#this leader isn’t a communist

[the-feathered-dragon-hoard]

Sinbad discover: communism

Sinbad no bouken - chapter 122

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Can i just say, cuz i saw the tag and it’s bothering me a little (as a lover of history)

Yes Japan allied with germany in world ward II, but they didn’t really do it because they agreed with germany. Like i’m not giving Japan a pass on anything they’ve done (they’re very much a coloniser as well)

But Japan joined germany out of anger a spit not out of shared ideology. Japan was angry they got short shafted after world war I where they fought alongside the allied forced and helped win some major battles, and then when it came to making a peace treaty they got nothing.

They didn’t get any labd like britian, france and the USA.

They didn’t even really get invited to be a part of the peace treaty like other countries on the winning side.

Japan joined Germany more out of frustration than being actual fascists. Like, yes. Their country has gone a really sort of terrible way in terms of government and they did commit a lot of war crimes and murder for the sake of getting rid of people they deemed ‘beneath them’

But had the other allied countries shown them even an ounce of respect after world war I maybe they would have stayed on their side.

[mariacallous]

Rhetoric has a history. The words democracy and tyranny were debated in ancient Greece; the phrase separation of powers became important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”

This language isn’t merely ugly or repellant: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster displayed a drawing of a louse with a caricature of a Jewish face. The slogan: “Jews are lice: they cause typhus.” Germans, by contrast, were clean, pure, healthy, and vermin-free. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and the purity of our blood.”

Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. In my files, I have the notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, during which one of them called for a struggle against “vermin activities” (there is, inevitably, a German word for this: Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of the regime’s critics. In this same era, the Stasi forcibly moved suspicious people away from the border with West Germany, a project nicknamed “Operation Vermin.”

This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”

In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.

Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics. Even George Wallace’s notorious, racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, his inaugural speech as Alabama governor and the prelude to his first presidential campaign, avoided such language. Wallace called for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But he did not speak of his political opponents as “vermin” or talk about them poisoning the nation’s blood. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps following the outbreak of World War II, spoke of “alien enemies” but not parasites.

In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. Trump blurs the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants—the latter including his wife, his late ex-wife, the in-laws of his running mate, and many others. He has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. “I haven’t read Mein Kampf,” he declared, unprovoked, during one rally—an admission that he knows what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether or not he has actually read it. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric,” he told an interviewer, “if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen.”

His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity.

These are not jokes, and Trump is not laughing. Nor are the people around him. Delegates at the Republican National Convention held up prefabricated signs: Mass Deportation Now. Just this week, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan: Trump Was Right About Everything. This is language borrowed directly from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted a photograph of a building in Mussolini’s Italy displaying his slogan: Mussolini Is Always Right.

These phrases have not been put on posters and banners at random in the final weeks of an American election season. With less than three weeks left to go, most candidates would be fighting for the middle ground, for the swing voters. Trump is doing the exact opposite. Why? There can be only one answer: because he and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the “bloodbath” that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents—none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics.

But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics. Several generations of American politicians have assumed that American voters, most of whom learned to pledge allegiance to the flag in school, grew up with the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion, would be resistant to this kind of language and imagery. Trump is gambling—knowingly and cynically—that we are not.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

This is one of the best articles I’ve seen yet on Trump, Trumpism, and the upcoming election. It’s directed at the right and centre-right (whereas most tumblr posts on this are directed at the left), but it’s saying – with detailed analysis and evidence – exactly what needs to be said, to everyone. This is not a normal election. How you vote this November determines whether you ever get the chance to vote in a democratic election again. This is not a game. Fascism is not a buzzword or a rhetorical device to hurl at anyone and everyone you disagree with. It is real, it is dangerous, and Trump is openly running on a fascist platform.

There are only two sides in this election: those who want the United States to be a fascist dictatorship and those who do not.

I live in Canada. I do not want to live next to a fascist state (especially since the Comservatives here are way ahead in the polls and their leader gives every sign of wanting to cozy up to Trump).

Please, stop this while you still have a chance.

Today we’re going to look at definitions of fascism and ask the question – you may have guessed – if Donald Trump is running for President as a fascist. Worry not, this isn’t me shifting to full-time political pundit, nor is this the formal end of the hiatus (which will happen on Nov 1, when I hope to have a post answering some history questions from the ACOUP Senate to start off on), but this was an essay I had in me that I had to get out, and working on the book I haven’t the time to get it out in any other forum but this one. And I’ll be frank, some of Donald Trump’s recent statements and promises have raised the urgency of writing this; the political science suggests that politicians do, broadly, attempt to do the things they promise to do – and the things Trump is promising are dark indeed.

Now I want to be clear what we’re doing here. I am not asking if the Republican Party is fascist (I think, broadly speaking, it isn’t) and certainly not if you are fascist (I certainly hope not). But I want to employ the concept of fascism as an ideology with more precision than its normal use (‘thing I don’t like’) and in that context ask if Donald Trump fits the definition of a fascist based on his own statements and if so, what does that mean. And I want to do it in a long-form context where we can get beyond slogans or tweet-length arguments and into some detail.

Now the response from some folks is going to be anger that I am even asking this question and demands for me to ‘stay in my lane.’ To which I must remind them that the purpose of history and historians is, as Thucydides put it, is to offer “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human affairs must resemble if it does not reflect it” (Thuc. 1.22.4). This is my lane. Goodness knows, I’d much rather be discussing the historical implications of tax policy or long-term interstate strategy, but that isn’t the election we’re having. And if hearing about these things that happened is unpleasant, well, Polybius offers the solution: “men have no more ready corrective of conduct than knowledge of the past” (Plb. 1.1.1). We must correct our conduct.

The author, Bret Devereaux, lays out the history of the rise to power of Hitler and Mussolini and draws out the lessons

What I want to note here are two key commonalities: First, fascists were only able to take power because of the gullibility of those who thought they could ‘use’ the fascists against some other enemy (usually communists). Traditional conservative politicians (your Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham types) and conservative business leaders (your Elon Musks) fooled themselves into believing that, because the would-be tyrant seemed foolish, buffoonish, and uneducated that such an individual could be controlled to their ends, shaped in more productive, more ‘moderate,’ more ‘business friendly’ directions. They were wrong; many of them paid for their foolish error with their lives (Victor Emmanuel III paid for it with his crown). Mussolini and Hitler would not be ‘shaped,’ – they would be exactly the violent, tyrannical dictators they had promised to be – to the total and utter ruin of their countries.

Note that these men were not exactly subtle about what they wanted to do. Mein Kampf is not a subtle book. But they both knew how to promise violence to their followers while prevaricating to their temporary allies; be wary of the fascist who promises violence in his rally speeches but assures you that, if you just give him power, he won’t hurt anyone (except the people you don’t like) – because it is a lie, of course.

Second: once these fascist leaders were in power it was already too late to stop them. Precisely because fascists had no respect for democratic processes and the rule of law – things they had declared openly in seeking power – once in power, they were unconstrained by them and swiftly set about converting all of the powers of the government into a machine to keep them in power. And the conversion from democracy to dictatorship was remarkably swift, in Italy, Mussolini marched in October of ’22, rewrote the election rules in November of ’23 and by December of ’24 had effectively dropped even the pretense of democracy; just two years. Hitler was faster: appointed chancellor in January 1933, by March of that year he had suspended constitutional protections and ruled by fiat; just three months.

The time to stop an authoritarian takeover of a democratic system is before the authoritarian is in office, because once they are in power, they will use that power, to stay in power and it becomes almost impossible to remove them without considerable violence (and difficult to do even with considerable violence).

That, however, creates a tricky situation. With most political ideologies, voters can adopt a strategy of judging by outputs: “if you don’t like the current government’s policies, let these other fellows here have a go at it and see if they do better. If not, you can always vote them out next time.” But with fascists and other authoritarians there may not be a next time and this strategy fails: by the time the actions of the fascists make it clear they are dangerous, it is too late to vote them out.

This is why it is important to listen carefully to what fascists say and what they promise and most importantly to take their threats of political violence and authoritarianism seriously.

Which is not to say that everything on the right is fascism (just as not everything on the left is its own authoritarian variant, communism). Ronald Reagan was not a fascist, nor was George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney. They were conservatives within the liberal tradition (again, ‘liberal’ here in the old Jefferson-Locke-and-Washington sense). Most Republicans today are not fascists, although a distressing number appear ready to repeat Franz von Papen’s mistake of assuming they can achieve their goals through an alliance with fascists. Only the devil wins such a devil’s bargain.

How is one to tell the difference? Listen to the things they promise to do and understand that they make speak out of both sides of their mouth: promising violence to one audience and then toning down their rhetoric to another. But politicians speaking from within the tradition of liberty don’t need to speak that way because they don’t promise violence in the first place.

Listen for the promises of violence, the promises to suspend press freedoms, the promises to persecute political adversaries and when you hear them believe them.

I strongly recommend reading the whole article, as the author goes on to lay out two of the more common definitions of fascism and analyze, point-by-point, how Trumpism fits them.

There is a reason why some Republicans, even some of the people who were in Trump’s inner circle in 2016-2020, have jumped ship now. The Republicans who are willing to vote for Kamala aren’t doing it because she’s conservative – they’re doing it because they’re anti-fascist. It would be deeply ironic if people on the left who have been calling themselves anti-fascists for the last eight years proved to be less so than those Republicans. This may be one of the most crucial moments in American history. Take it seriously.

[delphiniumarchangelmoon]

Actually the more I think about it the more the “agency member goes to the PM” thing doesn’t work like…

Kunikida- would overthrow Mori without even thinking about it, absolute nightmare duo with Chuuya they’re running this town like a goddamn army unit and looking so sexy doing it

Kenji- wouldn’t try to overthrow Mori but Mori would end up accidentally making him leader somehow cause it’s Kenji

Yosano- never. No.

Dazai- Mori isn’t the one with a death wish here

Junichiro- again, this is instant death for a completely different reason cause the agreement was ONE member, not two (though I do wanna see Naomi go on a rampage let my girl go apeshit she deserves it 💛)

Kyouka- Kouyou would string him up by his guts

Ranpo- first of all, Fukuzawa would EAT HIM ALIVE IF HE TRIED THAT second of all, it would be Kunikida all over again except instead of a communist utopia Yokohama becomes a chaos hellscape. Not because he couldn’t make a utopia, but because he’d get too bored if he did.

Atsushi- the most reasonable choice by far but I feel like that’s gonna end with half the PM defecting to the ADA to hang out with him more

What if instead they just gave Mori Poe and said “yup totally an official agency member not just some guy who follows Ranpo everywhere no sir!”

[eugenedebs1920]

When we look back at dictatorships, whether in fascist regimes, communist states, autocratic rule, and totalitarianism, ect. the philosophy’s don’t have all that much in common. One thing they do have in common is a “great leader” or an “emperor”, and more so nowadays a “strongman” who lords over the population with ”an iron fist”, a fancy way of saying they oppress thier people.

Let’s look at WWII. What did Germany’s leader (I heard we weren’t supposed to use the H word but you know who I’m referring to) and the emperor of Japan share in similarities? Not much, if anything at all. After Pearl Harbor America declared war with Japan and as a result of the treaty between Japan and Germany, Germany declared war with America (DUMB!!). What did germanys leader and the emperor of Japan have in common? Did they share any common ground other than the leader was almighty and the subjects were expendable? No. What they had in common is their oppressive rule and the fact that the free countries condemned their style of governance. So whether you have any similarities or not, as an oppressive regime, your only allies are other oppressive regimes. The idiom, your enemies, enemy, is your friend.

Fast forward to now and we don’t have the same style of fascism and dictatorships, in the more developed countries, as back then. Hence it’s not the same kind of harsh oppressive system. More of a soft autocracy. Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey are a prime example of the “soft autocracy”. Russia is an authoritarian state. Their sham government is a front for the pleasing of the world but, Putin rules Russia as a dictator.

The last thing these authoritarians want is their people to get any wild ideas of individual freedom and liberty. We did screw Russia over good after WWII, and I promise they didn’t forget, but beyond that, they want any democracy to fail. They don’t want their people to see that it is possible to have a thriving free nation. Who is the most power, wealthiest, freest nation on the planet? The United States of America.

China, Russia, Turkey, Hungary, North Korea, they would LOVE to see us destroy ourselves. All that they can do without invoking a military conflict, they will to undermine us, make us seem as if our system of government is feeble, flawed, corrupted, they will, and are. They want to rule over their citizens with fear and divisiveness. Making the population too scared to rise up against them.

This is why, in particular, Russia has been caught meddling in elections all throughout Europe and here in America. It is also why it’s so troubling that Republicans, and Trump in particular, are so keen on people such as Orban and not willing to help a democracy like Ukraine. Trump and Putin being “friends” is not a good thing. Trump is the easiest person to manipulate! All you have to do is complement him or offer him money and he’ll do whatever you want. Orban is an authoritarian! Why is he going and having private meetings with Trump directly after he met with Putin. This isn’t a Sherlock Holmes mystery here! It’s pretty damn easy to see!

Long story shorter than it could be. Russia will be putting out all kinds of misinformation and deepfakes, false stories and made up articles. Check the source! Despite what Trump says, because he only says it due to them being critical of him and covering him appropriately, the established sources, your NBC’s, CBS, ABC, CNN, Washington Post, NY Times, ect. these are credible sources. Are they corporate money making organizations? Yes. Does the press situation in this country need an overhaul? Yes. But these aren’t fake news (I had to laugh while typing that because that’s LITERALLY what Trump calls them) their flawed news but they aren’t social media deepfake, made up, complete fabrications to throw our democracy into turmoil. They will tell you the story as it is happening. The first step in autocratic rule is to limit information to what suits your narrative. Thats why Trump calls them fake. I can’t believe I’m sticking up for the media so much right now but , for reals!…

Check your sources. Know that their is forces that want to see us fail. Want us to be angry and rioting and questioning if democracy works. It does. Trump is a Russian asset, that’s why all this nonsense is amplified the way it is. In 248 years, 60 presidential elections, only the three involving Trump has this whole fraud, stolen election, noncitizen voting bullsh*t ever came up. Just Trump being a traitor. Don’t let the country’s most notorious conman con ya.

[odinsblog]

For clarity: Giving Ukrainians the ability to defend themselves against a hostile foreign invasion is not what is killing Ukrainians. IT’S THE RUSSIAN MILITARY AND THEIR INVASION OF UKRAINE THAT IS KILLING UKRAINIANS.

Sorry, but you can’t just delete the agency of the country that instigated war by committing an illegal invasion, and magically shift blame away from Russia.

And what happens to Ukrainians is very well documented—you need look no farther than Bucha and Mariupol to see what the Russian army does to Ukrainian civilians once they have seized their land.

This is a nonsensical Russian propaganda talking point, and unsurprisingly, Republicans + Libertarians + ignorant ass tankies who think they’re somehow defending “communist Russia” have been regurgitating the same idiotic rhetoric ever since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Hopefully hearing Marjorie Taylor Greene speak the rhetoric exposes just how incredibly stupid it sounds. Because it IS stupid.

Until Trump, there was was no other time in modern American history that Republicans would have argued against defending a country from a Russian invasion. Russia is the aggressor here, and as Marjorie Traitor Greene admitted herself, Ukraine is not in NATO, and Ukraine was not even seeking NATO membership when Russia invaded their sovereign state.

“… if you can take the mere existence of NATO as something so intolerable that Russia simply had no choice but to invade a country that wasn't in NATO then I guess you can believe anything.”

Russia could end the war instantly, just by turning its army around and going back home to Russia.

SN: To be sure, the United States has done and is still doing A LOT wrong; the U.S. has committed its own share of war crimes and has supported war criminals in other countries in exchange for oil and other natural resources—so yes, we can and we should be doing everything in our power to demand that America does everything it can possibly do to prevent Israel from committing any further war crimes and illegal land grabs in Palestine, but this one specific issue is about Ukraine, not Palestine.

Borrowing from another post, but it’s very apropos here:

“Tankies are not leftists. They think they are, which is both funny and sad. If they were, they wouldn't support Vladimir Putin, a far-right leader engaged in ethno-nationalist imperialism. It's your ideas and values that make you a leftist, not how much you hate the US.”

We can agree with one thing without having to agree with everything that America does.

Every enemy of America isn’t “good” just because they oppose America; and Russia has a very long history of its own war crimes and extensive human rights abuses.

[eretzyisrael]

by Asra Q. Nomani

Another troubling example is the “Hands Off Uhuru Fightback Coalition,” whose leaders face charges in a Tampa court in September for allegedly working with Russian intelligence to interfere in U.S. elections. In a statement that rings true today, Matthew G. Olsen, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s National Security Division prosecuting the Uhuru case, said last year, “Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States.” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division called it “foreign malign influence.”

These groups are not merely focused on domestic issues; they harbor broader, international ambitions, for which they are willing to “disrupt the DNC,” even if it costs Harris votes – and potentially the presidency. Many of them seek to dismantle the current global order, with a particular focus on the Middle East and the destruction of Israel.

At the heart of this coalition lies a shared animosity towards the Democratic Party and, now, Harris. The Atlanta chapter of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression tells its followers Harris is “funding genocide and ignoring police terror.” “Workers Strike Back” tells Americans to “REJECT the New Warmonger-in-Chief.”

By presenting the protests as “grassroots,” the media has underplayed the powerful forces behind controversial messages, like “HAMAS IS COMING,” during the network’s recent protests in D.C., when the American flag was burnt and replaced by the Palestinian flag. By not dissecting their motives, the media has also given them a powerful bullhorn. These protests are not spontaneous uprisings of concerned citizens. They are carefully orchestrated campaigns designed to subvert U.S. elections and undermine American democracy.

These protestors seek to overthrow the current political order, or as one organizer, “Socialist Action,” says: “Permanent Revolution.” Their demands are absolute, and their tactics are ruthless. Democratic Party leaders must recognize that there is no winning with these groups. Their aim is to tear down what exists and rebuild it in their own intolerant image.

Andrew Fox, a former British military officer who did three tours of duty in Afghanistan, tells me: “These protestors are not just demonstrating; they are fomenting an insurgency designed to destabilize the U.S. and further the interests of foreign actors.”

Democratic Party leaders and Harris would be well served to refuse to be swayed by the loudest voices on the streets, who pledge to “Disrupt the DNC,” as “Workers Strike Back,” supporting “Left Antiwar Independent Candidate” Jill Stein, threatens to do. Firebrand, a self-described “communist organization” and coalition member, has guided its members to avoid playing a game of “lesser evilism” and refuse Harris’s candidacy. 

The fight against disinformation warfare is not easy, but it is necessary. By shining a light on the truth behind the myth of the marching millions, understanding details like who funds protests and rents charter buses to Chicago, we can make wise decisions, not misled by fear and chaos, but rather guided by transparency and facts. 

[memoriavivens]

Gulool Ja

(In case you read that wrong, I’m talking about the kid, not the Dawnservant.)

I hope the patch storyline has a change of direction for this poor kid compared to what he got in the ending cutscenes. Him being king is a terrible decision, and not just because he’s too young to govern, the people don’t want him, it makes it look like Wuk Lamat is setting up a puppet government, or that monarchy is fundamentally an issue. No, the concern I’m here to talk about is what being king from such a young age would do to Gulool Ja himself. Being the leader of a nation is inherently dehumanizing. Look at the way real life world leaders are talked about. If people like them it’s typically because of what they do, not because of who they are. Their personal traits, if they are mentioned at all, will typically only be used to smear their reputation. And this is reasonable- it’s far more likely for instance that your president, prime minister, or similar figure will pass a law that affects your ability to live comfortably than it is that you will meet them in person and develop a friendship. But that’s modern elected officials, positions taken voluntarily and, on that level, almost always by people who know at least that much about what they’re getting into. A kingship is not like that. You will hold the position for life, and with your greater amount of power and visibility comes even further scrutiny on your actions. If Gulool Ja remains king, then from his extremely young age he will grow disconnected from himself- because the good rulers always end up joining the masses in setting aside their selves. Another point to briefly touch on before expanding upon the main one- Alexandria prior to this does not seem to genuinely be a monarchy. Their leader is a queen, yes, but there’s no line of succession and no feudal system beneath her, and even the way her people treat her and she treats them resembles more an exceptionally benevolent communist dictator than it does a monarch. (Also, am I the only person who was reminded more of the Soviet Union than the US by Alexandria? Granted that I’m not an expert on the Soviets, but still.) Sphene, of course, ties back in to the original point about how being the ruler is dehumanizing- I imagine the only people who might be unable to see this are those who are fully in on dehumanizing her to the point that they don’t see there’s more to her than a program in the first place, and even most of them probably get what I’m talking about. She became queen at a young age, much like Gulool Ja, and it ruined her life arguably twice over. She’s clearly an excellent queen under normal circumstances, but the programming forced upon her by preservation- which I see as a metaphorical representation of the obligations and pressures rulers face- caused no end of trouble for her. Really, it’s the root cause of all her bad decisions, and you can tell she knows this by how desperately she tries to find some out. But this isn’t a Sphene post and it would be better for everyone if I kept in-depth discussion of her to a dedicated space and kept this one about Gulool Ja. I’ve said my piece, so this is the end of the post.

[isaacsapphire]

The true believer in the leopards eating people’s faces party

There are locally powerful belief systems, which I will refer to as hegemons in this discussion. In a Red state, the hegemonic belief system might be Republican Evangelical Christianity. In a Blue state, the hegemon is probably Democrat liberal atheism/agnosticism. Within those states, there will be local and subcultural pockets of different hegemons: the liberal college town in a Red State, the small town rifle range in a Blue State, etc. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” kicks in too, as inevitably some hegemons have captured employers.

For the people embedded within a community with an overarching hegemon that extends through their education, work, and social life, their local hegemon sets the boundaries of thought, the terms and bounds of discussions, provides the shibboleths and catch phrases, as well as relationship norms and life-stage behaviors and rituals.

On one level, this phenomenon of apparent local agreement is driven purely by most people going along to get along, “when in Rome” self-interested behavior that doesn’t have any real meaning except that people are social animals and follow their crowd, parroting their leaders’ calls whether they be, “Jesus Saves!” or “I’m with her.”

But, there is some real ideological meat under the sports team social behavior; different political parties and ideologies/religions really do want to do different things, to change the world into different shapes. And those shapes will, at best, make some types of people’s lives more difficult. At worst, we’re talking genocide and death camps.

As to how “real” anyone’s personal beliefs are; if conversion at the point of a sword or as an alternative to swiftly becoming a refuge was being foisted on some portion of a society, or if their country becomes communist, how many of them will just be all “friendship with Odin ended, Jesus is my homie now” or whatever? The answer isn’t entirely consistent, but it’s a pretty high percentage. And the percentage of people who will find themselves converting to Mormonism if they’re a family that moves to Salt Lake City for work reasons, or became an SJW if their social circle becomes SJW or whatever transplantation happens to them is pretty high too.

Nuroatypicals are likely to end up as True Believers in a local primary or secondary hegemon for multiple reasons. One is that they literally can’t lie to save their lives so their subconscious drives them into method acting, another reason is that they’re too socially awkward to realize that nobody else is taking the party line at face value. The attraction of a set of clear rules and black and white thinking is another factor.

This is an attempt to describe reality, but I need to be honest that it owes a lot to marxist theory. I don’t particularly like Marxist economics, but I believe that any ideology that gets substantial uptake closely matches the reality observed by some people and hence is worth considering.

[futzfuck]

‼️‼️SPOILERS FOR TRANSFORMERS ONE‼️‼️‼️

GO WATCH THIS MOVIE, PIRATE IT, DO WHATEVE JUST WATCH IT PLEASEEE

Too many people are honing in on the doomed yaoi of transformers one and forget the inherent communist messaging. Like the rich are manipulating the narrative and actively seize your potential and growth as a person in order to make you a wage slave. And they justify this by creating a false sense of resource scarcity bc their lust for power cannot coexist with a society that provides for everyone. You get worked to the fucking bone but all that work goes to a mf CEO who wants another 300k bonus while you can barely afford rent. The ‘evil other’ that your leader fights against is a false narrative as well, and the two actively work together for mutual benefit, even if strained by their endless greed.

And ultimately we have to work with each other to bring justice and prosperity to everyone. Society does not determine your potential or what you can do, but you also cant play by the rules society sets without either being a slave to the system or a selfish tyrant that consolidates power even to his last breath.

Like this isn’t megatron’s line of thought that is demonized in the movie as radical, this is a crucial aspect of all of the main four’s journey and the overall thing the movie communicates.

Uuuuuh idk how to end this post. Marximus Prime lmao

[mariacallous]

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed his first major television spot against his new opponent in the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris. The advertisement zeroes in on what he says is her failed record as “border czar.” Drugs, crime, and terrorism are all a result. As viewers see ominous images of migrants crossing the border while Harris dances, the narrator closes by saying: “Failed. Weak. Dangerously Liberal.”

It isn’t a surprise that Trump would start with immigration as his opening salvo. And that’s not because this topic has been important to Trump since he announced his first presidential run in 2015, or because the issue is more pertinent than others in 2024. Rather, going after immigration taps into a set of ideas that has become deeply rooted in the GOP. To understand how anti-immigrant rhetoric became woven into Republican politics, it is necessary to look back to Harris’s home state of California during the 1990s—a time when nativism, law and order, and partisanship all converged as the Cold War came to an end. Rather than boasting about being tough on communists, Republicans since that period have invested much of their political capital in talking about being tough on the border.

The hardening of Republicans on this issue signaled a remarkable shift. For much of the 20th century, nativist factions within the Republican Party had been forced to compete with a formidable pro-immigration tradition. When then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan worked with Democrats in Congress in 1986 to pass sweeping bipartisan reform that imposed stricter penalties on businesses hiring undocumented immigrants, the president also granted amnesty for almost 3 million people and created an agricultural worker program for undocumented immigrants. “Our nation is a nation of immigrants,” Reagan had proclaimed. Business leaders allied to the supply-side revolution staunchly defended liberal immigration policies as something that brought tremendous benefits to the economy.

But following Reagan’s second term, the Republicans started on a different, rightward road. It began in California, and it brought them to today’s ad.

By the early 1990s, Californians were not feeling so golden. Major cities such as Los Angeles struggled with the crack cocaine epidemic as well as gang violence. Urban blight had left many neighborhoods in shambles. The entire state slipped into an economic recession during the 1990s. Boom times went bust as unemployment rose.

More and more white Californians blamed immigrants for the state’s woes. Latinos and Asians had grown into a significant portion of the population following President Lyndon Johnson’s Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Once welcome as the embodiment of the American dream, during the downturn immigrants were said to be responsible for rampant crime, the rising cost of social services, and the exodus of factories. Critics tapped into old nativist traditions that had flared in different periods such as the 1920s.

Several key players drove the conservative turn. In Los Angeles, Chief of Police Daryl Gates had ruled the city with an iron fist throughout the 1980s, allowing his forces to trample on civil liberties and target minority populations in his ongoing effort to clean up the city. Although Gates instructed police to avoid enforcing immigration laws to obtain cooperation in criminal investigations, his officers were downright brutal in how they treated disadvantaged populations. Under Operation Hammer, which Gates launched in April 1987 and closed down in 1990, the Los Angeles police conducted massive raids that rounded up Hispanic and Black American youth who happened to be in a given vicinity, regardless of how much evidence existed about their being possibly guilty of a crime. Racial profiling and physical harassment were standard. He was Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry come to life. In an era when tough policing was lionized among Republican candidates and valorized in popular culture, Gates emerged as a heroic figure in law and order circles—until the urban unrest in Los Angeles in 1992, following the Rodney King beating, finally led to his downfall.

Gov. Pete Wilson, elected in 1990, was likewise pivotal. Facing a tight reelection race in 1994, Wilson championed Proposition 187, a measure to prevent undocumented immigrants from receiving basic non-emergency social services such as education and health care. His campaign in support of the “Save Our State” initiative broadcast blistering television ads that presented the darkest possible images of immigrants. Although he had rarely talked about these issues as a senator in the 1980s (in fact, he had supported greater access to immigrant labor for the agricultural industry), Wilson now staked much of his political future on the issue. “They keep coming,” warned the narrator in one ad, as viewers saw grainy images of people running through the border security. His bet paid off. On Nov. 8, 1994, California voters passed Proposition 187, 59 percent to 41 percent. Though the measure would become tied up in the courts, its popularity and Wilson’s victory signaled to Republicans all over the country that this was a winning issue.

Conservative grassroots activists kept the issue alive in the 1990s. One of the most important was Barbara Coe, who gained attention through her advocacy for Proposition 187. Coe emerged as one of the state’s fiercest champions of the nativist ethos. She founded the California Coalition for Immigration Reform to support Proposition 187. Often dressed in red, white, and blue garb, Coe, who was in her 60s, became a familiar face on the statewide media circuit, where she could be seen on television making one provocative statement after another about how “illegals” were destroying communities. In 1998, the organization purchased a massive billboard along Interstate 10 that read: “Welcome to California, the Illegal Immigration State: Don’t let this happen to your state.” Coe worked with an energetic network of activists including Ronald Prince, Les Blankhorn, and William King.

National Republicans picked up on the issue. Although many Republicans had initially stayed away from anything that Republican primary candidate Pat Buchanan had to say in 1992, including when he called conditions at the border “a national disgrace,” by the mid-1990s the party was singing a different tune. California was putting the immigration issue on the map. As a top advisor to President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, warned in 1993: “Immigration is emerging as the most powerful political issue in California, and the Administration must begin to deal with it.” On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed in 1996 for a major bill that ended the welfare system put into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. His efforts gained traction as Clinton agreed to work on this bill, though it was much harsher than the kind of welfare reform the president had initially promoted. The result was the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which sharply curtailed social safety net benefits for non-citizens. In 1996, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Robert Dole ran an ad on “illegal aliens” that warned of “2 million illegal aliens in California” filling prisons, crowding schools, and costing billions of tax dollars. Clinton, the ad said, “fought California in court, forcing us to support them. Clinton fought Prop. 187, cut border agents, gave citizenship to aliens with criminal records. We pay the taxes. We are the victims. Our children get shortchanged.”

Congress also tightened restrictions on immigrants as part of the counterterrorism legislation passed after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the Oklahoma City attack in 1995, and 9/11, including increasing the number of people eligible to be deported and raising the bar for obtaining legal status within the country.

The hard-line Republican immigration agenda focused attention almost exclusively on undocumented immigrants and the dangers they posed, pushing aside discussions of immigrants who arrived legally or undocumented immigrants who ended up naturalizing and becoming upstanding citizens. The rhetoric exaggerated crime, murder, and drugs while shifting attention away from the economic, cultural, and social benefits that social scientists have repeatedly shown were a result of immigration. The stories from the early 20th century of immigrants making America great were replaced with shady images of immigrants undermining our well-being.

The Republican road from California to Trump was not inevitable. President George W. Bush, who expanded the Republican Hispanic vote in 2004 from 1996, pushed for a grand bargain in his second term that would have provided a legal path to citizenship for almost 12 million people in exchange for tougher border control and deportation measures. Congressional Republicans killed his initiative. Republican Party politics, as historian Sarah Coleman has argued in The Walls Within, congealed around a hard-line restrictionist agenda. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, failed in their efforts to obtain legislation providing for a path to citizenship inxchange for their support of tough deportation and border control policies. While Obama was able to put into place the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program through executive action, protecting certain undocumented immigrants who arrived as children

When Trump’s administration imposed a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, implemented a policy of separating children from their families at the border, ramped up deportation, spent federal funds on building a massive border wall, ended DACA (though SCOTUS overturned his decision) most Republicans cheered. As a surge of immigrants became a bigger problem in Democratic cities in 2022, Republicans ramped up their attacks. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bused undocumented immigrants to blue cities across America. Democrats became defensive.

By 2024, Biden pushed for a bipartisan immigration bill that centered entirely on border control and deportation. The liberalization part of the bargain was gone. Yet even as Democrats caved, Trump persuaded congressional Republicans to kill the deal so that he could run on the issue in the fall.

So what should Harris do? It would be a mistake for her to simply play defense. Doing so won’t stop the ferocity of the attacks. As was often the case with national security during the Cold War, responding with claims to be the tougher party only fuels the narrative of opponents.

Harris’s own personal story is a powerful reminder that we are a nation of immigrants and that immigration has been part of the lifeblood of American society. Her father emigrated from Jamaica. Her mother arrived to the United States from India. Harris also understands, as she wrote in The Truths We Hold, that “for as long as ours has been a nation of immigrants, we have been a nation that fears immigrants.”

In fact, this presidential campaign provides an opportunity for a reset. Democrats have been struggling with this issue for years. Harris has an opportunity to fight back against Republican attacks, not by mimicking the GOP message, but by offering a different vision of what immigration means. She can move beyond what she called the “false choices” that have defined the debate. Yes, the nation needs tough border controls and deportation procedures, but it’s time to remember just how vital immigrants, documented and undocumented, have been and remain for us all.

While continually challenging the veracity of the claims that Trump throws out about what previous border policies have done, the vice president can also tether the broader dialogue to a deep appreciation of immigrants as one of the most defining elements of American history. Most of us have immigrant roots; many of us are immigrants. Immigration has made America great.

Hopefully, with a more constructive conversation, we can begin to bring back the vision of a grand bargain that rationalizes our immigrant system, from better border policies to a path to citizenship. And perhaps the candidate from California, where the rightward turn began in the 1990s, can lead the nation in a new direction in 2024.

[sethshead]

The problem was not that Jewish students on American university campuses didn’t want free speech, or that they didn’t want to hear criticism of Israel. Instead, they didn’t want people vandalizing Jewish student organizations’ buildings, or breaking or urinating on the buildings’ windows. They didn’t want people tearing their mezuzahs down from their dorm-room doors. They didn’t want their college instructors spouting anti-Semitic lies and humiliating them in class. They didn’t want their posters defaced with Hitler caricatures, or their dorm windows plastered with Fuck Jews. They didn’t want people punching them in the face, or beating them with a stick, or threatening them with death for being Jewish. At world-class American colleges and universities, all of this happened and more. [...] The through line of anti-Semitism for thousands of years has been the denial of truth and the promotion of lies. These lies range in scope from conspiracy theories to Holocaust denial to the blood libel to the currently popular claims that Zionism is racism, that Jews are settler colonialists, and that Jewish civilization isn’t indigenous to the land of Israel. These lies are all part of the foundational big lie: that anti-Semitism itself is a righteous act of resistance against evil, because Jews are collectively evil and have no right to exist. Today, the big lie is winning. [...] In 2013, David Nirenberg published an astonishing book titled Anti-Judaism. Nirenberg’s argument, rigorously laid out in nearly 500 pages of dense scholarship and more than 100 pages of footnotes, is that Western cultures—including ancient civilizations, Christianity, Islam (which Nirenberg considers Western in its relationship with Judaism), and post-religious societies—have often defined themselves through their opposition to what they consider “Judaism.” This has little to do with actual Judaism, and a lot to do with whatever evil these non-Jewish cultures aspire to overcome. Nirenberg is a diligent historian who resists generalizations and avoids connecting the past to contemporary events. But when one reads through his carefully assembled record of 23 centuries’ worth of intellectual leaders articulating their societies’ ideals by loudly rejecting whatever they consider “Jewish,” this deep neural groove in Western thought becomes difficult to dismiss, its patterns unmistakable. If piety was a given society’s ideal, Jews were impious blasphemers; if secularism was the ideal, Jews were backward pietists. If capitalism was evil, Jews were capitalists; if communism was evil, Jews were communists. If nationalism was glorified, Jews were rootless cosmopolitans; if nationalism was vilified, Jews were chauvinistic nationalists. “Anti-Judaism” thus becomes a righteous fight to promote justice. [...] Even naming it—that is, calling out bigotry against Jews—can be classed as yet another sign of assumed evil intent, of Jews attacking beloved principles of justice for all. In an April 2023 lecture, David Nirenberg, the historian, presented the example of an activist with a large following whose boundary-pushing rhetoric met with accusations of anti-Semitism. The activist pointed out, as Nirenberg put it, that anti-Semitism “was merely an accusation that Jews used to silence criticism and squash free speech.” He brought libel lawsuits against newspapers that accused him of anti-Semitism, and won them. It is unfortunate for those making this argument today that this activist was named Adolf Hitler.

Ein kol-hadash tahat hashemesh. There is nothing new under the sun. The 1930s antisemitic priest, Charles Coughlan, he whose radio addresses derided FDR as "Rosenfeld" and whose protests demanded Jews be shipped to Germany in leaky boats, published a newsletter out of his church in Royal Oak titled Social Justice. Indeed, antisemitism is not only the socialism of fools, but the opiate of the intellectuals, of utopian activists and progressives. As such, it should hardly be surprising that an Ivy League, an academy shifting course from free inquiry to ideological radicalism, should sail directly towards antisemitism's siren song.

[keepsmyheartawake]

The 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism MAGA

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

✅✅✅1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

* when your entire personality is red, white, and blue. Hashtag freedom.

✅2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

✅3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

* or in this case, the need to eliminate liberal Marxist communist fascists because they don’t know what any of them mean but they sure sound scary

✅✅✅4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

✅✅✅5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

* we have a rapist running for president, and a party who believes the man of the household alone should be casting his vote on their account. Women now have less rights than our mothers did.

✅6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

* we can give a half check since Trump has only threatened to jail journalists and late night talk show hosts who “make fun of him” if he gets another term

✅7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

✅✅✅8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed

to the government's policies or actions.

*This is so self explanatory that I could rant for an hour on this alone. The Evangelical Christian right are a menace to society.

✅✅✅9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

* see lobbyists buying up congressional seats. See politicians funded by oil companies telling you in the year of our lord 2024 that climate change isn’t happening, that natural disasters are actually caused by democrats to wipe out red states.

✅✅✅10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

* see this one in action rn with all the Fox News toadies spouting the same incorrect one liners about the longshoremen strike. In one video about 20 bootlickers commented that they don’t deserve what they’re asking for bc the union president was wearing a gold chain.

✅✅✅11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

* education is now stupid, the earth is flat, books are being burned, and there are people among us who think a Liberal Arts degree pertains to being a liberal.

✅✅✅12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

* blue lives matter movement in direct response to cops killing a man on the street before our eyes.

✅✅✅13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

* please see the entire Trump cabinet, though half of them are in jail now.

✅✅✅✅✅✅14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

*Trump brought this country to hell and back claiming the election was stolen ON election night, as soon as he started to see the votes shift toward Biden. Only to go on a podcast in 2024 and admit he lost.

[odinsblog]

Tankies be tripping like a mf

Sometimes I see tankies posting their usual bullshit and I’m just endlessly smh hard enough to cause myself brain damage

I could, if I wanted, make a dozen social media accounts across various platforms and proceed to talk as much shit about Joe Biden or Donald Trump as I want. I could do that 24/7/365, all day, every day and every night, and do nothing else but that. I mean, I could talk straight up bullshit about either of them or both of them, and their spouses and their families, and as long as I don’t make any threats against their lives, guess what would happen to me?? NOTHING. Not a goddamn thing

I know this for a fact because I’ve done it (talk shit about them, not make troll accounts), and I see people do it every fucking day

Meanwhile, in “glorious” communist countries™ like Russia or China or North Korea, if anyone dares to publicly say anything even slightly unflattering about those country’s leaders, they will be punished, arrested, jailed, disappeared or murdered. And God forbid if you’re an actual journalist or dissident or a political activist trying to speak out against Putin, or Kim Jong Un, or Xi Jinping — your corpse will never be found (except maybe for Russia, where you would either “accidentally” fall out of a window, or “accidentally” ingest a rare but deadly radioactive material) ☢️ 🙃

Look, this isn’t me going, “America is soooo great and everywhere else sucks,” because as a Black man living in America, I’m well aware of how thoroughly anti Blackness is weaved into our society, and as someone who has LGBTQ loved ones, I am also aware of how homophobia and transphobia are also woven into American culture. So no, America was never great. But anti Blackness, homophobia, and transphobia exist everyfuckingwhere. And yes, that most definitely includes the tankie fantasyland utopias of Russia, China and North Korea

Anyway, I’m just blowing off some online steam because every time I see a tankie profess how communism™ will make everything equal and just sO much better, and how Russia, China and North fucking Korea! are heavens for love peace + equality, every fucking time I see that BULLSHIT on tumblrdotcom I wanna pull my teeth out with a rusty pair of pliers 🤬

I just do not get it

Only tankies could look at murderous dictatorial authoritarian regimes and go, yeah that seems much better

LOL, I could almost overlook Russia and China, but when I see tankies defending N. Korea?? I’m like, that mf is farther gone than the Voyager space probes

SN: I know that despite their political party names, Russia and China aren’t really “communist” countries, but I often wonder if tankies understand that fact

And please don’t get me started on the allegedly “pro-Black” tankies who stayed on mute about Brittney Griner, because I guess saying anything would have made Putin look bad 😒

I mean don’t get me wrong, I dO understand that capitalism has utterly failed people so thoroughly and so fucking completely that literally anything else might seem preferable by comparison, but ☭ ain’t it, fam

To be crystal clear: I hate capitalism as much as the next compassionate human being and I know capitalism ain’t it, but neither is communism, sorry

I genuinely do believe that a better world is possible, but seeing people (surprise - disproportionately white dudes) constantly blathering on and on about how good Russia is, makes me feel like 🤮

[esf-art-and-design]

Cabaret (1972, paraphrased): “oh you don’t have to worry about the Nazi’s as long as your a respectable gay person, or not openly Jewish. They’re just a gang of thugs that won’t have any power here, besides they hate the communists so they’re actually not *that* bad”

Real life, 2024: “oh you don’t have to worry about us pro-pal protesters, we’re on the right side of history you see. Yeah sure we’re screaming at you that you don’t deserve pride right now and that our pro-pal stance actually matters more, are we going to stay away from pride events then? Oh hell no we’re going to come an make you all uncomfortable in a safe space, but let’s be honest you shouldn’t be *that* uncomfortable as long as your a respectable queer, and as long as you agree with us, and as long as you don’t talk about Israel actually having protections for LGBTQ Arabs (because we need to shout about pinkwashing at something to get you on our side) or as long as you don’t point out that there was a lack of outrage in our “perfect uwu bean not-homophobic-at-all palistine” when Hamas committed acts of homophobic violence against gay men in Gaza and Rafha, and aren’t visibly a Zionist (we say zionist instead of Jew because the leaders of our cult who went full mask off had to face consequences for “antisemitism” and we don’t like those). So please come to pride, besides, we hate the USA so we’re the good guys for keeping capitalists in line.

Pride is still safe, even if the FBI and DHS said that we’re at an increased risk of a terror attacks and hate crimes by jihadists as well as alt right fundie forever-Trump Christians worldwide this year because of our rhetoric. But just think about it, you too can become a martyr for the infitada revolution!!! prove your also a good little Hamasnik and let us ruin your pride month by telling you that your issues of the US GOP planning to actually genocide you for being queer/trans are unimportant compared to this conflict, and how voting for the guy who isn’t planning on killing you makes you literally worse than the devil incarnate. Anyways, Happy Pride (unless you are a/support Zionist’s) 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈.”