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elvendorx · 9 months

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The Remus and Sirius height discourse has become so loaded. Today I saw a post claiming that viewing Sirius as taller than Remus means that one supports jkr? (What?)

Canonically, Sirius is taller than Remus. That's just a fact. And I understand that some people don't care about canon, and that's cool!! But even if you don't give a flying fig about canon, that does not make the view that Remus is taller than Sirius any more valid than the reverse, and you can't go around telling other people that they are wrong, or worse, bad people for not agreeing with a version of the character that exists in your head?

Look I get that it would be annoying to have people inject an "ahem actually..." on posts that are clearly based on headcanons. I get that. But that is the natural consequence of taking the names/tags of characters from popular fandoms and using them for your own OCs, and the fact that these fans jump to "they must be horrible people!" as opposed to "they might be confused about my relationship with canon" is... something.

As someone who is neurodivergent, I find that the fandom that claims to love diversity has very little tolerance for people who don't understand the unwritten rules about when canon is and isn't allowed to be used as a reference point. (Somehow, we still hate Snape because canon, but all other canon is garbage?) Sorry for the rant, I'm just tired and confused.

don't be sorry at all, i think this kind of thing needs to be talked about because at its worst, this rhetoric is an attempt at emotional manipulation and censorship. nobody is ever going to 100% agree even with the exact same words on a page - this is the entire literary criticism field, most of the time variation in readings are a good thing but this isn't even a "reading", because it has no bearing on the characters, they just are or aren't a certain height, so it becomes a tool for personal agendas - "if you think sirius was tall, you're a fascist". even though those two facts are not connected, because sirius' height is never anything more than a physical description of him. and it's glaringly obvious that the people who fixate on this aren't interested in sirius as a character, just as a vehicle for their own fantasies/validation.

this is the problem that comes from people trying to put dynamics & personalities that they want to see onto characters who don't fit those moulds. the height thing doesn't actually matter, it doesn't change anything in the narrative, but it summarises the attitude towards canon which for me summarises critical reading & reading comprehension as a whole within hp fandom. i don't think canon is perfect and i don't think it's sacred but i don't understand why you would engage with something that you have to twist out of recognition in order to enjoy it.

part of the fun of fandom, for me, is finding the limits and boundaries while maintaining recognition. at the very least, even if you change everything else, character has to be consistent. you have to recognise who you're working with otherwise what are you doing here? other authors are writing and have written exactly what you want, so why do you need this character with a history and motivations and a distinctive personality to be the ideal version of you/the partner you want (because lbr, that's it!). i'm not saying that people can't use their imaginations and bend things, i do it, and people can do that by bending characters out of recognition if they want. i don't get any enjoyment out of that or see the point in it but i'm not going to try and stop people. it's the flagrant dismissal of logic and evidence that i think is a more dangerous stance when applied more widely.

it's ALWAYS the people who want remus to be taller and sirius to be tiny who have 10 million personal reasons why they need it to be that way around despite it being clear that sirius is specifically tall, and remus is of such average and nondescript height that it's never mentioned. it's nobody else's responsibility to validate anyone's projections onto a fictional character, and your personal reasons for wanting a character to behave in a way that they wouldn't isn't anybody's responsibility. i don't think these kind of people see the irony in how they're trying to force their view on everyone else even though there's direct contradiction to it, yet are claiming that people who go with that feature from the text are violent fanaticists or something.

when you question why it makes such a difference to the "big strong remus and baby boi sirius" people, it comes down to "it's cuter" or "it allows me to simplify m/m relationships into tough and cute and use physical attributes as symbols rather than thinking complexly about personality traits and dynamics." the height thing is basically one step away from top/bottom discourse and just because someone identifies as queer or relates to a character doesn't make it unproblematic. if you need to see a character who represents your specific circumstances, find one or make an original one, imo. it's not an entire fandom's job to validate individuals and it's manipulative to suggest that someone else seeing a character according to the way that character is explicitly described is an act of hatred or violence or something.

apologies if this turned into a rant of its own - i don't CARE that sirius is tall but the attitude towards minor, basic facts is wild to me. it makes no difference to me but idk why you would take being taller than snape away from sirius bc he clearly enjoys being able to tower over him. if i did want to argue that sirius' height makes a difference in the text, i'd say that sirius is tall because padfoot is also a large creature and there seems to be some kind of reflection of the human in animagus forms, whereas the whole werewolf thing is something inflicted externally rather than something that comes from within the person so remus' human height isn't reflected by his lycanthropy. but that's a whole other question i would have to research more.

#txtpst #fandom discourse #sirius black #remus lupin #height discourse #idk i will thank short sirius/tall remus ppl to just leave this alone ty :)

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white-bow-tie · 1 month

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I want you to read these and keep them in mind.

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism

Powerful and Continuing Nationalism Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

Supremacy of the Military Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

Rampant Sexism The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

Controlled Mass Media Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

Obsession with National Security Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

Religion and Government are Intertwined Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

Corporate Power is Protected The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

Labor Power is Suppressed Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

Obsession with Crime and Punishment Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

Rampant Cronyism and Corruption Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

Fraudulent Elections Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

#my country is almost all of these #yours?#sorry not sorry for bringing that on your timeline #i just think it's important to know how fascism looks

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 months

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By: Michael Shermer

Published: Mar 3, 2024

It was an X post (tweet) mostly out of frustration after wasting too much time on social media absorbing endless stories about the Rigid Right and the Loony Left that led me on February 23 to exclaim…

The thousands of responses were as predictable as they were confident in their assertion that one side of the political spectrum is unquestionably worse than the other. A short sampling (see all responses here):

My post is suggestive of the Horseshoe Theory of politics, according to which if you take a linear spectrum from Left to Right and bend it into a horseshoe shape, the extreme ends are not so far apart (see graphic above).

The type specimen for the Horseshoe Theory was the 1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact that resulted in the joint invasion of Poland that launched World War II, and was famously broken by Hitler when he invaded Russia two years later, in part, because he detested Communism (which he also equated with Jews), plus he wanted lebensraum (living space), thought of the Russian hun as a lesser breed, needed their natural resources, was a proponent of blood-and-soil romanticism, and more (so his motivations are probably overdetermined). The theory has been applied and criticized ever since, for example here and here. But it very much depends on what issues are being compared and, to be frank, whose ox is being gored by the theory (few on either extreme see themselves as remotely like the extremists on the other pole). Well, then, what would critics prefer, the equally delimiting straight spectrum like this? Where would you put someone like me who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative?

For my political tastes I prefer something like the 2x2 matrix below with the primary dimensions being Liberty (Economic or Personal) and Security (Economic or Personal), in which extremes on the Security variable once again find Communists and Fascists cheek-by-jowl. (I’m in the upper quadrant around Classical Liberalism—more on this below.)

One of my respondents posted in the comments this helpful checklist with updated examples for current events:

Since I started this Skeptic Substack column in 2021, I have been highly critical of the Far-Left’s woke ideology that has led them to abandon the search for objective truth; to treat science as nothing more than a hegemonic Western colonial capitalist tool of power and domination; to give up on Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of judging people by the content of their character, and instead obsess over the color of their skin by implementing DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) programs that force otherwise liberal, tolerant, color-blind people into elevating race above character; to punish anyone who deviates from Far Left norms (created only recently and constantly changing) through any means necessary, from censorship and cancel culture to loss of employment and life ruination; and to redefine biological sex from the long-accepted definition of gamete size/type to whatever anyone says it is, and along with this delusion to discard a century of hard-earned women’s rights to privacy (bathrooms), to female-only spaces (changing rooms, prisons), to female-only sports (swimming, cycling, volleyball), and more generally to ditch the dignity of being a woman. (See my Skeptic columns critical of the Far Left here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

As I said in my X post, at least the Far-Right knows what a woman is—an adult human female…who belongs in the bedroom making babies. The SCOTUS overturning of Roe v. Wade was, as I predicted at the time, only the start of the Far-Right’s plan to take control of women’s reproductive rights, starting with abortion. (See my three-part series defending the pro-choice position here, here, and here. And additional columns critical of the Right, such as here, here, and here.) It was only a matter of time before the Far-Right would target IVF, and that time has come with the Alabama State Supreme Court declaration that all frozen embryos stored for InVitroFertilization are legal persons, and thus the disposal of unused frozen embryos should be considered murder. Predictably, IVF clinics began closing their doors, and in the process deprive couples of this life-giving technology. Here are a couple of my outraged tweets on the matter:

I don’t think many Republicans on the Far Right even know what IVF entails. It is quite invasive, risky, time consuming, expensive, and not guaranteed to work. To prep the body for the process hormone shots must be self-administered for weeks in order to produce extra eggs. Withdrawing the eggs is a form of surgery requiring general anesthesia. After withdrawal they are then fertilized (after we guys make our, um, “contribution” to the process) and then implanted. At least half of all implanted fertilized eggs fail to result in a viable birth, so many couples have multiple fertilized eggs implanted in hopes of having one viable birth (and thus some have twins or triplets), with the rest frozen for future use if all else fails, which is as often the case as not. By treating these frozen embryos as “persons”, if couples don’t want to have half a dozen kids or more, then they (and by “they” I mean the women) would have to go through the painful, stressful, expensive, and time consuming process over and over again in hopes of success. Are conservatives willing to foot the bill for the tens of thousands of dollars for each round in order to “save” the frozen persons?

How ignorant and uninformed are Republicans when it comes to reproductive technology? Here is Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville when asked his opinion of his state’s Supreme Court decision:

Yeah, I was all for it. You just gotta look at everything going on in the country. It’s just an attack on families, an attack on kids. You know, anything we can do for the future of our young people, because they’re our number one commodity. We need to have more kids, we need to have an opportunity to do that, and I thought this was the right thing to do.

The NBC News reporter was understandably dumbfounded by the Senator’s ignorance. “But IVF is used to have more children, and right now IVF services are paused at some of the clinics in Alabama,” she explained to the now-flummoxed law-maker. “Aren’t you concerned that this could impact people who are trying to have kids?”

Now stumped, and aware of his own lack of knowledge of what IVF is, exactly, Tuberville stuttered out a change of topic: “Well, that’s for another conversation. I think the big thing is right now you protect, you go back to the situation and you try to work it out to where it’s best for everybody. That’s what the whole abortion issue is about.” Uh, no it isn’t Senator.

In fact, IVF enables around 500,000 babies to be born every year worldwide, with an estimated 10 million total since the technology came online. You would think baby-loving pro-natalist conservatives would be all for this technology. But no. This led me to tweet out that the GOP was once again the POS—the Party of Stupid (a descriptor coined by GOP Presidential candidate Bobby Jindal)—and (channelling Monty Python) predicting what may be coming next for the Religious Right:

Every sperm is sacred. / Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, / God gets quite irate. Let the heathens spill theirs, / On the dusty ground. God shall make them pay for / Each sperm that can't be found. Let the Pagans spill theirs / O'er mountain, hill, and plain. God shall strike them down for / Each sperm that's spilt in vain.

As for contraception, apparently this technology leads to “recreational sex,” and for conservatives that’s a bridge too far. As if living up to H. L. Mencken’s definition of a Puritan—"the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy"—the conservative Heritage Foundation posted on X that “Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills.” In support they quoted British writer Mary Harrington, who advocates against the birth control pill and in favor of “rewilding sex, returning the danger to sex, returning the intimacy and, really, the consequentiality to sex.” So…conservatives only have sex for reproductive purposes? Sure. The hypocrisy begs for comedic commentary, as in Bill Maher’s observation of pro-life politicians who arrange abortions for their mistresses, or George Carlin’s assessment of conservatives who pretend to care deeply for the “unborn”, but once you’re born…

You’re on your own. No nothing. No neonatal care, no daycare, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're preschool, you're fucked. Conservatives don't give a shit about you… until you reach military age. Then they think you are just fine, just what they’ve been looking for. They’re not pro-life. They’re anti-woman. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a broodmare for the state.

In response to my X post comment (below) that IVF is just the start, right-wing activist and author Christopher Rufo responded:

“Recreational sex” is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children—this is natural, normal, and good.”

Here was my response to Rufo:

Recreational skiing, softball, soccer, tennis...is a big reason we have so many sports injuries @realchrisrufo ! Recreational sex is not the cause of single-mother households. It is LACK of birth control use + lack of education & norms of commitment, marriage, responsibility, etc. Conservatives are right to emphasize family values. Wrong to restrict freedom & choice for others. IVF & frozen embryos have given > 8 million babies life. Why would you want to deprive parents of this life-giving technology that results in endless parental love? (I speak from personal experience.) Egg retrieval, fertilization, hormone prep, embryo implantation, not to mention pregnancy itself, is a HUGE commitment, mainly born by women (we men just have to, uh, make a "contribution" in a cup) Freezing embryos is necessary because the process is very hard on women, expensive, & many first-tries fail. I don't believe that conservatives really believe that a frozen embryo is a person. I think it's part of a larger religious/political agenda to control women's reproductive choice and freedom. Restricting choice and freedom should not be a conservative value, but it has become one.

An even more extreme position on these matters (if such a thing is even possible) was that of Daily Wire conservative commentator Michael Knowles, who opined that…

The reason surrogacy and IVF are immoral is because they interfere with the family, they break up the nucleus, the very building block of society. They separate the reproductive from the conjugal act. The problem for IVF and surrogacy is that no ends, no matter how good, justify immoral means. No ends, no matter how good, justify actions that are intrinsically evil to achieve them. This is the same kind of logic that we would apply to, say, rape. A child who is conceived in rape. I know some. They have a right to life. It’s very good that they exist. We like these people.

This was a bridge too far, even for me, and so I cut loose on Knowles’ despicable, detestable, disgraceful statement:

As I assess matters here in 2024, the Rigid Right and the Loony Left are both manifestations of authoritarianism—specifically, the well-researched and documented (mostly by liberal social scientists) Right-Wing Authoritarianism, but the newly documented (mostly by conservative social scientists—what few there are) Left-Wing Authoritarianism that is equally divisive and destructive. In response, I would like to make the case for Classical Liberalism. To wit:

Like most liberals, I am pro-choice and fully support women’s reproductive and economic rights; I am in favor of free speech and free thought; I believe in the separation of church and state and am against prayer in school; I believe in liberal democracy and voter’s rights; I believe in some gun control measures; I support environmental protection laws and agree that global warming is real, human caused, and something we should work toward mitigating; I work toward reducing animal suffering and expanding animal rights; I think that we need judicial reform because of our broken criminal justice system that incarcerates far too many people for victimless crimes, especially people of color; I think we should legalize all drugs and regulate them like tobacco and alcohol; I believe we have a moral obligation to help those who cannot help themselves; and, of course, I hold that science is the best tool ever devised for understanding the world and changing it for the better.

Like most conservatives, I believe in limited and accountable government, along with low taxes, low spending, and a balanced budget; I believe in the Constitution and the rule of law along with our system of Constitutional republicanism with checks and balances to prevent power from accruing to any one person or agency; I believe in property rights, and that one of the primary functions of government is to protect our rights; I believe in individual liberty, personal responsibility, and the philosophy of individualism in contrast with collectivism and identity politics; I contend that free trade and free markets are by far and away the best economic system for wealth production and lifting people out of poverty; I believe that there are objective moral values that apply to most people in most places most of the time (although I do not believe they were derived from God) and I reject moral relativism in all its forms.

Most of all, I agree with John Stuart Mill’s timeless observation (in his 1859 book On Liberty) that: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”

In the run-up to the forthcoming Presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden it doesn’t appear either extreme form of authoritarianism is going to attenuate any time soon. Out of a population of nearly 260 million adult Americans, these two are the best in show? What we need is a uniting President in the mold of Abraham Lincoln who, in his First Inaugural Address, as the country was about to be split asunder in civil war, nevertheless addressed all Americans when he thundered both descriptively and prescriptively:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

#Michael Shermer #horseshoe theory #horseshoe politics #IVF #in vitro fertilization #reproductive freedom #authoritarianism #liberalism #centrism #loony left #rigid right #far left #far right #classical liberalism #religion is a mental illness

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mariacallous · 2 months

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No Russian election since Soviet times has been manipulated to the extent we are seeing in the 2024 “presidential election”. The political context is dictatorial, the regime’s power grab comprehensive. The media are subject to wartime censorship, and there is not even a pretence of political competition. The death of Alexei Navalny has only heightened the atmosphere of fear. Yet although the vote is an authoritarian plebiscite, a rubber stamp, signs of popular criticism of the regime and the war should not be overlooked. Germany and Europe should unequivocally state that this election is undemocratic and illegitimate. But even more importantly, contacts with critics of the war inside Russia must be maintained.

The Russian regime’s key domestic political project of the past decade culminates on 17 March 2024, with Vladimir Putin’s “re-election” as president. Putin will be confirmed in office for the fifth time, and – actually in violation of the constitution – for the third time in succession. The Kremlin has long been working towards this moment. The Russian state responded to the wave of demonstrations against Putin and his regime in winter 2011/12 by switching to authoritarian stabilisation in all political spheres. The lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma, passed a succession of new laws designed to gradually eliminate political opposition and independent civil society. The means for manipulating elections were systematically optimised. The Duma elections in 2016 and 2021, the 2018 presidential election, and the local and regional elections of recent years should be understood as trials for this year’s “presidential election”. The state-controlled media have mutated into a powerful propaganda tool, while independent journalism has been stamped out entirely. The dominant propaganda narrative has grown into a quasi-ideology over time, a concoction of ultra-conservatism, imperialism, anti-Americanism, chauvinism, illiberalism and anti-feminism.

The regime exploited the annexation of Crimea in 2014 to stoke nationalist sentiment in broad sections of society. But the effect only lasted until 2018, after which the repression had to be expanded and the propaganda ramped up, in order to shield the state from growing dissatisfaction in the population.

In 2020 Putin took the decisive step of securing his grip on power “legally” with a new constitution. While it still limits the president to no more than two consecutive six-year terms, it restarts the clock in 2024. This “annulment” of his previous terms would permit Putin to remain head of state until 2036. The reform was rushed through by dubious means during the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic and “confirmed” in a heavily manipulated referendum in July 2020.

The Russian state responded to the Covid pandemic and the democracy movement in neighbouring Belarus in August 2020 with a dramatic political radicalisation. This culminated in the full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022, which in turn triggered another wave of autocratisation. Russia is today a dictatorship with totalitarian and fascist tendencies. All these strands come together in the 2024 “presidential election”.

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realtalkingpoints · 5 months

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Same here. Anyone else...???

Dear Social Media:

Censorship isn't a tool used by Democracy. It is a tool used by Fascists. Your move...

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cakeboxie · 2 months

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Elaborating a little on the anticensorship thing I reblogged bc I got a nasty ask about it and I’d like to clear it up.

I feel weird making the “you don’t have to be a llama to believe in animal rights” argument in 2024 but, here we are.

Being anti censorship doesn’t automatically mean you’re into or support the taboo content that people usually talk about when censorship is mentioned.

In my case that’s damn near everything, off the top of my head the only “problematic” thing I even vaugely enjoy is like- age gap, if you squint, bc I only write/consume legal age gap.

I call myself anti censorship bc I’m aware of the fact that by trying to censor the content I personally consider immoral or uncomfortable, I give fascists the tools to censor minorities of all origins. Bc as always, they will frame it as protecting children. There is no in between, no matter how much people believe there is. It has happened before with FF.net and if people don’t stop trying to push censorship, particularly onto ao3, it will happen again. It will never just be fics with taboo content, it will be queer and bipoc and everything else that doesn’t strictly adhere to the white cisnormative standard.

Also if you have the time, look into the downfall of FFN, it’s an interesting piece of internet history (and queer history imo) that I don’t often see talked about.

#I might throw this in my pinned tbh #I’d figured mentioning I like dc would be enough to drive off the diehard pro censor folks #(even tho I don’t rlly care for it)#but I still loose mutuals and get aggressive asks calling me slurs every time I mention it #so here we are.#cakewrites

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workersolidarity · 11 months

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British police detain journalist Kit Klarenberg, interrogate him about The Grayzone - The Grayzone

This is just rich...

The West lectures the entire world about "Press Freedoms" and "independent journalism" has nothing to say when three days ago the UK govt detained Kit Klarenberg, questioning him about his work for The Grayzone and insinuating that his work is being paid for by the FSB.

Years now into the farcical Russiagate conspiracies, the West is escalating again by focusing its attention on stifling REAL independent journalists from reporting the truth about the Ukraine War and dispelling myths about Russia and common Russiagate narratives.

Kit Klarenberg's excellent reporting over the last couple of years has made him a target by elites in the media and the National Security State. Now it seems they've decided to take things a step further.

At the very beginning of his police interview, Kit is literally told that he must answer questions put to him by investigators or he would be arrested. Now I'm not familiar with British Law regarding journalism, nor am I familiar with British Police investigatory procedures, but I DO know BULLSHIT when I see it, and THAT is BULLSHIT.

The West has always focused its anti-Communist propaganda on propagating the lie that Communist countries were in fact hellish dystopian Police States where wrong-think can get you thrown in a Gulag.

When in reality, it has always been the West that is completely intolerant of views outside the acceptable mainstream, and though they traditionally did not use incarceration first to enforce journalistic compliance with State-approved narratives, favoring instead to use self-censorship and defunding mechanisms to stifle journalistic adventurism.

The effect is the same regardless: censorship and narrative enforcement.

Regardless, we seem to have entered a new era in which the ruling class no longer feels the need to go through the motions of Civil Rights and Liberties, Journalistic freedom, and public democratic control over the government. They no longer feel required to give explanations when they violate laws or do away with custom.

We are entering what I see as new, more openly Fascistic form of Neoliberal Capitalism and the mechanisms of State Power that serve as the tools of the Capitalists.

We are running out of time to get organized!

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unpopularfanopinion · 6 months

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how is banning real child erotica from ao3 comparable to banning drag queen story hours? One of nsfw of real kids and one is some queer people dressing up and reading kid friendly books. I see comparing them as more conservative than anything.

You do realize that conservatives would be more than happy to ban both right? I mean they can’t stand the idea of anything that falls outside of sexual and gender norms, so nsfw fanfic(especially queer fanfic) Nor do truly believe in the right to freedom of expression, and hence their desire to ban harmless fiction based on their own personal feelings of disgust and preferences. Because that’s the similarity between the two. The ultimate reasoning behind that ban. It makes some people feel icky and gross, at which point they shut off their brain, assume that it causes harm (despite no actual evidence of harm) and therefore shouldn’t exist. It’s very much a conservative minded way of thinking, and approaching things.

(Apparently literally as research has indicated conservatives have far stronger disgust reactions than liberals https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/the-yuck-factor/580465/ )

Censorship and banning of fiction is and always has been a tool of controlling people and of authoritarians and fascists. Can you look at history and find ANY point in time where banning a book, or entire genre of fiction hasn’t been in service to conservatism?

And one more note. as has been pointed out the VAST majority of the rpf written about teens is also written BY teens who are dealing with their own personal sexual attraction and fantasies(however dark) to their age appropriate peers across the entire straight and LGBTQ+ spectrum. Is there a reason you don’t want teens to explore their own sexual feelings in a way that is safe and harmless? Or are you one of those people who are trying to convince teens that their sexual attraction to other teens makes them dangerous predators(they’re attracting to people under the age of 18 after all, that makes them pedos) and are why we have teens talking about how they’re trying to train and force themselves to ONLY be attracted to adults(which, let’s face it is kinda yikes and dangerous)

#anti censorship #ao3 discourse #ao3 isn't banning legal fiction #you want RPF gone from Ao3 #you have to get outlawed by the state

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aduckmentalistin · 1 year

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Charles Bukowski on Censorship

In 1985, following a complaint from a local reader, staff at the Public Library in Nijmegen decided to remove Charles Bukowski's book, Tales of Ordinary Madness, from their shelves whilst declaring it "very sadistic, occasionally fascist and discriminatory against certain groups (including homosexuals)." In the following weeks, a local journalist by the name of Hans van den Broek wrote to Bukowski and asked for his opinion. It soon arrived.

Bukowski's brilliant response:

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see. If I write of "sadism" it is because it exists, I didn't invent it, and if some terrible act occurs in my work it is because such things happen in our lives. I am not on the side of evil, if such a thing as evil abounds.

In my writing I do not always agree with what occurs, nor do I linger in the mud for the sheer sake of it. Also, it is curious that the people who rail against my work seem to overlook the sections of it which entail joy and love and hope, and there are such sections. My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the "light" and never mentioned the other, then as an artist I would be a liar.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them. I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere, in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.

#charles bukowski #censorship #letter

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personal-blog243 · 2 years

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I know I’ve shared this before but the 14 characteristics of fascism are supposedly…

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism —Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights —Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause—The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military -Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism -The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to divorce is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media —Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security-Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed- Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption-Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections-Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

However don’t some of these sound similar to each other? Numbers 2,3,7, and 12 all seem similar to me.

Also #13 and #9 seem the same to me.

I have instead made a list of “5 evils” based on MLK’s “3 evils”

5 evils

1. Authoritarianism

2. Prejudice

3. War

4. Poverty

5. Pollution

#MLK 3 evils #14 characteristics

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