#you'll blame leftists

[jackieandelorashouldabeencanon]

And what do you think the cop cities being built by Democrats across the country are for? Fun and games?

The Democrats are funding the militarization of police to squash civilian dissent just as much as Republicans. Kamala Harris plans to continue this practice. The Democrats are still locking kids in cages, and with Kamala saying she wants to "strengthen the border" that will only get worse. When people even make it across the border alive, because again. Increased militarization of police force (including border patrol).

Those same police are already being used against houseless people, who are being jailed for seeking shelter and then forced into slave labor. That's going to get worse no matter who we vote in, and 60% of the US population is one emergency away from losing their home.

Are you guys not paying attention or really fucking stupid or do you just not think you'll be affected? Or do you just not fucking care about anyone but yourself?

Don't answer that. I know already.

So my question is--what are you going to do when you are wrong?

"don't vote for Harris or you're supporting genocide" "voting blue is still voting for fascists" Then what else do you expect us to do?

Here are some options y'all seem to insist on and why they're fucking stupid:

Vote Third Party :: Until we have ranked-choice voting (and probably even if we did have ranked-choice voting), it is practically impossible to make a 3rd-party candidate viable. There's not enough of the population that's far enough from moderate to give up their "safe" blue vote for some "revolutionary."

Don't Vote At All :: I'd prefer to pick my enemy. If I'm going to be working in spite of the government, or even against it in some ways, I'd rather the people I'm working against not already be targeting me for being queer, for example. If my options are "bad" or "much, much worse" I'm gonna pick "bad" and try to improve things from there.

Violent Revolution :: It's a cosplay power fantasy in the same vein as the Right-wingers looking for a reason to shoot protesters. Assuming you even have enough people organized and enough firepower to pull that off in the first place…have you prepared a plan to keep the innocents alive and safe? Are you sure you can keep supply chains for food and medicines intact? Are you sure there will be resources available for the disabled, the scared, the young and old, those who won't be able to fight and still need to be taken care of? Turns out revolution is ugly and causes a lot of undue collateral damage. Are the lives "saved" really going to outweigh those whose lives will be upended and destroyed? It's not like a newly-toppled, unorganized country will be able to do anything about Israel/Gaza, so you're just hurting and killing far more people than you're saving.

As for the power you do have to better things (and make Leftism more viable as a political stance in the US)?

Work at the level of your local government. If you're in a small enough town or neighborhood and think you have what it takes, run for local office. Be a local face of the left wing; you're far more likely to sway a small town to your views than the whole country, and each small town with a socialist-leaning government is a dot on the map for larger-scale viability, and you can help keep your community safe while trying to build up in scale.

Build community so we can keep each other safe if worse does come to worst. Push mutual aid initiatives, help at food banks, grow produce to donate to those in need, apply to work at your local free clinic, empower local businesses whenever possible so that if there is a socioeconomic collapse, you and those you love aren't left completely without resources.

Protest, and make it disruptive. You can be disruptive without being violent: graffiti, blocking roads, encampments, sit-ins, to name a few examples. Create inconveniences so it gets people's attention whether they like it or not.

Above all, FUCKING VOTE BLUE. You're choosing your enemy. You get to help decide if the government we're working in spite of is run by milquetoast neoliberal war hawks who do, on some rare occasions, actually make things marginally better…or full-tilt Christo-fascists who want to kill some of us for kissing people with the same genitals as us. There aren't any other options that are going to be picked. It sucks, but at the bare minimum we can pick the option that isn't going to actively murder us while we try to build up viability for a candidate who won't sell out brown people to an ethnostate.

If you aren't doing at least one of the things above, then don't lecture me about how I keep myself and my community safe. I'd love to see a United States (or some future iteration of it) that acknowledges the sovereign rights of indigenous peoples, that doesn't fund genocide, that provides healthcare as a basic human right, that doesn't meddle in every other country's business. But if we are to see that, let alone help that happen, we need to survive this next presidential administration.

[tobiasdrake]

As we unpack the devastating effects of this election, I think an important piece of context to look at is the popular vote. The popular vote means nothing in terms of electing Presidents due to the electoral college. However, it does serve as a useful yardstick for the political temperature of campaigns relative to one another.

A thing that needs to be understood about this election is that the Trump campaign did not win the election. The Harris campaign lost the election.

Trump's numbers aren't any better than they were in 2016. There was not a massive wave of right-wing sentiment that washed over the country this year and turned voters against the left.

The reason we lost is because over 10 million voters who turned out for Biden stayed home this year. The Right didn't rise; It stayed right where it was, while the Left collapsed in on itself.

So, the question we need to ask ourselves as we move forward is, what do we take away from this? It isn't about what Trump did right. Trump went out there and was Trump, and appealed to the same number of people, and didn't appeal to the same number of people, and that's all the same. Trump did Trump and took home Trump numbers. MAGA did as MAGA does, doing no better or worse than MAGA's ever done.

So the question we need to ask ourselves and our party is, what did we do wrong?

There's a lot of answers floating out there. Many contradictory.

Personally, it's my opinion that the Harris campaign stamping down on the "They're weird" and "They're fascists" language and instead trying to appeal to moderate Republicans wound up alienating the Left.

Trading Leftist votes for the Moderate Right is never a good move for a Democrat to make, because you'll never be conservative enough for conservatives. They already have a candidate they like. You'll never win enough conservative votes to offset the liberal votes you're losing with that approach.

It sucks, it absolutely sucks, that "Liberals have to fall in love while conservatives fall in line" but that's how it is. That's the political atmosphere, and Democrats need to operate with the understanding that the Left won't show up if they don't like their candidate. The Left's votes cannot be taken for granted. They will let the fascist win if they don't like their candidate.

Note that I don't specify any particular flavor of Left there. I don't know who didn't show up. I don't care who didn't show up. I'm not interested in the conversation, "Who do we blame for this?" That's unproductive. The conversation I want to have is, "What do we learn from this?"

And my takeaway is that if you want the Left to get in gear and show up to vote, you can't be saying things like "I want to have a Republican in my cabinet" or going on Fox News to let them scream at you and palling around with Liz Cheney.

I think we can safely put to bed the idea that policy matters in an election. It's an optics game. Low-info voters decide their candidate based on vibes, and not on anything substantive. The issues don't actually matter. Again, that sucks, but that is the political atmosphere today, and we won't win if we don't know how to play the game.

With that in mind, the President needs to be the President of all Americans. But the Democratic candidate needs to look like the candidate of the Left. Or else the Left won't vote.

But that's just my assessment. Maybe I'm way off-base. Bernie Sanders has always run populist campaigns around being the candidate of the Left, and he's never even won a presidential primary. That approach has always failed to sufficiently court the Left's votes, which doesn't scream "winning strategy" once the Center and Right get to add their voices to the mix.

So. IDK. I don't know where we go from here.

I just want us all to be having the right conversations.

[gryficowa]

Karma touched blue MAGA for denying genocide and treating it as a "less important issue", years ago I would have been angry, but today… I don't feel anything, thanks blue MAGA, for with your approach to genocide you made the only thing I feel is the fact that karma has touched you

Maybe instead of blaming leftists, it's time to blame ourselves for calling genocide a "Divisive Issue"? Just a suggestion, because your attitude towards genocide was a real problem, but since Trump won, maybe you'll finally care about it like you should

Ukraine and Gaza won't die, but you know what died? Your dignity when you praised Harris and used Trump as a bogeyman, treating both countries as a tool in politics, and not as places of genocides and wars that they have been fucking fighting with for years, living in fear for their lives

Start blaming yourself for treating all this in such a trivial way, because the blame is you, not the people who didn't want to vote for the lesser evil

[is-the-fire-real]

Hello! I've recently realized (through blogs like yours) that I've been casually absorbing a lot of antisemitism, and I've been trying to learn more so as to counteract it, at least in my own head. I've seen the horseshoe theory mentioned a few times, but never explained what it actually is. Would you be able to link me to some reading on the subject? Regardless of whether you answer, I'd like to say thank you for your time, and I'm glad you exist!

Hello there! Thank you for stopping by and for asking important questions like this. It's very difficult to admit to, and confront, the bad messages we've absorbed from society. The cool thing is that you'll have some difficult work at first, but it gets way easier with time. You are going to be fine so long as you persevere.

I will let you know that I'm not an expert in anything--I only ever graduated high school in the US! So I can tell you what horseshoe theory is thanks to a lot of auto-didactic reading on the subject, but I don't have sources in front of me. I invite anybody in Jumblr to tweak or correct anything I'm about to say.

"Horseshoe theory" isn't just about antisemitism, but about extremism--but we'll come back to antisemitism. It is summarized by the image of the horseshoe: the two ends of the horseshoe should, by all rights, be far away from each other--they're the opposite ends! But when you look at a horseshoe, the two end points are very close to each other. Closer to each other than either one, on its own, is to the middle.

When one maps out political or social beliefs, it is common to place them on an X/Y axis, or a straight line. One extremist position takes up the X, the opposite takes up the Y, and the moderate position marks the center. This gives the impression that both forms of extremism are naturally opposed to each other, and are farther from each other than they are the middle.

Horseshoe theory suggests that this X/Y axis is inadequate. What we see in actual human behavior is that extremists have more in common with other extremists than they do with moderates, even if their beliefs appear to contradict.

So, take an X/Y axis about leftism. One end is marked "anarchism", one end is marked "authoritarian communism", and the middle is marked "liberalism". One would think that anarchists would be the polar opposite of authoritarian communists, and that anarchists and ACs would fight to get liberals on their respective sides--since liberals are closer to them than they are to each other. But we don't see that. We see anarchists and ACs spatting online about who is the Real Leftist, but in real life, regarding real-world action, both groups agree that their real enemies are not each other, but liberals.

This is because, while both groups have very different ideas about how leftism should be implemented, they agree on the most immediate "problem" of overthrowing liberal democracy.

The meme on the left is that liberals will invariably ally with fascists, so don't trust liberals. The reality, over and over again, is that leftists ally with fascists and try to undermine liberals. They do this because they all agree that modern democracy, the greatest achievement of liberalism, must be destroyed in order for their preferred replacement utopia to arise.

I saw this, among many, many other examples, when leftists voted for Trump, or voted for Stein or Sanders knowing it would lead to Trump's election. Leftists joined right-wingers in going to liberal blogs and laughing at them on election night 2016; both groups openly salivating at the suffering they saw, both groups opining on the future collapse of democracy, both agreeing with each other. I saw it also during the 2004 election, when I ran a couple of LiveJournals that talked about politics--I had both leftists and right-wingers mocking my pain at that electoral loss, both blaming me for being gay and asking for rights at The Wrong Time, both agreeing with each other.

This is obvious in a variety of extremist belief systems, which is why I didn't even restrain it to politics. Flat Earthers largely do not agree with one another on a flat-earth map or model; they don't agree on whether or not they are Christians; they don't agree on what it would take to prove or disprove their ideas. They constantly infight over these details. But these are all window-dressing. It's tiny details they battle it out over, because the point of Flat Earth is to create a massive conspiracy among politicians, scientists, militaries, and religions to Suppress The Truth and Dupe The Masses. In that, all the extremists are closer to each other than they are to those who accept the globe earth as fact.

The phrase folks throw around on Jumblr, which I agree with, is that "the forge that bends the horseshoe is antisemitism". In less illustrative language, the thing on which all extremists agree is that the Jews are responsible for their pet conspiracy.

Leftists often misattribute a saying to Marx: "antisemitism is the socialism of fools". In this view, socialism teaches the exact structure of most baseline antisemitic beliefs. A semi-secret group of bloodsuckers hoarding all the wealth, puppeting and manipulating world events from behind the scenes, sneaking and sliming their way into Real Power--the power no one ever sees? Yeah, those are all antisemitic canards. But leftists thought they could avoid falling for antisemitism by simply putting words like "the wealthy" or "landlords" and "the bourgeois" in place of "the Jews", and that they'd be fine.

I would argue the last year (and many other years, but that's beside the point) has proven that they are not fine. It turns out that when you have an entire belief system based on Jew Hating Without Jews, it's extremely easy to start hating Jews! All you have to do is redefine your terms so that "the wealthy", "landlords", or "the bourgeois" are the Jews.

A specific example, and one I've discussed recently: the term "Zionist". Not what it means, but how it is used and what it is understood to mean.

Far-right extremist antisemites have used "Zionist" to mean "Jew" for decades. And they have tried, for decades, to make alliances. They have done this by saying things that sound good to leftists, but which give the right-wingers plausible deniability regarding their antisemitism (what we call "dogwhistling"). This bait did not work on liberals. It did work on leftists. And now, we see that liberals generally use "Jewish" to mean "Jewish" and "Zionist" to mean "Zionist", but that leftists use "Jewish" to mean "Jew I like" and "Zionist" to mean "Jew I want to kill".

Once again, leftists agree with Nazis and the extreme right. Once again, leftists make it clear by word and deed that they care more about the socialism of fools than they do about socialism. Once again, they validate that Hating Jews Without Jews only lasts until there's any reason whatsoever to plug Jews back into the system of hate, and then...

This is the hypothesis of horseshoe theory as I understand it. Again, if anyone has corrections or scholarly sources they'd like to share, please do so! I like to learn and I am often inside my own head, so I admit that I could be wrong in some details or missing nuance.

[rainbowlack]

Something I see make its way through goyische leftist spaces is the idea that "Israel should know better"/"didn't they learn from the Holocaust?"

And they don't see a problem with that idea. They don't see why that phrasing is actively harmful.

Look closer, though.

Look closer, and you'll see that this idea implies that the Holocaust was a lesson to learn, rather than a travesty and atrocity.

It implies that, in one way or another, we somehow "deserved" the Holocaust.

It harkens back to a very Christian idea of redemption; that redemption is achieved through punishment, thus whatever punishment a sinner receives is warranted.

So, then, we—the Jews—received the ultimate punishment, for we are the ultimate sinners.

And we should be grateful, really, because we got that opportunity to learn.

It demands that Jews should be grateful for the Holocaust, and we're acting ungrateful.

So, the Jew is still treated as the ultimate sinner, deserving of the ultimate punishment.

How else will (((they))) learn?

(Also, it is not your place to declare yourself Zionist or anti-Zionist if you are not Jewish. And this is not the time or place to have that discussion.)

(Also—because I know the reading comprehension on this site is piss-poor, and that this post has a chance of breaching containment, I shall add—I am in no way supporting how Palestinians are treated. Palestinians deserve recognition as a people. Palestinians deserve to live in safety and comfort and joy.

But bringing up centuries-old antisemitic propaganda helps nobody, and it only perpetuates harm.

If you want to support Palestinian people, you will not achieve that by making Holocaust comparisons, and you will not achieve that by blaming Jews for their own oppression.)

[spot-the-antisemitism]

https://www.tumblr.com/star-filled-arcade/757095109819056128/alright-so-to-the-zionists-who-already-found-this?source=share

hi hello fucker posted this on the leftist antisemitism tag??? they knew what they were doing

Yes they were it's all virtue signalling in the end

Hi yes I ain't reading all that bullshit white tears "but I tried so hard to white knight for you why can't sit still while I shoot you"

you'll need to screenshot it to archive this but like the pro-pal doth protest too much

they really admitted they DO blame Jews for everything and they only hate the good Jews

No bitch that's YOU whose twisted moral standing isn't helping anyone. the projection is so good you could supply a drive in movie theater

No bitch, that's YOU who use antisemitism as a justification

they tagged their own bigotry so we could see it

either support Jews or don't

we don't fucking need this backstabbing white knighting victim blaming nice goy TM bullshit

[jewishbarbies]

So I debated for a long time whether to send this or not bc I explicitly do not want to equate what's happening in I/P to fiction or in any way trivialize the very real people who have died

But I find it incredibly ironic (in a bad way) how the leftist circles screaming about Zionism are the same circles that are STILL openly proudly fans of tv shows/books/movies that depict war in genuinely nuanced ways. Ways that EXPLICITLY contradict the black and white narratives exploding in leftist spaces.

So like. Did y'all miss the point or do you think nuance is for fiction only? There are innocent civilians on every side in war and civilians shouldn't be blamed for the actions of their governments --but only in fiction? In the real world it's fine to celebrate civilian casualties as long as they're Israeli? Guilt by association in fiction is bad but every Jewish person should be held accountable for the Israeli military???

Like I'm intentionally not naming any fandoms bc this SHOULDN'T be about fandoms, but the hypocrisy is killing me. They claim to be fans of the "killing civilians is bad even when they're from the Bad Culture™" shows but they're out in the real world denying (or worse celebrating) Oct 7th? They love the fictional characters who say "killing civilians is bad" but can't stand Jewish people mourning the civilians in israel? What???

(again, I'm really not trying to make this extremely real problem about fiction. I just mean the complete lack of self awareness I see every day has me ready to explode. )

no, i get what you mean. i definitely think there's a link between the massive drop in critical thinking and media literacy and the fandomization of real world issues. there's some statistic that gen z is the most politically active of most previous generations and while that's inherently a good thing, they're not engaging with politics and conflicts in responsible ways. they'll do a lot of organizing for a cause here in america and get something done, and then think they can do the same thing for international plights and just end up stepping on everyone's toes, inadvertently perpetuating that america-centric attitude they claim to be against, bc they don't listen.

a lot of people these days refuse to engage with media in the way it's intended and therefore ignore or flat out miss its entire message. you'll have a movie/show/book/whatever about the nuances of war, like the hunger games (which gen z is so completely misinterpreting), and how easy it is to become the person you're fighting against if you let yourself do the things they do eye for an eye style, and they'll come away from that comparing hamas to katniss. it makes no sense within the context of the book's narrative, yet that's the conclusion they draw because they refuse to properly engage. it contradicts their second-hand anger. they're mad about their own shitty life in the states and the powerlessness we all feel here as our rights are being threatened every single day, and they'll look for somewhere else to put it all. so they butt in to situations they don't belong in and make it worse like bulls in a china closet.

bottom line is that they see what they want to see because of their lack of self reflection and self awareness, thus allowing their lack of media literacy, critical thinking, and confirmation bias run the way they think and believe. they've taken "it's fiction" to the point where none of them would pass a basic english class and now palestinians and hamas are all blorbos in The Real World Show.

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

(This one's a long ask..) NPD + BPD + autism experiences is thinking you're just an absolutely good and the most morally correct person ever. You are a hero and you are an absolute gem to society. You'll fix all the problems society has, especially the systems that hurt the marginalized and hurt. You genuinely think you can lead a revolution or play an important role in it. You genuinely think you're the only person in your political wing that has the "best" politics and is the most morally correct and least damaging/most helpful thing ever.

You change your entire vocabulary to be more inclusive and non-hurtful/non-discriminatory, no matter how much the change is. It's exhausting when you slip up, and you either feel ashamed or you call yourself an exception and give yourself that little grace. You tell yourself you can do it, and that if you can do it anyone else can. You judge everyone else who thinks differently from you, because they're suddenly bad, bigoted, conservative, harmful people and you're the only one next to a select few/some people you follow who have good morals/politics.

You feel like you're the therapist friend, you feel like you were built to help everyone around you and save lives. You are the best person at helping anyone and everyone with their problems and you're perfect.

You end up being so obsessed with morals and feel like it's so enveloped in your identity, and you can't handle it when everyone has different morals from you. Or you can handle it, but it's just... exhausting or causes you to split on others. You have an intense desire for justice, fairness, kindness, and compassion at ALL times... and sometimes it becomes debilitating.

It destroys how you perceive others and how you interact with them. You so badly want to be the best at Leftist, anti-capitalist politics. You don't want to be problematic. You never want to hurt anyone, you want to be perfect and good and a hero. That's what you are. You're morally perfect and you can do literally no wrong. If you ever do wrong you end up shame spiraling or getting defensive, and it takes you all your strength to admit you did a wrong and hurt someone. It's just the shame that comes with potentially discomforting someone or hurting them or coming across as uneducated/uninformed. It's the fear of messing up in front of everyone and no longer being seen as a nice person, just a creep. Just a horrible, evil thing. It all just makes you no longer feel pure, morally good, self-righteous, heroic, or anything positive. You just feel sick and angry. You blame yourself, you blame others, you blame your abusers and bullies. You don't know why you're like this.

.

[thedandelionresistance]

What is a revolution?

I've seen so many people think of a revolution as a bloody, violent thing. Taking a better society, wresting power from the hands of the powerful with force. Eliminating societal undesirables as the unspoken bonus goal: the disabled who rely on medical supply lines, the homeless who rely on community and state support initiatives, the children already caught in the crossfire of their parents' ownership and the state's enforcement of it.

I've seen fellow leftists - socialists, anarchists - reject the concept of revolution for that reason, and I'm right there with them... except the word revolution is still meaningful to us.

So... what is a revolution?

Is blood the only fuel, or can we find a clean energy source? Can it be so unlike YA revenge fantasies and instead be a tsunami of overwhelming compassion and community? Can it be gradual, ongoing, not a Rapture nor a cleansing but simply a process day by day? Can it be a living thing, breathing with the collective oxygen and dreams of a whole world?

What if a revolution is all the small things? Asking your disabled neighbor what form of help would be most helpful to them and doing what you can. Making (food-restriction-safe) food for people who can eat it. Sharing resources and building social programs that'll catch the vulnerable as the rot in the state condemns it. Sharing freely and fearlessly and not blaming others for the way they cope with a world that is still often cruel when they aren't hurting anyone else. Taking according to your need and giving according to your ability, including with how you take action to take care of others.

rev·o·lu·tion·ar·y

adjective

1. involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.

Things never truly change when power is seized and hierarchies redistributed. Every "revolution" of blood and death fails at its fundamental intent.

But what, then, could be more revolutionary than one step at a time, making the world a little brighter? Call me naïve, call me idealistic, but those who cannot even imagine a better future largely can't make one. (If you can't imagine it because of despair though, let us do that work for you, and we'll bring you with us for as long as you'll come.)

What could cause a more complete change than simply changing how each of us treat other people, bit by bit? What could be a more dramatic change than merely building a home and a hearth, brick by brick?

What could make things better more than never stopping trying to make things better? (Not doing everything right all the time, but just pushing to do as much as you can, whatever that means in any given moment, and forgiving yourself your own flaws and mistakes.)

Our revolution is life lived, not checkbox checked. It lives, it breathes, it feels, it laughs, it cries, it grows. Most of all, it seeks out a thousand thousand other small revolutions and builds communities of change.

That is revolution.

[beardedmrbean]

Oh I mean when I say do leftists see history as a Disney cartoon because how they talk about people

“Indigenous people wouldn’t do that to their native lands!” Well that because most tribes learn from the mistakes of their ancestors, like modern American farming-

Holy shit Dave is right that they never left their metropolis area

But there this complaints how geeks spaces don’t want black people in it

Black activists: Why don’t white people want us in it?!

Me: Every since we somehow switch from racial equality to black supremacy

Hmm what we done in media? Oh yeah let start in black Panther where

1. They made a oversized shantytown with different African cultures, many of which hate each other guts

2. Expect to believe that everyone with sympathies with the main antagonist, now the movie did point out Killmonger was a hypocrite because he took a mask that didn’t belong to wakandans because he felt like it. And did the exact things he bitch about white colonizers to Wakanda

Though the irony is that Killmonger represents a lot of bitter black supremacists with a pan Africa fetish

Oh oh fantasy, my Indian friend pointed out that the issued with modern fantasy is that they are using a post mayflower American structure vs any form of feudalism

Because my chimera republic made realize it more easier to create black fantasy characters in a colonial and beyond world like ones based off George Carver or Bass Revees

Also like that black elf in rings of power and black Aragon, the problem to me that they look like larpers especially the black elf

Pssst modern Hollywood hairstylists, the fade was a post ww2 thing black men started after vets return from duty, so it automatically stick out for most black people

Also if you want to use Middle Ages hairstyles for black characters. Just go to the tribes that exist as many hairstyles we use today are thousands of years old and if you stretch it to the 13 century you have enough resources for reference

Actually someone pointed out that lot of fantasy places have LA demographic structure, this got me thinking and I’m paraphrasing

Who more bigoted?

My countryhick West Virginia friend who gave me a lot of insight on American history including my people and you who help me try to research west African cultures like the Yoruba?

Or the colored hair, glasses, usually upper middle class feminists that rarely interact with non whites unless they’re genetrifed and lived in gated communities?

Keep in mind a lot of them write or influence current fantasy stuff

Oh I mean when I say do leftists see history as a Disney cartoon because how they talk about people “Indigenous people wouldn’t do that to their native lands!” Well that because most tribes learn from the mistakes of their ancestors, like modern American farming- Holy shit Dave is right that they never left their metropolis area

Not all of them, but for the most part ya, it's respect for the land created after generations of learning that it's important to respect the land, with a additional healthy sized dose of religion and remembering to thank the land and everything else that provides for their needs.

"Noble Savage" is the term you're looking for there, "soft bigotry of lowered expectations" is another one you'll see a lot and not just for natives.

Low hanging fruit in Berkeley talking about why voter ID laws are bad and racist because black people may not know how to get one, or be able to afford one, or even get to the dmv.

Forever funny

But there this complaints how geeks spaces don’t want black people in it

Geek spaces are welcoming and inclusive, they just want you to geek out with them and not start trying to force changes, I honestly don't blame some people for gatekeeping their hobbies. People are coming in and demanding changes to fit their sensibilities and what not and when they're done the 'space' completely different.

That and all the other stuff you mentioned as well.

The question to ask is, why are you in this particular fan space if you are going to change 80% of it, can you maybe just make your own instead?

Oh oh fantasy, my Indian friend pointed out that the issued with modern fantasy is that they are using a post mayflower American structure vs any form of feudalism Because my chimera republic made realize it more easier to create black fantasy characters in a colonial and beyond world like ones based off George Carver or Bass Revees

Look up the show Firefly, if you don't already know about it. There's two really good SciFi western tv shows and neither of them are Westworld, the one besides Firefly is The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr. and it's there in my list because it stars Bruce Campbell.

Which actually you might give that one a look too,

Keep forgetting how much of a giant Julius Carry was, it's got a lot of steampunk elements and it's funny as heck.

Mentioning Bass Reeves made me think of that.

Also like that black elf in rings of power and black Aragon, the problem to me that they look like larpers especially the black elf ECT

Never saw the show, but everything I did see told me they had zero respect for the source material so I didn't expect respect for anything else to appear.

Hair thing we have current year references that since as you said, they haven't really changed them up much in the last few thousand years.

Who more bigoted? My countryhick West Virginia friend who gave me a lot of insight on American history including my people and you who help me try to research west African cultures like the Yoruba? Or the colored hair, glasses, usually upper middle class feminists that rarely interact with non whites unless they’re genetrifed and lived in gated communities?

I'm sure you already know the answer. As a generalization at least.

The joke about internet racists being a tolerant group of people, 'they don't care what race you are so long as you're racist' actually pans out to be fairly true a lot of the time.

Granted a lot of them aren't actually terribly racist, they just like to be able to rip on each other and like doing it Eric Cartman style, le edgy people.

The "Anti-racists" are the ones to watch out for, that's the people from berkeley in that video up there.

It's performative for them, look at how tolerant and accepting I am.

Like this.

I know it's what you want there my whatever you are, but there's a multitude of reasons why this

won't be happening, but I'm sure you've managed to take great strides in the effort to eradicate racism and didn't just totally become a joke for millions of people of all colours.

Except maybe this creature

I love how that's become a insult to people for some reason, she just called him a individual thinker and is mad because he doesn't support the hive mind.

Granted any positive accomplishment in the black community is greeted with several different cheers about how they all share in that accomplishment, but when bad shit happens all of a sudden we're not a monolith.

That's human psychology tho so not much more to expect from that honestly.

Multimillionaire tv host saying she's oppressed and that black people can't make it in the US will forever be funny to me, also sad because that sentiment is holding people back by saying things like that, since it's discouraging, why should I try if I've got no chance to make it anyhow.

May as well just get mine any way I can or maybe lay down and give up.

[moonlayl]

Also the way some of y'all shit leftists are so willing to blame Arab and muslim voters should trump win, rather than the actual party that chose not to replace Biden, or end support to Israel (like most of the ppl that voted for that fucker want) is telling.

Y'all will immediately resort to racism. Acting like it's our fault Biden is a shithead. You'll refuse to use your vote or your power as people to demand an actual change and to actually fight for those demands, but you'll sure as hell blame the actual community that's fucked no matter who wins. The ones who actually have a spine and values.

[sapphia]

Ah yes the global rise of fascism is because of leftists, not because the climate crisis is destabilizing our world and fascism is a reaction to immigration and economic inequality. Just wait until billions of people can't feed themselves in the global south (which you westerners completely ignore). I'm sure you'll still be blaming leftists though.

If you vote for the right or convince others to vote for the right, yeah. That is on you.

Grow up.

[intern-seraph]

Hey, sorry if this is a weird question but. I was wondering if you knew of any blogs specifically for responding to/arguing against leftist antisemitism? I want to be a good ally to Jewish people, but also I Am Not Immune To Propaganda and sometimes I just don't quite notice the implications, you know?

There's been a few posts going around recently, where there's screenshots with the water filter, and someone responding to them like "yeah this is actually pretty fucked up for x and y reasons". Those have been really helpful because, while some of them are much more obviously antisemitic, some of them I'm not sure I would've noticed, and now I'm a bit better educated. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Again, sorry if this is a weird question, and I hope you have a good day!

none that i'd recommend tbh? i feel like laser focusing on something can get to the point of seeing it everywhere, and there's also a risk of becoming reactionary abt it if that makes sense. the blogs i do rec are mainly other jews' blogs, especially the ones you've prob seen me rb from.

my main rec for recognizing leftist antisemitism is familiarizing yourself with antisemitic tropes. some of the most common ones you'll see:

Blood libel: Originated in medieval Christian Europe, spread throughout Afroeurasia and persists today. The accusation that Jews kidnap gentile (Orig. Christian) children to do nefarious things (Orig. and still relatively commonly "blood rituals" or "taking their blood to use in making Matzah") with. You'll see this often alongside "Jews rule the world" antisemitism.

Jews rule the world/Zionist-occupied government/Evil Cabals: What it says on the tin. If you see some shit about how "Oh isn't it SUSPICIOUS how many billionaires/millionaires/rich people are Jewish?" or "The ZIONIST-CONTROLLED MEDIA is suppressing this!", that's a variant on this canard.

Khazar theory: Antisemitic pseudoscientific theory that Ashkenazi Jews aren't ackshually descended from the Judeans who were forcibly exiled from our homeland, but instead descended from Turkic Khazars who converted to Judaism. Easily disproven by actual genetic studies that show that uh yeah all ethnically Jewish folks, Ashkies included, are descended from common ancestors that originated in the Levant. Also Yiddish is derived from, y'know, not Turkic languages. There are definitely Khazar Jews, but they make up a small number of an already small population. Variants you'll probably see of this are basically anything saying that Ashkies are somehow less Jewish than other Jews, that we're all White People (Jewish connection to Whiteness is Complicated) who have no connection to the Levant, How Could Ashkenazim Be From There When Some Of Them Are BLONDE?, etc. Shit like that.

stalin shit: a lot of modern leftist antisemitism has its roots in soviet antisemitism, which used "zionist" as another word for "jew" in order to pretend to not be antisemitic. people still do that today. if you see a post where "zionist" can be replaced with "jew" and it reads word-for-word like a classic antisemitic trope, well, you know. don't trust anyone who stans stalin (or modern russia to be honest. tankies (derogatory)).

this is non-exhaustive ofc. here are also blogs i recommend blocking asap (with / in their names to inhibit name-searching); they're all in the same far-left antisemitic atrocity apologist circle (i.e. assad stans, putin stans, holodomor deniers, uyghur oppression deniers, CCP stans, houthi stans, etc):

her/ita/gep/osts (north korea stan, which is fucking insane. beloved tumblr funnyman who implicitly blames jews for the actions of the israeli govt in multiple gross posts and has targeted multiple jewish bloggers, prompting mass harassment)

ko/ms/om/ol/ka (nasty character all around. claimed she was banned for being pro-palestine, it's actually prob because she's been reported before for being a fucking racist antisemitic freak lmao)

tx/tt/le/ta/le (ew)

bre/nda/nic/us (happily antisemitic. homophobic too, as a treat i guess)

blo/g/lik/ea/ne/gyp/tian (egyptian nationalist. don't ask her what happened to cairo's jews. makes nasty posts that outright state that jews should feel guilty for current events ON JEWISH HOLIDAYS.)

whe/nma/gic/fil/led/the/air (infamously antisemitic. block.)

a-si/ent-/ecli/pse ("Happy Holocaust Memorial Day")

ara/bia/n-k/nig/ht (extremely and openly antisemitic kid. just, like, don't engage)

nat/ive/ne/ws (tweet screenshots aren't news. loooooves spreading disinfo and misinfo)

ap/as-/95 (part of the tankie committee)

les/bia/nch/emi/cal/pla/nt (i think she's a jew but she's, like, the tankie tumblr pet jew istg. she's also an asshole. girl they will gladly turn you over once you outlive your usefulness 😬)

other advice: anyone who claims to be "anti-zionist NOT antisemitic" who only ever fixates on jews and jewish orgs instead of the christian zionists who vastly outnumber the entire jewish population is lying, they're antisemitic (whether they realize it or not). houthi stans generally are stupid jew-haters who would rather support the ethnic cleansing, racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and chattel slavery party than possibly say that Someone Who Rejects The Enemy(tm) is, yknow, not morally pure. people who are abnormal about ashkenazim are generally abnormal about non-ashkies, too, but in a different and still nasty way. if someone claims that "everything was fine before the Zionists(tm) attacked", they are wrong. do some research on the history of jewish life in the region and it's very clearly wrong. if someone says that they're tired of jews and jewish feelings and jewish safety being a focus, they probably don't feel particularly kind things about us in general. fact-check claims. screenshots aren't news. people who are okay with widespread civilian death/suffering in one direction probably only desire vengeance more than anything else, which does nothing for anyone and is a net loss. anyone baying for blood is suspect, anyone without a concrete solution/plan beyond "burn it down" is not going to do much constructive work in terms of delivering justice.

[drbased]

I can understand the appeal of trads for the following reasons:

women's work, whilst massively undervalued in practice, is the only thing that women are valued for in theory.

the working world is tough on women. all that effort to be considered second-best in the world of work? eurgh.

education is brilliant. if you've been a good student, which many girls are, the chances you will suuuuuuuck in the working world. there's an essay about it somewhere but basically in the world of education you are praised and rewarded for good behaviour. there's a pretty clear relationship between good behaviour and reward. and everyone tells you how smart you are. and then in the world of work you get zero breaks and good behaviour is 'rewarded' with more work. you're not teacher's pet anymore, work is much more about working smart not hard, and it's much much much more about who you know and how confident you are. women enter the world of the work and know instantly that they've been sold a scam. if you're like me, you turn to r/antiwork and bolden your leftist sentiments. if you have no political leanings, you look for the surface simplest answer, which is to blame feminism.

the world of work is fucking miserable in a way that housework sort of isn't - *especially* nowadays. nobody's doing a performance review on my ability to vacuum. nobody's going to pull me aside to 'have a chat' when I spill the washing powder twice in a row. nobody's gonna say 'if you have time to lean, you have time to clean' if I sit down to watch tv for a bit. housework may take longer and be more challenging but it's unwatched and (mostly) unappraised, and doesn't have the constant looming psychological threat of 'if you stop doing this, you'll get fired'. the emotional and mental strain of the working world may result in a lot of women choosing housework. at least it's theoretically appealing and, as per point 1, there's the dangling carrot stick of it being the only work you're approved for without you having to put *extra* work in in contrast to a man (once again, in theory!)

a lot of these women are doing the housework *anyway* whilst men aren't. so it seems like a natural progression to make it your whole thing

when the women around you are also doing the same thing, it just makes sense to follow suit to help find yourself a community. meanwhile working, especially working from home, is pretty isolating. also this is another way that the world of work is miserable and unforgiving: if you're a housewife, your supervisor isn't going to tell you off because you spend all afternoon chatting with your friends, including moaning about the work. housework may *in theory* confine you to the house, but these days it usually means access to mum's groups, hobby groups, volunteer organisations, school activities and community organising, all as 'part' of the job. what other 'job' allows you to be that social and loving and human?

[tungledotedu]

the vote blue no matter who crowd should've just kept it to themselves. we have a year before elections and you're already proclaiming that you'll back joe biden and the democrats no matter what?

have you noticed that none of this is over yet? only a four-day truce has been agreed upon and it was still delayed. israel is intensifying its bombings of northern gaza before this truce comes into effect. we don't even know how many palestinians have been killed as the gazan health ministry is unable to properly update the death toll. this is because the idf has been decimating its healthcare infrastructure, invading hospitals and sniping doctors. it claimed hamas had a command centre under the al-shifa hospital, and the biden administration 'confirmed' this without providing actual evidence.

this is only a recent development. god knows what else your government will do to escalate the conflict and help its ally slaughter more innocents. you'll look even stupider in retrospect for flocking to your leader like the brainwashed maga cultists you love to hate.

you don't have the spine to threaten to withhold your vote. you don't have the brains to question your officials' statements and actions. you don't even have the compassion to understand why people hesitate to support the democrats again. hell, some of you refuse to believe israel is committing a genocide in the first place.

you're turning people away, people who would have otherwise understood your point of view. you're effectively shooting yourselves in the foot. it would be laughable if it wasn't a chilling revelation of just how little you care about the victims of your government when it happens to benefit you.

you condescend to your own people as if they're idiots, as if they aren't deeply familiar with the dangers that trump represents. i can't imagine how difficult it must be for muslim and arab americans to be stuck in this unenviable dilemma, and for anyone who held their nose to vote for biden and is now appalled by his conduct. this is no easy choice, not in a country of warmongers posing as a democracy.

but you don't reach out to those people and show them any sympathy, do you? you dismiss them as lazy, useless leftists, because it's easier. you're all too eager to blame them for splitting the vote, as if they were the ones who chose to send more weapons knowing they'll be used for ethnic cleansing. biden wants them to be kept secret and bypass congress. because guess what? he knows you're gullible dipshits who will believe him when he claims to protect civilians.

but sure, you'll do what you can to hold the democrats accountable before you go to brunch. keep pretending your party is a champion of left-wing causes while it collaborates with an apartheid, racist settler-colonial state. your tax dollars go to drones and bombs, but at least your student loan debt is cancelled, right? and that's worth the price in human lives?

you lick those boots thinking they keep you safe, but one day they will crush you too.

[papurgaatika]

im simply here (during my much needed break) to remind yall that kamala harris did not lose bc of misogyny or racism (not to discount those bc they definitely played a role) but that she lost due to the fact that she couldn't assure leftists that she'd vow to stop the genocide in Gaza. she lost because she continually spoke over protesters and refused to fight to earn their vote. some of yall wanna blame third party voters for this outcome like the democrats are owed votes. that simply isn't the case and EVEN if they had voted for her, she would have still lost. instead of picking fights with voters maybe let's focus on realizing that it's the democratic party candidates refusing to meet the demands of the people whose votes they so desperately need. stand up for a moment and think about your words and your actions. stop babying Kamala. she's a genocide supporter and there's no way in hell you'll see me mourning her loss.

take a second to be upset about the results, get angry at conservatives, and then use that energy to build community and help uplift people. we're in it together. tearing people down doesn't help anyone.

peace and love,

papaya