#leftismisms

[viktor-the-leshen]

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

In light of Brian Thompson being shot dead on my birthday (🎉🥳🎂) I'd like to share a personal story about UnitedHealthcare.

During the peak of COVID, my family all got sick. I couldn't be on my parents' insurance because they were both older and on Medicare. So, I had insurance through my University: UnitedHealthcare.

For some reason, rather than roll-over each year, I got a new plan each year that ended after May and didn't start until August, so I was uninsured for the summer months, but it was a weird situation that the university denied, and told us we were supposed to be insured year-round, it was messy.

Both of my parents went to the hospital, and I got sick too. I had to take care of my pets, and myself, and try to stay alive and keep my pets alive when I was so weak I could hardly move. When my parents came home, my condition got dramatically worse (I think my body knew it couldn't give out, because there was nobody to take care of me, so once my parents were okay, it completely crashed and failed.)

I started experiencing emergency symptoms. It was a bit hard to breathe, my chest hurt, and I was extremely delirious. I wanted to call my insurance to see if I was covered (this was during the summer) and I was connected to some nice person, probably making minimum wage, who told me with caution in her voice that my plan was expired. I had no active insurance, but she urged me to go to an emergency room. I remember saying something to the effect of "You just told me I don't have insurance, I can't go to the hospital, I can't afford it."

She sounded so genuinely worried and scared. I remember she said "You really don't sound good, you sound really sick, please call 9-1-1" and I think I just said "I can't afford it without insurance, don't worry, I think I'll be okay."

And she paused and said "I don't want to hang up the phone with you like this." And it sounded like she was holding back tears. And I don't remember what I said, I think that I would be okay, and I hung up.

I still think about her. I wonder if that phone call haunted her, or if she had dozens of calls like that a day. I wonder if she thinks about it at all, if she wonders if I died after she told me I didn't have insurance and therefore couldn't go to the hospital without incurring a tremendous financial burden. I wonder if she feels guilt or blame-- of course she shouldn't, it wouldn't have been her fault if anything had happened to me. Maybe it's self-centered to wonder if she thinks about it. I'm not the main character and it was just her job. But, still.

I think about how evil it was that we were put in that situation. Because offering year-long continuous coverage through the university plan would maybe cut into profits, maybe not benefit shareholders enough, maybe cut into Thompson's $10 million salary. While his minimum wage administrators have to feel afraid to hang up the phone, because on the other line someone might be dying, and they wouldn't know. While his patients hang up and decide to take their chances rather than put their family through that trauma.

This is UnitedHealthcare. This is Brian Thompson's legacy. This is why, understandably, an entire nation is jubilant that he was gunned down like the vermin he was. I don't care about his widow. I feel pity for his children, despite the fact that they will inherit millions, but I feel more pity for the children of his victims patients who are gone because they didn't want THEIR children to inherit crippling debt. Brian Thompson got what he fucking deserved. I pray that he not be the only one. I pray for continued safety, peace , and anonymity for his killer.

American healthcare is a disease.

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

just a handy little info chart on the spectrums of sexuality.

/Edit: I forgot to give credit this is a screenshot from a video made by a content creator called Lily Orchard you should check her channel out it's amazing

[fascistsarefreefood]

Daily reminder that we do not actually live in a dystopian movie put the apocalypse down and back away slowly. You know when your cleaning a room and you pull everything out of it's draws to sort through it and you're like "what the fuck have I done I'm never going to be able to tidy all of this" I think that's the stage we're at in the world. Thanks to social media we've pulled out all the messed up shit from the cupboards of the world, it was always there but now we can see it and we're going to have to sort it all out we made this mess and we can fix it. Falling to the floor sobbing will not clean a crusty room. A group of people working systematically (preferably with music in the background) will.

[neurotypicalabusesurvivor]

This is a friendly reminder that none disabled people often do benefit from the same accommodations disabled people benefit from.

[snugcubunny]

Right now it is 9 degrees and feels Like -1 in southern Louisiana 

It has never been so cold in my living memory and I just turned 30 over the weekend (I have this thing where around Birthdays- Mine, others go really wrong for me Hospitals, Accidents ya know but ya know Tiktok and Freezing my Ass off has got to be one of the worse) 

And this house has got to have been built by what feels like the cousin to the the man who made our roadways 

If you know the old saying 

“A drunk man on a mule”

So…

Come up with your own colorful equivalent for a unlicensed drug addled old timey carpenter  

I can hardly get through this my fingers are stinging cold and stiff it feels like my brain goo is freezing over 

Maybe the devil himself built this house then 

Or at least sent those who were in hell sheerly for incompetence up to make sure it stayed standing just enough for its next victims 

Which happened to be us years ago now 

Now I said I'd always been radical but that's in spirit but in mind I hadn't done all the homework yet I was only gods what was it now 

How long have we been trapped here in this hell was I only 23? 

Anyway it's not like we were particularly fond of landlords we knew that much but we were so desperate to get away from our old landlords (note - they were also like Notorious Landlords not like Corporate ™ ones but people who owned a lot , a lot of properties…foreshadowing, patterns- all the fun things)��

and that old hell pit we didn't know much- worse they could get. 

We knew not to trust them but only vaguely 

Those landlords at old apartment were suppose to be nice progressive queer church ladies our friends grew up with 

This one was suppose to be ’family’ 

Now I know that's where I lose a lot of you and I hear you 

Nepotism and also I'm griping when I've got 4 walls during this and some have nothing at all 

I know 

I know the privilege we have 

That's half the story and half what's kept us glued right hold on now we're skipping way ahead 

(At the same time feel what you feel about it fair enough friends and enemies and those in between) 

Where we yes the pit of despair- I mean okay yes fine Nepotism. Landlord Nepotism the worst kind (eh-) 

I can't explain it all because again this is still the only home we have and it is technically some a few walls..and a roof for now not much space and Im sure its very soggy underneath the weather sealing spray paint but I feel some comradery with it still (also I don't have any other options at the moment we’all get to that-) We’re all holding on by our last threads here afterall

Anyway yeah so the landlord

He was marrying Into the family ya know and we were at his cabin and it was Fancy Smancy but still down to earth sort of compared to some and compared to this person's others picks ya know he seemed…charming- (I hadn't tried business school yet and I'm very Autistic I.didn't.know.)

Like don’t get me wrong when he said he had houses for rent we gave each other the simba and Nala like lip curling -Look- but we were desperate to leave our old apartment. It had fleas and rats and yellow YELLOW WALLS EVERYWHERE THAT DROVE ME MAD.

What could be worse than that…

(No one in the building had pets BTW we weren't allowed. It was just a historic building they refused to fix or pay for infestation on when they had like a lady who kept a colony of feral cats like opposite of us. My friend who lived there- their new baby got bit 😭 they left just in time like the ceiling in their unit came down the night they moved out- ) 

So yeah at the time I was so desperate to get out of that situation it felt like I would take ANYTHING else and well

I got anything 

That young 20 year old really couldn't have imagined this world ya know like on a personal scale as well as global despite like the trauma I lived through I guess I thought when you live through abuse you live through The Bottom of the Barrel and like- The World Can't Be Like That it was Just My Abuser 

I know a lot of people take the complete opposite takeaway but despite having tendencies to not want to be on this planet since kindergarten I guess I'm weirdly an optimist even now staring what I'm sure is The End of the World in the Face  - a thread for another day perhaps 

I think if 30 year old me brained me was there - like with the maturity and not the knowledge Id be more cautious- knowing now of course now has seen the depths of cruelty people can keep you in when money is involved especially with How Men Are ™ plus like I'd just in general never give a landlord even a shred of the benefit of doubt or mix family or frankly anyone I couldnt easily sue into a situation where they’re tethered to my safety and freedom ever ever ever again 

 But At the time I was just 23, in the hot pot cher and he was marrying someone who was suppose to care about us- not staying clutch to his wealth and power- call me a girls girl till the day I die I expected some loyalty back ya know #pickmes are as good as #pigs

But Ya can't go back ya know to tell yourself or help yourself so I'm stuck here telling you all with my freezing cold ass fingers so

Imma keeping it moving with my elder internet user wisdom 

If I could go back I'd say 

Just because you came from what seems like worse doesn't mean what seems like better is good 

Theres a lot in my life I messed up not knowing that and Im really lucky about what I managed to keep or salvage in the interim like my partner who I thought had this amazing childhood because their abuse didn't look like mine did and so I undermined it without even knowing

Ya know 

Anyway you're not just an asshole when you do stuff like that you also fuck yourself over by trusting Other Abusers 

Like Me 

Cause then the devil was able to come to me in disguise and do what he does best. He made me a deal and promised me everything I wanted in this house,total control,rent to own, a pretty little strip of land (parties, gardens, community meetings oh my!), even pets and privacy, we'll take care of the rest 

Just

Jump. 

You'll be fine. 

The house is lovely or WILL BE how he's getting it ready ho Hum ho he la da di 

And we are so exhausted from not being able to find a way out of the old place it feels like just finally finding a passage in a fire  (during FINALS no less, I had to take my last one in a toilet in the old space because ontop of every other disaster you'll see there was no internet and I brought a desk but no chair) 

and then I proceed to act like I didn't live through prime MySpace catfish era and don't find it strange how we only get pics but when we ask about seeing things there's weirdly never any of these Enchanting Recreators around right 🤔 

One day though we do get the address and look in and- too close to our move date it seems …More pumpkin than Our Big ticket Out ya know . The yard is lovely sure…the house might actually be smaller than our duplex apartment but thats fine we’re both studying this is just transitory right- 😬

The problems is really that …well I look in and see ugly fake old dinner tiling peeling up when isn't everything getting renovated? He assures us again the he's waving his magic wand the ‘hard stuff is done’ all that's left is the aesthetics it'll all be done before HE GOES OVERSEAS on Vacation (again ) and we move in or or or ‘what's left can happen as we move in-’ 

Even the rotten window ? In less than 5 days okay- 

Okay! I dont like the sound of sharing a tiny space with workers while trying to move furniture in but its okay if the rest of the house will look as nice as that bathroom 🫠 ( Spoilers That bathroom only room they even kind of ‘renovated’ I guess and I'm grateful cause it's the coldest room in the house, the weird fake stone tile are like those whiskey stones but way more effective, same with the tiny countertop) The living rooms floor too (those supposedly were new but I dunno if they were or just shined ..if they are new they were cheap too cause there's spots they're falling through)  and I so so hate the tile in the kitchen I can't wait to see what they do 

/ a Few days later/ 

-Drops bags down on the fake old dinner style peeling checked kitchen tile and knows we are doomed- 

-Makes an international call- 

“Hey….there's like…no outlets and the water and- and- and -” 

“Well nevermind that now- my husband(your brand new landlord) is in Jail in a country that's considered an enemy of the state (for disorderly crimes btw)” (sorry I cant provide details cause the story is hilariously dumb and tragic and I could probably get away with it here but you never know but to that country- part of the reason they could never propaganda me against y’all cause you arrested my landlord …❤️) 

But anyway so they still send us ‘hell-p’ while he’s in jail in the form of his usual crew cause as we find out much much much later this is his game he's not just a Landlord he is capital S Slumlord my guys so we might actually be getting the Family(step) Treatment here yall like 5 star special for this and that's how we meet

Derek

Fuck you forever Derek

I hope you're 💀 but like a special kind of 💀 where you suffered to get there 

I hope the devil uses you as a personal ass pillow

You remember the demons I said are in hell strictly for incompetence 

Derek is a worm amongst even them 

Derek is the living embodiment of the landlord special where there is a bug painted into your walls forever walking amongst us 

I'd love to just sit here and list all of his crimes but I'll probably catch a heartattack and I need to know he's 💀 first so I can know he went first and I'm about to go put Finding Nemo’s Darla this man in Hell.

Anyway

Derek almost burnt the place to the ground (not even compotent enough to finish that job) like before we were even Aware of The Derek of It all cause remember I said there are fucking no outlets in this bitch( As in very few in weird and the most inconvient locations) 

And Derek instead Of Dealing with that or doing the Dangerous Thing Responsibly 

Left a fuck off powerful Electronic Plugged in in to an extension cord in this tiny cajun shack built in what feels like the Everyone had to Drink Moonshine Cause Water on its Own was Lead and Dirt Era 

anyway he did that in a house they told me I can't have even have an outlet installed into the bathroom cause I'll blow the bitch with A hairdryer like 🔥🔥🔥

Anyway phew ya I got hot 

I'm still hot wait hold on 

We curse Derek's name every Moon ceremony (not real name but close cause he deserves a network of scorn) for a tome of reasons but especially because of our first encounter listen - 

Like I said water right- specifically water heater wasn't working- 

We could have fixed it ourselves by breaking the glass and lighting the pilot underneath

Didn't wanna do that cause it shortens the lifespan of the waterheater and like its not good or safe and you have to crawl under there and RELIGHT IT ALL THE TIME wjtjrjdnd we were dumb kids bht NOT YA KNOW but we were treated like it regardless so 

we specifically mention that with all our evidence and ask for like- an actual honest to God tech and that's how we met the Guinesses Book of World Records Stupidest Man Alive and began to understand the lack of depth of what we would be dealing with everytime we had an issue because He Goes in There Breaks the Glass Lights it and later when we have to Deal With It for the rest of Ever we see there are Fucking

Screws 

On the glass panel

I - 

Also I hate him because he is a misogynistic dickwad like - he refused to speak to me about things Ever meaning my partner Had to Be Home. I think we tested saying the exact same things verbatim to him I - mm

grease fire grease fire grease fire 

Anyway 

Anyway So  

We learn to be self sufficient as much as possible obviously with this house because calling for help always makes things so much worse 

And we teeter

Back and forth between

Sinking time, money and effort on fortifying on a place we are determined to not be before every and not so life is on edge all the time with us and this stupid house thats literally falling apart around us 

One year no shit we started duct taping it like it was all we could do

And we're always determined to leave before the next winter cause theres no fucking insulation or central tempature control 

So it's Miserable 

we do space heaters which helps a little but we cant have more than 3 plugged in cause again the outlet situation 

If you didn't know safety lesson! They must must must be plugged into the WALL and only the wall outlet not an adapter! 

I am very lucky I did not get hurt cause we had one plugged into this internet thing we have to have since we have so few outlets that we Literally have to run the window unit on 

So I guess by the logic that if it could ‘handle’the a/c unit it was fine to put the space heater into it- we did for a while…until we unplugged and replugged (Louisiana moody weather means doing that constantly) and it blew up in my face and I didn't notice cause it's in kind of a dark corner ya know and luckily the machine and grounding stuff did what it was suppose to and I was left like Oh ? Why isn't it working? And my partner took a look at it and was like HEY DID THIS MAKE MAYBE A NOISE OR SOMETHING and I was like I dunno- and they showed me how everything was fucking BURNT AND MELTED 

yeah….no

Wall only folks WALL 

But yeah its cause they’re big power drains (our electric bill sucks during winter and peak summer) already without them running just when you just run the microwave all the lights flicker so like hahaha

Off topic but related fun fact while we're on the bizarre wiring of the house 

if you touch the fridge and the shitty little stove we have at the same time it gives you a littl le shock I don't know what that's about 

( to all concerned I KNOW ITS NOT GOOD THATS KINDA THIS WHOLE THREAD but also thank you) 

Anyway 

There's a lot more fucky wucky about this house but my poor fingers. 

Lemme get to the points 

First though 

It is nicknamed amongst my small group as Clown House (I know I said I wouldn't give away personal details but anyone who knows that name won't rat) but it's not the ACTUAL clown house in New Orleans though typing it outloud 

There's no HOA here….some shitty Karen's tho who bitched to the city about me not taking in my trashcan in on time tho like I'm disabled and my partner does important science stuff for the state lay off bruh anyway

I don't know if I could paint it but I could probably get away with an obnoxious amount of clown gnomes cause like 

Lemme sum up the issues with the house - it probably was a unit that should have been condemned but a scumlord saw opportunity to take advantage and squeeze money out of it by like leaving us to deal with it exactly because we are neglectable and from seeing his other tenants who are also people who are in similar situations of not being able to speak up for themselves for various reasons combined with his political beliefs and past That Tracks. Plus just #landlord ya know. Ya know. 🫥

We'd of course like to leave but the way The World Is 

Has made Sure We Are Here Spinning Our Wheels 

Lemme lay out the facts of your situation ya know 

My partner 

College grad in a degree that use to like 

Sure getting a masters or higher in it was better of course it always is especially in STEM but at the time it looked like it wasn't  necessary and he was Burning Out and finance for future school was too murky for mental health to endure trying when it looked like you could get a good even great job in the field after a year of entry ya know standard. Esp in stem you could often enough play the field and get the job to sponsor a move and your masters- I was confident for sure he's skilled and knowledgeable at what he does and we thought at worst it would be hard to try and not work in petroleum here ya know stick to our ethical guns but no- ya know 

You know uh

 Trump, Pandemmy and Springtime for Hitler Happened- So

It's been impossible to job hunt 

Anywhere in the country 

My skills unfortunately at the moment went moot my disability was always kinda lurking in the water like a gator but finally started making its way toward shore before covid and then snapped ass when I was at my weakest and yeah My life went Lieutenant Dan on me despite having a myriad of varying skill capitalism doesn't really see the value in them anymore when I've basically become allergic to stress and stress is a necessary Cookie of the system ya know. Follows you everywhere. 

But 

Even still when we were dual income with me at my job of a decade where I was considered like The Guy top employee and he did a job thats like so Vital he can't come home until its Done like we were 

Still scrapping by on our own incomes 

The luxuries we had came from outside of us because like there's a thing that will happen with like White Families that have some access to Wealth but arent Top Tier Rich where they share occassional meals but not tables does that make sense? Like they'll give you a little something something but I find poor families more often try and uplift the whole unit more often poor poc families than poor white families even but- mm

Another another side tangent

Anyway regardless 

It wouldnt have been enough to afford another place in our city 

We tried to move in with a friend but we would been still been treading Water and all of us were in more ‘stable’ situations even if they all sucked and moving in together to new places would have been more harmonious but the risk of even a tiny disruption in the ecosystem causing houseless would have jumped so and it's a good thing We didnt 

Cause I got a fancy new job that ruined my nervous system and put me out to pasture (I tried again but health kept sliding back)   

Rent prices keep going up 

While wages kept stagnate

Food went way up  

And now we live on our impossible singular income

The only way we've been able to have a home at all is because partners job does is so vital it overuses them severely as a resource but also from just accepting debt and tapping into stuff that was never supposed to be a safety net. And by using any means to scrap by including the fact that our landlords were tied to us familialy meaning we could occasionally work off our rent to them, or use their gifts as trades backsies or yes even play the system and just be ‘Nepo babies’ to get some mercy but the like the kind the church gives because I know in this system its a priviledge to exchange my freedoms for a even a broken house. Ive had to do it before and I can't stop thinking how could I let it happen again for just another month here - another month freezing while they get to call and tell me to stay warm as if that's a choice ya know. 

Maybe I wouldn't be so angry if when I sent a picture of an old Piano from a thrift store because someone's baby asked to play in their house only to get back a ‘What am I made of money' text or if I didnt take load up their very sick animal and take it to the vet by myself or if I didn't- well- I didn't find out at His kids second wedding to a tesla guy on his dime that he just gave the other one two story house. While we are expected use our only day off Be There Look Nice and Not Complain About This Be Quiet as a Mouse about This House even on days where there's enough booze flowing for someone to Admit The Quiet Part Outloud. 

So that was a lot 

If you read it

Thank you wow

I have severe adhd and I'm cold and am just sort of going through my yearly purge of these feelings but yeah yeah yeah 

my grandest of grand grand point is

All the things connect ya know 

One problem is a crumbling house 

Is always actually a web of problems in capitalism ya know 

One more thing sorry Im always like that cajun goodbye but like with anti capitalism sentiments right 

What really sucks though is like - the distance with our community network this house has caused us over the years when I dreamed it would help me build something, feed and bring them together and don't get me wrong there are other factors but not being able to get out of this house has been a huge contributing factor because it's like 

A bad relationship you can't escape ya know but not out of not wanting to but out of inability due to external circumstance but everyone looking at you like you WANT to stay when you talk about going all the time or worse are  REFUSING to out of laziness maybe? Or maybe they know you just can't and they start leaving you behind cause it's too hard on THEM to see it but like - I don't know part of me is mad at them for leaving 

Part of me just misses them having them over for dinner 

but either way it sucks to get it and still be hurt and alone through it anyway ya know

I dont know I feel like thats a lot of society right now like the teeter totter between understanding people looking out for their own survival and knowing that it looks like a crumbling house from  inside and out- 

So yeah anyway 

If I hadn't been radicalized by like a bunch of stuff ‘back then’ this definitely would have been like a 

Hey maybe Capitalism Doesn't Work For Me moment haha #yikes #toopersonal ? #Idunno #immatraumabonder 

[misguidedghostsofficial]

benandjerrys on Instagram

[hyperfixationinc]

So funny how Blue Cross basically went "You guys make a great point" and rolled back their anesthesia policy after the United CEO was killed

Seems like we might have found a form of protest that works

[molten222]

[read-marx-and-lenin]

[Link to tweet]

[whereserpentswalk]

The nazis that you see in movies are as much a historical fantasy as vikings with horned helmets and samurai cutting people in half.

The nazis were not some vague evil that wanted to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. They had specific goals which furthered a far right agenda, and they wanted to do harm to very specific groups, (largely slavs, jews, Romani, queer people, communists/leftists, and disabled people.)

The nazis didn't use soldiers in creepy gas masks as their main imagery that they sold to the german people, they used blond haired blue eyed families. Nor did they stand up on podiums saying that would wage an endless and brutal war, they gave speeches about protecting white Christian society from degenerates just like how conservatives do today.

Nazis weren't atheists or pagans. They were deeply Christian and Christianity was part of their ideology just like it is for modern conservatives. They spoke at lengths about defending their Christian nation from godless leftism. The ones who hated the catholic church hated it for protestant reasons. Nazi occultism was fringe within the party and never expected to become mainstream, and those occultists were still Christian, none of them ever claimed to be Satanists or Asatru.

Nazis were also not queer or disabled. They killed those groups, before they had a chance to kill almost anyone else actually. Despite the amount of disabled nazis or queer/queer coded nazis you'll see in movies and on TV, in reality they were very cishet and very able bodied. There was one high ranking nazi early on who was gay and the other nazis killed him for that. Saying the nazis were gay or disabled makes about as much sense as saying they were Jewish.

The nazis weren't mentally ill. As previously mentioned they hated disabled people, and this unquestionably included anyone neurodivergent. When the surviving nazi war criminals were given psychological tests after the war, they were shown to be some of the most neurotypical people out there.

The nazis weren't socialists. Full stop. They hated socialists. They got elected on hating socialists. They killed socialists. Hating all forms of lefitsm was a big part of their ideology, and especially a big part of how they sold themselves.

The nazis were not the supervillians you see on screen, not because they didn't do horrible things in real life, they most certainly did, but because they weren't that vague apolitical evil that exists for white American action heros to fight. They did horrible things because they had a right wing authoritarian political ideology, an ideology that is fundamentally the same as what most of the modern right wing believes.

[seraphimfall]

there is an insane amount of antisemitism floating around right now.

i just want to say:

this blog loves and supports jewish people.

this blog does NOT conflate the israeli government, or the atrocities it commits, with jewish people.

this blog is disgusted with those who use or express antisemitism.

this blog knows that if someone needs to invoke antisemitism, they do not actually care about helping palestine or the palestinian people.

this blog will do its best to ensure that it remains a safe space for all.

[reachartwork]

Was talking to a 70 year old security guard at my university yesterday and I liked what he had to say to me and a couple of the younger freshmen chatting him up. I think you should hear it. I’ll paraphrase him (cutting out my half of the conversation);

“For people like us [POC] it’s always been a fight against the latest dude. Reagan and bush and Obama and trump. You know what they did when we started scaring them? They bombed American soil because they were about to piss themselves at black power. You know I can’t say out loud I was a part of that but that’s what you kids gotta do. Stay calm and build that black power, that neighbor power, that low class power against the latest dude, and when they bomb this neighborhood again that’s when you can panic, but you’ve gotta fight til then. The president was never on our side. Neither one.”

[traegorn]

This is the thing with the "I won't vote for Harris" supposed leftists.

None of them will tell you how allowing Trump to be elected helps.

Because they don't have an answer.

Because they don't really care about anything other than how they personally feel.

Actual leftism involves making pragmatic moves. The public will for revolution doesn't exist, and we live in a two party system. If you want to fight that system, great. There are things like ranked choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact we need to be fighting for. But those are fights that have to happen year round, at the state level, and not just in an election year.

And in the meanwhile, you vote defensively and strategically, in an attempt to save as many people as possible.

Saying you aren't voting for Harris isn't taking a stand against genocide. It's putting your head in the sand and admitting you care more about your own comfort than making a difference in the world.

Why aren't you getting involved in your local politics? Why aren't you running leftist candidates at a local level, so you can move them up in the system and eventually move the political discussion left. You want to know why politics have moved right? It's because the right wing has been doing that for decades.

Your refusal to participate won't save a single life.

It only means you're abandoning everyone else.

[all-socialism-is-democratic]

[iwieldthesword]

I need to talk about this because it's making me feel insane.

Last week, my white leftist goyisch friends sat me, a wholeass antizionist Jew, down for a "talk" because they "needed to check in about Palestine" and make sure "our values aligned before we hung out again". They apparently needed to "suss out" where I stood on Palestinian rights, despite having had several conversations about Palestine and them being some of my closest friends. They needed to check, to search for and uncover my true values, because I had said some "disturbing things" that had made them "suspicious".

Disturbing things included:

Supporting IfNotNow which is a "liberal zionist organization" because it normalizes Jewish heritage in the Levant

Not bringing Palestine up enough, despite them also not bringing it up (this was apparently a test)

Mentioning that the Houthi's flag talks about cursing all Jews

Saying Stalin was antisemitic because of the "all the paw-grihms"

...and apparently other things they wouldn't specify, but had been tracking for months.

To clarify, I am an antizionist Jew from three generations of antizionist Jews. I have been vocal in my support of Palestinian liberation and in my condemnation both of Israel's actions and its violent founding as a state, and of zionism in many of its forms. I am a regular donor to Palestinian and Jewish NGOs and advocate for Jewish antizionism in person, at temple, and online. I have been talking about Palestinian liberation before they could point to Gaza on a map. But they needed to make sure, they needed to "suss out", they needed to check. And it's notable that the majority of moments that made them suspicious of me were times where I talked about antisemitism: not about Palestinian liberation, not about Israeli decolonization, not about anything actually relevant to Palestine. It was talking about antisemitism that made them check to see if I was a cryptozionist.

One of the most pervasive and insidious forms of antisemitism is the idea that Jews are inherently untrustworthy and suspicious. You have to constantly be on guard, track what they say and do, "suss out" the real truth. You have to keep them in line and and watch them carefully because they're liars and sneaks, and if you're not looking closely they'll return to their real values (and drag you down with them). This is where the idea of "cryptozionist" comes from and what it's directly building off of: the inherent untrustworthiness of Jews and the need to check. Because no matter how close you become you can't actually trust them, and any upstanding gentile should make sure to avoid associating with Jews before "sussing out" their real allegiances and intentions. You have to make them turn out their pockets, just in case.

I'm the first and only Jew they actually were friends with; I know because they've told me (strangely proud of it in the way white Americans are proud of that kind of thing). They've asked me questions about Judaism and fawned over how beautiful and unique it was for me to be connected to my community and culture. Pre-October 7th, one of them had even mentioned being interested in coming to services at my temple. She still has my copy of our siddur. But now she needed to "check" before she could be seen with me in public. Which is what it was: it wasn't a "you're my friend and I need to give you some feedback because you're fucking up" kind of intervention (which is normal and important to have), it was a trial. It was a last chance for me to prove to them that I'm clean-enough that they could afford to risk being seen with me in public, just in case someone noticed them fraternizing with a hypothetical Enemy and their leftism was compromised. It was a test to make sure that I behave properly when required to, that I'd play along and do what I'm told and turn out my pockets if asked (because any refusal would validate the notion of having something to hide). And above all it was an opportunity for them to reaffirm their own cleanliness by putting my imagined immorality in its place.

I did what I needed to do: I smiled. I apologized. I "didn't know that". I "appreciated the feedback". I turned out my pockets because what else could I do? They'd decided who I was and what I believed, regardless of what I said or did, so there was no point in explaining that they were wrong about me. If I had told them they were being antisemitic, it would just have been proof that they were right. Caring about antisemitism is a dogwhistle in the spaces they've chosen: it's not a real form of oppression, it's a tactic for sneaky, lying Jews to weasel out of admitting their true alliances. There was nothing I could say.

Nothing's really changed for me. I'm going to continue my activism for Palestinian liberation rooted in my culture and my faith. Antizionism is still not antisemitism. But I got a reminder that many white goyisch leftists fundamentally just don't trust Jews, and that the activist spaces they're in not only exacerbate their antisemitism in an increasingly insular echo chamber, but also allow them to finally vent their internalized bigotry in a socially-acceptable way. In my former friends' eyes, what they did was activism—disavowing a Jew (and making me feel humiliated, scared, and unclean in the process) as a cathartic stand-in for doing fucking anything for actual Palestinian liberation—but for me it was a grief that I'll be feeling for a long time: not only over losing friends I loved and trusted, but also over my sense of belonging and security in leftist spaces.