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exoid-the-locomotive-monarch · 1 month

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Thanks for you page for more Palestine news because goddamn I need to blow off some opinions on the situation.

So wild to me the idea that Jews “repatriating” to the Canaanite lands NEEDED a Jewish ethnostate, or for the Liberal Zionist, a Volkstaat where you can technically vote and live in the country as in independent citizen, but only to the government assigned zones of living where the neighborhoods coincidentally compromise entirely of Arabs, you can leave these zones if you need, we just need your ID to check if you’re Hamas. It’s not segregation because the water fountains aren’t labeled “Arab only” and “Jew only” that’s too obvious.

Like so much of the conversation for Israel is an apocalyptic narrative of “if Hamas wins it’ll be a genocide eligible to be called the second shoah”

BITCH IF WE WANNA CRITICIZE HAMAS WE GOTTA TALK ABOUT WHERE THEY CAME FROM but Zionists only wanna talk about the hostile collapse of Fatah in 2007 to propagate the idea that Palestinians have become too radical to live in their own homeland. If you want a peaceful revolutionary movement, you would have to react to dissent nonviolently.

Unfortunately, the enforcement of the state of Israel started with violence, and even existed under the British Palestinian mandate.

Speaking of which that time in history is usually bright up by Zionists to point out Palestinians that collaborated with the Nazis to prove some way that the Palestinian ethnicity is an epigenetically anti-semitic people who need to be constantly opposed by “the west” to save the Jews from the fascist Arab and… the European ild fashioned racist.

Cause fuck returning the displaced Jews of East Europe and France and the lowlands to rebuilt houses and reconstructed neighborhoods. Dump them in the desert as described in the good book, can’t argue with God, who’s always right and can’t do anything wrong and if you question it you’re misguided at best and hellbound at worst.

Yeah man return an ethnicity displaced for thousands of years to their ancestral homeland I’m sure the people already living there would be okay with influx of a population the size of a small nation’s capital every year, even better when you literally move into their preexisting houses instead of moving in as a neighbor.

It is an international shame the UN and it’s leaders of Britain, the USA, France, and the USSR support this.

Yeah man we should deport the Spanish back to Italy (because they’re actually Roman) and import half the population to Iberia to reclaim the true ancestral population of Al-Andalus.

“But didn’t you point out an example of Arab Colonialism”

First off Moors are not Arab, second if you’re against Arab Colonialism I’d expect you to be against Israel which literally started as a project by the British to fulfill biblical prophecy.

So, all in all. The Jews can live in the Levant, no one ethnicity “owns” land, and no God will say otherwise. So what will happen if Israel goes? Where will the Jews go?

Nowhere, they will stop being Israelis, they instead would be “Jewish Palestinians” or “Hebrew Palestinians” and Palestine does not necessarily have to be run by Hamas. Hamas isn’t the only political movement for Palestinian independence. Even then hot take: most Palestinians who join Hamas just join the movement because it’s the biggest most effective movement of the current age against Israeli force. Certainly it has its anti-semites, that mist be addressed and condemned, but for the most part the movement has evolved to a revolutionary movement with goals of national independence than ISIS 2 (the wikipedia article on Hamas cites ISIS as an enemy of Hamas, with 2 sources cited)

I forgot to mention that Israel has been accused of founding Hamas to intensify conflict between secular and islamist Palestinian liberation forces.

Also to mention was Hamas was unpopular until after the first Intifada. It was a reaction to Israeli violence.

I certainly want people to criticize Hamas, mainly its use of suicide bombing from the 90s, but the issue is framing Hamas as an action and not a reaction, as I said before, to prevent violent revolution you must approach dissent without violence.

A lot has changed since the founder of Hamas (Ahmed Yassin) died. Mainly the situation in Palestine got worse. I want criticism of revolutionary movement to come after the revolution, as no criticism of a revolutionary movement can exist without some appeal to the status quo, and as it exists the status quo now is irreconcilable. I’m afraid the disarming of a terrorist group is not going to work with the elimination of the group by violence, but the required disarmament of the state committing atrocities on a national scale.

I am an American, we didn’t stop the Taliban by bombing Afghanistan, we didn’t stop Al-Qaeda by bombing Iraq in 2003. We didn’t stop ISIS by bombing Syria in 2016, (it was the Syrian army and Kurdish revolutionary forces that did the elbow grease)

Unironically, you want to end Hamas? You need to end Israel first. I’m not kidding.

#palestine #Israel #world politics

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shadowfae · 3 years

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Not trying to be rude, I am just a little confused. “People were already afraid of sharks when Jaws came out. It amplified that fear and fed back into reality.” So why would fiction romanticizing pedophilia not amplify and feed back into reality? Also, have you read Lolita? Again, I just need clarification because I’m trying to genuinely learn the arguments so I can find where I stand

I have. And it was a horror story with an unreliable narrator. That was also how it was intended, and I’m a little surprised not everyone got that. You know what it did? Take pedophilia from something never talked about and taboo and brought it into the international limelight to be studied and talked about, because suddenly pedophiles could be well-liked priests and good people everyone likes, not just always some scummy guy in an alleyway. It was monumental to help victims, because suddenly they could be believed. No big “oh okay pedophiles and giving children horrific trauma is okay now this book I read said so :)” happened whatsoever.

As for why Jaws did what fanfiction doesn’t: people already were afraid of sharks, and my fics that don’t top two hundred views and ten kudos aren’t being seen in theatres worldwide, and seriously dude how many people do you think are secretly okay with pedophilia in real life???

If fanfiction was going to normalize anything, Game of Thrones would have normalized it. And if you won’t go after GRRM, don’t go after some queer writer who doesn’t get paid to deal with your shit. GoT has incest and rape and pedophilia up the wazoo, and none of it’s tagged, and yet somehow people aren’t falling over themselves thinking dragons are real and it’s okay to fuck your sister.

Almost like fiction isn’t likely to change your mind unless you were already open to it, and it’s far more likely to validate what you already know, and if you’re reading fanfiction looking for a moral to the story... there is something wrong with you, dude, and I the writer am not obligated nor going to help you work through that. Maybe try an English class for third graders that makes you do basic literary analysis. And that probably sounds harsh, but it has to be. I do more work than fucking Game of Thrones to ensure people don’t get hurt if they want to read my fic, and I get called one of the worst things to ever fucking accuse someone of in return. You know if you call someone a pedophile in real life, they usually lose their job? You know that sort of accusation ruins people’s lives? You remember that? You haven’t forgotten it and reduced the meaning of a horrific child predator and abuser to someone you don’t like on the internet?

I do nothing the average YA author doesn’t do. I am going nowhere that hasn’t been gone before by people far more mainstream. And nobody has a problem with them, so if you’re gonna have an issue just with me and not them because I write fanfiction... Your misogyny and queerphobia is showing. Misogyny, because what is fanfiction if not women’s writing (and I acknowledge that as a man); and queerphobia, because this argument LITERALLY ONLY HAPPENS against queer writers. You’d forgive whatever show by and involving white men of all their sins, of course they can’t be better, but shred every queer thing to bits if it isn’t perfect. Dream Daddy, Thomas Sanders, Steven Universe, you fucking name it - it’s all Problematic and Secretly Pedophilia and Secretly Fascist Propoganda because it’s queer and not picture perfect with a moral for babies.

I’m not mad at you personally, anon, but there’s no other way to demonstrate how fucking asinine this entire thing is. If someone’s looking through my fic for a moral of the story that can be applied to real life: get lost and go read a book for five year olds. I’m not writing for you.

#asks #anonymous #on shipcourse #not trying to be aggressive but there wasn’t really another way to answer #i am so DONE being called the worst things in the book #because people like being queerphobic to ‘acceptable targets’#fuck you I don’t do anything that hasn’t been done in got and you idolize that asshole

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eretzyisrael · 3 years

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Some of the French Jews that were interviewed for this article asked not to be mentioned by name. Even though what they said is published in Israel, in Hebrew, they are afraid that their neighbors or co-workers would find out and trouble would ensue. Others were cautious in how they expressed themselves and could not speak their mind freely. That alone is enough to make one understand the feeling of terror French Jews experience daily.

Many admitted they don't see a bright future in France. The country, in their opinion, is already in a civil war. It is being waged by the French and Muslims, and it will only get worse. Some 60,000 French Jews have already immigrated to the Jewish state in recent years, and thousands more moved to the United States, Britain, and Australia. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic prompted even more Jews to look for options elsewhere.

And yet, many also said they felt like a civil war was lurking around the corner in Israel as well. They feel trapped.

Nicole (pseudonym) is in her early 50s. She has been working for many years in a prominent French media outlet. The media's deliberate disregard of the Halimi case is something she experienced personally.

"For four years, the media did not deal with the murder at all. We did not call on investigations. We did not write opinions on it. There was complete silence on the affair. The public media has a way of thinking that makes certain subjects invisible. It's a kind of censorship that has taken over our work without anyone having said anything to us officially.

"In editorial meetings, each time, a different reason came up as to why the affair should not be addressed. First, because it happened around the presidential elections, they said they didn't want to strengthen Marine Le Pen and her political party out of fear that she would win. Then they said they weren't sure that the murder had antisemitic motives.

"After President [Emmanuel] Macron himself announced that the murder stemmed from antisemitism, they said that experts should be the ones to determine whether the killer was in a psychotic state or not, and that professionals did not disagree on the matter. It felt like the approach was dictated by those in charge.

"A few days ago, out of nowhere, we received instructions to emphasize the large number of casualties in the Gaza Strip compared to the low number in Israel, especially the number of Palestinian children injured. People who work in the news don't even dare to write articles on what's going on on the Israeli side, because they know that they will immediately be labeled as "fascists," especially if you are Jewish.

"Nor do they dare offer articles about the war that is already being waged in the suburbs [of Paris] by immigrant communities, the assaults on policemen, and the threat to their lives and the lives of their families.

"In the last few years, there emerged a private kind of media, especially TV channels, that do report these things and have an open dialogue about what is happening in France, including the Halimi case and its serious consequences. Two parallel worlds have been created: the public media that ignores reality and a few [private] media outlets that reflect reality and are growing more and more popular."

#france #jews #aliyah #isreal #muslims #emmanuel macron

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useless-catalanfacts · 3 years

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9 Dec 2020. Raphael Tsavkko Garcia - Brazilian journalist and researcher.

How Spain, allegedly, came close to being invaded by Russia

The latest far-fetched accusation the Spanish state directed at the leaders of the Catalan independence movement could well be from a cheap spy novella.

Europe could have looked strikingly different today if Catalan politicians took Russia up on its alleged offer to help Catalonia achieve independence in 2017 – at least according to the Spanish authorities.

If only they said “da” and agreed to recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea as legitimate, a clandestine Russian group founded during the Gorbachev era would have sent 10,000 men to Barcelona to force the Spanish state into submission and, amid much chaos and bloodshed, declare former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont as the president of the independent Republic of Catalonia. The Kremlin, meanwhile, would have paid off all of Catalonia’s national debt and supported the new country in the international arena, leaving the European Union embarrassed and divided.

This is not the plot of a cheap spy novella, but the latest far-fetched accusation the Spanish state directed at the leaders of the Catalan independence movement to undermine the legitimacy of their struggle.

Of course, as we all know, Russia did not try to invade Spain to help Catalan pro-independence activists. In fact, it did not even recognise Catalonia as an independent state in the aftermath of the 2017 independence referendum. Moreover, the only “proof” of such an offer ever being made is a recording the Spanish police allegedly found on the confiscated phone of a Catalan politician. So far, the authorities provided no indication that the offer was ever considered by Puigdemont, nor did they provide any additional evidence that there had been an offer.

However, the authorities pointed to these unsubstantiated claims as one of the reasons behind a massive police operation against the leaders of the Catalan independence movement, which resulted in the arrests of 21 senior Catalan politicians and activists on October 28.

While the authorities accused the arrested individuals of a variety of crimes, from misuse of public funds and abuse of office to money laundering, the fact that they codenamed the operation “Volkhov” in reference to the World War II front where Spanish fascists fought alongside the Nazis against the Soviet Union clearly indicated that their primary aim was to add weight to their claims that Russia is tacitly supporting the Catalan independence movement.

People not familiar with the Spanish state’s relentless harassment and persecution of Catalan activists and politicians may find it shocking that a police operation has been named after such a dark chapter in Spanish history, or that state authorities publicly accused an overwhelmingly peaceful political movement of considering unleashing a 10,000-strong Russian militia on Europe on such flimsy evidence. But the Spanish security forces have long been acting as if they are working not for a democratic European state but an erstwhile fascist dictatorship. And being spied on, unlawfully jailed, and accused of treason and terrorism merely for their political views, sadly, is a daily reality for Catalans fighting for independence.

Since the 2017 independence referendum, the Spanish state has been working round the clock to intimidate and silence Catalan activists and elected officials. In 2019, the Spanish Supreme Court found nine high-profile Catalan politicians guilty of “sedition” for helping organise the independence referendum and sentenced them to 9-13 years in prison. Amnesty International deemed the verdict “an excessive and disproportionate restriction on the peaceful exercise of [the convicted politicians’] human rights” while the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions called for the immediate release of these political prisoners. However, turning a blind eye to these criticisms, the Spanish prosecutors not only refused to reconsider their position but demanded the “re-education in the Constitution” of Catalan political prisoners in order to allow them to leave prison for a few hours a day.

Many activists and politicians, including Puigdemont, meanwhile, were forced to flee the country to avoid being detained. But pro-independence Catalans lucky enough to find an opportunity to leave the country before being arrested could not escape the Spanish state’s harassment and persecution either. The Spanish Secret service illegally spied on them across the borders of the EU, and the state used all avenues available to it to stop their political activities and secure their extradition back to Spain.

Puigdemont, who is currently living in exile in Belgium, has been a member of the European Parliament since 2019. However, Spain is actively working to convince the European Parliament to lift his parliamentary immunity – which prevents Madrid from asking for his extradition. Another Catalan MEP, Toni Comín, is in the same situation. Former Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras, who became an MEP alongside Puigdemont last year, was unable to take his seat in the European Parliament in the first place, as he has been in provisional detention in Spain for the alleged crime of sedition for the last two years.

Quim Torra, who became the president of the regional government of Catalonia in May 2018 following Puigdemont’s forceful removal from the office, was “disqualified” from the role in September for the unbelievable “crime” of refusing to remove banners in support of the independence movement and Catalan political prisoners from the facade of the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya – the historic building housing the offices of the regional government.

It is not only prominent movement leaders whom the Spanish government, judiciary, and security forces are trying to intimidate and silence through politically motivated investigations and trumped-up charges. About 700 Catalan mayors are currently being investigated for taking part in the 2017 independence referendum. Many Catalan activists are facing charges for “crimes” like organising strikes and blocking roads. Several activists have been charged with “possessing explosives” – which turned out to be just fireworks. Even Catalonia’s most senior police chiefs faced charges of “sedition” for “not doing enough” to stop Catalan voters from taking part in the 2017 referendum – in the end, they were all acquitted.

All these efforts failed to put an end to the Catalan desire for self-determination, so it would seem Spanish authorities have decided now to malign the independence movement with ridiculous accusations of collaborating with Russia to reach their political aims and to bring destruction and war to the EU.

The Catalan leaders never hid the fact that they are willing and ready to talk to all nations, and influential political activists and journalists like Julian Assange, to increase support for their movement. They have also been open about their plans to create a Virtual Catalan Republic, a digital infrastructure not subject to Spanish control, as a way to broaden popular participation in regional politics and also make it more difficult for Spanish justice to intervene in their political activities. They are even trying to create a Catalan cryptocurrency and alternative means of digital payment to free themselves from the clutches of the Spanish banking system. These efforts are managed by the Consell per la República Catalana (Council for the Catalan Republic), a private organisation based in Belgium headed by Puigdemont.

But none of these efforts and initiatives signals a desire on the part of the independence movement to go to war with the EU, let alone invite Russian troops to Europe. Moreover, the idea that Russia would risk a war with the EU and NATO to help liberate a nation that is nowhere near its own territory is as absurdly ridiculous as it is embarrassing.

While the EU did nothing to stop Spain’s determined repression of Catalan political freedoms beyond issuing occasional empty statements, Madrid still failed to extinguish the flames of independence and freedom in Catalonia. As a result, the Spanish authorities now seem determined to stir Europe’s deep-rooted fears of Russian intervention to be allowed to increase the pressure they have long been putting on their Catalan citizens. Nevertheless, not even this newly invented “Russian connection” is going to be enough to make Catalans give up on their dream of independence. It may, however, help Hollywood screenwriters come up with the plot of their next action-filled spy thriller.

#catalunya #catalonia #independence #europe #current events #actualitat

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stephenjaymorrisblog · 3 years

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I Hope the Communists Take Over the USA

7/11/21

Stephen Jay Morris

©Scientific Morality

Living in the USA during the 1950’s and early 60’s was a stone cold drug. People had bomb shelters in their backyards. Public school students were required to perform daily exercises known as “Drop Drills.” Out of nowhere, during a lesson, the teacher would command with one word, “Drop!” There would be a moment of hesitation and, then, like trained monkeys, we would drop to the floor, scoot as best we could underneath our desks, and cover our heads with both hands and arms. This action was called, “duck and cover.” On every second Friday of the month, old World War II sirens would sound out across Los Angeles. I remember how, for a second, I thought, “This is it! Soviet planes are going to drop bombs on us!” If my mom said something off center or even slightly liberal, my dad would chide her, “Marilyn! Somebody might hear you! Watch what you say!” It was all centered around the fear of Communism. Back then, we were force fed patriotism. You were never allowed to say anything critical or negative about America. The atmosphere was stifling and paranoiac.

I was 9 years old during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I have no memory of it. Anti-Communism was a requirement for Americans then. President John F. Kennedy proclaimed Anti-Communism like any Republican did, so the centrists and liberals did the same. Now, the moronic conservatives are using this Neo-McCarthyism tactic of accusing liberals of being Communists. Kennedy’s brand of Anti-Communism was finessed and civil, but the Neanderthal MAGA type of Anti-Communism consists of primal drooling-on-the-floor. And, let’s not forget, chest-beating! I notice, also, that Islamo-phobia is now less of a priority than Anti-Communism. So, because of corporate media, we are subjected to Right wing corophila on a daily basis, displayed on flat screens across America.

The Religious Right tells us, everyday, about the evils of Communism. Why? Because Communists are Atheists—which goes to show that everybody has some good in them. It’s not that Right wing Christians are opposed to Authoritarianism—oh, they love that type of shit! They hate Communism because its followers don’t believe in God. Period! Even though the content of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” could have gotten him on McCarthy’s Blacklist, the Religious Right oppose Islam because they are competitor representatives of God. You know: “My God is an awesome God. Allah is a false God!” Don’t those stupid fucks know that “God” and “Allah” mean the same thing? Jesus! See what I mean? What they want is a Christian Theocracy run by a corporate oligarchy: a Fascist Christian State! Somebody should tell them that America is a Republic, not a Theocracy. They will declare how evil an Islamic Theocracy is and then proclaim how wonderful a White Christian government would be. They would burn Britney Spears on a stake for allegedly practicing witchcraft. (Well...at least we wouldn’t have to hear about her conservatorship case in court.) A Christian Theocratic government would control your behavior and a morality squad would break into your room and shoot you for masturbating. Would a Communist government do that? Hell, no! They believe in “Free Love.”

Do I really want a Communist government? Not really. But if I was faced with an ultimatum between a Christian police state and a Stalinist state, I would choose a Communist state any day. Under Communism, there would be no sports analysts disrupting a basketball game. A Communist government would abolish Christmas, and we would no longer be obligated to buy family members and friends gifts. No more Christmas songs! Yes!!! We would be wearing uniforms, so we would save a lot of money on clothes. If anyone suffered a heart attack under a Christian state, all they would get is a prayer circle surrounding them as they lie dying on the floor. Under Communism, they’d be rushed to a hospital where their life would be saved. And, all for free! There would be no more lectures about “self reliance;” the impetus would be more about team work.

I am an Anti-Authoritarian leftist. That means, I don’t have to declare that I am Anti-Communist or even Anti-Fascist. I oppose allauthority! No social construct can be under God’s rule because God may not exist; and, if he did, I would rebel against him/her, or it. How do you like thempronouns! You want to read communist propaganda? Read the gospel of Jesus Christ! Let’s cancel stupidity! Bye!

Addendum: 7/13/21 “Cuban Protests” For decades, there haven’t been civil protests in Cuba. When the Stalinist dictator, Fidel Castro, was in power, he controlled Cuba with an iron fist. Any complaints about the Revolution were suppressed to the world media by him. Che Guevara was not a big supporter of Castro, but in revolutionary solidarity, his disagreements with the dictator were kept secret. After Castro kicked the bucket, his brother, Raúl Castro, took over. Eventually, he retired.

Cuba wasn’t as totalitarian as, say, North Korea. However, there weren’t any democratic elections. Matter of fact, American Conservatives see Castro’s election as a model to establish, in the USA, what he had. Cuban Gays were treated badly and the Cuban government spied on its citizens. A little esoteric note: It was the only time American Trotskyites tepidly supported a Stalinist regime.

When President Barack Obama reopened this country’s relationship with Cuba, the American Right protested. Cuban exiles protested his restart of diplomatic relations. Then, along came Trump, who reinstated the prior embargo. He wanted to reward the Cuban anti-Communists by closing the doors of peace. What a guy.

Compared to what happened in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021, the recent protests in Cuba were as peaceful as a 1969 Anti-war protest in America: a lot of shouting and chanting and picket signs. They all marched in a straight line. This was no mandate against communism; this was a grievance about government policies. The protesters all wore masks to comply with health recommendations. A lot of Black Cubans marched, also. There was no violence. Hell, you can’t even call this a pro-Democracy revolt, such as is occurring in Hong Kong. The Right wing Cubans in Miami, honking their horns in celebration, are wasting their car batteries! There is no counter-Revolution in Cuba, contrary to mainstream reporting.

Let’s hope the CIA is not involved in this so-called Cuban uprising. Read the history of the 1961 “Bay of Pigs,” during the JFK Administration. Note that this event in Cuba quickly followed the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise. More espionage shit? Maybe. But, then, I’d be labeled a conspiracy nut.

#american history #MAGA2021 #poets of tumblr #Stephenjaymorris #anarchocommunism #anarchism

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annikasafternoonread · 3 years

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So, Tempests and Slaughter. Sorry it took me a bit to get this together; moving is always more hectic than I realize. But I wanted to take the time and do this book justice. And there’s a lot to say.

To start off, my overarching thoughts would be... I love this world, I love these characters, I love so many parts of this story... but this didn’t totally feel like a story. And maybe that’s not a bad thing, it’s just an expectation of the form, but it just feels... weird. It reminds me of some of my comments on Independent Study, how the ending didn’t feel like an ending, just a place to stop between books. There isn’t really an overarching theme or conflict that comes to a head, there’s just... a conflict. Actually, it even more reminds me of the second Fantastic Beasts movie, where I didn’t realize that dramatic fascist rally thing was meant to be The Climactic Moment until it was almost over. We’d been building up to so much, set up so many plot points and questions and then resolved none of them. It just... ended. Felt almost like “oh this one is getting long, better throw in some kind of conflict and then switch to the next book/movie.”

We didn’t resolve anything with Chioké, or with Faziy, or with Musenda. And what’s up with Preet? I know gods work on a different timescale but it’s been almost two years! The concept of gladiators was an overarching conflict, I guess, but Kottrun came out of nowhere and nothing was actually resolved. I don’t expect ALL of these to be wrapped up in one book -- gotta leave something for the sequal haha -- but it doesn’t feel like there was any specific reason to cut it here as opposed to anyone else. Maybe around when we found Faziy would have made more sense. It’s not even the end of a term or year or a level of schooling, like how Kel’s books were cut. We just... stopped. I enjoyed all of the content, but the ending just didn’t feel like an ending, so it was a little jarring.

The ending might not have been entirely satisfying, but the book itself is spot on. It’s right up my alley, as a massive nerd who likes learning anything I can get my hands on. And it’s also right up my alley as someone who is fascinated by how the dynamics of power and manipulation play our between people, especially leaders. And it’s also right up my alley as someone who is down to fight about different disciplines all being valuable in their own way. That basically covers all three of the main characters’ concepts (respectively: Arram, Ozorne, Varice) so there’s pretty much always something I’m interested in happening.

Ozorne in particular is such a fascinating character. I would say his plot also appeals to me as a sucker for a redemption arc, but we all know he’s not going to get one. That’s the thing with prequels; the ending is already written. Which again, isn’t necessarily a bad thing -- it almost makes it more interesting, to see how well Tamora can make us root for him and empathize with him even when we know what he’s going to become. I guess that still does tie in, because really villains just fascinate me in general. No one (or almost no one) thinks they’re a villain. They think they’re doing things for good reasons. But what qualifies as “good” is different between different people. Or their reasons might be based on flawed assumptions. Or even if their reasons are good, their methods might still be unacceptable to us. But understanding what’s going on in their minds, what makes them tick, what motivates them -- I find that kind of character immersion fascinating.

I mentioned when I started this that I see a lot of parallels between Arram and Caleb Widogast from Critical Role, but I didn’t really comment on that at all in my reading (I’m honestly really bad at predicting what I’ll comment on XD). I still think there are parallels in the broad strokes, but they don’t really come out in the plot too much. Maybe Ozorne is almost the stronger parallel, since he’s the leader and he’s the one with the corrupt, murderous, lying teacher who wants to manipulate and control and groom him for power (oops did I say that out loud). It’s very possible that Arram could have been a Caleb, in a different world with different influences. Caleb (or rather, Bren) wanted to be good. He wanted to be a good student and a good citizen of the Empire and a good worker and god he just wanted to be good. He really did. And being good was what destroyed him.

Arram wanted to be good, but the people who guided him had less murderous or fanatical definitions of “good”. Maybe he would have been different anyways; he was always gentle and sympathetic, but it’s not hard to imagine that being trained out of him -- if they got him young, if they built up to it, if they normalized it, if they didn’t give him a choice. Ramasu and Yadeen and Cosmas and so many others, they always prioritized Arram’s consent. They always asked to share his power, made it clear that he could say no, encouraged him to speak up if he was uncomfortable -- he was always in control of his choices, he was always empowered to choose his direction. They pushed him, challenged him, encouraged him, but it was his call. And if something was in contrast to his morals, then he didn’t do it.

Except Chioké. Except that one day on the field, when Chioké insisted Arram throw fire when he didn’t want to, saw a battlefield future for Arram that nauseated him. He didn’t want it, but Chioké didn’t care. Chioké wanted power, wanted to increase his own power, wanted to control others’ power, wanted more always more. He would be happy to break Arram, or bend him to his will. I really wonder, with Faziy, did they force her to cast the spells? Did they use her knowledge then get rid of her so she couldn’t tell? Was she just a frame opportunity and had nothing to do with any of it? All of those possibilities fit with how Chioké uses and abuses power, his own and others’.

I think that’s all the main points I can think of for now. I’m sure there’s more I could say -- I could write several essays on this shit -- but off the top of my head, I’m tapped out. Feel free to let me know if there’s anything you think I missed, or anything you’d like to hear my thoughts on. I probably have thoughts. I have a lot of thoughts. Almost as many as I have feelings.

Anyways, I work tomorrow evening so I’ll probably start the next book on Wednesday. That means this is your last chance to weigh in! Should I discover Gideon the Ninth, will I re-explore the Wings quintet, or is it time for Most Likely? Let me know!

I’ll see you soon :)

#annika reads #Tamora Pierce #Tempests and Slaughter #book outro #bookshelf #what's next?

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ponett · 4 years

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i was finally able to see the bad star war that everyone said was bad. as it turns out, it was bad. here’s a read more post with my thoughts on it so that i don’t spam my twitter with spoiler tweets

for a baseline: i like the original trilogy, but i don’t think any of those movies are perfect. i think the prequels had some good ideas but i were mostly terrible. i love the clone wars (both versions) and rebels. while i admit that tfa was extremely similar to a new hope, i thought it was executed great and had a wonderful new cast that showed a ton of promise. i liked rogue one, although i found its first act really sloppy. and i have some quibbles about tlj, but it had an incredibly strong vision and actual themes, and i’d consider it my favorite in the series

i’m exactly the kind of person who was always going to hate the rise of skywalker, because it’s basically a bad fanfic written by someone who didn’t like tlj and wanted to “fix” the story. like that bizarre story treatment jenny nicholson read for this movie. the bad one. it was like that

it wasn’t all bad i guess. here are the small things i liked:

some of the new environments were cool. there was cool imagery and practical effects work

i appreciated that the moon of endor where the death star wreckage was wasn’t just the one with the ewoks, and thought the vibe there was cool

zorii bliss’s armor was really cool

the image of the fleet of star destroyers all lined up was striking

i liked that the ghost showed up for the final battle

i liked that ahsoka was one of the jedi voices rey heard, even though that kind of implies that ahsoka is, uh... dead?

while extremely fucking trite and dumb, i’ll admit the closing scene on tatooine got me. yeah, rey has no real connection to this place and it’s just a nostalgic throwback, but i’m a sucker for full circle endings like that

uh. that’s about it

this movie kicks off in the middle of an action scene and just kind of keeps jumping to new setpieces nonstop until it’s over. new characters and locations get introduced and then moved past in the blink of an eye. there’s no time to let any of it sink in. it feels like abrams crammed two movies worth of shit into this one to make up for the the fact that some people didn’t like tlj, and as a result none of it resonates. i just felt so empty throughout most of the film. events were happening on screen and none of it mattered

thoughts about individual elements:

LEIA

putting the scenes with the recycled footage of carrie fisher at the beginning of the film completely took me out of it. it was so obvious that she wasn’t really responding to what was being said, and the conversations had just been built around the limited leia lines they could use

the dialogue scenes with leia felt like a space ghost interview

C-3PO

was in this movie a lot for some reason? i guess abrams wanted to make up for how little c-3po there was in the last two movies. they tried to have that emotional moment where his memory is wiped, but then they just turned his memory loss into a big joke?? and then he got most of his memories back anyway

in general, the movie is afraid to let the audience be uncomfortable for long. 3po’s memory loss. the supposed deaths of chewbacca and babu frik, that sort of thing. you’re not allowed to be sad. after tlj so effectively built tension throughout the film and really pushed the heroes to the brink, this is a disappointment

LANDO

is here because he needed to show up, and because it’s a throwback to have him pilot the falcon again. he’s just kind of there with little to do and no arc

FINN, POE, AND ROSE

before the movie came out, i had low expectations. all i really wanted was to get one last fun adventure with the new characters. when i started to hear about the spoilers, my expectations sank even lower. but maybe i would still get this

nah! rose gets like two minutes of screentime because redditors hated her, and finn and poe are barely even characters. they don’t have arcs in this film, they’re just sidekicks on rey’s journey

finn really hurts. prior to tfa’s release, finn was framed as the new star. this was, of course, a bait and switch, as rey was really the new jedi. (finn apparently IS force sensitive according to this one, but hey! we can only have one big jedi hero, so like leia before him, i guess we’ve gotta wait for some EU novel to give finn a lightsaber)

but finn was still a central character in the last two films, and he had so much potential. he was a stormtrooper who defected! that’s something new! that’s interesting! it complicates the black and white morality of the series. but no. that’s been all but abandoned at this point

many have complained about how tfa establishes that basically all the stormtroopers are people who were kidnapped as children and brainwashed by the first order... but then they still have no qualms about gleefully killing them. in the first two movies i was like “yeah, it sucks that they have to kill those guys, but if it’s to prevent genocide, it’s understandable. that’s just war. maybe they’ll touch on it in the last movie.” so in this one, they kept reminding the audience that the stormtroopers were enslaved as children. jannah is even introduced as another stormtrooper who defected like finn. but then... it goes nowhere. finn doesn’t get any first order troops to defect. they don’t care about the other stormtroopers. how many hundreds of thousands of enslaved soldiers did they kill when they blew up those star destroyers

it was nice to see finn and poe take the charge as leaders in the end, but it also feels like they didn’t take the lessons from tlj to heart. the whole point of that story was that one-in-a-million shot heroic suicide missions aren’t worth it, and that they’re more useful to the resistance alive than they are as martyrs. but then in the climax of this film they take like 30 ships to go fight a fleet of a hundred fucking star destroyers

on the subject of that final battle: i thought that the ending of tlj was so powerful. the resistance was decimated, but they still had hope, because they knew there were others out there who could help. people like rey, or the broom boy, who came from nothing but had good hearts. in this one, though, they say that apparently nobody responded to the leia’s call for help in the entire year since the last film. everyone only shows up during the climax after lando’s like “no, but for real guys, we need help”

and i did think that that sequence was cool. and i did like seeing the ghost among the ships. it was fun. the message that fascists like the first order rule by making people feel isolated, and that they’re defeated by realizing that good people are never alone? that was good. i thought that was a strong message. but it’s such a minor footnote on a movie that’s so bad in so many other ways

oh and they made the latino dude a drug dealer. okay. thanks for that

KYLO REN

i hate that they redeemed kylo and i hate the way they did it

yes, him being coerced to turn to the dark side by snoke (who was apparently just a puppet controlled by palpatine all along (UGH)) as a kid was tragic. but that doesn’t excuse his actions. kylo was given infinite second chances throughout the trilogy, and every time he responded with violence. he killed so many people himself, and willingly took part in a fascist regime that killed billions. yes, his story is sad, but he’s not some poor little boy, he’s thirty fucking years old and he vents his trauma by slaughtering innocent people

literally the entire main trio of the original trilogy died because of this asshole. han tried to talk to him in the first movie, and got stabbed and dropped into a pit. luke died astral projecting to face him in tlj. and now leia just kind of arbitrarily died to flip the switch in his brain from bad to good from across the galaxy. it’s literally as simple as that. he doesn’t have a personal journey here. he just stops being evil because his mom made him through the force

like, again. all those enslaved stormtrooper grunts who had been brainwashed since they were kids? gunned down. but giving kylo endless second chances is the most important thing in the world

and then they end the movie by having this creepy abusive stalker genocidal asshole sadboy kiss rey, retroactively framing their dynamic as a romantic one. just, gross as hell. even in this one, for most of the film, all he does is threaten rey and boss her around

i dunno. i thought the first order were interesting as antagonists. yeah, they were just the empire 2.0. but i thought it was appropriate! the idea was that just because palpatine was dead and gone didn’t mean that fascism was gone. there were still hateful people who wanted to rule the galaxy via genocide. like how we still have nazis in the 21st century. except, oops! palpatine was actually alive and pulling the strings the entire time, so now that theme’s out the window. we just have to kill him again FOR REAL this time and now the galaxy will actually be safe

people wondered where the first order would go after snoke died in tlj. but it was so obvious to me? kylo was in charge. kylo was always the most interesting bad guy. just let him call the shots and be the final adversary. but no. that wasn’t good enough. we had to bring back palpatine as the jrpg final boss to have an epic conclusion

REY

oh, poor rey. youtube critics got mad that a girl could be a strong jedi without being related to some other powerful force user from the old movies, so now she’s stuck being a palpatine forever

i will admit, the protagonist of the new movies being related to palpatine but still being a good person in spite of her heritage... that could have been something. but it’s so clearly not what they had in mind from the start, and it spits in the face of the last movie’s themes. it turns out greatness CAN’T come from anywhere. it has to come from one of these select few Special Bloodlines

oh! and this ALSO reframes rey’s parents abandoning her and selling her into slavery as an act of kindness, because they had to hide her from her spooky evil grandpa. so THAT’S fun. (edit: OH! and luke and leia knew about rey the whole time!!! and didn’t go out and look for her!!!!)

it’s just. it’s so bad what they did to rey. i don’t know if i even have much to elaborate on there, everyone’s already said how stupid it is

---

overall, i still wouldn’t say it’s the WORST star wars movie. it’s more watchable than the phantom menace, that’s for damn sure. the actors put in effort. the sets and practical effects are nice. it’s just so... empty

tros possibly feels the closest to how i imagined the new trilogy would be when it was first announced, but in a bad way. a movie built entirely on established ideas of What Star Wars Is with nothing new to bring to the table. it’s like a bad eu novel. just recycled imagery, cameos from characters we already know, palpatine coming back from the dead, that sort of thing. it’s a movie made by committee to appease reddit. it’s nothing

now i gotta use that free trial of disney plus to watch the mandalorian and wash the taste out of my mouth i guess

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antifainternational · 5 years

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Listen, I wanted to join you guys when Im older, but when I told my friends, they said they be disappointed because antifa is quote unquote "terrorist group" and that they harm innocent people over nothing. They also added that antifa keeps fuelimg the fire with more gasoline (gasoline meaning violence) and it was a wsste of time and that people are just gonna be racist *ssholes. How do you respond to my friends claim?

We’d probably start of by saying that your friends are terrorists, since we have the same amount of evidence as you’ve stated they gave you to support calling us terrorists. We’d also point out that if they’re concerned about terrorism and harm coming to innocent people then they should really look at the fascist/extreme right, who have murdered 282 people so far this year and injured over a thousand others; and who were also responsible for every extremist killing in the U.S. last year. If anti-fascists are terrorists then we are certainly awful at terrorism, given that we haven’t killed anyone in recent memory. But yeah - the “violence” of antifa! It’s so extreme! Surely it’s just like pouring gasoline over a fire, right? Well, then maybe your friends should explain how to oppose and stop violent, murderous bigots (see above paragraph) without being able to physically defend ourselves & our communities from them. Should we hug it out with them, maybe? Just ignore them and hope they’ll go away? Turn the other cheek and let them slaughter us? Here’s what one Christian pacifist had to say after going to Charlottesville in 2017 to non-violently protest the mob of white supremacist terrorists that murdered Heather Heyer and injured at least 30 other people there that weekend. And here’s what Dr. Cornel West had to say about the anti-fascists that defended him and other pacifists from the bigots that were going to attack them in Charlottesville that same weekend:

But people are just going to be racist assholes so it’s a waste of time to try to stop them from hurting or killing racialized people or migrants of LGBTQ+ people or disabled people though, huh? Sounds like your friends come from a really privileged, entitled place where they don’t have to worry about being persecuted or killed because of any of those things. It also sounds like they have zero interest in using their positions of privilege and entitlement to defend other people not so lucky. It also sounds like if push came to shove and people were harassing or attacking or coming after you, your friends would be nowhere to be found if you looked for them to have your back.So it sounds like maybe you need some better friends, friend.Finally? There’s no age limit to doing anti-fascist work. If you’re against fascism + willing to do something about it, then you’re antifa! THAT’S THE SOLE REQUIREMENT! Here’s a list of 30 antifa things you could probably pull off where you live, maybe with the help of a couple of actual friends as opposed to the ones you’ve been talking to about all of this.

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infrastructuralist · 5 years

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Collectivizations: The Trams of Revolutionary Barcelona

If you’ve ever taken a look into collectivization, or leftism in general, you’ve probably come across this image in some shape or form. It’s a tram operating under the control of the Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, or National Confederation of Labor.

Often, this image is posted without very much context. It's presented as a curiosity, or as the main component of an antifascist multi-track drifting meme. But, to those who were there – and those who listened to their tales – this image speaks to the spirit of a revolution.

[Photo of a tramway and street in front of Estacion de Francia, 1930’s]

The modern city is a complicated organism, requiring a robust circulatory system to keep itself alive. Nowhere was this more true than the Barcelona of the early 20th century. With the city cresting just over a million people¹, they needed a solution to get people where they needed to go with speed and efficiency. Here, public transit truly shined.

Barcelona boasted healthy taxi and bus services, two underground metro lines, and even two funicular railways. These, though, all paled in scale and importance to the tramways. Sixty routes darted across the city and its suburbs, carting thousands of people a day to and from its beating heart.

The Belgian financiers of the General Tramways Company, however, had no real stake in the wellbeing of their Catalan workers or customers. They desired only to please the pockets of themselves and their shareholders, and the system suffered greatly for it.

The city’s streets were littered with haphazardly placed power boxes and suspension poles for the overhead electrical wire. The tracks curved around these obstacles to compensate, but the sharp turns strained the poorly-maintained tracks and trams to their breaking point, causing many derailments and collisions. Nearly every tram in the fleet was in some state of disrepair, and many were inoperable – and the garages did not have the ability to fix them.

You see, one of the core problems of the GTC’s model was that the company used too many dissimilar models of tram cabs, most of which were imported. The mechanics, who already had limited access to tools, simply did not have the equipment to perform most critical services to the trams. They had to rely on importing pre-built spare parts that, often, were of such low quality they caused more problems than they solved.

Additionally, the trams operated on a fare zoning system with rates that varied depending on which part of the city you were headed to, as well as the time of day. Working-class neighborhoods were hurt most by this, almost entirely priced out of being able to ride.

The workers of the tramways, most of which lived in those neighborhoods, would often find themselves in that situation. Their jobs were thankless, dirty, and dangerous – and they couldn’t even afford to ride their own trams.

Soon, they sought to unionize – something the GTC’s management refused to abide.

[Photo of militia personnel riding on a truck with “CNT” and “F.A.I.” painted on its side, 1936?]

From ‘33 to ‘36, the workforce and management of Barcelona’s tramways were locked in bitter conflict. Workers attempting to organize faced harsh retaliation, often becoming victims of targeted harassment and violence. Strikes were met with severe police repression and waves of scabs.

Despite their best efforts though, management would not succeed. Of their 7,000 employees, 6,500 would become dues-paying members of the CNT.

A final strike, the bloodiest and most costly of the entire affair, would occur in 1936. A months-long battle raged in the streets during the first half of the year, ended only by the fascist coup on July 19th and the proletarian revolution that followed. Fighting transformed the city into a battlefield that week, but come the 24th the smoke hanging over the city finally began to clear.

After victory was assured and the revolutionary government took root, people returned to work. Upon their arrival, though, they found their former management had vanished, taking the company’s coffers with them.

This economic sabotage, along with the post-battle destruction of the city’s already disheveled street infrastructure, made the prospect of rebuilding seem almost impossible.

With management gone, though, the keys to the castle were up for grabs – and the workers of Barcelona were ready to seize them.

[Photo of union workers painting a slogan onto the side of a collectivized tram, 1936-9?]

Immediately, the disparate companies that had made up the city’s public transit network were impounded, and their assets were expropriated to the CNT. The metro, bus, and tram services collected under their respective unions, and their committees gathered to assess the situation.

Despite the city still being in shambles, it was decided that returning the tramways to full working order was critical. Getting the economy up and running again required freedom of movement – something that, due to wartime restrictions on automobile travel, would be almost impossible without tram service. A general call was issued over the radio for all available engineers, technicians, and manual workers to assemble for the job.

In a mere three days, the people of Barcelona watched the first trams return to active service. In five, 700 newly-serviced trams², painted in the colors of the revolution, were operating throughout the city.

It was a herculean feat, only possible due to the industrial syndication of the CNT and its sister unions. A bunch of disparate trades and organized workplaces would, on their own, be a cacophony of disorganized rabble – but beneath the single banner of the syndicate, they meshed like the gears of a well-timed clock. Gaston Leval, combatant and historian of the Spanish revolution, had this to say on the subject:

[Image of a quote from Collectives discussing the high levels of organization within the industrial syndicate]

Cohesion and the free flow of ideas were ideals baked into the very fabric of the unions. No important decision could be made without the consultation and agreement of all workers involved. Not one voice was discounted, no matter who it came from.

[Photo of a collectivized tram with a graphic painted on its side, depicting stylized workers piercing a swastika with an arrow containing the words “TODOS CONTRA EL FASCISMO” (“All against fascism”), 1936-9?]

It wasn’t enough, though, to put the freshly-oiled and painted trams back on the tracks. No, the transport union had ambitions, and they set to work on fulfilling them immediately.

One of the first things they tackled were the electrical problems. The junction boxes and power poles in the middle of the road were not only interfering with the free flow of traffic, but were also a safety hazard. This was a job for the city's electrical utility union, and they solved the problem with ease. They relocated the boxes and poles to the sidewalk, and built new crosspans extending over the street to suspend the cables.

With the streets freed up, they could now focus on improving the rail infrastructure itself. Fully-electric, automated signals were added, and the city’s serpentine tracks were straightened and relaid – much to the relief of motorists and tram operators alike.

The sorry state of the garages was another hurdle. A lack of tools and parts left mechanics incapable of repairing the city’s fleet of trams. In response, the committee requisitioned the funds to buy state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment to bring things back to working order. This allowed the workers to service and refit the fleet, and rebuild the inoperable cabs. Quality spares were also produced en mass, reducing their reliance on imported parts from 85% down to an impressive 10%.

Of course, they weren’t content to stop there. The fleet was comprised of eight different models of cab, all of which came from separate companies with their own proprietary designs. A new model was needed, so they designed one made from local materials with local hands, with ease of assembly and care in mind. They began to introduce these new workhorses to the tramways, with the eventual goal of replacing the entire fleet.

Fares were also reduced – by half.

Rates that once went as high as .40 peseta fell to a flat rate of .20, something that would have been unthinkable under profit-driven management.

Throughout it all, the workers of the syndicate saw the quality of their lives dramatically increase. The transport union gained a healthcare and insurance program, as well as significant pay raises. Before the revolution, ‘peones’, or laborers, made only eight pesetas per day. Traffic controllers received 10, and engineers got 12. Afterward, though, wages were adjusted. Laborers began to earn 15 pesetas per day, while all skilled workers earned 16 – an average increase of about 61% across the board.

These massive improvements weren’t cheap, though. How did the tramways’ bottom line fare throughout all this?

[Image depicts a chart of the tramways’ total monthly income from September through December in 1935 and 1936, shown in 1936 peseta and 2019 euro values. A significant increase in profitability is shown after the collectivization of the service] ³

As it turns out, they were farther in the black under the new collectivized ownership! In September alone, they were up a full 300,000 pesetas over the pre-revolutionary system.

The system had to sustain lowered fares, increased labor costs, a shift to local manufacturing, and a 150% increase in the price of raw materials due to blockade. Yet, in spite of this, profits from the tramways increased by, on average, 12% per month.

It’s only when looking at these figures that one can see the true impact of the capitalist managerial class. The salary of the GTC’s old director alone clocked in at 132,000 pesetas per year (around 300,000 euros today). Factor in the lavish expenditures on corporate offices and highbrow events, and the waste totaled in the millions. Under worker-ownership, the syndicate cut the dead weight of bloated salaries and unnecessary expenses, allowing the tramways to grow and flourish.

Even after paying their massive overhead costs and continuing their ambitious expansion projects, the new tramways were capable of sustaining the entire city’s public transit on their own. There was even enough left over to donate large sums towards the war effort!

Some have argued that this spike in profit was actually due to wartime jobs and restrictions on automobile travel. These did, in fact, contribute heavily to the 62% increase in ridership in the first year of worker-managed service.

This is true... but only in part. Bear in mind that this profit margin is the system operating under enormous economic stress. They were rebuilding a city damaged by war, and revamping massive portions of their infrastructure. These investments were already paying off, but had the city been given the chance to return to a peacetime economy, the tramways likely would have blossomed into an outstandingly successful public institution.

[Photo of transit union workers in front of a collectivized tram, 1936-9?]

At the heart of revolutionary class struggle is the promise of a better tomorrow. It’s what drives us to pick up the torch and carry on the good fight of making that promise a reality.

Often, though, we aren't sure what that tomorrow would look like. We picture the revolution as a single, continuous battle, filled with glamour and glory. In truth, most of the work in a post-revolutionary society is of the most mundane and pedestrian variety.

Perhaps a bunch of trolley workers expropriating their bosses’ equipment and revamping their city’s rapid transit isn’t going to get its own chapter in the history books. But its only through these radical acts of creativity, community, and compassion that we truly build a better world.

¹ I’ve left this figure vague as I don’t really have a true source for the population of barcelona in the 1930′s. The best I could find at the time of writing is this uncited graph on a, frankly speaking, Pretty Sketchy website. If I come across a better source, I will update this accordingly.

² This figure is particularly impressive, considering the number of trams operating prior to the revolution hovered just below 600.

³ Original figures taken from Collectives, conversion and inflation adjustment to euros (rounded to the nearest whole number) made using measuringworth.com’s Spanish currency calculator.

Information derived from Collectivizations: The Constructive Achievements of the Spanish Revolution. Essays, Documents, and Reports by Augustin Souchy and Paul Folgare, The CNT In The Spanish Revolution by José Peirats, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval, Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women by Martha A. Ackelsberg, The Collectivized CNT Taxis published by La Révolution Espagnole, Worker Management of the Barcelona Public Transit System, 1936-1939 by Tom Wetzel, and The Evolving Urban Form: Barcelona by Wendell Cox

Photos used from hippostcard.com, libcom.org, and anarchismus.at

Editorial assistance courtesy of John L. Moore

#infrastructuralisms #networks #tram lines #socialist heritage #''is your first real essay on here honestly about the cnt tram'' yes fucking absolutely it is next question

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soulvomit · 5 years

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My reference for counterculture, is what was dying by the 1980s.

I know so many old hippies and old civil rights activists who are activists *now.* But they don’t hang out on Tumblr and talk to young people. Those among them who are living, who stayed active, are still fighting.

They don’t have the energy to protest anymore. The changing politics, in some cases, may have made some feel unsafe (because so very many old counterculturalists were Jewish. They grew up significantly less privileged than their own offspring would. Many grew up poorer and more adjacent to POC communities than to white ones. There really was a time when the stereotypical Jew was a poor pickle salesman or textile worker.)

They are invisible to all of you because they are at the polling places. They are at city council meetings, agitating. 20 years ago, they were the STILL the ones organizing our protests. They were the ones running the stores and the coffeehouses that were the locus of underground Gen X life. They ran the tattoo parlors in which the lot of us set up our piercing business in. They had to publish their writings next to porno mags or in magazines that advertised sex businesses. And the oldest of them had to meet in illegal spaces.

And if you are LGBT then your spiritual grandmothers and grandfathers met in basements and mafia-run establishments, and had to constantly evade the police.

There were a lot of Jews in counterculture and protest culture. Jews of that generation marched for Black causes because they were adjacent communities. They were often redlined into the same neighborhoods. Adjacence doesn’t mean you are best friends. It means you have the same enemies.

Counterculture people in general were counterculture BECAUSE they were marginalized, they were not marginalized because they were counterculture.

They were not rich. They were not affluent hipsters with tattoos, they were not middle class Hot Topic teens with anime backpacks. They often went to jail. The older of them were poorer still and often died of that poverty. The POC among them often died or went to jail.

They were often disabled. They were often mentally ill. Their lives were often hard. Many of them were very educated, because you can come from a family that avails you of that and STILL end up a marginalized outcast. So we have the image of the well-spoken counterculturalist who is simply weird and has dropped out of society. A lot did not drop out of society. Society kicked them out.

They were often neurodivergent. There were no words for this back then. There were simply histories of institutionalization for misdiagnosed mental health conditions.

My mother (born 1952) grew up a poor Jew in Venice, California. Venice started off with poor Black people redlined into what was the region’s most undesirable area, poor Dustbowl survivors, and poor, elderly Jews who had also been redlined into the area. Venice was where poor people lived. Police were *everyone’s* enemy and you didn’t call the cops on your neighbors unless absolutely necessary. Little good ever came of calling the cops. Don’t shit where you eat, and all.

This was when the beaches were considered dirty and violent and you didn’t, as a respectable person, go down by the docks.

This was when the “Dream of the Suburbs” was fed in a steady diet to the white middle class and normified as the American Dream, feeding people a picture of a perfect squeaky-clean white Protestant family consisting of a sexless couple and 2.5 perfect white Protestant children, spoon-fed into your brain holes by Hayes Code television. You watched them on TV but didn’t know about the abuse, the institutionalization of girl children for being intelligent, the utter fucking racism, or House Un-American Affairs Committee which branded ANYONE who agitated on behalf of their own cause, a dangerous enemy of the state. Even modern Tankies have no frame of reference for “Commie” actually being a life-destroying label.

This was when LGBTQ people were just “sexual deviants.” When neurodiverse people were simply institutionalized. When disabled people often couldn’t even eat in public.

This was when being “weird” or a “freak” meant actual, real, and utter social marginalization.

This was when artists were imagined to be poor people. (The reality being that so many artists were poor or outcast first, and trying to do what they could to get by, and that happened to be their art.)

Being almost any kind of outcast, and surviving it, meant you were where the other outcasts were and trying to create something for yourselves. There was not ADA. There was not PFLAG. There were not support groups. There was no mainstream media inclusivity. When my mom was growing up, the perfect white upper middle class family was the only thing on TV. This is a cultural context in which a lot of us nerds, became such huge Star Trek fans. For many of us, this was the first thing on TV that really spoke to us. It was one of the first things on TV that people shared with their children that didn’t blare Hayes Code and fascist imagery at us.

There was only barely community women’s health and it was even more radical then.

My mother’s family moved to Venice not because it was a gentrified hipstertopia. It would not be that for a long time. My mother (born 1952) grew up poor and Jewish in Venice. Venice was nowhere. Venice was nothing. Venice was to Los Angeles what Antioch, CA is to San Francisco: somewhere way off in the middle of nowhere where no one who "matters" ever goes, where a lot of minorities and outcasts lived because of being unable to live anywhere else.

Venice was a shithole. The city wouldn’t keep the canals clean. The only infrastructure the PTB at all cared about, was the notoriously racist, fascist local police force.

Lots of people wanted to leave. I’m sure they would have wished to leave on their own terms instead of being pushed out by love-bead wearing trustafarian 20 year olds with garage bands, who 20 years later would sell their homes to Bourgeoise Bohemians, who would then be replaced by Tech Bros.

Once Venice was wedged against the ocean on the dregs of a failed resort (of some developer who wanted to build a mock Venice, Italy earlier in the century), and separated from Los Angeles by smelly salt flats and marshes.

Now, the town that birthed The Doors in one of its canalside garages, has been swallowed by Los Angeles.

It is often called Silicon Beach.

That disappeared world is what I think of, when I think of “counterculture.” The more privilege-originated people in that mix were a mix of people who themselves were actually and genuinely oppressed by HUAC, and by abusive and narcissistic parents totally supported by the old system and the mainstream culture.

But not all of them disappeared.

Anyone who actually was there for the fight, stayed with the fight. A couple of the old “Boomers” I see at Indivisible meetings and agitating at City Council meetings, are former Civil Rights activists.

When the Left Puritans and the Right Puritans have divided up the US between them, where will you go? When you’re finished being chased off of Tumblr and YouTube, where will you go? When mass surveillance turns all electronic spaces to the equivalent environment of a hospital, public school, Federal building?

Our parents and grandparents, literal and figurative, didn’t have Tumblr. They did not have Leftbook.

I hope that this did not seem as if I were romanticizing a cultural environment I know nothing about. There is nothing I would ever give to live in the 1960s and 70s. And I feel like the culture has made so many strides since then.

But this is the mental picture I have of “counterculture.”

It was counter culture. Counterculture was a radicalized label that was a synonym for anti-American. It was not middle class mall subculture. You could not buy it at Hot Topic.

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romaniassexdungeon · 5 years

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Just Kids - chapter 46

A Wy chapter! Don't have much else to say except I wonder if I'll ever get this finished.

Read on AO3

...

New year, new me.

What a heap of shit, the Coopers collectively agreed, and yet, it was the perfect opportunity for Charlie.

No, it wasn’t.

But when would be a good opportunity?

Never.

But he might as well get it all over and done with, find out what his brothers thought and deal with the consequences as they came. As long as it was out in the open, he could start being himself and things would work out in the end.

No, he was 13. Where could he go if Logan kicked him out?

Huna would take him in.

But his life would still be hell, and he would have no family left. And everyone at school would treat him like shit. He might have to change schools, like Oscar did.

He’d still have Peter, Lars, Kuzey and Franz. And Huna.

And he’d probably be murdered in some horrific hate crime. Or die of sadness from every member of his family rejecting him and daily bullying.

He'd survived his own father abandoning him; Charlie could survive this. It didn’t matter how many times life kicked him, he could get back up and try again. The thing was, though, at those times, he always had Logan to help him move on and set up a new life. Do all the grown up work while he just packed his bags, looked after Oscar, and wondered what his new school would be like.

Would Huna do that for him? Blow this town and move somewhere else? Start a new life as Charlie Cooper’s guardian? Not that Charlie could ever ask, but he got the impression Hunapo would do that for him anyway. And it could be fun, hanging out at Hunapo’s studio flat, snuggled up with his new parent-sibling in the fold-down bed, watching bad sitcoms on their little box TV.

Well, Logan had always said Flight of the Conchords was bad, but Charlie had never watched it.

If he turned out to be a transphobic cunt, Charlie would watch every episode with Hunapo out of spite. Whilst eating vegan sausages in an All Blacks shirt.

Still, he didn’t need to think about that now. It was his first day back at school, and he wanted to end the term as a boy. He was going to end the term as a boy.

“Look, I just think it’s important that we’re all on the same level,” he began. Mr Fernandez Carriedo had let him use the room over lunch, apparently to work on their website. Charlie needed somewhere private at school, somewhere he could get everyone together and talk properly. “Some of you know already know what I’m talking about, but I wanna come clean to everyone.”

“Wait, where’s Oscar?” asked Mike.

“I wanna talk to him separately,” said Charlie, “him and Logan. As a family.”

“So it’s a big thing, then,” Mike looked around, “a coming out thing?”

“Yeah,” Charlie picked at a nail. “I’ve been thinking about stuff and I’m trans. I’m a trans guy. I would prefer it if you stuck to calling me Charlie, none of this “Charlotte” wank.”

“Sure thing, man,” said Mike, glancing over at Sal with amusement. Sal was speechless, brain seeming to take a while to process everything.

“You’d make a beautiful man,” he eventually spluttered out. Charlie blinked.

“I know you already told me,” said Franz, “but it’s kinda cool we have some gays and bis and stuff, but you’re our first tran. Congrats.”

“Wait, who’s gay and bi here?” asked Nobuyuki.

A chorus of “me”s sounded from several boys. Kuzey kept very quiet.

“So, is there any straight people besides me?”

“I am, I think,” said Sal.

“Gotta keep a few around,” said Peter, “you know, so no one thinks we’re straightophobic.”

Charlie smiled. He wasn’t alone. Not only did he have Hunapo, but now he had a solid support network of friends. LGBTQ friends who might not know exactly what he was going through, but he wasn’t alone.

He was never going to be alone again.

“I can’t believe we’re your token straights,” said Nobuyuki.

Peter shrugged. “Who else am I gonna talk about football with?”

“Since when did I care about football?”

“No offence but this is about me, remember?” said Charlie, hands on hips. “I’m trying to come out here!”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Lars, “so you gonna come out to the whole school?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I want to start living as a boy, but school sucks. Everyone here sucks.”

“If anyone gives you trouble, we’d shank them,” Franz inspected his nails.

“I need to see how my brothers react, anyway. We can go from there.”

“I mean, I’d be really disappointed in Oscar if he ends up being a dick about it. Like, I like him, but I’d dump his ass in a second. And Logan fancies the agender one, right?”

“Yeah. But it’s different when it’s family, right? It gets real .”

“Fancying one of those transgenders makes it real,” said Peter, "right?"

“Pete, you use transgender as a noun again and I’ll kick you in the dick. We’ve been through this.”

“But it makes you so mad, you transgender.”

Charlie threw a pencil at him.

“You bisexual.”

“Yes, that’s me.”

Kuzey glanced between them.

“Wait, so are you gay or straight?” asked Sal.

“I dunno. I’m nowhere near figuring that out. I’m better than you, but I can only do so much at once. Anyway, might as well get some work done.”

“We got a full inbox,” said Lars, “guess people get lonely over the holidays. I’ve been trying to keep up, but…”

Charlie knew. He’d seen the surprisingly heartfelt, empathetic messages Lars was leaving people, the advice he’d give on bullying, loneliness, being in the closet. The last one Charlie himself had sent in. This was the guy who’d filmed Peter as his appendix burst and pointed and laughed. Lars didn’t do respectful. He wasn’t sensitive. Charlie hadn’t been sure the guy was capable of sympathy.

“We all need to pull our weight,” he told the group, “I want to go to the library in a bit and get some new year reading. Research some issues and how to talk to people about them.”

“A library?” asked Franz.

Charlie shrugged. “Oscar rubs off on me; sometimes I feel like sitting in a library and reading.”

“No, I get it. It’s quiet and aesthetic. Like the art classrooms.”

“You two are lame. I’m gonna play games in the IT suite.” Lars got up. “Later, gayboys.”

“You’re literally the only gay here, Lars,” said Peter, getting out a football and leaving.

Mike and Sal watched everyone else leave one by one, then they pulled out their lunches and phones.

“Think Oscar’s lonely?” asked Mike.

“Probably,” said Sal. “Wanna risk texting him?”

“Nah. Kinda wanna talk about Charlie.”

Sal looked at him, face unreadable for once. “You do?”

“Just... so what do you think about it?”

Sal shrugged. “That’s he- his business. I just want… him to be happy.”

“Still have a crush? I mean, do you get crushes on dudes?”

“No, but Charlie still kinda looks like a girl right now. I mean, when he starts looking like a guy, maybe I’ll not fancy him anymore. Or maybe it’ll turn out I’m bi. I don’t know, but Charlie’s a guy, so… I just want him to be happy.”

“Yeah, just want him to be happy.”

...

Hunapo held his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. He would be okay. There were people on Charlie’s side. But it would be really, really nice if his brothers were too.

“We learnt about chromosomes in science,” he began, “you know, about how I have two X chromosomes so I’m a girl and stuff.”

Hunapo smiled. “Yeah, basic biology is so oversimplified. Shame not many people ever move past that.”

“Yeah, like, I’d rather not learn the hard stuff right now, but I still felt weird listening to it. Not as scary as hearing about puberty and how my body's gonna "go through some changes".”

“Don’t worry too much about your chromosomes,” said Hunapo, “you can’t change them, but that’s okay. They tell you what you look like, but they don’t tell you what you are inside.”

“Cheesy. I’m glad you’re with me.”

He hadn’t told Logan he’d asked Hunapo to pick him up from science club, just sent Oscar home and let him explain it. It also gave Logan an hour so to clean up himself and the house for his crush.

Outside his house, Charlie hesitated. This was it, the last chance to turn back. He looked up at Hunapo.

“It’s gonna be okay,” they replied. “Whatever happens, you’re gonna be free to start being who you are.”

He nodded, then opened the door.

...

“I mean,” Logan paced the room as it all sank in, “I guess we’re gonna save on water.”

That wasn’t the response Charlie had been expecting. Not even remotely. He sat on the sofa, watching Logan pace and Oscar sit in silent thought in the armchair. “Er, why?”

“Well, guys don’t shower as much. Some spray does us for a few days. Could probably stretch it out to a week, like me.”

“Absolutely not true,” said Oscar, “Charlie, you’re about to be going through puberty. You’re going to smell. You’re going to get spots and sweat and it’s gross. Please keep showering.”

“This conversations going weirdly,” Charlie mumbled.

Hunapo put down their cup of tea and put an arm around him. “Look, Charlie’s just poured his heart out. Are you gonna accept him or not?”

“Of course. We’re an LGBT-only household now,” Logan ruffled Charlie’s hair. “I mean, fuck, it’s gonna take a while to get used to it, but we’re gonna stick with you. The Coopers got each other’s backs, and no one messes with us.”

“You can have some of my old clothes,” added Oscar, “I think I have some stuff that doesn’t fit.”

“Thanks,” Charlie grinned, “and we can sell the girly clothes and you can use the money for bills-”

Logan cut him off. “No way, it’s your money. You’d have earned it. You can buy yourself some boys clothes and get a haircut.”

“I don’t mind treating Charlie to a haircut,” said Hunapo.

“Because sh- he caught it off you? Fuck. I was trying to joke but slipped up the “she” and “he”, sorry Charlie. It might take a while to get it right.”

“Chill, Loggie. As long as you’re trying. I still misgender myself in my head sometimes.”

“I do too,” added Hunapo, “it’s annoying, but happens. And I haven't finished indoctrinating Charlie in the trans agenda yet.”

"I'm going to throw bricks at fascists!" Charlie chirped.

"I'm so proud of you." Logan sat down next to Charlie and pulled him onto his lap for a cuddle. "Aww, kid, you haven't been worrying about how I'd take it, have you?"

Charlie nodded. "I... we never talked about this kind of stuff. I had no idea how you'd react."

"Everything about you is offensive, down to your smell," said Hunapo flatly.

"Shut the fuck up, Sheepshagger." He kissed the top of Charlie's head. "Chubba-Charlie, I'm always gonna support you, okay? You and Oscar are my brothers. My babies. Remember that. I'm here to help you be who you are."

"I absolutely support you too," added Oscar.

"Love you Loggie. Love you, Oscar."

"Love you too, baby."

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therebelsthemartyrsthesurvivors · 5 years

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Changing the Narrative

While confronting the Holocaust in Germany and Poland, visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka II, the memorial sites, I had an epiphany: the victims of the Holocaust are always labeled as victims and the perpetrators are always infamously talked about, as if they should be the main focus in our history books. These people, these “victims” were fighters and martyrs who knew about sacrifice and the possibility of death. Some survived death when they were only a few feet away from it, and not even this scare turned them away from returning to dreadful places like the Warsaw Ghetto to warn others of the fate that was awaiting them in death camps like Treblinka II. We do not give credit where credit is due. We do not talk about people like Emanuel Ringelblum, we talk about people like Heinrich Himmler. We do not talk about people like Jan Karski, we talk about people like Rudolf Höss. Because of course we have to mention the evil behind it all, but we give credit where credit is not deserved, and we see this at memorial sites, we see this at museums, we see this in poor representations of the Holocaust in film, media, in museum tours, and literature. We focus on the perpetrators and the bystanders, the people at fault, but we never focus on the fact that there was a resistance, there was hope, there were uprisings fueled by hope and the unity of persecuted peoples.

This paper is meant to ethically represent the Holocaust— the survivors, the resistance, and the rebels— those who rebelled against the odds and fought a fate decided for them by the infamous perpetrators and the bystanders. This paper is meant to highlight the stories we do not always talk about. In this paper I will be focusing on three specific groups of the many peoples targeted in the Holocaust, specifically Jews, women and children (including the unborn), and the LGBT community. This paper is a written self-reflection based on my experiences confronting the Holocaust as a survivor of assault. I want to change the narrative and focus on the stories that matter, reflect on the truth of the Holocaust, and discuss what can be done differently to respectfully and ethically commemorate the survivors and “victims” of the Holocaust. In this paper, I will argue and defend the fact that the so-called “victims” were martyrs, and the survivors were the greatest resistance of all.

THE HEAD, NOT THE TAIL

Dating back to 1930s Europe, the persecution of Jews had started much earlier than is recognized. Propaganda was used to divide communities, and successfully turned the backs of non-Jewish neighbors on their Jewish neighbors (as we see in several pogroms that occurred throughout the war— before, during, and after), however men were targeted before women and children. German Jewish men were being deported and interned far before German Jewish women were because women clearly were not even remotely viewed as a threat. In reference to Between Dignity and Despair, a historical account written by Marion Kaplan, German Jewish women were vital to the survival of German Jewish men deported and interned prior to the creation of ghettos and the decision to exterminate all Jews. Men “were forced to flee promptly” (Kaplan 24). Wives and mothers were responsible for saving their husbands from permanent internment in camps. These women learned several languages to be able to locate their husbands and fathers, and they managed to hold down the household, all at once. German Jewish women had “the burden of keeping their households and communities together.” (Kaplan 6) Men were only set free because their female relatives located them and provided them with the identification papers necessary to be released. It was their female relatives who tracked them down and released them from internment. They newly learned how to financially support their families, how to get by with the few resources they had, and they learned how to use these few resources to accomplish finding a site of refuge. We never hear these stories though, and we need to change the narrative.

The Greatest Crime. Jewish and Roma women were a persecuted minority. Jewish women more exclusively because they had the ability to procreate Jewish children, and of course, Jewish lineage is passed on through the mother. This was viewed as a political threat to the Third Reich.

At Auschwitz and Ravensbrück, Jewish and Roma women were subject to forced sterilization methods to test which methods would be most cost effective. Other “undesirables” were also exposed to forced sterilization at these camps. Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, visibly pregnant Jewish women and Jewish women with small children were sent directly to the gas chambers to be killed. The story of Jewish women and children entering Auschwitz-Birkenau is a painful one. Dr. Josef Mengele, infamously known for conducting medical experiments on twins at Auschwitz-Birkenau, was responsible for the decision that declared that Jewish women with small children entering the camp would be gassed. His logic was that the small Jewish children had nowhere to go because all Jews were imprisoned in the camps, they could not work, and there weren’t any facilities on the camp where they could live and develop “normally”. He also claimed it would not be humane if he sent the children on their own to the “ovens” without allowing the mother to be there to witness the child’s death, so the mother and child would be sent together. We hear about Dr. Josef Mengele every time we talk about Auschwitz, but someone we never talk about who is incredibly vital to the survival of Jews in Auschwitz was Dr. Gisella Perl.

A Hero in Hell. Dr. Perl was a Hungarian gynecologist who was interned as a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz, yet was also the head women’s doctor. Dr. Perl once spoke that the greatest crime at Auschwitz was being pregnant. She worked under Dr. Mengele and was ordered to notify him of any pregnant women that were living onsite at the camp. Dr. Mengele claimed that these women were going to be sent to a different camp to receive better nutrition. Women quickly came forward on their own, but it was soon learned these women were being experimented on and were sent thereafter to the crematoriums. Dr. Perl made it her mission to save as many women as possible while she could. She performed secret abortions on the dirty, excrement-infested floors in the barracks with her bare hands. She explained to the expecting mothers that two lives would be lost if they went through with their pregnancy because becoming pregnant in the camps meant a death sentence was awaiting them.

Fertility = Sabotage = Resistance. Interestingly enough, pregnancy was not at all uncommon on these cursed grounds where pregnancy was supposedly “not allowed”. However, brothels were common and contraceptives were clearly not available to women. Male prisoners would often seek out sexual favors in exchange of goods that would help a woman survive at the camp. There were barracks specifically used by the SS to molest and rape Jewish women. “Their actions and feelings towards Jewish women created inner conflicts for the SS officers, leading to violence against the women, who were blamed for seducing the officers” (Holland, par. 5). Age was not a restriction either. Thousands of babies were born at Auschwitz but were almost all immediately executed upon exiting the womb. Dr. Perl saved many women from instant death with the hope that they would one day have a family of their own, outside of the hell they were living in. There are only two known infants who were born in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and survived. A one year old weighed in at six pounds and was so weak that she could never cry, which is how she survived. She was easy to hide because no one ever heard a sound coming from her. Her mother was dying due to starvation when she gave birth to her. We never hear these stories though, and we need to change the narrative.

IDENTITY

We seldom hear about the LGBT community when we talk about the Holocaust. I could even use the word ‘never’ if I wanted to because if we are being honest, the LGBT community is not commonly included in the narrative. Members of the LGBT community faced harsh, brutal treatment in concentration camps and were treated far worse than political prisoners, Jehovah’s witnesses, the Roma, criminals, and asocials. Lesbians were subject to black triangles and labeled as “asocials” instead of receiving the pink triangle which was meant to label a person as being gay. These pink triangles assigned to gay men were commonly used as shooting targets for the SS. Compared to gay men, lesbians were hardly viewed as a threat, but they were raped and “forced” to verbally change their sexual orientation. SS men found that lesbians were the easiest to sexually convert. Gay men in Germany were forcibly castrated. Boiling water was used to literally boil off their testicles. They were called in to local police stations where they were sodomized with the ends of broken broomsticks and the torture would not end until they bled. Gay men in the Holocaust were considered the “lowest of the low” but this is often omitted from history books and Holocaust literature.

Homosexuals are not Cowards. Willem Arondéus was an openly gay, anti-fascist resistance fighter. Arondéus was one of the very first to join the Dutch resistance and his underground organization provided Jews with fake identities. In 1943, he was responsible for the bombing of a public records office that contained a catalog with the names of hundreds of thousands of Dutch people residing in Amsterdam. This was important specifically in the case of Dutch Jews because Nazis were using the catalog to look into fake identities. He planned the attack on the records office with the help of other resistance fighters, many of them also openly gay. We do not mention the fact that he dressed as a German Army captain and walked fifteen men past guards to enter the records office. We do not mention the fact that Frieda Belinfante, a classical cellist, talented conductor, and open lesbian, was one of his main resistance fighters. The rebels marched into the building, they drugged the rest of the guards, and set up the explosives. They destroyed nearly a quarter of the public records office.

We need to talk about the fact that this moment, this decision, kept thousands of Jews from being deported and identified. Unfortunately, someone within the underground organization betrayed them and turned them all in. Arondéus said he acted alone in the bombing, but the Nazis executed him and the other thirteen resistance fighters anyway. The rest of the rebels managed to flee the country. Arondéus’ last words, spoken through his lawyer, were Homosexuals are not cowards. I have to write this in bold. I have to emphasize what was meant to be emphasized by Willem Arondéus. Homosexuals are not cowards. It is a rare opportunity that we get to hear these stories of justice, resistance, rebellion, and we need to change the narrative.

THE REBELS

There is one last person I feel an intense need to talk about, and that person is Emanuel Ringelblum. I mentioned him earlier as someone we do not typically talk about and I want to end that. I feel it is important to address that there was a Jewish resistance and Emanuel Ringelblum was a huge part of it. Many people believe that Jews could have risen up against the Nazis and that they could have “actually done something”. Here is another ounce of proof that Jews resisted and rebelled and survived and actually did something.

The Archives. Ringelblum is responsible for the Oneg Shabbat Archives, better known now as Ringelblum’s Archives of the Warsaw Ghetto, which I will refer to as “the archives”. He was the inspiration behind the secret Oneg Shabbat Archives, which translates to “Sabbath pleasure”. Naming the archives “Oneg Shabbat” was technically code because Ringelblum and other archivists would meet late afternoons on the Sabbath, which is why the archives are named as such. During the day they would take in as much information as possible and write notes on what happened at night. The idea was to document the atrocities of the Nazis in the ghetto, and the archives played a huge role in memorializing those who passed on from starvation, those who were transported to Treblinka II. The archives have kept memory alive, stories, testimonials; they are living words that have survived. These stories, these documents are proof that the Holocaust happened, that there was a resistance, that people knew they might more than likely die, but they wrote anyway. If they were caught writing the archives, they would undoubtedly be killed, and they knew that. Most of the archivists who contributed to the Oneg Shabbat Archives passed away during the war, many of them deported to Treblinka II. This form of resistance is so significant and powerful because they did not resist with violence, yet these archives were a huge slap in the face for any Nazi, any bystander, anyone who was complicit with Nazi crimes because these archives proved that people knew they might die, it proved that people were not just dying because they were weaker or lesser or incapable; they were not dumb, they were not cowards. It proved that Jews were persecuted and it proved that they fought back in every way they could think of. If anything was going to survive persecution and death, it would be the truth. The Truth Meant Survival and Resistance. The one thing the Third Reich wanted to disappear more than the Jews was any memory of the Jews. Any memory of them resisting, rebelling, fighting back; any memory of them, any record of them living, any suitcase, pocket watch, or hairbrush that belonged to them. Anti-semites tried to strip Jews of everything they were, everything they had, every bit of their identity. There are two sides to the story of Jews during the Holocaust, and only two: Hope and Resistance. If Jews were so sure they were going to die, why would they try to fit their lives in little suitcases? Because they had hope. If Jews didn’t think and know they might die, they wouldn’t leave behind three milk cans worth of archives to keep their memory and stories alive. Keeping the truth alive was resistance. Ringelblum is important because he stripped the Nazis of their superficial identities. He stripped away the false importance that the Nazis gave themselves and he revealed the atrocities committed. All of the archivists revealed the cowards hiding behind the curtain, a curtain called “propaganda”. “The archive materials and Ringelblum's own written chronicles constitute the most comprehensive and valuable source of information we have” (“Emanuel Ringelblum”, 2018). Had Ringelblum not initiated the secret archives, we would not know a whole lot of what we do know now because of these documents. We probably wouldn’t know much of anything that transpired in the Warsaw Ghetto without these documents. We would not know a whole lot of what occurred in occupied-Poland. We would not know a whole lot of the truth without the Oneg Shabbat Archives. We never hear these stories though, and we need to change the narrative.

LACK OF ETHICAL REPRESENTATION AND MEMORIALIZATION

We never hear these stories because people and governments feel threatened by the truth, they feel accused, they might feel ridiculed, they might be in denial. In Germany and Poland, I witnessed the way “homosexuals” who were persecuted during the Holocaust still are not ethically represented at memorial sites, at museums, by the tour guide at Auschwitz who spoke the words “homosexual rape” back to back in the same sentence to try to describe how one prisoner at Auschwitz sodomized and simply raped another man, neither known for being gay. I witnessed the way “homosexuals” are represented by a small concrete box, hidden off in a park, with a sweet video that truly does no justice to the people who were considered the lowest of the low in concentration camps and were treated as such; treated like target practice and science experiments. I witnessed the way an information panel at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp incorrectly included all members of the LGBT community under the same word, homosexual, when there was a photo of a young transgender woman pictured clearly right in front of me, but unless you have been to these places, you would not know of these stories, and I need to change the narrative.

Neglect. I witnessed the way women were neglected at memorial sites. I witnessed the way the unborn were neglected at memorial sites. I witnessed the way it was common to hear that there were brothels at concentration camps, and I’ve read so many stories of women who saved lives in the concentration camps, yet we do not memorialize women as we do others. We categorize them under other groups of people, we steal parts of their identity that we do not want to ethically represent because “other people suffered too” and it “wasn’t just a war on women”, yet we have women being raped, being used for sexual favors, being killed upon arrival at concentration camps because being pregnant is a crime if you are considered an “undesirable”. Even German women were targets and were often forced to procreate to snowball the production of Aryan children, the opposite situation compared to that of a Jewish woman. I witnessed the way children were neglected at memorials. In the war, they were treated like adults, even though they were far from transitioning into adulthood. They were raped, beaten, abused, experimented on, and then discarded. If they were too young to work, they died in gas chambers. Some children worked in the camps at an age as early as five years old if they looked older enough, lying their way through the selection process to survive. Treated like adults then, barely memorialized now.

Knowing these stories that we do not talk about, I felt a moral obligation to address these issues and how a lot of these issues are still relevant to today. In Germany, memorial sites were neglected— blown-out speakers, waterproof lighting issues— not to mention, Nazi-era laws are still in place in the country to this day. In Poland, I met and spoke to locals who support the new Polish laws that are completely anti-semitic and are a sad example of Holocaust denial. I will not even begin to readdress what I mentioned about the tour guide at Auschwitz who referred to rape as “homosexual rape”. Ultimately, I think what made me feel uncomfortable in some of the cities I visited in Germany and Poland was the fact that there is still a lingering presence of what happened, yet people try to suppress it. It is almost as though there is no aftermath, and we are stuck in the past like it is still happening. It appears to be believed at memorial sites that so long as there is some contribution made to the memorialization of persecuted minorities that all is well, yet the memory of persecuted homosexuals is kept boxed in, closeted. There is no visible effort to protect the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. People sit on the memorial, have picnics at the memorial site, on the concrete blocks that are a part of the memorial. There are signs promoting “Hitler’s [recreated] Bunker” in Berlin that surround the area where the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is located. In regards to the educational tours, at least there is some contribution being made to spread the knowledge and awareness of what happened, but to call Auschwitz I “Auschwitz Muzeum” is unethical, uncomfortable, and desensitizing. In Oranienburg, Germany, one of the original meeting places for SS officers/commanders was repurposed as a city tax office. Their new police academy building is also repurposed SS property, and sits right in front of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Sachsenhausen is uncomfortably referred to as a museum as well. I understand that these are now historical sites and that there are exhibits at some of these camps, but I will never understand why we cannot just refer to them for what they were. When I visit these locations, I know exactly what happened and I do not view these places like they are museums, no matter how many exhibits there are in front of me. Real human hair is not an exhibit. Shoes that belonged to people is not an exhibit. The suitcases, the kitchenware, the glasses, the pocket watches. None of this belongs behind the wall of a glass case.

People died.

‘Museum’ is not the term used to represent a location where hundreds of thousands of real people died. Where human beings died.

CONCLUSION

The truth cannot die. These stories cannot be made to disappear. No law can change the past, alter the past, nor can it convince me to ignore the past. I have seen what denial looks like at memorial sites. I have seen what denial looks like at museums. Because of this, I cannot ignore the truth, but I can change the narrative. I can share what I have learned, I can raise awareness, I can share the stories. I know that homosexuals are not cowards. I know that lesbians, women, children, Jews, European Roma, the resistance, the archivists… are not cowards. History knows this. History has seen this. Children and newborns survived Auschwitz when they shouldn’t have. Jewish women remained fertile when they shouldn’t have. Members of the LGBT community survived when they shouldn’t have. Jews survived when they shouldn’t have. Jewish lineage was passed on when it was meant to be cut off. History knows that the “victims” were martyrs, and the survivors were the greatest resistance of all. It is vital to share the stories of people like Dr. Gisella Perl, Willem Arondéus, and Emanuel Ringelblum. Spreading awareness is vital. Making note of unethical representation and memorialization is vital, correcting it is vital.

Memory will live on, as will the stories and the journal entries. Traditions will live on, lineage will be passed on, and the rebels will never really die. We cannot forget the stories that matter, the legacies that matter, and the people who changed the course of the Holocaust. There was a resistance. There was hope. We cannot let the truth die. We must preserve the truth, identity, history. Because if we do not defend history, it will be rewritten over and over again and the truth will be at risk. The Holocaust has truly nothing to do with the perpetrators and everything to do with the difference makers. It has everything to do with the survivors and the martyrs. It has everything to do with resistance and hope.

But this is never how the story goes, and we need to change the narrative.

#holocaust #history #jewishhistory #jewishcommunity #socialjustice #socialinjustice #immigrantslivesmatter #migrantslivesmatter #blacklivesmatter #antisemitismisasin

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random2908 · 6 years

Text

Seen on Twitter, https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/1035196520918863873?s=21

a transcript of the tweet thread (tweets quoted within are italicized including links) since I could only otherwise find difficult-to-read screenshots:

A while back, I tweeted that in case anyone isn't clear, we are well past the "first they came for" point.

This is a big story and I'm not sure it's possible for it to get enough attention.

In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings.” Article: http://wapo.st/2PNIf68

I'm sure the "no need to panic" brigade would want us to point out that this affecting "only" hundreds or thousands of Latinx Americans living in a narrow region along the border.

But.

First of all, that's too many people.

Because...

Because here is the thing about due process.

Everybody gets it, or no one really has it.

And from the moment the Trump regime decided it just doesn't apply to "illegal" immigrants, we were always heading here.

Some (white) people replied to suspension of due process for non-citizens by saying "Well, I could prove my citizenship easily." But how do you do that when you're not entitled to any process to prove anything?

If we passed an amendment to the Constitution saying that Constitutional protections don't apply to waterbed repair technicians named Sleven Trusbucket, all the government would have to do is say that's you and you would be out of options for proving them wrong.

And to the sort of person who is sure that life operates on formal logic and strict proof, the sort of person who is sure if they can present the right argument just the right way they can convince anyone of the truth of anything, it feels like there must be some way around that.

But that's part of the horror of a situation like this, part of why Kafka's The Trial is so viscerally uncomfortable to read. The proof does not matter if no one is bound to accept the proof. It feels like it should. It always feels like truth should matter, proof should matter.

Now I said long ago, and again at the head of this thread, that we're past the point of "first they came for". For most of the people reading this, they're still not up to "they came for me", and probably won't be for a while. They're working to expand the ranks of "non-American"

They redefined huge swathes of undocumented immigrants -- including ones working with the system to fix their status -- as "criminals" and "gangmembers" and "animals". They slammed the door in the face of immigrants with papers, finding pretexts to call them "illegal".

They started revoking the citizenship of naturalized citizens for whatever excuse they could find, and the next step is to strip citizenship of natural born citizens who don't fit their profile of a Real American.

Right now their excuse for doing so is restricting them to people born in a border region but the excuse will widen and so will the scope of the action.

And they aren't just moving in one direction here. They've been revoking the passports of trans people while all this is happening.

Now, the flipside of revoking citizenship and "deporting" someone is: the United States cannot bestow citizenship for another country. Just because the man in the low castle thinks someone looks "Mexican" doesn't mean they default to that when they lose US citizenship.

There's been a lot of talk on Twitter about the dangers of statelessness, in regard to Canada and ending birthright citizenship (something the Trumpers would love to do if they can swing it.)

People who lose their citizenship are thrown into a legal limbo, effectively becoming unpersoned for many purposes.”

Tweet/ https://twitter.com/bashirmoham…/status/1033585831544410112… “I am shocked and disturbed that the Conservative Party of Canada voted to end birth right citizenship in Canada.

I say this as someone who was born stateless - legally without a country. I'll tell you my story and why this is move is so reckless and dangerous.”

And while nationalists whip up fear of the foreign, they hate and despise the stateless even more. They're deliberately making the "immigration crisis" worse.

Nazi apologists will be happy to tell you that the great humanitarian Hitler tried so hard to get Jewish Germans settled happily and healthily elsewhere but that no one would take them in, thus leaving him with a problem in need of a final solution.

So what's going to happen when Trump has stripped citizenship from everyone who doesn't "look American", doesn't "look like they should be voting", but there's nowhere to deport all these people, no home country for them to return to?

And maybe you're thinking that we don't have the resources to actually disenfranchise and denaturalize *everybody* who doesn't "look American" buuuut the magic of not giving due process is they don't have to.

If you knew that people whose last names are in the same language as yours are getting rounded up, stripped of rights, and arrested when they go to apply for or renew a passport... how dire would it have to be, before you'd dare try?

And then what if it expands to, say, people showing up at polling places? DMVs? Hospitals?

What if it goes on to the point where "everyone knows" that people with certain names and/or skin tones aren't really citizens and don't have to be afforded any particular rights?

Before the SCOTUS struck down sodomy laws, in a lot of states being seen as gay could be used to justify just about any level of discrimination. Gay couple needs an apartment? "We can't make landlords rent to a criminal if they don't want to." Were the couple ever convicted? No.

But ~*everybody knew*~ what gay people got up into their bedrooms was illegal, doing illegal things made you a criminal, and being a criminal was grounds for termination, eviction, expulsion, exclusion.

Or if you want to see what the future of law enforcement looks like in a fascist state, look at the standards used to arrest and prosecute sex workers.

For years now, in the land of Innocent Until Proven Guilty, you could be arrested for "suspicion" of a victimless crime because of entirely legal materials in your purse and entirely legal conduct within a place you had every legal right to be.

The actual ideal is that the cops could know you're a sex worker, could know for a certain fact that you're engaged in sex work, but if they couldn't prove it then you are an innocent in the eyes of the law. That's how it's supposed to work and how it works for some crimes.

Everyone in town can know that J. Doe up on the hill beats his wife and kids but if the cops can't prove it they will tell you nothing can be done, and proof has to be more than the fear in their eyes or bruises on their arms. Or even him "allegedly" bragging about it.

Meanwhile they'll pick people up off the street for ~*suspicion*~ of sex work and "prove" it through entirely circumstantial means, none of which points to actual lawbreaking.

Now here's the crux of that: being able to claim that any woman carrying condoms (for instance) is a sex worker doesn't mean they detain everyone and make them turn out their pockets.

It just gives them a tool, a weapon, to use when they feel like it.

And that's the future of policing. Increasingly broad rules that could apply to increasingly wide swaths of the population, that can be deployed by the authorities when someone "looks" like they might be trouble, much less starts to actually make any.

They practice these techniques on populations they think they can get away with practicing them on, and when they do get away with it, they start looking to expand.

Cf. stop and frisk in New York City, where white kids were more likely to have marijuana but less likely to be stopped and ordered to turn out their pockets. It was a tool of control.

Obviously I'm talking about practices that go back years before when Trump came to power. He's part of a progression, not the source.

And if you want to know where the progression is heading, just look at how the law has treated people on the margins since the year seventeen seventy forever.

That's where we're heading.

And I don't think enough people are alarmed enough by this.

I saw somebody QTing the Washington Post story at the head of this thread with "And Democrats want to tell us to vote every two years like that's enough."

It's not enough. But we haven't been voting every two years, and that's part of how we got here. Just part. A crucial part.

I think we should add this (specifically: stripping people near the border of citizenship) to the things we call our representatives about, especially but not only if you're in Texas. And if we can vote in a Democratic majority we'll have more tractable reps to yell at about it.

Tweet/ https://twitter.com/herhandsmyh…/status/1035206932938801152… “Plus: we have to start somewhere. Voting every single time is an essential step.”

Essential. Necessary. Not sufficient, but necessary.

A scary thing in all of this: the wave of revocation of trans passports I alluded to upthread doesn't appear to have *originated* anywhere. Select federal employees just decided it's time to start doing it.

I can't tell you from the outside which escalations of "enforcement" (to abuse the term) against immigrants and what I guess are "accused immigrants" among citizens were also spontaneous decisions made at the level at which they occur but I'm sure some of them were.

What I'm saying is, there have always been people within the federal enforcement apparatus and bureaucracy who were waiting for favorable winds to launch their warships.

Tweet/ https://twitter.com/queer_i_am/status/1035207525363200001… “Anti-homeless laws are also a really good example, especially because they target actions _everyone_ does. Pull over after working a night shift to nap and avoid an accident? Illegal.

I stopped to watch a cop once and he got in my space and threatened to take me in on loitering.”

See also: anti-loitering laws. A law against existing in space. Used to run off white kids who aren't driving business, run in anyone the cops feel like making a criminal. Not enforced against anyone ~*respectable*~, who "belongs".

With so much of this enforcement being subjective and self-directed, it is also decentralized. Which makes it harder to block or even attack.

Bank involvement in forfeiture/seizure of assets. (h/t @herhandsmyhands) This should scare you.

Tweet/https://twitter.com/sacbee_news/status/1035172325463736320… “Bank of America freezing accounts of customers suspected of not being US citizens : https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article217567300.html

I know people are waiting for a point where it feels real, where it really feels like Nazi Germany. That point is going to be too far along to have any practical chance of stopping it.

Instead it's going to keep happening piecmeal and every time it happens, those who sound the alarm will be met with "You're overreacting, this isn't like a law against Jewish business ownership, this is only affecting a specific group of people in specific circumstances."

Relax: The monster's not eating your whole body, it's just eating one bite at a time.

The piecemeal, self-directed, subjective nature of these actions makes them harder to fight. Bank of America, the State Department, and DHS are all saying the same thing when questioned on this: "This is the same policy we've always followed." It's just being applied differently.

"We've always exercised discretion..." but now it's being exercised in different directions, towards different ends.

Someone asked what to do, besides be scared:

Make a lot of noise. If we are silent, we are complicit. If the only voices heard are those who support what's happening, they can claim universal assent.

If you work in a workplace, try telling your coworkers, "You know, they're taking citizenship away from people who live near the borders. If they can do that to anyone, they could do that to us. I don't think it's right." You don't have to make it partisan or anti-Trump.

Yell at your elected representatives. Democratic politicians should be aware that the GOP is reshaping the electorate in their favor. It's cynical, but they have to care about that.

Tweet about it, share it on social media. These things are not sufficient but they are necessary.

Vote in November. Same.

I know it feels like making noise isn't doing anything except complaining and we're taught that talk is the opposite of action but I promise you: talk is an action. When there is enough of an outcry they back down. Not all the way always. But slowing and mitigating damage helps.

#fascism #revoking citizenship #revoking passports

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serenagaywaterford · 5 years

Note

5) Honestly, imo it would made a lot more sense if Serena got involved with the Resistance after 2x08. She's a writer and a good propagandist, June's an editor, they could carefully go behind Fred's back. Also, Commander Lawrence is there. They could have brought down Gilead from within. Maybe I'm being simplistic, but I think it would have given a nice msg. An instigator (and impassioned supporter) of a misogynistic (and homophobic) totalitarian regime becomes a victim herself, but decides to

6) to do sth about that monstrous situation she created, even if that means that she will go down with Gilead. Then again, I do understand why the creators didn't go there. This is the handmaid's tale, not the redeemed fascist's tale. Regarding 2x10, oof. I pride myself in having a hard stomach, but that scene made me REALLY, REALLY uncomfortable (and ENRAGED). (A lot more uncomfortable than the previous ceremonies, which were terrible enough on their own, AND Eden's death* .) And given that

7) Serena has the gall to tell Fred that June hates him, because he raped her. Like bitch, stfu, it was YOUR idea! You raped her and used Fred for the penetration. And not only that, but she manipulated Fred/played him like an instrument. She knows at this point that he's a serial rapist/abuser AND in love with June, so ofc he wouldn't decline the opportunity to abuse her once again. It really is telling that June was screaming Serena's name, not Fred's. I wonder wtf was going on Serena's mind

8) to put the baby's life in danger. She could have punished June after the birth if she really wanted to. That being said, I personally think that Serena was kind of OOC in that episode. Not because she's an angel that is not capable of such hideous things. But, after taking under consideration 2x08 and 2x09, I felt that her 180° change came out of nowhere. Especially, since she took a small taste of her own medicine. She knows what abuse/domestic violence feels like. As for the marital rape,

9) it may have been clichéd, but it would also have made sense. A person that repeatedly rapes a woman, beats his wife and is okay with mutilations draws the line at forcing himself on her? Since when do creepers have standards? One last thing, because I've spammed you enough. *I mentioned Eden's death (which made me cry like a baby). How do you feel about her? Bc was disappointed that the fandom blamed a 15 year old child that was forced to marry a man twice her age. Not only that, but she

10) forgave him and kept Nick and June's secret? // END OF RANT // My apologies.

---------

I think I have to put a read more here! Eep!

“Then again, I do understand why the creators didn't go there. This is the handmaid's tale, not the redeemed fascist's tale.”

I had to laugh IRL there. Cos, it’s true. It’s June’s story, technically speaking, not Serena’s. And I dunno but I feel like I suspect that’s where they eventually want to take the show. But S2 is too early for that? I personally don’t know why. There’s no law an American programme must go one for 14 seasons. It could easily be a 4 season series. Or 3! But I’ve read things that Hulu wants to keep it going as long as possible. Huge mistake, imo. Organically speaking, Serena changing course after 2x08, or even, at a push, 2x09 would have made much more sense than this “will she? won’t she?” BS they keep doing with her. I think she’s come around in a way she hadn’t before by the finale (or Eden’s murder). But it still doesn’t seem like it’s something she’ll carry through with--especially without June. It’s interesting how much Serena relies on June for incentive/encouragement. Basically everything Serena’s done in resistance since mid-S2 has been because June has done or challenged her or said something to prompt her. I feel on her own, she would be ~meeker. Even things like, “Hey, so I know this way to possible save the baby... what do you think?” is clearly her going “Please say what I want to hear!” It’s like she can’t just do it herself. She needs June’s input. June was calling almost every shot in 2x08. In 2x09, when left to her own devices, Serena folded. It took June screaming at her in 2x13 for her to do anything about reading. So, without June around I feel like Serena will just go back to old ways. Which is ridic cos she is an intelligent, powerful woman when she actually has the balls. The only thing Serena manages to do on her own is assault, hate speech, and war crimes lol. The easy shit.

That said, I kinda like how they ended 2x08. I loved Fred seeing the rose on June’s bedside and putting all the pieces together and seeing that as the true threat: Serena and June as friends/partners in rebellion. The beating scene was horrific too, mostly cos I’m not one of those weird fans that was sitting there cheering, “YAY I’M SO GLAD SERENA GOT BEAT! SERVES HER RIGHT!” (I just... want to throttle every single person who’s said that. Not necessarily cos I wuv woobie Serena sfm but because way to miss the point of the entire series.) but the aftermath was even worse, imo. June reaching out and attempting to maintain the bond, but Fred managed to break Serena really easily. Like it’s just so awful how easy it was for him to snap that bond, cos he knows his wife and her pride, etc. It was ... so manipulative and evil genius. (Although it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, Freddie boy.) It was just such a prime example of exactly how they maintain power in Gilead and how they managed to get it working: estranging women from each other. And it was just such an apt way of visualising the concepts June talked about in S1 about keeping women at arm’s length of each other, suspicious, etc. in order for men to keep power. So, in that sense, I thought it was well done. But then... I was like, “OH FUCK THIS. NOT AGAIN. FUCKING SERENA. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT. WHY CAN’T SHE BE STRONG LIKE JUNE. UGH.”

I dunno.

Yeah. 2x10. I was “lucky” to have seen that scene ahead of time... so I was prepared when it happened during the episode. But it was still repulsive. Aside from the nonsensical writing of the whole thing, it was just gross. And I think maybe you’re the first person that when talking about this has mentioned how grossed out you are by the other Ceremony scenes. So many people just... don’t really mention them. I remember the article about 2x10 and how the showrunners were saying something along the lines of “Is it really that big of a deal when the same thing has been happening the entire time?” Nobody reacted the same way those times, because the Handmaids are quiet and well-behaved during their rapes, even though, on some level I think Serena and some other wives (IIRC) are completely aware of how terrible it is (Serena even admits as much...but does it anyway uuuggghhhhh.) This is the only time June ever fights back and suddenly not only are Fred and Serena faced with the brutal reality of the act but as the audience we are as well. It’s easy to look the other way when nobody is crying or struggling but WHAM. Fuck that. This is gross and horrible and here is what it REALLY is. And it’s hard to swallow.

June crying Serena’s name was probably the absolute worst part, cos it just makes it crystal clear that everyone knows exactly who is responsible for that rape. June knows who has the power, whose idea it was, and she knows the only one to stop it is not Fred. (God, I fucking hate Fred but like you said, he was totally played by Serena. I don’t let him off the hook for it but really it was her idea, 100% and he just thought “Hell yeah! Sounds good!”)

I feel like as much as Serena understood the Ceremony is pretty bad generally, I don’t think she recognised it as “real” rape until that moment. I feel like a lot of those Gilead people are just so willfully blind and selfish and horrible that they actively refuse to see things. Like Serena’s weird ass enthrall about child brides. I know some of that was to get back at June but she seemed genuinely awed by how beautiful it all was. NO BITCH IT’S NOT. IT’S CHILD ABUSE AND SEX TRAFFICKING.

I just have given up trying to understand why Serena would do such a monumentally STUPID and DANGEROUS thing if she honestly cared about the baby--which, incidentally, I do believe she truly loves Nicole and babies. As crazy as that is. Even if her love of Nicole specifically is totally a self-centeredness. But she loves babies. Babies above all else apparently, including other women. And she’s not an idiot. Baby health aside, that is a HUGE crime in Gilead to rape a pregnant Handmaid for any reason. I’m supposed to believe Serena is just so massively upset about June’s false labour that she goes mentally insane, even after being subjected to the similar treatment like a week earlier? It’s a huge, nonsensical risk on basically every single level.

I’ve come to the conclusion, considering all those things you did, it was just bad writing. Her 180 just... is bonkers. I give up. I don’t think there’s any way to logically get from 2x08/09 to 2x10 without taking some leaps. Do I think Serena would punish and abuse June for humiliating her? Absolutely. That’s her MO. She lives for that shit. But rape? It... I dunno again. Fucking weird. I don’t know if it’s on purpose or what, but I do find it interesting that after that Serena never raises a hand to June again, when she had some opportunity. She still punished her by separating her from Nicole but she never physically assaults her again. (Not that I’m saying she’s a changed person or anything. I just thought it was curious but I don’t know if it was deliberate on the show’s part or just a symptom of lack of real opportunity.)

ITA re: the marital rape too. I see no reason Fred wouldn’t escalate to that. It’s all Joseph Fiennes fault. Which is probably what pisses me off the very most. He decided that was just too much for his character? C’mon. That’s too much but what Fred does in the next ep is peachy keen? Oh, right, because in 2x10 we can blame Fred’s behaviour on his evil wife. It’s not really his fault. I see. But you can’t blame Serena for him raping her. Ugh. So, cos, Fiennes doesn’t like it, we lose way more context for Serena--who, lbr, is the more important character in this whole series out of the two of them.

EDEN. OMG BB EDEN.

I’m with you. I was actually pretty disgusted at fandom’s response to her. SHE IS A CHILD. But all these Nick/June shippers were going hogwild attacking her for getting inbetween their precious self-insert fantasy relationship. (I have a particularly low opinion of Nick/June shippers primarily because of their reactions to Eden, tbh. Before that, I was like whatever, each to their own.) This is a story about women and girls in a horrible society, and the focus seemed to be on tearing apart this female child for something she had zero control over. I never got the “Eden is evil and gonna fuck shit up for Nick (and June)!” vibe. She seemed to be a regular girl caught and raised in a misogynistic awful place and just lost. I absolutely ABHORRED the way Nick treated her the entire fucking time. (I honestly hate him so much, and most of that again is due to him since the forced marriage, both in the way he was with Eden and with June. And the number of fangirls fanwanking away all his shitty fucking behaviour and throwing Eden under the bus didn’t help my attitude.)

She’s a KID. FORCED TO MARRY A GROWN MAN. A man who it wouldn’t kill to just be straight up with her and a little bit kind. Fuck. (Serena’s grooming certainly wasn’t good either. Like, seriously lady, shut up. Stop pressuring the kid to fuck an adult man who hates her by telling her “Well maybe you can like it too!” AHHHHH.)

To me, aside from the babies/children, Eden was the most truly good character on the entire show. She was patient, kind, caring, FORGIVING, loving. Completely innocent bb girl. And then she gets fucking murdered for kissing a boy she actually likes and wants to be with. Which, was ........... wow. Gilead’s hypocrisy killing a pious young girl, presumably fertile... Yikes.

And that little girl was more brave than ANY other character. And maybe some of that is teenage thinking but still she was staring down death and refused to back down. Sure, it’s unreasonable, and an adult likely wouldn’t have made that decision... but also what was her option? Repent... and become a Handmaid? That would have been her fate since she’s an adulteress and fallen woman. And since she truly believes in goodness, and God, and Heaven (presumably), she sees it as a way for her and Isaac to be together. Meanwhile, it took a literal death sentence for Nice Guy Nick to actually recognise he could have maybe been a bit kinder to her. Then she’s asking for HIS forgiveness. AH. Eden bb.

I have a lot of feelings about Eden, and the way fandom treated her. Even when she was killed, fans were still calling her stupid and annoying for her choice--likely the ONLY real choice she has EVER had for herself. (I think that concept gets forgotten.) Like WTF sort of world do you live in that you watch a show about fascism and female oppression and turn around and bitch out the YOUNG GIRL strictly for being a young girl in a fascist society?

But hey, this is the same fandom that calls Janine annoying and crazy, and says Serena deserves to be beaten and mutilated by her husband/Gilead. Way to miss the point of the entire show. But that’s a totally other rant for another time, heh.

Also, anon, NEVER APOLOGISE FOR YOUR RANTS. They are so wonderful to read cos I completely agree! And it’s just such a relief to see reasonable people around these parts.

#rants and raves #Anonymous

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toblkflys · 3 years

Text

A Little Brain Scrub

I have a family member that believes there is no pandemic. How is that? I guess there is a whole movement that believes this. So, people are dying how? In 7 months 2 million people have died worldwide. In the same time period, there have been 10 million people in the US that tested COVID positive. What do we call this? Of course, many people are using the TV/movie/book version like The Hot Zone, as a point of reference, “now that is what a pandemic looks like,” they say. They think if it were a real pandemic people would be “dropping like flys.” If it truly got to that point we would really be screwed worldwide. That would be worse than a pandemic, it would be an extinction event. The definition of a pandemic is “(of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.” That is all it means. What about this is a pandemic is incorrect? People are getting the sickness/disease here, people are getting the same sickness/disease across the country and people are getting the sickness/disease in other countries. That fits the definition. I find nowhere in the definition, no matter which dictionary I look in, does it say “people must drop like flys.” Obviously, this group of people knows something even the scholars don’t. Speaking of, this group of people is quite a bit bigger than one would have guessed. That is disappointing. We have that many people in the country who prefer not to think for themselves. That is truly frightening. Of course, I am referring to my friends the Trumpsters. And I was amazed or maybe I was horrified, I’m not sure which, the day after the election. I live in a nice retirement community with over 55 adults and most are quite a bit over 55. I drove down my street and several of the houses were flying their flag, nice, right? Not. They were flying them half-mast! Are you fucking kidding me? Just because Trump lost? Now that is a slap in the face to democracy and patriotism. These people think they are patriots, who tout the flag and talk about their rights and pro-America. These same people are basically shitting on the flag. They might as well burn it. Flying the flag at half-mast is not to be taken lightly. Only the president can order the flag to be flown at half-mast (and guess what Trumpsters, Trump lost and he is NOT your president). “Those individuals and agencies that usurp authority and display the flag at half-staff on inappropriate occasions are quickly eroding the honor and reverence accorded this solemn act,” says the American Legion and I fully agree! I mean Wells Fargo is doing this as well! WTF? What about flying the flag at half-mast is patriotic? Are they going to do it all four years? I get so angry every time I pass the neighbor’s house because I see it. It is an affront every time. I even printed out 20 flyers with the American Legion saying above on it. I wanted, and still want, to throw them all over their fence into their backyard. I wanted to tape the flyers to the windshields of their vehicles. I want to strike back or strike out. Speaking of, have you ever noticed what vehicles Trumpsters drive? Trucks, SUVs, muscle cars and American-made sedans. It is horrible to stereotype says you, and you are right. But it is true. What vehicles are parked at rallies? What vehicles do you see all decked out with American flags, the bigger the better? Trucks, the higher the better, big tires, lots of modification, maybe they rock climb with their truck or they pull their toy hauler with their Polaris, going out to the dunes to drink beer and drive their UTVs around. Maybe they will take their guns so they can target practice because drinking beer, driving UTVs, and shooting guns all go together, especially the beer. Just sayin. I have another relative who, unfortunately, married a Trumpster (actually I have two, eye roll). They have a little boy. Dad is in the military and mom, my relative, used to be normal but now follows her husband. The little boy is obsessed with war movies and they encourage it. They bought him military gear, a helmet, a tactical vest, an ammo belt and of course a replica M4. They sent a picture of him all geared up, holding the machine gun at the ready with a scowl on his face. They think it’s cute. What about dressing your child up like a killer is cute? But god help them, they need their guns, especially their fully automatic M16s because they hunt deer with them. Yeah. Are the deer shooting back or something? Are they that afraid of the deer that they need a fully automatic weapon? Or maybe it is the scary sounds in the wild while they are hunting. And these people teach their kids how to hold a gun and how to shoot as soon as they can. I remember my brother being taught and I was jealous I wasn’t because I was a girl. And this is patriotic. Dressing my 8-year-old like a sniper is patriotic. He will likely grow up hating Democrats and he will not really know why. He will join a survivalist group, hate queers and liberals, and believe that men are superior to women. He will shoot guns, practice being a sniper, learn hand-to-hand combat, all to be a patriot. Because that is the American way. War not peace. Force not negotiation. Show strength not compromise. Shoot first, not ask questions. That is patriotic. Trumpsters have no idea where they were/are headed. Welcome to Jonestown, line up for your kool-aid, never mind the people in pain and dying. An incredible phenomenon. Trumpsters don’t see what is so very obvious to the rest of us. They are so sure that the sky is green because Trump said so. We look up and nope, still blue. But don’t infringe on the Trumpsters' rights to call the sky green! It is so interesting to me because I have always been fascinated with Nazi Germany and what happened there. I have wondered what it was about Hitler that people followed with no question. I mean how can people do that? How can they not see what was happening? How could they let it happen? And now I know. I still don’t understand it but I have had the opportunity to witness how a leader mesmerizes a huge section of a country to believe anything he says no matter how irrational. How the leader can literally say and do anything and get away with it. And they follow blindly. They listen to his propaganda. Definition,“information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” See, Hitler did this with the Jews. He villainized the Jews. It could have been anyone but he chose the Jews, lucky them. They became the enemy that everything wrong could be blamed on. There’s a shortage? It’s the Jews, they take the bread out of your child’s mouth. And then he offers a solution. Only I can solve your Jew problem. Trump did the same thing with immigrants at first and eventually with Democrats. Now the Democrats are the downfall of the country. They are evil, horrible, liberal people. They hate god, they hate family, they hate America and want to destroy it and make America a socialist country. This is all Trump propaganda. And people listen. And they believe. Despite no proof, they don’t ask for proof. They don’t ask for examples or evidence that it is true. Like Democrats are evil and horrible. Okay. What Democrats do you, Mr. Trumpster, know who fit this bill? If they are evil and horrible they must be doing evil and horrible things, what things are they? Ask a Trumpster. Then, once the people are properly brainwashed, he proceeds to cut the country off, starts to close our borders. Hitler closed Germany’s borders, it’s called isolation. Kind of like North Korea, ever heard of it? North Korea is a good modern example of a country that has closed its borders. Not only would we keep the immigrants out, but Trump would also have kept Americans in. I believe that leaving the country would be defecting and would not be looked upon kindly in Trump’s America. Once he had all of that buttoned up and our country was “self-sufficient” he would start introducing his own police force to keep the peace. He was already headed that way. They would be deployed slowly in more and more places, eventually, there would be no local police, it would be federal and more specifically, Trump’s force. Say hello to the neo SS. And people, through all of this the Trumpsters are clapping and holding up the American flag, which would eventually be modified to include something Trump. Their rights would be secure! They finally had a voice in Trump and he is getting things done! It’s about time that we had a real police force that came in and made everything safe and secure! It’s okay that they are everywhere with their M4s and you have to show your passport when asked. Better be safe than sorry! Since concentration camps have worked before there is no point messing with success. Put the immigrants/minorities in several which would have been built. And any outspoken Dems. In fact, herd all of the Dems up and put them in certain cities or certain parts of the city. We need to protect our white American children from the undesirables. White supremacy would reign once again. Yes, Trump would have saved this country (from democracy). The funny thing is that Trump didn’t even hide that he was a fascist or that he was promoting fascism. Dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition. Boom. There you go. So, let them fly our flag at half-mast in protest. Biden and the Dems took away the Trumpsters rights to have a fascist America. They never even got to chant Hail Trump! Or maybe they did and I don’t know about it. They have the right to disgrace the American flag. They have a right to spread a deadly disease. They have the right to purchase and use a fully automatic weapon. They have a right to vote for a dictator. They have the right to a fascist America. And I guess a serial killer has a right to kill. The rapist a right to rape. Because it’s about me, not you. And I have the right to do what I want to do because I’m free white and American. Isn’t it beautiful? Read the full article

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