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a-room-of-my-own · 4 years

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Hi! Did you see the NewStasteman interview with Judith Butler? The way she framed the whole debate about gender is so depressing, I cannot believe it... And that's without going into the Rowling debate, the more I read about it on Twitter and tumblr and the most depressed I get. How can womanhood be reduced to a feeling anyone can claim?

https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/09/judith-butler-culture-wars-jk-rowling-and-living-anti-intellectual-times

I had not seen it so thank you for giving me the opportunity to read it. She’s really manipulative and that’s pretty scary honestly. I picked up a few examples to show you

“I want to first question whether trans-exclusionary feminists are really the same as mainstream feminists. (…) I want to first question whether trans-exclusionary feminists are really the same as mainstream feminists. (…)I think it is actually a fringe movement that is seeking to speak in the name of the mainstream, and that our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen.

It’s “our” responsibility to act on something she cannot prove? It’s quite easy to observe that trans-activists are an active minority within the feminist movement. On the other hand, it’s much harder to prove than most people support modern trans-activism in all its implications. She doesn’t give any source, proof or figures to support her claim but ask people to fight for it, nevertheless. That’s faith, not fact.

If we look closely at the example that you characterise as “mainstream” [the problem of men claiming to be trans to access women’s space] we can see that a domain of fantasy is at work, one which reflects more about the feminist who has such a fear than any actually existing situation in trans life.

Then again, no proof, when many gender critical bloggers have lists of dozens of examples of men using self-ID to access bathrooms, women’s shelters, women’s prisons, some of them sex offenders.

The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that anyone with a penis would identify as a woman for the purposes of entering such changing rooms and posing a threat to the women inside. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise. This is a rich fantasy, and one that comes from powerful fears, but it does not describe a social reality.

That’s a lot of words to call women who are afraid of men “hysterical”. #sorority

Trans women are often discriminated against in men’s bathrooms, and their modes of self-identification are ways of describing a lived reality, one that cannot be captured or regulated by the fantasies brought to bear upon them. The fact that such fantasies pass as public argument is itself cause for worry.

Word salad that could be translated like this: our priority shouldn’t be protecting women from men, it should be accommodating men, because #notallmen are predators, so it would be very unfair to them, uwu. Men’s concerns should always be considered while women who are afraid are irrational.

I am not aware that terf is used as a slur.

I’m 99% sure that’s a lie, but okay.

I wonder what name self-declared feminists who wish to exclude trans women from women's spaces would be called? If they do favour exclusion, why not call them exclusionary?

Women who want to have spaces without men should be called exclusionary, because we define women based on their relationship with men and how they include them. Suuuuure.

If they understand themselves as belonging to that strain of radical feminism that opposes gender reassignment, why not call them radical feminists? My only regret is that there was a movement of radical sexual freedom that once travelled under the name of radical feminism, but it has sadly morphed into a campaign to pathologise trans and gender non-conforming peoples.

We’re not the ones telling you can cure a psychological problem with cross-sex hormones and amputations, but we are the one pathologizing trans and GNC people. That’s hi-la-rious.

My sense is that we have to renew the feminist commitment to gender equality and gender freedom in order to affirm the complexity of gendered lives as they are currently being lived.

Meaningless word salad > "women should let men redefine the word woman as they please"

Let us be clear that the debate here [between people who support JKR and others] is not between feminists and trans activists. There are trans-affirmative feminists, and many trans people are also committed feminists. So one clear problem is the framing that acts as if the debate is between feminists and trans people. It is not. One reason to militate against this framing is because trans activism is linked to queer activism and to feminist legacies that remain very alive today.

TLDR: Real feminist can only be trans-supporters.

Feminism has always been committed to the proposition that the social meanings of what it is to be a man or a woman are not yet settled. We tell histories about what it meant to be a woman at a certain time and place, and we track the transformation of those categories over time.

That’s gender for you Judith, not biological sex. Social identities vary, biological sex is a constant. Saying that isn't essentialism.

We depend on gender as a historical category, and that means we do not yet know all the ways it may come to signify, and we are open to new understandings of its social meanings. It would be a disaster for feminism to return either to a strictly biological understanding of gender or to reduce social conduct to a body part or to impose fearful fantasies, their own anxieties, on trans women...

“Women who are afraid of men are irrational” third instalment.

Their abiding and very real sense of gender ought to be recognised socially and publicly as a relatively simple matter of according another human dignity. The trans-exclusionary radical feminist position attacks the dignity of trans people.

Men are whoever they say they are, women are whoever men say they are.

One does not have to be a woman to be a feminist, and we should not confuse the categories. Men who are feminists, non-binary and trans people who are feminists, are part of the movement if they hold to the basic propositions of freedom and equality that are part of any feminist political struggle.

Many feminists consider that men can only be feminist allies, so the debate is clearly not settled.

When laws and social policies represent women, they make tacit decisions about who counts as a woman, and very often make presuppositions about what a woman is. We have seen this in the domain of reproductive rights. So the question I was asking then is: do we need to have a settled idea of women, or of any gender, in order to advance feminist goals?

Does “woman” need to have a *gasp* definition? Judith is saying it doesn’t. You’ll notice that she doesn’t say that anything about “man” not having a stable definition. She believes it’s possible to fight against misogyny while having no stable definition for what a woman is. Laughable.

I put the question that way… to remind us that feminists are committed to thinking about the diverse and historically shifting meanings of gender, and to the ideals of gender freedom. By gender freedom, I do not mean we all get to choose our gender. Rather, we get to make a political claim to live freely and without fear of discrimination and violence against the genders that we are.

Word salad > “we don’t get to choose our gender but we get to choose it I am very smart"

Many people who were assigned “female” at birth never felt at home with that assignment, and those people (including me) tell all of us something important about the constraints of traditional gender norms for many who fall outside its terms.

Many women have internalized misogyny and homophobia, which in turn had a huge impact on their sense of self and self-esteem, but that doesn’t mean they’re not women Judith. And I don’t think any woman who was forcefully married, who had her vulva mutilated for religious reasons, had to wear a veil since she was a toddler, or was sold as a child into prostitution ever “felt at home” with having been born a girl, you absolute unit.

Feminists know that women with ambition are called “monstrous” or that women who are not heterosexual are pathologised. We fight those misrepresentations because they are false and because they reflect more about the misogyny of those who make demeaning caricatures than they do about the complex social diversity of women. Women should not engage in the forms of phobic caricature by which they have been traditionally demeaned. And by “women” I mean all those who identify in that way.

That was going so well until the last sentence

I think we are living in anti-intellectual times, and that this is evident across the political spectrum.

JB, darling, just read your own word salad and get some self-awareness.

The quickness of social media allows for forms of vitriol that do not exactly support thoughtful debate. We need to cherish the longer forms.

Tell that to your supporters Miss I Wasn't Aware TERF Were A Slur.

I am against online abuse of all kinds. I confess to being perplexed by the fact that you point out the abuse levelled against JK Rowling, but you do not cite the abuse against trans people and their allies that happens online and in person.

Kindergarten argument, but sure. Also, yet again, no proof.

I disagree with JK Rowling's view on trans people, but I do not think she should suffer harassment and threats. Let us also remember, though, the threats against trans people in places like Brazil, the harassment of trans people in the streets and on the job in places like Poland and Romania – or indeed right here in the US.

“Threats against JKR are bad BUT have you seen what’s happening in Brazil?”. I’m sorry what? Also, could trans-activist please stop instrumentalizing Brazilian stats, since they reflect the situation of prostituted homosexual transsexuals ?

So if we are going to object to harassment and threats, as we surely should, we should also make sure we have a large picture of where that is happening, who is most profoundly affected, and whether it is tolerated by those who should be opposing it. It won’t do to say that threats against some people are tolerable but against others are intolerable.

NO ONE, literally NO ONE said that threats against trans people were acceptable. In fact, most, if not pretty much all threats, especially physical threats, don’t come from radical feminists, but from men. Basically, what she’s saying is “who cares about threats against JKR, trans people (men) matter more”.

If trans-exclusionary radical feminists understood themselves as sharing a world with trans people, in a common struggle for equality, freedom from violence, and for social recognition, there would be no more trans-exclusionary radical feminists.

♫ Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya ♪

It is a sad day when some feminists promote the anti-gender ideology position of the most reactionary forces in our society.

All radical feminists are right wingers, sure.

Anyway, it's terrible that this kind of article is taken seriously when it could be summed up as "women are irrational and hysterical, men can be women and redefine the word woman if they so wish"...

#Gender critical #Judith Butler #And that's sooo pompous #Way to hide the emptiness of your reasoning ma'am

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illadib-blog · 4 years

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linearao3 · 4 years

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Dark Water, Ch. 1-16, summarized.

I’ll be publishing the last chapter soon (as in, in the next few hours), but in the meantime, something I said I’d do earlier and forgot to: a flavorless but thorough (read: long) summary of 16 chapters of Dark Water. Below the cut, for content and for lennnnngth.

Francisco "Poe" de Marino, Finn Askari, and Reina Jaffa have a detective agency in Los Angeles. Two clients come from Santa Teresa, a rich town up the coast. One, Armand Huxley, hires Finn to find his missing maid, Rose, and the blueprints she stole. The other, Leila Solo, hires Rey to find her husband, Hans "Han" Solo, who has run away, and also hires Poe to investigate the disappearance of her son, Ben. She tells Poe that Ben was expelled from college for fighting off-campus, stole his father's gun, and disappeared. He was presumed a suicide after his car was found abandoned at the beach. She has just learned that the bar where Ben got in trouble for fighting was a gay bar, and she thinks there might be more to the story -- that's why she hired Poe. Poe discovers that the man Ben got in trouble for beating up in the bar was an old, rich man from Santa Teresa. He is reluctant to go there, because he grew up there and feels guilt about his mother, who died while he was fighting in WWII, but he drives there with Mrs. Solo. She acts strangely while going through Camarillo. Finn discovers that Rose (Vietnamese name Thai Co Hoa) has a sister, Thai Co Be, who rides horses at the track at Santa Anita Park under the name Paige Tico. Rey meets a mysterious man on a motorcycle who tells her that Han will be at the Santa Anita racetrack. Finn and Rey arrive separately, but converge when it turns out that Paige rides horses owned by Han. Since Han is drunk, Rey drives him and Paige to Santa Teresa. Finn tails them, because he believes Paige has the blueprints in her big suitcase. Han also acts strangely while driving through Camarillo. Local male sex workers reveal that the man Ben fought with was Orson Krennick, a local honcho. Krennick has recently died. When Han comes home to the ranch with Rey and Paige, Poe overhears him fighting with Leila, and hears Paige moving around late at night. Rey, who is staying a motel, goes to a bar, where she meets the man on the motorcycle again. He introduces himself as Ren. Rey expresses interest in his bike, but he is reluctant to let her drive it until she tells him to call her by her nickname, implying that she's willing to be his friend. Rey drives it, with him sitting on the back, extremely fast on extremely winding back roads, until Ren directs her to a spot on the bluffs overlooking the sea. He tells her the story of an indigenous woman who was left behind and lived alone on one of the Channel Islands, and when she came to shore, discovered that her entire tribe had died. Ren is moved when Rey weeps at the story. He kisses her, and asks to take her home. She agrees, and they go back to her motel room. After sex, she tells him he can stay the night. Finn, seeing lights on late in the Solos' barn, suspects that Paige is meeting someone to sell or hand off the stolen plans. He sneaks onto the property and is heading towards the barn when he hears a gunshot. He finds Paige dying on the floor and calls for help. The police question him, but the Solos, prompted by Poe, vouch for him. Rey wakes up early to make a call, which Ren overhears, where she identifies herself as Malka Szmacziarz and asks if her parents have been found. He thinks she lied about her name to him because she doesn't trust him, and she reproves him, saying she wants to trust him. Poe comes to pick her up, telling her about the murder, and Ren meets with a yakuza group, for whom he has transported and marked a large amount of money. Ren has been introduced to the group through his Japanese-American friend, Donny Mitaka, and he dreams of become a feared and respected leader of the group. At the Solos' ranch, as Han is speculating that Paige may have been killed by the jockeys' union, which is violently racist, Leila's brother, Luke Skywalker, a war hero with a missing hand and a mystical, self-made religion, arrives with a threatening letter he has received. The letter contains a typo which Leila remembers from old letters of Ben's, but the typewriter matches one used by Beckett, a shady real estate agent who has been pressuring Luke to sell his land. Han takes Poe and Rey to see his prize horse, Blue Hammer, the descendant of the champion he trained, Falcon. They're visited by a greasy horse dealer, Donato "D.J." Jimenez, who goads Han and expresses insincere regret and morbid curiosity with regard to Paige's murder. Han orders him off his property, and asks Poe to ride Blue Hammer in the upcoming race. Finn, investigating the site of Paige's murder, is attacked by a knife-wielding girl who turns out to be Rose. After he convinces her that he didn't kill her sister, she reveals that she only handed the plans off to Paige last night, and that Paige was carrying a lot of cash. Whoever killed her has taken both. Rose tells him about her history as the Huxley family's servant under the French colonial government, and challenges him about his origins, which he carefully conceals with assumed accents. They find a discarded butt of a French cigarette, and speak to Bibiana, the niece of horse-trainer Arturo, who tells them she saw someone tall. Poe comes up with a plan: Rey will pose as an English heiress and ask Beckett for a property like the one Beckett may be trying to extort from Luke, offering an outrageously high price. Beckett is suspicious of the details of Rey's story; while he's making a call, she raids his files and finds a map of Luke's property, Olive Tree School, with an oil line marked on it. Beckett catches her and physically threatens her, but Ren comes to her rescue with a knife he took from her the night before. He asks her to go out dancing with him and his friend that night, and she agrees. The Solos, on finding out that Rose is Paige's sister, welcome her to stay for the night. Rey tells the Solos what she learned at Beckett's office. Mrs. Solo says that the oil line used to belong to her, but that she sold it to Huxley; he pays Luke an easement fee for the passage of the oil through the property. Mr. Solo is alarmed to hear Poe talking privately about the death of Orson Krennick with Leila, and becomes more upset when Poe won't tell him what he's learned. Finn, distraught over the murder, his treatment by the police, and being forced to cut off his hair in the absence of care options for black hair, accepts tequila and gets very drunk. He argues with Rose, who tells him she is a soldier. Finn tells her how he was taken from his parents by British colonial forces and trained to be a soldier from a young age. When parents in his community, including Finn's own father, protested, they were gunned down by British soldiers. He deserted afterwards. Rose tells him how Vietnam has been serially occupied by the French and the Japanese, and the atrocities they've committed. But she's a soldier because she has hope for the future. Rey has dinner with Ren, Donny Mitaka, and Mitaka's girlfriend, Bess Ine. She dances with Ren and he asks where she was during the war. She confesses that she's a Jew from Poland; her parents sent her alone as a child to the British Mandate of Palestine during the German invasion, but she hopes to be reunited with them. She takes him back to her room, where they have sex and sleep together. She wakes up to him having a nightmare, and recognizes him from Mrs. Solo's photograph as Ben Solo. He responds by telling her that Ben Solo is dead, and was a monster from a family of monsters. When she pushes him, he tells her her parents are dead, and flees on his motorcycle. Rey goes back to the Solo's ranch to tell them that she's seen Ben, and what he said to her. Han and Leila fight, with each one claiming that the other represents the "monstrous family" Ben mentioned. But separately, they admit they believe the opposite. During the war, being disqualified from service by his age, Han smuggled drugs and alcohol from Mexico, doing business with Beckett and Krennick, and lied to Leila and Ben, telling him that he was spying for the allies. Leila's biological father was Lorde Varder, aka Anderson Skywalker, a poor firefighter who married a wealthy opera singer, Paz Mayberry, and went into politics after she was committed to the Camarillo mental hospital, crafting policies which deprived Japanese Americans of rights and allowed him to buy valuable land cheaply. He left Luke an olive orchard which used to belong to the Mitaka family, and he left Leila the oil holdings she sold to Huxley, so much of the family's wealth is derived from his immoral actions. Both Han and Leila believe that it was Ben's discovery of the skeletons in their closets which drove him to a mental breakdown, for which they had him involuntarily committed. Ben drives his motorcycle aimlessly through the city, and ends up getting drunk at Maisie's after hours, admitting that he stole Rey's stockings, and that he told her Ben Solo was dead because he had once planned to kill himself. Rey, sharing a bed with Rose, admits to herself that her parents are likely dead, and grieves together with Rose. In the morning, Finn discovers that Huxley has left a message saying that he doesn't need to look for the blueprints anymore. He and Rose agree that that seems to mean that he's gotten them back himself. Rose decides to go back to Huxley. When he takes her to the Huxleys' house, Huxley embraces her inappropriately, while his wife insults and belittles her. Finn sneaks back to the house after seeming to leave, and hears Mrs. Huxley hitting Rose. He finds Rose and offers to work for her for the change she has in her pockets, offering his skills as a detective and client confidentiality. Rose tells him that the blueprints are for a guided missile, which Huxley is trying to sell to the French for use in Vietnam. She is trying to steal the plans and the offer letter that goes with them, so that the Vietnamese government can deprive France of the weapon and undermine American support for the French. Rey thinks that the Solos' stories don't quite make sense and center too much on their individual guilt. Pio, the librarian, tells her that Ben exhibited symptoms of mental disturbance for a long time prior to his "breakdown." On a hunch, she goes to the beach where Ben's car was discovered the first time he disappeared. She tells Ben that she's deduced that he meant to murder someone when he left his parents' house. He admits it: he meant to kill Stephen Pallatine. But he was already dead. He tells her that, while Luke was away as a POW in the Pacific, Pallatine took over the school and caught him kissing Donny Mitaka. Under the guise of aversion therapy, he sexually abused Ben for a long time, keeping him late after school, which his parents never seemed to notice. When Luke returned, he tried to tell him, but Luke was dismissive, and when he tried to tell his parents, Luke encouraged them to believe that Ben was mentally ill. At the mental hospital, he was frightened by the apparently arbitrary shock treatments administered to patients, and falsely confessed to making up the story of his abuse. Rey vows never to let anyone hurt him again, and he carries her into the sea, offering to take her wherever she wants. At Huxley's house, Finn discovers that D.J. is Mrs. Huxley's lover, and smokes the kind of cigarette they found at the crime scene. He tails him to a house in the hills, where Rey has just arrived with Ben. Ben tells her to wait outside, but she and Finn follow him in. Spying, they discover the D.J. has the exact amount of money that Paige was carrying when she was killed, and that he and Beckett are both working with the Japanese mob to take the Mitaka orchard land and turn it into a horse ranch so that they can launder money through the buying and selling of horses. When the mob boss, Oka-san, discovers that Ben concealed that he intervened between Rey and Beckett, he's threatened with having a finger cut off. Rey charges in to save him, and Finn charges in after her. Ben kills Oka-san to save Rey while Rey wounds one of his lieutenants badly and Finn overpowers another. When Rey realizes that Ben intends to take over the gang, not leave it, she tells Finn to go and begs Ben to stop. Ben kills the wounded lieutenant for threatening her and him, and, feeling that Rey has abandoned him, uses her knife to cut the marks of her fingernails permanently into his face. Finn drops Rey off at Luke's school and goes back to see Rose, who has discovered a quantity of cash, also exactly equal to what Paige was carrying, behind Mrs. Huxley's bureau. She can't find the plans anywhere in the house, and she believes Mrs. Huxley murdered Paige, took the money, and disposed of the plans. Finn isn't sure, but he promises her he'll find her sister's killer. Rose kisses him, and they have sex in her room. She tells him to leave, but on his way out, he overhears Huxley arguing with his father, and figures out that D.J. killed Paige and is asking Huxley for money for the plans. He goes back to Rose to tell her what he's learned and that he knows where the plans are. Rey sees a memorial to Stephen Pallatine at the school and tries unsuccessfully to destroy it with her knife. She warns Luke that he isn't safe, because the gang is going to try to drive him off his land, but she ends up shouting at him, confronting Luke over his betrayal of Ben. Luke reveals that Pallatine played on his own fear of insanity, as well as his desire to believe the best of his birth father and his hometown. Ben, overhearing Rey's reproaches and overwhelmed by seeing the memorial and the marks of her knife in it, impulsively uses turpentine from the art room to light the memorial on fire. The other buildings quickly catch. Poe, coming to pick up Rey, finds the fire, and Luke trying to save the school. A fire truck arrives, driven by Capt. Aimee Linn, not in response to Luke's call for help, but to warn them to evacuate because of the risk of flash flood in the long-dry Salsipuedes River. Poe refuses to leave, trying to stay to fight the fire, until Capt. Linn takes over the firefighting and tells him to evacuate Rey and Luke, which he does. They watch from the foothills as the river floods. Rey makes Luke tell Leila the truth about what happened to Ben. With the fire still burning and the flood still raging, she despairs of ever finding a place that isn't weighed down by the sins of the past, since every place she has ever lived has been consumed by conflict. Ben goes to his grandmother's abandoned mansion, despairing of ever succeeding with the gang or seeing Rey again. He is startled when Rose arrives; she saw the candles he lit from Huxley's house, which used to be a sign from Paige that she was dealing with a representative of his gang. She offers him the money she stole from Mrs. Huxley to take her to Hanoi once she finds the plans. Ben, disoriented by the flood and hoping that the money will placate Oka-san's lieutenants, agrees. There's a problem, though -- Rose's money is dirty; it's the marked bills the gang gave D.J. to launder through trading horses. In the morning, Rey is watching Poe ride his old favorite horse, Blackbird, who never got to race because of the track closure during WWII. Poe sees Ben going towards the barn and thinks he's going to burn it, and the horses, the way he burned the school. He pursues him on Blackbird, but Rey jumps onto the horse with him, and then, when Ben runs to his bike, off the horse and onto the bike. When he finally stops driving, he admits that he feels like he's doomed; he had a vague plan to steal horses, but completely messed it. Rey promises he isn't doomed, and that she'll help him get out of the mess he's in. He doesn't feel worthy of help, but Rey tells him he doesn't have to deserve help; he just has to need it. He recognizes that she needs him to help her, too. They have sex and promise not to leave each other. Finn follows Huxley to a meeting with D.J., where Huxley says he doesn't have the cash D.J. wants for the plans. D.J. offers to take land deeds instead, or Rose as a hostage. Huxley threatens to shoot D.J., but D.J. calls his bluff. Finn follows D.J.'s car, but loses him when D.J. goes to the sheriff's office. Finn decides to go back to Huxley's house and try to convince Rose to run away so that Huxley doesn't offer her up as a hostage. Poe visits Aimee Linn in the hospital; she's been badly hurt fighting the fire. She asks him to investigate the condition of the oil line in the Salsipuedes River, and he promises to, but allows Han to convince him to make a call about it to the fire department instead. He and Han go down to Santa Anita to practice on the track. On the way back, Poe is struck with a bad feeling, and discovers that the oil pipeline has blown, leaking crude oil into the sea. Rey wants Ben to run away, but Ben feels obligated to Rose and to Mitaka, since it was his family that stole the orchard from Mitaka's family. Rose suggests that they bet the marked money on Poe and Blue Hammer in the race the next day, which will also earn enough money both to pay the gang for Rose's trip and to buy back Mitaka's land. Finn, discovering that Rose has left the Huxleys, remembers that she talked to Mrs. Solo about Paz Mayberry's estate, and finds her there with Ben, Mitaka, and Rey, who tell him about their plans. Finn and Rose have sex, and she confesses that she wants to have a family; Finn realizes he wants a family with her. Ben and Rey have sex, and Rey confesses her fear that her parents sent her away because she was too weak, and that she didn't deserve to survive. Ben reminds her what she told him: she didn't have to deserve it, she just had to need it. Poe volunteers to help clean the spill, and spends the day riding Blackbird up and down the coast, running messages between park rangers, volunteers, and sailors. In the evening he returns to the Solo's ranch, where Beckett comes calling and tries to blackmail Han. His intention is to blackmail him over Ben's murder of Oka-san, but Han misunderstands him, and thinks, because he has himself mistakenly come to believe that Leila murdered Krennick in revenge for Ben's supposed death, that Beckett is trying to blackmail him over that. As it happens, Beckett murdered Krennick himself, and panics at the idea that he's been discovered; he threatens to shoot Han, but Leila kills him with a poker. Poe is planning to cover up the murder when Ben arrives with Finn, Rose, and Rey, asking for his parents' help.

#Dark Water

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markoftheasphodel · 5 years

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So, with it being the anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe, I have a Friendly Reminder!

The Third Reich abducted between 3 and 5.5 million people from Central and Eastern Europe to be used as slave labor during the war, many from Ukraine and Poland. They took girls as young as ten. They kidnapped my husband’s grandmother when she was out picking berries with her sister. They took her (future) best friend Asiya the month she was supposed to graduate from high school. These young people were shuttled through the Reich, starved, beaten, executed, and often raped. Ukrainian Grandma had jobs ranging from sweeping the streets to working in a munitions factory. Since she had a Russian last name (Reshatov) and spoke Russian better than Ukrainian, her fellow slaves from Ukraine and Belarus treated her like garbage. There was no solidarity among slaves. Meanwhile her friend Asiya was sent to western Austria near the Swiss border, where she could’ve walked right over but no one did because they would’ve been killed. The Swiss were not waiting to welcome escaped slaves. At her first “job” tending a farm, she rebelled against the abuse. Her fellow field worker sold her out because there was no solidarity among slaves, and she spent days in the town jail with no food.

Asiya didn’t care if she died because her brothers were in the Red Army, her parents were already dead thanks to Stalin’s genocidal famine, and her own uncle was a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator who’d let the Reich take his own niece. So she went to jail, was starved, got visited by a priest, and eventually got transferred to a different house to be a domestic servant to a family that wasn’t so terrible to her. She stood on their front porch and cheered on the American bombers as they flew by. She was about nineteen by then.

When the Allies declared victory, the ordeal wasn’t over for these workers. Grandma’s friend Asiya recalls the Ostarbeiter workers being rounded up, men separated from women, stripped of their money which was piled up in the train station, and put in boxcars to be sent back “home” to the USSR. Her cousin, also in that Austrian village, was sent back-- to a gulag, where she died of typhus. Asiya was lucky in that the big house she worked out of was taken by the local French commander and she got special treatment. She tried to save her cousin, throwing a jacket over the fence of the place the former slaves had been rounded up, but couldn’t-- even the French commander wouldn’t break his own curfew and the train filled with 'liberated’ slaves slipped away in the middle of the night.

Grandma was luckier in that she was in the American sector, where General Eisenhower banned the use of force in “repatriating” the former slaves as early as October of ‘45. Workers in the French and British zones weren’t so lucky. She still spent more than a decade as a Displaced Person, living in barracks and camps, struggling to survive. She married a Circassian Muslim man from southern Russia who was facing a death sentence back home in the USSR because he’d helped young men from his village escape conscription into Stalin’s Red Army. They had a son in the camp. This little family finally managed to get accepted by the US as refugees thanks to the Tolstoy Foundation on the second-to-last boat of its kind. It was, I believe, 1956-- eleven years after the Allied Victory. Asiya managed to get to the US around the same time. They ultimately made it to Michigan, raised their families, became citizens.

They were the lucky few. The stories of the Ostarbeiter tragedies have not been told because most of their voices were silenced long ago. The remaining survivors, like Asiya, are in their late eighties or their nineties. In the vacuum left by these untold stories are lies-- lies from the right-wing about how the Reich wasn’t so bad, lies from the left-wing about how the USSR wasn’t so bad, romantic fantasies from the other Allies that don’t mention things like young people being stripped of their possessions, shoved in boxcars, and sent to prison camps.

(And what, pray tell, does THAT sound like?)

In our house we praise General Eisenhower because he stopped the “repatriation” when no one else would and that’s the reason Grandma survived and my spouse, their father, their siblings, and now our two little nieces exist.

They are the only surviving members of the Reshatov family.

#TW: Rape Mention #text post #long post

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willowlark369 · 6 years

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More Fun Facts

Author’s Note(s):

Story title is referencing the piece I wrote immediately before this one (Fun Facts). If you dislike themed names for meta series, well, I guess you will just have to dislike the title. It wasn’t chosen to offend you. It was chosen to please me.

I am presenting just a list of information. Any conclusions that you come to using the information are your own. Any emotions you feel about those conclusions or the information contained on the list are your own. Conclusions which may be drawn from presented information are not particularly friendly towards certain characters, because canon isn’t particularly friendly to them.

I strongly remind all readers that you are free to conclude whatever you wish from the information listed below. That freedom also extends to ignoring it if that is what would make you feel better. Choosing to ignore it does not require me to do so as well.

Note to All Maximoff Stans/Apologists: I understand that you dislike how your favorites have been portrayed by the MCU. This is understandable, as they are barely recognizable as versions of themselves from other runs of Marvel-verse. I am not the one you should be angry with, however. If you feel that either Maximoff is being “demonized” by the information on this list, I apologize but also empathize that I did not have any part in writing this run of canon. Arguing with me will not change canon.

Content Warning: This list contains references to a lot of disturbing topics such as human experimentation, terrorist organizations, and weapons. Reader discretion is advised beyond this point.

Wanda & Pietro Maximoff were adults when they volunteered for Wolfgang von Strucker’s experiments. The twins knew that other volunteers were dying and they still wanted their turn.

While no attempts were made to hide the bodies from the inhabitants of the base, it is possible that they somehow missed how the other volunteers disappeared to never be seen again. (Not logical, still possible.)

At the very least, the twins later demonstrate no surprise that they were the only survivors of the experiments.

The twins’ stated motivation for everything is not wanting to help Sokovia or the people living there. It was revenge on a single individual for something that had happened when the twins were ten.

Helping Sokovia was a possible motivation put forth by people researching what could be found on the twins when they were not brought into custody with the rest of the base’s personnel. As such, it does not override what the twins said about why they were doing things.

Wanda & Pietro Maximoff knew Wolfgang von Strucker was working for Hydra and was pursuing Hydra’s goals. None of this was hidden from them nor were the twins led to believe something different about the goals of the people they were working alongside.

None of the conversations shown about Hydra and the water-cooler style gossip about their plans among personnel show any attempt at secrecy, indicating that there was no worry about scaring off anyone who might be wandering around the base.

Even if the twins somehow did not hear any of the open discussions going on around them prior to submitting the experimentation, by her own admittance, Wanda’s telepathy does not allow for ignorance of who they were working with & for. Her exact words were “all men show themselves” after she demonstrated surprise that she had met a person whose mind she couldn’t read.

Wanda & Pietro Maximoff were not captives or brainwashed. While human experimentation involves a certain degree of pain and dehumanization, none of it was done without their ongoing consent.

The twins are shown being able to come and go from the facility, being treated as trusted allies with the same freedom of movement as other inhabitants of the base.

Wanda is shown being able to remove the influence of the scepter without the need to resort to "cognitive recalibration” methods.

Neither Maximoff show any sign of the Mind Stone’s control, which has a visual display.

Neither twin exhibits any fear of the other people in the Hydra base nor did they demonstrate any surprise at the automatic response to the morale callouts that the other personnel present participated in.

Both Wanda & Pietro Maximoff were trained to the extent that they were considered to be field ready. Hence why they were allowed to stay in the combat during the Avengers’ raid of Wolfgang von Strucker’s base in Sokovia.

While deployment against the Avengers was discussed as a reasonable action to take, the twins actually elected to join the fight without being ordered, rendering said discussion as moot. During said combat, they successfully take on three out of six Avengers, nearly killing one. Only a desire to make him suffer prevented the death of another.

The twins had a reputation outside of Hydra. That reputation was attributed to someone else’s firsthand experience of a demonstration of the twins’ abilities.

Both twins were able to use their abilities in chaotic situations and distracting environments with an ease that speaks of experience. Even under emotional distress, Wanda is able to do precision work.

Wanda Maximoff has enough control over her mental manipulation ability to successfully control several blocks worth of people as mindless puppets at the same time. This is considered her main power, not the psychokinesis that allows her to blast things.

Both Wanda & Pietro Maximoff are capable and willing to leave a situation in which someone wants them to use their abilities for a cause or goal they do not believe to be worth it. Hence why they decide to not work with Ultron once they determine that he is planning to annihilate all of mankind, no exceptions, instead of just the Avengers.

At no point does either twin demonstrate regret or remorse for having willingly worked with first Hydra and then Ultron.

Neither twin demonstrate regret or remorse for having attacked and (in some cases) nearly killed the Avengers.

Wanda Maximoff does not demonstrate any regret for having forcefully violated the mental autonomy of the Avengers or that of the multiple individuals referenced as being potentially permanently locked in their nightmares due to her violation of them.

Wanda Maximoff does not demonstrate remorse for having forcefully triggered the Hulk and then violated the Hulk’s entire being (which had canonically shown as protective) by setting him to destroy a city. This is particularly noteworthy as Bruce was not a combatant at the time she targeted him. She specifically sought him out to do this because she “wanted the big one”.

The only authorized purchaser of Stark Weapon Tech was the United States Military Forces. All other organizations or individuals had to have gained the weapons through the black market trading done by Obadiah Stane.

SHIELD falls under the control & command structure of the United States government. This could logically include using resources gained in any defense contracts held by the US government. In sharing the resources, Hydra would also have access to the resources gained from these same contracts.

Hydra had an interest in encouraging the civil unrest of Sokovia. There is no evidence that they did anything more than enjoy the fruits of the opportunity, but they certainly did have motivation to do so and such things are often a part of Hydra’s toolbox.

Repeating for emphasis: there is no canon evidence to suggest that Hydra caused or participated in the Sokovian Civil War, even if they did benefit from the Sokovian Civil War happening.

Also, it is a historical fact that the United States (not individual contractors) sold/loaned weapons and other military sundries to allied countries during various conflicts, including the Vietnam and Korean Wars. While the weapons were supposed to be returned at the end of the conflict, it was not uncommon (in the real world) for various generals and political leaders to sell the weapons to other forces in order to line their own pockets, leading to US military equipment showing up in unexpected places far from where it was originally sold.

Between 1990 and 2018, the United States Armed Forces have not been involved in any conflict which could logically have included the area between Czech Republic & Slovakia where Sokovia would be located if it existed.

Howard & Maria Stark died on December 16, 1991. There is a significant gap of time between this date and Tony Stark taking over Stark Industries as CEO from Obadiah Stane (who stays on the Board as CFO, which allowed him to start/continue his illegal sell of weapons).

Czech Republic is nestled between Germany and Poland. Slovakia is (in real life) the country that borders Czechia to the south-southeast. Sokovia is canonically between these two countries.

The closest real world armed conflict with authorized US involvement during this period (1990-2018) takes place in Serbia, on the other side of Hungary which is on the other side of Slovakia.

All these countries are placed in the Balkans, for those readers who aren’t familiar with the layout of Eastern Europe.

Historical evidence suggests that the US was likely not involved in the Sokovian Civil War at any point.

A civil war is when a country is drawn into a significant conflict with two (or more) internal forces. While outside forces may become involved at the request of one or mores sides, most external organizations try to stay uninvolved since all sides of a civil war belong to the same country.

Tony Stark was considered the foremost weapons designer for many reasons. Primarily, because the malfunction risk was negligible on anything he allowed out of his lab and should any malfunction be reported, SI investigates the reason and recalls any known defective tech. Weapons built to those designs and not tampered with were guaranteed to work every single time. No weapon jams; no missile duds. If he creates a weapon, it is going to let the user kill their target every single time.

That being said, Tony Stark is not the sole population of Stark Industries R&D department. Stark Industries is a multi-national company with employees around the world and a diverse number of interests. The R&D department cannot logically be a single person, especially a single person who is also functioning as the CEO for the company as well as lecturing at science conventions.

Answer to a Repeated Question: Facts are drawn from the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron; the comic tie-ins with particular focus on Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude - This Sceptre’d Isle; and real world historical facts. If you have any question about the canon, feel free to review it at your leisure.

Final Reminder: Once again, I remind all readers that you have the freedom to ignore presented information if you are uncomfortable with it, regardless of why you are. You don’t have to attempt to validate that decision or justify having a conclusion that isn’t entailed by this information. No, I am not required to explain these things further to you. No, I am not required to justify my tone or provide a conclusion for you.

Edited (2/28/2018): Clarifications of points; addition of subpoints; addition of Read More line Edited (3/13/2018): Stronger reminder that ignoring these facts are fine Edited (6/12/2018): Reworked opening notes; Note to Maximoff Stans/Apologists added; clarification of points Edit (8/17/2019): Addition of subpoints for clarification purposes; Addition of links

#MCU #Meta #Just the Facts #Wanda Maximoff #Pietro Maximoff #Human Experimentation #Armed Conflicts #Black Market Weapon Trade #Secret Organizations #Terrorist Organizations #Mind Control

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Sunday, February 7, 2021

Tax forms help reveal extent of unemployment fraud in US (AP) Unemployment agencies across the U.S. became lucrative targets for criminals when they were bombarded with claims last year as millions lost jobs due to coronavirus shutdowns. Now, simple tax forms being sent to people who never collected unemployment benefits are revealing that their identity was likely stolen months ago and used to claim bogus benefits that have totaled billions of dollars nationwide. Unemployment benefits are taxable, so government agencies send a 1099-G form to people who received them so they can report the income on their tax returns. States are mailing 1099-Gs in huge numbers this year after processing and paying a record number of claims. In Ohio, Bernie Irwin was shocked two weeks ago when she opened the mail and found a 1099-G form saying her husband had claimed $17,292 in unemployment benefits last year. The only problem: Jim Irwin, 83, hadn’t worked in 13 years. Bernie Irwin, 86, said her daughter-in-law and a friend also received the tax forms. So did Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, his wife, Fran, and Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, even though none of them had claimed unemployment benefits. By November, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General estimated states had paid as much as $36 billion in improper benefits, with a significant portion of that blamed on fraud. In California alone, officials say the fraud totaled at least $11 billion, with $810 million paid in the names of ineligible prisoners.

Peru’s crime worries tainting Venezuelans who want to work (AP) Adriana Marero dropped out of college in her native Venezuela in 2017 as anti-government protests turned violent amid worsening economic problems and she fled to Peru looking for a place where she could earn a decent living. She delivered food on her bike, played hostess at a casino and worked at various restaurants. Then the coronavirus pandemic came, hitting Peru particularly hard, and Marero found herself out of work as did countless other migrants. Determined to provide for herself, Marero learned to make natural skincare products and sold her wares at a crafts market with dozens of other Venezuelans who have started their own businesses. But the efforts of Marero and others like her to make honest livings have increasingly been overshadowed by what immigrant advocates describe as excessive attention by police and local media to the crimes of a few Venezuelans. That, the advocates say, is fueling xenophobia among Peruvians. Peru is hosting roughly 1 million displaced Venezuelans, an influx that began around 2014 as inflation, unemployment, crime and shortages of food and medicine soared in their homeland. The migrants, many with advanced or multiple degrees, have entered Peru’s primarily informal economy, working as taxi, bus and food delivery drivers, cooks and, during the pandemic, gravediggers. As the coronavirus continues to sicken and kill people by the hundreds every day across this country, prompting new lockdowns and sinking the economy further, Peruvians are looking ahead to local and presidential elections less than three months away. And some politicians are focusing on immigrants, accusing them of being disproportionately involved in crimes.

Tractors, trucks block India’s roads as farm protests widen (Reuters) Thousands of farmers across India blocked roads on Saturday with makeshift tents, tractors, trucks and boulders to pressure the government to roll back agricultural reforms that have triggered months-long protests. While the initial protests were started by rice and wheat growers from northern India who camped out on the outskirts of New Delhi, demonstrations have spread across the country, especially in states not ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party. The federal government has offered concessions to the farmers but refuses to repeal three laws passed last year that it says are crucial to bring new investment to the sector, which accounts for nearly 15% of India’s $2.9 trillion economy and about half its workforce. Saturday’s three-hour “chakka jam”, or road blockade, started around noon across the country, except in New Delhi and a couple of neighbouring states. Avik Saha, a secretary of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, an umbrella organisation of farmer groups, said about 10,000 places across India were blocked in the three hours.

Russia expels EU diplomats over Navalny as tensions rise (AP) Russia said Friday it was expelling diplomats from Sweden, Poland and Germany, accusing them of attending a rally in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, as international tensions grew over the jailing of the Kremlin’s most prominent foe. The diplomats were declared “persona non grata” and were required to leave Russia “shortly,” a ministry statement said. The announcement came as the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the treatment of Navalny represents “a low point” in relations between Brussels and Moscow.

China granted WHO team full access in Wuhan (AP) A member of the World Health Organization expert team investigating the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan said the Chinese side granted full access to all sites and personnel they requested—a level of openness that even he hadn’t expected. Peter Daszak told The Associated Press on Friday that team members had submitted a deeply considered list of places and people to include in their investigation and that no objections were raised. “We were asked where we wanted to go. We gave our hosts a list ... and you can see from where we’ve been, we’ve been to all the key places,” Daszak said. “Every place we asked to see, everyone we wanted to meet. ... So really good,” said the British-born zoologist, who is president of the NGO EcoHealth Alliance in New York City. Daszak said the team has now concluded site visits and will spend the next few days trolling through data and consulting with Chinese experts before presenting a summary of their findings at a news briefing prior to their departure on Wednesday.

Myanmar blocks Internet amid first large street protests since coup (Washington Post) Myanmar authorities on Saturday restricted Internet connectivity and blocked more social media websites, as thousands of people protested in the first street demonstrations since the military took power from the democratically elected government in a coup. By midmorning, residents in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, were unable to access mobile Internet services, or found their connection spotty. Two foreign telcos, Norway-based Telenor and Qatar-based Ooredoo, operate there. In a statement, Telenor said that authorities had ordered a “nationwide shutdown” of the network, citing “circulation of fake news, stability of the nation and interest of the public as basis for the order.” The Internet shutdown followed the first major demonstrations since the Myanmar military seized power in a coup, returning themselves to direct rule and ending a power-sharing agreement with the elected civilian government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party. Since the coup, a steady drumbeat of resistance has been building, first with a civil disobedience campaign largely organized on social media, Facebook in particular, which is the de facto Internet in Myanmar, widely used and integral to communications there. The military-run government then blocked access to Facebook, prompting a migration to Twitter, which was blocked too along with Instagram.

ICC clears way for war crimes probe of Israeli actions (AP) The International Criminal Court said Friday that its jurisdiction extends to territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, potentially clearing the way for its chief prosecutor to open a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions. The decision was welcomed by the Palestinians and decried by Israel’s prime minister, who vowed to fight “this perversion of justice.” The U.S., Israel’s closest ally, said it opposed the decision. The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said in 2019 that there was a “reasonable basis” to open a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank. But she asked the court to determine whether she has territorial jurisdiction before proceeding. The Palestinians, who joined the court in 2015, have pushed for an investigation, asking the court to look into Israeli actions during its 2014 war against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, as well as Israel’s construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem.

Police seize $60 million of bitcoin. Now, where’s the password? (Reuters) German prosecutors have confiscated more than 50 million euros ($60 million) worth of bitcoin from a fraudster. There’s only one problem: they can’t unlock the money because he won’t give them the password. The man was sentenced to jail and has since served his term, maintaining his silence throughout while police made repeated failed efforts to crack the code to access more than 1,700 bitcoin, said a prosecutor in the Bavarian town of Kempten. Bitcoin is stored on software known as a digital wallet that is secured through encryption. A password is used as a decryption key to open the wallet and access the bitcoin. When a password is lost the user cannot open the wallet. The fraudster had been sentenced to more than two years in jail for covertly installing software on other computers to harness their power to “mine” or produce bitcoin. When he went behind bars, his bitcoin stash would have been worth a fraction of the current value. The price of bitcoin has surged over the past year, hitting a record high of $42,000 in January. It was trading at $37,577 on Friday, according to cryptocurrency and blockchain website Coindesk.

#headlines #news

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fullfillmyfantasy-blog · 7 years

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Respect the Slav

I am Polish with a bit of Tatar blood. I strongly identify as Slavic and have genuine affection for any Slavic nation, but mostly I am Polish and so proud to be. I find it kind of hurtful how we are perceived in the Western nations and how we are depicted in mainstream media in America. I feel rejected both by the white community and the opressed community of People of color. Of course by no means Slavs are POC and by no means we have it as bad, but actually anyone who isn’t of Western European descend has it hard. Nevertheless we are painted with the same brush as those Western Europeans simply due to our race, but we’re not the same.

Have you ever notices the way Slavs are depicted in mainstream media in USA? Let’s start with the fact that you don’t really see other Slavic nations than Russians. I know that Russia is the big bad of the US generally, but not ever Russian is a villain or a villain-turned-hero. There are tons of amazing people. NOT EVERY RUSSIAN IS EVIL. Their authorities are evil, but the Russians are not. For example, look at the Russians in the MCU. First of all, we’ve got Natasha. As much as I love Scarlett Joahnsson and I am aware that she is of Polish descend, there are so many talented Russian actresses who could have got the role, yet as far as I’m concerned no actual Russian was even considered. Second thing is while Natasha is a Russian protagonist she despises Russia. Her homecountry is everything evil when it comes to the character. She doesn’t show young Slavs that being Slavic is cool. The rest of the Russians in the Universe are villains. Let’s start with Ivan Vanko. Again, Rourke is not Russian nd he doesn’t have ANY Russian or Slavic blood. The accent was terrible, the character was absolutely despising. While his motivation was weak it kind of made sense until the reveal that Anton Vanko was practically a leech. So yeah, evil runs in the Russian blood I guess. Russians in Captain America? Okay, I don’t have a fucking idea what went on there. The Russians captured Bucky and experimented on him, yet he’s a Hydra asset? Hydra was a Nazi organization and it makes no sense since the Soviets actually had a lot to do with defeating Nazis. Both were evil, but they’re not the fucking same. Actually Nazis hated Slavs almost as much as Jewish people and by the time “The First Avenger” takes place historically the Germans had already blocked Leningrad, so the Soviets would never work with them. Let’s take a look at “Arrow” now. We’ve got plenty of Russians here. Except they all are shady gangsters with good intentions only for themselves. Yeah, the brotherhood and severe loyalty in Bratva is depicted, but it’s still a criminal organization. Got to mention that they actually cast David Nykl who is Czech Canadian (so he’s Slavic) in the role of Anatoli, yet Kovar is played by a Swede. I’m in the supehero fandoms, so most of my examples come from there, but I guess you get the idea. I can’t recall many other Slavs with prominent roles in American mainstream media apart from Sophie and Oleg from Two Broke Girls and don’t even get me started on those. The Hollywood also didn’t care enough to cast somebody of the right ethnic background for the role of Nikola Tesla who was Serbian (so a Slav) with David Bowie playing him in “The Prestige” and Nicholas Hoult in the upcoming “The Current War”. Have you heard of the movie “The Zookeeper’s Wife”? It’s about the Żabiński family who hid Jews in the Warsaw Zoo during WWII. Yet the main roles of Polish people again went to actors with nothing Slavic about them.

I could rant more on this, but I actually want to mention one more thing. Dear People of Color, as I said we are not opressed like you, but please do not paint us with the same brush as those actually responsible for all the awful things that happened in America to your ancestors. And I am talking as A POLISH PERSON here. Specifically Polish person. We are not your enemy. We never colonised Americas. We never had slaves there. While your ancestors were slaves (actually the term “slave” derives from the word “Slav”, because Slavic people were often kept as slaves in Arab Spain in ninth century), mine were living in a non-existent country since it was literally stolen away from us by Prussia, Russia and Austria. For 123 years there was no independent Poland, Polish culture was opressed and depolonization was crazy. Yet we managed to survive. We fought for our freedom. One of our national heroes is actually also a national hero in US. His name is Tadeusz Kościuszko. If you haven’t heard of him, you’re missing out. He was a prominent figure in American Revolution. There’s actually a story that while he was in Philadephia, the leader of Little Turtle came to him and Tadeusz gave him guns with guide to use them against anyone who would want to conquer Little Turtle. Then he came back to Poland to fight for his own country which was being torn apart by their neighbours.

There’s also the story about Poles in Haiti. Let me start things of with saying that many Poles viewed Napoleon as a way to regain freedom. It kind of worked since the Kingdom of Poland came to existance, but don’t think it was any kind of independent coutry. It still belonged to Russia. Napoleon exploited the Poles in his army, seriously. He didn’t actually give a damn about us. So he sent them to help subdue the Haitian Revolution. As you may or may not know, the revolution was successful. Want to hear the story of the Poles’ role? Well, it’s simple. When they arrived there and saw that the Haitians fight for their freedom just like the Polish, they decided to actually help them. Not immediately, but it didn’t take them much time. They saw the Revolution as paralell to the Polish situation back then. Jean-Jacques Dessalines called the Poles (AND I’M LITERALLY QUOTING HIM THERE): “the White Neg***s of Europe” with was actually regarded a great honour. The Poles who fought there aquired Haitian citizenship and you can still find their descendants on Haiti.

And the WWII. Oh, the WWII. It all started in Poland which was still weak. We actually existed as an independent country for only 20 years when Hitler attacked us. It’s no mystery that our allies (Great Britain and France) didn’t give a damn about us and didn’t help Poland at all. I could talk and talk about the Poles in the WWII, because our role was HUGE. Let me just say that Poland was the only country were hiding Jews was punished by death, yet so many Polish people (count in my greatgrandparents) still did it. Of course not every Pole was a saint back then and some actually did horrible things, but majority of Poles really helped the Jews. Just check which country has the most citizens who got the honorific of Righteous Among the Nations. (Spoiler Alert: it’s Poland) Poland is actually the only country and Germany conquered back then where they couldn’t form a SS force, because most of us would rather die than fight for the Nazis. A Pole, Jan Karski, risked his life when he was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto to gather information. Actually when he reported those to Western leaders, they pretty much didn’t give a shit. Polish officer Witold Pilecki voluteered to go to Auschwitz to gain information on the camp. And please, NEVER say “Polish death camps”. The death camps were never Polish. They were on our territory which was taken from us by force. Poles also fought in Britain (Polish pilots in Battle of England anyone?) and in other parts of the world. After the war ended no one gave a shit. Roosevelt and Churchill easily sold us to Soviets, so we actually became dependent on Russia yet again. We regained our independance in 1989 and were actually the first nation to break the communist regime.

We’re no saints and the country is a mess right now. There are tons of rasist, homophobic and sexist people among us, but a lot of Poles actually fought for basic human rights for everyone, for freedom, for justice. We may be a mess, but if the times are hard, we’ll come together and fight for ourselves and for each of you, because in the end we’re all people, we all deserve the same treatment and opportunities.

So what I wanted to say by this rant? I wanted to kindly ask POC not to paint every white person with the same brush and to not think that we’re the same as your opressors. We are not your enemy, we never were. I wanted to kindly ask opressed POC not to erase the beautiful Slavic cultures by saying that “white people have no culture”. I get you’re angry with your opressors, I can fully understand it, but it is hurtful for me as a person who doesn’t really identify with the Western culture. I wanted to demand Western white people for more respect towards other cultures, also those of other ethnic groups of your own race. Slavs are the biggest white ethnic group in Europe, yet they are neglected and stereotyped.

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libertariantaoist · 7 years

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The Republican-controlled Congress couldn’t get it together on healthcare, infrastructure, immigration, or much of anything else, but, hey, they got together with the Democrats on a Russia sanctions bill: the “Russia, Iran, and North Korea Sanctions Act.” If you read the text, the proportion of moral preening, rhetorical rodomontade, and blustering bloviation is unusually high, even for a bill with Lindsey Graham’s and John McCain’s imprint all over it. That it also manages to violate the terms of the Iran deal is an extra added bonus.

The meat of the bill involves tying the President’s hands when it comes to actions intended to “significantly alter US foreign policy with regard to the Russia Federation” – with the explicit understanding that the default policy is implacable hostility. Under the terms of this bill, no action designed to improve relations with the Russians is permitted. In order to take such actions, the President must first submit a proposal to the appropriate congressional committee, in both houses of Congress, which must then approve (or, more likely, disapprove) it.

This bill is, in effect, a de facto declaration of war – cold war, to be more precise. This is the Congress of the United States putting the nation – and the Russians – on notice that Cold War II has begun.

The bill is filled with self-justifying polemics, asserting that Russians have delayed or obstructed the Minsk agreements, when in reality it is the government of Ukraine which has refused to implement its part of the agreement by failing to hold local elections in eastern Ukraine, refusing to reform the constitution to comply with the Minsk accord, and continuing to bomb, strafe, and murder its own people in that region.

The bill also claims that “On January 6, 2017, an assessment of the United States intelligence community entitled, ‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections’ stated, ‘‘Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the United States presidential election.’’ In fact, “the United States intelligence community” issued no such opinion: two intelligence agencies, the CIA and the FBI, did, without offering any convincing public evidence. A third, the National Security Agency, said it has “moderate confidence” in such a conclusion. There was no National Intelligence Estimate issued because such a document requires strict standards of evidence and also includes dissents – and, of course, no dissent on this question is permitted.

The sanctions consist of restrictions on investment in the Russian energy sector – which had to be modified at the last minute because US investors objected to certain elements – and this ought to make oil producers in the US happy: it is a brazenly protectionist measure, one which, ordinarily, the “free trade” majority in Congress would oppose, but an exception must be made as long as it hurts the Russians.

My favorite parts of the bill are the sections devoted to anti-Russian propaganda, like this passage:

“The Government of the Russian Federation has sought to exert influence throughout Europe and Eurasia, including in the former states of the Soviet Union, by providing resources to political parties. think tanks, and civil society groups that sow distrust in democratic institutions and actors, promote xenophobic and illiberal views, and otherwise undermine European unity.”

Oh no, not “xenophobia”! Isn’t that a hate crime? How dare the Russians point out that Angela Merkel has allowed her country to be overrun with refugees from a war made worse by Western intervention on behalf of Islamic extremists! Hungary and Poland have refused to open their borders to the floodtide, and the result has been the complete absence of terrorist incidents and civil disorder in those countries. How “illiberal” can you get?!

As for “sowing distrust in democratic institutions” and otherwise “undermining European unity,” it has been the anti-democratic “Remainers” who have been undermining the democratic decision of the British people to leave the European Union. Liars always project their lies onto those they’re trying to malign.

It is, naturally, perfectly okay that the United States and its allies fund political parties and “non-governmental organizations” throughout Europe and the world to push their agenda: no one else is allowed to do the same. And of course the resources the Western governments can afford to deploy in their propaganda campaigns far exceed the paltry amounts coming from cash-strapped Moscow.

Speaking of which, $250,000,000 is appropriated in this bill for propaganda efforts that go into the “Countering Russian Influence Fund.” This will go to various NGOs, with those controlled and supported by billionaire George Soros no doubt at the head of the line. It’s quite a lucrative gravy train, and every “democracy”-promoting thinktank and NGO is there with their hands out, using their political influence to get a cut of the action.

Another bit of pork is the $30,000,000 to be given for “Ukraine energy security,” i.e., subsidies for US energy companies and investors and their Ukrainian clients. For decades, ever since the days of the Warsaw Pact, Russia sold Ukraine subsidized energy, but this ended when Ukraine refused to pay anything for oil and gas deliveries. Now the International Monetary Fund has pressured the Kiev regime to cut its energy subsidies to consumers, if not eliminate them altogether, which has led to unrest as ordinary Ukrainians freeze their butts off during the harsh winters. Now the United States is stepping into the breach, at least partially, by playing the role the old Soviet Union did – subsidizing its Ukrainian satellite (and, incidentally, enriching politically-connected US energy companies).

Oh yes, there’s something in this bill for everyone – free money, politically correct jeremiads against “xenophobia,” partisan rhetoric around the 2016 presidential election, and most of all hatred of all things Russian. It’s a monument to the hypocrisy, groupthink, and smugness that permeates our nation’s capital like a poisonous fog. No wonder the two parties united around it.

#justin raimondo #antiwar.com #russia russia russia

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caveartfair · 5 years

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The Famed Jewish Art Dealer Who Fought to Retrieve 400 Stolen Works from the Nazis

The Postman Joseph Roulin, 1888. Vincent van Gogh Rijksmuseum Kroeller-Mueller, Otterlo

Vincent van Gogh, La Mousmé, 1888. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

In October 1919, Parisian dealer Paul Rosenberg opened his first solo exhibition by a recent addition to his gallery roster, Pablo Picasso. The startling display of 167 drawings and watercolors marked a dramatic break with the Cubist style Picasso had helped popularize, and the beginning of an important partnership between the artist and Rosenberg that would last until 1940, when the dealer was forced to flee France as the Nazis advanced.

In those two intervening decades, Rosenberg became the world’s most important art dealer, representing not only Picasso, but also Georges Braque beginning in 1923, Fernand Léger as of 1926, and Henri Matisse starting in 1936. Rosenberg’s two-story gallery at 21 Rue la Boétie in Paris’s 8th Arrondissement came to be known as the “French Florence,” described by French art critic and historian Pierre Nahon as “an essential meeting place for everyone who wants to follow the development and the work of the innovative painters.”

Shortly after the opening of that first Picasso show in 1919, Rosenberg, who lived with his family in the apartments above the gallery, convinced the artist to move into a vacant flat next door at 23 Rue la Boétie. The business partners suddenly became neighbors and fast friends, visiting each other regularly and referring to each other as “Pic” and “Rosi” in their frequent correspondence. According to Picasso’s biographer, John Richardson, during this period, the artist would sometimes step onto his balcony and wave his latest canvas until he got Rosenberg’s attention. It was one of modern art’s most important and mutually advantageous relationships; or, as Nahon later wrote: “The artist and the gallery owner made one another.”

A family affair

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge, 1892–95. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Paul Rosenberg owed some of his savvy as a dealer to his father, who nurtured in him both a refined eye and sharp business sense. Unlike his brother Léonce—whose Galerie de l’Effort Moderne had represented Picasso for the three years prior to Paul poaching him—Paul understood that he would have to balance support for avant-garde artists with sales of works by more established figures, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet.

Paul and Léonce had grown up among such works after their father, Alexandre Rosenberg, left a career as a grain merchant to become an antiques dealer, eventually falling hard for the Impressionists. By the time he was 16, Paul began working for his father and honing his eye. When he was just 19, Paul’s father dispatched him to London to open an outpost of the family business. He had mixed results across the English Channel, though he did manage to buy two Vincent van Gogh drawings for £40. Back in Paris, Alexandre Rosenberg set up his sons with a space on the Avenue de l’Opéra in 1906 to carry on the family business after he retired, but Paul quickly grew listless.

“I was successful, but I was troubled by the idea that I was selling paintings I didn’t like,” he later wrote in an unfinished memoir quoted by his granddaughter, journalist Anne Sinclair, in her 2012 book My Grandfather’s Gallery: A Family Memoir of Art and War. “I realized that if I were going to compete with the big auction houses of the day, I needed to buy only the highest-quality works, and rely on time to make a name for myself.”

Over the next four decades, Paul would do just that, striking out on his own and, in 1912, opening his gallery at 21 Rue la Boétie. There, according to an announcement laying out his program for the space, Paul planned to show a mix of works by acknowledged 19th-century masters and pathbreaking contemporary painters. In the same announcement, he made clear that his gallery would be no ordinary showroom, pledging to fund the publication of catalogues for every show and writing that “the shortcoming of contemporary exhibitions is that they show an artist’s work in isolation. So I intend to hold group exhibitions of decorative art.”

And so it was that Paul’s adventurous exhibition program mixed Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Gustave Courbet with Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Marie Laurencin, and Amedeo Modigliani. And though he was a great promoter of the avant-garde art of his day, Rosenberg still had his prejudices. Surrealism, for instance, was of absolutely no interest to him. It’s said that Salvador Dalí once approached him in a restaurant to ask if he’d be interested in representing him, and the dealer shot back: “Monsieur, my gallery is a serious institution, not made for clowns.”

But Rosenberg was completely devoted to the artists in whom he believed. He was a relentless champion of their work with museums, loaning works for major exhibitions in Europe and the U.S. In consultation with his friend Alfred H. Barr, the first director of the Museum of Modern Art, he loaned more than 30 paintings to the institution for the blockbuster exhibition “Picasso: Forty Years of His Art.” The timing of that exhibition, which opened in New York City on November 15, 1939, was darkly fortuitous, coming two and a half months after the Nazis invaded Poland. It meant that those paintings, at least, would not be at the gallery the following spring when the Nazis took Paris.

New regime at 21 Rue la Boétie

Edgar Degas, The Dance Lesson, ca. 1879. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Shortly after France signed an armistice with the Nazis on June 22, 1940, the Reich’s ambassador to the Vichy government, Otto Abetz, provided the Gestapo with a list of Jewish art dealers and collectors in Paris. In addition to Paul Rosenberg, the list included his colleagues Jacques Seligmann and Georges Wildenstein. Luckily, when the Nazis arrived at 21 Rue la Boétie, Rosenberg and his family were long gone. They had fled Paris in February 1940, first relocating to a small town near Bordeaux and then, after traveling through Spain and reaching Portugal, landing in New York City on September 20, 1940 (Barr had pleaded with the American authorities to allow the family to enter the country). Of the immediate family, only Rosenberg’s brother Léonce opted to stay in Paris—surviving the occupation, miraculously, only to die in 1947—while Rosenberg’s son Alexandre, 19 at the time, stayed behind in Europe to fight for the Allies.

Meanwhile—aside from the works Rosenberg had sent abroad, a group he’d stored in Tours under his chauffeur’s name, and 162 paintings he’d placed in a bank vault near the southwestern town where the family spent the spring of 1940—the bulk of Rosenberg’s collection, his gallery inventory, and its archive were seized when the Nazis raided 21 Rue la Boétie in July 1940. In September 1941, they also seized the contents of the bank vault. Another 75 works that had remained at the house in the southeast where the family lived in 1940 were also taken. All told, the Nazis looted some 400 paintings belonging to Rosenberg.

But the Nazis’ plans for Rosenberg’s property didn’t end there. They requisitioned 21 Rue la Boétie and, in May 1941, inaugurated the Institut d’Étude des Questions Juives (IEQJ, or Institute for the Study of Jewish Questions) in the former gallery space. The IEQJ was a flagrantly anti-Semitic institution that offered pseudo-scientific propaganda classes on subjects such as “Ethnoraciology” and “Eugenics and Demographics.” Nominally run by the French, the organization was actually under the direct control of Theodor Dannecker, the head of the Gestapo’s Judenreferat. That September, it opened the now-infamous exhibition “The Jew and France” at the Palais Berlitz, whose nationalistic, anti-Semitic exhibits were seen by somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million visitors in Paris before going on a tour of other French cities. For comparison’s sake, MoMA’s “Picasso: Forty Years of His Art” drew just over 100,000 visitors in its 54-day run.

Tracking down the pieces

Paul Cézanne, Bathers, 1892–94. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

On August 27, 1944, two days after the liberation of Paris, members of the Resistance warned the Second Armored Division that one final train of Nazi soldiers and 148 crates full of modern art was about to leave for Germany. Six volunteers and a lieutenant from the Free French forces hurried to hijack the train in the suburbs of Paris, stopping it at Aulnay. That lieutenant was Alexandre Rosenberg, Paul’s son; the last time he’d seen some of the paintings in those crates was on the walls of his parents’ apartment at 21 Rue la Boétie. The heroic episode served as the inspiration for the 1964 Burt Lancaster blockbuster The Train.

Shortly after the liberation, the French government seized 21 Rue la Boétie and, eventually, returned the property to Rosenberg. But as his granddaughter relates in My Grandfather’s Gallery, between the grim uses to which the property had been put under Nazi occupation and the piles of IEQJ propaganda books left behind in its basement, Rosenberg was determined never to live there again. Besides, by then, he had established himself and his gallery in New York. He sold the building in January 1953. Before handing over the keys, he had the four mosaics Braque had made for the gallery floor cut out and turned into tables.

Rosenberg devoted much of his energy in the final 15 years of his life to recovering the art that had been taken from him by the Nazis. Shortly after the war, France’s restitution commission returned the works from the train his son had helped stop, as well as others that had been found stockpiled at Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. As a gesture of appreciation, Rosenberg donated 33 of them to French museums.

During the years he spent tracking down Nazi loot, his New York gallery, Paul Rosenberg & Company, continued to thrive. After he was demobilized in 1946, Alexandre reunited with his father in the United States and joined the family business, becoming an associate in the gallery in 1952, and then taking its helm when his father died in 1959.

At the time of his death, at age 78, Paul Rosenberg had recovered more than 300 of the works the Nazis had stolen from him. In subsequent decades, his children and other descendants continued to fight for the restitution of his collection. In her 2012 book, Sinclair, his granddaughter, estimated that about 60 of Rosenberg’s paintings were still missing.

Still in the family

La chambre de Van Gogh à Arles (Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles), 1889. Vincent van Gogh Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Alexandre continued to run the gallery his father had established on East 79th Street until his death in 1987, when it closed. In 2015, Paul’s granddaughter Marianne Rosenberg revived the family business, launching Rosenberg & Co. on East 66th Street, where it continues the business model that Paul pioneered, offering a mix of contemporary artists and established masters.

From time to time, pieces of the Rosenberg treasure still resurface. In 1998, the family sued the Seattle Art Museum, alleging that a Matisse painting in its collection, Odalisque (1928), had been taken from Rosenberg. The museum commissioned research that confirmed the painting had been among the 162 seized from the bank vault in southwestern France, and in 1999, the museum’s board voted to return it to the Rosenbergs, marking a happy resolution to the first Nazi loot restitution lawsuit filed against a U.S. museum. More recently, in 2014, the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter museum near Oslo returned Matisse’s Profil bleu devant la cheminée (1937) to a member of the Rosenberg family. The following year, another Matisse, Woman with a Fan (1923), which had turned up among the trove seized from Cornelius Gurlitt’s apartment, was returned to the Rosenbergs.

Some works are still being kept from the family, however. In 1987, an Edgar Degas pastel portrait that was taken by the Nazis resurfaced in the inventory of Hamburg-based dealer Mathias Hans. Though the family contacted Hans, he refused to identify the work’s current owner, demanding full payment to restitute the work. For now, that Degas remains out of the Rosenbergs’ reach.

But while some of Paul Rosenberg’s collection remains hidden away, much of it is accessible to his heirs and the wider public through the countless works he gifted to museums or placed with collectors, who, in turn, donated them to institutions. He recalled an encounter with one such piece—now on prominent display at the Art Institute of Chicago—in an unfinished autobiography Sinclair quotes in her book about her grandfather.

“One day when I was about ten, my father led me to the shop window of a dealer who kept a gallery on the rue Le Peletier, to show me a painting that made me shriek with horror,” Rosenberg wrote, describing a painting of a shabby bedroom rendered in “violent colors” with warped walls and dancing furniture. It was one of Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles (1889).

“My father calmed me down and said, ‘I don’t know this artist, and the canvas isn’t signed, but I’m going to find out about him because I’d like to buy some of his paintings,’” Rosenberg continued. “The canvas was by Van Gogh, it’s the one that’s in the Art Institute of Chicago, and which, by an irony of fate, I myself sold about 30 years later.”

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

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