#your identity and your existence itself is political

[purple-mushroom-cap]

in honor of merlin trending on a random monday in november, allow me to reiterate AGAIN how much magic in camelot parallels with the queer experience in a community that frankly treats queer children with almost the same hate and violence king uther had against sorcerers.

morgana thinks hating (sorcerers) is morally wrong and disproves of her bigoted father killing them all. she believes that despite what you were born with, you should judge someone based on their character. she figures out she's (a sorcerer). gaius gaslights her into thinking she's crazy. she goes to merlin, also (a sorcerer). he's about to tell her this secret that's been weighing on his chest for so long, that everyone told him to hide because people would look at him differently for being open about. the person he loves most in the world, in fact, might hate him for being honest. he ends up not telling morgana, even though he's the only one that would understand. morgause gives morgana unconditional love and affection after telling her she's (a sorcerer) too! morgana leaves her prejudiced and claustrophobic family life for a girl that's given her validation for the first time in years. (yes, i know morgause is her sister. love comes in all forms, especially the queer community.)

now replace every (sorcerer) with (gay).

[hag-lad]

Holy fuck, all of your takes about homosexuality are DOGSHIT today, kiddos. Has “queer” in-fighting fully circled back around to become pure homophobia? It’s more likely than you think!

[zvaigzdelasas]

New York University led by troubling example when the school shared an updated code of student conduct last week. Ostensibly aimed at curtailing bigotry, the new language instead shuts down dissent by threatening to silence criticism of Zionism on campus. Students who speak out against Zionism — an ethno-nationalist political ideology founded in the late 19th century — will now risk violating the school’s nondiscrimination policies.[...]

Tucked into a document purportedly offering clarification on school policy, the new NYU guidelines introduce an unprecedented expansion of protected classes to include “Zionists” and “Zionism.” Referring to the university’s nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy, known as NDAH, the updated conduct guide says, “Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists.”[...]

“Using code words, like ‘Zionist,’” the guide says, “does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH policy.”[...]

The entire premise of the guidance — that “Zionist” must be functioning as a “code word — is a flaw egregious enough to reject the entire document outright.

The language here is of utmost importance. The text does not say that “Zionist” can and has been used by antisemites as a code word, which is no doubt true. Instead, it takes it as a given that, when used critically, “Zionist” simply is a code word.[...]

According to NYU’s guidance, then, Zionist and Zionism are either antisemitic dog whistles when invoked critically or a protected category akin to a race, ethnicity, or religious identity. Ethically committed and politically informed anti-Zionism — including the beliefs of many anti-Zionist Jews like myself who reject the conflation of our identity and heritage with an ethnostate project — is foreclosed, and the long history of Jewish anti-Zionism, which has existed as long as Zionism itself, is all but erased.[...]

“For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity,” the NYU guidance says. And this is of course true. That does not, however, make Zionism an essential part of Jewish identity.

There are conservative Christians for whom the damnation of homosexuality is a key part of their Christian faith too, but Republican lawfare to see homophobic positions enshrined as protected religious expression have been rightly and consistently condemned by the liberal mainstream.

“The new guidance sets a dangerous precedent by extending Title VI protections to anyone who adheres to Zionism, a nationalist political ideology, and troublingly equates criticism of Zionism with discrimination against Jewish people,” NYU’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine said in a statement in response to the updated conduct guide.[...]

“Furthermore, the new guidance implies that any nationalist political ideology (Hindu nationalism, Christian nationalism, etc.) that is integrated into some members of that group’s understanding of their own racial or ethnic identity should be entitled to civil rights protections.”

27 Aug 24

[radiance1]

"Okay, so." Danny began slowly, very, very slowly. Testing the rope that bound his arms behind his back. "This is new... Ish."

"Sorry, sorry." The kid Danny had, unfortunately (but also fortunately), saved from multiple kidnappings from cultists. Said, hands raised in his direction but also not going any further and instead fidgeting in place. "Are they too tight? Do you want me to loosen them?"

"No, no. They're fine." Danny shrugged, silently hoping the Infinite Realms isn't going to smite the unfortunate boy across from him for, you know, kidnapping Danny and all that. "I would say this is one of the more comfortable kidnappings, to be honest."

"Oh, okay. That's good." The kid nodded slowly, though a bit hesitant before deciding not to follow that line of conversation. "Alright, so, my name's Billy." Billy introduced him, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand as he gave an awkward smile. "Y'know, the guy you saved from multiple kidnappings and, uh, kidnapped you too."

"Cool, cool." Danny hummed lightly, leaning back against the wall. "Name's Danny, nice to meet you Billy."

"I thought your name was Phantom?" Billy asked, understandably confused.

"It is." Danny confirmed.

"But your name is also, Danny?" Billy tilted his head a bit.

"Yes." Danny said, unhelpfully.

"Is Danny your secret identity?" Billy asked.

"Nope."

"Is Phantom your secret identity?"

"Yes but no."

A beat.

"That makes no sense." Billy said flatly.

"What can I say," Danny shrugged. "Not a lot of things in my life make sense."

"Right, yea." Billy nodded politely, drumming his fingers against his leg. "Interdimensional prince and stuff."

"Yea."

A moment of silence.

"So-" Billy began.

"No, the Ghost King isn't going to hunt you down. No, every other ghost in existence isn't going to hunt you down either and, no. This isn't going to start a war."

Billy blinked.

"Not what I was going to ask, but okay. That's nice to know." He nodded, a certain amount of relief unknotting unknown pressure in his chest he only knew till now.

"Oh." Danny blinked, then tilted his head. "Soooo, what did you want to ask then?"

"Do you want to be my boyfriend-"

"Yes."

===

"Let's fucking GOOOOOO!" Zeus roared, throwing his fists into the air. "Haha! Take that Solomon! I told you it would work!"

Solomon pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in exasperation, reaching into his robe and pulling out 5 gold coins.

"Thank-a you!" Mercury swiped the money right out of his hands then hid them... Somewhere, on his body. Then gave Solomon a wink. "Pleasure doing business with ya!"

===

"Oh, it finally happened." Clockwork remarked calmly, barely pausing as he continued to run the comb through hair.

"The Realms seem out of sorts." Pariah Dark said slowly, twisting his head to try to look back at Clockwork only to turn it right back from the gentle whack of Clockwork's staff. "Should I be concerned?"

"No," Clockwork said casually, running the comb through his king's hair. Honestly, it amazed him that Eons of Eternal Slumber, yet his hair wasn't a rat's nest. "Let it sort itself out, it shall be done in the next century, or the next two millennium, either or."

"You're unsure?" Pariah tilted his head forwards the slightest amount, doing so very carefully as to not disturb the Master of Time's work.

"A rough estimate, though I can give a more accurate statement," Clockwork hummed lightly as he combed through the few knots left. "It is unimportant."

"Ah," Pariah Dark, both trusting and not knowing enough about said subject seeing as he does not have dominion over time, nodded slightly. "I see."

===

The Infinite Realms was very, very happy to see one of its blorbos gain a lover.

It knew interrupting various kidnappings and marking the boy as a good Realms token so they could meet would work out eventually!

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David Tennant saying to transphobes and other bigots: "Fuck off and let people be!" ❤ 😊

David Tennant at the Angels, Demons and Doctors con in Germany, 5.5.2024 (from mandlebougie tiktok <3)

Fan question: I wanted to ask about like, maybe your relationship with like, gender and like, expression like masculinity and femininity. Because I've always noticed, like, even before you and Georgia became more like, vocal about trans rights, that you're always like, not afraid to show like, femininity. And that inspires me to embrace it too, though I'm a bit traumatised by it because I'm trans. I wonder, like, how has that changed over the years, if changed at all? Because I remember also reading something about, like, you in the nineties also being like, not afraid to become gay or something. Yeah. So I wonder, like, in now this environment with like more trans allyship and stuff, like, has that for you personally changed at all?

David: I don't know if it changed that is... I've hopefully learned as that, as that community has found ways of defining itself and has provided a sort of, you know, when I was a kid, the idea of being non binary wasn't something that existed, it wasn't a concept. And I've seen that emerge and people able to express themselves through that and it only ever seems positive as far as I can see. And I think that the kindof the weaponisation of trans rights, gay rights, well, actually, when I was a teenager, I remember gay rights being weaponized politically and that always felt ugly and nasty. And now we look back on that 30 years later and those people are clearly on the wrong side of history. And now there's a sort of similar weaponization of these topics being taken by mostly the right wing or a certain section of society trying to create friction and conflict and division where it needn't be, where it's just about people being themselves and not, you know, you don't need to be bothered about it. Fuck off and let people be! You know, it's just... it's that sense of just wanting people to be allowed to exist. And I think that they're, you know, that there are now ways of expressing gender, identity, sexuality that are more nuanced than they once were. And that only seems to be positive. If that helps people to know who they are and say who theyare and communicate to the world who they are. So why... I mean, my sense of that is that is all just we have to be..., you know, we're.. that's just common sense, really.

[rotzaprachim]

the extent to which some college encampments have managed to independently recreate borders, guards, checkpoints, and identity tests/quizzes (and arguably passports/identification) is a phd in itself and a really mediocre 21st century lord of the flies knockoff

you need a wristband to enter? That’s a passport. Encampment for a specific political orientation? That’s an internally ideologically defined identity test. You need to keep people at the entrance and exists to make sure everyone who enters and exists is an ally or good person or outright not trying to infiltrate the camp? Congrats. That’s a checkpoint. Asking questions to make sure they have values that align with yours? Checkpoint. You quiz people on their identities or relations to political ideology? That can even become an ethnically defined internal identity.

I don’t mean all of these things are inherently bad, but it is worth noting and reflecting how quickly they were set up by people whose stated ideology is to oppose ALL of them. Provides a lot of insight into how important praxis actually is, and the uncomfortable fact a lot of liberatory and rebellious nationalisms or ideologies have gotten damn invested in borders checkpoints and guards in the transition to actually holding structural political power

[zedecksiew]

Monument vs Shrine

In "Replica, Aura, and Late Nationalist Imaginings", the political scientist Benedict Anderson (most famous for his Southeast Asia scholarship and that definitive critique of nationalism, Imagined Communities) muses on the Lincoln memorial:

Within a temple explicitly mimicking "the religious edifices of a safely pagan Greece";

Mazda Corp floodlights designed "to ward off unnatural, indifferent sunlight";

The abstract enshrinements of "Lincoln's memory" in the "hearts of the people", while neither Lincoln's actual remains or any rites for people to perform are present;

The sense that ultimately the most reverential thing to do there is to take photographs.

+

The Lincoln Memorial; the Jefferson memorial next to it; both figures repeated again on Mt Rushmore; both figures repeated ad nauseum on dollar bills.

These monuments are designed to proliferate. Not only must they create a sober, stately experience for the visitor---but they must also do so consistently, because they are built for visitors: the mass audience of the national population.

Otherwise they must be physically replicable: a memorial to a particular national hero, erected in every city.

The very format of monument-building get copied:

Post-colonial countries, in need of new myths, choose to manufacture national cenotaphs of their own, in imitation of Western models.

Malaysia has Putrajaya, a federal capital sprung ex nihilo from palm-oil agricultural land, its buildings all arches and onion domes and imitation arc de triomphes in inhuman scale, its avenues broad and utterly unwalkable in the tropical heat.

+

At such monuments the citizen is cast as tourist.

Of this state-sanctioned object of devotion you are encouraged to take photographs, sell merchandise---ie: continue the process of replication. With every copy nationalism is reified.

God forbid you tweak the official monument with your own meanings, though! While writing this post, I found the following story, from December 2023:

"Lincoln Memorial temporarily closed after being vandalized with 'Free Gaza' graffiti"

+

Anderson's essay cites instances where the personal and irreproducible sneak back into, or leak out from, or vandalise, national monuments:

"Early in the 1910s,"---in Manila's Cementerio del Norte, a municipal cemetery planned by an American urban designer---"a small pantheon was constructed for the interment of Filipino national heroes."

This monument was to emulate the Pantheon in Paris, where "great Frenchmen" of the national canon are memorialised.

But the Filipino version failed.

"Today, hardly anyone in the Philippines is aware of this dilapidated pantheon's existence ... What has happened is that the Filipino Voltaire and Rousseau have managed to escape, summoning devoted, often familial bodysnatchers, to convey them to home-town shrines."

+

Not that the municipal cemetery itself is deserted. Custodians and their families live in the very mausoleums they care for.

Further, Anderson describes All Saints' Eve in the Cementerio del Norte, when thousands pour into its precincts.

But these multitudes adjourn to their own myriad family graves and small ancestral shrines: spending the day with immediate loved ones, "drinking, praying, gambling, making offerings ..."

Most of the Philippines' presidents have mausoleums in Norte, "but no one pays attention to them ... and only their separate descendants come to attend them."

"There is something exhilarating here that one rarely sees in national celebrations, maybe because the structure of the ceremonial is not serial, but entirely cellular."

+

Hometowns re-exerting themselves within the nation; ordinary people scrawling meaning onto the edifices of the uppercase-P People. A multitude of the singular, instead of a single mass.

Despite nationalism's efforts to centralise and clone a national identity, still we mutate, still we bootleg, still we graffiti, becoming once again ourselves.

And---particular to post-colonial societies---in doing so we casually continue the work of liberation, sneaking the idea of freedom away from our own architects and elites and prime ministers, who would seek to seize its meaning for their own purposes.

The churches or mosques or temples to demos that the federal government builds are ours to transform. To take from. To ignore.

"No need. We've got our own shrines at home."

+

National heroes become local saints and slip out of national control.

Does the Filipino government really control the various Rizalista sects? Karpal Singh is now a datuk kong, without his political dynasty's consent.

Across Melaka and Negeri Sembilan there once existed shrines dedicated to Hang Tuah, Malay folk hero, now a powerful figurehead of Malay-Muslim ethno-nationalism.

One such shrine existed at Tanjung Tuan:

With a plain altar---more a porch, really---of poured cement, for folk to leave food offerings;

Sunlight mottled from the surrounding forest, and fluorescent lights from a nearby gazebo;

A large rock, with an indent on its crown, said to be Hang Tuah's actual footprint;

The idea that this was a sacred space, where you could come to ask the spirits of the place for love or children.

The shrine that existed was sited in a forest reserve. It was swept clean of leaves by locals; its adherents belonged to all faiths and ethnicities; following the transactional logic of folk religion, those who had received its blessing would've paid for its maintenance.

+

"Existed".

Because the Religious Department of the State of Melaka destroyed the Hang Tuah shrine sometime in 2022, for the crime of idolatry.

A double heresy. An affront to both orthodox Sunni Islam---

But also to the Malaysian state, that sanctions Sunni Islam as its official religion; whose nationalism requires its mythic hero to have only the attributes and magics the state ulama and historians say he must have---and no others.

Local shrines are destroyed, because the nation-state intuits them to be threats to its exclusive franchise.

+

Image sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_five-dollar_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putrajaya https://www.facebook.com/PilipinasRetrostalgia https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/984521.shtml https://www.facebook.com/PerakPress https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malays_(ethnic_group)

[intervex]

Can I get a flag for crip? Like crip theory crip. In a pan-disability sense. I don't have any particular iconography in mind, only that it shouldn't give a vibe that this is exclusive to physical disabilities. If you can link it in some way to the Mad & Deaf pride flags that'd be nice.

Thank you!

Crip Pride Flag

This is a flag for crips and those who feel represented by/part of crip theory, crip pride, and/or general cripness. [SVG version on WC]

Crip is a term that is open to people with ALL disabilities (physical or otherwise) and also to groups who share the crip mindset. (Note different spelling from cripple.)

For folks who like details: I'm gonna explain what crip is for those who may be new to the term! Then I'll talk about the flag design how the different stripes represent different models of disability. 💜

What is even is crip?

Like how "queer" is to LGBT+, "crip" is to disabled. It's an umbrella term, a way of seeing the world. Activist reclamation of "crip" goes back to the 1970s, with disabled performance artists popularizing the term in the 1990s.

Crip theory began in the early 2000s by building on queer theory. Expanding on your [QCI's] recent post, its characteristics are:

Understanding disability as socially constructed.

Fuck capitalism: the social construction of disability as we understand it was a result of the development of capitalism.

Fuck eugenics: Ableism and racism have been entwined for hundreds of years and cannot be understood in isolation.

Fuck colonialism: which is itself debilitating. Violence disables people, and Global South activists have been clear it's important to talk about how war, landmines, etc are disabling.

Disabled people are creative. Where queer-ing refers to a way of being critical of categories, cripping tends to focus on subverting ideas of ability. Disabled people ARE the original makers/hackers.

Disabled people are experts: we know shit. It is *us* who should be the epistemic authorities on disability, *not* physicians.

Crip as a term is open to anybody experiencing the violence of eugenic thought, regardless of identification as "disabled".

Fat studies scholars have been locating themselves as within crip theory since day one. Similarly, reading Cripping Intersex by Orr has made clear to me that intersex has always been crip.

Again, drawing a parallel to queer & LGBT: kink and polyamory may not be LGBT but they are Queer. 🌈

Flag details

The design is based on @capricorn-0mnikorn's Disability Pride Flag. In line with newer meanings for the Disability Pride flag, the stripes represent different models of disability associated with crip theory:

Purple represents the social construction of disability and the influence of queer theory. #82609b is from the Mad Pride flag.

Red represents postcolonial understandings of disability such as debility. Understanding that which chronic illnesses receive care and research is *political*. The choice of #CF7280 is a nod to the AIDS flag. I took the red from the disability pride flag and shifted the hue (but not chroma & lightness) to that of the AIDS flag.

Yellow represents the affirmative and identity models of disability. The opposite of the tragedy model. Many disabilities can actually be beneficial! The choice of #f4db75 is a nod to the intersex flag.

White represents how crip pride and crip theory are pan-disability. It stands for models of disabilities not otherwise represented here. The #E8E8E8 white is also a nod to the neurodiversity flag.

Blue represents the social model of disability, the intellectual progenitor of the social construction model (and crip theory in turn). The choice of #83bfe5 is a nod to the Deaf flag.

Green represents eco-crip theory, the eco-social model of disability, and other crip engagements with environmentalism. The choice of #48af75 is a nod to the nonhuman flag. Because being a cyborg (alterhuman) is a proud tradition of crip theory.

The repetition of purple serves to show crip pride & theory exist within a social construction framework. Also it widens the amount of the flag which is stripes, reflecting how crip includes groups not consistently understood as disabled (e.g. fat, intersex).

As with the disability pride flag, the dark grey (#595959) represents the lives lost to ableism and our collective grief.

Tagging @radiomogai @mad-pride @liom-archive for archival. And I wanna acknowledge @scifimagpie for giving me feedback on dozens of prototypes. 💛

Finally: I release this flag design as public domain! 💜

[apas-95]

Ultimately, the issue with politics of individual voting isn't even really the 'voting' part, it's the 'individual' part.

If I could convince every person I know to take up arms and just murder every single police officer, or reactionary, or whatever, that they came across, that itself would achieve functionally nothing, politically. It would be a minor spate of terrorism - probably a big news item that month, maybe used as justification for further state security measures, but ultimately leaving little impact on the world beyond a few hundred dead on a planet of billions.

The issue then, is not itself the divide between 'violent' and 'nonviolent' action, between 'institutional' and 'underground' politics - though those are certainly themselves issues, they aren't even yet relevant, because we haven't passed the most basic filter of organised versus individual action. The point we're facing, then, is that there exists absolutely no individual action that can engender social change, not even the most extreme individual action - and that even if there did exist such a thing, it would still remain impossible to actually bring about its widespread conduct without an organisation to do so.

You can say it would be nice, say, for everyone to refuse to buy some harmful product, or for everyone to wear masks to protect others, or for everyone to train themselves in military matters. And, yes, it would be nice, wouldn't it? We can stop there, happily content that we've found a solution. If everyone up and just Stopped Doing Capitalism tomorrow, we could carry out a bloodless revolution, too. The problem is that you, smart person though you are, have no possible means of making any significant amount of people do this. You could exert all the social power available to you, as could everyone you know, and still have absolutely no chance at having your (doubtlessly superior) ideas defeat those of even a small cable-news channel with corporate funding.

Ultimately, then, it is only an actual organisation, a political instrument of an entire social class, which can bring about any significant social change - much less the total restructuring of society through revolution. Unless the interests of a given section of society are organised, refined through political theory, and then structured into action, the matters being discussed are absolutely immaterial. It does not whatsoever matter how individuals vote in bourgeois elections if it firstly doesn't matter what you tell them to vote.

A program by an organisation demanding abstention from elections, or voting for a specific party, or anything, is a meaningful political act - and while it stems from the same sentiment, "don't vote" is not. In the final analysis, its political content is identical to that of any other appeal to individual voting behaviour.

[mariacallous]

The New York Times once dubbed the Princeton professor Robert George, who has guided Republican elites for decades, “the reigning brain of the Christian right.” Last year, he issued a stark warning to his ideological allies. “Each time we think the horrific virus of anti-Semitism has been extirpated, it reappears,” he wrote in May 2023. “A plea to my fellow Catholics—especially Catholic young people: Stay a million miles from this evil. Do not let it infect your thinking.” When I spoke with George that summer, he likened his sense of foreboding to that of Heinrich Heine, the 19th-century German poet who prophesied the rise of Nazism in 1834.

Some 15 months later, the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson welcomed a man named Darryl Cooper onto his web-based show and introduced him to millions of followers as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” The two proceeded to discuss how Adolf Hitler might have gotten a bad rap and why British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was “the chief villain of the Second World War.”

Hitler tried “to broadcast a call for peace directly to the British people” and wanted to ��work with the other powers to reach an acceptable solution to the Jewish problem,” Cooper elaborated in a social-media post. “He was ignored.” Why the Jews should have been considered a “problem” in the first place—and what a satisfactory “solution” to their inconvenient existence might be—was not addressed.

Some Republican politicians spoke out against Carlson’s conversation with Cooper, and many historians, including conservative ones, debunked its Holocaust revisionism. But Carlson is no fringe figure. His show ranks as one of the top podcasts in the United States; videos of its episodes rack up millions of views. He has the ear of Donald Trump and spoke during prime time at the 2024 Republican National Convention. His anti-Jewish provocations are not a personal idiosyncrasy but the latest expression of an insurgent force on the American right—one that began to swell when Trump first declared his candidacy for president and that has come to challenge the identity of the conservative movement itself.

Anti-Semitism has always existed on the political extremes, but it began to migrate into the mainstream of the Republican coalition during the Trump administration. At first, the prejudice took the guise of protest.

In 2019, hecklers pursued the Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw—a popular former Navy SEAL from Texas—across a tour of college campuses, posing leading questions to him about Jews and Israel, and insinuating that the Jewish state was behind the 9/11 attacks. The activists called themselves “Groypers” and were led by a young white supremacist named Nick Fuentes, an internet personality who had defended racial segregation, denied the Holocaust, and participated in the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where marchers chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”

The slogan referred to a far-right fantasy known as the “Great Replacement,” according to which Jews are plotting to flood the country with Black and brown migrants in order to displace the white race. That belief animated Robert Bowers, who perpetrated the largest massacre of Jews on American soil at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 after sharing rants about the Great Replacement on social media. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the gunman wrote in his final post, “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people … Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Less than three years later, Carlson sanitized that same conspiracy theory on his top-rated cable-news show. “They’re trying to change the population of the United States,” the Fox host declared, “and they hate it when you say that because it’s true, but that’s exactly what they’re doing.” Like many before him, Carlson maintained plausible deniability by affirming an anti-Semitic accusation without explicitly naming Jews as culprits. He could rely on members of his audience to fill in the blanks.

Carlson and Fuentes weren’t the only ones who recognized the rising appeal of anti-Semitism on the right. On January 6, 2021, an influencer named Elijah Schaffer joined thousands of Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol, posting live from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Eighteen months later, Schaffer publicly polled his hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers: “Do you believe Jews disproportionately control the world institutions, banks, & are waging war on white, western society?” Social-media polls are not scientific, so the fact that more than 70 percent of respondents said some version of “yes” matters less than the fact that 94,000 people participated in the survey. Schaffer correctly gauged that this subject was something that his audience wanted to discuss, and certainly not something that would hurt his career.

With little fanfare, the tide had turned in favor of those advancing anti-Semitic arguments. In 2019, Fuentes and his faction were disrupting Republican politicians like Crenshaw. By 2022, Fuentes was shaking hands onstage with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. In 2019, the Groyper activists were picketing events held by Turning Point USA, the conservative youth organization founded by the activist Charlie Kirk. By 2024, Turning Point was employing—and periodically firing and denouncing—anti-Semitic influencers who appeared at conventions run by Fuentes. “The Zionist Jews controlling our planet are all pedophiles who have no regard for the sanctity of human life and purity,” one of the organization’s ambassadors posted before she was dismissed.

In 2020, Carlson’s lead writer, Blake Neff, was compelled to resign after he was exposed as a regular contributor to a racist internet forum. Today, he produces Kirk’s podcast and recently reported alongside him at the Republican National Convention. “Why does Turning Point USA keep pushing anti-Semitism?” asked Erick Erickson, the longtime conservative radio host and activist, last October. The answer: Because that’s what a growing portion of the audience wants.

“When I began my career in 2017,” Fuentes wrote in May 2023, “I was considered radioactive in the American Right for my White Identitarian, race realist, ‘Jewish aware,’ counter-Zionist, authoritarian, traditional Catholic views … In 2023, on almost every count, our previously radioactive views are pounding on the door of the political mainstream.” Fuentes is a congenital liar, but a year after this triumphalist pronouncement, his basic point is hard to dispute. Little by little, the extreme has become mainstream—especially since October 7.

Last December, Tucker Carlson joined the popular anti-establishment podcast Breaking Points to discuss the Gaza conflict and accused a prominent Jewish political personality of disloyalty to the nation. “They don’t care about the country at all,” he told the host, “but I do … because I’m from here, my family’s been here hundreds of years, I plan to stay here. Like, I’m shocked by how little they care about the country, including the person you mentioned. And I can’t imagine how someone like that could get an audience of people who claim to care about America, because he doesn’t, obviously.”

The twist: “He” was not some far-left activist who had called America an irredeemably racist regime. Carlson was referring to Ben Shapiro, arguably the most visible Jewish conservative in America, and insinuating that despite his decades of paeans to American exceptionalism, Shapiro was a foreign implant secretly serving Israeli interests. The podcast host did not object to Carlson’s remarks.

The war in Gaza has placed Jews and their role in American politics under a microscope. Much has been written about how the conflict has divided the left and led to a spike in anti-Semitism in progressive spaces, but less attention has been paid to the similar shake-up on the right, where events in the Middle East have forced previously subterranean tensions to the surface. Today, the Republican Party’s establishment says that it stands with Israel and against anti-Semitism, but that stance is under attack by a new wave of insurgents with a very different agenda.

Since October 7, in addition to slurring Shapiro, Carlson has hosted a parade of anti-Jewish guests on his show. One was Candace Owens, the far-right podcaster known for her defenses of another anti-Jewish agitator, Kanye “Ye” West. Owens had already clashed with her employer—the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, co-founded by Shapiro—over her seeming indifference to anti-Semitism. But after the Hamas assault, she began making explicit what had previously been implicit—including liking a social-media post that accused a rabbi of being “drunk on Christian blood,” a reference to the medieval blood libel. The Daily Wire severed ties with her soon after. But this did not remotely curb her appeal.

Today, Owens can be found fulminating on her YouTube channel (2.4 million subscribers) or X feed (5.6 million followers) about how a devil-worshipping Jewish cult controls the world, and how Israel was complicit in the 9/11 attacks and killed President John F. Kennedy. Owens has also jumped aboard the Reich-Rehabilitation Express. “What is it about Hitler? Why is he the most evil?” she asked in July. “The first thing people would say is: ‘Well, an ethnic cleansing almost took place.’ And now I offer back: ‘You mean like we actually did to the Germans.’”

“Many Americans are learning that WW2 history is not as black and white as we were taught and some details were purposefully omitted from our textbooks,” she wrote after Carlson’s Holocaust conversation came under fire. The post received 15,000 likes.

Donald Trump’s entry into Republican politics intensified several forces that have contributed to the rise of anti-Semitism on the American right. One was populism, which pits the common people against a corrupt elite. Populists play on discontents that reflect genuine failures of the establishment, but their approach also readily maps onto the ancient anti-Semitic canard that clandestine string-pulling Jews are the source of society’s problems. Once people become convinced that the world is oppressed by an invisible hand, they often conclude that the hand belongs to an invisible Jew.

Another such force is isolationism, or the desire to extricate the United States from foreign entanglements, following decades of debacles in the Middle East. But like the original America First Committee, which sought to keep the country out of World War II, today’s isolationists often conceive of Jews as either rootless cosmopolitans undermining national cohesion or dual loyalists subverting the national interest in service of their own. In this regard, the Tucker Carlsons of 2024 resemble the reactionary activists of the 1930s, such as the aviator Charles Lindbergh, who infamously accused Jewish leaders of acting “for reasons which are not American,” and warned of “their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”

Populism and isolationism have legitimate expressions, but preventing them from descending into anti-Semitism requires leaders willing to restrain their movement’s worst instincts. Today’s right has fewer by the day. Trump fundamentally refuses to repudiate anyone who supports him, and by devolving power from traditional Republican elites and institutions to a diffuse array of online influencers, the former president has ensured that no one is in a position to corral the right’s excesses, even if someone wanted to.

As one conservative columnist put it to me in August 2023, “What you’re actually worried about is not Trump being Hitler. What you’re worried about is Trump incentivizing anti-Semites,” to the point where “a generation from now, you’ve got Karl Lueger,” the anti-Jewish mayor of Vienna who inspired Hitler, “and two generations from now, you do have something like that.” The accelerant that is social-media discourse, together with a war that brings Jews to the center of political attention, could shorten that timeline.

For now, the biggest obstacle to anti-Semitism’s ascent on the right is the Republican rank and file’s general commitment to Israel, which causes them to recoil when people like Owens rant about how the Jewish state is run by a cabal of satanic pedophiles. Even conservatives like Trump’s running mate, J. D. Vance, a neo-isolationist who opposes foreign aid to Ukraine, are careful to affirm their continued support for Israel, in deference to the party base.

But this residual Zionism shields only Israeli Jews from abuse, not American ones—and it certainly does not protect the large majority of American Jews who vote for Democrats. This is why Trump suffers no consequences in his own coalition when he rails against “liberal Jews” who “voted to destroy America.” But such vilification won’t end there. As hard-core anti-Israel activists who have engaged in anti-Semitism against American Jews have demonstrated, most people who hate one swath of the world’s Jews eventually turn on the rest. “If I don’t win this election,” Trump said last week, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”

More than populism and isolationism, the force that unites the right’s anti-Semites and explains why they have been slowly winning the war for the future of conservatism is conspiracism. To see its power in practice, one need only examine the social-media posts of Elon Musk, which serve as a window into the mindset of the insurgent right and its receptivity to anti-Semitism.

Over the past year, the world’s richest man has repeatedly shared anti-Jewish propaganda on X, only to walk it back following criticism from more traditional conservative quarters. In November, Musk affirmed the Great Replacement theory, replying to a white nationalist who expressed it with these words: “You have said the actual truth.” After a furious backlash, the magnate recanted, saying, “It might be literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done.” Musk subsequently met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and accompanied Ben Shapiro on a trip to Auschwitz, but the lesson didn’t quite take. Earlier this month, he shared Carlson’s discussion of Holocaust revisionism with the approbation: “Very interesting. Worth watching.” Once again under fire, he deleted the tweet and apologized, saying he’d listened to only part of the interview.

But this lesson is also unlikely to stick, because like many on the new right, Musk is in thrall to a worldview that makes him particularly susceptible to anti-Jewish ideas. Last September, not long before Musk declared the “actual truth” of the Great Replacement, he participated in a public exchange with a group of rabbis, activists, and Jewish conservatives. The discussion was intended as an intervention to inoculate Musk against anti-Semitism, but early on, he said something that showed why the cause was likely lost before the conversation even began. “I think,” Musk cracked, “we’re running out of conspiracy theories that didn’t turn out to be true.”

The popularity of such sentiments among contemporary conservatives explains why the likes of Carlson and Owens have been gaining ground and old-guard conservatives such as Shapiro and Erickson have been losing it. Simply put, as Trump and his allies have coopted the conservative movement, it has become defined by a fundamental distrust of authority and institutions, and a concurrent embrace of conspiracy theories about elite cabals. And the more conspiratorial thinking becomes commonplace on the right, the more inevitable that its partisans will land on one of the oldest conspiracies of them all.

Conspiratorial thinking is neither new to American politics nor confined to one end of the ideological spectrum. But Trump has made foundational what was once marginal. Beginning with birtherism and culminating in election denialism, he turned anti-establishment conspiracism into a litmus test for attaining political power, compelling Republicans to either sign on to his claims of 2020 fraud or be exiled to irrelevance.

The fundamental fault line in the conservative coalition became whether someone was willing to buy into ever more elaborate fantasies. The result was to elevate those with flexible approaches to facts, such as Carlson and Owens, who were predisposed to say and do anything—no matter how hypocritical or absurd—to obtain influence. Once opened, this conspiratorial box could not be closed. After all, a movement that legitimizes crackpot schemes about rigged voting machines and microchipped vaccines cannot simply turn around and draw the line at the Jews.

For mercenary opportunists like Carlson, this moment holds incredible promise. But for Republicans with principles—those who know who won the 2020 election, or who was the bad guy in World War II, and can’t bring themselves to say otherwise—it’s a time of profound peril. And for Jews, the targets of one of the world’s deadliest conspiracy theories, such developments are even more forboding.

“It is now incumbent on all decent people, and especially those on the right, to demand that Carlson no longer be treated as a mainstream figure,” Jonathan Tobin, the pro-Trump conservative editor of the Jewish News Syndicate, wrote after Carlson’s World War II episode. “He must be put in his place, and condemned by Trump and Vance.”

Anti-Semitism’s ultimate victory in GOP politics is not assured. Musk did delete his tweets, Owens was fired, and some Republicans did condemn Carlson’s Holocaust segment. But beseeching Trump and his camp to intervene here mistakes the cause for the cure.

Three days after Carlson posted his Hitler apologetics, Vance shrugged off the controversy and recorded an interview with him, and this past Saturday, the two men yukked it up onstage at a political event in Pennsylvania before an audience of thousands. Such coziness should not surprise, given that Carlson was reportedly instrumental in securing the VP slot for the Ohio senator. Asked earlier if he took issue with Carlson’s decision to air the Holocaust revisionism, Vance retorted, “The fundamental idea here is Republicans believe not in censorship; we believe in free speech and debate.” He conveniently declined to use his own speech to debate Carlson’s.

[sapphicscholar]

CW discussion of racism, kink, transphobia, and sexual violence in fan works

Look, I wish this wasn’t something I had to say in 2024 in a space (fandom) that touts itself as queer and feminist and progressive but:

1) Kink is not a cover for forsaking sexual ethics. Just because a character is into something doesn’t mean that consent falls away as a concern or that their desires and pleasures outweigh their partner(s)’ needs and wants. Fic can be a space to explore desires that you’ve never actually lived—yes!—but that means it’s also a space for listening and learning from those who may chime in to say “this kind of behavior isn’t okay.” It’s okay not to know in advance, but redress needs to involve proper tagging and/or changing tracks with the way you write these kinds of dynamics

2) If you show a character saying “no,” “stop,” and “I don’t want this” on the page, particularly without any discussions (shown or implied) beforehand that would turn this sexual encounter into a carefully negotiated sexual scene with its own safe words or escape plan, the sex that follows is not consensual. That is rape. Even if you believe your characters love and desire each other, one person’s willfully ignoring another’s demand that they stop is rape. Full stop. And choosing to passive aggressively respond to a comment requesting proper tagging by noting that the chapter contains “very trace elements of dub-con” is actually far more disconcerting and harmful than not tagging it at all. I am decidedly not saying these works can’t exist, but proper tagging and acknowledgment of what is on the page (even when it’s your OTP) is necessary.

3) While reiterating that I am not opposed to the existence of works that don’t mesh with my personal politics or sexual interests, I want fans to sit with the question of why it is almost always women of color (and often woc who are conventionally feminine in canon) who are made in fic to occupy particularly violent and misogynistic butch/masc identities, transmasculinity, and/or gender fuck/play and who are written as enacting forms of sexual violence or other forms of harm on their white cis femme partners. Ask yourself why these characters are so often cast in these roles even when they are so far from anything like it in canon. (And tbc these are critical self reflections that should include but also extend well beyond baseline facts like the fact that trans and gender nonconforming people, esp trans and gnc folks of color, are far more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of intimate partner violence.)

A wide variety of stories can and should exist in and outside of fan spaces. I’m not saying they shouldn’t! But nothing exists outside of its social contexts, and failing to be attentive to these larger questions is actively harmful to so many people for whom spaces of imaginative creativity should be a liberating and welcoming venue.

[genderqueerdykes]

genuine question about some identities

why do you think theres so much hate for people who are afab/amab and are also trans women/men, those who are cistrans and multigender people?

ive noticed that when you tell certain queer people you'd think wouldn't be exclusionist that your gender is funky and you're trans bc of it, they begin to use your assigned sex and your biology against you because "you can't be a trans woman if you have a uterus, ur just feminine".

its the same argument as conservatives make it. why is there so much hate?

ppl don't acknowledge my individual genders but instead see how they work alongside each other. ppl don't see me as a trans woman when my gender is woman but will acknowledge me as a trans man because of my sex traits.

these are some very important questions to ask, i appreciate you for sending this ask

i honestly think more people are becoming indoctrinated into transmedicalist and gender critical thinking without realizing it, and it's becoming dangerous. people want to inherently label an afab transfem and/or an amab transmasc as liars, people who are spitting in the faces of others, and shouldn't be a part of our community. other people make assumptions about others' experiences based on their own and don't understand that there is an entire world outside of their perspective, and that world is full of experiences they have no hope of understanding, but can simply accept.

i've gotten a lot of questions about whether afab trans women and amab trans men can exist, it's definitely a hot button issue right now, and i agree with you. if you ask me, afab trans women and amab trans men deserve to have a platform to speak from. if someone genuinely believes their identity is trans no matter what their AGAB is- who the hell am i to stop them? it's important for afab trans women and amab trans men to not speak over their other siblings and try to speak for what it's like to be intersex or an amab trans woman/afab trans man. but that doesn't mean that these people can't exist- they deserve the right to talk about their experience, because it exists alongside the experiences of amab trans women and afab trans men. they're not fighting with each other, they're unique experiences that belong under the same umbrella.

at the end of the day, someone standing there being an afab trans woman, an amab trans man, or a cistrans person is not hurting anyone. the identity itself will hurt no one. ignorance about what other trans people experience is dangerous, and so is speaking over others, but these identities in and of themselves are not harming anyone. it is very possible to go "i don't understand how that works, but if that is how they identify, then i will respect that."

between people becoming indoctrinated into radical feminism and people who are proudly adopting gender critical politics, there is a schism in our communities that don't need to be there. people think they need to "weed out the fakes" in order for us to be accepted by cishet society, which is just not how any of this works. we can't cast aside the queers who are "too weird" or "not really queer" in order to try to make the rest of the community look legitimate

this community has always been here for people whose identities don't line up with the cisheteronormative binary. it doesn't matter what someone's AGAB is- i mean, isn't that the point of the trans community? are we not the "i don't give a shit about your AGAB, i want to know who you really are" community? it's become honestly scary to see how focused the queer community has become on AGAB. people are utterly obsessed with trying to figure out the AGABs of strangers in order to deny them access to queer spaces or kick them out of spaces they rightfully belong in

and it bothers me deeply that people police the identities of multigender people beyond belief. it's like having 1 trans identity is okay but if you dare to have more than one, you're not really queer or whatever. cistrans people, multigender people who are cis, trans wo/men who consider both their manhood and womanhood trans no matter what their AGAB is, transfemmasc/transmascfem people... these identities belong and yet people proudly and gladly wake up every day to do conservatives' jobs for them.

whenever you police another queer person's identity, no matter what your intention is, good, bad or something else- you are doing conservatives' jobs for them. you are not preserving our community. you are not keeping identities sacred or safe or whatever the hell. you're gladly sucking up to our oppressors and spreading their propaganda. it's disturbing how people don't realize this

thank you for taking the time to send this ask, i agree with you 100%. this behavior has gotten out of control and it's time for people to wake the fuck up and realize they've been indoctrinated into transmedicalism, radical feminism, and being gender critical. this isn't the "right" way to behave. it's antithetical to the very foundations of the queer community.

[queer-teens]

🌈Queer Teens

Who are we?

We are Queer Teens, an organization which seeks to create a friendly and inclusive space for queer and feminist youths to express their ideas. We are primarily based in Shanghai, China and organized by a group of high-schoolers. However, even though we are a LGBTQ+ Youth organization, we strongly encourage diversity in age and nationality (which is why we also got on Tumblr!), so please join us if you want to!

What do we do?

1. 1v1 counseling for queer teens

If you are ever in distress about your identity or lack of understanding from people around you, feel free to just send us a message and we will try to communicate with you! Our email is queerteens.cn@gmail.com. Be aware that none of us have undergone training and offer this help from an unprofessional perspective. Seek professional help if necessary. 

2. Recommend queer theory and feminism books

Members of our organization are reading as many books as we can to recommend some books we like! We will recommend books about queer theory or feminism in the future!

3. Express our own ideas!

We may regularly or irregularly post blogs about our discussions and conclusions! Feel free to comment below and start new discussions! We may also organize online conferences in the future, but that’s not decided for now. 

4. Be the bridge between Chinese queer teens and Tumblr queer teens

As we all know, the existence of the Great Firewall of China prevents Chinese queer teens from going on Tumblr and many other more inclusive online spaces. In addition, China itself is not particularly welcoming towards queer people in general, not to mention queer teens. Thus, we will bridge the gap by sharing stories and connecting pen friends (through e-mail). More details of this activity will be mentioned later!

Why Queer Teens?

According to a study conducted by Johns et al. 2019&2020, LGBTQ+ youth are more than 4 times more likely to commit suicide than their peers. The Trevor Project even estimated that at least 1 LGBTQ+ youth every 45 seconds in the U.S. alone. Teen mental health is a serious issue we should consider, not to mention the increased risk LGBTQ+ youth endure due to bullying, discrimination and lack of understanding due to their queer identity. 

I myself, one of the admins of this blog who now writes the paragraph, am a high-school non-binary lesbian currently living in China. I have found using Tumblr liberating from my rather conservative environment. China is not very accommodating towards lesbians, and it’s even worse for people questioning of their gender. When I had gone to the school counselor(luckily, our school has one) to attempt to talk over my identity issues, I was treated like child “poisoned by the woke west”. My gender dysphoria around my breasts were brushed off with “they weren’t that big to begin with” and my dislike of culturally feminine words’ use on me was also not treated with understanding. 

After that unsatisfactory experience, I want to create a platform where queer teens can share their experience and talk to each other with understanding that we share. I want a place where we can express our own ideas in an inclusive environment, and for Chinese queer teens to be able to contact openly queer teens from all around the world without the limitations of the Great Firewall of China. May Queer Teens grow to become this platform. 

What can you do?

1. Share stories of yourself

Askbox and submissions are always open. Anonymous submissions are welcome! We may translate your content to post to Chinese platforms so please inform us if you don’t want that to happen.

2. Recommend books that gave you new insight

Our members are currently reading feminism and queer theory books for future recommendation, and we greatly appreciate your opinions!

3. Express your ideas through asks or submissions

We aim to create an inclusive space for queer teens around the world, so please be polite in discussions. TERFs, homophobes and trolls will be blocked.

4. Seek help from us if you need to

The aforementioned non-binary lesbian admin usually runs this blog (Yes I am unfortunately chronically online). If you want to talk, send me a message and I will overcome my social anxiety to help you at all times. Be aware that none of us has gone through professional training and it would be better to seek professional help if needed. 

5. Join us!

If you are interested in running this blog with us together, we’re glad to make our community larger! We are still just starting up, so things may be a bit messy. Otherwise, we’ll happy to accept new participants!

[drizne]

Excerpt from the speech “Renouncing Sexual Equality”, from Andrea Dworkin’s “Our Blood”

"In 1970 Kate Millett published Sexual Politics. In that book she proved to many of us -who would have staked our lives on denying it- that sexual relations, the literature depicting those relations, the psychology posturing to explain those relations, the economic system that fix the necessities of those relations, the religious systems that seek to control those relations, are political. She showed us that everything that happens to a woman in her life, everything that touches or molds her, is political.

Women who are feminists, that is, women who grasped her analysis and saw that it explained much of their real existence in their real lives, have tried to understand, struggle against, and transform the political system called patriarchy which exploits our labor, predetermines the ownership of our bodies, and diminishes our selfhood from the day we are born. This struggle has no dimension to it which is abstract: it has touched us in every part of our lives. But nowhere has it touched us more vividly or painfully than in that part of our human lives which we call "love" and "sex". In the course of our struggle to free ourselves from systematic oppression, a serious argument has developed among us, and I want to bring that argument into this room.

Some of us have committed ourselves in all areas, including those called "love" and "sex", to the goal of equality, that is, to state of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, ability; uniform character, as of motion or surface. Other of us, and I stand on this side of the argument, do not see equality as a proper, or sufficient, or moral, or honorable final goal. We believe that to be equal where there is no universal justice, or where there is no universal freedom is, quite simply, to be the same as the oppressor. It is to have achieved "uniform character, as of motion or surface."

Nowhere is this clearer than in the area of sexuality. The male sexual model is based on a polarization of humankind into man/woman, master/slave, aggressor/victim, active/passive. This male sexual model is now many thousands of years old. The very identity of men, their civil and economic power, the forms of government that they have developed, the wars they wage, are tied irrevocably together. All forms of dominance and submission, whether it be man over woman, white over black, boss over worker, rich over poor, are tied irrevocably to the sexual identities of men and are derived from the male sexual model. Once we grasp this, it becomes clear that in fact men own the sex act, the language which describes sex, the women whom they objectify. Men have written the scenario for any sexual fantasy you have ever had or any sexual act you have ever engaged in.

There is no freedom or justice in exchanging the female role for the male role. There is, no doubt about it, equality. There is no freedom or justice in using male language, the language of your oppressor, to describe sexuality. There is no freedom or justice or even common sense in developing a male sexual sensibility -- a sexual sensibility which is aggressive, competitive, objectifying, quantity oriented. There is only equality. To believe that freedom or justice for women, can be found in mimicry of male sexuality is to delude oneself and to contribute to the oppression of one's sisters. [...] I want to suggest to you that a commitment to sexual equality with males, that is, to uniform character as of motion or surface, is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered. I want to ask you to make a different commitment -- a commitment to the abolition of poverty, rape, and murder; that is, a commitment to ending the system of oppression called patriarchy; to ending the male sexual model itself.

The real core of the feminist vision, its revolutionary kernel if you will, has to do with the abolition of all sex roles -- that is, an absolute transformation of human sexuality and the institutions derived from it. In this work, no part of the male sexual model can possibly apply. Equality within the framework of the male sexual model, however that model is reformed or modified, can only perpetuate the model itself and the injustice and bondage which are its intrinsic consequences."

[tofu83]

Lottery To Upgrade 5

Final Solution

"You Earthlings serve us very well. You proved your loyalty and obedience for centuries. You deserved better treatment than other species in galaxy." The colonial government's statement was broadcast around the world, Mike could not believe what he heard. Better treatment? Would Masters give us freedom? As a scientist, he knew the science was much important than freedom, or it could be understood as obedience was scientific but freedom was superstitious.

"All of you adult individuals will be upgraded. Your appearance will remain human but identical. Your flesh and bones will be mechanical. Your brain will be computer and reprogrammed. No more emotion and sensitivity, only loyal and logic. Congratulations, you are finally free, free from your pity humanity!"

No! He was a scientist and loyal to alien master. Why should he be upgraded like other stupid lower class humans? It must be wrong! He tried to run away but the streets were full of robots. No human being can escape. Soon, Mike was arrested and stunned, and his second life had begun.

MK-FS8964 stood in the conversation tube, felt nothing. A perfect robot could not feel. It scanned the room and found there were two human scientists and two Universal bot who assigned as scientists. It also knew the human scientists will be upgraded soon, that would be its first mission after it walked out of the tube.

"Universal bot, unit MK-FS8964, activated. Fully functional. No order. Enter standby mode."

The universal bots had identical perfect male human appearance. MK-FS8964 knew itself must look the same, its brain aka central computer shared information and knowledge with its robot brothers. It now understood the alien masters plan.

There was an election on the alien home planet and one of the candidates' political views is to equip every home with one of the latest Earthling robots, to end the autonomy of the Earth, and to take over it directly to prevent the endless independence movement.

This is logical.

Earthlings are wild and violent. They don’t deserved to exist. But alien masters made us better. Upgraded earthlings are peace and useful. A universal bot could be assigned as any careers. It could be labor, soldier, pet and even furniture.

MK-FS8964 stepped out of the conversion tube, turned around, grabbed one of the human scientists, stripped off his clothes and prepared him to be upgraded. Earthlings could have intelligence but should be controlled. Being a robot is the final solution.

MK-FS8964 couldn’t feel pleasure, however there was a wave of micro-currents traveling through his body, especially strong on its groin. That meant "correct". It knew that it did well and alien masters were pleased.

[the-bengali-diva]

Do you guys know what was the biggest surrender of our history after world war two?

It was the surrender of Pakistani military against Bangladeshi

On 16 December 1971.

But today I didn't grab your attention only to give you some random history facts.

We Bangladeshi students need your help! So please read this article till the end

After the partition of the Indian region in 1947, two independent nations were born.One India and one Pakistan.

The country of Pakistan was divided into two parts, East Pakistan, currently Bangladesh and West Pakistan, currently Pakistan.

But the distance between the two regions was thousands of kilometers. So uniting them into one singular nation was definitely foolish.

To think that the partition actually happened because of religion is laughable on itself but this is a topic of debate for another blog.

Even though we got our freedom from the British empire the people of East Pakistan kept on getting exploited by the west pakistan government.

Note, from now on I will refer to East Pakistan only as Bangladesh because the way we were exploited by our own so called government which only resided on the west pakistan and left us on poverty clearly indicates they never saw us as their own people.

Pakistan didn't only exploit us politically and financially, but they also tried to take away our unique Bengali identity from us.

They banned our traditional Bengali festivals like Noboborso (which is Bengali new year) They tried to ban Rabindra sangeet in fact, they even tried to replace our Bengali alphabet with the Urdu alphabet.

People were already protesting against it and were participating in every traditional festival

But the elastic snapped when they tried to take away our mother tongue, Bangla

When a pakistani politician made the announcement that "Urdu and only Urdu will be the only national language of Pakistan" in Dhaka university's convocation, it was the students who roared in disapproval.

In 1952, breaking the curfew, students and common people went on a protest for our mother language Bangla.

The police started to shoot them and the soil of Bangladesh became stained with blood and Bangla became the only language for people had given up their lives.

That's why we celebrate "Sahid dibos" and "international mother language day" on 21st February.

Throughout the fight for our existence, freedom and culture, students of our nation had always played a crucial role.

They also made a student's political party "Chatro league"

After the election of 1970, when the Pakistani government didn't agree to give power to the Bangladeshi political party "Awami league" our students again started to organize protests and other activities

Finally "Awami league" ordered for a mass protest. 2nd march Dhaka and 3rd march the whole Bangladesh was shut down.

On 2nd march 11 am "Chatro league" students hoisted the flag of Bangladesh in Dhaka university.

All this information dump was for you all to understand how the students of Bangladesh had always played a crucial part in our liberation.

Our students have always been fierce and had stood up for injustice even if they had to sacrifice their life for it.

And right now history is repeating itself!!!

Again students are getting attacked because of their protests but this time, it was our so-called "chatro league" and the government who are doing this inhumane act.

They are beating the students with rods, throwing bricks at them and even police are shooting them.

Only because we wanted the quota policy to demolish. Only because we wanted equal opportunity for civil jobs.

On 25th march 1971, the Pakistani military committed genocide in Dhaka. They attacked sleeping students in Dhaka university and protesters on roads who were still protesting at night.

And now the same thing is happening, history is repeating itself.

Students of public universities are getting attacked in their own dorm rooms, they are getting beaten to death by the so-called "chatro league" members. There are screenshots of the chatro league leaders group chats flothing around the internet where they command the other members to stab the protester students.

There was a time when Chatro league claimed they always stood up when our mother and sisters needed protection

And now those same people are beating up those same sisters they vowed to protect

The police are shooting the protesters like they did in 1952 language movement

The only difference is in the past we were oppressed by another nation's government

But this time it's our own people who are causing our student's blood to stain our roads.

Please do not ignore us. Reblog this post or use the hastag #savebangladeshistudents to create awareness