#same crazy colonial rhetoric

[sarroora]

The mental gymnastics you have to do to somehow make it so that Egypt’s the Bad Guy for refusing to be complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians just proves we live in the Crazy Timeline 😂

[hadesoftheladies]

“good” men: I hate rapists and pedophiles. I think they should be tortured forever and then dismembered. fuck those guys

feminist: I’m glad you feel that way. here’s what you as a man can do to prevent it from happening. stop consuming porn, stop making misogynistic jokes, hold other men accountable, stop defending celebrity pedos and rapists, stop defending pimps and prostitution, stop berating and dehumanizing women as a form of male bonding, stop listening to podcast bros that promote misogyny and rape rhetoric, start uplifting and validating the voices of victims instead of cultivating indifference towards them. rape is the practice of misogyny, the ideology. dealing with the problems at the root will ensure that rape occurs less and that rapists and pedophiles are held accountable

“good” men: no :)

also

“nice” christians/religious conservatives: omg, I hate how crazy people kill and torture lgbt people for being lgbt. they are such bad people who miss the message of our religious texts, which is to love others.

lgbt people: that’s really cool! if you really hate people killing us, you could stop that by advocating for laws that ensure we have the same human rights protections you do, no more no less, and by not joking, preaching or advising about castrating, converting, lobotomizing, or killing us. you could critically examine your beliefs about us and challenge texts that teach we are subhuman, maybe even consider not making those texts authoritative in legislature. you could challenge your biases about us and try to make the world safer for us. that is how we would feel loved.

“nice” christians/religious conservatives: no :)

also

“progressive” white people: i hate what they did to george floyd and the other black victims of police brutality and hate crimes. i hate how poc all over the world are treated so badly by karens and rednecks. colonialism is so bad. it’s so sad when that happens.

poc/majority world citizens: that’s great! it would be cool if you could make space for poc to talk about their experiences without getting vibe checked and tone policed and got comfortable with being de-centered in political discussions, entertainment and history. it would also help if you held your politicians, academic institutions, and media people accountable for racist and colonial rhetoric, as well as stolen wealth and artifacts. you could stop exploiting and infantilizing locals when you tour exploited countries. you could criticize your government for neocolonial and imperial activity. you could challenge white supremacist propaganda in your history books. you could also not make fun of poc for their natural and ethnic features and not platform colonialist and white supremacist apologists.

“progressive” white people: no :)

[tianshiisdead]

People who are accused of sinophobia for accusing random Chinese diaspora with 0 connection to China of being a gov shill (in this case despite 23049685908 evidence to the contrary), and told this rhetoric is not only racist but has caused direct violence to the Chinese person recently: stop making this about you! this is about your GOV (goes on a tangent about what the gov which has nothing to do with OP is doing) WHICH MEANS YOUR POINT IS INVALID!

like you are just proving the diaspo's point... they've provided you the proof your accusations are unjustified... and now you're doubling down and starting to talk about the gov... which proves you conflate them with the gov they have 0 connection to and do not benefit from, as are actively facing racist violence tied to this. If you didn't think all Chinese = gov, then why would you continue bringing up gov actions after this Chinese diaspo proved they were not connected to it? What do they have to do with it? Why is this relevant at all, if you don't in fact support the conflation?

Finally, you can't get out of racism charges by saying they live in America, or that their people (not them) are also racist against yours, or that their parents' country holds economic power over yours. All POC can internalize racist rhetoric, racism is not a thing more inherent to some groups, it's a structural issue based on not only international power dynamics but local power dynamics as well, and those on different rungs of that ladder under the top level can and do internalize racist rhetoric against each other, and that is not justified through being on a lower rung *in general*. Spreading racist rhetoric online, in an anglophone space, means your rhetoric is simply going to be taken the way all faceless online anglophone rhetoric is and feed into irl racism in the west. Online, you are not limited by region but by language.

This isn't getting into how diaspora face more racism in their day-to-day lives, and how for some of the people targeted, we also face islamophobia and persecution/racism both abroad as diaspora and at home as minorities, as Muslims.

In this case *we are not more privileged than you in a way that is meaningful or manifests irl where this matters*, full stop. Privilege isn't an abstract that always manifests the same way, and intersectionality must be taken into account. Class, location, and relationship to the state you are living in, all of that matters, which is why different groups/ethnicities can have WILDLY differing levels of privilege in different regions. This applies to Asians in the West VS Asians who are the majority race at home, migrant workers and rich gentrifiers who are the same race and from the same country entering the same country, etc. Both historical colonialism and economic imperialism notwithstanding.

Also, weaponizing Japanese imperialism against a Korean through framing it as Easian colonialism vs SEA colonized, therefore conflating Easians (in this case Koreans) as the perpetrators, victimizing yourself vis a vis Korea, is fucking *vile*. Korea was arguably one of the most and longest brutalized, some of the main victims, the country pieced together their freedom after decades of colonial violence and suppression.

Downplaying and even mocking/denying colonialism and racism faced by other POC is racist no matter what. It feeds into violent rhetoric that affects us as diaspora IRL.

Finally, how hard is it to accept you've said something racist and move on, or changing your angle of attack at least? Doubling down is crazy. I've absolutely said unacceptable things before because I as a part of society have also internalized many racist ideas, we ALL do, that's how racism WORKS. And sometimes those things are against people who are more privileged than me! Who's gov or people have/are perpetuating this or that against mine! And I fix my thinking, retract my comment, and move tf on, because NONE of that justifies feeding into racism that oppresses them under the white supremacist world and societal order. Do you think I'm new to this, as an ethnic minority of a racialized group?

[jewish-sideblog]

I feel so sad. I see on social media today so many people I thought of as friends and coworkers celebrating the “Palestinian resistance”. Most of them LGBT. Which is crazy to me, considering Hamas would kill them.

They’ll try to justify it any way they can. But I’ve felt anti-semitic micro-aggressions from many of them in the past, I’ve brushed it off as ignorance. But now I feel like I’m just their token “good” Jewish friend, and they really just hate Jews.

I’m sorry to come onto your blog and write all this. I just don’t really have anyone to talk to about it. I don’t know many other Jews, but the ones I do know tend to be pro-Israeli government and their rhetoric isn’t helpful to hear either.

I feel the exact same way, and I imagine the two of us aren’t alone.

I think it’s incredibly difficult for Jews, especially liberal and queer Jews, to take a public stand against antisemitism when Israel is involved. As a lifelong leftist, I see leftists blinded to their hypocrisy by their beliefs as the alt-right and conservatives are. People see the word “colonialism” and the word “freedom” and go apeshit. They don’t see that this weekend holds the record for largest number of Jews killed in a day since the Shoah.

And what are we supposed to do? Come to the defense of a political entity we disagree with? Get permanently labelled as “Zionist” for speaking up for Israeli civilian lives?? Get labeled as “Islamophobic” for stating facts about Hamas’s human rights records? Lose friends when we point out the hypocrisy of being pro-Hamas but anti-Iran?

Or should we remain silent as Jews are killed on Jewish holy days at Jewish holy sites?

It’s an impossible situation. I don’t see a way around it. All I can do right now is pray for the safety of my friends and family in Israel, mourn for those who have died, and hope that I don’t get death threats for doing so.

[that-coffee-in-huesca]

231021

When Joris Lechêne posted, around the 9th of October, about the context of the Hamas attacks, concluding that these acts can never be justified, but surely, at least in part, explained by the brutal occupation that has lasted over 70 years and made Gaza practically unlivable*, a lot of people were outraged. They commented that NO kind of violent history could possibly give reason for something so horrific and inhumane. Even if someone kills your family or tortures your friends, killing innocent civilians is an absurd response. This is in no way a weird position to take. In fact, it is the only sane position on this issue; of course it is an absurd response that should disgust anyone with a heart and brain. However, what is strange, is that the same logic seems to have completely disappeared in the conversation on the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Why are random Palestinian activists, in each and every interview, asked to condemn the death of 1000 Israelis, before they are allowed to make further points, while Israeli officials (people actually representing the IDF, the very institution wielding the violence on Gaza) are not asked to condemn the death of 4000 Palestinians? For the 4000 Palestinians, context all of a sudden seems very important, and plenty of excuses apparently do exist for the unlawful murder of civilians. The most plain explanation is of course racism. The western world has come so far in dehumanizing Muslims (which is of course how we understand Palestinians, even though many of them are Christian or belong to other religions) that their lives are literally worth less in the mathematical equation of counting casualties. Add to this a very odd relationship with the state of Israel, where many Western states carry some sort of twisted reverence for its military operations while at the same time refusing to challenge their own issues of antisemitism. The West has normalized this idea of Israel as a Western-built island of peace and democracy in an ocean of death, hate and misery. Murder in Israel is wrong and horrendous. Murder in Palestine is just… business as usual (I honestly believe that a lot of Westerners truly believe that people from war-torn, “orientalised”, non-Western countries experience loss differently, as if they are more “used to it” and hence it is not as bad. We saw a lot of this kind of commentary when Russia invaded Ukraine). Israelis indoctrinated and trained to kill Palestinians are explained with militarized rhetoric of democracy and defense, while Palestinians doing the same thing is disregarded as hate-fueled terrorists. Another reason, which also has deeply colonial roots, is the outlook on the violence itself. A lot of us seem to see low-tech violence (like an attack with a machete or a gun to your face) as far more brutal and scary than high-tech violence (sophisticated weaponry maneuvered by someone in a uniform), as if a civilian shot to death would somehow be more dead than one crushed (or slowly suffocated) under a building. This of course all connects to the logic explained above. Seemingly random attacks, targeting people at a music festival, are far more ��real’ to Westerners. This could happen to any of us. Terrorist attacks from above, however, targeting civilians from the sky in Western-made airplanes dropping Western-made bombs? No, that kind of death is reserved for people living in dusty, beige countries with brutalist buildings. Of course a Westerner relates to the man in the uniform speaking fluent English, talking about self-defense over a dusty stranger crying out to God in front of the house that just collapsed over his family. The latter of these men has come to represent the destruction of European civilisation (this is not a crazy statement these days, just ask the average alt-righter that exists in almost every European parliament and they’ll tell you). The other man represents the West** and all the West stands for, and this is not strange at all, because make no mistake, it is the West that is currently bombing Gaza.

*When we say Gaza is unlivable, we are not only referring to the unlawful killing of civilians, and the outbursts of extreme violence that occurs every now and then, but the lack of resources, the overpopulation and the closed border. Having to sit and watch family members die as they are denied traveling permits to visit hospitals in the West Bank, the constant sound of drones over your house, the electricity only working for a couple of hours a day, the lack of clean water. It has surprised me to know how little many Israeli citizens know about this situation. I distinctly remember a conversation I had some years ago, when an Israeli student described the security reason and why the border to Gaza must remain closed. When I asked him why Israel is patrolling the sea as well, and not letting anyone leave in the opposite direction, he just looked at me and asked: “What? They can’t leave?”.

**Yes, he does. You can talk all you want about how Jewish people are not Western, and I hear you. We should be outraged about how the West seemingly accepts Jewish people when they are constructed as the Western wielders of violence on other exposed and oppressed groups, while carrying on their antisemitic every-day life whenever it is about ANY OTHER issue. The West doesn’t care about Jewish people, they care about having an outpost in the Middle East and arming it to the teeth. Palestinians and Israelis have, and have always had, the same enemy: The colonial white supremasists that are playing them both.

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

Roll up your sleeves and start building Communism. (Opt in.)

RHETORIC - Oh yeah! Get the firing squads and the animal wagons ready!

Wait, what? Firing squads? You didn't say anything about those.

Roll your sleeves up further and breathe in the pristine air. [Finish thought.]

RHETORIC - Too late to back out now. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few million eggs!

Roll your sleeves up further and breathe in the pristine air. [Finish thought.]

THOUGHT GAINED: MAZOVIAN SOCIO-ECONOMICS

Temporary research bonus: -2 Visual Calculus: Looks like reaction... Research time: 3h 10m

PROBLEM:

People think Communism was some crazy idea that had its comeuppance 40 years ago. A fever that shook the world, never to return again. They were right. Until *he* woke up today – a spiritual corpse responsive only to the call of Commodore Red, prostitutes, and Kras Mazov. For him, Communism is still a *thing*. He will single-handedly raise the Commune of '02 from the oceanic trench where it has been resting, covered in ghosts and seaweed! He is the Big Communism Builder. Come, witness his attempt to rebuild Communism in the year '51!

Ugh, -2 Visual Calculus is not great for us, but I can't *not* equip the Thought.

Anyway, I guess we can look around the bookstore, but remember: we don't have any money, and we need the money that we don't have to have a room tonight.

Gift books and molten candy.

MAN FROM HJELMDALL SERIES - The display rack is brimming with worn paperbacks featuring an extremely muscular, sword-wielding barbarian on the cover. Nearly all the titles contain the word *Hjelmdall* somewhere.

"Storekeep, tell me about the muscleman books."

Look through the display of books.

PLAISANCE - "Oh, *Man from Hjelmdall*. A very popular series of adventure novels." She looks at the book with some disdain. "They're awfully immoral and violent books."

"Why are they so popular?"

PLAISANCE - "Blood and violence, scantily clad women, epic narratives, all those mystical things he encounters. They're bound to grab those with little imagination and nothing to do."

"Sounds good. Which one should I start with?"

"That doesn't sound like something I'd be interested in."

PLAISANCE - "What does it matter? They're all the same." She rolls her eyes, then fiddles with her pendant. "However, the customer is always right, they say."

"If you're a novice of the series, I'd recommend 'Hjelmdallermann: the Man from Hjelmdall.' It's supposed to be a good introduction to the series."

As you can see, the option to buy the book is locked because we don't have 9 real.

2. Look through the display of books.

MAN FROM HJELMDALL SERIES - Rows and rows of Hjelmdallermenn blur your vision. You make out some titles: "Man from Hjelmdall and the Mammoth-Riders", "Man from Hjelmdall: Return to Hjelmdall", and the solipsistic "Man From Hjelmdall and the Hjelmdall Man."

Good god, how many are there?

Enough.

MAN FROM HJELMDALL SERIES - Maybe a hundred? "Man from Hjelmdall and the Sages at the End of the World", "Man from Hjelmdall and the False-God", "Man from Hjelmdall and the Scorched Earth", "Man from Hjelmdall: The Hjelmdall Colonies", "Man from Hjelmdall and the Swamp Beast", "Man from Hjelmdall and the Snow Crabs."

Is that all?

Enough.

MAN FROM HJELMDALL SERIES - Not even close! "Man from Hjelmdall in Hell", "Man from Hjelmdall and the Forest of Slaves", "Man from Hjelmdall Under the Lake", "Man from Hjelmdall: Hjelmdall Burning". There's even "The Trial of Death", a Pasternal combat game book set in the world of Hjelmdallermann, and so much more.

3. [Pain Threshold - Medium 10] Do any of the books call out to me?

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] - Nothing of interest. Only silence and the cosmic background pain-radiation.

5. [Leave.]

Old sports magazines, tucked away in a dark corner.

MOUNTAIN OF BOARD GAMES - A small mountain of colourful board game boxes. There are numerous types of games for all ages. A lot of shelf space seems to be taken up by Wirrâl-related merchandise.

"Storekeep, what board games do you have here?"

Look through the pile of Wirrâl-related items.

PLAISANCE - "Wonderful board games, sir. 'The Viticulturist' is a classic for sure, or perhaps you'd like 'Archipelagos of Insulinde', a very educational game for those interested in geography."

"Raubritter' is a fun game of economic competition, but can get quite intense after a while. We have games for the whole family. You can play with your children!"

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Who are you going to play board games with? Do you have friends or family?

Wow, I have children? A family?

Do I have friends? (Look at the lieutenant.)

I don't want to think about this.

INLAND EMPIRE - Are you actually friends? Or just colleagues thrown together by circumstance?

[justtryingtovibe69]

american social justice ppl are so fast and loose with supporting the terrorist attack in israel and “resist colonialism at all costs” and i actually think it’s sociopathic to shrug at a mass death like that. like ok what if indigenous ppl shot u while u were at coachella do u deserve that too? no!!! (but i actualy think a lot of online social justice white ppl r so lost they genuinely think they in theory deserve to die for being white settlers so who knows) it just feels crazy to see ppl justify an innocent persons death for doing the exact same thing they’re doing (existing in a colonial country) like maybe this is just crazy of me but i don’t think me or anyone around me deserves to die for living in the US and not organizing to overthrow the government but a scary amount of leftists are like “u get what u get” and shrugging at these deaths in israel which are brutal and should be disgusting to people just on a human level. there was the same rhetoric about russians just for living in russia and now in israel just for living in israel and i always am like ok u r throwing this stone from the most glass house ever maybe think about what ur saying. that being said free palestine, as a ukrainian i empathize with the struggle for statehood, self determination, and international recognition, plus their death count will likely be tenfold what just happened and they don’t have electric power right now and i’m genuinely scared for what will happen to the civilians there. this whole situation is such a mess it’s heart breaking every time it escalates and you just know that the vast vast majority want to just coexist and go to the grocery store and hang out with their family. i just want to cry and lay on the floor all day. the callousness of EVERYONE on social media either supporting israel killing civilians or hamas killing civilians is making me lose the will to live

[larktb-archive]

Thinking about Creoles and "broken colonial languages," my cousins were telling me about how they were told by their teacher to stop speaking gangster afrikaans. Now... we speak Coloured Afrikaans or, at least, one dialect of Coloured Afrikaans, and it really made me think how institutional the dismantling of Coloured cultural affects is. Like... what gets into your mind that you as a teacher can shame a child for speaking... their native tongue? Especially considering that teacher is a Coloured herself. And so many middle-class Coloureds do this where... poorer Coloureds or we who grew up in the outskirts of urban areas speak gangster Afrikaans or gebroke engels, and they speak real languages, regte taals.

And hearing how African Americans go through the exact same thing and practically all speakers of broken or ghetto dialects really helped me contextualise this in broader anti-indigenous, nationalist and anti-black rhetoric. But it's still crazy to think that the same thing that happened to our ancestors when they first standardised Afrikaans is happening now and is perpetuated by other Coloureds..

[imhoser]

if only yamzkun wasnt a lazy, useless piece of shit and actually raped and killed u then i wouldnt have to watch u evolve into a racist, zionist fuck.

Ooo scary scary. Idgaf. My “racism” is knowing some modern middle eastern history. It’s crazy how people can be so confident in calling me a racist for not denying a people’s middle eastern heritage and their oppression … the world’s most ancient and continuous form of bigotry still impacts the modern age. I’m so terrible for recognizing that. I’m terrible for recognizing that a state needed to be founded based on protecting a population that has been oppressed for over two thousand years.

Somehow people think that Zionists like that Israel has to exist. No, nobody is happy that there had to be a state founded on the ideals of protecting the Jewish people. The same way nobody is really happy the 13th amendment had to be passed. Nobody is happy that these things happened in reaction to bad things. If humanity never had slavery we would have never had the 13th amendment, that is infinitely preferable. But the 13th amendment had to be passed.

I’ve read books and listened to lectures from both Israel historians and Palestine historians and came to my own conclusions. I was greatly misinformed about the topic and recognized my own antisemitism and how naive I was to believe that somehow antisemitism disappeared or became irrelevant in the western world after the Second World War.

If you knew anything about how Israel came to be, how Palestinians were offered an Arab state multiple times (originally where over 80% of the land would be offered to the Palestinians), how the UN has kept Palestinians as permanent refugees and has benefited from stirring up continuous chaos, what happened to Egypt and Jordan after they accepted Palestinian refugees, the numerous wars waged against Israel that Israel won, the rhetoric of Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, so on so forth, in general anything about the 70+ years of history…you’d also be pro-Israel.

Hell, what originally made me switch sides was simply asking this question: “If Hamas won, and all the land were given back to Palestinians, and Hamas was the government of Palestine, would it be worth it?”

Because unlike a lot of my peers, I recognized that Hamas was a theocratic dictatorship that was oppressing the Palestinian people. I realized that if they won, they could continue to oppress their own population. That if Israel won, Hamas could lose, and there could be a chance for Palestinians to put in a new leader that could actually lead them down the road of safety and security. But doing so meant sacrifices and death. But a continued Hamas rule has shown what it means as well. Prior to October 7th they would drag Palestinian civilians in the streets, their legs tied to their trucks, they would torture Palestinians under the slightest suspicion that they were collaborators with Israel, they would rob humanitarian aid (yes, this isn’t the first time the world has talked about Hamas stealing aid), used civilians as human shields, I could go on. It’s the same way WW2 was needed for the Germans to become deradicalized and so the German people could progress from nazism. It was almost the case for the southern United States. We always say the south would’ve been better if reconstruction was more harsh. But if it happened today, people would call the war and reconstruction genocide and imperialism.

Well, not really today—Angela Davis was already calling it colonialism.

The point is…anti-imperialists are imperialists, they’re just against the ghosts of imperialists, acting as if the past is still today because they want the modern imperialists to win. There is nothing more imperialist than supporting terrorism or apologizing for terrorism.

[thebusylilbee]

Putting the french far-right's old school antisemitism (literally neonazi shit) on the same level as the french left's antizionism is uh...... not intellectually honest to remain polite.

The "constant confounding of Israel, Zionism and Jews" is literally what the centrists and the right as whole have been doing NON-STOP in France since last October, while the left desperately tries to make the distinction clear to the public. Although one of the big figure (Mélenchon cited above) of the far-left has made antisemitic comments in the past he does NOT represent the entire left. He's literally the only one on the left that's on thin ice on this topic meanwhile on the right you could easily cite 30 WELL KNOWN antisemites and many more who hide it better. It it NOT a choice between the plague and cholera, it's a choice between the plague and like... an unpleasant cold. Every single french antizionist jewish group (like Tsedek) has made that very very clear.

It's also a choice that non-jewish maghrebis have had to make since forever if I might add. French maghrebis as a whole have always had to vote strategically for parties that barely tolerate them in order to avoid parties that want them straight-up dead, so the comments of that Sonia Lelloum are absolutely fucking laughable. "'“I’d like France to stay French,” said Lelloum" YOU ARE NOT SEEN AS FRENCH BY FAR-RIGHTERS YOU ABSOLUTE MORON. The fact that she thinks she's somehow not one of the maghrebis the far-right wants gone from this country just because she's not muslim is absolutely delusional, I'm not muslim either and you bet your ass I still get hate from far-righters because they do NOT care about this distinction. A literal case of voting for the Leopard Eating Face party expecting to keep your own face... I'm ashamed to share my origins with her.

Finally I would like to point out this insane sentence, not even contextualized or discussed further in anyway in this article : "While it makes sense for Jews to fear radical Islam, he said, “that doesn’t mean one should rush into the arms of another wolf.”" Implying that a vote for the left is a vote for radical islam is literally insane far-right rhetoric, it doesn't matter if the far-right is compared to "another wolf" too the premise of this comparison is crazy and racist as fuck.

In conclusion : fuck the far-right, fuck racists and fuck people who support the ongoing colonial genocide in Palestine and are ready to sacrifice all non-white french people to defend it.

Covering an entire classroom wall in a Tunisian synagogue in Belleville, an immigrant haven on the slopes of northeastern Paris, are the names of 1,100 Jewish children who were arrested by French police, deported to Auschwitz and killed by the Nazis during World War II.[...]

Despite this dark history, some Jews in Belleville are doing the once unthinkable and voting in France’s National Assembly election for the far-right National Rally party, which is leading in polls for Sunday’s runoff.

One of the party’s founders, Pierre Bousquet, was a French fighter in Hitler’s Waffen-SS. Another, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who led the party from its birth in 1972 until 2011, dismissed Nazi gas chambers as a “detail” of history.[...]

It’s also a measure of how much the French left has enraged Jewish voters with its ferocious attacks on Israel and Zionism as it tries to build support among French Muslims, a substantially larger group of voters.[...]

Judith Benchetrit said she’d voted for the National Rally in the first round — and asked whether anyone else had watched a harrowing TV documentary the night before about the Oct. 7 attack.

It was her deep loathing of the far-left France Unbowed movement and its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, that led her to back the far right.

Mélenchon “campaigns on Palestine, so now he’s got all the Palestinians and every Arab in France behind him,” said Benchetrit, who is 32 and unemployed.

The National Rally has recast itself as an ally of Jews and Israel. If the party wins a majority in the assembly, its leader, Jordan Bardella, could become prime minister, putting France under the far right’s control for the first time since the fall of the Vichy regime that collaborated with the German occupation from 1940 to 1944.[...]

Sonia Lelloum, a daughter of Tunisian Jewish immigrants, said she’d resisted the temptation to vote for the National Rally in previous elections because of its Nazi ties. This time, she said, she went ahead and did it because she likes the party’s crusade against immigration.[...]

Most worrisome to [some] is the constant confounding of Israel, Zionism and Jews.[...]

One of the most stunning illustrations of the new opening to the far right came last month when the renowned Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, 88, an icon to many Jews in France, told French television that if forced to choose between the National Rally and the country’s largest left-wing party, France Unbowed, he would pick the National Rally.

6 Jul 24

[thedreadvampy]

there is a growing undercurrent of people who seem to genuinely believe that 'gender essentialism' means 'ever acknowledging gendered biases or power structures'

and as someone who grew up in an atmosphere where the prevailing attitude was like 'I'm a feminist but not like those crazy feminazis who think women can do no wrong and that women are better than men, so you know obviously women lie about rape and abortion should be heavily cut back and the wage gap's just a big fuss about nothing' ... same shit different name tbh you've just swapped out 'feminazi' for 'radfem'

which is. worse. because feminazis aren't a thing but radfems are and they're a genocidal reactionary fringe group who actively harm the cause of gender equality and whose power is greatly increased by you going around insisting that any acknowledgement that women are systemically oppressed or attempts to challenge patriarchal structures is Gender Essentialist Radfem Rhetoric.

so the claim that any acknowledgement of systemic bias against women is a claim of Inherent Female Superiority was already one of the biggest tools in the arsenal of the antifeminist cause. but the rising tendency to also claim that naming gendered bias is inherently and irrevocably tied to radfem rhetoric, transphobia, racism and whorephobia also serves to strengthen the TERF form of bigotry. bc if you acknowledge the clearly obvious fact that there's a gendered power structure embedded deeply in our society and people are like ONLY TERFS THINK THAT then uhhhh. you either pretend misogyny doesn't exist/isn't systemic, or you are being told that only reactionary radfems are willing to tackle the very evident system of gendered bias. which. neither of those ideas are true and both are actively going to make the world worse.

just stop fucking ceding the entire concept of systemic misogyny to radfems.

what makes TERFs TERFs isn't that they think men oppress women it's that they think of trans women as a uniquely oppressive sort of man rather than as a marginalised subgroup of women.

what makes SWERFs SWERFs isn't that they think that there's a constant undercurrent of sexual violence against women in media and sex, it's that they treat sex work as the cause of that and sex workers as ciphers incapable of self-management or agency.

what makes radfems bad isn't that they acknowledge that there are vast violent systems of oppression which punish women and prioritise men's power and influence, it's that they simplify this, ignore the complexities added by other intersecting systems of oppression like racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, colonialism and capitalism, and treat it as a problem of women's Incorrect Behaviour and Inherent Vulnerability.

but no you're right fuck yeah any time someone says 'here is a systemic bias against women' that's radfem female supremacist terf shit. even if they are acknowledging that the systemic bias affects trans women. and that it's a problem of systems not of Men Being Evil. and completely ignoring any systemic gendered power structures is what feminism is you're so right how could this cause any problems

[niniane17]

🔥harry potter/jk rowling

Aaaaaaaargh

I have a bunch of them, but for the sake of brevity I'll limit myself to just one :)

Keep in mind that this is an opinion I've held ever since 2007/8, so current events have nothing to do with it.

I think that what the books describe as "Gryffindor ideals", such as chivalry, courage, self-sacrifice etc. are actually much more vulnerable to be used by a Fascist Ideology. In Italy for example fascists worshiped courage and being reckless to an insane degree, and Fascist rhetoric used the Lion metaphor a lot.

Rowling, like many British authors, tends to see Fascism as synonymous with classism and extreme self-interest, because these are the most pressing issues in her country, but they are not necessarily the same as Fascism. In fact, Fascist often portrays itself as the "common men's voice" (emphasis on men) against a world of stuck-up weak Ivory Tower high classes morons that don't understand them (this how Fascist Italy characterized Great Britain).

This confusion is especially evident in Deathly Hallows, where a straight line is drawn from XIX century British/European colonialism and its "White Man's Burden" rethoric and the rise of Fascism, and while they are both very, very bad, they are once again not the same nor do they have exactly the same causes. On a very basic level, we know that Britain was very much a colonial powerhouse when it fought Hitler.

I think some people in the fandom picked up on this, which is why several years ago there was a popular headcanon stating that "Grindelwald was/would have been a Gryffindor".

I often joke that Evil Harry Potter wouldn't be Voldemort, he would be Tyler Durden because "first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die" is totally something an unhinged Harry Potter would say, and I can see his classmates go crazy over it. Even in canon he set up his own personal Fight Club!

In short: Gryffindor House, such as it is written, is one charismatic leader away from becoming a Fascist House, and it is a result of the author's provincialism. It would be a great fanfic though.

Thank you!

[determinate-negation]

anti-freud rhetoric is weird bc like freud didn't invent involuntary institutionalization or aba or conversion therapy or drapetomania and subsequent diagnoses that served to pathologize the black condition. its like he's a catchall that allows people to act like divorcing itself from psychoanalysis absolved the psychiatric industrial complex of its ongoing role in colonial and carceral structures. but these same people say that they modify their behavior so as not to seem "crazy" (1/2)

in their interactions with mental health professionals. so its like, clearly you know this isn't all right. like this whole deal is v much still fucked despite like p much disavowing freud. ig hating freud means you don't have to examine those kinds of contradictions (2/2)

yes agreed. tbh ive mostly seen people blame freud for sexism in psychotherapy and not the other stuff but i dont doubt that people do it and its pretty ridiculous. and you can clearly tell people have not ever actually engaged in freuds work or any psychoanalytic schools because their takes are so detached from the actual material of psychoanalysis, and freuds own MODE of analysis and critique of western society which imo is far more important than some of the specific content which people take issues with. like no shit a lot of the details were fucked up, its 19th century austria. somehow this standard is never applied to other fields of science that we still use now which were often pioneered by much worse people. also, i think its interesting that the catalyst of anti-freud sentiment came first from focus on neuroscience (which got institutional backing because of a program funded by bush in the 1990s) and since then the narrative that psychoanalysis and freud are totally discredited emerged, and now it is pretty commonplace, but the vanguard of this view is primarily bloggers and college students. lol ive said my bit about neuroscience before so i wont go into it again, but its curious that the alternative to the soo discredited practice of psychoanalysis is a multi billion dollar field that is applied exactly the same no matter where it is, and is presented to people as objective and biological, instead of psychoanalysis which i really believe is about recognition/consciousness, dialogue, and agency. somehow from this whole tangled thing of medical-economic history, its resulted in it basically being the common position online to hate freud bc.... the oedipus complex is problematic? but the same pop feminist liberalism that reflexively disavows him will also joke that men want girlfriends who behavior like their mothers, and make fun of straight women ‘daddy’ culture 

[unconditionally-bella-love-light]

Anti-Wokeness Must Not Become Its Own Religion

By Chris Hearn (source)

Wokeness is often called a religion. Anti-wokeness must not take the same path

Wokeness. It's a hot topic, as the kids say. The kids still say that, right? Anyway, wokeness has been compared to a new religion. And those describing it that way aren't wrong in their assessment, really.

So, why is wokeness seen as a religion by some? Generally speaking, when it comes to wokeness, there is a set of dogmas that has been developed around issues like race, gender, sexuality, privilege, oppression, colonialism, etc. You must adhere to the narratives engrained in these dogmas and repeat the mantras that have manifested. If you do not, you are deemed a sinner and must repent. If there is no repenting, then there must be excommunication. There is little room for blasphemy and if you dare cross a line, cancel culture comes calling. Yup, a very religious structure. To be woke is to be very strict and unforgiving - fundamentalist, shall we say. It often involves brimstone and fire rhetoric. There are sacred cows that must not be criticized or spoken ill of. So the analogy is apt.

The whole woke culture thing has made some quite angry, creating a negative pushback. Critics of wokeness are starting to gain traction. There are those who are tired of the narratives, tired of the demands for conformity, tired of being called racist or a bigot for not saying the right things. They are tired of lectures, of diagrams fitting everyone into neat categories of victimhood, tired of seemingly everything revolving around race and gender. People are tired of being shunned for questioning questionable ideas. So, yes, there is a pushback. It's understandable and necessary.

However, the growing backlash risks become it's own religion in short order, in which case we are all back to square one. It is important to stop anti-wokeness from becoming the new wokeness if it's not too late already.

Too often, in the woke camp, words are thrown around to discredit those that go against the doctrines of the woke. Nazi, fascist, alt-right, grifter, transphobe, TERF...this a small sampling of the lingo that the woke love to use against those that dare disagree.

But, the anti-woke camp would be better if it didn't adopt a similar way of dealing with opponents. Unfortunately, it may be too late. In fact, using the term woke as a slur and writing off the opinions or ideas of anyone deemed woke is a perfect example of the anti-woke brigade slipping into religious territory. The sin, in this case, is being woke. In order to regain acceptance, denouncing all that is woke is necessary for some. That's not good. That's not progress in this matter.

Some have made a good career out of being woke and selling wokeism. Some will cite people like Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo who have made a lot of money from white people telling white people how awful and racist they are. Can't blame people for that, really. The same thing seems to be happening in the anti-woke camp. Now, I am a big fan of Bill Maher, for sure. BUT, I have noticed much of what he is doing these days is obsessed with anything and everything deemed woke. Honestly, there is plenty of comedic material in some of that woke stuff. He's often quite spot on with his assessments, but sometimes it just seems like the obsession with being anti-woke is equal to the obsession I see some have with being woke.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YapmWpPO2AM

Ya, there you go. Funny? I think so. But, you know, when every week it's an anti-woke fest, at some point you want to say, "Hey, Bill, maybe expand your repertoire again." Big fan, think he's funny, but, definitely, turning anti-wokeness into a bit of a religion in itself.

And then, we have critics of being woke, like Ben Shapiro, who fall decidedly on the right-wing side of the debate who have their own crazy ideas going on. So, him and folks like him being critical of the woke and their crazy ideas often comes across as hypocritical and short-sighted because they are the anti-woke bizarro world, mirror image of the craziest of the woke.

The thing is, not everything woke is bad. Woke can get pretty cringy, nasty, ugly, bizarre, hypocritical, lazy, judgmental. But, you know, there are some good ideas at play. Things like racism or homophobia do thoroughly suck. Maybe those deemed being woke don't handle anti-racism or anti-homophobia in the best way. Quite a bit of anti-racism, for example, has just turned into a new form of racism in itself. But, to just shun everything that is considered woke is a bit foolish, if you ask me. I can agree with a LOT of wokeness, honestly, even if the execution is a bit on the questionable side.

Many in the anti-woke camp see themselves as free-thinkers that don't want to conform to the scripts set forth by the woke brigade. But, it seems at times that these free-thinkers start to develop their very own scripts and quickly stop actually being free-thinkers.

Who would have thought? Two polarizing schools of though mirroring each other? Again? And, as often seems to be the case, the woke and anti-woke are divided by a tribal line, with many anti-woke folks being on the more conservative side of things, while those deemed woke are on the left side of things. Funny how this keeps happening. But, because it does, it almost seems that it's a very natural thing. It's almost like this is how humans are, this is how are brains are wired. It's almost like us human animals have a predisposition to tribalism and conformity in thinking. It probably has some kind of evolutionary benefit. Or, at least, it highlights the fact that even though humans are intelligent, we are still animals with limitations.

By Chris Hearn (source)

[ragingbookdragon]

Even In Different Lives, We Always Find Each Other PT. 5

A Connor Kenway x Reader Story

Word Count: 1,799 Warnings: None (Well, minor angst lol)

Author’s Note: I honestly have no clue how many parts this story is going to be. Enjoy! -Thorne

If the training dummy had been a real enemy, they’d be dead and trampled by now. He reached up, wiping the sweat from his brow before moving back into the routine, palms slapping against the wooden pegs. Thousands of thoughts crossed his mind, and ever since he’d been banned from the homestead manor for a week from his insubordination, they’d only grown more worried. (Y/N), in this world was the Colonial Rite’s deadliest assassin hunter. His wife, the very one who stood beside him, was standing on the opposite side of him now. If she was saved by Shay who was supposedly the grandmaster, he’d no illusions that she was likely in the same position he was. Learning what had happened in their world, wasn’t what happened here. Of course it didn’t. He thought. My parents are still living. And assassins no less. He shook his head, trying to burn off the concerning feelings. He needed to focus, needed to dig up enough information in order to get back to (Y/N); no doubt she was doing the same. So caught up in his training, he didn’t hear the footsteps behind him until he caught sight of someone standing in his peripheral. Twisting, he pulled the tomahawk from his waist, raising it in defense. The cocked eyebrow from his father made him falter and he lowered it as the man said, “You’ve been here for a long time Ratonhnhaké:ton.” Connor frowned, sheathing the hatchet.

           “I need to clear my mind.” Haytham took a step forward, undoing the cloak he wore before moving to his hidden blades.

           “Then shall we spar?” The young assassin watched him a moment before nodding, setting his coat and blades aside. They stood a few feet away, circling one another, and his father asked, “I am curious to know why you’re so attached to (Y/N) Cormac.” Connor knew it was bait, and he raised his hands, trying to shield his expression as he countered,

           “You say that, but you mean something else. What do you really mean?” Haytham stepped forward, tossing an easily deflected punch.

           “You were insistent that she was an assassin and not a templar. Almost like you know more than you’re letting on. I’ve never seen you so passionately defend the enemy before.” Connor brushed off his punch, throwing one of his own; Haytham shifted out of the way but grunted when his son took another step, throwing out his leg. “Is there something you wish to speak about?” His son halted, lowering his arms, returning to an idle stance as he surmised,

           “We are not sparing to clear minds, father. You are sparing with me because you think it will distract me enough to tell you what is on my mind.” Haytham knew he was caught, and Connor knew it too because he pointed at him, adding, “You are digging for information you need not obtain or understand.” His father matched his stance, questioning,

           “Why are you acting like this Ratonhnhaké:ton? What’s changed in the past night and day that makes you so adamant to protect a templar?” Connor couldn’t fight the anger boiling inside him and he took a step forward, voice holding back his barely contained rage.

           “My thoughts and actions are my own and I do not owe you an explanation for them.” Haytham’s eyes went wide at the threat but they quickly narrowed, and he demanded,

           “They do if they’re compromising your faith to the brotherhood.” His son shot him one last glance before turning, pulling on his coat and blades.

           “Rest assured father, my faith in the brotherhood is far from compromised.” Haytham took a step towards him, pleading,

           “Then please, tell me what is going on. I want to help you son.” Connor stopped, fingers twitching in the laces of his hidden blade, and suddenly felt his anger dissipating. It wasn’t his father’s fault he was here. Wasn’t his fault that he and (Y/N) were on different sides. Their reality was different from this one. He let out a sigh, turning to face his father once more, allowing himself to be calm.

           “Father, I understand you wish to help me, but this is not something you can help me with.” Haytham’s face twisted with hurt and he added, “It is not that I do not trust you, it is the fact that the changes are too great to speak of right now. I need to figure them out on my own, and when I do, I will come to you with them.” His father opened his mouth to respond, but Connor reached out, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Please father…trust me.” Haytham stared at him a moment, then nodded, reaching up to take his son’s hand in his own.

           “I do Ratonhnhaké:ton.” He offered a sympathetic smile. “But you know I worry about you. You’re all Ziio and I have…we don’t want anything to happen to you.” Something inside Connor snapped and he looked away, pulling his hand back; his father frowned, but in an instant, Connor had him in a hug, arms wrapped around his back. “Ratonhnhaké:ton?” He reached up, returning the hug. After a few seconds, the young assassin pulled away, reaching up to wipe at his eyes.

           “I apologize. I just-” Haytham chuckled, placing his hand on his shoulder.

           “Don’t apologize son. I understand.” Connor offered a tight smile, then he cleared his throat, saying,

           “I need to get to Boston.” With confusion written across his face, his father asked,

           “For what?” He went silent, thinking of an excuse, then he admitted,

           “If (Y/N) has escaped her fate then we need to find her.”

           “And you think you can?” Connor nodded.

           “I have studied her movements for some time. I know where her safe places are.” Technically what he was saying wasn’t a lie. He did study (Y/N). He knew her better than anyone where she’d hide if need be. “I can find her and take her down.” Haytham shot him a look that told him he was unconvinced of his reason, but he said,

           “You’ve been placed on watch for insubordination, but if what you’re saying is true, then I’ll take this to Achilles and see what I can do.” Connor nodded and moved to walk to the stairs, but his father grabbed his forearm, warning, “But do not leave the homestead until you’ve been given leave to do so.” A remark of indignation crossed his mind, but he nodded and Haytham continued, “Then you go home, and I’ll go see Achilles.” They climbed the stairs, and Connor watched him leave in the direction of the manor. When he was out of sight, he turned, heading to the stables. As he entered, he was startled when his mother entered his vision, arms crossed across her chest, face set in a mask that screamed You’re in trouble.

           “Mother!” She took a step towards him, questioning,

           “And what are you doing, my son? Not leaving without permission, I hope?” The inquiries were rhetorical, and he knew it, so instead of floundering for excuses, he sighed.

           “I was trying to.” Ziio frowned, tipping her head to the doors; Connor let out another sigh, obeying her silent command. The two stepped outside and she waved a hand as she passed him.

           “Come with me.” His face pinched, but still, he did as she commanded, following close behind her, listening as she talked. “You have made quite a scene today Ratonhnhaké:ton. Many are displeased with your actions.” He hadn’t been scolded in such a long time, especially by his mother that he looked at his feet, mumbling,

           “I am sorry mother.” She let out a huff, tipping her head to look back at him.

           “I am more concerned with whatever reasons you had that made you act like that.” Before he could speak, she added, “And I heard you with your father. I trust you, but I do not trust that you are telling him the whole truth.” She spun on her heel and Connor went still as she asked, “What changes were you talking about earlier?” He worried the inside of his cheek, trying to decide what to reveal to her and what he should keep silent. Sighing, he said,

           “Mother, I awoke yesterday and…and I…” He started trailing off, she tipped her head to the side, urging,

           “Yes?” Connor took a deep breath and admitted,

           “And I am not remembering things the way they have occurred.” Ziio’s face turned with suspicion, but also concern.

           “What do you mean?” He raised a hand, feeling around the back of his head until it met the center of the wound.

           “I think I fell and hit my head…I am…” He waved his other hand, fumbling for a vague truth he could commit to. “I am remembering things differently from how they have happened.” She took a seat on a stump, patting the ground next to her. He sat down and she questioned,

           “Like what?” Connor swallowed thickly and looked up at her, begging,

           “Will you promise to not think me crazy? I know it will sound like I am.” Ziio gazed at him a moment, then nodded and he sighed, “Mother…I watched the British leave the colonies a year ago on Evacuation Day. The patriots won the war…we were free of the Crown and templar control.” Indeed, she certainly looked at him like he was growing a second head and he turned his head, words tasting like soured grapes as he spat, “You think I am crazy.”

           “No.” The sudden response made him look back at her and she said, “You must have hit your head. Ratonhnhaké:ton, the British have controlled the colonies since they were established.”

           “But the war-”

           “The patriot army was defeated at Trenton and Saratoga by the British. However, many of the generals of the Crown spoke to the king and begged him to make reforms in the colonies. Taxes were alleviated as well as the repeal of British soldiers in colonist homes.” Connor went silent and she sighed, “I have heard of things like this happening with head wounds.” She smiled, reaching a hand out to him. “We will help you remember what has happened.” He wanted to smile, but the pending question on his tongue made him inquire,

           “Who is we?” Ziio cocked an eyebrow and explained,

           “Me, Haytham, and Ahyoka.” Connor blinked at her, questioning,

           “Who?”

           “Ahyoka? Your wife?” For a moment, he couldn’t speak, and she watched his mouth open and snap shut a few times before he blurted out,

           “Excuse me? I am not married to a woman named Ahyoka.” Her face revealed a stunned expression and she murmured,

           “My god…you truly do not remember what has happened recently.” All Connor could manage to say was,

           “Evidently not.”

[confusedgoldenflower]

Sorry to any of my friends (queers) who scrolled through all this hate and unanswered concern, but here’s a resource at the end! Jessie Gender, mwah! https://youtu.be/GMl_rJ3ghn0?si=xo4IWQNfLf7SVOhf

A poorly done, extremely short summary by a cognitively impaired cripple: when you get down to it, anti-trans rhetoric is a pipeline to far right ideology and cult, that is steeped in old oppressive systems like eugenics and white supremacy and patriarchy and colonialism. Why trans bad? Because girls will “medically mutilate” themselves and oh, dear!!! They won’t be able to breed!!!!! And that’s all the importance they serve, not who they are as people but their working uterii! They often all support one another with very few actual sources and the same rhetoric.

They try to split us minorities apart and pit us against each other because it’s easier for us to be at one another’s throats (think wife v mistress even though it all on the man) than us all going after the actual villain. Seeing it all as separate fights than interlocking issues is easier. More comfortable.

It puts us in a situation where in fighting for ourselves, we have to inherently fight against these systems. And that’s scary to people so they lean back on their internal biases and uphold them, saying we’re the weird, crazy ones rather than agreeing that the extremely harmful systems need to go. So we’re vilified.

That’s also why true feminism is intersectional because we’re all fighting these same oppressors.

It’s the true perpetrator that screams victim to keep everyone in line.

It’s nearly 3 hours and I know that’s scary and a big ask, but you’re free to watch it in segments. I strongly urge you to watch it at some point. She and her guests break it down very nicely (that’s coming from a cognitively impaired dipshit). Listen to it making breakfast or the train or something.

At the very least, watch the conclusion please (~2:20).

It’s a huge undertaking, and that’s half the point. Together, we are strong and you are not alone!

Personal rant bc I need to: my sister’s down that pipeline the terf above is (also why I’m trying to get answers), and I’m afraid she’ll go harder on me being the one to have kids. She’s touched on it before but we were younger (fresh-er adults), but I get this bad feeling it’s not something she’s forgotten. Besides my not wanting children esp with the economy, it would be an absolute hellish health nightmare, and I would expect her to be straight outta some Reddit horror story. I imagine her saying some stupid shit like “you’re not doing anything else to support society, might as well just have kids.” Even tho she’s well aware I’m ace and despite all her reservations about having kids herself, none of that applies to me who, in her head, is some perfectly abled Olympian who’s going to the hospital and has so many specialists… just for laughs, I guess? I don’t know what she thinks, she’s just very overt in her ableism and devaluing of me because I can’t uphold capitalism and yes, I recognized a very long time ago that starts crossing a line into eugenics—you try calling someone out for it only to have them yell that you’re the nazi🙄 (her conclusions jump a lot, and she has a habit of fighting only the arguements in her head).

I'm not trying to come off as aggressive or passive aggressive, I'm simply curious. Why do you believe that straight aromatics/asexuals aren't a part of the community? It would be interesting to hear the reason behind an opinion like this one, as this opinion can be seen as reclusive and homophobic by many people. Would you mind explaining your thought process?

Thank you for being polite, it is nice to read. I do not mind explaning my thought process at all !

You see, we first created this community for same sex attracted people, because society is oppressing us for being attracted to the same sex. Gay and bi people can get killed, kicked out, arrested, fired, etc... because of their sexual orientation. We created this community and fought (we still do, actually) for our rights, for the right to love the same sex in peace. I am sure you know how much many of us have suffered for being gay or bi.

Straight aro/ace people aren't same sex attracted, so I don't believe they should be a part of this community, simply because it's a community for same sex attracted people and they aren't ! It doesn't mean I don't want them to be free or happy. It's just that this community isn’t for them. It doesn't even fit their need.

And forcing same sex attracted people to share the community they created against their oppression with their oppressors (heterosexuals) is kind of fucked up, don't you think ?

Aro/ace people should just have their own community. That is what I believe as a lesbian.

Have a good day/night!