” is important.)

S/He by Minnie Bruce Pratt. A memoir published in 1995, focusing on Minnie’s life, marriage, gender identity, eventual coming out and relationship with Leslie Feinberg. i really enjoyed this one. it was beautifully written. there are many erotic elements to this memoir so keep that in mind. also was a little harder to get, and i had to order a print version via interlibrary loan. (i read this awhile ago and can’t remember specific triggers, sorry! if anyone knows of some, please let me know.)

I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya. A memoir by a trans woman ruminating on masculinity. it’s beautiful and very short (truly more of a longform essay), so it’s a good one if you don’t have the attention span/time for longer books. (CW for sexism, harassment, transphobia.)

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde. god, this memoir is gorgeous and is one of my favorite books of the year. it chronicles Audre’s childhood in Harlem and her coming-of-age in the 1950s as a lesbian. ultimately, this is a book about love and that resonates throughout every page. idk can you tell i loved this book so much??? (CW for child abuse, sexual assault, a friend’s suicide, racism.)

We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib. suuuuch a good book! Samra writes about her life as she and her family arrive in Canada as refugees from Pakistan in her early childhood, onto her life today as a queer Muslim woman of color, photographer and activist. beautifully written and just such an important perspective. Only the print version was available at my library. (CW for child sexual assault, a suicide attempt and suicidal ideation, non-graphic mentions of domestic violence, racism and sexism.)

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kababe. this is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel memoir about the author’s journey of discovering eir identity as queer. i related to a lot of it, which was great on a personal level, but i also think it could be a great educational tool for those wanting to know more about gender queerness (especially for those who prefer graphic novels!) (CW for gender dysphoria, descriptions of gynecological exams, imagery of blood and a couple pages depicting being impaled, some nudity, vomit.)

[thesethingsofours]

Parents are the Worst.

I recently began listening to Nice White Parents, a new podcast hosted by self-confessed nice white parent, Channa Joffe-Walt. It’s produced by the people in and around Serial, This American Life, S-Town and The New York Times. If you are familiar with those titles, you’ll know what to expect – in-depth, considered analysis of a heretofore, under-exposed social issue, executed with an East Coast progressive liberal stride; a pleasingly audible, irreverent gait and the swagger of emotional intelligence and self-aware humility. Through research, interviews and attaching herself to the Brooklyn School of International Studies for several years, Joffe-Walt tells the story of the New York Public school system and its apparent failure to meaningfully integrate itself since Brown v Board of Education made racial segregation illegal over 65 years ago.

In episode 2, Joffe-Walt tracks down and interviews some nice white parents from around the time the school opened in 1963. These people had written letters encouraging the school board to erect the school building closer to their own neighbourhood (and consequently further away from the darker-skinned families it was more likely to serve). They expressively emphasised their wishes to send their kids there and virtuously aid the process of integration, which they believed to be morally imperative.

But apparently, none of these letter writers subsequently sent their kids to that school. It remained, as anticipated, a predominantly non-white school. Laid alongside the tense machinations of the contemporary school’s invasion by a large new cohort of white parents and their issue, Joffe-Walt’s hypothesis is that white parents have always held liberal aims, and the clout to impose them, but do so with little consideration for their non-white counterparts or any real commitment to seeing through the incumbent practicalities. From the outset, this natural conclusion is persistently hinted at, not least from the podcast’s deliberately provocative title. Perhaps, on an individual level, this hypothesis contains some truth.

However, as the story extends, the blame gains weight and the theory mutates into a generalised accusation. Responsibility for the mediocre state of New York’s (and by implication, America’s) public schools is explicitly laid at the pale feet of white parents. It's an exposition of what is often described as “White Guilt” and its corresponding effort at contrition (i.e. the guilt felt from the inherited sin of one’s ancestors’ oppression of non-white people, primarily through slavery). While White Guilt might have its conceptual uses for a few people to come to terms with idea of race (although even there I am sceptical), its value as a wider social narrative is deeply unconvincing, and potentially damaging. Nice White Parents does a good job showing why.

In the podcast, anecdotal evidence is drastically extrapolated to justify White Guilt. Unless backed up by unequivocal data, it is inherently flawed to base so much on interviews with a handful of people in their 80s about a letter they wrote in the 60s, and (in episode 3) a now middle-aged woman about her perception of school when she was 13. Equally so is to use the example of a single New York school to imply that nice white parents are universally responsible for all the failings of American public schooling. A quick empirical comparison with countries unburdened by America’s racial psychosis would almost certainly reveal this argument to be fundamentally false. I hazard to suggest that Joffe-Walt set out, either consciously or subconsciously, to prove the theory of Nice White Parents, and has therefore fallen into the trap of verification bias.  

Of course, the truth is likely to be far simpler – green, cheddar, dead presidents and moolah (which middle-aged white people in American disproportionately possess). Better schools arrive from broad, deep and perpetual community investment – from good, affordable housing and well-paying jobs to well-paid teachers and decent facilities. That means higher taxes on the wealthy and better provincial management. If a completely non-white school district received $50 billion to invest in their community with educational improvement as its ultimate goal (that or the abolition of private schools), I suspect the idea of nice white parents would quickly evaporate.

It is plainly a damaging distraction to focus on the role of supposed-predisposed-racism of well-meaning, middle-class people, who simply want the best possible education for their children. Instead, the message for the “hereby accused” should be to use their numerical majority and voting power to advocate for systems that would reduce inequality, regardless of race. In this respect, it strikes me that wealth is a sacrosanct subject in America, something that one can never apologise for having too much of. Quite the opposite – the culture is built on celebrating those who hoard capital. Is it possible that Americans are taught never to apologise for having money, so those who see something wrong develop other issues, such as race, for which they can atone?

More deeply, the podcast reveals how the White Guilt narrative is in ideological conflict with the very wrong it is supposedly trying to right. Taken to its conclusion, it inevitably reinforces the idea that white people are innately superior, and race is the primary determining factor for success in American life. In the context of the podcast, it is applied to suggest that New York public schools are destined to fail their students unless white kids and their parents get involved. It is gloriously ironic that condemning the influence of white parents on public schools serves to reinforce the supposed inferiority of non-white participants in the education system… because of their lack of whiteness. At the end of episode 3, Jaffe-Walt lays this out:

Nice white parents shape public schools even in our absence, because public schools are maniacally loyal to white families even when that loyalty is rarely returned back to the public schools. Just the very idea of us, the threat of our displeasure, warps the whole system. So “separate” is still not equal because the power sits with white parents no matter where we are in the system. I think the only way you equalise schools is by recognising this fact and trying wherever possible to suppress the power of white parents. Since no one is forcing us to give up power we white parents are going to have to do it voluntarily, which, yeah how's that going to happen? That's next time on Nice White Parents…

(Consider replacing every mention of “white” in this excerpt with “affluent”. Would that not feel infinitely more true?)

In fairness, the honourable, “anti-racist” intention is clear – in order to defeat “white supremacy” white people need to accept their inherited and systemic superiority and eliminate it. Sadly, any idea centred around race – whether malicious or well-intentioned – is bound to collapse under even the slightest pressure. To be truly anti-racist is to recognise that race itself doesn’t exist (other than as an abstract concept that, having infected people’s perceptions after four centuries of concerted, localised propaganda, must be eradicated). Race has no basis in science or nature; it cannot be quantified in any reasonable, measurable way. Simply, it is a lie; invented to excuse the exploitation of others for the purposes of wealth-generation. To base one’s actions on it in any way is to take a leap of faith into a void with no landing. Race is a malignant, empty God; belief in which is destined to lead to malignant, empty behaviour. “Racism” and “Anti-Racism” (as it is currently understood) are therefore both empty, malignant religions, practiced in service of a non-existent deity.

Notably, there are still two episodes to go (released August 13th and 20th). Either might serve to recover some balance. But by episode 3, the stage is not only set for this conclusion to be drawn, but the 1st Grade nativity is in its final scene and the wise men are long since gone.

All that said, if you let the incessant racialization of all things drift past you rather than choking on it, as plain entertainment – storytelling rather than journalism – it’s still an engaging listen; well-constructed and convincingly told. Furthermore, on a non-racial level (if you can somehow listen beyond it), the podcast does have some value, since it reminds me of something I have long half-joked about – that parents (of all stripes) are the worst.

Aside from the obvious, complex Freudian reasons, on a socio-political level, when a choice arises between a laudable, achievable change and putting one’s own children at a perceived disadvantage in order to effect it, a parent will choose its child’s advantage almost every time. No matter their colour, few parents will sacrifice their own child’s prospects – even minutely – to advance the hypothetical children of someone else, or society more widely. Parents are company directors whose primary obligation is to their miniature, genetically-derivative shareholders – they’ll only vote for large-scale change if it is net-profitable or government-imposed.

And of course, parents should pay their kids the maximum dividend. Who else will? A parent is legally and morally obliged to do the best for the young life they are charged with defending. And therein lies the joke. Parents are the worst only because they are ubiquitous. They created you, me and everyone else. We all had them, and most people end up being one. It is therefore less of a criticism than an inevitable, evolutionary truth – just one we should probably be more honest and upfront about. Unknowingly, underneath (and in some ways, because of) its misguided, exhausting racial handwringing, Nice White Parents just about makes this point.

Listen to Nice White Parents here or wherever you get your podcasts.

[harrypotterfirsttime]

JK Rowling’s essay about why she’s a TERF: Abbreviated

My last post was LONG, much longer than I’d intended, and difficult to read on tumblr I’m sure (if anybody would like it sent as a pdf please let me know). So I’m making a shorter post and only including the paragraphs that I responded to with links to a source, for people who are more interested in the places where JK Rowling provably lied in her essay.

“For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.”

First of all, Maya didn’t lose her job. Her contract was simply not renewed by her workplace, something that she was not entitled to under any law. JK Rowling also continues to falsely assert that Maya’s belief was that ‘sex is determined biology’, when she actually asserted that under no circumstances is a trans woman a woman nor a trans man a man, and the judge ruled that it did not fit all five necessary limbs to be a philosophical belief (it actually only failed the last one). The judge ruled that the ‘under no circumstances’ part of her assertion was absolutist, and that is what ultimately failed the fifth limb. [source]

“All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.”

First off, this goes against the statement a spokesperson made for her when this happened, stating that she had a ‘clumsy middle-aged moment’ and liked the tweet by ‘holding her phone incorrectly’. The tweet she liked also had no content that she could research, it was a baseless claim that men in dresses get more solidarity than cis women (which I won’t even dive into, we have so much more to cover). [source] I also won’t dive into the use of ‘wrongthink’ as if we are all characters in George Orwell’s 1984, simply because nobody is controlling her speech, she is simply facing consequences for the shit she chooses to fling at the wall.

“I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.”

Can we salute the man who decided to tell JK Rowling that he composted her books, because that’s absolutely hilarious. But really, I just want to point out that no matter how many threats of violence JK Rowling thinks she is getting, transgender people are subjected to much more abuse both online and in real life, and it affects their wellbeing much more directly than simply being called a cunt or a bitch on twitter. [source] While JK Rowling thankfully isn’t killing trans people, she’s disappointing so many of her LGBT+ fans who looked up to her and found comfort during their childhood in her books that encouraged people to be brave and be themselves.

“What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.”

I’ll tackle this paragraph from top to bottom. Firstly, the reason you believe the overwhemling majority of people supported you is because many of those who don’t (myself included, until now) simply rolled their eyes and ignored you, because you are not worth our time. We have lives to live that are unconcerned with your bigotry. Second, I hope those people who were working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people have since left their jobs, because they have no business serving a community who they secretly harbour unsupportive ideologies about. And finally, the idea of supporting and helping trans people (specifically trans youth) is DANGEROUS to young people, gay people, and women’s and girls’ rights is simply false. No women’s rights have been repealed in favour of trans people’s rights (mainly because trans women continue to shockingly be women). In fact, trans youth with parents who are very supportive and affirming show a statistically significantly lower rate of both depressive symptoms and suicide attempts. [source] [specific graph]

“If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.”

The first two sentences in this paragraph are true. Viv Smythe, a trans inclusive cis radfem, is credited with coining the term TERF to describe her fellow radical feminists who are ‘unwilling to recognize trans women as sisters’. It has also become widely used to describe feminists who exclude trans women from their feminism, even if they are not radfems. [source] I don’t care about who has been called a TERF, all I need to know is that they are transphobes, which they should feel equally disgusted at the fact their behaviour warrants the label. Trans men do not want to be included in radical feminism because we were ‘born women’, and JK Rowling including this as if it is an excuse is appalling. Trans men are not women, therefore we do not appreciate radfems claiming to support us based on their obsession with what genitals we were born with.

“The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”

There is a lot to unpack in this paragraph. And I don’t have the room in this already much too long post to dive into detransitioning, so I’ll say this: it sucks that some people transition only to realize they shouldn’t have. But these people are a staggering minority of people who do transition, and there is no external person they can blame for believing them when they relay their symptoms (as doctors are supposed to do) and acting accordingly, with the patient’s consent. The issues I have here are the language JK Rowling uses to say young women are transitioning, purposefully misgendering trans masculine people. And implying that people are transitioning because they are gay, because their families or society push them to not be gay and instead transition, is absolutely laughable. Studies have already shown that society as a whole is much less accepting of transgender people than they are of gay people and lesbians. [source]

“Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.”

There are a number of factors that could have led to such an increase in referrals, and no studies have a definitive answer, though most speculate that the increase in acceptance and visibility of trans people is likely a major contributor. [source] Additionally, I personally believe that more trans women seeked transition years ago because it was impossible to be accepted as a trans woman without fully medically transitioning, whereas trans men could get by without transitioning and simply presenting as their gender. Now that transition is more acceptable and available, trans men do not need to hold themselves back from transitioning, but unfortunately, with more visibility has come more vitriol that is specifically aimed at trans women, and this could discourage them from transitioning or coming out at all. I won’t dignify the statement about autism in afab trans people being prevalent other than saying that cis people can be autistic, trans people can be autistic, and implying that neuro-atypical people cannot make informed decisions about their bodies and healthcare is abhorrent.

“The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018,  American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’”

Lisa Littman’s study can be read here. There are a multitude of issues with this study, and many big names in psychology and gender studies have spoken up about the issues in her conclusions and in the methods to begin with, which are unscientific and deeply flawed. [source] The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that the study interviews parents of trans youth as opposed to the trans youth themselves, and takes the parents’ limited knowledge of their child’s inner thoughts and experience as fact without consulting the trans person at all. Additionally, recruitment for the study was mainly done through anti-trans organizations. All of this information is available in the original study and in the rebuttal. Because of this, I cannot take anybody who cites Lisa Littman or her study seriously, because it is not credible whatsoever.

“When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’”

More people than JK Rowling is probably aware of feel ‘mentally sexless’ in youth, because they have no crippling discomfort regarding their gender identity, and either do not feel pressure to prescribe to gender stereotypical behaviours or actively rebel against it. According to brain studies, everyone is technically a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ because there remains to be no such thing as a male brain or female brain. [source]

“I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.”

First of all, the number of kids who “desist” from their gender dysphoria are not reliable. Mainly because the methods in these studies are not robust (ie one study defined gender dysphoria as exhibiting any behaviour that was not typical of their gender, such as boys playing with barbies and girls playing with monster trucks; another study classified subjects that did not return to the clinic and did not follow up as desisters without confirming). [source] Additionally, studying children who do exhibit true gender dysphoria, the main factor determining whether it will persist or desist seems to be the intensity, and not at all related to peer relations. [source] Trans people wishing to transition medically may no longer need to subject themselves to extensive and unnecessary therapy to convince medical professionals that they are who they say they are, but they still need to wait on very long lists for our turn to access hormone replacement therapy and surgeries, and can spend all of that time being sure that we are indeed trans and want these medical treatments. JK Rowling is also purposefully misreporting facts in regard to Gender Recognition Certificates. In order to get one, one must be over 18, have lived as their true gender for at least 2 full years, and provide two medical reports (one from a gender specialist and another from a general practitioner) citing that they have gender dysphoria. If they have not had any medical transitional treatments, the medical reports must state whether they are waiting for them or why they are not pursuing any, in direct contradiction of JK Rowling’s assertion that any man can get this certificate. [source]

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

‘Natal girls and women’ is another transphobic dog whistle. There is a non-offensive way to say this, which I am sure if JK Rowling has done all the reading she has claimed to do, she must have stumbled upon the word ‘cisgender’ at some point. It effectively communicates the same information without alienating trans people and implying they are less than cis women. Trans women are not ‘men who believe or feel like women’, and this long standing myth that cis men will use the guise of being a trans woman to gain access to public bathrooms and changerooms has been thoroughly debunked, because trans women have been using women’s bathrooms and changerooms for years with no issues. [source] And scroll up for the claim that Gender Confirmation Certificates are given out to any man who decides to be a woman for a day above, this is just more misinformation, no ‘simple truth’.

“On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity.  I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.”

First of all, JK Rowling is blatantly lying. The Gender Recognition Act Reform has been completely shelved by the Scottish government in light if the more pressing need to fight the coronavirus on April 1st, and I cannot find any updates on this being considered by the government. [source] The only trans related news out of Scotland I can find is that on June 5th, the Scottish government included trans women in the definition of women in guidance for school boards, which will have none of the effects that JK Rowling is fear mongering about. [source] Again, I am upset to know that JK Rowling is a survivor, but she is using this revelation as a weapon to make people fear that it will happen to others as a result of trans people gaining access to the same public spaces as their cis counterparts. Women’s and girls’ safety is NOT being put at risk by trans people using a bathroom or changeroom.

[realtalk-princeton]

why are people in our generation so sensitive

Response from Opal:

I am not 100% sure as to what you mean by “sensitive,” but generally, when people ascribe that word to a demographic as sweeping as “our generation,” they are alluding to a perceived trend of overzealous “political correctness” or something adjacent to that. Therefore, I will assume that you are doing the same.  Why is our generation so sensitive? I will be upfront with you and say that I have personally had my fill of people telling me, on the Internet or at lecture events or across the dinner table, that something is wrong with the youth of America today who are so keen to fuss, agitate, and voice their discontent about the state of the world. “Sensitive” is actually a pretty spot-on descriptor for us, but it does not mean, as those same people often imply, that we get upset all the time over nothing of actual import and cannot tolerate being exposed to different ideas. Rather, it means that we are more attuned to what is unjust and what helps perpetuate that injustice, and that we are actually in a position to speak up and do something about it sometimes. We have always lived in a society bounded by structural oppression, and we have always had people who recognized this, fighting to liberate their minds and their bodies from the systems that give certain individuals indisputable and unethical power over others. There is nothing unique about the malcontent of our generation in that sense; we are simply able to build upon the work done in the past to expand our current understandings of what is wrong and what we must change. Just because some of those things are personally not relatable to people from older generations or in power does not mean that they are not real, creating real repercussions on the real lives of real human beings. Those who get the short end of the stick in an unjust society are the ones who are most knowledgeable about the various ways in which it manifests injustice in the first place, and we are doing nothing more than continuing to unlearn harmful internalizations and protect each other by listening to what those important, historically marginalized voices have to say. I am afraid that this whole spiel may be getting a little convoluted, so I apologize and will just leave you with this: Systemic oppression is powerful and pervasive enough to permeate all aspects of our lives, our social institutions, and our interactions with each other, and it is so multitudinous that we are a long ways away from knowing all there is to know about identifying, resisting, and undoing it. Progress, by definition, is made whenever we take another step away from a status quo that does not allow all of us to live freely, but these acts of disobedience will always appear obnoxious, irritating, and uncalled-for, because society as a whole is so conditioned to buy into the narratives of power, and because wherever there is inequality, those who benefit from it will feel threatened by calls for change. I hope our generation stays sensitive. I hope we keep getting better at uplifting each other by refusing to accept subjugation and all its tools - large and small, institutional and interpersonal, conscious and unconscious, obvious and subtle.

Response by Alito:

re: Opal. 71% of Americans believe “political correctness is a problem in America today.” Things have definitely gone overboard from the eyes of an average American (maybe not a Princeton student considering demographics). 

Americans ideals have drastically shifted as a result of generational change. In my theory, Millennials and subsequently our generation wants to “minimize hurt feelings.” While Gen X prides itself in resilience and grit, Millennials and proceeding generations took “tolerance and inclusiveness” and ran w/ it (cough participation trophies cough), making it a “centerpiece” of their “progressive” ideology. Whether that’s now too extreme or not is for you do decide. 

This from my viewpoint has led to extremely “progressive” views being pushed while other narratives that don’t conform 100% to the PC progressive narrative be demonized and deemed “hateful,” when they could potentially be valid. It’s led to a closed-minded/“you versus me” mentality where when one’s view is challenged, he or she personally takes offense (and assumes the incorrectness of the opposing party) rather than trying to debate why one believes his or her view is valid. It’s led to the rise of dangerous authoritarian ideals, like censoring speech. To be specific, censoring any speech not conforming to the “progressive” political viewpoint. It has led to the loss of respect for the rule of law in the name of “feelings” and “progressivism.” Personally, the avoidance (voluntary or forced) of challenging ideas for the sake of “feelings” is indefensible. The Vatican has the Devil’s Advocate for a reason. 

When I first arrived at Princeton, I was quite shocked to see Princeton students call for the death of free speech and anything that is mildly against the Progressive narrative. I have heard students advocating for the hijacking/weaponization an entire academic department for pushing their own political views. This is horrific considering the purpose of academia is original research to discover new things, not confirm preexisting biases. The disinvitation of Amy Wax from a Whig-Clio event on the freedom of speech, followed by the hosting of comedian Chelsea Handler to discuss “wokeness and white privilege” (along with a slew of other spotlighted events covering everything from Marxism to reparations for the black community), is just one of the examples I’ve encountered regarding this phenomenon here. 

Sorry, I’m v tired rn and my words might not make much sense. I’ll follow up later and maybe extend this response, but this is what I have for now. 

Response from Opal:

re: Alito. There is a lot going on here! I will not respond to all of it, because I have no desire to turn this particular post into a massive debate, but I do think it is important to note that criticizing, protesting, and reacting negatively to certain individuals or viewpoints, both on this campus and anywhere else, does not constitute censorship. We are all entitled to say what we want, but we are not entitled to other people accepting, engaging with, or even listening to us, and that is not to be confused with “the death of free speech.” The disinvitation of a speaker for a campus event, while perhaps a breach of decorum, does not inhibit that speaker’s actual ability to maintain and express their beliefs - especially not Amy Wax, who has multiple publications and a professorship to her name. The Constitutional right to freedom of speech is not a right to an audience, and it is therefore a non sequitur to label all ideological backlash and avoidance as morally wrong because they are violations of free speech. 

It is more pertinent to examine the kinds of ideas that you observe to be either drawing fire or largely ignored. To this, I will say that the sensitivity of our generation is much less about “minimizing hurt feelings” than it is about resisting ideas, narratives, and beliefs that threaten the humanity or existence of entire demographics of people. As a queer woman of color, I believe that my right to move freely through the world, fully as myself, supersedes the rights of others to tell me that my identities make me inferior, subordinate, undeserving, or wrong WHILE expecting that I will not raise a stink about it. Such words are inextricably linked to literal violence and oppression, and listening to them creates pain and fear that go far beyond “hurt feelings.” Say that my poetry is bad, my nose is too wide, or my love for ABBA is embarrassing if you want to hurt my feelings. Say that I am less of a human being than you are, and the Vatican will not even need to supply an advocate for the devil because he just spoke to me directly. Screw “tolerance and inclusivity” - I demand respect and reciprocity. We all do. And I am tired of rhetoric that delegitimizes my demands.

Response from Alito:

re: Opal. 

“I have no desire to turn this particular post into a massive debate”

Likewise

“criticizing, protesting, and reacting negatively to certain individuals or viewpoints, both on this campus and anywhere else, does not constitute censorship.”

Of course! However, I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the issue at hand. The problem with the Whig-Clio incident is that individuals with a degree of authority disinviting speakers cannot be simply accepted as a “protest or criticism,” it’s the literal depravation of a forum for public debate and criticism. We never knew what Amy Wax would have said about free speech. Whig-Clio’s actions were even denounced by Eisgruber I believe. We are depriving her of her voice and her ability to express her opinions as a result of her previous statements. This has nothing to do with audiences, and that is a grave misrepresentation/straw man. 

Also, for speech to be speech, wouldn’t we need an audience? If we don’t have one, it would literally be talking to ourselves… I think that’s what the Founding Fathers meant as speech. 

Let me just say I find students here particularly hypocritical how and to the extent they decide free speech is applied depending on political ideology and opinions taken (the specific issue I would mention is like a nuclear bomb rn, so I won’t). Let me just say a lot of conservative/libertarian ideals and censored and shunned when they could merit DEBATE and value

I won’t respond to your proceeding argument because I don’t wish to start a flamewar, but we shouldn’t ignore 71% of Americans and how they think. 

[destroyyourbinder]

ROGD is driving me crazy (part 1)

I was planning on writing a long, well-researched piece on why "rapid-onset gender dysphoria" (ROGD) is not really a thing as such, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to it. I don't dispute that there is something really bizarre going on with the tremendous increase in female children and adolescents seeking transition or gender-dysphoria-related care, and I don't dispute that there is a social contagion aspect, linked to social media use and access to the internet, to this rise in gender dysphoria/trans-identification. But the whole concept of ROGD is suspect, and it drives me nuts that it's taken as the gold standard now for questioning the wiseness of transitioning children or the broader claims about gender made by transgender ideology. Here's a not-so-brief, but as brief as I can get without weeks of research, rundown of what is bothering me, in several parts (PART 1) (PART 2) (PART 3 & 4) (PART 5)

-----------

Everyone defines "rapid onset gender dysphoria" differently, and it's defined specifically to denigrate the feelings of these kids/adolescents (who are mostly female) and preserve the existence of a population of "actually transgender" children and (possibly) adults. I have seen people claim that "ROGD" encompasses all transgenderism post-early gender development (i.e. 3-5 years old), anything that arises just prior to, at puberty, after puberty... or that it isn't defined by the age that dysphoria develops, it's because of the "rapidity" of the onset of dysphoria (3 weeks? 2 months? 6 months? 1 year?)… the cut-offs are all different. For example, people like Blanchard and Bailey who specifically support male trans people who they deem to be autogynephilic in their transition motivations, potentially late in life and definitely post-puberty, give typologies of gender dysphoria for female people that do not seem to permit the existence of female trans people who wish to transition as late adolescents or adults. Clearly most 40 year old butches who seek transition are not part of Tumblr pacts with their BFFs to compete with each other about their nonbinary dysphoria, so I don't know why the very wide and varied existence of people (especially female people) seeking transition is being collapsed in theories attempting to critically account for this new phenomenon into either "4 year old who claims she is a boy" or "caught the trans from the internet".

I’m confused and distressed about this, given that the narratives of trans people who discover they are dysphoric at puberty or later were widely accepted and not considered suspicious, until now that a moral panic about a bunch of teen girls is involved. It's extremely telling to me that the attempt to rescue a definition of "actual transgender" children, adolescents, and adults is being done with the experience of teen girls as the casualty; the modern prototypical experience of a teen girl identifying as trans is being used as the quintessential example of "not transgender", whereas severely gender non-conforming and likely homosexual children are supposedly still worthy of inevitable medical violation through psychological surveillance and policing of gender as well as surgical and hormonal modification. While I am frightened at the imbalance of referrals to gender-related care that we now see-- a majority female population, with a large subset being non-heterosexual and/or autistic-- I'm also frightened that the concept of ROGD seems built to undermine the body autonomy of female people by placing their claims to gender dysphoria and desire to transform their bodies in a gender non-conforming way as specifically suspect. Mass outbreaks of culturally-bound and socially-transmitted mind-body illnesses as well as individual examples of conversion disorders tend to affect female people disproportionately (with the exceptions of things like "penis panics") but social and political response to them is usually dismissive and focused on righting social order in the face of "hysterical" upheavals, whether that is by punishing the women involved or by punishing whoever can be "blamed" for the illness (such as witches or satanic daycare operators). What constitutes a kid with "real" gender dysphoria as opposed to a kid with ROGD? What is the difference between a child who, let's say, becomes extremely distressed with their sex characteristics at 12 versus at 4 years old? Why should we assume that the 4 year old child acquired this distress "innately", and why should we assume that a 12 year old did not, and why should it matter what the cause is if the treatment works? Why should we be more comfortable with the appropriateness of a child's transition if she began insisting she was a boy at 4, instead of when she might have some idea of what this actually entails at 12? Why should we think that these two scenarios have radically different causes, instead of believing that a child of 4 years old simply has different communication abilities and less knowledge about the world, and is more dependent on the resources and attention wielded by her caretakers, and therefore will use different strategies for her social behavior and for trying to learn about and achieve what she wants? (Sometimes stories about very young "trans" children remind me of stories about "reincarnated kids" who "know things they couldn't otherwise" about their "past lives": how could a 4 year old "know" she is supposed to have a penis except through some internally generated gender or sexed body image? Nobody stops to consider that the child may have had an inappropriate sexual experience or have been outright violated, that the child might be mashing together evocative concepts and words that she does not fully understand and finally hit on one with a very big effect in the adults around her, that she may have accidentally seen a boy in the preschool bathroom unbeknownst to adults and added the idea to her repertoire. The worlds of children are often secret or unknown to us larger human creatures, and they might be strange, but they aren't magical.)

[kemeticcalloutsfromthepublic]

@ptah-ikemi-ka

We are responding to this post.

You really like this new phrase don’t ya.  We would like to accept your challenge.

We would like to inform you most of what you have ranted on, is either embellished or incorrect.  We would like to address these and correct them accordingly.

“ but the relative peace we had changed when some folks started to be outright disrespectful towards other religions and also towards other people. “

Use your words, who are you referring to here?  The vagueblogging, top notch. 

What we think you are referring to is the piety posse, smarmy’s antics with solo, and then the social justice kemetics dogpiling of innocent people in the community, the fake racist god fiasco, belittling the gods, attacking trans people, chasing others off their blogs, making a blog dedicated to bullying a grand total of 5 actual people, attacking another member over hair, attacking that same person for months, and constantly insisting only one person in the community has the “correct” information on ma’at.  We would like to add these are what directly comes to mind.  We would like to add it’s the same small grouping of people who did all of this which has destroyed our community’s peace and ability to have dialogues.

“ oh its nothing new, almost every issue you see talked about at the present was talked about 3 years ago, the usual includes antisemetism, whitewashing, and throwing POC under the bus “

We would like clarification on what you mean by ‘throwing POC’s under the bus’?  If you mean not instantly abandoning ones opinions to obediently pay lip service to and parrot their opinions, we would have to say you are over embellishing.

All other instances we have seen crop up have been exaggerated and labeled inappropriately for what the discussion was.  We would like to add that such labels were tossed on the individuals to invalidate their arguments, despite them being actually correct, most of the time.  We’ve viewed each supposed instance of these and found very few are legitimate.

“ thats when the split happened, and the community was grouped into two ‘sides’ “

Incorrect.  We would like to inform you the split happened when smarmy grouped up with cheshirepiourette and birbreligion, to attack people in the community, like ravenous hyenas desperate for a morsel.  Smarmy at the time introduced her hard stop policy of “us vs them” mentalities, which Shezep actually warned her against at the beginning (iirc).  We would like to inform you, THAT is when the split happened.

“ I am not pretending the Drama and the Baggage is not there, I myself had to choose between the two ‘sides’, I am part of the Drama and the Baggage but I am also Not The One who is engaging with the community while closing my eyes to the issues that is plaguing the community “

We would like to say, you aren’t necessarily part of the drama, you just enable it.  We would like to dispel the illusions of the “baggage and drama” and clarify it all for you.

It’s one group of people (who you engage with often and defend), who cause all the problems.  They attack, the people defend, they throw a label and then spend weeks exaggerating about how x person is “so amazingly evil omg”. 

We would like to clarify, they are usually, if not always incorrect.  If they stopped trying to win every argument with accusations, name calling, and constantly lying about people, the community wouldn’t have split.  But then we would have a diverse community with a wide range of beliefs and thoughts, can’t have that now, can we?

“ So dont turn a blind eye on these issues that is an integral part of understanding the nuances of being a kemetic on this day and age. “

 No one turns a blind eye (we wish we could but by the gods, we are not given a single chance).  We would like to add half the issues are invented, and the other half are barely coherent enough to be considered anything but a political fever dream.

“ We reminded people again and again not to be antisemitic. Lo and behold, its an issue! “

We find it rather odd how “please don’t be antisemitic” is thrown at these people as “omg you are an evil antisemitic, block list, hey guys they are an antisemitic spread it around, block them!!!”

We notice the two versions aren’t identical, weird, and then people get defensive, as if they were, accused.  Strange, that.  “Lo and behold” such “reminders” are never as simple and innocuous as you present here.  “Lo and behold”.

“ Ya’ll keep saying, we want the Religion, but not the Drama and not the Baggage, when the fucking Drama and Baggage is literally reminders to people not to be a fucking dick towards other religions and communities. “

WE would like to add how ironic it is that these “reminders” are always accusations and personal attacks on people to beat them down into submission to your views.  It’s almost like the “reminders” cause all the problems. 

This would suggest "y’all” cause all the drama and baggage because people want to express religion in their own ways.  But you want them to express it in your ways only, that you approve of.  We think that sounds sort of...overreaching your station.

“Lo and behold”, until you all decided to start the trend of disguising “reminders” sorry, accusations, drama was minimal. 

“Lo and behold” the community was a welcoming and fun place when these mods started, before your drama and baggage emerged.

“Lo and behold” maybe you should find better ways to ““remind”“ people that doesn’t outright accuse them of being morally evil. 

Wow! What a groundbreaking idea!

“ so what the fuck are you doing? what the fucking fuck are you doing? to help? to make the community better? to elevate the kemetics into a greater community? “

We are cleaning up the shitty trash you and the people you enable keep shitting all over the place like pigeons playing chess.

Better question, what are YOU doing besides bitching about the inevitable results of you and your friends constant shitting and blaming it on someone else?  What are YOU doing besides armchair slacktivism?  What is YOUR contribution here?

The kemetics can better be elevated into a greater community by not demanding they all follow one thought, one idea, one concept, one ideology, and one political stance, pre-approved by an itty bitty titty committee.

“ do you engage the community and the issues it is dealing with? “

We do!  We do quite often to try and make this fetid waste semi-habitable again, just check out our blog!

“ or do you engage the religion while pretending these issues are not part of the religion? “

 We find it ironic you mention the nuances of issues and then cavalierly condense it into two choices.  We find this entirely deceptive. 

We do not pretend these issues are not real, we just notice that 9 times out of 10 they are minor, barely worth mentioning issues which cause no fuss until “““someone”““ decides to ““Remind”“ everyone they are bad for not instantly agreeing and exaggerate the issue into a catastrophic event.  Maybe “y’all” should stay in your fucking lane.

We would like to add, some with low reading comprehension might say that sounds like maintaining the status quo.  We would like to inform you, we have an exciting new concept!  Not tossing awful insults and labels on someone to win the argument with a hollow point!

WE have this exciting new idea of talking to people about these issues instead talking at them (or shouting them down)!  Or talking to people without the self-entitled condescending tones! 

We would even go so far as to suggest having dialogue with them to hear out their points instead of trying to convert them to YOUR point while refusing to listen to them!  But that’s not all!  You can also take this spicy new approach of not lying about them and spreading horrible rumors to destroy their reputations and try to run them out of the community!

We encourage trying these EXCITING new techniques to talking to people like an adult and not angsty teenagers angling for a fight.

--Memphis & Cairo

[blockgamepirate]

Okay I have a couple of thoughts about this:

Firstly, Techno is actually a very introspective character IMO. He does self-reflect, he does critique his own actions in retrospect. He saw that his reaction on November 16th was ineffective and only lead to hatred towards him so even though his first instinct was revenge, he decided to go into retirement instead and try to create his own community in the arctic, giving up on trying to take down governments.

This didn't work out so he reverted back to his old tactics, only to then reconsider again and form a kind of budding synthesis of the two opposite approaches. That's what the Syndicate is for him. (Also Phil HAS disagreed with Techno before, they literally started out on opposite sides and Phil wasn't even an anarchist early on.)

Secondly, I honestly can't think of anything Tommy debated Techno on except his anarchism? Tommy wasn't opposed to violence or destruction, clearly, he just didn't seem to want L'Manberg to be destroyed or to admit that his problems WERE caused by the government, either directly or indirectly, instead he clung to the discs as the source of conflict, to avoid thinking about the real causes and effects of the situation.

Thirdly, continuing from the above, why is anarchism specifically something that you think has to be challenged? As a simplistic example, do you also think that Luke Skywalker in Star Wars should have been challenged more because of his stubbornly anti-imperialist beliefs?

I just don't think it's narratively necessary. Every time that I've found myself wishing someone questioned a character's ideology, it's because I personally disagree with their ideology. It has nothing to do with whether it's a good narrative or not. Heroic characters often have a few strongly held beliefs that drive them forward and that they don't waver on. Not every story has to focus on that, there are other forms of narrative tension. In Techno's case it's mostly about him questioning his methods and struggling with his own character weaknesses (like his communication issues) as well as dealing with external problems like the fact that his ideology isn't widely accepted and that he still has many potential enemies on the server.

Also frankly, anarchism is a massively misrepresented and marginalised political ideology and we deserve to have this one popular thing that unashamedly caters to us specifically. If it doesn't appeal to you, you can always go watch something else, there's plenty of non-anarchist content out there. We pretty much just have this and maybe like V for Vendetta or something, and V is actually kind of a horrible person so I'd much rather take Techno who is much less so.

i don't think the argument is that nothing bad happened to techno, but rather that, narratively, he overcame those challenges with relative ease.

he felt that pogtopia betrayed him and immediately got the opportunity to attack them with the withers, he was wanted dead or alive but he could sneak into l'manberg without much issue, the butcher army tried to execute him but didn't succeed and he took one of quackity's lives, he felt betrayed by tommy but achieved his goal of blowing up l'manberg the next day and has been hanging out in the arctic since then.

ultimately, he came out on top of all of these conflicts (aside from the favour, because that hasn't come into play yet), and atm no one is really in a position to be a threat to him anymore

the thing with that is that people making that argument forget or ignore the lasting damage of these events and what theyve done to techno, and that people tend to close their eyes on the fact that techno is a better writer generally than most of us, i say us because i didnt go to college for creative writing so he has that over me

techno spawned the withers yea but what did they do? really, what did they do? the country was already blown up and no one got any canon deaths from it, techno is only blamed there because no one wants to place blame on the dead man who actually detonated the thing

he was hunted dead or alive and its a failing on the government not techno for his ability to sneak in, having watched it live there was legitimate tension of being caught about it because techno actually committed to the rp of having to yknow... sneak in

tommy betrayed him and yeah he blew up lmanburg but he has, once again, lasting damage. theres a reason techno didnt trust ranboo and it has every part to do with tommy

the matter of fact about the post then is that my point stands, if that is the argument you want to make then you need to change your rhetoric because techno HAS faced consequences for his actions and if you want to argue about something else then change your language to accommodate that fact yknow?

[lastsonlost]

AN SJW ALMOST CAME CLOSE TO SELF AWARENESS.

There is a particularly aggressive strand of social justice activism weaving in and out of my Seattle community that has troubled me, silenced my loved ones, and turned away potential allies. I believe in justice. I believe in liberation. I believe it is our duty to obliterate white supremacy, anti-blackness, cisheteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and imperialism. And I also believe there should be openness around the tactics we use and ways our commitments are manifested over time. Beliefs and actions are too often conflated with each other, yet questioning the latter should not renege the former. As a Cultural Studies scholar, I am interested in the ways that culture does the work of power. What then, is the culture of activism, and in what ways are activists restrained by it? To be clear, I’m only one person who is trying to figure things out, and I’m open to revisions and learning. But as someone who has spent the last decade recovering from a forced conversion to evangelical Christianity, I’m seeing a disturbing parallel between religion and activism in the presence of dogma:

1. Seeking purity

There is an underlying current of fear in my activist communities, and it is separate from the daily fear of police brutality, eviction, discrimination, and street harassment. It is the fear of appearing impure. Social death follows when being labeled a “bad” activist or simply “problematic” enough times. I’ve had countless hushed conversations with friends about this anxiety, and how it has led us to refrain from participation in activist events, conversations, and spaces because we feel inadequately radical. I actually don’t prefer to call myself an activist, because I don’t fit the traditional mold of the public figure marching in the streets and interrupting business as usual. When I was a Christian, all I could think about was being good, showing goodness, and proving to my parents and my spiritual leaders that I was on the right path to God. All the while, I believed I would never be good enough, so I had to strain for the rest of my life towards an impossible destination of perfection.

I feel compelled to do the same things as an activist a decade later. I self-police what I say in activist spaces. I stopped commenting on social media with questions or pushback on leftist opinions for fear of being called out. I am always ready to apologize for anything I do that a community member deems wrong, oppressive, or inappropriate- no questions asked. The amount of energy I spend demonstrating purity in order to stay in the good graces of fast-moving activist community is enormous. Activists are some of the judgiest people I’ve ever met, myself included. There’s so much wrongdoing in the world that we work to expose. And yet, grace and forgiveness are hard to come by in these circles. At times, I have found myself performing activism more than doing activism. I’m exhausted, and I’m not even doing the real work I am committed to do. It is a terrible thing to be afraid of my own community members, and know they’re probably just as afraid of me. Ultimately, the quest for political purity is a treacherous distraction for well-intentioned activists.

2. Reproducing colonialist logics

Postcolonialist black Caribbean philosopher Frantz Fanon in his 1961 book Wretched of the Earth writes about the volatile relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, and the conditions of decolonization. In it, he sharply warns the colonized against reproducing and maintaining the oppressive systems of colonization by replacing those at top by those previously at the bottom after a successful revolution.

As a QTPOC (queer, trans person of color), I have experienced discrimination and rejection due to who I am. I have sought out QTPOC-only spaces to heal, find others like me, and celebrate our differences. Those spaces and relationships have saved me from despair time and time again. And yet, I reject QTPOC supremacy, the idea that QTPOCs or any other marginalized groups deserve to dominate society. The experiences of oppression do not grant supremacy, in the same way that being a powerful colonizer does not. Justice will never look like supremacy. I wish for a new societal order that does not revolve around relations of power and domination.

3. Preaching/Punishments

Telling people what to do and how to live out their lives is endemic to dogmatic religion and activism. It’s not that my comrades are the bosses of me, but that dogmatic activism creates an environment that encourages people to tell other people what to do. This is especially prominent on Facebook. Scrolling through my news feed sometimes feels Iike sliding into a pew to be blasted by a fragmented, frenzied sermon. I know that much of the media posted there means to discipline me to be a better activist and community member. But when dictates aren’t followed, a common procedure of punishment ensues. Punishments for saying/doing/believing the wrong thing include shaming, scolding, calling out, isolating, or eviscerating someone’s social standing. Discipline and punishment has been used for all of history to control and destroy people. Why is it being used in movements meant to liberate all of us? We all have made serious mistakes and hurt other people, intentionally or not. We get a chance to learn from them when those around us respond with kindness and patience. Where is our humility when examining the mistakes of others? Why do we position ourselves as morally superior to the un-woke? Who of us came into the world fully awake?

4. Sacred texts

There are also some online publications of dogmatic activism that could be considered sacred texts. For example, the intersectional site Everyday Feminismreceives millions of views a month. It features more than 40 talented writers who pen essays on a wide range of anti-oppression topics, zeroing in on ones that haven’t yet broached larger activist conversations online. When Everyday Feminism articles are shared among my friends, I feel both grateful that the conversation is sparking and also very belittled. Nearly all of their articles follow a standard structure: an instructive title, list of problematic or suggested behaviors, and a final statement of hard opinion. The titles, the educational tone, and the prescriptive checklists contribute to creating the idea that there is only one way to think about and do activism. And it’s a swiftly moving target that is always just out of reach. In trying to liberate readers from the legitimately oppressive structures, I worry that sites like Everyday Feminism are replacing them with equally restrictive orthodoxy on the other end of the political spectrum.

Have I extricated myself from a church to find myself confined in another?

At this year’s Allied Media Conference, BLM co-founder Alicia Garza gave an explosive speech to a theatre full of brilliant and passionate organizers. She urged us to set aside our distrust and critique of newer activists and accept that they will hurt and disappoint us. Don’t shut them out because their politics are outdated or they don’t wield the same language. If we are interested in building the mass movements needed to destroy mass oppression, our movements must include people not like us, people with whom we will never fully agree, and people with whom we have conflict. That’s a much higher calling than railing at people from a distance and labeling them as wrong. Ultimately, according to Garza, building a movement is about restoring humanity to all of us, even to those of us who have been inhumane. Movements are where people are called to be transformed in service of liberation of themselves and others.

I want to spend less time antagonizing and more time crafting alternative futures where we don’t have to fight each other for resources and care. For an introvert like me, that may look like shifting my activism towards small scale projects and recognizing personal relationships as locations of mutual transformation. It might mean carefully choosing whether I want to be part of public disruptions or protests, and giving myself full permission to refrain at times. It may mean drawing attention to the ways in which other people outside of movements have been living out activism, even if no one has ever called it that. It might mean checking in with myself about how I have let my heart grow hard. It may mean admitting that speaking my truth isn’t justification for being mean. It might mean directly dealing with my religious hangups so that I can come to a place where the resonant aspects of theology or spirituality become part of my toolkit. It means cultivating long-term relationships with those outside my (not that) safe and exclusive community, understanding I will learn so much from them. It means ceasing to “other” people and leave them behind. It means honoring their humanity, in spite of their hurtful political beliefs and violent actions. It means seeing them as individuals, not ideologies or systems. It means acknowledging their agency to act justly. It means inviting them to be with us in love, and pushing through repeated rejection. Otherwise, I’m not sure how I can sustain this work for the rest of my life

[stopkingobama]

Inside the Soros-backed "Alt Left" terrorist movement

Click here to deport George Soros! —

Image credit: World Economic Forum Photo by Sebastian DerungsCC by SA 2.0

When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name. Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality…

How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one’s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.”

The Alt-Left Is Real

There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a myth, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are ‘pejoratives’ used only by the right to attack the left.

In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) — for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth.

It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. It claims to speak for the marginalized, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.

It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom.

Now…imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.

In his video, Rubin offers that it doesn’t matter which term we use, what’s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. “Whatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.”

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Today’s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn’t liberal.”

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

Yet another reasonable liberal, Tim Pool, points out that one of the few things Politico gets right about the Alt-Left is that it is a term used by centrist liberals. Pool says, “Yes, I use the term Alt-Left because I want to make sure everybody knows when I say I’m left-leaning, I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna go out and punch somebody in the face or take away their rights because I think mine are more important.”

I’m also a liberal who’s been using the term Alt-Left since I first learned to trust that voice within myself, that voice that denies the conventional, accepted Alt-Left “truths” by which I had been living.

The first time I used it in a public piece of writing was back in May while attempting to articulate my transformation in belief systems in an essay called On Leaving the SJW Cult and Finding Myself. The essay itself was a long time coming. I started to wake up to the creeping authoritarianism and endless internal hypocrisies of the accepted Alt-Left ideology over a year ago. But leaving behind a belief system to which you’ve subscribed for twenty years is a bit like razing your house to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up.

Suddenly you are starting with nothing; everything you thought you knew is suspect. It takes a long time to evaluate each previously held belief and try to discern which ones hold substance. Where before my house had foolishly been built on the shifting sands of postmodernism, this time I want to ensure that, as Dr. Jordan Peterson might say, my house is built on rock.

It makes me think of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” my first introduction to the concept of framing. Lackoff said “Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world….Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have — the long-term concepts that structure how we think — is instantiated in the synapses of our brains…If a strongly held frame doesn’t fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept.”

I devoured this book when a young SJW. It helped me understand how people could vote Republican and why my right-wing Aunt didn’t seem to be swayed to my point of view no matter how many facts I threw at her. What I didn’t think too much about was how this human tendency is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right.

The Frog and the Pot

I am of the opinion that a lot of well-meaning people have become converts to the Alt-Left ideology without even realizing it. Like the parable of the slow boiling frog, if you had told me at the beginning that one day I’d be expected to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend censorship and violence in response to speech, I would have leaped from the pot.

Instead, I was conditioned to accept as gospel each new tenet of SJWism over a period of twenty years. I believed in the essential goodness of the ideology, and in my own essential goodness in preaching it. When facts about the direction it was taking me made themselves known to me, I rejected them because they did not fit the frame. As the ideology became more noticeably toxic, hypocritical, and authoritarian, so too did the tactics of the true believers. Whether in academia, in the media, at Google, or online — the message is clear: dare to step out of line or express an independent thought, and a mob of zealous SJW zombies will come for you. The fear of losing one’s job, status, friends or personal safety is a strong motivator in forcing reasonable people to remain silent.

I have received a lot of positive feedback about the sentiments expressed in my writing about SJWism from people all over the political spectrum. Most meaningful to me of these might be the messages I get from fellow liberals who are going through the same realization, confusion, and fear.

In addition to the public responses you can read yourself, I have received private messages from people in academia, journalism, and entertainment — many of them liberals — expressing that the piece resonated with them and that they were afraid to share it (or presumably in some cases, to express themselves about anything at all). Excerpts from a handful of these are below:

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“…your piece on the social justice cult affected me more than words can say. After being called ‘violent’…because I used a word that someone decided was offensive…I had a bit of an existential crisis about my life and self-worth. Thus, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit… I remain committed to the idea that privilege exists and it should be combated through both self-reflection and system action. I also am a proud liberal, and that hasn’t lessened. That said, I can’t get behind the individual scapegoating, shouting and intimidation in the name of fighting hate, or defining sharing a point of view as “educating” and “labor.” Ultimately, the world needs more compassion….I’m trying to get there on talking and writing about some of this a little more publicly, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet (also, the fact that I’m on the academic job market makes me a bit hesitant).” 

“I saw your posts and they were refreshing. I hate politics but free speech is so important to me….but then I remember I work in TV and Music and I can’t say anything that’s going to make me lose my job. It’s crazy what’s going on right now.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves? Why are so many people self-censoring for their own sense of safety? I was fascinated by the James Damore story, not because I have an opinion on the legality of his dismissal, but because his online stoning and subsequent firing confirmed for me what I already suspected: Google, like most of the tech space, the entertainment space, the academic space and the media space has become a panopticon of Alt-Left groupthink, self-censorship, and fear.

I know this fear intimately. As I started waking up to the illiberal nature of the growing Alt-Left ideology, I held my tongue for a long time out of fear of losing job opportunities, the safety of anonymity, and friends. After all, I built my career, and by proxy a lot of my friendships, from this SJW frame. I don’t judge anyone for subscribing to this ideology out of misplaced idealism and a desire to do good; I did for twenty years. Likewise, I don’t judge anyone who is currently waking up from it but is constrained by fear. As I tell folks who write me about it: I don’t know the exact way to get over it. I suspect it’s different for every person. But trust me when I tell you, it is so liberating on the other side.

For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading this far. I believe a part of you is struggling to wake up if you stuck it out this long. I encourage you to start listening to that small voice inside yourself, the one that tells you when something doesn’t seem quite right or reasonable, no matter if it’s accepted by all of your peers.

Take a look at who was really at the Free Speech Rally in Boston for starters. This, for example, is Shiva Ayyadurai. You may decide you don’t like him because he’s conservative, but to call him a “white supremacist” is a dangerous Alt-Left falsehood.

Take the time to listen to Will Johnson and Joey Gibson, two of the organizers of the Patriot Prayer Rally in SF this past weekend. Their rally was canceled after successful media (and political) attempts to smear them as “white supremacists” caused subsequent threats of violence from the Alt-Left. Ask yourself if it’s not odd that so many so-called liberals are now smearing people of color with whom they don’t agree as “white supremacists” (Charles Barkley is apparently one now too, so Johnson, Gibson, and Ayyadurai are not alone).

Then ask yourself if these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these students, or these students, or these students, or these students are really fighting fascism, or if they are acting as footsoldiers (some witting, some unwitting) for a pro-censorship and pro-violence ideology. These facts may not fit your frame, but — do the actions depicted here reflect your liberal values?

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

[americanlibertypac]

Inside the Soros-backed "Alt Left" terrorist movement

Click here to deport George Soros! —

Image credit: World Economic Forum Photo by Sebastian DerungsCC by SA 2.0

When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name. Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality…

How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one’s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.”

The Alt-Left Is Real

There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a myth, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are ‘pejoratives’ used only by the right to attack the left.

In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) — for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth.

It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. It claims to speak for the marginalized, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.

It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom.

Now…imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.

In his video, Rubin offers that it doesn’t matter which term we use, what’s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. “Whatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.”

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Today’s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn’t liberal.”

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

Yet another reasonable liberal, Tim Pool, points out that one of the few things Politico gets right about the Alt-Left is that it is a term used by centrist liberals. Pool says, “Yes, I use the term Alt-Left because I want to make sure everybody knows when I say I’m left-leaning, I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna go out and punch somebody in the face or take away their rights because I think mine are more important.”

I’m also a liberal who’s been using the term Alt-Left since I first learned to trust that voice within myself, that voice that denies the conventional, accepted Alt-Left “truths” by which I had been living.

The first time I used it in a public piece of writing was back in May while attempting to articulate my transformation in belief systems in an essay called On Leaving the SJW Cult and Finding Myself. The essay itself was a long time coming. I started to wake up to the creeping authoritarianism and endless internal hypocrisies of the accepted Alt-Left ideology over a year ago. But leaving behind a belief system to which you’ve subscribed for twenty years is a bit like razing your house to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up.

Suddenly you are starting with nothing; everything you thought you knew is suspect. It takes a long time to evaluate each previously held belief and try to discern which ones hold substance. Where before my house had foolishly been built on the shifting sands of postmodernism, this time I want to ensure that, as Dr. Jordan Peterson might say, my house is built on rock.

It makes me think of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” my first introduction to the concept of framing. Lackoff said “Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world….Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have — the long-term concepts that structure how we think — is instantiated in the synapses of our brains…If a strongly held frame doesn’t fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept.”

I devoured this book when a young SJW. It helped me understand how people could vote Republican and why my right-wing Aunt didn’t seem to be swayed to my point of view no matter how many facts I threw at her. What I didn’t think too much about was how this human tendency is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right.

The Frog and the Pot

I am of the opinion that a lot of well-meaning people have become converts to the Alt-Left ideology without even realizing it. Like the parable of the slow boiling frog, if you had told me at the beginning that one day I’d be expected to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend censorship and violence in response to speech, I would have leaped from the pot.

Instead, I was conditioned to accept as gospel each new tenet of SJWism over a period of twenty years. I believed in the essential goodness of the ideology, and in my own essential goodness in preaching it. When facts about the direction it was taking me made themselves known to me, I rejected them because they did not fit the frame. As the ideology became more noticeably toxic, hypocritical, and authoritarian, so too did the tactics of the true believers. Whether in academia, in the media, at Google, or online — the message is clear: dare to step out of line or express an independent thought, and a mob of zealous SJW zombies will come for you. The fear of losing one’s job, status, friends or personal safety is a strong motivator in forcing reasonable people to remain silent.

I have received a lot of positive feedback about the sentiments expressed in my writing about SJWism from people all over the political spectrum. Most meaningful to me of these might be the messages I get from fellow liberals who are going through the same realization, confusion, and fear.

In addition to the public responses you can read yourself, I have received private messages from people in academia, journalism, and entertainment — many of them liberals — expressing that the piece resonated with them and that they were afraid to share it (or presumably in some cases, to express themselves about anything at all). Excerpts from a handful of these are below:

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“…your piece on the social justice cult affected me more than words can say. After being called ‘violent’…because I used a word that someone decided was offensive…I had a bit of an existential crisis about my life and self-worth. Thus, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit… I remain committed to the idea that privilege exists and it should be combated through both self-reflection and system action. I also am a proud liberal, and that hasn’t lessened. That said, I can’t get behind the individual scapegoating, shouting and intimidation in the name of fighting hate, or defining sharing a point of view as “educating” and “labor.” Ultimately, the world needs more compassion….I’m trying to get there on talking and writing about some of this a little more publicly, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet (also, the fact that I’m on the academic job market makes me a bit hesitant).” 

“I saw your posts and they were refreshing. I hate politics but free speech is so important to me….but then I remember I work in TV and Music and I can’t say anything that’s going to make me lose my job. It’s crazy what’s going on right now.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves? Why are so many people self-censoring for their own sense of safety? I was fascinated by the James Damore story, not because I have an opinion on the legality of his dismissal, but because his online stoning and subsequent firing confirmed for me what I already suspected: Google, like most of the tech space, the entertainment space, the academic space and the media space has become a panopticon of Alt-Left groupthink, self-censorship, and fear.

I know this fear intimately. As I started waking up to the illiberal nature of the growing Alt-Left ideology, I held my tongue for a long time out of fear of losing job opportunities, the safety of anonymity, and friends. After all, I built my career, and by proxy a lot of my friendships, from this SJW frame. I don’t judge anyone for subscribing to this ideology out of misplaced idealism and a desire to do good; I did for twenty years. Likewise, I don’t judge anyone who is currently waking up from it but is constrained by fear. As I tell folks who write me about it: I don’t know the exact way to get over it. I suspect it’s different for every person. But trust me when I tell you, it is so liberating on the other side.

For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading this far. I believe a part of you is struggling to wake up if you stuck it out this long. I encourage you to start listening to that small voice inside yourself, the one that tells you when something doesn’t seem quite right or reasonable, no matter if it’s accepted by all of your peers.

Take a look at who was really at the Free Speech Rally in Boston for starters. This, for example, is Shiva Ayyadurai. You may decide you don’t like him because he’s conservative, but to call him a “white supremacist” is a dangerous Alt-Left falsehood.

Take the time to listen to Will Johnson and Joey Gibson, two of the organizers of the Patriot Prayer Rally in SF this past weekend. Their rally was canceled after successful media (and political) attempts to smear them as “white supremacists” caused subsequent threats of violence from the Alt-Left. Ask yourself if it’s not odd that so many so-called liberals are now smearing people of color with whom they don’t agree as “white supremacists” (Charles Barkley is apparently one now too, so Johnson, Gibson, and Ayyadurai are not alone).

Then ask yourself if these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these students, or these students, or these students, or these students are really fighting fascism, or if they are acting as footsoldiers (some witting, some unwitting) for a pro-censorship and pro-violence ideology. These facts may not fit your frame, but — do the actions depicted here reflect your liberal values?

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

[ruminativerabbi]

Jews. And Pacific Islanders. And Gay People. And Hispanics....

As everybody surely knows by now, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution last week that condemned more or less every conceivable kind of prejudice imaginable…including anti-Semitism. It was, admittedly, a bold move forward for our courageous Congresspeople. But this is only the beginning! Reliable sources have informed me (yes, me personally) that Congress is thinking of granting women the vote within the next few weeks. And then, possibly, of outlawing chattel slavery as well in our great land. Who knows where this could all end? Eventually, they might even repeal Prohibition. Hardy-har-har!

I’m not really laughing. And neither is anyone who takes the moral foundation of the republic seriously and worries, as any thoughtful homeowner should, about cracks and fissures in the once-rock-solid foundation of democratic ideals and republican principles upon which the structure yet stands. It would be impossible to say that the resolution was not a good thing. But the background against which that good thing was accomplished is suggestive of harsh winds blowing through our land and our nation’s capital. And that part of the story is extremely worrying to me.

The resolution was originally formulated as a single-barreled rebuke specifically of anti-Semitism and was widely understood to constitute an effort by the Democrats in the House of Representatives to distance themselves from the anti-Semitic tweets of Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota). She herself was delicately left unmentioned in the text of the resolution. But that seems not much to have mattered, as her supporters all understood easily whom this was all about. And so, feeling unable publicly to oppose anti-Semitism, they opted for Plan B…and ended up insisting that the resolution be rewritten to condemn not only irrational prejudice against Jews, but also against Sikhs. And Hindus. And black people. And non-black people of color. And Hispanic people. And Muslims. And Pacific Islanders. (Is that even a thing, prejudice against people born in the Pacific?) And the LGBTQ community. And Asian Americans. To read the resolution, which is seven pages long, click here. Or, read ahead and let me talk you through it.

The resolution duly mentions some non-anti-Semitic incidents and makes specific reference to the horrific attack in 2015 on the church in Charleston in which nine innocent black worshipers were murdered. But mostly it was about anti-Semitism. The text makes specific reference to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. And it makes mention of the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last October in which eleven people were killed by a shooter who declared openly that his ultimate wish was for “all Jews to die.” The text then goes on to take note of a truly unbelievable statistic, that a stunning 58.1% of all “religious-based” hate crimes are directed against Jewish people or institutions. (Pretty good for a group that makes up something like 2.1% of the national population!) Even I, whom no one could possibly accuse of excessive optimism, was shocked by that statistic. Maybe there really is more of a problem here than any of us wants to admit.

The resolution defines anti-Semitism in an interesting way too, specifically noting that anti-Jewish prejudice includes “blaming Jews as Jews when things go wrong; calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or extremist view of religion; or making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotyped allegations about Jews.” I’m not sure who wrote those words, but it all sounds right to me. Still, it’s the first clause that seems the worthiest of taking seriously: blaming Jews as Jews when things go wrong was precisely what the Nazis did to garner public support in the 1930s and it is, of all the specific versions of anti-Jewish prejudice mentioned, probably—at least in the long run—the most pernicious. Good for the House to have recognized that!

The text goes on to talk briefly about the appearance of anti-Semitic tropes of various sorts in the media, the public promotion of the bizarre fantasy that American Jews control the U.S. government or seek world domination, and the scapegoating of Jews by racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the America First Committee. And then, finally, we get down right to it as the text of the resolution leaves the general and focuses specifically on the matter at hand, rebuking Ilhan Omar’s tweets without mentioning their source by name.

This is the crux of the matter because, by unmistakably referencing the tweets, the resolution is equally clearly addressing the (unnamed) tweeter when it unambiguously condemns the practice of “accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel or to the Jewish community than to the United States” and specifically categorizes that as constituting anti-Semitism “because it suggests that Jewish citizens cannot be patriotic Americans and trusted neighbors,” which opinion, we read, is particularly offensive given the fact that “Jews have loyally served our Nation every day since its founding, whether in public or community life or in military service.”

And then the text, again without mentioning names, turns to a different congressperson, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and addresses the topic of dual loyalty. (To access my letter about Representative Tlaib and her willingness to raise the dual loyalty canard, click here.) First, we are given a number of instances in which the dual loyalty canard has been brought out by people eager to malign one or many who belonged to a minority faith. Specific mention is made of Alfred Dreyfus and John F. Kennedy, of the interment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War and instances of anti-Muslim prejudice. (Some of the statistics in that regard are also shocking: a 99% increase in hate crimes directed against Muslim Americans between 2014 and 2016, mosque bombings in three different states, and, most alarming of all, actual planned mass attacks against Muslims in Kansas in 2016, Florida in 2017, and New York in 2019.)

When the resolution finally gets to say what it is actually proposing, it returns to the dual loyalty issue by formally rejecting “the perpetuation of anti-Semitic stereotypes in the U.S. and around the world, including the pernicious myth of dual loyalty and foreign allegiance, especially in the context of support for the United States-Israel alliance.” Special reference is made to the fact that the United States government maintains an individual designated as the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. And the document wraps up with a call to all public officials to live up to the “transcendent principles of tolerance, religious freedom, and equal protection as embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the first and 14th amendments to the Constitution.” (The Fourteenth Amendment is the one that guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law and protects against the deprivation of life, liberty or property, without the due process of law.)

That all sounds almost intensely uncontroversial. So why was the resolution not unanimously adopted? Yes, it passed handily. But twenty-three members of Congress voted against it, all Republicans. A twenty-fourth, Steven King (R-Iowa), who was stripped of his committee assignments following comments endorsing white supremacy, voted “present.” A quick survey of the nay-sayers’ websites yields the conclusion that none voted against it because he or she is in favor of bigotry or prejudice, but because of a sense that there was something peculiar and intensely worrisome about the inability of the House just to condemn anti-Semitism without feeling obliged concomitantly to condemn every other conceivable form of prejudice they could think of. (To see an interesting survey of the twenty-three by Ewan Palmer that was published on the Newsweek website earlier this week, click here.) Is anti-Semitism not something worth condemning without reference to other forms of prejudice? Would any decent person ever say that about racism directed against black people, that it feels somehow wrong just to condemn it on its own demerits without buttressing the sentiment with reference to other kinds of prejudice as well? No one would! Nor should anyone. And yet…we had people saying precisely that last week about a resolution condemning just anti-Semitism.

I find myself on both sides of that argument. On the one hand, I feel eager to find good in a resolution that, after all, loudly and clearly condemns anti-Jewish sentiment and the violence such sentiment all too often breeds. But I am also made extremely uneasy by the apparent fact that the Democratic leadership in the house felt it impossible to condemn anti-Semitism at all unless the condemnation included references to what reads like a list of every other kind of bigotry imaginable.

Ilhan Omar, the congresswoman at the center of the controversy, seems to spend her day sending out anti-Semitic tweets and then apologizing for inadvertently offending anyone. She responds to criticism, including sharp criticism by members of her own party, by presenting herself as a naïf who keeps accidentally using anti-Semitic tropes to make the point that Israel’s supporters in the Congress are the unwitting dupes of their masters at AIPAC (standing in here for the Elders of Zion in more traditional anti-Semitic literature) rather than accepting that people of intelligence, moral maturity, and political insight choose to stand with Israel because it is our only reliable ally in the Middle East and, even more to the point, because the right of Jewish people to chart their own destiny forward in a Jewish state in their own Jewish homeland is reasonable and just. Israel has more vicious enemies to deal with than Ilhan Omar. But the fact that it was deemed impolitic to bring a resolution featuring a simple, forceful condemnation of anti-Semitism to the floor of the House is a troubling comment on how things are in these United States as we move past the eightieth anniversary of Kristallnacht and ask ourselves, yet again, why the Jews of Germany didn’t respond more vigorously to the tides that would eventually engulf them utterly.

[wearyewe]

In pointing out that this is an intellectually sloppy approach, I do not mean to impugn Goldberg’s intellect, or Balmer’s, or that of any of the numerous other commentators who argue from the same ungrounded set of presuppositions: that “real” and “political” religion (or “religion” and “ideology”) are distinct; that “real” religion is benign. The temptation to believe these things is powerful. Many of us want religion to be inherently good, and it can make for feel-good politics to reject fundamentalism as “fake” religion. But it is not. Religion is not anymore inherently good than it is inherently bad.

As a survivor of oppressive Christianity, I feel erased by claims that the Christianity I grew up with was not “real.” Let me tell you, I experienced myself as intensely religious well into my 20s, and I do not appreciate it when the Balmers and Goldbergs of the world tell me I was not “really religious” after all. Also as a result of my religious PTSD, I am naturally inclined to the position that organized religion, on the upshot, does more harm than good. I admit this may be my confirmation bias, and this claim would be very difficult if not impossible to demonstrate for the whole course of human history (although it is worth noting that the Abrahamic faiths have served as powerful vehicles for the propagation of patriarchy). The more salient point to my argument here is that harmful practices carried out in a religious context, as religious imperatives, do not stop being “really religious” just because they are harmful. This belief is nothing but wishful thinking and/or political expediency, even if many intelligent people cling to it, having failed to check their own confirmation bias on this point.

From an empirical, outside perspective–one informed by such fields as history, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, etc.–we must accept that there are a wide variety of Christian communities with competing theological claims. And since we have no universal grounds to appeal to on which to adjudicate these claims, we must accept these varied groups as Christian, as representing varieties of Christianity. We must treat religions as multivalent “cultural systems,” to use the classic terminology of anthropologist Clifford Geertz.

“But wait,” you will object again, “Are you saying Christianity is anything anyone says it is?” No, I am not. If I tell you that true Christianity preaches that every believer must stand on one foot for five minutes every weekday starting at precisely 3:27 p.m., except on Tuesdays, which are to be set aside for pouring out drink offerings of Unicorn Frappuccinos, you may reject my claim as “fake Christianity,” because this claim has absolutely no relationship to Christian scripture or any Christian community’s tradition or practice, either historical or contemporary. It is precisely the complex of such practices, traditions, and approaches to scripture that make up the cultural system of a text-based monotheism.

But let’s juxtapose my #FakeChristian assertion that Christians must stand on one foot with the Christian case that good believers were morally required to vote for Trump. The crucial difference is that the latter case was formulated within a community, or more precisely a multiplicity of overlapping conservative U.S. Christian communities, that exhibit clearly defined religious practices and beliefs, the justifications for which illustrate that these communities have a clear relationship to the Bible. And what about the Bible, by the way? As a collection of books written over millennia, it does not hold together so neatly and tidily as many believe. Despite frequent protestations to the contrary, the Bible is often unclear and tension-ridden; there is in fact no such thing as a consistent literalist interpretation, or any consistent interpretation without some picking and choosing. So while you may try to make a case for better and worse interpretations from a variety of perspectives (from hermeneutic to moral to historical), the Bible is not going to be the “trump” card you want for your claims of #FAKECHRISTIANITY. Things are not so simple.

Although this is specifically about Christianity, the author’s argument framework can be applied to Judaism. We in the Jewish community can’t just simply disregard harmful actions taken by others in the name of Judaism as being “fake Jews.” That doesn’t mean I’m not going to call it a chillul haShem (an action that desecrates G-D because it represents G-D poorly) when ultra-Orthodox Jewish men spit on an 8-year-old girl because they deemed her clothing not modest enough. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t Jewish; calling them fake Jews or not real Jews is the easy way out.

[confrontingbabble-on]

Entitled Christian Syndrome...A Christian Struggles To Adjust To Marginalization...

“Culture is evolving. Christianity no longer occupies the center of public discourse. The civil religion of the American empire used to be “Christian,” but the truth of the matter is that our society (like the rest of the West) is in the transition toward post-Christendom. Stuart Murray, Juliet Kilpin, and others at Urban Expression (a church-planting initiative that I’m connected to) say the following about post-Christendom:

“Post-Christendom is the culture that emerges as the Christian faith loses coherence within a society that has been definitively shaped by the Christian story and as the institutions that have been developed to express Christian convictions decline in influence.”

With that basic definition, here are some of the major transitions that take place culturally as post-Christendom takes root:

From the center to the margins: In Christendom, the Christian story and the churches were central, but in post-Christendom these are marginal.

From the majority to the minority: In Christendom, Christians comprised the (often overwhelming) majority, but in post-Christendom we are a minority.

From settlers to sojourners: In Christendom, Christians felt at home in a culture shaped by their story, but in post-Christendom we are aliens, exiles and pilgrims in a culture where we no longer feel at home.

From privilege to plurality: In Christendom, Christians enjoyed many privileges, but in post-Christendom we are one community among many in a plural society.

From control to witness: In Christendom, churches could exert control over society, but in post-Christendom we exercise influence only through witnessing to our story and its implications.

From maintenance to mission: In Christendom, the emphasis was on maintaining a supposedly Christian status quo, but in post-Christendom it is on mission within a contested environment.

From institution to movement: In Christendom, churches operated mainly in institutional mode, but in post-Christendom it must become again a Christian movement.

Among American evangelical leaders, push-back is common when confronted with a list like this. One need only to recognize that these things are beginning to happen in our context as they did in places like England to realize we are headed in a post-Christendom direction. Although we never had an “official” state church, we have had a cultural civil religion that uses Christian language to support imperialistic aims. This too fades, as America no longer is comprised of only Christian religions. Our country is pluralistic.

I personally welcome the transition that is happening. Christendom (as described above) resulted from the marriage of empire to faith in the fourth century. In a world where Christians are placed back into the margins, it will force us to move into a more authentically Christ-centered mode of humility, enemy-love and justice.

...for followers of Jesus who feel the real-world results of this shift from the “center to the margins,” singing about how our “cosmic dad” can beat up everyone else’s ideological parent reinforces the belief that the Christian story should be central in society. We must avoid any such perspective and find our voice from the margins, just as the earliest Christians did when they refused to bow down to the emperor or to carry the sword of nationalism.

The situation of post-Christendom is slightly nuanced, then, because the Church’s place in the margins is a result of bullying society into our image.

If we look to history, any time a society attempted to place Christ in the center, they subtly turned the idea of Christ into an idol. Think of the “holy Roman Empire” and all of the resulting nations. A Christ who favors any nation besides the distinct Kingdom of God is not the Jesus of the New Testament

For centuries, the Church used violence, power and a sense of entitlement to “get their way” in public discourse.

http://archives.relevantmagazine.com/god/worldview/entitled-christian-syndrome

Also...

(WAVE GOODBYE TO...) 30+ Examples of Christian Privilege:

You can expect to have time off work to celebrate religious holidays.

Music and television programs pertaining to your religion’s holidays are readily accessible. It is easy to find stores that carry items that enable you to practice your faith and celebrate religious holidays. You aren’t pressured to celebrate holidays from another faith that may conflict with your religious values.

Holidays celebrating your faith are so widely supported you can often forget they are limited to your faith (e.g. wish someone a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Easter” without considering their faith).

You can worship freely, without fear of violence or threats.

A bumper sticker supporting your religion won’t likely lead to your car being vandalized.

You can practice your religious customs without being questioned, mocked, or inhibited.

If you are being tried in court, you can assume that the jury of “your peers” will share your faith and not hold that against you in weighing decisions.

When swearing an oath, you will place your hand on a religious scripture pertaining to your faith.

Positive references to your faith are seen dozens of times a day by everyone, regardless of their faith.

Politicians responsible for your governance are probably members of your faith.

Politicians can make decisions citing your faith without being labeled as heretics or extremists.

It is easy for you to find your faith accurately depicted in television, movies, books, and other media.

You can reasonably assume that anyone you encounter will have a decent understanding of your beliefs.

You will not be penalized (socially or otherwise) for not knowing other people’s religious customs.

Your faith is accepted/supported at your workplace.

You can go into any career you want without it being associated with or explained by your faith.

You can travel to any part of the country and know your religion will be accepted, safe, and you will have access to religious spaces to practice your faith.

Your faith can be an aspect of your identity without being a defining aspect (e.g., people won’t think of you as their “Christian” friend)You can be polite, gentle, or peaceful, and not be considered an “exception” to those practicing your faith.

Fundraising to support congregations of your faith will not be investigated as potentially threatening or terrorist behavior.

Construction of spaces of worship will not likely be halted due to your faith.

You are never asked to speak on behalf of all the members of your faith.

You can go anywhere and assume you will be surrounded by members of your faith.

Without special effort, your children will have a multitude of teachers who share your faith.

Without special effort, your children will have a multitude of friends who share your faith.

It is easily accessible for you or your children to be educated from kindergarten through post-grad at institutions of your faith.

Disclosing your faith to an adoption agency will not likely prevent you from being able to adopt children.

In the event of a divorce, the judge won’t immediately grant custody of your children to your ex because of your faith.

Your faith is taught or offered as a course at most public institutions.

You can complain about your religion being under attack without it being perceived as an attack on another religion.

You can dismiss the idea that identifying with your faith bears certain privileges.

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/05/list-of-examples-of-christian-privileg/

[nxfury]

THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS, A Discussion On Free Speech

In the early 1940s during World War 2, a world renowned rock-'n-roll guitarist named Woody Guthrie mustered up the courage to paint a slogan on his guitar, that would forever change the way we view the world and influence many people's views on the subject of free speech. After the publishing of one of his wartime songs, Guthrie painted "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" onto his guitar. But Why Would He? Guthrie believed that the battle Freedom of Speech and Censorship was more important than the war between Good and Evil itself. Enough history, why is this viewpoint relevant to society today?

This post is different, I recently downloaded a videogame I remembered playing from several years ago, called Return To Castle Wolfenstein. It's considered to be cult classic game, but I learned it was banned to own or sell in Germany and a couple other countries, due to it's use of the Nazi Swastika. This got me thinking on the topic of censorship as it relates to the world we live in, why hackers should care, and how we can tackle this issue.

What Is Censorship?

Censorship comes from the root word censor, which means "to examin in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable" (definition courtesy of Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Due to the breadth of this definition, this means that NOT ONLY GOVERNMENTS can censor a society- society can censor themselves. An example of government-forced censorship would be the banning of books (such as how several countries ban the Bible or other books deemed "sacred") or the blocking of websites in a specific region. Society-induced censorship examples could be calling people "haters" for having alternative opinions and the creation of hate speech, intentionally disregarding any alternative opinion.

Why Does Freedom Of Speech Matter?

If one is familiar with Orwellian novels or history from actual oppressive regimes such as Mussolini or Stalin, one common idea is always shared. This is the mindset of group-think, and getting society as a whole to think the same way as a like-minded whole. Hitler managed to brainwash an entire society into the hatred of the Jewish population, and all the others did similar things.

If we wish to prevent this oppressive fate, society must protect and encourage the ability to think for themselves- even if they don't wish to.

How Does This Tie Into Technology?

The Internet was formerly the ARPAnet project, a system to interconnect Universities for the purpose of enabling schools and students to better share ideas and work. It would eventually morph into the Internet which saw a massive increase in size and sharing of information, and still remains the largest source for information available to the human race. When hackers started traversing the wires and breaking into systems, the US Government promised security and began an absurd pattern of arrests and lawsuits.

The DMCA act was introduced, effectively allowing the creator of a copyrighted work to legally compel the removal of information from the internet, which resulted in numerous creative works being either deleted or removed. The NSA, FBI and CIA began an all-out assault against encryption, and are still trying to make encryption illegal, although privacy is a protected human right in the United States. Movie and record companies introduced Digital Rights Management (DRM), making it harder than ever to share derivative, creative works based on famous clips of audio/video. Human and Animal Rights Activists all around the globe started labeling people "haters" if they didn't entirely agree with their ideologies. Code of Conduct terms were introduced in numerous public domain projects to prevent people from speaking their mind. The list of these offenses goes on and on, all of them unexcusable offenses for those who claim to be guardians of free speech.

Why is this bad? IT HINDERS INNOVATION, CREATIVITY, LEARNING AND GROWTH.

On Fascism

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the words Fascism and Fascist come from the Italian root word fascio, or group. The term fascista was used to talk about the members of Mussolini's political organization, named Fasci di combattimento (combat groups). These "combat groups" adopted a bundle of rods with an ax as their insignia and wore black shirts, and became a symbol of complete and utter servitude to their government's authority. As this group was a "combat group" by nature, they would always disregard anyone else's opinions but their own, to the point of mass genocide in Italy.

Thus, a fascist is someone who violently opposes the free sharing of information and are completely subservient to some authority figure. One could easily argue that the modern bipartisan political system in the United States has encouraged such behavior on both sides, for both Republicans and Democrats, Right and Left. On the Right, we have pro-gun citizens who believe it's their God-given right to protect their land and often join militia groups to oppose anyone who disagrees. On the Left, we are seeing groups such as Antifa who are taking it upon themselves to destroy anyone or anything that questions the Black Lives Matter movement in the slightest.

This Isn't About Race Or Political Beliefs

If we were to ask the entire US population, around 90-93% of all people would agree that racism, corrupt politicians, and unethical companies are all bad things worth opposing. So why on earth are people becoming more and more divided? There are a few possible answers, neither of which are pleasant to think about:

There's a disagreement on the approach to solving these issues, and no one's willing to come to an agreeable solution.

People are actively looking for a reason to get into fights with one another.

People have let the idea of identity politics go too far, letting their beliefs become who they are- making their opinions rigid and immovable.

Whatever option is picked, the problem is clear as day: It's not about race, spending, political beliefs, global warming deniers, and so on. It's about giving opposing views the light of day in order to refine each other's view of the truth.

How Does This Apply To Tech Enthusiasts?

This arbitrarily imposed limitation on what techies can say and do effectively speaks death to their creativity. For example, the Linux kernel had a significant reputation for it's owner (Linus Torvalds) being very brash and offensive at the sight of poorly written code. He openly admitted several times that he was such, and has a zero tolerance policy for poorly written code in his project. As a political push, the Linux Kernel was forced to adopt a Code of Conduct with the reason being due to Torvald's (and others) behavior. With this code of conduct being extremely overreaching and taking control out of the owner's hands, it's become significantly harder to ensure the quality and openness of Linux. Other Open Source projects have seen this happen to them, and the quality of their code has greatly diminished while the quality of ones that haven't are greatly increased. For example, OpenBSD actively refuses to adopt a Code of Conduct, and they retain this "asshole-ish" behavior towards authors of bad code with the view that incompetence shouldn't be rewarded. Unsurprisingly, OpenBSD is widely seen as one of the most secure and reliable Operating Systems on Planet Earth.

This begs a huge question: If forcing people to speak a certain way results in reduced quality due to lack of involvement, should people be allowed to speak completely freely? For the sake of designing quality software and hardware that's meant to be used and perfected, the last thing that's needed is a set of rules to slow down the smartest people from expressing their ideas. The question ought to be posed as a moral question, asking whether or not it's an acceptable solution to use authority to force people to agree with others, even if they don't. Wouldn't it be much easier to just let someone hurt their own reputation if they wish to behave unprofessionally?

A Potential Solution

After a bit of a test run, it seems as though allowing free and unfettered speech in a ~400 member chat server seems to work extremely well, provided a system is designed to encourage real discussion about even the hardest topics. For example, reminding people that they have their own reputation to uphold is huge (Some communities might opt to make use of a rule where a member can be removed forcibly through popular vote, where no vote counts as a vote against removal) and other things.

It's incredibly sad to see the academic and scientific world decay in this way, so it's a moral duty for hackers and tech enthusiasts to protect and retain the quality of information and projects, no matter the cost.

That's it, rant over. Back to your regularly scheduled program... :)

Liked This Content? Check Out Our Discord Community and Become an email subscriber!