#not a fascism thing

[i-know-honey]

Just to kind of establish: I have not at all abandoned Way Laboratories (despite my long silence) I just haven’t gotten the chance to finish the last thing I posted yet I promise Dr. Way will be back and I want to establish now that I do intended to keep Way Laboratories going - I don’t know what’s going to become of the Secretary character in the new lore we’re getting and I don’t know how thorny she may become, but whatever I have going on in my little universe remains completely separate from that as it was built and established long before we had any of this info. That may seem obvious but I think it bears saying because it kinda sorta looks like our dear secretary is gonna turn out to be an agent of fascism a bit and that may be. A bit awkward given the shameless nature of my universe. So just to say it we have fully diverged from any future cannon at this point there’s a fork in the story canon is going one way and I’m going the other. Okay? Okay 💗

[bananonbinary]

it somewhat frustrates me when people talk about biden funding genocide, because it's not not true, but it's also like. not really a biden-specific problem. the united states, as a whole, is very pro-genocide. i have never in my life seen a presidential candidate that thinks we should pull back from all the fucked up shit we do internationally.

that is bad. don't get me wrong. you should protest, and make your voices heard, and better yet, actually do things that support the people in danger, but talking about it like it's a unique wrong that biden has done really obfuscates the fact that he is one of the better politicians we've had in office. i'm not saying i'd be his best friend, i don't know or care about him as a person. but as a man doing a job, he IS doing it better than anyone else who could realistically hold the position. it's a low bar, but i'll be damned if we don't clear it just because people think small improvement doesn't matter.

[calcified-fluorited]

I really dislike the plot twist of Maddie being a traitor/ spy. It changes the framing of her character.

Before the twist, she seemed like a commentary on how even the biggest ray of sunshine could happily go along with fascism and feel good about it. But with the twist it feelsl ike we are not meant to see her as a bad guy for the fascism, but for her being a spy

which in turn shifts attention away from Piltover's crimes

[infiniteglitterfall]

I guess this might be why the UK seemed to go so antisemitic so quickly

I'm researching the 1947 pogroms in the UK. (Actually, I'm researching all the pogroms and massacres of Jews in the past 200 years. Which today led me to discover that there were pogroms in the UK in 1947.)

From an article on "The Postwar Revival of British Fascism," all emphasis mine:

Given the rising antisemitism and widespread ignorance about Zionism [in the UK in 1947], fascists were easily able to conflate Zionist paramilitary attacks with Judaism in their speeches, meaning British Jews came to be seen as complicit in violence in Palestine.

Bertrand Duke Pile, a key member of Hamm’s League, informed a cheering crowd that “the Jews have no right to Palestine and the Jews have no right to the power which they hold in this country of ours.” Denouncing Zionism as a way to introduce a wider domestic antisemitic stance was common to many speakers at fascist events and rallies. Fascists hid their ideology and ideological antisemitism behind the rhetorical facade of preaching against paramilitary violence in Palestine.

One of the league’s speakers called for retribution against “the Jews” for the death of British soldiers in Palestine. This was, he told his audience, hardly an antisemitic expression. “Is it antisemitism to denounce the murderers of your own flesh and blood in Palestine?” he asked his audience. Many audience members, fascist or not, may well have felt the speaker had a point. ...[The photo of two British sergeants hanged by the Irgun in retaliation for the Brits hanging three of their members] promptly made numerous appearances at fascist meetings, often attached to the speaker’s platform. In at least one meeting, several British soldiers on leave from serving in Palestine attended Hamm’s speech, giving further legitimacy to his remarks. And with soldiers and policemen in Palestine showing increasing signs of overt antisemitism as a result of their experiences, the director of public prosecutions warned that the fascists might receive a steady stream of new recruits.

MI5, the U.K. domestic security service, noted with some alarm that “as a general rule, the crowd is now sympathetic and even spontaneously enthusiastic.” Opposition, it was noted in the same Home Office Bulletin of 1947, “is only met when there is an organized group of Jews or Communists in the audience.”

The major opposition came from the 43 Group, formed by the British-Jewish ex-paratrooper Gerry Flamberg and his friends in September 1946 to fight the fascists using the only language they felt fascists understood — violence. The group disrupted fascist meetings for two purposes: to get them shut down by the police for disorder, and to discourage attendance in the future by doling out beatings with fists and blunt instruments. By the summer of 1947, the group had around 500 active members who took part in such activities. Among these was a young hairdresser by the name of Vidal Sassoon, who would often turn up armed with his hairdressing scissors.

The 43 Group had considerable success with these actions, but public anger was spreading faster than they could counter the hate that accompanied it. The deaths of Martin and Paice had touched a nerve with the populace. On Aug. 1, 1947, the beginning of the bank holiday weekend and two days after the deaths of the sergeants, anti-Jewish rioting began in Liverpool. The violence lasted for five days. Across the country, the scene was repeated: London, Manchester, Hull, Brighton and Glasgow all saw widespread violence. Isolated instances were also recorded in Plymouth, Birmingham, Cardiff, Swansea, Newcastle and Davenport. Elsewhere, antisemitic graffiti and threatening phone calls to Jewish places of worship stood in for physical violence. Jewish-owned shops had their windows smashed, Jewish homes were targeted, an attempt was made to burn down Liverpool Crown Street Synagogue while a wooden synagogue in Glasgow was set alight. In a handful of cases, individuals were personally intimidated or assaulted. A Jewish man was threatened with a pistol in Northampton and an empty mine was placed in a Jewish-owned tailor shop in Davenport.

And an important addendum:

I've read a whole bunch of articles about the pogroms in Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Eccles, Glasgow, etc.

Not one of them has mentioned that the Irgun, though clearly a terrorist group, was formed in response to 18 years of openly antisemitic terrorism, including multiple incredibly violent massacres. Or that it consistently acted in response to the murders of Jewish civilians, not on the offensive. Or that at this point, militant Arab Nationalist groups with volunteers and arms from the Arab League countries had been attacking Jewish and mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods for months.

I just think the "Jewish militants had been attacking the British occupiers" angle is incredibly Anglocentric.

Yeah, they were attacking the British occupiers. But also, that's barely the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone involved hated the Brits at this point. If only al-Husseini and his ilk had hated the Brits more than they hated the Jews, Britain could at least have united them by giving them a common enemy.

[itscuntingseason]

there are fascists, 'free market' liberals, kids who call you homophobic slurs and literal race supremacists in disco elysium, and yet, the worst character to talk to is this fucking guy.

[casstelli]

do usamerican leftists think that if they don’t vote the government will spontaneously collapse to make way for their socialist utopia

[catboymoments]

THIS IS SO?? I’ve blocked them already but ohhhhh my god

“Why are you being so defensive? I only came at you with an incredibly accusatory and inflammatory statement!” PLEASE GO BACK TO TIKTOK JESUS CHRIST

[just-antithings]

On the porn thing, I know there's debate on the validity of "porn addiction", and how it very much gets misapplied and over-used by Christo-fash types and puritans.

As often as it is misapplied I don't feel comfortable saying it's "not a real thing" since technically literally anything could be an "addiction" if it disrupts your ability to function on a day-to-day basis and, important part people like to leave out, actually causes harm or distress TO the person with the addiction.

But these people act like if you see a boobie in a film and don't immediately fall over and start rolling around and sobbing and throwing up then you're a "porn addict".

Calling someone a "porn addict" cause they sometimes watch porn to get off is like calling someone an alcoholic cause they like to have a beer after work. (Although it wouldn't surprise me if they did that too.)

👆👆👆👆

[snakes-of-the-undercity]

Potentially deep fried take -

Maddie (our adorable pro-martial law ginger) is essentially just topside powder. She’s a girl who’s grown up around violence but in such a way that it seems almost idealistic as she hasn’t seen the real horrors of it. Her idol(s) are viewed as leader figures in regard to her country and her own ‘family’ (Cait/Ambessa & Vi in Maddies case and Vander/Sev & Vi for powder)

Her willingness to commit acts of violence for approval and/or what she perceives as ‘justice’ are also very similar to Powder.

She’s written as disarmingly sweet but also rather ignorant, as is Powder (though for different reasons; Maddies ignorance is to the undercity and the world whereas Powder was ignorant to the intentions and rules of others, both of which has directly or indirectly contributed to major conflicts in the story)

They both think themselves capable of more than they are, as evidenced by Powder killing her entire family ‘only trying to help’ (god I hate that line it makes me want to scream) and Maddie attempting to take on Shimmer knights and joining Caits task force even though she seems to be a new recruit with little remarkable skill.

Maddie also, like Powder, doesn’t seem to care about large-scale problems and more so on what those closest to her think and approve of.

And idk I’m just hung up on the whole ‘idealizing violence without a proper understanding of it because those they look up too have had to use it’ thing ig

[cowpokezuko]

How it feels trying to convince people to watch Torchwood

[embroid-away]

What If: Captain America Were Revived Today? #44 (April 1983) by Peter B. Gillis and Sal Buscema; Original Image by John Romita Sr.

In this What If? Marvel tale, Captain America is unfrozen in 1983 rather than the 1960s. Without the leadership of Steve Rogers, The Avengers disband. Meanwhile, a Captain America imposter, who calls himself a "real American," has decided to use his newfound influential media status to publicly support a National Identity Card to "deal with illegal aliens,” to suggest that members of civil rights groups "ought to think seriously as to whether or not their actions contribute to the strengthening of communist enemies," and declare that if those groups tear the country apart with protests, martial law is justified "for the peace to find a solution.”

Neighborhoods with large black populations (e.g., Harlem) are walled off and forced into poverty, and one character even mentions that Jewish people are being “put back into camps.” The right-wing politicians make sure that things like this aren’t shown on television, keeping the majority of the American public ignorant of the horrors committed with their indifferent support. The public are simultaneously told that with some sacrifices, America can be free once again. The fake Captain America confronts a group of peaceful protestors, and he is shot by a sniper (in what reads like an inside job), allowing the police to have “reason” to attack the protestors. The imposter does not die and instead uses the attack to provide more reason for the violent crackdown against protesting groups.

When the true Captain America is unfrozen, he is horrified to see what America has become, especially with his emblem stamped all over it. He immediately seeks out the resistance forces (who clearly represent the Black Panther Party) and joins their cause, stating that "the wrongs [he's] seen will take much more than one man to right -- but [he's] got a name to clear, a costume to unsoil-- and a country to die for!!"

By the time Steve joins them, the resistance only has one chance left to stop the American downfall: a political convention where the "America First" party will be able to secure its support to sweep the national elections and allow them "to return America to the pure and great nation [the] forefathers envisioned."

The resistance strikes just as the convention begins. The Captain America imposter is no match in a fight against the true Captain America -- especially against a Steve Rogers who's fucking pissed. ("Get up so I can knock you down!!")

With the imposter knocked unconscious, Captain America addresses the convention crowd, warning that an America that does not represent all its people does not deserve to exist at all; that liberty can be "as easily snuffed out [in America] as in Nazi Germany" and "as a people, we are no different from them."

The crowd realizes that the man speaking before them is the true Captain America and cheers. Captain America holds his hand up and silences them, stating that he will not allow them the chance to simply replace one idol with another. He alone can’t undo the horrible damage, and he pleads that there’s still a chance for the people to “find America once again.”

Fascism doesn’t change its tune, just its singers.

A 2021 Marvel Trumps Hate ( @marveltrumpshate ) commission, completed on 22-count aida cloth with embroidery floss and watercolors on a 9" diameter bamboo hoop.

[rochenn]

One of my favorite pastimes is thinking about how Dooku's politics would change if Sidious vanished. Like what type of authoritarian would he become without his Master breathing down his neck and whispering plans in his ear. I'm under zero illusions that Clone Wars era Dooku would turn into some sort of woke commie if he were suddenly Sidious-free, probably quite the opposite, but I'd love to see how much of his original idealism survived in that shriveled soul of his anyway. (btw I'm only referencing the movies and shows he appeared in, idc what certain books might have to say about this topic)

[handweavers]

"Increasingly, it seems, we need the language of darkness and abyss and emptiness; nothing else is strong enough to help us address or respond to the acute and encompassing losses that mark the world in which we are currently living. Still, it is not easy to describe the effects of such darkness upon persons or communities, especially the deepening sense of psychological and spiritual precariousness that seems to be such a crucial part of this experience. Sometimes this takes the form of an inchoate sense of absence or affliction or displacement, an emptying out of meaning and the very possibility of meaning; or a sense of utter bewilderment, an experience Fanny Howe has described as "an enchantment that follows a complete collapse of reference and reconcilability." Timothy Morton speaks of an "elemental anxiety" or an "existential Ganzfeld effect" as becoming increasingly critical elements of contemporary experience. This idea draws upon the "visual experience that comes upon one during a blizzard," and creates an effect that "renders here and there, up and down, foreground and background quite meaningless." There is, Morton suggests, a growing sense that we are drifting, with almost no coherent frame of reference, through a great immensity.

[...]

Where do you end up when all reference and reconcilability has collapsed, when you find yourself dis-languaged, unable to give a voice to your loss? When you suddenly find yourself working at the very edge of language to give voice, haltingly, in fragments, to your experience? Still, it should not be imagined that these deeply personal experiences are or ever can be separated from the larger, collective losses that sweep over us. At the heart of the idea of the common life is an ethical-spiritual commitment to listen to the voices of those whose losses too often escape our attention altogether, and to ask what it will mean to honour those voices and to incorporate them into a vision of the whole."

- "The Insurmountable Darkness of Love" (2022) Douglas E Christie

[uncanny-tranny]

At this point, talks about "mutilated bodies" tell me everything I need to know about people's politics. I truly don't believe you can combine the idea of mutilated or degenerate bodies with anything even slightly progressive in terms of autonomy. If you believe yourself to be progressive or anything left of an unapologetic fascist, you frankly cannot truly entertain the idea that some bodies and people are inherently mutilated or degenerate. It is an inherently fascist idea.

[fumifooms]

"It was something I could fix" Sevika Jinx brotp sooo real i need this i need them I need the "I’m gonna exterminate the family i have left" to include Sevika because of an accident during battle I want the girl Sevika always called a jinx to jinx her and for her to not even be mad, just tough as nails with even tougher love even in her dying breath.

[hylialeia]

I get that everyone's feeling a lot of feelings right now but one thing is certain and that is that you could not pay me to blame Palestinians for this. even if Harris had lost only because of her stance on Gaza (which she didn't and honestly the mere suggestion that she did is laughable, based on the statistics), both US candidates openly campaigned with pro-genocide stances and promises to gleefully advance the USAmerican war machine. this wasn't a "leftist tantrum over an imperfect candidate", this was a horrifying and genuinely sickening choice. I have never known what it would feel like to have to vote for someone who enabled the genocide of my people, friends, and family, and I absolutely fucking refuse to hate those who do.