#who love the idea of a Jewish state just so they can send all Jews there and keep Italy catholic

[spottheantisemitism]

House of M is a Rothschild cospiracy

There has long been hysteria that a small cabal of Jews control the world. The very world 'cabal' is dripping with antisemitic hate towards the kabbalah because gentiles are forbidden to study it and fear what they don’t understand. So when a powerful Jewish banking clan who rose to prominence and even royalty, had involvement with politics, the conspiracies spread about the family like wildfire conspiracies that he was promoting degeneracy and race mixing permeated or funding world wars and even conspiracies that the family single handedly caused the holocaust to create the state of Israel. The fact that this family is still a noble house that still operates and whose recent memory inherited the Barony in 2024 drives people up the wall. The very idea of Zionist or Jewish Occupied Government is derived from the older Rothschild Conspiracy.

When Chris Claremont inverted the morality of Magneto from eugenicist who wants to rule world with Mutants on top and him ruling humans and mutants alike with an iron fist to a traumatized holocaust survivor who believes that him ruling the world is the only way to prevent another holocaust, there was some uncomfortable growing pains as the two backstories created some rather unsavory implication, often by design.

In "God Loves, Man Kills", Scott Summers asks Magneto what will happen to Magneto’s dictator after Magneto dies. Magneto says he hopes someone like Scott would take up the mantle.

"House of M" answers this question differently. It implies that the Magnus dictatorship should be a monarchy. A Jewish-Romani family of extremely long lived individuals that rule the entire world. Which sounds uncomfortably like a Rothschilds family conspiracy.

Considering Claremont himself wrote House of M!Magneto's backstory, where did it all go wrong? Was it the execution or the premise itself?

Here’s Magnus’ mother who hid in a pile of corpses (I carefully edited them out but they’re there in the original) to avoid the death march handing off her child to some Russians came to liberate the camp

Hello unsubtle Moses allegory! Claremont wrote this bit in the crossover bible (basically the world's lore) so it’s likely intentional. Claremont specified Magnus was born in Auswitz and his mother hid him from everyone. From the fact that Dr. Doom calls Magneto a fellow Rom (using the g-slur of course), we can assume Magnus’ father is Roma (perhaps even Sinti) which adds a new layer of horror to “my husband is already dead”.

skipping over the Pogrom in Vinnitsya that radicalizes Magnus to the actual canon divergence (Magda is just some random Romani woman he marries rather than a fellow holocaust survivor here but everything else is the same)

Suzanna Dane is now a hot blonde resistance fighter whom Magnus forcibly sends away to safety so she can be a single mom and give their kid a normal childhood. No indefinitely on either part here, yay!

When Magneto does start to take on a more revolutionary bent, Charles finds him reasonable and so do his three children who don’t know they’re his kids. Lorna is likely dying her hair as her powers and her green hair showed up the same time canonically. Wanda and Pietro are rightfully shown as not living in the kind of household that has a television. Good so far!

When they take over Genosha it’s already portrayed in a negative or mixed light. As not only is exiling each human on the island portrayed as a bad thing, Pietro shows contempt for other Mutants repeatedly. Like in the sceenshot in the top right. Charles Xavier setting a man’s mind free, essentially speed running recovery from learned helplessness, is kinda darkly amusing to me even if he does it all the time in canon

Magneto’s real descent into villiany, at least according to the comic, is when he assassinates Greydon Creed a person people see as equivalent to Hitler or at least a modern Neo-Nazi. The comic cleverly never has us feel sympathy for Creed but instead make understand the repercussions of killing him would be that it would start a war between Genosha and America. And since that would after all their respective allies, this act would essentially start World War three. It also cleverly subverts the whole “magneto became no better the nazis he fought” canard with “twisting semantics will not magically stop genocide” a line that goes so hard that I am ashamed to admit my trump card in arguments about holocaust inversion came from X-men Au comic rife with antisemitic tropes. So what’s the problem? This seems like nuance and good writing so far, doesn't it? Patience, friend!

On the surface this is a good moral “violence may get you what you want, but the cost is too high for you to pay”. That's President Nixon Magneto is humiliating in that panel, by the way. Good stuff. However, it’s an ending is “we aren’t going full circle as we as the superior race are better than that, here look at my favorite token humans” is a bit yikes. This fully implies that Magneto does not expect that kind of decency from humanity and explain the rather brutal methods he employs in quelling dissent further down the line. Magneto is no longer concerned with being with being a good ruler but to appear as one. He’s so consumed by grief over the loss of all his various lovers (Charles dies on page and Suzanna dies of cancer off page) and allies that he’s essentially letting his children and the various puppet governments run things. So while he’s more Napoleon than the absolute dictator his enemies paint him as.

Magneto lets Apocalypse run Egypt. Apocalypse is tyrant who enslaves humans and kills mutants for being too weak. This man has been attempting to take over Africa. By the way Apocalypse is the reason Marc Spector is radicalized into terrorism and becomes a much darker, edgier, and later much more repentant Moon Knight. This series is about the cycle of violence.

Yet when Ororo and T’Challa kill Apocalypse, something that’s politically advantageous to Magneto as he can now scapegoat humans on the death of Apocalypse to Apocalypse's fanatical supporters while also getting rid of his least favorite ally. This frankly makes no sense. Him calling Ororo ungrateful for not thinking his decolonization of Africa is enough is actually a clever showcase of one character weakness's, but him being angry that an easily scapegoat-able human killed a man he was already planning to assassinate means these writers don’t understand geopolitics.

Humans in America all live in what are basically ghettos and Luke Cages “this is fine” reaction spells out that this is very much NOT fine. The entire plot of House of M: Avengers is how it’s getting worse and worse for humans between 1970 when the revolution happened and present day which seems to be the late 1990s by the presence of bulky computer monitors and the absence of cell phones (this comic came out in the 2000s by the way). Do you think that cop was told he had to be a cop because he had an eye in the back of his head? Personally since the theme of this particular comic is “society made us what we are but we can still choose to be better”, I think so.

humans in Genosha live as second class citizens as we see when Ben Grimm escapes from literal slavery to Dr. Doom, as Doom and Magneto fight, and joins the slums of Hammer Bay with the other human resistance. Alicia Masters, their blind leader, is the first person to treat Ben as a human being since his transformation.

It's likely Humans on Genosha were finally allowed because they're used for cheap labor.Similar to how mutant slavery on Genosha started in the first place place. Again the full circle allegations are creeping up on the reader.

Look at this "golem and the girl that likes him" imagery! Man every Jew besides Kitty has unthinkably horrific things happen to them in this crossover. Kitty, born after the revolution, has a happy fulfilling life as a grade school teacher.

As fun and accurate as a dictator giving the overzealous cop he himself assigned to terrorize the human ghetto unpaid leave and a transfer to a different district not for his literal attempted pogrom but for calling his daughter a slur, notice the “I can’t be SEEN condoning purges”. It’s not “I think pogroms are bad” but “I think pogroms are useless violence and bad for my reputation”. This comic unlike the prequel comic DOES imply he’s gone full circle. Also Thunderbird, a Native American character wanting to “wipe a neighbor off the map” and “burn it to ash” is really giving white supremacist “decolonization is when the natives kill you and pillage your city” rhetoric.

So Magneto is now a tyrannical dictator who cares more for his image than actual justice, Wanda is slowly withdrawing from the world and losing her mind from having to maintain and tweak this reality for 30 years, Pietro is planning a coup against his father, and Lorna still acting like a teenager even as a 40 something. These are the corrupt mad Jewish Romani family that rule the world. Always portrayed as both weak and strong at once. This comic veers between its social commentary and white supremacist rhetoric because of the conspiracies baked into its premise and I don’t think it walks that tightrope well.

So was the premise unusable or the execution?

I think it's the execution. Consider the prequel comic that doesn't falter until the last moment and the Avengers comic that almost holds up and you realize it's problem not of "unworkable premise" but "these writers aren't qualified to explore these things"

[fdelopera]

First of all, I love your blog and I'm glad I followed you. Sending you support and comfort on this difficult day.

Second of all, I saw your tags about 10/7 being the Jewish people's 9/11 (which is true) and it reminded me of a thought that's been bouncing around my head.

I grew up in the greater New York area. 9/11 happened when I was in elementary school and I have very clear memories of the attacks and the aftermath.

For the first few days, people hoped that their loved ones in the twin towers had survived and we just lost. So they put up missing posters in New York City, eerily similar to the hostage posters we have today.

The main difference is that no one would have dared tear those 9/11 posters down.

Maybe it was different because the attack was right in the same city where those posters were put up, maybe it happened but the news didn't pick it up, maybe it's because I was a child then and I'm an adult now. 2001 and 2023-4 are practically different worlds.

Sorry for dumping in your blog, I've just been thinking about this for a while.

Thank you for your message. I love your blog too. And I'm sending you support and comfort, and solidarity! As dark as this last year has been, the thing that's gotten me through has been seeing other Jews fighting back against the antisemitic bigotry we face, and being a light to other Jews.

I was living near NYC during 9/11, too. I was living in New York State, about a half-hour away from the City by train. And I knew a lot of people in NYC who were there during the terrorist attack. I had an older friend whose husband was a firefighter — he wasn't one of the firefighters who died that day during the heroic rescue efforts, but he was part of the crew at Ground Zero in the months that followed, searching for bodies and cleaning up the toxic debris. I don't know what happened to him after that time, but I can only assume that he had the same life-long health complications that other firefighters did — the people who survived the attack but died slowly from the toxins they were exposed to at Ground Zero during the cleanup.

And I know exactly what you mean. The posters of the missing people that families put up, as the families searched desperately for news of their loved ones.

Those posters were sacred. No one in NYC would have DARED take a single one of those posters down.

In fact, no one in America would have dared desecrate one of those posters — and if they had, they would have been publicly shamed and shunned. Everyone across America knew about those posters. Everyone was rooting for the people on those posters to still be alive and to come home, no matter how bleak the chances were for their survival.

And so, it is DISGUSTING to see how fast goyim in the US have seemingly forgotten. These goyim in the US who have filled themselves with Jew-hate and twisted themselves into monsters — they truly revolt me.

Everyone in the US was affected by 9/11. And yet these goyim are now running around like a bunch of zombies, pretending that they have no idea what it's like to live through a terrorist attack. They're pretending like they've never seen posters with the faces of missing people who have been taken away by terrorists.

But we all know that they haven't forgotten. Not really. They’re just pretending that they’ve forgotten so they can have "justification" to sate their thirst for Jewish blood. These goyim are self-absorbed, egotistical monsters who hate Jews, and they want an "excuse" to celebrate when Jews are slaughtered.

Here's the reality — if terrorists attacked NYC again, a lot of these goyim would care about that.

And yes, there are many of them who are so depraved and so brainwashed that they would cheer as terrorists slaughtered their neighbors. They wouldn’t care — unless the terrorists murdered them and their family, of course!

But not all of these goyim are so far gone. Not all of them have descended that deep into the Hamasnik cult. And they would at least care about their lives.

And they would demand for the world to care, too.

And the world SHOULD care.

The world should ALWAYS care when people are brutally slaughtered by Islamist terrorists led by scum like Bin Ladin, Sinwar, Nasrallah, and fucking Ayatollah Khamenei who are trying to burn the world down for their own profit.

The memory of 9/11 should be multi-generational, like Pearl Harbor is. Parents should teach their children and their grandchildren about that day. Everyone should know about those posters. Everyone should know that when you see posters of missing people, you don't fucking rip them down.

And everyone should know that if you rip down posters of kidnapped Jews who have been taken captive by terrorists, that act automatically makes you the worst kind of monster. If you rip down the poster of a Jewish hostage, you are just as much of a monster as if you ripped down one of the 9/11 posters.

One thing I’ve learned about Jew-haters from studying the Shoah is that they do know right from wrong, and yet they choose to do wrong. They are cruel and monstrous, and the reason they attack Jews is for the perverse thrill it gives them. They are malicious. And most of all, they are pathetic.

They are filled with nihilism. That’s been another thing I’ve observed about Jew-haters. They are lazy and spiteful and jealous. And instead of working to make the world a better place for themselves and those around them, they want to rip it all down, because they feel that if they can't get what they want, no one else should have a day of comfort either.

They are attacking Jews because we are a source of good in the world. We are a source of light. They see our hope and our love, they see our connection to our 3500+ years of history, they see our determination to outlive our enemies, and they want to destroy that out of their own nihilism, bitterness, and selfish despair.

And we will survive every single one of them. Long after these Hamasniks are gone, long after the world has forgotten their names, we Jews will still be here.

We will outlive them. Am Yisrael Chai.

[wormbraind]

very long oc + worldbuilding talk bc im bored

noam: mentioned him in the 'give me your jewish ocs' post. he can use the senses of anyone who perceives him à la mama mathers but can't hijack them the same way. he also can't block them out, which is a nightmare for an autistic kid. he's not super friendly because of this.

ronnie: obsessed with all things 80s. it is her raisin detre. massive people pleaser to the point where she has a very fragile sense of identity. her power is being able to alter her own biology (think amy dallon <3) which she mostly uses to change her own appearance, and for a while she literally cannot control it--she will spontaneously alter herself to look like what she thinks someone wants her to look like

bee: adopted by doomsday preppers at a young age. she's good at survival stuff but not so much with people and has spent her whole life in a constant state of stress. she could use a comfy blanket and some hot chocolate methinks. i don't have a good power for her yet sadly

the idea is like. entity gets bored and starts fucking with people, giving them small glimpses of its cosmic knowledge. in trying to find the perfect balance between 'alerting people to its existence' and 'driving them to instantly have a heart attack from the stress' it creates a hierarchy of 'messengers'. think, like, angels in christianity (sorry jews idk what we have going on with angels). the more insane enlightened ones have more direct communication with it because their brains have been rewired to such an extent that they can understand each other better. they also have more powers and are less involved with earthly affairs, while the more normal messengers send information up the ladder while dealing with humans. a cult forms around them and society everywhere just Shifts to be based around them because of the amount of power they have but it also starts falling apart.

my beautiful main characters who i love dearly get involved with the cult and become part of a program where the entity experiments with giving people new powers. it can do some that are in the basic messenger package (limited flight, glowing, telepathy) but it wants to figure out more. my darling mcs are relative successes and shenanigans ensue

the powers are basically designed to make them dependent on the cult, where higher ups can limit/disable their powers and guide them on how to use them. they are purposefully meant to be awful to have.

[unhonestlymirror]

Nadia Lipes:

"Okay, I'll give you a short text that you can safely send to your controversial callers. So short, so that they can read it in three seconds and not drown in sophistry and long, confusing historical facts.

1. Israel and Jews have existed much longer than Arabs, Muslims and whoever else they are on this planet. One could already come to terms with the idea that there will always be Jews, because if they did not exist, they would have to be invented. You have to blame someone for all your troubles. And Jews are convenient.

2. The Jews never left the territory in which Israel and Judah existed until they were destroyed by someone. Arabs, as a concept, appeared in the 5th century and in general it is a collective image. More than half of this image prefers a nomadic lifestyle, searching for a better life, jobs, etc. Some of these nomads at the beginning of the last century migrated closer to Jewish settlements in search of work.

Yes, you read everything correctly, it were the Arabs who came to the Jews to find work and not vice versa.

Jewish settlements were formed because Jews bought land from the Turks, to whom this land then conditionally belonged. Conditionally belonged because they seized it at one time. In general, over the last 2 thousand years, and even the last 200, someone has taken something from someone else. And the Jews distinguished themselves here too. They bought the land.

3. Jews lived with Arabs, sometimes amicably, sometimes not very well, in the 17th year of the last century, Turkey lost the war and its territories of the Middle East were divided by the victorious countries. The Israeli part went to Britain, and solely so that Britain could create two states. Arabic and Jewish. But Britain created only Arabic, and left the second part under itself. It began to incite the local Arab population, so pogroms like the Hebron one happened, but overall everything was calm. But despite the fact that it was the Jews who supported England in World War II, the local English authorities continued to prevent the creation of a Jewish state and fed and armed the Arabs. And Jewish refugees, of course, were not allowed in.

It’s as if you don’t live at home, which means the house is not yours, but in reality they simply don’t let you there. Even though you have documents for ownership.

4. In 1947, the world finally gave the green light and decided to allow Israel. And another Arab state. 28 purely Muslim countries were not enough. There was the need for one more. The Jews agreed and said, "Thank you anyway." But the Arabs were extremely against it. And together, they attacked what had not yet even become Israel. But they didn't succeed.

5. Muslim countries did not calm down and continued to attack Israel with enviable frequency. And Israel began to add territories with the same frequency.

The last time this happened was in 1967. But the neighbors did not calm down. And six years later they attacked Israel again. Six days were enough for them to understand the pointlessness of this initiative. But the Soviet Union, which sponsored the last two events, was offended by Israel. It was offended and invented Palestinians, who never existed, but they suddenly appeared, and in very noticeable numbers.

Nothing complicated, of course. We take any random Arab, a native of any neighbouring country, and say: Bro, you are no longer just an Egyptian or some Syrian. A proud Palestinian, different from others. Rejoice.

Here, take a bagel and a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

.

Jews are the kind of people who want to be ahead of the rest of the planet, especially in the humane part, and if suddenly no war happened. We have to spend our time somewhere. And energy.

So they thought and thought and decided that hell with it. The Palestinians may never have existed, but we recognize them. At the same time, we will give Sinai to Egypt. Well, let them love us deeply because we are kind. And we will love the local Arabs too, you see, they will love us someday. Interestingly, the Jews succeeded with the Christian Arabs, Druze and Bedouins, and even Egypt.

But with the Palestinians - no.

And there's a reason for that.

The first reason was the Soviet Union, which was against it, and the second was the concerned world community, which, of course, never fell in love with Jews, it liked Jews of a different type, mainly this type is located in cemeteries, and it did not like living Jews very much. But the public is also fashionable and humane, and guilty of the Holocaust, so they can’t say straight to your face - well, I don’t like you. But they can support the myth of the proud people of Palestine, who are mocked by the Israelis. And of course, Jews and Israelis are completely different things. They are for the Jews, but against the Israelis. Because those are occupiers. Why are they occupiers? How are they occupiers? This is already unnecessary information. Occupiers because they are occupiers.

Israel was very upset by such a statement. Well, of course, they are a nation of artists, writers, doctors, inventors of a bunch of all sorts of humane and useful crap, such as Google Whatsapp, Facebook and so on, and here they are occupiers. And out of this frustration, Israel left Gaza. Completely. It left but left behind the infrastructure, such as water supply, sewerage, and electricity. As well as gardens, fields, and fully functioning million-dollar businesses such as Gush Katif greenhouses.

Where are they all now?

.

Israel, as we remember, withdrew from Gaza, continuing, by the way, to finance it.

But it was not enough for everyone. And most importantly, it was not clear how one could not love Jews now, if there seemed to be no reason for it. And they came up with an idea.

And they started firing rockets at Israel. At first, these were missiles from the very same water pipes that Gaza inherited, and then from somewhere, in the most magical way, under a complete blockade, real, super modern weapons began to appear among the Gazavat. And kilometers of underground tunnels.

They did not build any greenhouses, and they completely destroyed the Gush Katif, nor modern hospitals, because they went to Israel to treat complex diseases at Israeli expense, again, no modern schools, no universities, except those in which they learn to make bombs with missiles, aiming them at a target, etc., nothing has appeared in Gaza during the 20 years of freedom from Israeli occupation. Except money. Where did they get the money? That's right, from the world community. Where did they go? That's right, they spent money on building tunnels and rockets.

Well, as we know, after October 7, for a bunch of melee weapons.

In general, our relationship has looked like this for the last twenty years.

Gaza will shoot, Israel will respond, the world community will be outraged and Israel will stop responding. And everyone has long been accustomed to these entertainments and relaxed. They relaxed to such an extent that the Shabak was forbidden to tap terrorists' phones. Private life, prosecutor's sanctions, all of that.

Well, the Israeli part of the world community, which gave the Gazavat people work on their territory, took them to treatment, and was generally actively concerned about troubles, kept trying to reconcile the two entities with each other, forgetting the old folk saying - no matter how much you feed the wolf, it will still look to the forest. However, this public does not know russian. Maybe that's the point.

And then what happened happened. On October 7, a pack of well-trained Wolves entered Israel to sow death. And behind them, flocks of jackals, whom the world community calls the peaceful civilian population, passed through the holes of a very expensive fence, stuffed with electronics, but absolutely useless, as we see.

Again. Nobody attacked them. They were supplied with water and electricity, treated in our hospitals, given jobs, yet they came to sow death.

They did this in different ways. To be honest, having written a book about the pogroms of the Civil War, I didn’t think that the methods of death could surprise me. But they did it. They did it so well that hundreds of victims are still unidentified due to the lack of DNA in the ashes.

Hundreds of victims remain unidentified.

In super-technological Israel, which can grow gardens, square watermelons, and carrots in the desert in a year, which do not need to be washed and peeled.

Hundreds of victims have not been identified and hundreds of people have been taken captive. In a fucking captivity. In the 21st century. And no one knows where they are, our captives, 40 of whom are children. Not soldiers, not men. Children. And about 80 of old people. Including Holocaust survivors.

The world shook. For two days. And then, it started singing again about the disproportionate response. The ground operation has already been going on for more than a week. More than 30 soldiers have already died. And of course, there was another option for waging war. Carpet. But Israel can not do this. There are hostages there. Moreover, there are two types of hostages there. Some are Israeli, and others are the same civilian population, which is not peaceful at all, but they also have children.

So Israel walks through the land and loses its own children. And it does this so that those other children have a chance to survive.

Jews are such strange people.

[entropyblog]

Goblins (Warcraft) are not Jewish-coded, they're Italian-coded.

This is a thing I've heard a few times, it's not that big of an issue but it is something that comes up if people talk about Goblins for long enough. The idea is that Goblins are, even implicitly or unintentionally, based on Jewish stereotypes. Particularly stereotypes of Jewish people having long noses and loving money. I'm going to make a good-faith assumption that the people who say such things are merely concerned about the spread of Jewish stereotypes, and if I'm being honest there is precedent for monsters being Jewish-coded. However, I'd like to argue that that's a very surface-level understanding and it's based on shallow observations. Perhaps you can blame Blizzard for making the connection so easy on-sight, but I'm going to argue that Goblins are more coded to be Italian than Jewish. If you're Italian or Italian diaspora I won't tell you how you should feel about it, I just think goblins are more closely related to you guys.

First off, the Jew-coding comes from the common tropes of Jews having long noses and being greedy, and Goblins have long noses and are greedy. That said, Italians have also been known for greed. For most of modern history Italy comprised of mercantile states known for sending merchants, mercenaries, and explorers all over the world. Italian merchants were so common across the world that they were even some of the only Christians many Muslim kingdoms traded with. Goblins are obviously the mercantile race in WoW, with the playable Goblins all being former CEOs.

Second, Goblin engineering seems very close to Italy's reputation for science and engineering. The most obvious example is the renaissance, but even later in history Italian scientists like Fermi have been innovative and vital. Italy is home to a lot of impressive craftsmen and engineers; Italy makes some of the most high-quality cars, glasses, appliances, and even glasses. Most of the glasses frames in the world are designed in Italy by the company Luxottica, which is very important to me because I have astigmatism. While Goblin engineering isn't known to be the best, they still make many of the most complex machines the Horde enjoys. As Italy is one of the most industrial countries in the world, Goblins are possibly the most industrialized race.

TW: I'm going to talk about gang violence in the next paragraph, if such topics bother you skip it.

Third, the Goblins have cartels like the Italians have the Mafia. For most of modern Italian history the main method of warfare was throwing mercenaries at a problem. The Goblins have this too in the form of cartels, who are guns-for-hire used to protect assets and destroy competition. However, unlike mercenaries these cartels also act on their own accord on occasion making them more like gangs than actual companies. Goblin lore is full of stories of cartel wars, which play out like mafia wars where cartels and their clients would enact sporadic and clandestine violence against other factions. In real life, many dispossessed Italians formed family-based gangs we now call mafias. Mafia wars also employ assassinations, kidnappings, extortion, property damage, intimidation, etc. Even today Italy is home to thousands of mafia members.

Fourth, hierarchy. In WoW Goblins are led by a trade prince, who's basically just the rich fuck who convinces the most other rich fucks to let him control things. This reminds me a lot of Italian history where many mercantile republics functioned the same way. You'd have an oligarchy made up of powerful dynasties, and they'd contort with other powerful factions in the republics to lead. While they aren't one to one, there aren't that many Jewish republics to pull from and the situation reminds me a lot of Venice. Italy is also a very corrupt country on average, meaning many Italian politicians usually happen to either be wealthy as a result of corruption, or got into politics independently wealthy and used their power to grow their portfolio. Berlusconi being the most egregious example.

Lastly, I want to touch on the fact that Goblins aren't as factional as other races. Remember, the Goblins we play in the game are just the Bilgewater Cartel members. There are Goblins in almost every city, within almost every faction, and they even set up their own communities like Booty Bay. This reminds me of how Italians have a large diaspora population. There are millions of Italians in America, Argentina, Australia, ect. This is for a variety of reasons, but because of this it used to be common for Italians to travel across the world and not have to learn another language since the diaspora would have their own "little Italy" district. There are even stories of American soldiers in Italy sneaking off to visit family, or Italian soldiers refusing to fight because they have family on the enemy side. It's less pronounced than it used to be due to mass media and assimilation, but historically Italy's massive misplaced population has been one of the main faces of Italian culture across the world.

After saying all this here's my second hot take; the Goblins aren't Jewish, but the Gnomes are. Just a quick rundown of similarities. Jews were anchored in the city and surrounding province of Jerusalem until the Romans forced them into diaspora, Gnomes were tied to the city of Gnomeregan until a war forced them into exile and diaspora. Jewish traditions usually venerate argumentation and debate, Gnomish hierarchy is meritocratic meaning the smartest gnomes leads. Because Jews weren't tied to the same financial restraints Christians and Muslims were, Jews were often given important offices to conduct business. Gnomes are great engineers and spies, so many Alliance kingdoms keep a few Gnomes around in case they need such help. Many important entertainers and businessmen were Jewish, and a lot of the most notable entertainers and businessmen in Azeroth (Darkmoon, Bizmo, Manastorm, etc). Again, not one to one but I think they're closer at least.

Also, let's note that this is all based on modern history. Goblins don't have a Roman Empire for example.

[fromchaostocosmos]

There was a book I read and ended up reading more than once.

It is one of those books that does not really get talked about and that Hollywood will never be interested in.

It is painful read. Potentially triggering read.

It is about a Jewish woman who is married to a Nazi officer.

She was able to hide her identity by using a friends identity. She was working as a red cross nurse and when she met her first husband. She did tell him she was Jewish and he hid that. That was the only kind thing he did.

He was abusive and cruel and she was trapped. She could not just leave as that was not really an option for her as Jewish woman hiding her identity married to a Nazi officer who knew that.

If you can read it I think you should again keeping in mind of potential triggers. It is called the Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Hahn-Beer and it is about Edith Hahn-Beer's story.

When these Hollywood type of stories, the best seller list type of stories are created the are made up and not true.

They also hide the actual truth of what was going on. The loss, destruction of families, the destruction of love that already existed, and the horrific amounts rape and sexual assault done to adults and children as well as sexual slavery.

Not only that it sends a message about what love is worthy and who is worthy of being seen as heroic. There many stories of heroes in the Holocaust. And far too many of them are not often talked about because the heroes are Jews.

There are also stories that are about love enduring in the Holocaust about Jewish love finding a way and enduring.

Romantic love and also familial love and platonic love and love of Judaism. There are many stories of love of different kinds finding a way to endure.

But those don't get showcased and told because everyone in those stories are Jews. Jews who behave like Jews, sound like Jews, do things is a very Jewish way, you know Jews being Jews and that just isn't marketable.

In the actual stories, the real stories, the true stories there is love, there is pain, there loss, there is the rawness and complexity that real life has because it is real. It is stories about real people.

And we also see in these stories the big ways and little ways that Jews fought back, the big and little rebellions Jews had, because this idea that Jews just went like meek sheep to slaughter is a myth.

We have never been meek. We did not just accept dying, we did not just take it.

Rather at some point many Jewish people were surrounded by so much death during the Holocaust that it broke them to see it and know it. Which is very understandable. The psychological toll that those conditions had on them broke people's spirit and took away any though of fighting back.

But no one started off that way. They had to be brought to that point, that had to be conditioned to get to that state.

And all of that never gets told. Rather what gets told is made up stories to make children and grandchildren of the world who knew what was happening and decided that as long it was happening to the Jews and Romani it was not their problem feel better.

[teh-tj]

Goblins (Warcraft) are not Jewish-coded, they're Italian-coded.

This is a thing I've heard a few times, it's not that big of an issue but it is something that comes up if people talk about Goblins for long enough. The idea is that Goblins are, even implicitly or unintentionally, based on Jewish stereotypes. Particularly stereotypes of Jewish people having long noses and loving money. I'm going to make a good-faith assumption that the people who say such things are merely concerned about the spread of Jewish stereotypes, and if I'm being honest there is precedent for monsters being Jewish-coded. However, I'd like to argue that that's a very surface-level understanding and it's based on shallow observations. Perhaps you can blame Blizzard for making the connection so easy on-sight, but I'm going to argue that Goblins are more coded to be Italian than Jewish. If you're Italian or Italian diaspora I won't tell you how you should feel about it, I just think goblins are more closely related to you guys.

First off, the Jew-coding comes from the common tropes of Jews having long noses and being greedy, and Goblins have long noses and are greedy. That said, Italians have also been known for greed. For most of modern history Italy comprised of mercantile states known for sending merchants, mercenaries, and explorers all over the world. Italian merchants were so common across the world that they were even some of the only Christians many Muslim kingdoms traded with. Goblins are obviously the mercantile race in WoW, with the playable Goblins all being former CEOs.

Second, Goblin engineering seems very close to Italy's reputation for science and engineering. The most obvious example is the renaissance, but even later in history Italian scientists like Fermi have been innovative and vital. Italy is home to a lot of impressive craftsmen and engineers; Italy makes some of the most high-quality cars, glasses, appliances, and even glasses. Most of the glasses frames in the world are designed in Italy by the company Luxottica, which is very important to me because I have astigmatism. While Goblin engineering isn't known to be the best, they still make many of the most complex machines the Horde enjoys. As Italy is one of the most industrial countries in the world, Goblins are possibly the most industrialized race.

TW: I'm going to talk about gang violence in the next paragraph, if such topics bother you skip it.

Third, the Goblins have cartels like the Italians have the Mafia. For most of modern Italian history the main method of warfare was throwing mercenaries at a problem. The Goblins have this too in the form of cartels, who are guns-for-hire used to protect assets and destroy competition. However, unlike mercenaries these cartels also act on their own accord on occasion making them more like gangs than actual companies. Goblin lore is full of stories of cartel wars, which play out like mafia wars where cartels and their clients would enact sporadic and clandestine violence against other factions. In real life, many dispossessed Italians formed family-based gangs we now call mafias. Mafia wars also employ assassinations, kidnappings, extortion, property damage, intimidation, etc. Even today Italy is home to thousands of mafia members.

Fourth, hierarchy. In WoW Goblins are led by a trade prince, who's basically just the rich fuck who convinces the most other rich fucks to let him control things. This reminds me a lot of Italian history where many mercantile republics functioned the same way. You'd have an oligarchy made up of powerful dynasties, and they'd contort with other powerful factions in the republics to lead. While they aren't one to one, there aren't that many Jewish republics to pull from and the situation reminds me a lot of Venice. Italy is also a very corrupt country on average, meaning many Italian politicians usually happen to either be wealthy as a result of corruption, or got into politics independently wealthy and used their power to grow their portfolio. Berlusconi being the most egregious example.

Lastly, I want to touch on the fact that Goblins aren't as factional as other races. Remember, the Goblins we play in the game are just the Bilgewater Cartel members. There are Goblins in almost every city, within almost every faction, and they even set up their own communities like Booty Bay. This reminds me of how Italians have a large diaspora population. There are millions of Italians in America, Argentina, Australia, ect. This is for a variety of reasons, but because of this it used to be common for Italians to travel across the world and not have to learn another language since the diaspora would have their own "little Italy" district. There are even stories of American soldiers in Italy sneaking off to visit family, or Italian soldiers refusing to fight because they have family on the enemy side. It's less pronounced than it used to be due to mass media and assimilation, but historically Italy's massive misplaced population has been one of the main faces of Italian culture across the world.

After saying all this here's my second hot take; the Goblins aren't Jewish, but the Gnomes are. Just a quick rundown of similarities. Jews were anchored in the city and surrounding province of Jerusalem until the Romans forced them into diaspora, Gnomes were tied to the city of Gnomeregan until a war forced them into exile and diaspora. Jewish traditions usually venerate argumentation and debate, Gnomish hierarchy is meritocratic meaning the smartest gnomes leads. Because Jews weren't tied to the same financial restraints Christians and Muslims were, Jews were often given important offices to conduct business. Gnomes are great engineers and spies, so many Alliance kingdoms keep a few Gnomes around in case they need such help. Many important entertainers and businessmen were Jewish, and a lot of the most notable entertainers and businessmen in Azeroth (Darkmoon, Bizmo, Manastorm, etc). Again, not one to one but I think they're closer at least.

Also, let's note that this is all based on modern history. Goblins don't have a Roman Empire for example.

[viki-field]

Forgive us for our savagery

(a letter to the peace-loving world community)

Dear world community, that is currently wagging its finger at Israel and is suggesting the most extraordinary and at the same time genius solution for the current situation: “Stop shooting”! Looking at the history of Israel, I am impressed at your consistency in defending this principle.

In 1948, you drew a pretty line on a map that was supposed to separate Israel that belonged to the Jews and Palestine that belonged to the Arabs. You also drew the borders of Jerusalem that had a special international status. It was all so beautiful! You decided not to pay attention to the fact that Arab countries all around straight away said that they won’t tolerate a Jewish Israel. You continued to implement your peace-loving principles and withdrew your army.

You didn’t shoot when the armies of 5 different Arab countries first took over the land that was intended for the Arabs and then tried to destroy the Jews. Forgive us for the fact that the unreasonable and unwise Jews didn’t follow your recommendations and took weapons in their hands and defended every meter of land in order to build there their own country. If we would have just followed your example, then we wouldn’t have had Israel today and all the problems related to it. Forgive us.

Then there were years of long guerrilla warfare from Egypt and Transjordan on Israel territory. But TikTok and YouTube didn’t exist then and the information took a while to arrive in Europe. Probably when the information did arrive you oohed and shook your finger at someone. We just couldn’t see from here. Sorry for not noticing and fighting on our own.

Then there was the Suez crisis where Israel helped Britain and France not to get their own hands dirty and provided more of its own military than both of these countries combined. You shook your finger and threatened us with sanctions, and after that peacefully, how you like it, you brought your troops into Egypt to quiet down the situation there, but more importantly so that your tankers could safely pass through the canal.

In 1967 Egypt decided to get its army ready and attack Israel. They demanded that you got out. But you’re against violence! So you left. Because the most imperative thing is not to shoot! You showed us an example of how to avoid a conflict. Excuse that the unreasonable and slow Israel didn’t flee to another land, the same year Israel had to fight with Egypt, Iraq and Syria.

During that war, Israel acquired the Sinai Peninsula, Judea and Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Though it didn’t need that much territory. It just wanted not to have hostile armies gather around its cities.

Furthermore, the borders that you drew on the map in 1948, were erased long ago, and every year 10 to 15 thousand Arab “travelers” just randomly appeared here. Some of them brought explosives with them, but who knows maybe they wanted to stun fish. So essentially, we took a green marker and drew new borders and life got easier. However, you got heartbroken over the fact that we messed up your artwork. Sorry, we can buy you a new map.

Then there was the “War of Attrition”, ongoing terrorist attacks, the “Yom Kippur War”, you showed an example of peace and sat in Europe. You demanded of Israel to stop and not win that much. The only thing is when OPEC got mad at Israel and reduced its oil deliveries it brought a jump in prices all over the world. This, of course, was very bad, so you decided to show a special example of peacefulness. For the sake of peace during a UN meeting, you identified “Zionism as a form of racial discrimination.” Forgive us. Our Zionist Founding Fathers (whom you supported at the time) didn’t know about that.

As well, we had two wars with Lebanon. To start with, on the southern border with Lebanon, Syria established a whole mini-state (Fatahland). Israel arrived there and moved the Syrian army. Though as soon as Israel stopped its military actions you helped 10 thousand militants safely get back to their countries.

The only thing is, Israel stayed in control of the so-called “buffer” zone. This kind of Jewish impudence was outrageous, so in 2000 you forced us to leave. And then instead of the Syrian army, the border filled up with the Iranian Hezbollah. New fortifications and new weapon factories. No, you didn’t stay silent. You looked at Iran strictly and made them withdraw all of their foreign troops from their territory. “Ok!” they said and left Hezbollah on the border. And what can you possibly accuse Lebanon of?— they’re weak, they can’t control Hezbollah, therefore you decided not to pay attention to it.

Then, there was a new war, disarmament of the buffer zone. Then there was your cease-fire resolution! Thank you! You demanded to remove Hezbollah from that zone and reminded everyone that “This can’t happen again!” Moreover, at Israel’s request, you brought your troops and special people to, “observe the situation.” And they observed. They observed how Hezbollah resumed its activities there as well as new rockets flew towards us.

Oh yes, you constantly show us your peaceful and creative ideas. What wonderful conferences you have held, we even got to travel the world! The Camp David Accords, the Madrid Conference, negotiations in Washington, the Oslo Accords. And each one of them was a “breakthrough”, “step forward”, “unprecedented breakthrough.”... The only thing is in Gasa they considered the unprecedented breakthrough as a victory over Israel, and while riding this wave Hamas came to power (which you also recognized as a terrorist organization). But you are peace-loving, so you continued sending them help and finances. You saw how they made rockets and dug tunnels but taught Israel to stick with peace. Forgive us for restraining this activity even though you were mad.

I’m sure that now you also have a bunch of creative ideas on how to achieve peace. Thank you! Your example of peace-making on our land is outstanding! Your advice and examples — invaluable. Your resolutions are just the pinnacle of an imaginative style and meticulous phrasings.

Sorry that we’re so far behind you. Apologies for taking weapons into our own hands and trying to disarm Hamas that is bombing our cities. Perhaps it would have been easier for us to follow your example of peace if, for example, European cities were being bombed. Although, I think no, I think we are still barbarian people, and we will support an anti-terror group regardless of where it is located. As was the case when Israel assassinated al-Masri, al-Qaeda No.2. So forgive us for our barbaric ways. We will fight terror as we can.

[inglourious-imagines]

Hate Me, Love Me (Joe Liebgott)

Summary: Everyone thinks you and Liebgott hate each other and so do you. But especially after one heated argument, the sexual tension between the two of you is so obvious and the boys don't know if you're gonna kill each other or jump at each other.

Warnings: just heated argument I guess

Author's Note: I had so much fun writing this. Hope you like it! Also, feel free to send me requests any time about anything!

Taglist: @alienoresimagines @inallmylives

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"Can you stop complaining and shut the fuck up?" Y/N almost growled at the Jewish boy as Easy Company was taken from the town Foy in trucks that were apparently too uncomforable for the man next to her. "Oh Y/N, don't tell me you'd cry," he stated and lighted a cigarette, "you're a big girl now." The blood in her veins was boiling and the others could see all the anger bottled up in her over the weeks but they were just having too much fun with her and Liebgott arguing so they just watched them with amusement. Y/N grabbed his cigarette right from his lips and took a long drag from it.

"That was my fucking cigarette. Can't you just let me enjoy at least a bit of a nicotine?" Joe frowned and looked at her annoyed. "Don't tell me you'd cry. You're a big boy now, Joe." Y/N teased him with a spiteful laugh and blew the smoke right into his face. 

•••

Haegenau was quite a nice little town on a right side from a river whereas the left side was considered german, under enemy's control. That's why they wanted a night patrol in order to capture some hostages and take them back on the correct side of the river.

The night chosen for the mission was perfect for pilots - no fog or clouds, shining moon - but definitely not good for a patrol. 

Y/N was supposed to assist Liebgott with a machine gun. She was disappointed it had to be him but lowkey glad she's not the one crossing the river. Well and Lieb was actually excited because he never declined an offer to provoke and tease her.

Joseph Liebgott didn't hate Y/N, didn't have absolutely anything against her. He thought she was one of the finest members of Easy Company, a brave female soldier with so much love, strength and darkness in her heart. All the boys loved her and he wasn't an exception, except for one thing - he had probably a little more affection towards her in him than anyone else. 

Because of that, Joe got scared. He was now a veteran in the war, he knew how things work around here and therefore he also realised, it's not definitely a good time for emotions.

That's why they shared this love-hate relationship. Both of them knew they can rely on each other in the field, he knew she has his back, there was an absolute trust between them. But as soon as they got back from the front line or there was some kind of a break, the teasing and provoking began all over again.

•••

"All clear?" Richard Winters reassured himself before he let his men go. Even though they already had a new leader, it was still Dick Winter's Company.

Liebgott and Y/N positioned themselves with a machine gun ready to fire at any time. They were both realizing the proximity between them but neither of them broke the silence. Being on the front line again, they respected and admired the other one quietly.

•••

The first patrol was so successful, Colonel Sink wanted another one the other night with the same people. But Richard Winters was a smart man, as well as Lewis Nixon so faking a report was not a problem to them and Easy Company was allowed to have a full night sleep. 

"Yeah and Y/N, can I talk to you for a second?" Nixon called out after Richard Winters dismissed them and left with Captain Speirs. "Of course, sir." she nodded and followed him out of basement. 

"Leave the "sir" for someone else. I told you to call me just Lewis." Nixon laughed and handed her a cigarette. Y/N didn't use to smoke before the war and the first cigarette was given to her by the one and only Joe Liebgott. Every time she was smoking, the Jewish boy came to her mind and she couldn't help it.

"Hey! Are you listening, Y/N?" Lewis was waving with his hand in front of her face. His face was decorated with knowing smirk.

"What you smiling at, Nix?" Y/N teased him and playfully punched his arm. 

"You two should have a real proper talk."

"Why should I start a freaking conversation with Joe?"

"I didn't say with who. You did."

•••

When Y/N came back to the other boys, she was highly upset that Lewis Nixon found out and that it was only her fault. What only made her angrier was that Lewis thought that they'd make a perfect couple, like Romeo and Juliet which was actually pretty accurate because Joe was a Jew and she was partly German. Her people hated his people, therefore it worked the other way around as well. This totally got her mad and she stormed out of the room to join the boys.

"No, you damn idiot! What are you even trying to say?!" Liebgott's voice echoed in the basement. His fists were clenched, his face red - partly because of his anger bottling up in him, partly because he knew Bill's right. 

"You know damn well what I mean. You need to stop the game finally." Guarnere spoke surprisingly calmly and wasn't even offended by Joe's insult. Liebgott was simply hot-tempered and little did Bill know that he's the one telling the truth. 

"What game?" Y/N interrupted and the whole room fell silent. Her eyes wandered from one man to another and questioning them. 

Joe rubbed his eyes in annoyance, "Damn it! You don't need to know everything."

Y/N was already angry and this only added the oil to the fire. "Well, I'm sorry Mr. I'm-the-best-and-everyone-can-kiss-my-ass that I actually care!"

"Oh c'mon! Don't start with this. Go and chase Nixon and his dick for fuck's sake!"

"Really, Joseph? You're just jealous I'm not chasing yours."

No one in the room dared to say something in their matter. They were almost afraid to breathe. Their eyes were jumping from Y/N to Liebgott.

"Now I don't know if they're gonna kill each other or kiss each other." George whispered to Perconte and chuckled a bit. 

"Hey, Luz! What's so funny about me and Joe's dick? Please, share your idea with us?" Y/N turned to him with narrowed eyes and her arms folded on her breasts. 

"Nothing's funny about you or his dick." George mumbled and looked at the ground. He felt like he was caught red-handed. 

"Really? But I heard you laughing. So tell us, don't be ashamed." she encouraged him with a devilish smirk.

"Can we please stop talking about my dick? Please?" Joe joined in slightly annoyed with the whole situation. 

"Oh! Sorry, Joe!" she exclaimed with an obvious irony in her voice, "would you like to discuss this in private?"

The room was dead silent again. All eyes were on Joe when he tried to get out some words but he only managed to stutter, "W-what?" 

"That's called a fucking sarcasm, you moron." Y/N rolled his eyes but added with a smirk after a few seconds, "But I'll take your 'what' as a no, okay. Thought we could have some fun." A wink was sent Joe's way. 

"No!" he shouted probably way too quickly. He shrugged and took a few steps towards her. His usual cocky self was back. "You want to fight, girl? You'll follow me now to the empty room upstairs and there, I'm gonna declare a war."

"Eww!" George shouted, "get the hell out of here, we don't want to listen to your sugar sex talk."

[cobieeliseforsh]

I'm getting pretty annoyed with the amount of bullshit in the media right now. I just read an article about the "antisemitic" conspiracy theory Qanon. Calling Qanon antisemitic is like calling the KKK a group opposed to the career of Will Smith - technically true, but clearly a small subsection of a greater whole.

So, to remedy this...

COBIE'S FRUSTRATED GUIDE TO QANON FROM SOMEONE WHO LOVES CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND WISHES THIS ONE WOULD FUCK OFF BECAUSE IT IS BORING AS SHIT BUT NOT FIZZING WITH ENERGY, EVEN ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL, BECAUSE IT IS A DUMB AND LAZY REHASH FROM THE 80S OR EARLIER!

PART 1: DA FUCQ IS QANON?

Qanon is a grooming organisation for the Christian Far Right Death Cult that has held the Republican party in its sweaty hands since the ascent of Reagan in the 1980s. They believe in some bullshit I won't reprint here because I have no intention of spreading their ideology, but if you've heard of the Satanic panic, this is Satanic Panic 2: Now With Pizza!

Qanon is, by definition of their own supporters attacks on Muslim terrorism, a terrorist organisation. And, though it seems impossible, they're stupidier than ISIS ever were, because at least there was some twisted logic behind ISIS: poor young men fighting revolutionary wars against what they see as corrupt and immoral authorities and ideologies is nothing new. Qanon is literally the powerful declaring war on those without power out of fear that those without power (Satanists) live only to physically abuse their ugly, fat, prejudiced, stupid children. Despite the statistically most likely people to abuse them being them themselves, and there being plenty of evidence that many of these hypocrites have done that in the past (numerically many - one thing I believe Qanon followers on is that the majority are gullible Maud Flanders types, so statistically it won't be that many).

Donald Trump supports them over the "violent" Antifa (Antifa haven't killed anyone since 1993 (and that was a suicide), aren't actually an organisation, and are against facism, which Trump also claims to be against), despite Qanon followers carrying and firing weapons regularly, having shot up a pizza place in a terrorist act, refusing to wear masks, and other acts of violence designed to terrorise people.

PART 2 WHO DO THEY HATE?

Um... like, 98% of people.

Qanon is primarily an Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult. They believe in what they call SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) which happens at such a low frequency as to make it as serious a problem as being invaded by pookas. You might find anecdotal evidence here and there, but the majority of cases are hearsay spread by people who weren't there who were a part of or raised by people who were a part of the Satanic Panic. If you hear about it, it's likely bullshit. Just look at the West Memphis 3: accused of Satanic Ritual Abuse, they were sent to prison for wearing black clothes and being teenagers without any evidence. Now, whoever killed those boys is still loose, because Qanon, like all right-wing groups, is about being obeyed, not about justice.

So, with Satanic Ritual Abuse being fucking vapour, they can accuse ANYONE. And if there is no evidence, they cry COVER UP. There is no way, at all, to prove this mindset is wrong as it always self corrects, because being religious in origin, it is driven by BELIEF, not evidence.

So, whoever they believe is evil, is, as far as their reality tunnel goes.

Muslims? Evil child abusers. "But there is no evidence of that. In fact, the Muslim community is actually very protective of their children and other children. They're amongst the kindest people you can meet, even if their political leaders in their own countries are jerks." Well, says Qanon, that's because their community covers up the abuse. There wouldn't be any evidence. But my cousin went to school with a girl who was groomed by a Muslim. It's clear it is something all Muslims do. "But that's stupid. That's like saying that because Ted Bundy, a heterosexual white Republican, murdered loads of women, all heterosexual white Republicans want to murder women!" Now, says Qanon, you are just being silly. Besides, I believe Muslims are bad and Republicans aren't. You can't question my beliefs.

But we can, and we should.

Qanon followers use this vague structure to create complex webs that link up various conspiracy theories, but they aren't a complex web. They're just a list of petty grievances they have from living in their own personal echo chamber.

They hate women, they hate girls, they hate boys who don't conform to their expectations, they hate men who vote left-wing, they hate gay people, bi people, really anyone who isn't heterosexual, they definitely hate trans people (see: trans people want to use bathrooms to abuse children as merely an extension of the Satanic Ritual Abuse claims), they hate people with coloured hair, bright clothes, they hate Jewish people, they hate Muslims, they hate anyone from a fringe religion that doesn't look right, they hate foreigners, black and brown people... anyone they define as different. And to back this up, they claim to be "the majority" being dictated to be a "minority" - they aren't. They're a minority of gobby cunts, a Karen of Nazis (Karen being the best collective noun to describe these childish crybabies who were so desperate to remain in a state of childlike innocence they embraced both religion and then keep insisting their imaginary friend, Jesus, is following them everywhere, like a psychotic stalker ghost).

PART 3 WHERE DOES THEIR BULLSHIT COME FROM?

This is probably the most important part. Not what they believe, but where these ideas come from, and why they aren't new.

Qanon is a mixture of young-and-edgy YouTube/8chan influencer, white supremacist religious manipulation, pro-Capitalist Protestant religious "life is shit, embrace misery" ideology, pedophile hysteria, and "we hate the idea people have rights because we're power mad, but we're going to frame this as a backlash, normal people making their voices heard, a culture war, or whatever else we can rebrand PREJUDICE because even we don't want to admit we are bigots".

So, first of all, the angry white online teenagers: have always existed, will always exist. Their parents don't give a shit about them unless they cause trouble. So, they learn quickly that the best way to get attention is to cause trouble, which leads to kinship with other troubkemakers, forming an echo chamber of escalating troublemaking. But they're also angry, and often poor (in their eyes, or in actuality), so they're drawn to outrage, and like causing it. They're attracted to movements like this because they believe it's a chance to get some attention, someone to notice them.

And who notices them? White supremacists are always on the lookout for recruits. They feed their need for outrage and attention by misrepresenting everything. They take puff-piece news articles and shoddy journalism and further twist them into movements around positions that have no basis in reality. Vaccines? Designed to hurt you. "Uhhh, no," you say. "That's literally the opposite of what a vaccine does." I don't believe that, they say, and you can't question my beliefs. BLM? Terrorism. "No, they just want to not be shot." No they don't, they want to take over and put the Jews in power, and you can't question my beliefs! "You have no evidence!" COVER UP! they scream.

So it goes, so it goes.

Meanwhile, the Protestan work ethic of, "If you didn't suffer, you don't deserve it," goes on and on. They believe that shit things just happen, you can't stop them. Capitalism is founded on this very, very relugious principle: work should be pain for it to have value. This justifies promoting assholes, and making things difficult. But it also promotes the idea that you can't do anything to combat inequality, as that is natural, and you can't do anything to stop bad things happening, they always will, so why try? This lends Qanon a specific pattern: complain, do nothing, complain nothing is being done, still do nothing, repeat. It's wrong to intervene, you see. This allows them to say racism is bad, but God wants us to suffer so we deserve phony-heaven, a paradise they think is built on bricks of human misery... does that sound glorious to you? And if you have something, clearly you did suffer to get it, and so you are worthy, which is why Trump is a hero to them and they believe his every utterance of verbal diarrhea about him being persecuted (to be fair, he is, but he deserves it because he's lazy and incompetent).

Pedophile hysteria is also generally religiously motivated. Children should be protected, but they are not innocent angels. I've worked with children. Some are nice, some are sneaky, some are violent bullies, and so on. The one thing that unites all children is that they are ignorant. That's why we send them to school. And there are people who want to prey on children. The world we usually use to describe those who most often hurt, abuse and damage children is, "family". Promoting the idea of gangs of rampaging pedophiles snatching children into vans and harming them in shadowy rooms, or murdering them in some Satanic ritual, is laughable compared to the epidemic of children being harmed by those parents terrified the pedophiles are out there. Such fear motivates them to do untold harm to children, restricting their freedoms and their growth, teaching them that all sex is bad so they never enjoy it, forcing them to be things they aren't, and turning a blind eye to obvious abuse because those doing it are not the model of abuse being put out by the press and Internet communities. In that last way, Qanon is a driver of child abuse: it actively encourages Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult members to nit even ask the obvious question: if Epstein was abusing kids, and Epstein was hanging out with Trump, was Trump maybe involved in some way?

And then there is just the prejudiced crowd, most notably the American-exceptionalism delusional whack jobs. Let me be clear, all forms of exceptionalism are prejudiced, as they suggest that those who are exceptional are better and mire deserving than others, and the real world does not contain such hierarchies, just stuff that happens until it stops happening. A monkey may be the alpha, but one day they won't be. It's not a hierarchy, it's just a thing that happens that we project a power structure onto. Who knows what monkey culture is like? Maybe to them deference is more honourable and respected than being in charge. No-one has asked monkeys for their views of ideology or power structures.

This often manifests itself in ideas of, "We shouldn't be ashamed!" and that movements they don't like are, "Against us!" Well, if you're setting out to hurt people because you believe you are better than them, you should be ashamed. That queer Pakistani girl you keep out of college could have been the one to cure cancer! She might have had the unique perspective to make that breakthrough. And, yes, some of us are against Qanon, because Qanon is hurting people. That is the point of the movement: to harm its enemies, by denial if freedom all the way up to outright murder. It isn't a Pride parade or BLM demanding equality and an end to deaths, its a hate movement driven by a desire to punch down, and ultimately perpetuate the very system that isn't even working for those who follow its own ideology.

It's based on fear of the new, even if that new place is better than the old one, change can be scary. They think equality will hurt them, the way collective bargaining would hurt them. But we don't live in a system where resources are so finite you have to do without, we live in a system where resources are finite but we throw away an excess because capitalism couldn't make rich people richer by giving it to those who need it, so they dispose of it and introduce scarcity to drive up the cost. Working together would force them to stop doing that, which is why movements like this exist: to perpetuate a form of exceptionalism more like a cult, where only the leaders reap the rewards.

PART 4 WHAT IS THE END GOAL OF QANON?

It doesn't have one.

Qanon is a right-wing movement. Right-wing movements are about winning arguments now, and then feeling smug, even when the damage is undone later. It's about a sense of self-satisfaction, and not anything else.

Plus, Qanon has so many stake-holders who hate each other that the movement will eventually descend into cannibalism as all these things do.

Finally, being primarily religious in its design, it won't take long for many religious types to realise Q is kind if a God-like figure, a false idol, and when that happens, plenty if their leaders will become worried that their followers are so focused on Q they might "stray from the path" of donating all their money to their church.

Unless it turns out that Q is Q from Star Trek, in which case their end goal is to test Jean-Luc Picard.

PART 5 SHOULD WE FEAR QANON?

Nah. It's a group of fringe lunatics whose time in the spotlight will be fleeting. As I've already said, even their ideas aren't original - this is the Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult version of Fortnite stealing dances: everyone goes crazy about it for a bit, but it's so insubstantial in its original form, nevermind the cover band version, that almost all people with a lick of common sense will dismiss it. Plus, it doesn't serve any agenda: Trump could easily find himself on the receiving end of it, that one Qanon politician just elected will likely be marginalised the moment Trump vanishes, and having a single person won't sway any votes in such divisive times, which means they'll be proclaimed ineffectual soon enough, and with Epstein it is already showing that it isn't something which helps the powerful, meaning a lot of people who do have secrets will want it gone sooner rather than later lest it bite their own hands. Plus, they are actually harming people - and say what you like about the Republicans, they don't tend to respond well to the PR disaster of groups they side with directly attacking or killing people unless they are their own ACAB stormtroopers.

Plus, it's a bunch of saddos on the Internet. Chances are if you see someone screaming about Qanon and waving around a gun, they'd have done the same and screamed about lizards had it never got started.

PART 6 WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Stop giving them attention. This is one of the most BORING conspiracy theories ever created. Seriously, since 9/11, conspiracy theories have really gone downhill. They used to be about aliens and subterranean kingdoms, and now they're just attempts to misdirect pedophile hunters from the right-wing types who have covered up child abuse, and tie it to phony "think of the children" and "Satan is out to get us" religious hysteria.

With covid-19, the press is having a very slow news cycle, so they're desperately grabbing at anything that can drive search engine algorithm clicks to their sites, so they're covering Qanon because they've seen it trending. I doubt most people involved with it really believe in it, but it is so directionless that it wouldn't matter if they did. Qanon Con would descend into bloodshed fairly quickly because everyone would be angry and arguing that the tater tots are secret SRA code for cannibalising children or that it reveals that Hilary Clinton buries children beneath fields of potatoes. It's stupid, the people involved with it are stupid, and the bigger question is what they believe that led them to this:

Disenfranchisement. Having to respect the beliefs of others. Prejudice. Anger.

Well, boo-fucking-hoo. If these shitbags actually want to stop harm to children, maybe stop supporting gun rights so kids aren't being gunned down in schools, and black kids don't keep getting gunned down everywhere. Until you do that, Qanon, you're the child abusers.

[safetypinkerton]

Hollywood Propaganda by Mark Dice 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hollywood-propaganda-mark-dice/1137833508

Christianity Under Attack

In order to destroy America, the conspirators are determined to eradicate faith in God and dismantle organized Christianity. Attacking Jesus and Christianity is a sacrament in Hollywood because the far-Left hates Jesus and everything He stands for. It’s not an overstatement to say that many in key positions of power in the entertainment industry (and politics) are Satanists who will someday openly embrace Lucifer as the rebel angel kicked out of Heaven for defying God.

  “I’m glad the Jews killed Christ,” ranted comedian Sarah Silverman in one of her comedy specials. “Good. I’d fucking do it again!” she declares, as her audience agrees in laughter.158 While accepting an Emmy Award one year Kathy Griffin said, “A lot of people come up here and they thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. He didn’t help me a bit…so all I can say is suck it Jesus! This award is my god now!”159

I’m not saying people shouldn’t be able to make fun of Christians, but no mainstream celebrity would dare make such insults or jokes about Muhammad because Muslims (and Jews) are vigorously protected against any criticism or mockery and only wonderful things can be said about them. Even a slightly edgy joke ignites a barrage of attacks with cries of “Islamophobia” or “anti-Semitism” and gears start moving in the well-funded and massive smear machines like the ADL and the SPLC which quickly move to destroy the person’s career before they can utter another word.

Hating Christians is almost as necessary as believing in climate change if you’re going to be a mainstream Hollywood celebrity. There are very few open Christians in Hollywood, most of them are has-beens like Kevin Sorbo and Kirk Cameron who have been basically blacklisted since being open about their faith.

  Kevin Sorbo was banned from Comicon because he’s a conservative and “pals with Sean Hannity.”160 He and other Christian actors are stuck doing low budget films that get little attention. They’re allowed to exist (for now) as long as they never point out the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality. Only watered down and generic Christian messages are allowed to be said.

After Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and happened to discuss his “spirituality,” many online began attacking him for being a Christian and attending a church. Actress Ellen Page (a lesbian) from the X-Men and Inception tweeted, “If you are a famous actor and you belong to an organization that hates a certain group of people, don’t be surprised if someone simply wonders why it’s not addressed. Being anti LGBTQ is wrong, there aren’t two sides. The damage it causes is severe. Full stop.”161

Singer Ellie Goulding threatened to back out of her scheduled performance at the 2019 Thanksgiving NFL halftime show if the Salvation Army didn’t pledge to donate money to LGBT causes. She got the idea after her Instagram comments were flooded with complaints from her fans because the Salvation Army was sponsoring the game to announce their annual Red Kettle Campaign (bell ringers) fundraiser for the homeless.162 Since the Salvation Army is a Christian charity, Goulding’s fans freaked out, accusing them of being “homophobic” and “transphobic.”

They quickly bowed to the pressure and “disavowed” any anti-LGBT beliefs, which basically means they’re disavowing the Bible because even the New Testament denounces homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27 and 1st Corinthians 6:9-10. Many critics claim that only the Old Testament does, but the Book of Romans makes it clear that just because Jesus came to offer salvation doesn’t mean God’s law regarding homosexuality changed.

The Salvation Army also removed a “position statement” from their website that had made it clear “Scripture forbids sexual intimacy between members of the same sex,” and replaced it with one saying “We embrace people regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”163 One of the world’s largest Christian charities whose very name “The Salvation Army” refers to the salvation of Christ, cowardly bowed down to the Leftist activists out of fear they would be branded “homophobic.”

Christians are easy targets since they’re much more passive than Jews and Muslims when attacked, and Hollywood loves to stereotype them as a bunch of superstitious bigots who don’t know how to have fun. In the rare case that there is a movie favorable to Christianity that gets widespread distribution, that too is attacked.

Passion of the Christ was deemed “anti-Semitic” because it depicts the story of Jesus’ arrest, sham trial, and crucifixion.164 It was the most popular film about the events to be made and wasn’t a straight to DVD release like most others. With Mel Gibson behind it, the film became a huge success, which caused a tremendous backlash.

The ADL [Anti-Defamation League] denounced the film, saying it “continues its unambiguous portrayal of Jews as being responsible for the death of Jesus. There is no question in this film about who is responsible. At every single opportunity, Mr. Gibson’s film reinforces the notion that the Jewish authorities and the Jewish mob are the ones ultimately responsible for the Crucifixion.”165 That’s because that’s what happened!

Technically, the Romans did it, but at the behest of the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem at the time. The Bible makes it very clear what led to Jesus being crucified. Pontius Pilate is quoted in Matthew 27:24 saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” and “It is your responsibility!” meaning the Jewish Pharisees. They were the ones who conspired to have Jesus arrested and killed for “blasphemy” and being a “false” messiah. Pontius Pilate even offered to release Jesus, but the crowd demanded he release Barabbas instead, another man who was being detained for insurrection against Rome, and for murder.166

A critic for the New York Daily News called The Passion of the Christ, “the most virulently anti-Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of the Second World War.”167 Many others angrily denounced the film when it came out in 2004. Some in the media even blamed it for a supposed “upsurge” in anti-Semitic hate crimes.168

When the History Channel miniseries The Bible was released in 2013, the same cries of “anti-Semitism” rang out.169 The New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss went so far as to say that it’s a “conspiracy theory” that Jews killed Jesus.170

Even though most Christmas movies aren’t overtly Christian and instead focus of the importance of families reuniting and spending time together, that doesn’t mean they’re not going to come under attack. As the war on western culture continues, the Marxists have set their sights on Christmas too.

Online liberal cesspool Salon.com ran a headline reading “Hallmark movies are fascist propaganda,” and complained they promote “heteronormative whiteness” because there aren’t enough LGBT characters or people of color in them.171

“Hallmark movies, with their emphasis on returning home and the pleasures of the small, domestic life, also send a not-at-all subtle signal of disdain for cosmopolitanism and curiosity about the larger world,” Salon said, “which is exactly the sort of attitude that helps breed the kind of defensive White nationalism that we see growing in strength in the Donald Trump era.”172

The article went on to say that because the Hallmark Channel airs so many Christmas movies, it is promoting, “a set of patriarchal and authoritarian values that are more about White evangelicals defining themselves as an ethnic group, and not about a genuine feeling of spirituality…The very fact that they’re presented as harmless fluff makes it all the more insidious, the way they work to enforce very narrow, White, heteronormative, sexist, provincial ideas of what constitutes ‘normal.’”173

The article wasn’t satire. Salon.com has a deep-seated hatred of Christianity, conservatives and families, and is another cog in the Cultural Marxist machine working to destroy the United States.

Comedian Whitney Cummings was reported to the Human Resources department of a major Hollywood studio after she wished the crew of a TV show she was working on “Merry Christmas” when they wrapped up for the year. She made the revelation while speaking with Conan O’Brian the following December. “Last year, I was working on a TV show, [and] got in trouble with Human Resources for saying ‘Merry Christmas’ to an intern,” she began.174

Conan asked her if she was being serious and she said it was a true story, elaborating, “I was leaving, like on the 18th or whatever…and I was like, ‘Bye guys, Merry Christmas.’” When she returned from vacation after New Year’s she was called to HR and scolded. She joked, “I don’t even care how your Christmas was. It was just a formality. It’s what you say when you leave.”175

Conan O’Brien then replied, “In these times we’re in, that could trigger someone or offend them if it’s not their holiday.”176 She didn’t say which network it was, but she’s been involved with some major shows like NBC’s Whitney (where she played the main character), as well as the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls, which she created and was a writer for.

While today it may seem impossible that Christmas movies may become a thing of the past, nobody could have ever guessed that reruns of the classic Dukes of Hazzard would get banned after the Confederate flag was deemed a “hate symbol” in 2015, or that Aunt Jemima pancake syrup, Eskimo Pie ice cream bars, and Uncle Ben’s Rice would be deemed “racially insensitive” and pulled from production a few years later.177

Once someone reminds liberals that the word Christmas is derived from Christ’s Mass and that it is actually a commemoration of the birth of Jesus, they may finally go over the edge and deem Christmas just as offensive as Columbus Day or the Fourth of July. And with the Muslim and Sikh populations increasing in the United States, the American standard of Christmas music playing in shopping malls and retail stores all month long every December may one day come to an end because it’s not “inclusive” and leaves non-Christians feeling “ostracized.”

[eldunea]

havin some thoughts for an HP AU discussed with @diamontha​

mom honerva is the world’s most famous alchemist, dad zander is an auror. honerva originally lived in the united states and her claim to fame is discovering the fifth element in alchemy--but she had her discovery stolen from her by an american wizard. that guy then turned around and accused her of trying to steal his idea, and the general american public believed him. dumbledore, however, believed that honerva had been wronged, and offered her a job teaching alchemy as an elective at hogwarts where she would be respected. that’s how the family ended up in the UK.

as an indigenous person he’s damn good at wandless magic because FUCK THAT BULLSHIT JKR CAME UP WITH WHEN SHE SAID INDIGENOUS WANDLESS MAGIC WAS “LESS PRECISE.” she already stated that wandless magic was more powerful than wanded magic, but then all of a sudden when poc use wandless magic the wand version is better? THE FUCK? anyway yeah, his parents would have trained him in it since he was a little kid and when he finally got his wand he was like “tf is this european bullshit?”

speaking of his wand, it’s yew and dragon heartstring, 11.5″, flexible. his original wand was cherry and dragon heartstring, 11″, flexible.

as an indigenous jewish woman honerva’s plan living in the united states was that she wanted to homeschool lotor--she didn’t want him to go to ilvermorny because she went there herself and she was always haunted by the fact she wasn’t allowed to use or learn her peoples’ magic. zander, an okinawan at mahoutokoro, agreed that the japanese wizarding school was no better. his parents were really nervous about sending him to hogwarts but since honerva was now a professor there she could make sure her son got the education that he needed.

he’s an unregistered animagus--a fox--and he doesn’t plan on getting registered anytime soon. his patronus also happens to be a fox.

he has an enchanted tallit (some reform jews have tallit) that’s basically his conscience. there was a legend of a prayer shawl that came to life and stopped a man from sleeping with an escort so lotor’s would be just like that--it would try to stop him from doing all the questionable, sometimes petty shit that he likes to do. 

he has kova at hogwarts with him.

he loves muggle science? so much? his mom wanted to be an astrophysicist on top of an alchemist and even tried going to muggle college for it but given her background and the time period she didn’t get far. she taught him all about science and he just has this childlike wonder for it. don’t take him to a muggle science fair, he’ll blow his cover blabbing about how much he wishes he had access to things like that.

he wants to be the first wizard in space. yes, really. when he saw a video of neil armstrong’s moon landing he broke down crying saying, “what’s the point of all this magic if it can’t take us to the great beyond?” that night when he lay in bed, he had an awakening and was like, well, it CAN take us to the great beyond, we just have to TRY! and that’s it, that’s how he formed his dream. god bless his soul

there’s nothing more he loves than muggle parents of wizard children/muggles married to wizards because they have knowledge of both science and magic just like him. when diantha first takes him home to meet her muggle parents he just? he just gets so excited?? he loses his shit in the best possible way like “oh my god, is that a real vacuum cleaner? can i see the inside of your TV? CAN YOU TEACH ME HOW TO GO TO SPACE” he’s like an excited puppy, losing his mind over all the muggle tech in their house. dia please keep your boyfriend under control

speaking of smartphones, he loves smartphones holy shit. the first time he held one it was like indiana jones holding the golden idol in raiders of the lost ark. he called it “magic in your pocket” and said as much to the confused muggle who first gave him their smartphone to look at. when he gets older he buys every single version of the iphone as soon as it comes out and has them all in a case on his fireplace.

he loves muggles so much despite being a pureblood……he’s fascinated with their world and sometimes wishes he could have a muggle parent or grandparent so that he would know more about them. unlike canon lotor who is biased against humans bc they don’t have (much) magic, HP lotor will fight anyone who says muggles are inferior to humans. he thinks it’s so incredible how much they’ve accomplished despite having no magic, and that if anything, they’re the ones who are better than wizards. 

he’s also really against the whole “hiding magic from muggles” thing because 1) it’s a white thing; many POC cultures around the world openly tolerated magic before white colonizers forced their witches and wizards underground and 2) he’s firmly resolved that there’s nothing wizards can do that muggles won’t be able to figure out eventually. in the immortal words of the muggle author arthur c. clarke, magic is just science that they don’t understand yet.

for all his knowledge about muggle science though, he is comically bad at blending in with muggles. like……this level bad. he just--he just doesn’t understand them at all. poor boy. hopefully he’ll learn.

and some biographical notes in a more chronological order--

when he first went to hogwarts he was the spirited, somewhat mischievous kid on the train who wanted to get to know everybody, share his sweets and talk about all of the things he’d already read in the textbooks. everyone pegged him for a ravenclaw or maybe even a hufflepuff, but literally as soon as the sorting hat touched his head it screamed “SLYTHERIN,” shocking everyone who got to know him.

being in slytherin might have been the best match for his personality (intelligence mixed with ambition) but oh boy it was not a fun time. fun fact i hc “mudblood” is referred to mixed race people as well as half-muggles and muggleborns so he was definitely called that a lot. being the only indigenous, the only jewish and one of the few POC in the house was also really difficult--he felt isolated and alone a lot of the time because even among the people who fervently defended him he felt like they didn’t understand him.

at some point (haven’t decided what) he went back to the united states to visit some relatives and was caught up in an attack on a synagogue. 

he was shot in his right arm (not his wand arm), so he drew his wand and killed the gunman using the killing curse--in front of a room full of muggles. he managed to get himself to an american wizarding hospital, but was dragged out of his hospital bed by american police while still recovering from the gunshot wound and extradited to the UK, where he was immediately flung into azkaban. 

though he had acted in self-defense during a hate crime, he was expelled from hogwarts and given a life sentence; he was told he was lucky that he didn’t get the dementor’s kiss. he managed to escape during one of the numerous mass azkaban breakouts that subsequently happened canonically, and was in hiding before being one of the slytherins who participated on the side of good in the battle of hogwarts.

i think i read somewhere that canonically, all students who participated in the battle of hogwarts were pardoned for any crimes committed in the past but i can’t find that source. but what i can find is that lucius malfoy was 100% pardoned for defecting from the death eaters to protect his family so like……if an old white fantasy fascist can get pardoned for all of his murders by defecting last minute to the right side, a teenage brown jew can also be pardoned for killing to defend himself. fight me 

he and diantha hated each other at first--he thought she was stupid and she thought he was a total prick. but before the battle of hogwarts the two of them made up and she kissed him, knowing it might be her last chance to do so before either one or both of them were killed.

originally he wanted to be an auror like his dad, because all he wanted was to go beat up bad guys. but after the trauma of the war against voldemort he decided it would be better for him to not fight people or put himself in traumatic situations anymore, and wanted to focus on being the first wizard who went to space. though most wizards thought he was crazy, slytherins are amazing with the art of persuasion--he managed to talk a good number of people into getting behind his project, which is now pretty much crowdfunded. 

oh, and one more note about honerva: she finally managed to achieve her dream of being an astrophysicist, so now she’s well-known in both the wizarding and muggle communities as a prominent scientist and she is 100% behind lotor’s project to put wizards in space. happy endings for everyone.

[miairviin]

Icb liebe dich, Berlin

Happy Belated Valentine’s Day to all! Yesterday was the start of my second intra-European adventure: Berlin, Germany!

I arrived later last night and met up with a couple of my friends from Greece who had arrived earlier that day. After successfully navigating Berlin’s public transportation system, we headed to the hostel. From there, we went just a few doors down to a restaurant called Aufsturz for some authentic German food. My first meal was jägerschnitzel and Berlin truly came out swinging in regard to its culinary wonders. The jägerschnitzel was thin breaded pork with a mushroom cream sauce over a bed of German noodles. It was the perfect meal for someone who had just gotten off of an airplane.

The next day, the four other girls who came to Berlin with me woke up at 9 am for a free walking tour the hostel helped set up for us and some of its other guests. We began our tour in the city center of Mitte at the beautiful Brandenburg Gate, a place I had been looking forward to visiting since I first booked my flight. This gate has had a very long and very tumultuous past. It has come to represent a changing Berlin. The gate was one of many just like it, and they were all commissioned by the Prussian King Frederick William the II in an attempt to make Berlin “the Athens along the spree.” This explains why so there are so many elements of Greek architecture throughout the city. There have been two world wars, including Hitler’s dictatorship, bombings, battles, and political demonstrations galore. All of the other gates have since collapsed, but not the Brandenburg Gate. Though it has undergone a few alterations, the Brandenburg Gate stands tall, a symbol of pride and resilience which has come to define Berlin.

Our next stop was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I knew that Berlin was a city that was rich in history, but I was not prepared for the beautiful ambiguity of this particular site. The artist who designed the memorial refused to give an explanation as to what the meaning of the 2,711 cement blocks of varying heights set up in a grid could be. In fact, the memorial takes up an entire city block downtown. That is how much importance the German government has placed on educating the world on its history. Our tour guide encouraged us to walk through and draw our own conclusions, to decide what message it was trying to send to us. As I meandered through the blocks, I felt so many different things. The blocks began short, just below my waist. There was even a humble bouquet of flowers resting on one of the first few blocks a visitor must have left. But within a few seconds, the blocks were high above my head and I could not see to my left or to my right, only forward. You were always visible from the outside of the memorial to the passing foot traffic, but in the memorial I felt anxious. Within a few minutes, I lost my group and it was just me and the seemingly endless rows of cement blocks. Though terrifying and at times frustrating, this really gave me time to consider my tour guide’s challenge to decipher the meaning for ourselves. I decided that the memorial was trying to tell us about the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Even if the lesson only lasted a few minutes and came nowhere near the intensity of the real Jewish experience. Much like the memorial’s blocks did not begin tall, the Holocaust did not happen over night. It was a gradual process of dehumanization beginning with boycotting jewish shops and ending with genocide. Though at times it felt like the Jewish struggle was invisible, it wasn’t. Other Germans knew, other countries knew, and other people knew of the atrocities being committed against the Jewish people and yet no one ventured into the grid to help. When you’re in the memorial, it’s easy to get lost, to lose your friends, to lose your bearings, to feel anxious. I cannot pretend I am able to even imagine the anxiety and fear that was felt by sisters separated from brothers, children from parents, and wives from husbands during this incredibly dark and irrationally evil time period. Our tour guide added to my analysis by saying that there was a quote describing the Holocaust as a bureaucratic duty rather than a truly insidious endeavor carried out by insidious people. Perhaps it is harder to rationalize this idea of someone being so brainwashed by their government they are willing to sentence millions to death in the name of patriotism. Either way, I felt as though it was an interesting point to include, especially in today’s growing political unrest. The memorial is just one of the many ways Berlin has refused to let its dark past define the city. Rather, history is embraced alongside the present and the two combine to form the ever changing Berlin.

Our next stop was a perfect example of how Berlin has handpicked what history it has decided to preserve and what to ignore. In a humble car park, about eight meters below our feet was the bunker where Hitler killed himself after realizing the war was lost. Just outside the bunker, children and old men fought to protect a dying Germany but not because they still believed in it; because they were literally fighting for their lives. Conversely, Hitler, who was on a wild cocktail of drugs, was busy committing suicide because he knew, like everyone else, the Germany he was fighting for was long gone. It was interesting to see the Berlin reaction to dealing with this bunker was to turn it into a functional space: a car park. Again, this is one way Berlin has selected the history they want to breathe life into and remember forever versus the history that deserves nothing from us. If not nothing, than a car park.

We continued on to places like Checkpoint Charlie, where West Berliners were eventually granted access to the East. There was a part of the Berlin Wall standing outside a cafe we stopped at. Berlin has a subtle tribute to the old wall in the form of a narrow strip of cobblestones running across the city along the same line where the Berlin Wall once stood. Another example of a memorial in plain sight are the golden stumbling stones that make appearances all over Germany. These stumbling stones became a part of Berlin when a citizen independently began installing golden plaques in between cobble stones on the sidewalk. The stones are meant to signify the last known residence of Jewish families that were taken away during the Holocaust. Each stone is engraved with a name, a year of birth, and if known and applicable, the location and year of their death. The head rabbi of Munich refused the installment of these stumbling stones. Her rationale is that people will step on them and that would be incredibly disrespectful. Our tour guide offered the interpretation that they force you to stop, and bow your head to not only to read the information on the stone, but also in reverence. It’s chilling and disorienting to think that today I was walking the same street as someone who decades ago, was being torn from a life they knew intimately and thrust into a world of terror and uncertainty. It’s impossible. Absolutely impossible.

We ended our tour, and stopped in for some more authentic German food. I dined on a sausage in curry ketchup and for dessert, apple strudel, a Berlin experience just as high on my list as the Brandenburg Gate. It was DELIGHTFUL. The cream was sweet, the apples were crisp, and the dough was soft. I know I will think of that dessert often. I can only hope I can find something like it back home when I return to the states.

We ended our night with a stroll along the East Side Gallery which displays murals commenting on social and political themes on what was once the east side of the wall. If it wasn’t for the cold, I could have spent hours walking along this open-air art gallery. Each mural had so much to say, and I felt so lucky to listen to whatever message the artist was trying to deliver. I also felt grateful they were able to share it with me. For so long, east Berlin had been subjected to communist rule where any misstep outside the party norms could mean death. Here, artists were able to express so many things from love to the disdain of racism to history to female empowerment to intersectionality to the need for environmental consciousness. The East Side Gallery had no shortage of conversation pieces or thought provoking images.

I close this entry with icb liebe dich, Berlin because there are no other words. I love you, Berlin is the only thing on my mind as I write this. The energy of the city is so youthful, so vibrant, so bold. Just like it’s food, people, architecture, and history. The energy is tangible here, racing through the streets like a pulse and heartbeat. Everyone seems to be moving, but moving towards something great importance. There’s a purpose. They’re here for a reason. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings in this truly mythical place.

[dfroza]

John Parsons shares from this week’s reading

of the Torah (Jews read through the writing Together to renew each year by “rewinding” to the book of Genesis) about Abraham sending a man to find a wife for his son Isaac

John Parsons of [Hebrew for Christians] relates the significance of our Hebraic roots to faith in the New Covenant of grace in the Son

John’s post:

Shavuah Tov, chaverim! Last week's Torah reading (i.e., Vayera) recounted how the LORD was faithful to Abraham and Sarah by miraculously giving them a son (Isaac) in their old age. Nonetheless, Abraham faced his greatest test of all by being asked to offer up his promised child as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah, the place of the future Temple. On account of Abraham’s willingness to obey, the LORD promised that He would multiply his offspring as the stars of heaven and that in his seed (singular) all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

This week’s parashah, Chayei Sarah - the "life of Sarah"- begins (paradoxically) with the account of her death (at age 127), and tells how the first great matriarch of the Jewish people was buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, a burial site which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite for four hundred shekels of silver (Gen. 23:1-20). Since the account of Sarah’s death is given just after the account of the near-sacrifice of Isaac (i.e., the Akedah), some of the sages link the events together, suggesting that the shock of the loss of her beloved son at the hand of her husband was just too much for her to bear...

After Sarah was buried in Hebron, Abraham sought a wife for his son by commissioning his servant, Eliezer (whom Abraham had originally thought would be his heir), to solicit a wife for Isaac from among his relatives living in Mesopotamia (and not from among the Canaanites). Eliezer (i.e., אֱלִיעֶזֶר, lit., “My God will help”) then set out on the 550 mile journey to Haran (also called the City of Nahor and the place where Abraham’s father died), taking ten camels laden with gifts in search of a suitable bride. Providentially, and in answer to his prayer, as soon as Eliezer reached the city of Nahor he encountered Abraham's grand niece Rebekah drawing water at a well, where she graciously provided water for him and for his ten camels, thereby confirming that she was God's choice for Isaac. [Hebrew for Christians]

11.17.19 • Facebook

and a set of earlier posts about the seeming contradiction of God’s character to request such an act of Abraham:

Our Torah for this week (Vayera) gives the account of the terrible test given to Abraham when God asked him to offer up his son as a sacrifice (see Gen. 22). The apostle James later said that Abraham was "justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar" (James 2:21), whereas the apostle Paul seemed to say just the opposite, that Abraham was not justified by works (see Rom. 4:1-3). So is there a contradiction here in our Bibles regarding the idea of “justification”? To answer this first understand that when James said that Abraham was justified "by works" he was referring to the work of faith and certainly not to the works of the law (מַעֲשֵׂי הַתּוֹרָה), since the Torah explicitly prohibited human sacrifice (Gen. 9:5), and furthermore the Angel of the LORD restrained Abraham's hand during the great test of faith (Gen. 22:12) thereby indicating that it was not God's will (i.e., Torah). On the other hand, the apostle Paul's seemingly contrary statement that Abraham was not justified by works refers to Abraham's unwavering trust in God's promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens (Gen. 15:1-6). There is no real contradiction, then, since the two apostles were referring to two different episodes in their discussion of justification. Faith and works are two sides of the same coin: true faith will show up in your life and character. As Yeshua said, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the One whom He has sent" (John 6:29).

The life of faith is inherently paradoxical, as Kierkegaard noted: "Ethically speaking, what Abraham planned to do was to murder Isaac; religiously, however, he was willing to sacrifice Isaac. In this contradiction lies the very anguish that can indeed make anyone sleepless. And yet without that anguish Abraham is not the one he is. Neither would faith be what it is." Although Abraham understood that God must be obeyed, he also understood that human sacrifice was immoral, and hence his struggle represented the collision between the imperative of reason and the imperative of faith. Choosing to heed the voice of reason (i.e., the "ethical," the "universal") over the personal voice of God created a state of "fear and trembling" and a sense of being unable to communicate his passion and mission to others. [H4C]

As Kierkegaard further commented: "Faith’s conflict with the world is not a battle of thought with doubt, thought with thought. It is a battle of character. The person of faith is a person of character who does not insist upon comprehending everything. Now comes the conflict. The world insists that to believe what you cannot comprehend is not only blind obedience but obscurantism, stupidity, and so on. The world wants to alarm the believer against such foolishness. This is precisely why faith is a task for the person of character."

11.13.19 • Facebook

The near-sacrifice of Isaac establishes that God does not want us to sacrifice ourselves on the altar, but rather to identify with the appointed sacrifice of the lamb given on our behalf... Isaac pictures the identification process. First he completely submitted himself to God's will by being bound as a sacrifice. Once that decision was made, God intervened by providing the ram caught in the thicket, which represented the "binding" or identification of God's sacrifice for him (Gen. 22:13). Just as the lamb was identified with Isaac, so Isaac was identified with the lamb. Likewise, Yeshua died in your place so you can identify with his death for you, trusting it as your atonement provided by your Heavenly Father. Your union with Yeshua means that his death was your death: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Messiah in God" (Col. 3:3). Likewise, his "life after death" (resurrection) is your eternal life: "When Messiah who is your life appears, you also will appear with him in glory" (Col. 3:4). Baptism symbolizes your identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua as the Lamb of God sacrificed on your behalf (Col. 2:12; Rom. 6:4). Just as Isaac descended from the altar in newness of life, so we are made new creations because of the sacrifice of Messiah: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

Of course we cannot crucify ourselves, but we trust that God finishes the work of Yeshua on our behalf... We "reckon" ourselves crucified with Messiah and trust in his work of salvation performed for our personal blessing. As it says: "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Yeshua the Messiah" (Rom. 6:11). Only after this can you present yourself as korban chai (קָרְבָּן חַי) - a living sacrifice - for God (Rom. 12:1; 1 Pet. 2:5).

There aren't two gospel messages: one for the sinner and the other for the saint... The message of salvation is always "good news" to those who are sin-sick and riddled with guilt and shame, and it is always "bad news" for those who deny their inner condition before God and believe that they can justify themselves. We never get beyond the call to "repent and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15). We don't "get saved" in order to follow the path of self-righteousness; we get saved to be witnesses of God's righteousness... We love God because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). [Hebrew for Christians]

11.14.19 • Facebook

[whiterosebrian]

One Year Later, Part 2

This is the second half of a reflection on the year since I made the difficult decision to walk away from Catholicism. If you haven’t done so already, please go back and read what I typed in the first half. It’s necessary to fully appreciate what I’m about to type in this post.

I’m sure that I restated the various points in the previous post within in multiple previous posts. Why do I repeat them now? I think that yet again I needed to offer a reflection on what pushed me out of the Catholic Church. Given how much I still speak of the Catholic Church, I wonder if I am to work on building bridges. At the same time, I also believe that I am not a sage but instead a late-blooming cartoonist.

There once was a time when I constantly looked for wise leaders to guide me on the right path. When talking to a few folks in spiritualist or neo-pagan circles on the web, I am now told that I need to look deep within or look to my “higher self”. Am I ready to do that? I don’t know. What if one’s mind is misled by noxious lies or one’s spirit is malformed by pride and cruelty? Isn’t that a legitimate concern? Isn’t there a need to properly form one’s inner spirit and learn what is true, good, and beautiful?

I can say this, however. I do accept that God’s image, the imprint of the God of life and love, is in people’s hearts—not restricted to some redeemed obedient remnant elite, but within the heart of every ordinary person. That is something that I learned from the finer teachers within the Church. Sadly, that too seems to be dismissed as a heresy and apostasy by self-appointed Defenders of the One True Faith. They just might have pushed me into heresy. It would seem as if James Joyce was right about the flesh-and-blood human person being the heresy most abhorrent to the Church. Evidently, a wolf is a heresy, a falcon is a heresy, a deer is a heresy, a beetle is a heresy, an octopus is a heresy, an oak is a heresy, a sunflower is a heresy, a mushroom is a heresy, a waterfall is a heresy, a river is a heresy, a crystal is a heresy, and the very ground on which we walk is a heresy. Who is proving James Joyce wrong? Why can we not see God’s presence in humanity or in nature at all?

Why do I seem to obsess over Catholicism even now? First of all, being such a massive institution, it would do much good if it were truly as life-affirming as apologist claim it to be. Second, you can probably guess that I am still in pain over the breakup. Losing faith is like a very bad end to a deeply committed relationship. For nearly twenty-five years as a convert I hoped to find the God of love within life on earth. Upon looking back, I now believe that I rarely ever caught a glimpse. I wish to see, hear, taste, and feel a true presence of a Godhead as the source of all life and love. I wish to experience life as a joyous journey with magic and spirits, not as a dictatorship of fear or merely following orders. I do not view moderate or liberal Catholics as fools. I accept that they mean well and are trying to make a difference. I’ve simply come to the conclusion that Catholicism will not be good for me for the foreseeable future. Considering how vocal and driven and even well-funded the whole Christian Right is, those folks may be fighting a losing battle to boot.

I did read up a bit about Kabbalah. There was far too much dense theoretical theologizing for me to fully absorb. I did, however, sense that God was indeed a communion of light and love. That too is something that I learned within the Church and still sensed as I began exploring esoteric spiritualties. I still might want to explore it to some degree, even as a vaguely spiritualist gentile. I could respect and admire Jewishness and even as a practicing Catholic. There are reasons why I incorporated “Solomon” into my pen-name, even if I’m using the Anglophone form (I have no intention of stepping on the toes of actual Jews, pious and otherwise). I might even look into “practical Kabbalah”, though I do accept that it can be vulgarized into power-grabbing sorcery, meaning that I’ll have much careful reflection to do. Nonetheless, the basic ideas behind Kabbalah and general Jewish mysticism and magic resonate with me as much as aspects of my Northern European heritage and the heritage of the land where I live, North America. It seems that baptism (recall how even the Church has recently affirmed roots in Jewishness) has left an impact on my soul indeed. One book that I have on my wish list on Amazon, which my parents will order from for Christmas presents, purports to offer anew early Jewish tribal practices. I do wish to connect with the Godhead and the spirits and the earth as well as my fellow humans.

I have made multiple attempts to get myself into a properly calm and meditative state. I felt like I failed every time. I have tried to stay still before a shrine to positive spirits and the Godhead that I set up. I have tried to ground myself by going barefoot into the back yard of a house that I moved into with my parents early in the year. I have tried to meditate with native-style flute, rain-stick, and frame drum. I knew that becoming properly meditative would take much time and practice. Lately I have also tried to meditate on the Tree of Life and draw positive energy from crystalline pyramids.

I hope that my life settles down more now that I have a new part-time job and the process of moving into the new home is nearly complete. Where do I go from here? Eat more plant foods? Yes, I can do that and I am attempting to do so, even if there are aren’t many plant foods that I actually like. Exercise more? I hope that I’ll find more steady opportunities with a steady work schedule. Going outside for grounding will not be particularly feasible during the winter months and I doubt that my parents would understand. Draw more? I still wish I had the energy to draw more often. Write more? Maybe, but I’m still waiting on feedback regarding the first-draft prose treatments for my story, as I want to make sure to get it going strong before I go deeper into the development. Setting up a lovely space in the basement (go ahead and crack those jokes about basement-dwellers) serving as my art studio and idiosyncratic library might help with getting started.

Where would my self-healing lead?

It is my hope that I will bloom into a happy, healthy, and noble soul. I hope that I will become empowered and carry that power to cultivate and heal the world around me. You might already know that I dream of eventually creating truly beautiful things. I wish to connect with both heaven and earth and with new friends both visible and invisible. I wish to leave something wonderful over the course of my life on this earth. At this point I may be repeating myself. If I am indeed a mess, forgive me. Ultimately, this pair of journal entries is just a reflection as I restart my search for true spirituality, true beauty, and true love. Please send many blessings my way.

[mrkilroi]

Question:

Do Jews believe that a person can sell his/her soul to the devil?

Response:

The idea of "selling one's soul to the devil"—meaning, becoming a slave of the devil in exchange for favors provided—does not exist in Torah. Jewish ethical works do describe instances where one can be somewhat "possessed" by evil drives. But even that state is always reversible.

Before addressing this, here's a bit on the nature of Satan in Jewish thought:

Satan is a Hebrew verb meaning "provoke" or "oppose" and is used several times in the Bible as a verb. The first instance is in the story of Balaam, when Balaam decides to take the mission of cursing the Jewish People:

"G‑d's wrath flared because he was going, and an angel of the L‑rd stationed himself on the road to oppose him [translation of l'satan lo], and he was riding on his she-donkey, and his two servants were with him.1

In other cases, the word appears as a noun, "a provocateur." Generally, the title appears with the definite article—"the satan"—which means that it is not a proper name, just a job description. For example, in the book of Job, the satan appears as a prosecutor before G‑d:

"Now the day came about, and the angels of G‑d came to stand beside the L‑rd, and the satan, too, came among them…"

"Now the L‑rd said to the satan, "Have you paid attention to My servant Job? For there is none like him on earth, a sincere and upright man, G‑d-fearing and shunning evil."

And the satan answered the L‑rd and said, "Does Job fear G‑d for nothing? Haven't You made a hedge around him, his household, and all that he has on all sides? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has spread out in the land. But now, stretch forth Your hand and touch all that he has, will he not blaspheme You to Your face?"

Now the L‑rd said to the satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your hands; only upon him do not stretch forth your hand." Now the satan left the presence of the L‑rd."2

From this passage, we see that G‑d created an angel to play the role of provocateur; that he is a messenger of, and subservient to, G‑d. He was not a fallen angel or sent to Hell, where he began fighting G‑d; he was created to be Satan. Neither does Satan spend his days stoking the flames of hell with his pitchfork. He is a presence on earth with a mission: to provoke people to disobey G‑d's will.

Indeed, the dualistic notion of a powerful anti-G‑d figure that fights with G‑d for the destiny of the human race is incompatible with Jewish belief. There is no power of evil independent of G‑d; otherwise this would imply a lack of G‑d's all-inclusive control and power. To quote the Book of Isaiah:

"…from the place where the sun rises until the place where it sets, there is nothing but Me. I am G‑d, there is nothing else. [I am He] Who forms light and creates darkness, Who makes peace and creates evil; I am G‑d Who makes all these."3

Obviously then, the satan is not an autonomous force who opposes G‑d and recruits people to his militia. Rather, the satan is a spiritual entity that is completely faithful to its maker. For example, regarding the Biblical story of the satan's particularly aggressive attempt to seduce Job to blaspheme, Rabbi Levi declares in the Talmud:

"Satan acted for G‑d's sake. When he saw how G‑d was so focused on Job, he said, 'Heaven forbid that G‑d should forget His love of (our forefather) Abraham!'"4

The Zohar compares the satan to a harlot who is hired by a king to try to seduce his son, because the king wants to test his son's morality and worthiness. Both the king and the harlot (who is devoted to the king) truly want the son to stand firm and reject the harlot's advances. Similarly, the satan is just another one of the many spiritual messengers (angels) that G‑d sends to accomplish His purpose in the creation of man.5

This is not the satan's entire job description. The Talmud sums it up saying that the satan, the impulse to evil ("yetzer ha-ra"), and the angel of death are one and the same personality. 6 He descends from heaven and leads astray, then ascends and brings accusations against humankind, and then carries out the verdict.

However, the above-mentioned passage in Zohar concludes that if one does succumb to the urging of the evil inclination, he is "giving energy to the other side". This means, that an act defying G‑d's will grants those forces that hide G‑d's presence—at His bidding—additional strength to hide G‑d from us even more. This presents itself as even greater internal and external challenges for one to experience and identify with the truths of G‑d and His Torah.

One extreme example of this would be Pharaoh, who enslaved the Jewish people in Egypt. Though G‑d told Moses to command Pharaoh to free the Israelites, He stated that, "I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants"7 in order to ultimately punish the Egyptians with the ten plagues. As a consequence for his earlier oppression and abuse of the Jewish nation, his ability to abandon his evil ways was made even more difficult, to the point that he seemed to have lost free choice, and his vision and ability to repent was completely impaired.8

There is nothing that can ultimately stop one who truly seeks to return.9 Pharaoh, too, was therefore still capable of overcoming this block, and ultimately repenting, as discussed at length in Why was Pharaoh Punished?10 Thus, even when someone seems to be completely possessed by the satan–as divine retribution for his earlier misdeeds, not by choice of negotiation with the devil—he is still not sold, and can overcome his instinct and impulse to act satanically. To become completely sold with no hope of redemption would be counter-productive of G‑d's intent, and could not exist.

Regardless of where you've fallen, you are never sold to these impure forces, and your soul can wrestle free and recommit to serve G‑d with sincerity and passion. The axe of earnest remorse can bring down any wall, whether preexisting or created by your actions, clearing the way for you to come home to your true self.