#or the theory is low key racist

[confessionsofanarcheologist]

Something I’ve noticed about archeology in America is that the companies where I am at seem so desperate for workers.

You don’t even have to be qualified, they will train you. Even if you lie and say you’re qualified to do analysis sometimes they won’t check to ensure you are. It’s terrifying.

We only get one chance to record everything properly. Let’s get it done right. Hired qualified people please.

People are qualified through education, experience, or both.

[gigigazelleloves]

Ok now that I've had time to process the first episode and read some post-episode 1 articles, I have some theories about where the storyline is going for each character in season 8a.

Athena

I have a strong feeling that we're going to have a lot of Athena focus this season. I think it's going to contrast the heavy Bobby focus we got last season. I feel like this trial is going to not be just for the 3-parter premier but instead for the entire part of season 8a. We also have the great B plot of Bathena house hunting and seeing in this first episode how they have different tastes, I have a feeling we'll have some lighthearted moments for Bathena this whole season.

Bobby

Bobby is totally going to return as Gerrard might have kicked the bucket or gotten permanently injured. But I also have a feeling we will be seeing more of the "hotshots" actors appearing at Bathena's doorstep because Bobby can't help but adopt strays. I feel like Bobby is also going to feel some guilt about the whole fiasco that happened last season such as leaving the firehouse and also dealing with his house burning down as I feel like those things have still not been emotionally resolved. Overall though hoping that Bobby has a more lighthearted season.

Chim (and Maddie)

I know that everyone is manifesting that Chim and Maddie are going to decide to have another child but I have a feeling that Chim and Maddie might be forced to adopt Mara as I feel like something wonky is going to happen with Henren's trial. However I have a feeling they are not going to be a main focus until season 8b.

Hen (and Karen)

Basically the same thing I said for Chim and Maddie and that this who Mara and Councilwoman Ortiz. I also feel like that storyline will also transfer over into season 8b.

Buck (and Tommy)

Buck and Tommy is where I feel like we'll see the main plot come in for season 8a. From interviews Oliver has stated that Tommy and Buck are in the honeymoon of their new found relationship. But Oliver has stated that there are some uncomfortable truths they're going to have to face. I think from what he said it could be one of three things (realistically). 1. Tommy's racist past, as Chim is Buck's brother-in-law and Buck is going to maybe struggle to wrap his head around Tommy's past actions 2. It's going to be related to Tommy's father who if is anything like Gerrard is going to cause some havoc in the relationship directly or indirectly. I also think there could be a lot of insecurity with Buck feeling like Tommy is hiding things from him in the relationship which has happened before in his past relationships. 3. I think that Buck will have panic that he's doing something wrong and do a full Buck and avoid Tommy until he talks to someone about it (hopefully someone who is apart of the community like Hen or Josh). I feel like this could address the issue of maybe Buck feeling like he's late to the party when it comes to discovering his sexuality. I feel like it can also resolve the issue Buck has had when it comes to his relationship issues. I think overall this arc can show him becoming more comfortable and confident with his sexuality, solve his past relationship issues, and maybe establish him and Tommy as a solid couple.

Eddie (and Christopher)

All in going to say is I think Eddie is either going to find himself inside of a confession room or inside a therapy room. I hope they don't give him a new love interest as that would low key ruin his arc, I just want to see him become more secure with himself. I have my doubts though about him getting Chris back before the end of season 8a, but there is a slim chance it could happen. I just need him to figure himself out before he gets his kid back. I hope we see more Chris though in season 9, cause I doubt we will this season.

Overall I'm excited for all these arcs but honestly I'll be happy if there's just more Bathena 😝

[darkfire359]

Edward Teach and the Myth of the Perfect Victim

After writing my previous post, I realized that a bunch of the stuff I said applies to Ed too.

In particular, I saw a lot of takes (before many of the S2 spoilers started coming out) that said things like "Ed is not going to be uncontrollably angry and violent in the way some fans have theorized about" or "the theory that Ed will go off the rails and Izzy will be terrified of him is racist." I saw other takes that insisted on things like "Ed knows his limits (for drinking) and can handle the consequences of his actions." Basically, a lot of other Ed fans seemed to insist that S2 Ed would be behaving fairly reasonably, without being crazily violent and unhinged and self-destructive.

And I was kind of worried about these Ed fans. Because to me, it seemed like we totally were going to get a very off-the-rails Ed in S2... which, given the clip today and the reviews that got released, seems extremely likely. And if some of these people were insisting that portrayals of Ed like that were awful and unsupportable by them...

Well, the reality is that sometimes, your fav turns out to be the bad guy, at least situationally. And this is okay! Characters don't need to be morally pure for you to love them. They can have messy trauma responses and unhealthy habits, and they can just overall set a bad example for everyone. You can like them without endorsing their actions.

Ed is still traumatized by his childhood and crumbling under the expectations of people around him. He's still heartbroken, devastated, and low-key (or maybe high-key) suicidal. We'll probably still see him cry, and we'll certainly still see him feeling like an unlovable monster.

He still deserves sympathy for all that. Ed is clearly going to end up hurting Izzy and probably many other members of his crew, and that suffering is real and painful—but so is Ed's. You don't have to excuse Ed's actions to acknowledge that and feel for him. As someone who has previously celebrated Ed's moral grayness, I say that Edward Teach still deserves a hug!

[gaywatch]

I'm a little hopeful

https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung-rev2&sca_esv=7f167d0aab507d88&sxsrf=ADLYWIIIRhzybBMuAdKtY7snH4RokBfkqg:1730792238584&q=selzer+polling&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjO-L3E18SJAxXIEFkFHY1rK6wQBSgAegQICRAB&biw=412&bih=726&dpr=2.63

I definitely have good reasons for cautious optimism, including the Iowa poll, but like everyone else who experienced 2016 up close polls will always be the very last thing we put any stock in. The good news is that in every major election since you can't escape the idea of not letting any polls lull you into complacency, which is another reason I'm cautiously optimistic. You could tell Democrats that Harris is winning by ten points in all fifty states and we'd still be like 'NO COMPLACENCY GO VOTE.' We got absolutely bitchslapped out of the idea that anything is a foregone conclusion, and anything that results in more engagement is a win for us.

Other reasons I'm cautiously optimistic:

-Record voter turnout in Texas. Not because I think Texas will flip this year (if it ever does I'll cry, it's my home state) but because any news of record voter turnout, especially after 2020 raised the bar, is a good sign.

-Donald has never won the popular vote, and repeating the run of swing state wins he pulled off to take the electoral college in 2016 would be extremely difficult (and partially dependent on low voter turnout).

-In 2016 Donald ran in opposition to a two term president, and neither party has won the White House three elections in a row in 74 years. That's not the case in this election.

-Yes, the idea that 'we couldn't even get a white woman into office, why would we think a woman of color was possible' holds some merit thanks to the double-barrel of sexism and racism. However, when times get this dire the odds of dramatic leaps forward aren't as low as you think. If anything it encourages them, imo.

-Donald has a choke hold on his base, but he hasn't exactly been winning new people over by leaps and bounds or wooing Democrats to his side. Each side is pretty galvanized, and we outnumber them.

-Meanwhile, the energy and excitement around Harris is visible, palpable, and shocked out of complacency. That's why attempts to discourage voting have been so aggressive--when we vote, we go blue, and overall turnout jumped like eight points from 2016 to 2020.

-Biden ran a very good campaign in 2020, they got the job done in a huge way and all of that support has been thrown behind Harris and then some.

-Certain key groups and figures have made their support for Harris known. Palestinians, Bernie Sanders (who still carries a lot of progressive sway), etc have all come out in support of Harris, which will speak to a lot of hesitant voters.

-To be honest--and yes I'm knocking on wood before and after I type this--the energy around Harris reminds me of the energy around Obama in '08 way more than the energy around Clinton in '16 or even Biden in '20. Do not forget the overwhelming shift Democrats felt the second Biden dropped out. That shit was magical.

-Donald's camp was dumb and racist enough to piss off Puerto Ricans mere days before the election which is like...lol.

-The pro-choice movement is no fucking joke.

And as a general reminder: A ton of very professional people are gonna talk about how close this race is all day today, and that's gonna be anxiety inducing. But it's all conjecture based on polling. It's all because they need something to talk about to fill the hours. It's all theory. The truth is nobody knows much of anything until the results come in. The phrase of the day is 'turnout, not polling.'

Turnout. Not polling.

[delta-queerdrant]

how do you solve a problem like Chakotay? (Tattoo, s2 e9)

I have been away from this space for a number of boring reasons (including, to be transparent, cheating on Janeway with my space cop boyfriend Odo. Why do the good girls go for the lawful neutral boys?)

But also, Tattoo! Yikes on bikes! When I first realized I’d be reviewing this episode, I felt a powerful impulse to back away slowly, as if from wasps. My aversion came from a place of contempt for this episode, probably the low point of the imaginative failure that is Chakotay. At the same time, I was not sure what to do with my anger. It’s easy for white people to become a little too enamored with our own hot takes; I am ill-equipped to speak to the impact of a narrative that’s racist, anti-Indigenous storytelling all the way down.

I imagined I’d compile a reading list by Indigenous writers who could talk with authority about “Tattoo.” The reading list has become a comfortable rhetorical move for white cultural critics, a stay in our lane impulse. A reading list attempts to re-center marginalized voices, though it’s rarely a call to action (unless that action is read books). In this case, the reading list was elusive. I couldn’t find much non-paywalled content discussing this episode at length, with the exception of this illuminating review by comics artist Rob Schmidt. 

What does it mean to do low stakes cultural criticism on Tumblr dot com? If this is a quiet space for playful self-reflection about my Television Feelings, then I think we can agree that nobody particularly needs my thoughts on the impact of “Tattoo,” or the Kazon, or any of the other ill-conceived ways that Star Trek has handled race. I will continue to get mad about these artistic choices, but my anger is not load-bearing. You can’t build anything with it.

The best I can probably do here, and throughout these reviews, is to excavate the contours of my own relationship with science fiction. I think white people have quite a lot we need to say about whiteness, and our penchant for racist science fiction, and how we could perhaps redirect our creative impulses elsewhere. 

To summarize the episode - Chakotay visits a Delta Quadrant moon and recognizes a symbol that reminds him of a childhood visit to his people’s ancestral home on Earth. As a young man, nonconformist Chakotay wasn’t much interested in his ancestors’ traditional lifeways, and even now, he’s agnostic about some of their religious beliefs. Nearby, a planet has flora and fauna similar to the Earth rainforest Chakotay remembers visiting. When he’s separated from the away team, he encounters aliens who can “control the elements of nature” and seem to share his tribe’s culture.

In a block of decidedly clunky exposition, we learn that these aliens visited hunter-gatherers on Earth millennia ago. The early humans are described as having “no spoken language, no culture, except the use of fire and stone weapons.” Okay then! The aliens gave them “an inheritance, a genetic bonding so they might thrive and protect your world.” The genes motivated the hunter gatherers to travel to the Americas, where they passed down memories of the aliens, who became key figures in Chakotay’s people’s religion. Chakotay now understands himself, his father, and the aliens as people called to “honor the land” and defend it.

(Meanwhile, the Doctor programs himself to experience a respiratory illness and proceeds to have what I believe is known in the vernacular as a “man-flu.” It’s very silly.)

If “Tattoo” was well received, I think it was because of the emotional heft of this episode, which figures Chakotay as the diaspora kid who rediscovers his roots and connects with his father’s memory. I would have liked an episode that fully explored what it means to be Indigenous and diasporic, and how Chakotay’s identity informed his decision to join the Maquis.

This is not really the episode we got. Instead “Tattoo,” in the vein of white supremacist conspiracy theory tome Chariot of the Gods, imagines that Indigenous people are magical space boys whose religion and culture are gifts from aliens. Now, Captain Planet-like, they have been tasked to protect their homelands, conveniently letting the rest of us off the hook. 

“Tattoo” erases the truth and specificity of Indigenous cultures and origins—of people who were and are energized by their own intelligence and agency, and who have actively maintained specific and rooted ways of being in the world despite 500 years of material and cultural genocide. It doesn’t help that the prehistory depicted in the episode is utterly confused. The ancestors described in this episode are apparently early humans, long before the migration into the Americas, but the timeline is so muddled that the episode resolves into a narrative of “Indigenous people require alien intervention in order to have a culture.”

I think “Tattoo” is really a white fantasy, because white people would like nothing better than to be magical racialized space boys. To be chosen, to be connected at once to a homeland and a cosmic other, satisfies a hunger born of our collective imaginations. White people don’t really care who built our sacred sites, if our culture heroes are exploded in favor of New Age nonsense, because our legitimacy as people with a history and a destiny is nevertheless secure. (Though there are probably limits to our popular embrace of the New Age - I can’t imagine a Star Trek where Jesus is the one receiving genetic messages from aliens.)

To complicate my analysis, I'll note that a white Jewish author wrote the teleplay for “Tattoo,” and in the episode’s Wikipedia page, Robert Beltran says “Tattoo” resonated with his experience of feeling disconnected from his Latino heritage. There is a story about diaspora here, however clumsily executed. As a person of Jewish ancestry, I’m not surprised that creators from diaspora communities turn to speculative fiction to recreate lost pasts for marginalized characters. It’s easy to lose your history, and this loss is compounded in a world where whiteness swallows difference.

Star Trek has always had a race problem. In my twenties, I began to learn about the antecedents of the science fiction and fantasy genres - adventure fiction and Westerns, genres steeped in ideologies of Rule Britannia and manifest destiny. If Star Trek was originally pitched as “Wagon Train to the Stars,” then perhaps the aliens have always been “Indians.” But Star Trek also has a progressive streak that has lent itself to diverse casting. What does it mean when the same universe contains allegories for minorities and real-world minorities?

I have to admit I'm a sucker for a good science fiction allegory. As a kid from a mixed-faith background, I loved watching Worf negotiate his Klingon ancestry and human upbringing. (I only realized as an adult that the Rozhenkos are Jewish coded!) I'm not saying that Worf is great or perfect representation of multicultural identity, but there is something about allegory that can powerfully voice our lived experiences. (The trans allegory in the recent Nimona film adaptation is an exceptional example of this.)

As best as I can tell, the trick to writing fictional "races" and real racialized characters is one and the same - handling the cultures you're depicting with care, eschewing biased stereotypes in favor of nuanced, complex, informed worldbuilding. The showrunners of Voyager did not exercise care.

I want a Star Trek in which the characters feel rooted in real cultures, whether they’re alien or human. I want Harry Kim to have a cultural identity, and I want Chakotay to belong to a real-world Indigenous community. If science fiction is about curiosity, then I want white writers and showrunners who are genuinely curious about the stories they don’t have the expertise to tell—and who are willing to give space to those who do.

1/5 prize Vulcan orchids.

[pynkhues]

In response to the post on ship popularity, as a devils minion fan who isn’t into a lot of the fandom takes and fanfic (not hating, it’s just not for me) I 100% agree these characters are constantly being defanged. The irony, for me, is the reason I like DM in the first place is the horror. It’s messy and problematic and, when all of that is leaned into, it’s so much fun. Armand is so engaging in the 70s flashback because he’s simultaneously incredibly powerful and incredibly insecure and he is very much making it everyone’s problem (but mostly Daniel’s haha). It’s just not as effective if he isn’t actually threatening when torturing this rando over whether or not he’s boring.

I think sometimes it’s hard for fandom to balance the idea that a character can be both a victim and an abuser across different relationships. Which is rough for this show because that’s at least half the characters lol.

I also have a private theory that Louis ships are just not super popular for some reason which kills me because I also love Loumand (extra toxic edition where everyone makes each other miserable but no one will ever leave) and DanLou (or whatever the ship name is), both past and present, because it’s entertaining as hell and low key kind of chill relative to other dynamics? Like it’s not a great big love affair or anything but they get each other, you know? Like it’s the same weird brand of humor.

(x)

I totally agree with you on all counts, especially the horror elements of Armand and Daniel being what makes them so appealing, haha.

And yeah, I mean, @hypermania actually touched on it in her reblog of my post, but I agree with her take that there's a racist sentiment in fandom that Blackness is harder for fan creators to ignore in both writing fic and meta than other races are (I mean, god, look at a cultural juggernaut like Bridgerton where there is almost five times as many Anthony x Kate fics as there are Daphne x Simon - - I think there are other elements at play there too [like, I've written Anthony x Kate, but probably wouldn't ever write Daphne x Simon], but the sheer difference in quantity especially given Daphne x Simon's initial popularity is....telling to me). I think that contributes to (white) people feeling Armand's easier to write (or even that they have more quote-unquote 'permission' to write him in whatever way they want to).

[gaykarstaagforever]

...Who the hell would the soft-conservative Democrats who control the party even replace Biden with, assuming they want to? What nationally-known "slightly left of center" political personality do they even have that doesn't immediately piss off at least half the country? I'll wait for someone to name one.

Trump appeals to bored independents if only because he's loud and is as stupid and angry about everything as many Americans are. He has enough draw to squeeze out at least an Electoral College victory.

Who do the Democrats have? Hillary Clinton? Kamala Harris? AOC? Biden's only strength was how inoffensive he was. Everyone else on that list draws ire, even if it's racist stupid ire based on conspiracy theories.

And name a Democrat governor or senator anyone would give a shit about, who hasn't alienated half of their own party with blanket support for Israel or being in favor of social media bans. Again, Biden has enough problems with this, but he is also very low-key about it so people can justify overlooking it.

Democrats would need a big personality with mass appeal for a hail-mary like this, like The Rock or Tom Hanks or Taylor Swift. And then whoever might agree knows they're going up against a screaming toddler who controls the judiciary. This is why no one substantial stepped up to take the job besides Sleepy Uncle Joe in the first place.

Joe sucks and he is literally the BEST candidate they have. It's a pretty hopeless situation.

[considerourknowledge]

GOP Celebrates Juneteenth by Not Recognizing Juneteenth

Americans have been celebrating Juneteenth this weekend, the third year since the holiday was given federal status by President Biden in 2021. The date commemorates the fall of slavery in Galveston, Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863 to free enslaved Black people held in the Confederacy. Major Republican leaders have been spending the past few days saying little to nothing about the holiday, including presidential candidates, Donald “Good People on Both Sides” Trump and Ron “No Critical Race Theory” DeSantis. Both men said nothing about the holiday in appearances or on social media, and instead focused on pandering to their white supremacist followers with their white grievance politics. The low-key approach to Juneteenth may reflect the fact that the holiday is somewhat controversial for the racists that now dominate the GOP voting bloc.

[sofakinghillarous]

I really need to share my horrendous dating story:

I'd been talking to this guy for about a week or so and we were getting on incredible well so, we decided to meet up. When we met it was really nice and we were playing some arcade games and then went onto play some pool. Everything was lovely and we met up a couple of times after which went really well and I was enjoying getting to know him. One night we were chatting on the phone.

Now to note this guy was Vegan, i am not Vegan, which I have no issue with but is key to the story.

So we started talking about conspiracy theories and laughing about how silly some of them are when he said he wouldn't let his daughter alone in a restroom with a trans person. I asked him why and he said that he didn't know what they would do to his daughter. (Not agreeing with his point here but was interested as to what his argument would be) I then asked if he would let his daughter alone in the bathroom with a man and he said no.

I thought this would be a good idea to bring up the man vs bear argument and ask if he would rather his daughter be alone in a woods with a man or with a bear and he said a man as a bear would kill her. I argued that the man could do alot worse to his daughter and still kill her than a bear and he completely disagreed and still picked the bear.

I said that he was contradicting himself as he wouldn't let his daughter alone in the bathroom with a man then why is the woods any different. He argued that it was a small percentage of men who were like that whereas it was a high percentage of bears so she would more likely get attack by the bear.

I then tried to explain to him that it was actually a low percentage of bears that would attack and that a higher percentage of men would actually try something with his daughter so she would probably be in more danger. I also tried to explain so other facts regarding men and the fact he was more likely to be attack by a man that a women and shared some quite personal stories regarding my life and what I had been through with men.

He then went into this 30 minute rant about how my opinion didn't actually matter as I ate meat and he didn't. He stated that I was so upset about what happened with women but was completely blind to the fact regarding what happens to meat in the meat industry. He then went on to say the BLM movement also didn't matter as they all ate meat and the worse thing you can be in this world is a heterosexual white man.

After he had finished ranting at me for what felt like eternity he put the phone down and I was physically shaking as I couldn't believe what had happen. This guy, who seemed like the most loveliest gentleman and I saw some potential in, completely switched and became a completely different person within the matter of seconds.

I wanted to share this as I believe I am probably not the only women who has been through this experience. It is okay to have opinions and different views than someone you are dating however if their views are sexist, homophonic or racist don't be afraid to walk away. You are worth so much more than that.

[xenofact]

Are They Even Trying Anymore?

After the Key Bridge Disaster and the April 8th 2024 eclipse, I listened to several podcasts on conspiracy theories. A strange consistency emerged that I had also witnessed - it seemed people weren’t really trying to craft conspiracy theories.

Oh there was the usual stuff. The rapture and chemtrails, cyberattacks and secret plots. But it was all things we’d heard before. Some of it, especially the eclipse conspiracy theories seemed laughable like some extremely predictable astronomical event was a magical/occult/divine arrangement that was important for some reason. It was lukewarm and recycled.

There was bigotry and biases, of course, especially in the Key Bridge Disaster. Plenty of racist crap was spewed online about various people and the city of Baltimore. It was no different than any of the racism and bigotry the day before, just shifted around a bit. It was racists being racists because of racism.

Finally, there was a lack of coherence to the conspiracy theories. There wasn’t any grand overarching plan or narrative - even “God” apparently didn’t have one. There was no chart with red string, no colorful complex graphic explaining it all circulating online. It was so low effort.

A lot of what I saw, and what the podcasts I followed saw, seemed to be people essentially tossing out old ideas and biases and calling it a day - or mentioning disconnected points and saying, essentially, “suspicious?” Maybe both if you got some really ambitious person with an online handle like “EagleFlightPatriotAlpha1776” and AN AI avatar with ten-pack abs and thirteen total fingers.

But man, the usual suspects and newcomers to stringing together bullshit weren’t trying. Maybe they were tired, maybe it was just the confluence of events and non-events, but I mean I had expectations. However I wonder.

Is conspiracy theory culture tapped out in America? I mean we’ve done it all, from space super-soldiers fighting reptoids (which are just anti-semetic tropes) to gigantic financial and political conspiracies (which are just anti-semetic tropes). Maybe people are out of ideas, maybe we’ve hit a kind of saturation.

Perhaps people are ALL trying to do the old trick of spewing random things and seeing what audiences want. Maybe everyone wants to get hits by low effort, give in to audience capture, and do whatever. Maybe we’re hitting even more widespread, but lazy grift.

Could it be that current news (Trump, Israel, and Ukraine as of this writing) has sucked all the oxygen out of the room? Has reality occupied too much time of people’s minds?

Were these events just too reality-based to get a good theory going?

Or maybe we’re all just worn out from continuous crap and it’s even hit people who are Too Online.

I mean I’d be glad if Conspiracy Culture is somehow worn out, winding down, and maybe falling apart. Maybe we can get some reality in there But I suppose I have to know what’s going on, just in case.

Which I guess makes me a bit like a Conspiracy Theorist.

- Xenofact

[livininnovember]

!

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Red Scorpion (Zito, 1988)

This is probably most notable for being produced by right wing lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff, with funding from a think tank run by the South African apartheid government. So obviously this is gonna have some pretty bad politics, and in depicting the Angolan Civil War, it conveniently leaves out the fact that the anticommunist rebels are backed by the apartheid regime. This probably makes it more palatable to watch now and may have made it less offensive as propaganda back in the day, but is also kind of a pussy ass move when it comes down to it. You can compare this to The Wild Geese, which was also produced in South Africa under the apartheid regime, and that movie at least owns up to having no morals, outside of one bizarre scene in which an inveterate racist is cured of his hatred. (It's a guilty pleasure, please don't judge. Hilariously, both actors in the aforementioned scene took their roles because they expected a serious message movie about conflict in the African continent.)

The movie's staunch anticommunist viewpoint is conveyed not just through Soviet atrocities committed against the rebels, but foregrounded by the reporter played by M. Emmet Walsh. Now, if I were an American journalist imprisoned while reporting from behind enemy lines, I would likely not call my captors a bunch of Commie pigs right to their faces. I would also likely not go up to the guy in the corner of the cell who was twice my size and call him a piece of shit with zero provocation. One can admire in theory that he has the courage of his convictions, but one would also find it hard to believe that a character this incapable of keeping his yap shut managed to survive this long in a war zone. Of course, Walsh is always fun to watch, even if he rattles off his lines at a rate that suggests he was trying to wrap up filming ahead of schedule. He provides the bulk of comic relief: examples include his attempt to spread American values to Angola by blasting Little Richard during a truck chase, and the bemused reaction that meets one of his many tirades. "He is a very emotional man."

That line is delivered in perfect deadpan by Dolph Lundgren, who plays a Rambo-like Spetznaz officer who defects to the rebels out of the goodness of his heart. The movie takes a good deal of inspiration from the Rambo series, particularly the early jail and truck chase scenes pulled from First Blood, but I think the movie makes a good case for Lundgren's particular brand of low key charisma. While cast for his He-Man stature, Lundgren manages to convey some level of vulnerability and uncertainty, and often relies on the help of his allies. So there is a level of challenge for him in the proceedings, meaning that this works better as an action movie than earlier Joseph Zito efforts like Missing in Action, where Chuck Norris sneaks up without cover on Viet Cong who never bother to turn their heads, and Invasion U.S.A., with its endless scenes of innocent civilians being gunned down and Norris blowing away hordes of Cuban invaders with ease. While both stars are low key, you can see how Lundgren invites some empathy while Norris remains completely wooden in these films. And while Lundgren's physique brings to mind certain other stars from the decade, he one ups them in one respect. Arnie and Sly usually showed off only their torsos. Dolph wears cutoffs, baring his well sculpted gams for the entire third act.

This also has the kind of clean, sturdy action that seemed so common in the '80s but is much rarer now, and benefits from the appealingly harsh African desert milieu. And the cinematography by Joao Fernandes finds moments of unexpected artfulness, like the abstracted searchlight of a helicopter scanning sand dunes in pitch black night, or the shot of an incoming helicopter framed through a burning bush, or the messianic encirclement of Lundgren's character as he returns to the rebels for the climax.

[anamericangirl]

I just read your long post responding to criticism of parents protesting against CRT. And as an educator and a black woman I just want to say: thank you, thank you, Thank You! It’s frustrating that people don’t understand (or try to understand) the difference between teaching CRT ideology and teaching the real history of race, slavery and racism in America. The latter is important, but the former is incredibly damaging. And claiming that “it’s just a bunch of racist conservatives” is not only false, but completely obfuscates the real problem, a problem many black parents also have an issue with. CRT teaches a narrative that seeks to guilt and villianize white students, but in doing so it also demoralizes and disempowers black students. It creates a sense of defeatism and fear, making our kids really believe the world is against them, all white people low key hate or are against them, and there is little hope for their future (outside of some glorious, violent revolution of course). Perhaps most infuriating of all, is that CRT ideology worsens the problems it purports to solve. It encourages distrust and division, making many black children hyper conscious of, and often insecure about, their race. And I’ve also seen it breed shame, or worse resentment, in some white kids who get tired of being held guilty for something they can’t control. I don’t want white kids asking me if they’re bad for being white or black kids asking me “do all white people hate us?” While this is not the stated goal of CRT, this is nonetheless often the effect. And nothing is more tragic than watching children who used to see each other as friends and equals, suddenly pull away under the suspicion and guilt stirred up by CRT based lessons in the classroom. Or watching supposedly well meaning teachers advocate for segregation when we fought so hard to do away with that nonsense not so long ago. So thank you for engaging that person calmly and rationally. Hopefully, that they will at least look into why so many parents are against this ideology being fed to our children, instead of using just ad hominem to dismiss a very real, very serious concern.

Yes, completely agree!

Critical race theory is incredibly damaging to all students of all races. Teaching white children that they have inherent privileges because of their skin and that they have racial biases just because they are white is not going to do them any good and can just make them feel any acheivments they have during their life are undeserved and are not because of their hard work but because of their race and that they are somehow responsible for the grievances of the past.

And it's even more damaging to black children and those of other races who are just going to hear that no matter what they do and how hard they work the world is against them and will favor white people above them and also make them feel like everyone around them hates them.

This is a terrible ideology to put into the minds of children or anyone for that matter. Even if the intent is not to make children carry around unwarranted guilt and shame or make them fearful and self conscious, that's what it does. It's especially bad because it's not even true!

Anyone who tries to shut down opposition to crt by claiming it's just teaching about slavery and racism is not being honest about what it is and what it teaches.

Thank you for sharing this message with me! America needs more educators like you!

[barnabasthebarmy]

im going to shit on all the hp protagonists lmao

harry:

- biggest martyr complex ever

- thinks he’s the only one that’s allowed to be in danger and makes every single fucking thing about him

- always feeling guilty and shit

- stubborn as fuck

- zero sense of self preservation and terrible at thinking things through

ron:

- insecure, jealous, tactless, lazy

- the whole thing with “i’d rather ho alone than with eloise midgen” was a No. also the lavender situation. also fleur. this man just doesn’t know how to be with a woman.

hermione:

- fussy and frigid

- “oh my god i definitely failed!!! oh wait i got an outstanding? i mean, i guess i did alright...”

- literally worships dumbledore

- so self righteousness. can’t admit she’s wrong. looks down on luna and doesn’t take harry’s theories seriously (ex: draco and the hallows)

ginny:

- exclusion issues (middle child complex on the youngest child. seriously this bitch was the youngest and only daughter but still needed more attention lmfao)

- low key rude and very quick to insult/hex someone

- was a bitch to fleur

- ok we get it !! you’re a tomboy and not like other girls !! jesus christ

molly:

- coddling, CONTROLLING AS FUCK, overbearing

- bad temper and can’t take a joke

- cares too much about grades, rules, and authority

- was such a BITCH to sirius oh my god i absolutely hate her for that and it was all because she wanted harry for herself like ?? girl. again: see “overbearing”

- and misogynistic. she wouldn’t let ginny ride a broom and always gave her the more “feminine” chores ?? not to mention that whole thing with not accepting bill’s decision to marry fleur

authur:

- pushover

neville:

- inferiority complex

luna:

- kind of a pain to have a serious conversation with tbh

hagrid:

- this son of a bitch got into so much shit because of his absolute incompetence. he made three eleven year olds BREAK THE LAW to take care of HIS OWN PROBLEM (the dragon) and when they got in trouble and became literal OUTCASTS he DIDNT EVEN SAY SORRY???? then he consistently left more of his own issues for harry&co to fix because he just can’t do anything on his own (aragog, buckbeak, gwarp, etc)

- a child. always bursts out crying randomly and doesn’t have any common sense. he’s so dumb it’s exhausting.

lily:

- bad judgement of character in the beginning when she was friends with snape lmao and her stubbornness made her stick with him even though he was a racist little shit

- self righteous and hypocritical (depends on fic you read)

sirius:

- reckless, impulsive, stubborn, arrogant

- tries too hard at not trying (or he’s just effortlessly cool)

- we get it you have major mommy and daddy issues !

- the prank.. yeah.

james:

- same shit as sirius

- arrogant toe rag who’s always messing up his hair and showing off with his stupid snitch :)

- prejudiced against slytherins

- (ok he bullied snape. but that’s not a flaw. it just makes james more perfect bc FUCK SNAPE)

remus:

- literally scared of happiness (when he left tonks after she got pregnant... no)

- i’m still mad at him for thinking sirius could betray james?? but that’s mostly just rowling’s bad writing so

i’m not counting dumbledore or snape as protagonists and i have WAY too much shit to say about them so they’re not in this post. fuck dumbledore. and fuck snape. (also fuck draco malfoy, who’s obviously an antagonist and not in this post either)

[eretzyisrael]

How They Did It

Between 1967 and 2021, the enemies of the Jewish state and the Jewish people created in effect an army of anti-Israel operatives in key positions in Western societies, including Israel herself. These operatives are often opinion leaders who influence the behavior of their countries.

Here is how they did it.

The Arab nations failed to defeat Israel in major military conflicts in 1948, 1967, and 1973. At that point, they turned to cognitive warfare, the manipulation of information, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings, in order to weaken their enemy and deny it support from third parties. Thus there were two primary targets: the population of the State of Israel, and the Western nations that might become sources of financial, logistical, diplomatic, or other forms of help for the Jewish state.

The objective of cognitive warfare is to divide, disrupt, and isolate the enemy so that it be finished off more easily by military means. Terrorism is an important part of cognitive warfare, because frightened people are prone to Stockholm syndrome. But this discussion will be limited to the non-kinetic aspects of cognitive warfare.

The cognitive war began around 1967, initiated by the Soviet KGB as a propaganda campaign. The terrorists of the PLO – whose actual ideology was close to that of Nazi Germany – were presented as a national liberation movement, which found approval in the leftist student and antiwar movements that were part of the larger Soviet cognitive assault on the West.

By 1973, the challenges facing the cognitive warriors of the Arab world and their advisors were great. The Jews of Israel had lost the overconfidence of the post-1967 era. The USA had (finally) resupplied Israel with the weapons needed to reverse the advance of her enemies and – although she was prevented from achieving a crushing victory – she had clearly established her military superiority. But the militarily weak Arabs strengthened their cognitive warfare capabilities to include more than mere propaganda. They launched operations to fundamentally change important features of the social landscape of the West.

Cognitive attacks were aimed at the following Western targets:

International institutions; the UN and its agencies (easy targets because of the built-in Soviet/Third World majority).

Major early victories included several anti-Israel UN Security Council resolutions during the Carter Administration (the US abstained), and of course the “Zionism is racism” resolution in 1975. Although the resolution was ultimately revoked, the “UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” it created and the annual observance of “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” remain. The UN Human Rights Council has a unique permanent agenda item to discuss Israel’s “human rights abuses” at every session. UN reports on health, the status of women, the environment, and other subjects often wrongly single out Israel as a violator.

International NGOs have been persuaded, by infiltration and financial grants from Arab and left-wing sources, to join the campaign. “Human rights” groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have been particularly useful in accusing the IDF of war crimes. Recently HRW produced a tendentious report calling Israel an apartheid state.

Institutions of higher education (easily bought with oil money).

Starting almost immediately after 1973, Arab states began to make major donations to leading universities, establishing departments of Middle East Studies (where “Middle East” does not include Israel), endowing chairs and fellowships, and so on. This has continued to the present day. Other quasi-academic institutions, such as influential think tanks like the Qatar-supported Brookings Institution, have also benefited.

This is an extremely far-sighted and effective strategy, because influence trickles down to other faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. Ultimately these students graduate and take their places in education, business, government, and even law enforcement and the military.

Even in Israel, leftist academics produce a constant flow of pseudo-academic material that can be used as support for NGO and think tank documents that call for anti-Israel policies. Israeli NGOs, supported by the international Left and Arab/Iranian/Turkish sources, provide information for use in lawfare against Israel and the IDF, as well as propaganda.

Student and labor movements, liberal churches (easy targets because of left-wing connections).

Since 2004, resolutions supporting the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement against Israel have been debated and often passed by student governments, labor unions, and liberal churches. While there has so far been little effect on Israel’s economy, the debates provide a forum for disseminating false accusations against Israel.

Student organizations have been established on campuses that promote anti-Israel ideas and intimidate anyone who supports Israel. The recent widespread acceptance of postmodern “woke” ideas including intersectionality, critical race theory, and third-worldism has made it possible to connect Palestinism to diverse causes, even some that are clearly inconsistent with it, such as LGBT rights.

These organizations are supported and nurtured by faculty, departments, and administrators that were put in place by Arab (and more recently) Iranian oil revenues, as well as traditionally left-leaning academics.

Corporate interests (easy targets because of their dependence on Arab oil).

Immediately after the 1973 war, the Arab oil boycott caused a spike in prices and supply shortages. Oil companies in the US, who have great influence in politics, began to take public political stances, calling for what they referred to as a “more even-handed” policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict (in other words, calling for the government to stop supporting Israel). They funded propaganda outlets that followed the Arab line.

More recently, large corporations – particularly the very influential and powerful tech companies – have begun to adopt “woke” policies, out of a combination of fear of popular boycotts and the absorption of woke ideas from the academic world that provides their personnel. Infiltration of anti-Israel activists and attitudes into the tech companies that increasingly determine popular culture is especially worrisome.

Social media.

Recently someone noted that pro-Palestinian personality Bella Hadid has 21 million Instagram followers, significantly more than the total number of Jews in the world. Social media provides a huge amount of leverage for cognitive warfare, since it reaches literally billions of people throughout the world. Clever manipulation of social platforms can have a massive effect at very low cost. As usual, Russia is leading the world in developing this cognitive warfare technique, using bots and human-operated social media farms. But Iran and other enemies of Israel aren’t far behind.

Minorities (whose grievances could be blamed on Jews and Israel).

As early as the 1930s, Soviet propagandists realized that racial discrimination in the US could be used to sell communism to disaffected minorities. It has also been possible to sell them Jew-hatred, and the closely related hatred for the Jewish state. The racial mass psychosis that has gripped the US lately presents a wonderful opportunity to attach anti-Israel messages to “anti-racist” activities via the principle of intersectionality. Combined with the historically high level of antisemitism in the black community, it’s been possible for Israel’s enemies to spread preposterous lies, such as that “Israel trains American police to be racist” effectively.

Antisemitic politicians.

Politicians like Jeremy Corbyn, Ilhan Omar, and others are effective propagandists. It’s difficult to defend against them, because opposition can be discounted as politics, and because they have large bases of support (e.g., among Muslim populations) of which the politicians in their own parties are afraid.

For whatever reason, Israel’s successive governments have either been unable to fully internalize the danger posed by cognitive warfare, or have failed to come up with an effective strategy for fighting it. But with each military conflict that Israel is involved in, the cognitive attacks become more and more intense. They have already affected the IDF’s ability to fight.

The solution is to employ a proactive, not reactive strategy; to attack rather than defend. But what would such a strategy look like?

That’s the subject of my next post.

Abu Yehuda

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 2, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 36 Republicans sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona accusing him of trying to advance a “politicized and divisive agenda” in the teaching of American history. This is a full embrace of the latest Republican attempt to turn teaching history into a culture war.

On April 19, the Department of Education called for public comments on two priorities for the American History and Civics Education programs. Those programs work to improve the “quality of American history, civics, and government education by educating students about the history and principles of the Constitution of the United States, including the Bill of Rights; and… the quality of the teaching of American history, civics, and government in elementary schools and secondary schools, including the teaching of traditional American history.”

The department is proposing two priorities to reach low-income students and underserved populations. The Republicans object to the one that encourages “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.”

History teaching that reflects our diverse history and the way our diversity supports democracy can help to improve racial equality in society, the document states. It calls out the 1619 Project of the New York Times, as well as the resources of the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History, to note how our understanding of diversity is changing. It notes that schools across the country are teaching “anti-racist practices,” which it follows scholar Ibram X. Kendi by identifying as “any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences—that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group.”

The Education Department invited comments on these priorities. The department does not have much at all to do with local school curricula.

McConnell’s letter in response to this call for comments is disingenuous, implying connections between the teaching of a diverse past, the sorry state of history education, and the fact that “American pride has plummeted to its lowest level in 20 years.” There is, of course, no apparent connection between them.

He complains that Cardona’s “proposal”—it’s a call for comments—would “distort bipartisan legislation that was led by former Senators Lamar Alexander, Ted Kennedy, and Robert Byrd.” That legislation was indeed landmark for the teaching of American history… but its funding was cut in 2012.

What McConnell’s letter is really designed to do is to throw a bone to Trump Republicans. On Thursday, Trump called for Senate Republicans to replace McConnell with a Trump loyalist, and embracing their conviction that our history is being hijacked by radicals is cheap and easy.

The prime object of Republican anger is the 1619 Project, called out in McConnell’s letter by name. The project launched in the New York Times Magazine in August 2019 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first landing of 20 to 30 enslaved Africans at the English colony of Virginia. Led by New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, the project placed race and Black Americans “at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country.”

The 1619 Project argued that the landing of the Black slaves marked “the country’s very origin” since it “inaugurated a barbaric system of chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years.” From slavery “and the anti-black racism it required,” the editors claimed, grew “nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional: its economic might, its industrial power, its electoral system, its diet and popular music, the inequities of its public health and education, its astonishing penchant for violence, its income inequality, the example it sets for the world as a land of freedom and equality, its slang, its legal system and the endemic racial fears and hatreds that continue to plague it to this day.”

Their goal, they said, was “to reframe American history,” replacing 1776 with 1619 as the year of the nation’s birth.

The most explosive claim the project made was that one of the key reasons that the American colonists broke away from Britain was that they wanted to protect slavery. Scholars immediately pushed back. Northwestern University’s Dr. Leslie M. Harris, a scholar of colonial African American history, wrote: “Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war.” The project tempered its language over that issue but stood by its larger argument.

Trump Republicans conflated this project with so-called “Critical Race Theory,” a related scholarly concept that argues that racism is not simply the actions of a few bad actors, but rather is baked into our legal system, as well as the other institutions that make up our society. This is not a new concept, and it is not limited to Black Americans: historian Angie Debo’s And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes launched this argument in 1940 when it showed how Oklahoma’s legislators had written discrimination against Indigenous people into the law. But the idea that white people have an automatic leg up in our country has taken on modern political teeth as Trump Republicans argue that Black and Brown people, among others, are at the bottom of society not because of discriminatory systems but because they are inferior.

The former president railed against recent historical work emphasizing race as “a series of polemics grounded in poor scholarship” that has “vilified our Founders and our founding.” Calling them “one-sided and divisive,” he opposed their view of “America as an irredeemably and systemically racist country.” He claimed, without evidence, that “students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains.” He said that “this radicalized view of American history” threatens to “fray and ultimately erase the bonds that knit our country and culture together.”

On November 2, 2020, just before the election, former president Trump established a hand-picked commission inside the Department of Education to promote “patriotic education” in the nation’s schools, national parks, and museums.

The commission released its report, written not by historians but by right-wing activists and politicians, on Martin Luther King Day, just two days before Trump left office. “The 1776 Report” highlighted the nation’s founding documents from the Revolutionary Era, especially the Declaration of Independence. It said that the principles written in the declaration “show how the American people have ever pursued freedom and justice.” It said “our history is… one of self-sacrifice, courage, and nobility.” No other nation, it said, had worked harder or done more to bring to life “the universal truths of equality, liberty, justice, and government by consent.”

Then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that multiculturalism [is]... not who America is.” It “distort[s] our glorious founding and what this country is all about.” Hannah-Jones retorted: "When you say that multiculturalism is 'not who America is' and 'distorts our glorious founding' you unwittingly confirm the argument of the 1619 Project: That though we were ... a multiracial nation from our founding, our founders set forth a government of white rule. Cool."

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden dissolved the 1776 Commission and took its report off the official government website.

But the fight goes on. The Pulitzer Center, which supports journalism but is not associated with Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prizes, produced a school curriculum based on the 1619 Project; Republican legislators in five states—Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Dakota—filed virtually identical bills to cut funding to any school or college that used the material. Other Republican-led states have proposed funding “patriotic education.” In Mississippi, Governor Tate Reeves called for a $3 million fund to promote teaching that “educates the next generation in the incredible accomplishments of the American Way” to counter “far-left socialist teachings that emphasize America’s shortcomings over the exceptional achievements of this country.” South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem proposed a curriculum that explains “why the U.S. is the most special nation in the history of the world.”

——

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON