#you are no progressive. you are a bigot. a leftist bigot is a bigot regardless of how 'revolutionary' you posture to be.

[reddstiches]

I normally don't state my opinion in text posts, but I want to ask something.

When it comes to politics (US, unfortunately, I am American), I see a bunch of people stating they'll they won't vote for Kamala due to the Palestinian genocide. Okay, I understand. I've been in this fight for over a decade, educating on the Palestinian's plight that has been happening since the 1940s. The prisoners, the Great March of Return, etc. (I've also been knee deep in educating about the ulterior motives of the "War on Terror" and how it was a step by step plan by Western countries to destabilize the Middle East for Big Oil but that's a whole different post)

What is your plan? How are you going to overthrow the Militarized American Government? What steps are you going to take to change how it works?

Not to be a bitch, but if you don't vote, Trump will become president and the Palestinians will be genocided regardless. In fact, it would be at a faster rate due to him and his constituents. There wouldn't even be talks of a ceasefire or any aid. All aid would cease, and the Trump administration would expedite the process of turning Gaza into a parking lot. (Trump's words, not mine)

Plus, Americans would also suffer. Leftists like myself know that a Kamala presidency is just stalling for time, a band aid on an already corrupt deal, but we don't want to fall full tilt into fascism. We are so close to 1930s Germany on the far-right that it is frightening, staring down the barrel of a gun. (In fact it would be worse due to the US having the biggest and most advanced military in the world + nukes.)

In 2016, many voted 3rd party or didn't vote at all due to Hillary Clinton being the democratic primary and not Bernie Sanders.

In 2016 I begged and pleaded for people to vote blue (as a band aid) I knew as poli-sci student that a Trump presidency would overturn Roe V Wade due to the status of the Supreme Court at the time. All he had to do was stack it. I knew hate crimes would rise as he gave a voice to racists and bigots. I knew he would go after the LGBTQ+, marginalized communities, and asylum seekers. He campaigned on hate, and it killed millions of Americans in the pandemic. I mourned for the progress (as little as it was) we had made as a country as it was announced he won.

Because of moralist inaction in 2016, my neices and myself now have to fight for rights our grandmothers won. Because of inaction, our country was set back decades.

So what is your plan? What revolution are you going to put in place from your living room?

The government would slaughter its own citizens to uphold the status quo. There has to be a plan. (See BLM protests 2020 and Free Palestine protests 2023-2024)

The White Christian Nationalists are united in their beliefs of stripping the little rights away that we do have. They don't care about you and your beliefs.

You are so focused on moral grandstanding that real-life consequences are beyond you.

You all are so focused on doing no wrong, that you forget to do what is right.

Sometimes you have to play the long game. Because we are losing battles, yes, but that doesn't mean we lose the war.

I refuse to let it all burn to make a point. I care about my fellow Americans, my fellow LGBTQ+ brothers, and sisters trapped in the South, women dying in hospital parking lots, and POC being racially targeted, the refugees just looking for a new life.

I refuse to let a Trump presidency implement the last few steps of Project 2025. If I can stall and help build a community to support my countrymen (gender neutral) I will.

I will begrudgingly vote for Kamala Harris and continue to fight.

[thedreadvampy]

"oh voting isn't going to change the world" "oh you gotta vote otherwise you're literally destroying the world"

shut up man it can be both.

voting is not gonna address the amount of fucked we are. voting also takes a max of like 20 minutes to get done once every few years and allows you to marginally improve important things like who's likely to get fed or who gets healthcare.

it's also the only direct leverage we have over governments so you HAVE to be willing to say "if you do X I will not vote for you" and then follow through.

like nah we're not going to unfuck anything by voting for Reactionary Neoliberal Conservative Party 2 vs Reactionary Neoliberal Conservative Party 1. the change is superficial and managed - as they say, if voting changed anything it would be illegal. but superficial change still saves lives and slows down the pace of harm. and again it takes TWENTY MINUTES. do it and get back to actual organising.

don't vote Labour in the UK though cause their manifesto is packed full of eugenics, 'back to work scu?' rhetoric, erosion of workers rights, a promise to act on the (debunked) Cass report, intention to continue to Tory attacks on migrants communities, and a bunch of promises to increase police powers. polls (for all they're worth) are predicting both a Labour sweep AND a joint vote share for the Big 2 (Labour and the Tories) which is lower than it's been since WW1.

Let's FOLLOW THROUGH on that polling. Vote Green, vote Independent, vote for whatever candidate is best in your constituency, don't vote for Reform or the Tories obviously, vote Labour if your candidate has a good voting record on key issues, but vote freely and do vote

because even if, like me, you think every party likely to form a government are shit eating bigots with a near religious belief in hierarchy and their own superiority, your abstention will be ignored, low turnout will be written off as disinterest, but if we can tip the vote share away from the parties who believe they're entitled to our vote whatever happens, we do force them to have to listen. If the vote share tips towards Reform, they'll get more loudly racist. If it tips heavily towards the Greens, the SNP, Plaid, and left wing independents, we're sending the message that no actually the left vote cannot be taken for granted, and we will hold them accountable for scrubbing leftist and progressive politics off the menu. We have to demonstrate that Labour aren't owed lefty votes on brand recognition regardless of their politics

remember, we are voting for a parliament of representatives, not a president. if your vote sends your seat to the Greens but the Tories win an overall majority (or, more likely, a coalition, because a majority is looking unlikely although it HAS LOOKED UNLIKELY BEFORE), you still have a dissenting voice and vote in parliament. whereas if you vote Labour and Labour win an overall majority, they will whip your candidate to vote with the government even on policies everyone hates 🤷‍♀️ the value of the parliamentary system should be in political diversity, but we have a bipartite system which kind of fucks that. voting for change may man voting for a big enough and coherent enough lefty bloc in parliament to swing votes and stop policy.

[shaftking]

https://vimeo.com/701843391

Saw this commercial on tv earlier and tbh Morgan, the person who is referred to by they/them pronouns, just looks like a masculine woman to me. I could be wrong, but regardless, people are apparently happy about the commercial bc it “normalizes” nb. But as it’s been established, nb still hasn’t been proven to exist, and all the results I’ve been seeing from its entrance into mainstream media is the harmful reinforcement of rigid gender roles through the insinuation that androgyny/gender non conformity equates to not being male or female. How much better representation would this commercial have been if Morgan was referred to with she/her pronouns? It would help normalize the existence of gender non conforming women since most commercials that feature women only depict them as feminine and gender conforming. However, as we know, leftists aren’t interested in making actual progress, though.

Morgan absolutely looks like a masc woman. And let’s be fucking honest nonbinary has been “normalized” constantly for the past decade since it gained traction on this hellsite. It’s rubbed in everyone’s faces, every other week some celeb comes out as it to claim trans status with zero effort, and anyone who questions it is called a bigot. Despite the, as you said, absolute lack of any evidence or logic about it.

[fishtomale]

hey, I would love to have a civil but challenging conversation with a progressive Christian (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or otherwise) regarding your faith and politics and how those interact. just a heads-up i will only engage in conversation with you if you are LGBT-affirming, posture yourself as being anti-imperialism, you have a good understanding of the basics of what you believe, are strictly opposed to antisemitism, and are strictly critical of ideas like pre-destination and Calvinist ideals. there is a good chance I will open this invitation to those of other faiths at other points, but because I have more knowledge and interest in this area as of current I an only pursuing self-identified progressive Christians for this conversation. if you private message me and are not bigoted or are clearly making an effort to not be bigoted I will not mock or expose you, mostly just ask questions about your thoughts, experiences, and beliefs.

as a short background on myself I was raised as a Christian, mostly charismatic Evangelical Protestant but with some Catholic influences. I am a white gentile and a part of the LGBT community. Mental illness has interacted with my faith in the past. I was extremely religious most of my life. currently I am a mostly casual Hellenistic Pagan and Witch. I am a vaguely leftist Communist who is very convicted in that area. I am also an adult.

if you’re chill having an in depth conversation with me on this subject (regardless of whether we are following each other or not) send me a direct message, thanks

edit: I have absolutely no interest in pursuing the Christian faith ever again and even implications that it would benefit me or others to convert will lead to immediate blocking and public shaming

[aro-bird]

I think a lot of people online seem to forget that regardless of what you think about another person on how progressive or conservative they are, there's still a chance that they might hold what almost looks like complete opposite political opinions on what you view as progressive/conservative because yeah people are complex.

My father, for example, is progressive in a lot of ways. He supports labor rights, helps out farmers and activist groups in his spare time, participates in charity work and outreach programs, and, as a defense lawyer, would even accept payments of live chickens if that's the only thing his client could give him. He's a critic of my country's corrupt police system. He's part of an opposition group that is critical of the country's government and actively tries to promote leftist candidates. He has been protesting for worker's rights as young as 18 where he was even thrown in jail after a cop smacked him.

But he's also anti-abortion and had protested against the passing of comprehensive reproductive heath coverage (something that actually benefits me as someone with reproductive health issues btw) and is so transphobic that he once told off a trans student he had from using her chosen name because he thought it was insulting that it was the same as mine. He's used my images as a child to make anti-abortion posters even if I never gave him permission to do so. He's also casually racist against other people and even makes disparaging remarks against people darker than him (despite him being very much a moreno).

To other people, these don't seem contradictory because yeah, you could be someone who cares about classism and labor rights while being conservative or even bigoted towards other groups and minorities. That stuff happens. But it seems like a lot of people are entering into progressive spaces going with the mindset that you need to be pure in order to be truly progressive.

I don't agree with a lot of my father's stances on reproductive health care, abortion, transphobia, and of course racism and colorism now and back then (he has since improved from being transphobic since he started watching trans creators and specifically trans comedians), but I could still see that his work with labor groups and criticisms of the police system as something invaluable and is one of the reasons that I'm more of a progressive today.

Do I think he needs to improve on other departments? Yeah, obviously. But I'm not going to demand purity of his beliefs just because he isn't "progressive enough". Despite his issues, he is still a major player in progressive spaces here locally and him connecting and community building with other progressives regardless of their stance on things that he may disagree with has actually helped my area's material conditions. If they just gatekept each other, then I don't think any work could be done.

I don't really know where I'm going with this because I'm not really in the greatest mental state right now so I'm not sure if any of this is making sense but uhhhh yeah. Progressive spaces aren't as much of a monolith as you think and trying to demand purity isn't actually helping the cause whereas community building even with people you don't 100% agree with is probably much more helpful and sometimes if you want to make progress you have to work with people who you may not fully agree with or something to that effect yeah

[delvinanaris]

And to be clear: this “every four years” has happened 3 times now. 2016, 2020, and now in 2024. The three elections where Trump has been a major candidate.

And I get it! For a large percentage of Tumblr, those 3 elections—those 8 years—are the entirety of their adult (ie, eligible to vote) lives, and a majority of the time they’ve been politically aware. It’s extremely frustrating to get access to the legal ability to actually effect change in your government and society, and immediately be told, “But you aren’t allowed to actually make a choice here. There is one right answer, and if you don’t pick it, the world will end.” It’s unfair, and it’s a betrayal of all they hoped they’d be able to do with their progressive beliefs and ideals.

But it’s very important to understand that this is not the way things have always been. Prior to 2016, things weren’t exactly perfect, but leftists voting third-party wasn’t clearly going to tip the election to outright fascists. That happened because of a one-two punch of the right-wing reaction to both living under a black president for 8 years and seeing gay marriage legalized, and Trump taking the already-heightening polarization (because of the aforementioned reaction) and blowing it sky-high by being openly racist and not getting immediately kicked out because of it.

There’s a school of thought—which I largely agree with—that says this is effectively an extinction burst. One last gasp of the obviously-outdated ideologies of queerphobia, sexism and racism before demographic change means that it’s impossible for them to exist at that level ever again. If this is true, then as long as we can keep the fascists out of power for one or two more presidential election cycles, there’s a good chance they’ll become completely irrelevant. (And if we’re very lucky, they might drag the entire Republican Party down with them, giving us a chance to make sweeping changes for the better.) Certainly, the big Cheeto himself only has a few more years left regardless of whether he wins or loses, and absent the momentum of an existing election campaign, I think the GOP will struggle to find anyone who can energize his bigoted base to the same degree.

So hopefully, the rest of all our lives will not continue to look like a desperate rearguard action voting blue to prevent fascism every 2 and 4 years. Hopefully, we will be able to un-rig the Supreme Court, enact ironclad protections against voter suppression, and get ranked choice voting in place so that people who want to vote for the Green Party, the DSA, or even something further left can do so without having to worry about splitting the progressive vote and handing the election to the worst guy possible.

But right now, we’re still fighting a war to ensure that we even can still vote in another 4 years.

Right now, we need to all come together and recognize that whatever our differences may be, we have so much more in common with each other than we do with the party of fascist Christian nationalism.

Right now, we need your help, and we are trying to make sure you understand the very real life-and-death stakes.

And hopefully knowing that this is not the norm, and we do not expect it to last forever, will help to alleviate some of the frustration at being told there is no other viable choice this year.

I see the occasional piece of discourse slide past me on this website (but also in other places) that goes something like this:

Every four years the democrats tell us our democracy is in danger and we have to vote for them or else! When will the centrists liberals stop holding us hostage like this! Why don’t they fix it for once and for all?

Here’s the thing: you can’t permanently get rid of fascism. We had a WORLD WAR that killed 75 million people to try to get rid of fascism and it just keeps on popping up again. It’s a weed that will always come back because it grows in the fertile soil of human misery, and until we end human misery for good, our soils will be rich and productive for a long time. Fascism flourishes when people are scared, unhappy, and suffering, because it gives humans easy solutions to complex problems.

Anyway… We! The Royal we! Need to stop thinking of voting as one weird trick to fix things forever and start thinking of it as weeding. Every four years you’re going to have to weed this fucking garden. For the foreseeable future. Now put your gardening gloves on and get to work, otherwise you’re going to end up with a fascist garden growing nothing but the thorn bushes of oppression and subjugation.

[vtori73]

Look... I think it's weird to conflate Zionism/Zionists with Judaism/Jewish people (and actually just downright antisemitic). I mean this coming from BOTH sides, Zionists who are doing it to make excuses for what they are doing and progressive people trying to be allies to Jewish people but falling for Zionist rhetoric & not realizing it.

And, I'm not saying I don't get it because some people definitely are using Zionists as an excuse to be antisemitic but... I'm not seeing NEARLY as much within these leftist groups (& when I do these people are already bigots to begin with such as being white supremacist/neo nazis & let's also be open to ideas of bot/fake accounts being pushed by propagandists because Israel has done nothing but lie and use propaganda, they even used AI to fake a celebrity saying pro- Israel stuff, let's NOT pretend for even ONE second that this isn't a possibility). And, honestly regardless of what side you're on it's wrong to conflate the two even if you are trying to prevent bigotry because you're only further CONFLATING THE TWO! It's COMPLETELY possible to say "Don't let antisemitism influence you and how you criticize Zionists but also DONT let Zionists get away with calling everything that criticizes them and their ethnostate as antisemitism because there are PLENTY of Christian Zionists who are being criticized as well (big example being JOE FUCKING BIDEN) and Zionists WANT us all to believe that only Zionists are Jewish people and that Zionism = Judaism even though plenty of Jewish people are not Zionists and are very much against them.

I think... I just talked in a circle... oh well, lol!

Also as an example, the way Zionists use antisemitism accusations is VERY VERY similar to when white people use their x marginalized identity to excuse their bigotry. When white trans or really ANY white queer people are being anti-black they accuse Black people of being transphobic/queerphobic. When white women are called racist by brown men they turn around and call them misogynists.

And look, some might take offense with me using white people as an example because not everyone believes Jewish people can be white (which sure I wasn't entirely sure about either UNTIL it was pointed out that if Black Jewish people can exist then it's very WEIRD to claim that it's impossible for there to be white Jewish people) BUT regardless we should be able to agree that these people ARE using the same arguments/rebuttals that privileged bigoted white people use and you know the saying of how "if the shoe fits."

Not to mention how quick y'all are to make excuses for colonizers because yes, the movement was originally a response to antisemitism BUT y'all seem to conveniently leave out the part in which a lot of the founders also described their movement as "a colonization adventure." Colonialists don't need or deserve defending, antisemitism may have been why they left but they used that and CONTINUE to as an excuse to colonize Palestine and genocide Palestinians and idk about you BUT I think it's wrong to excuse colonizer genociders REGARDLESS of the reasoning. I mean.. WHY is this talking point even being used because I know for a fact it wouldn't fly with SO many people if other marginalized groups tried using it as an excuse to colonize and genocide, "oh the Zionists wouldn't be like this is is weren't for bigotry against Jewish people and you should work on you're and you're communities antisemitism if you don't want to give them excuses..." Like, WTF??? WHO THINKS THAT IN ANYWAY OKAY TO SAY OR IS A VALID EXCUSE AT ALL?????

(and... UM... is it just me or does THAT reasoning sound eerily similar to what news and media say when white boys shoot up a school "oh they were bullied, ostracized and that's why they did it" but it turns out they were actually bigots or radicalized and became bigots basically.)

.

.

.

And yes, as an addendum I am not Jewish but this is literally what I have learned from anti-zionist Jewish people and anti-zionist Jewish allies who are ALSO calling out antisemitism. This is also more so coming from my online perspective of what I've seen in comments, threads, tweets, etc and not in-person events and such so I'm willing to admit this might be different for offline events and such.

[literallyshiv]

Unpopular opinion but i feel like dasha hasn't said or done anything someone like idk, john mulaney or jimmy carr wouldn't say? Every tomgreg person I like hates her so bad, but I find her interesting... I like hearing people who I can't tell if they're mean or not. I'm in the position of shipping tomgreg, liking dasha, being 10 days sober and sleeping on a mattress on the floor

have you actually looked into criticisms against her at all? because i don't know how you could've gotten the idea that "she hasn't said or done anything someone like john mulaney wouldn't say". also it sounds like you're conflating people's opinion on dasha as a public figure with succession fans' feelings towards comfrey as a fictional character, when they have nothing to do with each other. or—people might dislike comfrey because she's played by dasha but nobody who knows what they're talking about only hates dasha because they think she got in the way of a ship

dasha redscare has been a piece of shit well before she joined succession, and people criticizing her for it didn't just start a of a sudden. her entire brand is stirring up controversy for the sake of self promotion, and this has ranged from being at best in poor taste to at worst giving the appearance of her genuinely endorsing alt right ideologies. her point of pride for red scare is that it embraces the grey area within conflicts, but by toeing the line of the far right under the guise of hearing out both sides, all they have managed to do is give bigots access to their platform of fans (the most notable of which being Alex Jones because they actually had him on the podcast, but its common for her and the people she associates with to be seen interacting with nazi sympathisers and crypto fascists because they think its funny to say they're doing so ironically)

I'd reccomended you read this summary of the politics of who she associates with

warning for an instance of nazi symbols in that article, in which dasha is seen with an ss flag. the most abhorrent example of her history of embracing the offensive because the controversy generates free publicity is that she sent in those photos herself. after the site updated the article to include the images, she revealed that she intentionally sent them in, knowingly associating her public image with nazi iconography, and laughed about it.

the same author posted a follow up to the entire ordeal that summarizes better than i can exactly how hypocritical and absurd it is that so many self identified lefists feel comfortable embracing the far right as long as its done 'ironically', as if its something worth laughing over.

finally: here's a few more articles

Red Scare’s Real Offense Is Nihilism

What is Red Scare and Am I Exempt From Caring About It? A Brief Guide to the Podcast World’s Laziest Provocateurs

These ‘Dirtbag Left’ Stars Are Flirting With the Far Right

about why this isnt an isolated incident of an annoying internet micro celebrity but rather indicitive of the way alt right ideologies are able to infiltrate leftist spaces and are a danger to progressive movements by pushing the idea that you can call yourself a leftist without giving a shit about any of the actual framework of leftist politics, and doing so makes you immune to any criticism and means you no longer have to be held accountable for misconduct.

so yeah, regardless of what you think of comfrey as a character in the vacuum of the succession universe, the actress dasha nekrasova is an pathetic voice in the field of political commentary and what she stands for is shallow and built on a lack of compassion and the fact that she got a trophy for being a part of the succession ensemble as if she has any claim over the series' success is fucking asinine, and it's infuriating that she's been put in front of such a huge audience of viewers that she can promote her shitty podcast to.

[thelumpiestpotato]

Whenever some white dirtbag left prick stresses how we should allow racism and misogyny and homophobia and transphobia and whatever so we don't alienate bigoted white cishet men from the cause, it kills any faith I might have had in their politics. I don't think they can express any kind of solidarity with anyone unlike themselves regardless of what token anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc. rhetoric they espouse on the surface.

A person like this derails conversations and makes the movement hostile to any kind of racial/gender/etc. minority, will delay and derail movements to materially improve the conditions for any kind of minority, especially if it means giving up a modicum of unearned privilege, and apparently has such a tissue paper spine that they'd change all their political beliefs and join fascists in the fight against us as opposed to simply ruining things from the inside, if they're not allowed to say slurs. And anyone who supports this kind of person joining the movement, at the expense of whoever they'd inevitable exclude, has shown that they value the presence and nominal contribution of bigoted white cishet men more than anything a person of colour/woman/queer person/etc. could achieve.

Perhaps they think only white cishet men are capable of great achievements. Perhaps they think anyone else has to stick around in spite of harm done to them because they rationally know the movement materially benefits everyone (in theory), as if bigoted white cishet men can't come to that rational conclusion themselves in spite of the """""""harm""""""" done to them by calling out bad behaviour and making them feel uncomfortable about it. And this grace is not extended to anyone who doesn't fit the mold of white cishet men, except perhaps (to a much smaller degree) white cishet women and white gay men. I don't see any of these fucks arguing over how we should try to bring in a bigot like Candace Owens, although I see a lot of racism and sexism directed to her by alleged leftists. I haven't even really seen it for white women (apart from the occasional terf, go figure) and white gay men, although my experience is limited and I'd be willing to believe it happens.

There's this bizarre, classist, and verifiably false idea that the working class is primarily or entirely made up of bigoted white cishet men (while they don't claim it outright, they continuously conflate the two), and that these men of apparent jelly spines will save us all. I'm not innocent myself. I unconsciously bought into this to an extent, and I see many otherwise progressive white people do the same. I thought the exclusion of bigots was a "necessary sacrifice" that would make us weaker in the short term but form a more principled community that doesn't fall to infighting and rip us apart once we succeed in the fight against fascists. But even that was a racist, sexist idea that I had to unlearn. A bigot in the movement is rot that takes you out from the inside.

I'm not against showing kindness to former bigots making an effort to be better (although I also don't outright expect kindness from anyone they harmed), who might not know all the right words and might not understand some things but want to learn and don't expect to be coddled or centred in the movement. I'd side with them over a more eloquent bigot like J.K. Rowling, who hides her bigotry in progressive language, any day. But we don't need active bigots and we can't force them to dismantle oppressive systems that benefit them.

When we accept bigotry, we open the doors to fascists. Don't make the same mistake as liberals and neoliberals by siding with fascists because you think you can control them. Nazbols turn nazi very quickly when they realise communism must necessarily be inclusive. For a current example, look how quickly terfs were to sacrifice reproductive rights by allying with and funding anti-choice orgs, because hurting trans people was more important. Don't for a minute believe the mythical all-white all-male all-cishet "working class" the dirtbag left wishes to appeal to won't do the same.

[viciouslyrobotic]

A lotta white ppl remove themselves from racism and see themselves as being outside of it when it's discussed but racism is an abuse that is *prevalent* in our society and we *do not dismiss the abuse cycle until it's about racism, ableism, sexism, queerphobia, etc.*

We will talk and talk and talk about "listening to black people" from *other* whites and never reflect on where we could be wrong because well this white told them they're on the right path and look at how they have relations to or relationships WITH black people or so they claim and they as an individual TOTALLY can't be consuming sensitized by-and-for white people content because they're a Leftist/Democrat/Liberal/Reformed™️.

I've been on tumblr for what feels like ever for myself and I'm only shy of 25. I've been in leftist spaces on here that are crisco as it can get that reblog posts abt "listening to black people" only for me to later realize that wait- this was from another white person talking *about* black experiences but not leading me to *them* and their voices. Such as an alleged "master doc" on google abt how to practice witchcraft and be Culturally Sensitive™️ that still had links to white ppl on Kemeticism, the closed religion of Egypt, among other problematic things.

I hadn't gone to the source once, and that realization was in middle school thanks to a documentary on Jane Elliot's Blue Eye Brown Eye experiment. I grew up and around black ppl, I've had black friends, I’ve known I was queer since middle school, and I've still done racist shit that I'm not proud of because knowing and being friends with them, being queer all the while, wasn't a hall pass for the casual racism I participated in alongside the whites I grew up with and *who raised me.*

Being queer and facing bigotry for that did not and has not been what stops me from being a bigot to black people. 

Being in liberal and leftist spaces did not and has not been what stops me from being a bigot to black people. 

Understand that? You can be a white leftist queer person and still participate in racism. Our queerness does not remove the reality of our whiteness. Whatever political ideology we identify with does not remove the reality that we have been raised as white people. 

Therefore being oppressed for an aspect of our lived experiences does not prevent us from participating in oppression against others or even those that share our experiences and I can not stress enough how basic of a principle that is.

And that SJW/Progressive/Wokescold stereotype that is morally lucky and thinks you can’t change if you’ve done 1 bad thing in your past? It’s a strawman. An excuse used to justify not unlearning the behaviors and beliefs that perpetuate racism, ableism, queerphobia, etc. I know it’s a false justification because I’m in the very spaces that allegedly don’t allow me to fuck up once where I have messed up a number of times and continue to be in those spaces regardless. Hell, I’ve been called all three things and morally lucky.

Lastly, I acknowledge that there are whites reading this and thinking "okay but that's YOU as a white person, not ME, you're projecting" and to that I say *you're reacting on a self preserving selfish lie*. I know you are because I once reacted the same way because I learned that from my family and the unrelated white adults throughout my childhood who got more upset at the word "racism/racist" than they did at their own behavior or beliefs that perpetuate it. We do not grow up detached from society and if you as a white person can *admit* that we are in a white supremacist society then you can damn well *get a grip and stop excluding yourself from the reality you live in just because it makes you feel bad to do so.* Why? Because plenty of white people, like myself, are doing that and carrying on just fine.

We live and participate in society. We can and are racist to varying degrees. Intentionally done or not it’s still harm and I’m not full of self loathing because I can admit to it and am in the process of unlearning. Catch yourself in the reaction and develop introspection as a skill, seriously.

Pointing out the racism in Homestuck and its community will literally leave you like this for at least a week.

[comrade-meow]

The male-centered progressive left has successfully made woman-hating trendy.

Today, yet another “Karen” video went viral online. This time, it seems a woman flipped off a male driver, one Karlos Dillard, who then followed her home and filmed her as she melted down into hysterics, posting the video online, which included her home address and license plate. Over eight million views later (sure to be more by the time you read this), and Dillard is selling t-shirts based on the incident.

It seems this is a hobby for Dillard, who has posted other similarly antagonistic videos, accusing women of “racism” (despite no evidence of racism) in an attempt turn Karen virality into profit. Other t-shirts for sale on his Instagram profile include one with the words, “Karen… Are you OK?” and another reading, “Keep that same energy, Karen.”

The Karen meme has been misogynist from the getgo, originating from an anonymous male Reddit user, Fuck_You_Karen, who was angry at his ex-wife, named Karen, for taking custody of his children. In 2017, his misogynist rants became a subreddit, r/FuckYouKaren.

Recently, the meaning of “Karen” was said to refer specifically to middle class, middle aged white women who are so entitled they ask to speak to the manager when perturbed, but has since morphed into a specifically racist white woman, who “weaponizes” white, female fragility against largely black men. This connects to sexist tropes that claim women use their emotions, vulnerability, and tears to manipulate men.

What began as a joke has become more than that, and has moved into explicitly misogynist (and, in my opinion, dangerous) territory.

“Becky,” which originated as a means to refer to basic white women — the Uggs-wearing, Starbucks-buying, pumpkin spice-loving kind — probably young, probably blonde, probably not working class. Like “Karen,” I never found this to be particularly offensive, as I had little desire to defend boring people who love Starbucks, but what was once a joke has become something much more egregious.Following someone to their home, doxxing, filming, and harassing them because they gave you the finger is unhinged. People are going to act like assholes in this world, and you need to learn to deal with that. Moreover, these viral videos, like the Amy Cooper/Christian Cooper bird watching/dog-off-the-leash incident, are always decontextualized. No one really knows what happened preceding the video, nor do they know why either party reacted as they did. We all know social media leaves little room for nuance, and far too many people enjoy a rage reaction over asking questions or considering they may not know the full story. The truth is that, today, people’s lives can be destroyed in an instant, via a viral post. And our culture is wielding that power with very little care.

While those participating in the mobs targeting the subjects of these currently popular Karen videos claim some form of racial justice, this is not an accurate representation.

This has little to do with race, and everything to do with a progressive left that has adopted woman-hating as political virtue signalling.

Last week, journalist and editor Jonathan Kay tweeted a “Wanted” poster he’d come across in Toronto, depicting a young, blonde, white woman. The text below her face mocked her as a “Basic Bitch” — privileged, entitled, and unwoke. The image and text presents “Becky” as dangerous — the new enemy. The A.C.A.B. (All Cops Are Bastards) logo on the poster implies it likely was produced and distributed by young anarchist men. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were white men, considering the face of groups (or non-groups, depending on who you ask) like Antifa.

The trend of presenting women as a threat extends beyond Becky and Karen. In recent years, Antifa, anarchists, trans activists, and leftists have targeted feminists who question the impact of gender identity ideology on women’s rights as dangerous — even more so than male predators. Rhetoric that claims “TERFs kill” intentionally erases the fact that it is men who are overwhelmingly responsible for violence against both women and men (including trans-identified males). As a result, reversing this claim to say “Kill TERFs” or to show up at events discussing gender identity with cardboard guillotines with the words “TERFs and SWERFs step right up” written on them has become an acceptable form of “activism.”

This has all happened within a left that has consistently ignored and even defended the misogyny, racism, and violence of prostitution and pornography, painting women who fight the sex trade as “whorephobic” and as causing harm to “sex workers.” Everyone knows who is responsible for the abuse that happens to women in porn and prostitution. We can see it on PornHub or we can read about it in the news. Yet the left consistently fails to hold those men accountable for the harm they cause. No, no. The real problem is women. Terms like “TERF” (which means “trans exclusionary radical feminist,” but, in practice, is used to smear anyone who questions gender identity legislation or ideology) and “SWERF” (which means “sex worker exclusionary radical feminist,” but is used to smear women — even women who have worked in the sex trade — who wish to stop the universal violence and exploitation inherent to prostitution) exist to misrepresent, vilify, and end conversation. One cannot defend a “TERF” or “SWERF” any more than one can defend a “Karen” or “Becky,” unless they would like to be pilloried as unwoke and bigoted themselves.

A few years ago, trans activists and their progressive allies adopted the term “cis” to refer to those whose “gender identity matches their sex.” Putting aside the fact that no one’s “gender identity” matches their sex, as whether or not a person is male or female has nothing to do with whether or not they identify with a list of sexist gender stereotypes, the term “cis” is said to denote “privilege.” This means that a woman who understands she is female is, as per trans ideology, “privileged” over a man who desires to be viewed as a woman or who does not feel connected to masculine stereotypes. This is ridiculous, of course, as women are impacted by sexism on account of being born female, and are vulnerable to male violence regardless of how they identify. Understanding one is female does not make a woman “privileged,” it makes her a sane human being. In other words, “cis” or “cisprivilege” completely erases the reality of sexism and male violence against women. Suddenly, we are to believe women pose a threat to males who identify as transgender. Just as we are now to believe “Becky” and “Karen” are so dangerous they deserve to be hated, harassed, and destroyed. Maybe punched. Maybe worse.

This is, I’m afraid, woman-hating. And it is dangerous. The popularity of the Karen meme has led people to seek out and invent Karens in order to gain followers and profit, as evidenced by Dillard’s racket. And rhetoric that positions feminists as dangerous, harmful “TERFs” has led to the acceptance of open violent threats against women, simply for speaking out in defence of women’s rights and spaces. Karen, Becky, SWERF, and TERF are nothing more than excuses to hate women. And I am tired of people participating and defending this misogyny simply because it is on trend, and because it results in applause from the male centred left.

Yes, women can be assholes. Yes, women can be racist. No, women are not all innocent victims. But this has become about much more than calling out annoying, racist, or entitled behaviour. And, in fact, I think it was always about more than that. Let’s stop this before someone gets (literally) hurt.

[bustedbernie]

Oh hai. Lately there have been a slew of think pieces about Bernie Sanders being the front-runner, discussing how his movement has threatened to withhold their votes from Democrats if Bernie isn’t the nominee. Hidden between the lines is the idea that Democrats, in general, owe their votes to Sanders if he is the nominee, regardless of the fact that his voters do NOT owe Dems their votes if he is not. So, rather than call them out for using the same tactics that lost the 2016 election, there is a faction in the media that is growing more and more permissive to the idea that Bernie and his Revolution are somehow the victims in all this, and that mainstream Dems have done them wrong time and time again when picking a candidate that appeals to the Dems masses.

Let me let you in on a little secret.

I don’t owe Bernie Sanders or his fucked off revolution of stanerific emo-marxist cyber-terrorists a goddamn bit of shit the fuck all. When these utter fucking geniuses in the media reflect on how energized and dedicated his enthusiastic fans are when engaging in their harassment of the average Dem, they seem to think the people who have been abused don’t fucking matter. These Dems are people who have never done anything whatsoever to deserve the constant bullying, cyber-stalking, targeting, threats, or in my case, being falsely reported to the FBI by fans of Bernie who seek to silence dissent. What these media personalities don’t understand is that the abuse by Bernie fans, in his name, actually causes the gap between MAGA and Berners to shrink to the point where it is non-existent. There is no real difference between the abuse from either side, and since Sanders isn’t the warm and fuzzy type that reaches out to the people who have been abused, often there appears to be no real difference between Sanders and Trump.

Slate:

Still, the Bernie-or-Busters, small as they may be, have spun their position into an argument for why others should vote for Bernie Sanders too, regardless of the platform they prefer. As efforts in political persuasion go, this contingent puts forward an openly hostile argument. Sanders is the only electable candidate, they suggest, not just because of his policies, but because of the single-mindedness of his followers. The reason you should vote for Sanders is that we won’t vote for anyone else. You don’t want Trump to win again, do you?

No. But I also don’t want Bernie Sanders to win. In a case of one not liking either candidate, people look to see which movement they feel most comfortable with, Bernie’s or Trump’s. If it turns out that both movements engage in racist behavior, sexism, and homophobia, it really doesn’t matter what they profess to be in favor of as far as policy is concerned, what matters is how they treat their fellow citizens by and large. We all know that unless we take back the Senate with a large majority that can defeat Republican attempts to stop legislation from hitting Sanders’ desk, nothing will pass anyway. So, if you’re not in favor of Bernie’s policies in the first place, and do not like him or his movement, why would you be enthusiastic about showing up for the guy who leads the movement that engages in attacks on you?

Yes, it sounds like ugly hostage taking—not a brilliant persuasive strategy but a crude ego-boosting exercise for a group of leftists who can’t resist the impulse to lord some power over an electorate that doesn’t normally consider them relevant. But that’s exactly what makes it so normal, even understandable, in a depressing “we’re all human” sort of way. [NO.] Because the truth is this: Every threat these Sanders stans are explicitly making is one the venerated Centrist Swing Voter makes implicitly—and isn’t judged for. The centrist never even has to articulate his threat.

Excuse me, it IS ugly hostage taking, it is NOT normal, and no, it doesn’t make me see them as more human.

Another thing is this: not everyone opposed to Bernie Sanders is a Centrist, Moderate, or a Swing voter. Many of us are as far left or to the left of Sanders, I for one am definately to his left, and had supported him in 2015. That was until his racist abusive Bern Mafia targeted me for expressing concern about his lack of outreach to black voters. I noticed his lack of history in hiring black people (D.C. is Chocolate City, we could not find one black staffer in 2015; I am open to correction on this point; if he had black staffers prior to 2015, please send me receipts because I have been looking for them.), lamented and mocked his poor showing at Netroots, fumed over his constant MLK appropriation, jeered at his white ass crowds, and felt humiliated by his inability to discuss black people in ways that were not centered on Poverty or Prisons. It is HIS FAULT that his voters have no clue how to engage Black people without resorting to stereotypes and outright bigotry, because he does the same thing.

Buzzfeed:

Sanders, seated across the table, a yellow legal pad at hand, responded with a question of his own, according to two people present: “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African American?” The candidate, whose aides froze in the moment, was quickly rebuffed: The answer, the activists told him, was no. Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error, the two people present said.

No. He did not apologize for spreading this stereotype, and yes, it shows how he views black people in general.

Slate:

One of many disorienting factors in this election cycle is the fact that the left is more popular and more viable than it has been in a long, long time. They have not one but two exciting candidates, and both are offering policies closer to what leftists actually want than most presidential contenders in U.S. history have.

I wanted the party to move to the Left towards the direction of where I stood too. I can’t really name my ideology because it’s so far left I am almost hitting the wall. Additionally, I am more Libertarian than Sanders, who trends more authoritarian. Yet, I instinctively know that playing a game of “my way or the highway” won’t lead to a place where poverty programs are expanded up and out, ensuring all necessities of life are provided. It will lead to gridlock and we will make zero progress.

Because folks at the center tend to be wooed by multiple candidates, they’re used to having options, and they’re used to the experience of their vote determining who ends up with the nomination. This means that they usually like the candidate they vote for, in the primary and in the general. Not so for leftists, who get to merely tolerate the candidates they end up having to vote for in order to mitigate the damage from a worse result.

Here’s the rub… I’m Black. None of this shit applies to me, because as a Black person, I rarely even LIKE or TRUST any of the candidates I have been voting for over the years. I also usually, especially in State and Locally, don’t have any say so in determining the nominee of any race. I am always stuck voting for whoever White People choose as the candidate, and as such, am merely tolerating whoever is chosen to prevent a worse outcome, which usually means preventing a racist shitmonger from winning a race.

Speaking of race… Progressives refuse to address race as a factor in anything; they like to ignore race in everything they do and allow Prison Policy to stand in for Racial Policy, so it’s impossible to get them to see my reality. They get this shit from Bernie.

From Buzzfeed:

“The real issue is not whether you’re black or white, whether you’re a woman or a man,” he said in a 1988 interview. “The real issue is whose side are you on? Are you on the side of workers and poor people or are you on the side of big money and the corporations?”

Not much has changed with Bernie, as you know, Bernie never changes, because he was born as a 72 year old yelly man, just like Benjamin Button, but louder and not as cute.

“It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry,” the Vermont independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said in a not-so-subtle rebuke to Hillary Clinton”

Bernie’s attacks on Identity Politics filtered down to his base, causing them to feel confident in their attacks on Blacks, LGBTQ, and Women who brought up issues of race, sexuality, and gender over the past few years. They love to say shit to black people online that they would never say to an actual Black person IN PERSON, because they are scared as fuck of Black people. Kinda like Bernie. The refrain of “that’s identity politics, not real policy’ rang out constantly on social media the past few years to the point where pointing out racism, homophobia, and sexism was met with swarms of white men attacking Black people, All Women Who Dared To Be THAT Bitch, LGBTQ, and really, anyone worried about social justice issues that focused on identity. The attacks were and ARE bigoted in the extreme.

This is racist as fuck and is one of the ways the Bernie Titty-Babies managed to marginalize Kamala Harris and drive a wedge between her and Black Voters. Somehow they thought keeping it going would make us like dusty ass Bernie more, but they’re stupid, because we don’t even like that geriatric Bernadook now.

This is homophobic.

Bernie’s supporters are engaging in a hate campaign against Mayor Pete and are trying to convince the world that they are not being homophobic, they are just saying Pete is suppressing his dangerous serial killer nature by being so straight laced. This is fucked up because they are attacking a gay man for being “straight appearing” in spite of the fact that his seeming straightness is how he interacts with a world that hates gay people, and has at times (and Still Does) MURDERED men and women who are gay for not assimilating or conforming to hetero-normative stereotypes. Bernie ignores this behavior from his fans like he ignores all of their nasty hate campaigns. I blame him.

This is misogynistic. No explanation needed.

Racist and fat shaming. Black hair is not your fucking business, bitch. Back the fuck up.

This is just blatantly false and caused people to harass Kamala Harris supporters until they stopped using the Yellow Circles she asked supporters to wear, it stems from the misogynoir his fans engaged in towards Kamala. Bernie has never said shit, so I blame him.

Bigotry. Also erasure of Biden’s Black support in a effort to make it seem as if Bernie is the candidate of diversity. Bernie is at fault, he also erases minorities.

Sexist. Also, damn near all of his fans seem to hate Obama on the same level and with as much heat as MAGA. Why the fuck would we want to join in unity with this man when his fans HATE the first black President. Oh, you think Bernie has nothing to do with setting the tone?

“The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure,” Sanders started, responding to a question about the young voters who supported his campaign. “People sometimes don’t see that because there was a charismatic individual named Barack Obama, who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012.

“He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy. But behind that reality, over the last 10 years, Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country.”

Bernie doesn’t fucking like Obama either.

Sexism. Racism. Bernie does the worst with Black Women, and is often dismissive when asked a question by one of us. So, his fans see nothing to lose by targeting us in particular, and we in turn are likely the largest group of people willing to sit this one out if Bernie manages to come out on top. The media is no help whatsoever to marginalized people, because they ultimately weave a narrative where Bernie comes out the victim.

We can already see it happening amongst the Children of the Bern, where they have taken to labeling K-Hive, a movement started by a Black Woman (Me) for a Black Woman (Kamala Harris), “Liberal ISIS” for our resistance to Bernie and willingness to defend the other candidates from the attacks levied by the Berner Swarm.

Oh, cry me a fucking river! We don’t dox, cyberstalk, harass, abuse, try to get people fired, engage in bigotry, we learn from our mistakes, and we never make it our mission to ruin someone’s life.

We simply turn the tables on the bros and ask tough questions, like Kamala Harris. If that breaks you down, you were already broken before you found us. Oh, yeah. That’s another thing. We don’t go looking for Berners to abuse; we wait until they come to abuse US and refuse to play along.

Regardless of what poor Peter Daou says, there is no “Unadulterated Hatred” in asking if someone has checked on him.

So, yes, I can blame Bernie for the nastiness of his movement and choose not to ever join it no matter what. Progressives love to play forever victims, even while they engage in their vile abuse, but I do not have to empower their movement or help them elect Bernie. Maybe if enough people sound the alarm and let him know we will not be helping him in November while suffering constantly at the hands of his Branch Bernidians, then he will have no choice but to be a leader and fucking lead these assholes into being decent people. I don’t expect the abuse to magically end if Bernie becomes President or loses to Trump, and I also don’t expect him to do shit about it, so I guess I’m just Never Bernie. What I am now stuck with is the same as always; White States get to vote first and create the narrative that Dem voters are in favor of whoever these powerful white voters choose, and I am sick of it and sick of Sanders. I didn’t become a Democrat to not only be marginalized by the White Moderate, but to also suffer abuse from the punk ass White leftist bitchmade humdinger of a Revolution. I’m not here to empower shitfucks that search me out no matter where I am just to heap abuse on me, threaten me, or report me to the FBI as a possible MASS SHOOTER, all because I think Bernie is an old bigot who minimizes Black oppression to appease the white voters he thinks he’ll need to win the General.

I’m just Never Bernie, deal with it or die mad about it. I don’t care which.

[briek58454521]

Cancel Culture?...

Okay.

I’ve seen this shit going around for a while. I feel obligated to correct the record.

In the wake of multiple Breadtube users being eviscerated by the public in the last year, I’d like to talk... about “cANceL cULTurE”.

But first, some back-round. I’ll be brief.

Over a year ago, Youtuber Lily Orchard’s video about Steven Universe blew up the internet, invoking praise from many facets of online culture, as well as a sizable backlash, as any video criticizing Steven Universe will invariably do. In an attempt at a response, Breadtuber Sarah Z uploaded a video titled “Bad Media Criticism”, which around 17 minutes in, talked about said video.

The response was filled with, let’s face it, lies and actual bad faith criticisms towards the content, misinformation, omission of context in important bits, and general shoddiness in action (yes, I’m biased. Reality is biased, sometimes). Criticism was swift to arrive, and the video provoked Lily herself to respond. And in the face of the factual corrections, and legitimate criticisms... Sarah doubled down, and in her infamous Twit-Longer, decided to continue to assure herself and others that her criticism was valid because regardless of whatever Lily actually said, it was still bad faith criticism.

A short while after that, fellow Breadtuber Lindsay Ellis uploaded a video discussing Black Ariel, claiming that the decision to make Ariel black was entirely a decision made because of “Woke Branding” to make more money off of people and continue raking in more and more cash, citing HBomberGuy’s “WOKE BRANDS” video essay. Many commented that this was rather racist, considering that Cartoon Network is just as much of a greedy bastard corporation as Disney was, yet, denounced criticism of Steven Universe, a show of Cartoon Network’s body of work, because “support minority voices”, with the same people commenting that this looked rather selective.

Lindsay doubled down on the criticism, and would continue defending it and publicly shitting the bed as more shitstorms (PLURAL) would erupt (lol).

After THAT, Breadtuber CONTRAPOINTS/ NATALIE WYNN would publish many videos that kept pissing of trans and non-binary viewers with a fuck-load of back handed remarks and general derogatory comments about them, as well as getting pissy that people ask for her gender and pronouns in public safe-spaces. In “The Aesthetic”, Natalie had a character playing the role of the people who make the CORRECT claim that gender is eternal and that you are what you say you are, and ANOTHER who was a truscum who would repeat the arguments that “kinda hypothetical” and, “kinda a weak argument”. This would create a backlash, and Natalie would respond with a thread that, contained a lotta shit, but also contained THIS BULLSHIT. Straight from the horses mouth, fam.

“I’m sure this is not the experience of many NBs. I’ll leave it to them to articulate what NB existence looks like in a binary world. I do not and cannot speak for them. But surely(sic) an account that begins and ends with “I’m not a man because I don’t identify as one” is pretty weak”

Later, after deleting the thread and getting more shit for it, she would upload an absurd non-apology video called “Pro-nouns”, where she would dress up like a fucking clown-ass Oompa-Loompa who just escaped from Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and make several dumb-ass claims and a fuck-ton of truscum arguments, including stating that she “wants to be a convert” to “believe” NBs, and that she would listen and respect NB people’s beliefs “so long as those beliefs are valid” After more backlash to that happened, she would continue this trend, platforming actual truscum like Buck Angel, selling anti-semetic reptilian agenda merchandise, and hosted a Patreon stream where she just... basically shat on everyone. She shat on people like HBomberGuy, for performativity in regards to the meme “Donkey Kong said Trans Rights” (yes, she is that desperate. She will accuse people who raise 340,000 fucking dollars of performativity and virtue-signaling), stated that older trans people would be considered truscum, and even that most of her friends were truscum.

The one thing that was consistent in these stories was the insistence that the criticism was just an attempt at Cancel Culture.

Cancel Culture is essentially the point where in an attempt to either exclude, harass, or target others for political views, religion, ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender, etc., people will devolve into many forms of online harassment and abuse of the media outlets, among other things, in order to silence the target, or deter the target from making an argument. It can even happen just because people don’t like someone.

For Sarah, this took the form of accusing the people criticizing Steven Universe of having a dishonest double-standard, because if a straight, white, cis-dude made it, no one would be saying shit about it. Even though the show is historically praised by WHITE progressives, and criticized by EVERYONE else.

For Lindsay, it was that the people making this claim were just fooled by the “Woke Brand” train.

For Natalie, it was “the Left is eating itself”.

I would like to say this right now. The only time I actually saw Cancel Culture in action was during the shitstorm that erupted with VivziePop and her pilots for Hazbin Hotel, and Helluva Boss came out and everyone was looking for a bunch of shit to bring up about Vivzie personally, her apparent “transphobia”, “homophobia” as understood by Steven Universe fans, and generally just a bunch of bullshit that Rebecca Sugar got away with when she pulled the same shenanigans.

That is Cancel Culture.

And the only reason I can see for it was just because Vivzie (to my knowledge, at least) isn’t a member of the LGBT community. (Those same people would respond to her stating that she plans on having Alistor, the Radio Demon, be ace with “Hey, did you hear something?”, btw)

(EDIT: I initially stated, as shown above, that Vivzie wasn’t a LGBT community member. She is. She’s bi. Apologies for getttin that bit wrong. I’d also like to mention that she’s Latin as well, but is also shit-talked for apparently being too white to be Latin. 

So......yeah. Can’t begin to imagine why all of those mentioned weren’t given the same treatment.... Was there any doubt when Lindsay said she was Native?......)

And that wasn’t the case with any of the aforementioned. Natalie wasn’t “cancelled” until she kept shitting on people for the fiftieth (hyperbolicly fiftieth) time. Sarah was never cancelled. She got away with slander, and was quickly forgiven just because she’s a leftist. Lindsay is getting away with excusing away, and flat out DEFENDING PEDOPHILIA, AND IS STILL POSTING. She ain’t cancelled.

Cancel Culture may happen sometimes, genuinely, like with Vivzie, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule. It’s mostly just “this person said I sound completely contrary to what I believe, it must be (insert cause)”

It’s Lily’s fault, it’s a dishonest double-standard, it’s the radicals, it’s Woke Brand brain-washing, it’s “bAd faITh cRitISIsm”, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

Let me tell you something. In Sarah’s case, not all criticism is because there’s a dishonest double-standard. And even if it were, that doesn’t make doing something horrible because of your identity the right thing to do. Because NO ONE should be putting in the most racist, bigoted, and frankly gross and disgusting shit in their work, regardless of whether you’re white, black, gay, lesbian, trans, NB, Gen Z, Boomer, etc. Like the human zoo, the Amethyst-Garnet fusion, Bismuth, the Pearl-Rose dynamic, the Nazi woobification, and the blatant disregard for the very people the show claims to be an ally too.

See also, the N-Word.

Despite the belief that white people can’t say it while black people CAN, black people don’t use it in a conversation formally, and can’t really use it ANYWAY because it’s still a fucking slur. And if you say it in public, there will be consequences, whether it be social repercussions, or legal action. And people have been saying it less and less as a result of this attitude becoming more present.

In regards to Lindsay, we know, bitch. We fucking know. We know that Disney wants our money like crazy. We know that this could be just another woke branding thing. We know that brands aren’t our friends, we know, we know, we know, we know. We know, Lindsay, we know. But, don;t chat shit about it if you aren’t going to criticize Cartoon Network for Steven Universe, Amazon for selling Pride merch, and Target for Pride clothes. Because then we know that you’re being very selective about what you’re labeling as “woke branding”.

In regards to Natalie, SHUT THE FUCK UP. SHUT THE FUCK UP. That is literally all you have to do. Just SHUT. THE FUCK. UP. And accept that you aren’t as woke as you like to think you are. The left isn’t eating it’s own by disowning shitty people. It’s doing itself a favor for it.

Remember R. Kelly? Everyone said that black people were just turning on each other when actual, legitimate evidence came forward, showing that he;s a FUCKING PEDOPHILE. And that attitude would continue for almost three decades before someone FINALLY said, “No, this man is dangerous, lock him up”. You know the phrase “A few bad apples?” People only say that, and just ignore the rest when defending shitty people on the Left, mostly because they don’t want to disown them. The phrase, however is ACTUALLY “A few bad apples SPOIL THE BUNCH”. If you don’t weed out the bad ones, they’ll spoil the tree.

Most of this bullshit would have been solved easily if ANY of the aforementioned had looked at their behavior, ACTUALLY apologized, expressed due diligence, and STOPPED FUCKING DOING THE SHIT.

The only reason people get away with this is because A LOT OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET HAVE FUCKING TERRIBLE PRIORITIES.

People take more offense to someone shutting down an opinion rather than someone being a scumbag.

People jut decided not to care about Sarah’s lies ENTIRELY because “It’s Lily”.

People defended Lindsay entirely because “Fuck Disney”.

People defended Natalie because “The Left is eating itself, we need to support minority voices”.

Because the myth of Leftist-Cancel Culture is just an excuse to not have to change. To not commit. To not put in effort. To not expand time to bettering yourself or the environment around you. To jerk off to how woke you are while criticizing others who tell challenge that. To wax poetic because it’s good for your ego.

It’s not just them. It’s many of their fans, and hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of people on the internet. And by far, their worst deeds aren’t that they inadvertently or otherwise attract Nazis, keep sucking off incels, truscum, TERFs, pedophiles, and other facets of human garbage while disemboweling others for far, FAR lesser crimes on the basis that they aren’t woke or nice enough for their liking, or EVEN the harassment that they’ve engaged in, caused, and instigated.

It’s that they’ve convinced themselves that by doing all of the above, that they are in any way superior to the people they cry foul against. The people who call them out on their bullshit when it arises. The people who raise $340,000 for their OWN people while the most they’ve done is play dress up and recycle Eddie Murphy’s shtick for the 500th time. The people who are part of the very minority voices they claim to support yet disregard on the basis that they said some mean words, or argued in bad faith, or just have a personal grudge against the people that they criticize. The people of color who FLAT OUT know better than them, yet, who they write off at every possible opportunity as just believing that companies care, or that Disney is good, or even just write ‘em off as having the wrong priorities or being stupid, as if they are in any way super clever and superior for coming to a conclusion that many more talented, creative, intelligent, and just frankly BETTER people came to years ago. 

They are MORE PERFORMATIVE, more ENTITLED, more ARROGANT, more IGNORANT, more UNAWARE, more BIASED, more SELFISH, and more SELF-INDULGENT than a good 98% of the people they criticize.

They hate these people so much...because they hate looking in mirrors.

And Leftist Cancel Culture is just a manifestation of that psychological projection. Simple as.

If you skipped to the end, fuck you. No TL: DRs in this neck of ‘da fuckin woods

[howyoutalktostrangers]

So,

When trans rights activists began to mobilize in opposition to feminist thinker Meghan Murphy's appearance at the Toronto Public Library in October 2019, I was only half-interested in the controversy. Several literary figures I admire had become swept up in the pseudo-religious fervor, and I was shocked to see them enthusiastically championing censorship. I figured this person they were protesting must be some ghoulish anti-intellectual, spewing hate speech and vilifying marginalized communities. I assumed that a quick Google search would result in a list of published works worthy of this sort of opposition, or maybe news items about her provocative past.

Imagine my surprise, then, to learn that not only was Murphy innocent of the hate speech accusations she was being doggy-piled with, she was actually advocating on behalf of marginalized populations and rape victims — something I'm personally passionate about. Her highest profile dust-up was with a pedophile trans activist named Jessica Yaniv, a true villain if there ever was one, and now she was facing death threats for publicly questioning whether convicted child killers who self-identify as female should be allowed in women's prisons. As far as I could tell, she was a strong-willed social crusader making a real positive impact in the world.

So how come everyone was treating her like the Antichrist?

In the week leading up the event, I followed the controversy via Twitter and began to educate myself on the subject being discussed: trans rights. I learned that this new slur "TERF" is an acronym for "trans exclusionary radical feminist", though it was being used as a catch-all for anyone who disagreed with their rhetoric, and it wasn't immediately apparent what trans people were being excluded from. I learned that "dead-naming" someone means using someone's name from before they transitioned (like calling trans icon Caitlin Jenner by her birth name Bruce) and that there were a few koan-like mantras everyone felt strongly about: "Trans rights are human rights" and "trans women are women."

As I engaged on Twitter, posting a few comments and questions, I became increasingly aware of how toxic this discourse was. These trans rights activists were looking for people to crucify, drunk on self-righteousness, and were incapable of having a nuanced conversation about this new worldview they were wielding like a weapon. As I consumed their vitriol, following accounts on either side of the spectrum, it occurred to me that all of this anger wasn't only being funnelled towards anti-trans bigots. It was also sliming well-meaning leftists who weren't sufficiently up to date on how this conversation has been progressing (learn your acronyms!) and people blissfully unaware that this esoteric social justice battle is even happening. According to their standards, not only was I a TERF but so was everybody else in my family, from my toddler niece all the way up to my grandparents. We all believe in something we've been taught since childhood, biological sex, and that makes us the enemy.

But how could I make my own position known without offending and alienating the trans people in my life who I love, regardless of how I feel about this new gender ideology? Could I oppose the indoctrination while embracing trans people themselves? Was there some sort of middle ground I could take, where I could express my support and love for them while simultaneously refusing to drink the Kool-Aid?

Then the big night came. By this point the Toronto Public Library scandal had taken up three or four days of my attention, and I remained glued to social media so I could follow every development. I read an extremely thoughtful prepared statement by a city councillor named Gord Perks and thought "finally, a voice of reason!" only to see his contribution written off and misrepresented. Hundreds of people took to the streets, necessitating a police presence to keep the audience and speakers safe. Videos posted on Twitter showed this hate mob, led by Governor General Award-winning author Gwen Benaway, shouting violent epithets at cowed women while pretending they were the victims. These bullies were out for blood, and anything less than full surrender wouldn't satisfy them.

The thing that struck me the most during all this was that the two sides of the political spectrum were arguing different points. While one side was insisting that Meghan Murphy deserved free speech, the other side was arguing about the perceived content of her talks as they pertained to trans rights. They weren't meeting anywhere near the middle, because they weren't even having the same conversation. The result of this was that trans rights activists were passionately mobilizing certain nuances of their worldview, and demanding these tenets be accepted, while the other side was simply saying "let her talk". The protesters had smeared her as an anti-trans speaker, though that wasn't how she self-identified. For a movement so obsessed with self-identification, this was a huge blind spot. Just like misgendering someone, they were accusing her of being something she's not.

As the think pieces and news articles began to come out in the following days, I read opinions from both sides and searched for even a shimmer of mutual understanding. This divisionary rhetoric was going to have devastating consequences, I figured, including within the literary world. And if people were continuing to be scared into silence for fear of being mobbed like Murphy, how could we ever have a meaningful dialogue? Who would be the next person to inspire one of these hateful clown parades?

This was the headspace I was in when I came across a story in Flare written by Benaway in which she narrates her experience addressing representatives of the library during a feedback session leading up to the event. With purple prose, silly histrionics and self-aggrandizing rhetoric, she singles out Head Librarian Vickery Bowles (who didn't speak a word during the exchange) and accused her of being transphobic simply for supporting free speech. In the most embarrassing passage she repeatedly challenges those present to tell her which bathroom she should use, which is so off-topic it comes off as nonsensical. I couldn't take it anymore. I left a comment under the article, calling Benaway "so dishonest" for misrepresenting Bowles and Murphy, and accused her of "tilting at windmills, hard."

This was it. The first public stance I'd taken on the issue. I knew that nearly every literary figure I was associated with on Twitter probably disagreed with me on principle, and would probably only experience this as some privileged white dude punching down on a poor trans activist. That being said, I really believed in what I was saying and legitimately believed trans rights activists who were vilifying librarians and feminists needed to be fucking stopped. I felt a twinge of vertigo as I let go, allowing myself to tumble head-first down this howling rabbit hole. I'd heard that these activists are militant, sometimes going after people's livelihoods if they disagree with you, but I was feeling ready for a fight.

It was around this time that a Twitter account started retweeting some of my comments, tagging my employer Humber Literary Review, adding melodramatic captions about how I was a trans-hater. This Internet stranger made me uncomfortable, but I didn't engage, comfortable in the knowledge that my editors had known me for five years and understood I was incapable of hatred. Anyone who took a moment to read my timeline would see that I wasn't a zealot; I was just a newbie to this particular conversation, trying to make sense of what was going on in a respectful manner. Also, I wasn't interested in having a conversation about trans rights -- the issue is hardly relevant to my day-to-day life -- I was interested in talking about Meghan Murphy's right to free speech, a right that had been thoroughly trampled for no good reason.

One thing that occurred to me was that the library protest ultimately had the opposite effect of what was intended. Rather than silencing Murphy, they'd elevated her to a new level of prophet-like prominence. I'd never heard of her before, but now she was being profiled in newspapers and discussed all over social media. I'd gone from having no idea who she was to being one of her most ardent fans, keen to hear what she was up to next. And pretty soon there were titans of the entertainment world stepping in to take her side, including J.K Rowling and Ricky Gervais. The haters tried to silence her but instead set her on fire, leaving us all to watch her dance wreathed in holy flames.

Then they came for me. Three days after my comment on the Flare article, which inspired a long back and forth with a Toronto poet, Humber contacted me to say that I no longer had my position as interviews editor. According to them they were restructuring, but we were in the middle of an issue and that made no sense. I sent a few exploratory emails, one proposing a book project that would be a collection of the interviews I'd done over the years, and I was mostly met with silence. Was it possible? Would they actually pull something like this? Would they take sides with the trans mob over me? And why?

The way I figured, if the move to take away my position was actually motivated by my Twitter interactions then their real motive was both to shut me up and to distance themselves from me professionally. The hate mob who had attacked would be waiting for word that I'd been turfed, and I wouldn't give them that satisfaction. For the following weeks, and then months, I made sure to routinely tag Humber in my posts, reminiscing about my interviews of the past and looking forward to the one that hadn't yet been published with Yasuko Thanh. I sent my editor an email and asked her to retweet some of these posts, which she said she would, but then didn't. I started escalating my rhetoric, criticizing trans activists and calling out their bonkers nonsense, all with Humber's twitter handle nice and prominent in my bio.

Finally, just before the holidays, vindication came. The founding editor of Humber Literary Review, Meaghan Strimas, contacted me to say that the collective had "grave concerns" about my Twitter content (even though she admitted she rarely uses the platform) and then demanded I remove her magazine from my bio, even though my interview with Thanh had not yet been published. Her email confirmed all my concerns: they had a staff meeting without me to discuss my conduct, they took issue with my views on trans rights, and they were hoping to make an example out of me. It was two weeks before Christmas and they were picking a fight with one of their employees for no good reason. The positive relationship we'd enjoyed for half a decade wasn't enough to shield me from their poorly researched dogmatism.

I knew what to do right away: I alley-ooped the email, and a bunch of screen-shotted Twitter posts, to a journalist named Anna Slatz. She was an active participant in the trans rights conversation, and had appeared at an event in Vancouver in which activists showed up wearing a guillotine for TERFs. She was just as outspoken as Murphy, I knew, and would be just as infuriated by this turn of events as I was. This was a minor freelance gig for me, but what if it was my main livelihood? Would they come after my other job next? My fiancée was six months pregnant with our first child and now I had to worry about these pitchfork-wavers? Slatz was thorough, professional and tactful: within 24 hours my story was live on the Post Millennial website. Watching the story rack up engagements was one of the most vindicating feelings of my life.

Within hours I was contacted by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. I'd heard of them through the Yaniv debacle, and I was thrilled to learn that their potential involvement in my case would be free of cost. I took them through what happened over the phone, step by step, and revelled in how appalled they were. I wasn't the only person who thought these activists had gone too far, targeting people's jobs and smearing them in public. They told me that if it went forward my case would have the potential to affect a huge number of people's lives, perhaps setting a precedent that would dissuade these clowns from using sinister tactics like this in the future. And I wasn't the only person this was happening to -- online there were examples of people like Maya Forstater, who lost her job for saying that biological sex is real, and others who lost gigs for something as simple as retweeting a gender critical account.

The stress and sudden attention from all this hoopla had me panicked. I was worried both about my employment, and for the financial future of my baby. As my case drew the attention of names I recognized, like Jordan Peterson, I worried that I would be submerged by this trans rights tidal wave. I knew my misgivings were shared by many, both in the literary world and everywhere else, but people were too afraid to speak the truth. For a few nights I couldn't sleep. I didn't feel like fighting; I just wanted to be left alone.

But then I began to reflect on what actually mattered. I have a number of trans friends who are intensely important to me, and it's them who are suffering the worst consequences of this toxic rhetoric. As activists continue to over-reach and inflame controversy, the blow-back is hitting people who would just like to quietly go about living their lives. They don't believe in some of the more ridiculous aims of these activists, like plugging biological males into female sports or subjecting female prisoners to the company of murderers hiding behind self-identification. They're just as embarrassed by the Gwen Benaways and Jessica Yanivs of the world, and believe just as strongly as I do in Meghan Murphy's right to free speech. They don't believe in vilifying strangers, or taking away their jobs, because that's the purview of idiots and assholes.

As J.K. Rowling recently wrote on Twitter: this is not a drill. The time for ignoring or being complacent about the trans rights conversation has passed, because it is now doing real harm not only to trans people, but also everyone else. With my daughter en route to Earth, I want to create a future where this dystopian rhetoric is a thing of the past, and I don't have to worry about her being indoctrinated into a worldview where biological sex doesn't exist. I believe that inclusion is non-negotiable, and that trans people should be embraced and supported, but that should never come at the expense of people who reject their ideology or have beliefs of their own. It's possible to love someone even if you think their worldview is nonsensical, and trying to speak sense to them is the opposite of hate speech.

You could even call it love speech.

The Literary Goon

[creepingsharia]

Stanford administrators say advertising for conservative event threatens Muslim students

Conservative author’s response: ‘Screw you’                                                             

Andrew Klavan has strong opinions about Islam. In that, the conservative author is no different than progressives such as Bill Maher, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the late Christopher Hitchens.

And according to Stanford University administrators, his appearance on campus this week brings to mind Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, the mosque shooting in New Zealand and synagogue shootings in America.

Wait, what?

Vice Provost for Student Affairs Susie Brubaker-Cole and Dean for Religious Life Tiffany Steinwert posted an inflammatory denunciation of Klavan’s views, and the Stanford College Republicans for inviting him, on an official Stanford blog Monday.

Klavan didn’t even speak on Islam at the Tuesday event, titled “Yes; America is a Judeo-Christian nation.” But the administrators felt compelled to warn students in advance that Klavan “distorts the tenets of the Muslim faith” and that the SCRs were sullying the holy month of Ramadan by inviting Klavan to speak on any religious topic.

They also claimed the SCRs “targeted Muslims” by putting up flyers across the Muslim community center, known as the Markaz, “in an evidently deliberate attempt to disturb and disrespect our Muslim community. This is unacceptable behavior that undermines our community values.”

After a throwaway line about Stanford’s commitment to “free expression of diverse opinions,” the administrators claim that inviting Klavan does not “model responsible use of free speech.”

They then engage in a bizarre comparison of disagreements about the meaning of Islamic scripture with killing people because of their religion:

We understand it can be deeply frustrating and painful to see speakers invited to campus whose ideologies disparage members of our community. Acknowledging this pain, we nonetheless encourage you to look beyond the sensationalism of speakers whose currency is controversy to the examples of people joining together across difference and standing in solidarity even in the face of hatred and slander.

Violence has shattered many communities, but we nonetheless stand together. Following the Easter bombings in hotels and churches in Sri Lanka, students, staff, and faculty gathered for a vigil in Memorial Church. Together we remembered and honored victims in Sri Lanka, in Pittsburgh and Poway, Christchurch and Charlotte. Students from diverse religious traditions stood in solidarity with communities impacted by this violence across the country and around the world. Together, they proclaimed life and love are always stronger than violence and hatred.

The College Fix has asked Stanford media relations to explain the relevance of the administrators’ reference to religious violence in the context of the Klavan event, if they are not comparing Klavan’s expressed views to the use of violence.

Klavan responded to the administrators at the Tuesday event. According to the sponsoring Young America’s Foundation, Brubaker-Cole and Steinwert were in the audience.

The author said he usually ignores people who “call me names,” but he’ll respond in this because because college administrators called him a “bigot.” His response is “Screw you”:

The fact that anybody would give a hair on a rat’s ass what these two [administrators] think is deeply disturbing.

The SCRs responded to the statement by disputing that they “targeted” Muslims with the flyers. The Muslim center “occupies just one section of one floor of the building,” and it’s a “major mischaracterization” to suggest that putting “one flyer in the Markaz center as well as every other part of the building constitutes deliberate ‘targeting,'” the group said:

We hope that Stanford administrators exercise more restraint before they issue a statement regarding one of our events. Frankly, as students who love our university, we find this statement incredibly embarrassing.

They told Stanford to accept the “fact” that “America is a nation built on Judeo-Christian principles, and that will always be the truth regardless of the time of year. … In attacking Klavan’s views, the Stanford administration has once again underscored that it is unable to hide its ideological bias toward the left.”

Opponents of the event tried to inhibit the event by “barricad[ing] the doors with several trash cans, tables and a chained lock,” while placing juice behind the doors “in an attempt to make a mess of the room,” according to an SCRs post Tuesday night.

The Young America’s Foundation mocked the administrators for their “classic leftist double-speak,” extolling “discussion” as long as “it’s in lockstep with what they think.”

---------End----------

Bonus Klavan video below

[autumngracy]

Well, my take is that athiesm started to get kind of co-opted in with a certain brand of annoying "gotcha" type conservative guys (especially terminally online young white incel types) around the early 2000's, and has since become, by association, a sort of preemptive red flag that someone may be a narcissist that disrespects and belittles people.

Which is unfortunate, as that's really just a specific personality type that anyone can have regardless of belief system, and there is no innate correlation between the two things. It just so happens that the people who have historically been the loudest about athiesm are being loud because they want to convert others into athiests, and often that makes them resort to demeaning people (calling them stupid for believing such obviously ludicrous things, etc).

I think many athiests have become reluctant to reveal their athiesm to people because they worry folks will pre-emptively judge them as insensitive and unempathetic.

The kind of person that has enough empathy to worry about making other people uncomfortable (and genuinely care what others think, even if they disagree with them) is already more left-leaning than those who proudly proclaim things that might "trigger" people.

So you have left-leaning athiests talking less about being an athiest, and right-leaning athiests being more open about their athiesm, leading to a feedback loop where it seems like athiests tend to be more conservative (which is ironic, because it seems to me that conservatives are usually far more religious than progressives, or at least more zealous about it).

Athiesm thus becomes perceived as something strongly correlated to obnoxious, unempathetic people, whom left leaning spaces tend to exclude by default—and the athiests that ARE in those leftist spaces don't want to reveal themselves as such because they don't want people associating those traits with them.

Like, "I'm an athiest but I don't want people thinking I'm a bigot, and I don't want to have to get into a discussion about it that will only make everyone uncomfortable and frustrated (and I don't want to convert people anyway), so I just won't talk about religion at all"

That's my understanding.

to be honest i don't think there's much genuine engagement with atheism in leftist spaces, including from atheists themselves