#this is why some people who are like “fellow leftists check in on your Jewish mutuals” after Elon ring hollow

[irenespring]

Fellow progressives: do not spread images with the red triangle

Possibly stepping on a minefield but what the fuck. Someone I follow just reblogged someone celebrating the Hamas red triangle and the post is full of notes saying people calling the red triangle antisemitic are just against Palestine and are colonialists.

This has also happened before with a mutual so it seems like something non-Jewish people just might not know: the red triangle---unlike symbols such as the Palestinian flag and the watermelon---is explicitly pro-Hamas. Not pro-Palestine, pro-Hamas. Hamas is the organization that singled out civilians rather than actual military targets in order to kill the largest number of innocent Jews possible. They committed mass atrocities ending in the largest slaughter of Jewish civilians in one day since the Holocaust.

You cannot be pro-Hamas without being antisemitic. You cannot spread Hamas symbols without having done an antisemitic action. So, don't spread the red triangle. It isn't pro-Palestine. It just makes your Jewish mutuals upset and uncomfortable around you.

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

I threw down pretty heavily with SURJ this year, and also wasn't particularly happy with their post-election analysis. I'm not necessarily looking to move orgs, but I'm curious what the takes on the WFP/Move On call were. I'm in the contacting them to see if I can get the recording, but I'd also love to get your deeper opinion.

the recording of the mass call is here (I couldn't recall the coalition name while drafting that post and was in a rush to get to something and probably should have waited). I will admit I was not in like, a great headspace to remember details, and I had to drop off early, but I have signed up for my local meeting which is tomorrow (check your area! there's links on the same page). It focused a lot more on community building and tangible plans put in place and a lot less about Our Fellow White Women coming from educated lefty white women in Brooklyn who only have access to other educated lefty white women in Brooklyn. I also think that it did contain some useful post-mortems. I do not think it's correct to say Democrats made all of the right choices over the past 4 years but the issue is less "we have abandoned the working class" and much more "messaging is fucked, a lot of programs move too slowly, and we should have prosecuted Trump much more quickly." Like, more generally, I think that capitalism is a massive problem and is a major factor why we're at where we're at. but SURJ felt like, well, Very Online Leftists who are like "under late stage capitalism we are all fucked" and when you ask "ok what should we do about it" they're like "stop capitalism" and when you're like "ok what are the actionable steps" they're like "CAPITALISM BAD". Or to put it another way, to reference the Daniel Hunter 10 steps article, it felt all very public angsting, no action. And perhaps it was just that that call was Wednesday Night and Worth Fighting For was Thursday and they'd had another day to pause and grieve and breathe but the former just made me feel like they were wallowing and the latter was the first thing that made me feel better that wasn't pure distraction.

also: Judith LeBlanc was a smart choice. I feel better today for having gone to my synagogue and talked to old left-leaning Jewish people. I think you need to spend time with people who can say "the steps backward are unacceptable, and also, I have gone forward once and I will keep doing it and I know the work might not be done in my or your lifetime and we still do it." I also think it's a key point in coalition building to have the former head of the Communist Party given an equal platform as Jamie Raskin and Pramila Jayapal and Leah Greenberg. (I also found Ash-Lee Henderson to be a fantastic host/moderator here; again, I think SURJ's mission isn't inherently bad in theory but it really does turn into a lot of Liberal Urbanite White Woman (and sometimes men) self-flagellation. Like...you should not make women of color do the work, but you should fucking listen to them instead of talking forever about how bad and sorry you are about other white women.)

[theearthsheep-blog]

and i’m feeling in a particularly venty mood right now so fuck all y’all we’re getting politlcal

and no fuck you i’m not putting this under a read more. if you follow me i want you to read this.

a) first of all yeah i don’t really get political on this here website very often and that’s not because i don’t have political opinions or because i’m worried that they’ll be unpopular, i expect most of my followers and i agree on pretty much everything. the reason i don’t post politics is mostly because they make me anxious and i’m on this website in my spare time when i don’t want to deal with it. with that in my mind, fuck the mentality of “everyone who doesn’t reblog this is a fascist”. first of all it’s very “with us or against us” and i understand where you’re coming from but there are plenty of valid reasons to not want to reblog that kind of stuff. i’m going to call out a specific post here just because it’s the one i remember and i want to give an example, but there wasn’t anything particularly egregious about it. it was a post supporting jews, i forget the exact wording but it was something simple like “this blog supports jews” and someone added on to it with something in the vein of “i’m watching those of my mutuals who aren’t reblogging this very carefully” and like... that made me feel really shitty because that’s not the kind of thing i like to post but here was this post telling me in no uncertain terms that i’m an affront to the jewish community if i don’t constantly tell everyone i’m not.

and i know there are plenty of people out there who would read this and their first thought is “oh sheep is just closet anti-semitic”. like, seriously, reconsider your worldview if that’s how you’re thinking right now. you can’t be this black-and-white.

and, like, look, i get it. i’m trans. i know what it’s like to know that a big portion of the world is literally out to get you, literally hates your actual existence. i know what it’s like to watch those around you like a hawk for any warning signs of being the kind of person it’s very unsafe to honestly introduce yourself to. i get it! but i can’t just assume that anyone who i follow who doesn’t post support for trans people on like, a monthly basis? is transphobic. and honestly i couldn’t really even assume that anyone who DOES post support ISN’T. it helps certainly but at the end of the day that’s just words. this may surprise you but people can just say words and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. like you know how you were in elementary school and they made you say the pledge of allegiance? and after like two times it stopped meaning anything to you, and you were too young to understand it when you learned it anyway? don’t make everyone say the pledge of allegiance on their tumblr every morning, regardless of what allegiance it is you want them to pledge.

and to set the record straight, of course i support jews. anti-semiticism is disgusting. at the same time, (and this is getting into the shitty “who has it the worst” arguments that i hate) i think jews probably aren’t priority 1 right now. i’ve seen some buzz about a sudden upsurge in anti-semitic actions over the past few months (since trump got elected) and no statistics i’ve seen have actually supported that. it looks like it’s been a steady growth for several years now and like that’s worrying enough on its own but trump has already taken direct action against both muslims and latins and i feel like those are the people who need the most support right now. and honestly? i genuinely believe that trump isn’t anti-semitic, though particular members of his administration certainly are.

anyway.

that isn’t even what i wanted to talk about.

b) and this is what i’m here for, really. come on guys, you really need to fact check some of this shit. i’m not playing around here, if you think “spreading the word” or “keeping people informed” has any value at all then you NEED to curate the content on your blog. i’ve seen tons of posts that i’m sure mean well but are exaggerated or downright wrong. this plays directly into trump’s hands. especially right now, his message is that the “media elite” are conspiring against him and making shit up. this does not seem to be true in any meaningful sense, but every time some news organization uses some hyperbole to grab clicks and then every other outlet takes even the original CLICKBAIT out of context, misinformation flies quick. and it lends credence to trump’s “fake news” message.

right now, the story is the 100,000 national guard trump is secretly plotting to deploy to support ICE in removing illegal immigrants from border states (and a few that are adjacent). so where did this story come from?

the associated press claims that they have a leaked white house document that describes an executive order trump may give which will allow the deployment of the national guard of same states to support efforts to deport immigrants. this is worrying enough! this is bad!

however, the AP doesn’t just announce that. that doesn’t fit easily into a tweet and it doesn’t bait clicks. instead they say, and this is the exact quote: “BREAKING: Trump administration considers mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants.”

the 100,000 number is nowhere, even in the document the AP says they have. - oh and just as a sidenote i’m going to keep saying the AP “says” they have a document. for what it’s worth i do believe that they genuinely got it from a white house employee, but i’m just trying to be clear here that it’s just them saying that, there’s no evidence for it either way. for what it’s worth, the white house denies the validity of the leak.

anyway. the 100,000 number actually seems to be in the neighborhood of the sum number of national guard in the states in question. in fairness to the AP, they did say “up to”, so i guess they’re covered (in that 0 is “up to” 100,000), BUT a significant fraction of the national guard are already deployed on various tasks, so it’s literally incorrect to say that anyone is considering deploying the full 100,000. plus, trump couldn’t mobilize these people even if he wanted to. the national guard for each state answer to the governor of that state. each of the fourteen governors have the final say on whether, and how many, of the national guard would be called into service.

okay, so, we have the Associated Press telling an exaggerated BUT still basically true tale. but because it was exaggerated, the exaggeration is what people will remember. in this case, it’s the number 100,000. i’ve said it enough times in this post, even if you only read this, it’s probably the first thing you’d remember about the story.

so what happens if or when this executive order actually gets signed? in a few weeks the news story comes out and says “5,000 national guard deployed to support ICE across fourteen states” and, “wow, look, that’s WAY less than those alarmist liberals told me there would be! see? everything’s fine!” so trump gets to say “the news media spun everything way out of proportion; the liberals worked themselves into a froth; and the world didn’t end”. and at the same time he literally used the military to fulfill a civic goal, which is about as big of a warning sign for fascism as i can imagine.

it is entirely possible that the white house is intentionally leaking documents that they know the news will whip into a frenzy over, just so that when the truth is less bad, people will think that it’s okay. this is trump’s path to victory, and if so it’s working alarmingly well. this is why you need to be careful. your voice matters and is valuable, don’t misuse it.

3) one last thing, john mccain just spoke at the Munich Security Conference, and his speech was decidedly anti-trump. mccain has been a critic of trump pretty much as long as trump has been a politician, and now he’s making some very, very valuable points. he may be trying to garner support in the republican party for a sort of “anti tea party” movement back to moderation, probably partly as an attempt to save the party from getting swept in the next few election cycles, and partly because john mccain isn’t absolutely fucking insane.

this is the kind of thing to watch out for, and support. even if john mccain isn’t a perfect person and he’s not my first pick for the oval office, he’s better than trump. i know that’s a low bar, but that’s what we’re reduced to. if such a movement among republicans were to occur i would happily volunteer for their campaigns if i thought they had a better chance than a more leftist candidate, and someone needed to keep actual fascists out of congress.

anyway that’s all largely speculative and not really what i wanted to talk about. 

here’s a selection from his speech, sourced from the Washington Post:

[The founders of the Munich Conference] would be alarmed by the hardening resentment we see towards immigrants and refugees and minority groups -- especially Muslims. [...] They would be alarmed that more and more of our fellow citizens seem to be flirting with authoritarianism and romanticizing it as our moral equivalent. [...] I refuse to accept that our values are morally equivalent to those of our adversaries. I am a proud, unapologetic believer in the West, and I believe we must always, always stand up for it. For if we do not, who will?

now i know that it’s popular around here to hate on america. yes, we’ve been involved in some shit in the middle east and elsewhere. yes, there are tons of stains on our history of civil rights. yes, our treatment of american indians has historically been abhorrent and isn’t getting much better.

We are not as bad as Russia. We are not as bad as China. We are not as bad as North Korea. We are not as bad as ISIS.

the United States, and the rest of NATO, have the unique power to act almost unilaterally to promote western values around the world. and when i say “western values”, i don’t want anyone reading this to fucking scoff. i’m talking about freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of assembly. i’m talking about the belief that a liberal education can make you a better human. i’m talking about the belief that people are inherently valuable. these should be a given but they are NOT.

yes. i know. the united states is not perfect, even in granting those things above to its own citizens. but it TRIES. it doesn’t fucking assassinate journalists. it doesn’t have its secret police raid meetings of non-state-sanctioned political parties. these are REAL THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO REAL PEOPLE AND IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CARE AND TO FIGHT FOR THEM.

the united states pulling out of NATO, or of just being too isolationist to do anything about these very real threats to very real people, is i think the most plausible worst case scenario from a trump presidency. and i am SO willing to fight for moderate republicans who agree with that. people like john mccain.

like, you can probably tell i’m getting kind of emotional over here but i literally want to kiss john mccain right now.

what has 2017 done to me

[ordinaryboredblogger-blog]

Politics 2

I’ve noticed in the last month or so that there hasn’t been much “activity” being sent out – that’s not to say his website hasn’t been publishing articles, but they’re not showing up in the feed if you follow his page.  I have his page set to show up automatically when there’s something new.  Here’s what the feed looks like now:

That’s all it showed – two posts from a friend of mine who’s in the Navy.  It collapsed for whatever reason a post from a libertarian friend who is horribly ill right now, and just showed these two posts.   However when I check it from my iPad, it shows a couple of posts (via whatever black magic is afoot here) from an Alt-Left (yes, if there’s an “Alt-Right” there’s an Alt-Left) “social commentator”.  Granted, it’s a few stories down from these two posts, but still.

I’m not going to bother editing out the name of this “commentator” either, because anybody who’s not a part of Antifa is a target, then the same logic applies the other way.

I had to manually go to the page because Facebook wasn’t loading properly on my computer for reason.

Why would this Alt-Left “social commentator” show up on my Feed?  I don’t have many friends on here, except people from school.  Most of them are military or prior, and share stuff that a normal person would – none of this Alt-Left (or Alt-Right even) nonsense.

So anyway, I have to manually go to Milo’s Facebook page to see new content.

Interestingly enough, clicking on the link directly to his page does nothing – so I had to click on a post that a friend of mine shared just to get to the page.

It’s mind-blowing how The Left says that a reporter saying “Shut up and dribble!” in regards to a black basketball player trying to speak his opinion is racist, but they have no problem telling black musician that he needs to get out of the “sunken place” – a reference to some race-baiting “movie” and gladly ignore calls for this musician’s death or harm against his life. Somehow it’s racist to tell a basketball player to shut up, but it’s OK to ignore calls for violence against a black musician.  Here’s what a fellow musician said to the one in question:

John Legend: Hey it’s JL.  I hope you’ll reconsider aligning yourself with Trump. You’re way too powerful and influential to endorse who he is and what he stands for.  As you know, what you say really means something to your fans. They are loyal to you and respect your opinion.  So many people who love you feel so betrayed right now because they know the harm that Trump’s policies cause, especially to people of color.  Don’t let this be part of your legacy. You’re the greatest artist of our generation.

The Musician In Question: I love you John and I appreciate your thoughts.  You bringing up my fans or my legacy is a tactic based on fear used to manipulate my free thought.

I don’t understand how the thinking works with this one – it got so bad that another black musician had to pipe up, and say that it’s OK for you to be black and not a Democratic/Leftist. The outrage surrounding this whole thing is as amusing Trump getting CNN to say “shithole” 36 times in one single broadcast session.I was reading an article from the Daily Wire earlier which said that one of Snoop Dogg’s former entourage was calling for the Crips in Los Angeles to kill this conservative musician, due to his views.

I mean, if someone on the Right did something like this, the Left would riot and burn down another city – like they did over the criminal who was killed in Furgeson a few years ago.Calling for someone’s death is an “actionable offence” and definitely a good reason to have the cops or FBI – whoever is responsible at that high level – to look into this.I mean, God forbid, you deviate from the hive-mind and have an opinion of your own. This is worse than the outrage that happened when white women who were formerly feminists, leaving the hive-mind and becoming “anti-feminists” as the phrase goes.I mean, this musician had the nerve to say something outside of the Left has been launching vicious attacks against him, pretty much nonstop since he said that he supports the POTUS – if he had said this a few years ago with Obama, everybody would have loved him to bits.

It’s like I was telling this girl I know – it’s dangerous to be a straight, white, male in his mid to late 20’s. I was telling her (and she seemed agreeable) that the only way to get ahead in this world is to be a black woman – which I guess it pretty spot-on. I went a step further with the “identity politics” as the Left likes to call it and said “Yes, but you’d have to also be a drug addict, dying of lead poisoning from your home city – Flint, Michigan – and willing to get help.” They (the masses, government, and whoever the hell else) would love you more than they love God – or rather their false idol – Hilary Rodham Clinton.

There was a black guy smoking a cigarette nearby who said that my spiel was a load of crap – the distinction that he’s black is important – I asked him why and he said it’s not true. I asked him next, “Was I wrong about my example though – even if it was a mite stereotypical?” He didn’t have an answer other than “Well I’m from Flint.” – to which I politely apologized for any possible offence about the state of that shithole city. (I didn’t say it like that you crazy people!)So as I was heading back to class, I told him that as a straight, white, right leaning male, the only thing that I have left in this world is to be as “dangerous” as possible – meaning that I’m going to always be as unapologetic about my politics as people are about their favourite sports teams.

I think between my great-grandfather (who passed away a while back) and my uncle though, I’m probably the sanest of the of the Republican side of the aisle in my family.  Even if I do agree with people like Milo Yiannopoulos on most issues, and frequently repost things from guys like Steven Crowder or Ben Shapiro.  To be quite honest, I think my great-grandfather would have appreciated Ben Shapiro quite a bit – he’s a Jewish Republican; allegedly a “#nevertrump” supporter – but I haven’t seen anything about that.Come to think of it – since this has turned into a “political superpost” let’s go find out some more about this.Found one article that mentioned him being a #nevertrumper support – if not the damned “forefront” of it.Then there’s this article, which seems to say that he is completely against Trump, but in fact is really on against Breitbart – which has turned into a shithole since Andrew Breitbart died in 2012…