#but ultimately i do think this idea is so cynical as to be functionally useless. did you all see that court footage though. jesus christ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hazardous-waste-containment · 1 year

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@ex-covid-haver (x)

1) Except I wasn’t talking about rhetoric or optics, I was talking about crucially different material realities. Italian Fascist mass murder of Ethiopians – based on a colonialist ideology of brutalizing them into submission so they might be “civilized” – never approached the Nazi goal of wiping all Jews off the planet. Both of these are genocidal but the language you used was “does not suddenly make them less genocidal” which is not true. I’d admit that ultimately genocides can’t really be measured this way and it’s obscene to try, but that isn’t what you argued and if we are going to compare them then there is an obvious difference.

2) We’re clearly working from fundamentally different premises or at least using very different language so again all I can really do is direct your attention to three-way fight theory to give you an idea of where I’m coming from (since I imagine you won’t find liberal academic fascist studies very convincing). I already mentioned Lyons and Confronting Fascism; J. Clark’s and Paul Bowman’s essays are good too even if I don’t agree with everything.

The basic thesis of the three way fight is that ‘we’ (a broadly-understood revolutionary, emancipatory left) are not simply engaged in a black-and-white struggle between revolution and reaction, but that there are at least three poles involved in any given social struggle and we have to navigate a position between both the state and capital on the one hand, and insurgent forces of the right on the other. It emphasizes the ways that anti-fascism can be used as a tool of repression as well as the ways that the insurgent right can mobilize anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism, and the need to be on our guard against both.

Helping the state and capital to crack down on fascists leads to complacency and dilution, and they’ll always come for us next; meanwhile allying with fascists or other insurgent right forces against the state and capital inevitably helps them to drain support from the left and divide workers along lines of race or religion etc. And the obvious danger of violence against marginalized populations is present in both scenarios. In practice there are obviously more than three players on the board but it’s the basic outline for a more nuanced and aware way of doing antifascism.

The fact is that if the “irreconcilable differences within the enemy camp” are really irreconcilable then we need conceptual and terminological precision to grapple with that. ‘Fascist’ is not synonymous with “enemy” or “motherfucker” or whoever’s trying to “kill us all” etc etc and just throwing everything we oppose into the Evil Bucket and calling it a day does nothing for antifascist analysis. Also “supreme repression in the context of crisis” is a description of virtually all modern dictatorships and is functionally useless.

3) We take their ideologies seriously because frankly it’s stupid and arrogant not to. Fascist movements are hardly unique for often abandoning or distorting programmatic details for political expediency (this is my main disagreement with Paxton actually) and there’s really no way to prove that fascists are somehow inherently more cynical and devious than other political tendencies. They are real people with real ideas who act based on those ideas, in conjunction with a matrix of other identities and interests. Like anyone else.

Since you’re coming from Marxism I would recommend Moishe Postone’s “Anti-Semitism and National Socialism”, whose innovation was to identify and analyze the absolute centrality of antisemitism to Nazi ideology within a Marxist economic framework (i.e. beyond just the ‘socialism of fools’ cliché).

You’re right that a fascist government has to be understood differently from an early fascist movement! We can’t think of fascism as homogeneous though; it’s a dynamic and diverse phenomenon composed of thousands of militants with their own convictions and attitudes, vying for supremacy within the movement and ultimately the regime. This was just as true of Hitler and Mussolini – they obviously weren’t just opportunists, there was plenty they refused to compromise on – but their autocratic leadership positions also put them in a special place wrt the rest of the movement. What I suggested to someone with similar concerns as yours a few months ago (formatted weirdly because DMs):

Plenty of interwar fascisms floundered because of their ideological inflexibility. It was Hitler and Mussolini's willingness to radically reshape their parties and platforms at will, while maintaining a few core imperatives, that allowed them to succeed

Hardliners too committed to anti-capitalism or anti-clericalism? Just kill them

Fascist purists uniformly failed [in the interwar period], that's why we associate developed fascism with eclecticism and opportunism

So in part it’s a problem of selection bias I think. But even then, like I said, the fascist leaders that did succeed weren’t just opportunists. Both Mussolini and Hitler eventually reverted to much of their earlier radicalism and tried to rid themselves of their various compromises and fellow-travellers once they were in a position to do so: Hitler after 1939 and especially after 1944, Mussolini increasingly after 1935 and decisively after his ousting in 1943.

4) So you’ve missed my point which was that Romania didn’t have an “imperialist” bourgeoisie whose interests the Legion could supposedly be subservient to – unless you just meant the bourgeoisie in general and ‘imperialist’ was redundant padding. Even then, it seems like the only way you’re able to force the Romanian context to fit your framework is by focusing on the goals and policies of Antonescu – the military dictator who co-opted the fascists and then eradicated them when it was convenient (partially because the Legionaries’ vocal anti-capitalism was starting to scare the Romanian bourgeoisie!)

Nothing you said about fascist (specifically Nazi, it seems) economic policy actually contradicts what I said except for your jump to the conclusion that the regime must have therefore been acting ‘on behalf’ of the German bourgeoisie. It’s unclear what this is supposed to mean if the bourgeoisie enjoyed neither the economic autonomy nor the political influence that they did under Weimar. German capitalists benefited from low wages, the destruction of the labor movement, many of the privatizations of the mid-1930s,* everything you list, but they were also frustrated with the regime’s stringent regulation and planning and they were hesitant about the aggressive pace of remilitarization and the prospect of a new war (for this very reason the regime created the state-owned Göring Reichswerke to circumvent them), and above all else, the goal of an Aryan New Order in Europe and the total eradication of the world’s Jewish population had literally nothing to do with bourgeois economic interests: those were Nazi goals which the regime pursued with something like apocalyptic desperation in its final years, actively torpedoing the war effort and German economy in the process.

*Even the privatizations have frequently been misinterpreted: politically they functioned more like bribes to buy support in the early years of the regime and financially they were meant to offset dramatic state spending in other areas; and specifically in the case of welfare, the services went to NSDAP organizations rather than capitalists. The main link between capitalists and the Nazi regime, Hjalmar Shacht, was broken by 1939. The Nazis also nationalized two railway companies in the later ’30s and, for what it’s worth, Italy had the largest state sector in the world outside the Soviet Union at the time (or at least was tied for second with Poland under the OZN).

None of this is socially revolutionary by any means but it isn’t exactly pro-business either: the Nazis (and Fascists) took an independent path which had many contingent benefits for big business but was not their creation. The German bourgeoisie were absolutely fine with a dictatorship, but they would have preferred a more traditional dictatorship under someone like Alfred Hugenberg, and we know this because prior to mid-1932 they lavished financial support on Hugenberg’s radical right DNVP while largely treating Nazism with suspicion, and also because during the regime they sometimes complained about Nazi dirigisme squashing ‘free enterprise’.

general: Yeah it was a matter of time and space; I could have recycled posts I’ve made in the past that went into more detail but felt a bit conceited doing that so I cited the authors those posts drew on instead. Honestly our positions are so far apart that it felt a bit daunting to try and bridge the gap by any means except ‘here are some authors that got me to where I am, see what you make of these’. I will say that I should have cited Paxton’s much shorter “The Five Stages of Fascism” which makes basically the same argument as Anatomy.

Your characterization of the United States, Israel, apartheid South Africa, and Rhodesia as fascist is bizarre and very wrong but there’s not a lot I can do with that since you don’t explain your reasoning and this is already very long anyways

#crony corporatism

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sendmyresignation · 4 years

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alright. writing this “little” piece to exorcise the demon inside of me that wants to expand my teenagers meta further than it needs to go (if you weren't aware I'm writing a post, well an essay, wellll a short paper, about why teenagers fits on the black parade- stay tuned) BUT i cannot stop thinking about the multiple little "rockstar to kill" moments within the song/music video/live performances so... I'm self-indulgently going to write about it :)

anyway, at its most simplified, teenagers is a song about the violence within adolescents and being an adult whose afraid of that capability. that is the basic, surface-level understanding of the song. inherently, with mcr specifically, that sets up a conflict between the narrator of the song and the song’s audience. that means conflict is generational- it duplicates itself over and and over which allows for several different understandings of the narrator’s perspective. the cyclical nature means they could be speaking to a representation of what they view as the fundamental corruption of the youth, both by outside focuses and their very human nature, as the narrator become more cynical in their old age. it could be representative of them talking to their past self, reminiscing on the revenge fantasies they had in high school or the ways they were made to feel like an outcast when they were young. and they also could be speaking directly to the very literal future about their concerns as a mentoring figure (teenagers, to me, functions in layers, its interpretation can shift and change depending on the context) right now we’re preoccupied with that last perspective both within the song and the video’s contextualization, and into this wider idea of what the band’s purpose was (or how they saw their purpose).

putting the rest under a read more out of respect <333

moving into the actual text with that in mind, what becomes significant is the tonal contrast between being the seemly scathing, sarcastic indictment of Dangerous Teenagers on the surface to the actual understanding (if we’re talking about the single on its own) which is moreso criticizing the Authority figures who create and mold this violence either purposely (cog in the murder machine) or with indifference (you’ll never fit in much/they’ll leave you alone/as well as the implication of having to take matters into your own hands because the adults are absent). As a result, the song, on its own, isn’t actually blaming teenagers for the violence they perpetuate, but the narrator attempts to extend their understanding and offer advice. here is a figure looking to bring catharsis without patronizing. like this is most clearly expressed in the use of “maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me” at the end of the chorus, which in this reading means the other adults may leave you alone, the but I am stepping in to tell you that both self-directed and outward expressions of violence are bullshit and useless and that’s what everyone else is expecting of you so fucking stop it! (this can obviously be re-figured within the context of the album- because, interestingly, the pronouns are purposely confusing with the multiple uses of they in this section) the violence is never explicitly vilified by the speaker,- its exaggerated- what you have under your shirt won’t solve anything isn’t that obvious how ridiculous it sounds, how ridiculous I sound saying it out loud? but also, the violence is implicit. the conflict is still there. the teenagers still scare the shit out of the narrator. so what gives?

well. the song is still about the gulf between generations. the speaker is still afraid and out of touch, regardless of the leadership role they’ve assumed or the perspective of the past they can offer. there is ultimately a limit to how much they can give.

which leads us right into the music video.

So first things first, Black Parade as a whole is heavily inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Wall musically, but the actual aesthetics of the wall are kind of divorced from the ww1 cabaret weimar thing that parade is drenched in (bc britian circa the 1950s is boring and the wall is purposely very ugly and grey and removed from emotion which isn’t dramatic enough for what mcr had in mind). However, teenagers exists as a sort of connecting point between the two- the music video of Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 (which you can watch here if you’ve never seen it) is clearly an influence on the subject matter and the setting and the “plot” of teenagers video- it serves as a sort of a parallel to it. more specifically, there are the “running shots” of kids making their way through unlit hallways into the auditorium that evoke the children in the pink floyd video marching through the school. there’s also the line “cog in the murder machine”, which seem particularly inspired from the depiction of children as going through machines and coming out the other side stiff, wooden, and obedient. then the backdrop of the large bomb centered in my chem’s stage show mimics the shot of the headmaster standing behind the large, lit up clock- especially since that where the teenagers in the crowd of mcr’s video all begin acting in unison, similar to the children in the wall all falling into line (but, like, just the use of ww2 era bomb imagery and gas masks in general is very reminiscent of the early wartime parts of the wall anyway). so in a vague sense, there is a huge connection between teenagers and that emulation and replication of the wall.

however, the most striking similarity is that, in the same way the students destroy their school in a moment of violent inspiration after sequences of disconcerting compliance, the group of high schoolers in teenagers do the same against the band. the difference is that in the case of the teenagers, the explosion is directed at the source of their outburst (they switch from the on-beat fist-punching to wild moshing as the song devolves and ray’s solo starts) instead of in opposition to a more institutional suppressive force. they are not motivated to action because of something done to them, instead it is the actual music itself that serves as both the impetus of conformity and the fuse that destroys that same unison action and then the band. and what’s significant is the particularity of the actions the crowd takes: they steal the band’s instruments from them and they bodily remove gerard from the microphone. like contrast this violence against the band vs the desolation row video where the whole band is physically incapacitated- there, its about knocking them around and getting them to stop (ray is beat down by police, bobs drums are destroyed, etc etc). but here, its about taking their places- the act of destruction is calculated but not purposely cruel. so, in teenagers being a parallel to Another Brick, that moment of turning on the band is the moment of violence but is also the moment of freedom. the difference in the two becomes the ways in which the band is responsible for reawakening the fire within the audience and giving them a purpose. which here is “killing the rockstar” by taking over, taking their places. and that is the nature of music and the nature of the conflict implicit to becoming the “rockstars”

it brings us right back around to that generational conflict: except when your talking about mcr’s realationship with their audience, that becomes the fostering of a group of outcasts and weirdos and freaks and giving them the tools to save themselves, yes. but also giving them the opportunity to do exactly what they did. to pick instruments and take their places. its the cyclical nature of creation and destruction “because when we get old and lazy some of you guys are gonna have to eat us alive by starting your own fucking band (x), that idea of needing a “rockstar to kill” has been refigured to mean something newer, positive. we are the ones killing them, but not in the way of typical martyring where a crowd of detractors and nonbelievers burns you at the stake- but instead by continuing the natural cycle of art, true genuine art. just as mcr is built off of so many influences- creating an entirely new project out of that existing landscape of sound that reaches people and gives them an outlet, we are doing the same things. by besmirching metal and punk by mixing them together, by “selling out” so they could put together a rock opera, by adding theater into a hyper masculine culture of nu-metal and post-hardcore, by making deeply emotional music that was still violent or angry, by writing the way they did they killed the bands they loved and made something better. its the the way in which the creative cycle is a rebirth, of scavenging the good things from the people who came before you and moving forward and taking the world by storm. here, in the video, the audience redirects their violence at the band, yes. but that is the point. teenagers still scare the shit out of the narrator, but that’s not going to stop them from reaching out, from speaking to them directly, from performing until their very last moments

until they take over. until they kill the rockstar. until we eat them alive.

in the end, that is the mission of my chemical romance, isn’t it- to inspire that level of passion, to turn the music into a life-raft and then gasoline and fire in your gut and then a sense of purpose and then into freedom and endless joy? and isn’t it the greatest act of love, the truest expression of admiration to tear them apart, build ourselves creations out of the wreckage to fill the space they leave behind, and then lay them to rest when the time has come?

#my brain. is crazy :) enjoy :)#mcr assigned reading #my posts

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metawitches · 7 years

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After I threatened to never speak of Jasper again in last week’s recap, he earned his keep this week, starting with the screen cap above. Yep, Jaha finally got floated. While I’m starting to feel like I need to post a Talking Dead-style “Who Did We Lose This Week and How?” montage every February and May, unfortunately Jaha wasn’t one of this week’s losses. He’s this series’ archvillain/cockroach, that guy they can never quite get rid of, and always want to find a way to redeem, because they see themselves in him. Or Isaiah Washington has an excellent contract lawyer whom the rest of the cast should hire immediately.

Instead, we lost another series-long recurring character this week, and the loss was barely acknowledged. I’ll look at that in more detail after the episode summary.

Once everyone’s done chuckling over the prank, and Jasper reassures Jaha that whatever drugs he used to keep Jaha asleep were ultimately harmless, it’s back to work on repairing the Ark. Clarke is worried that Bellamy’s hunting party hasn’t checked in, and feels useless since she didn’t get to go on the mission to Becca’s island to look for information on recreating a nightblood serum. That’s right, they remembered that Becca’s island exists, with technology and other possibly useful things like a fallout shelter. Clarke was left behind as medical back up, while Raven, Abby and Jackson went as engineers and geneticists to work in Becca’s lab. Jaha told them where to find it on the island.

A storm comes, and everyone except Jasper runs inside, fearing black rain. It turns out to be okay, but he just used up all of the good will from his earlier prank, especially since Monty ran out into the rain to try to save him.

Kane calls Octavia into the Trikru embassy to lecture her about unnecessary killing, but he loses her when he lists Pike among the mistakes. He tells her she’s off of his security detail and being sent back to Arkadia. The horse Helios has been saddled for her. Octavia plans to talk to Indra before she leaves. King Roan sends a messenger for Kane.

Abby, Jackson, Raven, Miller, Luna, Nyko, Murphy, Emori, and a few others take the boat across the lake to Becca’s island. Luna feels like a prisoner because Skaikru wants to use her for her blood like everyone else. She doesn’t believe she’d be allowed to say no or leave. Nyko tries to reassure her that he trusts them, so she should, too and that Skaikru is trying to save everyone. Luna is so mentally ill at this point that she assumes everyone is lying to her and using her solely for their own gain.

They reach the border on the beach that those with genetic defects weren’t allowed to cross. Emori stops, because she’s never been past it. Murphy encourages her past, saying he’s never met a line he wouldn’t cross. Just as everyone crosses into Becca’s territory, drones appear in the sky and start shooting at the group. Nyko grabs Luna to protect her as they run through a clearing, and is killed instead. Not feeling a lot of respect for Luna right now. Or the writers. It’s unlikely that the grounders of TRIKRU would be the ones who couldn’t figure out how to find cover amongst the trees and would just stand still in a clearing to be shot. They lived near Mount Weather, guns shouldn’t make them panic. Raven, with her bum leg, made it to cover no problem; twice as fast, in fact. But, just like that, Nyko is gone. Miller shoots the drone down, and Luna manages to finally find cover.

The team splits up into smaller groups to look for Luna. Raven stays behind because of her leg, and because she intends to work on the drone.

Roan wants to know about Skaikru’s plan to survive the radiation. Kane tries to put him off again, but there’s a reason Echo wasn’t in last week’s episode. She’s been spying on Skaikru, as promised, and captured Bellamy’s hunting party. The red shirt with Bellamy spilled his guts and told Echo and Roan everything. Echo slits his throat, because he’s an unworthy warrior.

Roan tells Kane that if Skaikru were on the level they would have told him what was going on. He’s got a point. Kane can say that shoring up the Ark is just a back up plan, but it doesn’t change fact that their resources are obviously being poured into that, with little to nothing going to help grounders. Roan takes Bellamy and Kane hostage, and orders everyone in the Trikru embassy killed, except Octavia and Indra. They are to be brought to him.

Monty and Jasper break into Clarke’s quarters for another prank. Jasper sits down at Clarke’s desk, and notices her list of the new 100. He pulls it out and gets predictably critical of Clarke once he realizes what it is. Monty explains what he knows of the situation. Clarke arrives and panics. Guards have arrived following the prank, so she grabs a tazer from one, tazes Jasper, and then has him locked up.

Octavia checks back at the Triku embassy for Indra. She’s not there, but everyone inside has been slaughtered by Azgeda. A dying man tells her that Roan plans to attack Arkadia. Octavia gallops away to warn them.

Clarke explains to Monty that he’s not on her list of 100 because Raven and Jaha are better engineers. Monty tells her that he’s not upset about himself. He’s upset about her continuing to lie and make important decisions on her own that should be opened up to the group. Clarke responds that it’s too risky, too many people would panic. Monty reminds her that she’s doing the exact same things as Jaha used to do, for the exact same reasons. He takes matters into his own hands, and reveals to everyone that there’s only room for 100 over the camp radio, then reads out Clarke’s list.

Emori tells Murphy that there’s scary stuff on the island beyond the drones, and they should stock up his bunker, then hide there. Yay, someone remembered it exists! Abby interrupts them before he can answer.

Meanwhile, back on the island, Luna continues her self-righteous death wish speechifying from last season while the team risk their lives to keep her alive. Let’s assume she couldn’t handle the childhood training to be Commander and her mind snapped. All that talk about being able to beat Lexa was delusional, judging by her skills in this episode. Raven talks Luna down from trying to leave the island or drown herself or whatever, then elicits her help in disarming the drones.

The Arkadians are upset about the list. Clarke explains her priorities, which make a certain amount of sense, but you’ve got to question a system that puts Jaha over Monty. Jaha swoops in and takes over the discussion. He promises a lottery system to determine who will be inside the Ark when the radiation comes, based on how much work each person puts into the repairs. He explains to Clarke that this gives them some sense of hope and control. Actually, a compromise plan that included some people chosen for their skills and some chosen by lottery is probably ideal.

Echo and her troops catch up with Octavia on the edge of a cliff over a river. Octavia easily kills Echo’s soldiers. Echo tells Octavia that Roan wants her taken alive, she doesn’t have to die. Octavia looks over the edge of the cliff several times, and you can see her thinking that if Oliver Queen, Aragorn and Bucky Barnes can survive that kind of fall, so can she. She practically stops fighting and walks forward onto Echo’s sword, to make sure that it enters her abdomen in a spot that looks bad, but misses vital organs, then throws herself backwards over the edge.

Echo’s shocked face is priceless. She doesn’t know what the heck just happened. Octavia should not have gone down that easily, and now she’s going to have to answer to Roan, and have an even harder time getting into Bellamy’s pants.

Clarke frees Jasper and apologizes to him. He earns his keep again,telling her, “If you think you have the best idea, you have to convince people, not lie to them. Not lock them up…When Jaha’s looking reasonable, it’s time to reassess.”

The island gang finds the lab. Abby tells Luna she’s sorry about Nyko. Raven and Murphy share a moment. Murphy wonders what ALIE was protecting the lab from. No one answers, but Emori stands very still and tense, and looks very scared. Is it Voldemort, so she can’t say the name? Inside, the lab is still functional, pristine, and fully stocked. I’m feeling cynical today, so I wonder how long before Luna or whatever’s outside blows it up like Mt. Weather.

Kane and Bellamy are in the Polis jail. Bellamy feels like all he ever does is fight wars. Roan and Echo come in to get them, ready to march to war with Skaikru. Roan is going to take the Ark from Skaikru to ride out primefire. Bellamy warns him that Octavia will get there first with a warning. Roan and Echo freeze, as Roan signals to a sick looking Echo to break the news to Bellamy.

Echo takes Octavia’s knives out of her clothing, and Bellamy realizes immediately what it means. Roan tells him that Octavia wouldn’t be taken alive. Echo says it was a good death, as Bellamy collapses in tears, screaming, “No, no.” Octavia has always been the center of his emotional world. It’s rude of the show to put him through this fake out death while ignoring Nyko’s actual death.

Because, yes, as we all expected, the next shot is of Octavia, washed up on the riverbank, with Helios the miracle horse there to lick her fingers until she wakes up. Octavia drags herself onto the horse, and tells him to take her home.

Nyko deserved better than a death that didn’t make sense. He was an important recurring character, appearing in 10 episodes over three seasons. He was like a brother to Lincoln, and saved both Lincoln’s and Octavia’s lives. He was present in the village that Finn massacred, and it was his calm negotiating that kept the situation from becoming even worse. His skills as a healer were important to the story over and over again. He was often an important liaison between grounders and Skaikru. He has been one of Arkadia’s few consistent allies among the grounders, along with Lincoln and Indra. To dismiss him as if he didn’t matter to the other characters on the team who had been working with him for three seasons was disrespectful to the character and poor writing.

Nightblood is only going to do so much to save them if the planet is going to burn the way we saw at the end of episode 1, and/or if all of the smaller plants and animals that make up the beginning of the food chain die. They’ll have to give livestock and food plants nightblood as well, or find better protection from the radiation where they can protect animal and plant species. I have my doubts about whether the Ark can survive what’s coming, no matter how well the repair it.

Which one of Zach McGowan’s current TV looks is the creepiest? The Azgeda king with the bone crown and war paint on The 100, the LMD on Agents of SHIELD, or the severed head in a jar on AoS? It’s a toss up.

I want Jaha’s sweater.

Monty and Jasper have a point about the list, but it wouldn’t be needed if others hadn’t made the decision to destroy the hydrogenerator. Once only 100 people could survive on the Ark, everyone defaulted to Clarke to make the hard decisions, as usual. The people who lived on the Ark in space were used to living in the shadow of death and making sacrifices to survive, even sacrificing their lives. These are still the same people. But Clarke was already on the ground for the events that showed the Arkers’ selflessness. All she knows is what Jaha and Lexa taught her, which is to make decisions, then do whatever is necessary to make sure the plan is protected. So, she acted in secrecy.

Clarke still hasn’t completely recovered from pulling that lever in Mount Weather at the end of season 2. She hasn’t grown as a leader since then. And the hits keep coming. She’s really only effective with Bellamy at her side. The same is true of Bellamy.

The 100 Season 4 Episode 4: A Lie Guarded Recap After I threatened to never speak of Jasper again in last week's recap, he earned his keep this week, starting with the screen cap above.

#bob morley #Eliza Taylor #Henry Ian Cusick #lindsey morgan #metacrone #recap #science fiction #the 100 #zach mcgowan

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