#violent and argue that it is a genocide and things like that

[karinyosa]

one action that i haven't seen a ton of people discuss online is writing a letter to the editor (not one specific editor, that's just what they're called). i'm thinking of palestine, but a lot of this can apply to other things. jvp has a letter to the editor guide here if u think you'd find that helpful. it's specific to jvp members from what i remember, so take what applies. individual papers will sometimes have their own sets of guidelines as well so be mindful of those. letters are generally more likely to make it to print when it comes to local papers, but you can also write letters to like. the nyt or wapo. you're just more likely to not get a response. as tools for social change, letters' purpose is to sway public opinion and pressure via institutions of media. i focus on local papers because, like with bds campaigns targeting college campuses, this stuff is going to start on a smaller scale first, but can and does build over time. think of one berkeley branch voting to divest very soon after another did first. this is like that to me.

i recommend seeing what other articles individual papers have about palestine just to get a feel for what might be most impactful for you to write about, or what still needs to be said. for local papers, you might want to tie it to your community in some way (and that might even be a requirement to get in the paper), so you can talk about, for example, how much money comes out of your specific area for israel, using uscpr's funding map. you can talk about protests in your area. if there are arab, palestinian, and/or muslim communities in your area, you talk about them. if there are medical facilities or lots of families in your area, you can talk about them. if there's a big tech presence in your area, you can relate it to that. education, youth, food, policing, etc. there's something. there are probably multiple lines of connection between your local community and palestine. you can also just respond to a published article or lte.

if you are writing a letter to the editor, it will be considered an opinion piece, so you can include opinions or things that may be seen as more subjective. check out other letters to the editor to get a sense for the type of tone/content/etc they are looking for. don't be afraid to break or bend those rules, but it's helpful to be aware of the general vibe of the paper, what's likely to get published, and what needs to be said.

what do you want your community to be talking about? what needs to be brought to their attention? what misconceptions need to be corrected? what issues do you want to put on the table? what do you want to add to the conversation? what's missing? what should be done about it?

if you can't make it to in-person actions, this can all be done online. and if you consider yourself good with words, this may be an area in which you're uniquely effective.

ps: citing other articles or sources is always helpful and is a way to platform other articles/books/texts that u think should be shared, although i don't think that's usually a requirement for ltes. if u can't think of one, ask around.

#palestine #sudan #drc #actions #haiti #writing #letter to the editor #at some point i want to write about one state solutions with reference to jewish currents' dispatches from gaza #and like. help lay the groundwork for that to be something that's at least considered a possibility by the general public #but there are also papers where it's like. i think i need to write about like this language of self defense and who is presumed to be #violent and argue that it is a genocide and things like that #so you know. gauge where you need to push etc. not that you necessarily need to respond to what's there #also there are more than likely multiple local papers in your area. you can write to more than one #personal stories also work for this #if you've written or made artwork idk if every paper is going to pick that up but consider submitting to a local litmag #congo #free palestine #also i'm not an organizer or a professional. these are just some things i've been thinking about

[germiyahu]

When you try to make the legacy of the Holocaust a political favor done to Jews, you are paving the road to Holocaust denial. You're even planting nice trees on the boulevard!

To the historically illiterate Westerner, the true sincere belief is that Israel was "gifted" to the Jews as an apology for the Holocaust. This is actually a quite ingenious mental strategy to handle the cognitive dissonance of both wholeheartedly believing the society you live in was the "hero" of the story, but also that Western society is morally bankrupt and worthless.

See the West saved the Jews from the Nazis, but they also severely blundered by rewarding Jewish suffering with the state of Israel. It's clever. You can feel good about being the hero but also curse your own society for turning around and doing something that you'll argue was even worse in the long run (and they have been saying it's worse).

But then, it gets better! Since Israel is seen as an extension of Europe, and arm of European ideology and interest, it can be argued that the West had good intentions when they magnanimously decided to give Jews someone else's homeland. But they could never have predicted how brutal, how violent, how racist, how genocidal, the Israelis would end up being. You can curse the West but acknowledge it's not really their fault, because then it's not really your fault either.

All this context of the Holocaust being a "lesson to learn" or a precursor to some political reward for the Jews, that Jews have always been crafty and Westerners gullible... it's already on the precipice for those with conspiracy oriented minds. And this is already true and we've all seen it on social media. To those who think the Israel was a reward for the Holocaust, they think that the Holocaust warranted a "reward" in the first place. They can switch those around, and start thinking the Holocaust was a pretext to Israel. They can think that the Holocaust was exaggerated to wring more sympathy from the Europeans. They can think that the Holocaust was staged to trick the West into enacting the Jews' grand plan.

All it takes when you're at this point thinking of the Holocaust as transactional, is a genuine Neo Nazi, or perhaps a Hamas simp, to come along and say "Isn't it suspicious though? Don't you think there are inconsistencies? You should really check out..." and due to the coincidences and incorrect narratives that you made up in your brain, that have no basis in reality, you just might consider hearing them out.

So no, the Holocaust is not being weaponized or hijacked, for any reason. It was a historical event that happened. There are no lessons for the victims of all people to learn. There was no divine intervention or grand conspiracy to make the Holocaust about anything, or use it to bring about some political goal. You want there to be one or all of these things, because it justifies your preconceived notions about Jews.

So if a person is at this point, thinking the Holocaust was transactional, thinking that Israel was a reward, they're already on the road to Holocaust denial. And at this time in the Zeitgeist, they are way more likely than normal to go down that road, readily and eagerly. So be careful, be more cognizant if you actually care about the legacy of this genocide, about honoring its victims and its survivors and their descendants.

#shoah tw #holocaust denial #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism

[fairuzfan]

I’m a genocide historian and I do think comparisons between the Holocaust and the genocide in Palestine are unproductive because A) the Holocaust is pretty distinct from Palestinian genocide not in its exceptionalism but in its method - the “shipping” of victims from 20+ countries by international rail to a handful of centralized killing sites; 15000 people being gassed in Auschwitz daily (a single gas chamber had standing capacity for 2,000 people) and their stolen hair sold in bales for use as maritime rope and cushion stuffing - and forcing Holocaust parallels obfuscates the terrible and very unique methods of genocide being used by Israel against Palestinians. B) People often invoke the Holocaust as an emotional appeal regarding the moral culpability of all Jews (“how could you do what was done to your ancestors!”) when the same responsibility to end the genocide in Palestine exists regardless of one’s background or religion.

What Israel is doing in Palestine is 100% a genocide. Whether or not it is similar to the Holocaust (or any previous atrocity) does not make this any more or less true.

The thing that doesn't make sense to me with this point is that no one is saying that the Holocaust and Palestinian genocide are a 1:1 comparison. Like most people acknowledge the terrible genocide that occurred in the Holocaust against all its victims. But when they're talking about comparing genocides, there are tell tale signs that repeat throughout history that are precursers to larger events. Like when people compare the Warsaw ghetto to Gaza. I'd say those are quite similar in practice and intention. When we "compare" genocides (not a 1:1 but more of a drawing parellels by disecting the inteion and reasoning behind certain events that werent necessarily actively violent but passively violent) its to show "hey this is going to get really bad really soon because something like this happened before." Masha Gessen has an article about this that I reblogged.

People should care about fighting injustice everywhere I agree. But that doesn't change the fact that parallel drawing is an act separate from emotional invocation. When genocide scholars and survivors talk about "Hey this was like xyz that happened to me/in history" it's to show that there is precedent for this thinking and a terrible methodology happening when genocides occur. They dont just get really bad out of nowhere, you need to examine the precursors to prevent the large event from happening. How that large event happens differs from place to place, I agree. But to say that because things happen differently against different people means you can't examine the underlying reasons behind those actions is kind of reductive. By this definition you can never compare any genocide ever and all the terrible things that happen just happen naturally without any political or social influence.

Arnesa talks about how the Bosnian genocide precursors mirror the Palestinian genocide. She also talks about how Lula specifically should have mentioned other genocides (like Rwanda, Bosnia, etc) in his statement because there are parallels there too. I'd argue that's the real intention behind genocide studies, in that you notice trends and patterns to analyze how certain events might turn out.

I do want to mention because this is where im coming from a little bit, it is a pretty big zionist talking point (by especially American dems) saying you can't compare the holocaust to what's happening to Palestinians because it's antisemitic, which is not a real talking point and actually kind of rude in that it assumes that Palestinians can't call out parallels between their treatment and the treatment of those in the Holocaust because they're fundamentally doing it from a point of antisemitism and not a plea for recognition that the events are mirroring each other.

[the-catboy-minyan]

why so many people don't recognize that their antizionism is antisemitic, in my opinion:

(disclaimer: this is not an educational post, it will not have sources for claims, and is not meant to be read as the objective truth. it is solely my observation and opinions. civil debate and criticism is encouraged in both the notes and reblogs, I will do my best to answer those and correct my post if necessary. edits will be highlighted in pink, if this is a reblog, press the original post to see the most updated version. English is not my first Language, I might have used the wrong words for some terms.)

The Meaning Of Zionism:

this section is meant to highlight the difference between

firstly, they falsely believe the term Zionism means supporting genocide or Netanyahu's government, when most Jews don't use the term Zionism that way. Zionism has many different meanings and subgroups, as Jews love to argue (/j but Judaism encourages debate and personal interpretation), but all meanings are built on the original idea of "Jewish self determination in their indigenous land/creating and maintaining a Jewish country somewhere in the world" (yes, technically believing giving Israelis land somewhere else to be Israel is a form of Zionism, I've seen that take). the methods for creating and maintaining the lands differ, so is the belief of what land should be considered Israel, but all forms of Zionism rely on that core belief. while Zionists may support those things, that is not an integral part for Zionism, and many Zionists oppose those ideas and condemn them.

in addition, they falsely believe Zionism is in favor of illegal occupation and apartheid, which only specific subgroups of Zionists (extremely right-wing Zionists) are in favor of. Zionism is, again, mostly about an end goal (establishing and maintaining a Jewish state (which currently means in Eretz Israel)), and people will have different opinions on how to achieve it, including extremist and racist opinions. all movements have people who hold extremist beliefs, and are usually condemned by other members of their movement, Zionism is no exception.

they don't see Zionism as Jewish. I mean, there are more Christian Zionists than there are Jews in the world! of course it's not Jewish! lets ignore the fact the movement started by a Jewish man, was widely popular in Jewish communities and is what led to the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state.

now, let's for a moment ignore the misinterpretation of the term and assume that by saying Zionists, they refer only to people who support Netanyahu, illegal occupation in places like the west bank, war crimes committed by the IDF, etc. regardless of the Zionist's religion/ethnicity/race. (keep in mind that while that's their assumed intentions, their antizionism will still ultimately include self-identified Jewish Zionists who are strongly against these things)

Antizionist Activism and Beliefs:

have you heard accusations of antisemitism and the response "I'm not antisemitic, just antizionist"? this section will highlight the reasons why many antizionist actions or claims are seen as antisemitic by many Jews.

No Zionists Allowed: as in, excluding zionists from public, private, and online spaces. this tactic is used today to exclude many groups deemed problematic, "no [queer]phobes allowed", "no racists allowed", "no men misogynists allowed", etc. which is why on the surface, it doesn't seem antisemitic. yet this exclusion tactic is derivative from historical exclusion of ethnic groups, groups that were seen as evil/violent/sinners/subhuman were ostracised from society and denied access to public/private spaces. signs like "no blacks allowed", "no gays allowed", and, of course, "gentiles only".

Zionists Are Nazis: comparing any "evil" group to Nazis is common, they're so overly exposed to ww2 stories, especially ones that paint Nazi germany as pure evil cartoon villains, that they have no idea what the term Nazi actually means anymore. Nazism is based on race theory and antisemitism, it's the creator of the term antisemitism to make it sound more scientific instead of discriminatory, in Mein Kamph, Hitler wrote that almost every "issue" in the world is the fault of Jews. comparing the extremely antisemitic, supremacist, racist, homophobic, ableist, etc. ideology of Nazism to a Jewish movement for self determination is in fact antisemitic. (it is also wrong to throw the term Nazi around for any reason, but especially for a Jewish movement)

Zionists Control The Media/Government/etc: the belief that there's a secret organisation controlling the media is an old conspiracy theory, which comes from the genuine fear of your government feeding the people propaganda to sway their opinion in favor of the government to let it do what it wants. it's is good to believe the media is biased, as it's written by humans who are inherently biased, but to outright claim the entirety of media is untrustworthy when it's not hailed from a dictatorship is a harmful belief. this is what antivaxxers believed during the pandemic, what conspiracy theorists believed for centuries, and believe it or not, it's at least partially derived from the antisemitic belief of Jews controlling the banks and conspiracies like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Rid The World Of Zionists: again, there are many other activist groups that believe their enemy should be eradicated, that if they believe in or have done xyz, they deserve their rights to be taken away from them and to die. this is dehumanization, and an oppression tactic. the moment you say "this type of person doesn't deserve rights because they're evil", the moment people are gonna start getting falsely accused of falling into that type with the purpose of silencing them or getting their rights revoked. + the before point of political exclusion being derivative of ethnic/religious/racial exclusion. we've seen many people getting accused of being secretly Zionists for even mentioning the hostages.

Zionists Want Genocide/Are Bloodthirsty (a reminder that this is under the assumption that Zionists blindly support the current Israeli government and the IDF's war crimes): this is both straight up a variation of blood libel, and extremely hypocritical.

blood libel started as the antisemitic accusations that Jews kidnapped Christian children on Passover to creat Matzot, while no one beliefs are that extreme anymore, the underlying belief that Jews are violent and enjoy murder still exists, and was shifted to be about Israelis. the "it was self defense!" accusation that claims Israelis are just itching for their enemies to strike first to get the opportunity to respond violently and use self defense as an excuse, for example.

hypocritical as in, this goes hand in hand with the belief that Zionists should be killed. "Zionists support genocide so they should all die a violent and gruesome death" is a take I've seen MULTIPLE TIMES - and being said completely seriously, not in the comedic tumblr way of "my blorbo is cringe? wrong, killing you with hammers :3" - and is extra hypocritical when they very strongly oppose the idea of "Hamas are terrorists who committed atrocities therefore they should all die" (and ftr I don't claim they should support that).

there are people who believe that violence is necessary for an end goal, extreme violence even. that doesn't make them bloodthirsty or violent people, it makes them radicalized. there are some Zionists who believe the only way to maintain safety in Israel is to not only eradicate Hamas, but to eradicate Gaza, as they believe that all the people of Gaza are brainwashed to be violently against Israel and pro martyrdom (as in suicide attacks), and thus a threat to Israel's safety. there are some antizionists who believe the only way to free Palestine and bring safety to Gaza is to eradicate Zionists, as they believe that all Zionists are brainwashed to hate Palestinians and to be pro illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing, and are thus a threat to Palestine and their human rights. both of these beliefs are radical and false.

Zionist Blocklists: this is mostly an online problem, but Zionists have been doxxed IRL (and I don't mean individuals, massive lists of hundreds of alleged Zionists) for the same reasons those blocklists exists. people are gathering usernames of "Zionists" online to "warn other users" from interacting with them, with the disclaimer of "I'm not telling you to harass them, don't interact, just block". not only does it encourage to never hear the opposing side, thus pushing you further into an echo chamber of only voices that agree with you and never actually learning from the source what are the opinions you oppose, it ultimately creates a neat little list of people to harass because of the before mentioned dehumanizing belief that evil people deserve violence against them. suddenly sending death threats is easier than ever, and it's justified since these are allegedly evil people. you're not encouraged to double check if these people are actually Zionists, there's no explanation as to why they're on the list, you just have to trust the op.

Boycotting Zionist Companies: The Idea of boycotting companies or other organisations that support unethical causes is also, again, not new. People boycott companies that donated to anti-lgbtq organisations or that relied on slavery for their product creation. and yet the companies who are being boycotted are

Israeli companies, which are not necessarily supporting the Israeli government, it would be like boycotting every Chinese company because of the Uyghur genocide.

companies which helped Israel in some way, like McDonald's, which donated meals to Israeli soldiers during the start of the war (this is again a reminder that the majority of McDonald's income is real estate). there are arguments to be made to justify these type of boycotts, as they're similar to other justifications for different causes, yet unless these companies have directly funded the IDF's weaponry, the arguments for boycotting is flimsy at best.

companies which mentioned the hostages, like Paramount, which ran an Israeli ad for the release of the hostages. mentioning the hostages is not the same as condoning war crimes, it's recognizing there are innocent Israelis wrapped up in this conflict, just as supporting a free Palestine is not the same as supporting Hamas.

organisations that allowed Israel to participate, like Eurovision. there's just no reason to disallow a country to participate in a songs competition due to being in a war.

events that happen "while Israel is bombing Gaza". American events like the Oscars that happen on a set date and have nothing to do with Israel have no reason to be boycotted just for happening on the same day a war is happening.

Starbucks. why is Starbucks being boycotted? it had done nothing in support of Israel, literally fucking none, it's being boycotted for supporting Palestine wrong, once, on October. it doesn't operate in Israel, it never said anything publicly in support of Israel, there's literally 0 reason to boycott it????????????

anyways. while there are different reasons and justifications for every company or event, there's this silly little thing that happened in Nazi Germany that was boycotting Jewish business, in response to the "anti-nazi boycott". the Jewish boycotts were unsuccessful on paper, but ingrained the Nazi idea of Jews being inferior.

The Harm It Does For The Jewish Community:

The Overlap: the majority of Jews are Zionists, not in the sense of supporting genocide, but in the Jewish meaning(s) of believing a Jewish state should exist or is in some way beneficial for Jewish safety. by excluding and silencing Zionists, the antizionist crowd are excluding and silencing the majority of jewish people. a Jewish person who wants to integrate back into their circles has to refute their Zionism in fear of being seen as a genocide supporter, a Jewish person who refuses to hide their beliefs will be labeled evil and be ostracized. actual right-wing zionists would stay away from these spaces anyways for being leftist/centrist spaces, thus the exclusion is effective only on leftist Jews who dare believe Israel should exist.

"Zionism Isn't Judaism": is a claim many antizionists make, yet time and time again we see synagogues, Jewish schools, and Jewish neighborhood get targeted by antizionist protests. Jewish spaces are being attacked, even if you claim it is by a minority, these are still actions that are largely ignored by the antizionist crowd and aren't being condemned. you know, by the people who believe that silence is violence?

Can't Have A Single Positive Opinion About Israel: you have an Israeli relative that enlisted to the IDF? they should have refused servitude and gone to jail, you're a genocide supporter. You've done a birthright trip and it was nice? ew, everyone knows every inch of Israel is full of illegal settlements and apartheid, genocide supporter. you talked about the hostages? propaganda, genocide supporter. Israel passed a pro lgbtq law? pinkwashing propaganda, genocide supporter. you don't think Israel is an occupying terrorist force that oppresses their own citizens and deserves to be burned to the ground? genocide supporter, from the river to the sea!!!

Eretz Israel (not the State of Israel) is an integral part of Judaism. most of our holidays are about Israel in some way, some our traditions require Israel as a place, we bury our dead with soil from Israel, we vow to never forget Jerusalem during our weddings, we celebrate our agriculture and our miracles which happened there, our ancient holy cites are there, so are our ancestors (for ethnic Jews). many Jews are going to have at least a single positive or even a neutral opinion about Israel, and see it as a Jewish land.

The Israeli Identity: since people see Israel as an illegal settlement, apartheid, genocidal, terrorist state, etc, they also see Israelis as complicit in those crimes. every Israeli they meet is going to immediately be a criminal, Israelis are not a "real Jews" (that makes half the Jewish population fake), in the case Israel is dismantled and Israelis are forced to "go back to where they came from", will those countries accept them with open arms? or will the boycotts continue? what about Mizrahi Jews which hailed from the Arab world? do you think they'll even be allowed to live after their country's crimes against Palestine? will the Houtis let them when their flag has "death to Israel" on it (most Mizrahis are Yemeni)? if citizens are the same as their government, would that mean every Russian immigrant is an evil spy who wants to murder Ukrainians? just some questions to think about.

in conclusion: I'm tired. I've been writing for 3 hours. bye.

#antisemitism #israel #am yisrael chai #leftist antisemitism #antizionism #antizionism is antisemitism #← when done in the ways I've explained in the post #antisemitism on tumblr #tumblr antisemitism #zionism #jewish zionism

[spacelazarwolf]

hmmmmmmm i’m real fucking tired of jew haters lying abt me!

let's break this down, shall we?

white trans mascs like spacelazarwolf have no issue calling indigenous people "bone chillingly disturbing" for disagreeing with them.

actually i called what you said antisemitic, because it was. i called what i've witnessed from gentiles in general bone-chillingly disturbing and cruel, and that i've witnessed so much ignorance, hostility, and bloodlust from gentiles. because i keep seeing posts celebrating the massacre that happened on the 7th, and i keep getting anons that tell me "hitler missed one", "the world would be better off without your ilk", "we should have gotten rid of you all ages ago", "die zionists rats *nose emoji*", and a lot of very graphic descriptions of how they would like to rape and kill me. one user, blatantly on their blog, openly said that someone should kill me, and someone said they knew where i lived and could make that happen. that's not disagreeing with me. that is bloodlust.

they pretend to care about racism when trans women engage in it, but have zero issue jumping right to demonic stereotypes about indigenous people who dare to point out that their support of israel is supporting genocide.

hey asshole. I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT YOU.

also. I HAVE BEEN OPEN ABOUT MY CRITICISM OF ISRAEL, MY REFUSAL TO SUPPORT IT AS A STATE, AND MY BELIEF THAT WHAT THEY'RE DOING IS GENOCIDE. YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

literally just blatantly lying about a jew's opinion on israel so you can harass and demonize them is, i hate to tell you, antisemitic.

these so called "anti-semitic rants" were me saying jewish people can survive without israel and do not need to colonize or genocide another group of people to survive.

let's give some of the highlights of your posts:

"while you're here hand-wringing about the safety of israelis and spreading the white supremacist lie that they must be in israel to be safe, israel secured its continued existence by just now murdering 500+ parients and doctors under the excuse of 'well hamas is violent and is hiding in there"

'handwringing' do you mean mourning the deaths of peace activists and children? also if you've read literally any of my other posts on the matter, you know i literally talk about how zionists institutions and leadership use jewish safety and antisemitism in the diaspora to bolster support for a jewish state. pointing this out isn't agreeing with it when you do it, why is it when i do it? what could the difference possibly be??

also, there has been no confirmation on who caused the hospital bombing. there are many reports that it was a misfire by one of the groups in gaza, and those are still being investigated. regardless of who fired it, it's still a tragedy. it's still hundreds of innocent lives lost. and it does not change the fact that the lives lost on the 7th were also a tragedy. using this devastating loss of palestinian life as a bludgeon against a diaspora jew for having the audacity to mourn dead jews is disgusting.

"[you] only bring up jewish people of color to argue that israel is actually not a racist project because israel is the only thing stopping jewish people from being exterminated."

literally just lying.

"jewish people in israel are behaving as and acting as white supremacist colonizers of color"

thanks for literally just outright saying that you think the problem is jews, not the state of israel.

"colonizers globally are constantly killing kids"

and therefore the israeli children who died don't matter? are you expecting jewish people to choose between their nieces and nephews and innocent palestinian children who are killed in gaza?

"[spacelazarwolf has] ranted and raved that without israel existing, the jewish people would be genocided. he's appropriated the struggle of indigenous and black people abroad to cry that jewish people aren't welcome in countries like the us, despite living in the us and benefiting from his whiteness and the oppression of indigenous and black people as many other white jewish people do"

i think you've made it pretty clear you're totally fine lying about what i've actually said regarding israel, but the idea that jews are "appropriating the struggle of indigenous and black people abroad" when we talk about experiencing antisemitism in the countries we live in is so???????????? also you make it really clear in this snippet that your issue isn't with israel but with jews in general.

"white jewish people...have been able to exist in relative safety for decades in european countries"

are you actually fucking insane.

"israel's existence has made things more dangerous for jewish people in the middle east and north africa because these are areas that HISTORICALLY had co-existence between religious groups"

nice historical revisionism! swana was safer than christian countries for sure, but it's SO clear to me that you know absolutely nothing about the history of the jews of swana.

"he and israel supporters like him are constantly distracting from the war crimes and terrorism ISRAEL IS COMMITTING by handwringing perpetually about 'but violence is bad and hamas is bad for being violent, the only good palestinians are the ones that are quiet and don't fight back against us when we kill their kids"

sorry, who's "we"? are diaspora jews killing kids? or do you just equate every single jew in the diaspora to israel? also, yet more blatantly lying and claiming i support israel when i repeatedly have stated i haven't! but it's much more convenient to claim i have, because then you can say that i kill kids!

there's a bunch of other times you repeat the lie that i support israel and "advocate for the continued existence of a settler colonizer state and lying and claiming it's the only way for jewish people to be safe" but i won't include all of those bc this post would be VERY long.

"israel supporters are really out here arguing that palestinians need to hold hands with their genociders and forgive them and find peace - completely ignoring that for centuries there was peace between religious groups in the region and israel destroyed it"

goyim being embarrassingly ignorant of jewish history outside of a warped view of the holocaust? i am shocked!

"the supposed civilians attacked turned out to be iof soldiers so yeah actually it's fucked for you to say. they shouldn't attack people who colonize and massacre palestinian people for their day job"

blatantly supporting the massacre of 1,300 israelis, including children.

"all they can do is fight back or die, while israelis grab their passport and fly back to the us or some other european country and wait for israel to finish their genocide so they can go back"

feel like i don't need to explain why. this is conspiracy theory levels of antisemitic.

"the crying and bellyaching that if the jewish people don't have israel, they'll have to go back to countries that are hostile to them is not one i have sympathy for"

yeah we know you don't have sympathy for jews, that's very clear.

"jewish people, black people, and indigenous people all still live there and survive and fight back and thrive in solidarity together. and they DON'T participate in genocide against other groups of people"

yet again making the blatant assertion that it is JEWS who are committing genocide, and not the israeli government. also let's not pretend that. there's always been perfect solidarity between our communities. jews have not always been the best allies to indigenous people and black people, and vice versa.

"there are other places to turn to if you had any interest in NOT participating in western hegemonic white supremacy. but instead of staying and fighting and existing and thriving with other marginalized people who are at HIGHER risk than you in these countries, you argue that somehow jewish people should be exempt from this work that every other marginalized community does"

shouldn't have to point out that i don't argue that, but also this is, again, conspiracy theory levels of fucked up.

"bonkers to watch israel-supporters screaming and crying that if they don't colonize and genocide palestinians then jewish people can't safely exist"

yikes.

"if it were remotely true, israelis wouldn't have pulled out their dual citizenship passports and gone back to europe and the us to wait at a distance for their government to finish the genocide they started in 1948"

again, yikes.

there is a choice outside colonization - you can just fucking leave and go back to your home countries that are welcoming you with open arms cuz you still have dual citizenship. you don't have to commit genocide colonize people to exist."

more yikes.

"spacelazarwolf really wants to try and argue that they can't stop colonizing palestine cuz if they do, they have to go back to - checks notes - countries where a ton of people still live"

who is "they"?

"for some reason [spacelazarwolf] thinks that to avoid going through [genocide], jewish people need to be allowed to commit genocide themselves and eradicate palestinians"

once again lying abt me, and also openly saying that they believe it is jews who are committing genocide.

"fucking bonkers that he thinks he somehow has the right to commit genocide and colonize to avoid the situation other jewish people, indigenous people, and black people worldwide find themselves in. cowardly bitch baby behavior actually. like i'm sorry lots of other groups of colonized people, who have been subject to genocide and violence, and racism and are still undergoing it, has managed to NOT colonize other groups of people for their own gain."

bc jews are just inherently more evil than other marginalized ppl, right? we're just more prone to being selfish and hurting people? we're just sniveling whiny bitch babies who will turn around and stab you in the back, right?

"screaming and crying that 'we need to be allowed to genocide palestinians or otherwise we have to go back to the us, where we as white jewish people never have to actually deal with the things indigenous and black people there do' is disgusting genocidal behavior. the thought of actually being in solidarity with colonized people is repulsive to people like spacelazarwolf - that's why they all seek to justify colonial projects instead."

again, conspiracy theory levels of fucked.

at no point do i engage in anti-semitism. all i ever criticize is israel.

don't feel like i need to point out that this is not true.

he has repeatedly stated that israel has to exist, otherwise jewish people have to go back to the us, where indigenous people are being genocided.

cool lie! also fucked up thing to say!

i've said nothing about jewish pain and trauma. in fact, i have said on numerous occasions that jewish pain and trauma are very real and that they DO NOT justify. colonization.

mmmmmmmmmm nah. "whiny little bitch babies" is not saying that "jewish pain and trauma are very real." also oops you accidentally did dual loyalty again.

but spacelazarwolf is so rabidly racist he immediately began fearmongering about the bloodlust savage knocking at his door trying to kill him.

i'm on desktop or i would include that mike wazowski standing meme bc genuinely what the fuck.

anyway, i have no doubt that their support palestinians is genuine. that's great. but it is also incredibly clear that they hate jews, and that is going to be a huge detriment to their activism for palestinians, and they're not the only one this is happening with. people need to figure that shit out on their own instead of harassing and lying about jews online and perpetuating this kind of violently antisemitic rhetoric. bc this is like beyond fucked. i am tired of gentiles blatantly lying abt me so they can get away with saying horrendously antisemitic things to and about me. get your fucking shit together.

#i/p

[diet-comet-soda]

I have no idea how this upcoming American election will shake out. I have always been one to argue for strategic voting, lesser of two evils and all that. But Biden and his administration's active participation in the genocide of Palestinians is beyond "lesser of two evils." Like, it's just two insurmountable evils now. And I know Biden and the dems have always had blood on their hands, that they've been supporting these kinds of atrocities the whole time. This isn't anything new, really. But the absolute scale, the cruely of it all, it's just... I can't express in words.

Even if the democrats are the "better" option, even if logically I still believe a vote for Biden will be better than anything else you could do/not do with your vote (any right wing candidate would be doing the exact same shit to Palestine and probably worse), every part of me is sick with the idea of encouraging people to vote for him. I'm sure many others feel the same. And there are no alternative candidates, not even close, in a year where I feel like an alternative could've actually had a slight semblance of a hint of a chance.

I don't see an outcome for the 2024 election that isn't just mass voter apathy from anyone even slightly left of center while the right shows up like they usually do, and Trump is subsquently thrust back in power. And from there, I don't know? Either shit's just gonna get really really awful as the right executes a lot of the absolutely batshit regressive goals they've been unapologetically gunning for in recent times. Or the idle ideation of violent revolution I constantly hear being espoused from the left might actually amount to something and shit will get really really awful in a totally different civil war kinda way.

And in the end, none of this still feels nearly as important as the genocide in Gaza. Every domestic political issue I've ever cared about pales in comparison. And I know you can care about multiple things at once, that suffering isn't a competition, blah blah blah. But in the wake of Palestinian genocide, I have become so numb to everything else; it is a whole order of magnitude beyond.

Free Palestine. Free Gaza.

#free palestine #free gaza #politics #american politics #palestine #joe biden #biden #vote #election 2024 #2024 elections #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbt politics #giada says words

[what-even-is-thiss]

what do you think of palestine

I think you’re probably sending bait but because everyone keeps asking yes I think the government of Israel is doing extremely bad things out there but the reason I don’t ever say more than that is because I don’t fully understand the entire scope of the situation and frankly talking about it upsets me. There’s a lot of different countries and terrorism and violent politics involved in something that seems to me like it should’ve been solved through compromise and diplomacy but at this point it seems way too late for that but again. I don’t fully understand all the nuances of the situation and to a certain extent I don’t think I’d be helpful if I said much.

I also remember at the start of the Ukraine war there was a lot of misinformation about various things being spread by well meaning people and I don’t want to participate in that sort of thing right now.

I don’t need to express my opinion on every major world event. Sometimes I hear about the politics around something enough in my everyday life or I find arguing the nuances of people sending anon bait about things I don’t fully understand to be upsetting and exhausting. Now stop sending bait to my askbox. I think genocide is bad and I think that terrorism is bad and that’s the extent of my official stance until I find something better to say, if I ever do.

[alpaca-clouds]

The World-Ending Threats Are Easier in Fantasy

I talked with a friend about this last night and I thought I could share this with you. We talked about Baldur's Gate and DnD campaigns, as well as fantasy in general and the tendency of a lot of fantasy to deal with world ending threats. And I thought I would share, because it is an interesting topic.

Spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3

In a lot of fantasy stories there are potential world ending threats. Sure, often enough the world is not literally gonna end, but it would cease to be the same world we know it to be. In Baldur's Gate 3 the villains basically plan for world domination. Or at least Sword Coast domination. But it is bad enough I would argue. Which is why in a good playthrough you got to stop them at all costs. So, in the end you defeat them, one by one. And then you go up to the big evil netherbrain and you kill that thing, too, after which the world is gonna be saved once more.

And themes like this are fairly common in fantasy. How many fantasy stories do you know in which the bad guy wants to rule over the world or reshape it entirely. Sure, it is fairly rare that the villain outright wants to destroy it - that is usually only something that "force of nature" villains want to do - but the fate of the world is kinda always on the line and of course the world tends to be saved by our fearless heroes.

For the longest time this went so far into that power fantasy aspect of it, that we never actually did consider how it would feal for those fearless heroes to have the fate of the world on their shoulders. Only fairly recently fantasy has turned more to dealing with the trauma our heroes would face during their quest to save the world, while having to kill and seeing their friends killed. In fact we are so used to heroes being impervious to trauma, that there are still a lot of people who will get very cranky when presented with a fantasy world where trauma does actually affect the heroes. (I just will remind you of how angry the nerds became to see traumatized Luke in The Last Jedi.)

But even so... the fantasy apocalypse is a lot nicer than the real world apocalypse, isn't it?

I mean that seriously. Because especially our younger generations do not know a world before the apocalypse. I am a millenial and I fairly well remember that moment when I was just 16 and realized how fucked the world was. Like, literally, I remember the exact day and time at which I realized that climate change was real and was going to fuck us all over. But at least I do remember a time before that. I do remember having normal winters and mild summers. Gen Z often doesn't.

And here is the thing: The real world apocalypse is not as easy to stop as the fantasy apocalypse. In the fantasy apocalypse it is fairly easy to stop it. Sure, the questline might be convoluted, but in the end it is "destroy magical item in vulcano" or "blow this one bad guy up". Once the main baddy has been defeated usually their troops will just give up - or remember they had better things to do.

But this doesn't really work in the real world. I cannot just go, assassinate Netanjahu and stop the genocide of Palestinians. And I cannot just take some magical item, throw it into mount Etna and stop climate change. And I also cannot throw Elon Musk into a portal and stop capitalism like that.

And sure, I do not have to deal with goblins, dragons, orks at the same time. Great. But... Like... We are all still getting traumatized, right? Like, we all get traumatized and especially between marginalized left-wing folks I do not know a lot of people who did not witness at least one violent encounter with evil goons (police).

And we are all traumatized. Losing a house in a wildfire is traumatizing. Seeing loved ones die of a pandemic the politicians are not taking seriously is traumatizing. Being in constant survival mode because you are too poor for anything else, is traumatizing as well. Most current workplaces are also traumatizing in their own little ways. School is traumatizing for so many of us. We are all getting traumatized by the world being fucked up.

To be perfectly honest with you: I would rather pick up a fight with a dragon, a netherbrain or whatever. Because a dragon or a netherbrain at least gives me something concrete to do. Because a dragon I can slay. Capitalism I can't. No matter how much I protest, I cannot kill capitalism - and I cannot stop climate change. And even if we did a revolution... It might work, yes, but really... slaying a dragon would be so much easier.

This is of course the entire function of fantasy as escapism. Because fantasy allows us a world where the end might be stopped fairly easy. When I DM a DnD campaign and let my players stop the end of the world, it is so we all can have the catharthis of this ending.

I just... wished that the real world would make it a bit easier.

Sorry for rambling. But yeah, it was something we talked about yesterday and I thought I might share.

#capitalism #climate change #global warming #apocalypse #end of the world #fantasy #escapism #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #dungeons & dragons #anarchism #anti capitalism

[hero-israel]

Hey there! I hope its alright to say this as a gentile, but something I've noticed is that calling out antisemitism against Israelis in particular (but honestly. Its extending to all Jewish people now.) with 'Antisemitism' is getting incredibly ineffective. Its a word that's really really easy for us to just brush off since it carries little to no personal weight, has been painted in this conflict as a way to 'excuse colonialism/genocide', and just serves as another way to dehumanize and Other Jews. And there's also that thing with 'but x is Semetic too!'

Would recommend for the moment when you're arguing with antisemites directly to just call them a fucking racist.

It gets through to antisemitic leftists better as they'll otherwise never consider antisemitism equivalent to racism yet have some experience identifying internal racist biases and is applicable in pretty much all cases antisemitism is. And for Israelis especially. As one example, its kinda racist as hell to tell what is honestly a nation of refugees (And they ALWAYS ignore the 900,000 Mizrahi displaced at the same time as the Nakba) to go back to where they came from. And why ignore that the people they're advocating immediate land back for is making it very violently clear they will not accept their presence there in the slightest. They're as human and intelligent as anyone else. Yet they're treated like infantile but noble savages who don't know what they're doing. While this doesn't apply when talking about West Bank settlers, its pretty much never restricted to just them.

And I guess as a bonus, since Jewish people have been labeled '''White''' recently, the usual argument would be saying you can't be reverse racist. Good fucking luck using that against Jews lmao.

Anyway apologies if I overstepped with this! I have no idea if there's a connection to using Antisemitism that I'm missing, it was just getting really frustrating to see peoples eyes basically glaze over when it starts getting brought up

The racism of their hatred of Israel and nearly all Jews - and the racialized bent to their alt-histories and conspiracy theories - is undeniable. I've certainly used that word in this context many times. However, just as antisemitism isn't a magic, you-win word, neither is racism, as the type of leftist who would say something like this in the first place usually believes that there is no ethnic composition to Jews at all, that it is purely a religion - and as they are invariably culturally-Christian atheists, they think anyone who perceives a problem in how they are treated because of their religion can solve that problem by dropping the religion and becoming "normal," like themselves.

Yes, it can be effective, but don't expect too much from it. As the Facebook forward says, we can't assume there is any magic word that makes our enemies admit they were wrong, trying to catch Mitch McConnell in hypocrisy over SCOTUS seats is a fool's errand because he will never stop doing what he is doing.

Thank you for writing!

#leftist antisemitism

[scarwasright]

FMA is a weird, special case study in the limitations and pitfalls of the way fandoms create bodies of work.

The trends and tropes of fanwork tend to focus on individual character relationships-- how characters feel about each other, with little or no emphasis on the broader context of those feelings. In a setting with low stakes or simple politics, this is fine. This is why I think AUs that sand off the edges of worldbuilding are so popular. They skip the more difficult foundational Stuff in favor of a quicker, and I would argue much less impactful, catharsis.

The relationships (friendly, antagonistic, familial, romantic, sexual, some combination of these,) are primary in fandom, and everything surrounding them is just set dressing that exists in service to the characters being centered.

In a vacuum, this is generally Fine. Is it intellectually rigorous? No, usually not, but not all art needs to be. Chicken nuggets are perfectly fine with a well balanced diet.

BUT,

This is also how we end up with decades of fanworks that tastelessly recycle a genocide that is foundational to FMA's canon lore into "that thing that makes Roy and Riza sad, sometimes." The "because they did it" is usually in fine print off to the side, unexamined and unacknowledged for the weight it ought to reasonably carry. It's just Angst Set Dressing.

FMA is in no small part about how the people who do the worst things that we can conceive of are still people. "Humanization" is often taken with the assumption that sympathy is being demanded of the viewer, but it is, in truth, just a reflection of reality. People who condone, uphold, and carry out systemic violence are people. This is an important message to internalize for those who are privileged under violent systems. The violent actor is not some mysterious Other. They could be someone you look up to. They could be you.

This is why it's thematically important that Ed gets kicked out of an inn for flashing his watch, which to him, until that point, was an all-access pass. This is why the conclusion of his character arc is that his choices do not exist in a vacuum, even though his privilege offers him the chance to pretend that they do. This is why it's thematically satisfying for Roy to not become the Fuhrer, but to kill him. This is why it really isn't all that surprising that AU Hughes is a Nazi.

FMA03 does not allow the viewer to conveniently disengage with the fact that its protagonists and the people they look up to operate in support an apartheid state. This is literally what the show is about.

Fandom, meanwhile, is almost exclusively about disengaging from that discomfort. This is partially why, back when I was more active in talking about this series and its characters, many people took my pointing out this dissonance as a personal attack. This is why fandom, for all its noise-making about being an escapist counter-culture, is overwhelmingly white. We self-select for it, driving out Black and brown and indigenous voices who object to this willful disengagement from the themes deemed too Icky and Difficult to be meaningfully addressed in our fan works. "It's just shipping, why are you Starting Discourse?" or "I just like these characters and don't like those ones, it's not that deep."

Fandom is deeply averse to critical thought. This will never not feel like a bizarre contradiction to me, but there isn't a nice way to paint it. I know I'm not saying anything new, but the unique manifestation of it in my corner of the internet feels like a case study for why mashing barbies together isn't devoid of context, no matter how hard a given author or artist tries to make it so.

#meta #I guess

[smile-files]

i think the main issue in arguing with zionists is that, well, they believe in zionism! if israel did deserve to exist, then the genocide and injustice in palestine could be argued for (not like it should be, but it certainly could) -- and zionists believe israel deserves to exist.

i, unfortunately, have a large amount of experience interacting (personally) with zionism and zionists. most of those i've talked to feel for the palestinians, and the violence they are facing, but they fail to realize (or they staunchly deny) the very, very active part israel and the IDF have had in that -- and how it's representative of what the nation has always done.

at the same time, they focus more on israeli hostages than palestinian ones -- and i know, of course, that these zionist jews i've interacted with are either israeli or have loved ones in israel, and so have a very personal stake in the safety of israeli hostages (which may very well be friends or family members), but i find it strange how much emphasis they put on hamas' cruelty in taking hostages while the IDF is doing the same thing (in essence; the exact details of who's doing it worse are important to note, but not relevant right now, because folks should realize that their side is being at least as cruel as the enemy's).

recently i was drawn into an argument with an israeli zionist (who, unfortunately, is very close to the action and tragedy by being israeli), and she was incredibly offended by my anti-zionism and my opposition to israel's abject cruelty to palestinian citizens, as it seemed (to her) like i was bypassing the cruelty hamas has enacted on israeli citizens -- which is very telling. i've noticed that we as jews have the tendency, whatever the situation may be, of focusing more on our pain than the pain of others, even if we are the ones hurting them. that person has every reason to be scared and hurt, and i'd be lying if i said her response wasn't at least somewhat sympathetic, but her pain in this horrible, violent conflict does not invalidate the pain on the other side. jews, throughout this recent crisis, have consistently not talked in depth about the constant losses in palestine -- am i suddenly being callous by focusing on those losses, and not our own? (YOUR PAIN AND THEIRS AREN'T MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE, YOU DOLT! sorry...)

because it all comes down to believing in israel! my mom has always told me about how beautiful it is there, about her time living on a kibbutz... and sure, it might be nice. i can't argue with that. but why is it that our nationalism for israel is so strong, so virulent? i have not seen patriots as loyal for any other country. and when you criticize israel, israelis feel like you're criticizing their entire existence -- and many non-israeli jews do, as well. because zionism has been built so deep into the modern religion! it's made to be a necessary piece! belief in it is the default!

and, from the inside looking in, i can't be surprised that many jews take anti-zionism as being antisemitic -- because, to them, israel and zionism stand as the pinnacle of safety and support for the jewish people. it is impossible to argue with them about anything above that base layer, as the base layer itself serves as a foundation: so long as a jew thinks that israel is right, deserved, and necessary, no proof will sway them into hating israel. it's just impossible, and that's very frustrating.

for me in particular, i find it very frustrating, as this single idea has turned so many people i know to support a genocidal entity. they believe in and support israel, so they stand with it now -- even if they condemn its current actions, they neglect how those actions are just an extension of its inherent existence -- whether they think israel's doing the right thing or wrong thing right now, they don't really care at the end of the day, because israel, to them, is necessary in keeping the jewish people alive. they stand with it, thinking that jews can only stand at all if they do.

but a genocidal crutch is no crutch at all: it only breaks us more. zionist jews make me so mad, and the worst part is that i could never express that to them in a way they'll understand.

#melonposting #anti-zionism #israel #i am so madddd and frustrated and stressed #with the whole camp thing going on my parents will inevitably find out (and soon!) that i'm anti-zionist #and given their age and proximity -- they're so deeply entrenched in zionism that i can't even hope to sway them #it's so sad and scary (i don't want them to be mad at me -- even though that really isn't the important thing here) #but it's also philosophically bizarre... like these people have good principles! #it's just this one tiny stupid thing (believing in israel) that's effectively turned them into bad people! #<- it's weird saying something like that. because i don't think they're bad people. but they're zionist. #part of it is that they're my parents and i love them but also... they're so good otherwise. a single thing went wrong. #(okay well not a single thing but it's generally minute things y'know?) #i don't wanna hate my parents. and i don't want them to hate me. can they please for the love of god stop #(takes every jew i know by the shoulders and shakes them back and forth) PLEAAAASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOPPPPPPP #anyway it's very hard for me to do work because i have this on my mind. #how do i break it to my parents that 1. i won't be working at camp this summer and 2. it's because i hate zionism? #i'm not cut out for situations like these ughhhhh why did i have to post that stupid anti-zionist instagram story in march #i could've just chosen not to take the job on my own accord and have enough time to come up with an excuse for my parents #whatever. too late for that. i dug my grave and now must lie in it #i guess it's character-building?? :')

[lokiinmediasideblog]

Because I'm Bored:

Where do I rank in terms of MCU Loki Apologism?

Things I think Loki was justified in doing:

1. Killing Laufey-For all he knows, this was the man that abandoned him to die from exposure. This is revenge in its purest form and ALSO a way to show his loyalty to Asgard and Odin. And based on the original script, Loki was illegitimate and an unwanted runt abandoned to die (I also think he is not fully Jotun, and I think this played into WHY he was abandoned).

2.Lying to Thor about Odin’s death and his banishment-Loki just discovered he is a Frost Giant, like the ones Thor swore to kill, has been shown to have killed at the slightest provocation, and Asgard thinks of as monsters. Making sure Thor does not return is self-preservation. As a closeted person, I find the idea that Loki should have told Thor or known he would understand, ridiculous.Have you all not heard of living situations with bigoted relatives with a history of violence?

3. Nearly killing Thor with the Destroyer-Notice his previous attempt to keep Thor away did not involve violence and would have sufficed if Thor’s friends had not interfered… Say you have a brother that hates people like you, with a history of violent behavior towards people like you, and with the ability to fry the fuck out of you or smash you into puree with his magic hammer. Would you like to have that brother around?

4. Impersonating Odin and sending Odin to a retirement home-It’s self-preservation. Frigga’s no longer there to plead for his life. And I find it hilarious he was the only one to give Odin a taste of his own medicine. GOOD FOR HER! And how the fuck would he have known about Hela? Odin had been able to break through Loki’s magic, but he just decided to chill on Earth for some reason, and dump Hela’s existence on them.

By the way, I saw an interesting theory that Odin remained on Earth to strand Hela on Midgard so that she’d lay waste to Midgard instead of Asgard, but Loki calling the Bifrost changed that, ironically saving Earth and dooming Asgard. Technically, that would mean Loki unknowingly doomed Asgard, but I am not mad. How much like Odin to shuck his problems away for others to deal with.

5.Escaping from the TVA the first chance he gets. Self-preservation.

6. Being the Villain. Technically, that’s the TVA’s fault. They’ve pruned Lokis whenever they veer away from their ordained path. LOL I feel like Villain PR saying this and I am laughing my ass off. And although it’s for shits and giggles, it’s technically true in the MCU?

Loki’s not justified in:

1. Letting the Jotuns in for shits and giggles. I have seen way to many people claim it’s because he cared for Asgard, and that’s bullshit. He was jealous of Thor and he has no qualms sacrificing others (like the handful of dead guards and Jotuns) to fulfill his plans.

2.Attempted genocide of Jotunheim. Self-explanatory. He was only wronged by one Jotun, not the entire realm, and even if the entire realm had wronged him, genocide is NEVER a warranted option.

3. Cutting Sif’s hair. That’s just unnecessarily cruel. I headcannon he likes to sabotage relationships.

4. The attempted betrayal at Sakaar. Not sure what was going on through his head at that point. I think he got angry because Thor compared him to Sakaar, which he actually hates, and seemed to have given up on him. Or does he think keeping Thor and himself on Sakaar will keep them safer because they won’t confront Hela? I will go with a bit of both. I could DEFINITELY go into Villain PR mode and argue he was justified in trying to keep Thor “safe” in Sakaar because the Revengers didn’t really have a plan other than “go back to Asgard and try to fight Hela and die trying”. But I still don’t personally think it was “justified.”

5. Stabbing Thor. I just included it because it’s not justified based on context, since it came out of nowhere. But I would not use it to condemn how “Evil” Loki has ALWAYS BEEN in those posts complaining about Loki’s woobification. I would need more context on how grave an injury that would be for Asgardians. Is it some typical childhood game/fights wound? Asgardians survive being Hulk smashed, the void, impaled, and a freaking Neutron star. A stab seems like a slap in comparison. It has the same level of justification as slapping your sibling in the face when you were a kid. Unjustified, but not a big deal.

Things I am on the fence about:

1. Whatever the fuck happened for him to end up with Thanos. It’s unclear how much was him and how much was the mind stone, coercion, or some other kind of mindfuckery (there are altered memories (being yeeted by Thor into the Void rather than letting go) and that scene with the Other implying threats, past torture, psychic pain, or future torture). I think he wasn’t exactly innocent nor entirely willing. I think he saw Earth as his brother’s ant farm that he will fuck around with out of revenge, he approached Thanos willingly, but then the Black Order gained too much leverage and control on him, and the situation snowballed out of his control into an avalanche.

Another head-cannon I have is that Loki actually died in the void, but was brought back from Hel. He was willing to do anything to avoid returning there, and it’s why he made sure to try to die in battle in TDW and IW. The need to avoid Hel cultivated a fucked up sense of gratefulness and vulnerability that was exploited by the Black Order (maybe I will write it sometime). I think this because him and Thanos talk too much about resurrections and dying multiple times. Either of my Head cannons imply threats and therefore coercion, even if the Word-Of-God mind stone influence is not involved. But we also don’t know the how and why Loki ended up with Thanos.

2. I don’t think I can blame him for Frigga’s death. I know he blames himself, and he definitely had some malicious intent when giving directions (not towards Frigga). Giving someone the directions to the stairs shouldn’t exactly change much? It’s not like he plotted with the Dark Elves and disabled Asgard’s defenses. The elves were tracking the Aether and would have found it eventually, and Frigga was protecting Jane and willing to sacrifice herself for Jane. Frigga’s death is more on Jane for being reckless and fucking around with unknown phenomena without a scrap of PPE or caution, becoming a mcguffin for the film’s entirety. Jane has the common sense of white people from horror movies. Woman has no braincells. There, I fucking said it.

3. I don’t know how to feel about the opening scene in IW and I hate it. I just think it was a terrible plan and a waste of character development. And we don’t even know if it had any significant positive effects. It was both self-sacrificial and selfish nonetheless. Did it keep Thanos from killing more Asgardians? Did it only save Thor, and was that the only thing Loki cared about? If so, Loki sacrificed the entire universe for his brother. Very in-character, but it was a waste of sacred timeline Loki.

Things other people were justified in:

1. Heimdall being suspicious of Loki and attempting to behead Loki as the king regent. Heimdall was suspicious of the blind spots in his vision. Who can hide from him? Loki. And then he caught Loki quite red-handed.

2. I don’t know why Thor gets so much shit for not knowing what’s up with Loki in Avengers, and I doubt he could help him or that Loki thinks he would or could help him in the first place.

3. The Hulk giving him the ragdoll treatment. It’s hilarious and the best part of the movie. And I mean, he did wreak havoc in NYC.

4. Thor electrocuting Loki in Ragnarok. Loki was about to betray Thor. And again, they are pretty hardy. Loki survived the Hulk, the void, and impalement. Enough said. Could this have ended horribly for Loki? Of course and there are wonderful DEAD DOVE fics about it.

5. Sylvie being angry after he broke the Tempad and got drunk. Self-explanatory. How the fuck does this ever get called “abusive”? They both could have died because of Loki's tomfoolery.

6. Sylvie killing HWR and sending Loki away. It was not “abusive”, she’s barely known Loki for IDK how long. Compare that to having a goal for millenia. And she sent him away because she didn’t want to kill him.

7. Sif kicking him ONCE like it happened in the original timeline because he cut her hair. Self explanatory, and kinda eye for an eye. But what the TVA did was just cruel and unnecessary (and basically torture).

LET ME KNOW IF I MISSED ANY MISDEEDS

#mcu!loki #mcu!thor #mcu!odin #mcu!heimdall #MCU #mcu!sylvie #mcu!jane #mcu!sif #mcu!thanos #mcu!frigga #my loki apologism #mcu!hela #mcu!hulk #mcu!laufey #hot takes

[atlafan]

Jordan, ik you probably don’t want to have a whole conversation about this but I recently watched Drew Gooden’s video on the live action atla series (it just affirmed that I definitely don’t want to watch it lol) but it did inspire me to do a rewatch of the original and ughhhhhh it’s so incredible😭😭 all the little characterization details are SO rewarding and so good. Zuko’s small acts of kindness, even early on in book 1, just show that he’s always been Ursa’s son and help set up his arc for the rest of the show. Going after the captured Iroh instead of tracking the Gaang in Winter Solstice. Saving his crew in The Storm. It just shows you that at his core he believes in doing the right thing, and that’s a huge part of why his overall arc pays off so well. It’s the same with all of them—seeing Sokka put on his war paint and his battle regalia (in ep 2 or 3 I think) to confront Zuko in the village…it shows you that he takes such pride in the responsibility of being a leader and a warrior, especially in his dad’s absence. Yet when he gets to Kyoshi, we see the humbled side of him, and that he’s devoted to learning and respectful of the masters in their craft (whether it’s the Kyoshi warriors or Piandao or even the mechanist) and wants to learn what they have to teach him. Even Jet, who is always a very complicated character for me, is so compelling and so real. He’s suffered horribly and unfortunately has let that radicalize him. Tbh it reminds me of when anti war groups in the 60s would bomb places and things like that…the mission is “peace” but you’ve let your mission turn you into a violent radical who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong anymore. I KNOW I don’t have to tell you lol but all the little details of this show, from design to writing to performances, are just incredibleeee and I’m so happy it exists.

GISICKAKAAK what a fun message to wake up to!

Yes I am simply pretending the new series doesn’t exist because I know it’ll just piss me off if I watch it. And I know myself well enough to know I am just not mature enough to separate the original from the new, so yeah I won’t be watching and I doubt I ever will. The one thing I am mature about is that I don’t “hate watch” things anymore lmao

I think this is why zuko is like my favorite character. I feel like he was the first character I was ever like “no, that’s actually my son” when I got older. He is so fucking complicated and so not at all what you think he’s going to be. He’s not just the antagonist, he’s Aang’s foil. They parallel each other in so many different ways. There’s a scene in book 3 where Aang literally says, “I need my honor back”, and it cross fades from one side of his face to the other side of zuko’s!!

All of the characters have incredible arcs. They all learn something about themselves, and they actually use that to grow and get better. Remember, these are literally children who were thrusted into adulthood, forced to grow up way too early. Katara is a nagging mother, but she also remembers how to be a kid and have fun and laugh. Sokka is a sexier idiot, but what teenage boy isn’t? He unlearns so much behavior, and even though he still feels like he’s the leader of the group, and in so many ways he is, he learns that it’s okay to let someone else take the lead, that he doesn’t always have to be right or in charge. Toph learns that she’s loveable for who she is, blindness and shoeless and a badass.

Aang and Zuko obviously have the most difficult arcs. Aang has to come to terms with the fact that he ran away, and a mass genocide of his people ensued. But if he hadn’t left, he would have died along with the rest of them. Like it or not, it was fate that he froze himself. And most avatars get told who they are at 16 and are given all the time in the world to learn the other elements. Aang was 12…and then had to learn the other elements in less than a year. I would argue that he didn’t necessarily master all the elements in that year. I think he learned enough about each to get by, and I’d like to think he took some time afterwards to really master them. He still relied on his air bending a lot. Whereas if we look at Korra, she did a lot of fire bending even though water was her natural element.

And my baby zuko…I could go on for days about him. My tortured emo son. He overcame so much. He cried, he learned to laugh again, he learned how to be young again. He hated being in the slums of ba sing se, but he also went on dates and got closer with his uncle like he never had been. He was such a sweet little boy. The storm always makes me cry. Zuko alone always makes me cry.

I could go on! I always wanna talk about avatar so never be afraid to come to my inbox about it!

#atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #zuko #katara #aang #sokka #toph #uncle iroh #the gaang #gaang #prince zuko #zutara

[nicosraf]

You liked a Tweet about saying how wanting to dismantle the Christofacist System is genocide. Xtianity is and always has been genocidal to people like me you bigot. You can hide behind your book being Queer but we know

I wasn't going to respond because I'm still not convinced you're being sincere, but I'll be sincere! I can't find the tweet I liked, but I remember it, I think. This is the last time I'm going to respond to you. But I do hope you read this.

On Twitter, someone shared that a Tiktok user supposedly dreamed that all the Christians were taken away in a Rapture and the world became a better place. Someone quoted that tweet saying that wishing an entire religion was gone was a fascist/genocidal position, which it is! Even if the religion is awful, it's genocidal to want a group of people dead, you know, for what they believe. It's just the definition of the word. Don't be afraid of it.

I'm really fascinated by your use of "people like me" and "we know." Why do you think I'm not like you? You don't know anything about me. I don't know anything about you. I could ask, but you could lie, so I won't. I know that you know yourself though. So, why aren't I like you? And who is we? You are you in community with?

Is that community stronger than the one you hold with me? If it is, why?

Do you think I'm a Christian? I've never said I am. I've never talked about my beliefs. And I won't because they're personal to me.

"Genocidal to people like me" - I keep coming back to this. You know, I really know genocide. I worked as a reporting fellow, and I met a journalist from Kashmir that wrote about the ethnic cleansing conflict. We had a good discussion making comparisons between the militarization occurring there and with the displaced people I was working with at the time along the Mexico-America border. I've seen genocide. I'm familiar with the de-humanization, the treatment like your people are dirty and need to be kept out and eradicated.

In Mexico, priests are murdered a lot. Sometimes it's really violent. Dismemberments and hangings and all that. It's really dangerous to be a priest in Mexico, but in some communities, they run the migrant homes, argue with paramilitaries. You ask, "Why are you doing this?" And they'll say it's their faith, it's why they became a priest. They believe in goodness.

I knew a priest who was threatened by organized crime. They told him to hand over the Cubans in his care. He said he wouldn't. And then he was "disappeared", and it's been 2 years now. We'll probably never find him. I can still see him really vividly in my head. His glasses, his hands clasped together.

At the same time, my poor Mexico has only adopted Christianity through genocide, right? I've written about that too. The Franciscans and the children of the noble Nahua-indigenous people who worked together to destroy the indigenous religion; they ran into the villages and stole the wooden figurines and burned them. And, you know, when Hernan Cortes introduced a statue of Mary to the indigenous people, it's said that they took her and put her beside a statue of an indigenous goddess. Cortes was so mad that he threw a violent tantrum.

Historically, Latin Americans have been seen as bad Christians. I've seen why. In my home town, there is a statue of the goddess of death. Her name is Santa Muerte. At the same time, most people who worship her will call themselves Christian. Christianity means different things to different people, religion usually does.

Christianity is not fascism, actually. I guess I'll die on that hill. Christianity isn't the white American evangelicals you might know calling for rapture and apocalypse. To me, it's been priests in migrant shelters, it's been Latin Americans clutching their rosaries because they spent days kidnapped and tortured. It's also been something that is deeply heretical – a death goddess – but still Christian because this person has decided it is.

It's also a horror to me. I was put in conversion therapy. I will never be a regular person because of what was done to me. I was put in a Christian school where I was harassed over my clothes by nuns, saw violent homophobic and transphobic attacks in front of me routinely. I will never be comfortable with my identity because of Christianity. I will spend the rest of my life suffering because of what was done to me, by people I trusted.

But I know genocide. I know what it looks like, I know what it is. And if you want 2.6 billion people dead, then I'll say that's a lot of innocent people dead. That's genocide. A lot of those in the third world, a lot of colonized people who've made Christianity their own.

I don't know how old you are. For your sake, I'll assume you're my age. In which case, I'm not going to say "touch grass." Instead, just, please, volunteer at a migrant shelter, volunteer at a soup kitchen, work to protect the rights of un-housed people, organize a strike. Speak with your neighbors and ask them if they ever want to hang out, how their jobs are going.

A book written by a trans gay Mexican poking fun at Christian lore and exploring his interest in angels is not.... worth saying all this. Again, I'm not going to reply if you send me anything like this again. But I hope your week goes well. I hope that you go to sleep cozy. And if you're afraid of how scary things are for queer/trans folk, then I'm with you. I really am. You know, I self-published to avoid the book getting banned by fascist-Christians, and when I first announced ABM, I was harassed by Christians; they told me they would burn my book.

I hope you can find some peace in between all the fear. I wish that for both of us.

#mine #ask #maybeee #delete later #maybe ill turn anon off but only maybe

[nellasbookplanet]

I know I'm about a decade late but I've been replaying the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time since I was a teenager and I'm going absolutely bonkers trying to figure out if the endings are actively and stupidly working against the core themes of all three games, or if they actually thematically work but in the bleakest way imaginable.

All three endings are the embodiment of what we've been fighting literally from the start. In ME1 Saren thinks the Reapers cannot be defeated and so strives for Synthesis, thinking it will save us but not realizing he's already been indoctrinated and has basically willingly turned himself into a husk by the end. In ME2 & 3 the Illusive Man thinks destroying the Reapers would be a waste and that we should instead control both their technology and them as a species, ignoring that this is not only a heinous thing to do but also incredibly arrogant, seeing as anyone poking at Reaper technology gets indoctrinated. Both Synthesis and Control are actively argued against by the very narrative. That in combination with Destroy being the only ending in which Shepard survives, it’s no wonder many fans seem to consider it the only "true" ending (and it’s also not very surprising the indoctrination theory got so popular).

But Destroy comes with its own issues. Aside from the ethical implications of only being able to win by committing genocide against your own allies (synthetics in general, geth and EDI in particular), like with the other two it seems to be actively argued against throughout the narrative.

You are the strongest at the end by striving for cooperation throughout the games, showing time and again that destruction isn't necessary. You save the krogan from extinction, stop the geth and the quarians from wiping each other out. From Javik we find out that the strength of this cycle compared to his is the diversity and cooperation between alien species; from the Leviathan DLC as well as the history of the geth and of EDI we find that synthetics are only violent by mirroring their creators, and can be peaceful just as much as organics. And yet here is an ending arguing for completely wiping out all synthetics.

Assuming the writers were not actually trying to work against their own themes, this makes all three endings incredibly bleak. With the constant emphasis on making hard choices throughout the trilogy, is the point that there is no way to achieve a truly "good" ending? That you'll have to compromize your morals or your allies or both to stop extinction? That Saren or the Illusive Man's solutions could have worked had they not been corrupted, similarly to how synthetic implants (a step toward synthesis) did not automatically corrupt Shepard (with Kai Leng as a foil of cybernetic implants instead leading to indoctrination), or reaper code upgrades didn’t automatically corrupt EDI or the geth?

But if so, why are all endings presented as... happy? Why is Synthesis lifted as the epitome of evolution and peace while never touching the sacrifice of agency in the name of survival? Why does Control lift the "power in control" and "wisdom of harnessing the strength of your enemy" while ignoring the ethical implications of basically indoctrinating and enslaving the reapers in turn? Why does neither of these endings lift the risk of them turning sour the way they did for Saren and the Illusive Man? Why does Destory lift victory and rebuilding while ignoring the literal genocide that took place to allow for it? None of these are presented as bittersweet endings in which morals had to be sacrificed in the name of survival and a better future, but they also work against the themes in such an obvious way that I refuse to believe the writers didn’t notice. There must be more to it.

#*shakes bioware like a broken toy* WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME #mass effect #I've been obsessively replaying these games for the last dew weeks and now my brain is going BRRR about them nonstop #so i'll probably be writing another few posts just to air out my thoughts #ME3 as a whole is so strange cuz like. it's an incredibly good game #the emotional beats hit HARD #character arcs started for team members in ME2 are brought back to satisfying and cathartic endings #and then they just. completely fail to tie the themes together cohesively in the endings #nella talks

[starlightshadowsworld]

The houthis atacked israel Ships because they are antisemitisc plus they are starving yemenis

They might be for Palestine but they are not the Good guys

Israeli ships are being targeted because they are carrying and supplying weapons to Israel.

Which are being used to kill Palestinians.

But also because attacking the ships will encourage other countries to halt trade with Israel.

This actually was a key step in the eventual dismantle of the South African apartheid.

And lest we forget, Israel is an aphartied state.

Aphartied for those that don't know is a policy that is founded on the idea of separating people based on racial or ethnic criteria.

So, racism and thinking your race is more superior than another. Like thinking Israeli's are superior to Palestinians and Arabs in general.

The at the time, Jamaican Cheif Minister Norman Manley during the South African apartheid said:

"The ban on trade with South Africa is logical and proper. And done in respect of a country which denies its own people all the basic human rights. And denies coloured people all over the world every right to human rights intercourse.

Since we cannot send a coloured athlete to South Africa nor even a cricket team with any pretense of dignity. Why should we send our goods?"

I bring up Jamaica because they were one of the first nations to condemn South African apartheid.

They banned trade and travel with South Africa despite still being a British Colony.

Something that in a lot of ways mirrors how Yemen, is one of the first countries to act in direct resistance to Israel.

So no it's not antisemitic, just a tried and true method used to aid in the dismantle aphartied regimes.

But than Pro Israeli's much like the Israeli government see every form of resistance against them, no matter if it's peaceful or violent, as antisemitic and terrorism.

Israel can tell the world it wants to make Gaza into Auschwitz but than be afraid and mad when Palestinians want to be free from the river to the sea.

As for the second part of your ask... What are you 5?

Newsflash, there are no perfect heroes this isn't a movie or a cartoon.

Turkey stands with Palestine, they're sending a case to the International Criminal Court in regards to Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.

Which is great.

Doesn't negate the whole Armenian Genocide and the shit they're doing to Kurdish people.

Britain's over here talking about a ceasefire when they've still got colonies.

They're funding the civil war in Sudan, the atrocities against the Congolese and many many more.

Not to mention shipping weapons to Israel.

All of this doesn't mean they shouldn't be speaking out against Israel.

In fact I'd argue it's a more of a reason for them to speak up, because they have the power too.

Also on the topic of starving Yemen, let's not pretend that the UN didn't drop Yemen from their world food programme.

Seemingly in response to Yemen standing against Israel.

Which means the UN like Israel are inflicting collective punishment. Which is both a war crime and a violation of international law.

Yemen standing up for Palestine is a brave and amazing thing, because they have nothing and are doing everything.

Of course they have their own issues, but that doesn't suddenly make what they're doing to aid Palestinians have any less of an affect.

"They aren't the good guys"

Be fucking for real, every country has blood on its hands.

Some more so than others. And those continuing to cause bloodshed need to be held accountable.

That doesn't change that Palestine deserves to be free. As does Yemen as does every country and people facing oppression.

Isrsel has been actively committing a genocide for 75 years, they need to be stopped.

That's an indisputable fact.

#free palestine #free gaza #yemen #free yemen #anti israel #turkey #turkiye #armenien #kurdish #free congo #free sudan #anti zionisim #uk #jamaica #united nations #long post