#then in the formative years of a fascist evil police state taking over

[thehumanarkle]

(Shared from my own Facebook page; some spelling and grammar errors corrected for this post)

You can't reason with people like this. You can't defeat people like this with ideas and speeches. The Liberal doctrine of "non-violence always," something that even Dr. King himself wasn't as fanatical about (he had guns in his home, he just didn't carry them in public) has failed. The GOP needs to pay a price higher than insults on social media or "strongly worded letters" from the Democrats or they *will* keep doing this, and it *will* get worse. We know this because we have been seeing them do it for over 40 years; gradually at first, but Trump emboldened them so now the floodgates are open. It doesn't need to escalate to bloodshed, at least not yet, but car tires and windows don't have feelings, and a lot of the fascist trash behind this legislation has more than enough money to replace them many times over. And rocks and screwdrivers are cheap. Just remember not to have your phone on you, and don't take credit for it. We still don't know who the guy who suckerpunched Richard Spencer was, and that Nazi fucker is about to be bankrupt and his wife left him and he doesn't invited to big Conservative events anymore. When it comes to Fascists, not only does violence work, if you don't shut them down early enough it's the only thing that works. Just don't go after their pets. No one blames Hitler's dogs for the Holocaust. Don't be gross. 

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There are people on my side, on the Left, who will make the claim that Liberals and Fascists are one and the same. I reject this. That said however, Liberals, at the end of the day will never do what it takes to fight Fascism until the worst case scenario is already in effect. Why? Because fighting Fascism before it takes power in a country requires Liberals to break, or sometimes simply just bend their own principles.

It's counterintuitive, I know, but so is bodybuilding. You have to basically rip your muscles (in a certain way) in order to make them stronger. They are kind of unique in that way; most things in the human body only get weaker when you damage them. And Fascism is a unique kind of evil in the world. It cannot be defeated by conventional means (boycotts, protests, elections, etc.)

Liberals wanting to prevent Fascists from taking over a nation with exclusively non-violent means is like a bodybuilder trying to put on muscle with only light exercise. It might feel better in the short term, but in the long term, at best, accomplishes nothing BUT feeling better.

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Non-violence certainly has it's place, and I don't reject it outright. I am, to use a term I learned on Tumblr, an Institutional Pacifist; I do not want my country starting wars, especially without justification and I also oppose capital punishment as the State should not be in the business of executing people, especially people who may not have even done anything and were screwed over by police incompetence and prosecutorial misconduct (John Oliver just did a whole thing about that; it's on YouTube).

But Liberals have a rose-colored glasses take on non-violence. They think it has always worked (it hasn't) and that it wasn't a tactic that was used in tandem with other forms of protest (it was). As Kwame Ture said, non-violence only works when your opponent has a conscience. Fascists not only do not have a conscience, they view a conscience as a weakness, and actively exploit that weakness to get their way. Fascists are actually pretty open some times about they know they can get away with things because Liberals will simply be too polite to do what it takes to stop them. And yet, even knowing this, Liberals will still stick to non-violence. And I do not understand it.

Lib: "I don't want to be violent." Fash: "Cool. I'm gonna use your non-violence against you in order to hurt as many people as possible. But you can totally stop me. Just punch me in the face and I'll fold because this is still the early stage and I don't have a large group of thugs backing me up yet." Lib: "... Dammit." Fash: "Just what I thought. Anyway, off the shoot up a synagogue, Talk to ya later." Lib: "*sigh* If only there were something I could've done to prevent this."

How many people have to suffer before you'll even admit that maybe some people using violence even if you personally choose not to partake it for reasons that could be perfectly valid (physical limitations for instance, lack of experience coupled with a fear of accidentally harming a non-fascist, etc.) is at the very least a tactic that can be left on the table?

I'll be generous here; you, yourself, reading this, do not have to participate in violence against Fascist persons. I mean it. You don't. In all honesty some of you would probably fuck it up if you tried. Let's be real, *I'd* probably fuck it up if I tried. The closest thing I have to combat training is having done some Laser Tag in my teens. But you and I can't get in the way of the people who will and can. Because you aren't helping them when you do that. You're helping the Fascists. Who will stab you in the back as a reward for your efforts to protect them from violence.

As I've said before, the epithet on the tombstone of Liberalism in America in the 21st Century will read "But at least we were polite."

#trans rights #liberalism #fascism #political commentary #discussion of violence #sorry for how rambly it got. i didn't write all of that at once plus it was all kind of stream of consciousness

[abigailnussbaum]

The Handmaid's Tale 4x07, "Home"

My reaction to this episode feels like a litmus test for my feelings about the show as a whole. Three and a half seasons into its run, do I trust The Handmaid's Tale to see June as a flawed, damaged person, whose suffering has revealed a profound capacity for rage and violence, but who is nevertheless infinitely superior to a woman who (not to keep harping on this point, but the show keeps ignoring it) was one of the architects of the violent overthrow of democracy and the establishment of a fascist police state where LGBT people and the disabled are exterminated, women are kept as sex slaves, and young girls are handed over to be beaten and raped by men old enough to be their grandfather? Or do I think the show remains addicted to so-called dramatic irony, and expects us to take a scene in which June speaks nothing but the god's honest truth to Serena, and Serena expresses a remorse that is surely motivated only by fear of her circumstances, as somehow comparable to the many abuses Serena inflicted on June when she was the one with power? Am I meant to come away from this episode feeling that June and Serena are, however risible the very notion, somehow the same?

To a certain extent, the answer is clearly yes. There is no way to take the superimposition of June's monologue about Serena's particular brand of evil with images of June, Luke, and Nichole frolicking happily in the park (only hours after June and Luke had what was, at best, a dubiously consensual sexual encounter), than as a superimposition of the two women. When June says that all of Serena's behavior is motivated by deep misery and a desire not to feel it, the conclusion we're meant to draw is obvious.

What's less obvious is whether the show intends for us to understand what is nevertheless different between the two women. Chiefly, that wherever Serena's misery comes from, June's comes from Serena, from Gilead, and from the PTSD they've left her with. So sure, June bullies Serena, and later assaults Luke, because it stops her from feeling bad. But another way of putting that is that watching the woman who abused you for years beg for mercy on her knees feels a lot better than having a panic attack by the bottled water display. And, well, yeah? Can't really argue with that line of thinking?

(Another problem with this juxtaposition is that it actually fits June a hell of a lot better than Serena. I mean, sure, maybe Serena does what she does because she's in pain. But after three and a half seasons of observing the character, we certainly don't know that for a fact. The thing is, there's no explaining Serena because she doesn't actually make any sense. Real fascists and religious fanatics aren't much like her - not least because they tend to be racist as well as misogynistic. Serena is the way she is because the show enjoys the - sigh - irony of an elegant, smart, independent-minded woman who makes herself the instrument of misogynistic fascism, but despite Yvonne Strahovski's best efforts, it has never crafted a believable human being out of those ingredients, and it's probably not about to start now.)

The episode is on surer ground in its depiction of June's reluctant integration into her family's life in Canada. If you want to criticize her for something, let it be for the obvious fact that, for all her joy at being reunited with Luke and Nichole, ultimately she just does not want to be there. Look at the way the episode hinges around her conversation with Moira, Emily, and Rita, all of whom have struggled to leave Gilead behind them, and backslid in the process, but who were nevertheless trying to get out, physically and emotionally.

Until that scene, June is sleepwalking, stung by the realization that Luke and Moira have formed a well-oiled co-parenting unit that has left no space for her, but not obviously interested in taking her place in their family. But look at the way her face sharpens as the women start talking about Serena. Look at the way she awakens to rage when she learns about the pregnancy. Unlike her friends, June isn't interested in healing. She still wants to fight.

There's a lot of interesting questions raised by this scenario. Is June selfish for not wanting to get better? Is it selfish to demand that she try? Is there some part of her that wants to stop fighting, or has she made a conscious decision to be this person? If she goes back to Gilead (which feels like a foregone conclusion at this point), would that be an act of heroism, or a symptom of trauma? It's just that in order to ask these questions, the show has to treat her as a flawed, damaged, but still fundamentally lovable person, and I'm not sure that it wants to.

More and more, it feels to me as if The Handmaid's Tale hates June, or wants me to hate her. That this is the way the show keeps its prestige TV credentials while its story becomes more and more ridiculous. Sure, it seems to be saying, you can have a brave heroine who fights fascism, but she's going to be an anti-heroine! Isn't that bold and dramatic? And well, the result is that a freedom fighter is treated as morally identical to a murderous fascist. I'd like to believe that the show knows better than this, but I'm not sure I have enough trust in it left to do that.

#the handmaid's tale

[punkofsunshine]

The (Informal) Miniature Anarcho-Solarpunk Manifesto

The integration of communalism into a classless system away from the main caste-esque system of hierarchy around the world is very costly when viewed from a consumer lens, but is essential in the degradation of the overbearing hierarchy that the main populace is subjected to and thusly become numb to the pressures placed upon them from an early age, spiral into endlessly consuming for a sense of being in a world that doesn’t care if you’re alive, to them you’re just a replaceable cog in the profit machine. The goal of the communalist, socialist, solarpunk, etc. should not be to live in their own bubble, but to expand their influence exponentially through participation with the outside world, turn a commune into a city as it were. Less people in a place that has dictated control by the state and the consumers within, the less control the state and capital have over people. A migration of people increases quality of life and food consumption, luckily food growth can be optimized to accommodate many people when given according to need as opposed to given to whomever has the money to afford produce. One must also keep in mind, the debt accrued is now a community responsibility, so the members will do everything in their power to keep people functioning in the community, that must include people paying off debts. Who are you if you let a fellow worker suffer on their own? Who are you to let a human such as yourself be subjected to the violence of the state in its many forms? Pushing back against such oppression is why we ascribe to this ideology, so we can taste freedom and save the earth from ourselves.

No individual is solely responsible for the pollution and poverty. Multiple corporations and their figureheads are. Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Bernard Arnault, Qin Yinglin & family, Michael Bloomberg, The Koch family, Jim Simons, Alaian & Gerard Wertheimer, Mark Zuckerburg, Amancio Ortega, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, the Walton Family, Steve Ballmer, Carlos Slim Helu & family, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Francoise Bittencourt Meyers & family, Jack Ma, Ma Huateng, Mukesh Ambani, Mackenzie Scott, Beate Heister & Karl Albrecht Jr., David Thomson & family, Phil Knight & family, Lee Shau Kee, François Pinault & family. Sheldon Alelson, The Mars family, Elon Musk, Giovanni Ferrero, Michael Dell, Hui Ka Yan, Li Ka-Shing, He Xiangjian, Yang Huiyan & family, Joseph Safra, Dieter Schwarz, Vladimir Potanin, Tadashi Yanai & family, Vladamir Lisin, Ray Dalio, Takemitsu Takizaki, Leonid Mikhelson, etc. (Forbes) The list could go on, but I’m not about to list four-hundred people, the people have to change what the ruling class refuses to, hijacking corporate manufacturing and removing police of their power is essential. The police are targets due to the fact they protect corporate interests and stunt progressive growth, all of the people listed above refuse to let power be taken from them, there are too few people willing to make attempts to go after them because what would happen to their favourite source of consumption if that happened? What would happen to convenience? It would disappear, they don’t want to have to make things themselves, such is the first world’s entitlement. Doing without the convenience to save the environment should be a priority, things aren’t going to just get better on their own just because you installed solar panels and an eco-friendly water filtration system. The extent of the work that needs to be done is tremendous and must be organized efficiently and with regard to equivalency of power.

The world is in the process of ending due to all the turmoil we put it through, but the fact we’re more worried about comfort and convenience is very telling of what kind of culture western society has, instead of trying to fight those who destroy the environment and oppress us, we’re eager to mimic them. Why? Because they have and we have not. Such is the downfall of the consumerist mind. A majority of Americans think like consumers, not citizens, which is very telling because the anti-communist culture moted it be after the second world war. (Vox) There’s no telling where the zeitgeist is headed, but there’s political radicalization on both sides of the spectrum, sadly the other side of the spectrum is what we fought against, fascism, nazism, and authoritarianism. 2016 through 2020 were the worst years in terms of hate crimes committed on minority groups since the 60’s which is really saying something, neo-nazi groups sprung up and made themselves the focus, where there are fascists, there will always be anti-fascists or to be informal, antifa. I, the author am a background informant for the loose collective known as antifa, our job is simply to let people know where rallies are going down, we use pseudonyms and VPNs so we cannot be tracked. So why am I telling you this? Isn’t this supposed to be about what we can do to rebel against the systems that oppress us? Yes, and I’m getting there. There’s a reason I’m talking about fascism, and that is the fact fascism and capitalism are linked together.

Fascism/imperialism has been described as “capitalism in decay” by Vladimir Lenin due to the fact that neoliberalism is capitalism functioning as normal, communism post-capitalism, and fascism is capitalism going away slowly. It is an unjust and evil way of looking at the world, but once capitalists sense danger to their power, they fund fascism just so they can keep their power for longer. Anti-fascist action is also anti-capitalist action, for every nazi destroyed, we are one step closer to freedom. For every capitalist institution raided and demolished, we are one step closer to freedom. The city isn’t made of buildings that you can buy from, it’s made of the people who live there, so when the BLM protests occurred and stores were “looted” and burned, that was a form of praxis that hasn’t happened in years it was truly inspiring to see the people of Oregon (among other places) fight the police, fight back the alt-right, give capitalists the middle finger, create autonomous zones, and keep people from getting evicted during the pandemic. That is what communalism is partly about, supporting each other in the face of adversity no matter the cost of personal wellbeing, it’s the pinnacle of mutual aid.

Revolutionary action is one-hundred percent essential in securing future freedoms for not only generation Y, but generation Z and subsequent generations. As a member of generation Z, I feel fear, anger, and dread when it comes to climate change and the fact our generation will have to clean up the messes of the former generations when it comes to pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, unsustainable farming practices, soil health degradation, deforestation, the melting of polar habitats, natural disasters, etc. The weight of the world falls upon our shoulders and we realize this as a truth or we reject reality and follow in our parent’s footsteps and do nothing about it, it’s up to us, the most depressed and angry generation in the U.S.’s rather short history to right the wrongs made by former generations when most of us can’t even find motivation to get out of bed in the morning. I am writing this manifesto in my bed as I have been for the past week when I remember to write it down. It’s not enough to just write a theory however, put practice in it and it becomes more than just a talking point. It becomes a movement, how far you want to take it depends on you, but I do not condone violence against any of the people in the list above for strictly legal reasons. It is not absurd to think that we don’t have a snowball's chance in hell to stop the impending climate disaster that is about to fall onto us, because that assumption is correct. The best we can do is rebuild afterwards then hope and pray the next generation continues our work to restore the planet and maybe move outside our solar system, god willing.

I’ve tried writing a short solarpunk novel, I realized that the fiction may be important for outreach, but I was trying to add personal political theory to a narrative that’s supposed to be about a character’s internal conflicts as opposed to what I’m doing now, informal political theory, which is why I’m addressing you, the reader. I’ve read and listened to political theory in the past, and it’s incredibly dry and hard to pay attention to, don’t get me wrong, it’s important when you’re a part of various movements such as eco-socialism, communalist-anarchism, and anarcho-solarpunk, but I think it’s more important to connect with a reader or listener to make sure they understand the message before saying “do some praxis.” That is the goal here, not to be the leftist, humane version Ayne Rand, but instead instill in people a hope for the future that learns to do without mass manufacturing, that learns to make their own food sustainably, that learns that we all have a right to food, clean water, housing, medical treatment, and clean air without having to pay for all of those things. I may not be a part of the bottom percentage of people, but if I were my point would still stand strong, the notion that you have to work to get basic necessities is immoral on many levels, but in “free market” economies that’s the standard and I was as blind to it as most people before I found solarpunk, it started out by liking the aesthetic, but I started thinking about what we do to our planet and realized this isn’t just a bunch of pretty pictures, this is an idea for a utopian future entrenched in equality, sustainability, environmentalism, and anti-corpocracy.

Many people say that socialism has never worked, they give reasoning such as “Income inequality expands under socialism.” Which is just capitalist projection, during the 2020 pandemic, which is still ongoing at the time or writing, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. “. . . in the months since the virus reached the United States, many of the nation’s wealthiest citizens have actually profited handsomely. Over a roughly seven-month period starting in mid-March – a week after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency – America’s 614 billionaires grew their net worth by a collective $931 billion.” (USA Today) The middle class, which skyrocketed post-feudalism/post-monarchy has been getting erased by the ruling class, which is the goal of capitalism. Capitalism is rooted in the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie and was created to have control over the masses without having a direct economic power structure overhead. Things may have gotten better for the growing middle class and the poor marginally, then the industrial revolution kicked in and everything went downhill from there. Pollution began with burning coal, the car came along, now it’s coal and oil, and so on until today where we have access to truly world-altering technologies, but what’s holding us back are the people who continue to exploit non-renewable resources for profit and solely profit. The betterment of mankind isn’t on the mind of the capitalist, they can avoid global catastrophe, they aren’t the peasants, they’re the monarchs. Why do you think billionaires fund space travel and cryogenics research? It’s not to better the rest of the world, it’s to get the hell out of dodge after global warming takes its toll and they have no more workers willing to fill their pockets by letting their labor be exploited. As I said above, it’s up to my generation to fix the mess they made. Maybe we’ll learn a lesson, or maybe we’ll die in the process, either way the situation is dire and action needs to be taken.

Who will take action? Well, if you made it this far into the manifesto without falling asleep or getting angry at the things I have to say, it’s you, me, and everyone else who cares, is tired of selling their soul, and wants freedom. Freedom, not via the dollar, but via being human. It matters not your ethnicity, skin colour, religion (or lack thereof), sexuality, gender, or anything else; you matter, the world matters, and it takes all of us to save it.

-A manifesto by Aeron Fae Greenwood

#solarpunk #manifesto #communalism #anarchism #egalitarianism #hope for tomorrow #zerowaste #food production #praxis #socialism #revolution #written by yours truly #climate change #climate justice #climate crisis #climate activism #i ramble #anti capitalism #anti authoritarian #antifa #anti fascism #blm #eat the rich #eat the government #eat the patriarchy #take action

[armsdealing]

the worship of the dorados -- aequismo, also known as suxuhismo -- is a polytheistic, henotheistic religion that has background dating back at least five hundred years. it revolves around three main deities, dubbed laws, that are said to rule over all "matters of being and nonbeing" -- and two minor deities, which are said to be supporting agents to the laws.

the laws in question are called laws because aequismo acknowledges the existence of other gods from all other religions -- including the christian one -- but they believe that the laws have a preponderance over them. aequistas entertained the idea of multiple realities and parallel universes long before they became widely discussed in modern society/science, and they ascertained that all gods were gods within their realities, but that laws rule over the very fabric of all realities. the laws in question although personified in their worship are closer to the laws of physics than anything else. they are tenets that aequistas believe mold "existence itself". the tenets in question being retribution (justice), chaos (madness), and obliteration (death).

aequistas believe universes are made and unmade all the time at every point by the laws as need dictates. some universes live longer than others, whilst others last about a blink of the eye before they collapse unto themselves. the success of a universe depends on how well inhabitants can maintain the balance between the laws. too much retribution makes universes inhospitable to life. too much chaos disintegrates any possibility of stability. both prospects make it likelier for universes to fall and be obliterated.

they believe this earth is not the only earth there is, and that it is their duty as inhabitants of the earth to tend to the laws in order to ensure the survival -- or rather, the flourishment -- of all people. that means they base their practices not on hatred of the other but on love towards the other. they accept the unknown as natural and embrace change as necessary. that means aequists have always been on the progressive side of political discourse. members have always been firebrand and staunch in advocating for the rights of people, even before this was popular or safe. as a result they have always been objects of prosecution within their countries. aequist are staunchly anti-colonization, anti-imperialism, and anti-slavery, have been since the inception and solidification of their belief system. they have always been pro-worker, anti-racist, pro-lgbt (before the term existed), and anti-authority be it in the form of governments or the form of law enforcement. and because of their entrenched history opposed to the catholic church and their influence over what became known as latin america during colonial times, they are also -- on paper -- anti-christian, especially anti christian hegemony and anti christian power structures. on the other hand they tend to hold amicable relationships toward most other religious groups, with exceptions made for their fundamentalist/extremist/orthodox factions.

funnily enough, aequists in current times are considered to be an extremist hate group within the countries they inhabit (they have a widespread presence in most countries of the americas, especially colombia, venezuela mexico, brazil and the united states) if not a downright criminal organization. this because of the aforementioned anti-christian practices. aequistas have been linked to the burning of churches they considered to be manned by corrupt officials, and they have been linked to the assassination of religious authorities. because of their proximity to leftism, they are also presecuted by fascistic and conservative groups all the time -- aequistas, in turn, have a historied background of violently fighting back against the rise of conservatism within their countries.  

aequism does not always present itself in the same way. being a henotheistic religion, worshippers may choose around which deity to center their practice. the carminista (justice) wing of the religion is the most well known, since they tend to be the most politically visible, while the desiderista and marenista wings are more centered around in-group efforts, or are subtler in how they reach out to outsiders. all wings are represented equally within the worship, all count with representatives (called ejecutantes) that are meant to work together for the betterment of all practitioners.

aequismo is a semi-closed practice. it is not impossible to become an aequista, and people from all walks of life are welcomed within their institutions, but it takes work to actually become a member and not everything is revealed right away and not everyone makes it in. aequistas do not openly disclose the full extent of their belief systems and ritualistic practices. many of them are a mystery even to this day, which fuels the mistrust many might have toward them. they have been referred to as satanists, as occultists, as cultists, as heretics, and as degenerates by their political enemies. fear-mongering about them has caused the public to fear them in the past, and while a lot of that fear has subsided (in no small part thanks to the aequistas' constant advocacy for the poor and marginalized), they are a controversial topic within their countries, especially since those countries still are under strong catholic or (in the case of the united states) protestant influence.

aequistas center their worship, like i said, around love of the other. they firmly believe that the things they do are done out of love. this love isn't soft, but it can be merciful if mercy is needed. it isn't always kind, but it is always compassionate toward those that require compassion. in turn, it can also be a merciless form of love. aequistas -- especially the carminista faction -- are not opposed to killing those they deem "evil"; authorites that abuse their power, that use it to lie and abuse others, tend to be their prime targets. they have a "no tolerance for the intolerant" policy within their circles, which mean that no form of bigotry is ever acceptable. usually a rehabilitative angle is employed first, but only if they consider it could work. if they think it won't -- as they think often in the case of nazis, rapists, and ethno-nationalists -- then death is considered to be the only solution.

the whole time, hatred toward these parties isn't the focus, but protection and compassion for their victims. just like they aren't above violent tactics, they are also very involved in their communities, engaging in mutual aid organizing, providing food, housing and medical assistance toward those that need it. this aspect of their engagement isn't publicized as often as their unrepentant violence, but it's just as ubiquitous -- if not even more so.

politically, though they won't back out from being called progressives or leftists, they openly oppose any more labels. they aren't marxists. they are not anarchists. they aren't socialists. they are aequistas. they will ally themselves to those they view as similarly-minded, and they usually happen to be leftists from all sorts of denominations, but they won't automatically ally themselves to any group that labels themselves leftist.

realitistically speaking, though, their stances are very much anarchistic in nature. politically they support progressive policities, and as i said, they're anti-imperialism, anti-racism and anti-facism. this all being said, i reiterate political advocacy isn't their main focus, so much as "human-centered" advocacy is. they focus on things that would strategically help the most number of people, and they organize their efforts around that. as a result, you won't find them linked to any official political party. you will always find them doing their own thing, and advocating for political pragmatism within their circles (when it comes to electoral politics) while pushing for progressive causes and doing things they think will disrupt the current status quo.

now, an important distinction needs to be made: not all aequistas are members of the dorados organization, but all dorados are aequistas. the dorados are a recent affair, comparatively -- starting out their activities around the 30-50s in colombia. it is an organization made mainly of carministas, and helmed by the reyes family. it represents the most militant members of the worship, and are usually the ones you catch on the news being arrested for beating up cops that were trying to extort money from immigrant-run businesses.

currently stronghold cities of aequista activity are miami, new york, los angeles, caracas, maracaibo, medellín, cartagena, panama city, mexico city, oaxaca de juarez, reynosa, rio de janeiro and sao paolo. they have smaller groups peppered through the americas.

#the quote is by anne sexton #* nueva religion. #worldbuilding. #me: im gonna make a detailed post about the dorados' belief system #me: doesnt even come close #it's a start though #the whole poem is actually fitting enough tbh which is a good surprise

[arcticdementor]

Recently, a lot of you who told me I was insane when I said that Winnie the flu was all theater and though it existed and was a flu and would probably take “severe flu, no vaccine numbers” it was and is stupid to lock the sick and the healthy in, destroy the economy and make everyone wear a mask, have come back and ask how I knew. And apologized.

Well, attention in the isles, my friends on the right: you are falling for the same king of bullshit diversion. You are being spun like a top. And you’re falling for it and falling in line.

I blame you and I don’t. You didn’t grow up with the constant-pretend-reality of communist psi-ops, and you haven’t learned to smell it.

Over and over again, you condemn Trump and the “rioters.”

NO ONE RIOTED. Not compared to this summer. THERE WERE NO RIOTS. And the protesters were treated with an iron fist and live ammo, btw.

There are videos. I don’t know which ones are still live. They keep removing them. There was no riot. There was a protest. You know, those things that are vital for public health?

Did they go into the Capitol? Yes they did. You know what? It’s a public building. WE PAY FOR THE F*CKING CAPITOL’S UPKEEP.

But, but but…. the congress critters ran. They were scared!

Were they now? WHY? No, seriously, why were they scared, if the people they work for want to watch the deliberations. They’re in our presence all the time. You know the worst thing we do — or used to do — we called them traitors. That was it.

But they vandalized Nancy Pelosi’s office! Oh, my stars and garters? Evil people. Was that before or after she vandalized our constitution and sank a knife in the heart of the republic? Is the evil bitch dangling from a lamppost this morning? No? They were civilized beyond all hope.

But Sarah, you’ll say, this will give them the excuse to avenge themselves on us.

Dear idiots, you’re like the wife with her arm in a sling and both eyes blackened telling her husband “Please don’t say anything to Joe. He’ll be mad.”

In other words, are you out of your ever loving little minds? These people STOLE two elections — it’s now absolutely obvious the nominal right is fine with this. They hope for crumbs from their masters’ tables. The left is more likely to kill them, but never mind — in a row, in full view, and refused to let us have our day in court to show the evidence. Because the American people are now peons with NO STANDING and can be disenfranchised with no punishment. But you’re afraid that largely (truly) peaceful protesters “made them mad?”

Withdrawing the objection to the fraudulent votes due to the riot? That only makes sense in the mind of an abuser. “I stole your thing, and I was going to maybe give it back, but you cried, so now you don’t get it back.” Are you all actually out of your ever loving minds to blame the protesters and Trump for this?

These people are saying “You peasants dared to show up in our presence. We’re now going to take away even the illusion of franchise.” And…. you’re cool with this? It’s the protesters fault?

Get up off the floor. Wipe the blood from your lip. KNOW WHO YOUR ABUSER IS.

And BTW it’s not Trump. Trump thought maybe if congress saw how ad people were, they would play straight. I said before that’s all the protest was about, and that’s all it was. He told people to go home when it was obvious it had failed.

And I hope to G-d someone with access to him reads this and tells him it’s time. Take the family NOW and go to an undisclosed location. As much as it hurts me to say this, because I want him to continue harassing the left, he has to realize this is no longer the sweet land of liberty. This is now a tyrannical third world shithole. Or will be within months from the way our occupiers are behaving. They will find a way to kill him and his whole family, or kill him and turn his family against him. Go Mr. President. G-d bless. You’ve done all that you could. If the so called right in this country will pearl clutch and blame even people who engage in a very mild protest, they deserve what’s to come.

He now promises an orderly transition. I will tell all of you that DEAD is the most orderly of all states. And right now the Republic is effectively dead. There might be a hope for CPR, but I’m not sure there’s the will to apply it. Pence has joined the rats fleeing to the lefty rotten ship. because he hopes that will save his life. Spoiler, it won’t. The left will kill all the right who turns their coat. Because they can’t trust them. Good. They deserve it. I shall eat popcorn.

Do we ever get the republic back? I don’t know. I think the most likely thing is that we fall apart into separate states while around us the world falls into chaos, famine and misery. We’ve been feeding the world for a century. The world had better look to itself now.

What do those of us who’ve sworn an oath to the constitution do? I don’t know. Most are still busily doing a Peter in Pontius Pilates Yard “I was never with him.”

Oh, and there’s talks of rounding up Trump supporters. Of denying them flights and hotels and the ability to engage in commerce.

I suppose that’s the “protesters” fault too? Except that that, like the paper to withdraw objections because of the “protest” were already written. They would have found an excuse.

I don’t want war. But I liked having a homeland. To everyone who, like me, came here as the last place of refuge: I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to tell you. We need to fight this, but even if we do, unless the natural-born citizens see what they’re losing, it’s unlikely we’ll ever get our country back.

This morning, in DC, the police are beating down what remains of protesters. A young woman was murdered in cold blood yesterday.

And our side is pearl clutching and tut tuting, and hoping the abuser won’t get mad. Oh, and talking about 2022, because seeing two elections frauded RIGHT BEFORE THEIR EYES and courts refusing to let anyone see evidence of it is not enough. They need to be stomped on some more before they believe they’ve lost the franchise.

Me? I’ve seen what happens when your votes don’t matter. Elections will continue as a form, possibly for fifty years, if we let this bullshit go on that long. Your next president after Commie laWhorish is Michelle Obama, because the ignorant bitch hasn’t shit on us enough. She felt stupid and inferior at Harvard, and by gum, she’s going to make you grovel to pay for your sins.

But your real masters are now Winnie the Pooh and his merry band of fascists. And we know what they do and how.

I can’t get the order, but we’re about to see: social credit; the banning of conservatives from the internet; branding us as terrorists, just as they’re doing to innocent protesters; show trials; people disappearing; our money confiscated; our houses confiscated; more lock downs, to prevent revolt; more masks to promote alienation; more lies.

When people die in the famine to come, it will be Covid-19 and Trump’s fault and you’ll be required to repeat it publicly.

It wont’ last. These commies are industrial-level STUPID. It won’t last. I give them ten years, maybe, before most of the country is starving, and they have no clue what to do about it. And then it all falls apart, because unlike Venezuelans, we have no one to help and no place to run to.

Or, you know, we can stop pearl clutching and say “Hell no.” and “Molon labe” and stop repeating the lies the left wants written into history.

To lefty idiots: yes, the election was stolen. Because if it had NOT been, the left would have joined the right in demanding the courts take the case, and that it be shown to all as an honest election. Also, to lefty idiots, what the protesters — and all of us at home — want? ANOTHER ELECTION with minimum accountability. I mean, we can’t even clean the roles. There wouldn’t be enough time. We just wanted to make sure each person voted only once, and the votes were counted with full supervision.

Instead, you’re handing off the country to China, via their bought and paid for man, Biden. Yes, I know you heard good things about China. You’ll find out, along with the craven right that the leftist press makes Pravda seem honest. Enjoy the ride.

As for you and me, my friends. We’re going to eat the bread that the devil baked. Save what you can from the ruin. It won’t be much. And don’t let them into your head. NEVER let them into your head. They’re invaders. They’re oppressors. They’re thieves. Treat them as what they are. Do not comply unless you have to, and then engage in malicious compliance.

Keep the republic in your heart. Maybe there are enough of us left that it will rise again. But in the meantime, this is going to hurt and hurt badly. And the longer the restoration of law takes, the higher the butcher’s bill.

Most of you have no idea how bad it will get. Imagine your worst nightmares. Then double them. Prepare for that as best you can. You won’t be able to do much. If you’re lucky they’ll leave you your conscience.

Your country was invaded (even if the invaders were born here, their masters aren’t) and is about to be raped. The least you can do is not cooperate.

#sarah hoyt

[thecomicsnexus]

V FOR VENDETTA MARCH 1981 - MAY 1989 BY ALAN MOORE, DAVID LLOYD, TONY WARE, STEVE WHITAKER, SIOBAHN DODDS

SYNOPSIS (FROM WIKIPEDIA)

Book 1: Europe After the Reign On Guy Fawkes Night in London in 1997, a financially desperate 16-year-old, Evey Hammond, sexually solicits men who are actually members of the state secret police, called "The Finger". Preparing to rape and kill her, the Fingermen are dispatched by V, a cloaked anarchist wearing a mask, who later remotely detonates explosives at the Houses of Parliament before bringing Evey to his contraband-filled underground lair, the "Shadow Gallery". Evey tells V her life story, which reveals her own past as well as England's recent history. During a dispute over Poland in the late 1980s the Soviet Union and the United States, under the presidency of Ted Kennedy, entered a global nuclear war which left continental Europe and Africa uninhabitable. Although Britain itself was not bombed due to the Labour government's decision to remove American nuclear missiles, it faced environmental devastation and famine due to the nuclear winter. After a period of lawlessness in which Evey's mother died, the remaining corporations and fascist groups would take over England and form a new totalitarian government, Norsefire. Evey's father, a former socialist, would be arrested by the regime.

Meanwhile, Eric Finch, a veteran detective in charge of the regular police force—"the Nose"—begins investigating V's terrorist activities. Finch often communicates with Norsefire's other intelligence departments, including "the Finger," led by Derek Almond, and "the Head," embodied by Adam Susan: the reclusive government Leader, who obsessively oversees the government's Fate computer system. Finch's case thickens when V kidnaps Lewis Prothero, a propaganda-broadcasting radio personality, and drives him into a mental breakdown by forcing him to relive his actions as the commander of a "resettlement" camp near Larkhill with his treasured doll collection as inmates. Evey agrees to help V with his next assassination by disguising herself as a child prostitute to infiltrate the home of Bishop Anthony Lilliman, a paedophile priest, who V forces to commit suicide by eating a poisoned communion wafer. He prepares to murder Dr. Delia Surridge, a medical researcher who once had a romance with Finch. Finch suddenly discovers the connection among V's three targets: they all used to work at Larkhill. That night, V kills both Almond and Surridge, but Surridge has left a diary revealing that V—a former inmate and victim of Surridge's cruel medical experiments—was able to destroy and flee the camp, and is now eliminating the camp's former officers for what they did. Finch reports these findings to Susan, and suspects that this vendetta may actually be a cover for V, who, he worries, may be plotting an even bigger terrorist attack.

Book 2: This Vicious Cabaret Four months later, V breaks into Jordan Tower, the home of Norsefire's propaganda department, "the Mouth"—led by Roger Dascombe—to broadcast a speech that calls on the people to resist the government. V escapes using an elaborate diversion that results in Dascombe's death. Finch is soon introduced to Peter Creedy, the new head of the Finger, who provokes Finch to strike him and thus get sent on a forced vacation. All this time, Evey has moved on with her life, becoming romantically involved with a much older man named Gordon. Evey and Gordon unknowingly cross paths with Rose Almond, the widow of the recently killed Derek. After Derek's death, Rose reluctantly began a relationship with Dascombe, but now, with both of her lovers murdered, she is forced to perform demoralizing burlesque work, increasing her hatred of the unsupportive government.

When a Scottish gangster named Ally Harper murders Gordon, a vengeful Evey interrupts a meeting between Harper and Creedy, the latter of whom is buying the support of Harper's thugs in preparation for a coup d'état. Evey attempts to shoot Harper, but is suddenly abducted and then imprisoned. Amidst interrogation and torture, Evey finds an old letter hidden in her cell by an inmate named Valerie Page, a film actress who was imprisoned and executed for being a lesbian.

Evey's interrogator finally gives her a choice of collaboration or death; inspired by Valerie, Evey refuses to collaborate, and, expecting to be executed, is instead told that she is free. Stunned, Evey learns that her supposed imprisonment is in fact a hoax constructed by V so that she could experience an ordeal similar to the one that shaped him at Larkhill. He reveals that Valerie was a real Larkhill prisoner who died in the cell next to his and that the letter is not a fake. Evey forgives V, who has hacked into the government's Fate computer system and started emotionally manipulating Adam Susan with mind games. Consequently, Susan, who has formed a bizarre romantic attachment to the computer, is beginning to descend into madness.

Book 3: The Land of Do-As-You-Please The following 5 November (1998), V blows up the Post Office Tower and Jordan Tower, killing "the Ear" leader Brian Etheridge; in addition to effectively shutting down three government agencies: the Eye, the Ear, and the Mouth. Creedy's men and Harper's associated street gangs violently suppress the subsequent wave of revolutionary fervor from the public. V notes to Evey that he has not yet achieved what he calls the "Land of Do-as-You-Please", meaning a functional anarchistic society, and considers the current chaotic situation an interim period of "Land of Take-What-You-Want". Finch has been mysteriously absent and his young assistant, Dominic Stone, one day realises that V has been influencing the Fate computer all along, which would explain V's consistent foresight. All the while, Finch has been travelling to the abandoned site of Larkhill, where he takes LSD to conjure up memories of his own devastated past and to put his mind in the role of a prisoner of Larkhill, like V, to help give him an intuitive understanding of V's experiences. Returning to London, Finch suddenly deduces that V's lair is inside the abandoned Victoria Station, which he enters.

V takes Finch by surprise, resulting in a scuffle which sees Finch shoot V and V wound Finch with a knife. V claims that he cannot be killed since he is only an idea and that "ideas are bulletproof"; regardless, V is indeed mortally wounded and returns to the Shadow Gallery deeper within, dying in Evey's arms. Evey considers unmasking V, but decides not to, realising that V is not an identity but a symbol. She then assumes V's identity, donning one of his spare costumes. Finch sees the large amount of blood that V has left in his wake and deduces that he has mortally wounded V. Occurring concurrently to this, Creedy has been pressuring Susan to appear in public, hoping to leave him exposed. Sure enough, as Susan stops to shake hands with Rose during a parade, she shoots him in the head in vengeance for the death of her husband and the life she has had to lead since then. Following Rose's arrest, Creedy assumes emergency leadership of the country, and Finch emerges from the subway proclaiming V's death.

Due to his LSD-induced epiphany, Finch leaves his position within "the Nose". The power struggle between the remaining leaders results in all of their deaths: Harper betrays and kills Creedy at the behest of Helen Heyer (wife of "the Eye" leader Conrad Heyer, who had outbid Creedy for Harper's loyalty), and Harper and Conrad Heyer kill each other during a fight precipitated by Heyer's discovery that his wife Helen had had an affair with Harper.

With the fate of the top government officials unknown to the public, Stone acts as leader of the police forces deployed to ensure that the riots are contained should V still be alive and make his promised public announcement. Evey appears to a crowd, dressed as V, announcing the destruction of 10 Downing Street the following day and telling the crowd they must "...choose what comes next. Lives of your own, or a return to chains", whereupon a general insurrection begins. Evey destroys 10 Downing Street by blowing up an Underground train containing V's body, in the style of an explosive Viking funeral. She abducts Stone, apparently to train him as her successor. The book ends with Finch quietly observing the chaos raging in the city and walking down an abandoned motorway whose lights have all gone out.

REVIEW

So, let’s just start this review with some honest truth. I came from a country that had several dictatorships and while democracy has been stable for most of my lifetime, countries around my country... not so much. So when I am confronted with a totalitarian government like the one in this novel, I find certain things missing.

For the most part, it is correct, but there is one thing missing. Corruption. And it is quite weird that this element is missing from the story. The only characters who abused their power to do crime, are the Fingermen, and according to Moore, that was an early mistake. Now, this lack of corruption has a reason. No one in this story is supposed to be good or evil. All of them exist in the grey zone. Perhaps that is the reason we do not see that element that most fascist governments have.

Instead, we focus a lot in morality. These characters know that what they did was not correct. And some of them change their mind when presented with new information about the ones they loved. Furthermore, the main characters that are supposed to be in the “good” side, are killers. And you side with these characters for the most part, because you understand them. You may not condone what they are doing, but you know why they are doing it.

Another thing that piqued my mind is the ending. What do you think happened to England after that ending? The people that didn’t know how to vote for so many years... is capable of living in an anarchy? It took Evey a life-threatening situation to find out she was never free in her life. How would people then wake up? I would normally not care that much about it, but in this story, anarchism is presented as the solution, and we never see the solution working. After all, if ideas are bulletproof, so would be the idea of totalitarianism.

Another interesting aspect of this story is V himself. While we never see his face or learn his name, we do know almost everything else we need to know about him. And in the end we do not need to know more. The man becomes an idea for sure, and while he is not good or bad, he seems to know exactly what to do and say in every step he takes. So I feel like his character arc is not much of an arc, is just him executing his plan, with so much precision, that he affects the freewill of other characters. In that regard, I feel like his character is very unrealistic in the context of this story. While we learn all we need to know about him, I don’t think we know how he knew how to make mustard gas and napalm. Or how he learned about literature so much, or when he became an anarchist (this may have been the reason he ended up in the camp).

Now, I watched the movie only once, and I am not thrilled to watch it again. The movie is clearly more against the patriot act, and I understand why they did that. But Evey’s arc is the one I have a problem in the adaptation. In the book, V influenced Evey, only one person, and that is why he went to the extreme of taking freedom away from her, to make her realize she is free. But in the movie, it seems like this was done for no purpose. In the end, everyone is V, how did they wake up? How do we know it isn’t just plain old mob mentality?

Because this story took so long to be finished, there are some pacing issues and the first episodes may contradict the later ones a bit. But overall, I think this is an amazing story, with an incredible amount of craft. This was more of a collaboration than other Moore stories. Lloyd being very influential in the final product. There are some small details about the art that are worth mentioning. The story used to be in Black and White, and I think it was DC that did the re-coloring. Because of that, the art looks a bit odd sometimes. Lloyd’s style was a pulpy chiaroscuro, that just doesn’t have the same effect when you add color separations.

Other than that, the art in this novel always felt hard to the eye to me. With Watchmen, you have great detail in every panel, but you can spend time in them because the art is very clear. In V, the art is more realistic, it has an euro style that fits the story very well. But for regular american readers, it may have been a bit harder to follow (It’s more of an acquired taste. Once you read a few pages, you love it).

Another detail is the roman numbers. The letter V is everywhere in this story and can be traced to door number 5, where V used to be. Well, the roman numbers are also present in all the covers.

It is easy to forget about this masterpiece. Unlike Watchmen, the publishing of this story took almost a decade, which made following it harder for fans (unless you started reading it when DC republished the original chapters). Also, unlike Watchmen, this story is very dark and really makes you think about the world you live in. Like Lloyd said in the introduction, this story is not for the people that do not want to watch the news.

I give this story a score of 10.

#alan moore #david lloyd #v for vendetta #dc comics #comics #review #1981 #1982 #1989 #vertigo comics #modern age

[newstechreviews]

In a slightly different world, Fargo season 4 might never have happened. After the FX anthology drama ended its third season, creator Noah Hawley admitted that he didn’t have an idea for a follow-up. And, he figured, “the only reason to do another Fargo is if the creative is there.” So, if there was to be a sequel, Hawley estimated it would take three years. That was in June 2017.

Thirty-nine months later (it would have been 34 had COVID not temporarily halted production), the show has reemerged with a story whose timeliness is obvious. It marks a significant departure from the earliest seasons of Fargo, which pitted good and evil archetypes against each other in arch, violent crime capers that ultimately erred on the side of optimism. Season 3 flirted with topicality, from an opening scene that hinged on Soviet kompromat to a hauntingly inconclusive final showdown between the latest iterations of pure good—represented by Carrie Coon’s embattled police chief Gloria Burgle—and primordial evil (David Thewlis’ terrifying V.M. Varga). Five months into Donald Trump’s presidency, that ending simultaneously reflected many Americans’ fears for the future and suggested that the battle for the human soul would be an eternal one. You can imagine why Hawley might have considered it a hard act to follow.

Instead of trying to top the high-flown allegory of its predecessor, the fascinating but uneven new episodes tackle conflicts of a more earthly nature: race, structural inequality, American identity. To that end, Fargo season 4 ventures farther south and deeper into history than it has gone before, to Kansas City, Mo. in 1950. For half a century, ethnic gangs have battled over the midsize metropolis. The Irish took out the Jews. The Italians took out the Irish. Finally, just a few years after a brutal World War in which fascist Italy numbered among the United States’ enemies, the Great Migration has brought the descendants of slaves north to this Midwestern city whose complicity in American racism dates back to the Missouri Compromise.

This upstart syndicate is led by one Loy Cannon (Chris Rock in a rare dramatic role), a brilliant, self-possessed power broker who doesn’t relish violence but is determined to exact reparations from this country, on behalf of his beloved family, by any means necessary. Loy’s deputy and closest friend is a learned older man by the name of Doctor Senator (the great Glynn Turman, all quiet dignity). In an early episode, the two men walk into a bank to pitch its white owner on an idea they’ve been testing out through less-than-legal means in the Black community: credit cards. (“Every average Joe wants one thing: to seem rich,” Loy explains to the banker.) He turns them down, of course, convinced that his clientele would have no interest in purchasing things they couldn’t afford. We’re left wondering how the ensuing saga might’ve been different if Loy and Doctor Senator had been allowed to channel their considerable intelligence into a legit business.

Elizabeth Morris/FXSalvatore Esposito and Jason Schwartzman in ‘Fargo’

The Italians, meanwhile, are starting to enjoy the rewards of their newfound whiteness—a largely invisible transformation marked in The Godfather by Michael Corleone’s relationship with naive WASP Kay Adams. (In keeping with previous seasons’ allusive style, Fargo often playfully evokes Francis Ford Coppola’s trilogy.) In the wake of their capo father Donatello’s (Tommaso Ragno) death, two brothers battle for control of the Fadda clan—a crime family that has Italian-accented patriarchalism written into its very name. Crafty, spoiled, crypto-corporate Josto (Jason Schwartzman, doing a scrappier, cannier take on his Louis XVI character in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette) has long been Donatello’s right hand. But his younger brother Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito, imported from Sky Italia’s acclaimed organized-crime drama Gomorrah), a brawny brute who came up in Sardinia busting heads for Mussolini, stands between Josto and the consolidation of power.

Generations-old tradition dictates that if two syndicates are to share turf in Kansas City, their leaders must raise each other’s sons. These exchanges are supposed to be a sort of insurance policy against betrayal; never mind that they never work out as planned. So Loy very reluctantly trades his scion Satchel (Rodney Jones) for Donatello’s youngest (Jameson Braccioforte). The boy finds a protector in the Faddas’ solemn older ward, Patrick “The Rabbi” Milligan (Ben Whishaw, humane as always), who double-crossed his own Irish family in an earlier transaction.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny (E’myri Crutchfield from History’s 2016 Roots remake) is the show’s other innocent youth, a bright and insightful Black teenager whose parents (Anji White and indie rocker Andrew Bird) own the poignantly named King of Tears funeral home. Every Fargo season needs a personification of goodness, and in this one it’s Ethelrida. Not that her virtuousness makes her life any easier. In a voiceover montage that opens the season premiere, she tells us that she learned early on that, as far as white authority figures were concerned, “the only thing worse than a disreputable Negro was an upstanding one.” Her inscrutable foil is Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley), a white nurse neighbor whose patients tend to die before they can experience too much pain. Oraetta’s quaint Minnesota accent (another Fargo staple) belies the racist views she politely but unapologetically espouses; she seems fixated on making Ethelrida her maid.

Elizabeth Morris/FXE’myri Crutchfield in ‘Fargo’

It’s fitting that Oraetta is both the most tangible link to Fargo’s home turf and the first character who ties together the mobster’s story with that of the Smutny family. As her loaded last name suggests, she seems to embody a particular form of evil that has been a constant in American life since the colonial period: white supremacy. Oraetta harms, kills and plunders with minimal consequences. No wonder she has eyes for Josto, the first Fadda who knows how to wield his white identity, building alliances with government and law enforcement that would be impossible for the Cannon syndicate. (Josto’s version of Kay Adams is the homely daughter of a politician.) “I can take all the money and pussy I want and still run for President,” he boasts at one point.

The reference to our current President’s briefly scandalous Access Hollywood tape is so flagrant as to elicit an involuntary groan. It’s lines like this that expose the limitations of Hawley’s attempt to fuse the topical and the elemental. Fargo still creates an absorbing, cinematic viewing experience, with painterly framing, pointedly deployed split-screen and arcane yet evocative needle drops. A not-at-all-gratuitous black-and-white episode could almost stand on its own as a movie. And, as in past seasons, the show gives us many remarkable performances: Rock may seem an odd pick for a gangster role, but the same shrewdness and indignation that fuel his stand-up persona also simmer beneath Loy’s measured surface. The pain Whishaw’s character carries around in his body goes far beyond what can be conveyed in dialogue. Bird broke my heart as a meek, loving dad. But in his eagerness to make a legible, potent political statement, Hawley struggles to find the right tone and keep the season’s many intersecting themes straight.

Elizabeth Morris/FXJessie Buckley in ‘Fargo’

The show is simply trying to do too much within a limited framework. Fargo wouldn’t be Fargo without some eccentric law enforcement, so an already-huge cast expands to fit a crooked local detective with OCD (Jack Huston) and Timothy Olyphant—whose roles on Deadwood and Justified made him prestige TV’s quintessential cop—as a smarmy, Mormon U.S. Mashal who snacks on carefully wrapped bundles of carrot sticks. Yet Hawley also realized that he needed to break from previous seasons that, like the Coens’ film, cast a white police officer as the avatar of goodness; hence Ethelrida, whose investigation into her city’s criminal underworld takes the form of a school assignment, and whose soul is stained by neither corruption nor white privilege. She’s a wonderful character, but her and Oraetta’s story line can feel peripheral to the gang war.

With such a crowded plot, it’s no wonder the show can’t maintain a consistent tone. Each season of Fargo creates a hermetically sealed moral universe, doling out divine and definitive justice to each character according to their position on the spectrum spanning from good to evil. In the past, its archness has served as a self-aware counterbalance to the sanctimony inherent in such a project. And there’s still plenty of irreverence in season 4, particularly when it comes to Hawley’s depiction of the Faddas, Oraetta and the other white characters. But there’s nothing funny about the oppression and discrimination that Loy, Doctor Senator and Ethelrida face. Each of their fates is shaped at least as much by a society that is hostile to people who look like them as it is by the moral choices they make as individuals. So the scripts give them the dignity they deserve at the expense of inflicting earnestness—along with frequent reminders, such as Schwartzman’s Trump line, that the story’s themes remain relevant today—on a format that isn’t built for it. Realistic characters and absurd ones awkwardly mingle.

Hawley’s attempt to correct his show’s political blind spots is laudable, and some pieces of the allegory work well; the ritual of ethnic gangs trying—and failing—to work together by raising each other’s sons makes an inspired metaphor for America’s fragile social contract. Even so, Fargo seems fundamentally ill-equipped to address systemic inequality. Though that failing may well render future seasons similarly flawed, if not impossible, in our current political climate, it doesn’t negate the pleasures or insights of what remains one of TV’s most ambitious shows. Like this nation, the new season is a beautiful and ugly, inspiring and infuriating, a tragic and sometimes darkly hilarious mess. As frustrating as it often was to watch, I couldn’t look away.

#Blogger

[desbianherstory]

In a coffee shop in Mumbai I waited nervously to meet 'the community'. I had just moved back to the city after years abroad and begun the search for other lesbians. Already I had been warned by Sakshi, who had come to make contact with me and make sure that I was not a reporter, that levels of trust were low. This was not only because of the need for confidentiality but also because women from The Outside, she told me tactfully, tended to take up so much space; tended 'to assume that their priorities are ours'. We were sitting by the cash register. When the phone rang and the server asked for Sakshi, I was close enough to hear the voice on the other end, demanding: 'Well? Shall I come to meet her? Is she Us?'

When I first started working as a reporter at the Times of India, the breaches of trust I engaged in while trying to promote lesbian visibility were multiple and unthinking, unprepared as I was for the difficulties of being both Us and Not-Us. When the group in Mumbai began working towards the first nationwide retreat for 'women who love women' I helped organize it, participated in it and then wrote about it. It was a conflict on many levels: between organizing collectively and yet representing 'Us' as an individual; between what I knew readers needed to hear and what I didn't know that lesbians were unwilling to share.

I also had to think about Us and Not-Us on many levels when I began the work of compiling Facing the Mirror, a collection of writings by lesbians in India. As soon as word of the project spread, I started receiving letters from men, offering to write about lesbian fantasies, about threesomes, about wishing to be lesbians for a day, about their lesbian wives. I had never expected this.

Some Indian lesbians themselves objected to the Facing the Mirror project on political grounds. One told me that there was no purpose to putting the existence of Indian lesbians into words, since it would just cement and make public the divisions between lesbians and women at large - divisions which we should be working to erase.

'Militant lesbians aren't aware of the existing spaces,' she said. 'Think about the ladies' compartment of the trains, you see women together there all the time. They hold hands, and from their faces you know that it is bliss.'

I tried to persuade her to change her mind - after all, that very week there had been an article in a women's magazine talking about the scourge of lesbians in train compartments. Such single-sex spaces of safety were increasingly rare, increasingly threatened. But she merely shook her head, told me that both the verbalizing of same-sex desire and the violent reactions against that desire were marginal to the vast reality of an Indian tolerance.

'All this - it has nothing to do with India,' she said.

Us and Not-Us. these words took on a new valence for me after Deepa Mehta's film Fire came out in India, at the end of 1998, and was immediately attacked by the Hindu right for its depiction of lesbianism. Fire, a tale of two women married to two brothers, developing a relationship with each other in the congested streets of middle-class New Delhi, was not a film made for Indian audiences. The symbolism was pureed like baby food, the metaphors of fire (Sita's trial by fire from the Ramayana. the evil custom of bride-burning. home-fires and hearth-fires.) so deliberately labelled 'For Export Only'. The film had even less to offer Indian lesbians. In its portrayal of two married women falling painlessly in love, there was, as the lesbian writer VS pointed out, no attempt to take on the 'anarchic and threatening emotions that accompany sexual practices generally considered perverted, criminal and taboo'.

Nevertheless, lesbians watched with alarm as the attacks on the film gathered intensity. Even though the Censor Board had, to everyone's surprise, cleared the film without cuts, right-wing groups like the Shiv Sena and Rashtriya Seva Sangh were in no mood to accept that verdict. On 1 December, Pramod Navalkar, Minister of Culture for the state of Maharashtra and no stranger to controversy - he would often claim that he enjoyed driving around Mumbai wearing a long blonde wig 'just to see what kinds of men will try to chase a white woman' - told newspapers that lesbianism was 'a pseudo-feminist trend from the West and no part of Indian womanhood'. The next day movie theatres in Mumbai that were screening Fire were attacked by mobs of men and women from the Shiv Sena. Ticket windows were smashed, hoardings were torn down, and audiences beaten up. The day after that theatres in Delhi were targeted.

In the ensuing debate in the upper house of Parliament only detractors of the film could actually bring themselves to say the word 'lesbian'. 'Do we have lesbian culture in our families?' one Member of Parliament demanded, defending the attacks. 'The Mahabharat and the Ramayana don't contain any lesbianism,' agreed another. On the other hand, the MPs insisting that Fire should not have been attacked would do so only in the most general terms: it was as though lesbians were purely symbolic, unnamable markers of the director's right to creative freedom, of the audience's democratic rights to watch what it chose, or of the Shiv Sena mob's fascist intolerance.

So some lesbians in Delhi gathered on a tidal wave of despair, unable to believe that years of discreet organizing had culminated in such intense and unwelcome visibility. It was almost incredible that we should have come together at all for we were a dispersed, fragmented lot, rent by dissension over who 'we' were - a national lesbian conference had recently disintegrated over the issue of whether white women were welcome in a space designated Indian. Even more disturbingly, over the span of a very few years the community had divided itself neatly into lesbian archives, sexuality help-lines, education and outreach groups. The informal networks we had fostered in our homes splintered gradually by ideology, particularly disagreement over funding.

Some of us believed that funding would only help us, giving us the resources to reach beyond our largely middle-class, English-speaking circles. Others of us were apt to quote the staunch activist who maintained that a foreign donor supporting any radical effort was about as plausible as Oxfam nurturing the Quit India movement 50-odd years ago.

But, in spite of our histories of disagreement, lesbians in Delhi joined forces in the wake of the attacks on Fire. We worked with desperate energy to plan a protest rally, scheduled to take place within 48 hours of the Shiv Sena's violence, and reached out to all our old allies from secular groups and from the women's movement. To our dismay we encountered that same unwillingness to name the issue a lesbian one - again, it seemed, our concerns were to be subsumed in favour of the 'bigger picture'. The word 'lesbian' was not to be used in the press release, one women's group insisted. Instead, we needed to highlight our support for the film's theme of 'the hypocrisy and tyranny of the patriarchal family'. After all, we could not possibly expect groups at large to champion a 'narrow' concern like lesbianism.

We gave in and the protest went ahead. Hundreds of people showed up outside Regal Cinema - the theatre that had been ransacked by the mobs - holding candles, chanting, raising placards. But for the first time ever in India, lesbians were visible among the other groups marking the specific nature of their anger. In the sea of placards about human rights, secularism, women's autonomy, freedom of speech, was a sign painted in the colours of the national flag: 'Indian and Lesbian'. Who would have thought that staking that saucy claim to our share of national pride would result in such a furore? You are not Us, we were reminded at once, by a chorus of voices. The deputy editor of the national weekly magazine India Today expressed particular dismay that 'the militant gay movement, which has hitherto operated as website extensions of a disagreeable trend in the West, could now come out into the open and flaunt banners in Delhi suggesting that "lesbianism is part of our heritage".' He went on to announce: 'Thievery, deceit, murder and other... [criminal] offences have a long history. That doesn't elevate them to the level of heritage.'

But that same searing moment of visibility and defiance threw together a small group of activists - a varied lot, from trade unionists to professional blood donors, men and women, heterosexual, homosexual and other. What we had in common was a sense that we should take the energy of the protest forward in the form of a campaign for lesbian rights. Why the emphasis on lesbian rights? 'To articulate the troubled connections of lesbians in and with the women's movement,' we declared in our mandate. 'To talk about the social suppression of women's sexuality in general, and to address the aspects of lesbians' lives that make this struggle distinct from the gay men's movement.'

The Campaign for Lesbian Rights was a revelation for me. For the first time, lesbian issues were occupying public space - we met in the Indian Coffee House in the centre of Delhi, a hotbed of anti-establishment politics with a permanent Home Ministry spy, and we sipped six-rupee coffee and strategized aloud. We handed out thousands of leaflets on 'Myths and Realities about Lesbianism' in parts of Delhi that were commonly considered hostile to activists - industrial areas housing hundreds of factories, a Muslim university, outside the headquarters of Delhi Police. We attended public meetings organized by women's groups, human-rights groups, student groups. We wrote a street play, the familiar rhythms and gestures of that form inscribing the experiences of grassroots activists among us who had listened to women in villages all over rural North India talking about saheli-rishte - intimate bonds between women.

I relearned the lesson that a movement is accountable only to the people, and, to that end, that rejection is only the beginning of dialogue rather than the end. We fielded questions like 'What have lesbians done for society that we should support you?' and stood our ground and continued the conversation, our commitment spurred by the knowledge that, as a group opposed to external funding, our work depended on our ability to persuade fellow activists, fellow citizens, that they should contribute a rupee or two to our cause.

Progressive groups, who addressed all kinds of dispossession and oppression through the lens of human rights, would tell us that lesbian rights was no fit realm for them to enter because sexuality was about 'personal choice'. And so we walked a curious double line, saying: 'All choices involving consenting adults deserve respect, and in the face of compulsory heterosexuality, human rights means making that choice real', and 'Lesbianism is not necessarily a choice'. It's hard to describe what it meant to us, then, to receive a letter from the Human Rights Trust acknowledging our work as 'part and parcel of the broader human-rights movement'. It was the recognition that lesbians were part of a larger group of people, attacked and discriminated against in a panoply of ways, but with this in common - that we could give a name to the violations and to the rights we were seeking.

Most importantly, though, the Campaign reshaped what I thought of when I said 'we'. I have in front of me a citizens' report on the suicides of a lesbian couple in an Orissa village, brought out by aids Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan, one of the Campaign's constituent groups. Written by two heterosexual men, the report is titled, touchingly, For People Like Us.

—Ashwini Sukthankar is a Mumbai-based writer and activist. Her book Facing the Mirror: Lesbian writing from India was published in 1999 by Penguin India.

#Ashwini Sukthankar #fire #indian lesbians #history #writing #caleri

[girl-debord]

Cultural Exegesis: Cops on Television

The following is an essay I wrote for a cultural interpretation class last semester.

Surfing the channels on television or scrolling through the selection of shows on Netflix or Hulu, it is just about impossible to miss the waves of police procedurals that saturate American media. As of the week of March 4, 2019, two television programs out of the Nielsen Top 10 list for Prime Broadcast Network TV were dramas focusing on crime and police. Even in shows that aren’t built around the police procedural genre, police feature disproportionately as on-screen characters.

Television dramas following cops are, by this point, a well-established fixture of American media. These shows have been around since the late 40s and have their roots in films about western sheriffs and private detectives. Decades of this kind of entertainment have laid the groundwork for a new set of archetypes of cop characters and made possible the rise of police-centric TV of other genres, including comedies like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Castle.

In a 2016 interview with The Frame, researcher Kathleen Donovan, co-author of a study entitled “The Role of Entertainment Media in Perceptions of Police Use of Force,” told journalists that her findings showed that people spend more time consuming entertainment media than news, and that that affects their perceptions of the police. “By far the largest impact was on perceptions of how effective the police are,” she said. “In the content analysis, the way police are shown in these shows is that they're incredibly effective. People who watch these shows tend to think that police are a lot better at their job in terms of clearing crimes than they are in reality.” As the name of her study implies, Donovan has also found that television alters public perception of police violence. “It's almost always portrayed in a justified light,” she said. If a cop steps out of line, it is in order to punish someone the show has already proved to the audience is evil or to extract necessary information from a criminal.

While many people feel that they can distinguish between real and fictional cops, Donovan pointed out something that is troubling—“The problem is, [viewers] don't have other places that they're getting this information from,” she said. “They're not getting a lot of interaction with the police officers on a day to day level.” Even a discerning media consumer is likely to spend much more time around the cops of television than the cops of the real world. It is simply impossible to be really unaffected by this.

Of course, the idea that our media consumption habits affect our views should come as no surprise, even when the particular effect a piece of media has is disturbing. But the reason Donovan’s findings are significant is because these television programs do not spring up out of nothing. Certainly there would not be so many cop shows on TV if there was no demand for them, but that demand has its roots in something more sinister.

Matthew Alford reported for The Conversation in 2017 that since the establishment of its Entertainment Liaison Office in 1948, the Pentagon has been involved in the production of more than 1,100 television shows. And at a local level, individual police departments have worked with television producers to create positive PR consistently over the last several decades. In a letter to an ad agency in 1968, Bob Cinader, who was working on the upcoming show Adam-12, wrote, “Like all major police departments throughout the country, the LAPD's two biggest problems are recruitment and community relations. They feel that a series about the uniformed police officer would be of even greater help to them in particular and the cause of law and order in general.” In the wake of the Watts riots of 1965 and a growing sense of anti-authoritarian sentiment, turning to TV was a strategic move for the LAPD. In the time of the Rodney King riots and growing unrest, shows like Law & Order filled a similar role. Even in recent years, NYPD scandals and a resurgence of real critique of the police coincide with Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Blue Bloods.

The relationship goes beyond purely fictional television and into the realm of the late-80s boom of reality television, which turned its eye onto the police with John Langley’s COPS. “COPS’ foremost legacy, aside from its forceful introduction of a new form of televisuality, is as a highly effective PR bullhorn for the ‘human’ side of police-work,” writer Eric Harvey explains in a 2015 essay for Pitchfork. “Reenactments were replaced by what Langley called ‘raw reality,’ which encouraged a voyeuristic position to take in the action. The reality of raw reality, of course, is that COPS traded any pretense toward objectivity for an unprecedented level of backstage access; in the show’s world, perpetrators are anonymous while police officers are well-rounded characters who provide each episode’s narrative arc.”

In the 90s, whether through the sleek stories of Law & Order or the police-raid porn of COPS, television viewers were already absorbing content that would shape their understanding of law enforcement. Even if this content was not directly created by police departments or the Pentagon, in most cases, it had the approval of these authorities, and more importantly, police television going forward would be built upon the very positive image that these shows generated. A contemporary television program might never have its scripts reviewed by a government agency or work with police departments as PR, but in all things pertaining to the cops, the cultural propaganda had already worked its magic. The “good cop” archetype that shows like Adam-12 and Dragnet had worked so hard to make was already a known commodity, an established trope to build on and work with.

But more than the image of the squeaky-clean cop that captured the imaginations of many Americans, the most effective tool in changing the public perception of police has been the methodological understanding of the world that entertainment like this presents to its audiences. As Kathleen Donovan pointed out, the use of force by police is almost unilaterally justified by the narratives of the shows that depict them. “Within a minute and a half of the first episode, the show has summed up its central message: Police violence works,” Aaron Miguel Cantú writes in his 2014 review of Chicago PD. “This is relayed again and again throughout the series: When a cop with a chain-wrapped fist savagely beats a Spanish-speaking suspect demanding an attorney until he relinquishes a tip; when officers debase the idea of policing without intent to arrest; when cops round up black non-criminals and deliver them to precinct torture chambers. In every episode, these methods achieve the desired ends.” The image gritty cop programs like this present of police departments is one of a world that is, perhaps realistically, filled with violence. But in order for the police to be the heroes of this world, the plot must produce ends sufficient to justify the means: the arrest of a violent criminal, the prevention of a dangerous terrorist act, etc.

The underlying implication here is an idea that has come to be woven through much of American media: the world is a dangerous place, and authoritarian measures are a necessary evil to protect the innocent from the criminal. As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes put it, “The condition of man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.” And certainly Hobbes would approve of this picture painted by cop shows: the rights of criminals (who are at any time determined to be so by law enforcement) are incidental to preserving order and so must be subsumed into the Leviathanic police state for the good of everyone. The television programs can do their best to portray cops as wholesome defenders of the peace. But at some point, there needs to be a little realism—the fact that these people carrying guns on behalf of the state employ violence as a part of their job is too obvious to ignore. So the TV instead presents us with police forces who do engage in violence, who do things which would be unspeakable for any real-life civilian—but they present us with the kind of world that makes this justifiable, a dangerous, threatening world in which everyone is an enemy. Donovan highlights the fact that the majority of television crimes are murders—a gross overrepresentation, but one that helps to uphold this image. This is the kind of world that justifies police violence. The narrative is not just about trusting the police, it’s about being afraid enough of everyone else to believe firmly that everything the police do is necessary.

This is the world of COPS. As Tim Stelloh writes in a 2018 article for The Marshall Project, “Civil rights activists, criminologists, and other observers have described [COPS] as a racist and classist depiction of the country, one in which crime is a relentless threat and officers are often in pitched battle against the poor black and brown perpetrators of that crime.” It’s a fascist’s view of society, coming here not from writers but from the police themselves, whose commentary frames the events of each episode. COPS gives viewers a taste of the reality of American law enforcement, just not the reality it claims. The program allows us to see the role of police as they see themselves, in full, action-packed detail.

The other side of this authoritarian outlook has become a media obsession in recent years, perhaps nearly to the extent of police procedurals. The appeal of shows like NBC’s Dateline in presenting the shock and horror of crime has proven effective even with a more dramatic format. Where Law & Order walked the line between the heroism of the justice system and the horror of crime, programs like Criminal Minds tend to delve deeper into the latter. This kind of media, lending its attention to serial killers and brutal rapists, provides a necessary balance for the traditional cop dramas. Hannibal, American Crime Story, and adjacent programs give us criminals who are as intelligent and charismatic as they are violent—worthy opponents for an increasingly militarized and surveilling police force. Of course, one might argue that these characters are clear fantasies to audiences, like supervillains or space aliens. But if most viewers have little interaction with police, how much experience can they be expected to have with killers? The intellectually or socially capable murderer provides the kind of fear necessary to move people towards embracing the total authority of law enforcement—both on-screen and in real life.

This fear is more congruent with later cop shows whose focus on gritty violence in the name of justice measures up to the violence of depraved criminals that fascinates audiences. But the friendlier image of police from the days of Adam-12 still finds its place in modern television. One niche is in the aforementioned police comedy—shows such as NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine give us police to relate to and enjoy who are earnest in their pursuit of justice and can accomplish their (admittedly tamer) goals with minimal violence and maximal shenanigans. In a time of pubic distrust for the police, B99 excuses its cops from blame by contrasting them to bad cops and making gestures toward the notion that police violence is an issue of concern. But a show that concerns itself mainly with police as a wholesome source of comedy is ill-equipped to deal with the uncomfortable realities of the NYPD’s behavior. How often is Andy Samberg’s good-hearted character called upon to evict homeless people from parks or cooperate with ICE officers to detain migrant families? Citing the NYPD’s record-low public opinion ratings, Will Leitch writes in a review for Bloomberg, “This hasn’t reached the world of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The only people who hate cops on Brooklyn Nine-Nine are the wretched perps our heroes keep hauling in. The sitcom is standard cop-show fare in that regard, except more so; while a drama can allow our cop heroes the shading to become anti-heroes, the sitcom can’t really go that dark.”

Alongside the police sitcom is another niche for friendly cops to make an appearance which is perhaps more troubling: in children’s media. A slew of op-eds by parents in 2017 in publications like the Guardian and Baptist News called into question some of the implications of television shows like Paw Patrol. The cartoon, featuring dogs in the roles of emergency services, shows its police pup Chase using a “spy drone” for surveillance and coming to the aid of helpless citizens who continually put themselves in danger. Many parents were concerned about the lack of nuance in how the show presented authorities. In a response to these concerns Elissa Strauss wrote for CNN’s website, she cited author Tovah Klein, explaining, “Despite their reputation of innocence, children are bubbling cauldrons of conflicting feelings and impulses. This is especially the case during toddler and preschool years, when they become aware of their capacity to do bad things and struggle with understanding those urges. […] Good and bad are clearly articulated states in those shows, and should one misbehave, the repercussions are clear and predictable.” Strauss seems to believe this is sufficient to let parents breathe a sigh of relief. But if the response to children’s struggle with right and wrong that Paw Patrol gives is to seek the approval of authorities, what is there to be relieved about?

The amiable, endearing police of Paw Patrol and Brooklyn Nine-Nine who are eager to help and the tough, violent cops of Chicago PD and COPS who are a necessary force against the horrors of crime represent a particular understanding of law enforcement that is transmitted to children and adults alike. When the primary experience of most people with police is in entertainment, the images stick, and its effects make themselves known. In public discourse, people can be tricked into defending the actions of real police officers based on their time spent with the stories of fictional cops. Despite claims of a national crime wave and a “war on police,” the Brennan Center reports, as of 2017, declining crime rates and assaults on law enforcement, while Mapping Police Violence reported a general increase in the number of people killed by police from 2013 to 2016. While it may just be the tip of the iceberg of a culture of authoritarianism, cop shows on TV are at least partially responsible.

#another frodobell original #acab #copaganda #brooklyn nine nine

[polly-chan]

V for Vendetta and The Anarchy

V for Vendetta is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd. I really love this comic and that’s why I want to share with You an analysis about it. 

“Remember, Remember! The fifth of November, the Gunpowder treason and plot; there is no reason why the Gunpowder treason should ever be forgot”: in 1605 Guy Fawkse tried to blow up the British Parliament, performing the first revolutionary act in his country to end the English monarchy. His plot, however, is discovered and he is sentenced to death. As the graphic novel (and movie too) teaches History is written by the winners while losers become the bad guys and for this reason they teach us to remember ideas and not men: men can fail, but ideas are immortal. V for Vendetta takes place in a post apocalyptic world upset by a nuclear war, the united kingdom has sunk into chaos until the emergence of the Norsefire party intimating positions and promising to making England great again, ending up creating a police state. Norsefire is the fictional Nordic supremacist and neo-fascist political party in which people are indoctrinated through the media and five organs rule the dictatorship: the Finger (the hitting police), the Eye (controls everything with the cameras), the Ear (which intercepts and spies over the citizens), the Nose (the scientific police) and the Voice (i.e. the television, led by Prothero). Strength through Unity, Unity through faith: Good win, Bad forgiveness and as always England dominates.  All minorities are oppressed: Muslims, homosexuals, dissidents, in all totalitarianisms there is always a target. Moreover, it’s a strongly male-dominated dictatorship. Totalitarism places control of the lower classes by the higher classes, which in fact are the minority. The goal of totalitarianism is to create a scapegoat on which to vent popular anger and justify ethically questionable actions. 

Evey is a sixteen year old forced into prostitution who is about to be raped by the Finger, but V saves her. When Evey asks him who he is V answers that “Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask” (as Pirandello would have said), the identity is a consequence of the showing of the Ego and therefore it makes no sense to ask a masked man who he is since the function is hidden. Here we can see how the mask plays an important role in this story, becoming an important symbol of freedom and we’ll see why soon.

V presents himself with a very long, poetic and dramatic speech, in which he declares himself the protector of the Vox populi: he is an avenger of people. A shakesperian hero who seems to see all London as its stage. A musician, ready to give a show. He turns to the statue of justice saying he loves her, but she is a woman of easy virtue and has betrayed him:

She has prostituted herself with a uniform, this because the extreme search for justice leads to the loss of freedom. This is why V found his new lover, the Anarchy: philosophy separated from Marxism because of Bakunin’s inspiration, according to which it is necessary to overcome the capitalist system and abolish the State, but without going through a phase of socialist transition and immediately abolishing the state, because even socialism is an oppression. 

The music that V leads at the feet of Old Bailey turns out to be the prelude to a gigantic explosion, a demonstration of violence that arises from classical music. Then government begins media manipulation showing how mass media should not be trusted. Adam Satler is a clear reference to Adolf Hitler, but also to Margaret Tatcher: as a matter of fact, the comic is born as a criticism of her ultra-conservative and liberal government that ignored the needs of the poorest in favor of large companies. Satler says they have to remind people why they need them (like the metaphor of Hegel’s servant): in the comic strip he is clearly fascist, but he is not a monster: He is obsessed with Faith (the super computer that analyzes the situation), he prays and he is also a fragile figure. Moore shows that even fascists know how to be human, there are no absolute bad guys. 

TV is intercepted and V’s long speech begins, He wants to remind England of what he has forgotten:

The government is already trying to shut it down “Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?”.  Communication is the alliance among men, while the truncheon is the short way to impose a vision without the other can accept it. 

It is the people who elected Hitler, but he understands why: there were so many problems, war, terrorism and disease. All dictatorships, we always start with a  crisis. A Man promised to bring back the truth, but in exchange for silent consent. The destruction of Old Bailey serves as a reminder that justice and equity are perspective and not words. 

V begins to kill several senior members of the party who command different organs of the dictatorship. But who the real terrorist is? Who decides the difference between those who fight for or against the freedom? We can consider totalitarianism as a closed system where not all ideas are allowed, therefore those who repress ideas and freedoms are the real bombers of democracy.  Evey is the anti-revolutionary one who wants to change totalitarianism from within without realizing that great freedoms and constitutional values ​​we owe to them thanks to violent revolutions and no dictator voluntarily surrenders their privileges. Moreover, for V there are no certainties, only opportunities and “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people”. The revolutionary act is the necessary means to reach the end, the lesser evil. 

V is a Shakespearian hero and he often mentions it, also obviously inspired by the Count of Montecristo. Wearing a mask V is no longer a man, but an idea and so he can be free to say what he truely thinks. to be human without limitations.  V explains to Evey that “Anarchy wears two faces, both creator and destroyer. Thus destroyers topple empires; make a canvas of clean rubble where creators then can build another world. Rubble, once achieved, makes further ruins’ means irrelevant”: 

The destructive face is the active and superhuman nihilism that destroys power, to return to the terrible state of nature of Hobbes. The creator one wants an order without the head, not without rules. This is what anarchy dreams about: a society without a head, where people cooperate on a solidarity basis and are able to determine themselves.

By the way, V forced the people to break free as he forced Evey through the prison deception, but he ends to realize that the choice of what the new world will be is not up to him. In full anarchist style he dies for not becoming the next leader, but leaving to the people the possibility to decide for themselves:

#v for vendetta #alan moore #david lloyd #graphic novel #britain #meta

[maximuswolf]

The 2020 Election and Lesser Evilism via /r/socialism

The 2020 Election and Lesser Evilism

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How much will this election really change?

We’ve heard that this election could stop fascism, and that the future of this country hinges on our vote. Is this really true?

This election has been framed as the most important in U.S. history, with the very future of the country on the line. Some have even argued that if Trump gets reelected, then the U.S. will become a fascist country like Nazi Germany. In the eyes of some, voting in presidential elections is seen as something which has a big impact and which makes a difference, in this case potentially stopping the rise of fascism. But is this really true? Will your vote really make a difference? Does every vote really count?

It’s not so hard to answer these questions. On the surface, Joe Biden and Trump seem pretty different. Biden is a veteran politician, with decades of experience in the system. He generally presents himself as an elder-statesman, dignified and honest. This illusion is regularly disrupted by his gaffes and slip-ups from calling Black people a monolithic group to calling for police to “only” shoot people in the leg instead of the heart or the head. But we are constantly reassured that he is in fact quite different from the bombastic, bloviating Trump who had no prior political experience and is quite crude.

We are told, by Biden and his allies, that he is really different than Trump. Yet Biden—just like Trump—has been involved in crooked business deals with his children using his family name for personal enrichment. For example, his son Hunter served as a front man in the Ukraine for all sorts of shady, corrupt deals that Joe Biden was involved in. But the FBI (always a “trustworthy” and “honest” source) has said that this stuff about Biden being corrupt is just lies from Russia so we should all ignore the story. Some are quick to reassure us that, despite his flaws, Biden will not do things like use federal troops and forces against protesters (or at least against “peaceful protesters”).

But we’ve heard this story before. While not exactly the same situation, in 2008 Obama was sold to the American people as the antidote to eight years of neoconservative reaction under Bush. He was dignified and well-spoken where Bush was crude and vulgar. He was supposedly against the wars, while Bush was for them. Obama was an outspoken critic of domestic spying under the Patriot Act which Bush’s administration had created; Obama would be better than Bush for undocumented immigrants, and so on. We were promised a lot of “change” as Obama’s vague slogan went, but we got mostly more of the same, albeit sold to us by a politician who was much more articulate than the prior president.

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If you look at the facts, it becomes clear that there is far more continuity between administrations than change. Presidential elections really have very little impact on U.S. state policy. Just look at how Obama followed in Bush’s footsteps:

Bush started the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: Obama expanded them, carrying out the “surge” in Afghanistan shortly after being elected, while pretending to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq by replacing them with drone strikes and private mercenaries like Blackwater.

Speaking of drone strikes, while Bush’s administration pioneered the use of drones strikes, it was Obama who massively expanded the program. Every Tuesday he sat down with the head of the CIA to personally decide who the U.S. would assassinate from the sky.

Bush and Cheney expanded domestic spying and torture in their 8 years in office. While on the campaign trail, Obama made a lot of promises about prosecuting people who did this. Once elected, not only did he not prosecute them, he made it clear that he would provide them with immunity for their actions, so that they never had to worry about being put in jail for torture or spying on people.

Bush and Cheney pursued an aggressive policy of deportations of undocumented immigrants. Instead of reversing this, Obama massively expanded it, deporting over 2,000,000 people during his presidency, far more than any president before him.

Bush catered to fossil fuel companies, worked to get them Iraqi oil, and expanded drilling in the U.S., but Bush was nowhere near as good at this as his successor. Obama oversaw the largest expansion of U.S. fossil fuel production since World War II, and turned the U.S. into the largest oil producer in the world.

Bush bailed out the banks in 2008, but Obama continued to bail them out repeatedly over the course of his administration, and even had Citibank and other companies help to hand-pick his cabinet.

These are just a few examples that show how much continuity there really is between administrations. Despite all the money and efforts that politicians spend trying to make it seem like they are different from each other, the actual differences in policy from one administration to the next are very small. Perhaps recognizing this reality is part of the reason Michelle Obama referred to George W. Bush as her “partner in crime.” It’s easy to see why she would have sympathy for Bush, given her husband’s record as a fellow war criminal.

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More recently, people have been correctly condemning Trump’s deployment of troops and other federal agents to suppress the George Floyd protests. Even Biden joined in this criticism, although he was quick to specify that he opposed using force only against “peaceful protesters.” In reality Biden has called for the prosecution and use of force against “anarchists” and looters at the protests, mirroring similar language from Trump. These terms paint with a broad brush and are used to justify crackdowns on activists, especially those who defend themselves against police violence. Those who claim that Biden will be a better alternative to Trump on this question have forgotten how the Obama administration pursued nearly the exact same policy as Trump in suppressing Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson and Baltimore. Troops were deployed to brutalize people, Feds were called in, including the FBI, and some activists were even assassinated by the government. During Occupy, Obama’s FBI even had a plan to use snipers to simultaneously assassinate key leaders of the movement in every major city in the country if the protests continued to escalate.

Take another one of Trump’s most horrifying policies, his family separation policy at the border. He has locked up children in cages, forcing them to sleep on cement floors in cages of the concentration camps at the border. But many of these concentration camps were built during the Obama administration, and children were already sleeping on concrete floors behind bars just for having come to the United States before Trump was elected. Trump’s only “innovation” to this cruelty was to make sure that the kids were not in the cages with their parents.

​

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Can you tell the troops sent by Trump to crush protests apart from those sent by Obama?

It is true that in practically every field, Trump has pushed forward more right-wing and reactionary policies. But far from being his personal drive towards turning this country into a fascist dictatorship, these changes are just the most recent in a decades-long trend by both parties which has pushed things further and further to the right. What we have seen over the past decades from one administration to the next, is far more similarities than differences. Regardless of who the people vote for, the same repressive policies at home and abroad are carried out, with things only becoming more repressive over the years. In this election we are being bombarded with messages from everyone from Biden himself to former heads of the FBI and CIA that he is really the best option, or at least the lesser evil.

Given the history of past elections in this country, we should see clearly that electing Biden will not solve any of these problems. Nor will we be able to “hold his feet to the fire” and make sure that “he is accountable to the voters.” This is a liberal fantasy, based on the corrosive logic of lesser-evilism. It tricks people into supporting the system (in one way or another) because of a deeper nihilism about real change, and convinces them that the only way to make change is through a system set up by the ruling class and their political parties for their benefit.

​

How different are the two parties after all?

But the truth is that voting really makes almost no difference. Biden will not save us. He will instead continue the long-standing rightward march in U.S. politics. Only we can save ourselves, through getting organized, fighting back, and ultimately creating a revolution to establish a new form of government that actually serves the people’s interests. The deep-seated nihilism that believes that change is only possible within this system fails to see how unstable this system really is. This country has only been around for just over two hundred years. Humans have been on this planet for a few hundred thousand. Are we really supposed to believe that there is no alternative to the present system? Isn’t it obvious that if we work together we can build something far better for the people of this country and the world, a political system where we aren’t always picking the lesser evil, but instead fighting for something good?

It’s time to cast aside illusions about electoral politics and prepare for the long and difficult struggle ahead. We are at the beginning of a major economic collapse, climate change is ravaging the planet and the U.S. and China have begun a new Cold War. Both candidates have made it clear that they will serve the billionaires and bail out the banks, that their plans for climate change are more of the same subsidies to fossil fuel companies and they have both promised to be bigger warmongers than each other in this inter-imperialist conflict with China.

We the people have to find a way forward. We need to break from the nihilism of lesser evilism and see that we can really change the world. But first we have to get organized.

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For more of our updates, follow us on twitter (https://twitter.com/revunitedfront) or check out our website: https://revolutionaryunitedfront.com/

About us: We're the Revolutionary United Front, a US-based revolutionary organization in the U.S. organizing in the Greater Boston, New York, and San Francisco areas. We're working to support and advance various people’s struggles ranging from anti-war, immigrant, and proletarian internationalist solidarity.

Submitted November 04, 2020 at 10:58AM by revunitedfront via reddit https://ift.tt/386mZEm

[coldtomyflash]

Because I fucking hate Earth X

Since the CW verse is all about their alternate worlds and evil version of characters ... 

What about an alternate Earth X that wasn’t about literal Nazism but was still a dystopia - a violent one with all the bad hallmarks and brutality and hatred that all fascism engenders?

What if there was a regime that didn’t come out of WW2 or the Nazis or even Germany - what if it came out of America? Or America and Britain together? What if the shows actually had a half-decent political message to deliver about police states and surveillance states and runaway hatred and fear in society and how that can spiral fast? 

I’m not talking Star City 2046 or even a future where companies/conglomerates are now nations, I’m really talking about a message about where our world is actually is / is headed in terms of politics and xenophobia and global crises, but dialed up and stylized. 

And what if our heroes weren’t literal fucking Nazis but were still the good guys? What the the story’s message was one of “our heroes are good people because they grew up on Earth 1″ but “our heroes are good people because in any universe, they will learn and fight and claw their way toward what is right”?

Because to me, it’s infinitely more interesting to explore the plight of a good person in a world where evil is the norm than to say “here’s an evil version of this character” with no real motivation? This isn’t Savitar or Red-Kara or League-Oliver who are distorted, drugged, or desperate. On top of being antisemitic garbage, it’s also dull and trite and shock-value-esque. Even Doomworld (which I found pretty lackluster) afforded more respect to its heroes.

I mean hell, this isn’t even the animated Flashpoint elseworld with evil Wonder Woman because at least evil Wonder Woman had her own agency? The current Earth X “heroes as villains” are just cogs in a war machine. And if the story you want to tell is “your beloved heroes are just obedient drones” then you’ve really got to prepared for that story and what it means, and I’m certain the DC CWTV writers...aren’t.

So, an elseworld dictatorship that grows out of the political West, particularly America, with our heroes as jaded freedom fighters in a world full of that violence and oppression? In a world where war is on the home front, is the home front, and it’s violence-as-resistance rather than war on an international ‘battlefields’ sort of way?

And with this setting, if you want to keep some of the Earth 1 heroes as being on the Evil Side on that earth then fine, okay, it becomes less atrocious if you change up the worldbuilding elements, but at least make it fit that character? Like Barry and Oliver have both canonically resisted forms of indoctrination (if you’re confused about how Barry has, consider that for 15 years, ever since he was a literal child, people have been gaslighting him about his mother’s death and it’s frankly bizarre from a psychological standpoint that he still believed in his father’s innocence given the repeated and consistent messages sent his way from trusted people like police and therapists and his foster parent that would make him doubt his worldview). These are people with incredibly strong cores of right and wrong and truth and lies, at least as we know them? So saying they’d sign up with the Evil Regime is hard to make sense of, and you’d have to do a lot of storytelling to make me understand and accept it. 

Anyway, what if the crossover focused on the dynamics of the Earth 1 heroes seeing alternative versions of themselves as jaded, tired fighters, and the startling clash and interpersonal dynamics? Of course they have some major battles to fight etc, but what if the message the shows explored was how ‘what it means to be good’ isn’t so cut and dry. A message that directly puts hope and the approach that says “violence is always wrong” against an approach that says “this is the only means we have to survive” and highlights how that moderate thinking fails in the face of truly evil intent. 

“You’re killing people!” Barry shouts at the mirror image of himself, staring in horror at his blood soaked arms.

“Don’t you understand yet -- if I don’t kill them, they kill us! Parents, children, infants!”

He recoils from his doppelganger, feeling sick. “You can reason with --”

“We tried that! I tried that! You think I want to kill? If I try to reason with one of them, they live to kill ten of us!”

“That doesn’t meant you have to...”

“What else can I do?” He’s scathing now. “We spent years letting them bowl over our protests and watching the news tell us not to fight violence with violence. We spent years sitting in our homes watching them gain more power because they were willing to do anything to take and we didn’t want to fight dirty like they do. I spent years not killing them, even after the fighting started. Years of watching them get back up and kill my friends, Barry. The only way to fight an enemy that would rather see everyone you love dead is to stop that enemy before it ever gets the chance to hurt them.”

He thinks about Eobard, about Zoom. About Savitar. He can’t pretend that’s not who he sees when he looks at his doppleganger, but he also can’t pretend he doesn’t understand. He does. And yet...

“This isn’t --” he looks at the carnage surrounding them. “This isn’t the way.”

“This is just survival.”

Or what about them seeing their counterparts fighting the good fight, and instead of righteous judgement (instead of what their counterparts might even be expecting from them), they receive compassion instead? 

What if the Earth-X heroes flinch expecting a lecture, a blow, because they remember how they used to be, and instead get a hard, tight hug, and a whispered ‘thank you’ from the Earth 1 heroes, the ones who understand? 

What if we saw Felicity and Oliver take in the sight of Oliver-X, another freedom fighter, after being steeped in blood, and Ollie is cringing. He doesn’t want Felicity to see any version of him killing so freely, not now, not when murder is in his past. So imagine his surprise when she goes up to his Earth-X counterpart and hugs him, and thanks him?

Because she knows, she understands. She’s Jewish and she knows her history, and fighting fascists is a different world than killing henchmen of drug runners on rooftops. This is war, for freedom and survival, even if it doesn’t look like war in the typical sense. No tanks, no bombs. Just surveillance and paramilitary and neighbors snitching on neighbors and people hiding and going underground to survive.

Wouldn’t that be a better story than ‘Oliver and Barry are literal Nazis on Earth X and somehow Felicity has to live with that knowledge now’?

Anyway, obviously the CW is never going to give us anything half so raw as that, nor so radically left as to say we should fight intolerance with extreme measures (but uh, we should. not murder but like, punching a Nazi is the morally right move, even if it’s not the legally right one). 

But this is what I mean when I say that writing mirrorverses full of Nazis and making heroes fascists isn’t just morally apprehensible and wrong but also fucking lazy? It doesn’t think about the characters and their motives and doesn’t take the effort to consider the message it invokes for its viewer. Writing an evil version of a hero should be a character study or should provide some insight into the person or into human nature. It should carry a message. Savitar carries one (even if I have some issues with it), as did Red-Kara. What will we learn from Earth-X? My guess is... very little. 

So instead of giving us insight, it’s making characters evil as an easy out for forcing a conflict and driving up the emotional stakes without really giving us a reason to care. It’s shock-value writing with no meat to it. It’s shallow and reeks of a sense of hopelessness. It promotes this idea that we’re all drones who will obey because we’re told to. 

And I’m not here to knock the very real power of indoctrination, but the real world doesn’t work like that. People tend to know when what they’re doing is wrong, that oppression is wrong, and if they’re genuinely ignorant to it, then learning tends to open their eyes. And after that it’s up to choice - they choose to throw their head in the sand and continue being evil, or they choose to do better. And literally all of the heroes we’ve been introduced to in the DC CWTV universe choose better. So...?

The story is weak, and the message is... insidious. Do better, DC CWTV. If I can come up with a better elseworld in an hour, you have no excuse.

#anyway i hate #the crossover clusterfuck #crossover episodes #crossover spoilers #gotta go for lunch now #and then do something OTHER than be angry about this mess #i think i'm done talking about it for good now #i've had this in my drafts since last night so i figured i ought to post or delete it #anyway #antisemitism tw #nazism tw #nazis tw #elseworlds #long post #long post for ts #hence the cut

[boulevardk]

#BLACKLIVESMATTER

Hello,

I apologize for how inactive and silent I have been on the app as of late. Originally, a little over a week ago, I had logged off to focus on my studies. And then I just stayed logged off to focus my attention on spreading awareness for the Black Lives Matter movement on twitter, which I would say is the main social media platform for accurate information about protests and the injustice the poc- SPECIFICALLY the Black community- face every day. But I definitely need to address the same situation here.

George Floyd, an innocent and unarmed black man, was murdered by police in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. There were four police officers repsonsible for his death: Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas K. Lang. And as of today, June 2nd, only ONE of these four monsters have been convicted. While all of them have been fired, that is not enough. Especially when the officer who WAS convicted, Derek Chauvin, the criminal who suffocated and murdered Floyd by pressing his knee into Floyd’s throat for over 8 minutes, a VERY INTENTIONAL MURDER, was only convicted on charges of third degree murder and second degree man slaughter.

For those of you who don’t already know, these charges are nothing short of lenient and unacceptable, to say the least.

Third degree murder is defined as ACCIDENTALLY killing someone, as second degree manslaughter implies as well. There was absolutely nothing accidental about Derek Chauvin’s actions. He wanted to kill Floyd, and he is being shielded by the corrupt, notoriously racist system that is law enforcement. Not only was his sentencing nowhere near as severe and incriminating as it should have been, but Chauvin has also been granted protection by the Minneapolis PD after there were threats on his life. This monster is being protected by the fascist, racist, amoral system that condones and promotes brutality against the Black community.

Floyd’s murder inspired protests for the Black Lives Matter movement in cities across the United States. The last time I checked, there were only two states within America that didn’t have protests happening.

I cannot stress this enough, the protests and standing for justice is of the utmost importance. Time and time again, law enforcement and politics have failed the American public, putting its inhabitants- SPECIFICALLY POC AND EVEN MORE SPECIFICALLY BLACK LIVES AND CIVIL RIGHTS- in danger. We cannot wait for change to come; we must actively fight for it ourselves.

George Floyd was just the tip of the iceberg. There have been thousands of cases just like his. He was not the first innocent, unarmed black person to be murdered in cold blood because of their race, and he won’t be the last UNLESS WE STAND AND FIGHT FOR JUSTICE AND CHANGE. And if you don’t believe law enforcement is corrupt and racist, just take a look at the statistics:

- There were only twenty-seven days of 2019 where police did not kill someone

- Black people are at minimum three times as likely to be murdered by police than white people 

- 99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have NOT resulted in officers being charged with a crime 

(source: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/)

The facts speak for themselves. 

This movement and these protests are absolutely essential to protecting and fighting for the civil rights and lives of black people everywhere. 

Not only is law enforcement composed of evil, racist individuals with god complexes and vindictive, violent vendettas who abuse their power and murder innocent people because of their race, but the government is filled to the brim with the same type of hate and injustice. 

In response to the protests, the spineless, inhumane, evil tyrant Trump (the monster that part of America actually elected to be President) tweeted:

Which was so violent, hateful, and racist that Twitter flagged it as having violated their policy about glorification of violence. 

The saying, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” was originally said by fellow racist Miami police chief Walter Headley in 1967 in response to black protesters fighting for civil rights. He was notorious for abusing his power and actively inciting violence to fuel his racist agenda.

From one evil racist to another. 

(source: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864818368/the-history-behind-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts)

This tweet incited even more violence. While power-hungry, corrupt, abusive cops were already at protests, arresting innocent protesters (primarily black protesters), firing rubber bullets and spraying teargas and mace against protesters (AGAIN primarily black protesters), Trump’s insensitive, evil tantrum on twitter only incited more violence. As of the past day, Trump has sent in the National Guard, a highly militant group, into cities with protests. Not to mention, racist white supremacist civilians have been at protests, heavily armed themselves. A statement from these monsters stated that they were waiting for Trump to “give [them] the green light” to start shooting protesters. If you are not disgusted with this, you are part of the problem.

(Evidence below)

If you follow, support, or even voted for Trump, unfollow and block me. You may not recognize or admit it, but associating yourself with that monster makes your just as evil as he is. And YES you ARE A RACIST if you voted for/support him! There is no reasonable, valid dispute to that fact. 

Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd. Christian Cooper. Breanna Taylor. Atatiana Jefferson. Kathryn Johnson. Anthony Hill. Kevin Davis. Walter Scott. Jordan Davis. Renisha McBride. Tamir Rice. Philando Castile. Sandra Bland. Tayvon Martin. Oscar Grant. John Crawford. Alton Sterling. Nicholas Thomas. Amadou Diallo. Eric Gamer. The Charleston 9. 

This is just a small portion of the black people who have been abused and murdered by racists. Some of which, by the way, were murdered by white supremacists who weren’t cops and STILL were heavily armed. If we’ve proven that no law enforcement official should have these weapons, CERTIANLY civilians shouldn’t have them! And even though these white supremacists who murdered black people were NOT a part of law enforcement and shielded behind a badge, there STILL wasn’t justice. These racist criminals have NEVER BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE IN THE EYES OF LAW ENFORCEMENT SPECIFICALLY OTHER RACIST COPS, PROSECUTORS, AND JURORS. THAT’S BECAUSE THE SYSTEM ITSELF IS BROKEN. NO SYSTEM REFORM CAN CHANGE THE SYSTEMIC RACISM DEEPLY EMBEDDED AND WOVEN INTO LAW ENFORCEMENT.

The Black Lives Matter movement wasn’t something that just magically showed up over night after Floyd’s murder. This isn’t some newly found racism and hatred on behalf of law enforcement, politicians, and civilians.

THIS INJUSTICE HAS EXISTED SINCE WHITE COLONIZERS “DISCOVERED” AMERICA IN THE FIRST PLACE. THESE RACIST, EVIL IDEOLOGIES STEM BACK SO MUCH FURTHER THAN JUST THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS. DON’T ALLOW YOURSELF TO BELIEVE THIS MOVEMENT AND THESE INJUSTICES DIDN’T EXIST JUST BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT, WEREN’T DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY, AND/OR IGNORED THEM.

To my white/white passing readers, you have more privilege than you probably realize. Learn about your privilege and use it to fight for justice. Just because you may not be directly impacted by these murders, protests, or injustices does NOT mean they should matter any less to you. We all have a responsibility to stand up for what’s right and to fight for justice. And if you happen to go to a protest, it is CRUCIAL that you do not instigate or provoke any violence. Not only does this make it dangerous for other protesters, but it’s just another opportunity for the media to invalidate the meanings of this movement.

If you are ignorant, there is nothing wrong with realizing and admitting that. The REAL problem with you ignorance is if you recognize it and deliberately choose not to educate yourself. At that point, you are directly disregarding the injustices. 

I cannot emphasize this enough: THERE IS NO NEUTRALITY IN THIS. 

You either recognize your ignorance, educate yourself, and fight for justice or you take the side of the oppressor. That goes for all my non-black readers reading this not just white people. 

To my readers who aren’t black or white, you still do very much have a responsibility to be speaking up about and standing with the movement for justice. And even if you’re not white, you are not immune from racism, ignorance, and/or intolerance.

To my black readers, my blog has always been and always will be a safe space for you. Although I can never fully understand the prejudice, hate, and injustice you experience firsthand, I will fight alongside you. 

To ALL readers no matter what your race, please please PLEASE hold me accountable to anything and everything I say. If anything I say offends you or makes you uncomfortable, please let me know. Not only will I immediately delete or edit my post and apologize, but I will do everything in my power to learn from my mistakes and combat my ignorance. 

If you ever need support or someone to talk to, my messages are always open, and I will do everything I can to help you. Please feel free to reach out. 

As for my parting notes in this letter, I would like to address a few more topics. 

Firstly, on a much more superficial level, I will be posting more resources for the movement on my twitter under the same name @brokenspinez​, and additionally, my DMs are always open there as well if that is a preferred, more comfortable form of communication for you. 

Secondly, and related to the prior topic, I will be making another post shortly addressing Yoongi’s intro to “What do you think” off of his second studio album D2 and issues/ignorance within the fandom. More info for what I think about that particular situation can be found on my twitter as well. 

Third, I want to specify to the non-black readers of this post that this movement is not an opportunity for you to bring up the injustices you have faced. Even if you have suffered from injustice because of your race, now is not the time or place to be talking about your experiences as if to prove that your race has suffered tremendously too. That’s not what’s important right now. Your feelings are valid, but if you only bring up the prejudice your race suffers from in an attempt to silence the #BlackLivesMatter movement, that’s sick and wrong. 

Fourth, do not comment on any social media platform anything along the lines of “not all cops”. I do not care for this justification of police brutality, and I certainly do not care to hear you defend the corrupt system that abuses and murders black people simply because of the color of their skin. In addition, I do not care for or support praise for cops being decent human beings. A cop doesn’t get a gold star and a pat on the back just because they themselves don’t appear to be racist even though the belong to a racist, fascist federation. I don’t care to hear people rave in support over one cop that happens to kneel in solidarity with protesters. Now is not the time to be supporting and defending cops; that is not the purpose of the this movement. Never forget that ALL media outlets- especially news providers- pick and choose parts of a story to make it fit their agenda. Do not fall for the narrative they paint about about these acts of violence from police officers just being a “few bad apples”. That is incorrect.

Fifth, there has been looting at some of these protests. But I implore you to not be so easily fooled by the news that these looters are only black protesters. In fact, a majority of looting and damage to property either comes from

A) ignorant white protesters that won’t be held accountable

B) people not at all involved in the protest who just take advantage of the situation

or

C) white supremacists/cops who go undercover and commit crimes to reflect poorly on the movement.

Are there some looters/protesters who vandalize property who ARE black? Yes. But it is not the majority. Don’t allow yourself to be tricked. 

(sources: https://www.valleynewslive.com/content/news/Fargo-Police-Saturdays-rioters-and-looters-mostly-outsiders--570911841.html  AND https://www.justsecurity.org/70497/far-right-infiltrators-and-agitators-in-george-floyd-protests-indicators-of-white-supremacists/)

Sixth and finally, I want to link some websites where you can help contribute to the cause. Below are some links to various donations, petitions, and resources with information about protesting. Even if you are not in a situation where you can protest or donate (which is completely valid), there is no reason why you cannot sign FREE petitions, educate yourself on the movement, and spread awareness on social media. 

Here are some links and resources:

1) https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

2. A link to a petition for Breanna Taylor, an awardwinning EMT who was shot and killed in her home by police. Police, unannounced, fired 22 rounds, hitting Taylor 8 times and murdering her. Her murderers have faced no criminal changes. JUSTICE FOR BREANNA. http://chng.it/q8PthQmtfX

3. petition for Emerald Black, a pregnant woman brutally attacked by police. She suffered a miscarriage from police brutality after she and her fiancé were pulled over. Currently, there is no investigation being conducted. JUSTICE FOR EMERALD. https://www.change.org/p/san-leandro-police-deartment-justice-for-emerald-black

4. petition for disbarment of George E. Barnhill, a prosecutor who sat FOR THREE MONTHS on the case of the murder of innocent, unarmed black man Ahmaud Arbery because of his own racist beliefs/relationship with the murderers. JUSTICE FOR AHMAUD ARBERY. https://www.change.org/p/federal-bureau-of-investigation-disbarment-of-george-e-barnhill

5. petition to put the cops who murdered George Floyd in prison. George Floyd was another innocent, unarmed black man who was murdered by police. he was in pristine health, and an autopsy paid for by Floyd’s Family through a private forensic pathologist confirmed that it was asphyxiation caused by Chauvin knee on Floyd’s neck that killed him. No matter how law enforcement tries to deny it and say Floyd died because of prexisting health conditions and drug use, we know the truth. JUSTICE FOR FLOYD. https://www.change.org/p/federal-bureau-of-investigation-put-the-minneapolis-police-officers-who-killed-george-floyd-in-prison?recruiter=766698229&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_message&utm_term=psf_combo_share_abi&recruited_by_id=37d65b20-88e6-11e7-9751-b3880c72a222&share_bandit_exp=message-22417260-en-US&share_bandit_var=v2

6. Gofundme link to Floyd’s family to cover costs of legal advising and representation, George Floyd’s autopsy conducted by a private forensic pathologist, Floyd’s funeral, and other various costs. https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

Thank you for reading. If you have any other links to add to this post, please message me and I will edit the document. Stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. Stand for justice.

- Jay (6/2/2020)

#black lives matter #justice #george floyd #protests #ignorance #law enforcement

[jewish-privilege]

One September weekend in 1995, a few thousand people met at a convention center in Seattle to prepare for an apocalyptic standoff with the federal government. At the expo, you could sign up to defend yourself from the coming “political and economic collapse,” stock up on beef jerky, learn strategies for tax evasion, and browse titles by writers like Eustace Mullins, whose White nationalist classics include The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, published in 1952, and—from 1967—The Biological Jew.

The sixth annual Preparedness Expo made national papers that year because it served as a clearinghouse for the militia movement, a decentralized right-wing movement of armed, local, anti-government paramilitaries that had recently sparked its most notorious act of terror, the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal courthouse by White nationalists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. A series of speakers told expo attendees the real story: the attack had been perpetrated by the government itself as an excuse to take citizens’ guns away.

Not a lot of Black folks show up at gatherings like the Preparedness Expo, one site in an extensive right-wing counterculture in which White nationalism is a constant, explosive presence. White nationalists argue that Whites are a biologically defined people and that, once the White revolutionary spirit awakens, they will take down the federal government, remove people of color, and build a state (maybe or maybe not still called the United States of America, depending on who you ask) of their own. As a Black man, I am regarded by White nationalists as a subhuman, dangerous beast. In the 1990s, I was the field organizer for the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, a six-state coalition working to reduce hate crimes and violence in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain States region. We did a lot of primary research, often undercover. A cardinal rule of organizing is that you can’t ask people to do anything you haven’t done yourself; so I spent that weekend as I spent many—among people plotting to remove me from their ethnostate.

It helped that, despite its blood-curdling anti-Black racism, at least some factions of the White nationalist movement saw me as a potential ally against their true archenemy. At the expo that year, a guy warily asked me about myself. I told him that I had come on behalf of a few brothers in the city. We needed to resist the federal government and we were there to get educated. I said I hoped he wouldn’t take it personally, but I didn’t shake hands with White people. He smiled; he totally understood. “Brother McLamb,” he concurred, “says we have to start building broad coalitions.” Together we went to hear Jack McLamb, a retired Phoenix cop who ran an organization called Police Against the New World Order, make a case for temporary alliances with “the Blacks, the Mexicans, the Orientals” against the real enemy, the federal government controlled by an international conspiracy. He didn’t have to say who ran this conspiracy because it was obvious to all in attendance. And despite the widespread tendency to dismiss antisemitism, notwithstanding its daily presence across the country and the world, it is obvious to you, too.

From the time I documented my first White nationalist rally in 1990 until today, the movement has made its way from the margins of American political life to its center, and I’ve moved from doing antiracist organizing in small northwestern communities to fighting for inclusive democracy on a national level, as the Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice program officer at the Ford Foundation until recently, and now as a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yet if I had to give a basic definition of the movement—something I’ve often been asked to do, formally and informally, by folks who’ve spent less time hanging out with Nazis than I have—my response today would not be much different than it was when I began to do this work nearly thirty years ago. American White nationalism, which emerged in the wake of the 1960s civil rights struggle and descends from White supremacism, is a revolutionary social movement committed to building a Whites-only nation, and antisemitism forms its theoretical core.

...The meteoric rise of White nationalism within national discourse over the course of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and freshman administration—through Trump’s barely coded speech at fascist-style rallies, his support from the internet-based “Alt Right,” and his placement of White nationalist popularizers in top positions—has produced a shock of revelation for people across a wide swath of the political spectrum. This shock, in turn, has been a source of frustration within communities of color and leftist circles, where White liberals are often accused of having kept their heads in the sand while more vulnerable populations sounded the alarm about the toll of economic crisis, mass incarceration, police violence, deportation, environmental devastation, and—despite and in reaction to the election of Barack Obama—the unending blare of everyday hate. This is an understandable reaction. It’s one I’ve often shared. But the fact that many of us have long recognized that the country we live in is not the one we are told exists doesn’t mean we always understand the one that does. Within social and economic justice movements committed to equality, we have not yet collectively come to terms with the centrality of antisemitism to White nationalist ideology, and until we do we will fail to understand this virulent form of racism rapidly growing in the U.S. today.

To recognize that antisemitism is not a sideshow to racism within White nationalist thought is important for at least two reasons. First, it allows us to identify the fuel that White nationalist ideology uses to power its anti-Black racism, its contempt for other people of color, and its xenophobia—as well as the misogyny and other forms of hatred it holds dear. White nationalists in the United States perceive the country as having plunged into unending crisis since the social ruptures of the 1960s supposedly dispossessed White people of their very nation. The successes of the civil rights movement created a terrible problem for White supremacist ideology. White supremacism—inscribed de jure by the Jim Crow regime and upheld de facto outside the South—had been the law of the land, and a Black-led social movement had toppled the political regime that supported it. How could a race of inferiors have unseated this power structure through organizing alone? For that matter, how could feminists and LGBTQ people have upended traditional gender relations, leftists mounted a challenge to global capitalism, Muslims won billions of converts to Islam? How do you explain the boundary-crossing allure of hip hop? The election of a Black president? Some secret cabal, some mythological power, must be manipulating the social order behind the scenes. This diabolical evil must control television, banking, entertainment, education, and even Washington, D.C. It must be brainwashing White people, rendering them racially unconscious.

What is this arch-nemesis of the White race, whose machinations have prevented the natural and inevitable imposition of white supremacy? It is, of course, the Jews. Jews function for today’s White nationalists as they often have for antisemites through the centuries: as the demons stirring an otherwise changing and heterogeneous pot of lesser evils. At the turn of the twentieth century, “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”—a forgery, first circulated by Czarist secret police in Russia in 1903, that purports to represent the minutes of a meeting of the international Jewish conspiracy—established the blueprint of antisemitic ideology in its modern form. It did this by recasting the shape-shifting, money-grubbing caricature of the Jew from a religious caricature to a racialized one. Upper-class Jews in Europe might have been assimilating and changing their names, but under the new regime of antisemitic thought, even a Jew who converted to Christianity would still be a Jew.

In 1920, Henry Ford brought the “Protocols” to the United States, printing half a million copies of an adaptation called “The International Jew,” and the text has had a presence in American life ever since. (Walmart stocked copies on its shelves and for a time refused calls to take them down—in 2004.) But it is over the past fifty years, not coincidentally the first period in U.S. history in which most American Jews have regarded themselves as White, that antisemitism has become integral to the architecture of American racism. Because modern antisemitic ideology traffics in fantasies of invisible power, it thrives precisely when its target would seem to be least vulnerable. Thus, in places where Jews were most assimilated—France at the time of the Dreyfus affair, Germany before Hitler came to power—they have functioned as a magic bullet to account for unaccountable contradictions at moments of national crisis. White supremacism through the collapse of Jim Crow was a conservative movement centered on a state-sanctioned anti-Blackness that sought to maintain a racist status quo. The White nationalist movement that evolved from it in the 1970s was a revolutionary movement that saw itself as the vanguard of a new, whites-only state. This latter movement, then and now, positions Jews as the absolute other, the driving force of white dispossession—which means the other channels of its hatred cannot be intercepted without directly taking on antisemitism.

This brings me to the second reason that White nationalist antisemitism must not be dismissed: at the bedrock of the movement is an explicit claim that Jews are a race of their own, and that their ostensible position as White folks in the U.S. represents the greatest trick the devil ever played. ... Contemporary antisemitism, then, does not just enable racism, it also is racism, for in the White nationalist imaginary Jews are a race—the race—that presents an existential threat to Whiteness. Moreover, if antisemitism exists in glaring form at the extreme edge of political discourse, it does not exist in a vacuum; as with every form of hateful ideology, what is explicit on the margins is implicit in the center, in ways we have not yet begun to unpack. 

...What I learned when I got to Oregon, as I began to log untold hours trying to understand White nationalists and their ideas, was that antisemitism was the lynchpin of the White nationalist belief system. That within this ideological matrix, Jews—despite and indeed because of the fact that they often read as White—are a different, unassimilable, enemy race that must be exposed, defeated, and ultimately eliminated. Antisemitism, I discovered, is a particular and potent form of racism so central to White supremacy that Black people would not win our freedom without tearing it down.

...The White nationalist movement that emerged in the last decades of the twentieth century grew across the country. But it was Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming that neonazis in the 1980s carved out as the territorial boundaries of their future Whites-only state, a region that self-identified “Aryans” from around the country began to colonize with nothing short of White national sovereignty as their goal. “Ourselves alone willing,” declared White nationalist leader and Aryan Nations organizer Robert Miles, “we shall begin to form the new nation even while in the suffocating embrace of the ZOG.” In White nationalist parlance, the United States is the ZOG, or Zionist Occupied Government. It was in the Northwest that the nascent militia movement—notorious in the 1990s after standoffs between White nationalist compounds and the FBI in Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas—declared war on their country loudly enough they could no longer be ignored.

...When folks ask me, skeptically, where the antisemitism in the White nationalist movement lies, it can feel like being asked to point out a large elephant in a small room. From the outset of my research on White nationalism all those years ago, it was clear that antisemitism in the movement is everywhere, and it is not hidden. “Life is uglier and uglier these days, more and more Jewish,” William Pierce wrote in The Turner Diaries. “No matter how long it takes us and no matter to what lengths we must go, we’ll demand a final settlement of the account between our two races,” the narrator promises at the book’s conclusion. “If the Organization survives this contest, no Jew will—anywhere. We’ll go to the uttermost ends of the earth to hunt down the last of Satan’s spawn.” White nationalism is a fractious countercultural social movement, and its factions often disagree with each other about basic questions of theory and practice. The movement does not take a single, unified position on the Jewish question. But antisemitism has been a throughline from the Posse Comitatus, which set itself against “anti-Christ Jewry”; to David Duke’s refurbished Ku Klux Klan, which abandoned anti-Catholicism in the 1970s in order to focus on “Jewish supremacism”; to the neonazi group The Order, inspired by The Turner Diaries, which in the mid-1980s went on a rampage of robberies and synagogue bombings in Washington state and murdered a Jewish radio talk show host in Denver; to evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson who denounced antisemitism but used its popularity among their followers to promote an implicitly White supremacist “Christian nationalism”; to the contemporary Alt Right named by White nationalist Richard Spencer, which has brought antisemitic thought and imagery to new audiences on the internet—and now at White House press conferences.

...Over years of speaking about White nationalism in the 1990s and early 2000s in the Northwest and then the Midwest and South, I found that audiences—whether white or of color, at synagogues or churches, universities or police trainings—generally had a relationship to white nationalism that, at least in one basic sense, was like my own. They knew the scope and seriousness of the movement from personal experience, and—if they didn’t take this for granted to begin with—they were not shocked to discover its antisemitic emphasis. The resistance I have encountered when I address antisemitism has primarily come since I moved to the Northeast seven years ago, and from the most established progressive antiracist leaders, organizations, coalitions, and foundations around the country. It is here that a well-meaning but counterproductive thicket of discourse has grown up insisting that Jews—of Ashkenazi descent, at least—are uncontestably White, and that to challenge this is to deny the workings of White privilege. In other words, when I’m asked, “Where is the antisemitism?,” what I am often really being asked is, “Why should we be talking about antisemitism?”

...I can answer this question as I have been doing and will continue to do: antisemitism fuels White nationalism, a genocidal movement now enthroned in the highest seats of American power, and fighting antisemitism cuts off that fuel for the sake of all marginalized communities under siege from the Trump regime and the social movement that helped raise it up. To refuse to deal with any ideology of domination, moreover, is to abet it. Contemporary social justice movements are quite clear that to refuse antiracism is an act of racism; to refuse feminism is an act of sexism. To refuse opposition to antisemitism, likewise, is an act of antisemitism. Arguably, not much more should need to be said than that. But I suspect that much more does need to be said. To the hovering question, why should we be talking about antisemitism, I reply, what is it we are afraid we will find out if we do? What historic and contemporary conflicts will be laid bare? And if we recognize that White privilege really is privilege, what will it mean for Jewish antiracists to give up the fantasy that they ever really had it to begin with?

...A central insistence of antiracist thought over the past several decades is that, as with any social category produced by regimes of power, you don’t choose race, power chooses it for you; it names you. This is why all the well-meaning identification in the world does not make a White person Black. Likewise, as much as I draw inspiration from the Jewish community, and as much as I adore my Jewish partner and friends, it was my organizing against antisemitism as a Black antiracist that first pulled me to the Jewish community, not the other way around. I developed an analysis of antisemitism because I wanted to smash White supremacy; because I wanted to be free. If we acknowledge that White nationalism clearly and forcefully names Jews as non-white, and did so in the very fiber of its emergence as a post-civil rights right-wing revolutionary movement, then we are forced to recognize our own ignorance about the country  we thought we lived in. It is time to have that conversation.

Read Eric K. Ward’s full article at Political Research Associates. It is long but amazing and important.

#long post #Eric K. Ward #Eric Ward #white supremacy

[serenagaywaterford]

1) "Is violent mob revenge the answer? (I honestly can’t make that determination.) Is violence sometimes the answer? Is war the only answer with totalitarian regimes?" Those are the kind of questions I had in mind actually. Obviously, I wouldn't expect any answers (bc those are up to the audience, not the series), but it would be interesting if they went there. Of course, these questions would fly over some people's heads (like you said), bc honestly? Said people approach THT like it's a

2) Disney-esque (/superhero) series (nothing wrong with them), where the totally good guys get to punch and kill the totally evil guys in the end, uwu. (If I'm being too much of a dick, just tell me and I'll tone it down a notch, lol.) Anyway, mob mentality aside, history proves that such regimes fall and rise the same way they have been created. Aka "Those who arrive with blood, fall with blood." Doesn't mean that we have to like it. I've mentioned before that I detest violence and I especially

3) believe that it has NO place in politics. I've been called naive for this, so there's that. Weirdly enough, I'm also the kind of person who thinks that equating ALL forms of violence is quite dangerous given that: i) threats/regimes like Gilead are inherently genocidal in their ambitions, ii) the scale of violence is not always the same, iii) every country (democratic or not) has its army and police and most people consider this kind of (controlled) violence perfectly valid, iv) there's

4) self-defense. Where I'm going with this? If a pro-Gilead person is threatened by an anti-Gilead one, the former has a choice: they can ask for a democratic trial (bc it's too late to apologize). Most likely, civilized/democratic people will listen to reason. (Well, unless we're talking about mobs... THEN, things get quite disturbing.) But if a person belongs to a group/minority targeted by Gilead, there's nothing they can do that will make pro-Gilead people happy... except die or get raped

5) for life. Anyway, I really could go on and on about this subject, but I think I'll stop here, bc it's quite complex. /// I was thinking about what you said concerning Fred and Serena's pre-Gilead relationship, and you know what? You're right. Their relationship would have fallen apart at some point, Gilead notwithstanding or not. Fred is two-faced and he sure af played us in S1. (Ngl, I used to think he was the lesser of the two evils.) But one doesn't become such an antipathetic monster at

6) a flip of the dime. The nasty parts were always there, but he concealed/controlled them. Maybe bc said parts wouldn't exactly make him endearing to others? Anyhow, your interpretation makes him quite the interesting antagonist/villain, so I'm rolling with it, lol.

---------

OMG. I think I’m in love with you?  PLEASE NEVER STOP BEING YOU. I don’t think you’re being a dick at all. I love it. Cos sometimes we just gotta call the BS like we see it?

“Of course, these questions would fly over some people's heads (like you said), bc honestly? Said people approach THT like it's a Disney-esque (/superhero) series (nothing wrong with them), where the totally good guys get to punch and kill the totally evil guys in the end, uwu.”

This is such a huge point. Cos I think there’s a very common trend of THT attempting to approach issues from various angles and try to show the complexity of it but then it going WHOOSH over so many viewers’ heads. Which never makes sense to me cos like, what’s the point in watching THT if you’re not considering it on multiple levels and trying to explore the issues? I don’t wanna point the blame in the general directions of particular shippers but I can’t help it, perhaps cos they’re just the most vocal in fandom, but it seems that the Disney-eqsque superhero tale is what they want, complete with EPIC HETERO ROMANCE!!! throughout. I’d say at least 50% of the responses are about Mr. Nicky (It goes up to 75-80% if we are actually shown his face). (And their concern is focused on the male romantic lead... YAWN.)

I would absolutely love THT to take the path of questioning mob mentality and the cycle of violence/victimization, etc. But it may be too much for even Hulu to want to tackle considering how black and white viewers seem to think. They are trying so HARD to present characters as shades of grey (Serena, being the main example. But June, Emily, Luke, Nick, etc. also) but instead of placing them along a spectrum it’s either DIE EVIL SCUM! or AMAZING CINNAMON ROLL CAN DO NO WRONG! I think the only one they complain about is June cos she’s not AS perfect as they’d like her to be. She makes some dumbass fucking decisions for sure. Sometimes I like that about her, especially how pre-Gilead June was not a super great person. She was just sorta... normal. (Other times I’m like, “JUNE YOU IDIOT WTF?!” lol but that’s fun too I guess.) If I made a scale myself, I’d probably put June fairly close to the centre, rather than on the far “good” end.

I always wondered this:

If June hadn’t been deemed a “fallen woman” and thus been allowed to stay as an Econowife, with Luke and Hannah, would she have done anything? Would she be as inspired to rebel and resist as she is? I’m not trying to shit on June at all, but I feel like it’s a question I’m curious about. A lot of people say they would be big heroes, but when really faced with the reality of living a sort of shitty life or risking that for an uncertain thing/death, most just choose to go along with it and hope it ends (especially hope that SOMEBODY else takes the risk to end it). Even good people. What do you think? 

(Aside: June being called a fallen woman is SUCH bullshit. She wasn’t cheating on anybody! LUKE was unfaithful, not her! Which is why I thought perhaps they missed a chance to address race. It could have influence on what Gilead deems “holy” marriages, and those they see as “sinful”. And a (even subtly) racist fascist state, would deffo see mixed marriage as a terrible thing. “Let’s get the fertile white woman knocked up with some white babies; no more of this mixed race babies!” Again, as we talked about before, it would limit Hannah’s storyline ofc, but I guess it wouldn’t HAVE to. She could be in a “lesser” household, instead of the rich fancy one she is.)

Sorry, those were some unplanned side rants!

I love how you described all the politics of that. It really is a fascinating thing to consider, especially how to deal with Gilead, both on an international scale, and just on smaller scales. War? Seems inevitable honestly. And clearly, Gilead is STILL fighting wars all over the continent. I honestly... you’re so right. It’s very complex and I’m not sure how detailed THT will go with that. They seem to be keeping things quite... superficial. They reference things every so often but there’s nothing solid to latch onto. It often reminds me of the Underpants Gnomes from South Park. 

phase 1: blow up congress

phase 2: ???

phase 3: establish fully-functional military fascist handmaid regime over entire continental US.

....so how to bring down Gilead then??? 

phase 1: burn down 3 house + angry handmaid steal babby back then let babby go to canada!!

phase 2: ???

phase 3: overthrow massive fascist military regime!!!!

So, we’ll see how they do it. I doubt we’re really going to get a lot of details about how everything works and maybe it’s just better that way cos it seems like the more they try to explain how Gilead stays working, it makes even less sense. And also, as much as this stuff is interesting, I really don’t wanna watch THT turn into like Zero Dark Thirty or some shit. It’s strongest when focused on the women’s experiences specifically.

“Fred is two-faced and he sure af played us in S1. (Ngl, I used to think he was the lesser of the two evils.)“

Same! It wasn’t until S2 that I started going “hmm” about Fred. I thought he wasn’t as evil as her. And when you go back and watch S1 knowing what he’s done in S2, tehre are hints and I got a weird vibe. Like... I dunno. I was randomly just rewatching that 2x11 scene where Fred and Serena are at the house and Fred is just so.... Yikes. His motives are so clear. And I tried to find examples of Fred’s humanity. I do believe we get glimpses of Serena’s, and she has capacity for kindness--in very specific circumstances but I couldn’t find a single scene of Fred where he does anything selfless, or without expecting some sort of gross sexual favour/ego stroke in return, or even kind. It’s all for his own gratification. And I am 1000% convinced he has some sort of pregnancy fetish. It doesn’t seem like he gives a shit about the actual baby, esp once its born. He’s more interested in June’s bodily changes (not the actual baby) when she’s pregnant, and her lactation afterwards. And I may not know much about the world of fetishes but I do know that’s not exactly a rare one for men. 

I think an argument against me would be the car convo about creating the Ceremony cos Fred kind of just went along with it and was on the fence. But then I think... it’s not that he was against it at all. He just didn’t think women would like it. It was never, “Nah, mate, that’s a step too far.” It was more like, “Cool idea, bros. But let’s rebrand it okay?” I mean, in the flashbacks, he did seem very proud of her, enamored, like you said. But part of me just can’t shake that, okay fair play that he probably did honestly love/respect her in some ways, but he also saw it as, “Yes, this plan is going just the way I want it!” I don’t feel like power corrupts THAT much, that quickly that he’d go from perfect husband and lovingly gazing at his amazing wife to demeaning, repeatedly cheating on her, and beating the living shit out of her (and raping her) in a few years. Then again, extreme situations can make people change quite abruptly. Who knows.

I dunno. Maybe I just hate him and dont’ wanna give him any credit for being a human being in any way whatsoever lol. 

#rants and raves #so soz these are taking longer and l onger to respond. RL ya know! #Anonymous

[raysondetre]

Yep -and that's why I didn't go to Radiohead’s concert this year. And Thom can rag on artists who didn't approve or public opprobrium on twitter all he wants (which my impression of was it was negligible, certainly I only tweeted twice on the matter), -all he's showing that is he might be stuck in the identikit straightjacket enough he's incapable of suffering a disagreement over a major issue.  The last time I had to suffer thru that was when Billy Corgan was a Global Warming denier -and he couldn't suffer a debate or disagreement, and I threw him one. I'm not sure I give a flying flip if Thom proves himself intolerant on a left side issue he doesn't agree with, where the faux pas might prove just as bad in terms of prospects for the end of the world. (Israel incentivizing the collapse of the ME for its own benefit in collusion with Saudi Arabia/Turkey is the best recipe for WWIII the planet has ever witnessed.) He can complain, but he certainly doesn't get to deny me my personal right to exercise my consumer choice to not attend the concert of an artist who chooses to play in Israel in its current climate, which is like a violent black hole sucking up the Middle East, thanks purely to its utter political impunity globally. They don't feel a pinch anywhere. BDS is literally the only form of social sanction left, and he tells us to stuff it because he doesn't like to get lectured? What a ponce. He feels embedded because Jonny is married to an Israeli Jew of Arab extraction? Good for him. You could have left it at that. Saying that through her they know Palestinians is about as meaningless as saying she has black friends. (As if knowing Palestinians who live on the Israeli side who are discriminated against but not under Occupation somehow changes or justifies anything that’s happening.) Anyone embedded at this point has to balance things out by actively engaging in the Occupied Territories, -figure out a way to balance things out somehow. I bet he/she's never lived in the Occupied Territories, and as far as I'm concerned that's still having utterly no clue. I did. I lived on both sides, and until I’d lived in the West Bank, even though it was in eyeshot, I had no clue. I'm informed, and Radiohead's decision was a heartbreaker. That is all. Roger goes there. 

Thom has a disturbing proximity to Louise Mensch thanks to her hubby being Flea's manager (-he manages RHCP -the connection is Thom’s and Flea’s longstanding band collaboration as Atoms for Peace). They're already on mental crack and off the map in neo-McCarthyland if absorbing this (which seems likely given their proximity to a ground zero source). Parading his superior intellect is laughable while he's apparently already falling for the neoliberal f***tard #resistance (if you dare to use retard, Thom, I’ll go one better) -along with all of his elite/professional class liberals. (It was a tweet. He fell for it initially and I’ve paid no attention since, but a cursory examination shows he’s on board.) When your entire class has just demonstrably proven that you'd sooner invert McCarthyism rather than come to terms with the failures of the prevailing orthodoxy, or you're incapable of recognizing this machination for what it is, well, that’s not too keen of an intellect at this point. Neoliberalism is just the 'smooth' version of denialism bent on giving us the kinder face of fascism along with a dead planet. -So Radiohead don't live in the US where they could get pwned by the Russian tool trope just for exhibiting rational thought, eh? It doesn't threaten them. Just like they've in no way suffered a threat from the Occupation and never will. Suffice to say they’ll in no way be threatened as participants in BDS, when legislation has been attempted in places as far flung as Canada to stamp out a boycott campaign by criminalizing campaigners (our present neoliberal Prime Minister supports this in spirit if not in legislation).  Jonny Greenwood’s wife has her Israeli citizenship and Jewish national privilege as a Jewish emigre from an Arab country ( actually it was her parent or her grandparent who immigrated on this basis). Her family is one of foreigners automatically granted Israeli citizenship because they were Jewish while Palestinians are forcibly removed from their own land elsewhere in Israel and the Occupied Territories to accommodate this foreign influx, purely by virtue of the fact that they are not Jewish. If this is through her grandmother (Jewish lineage is determined matrilineally) -then the grandmother was part of the diaspora following the Nabka and this woman’s family would have been among the Palestinians never permitted to return, -if not for her Jewish heritage. -Pretty much sums it up. Jonny Greenwood’s wife’s very citizenship is the fulcrum of this religion as exclusionary privilege dependent on birth exercised under the pretension of behaving like a functioning democracy. She is literally the one benefitting at the Palestinian’s collective expense. If she can make her peace with that reality by having Palestinian friends, good for her. But it in no way ameliorates the situation itself. This may grant her the self-regard of being both Arab and Jewish, but that integration only works in one direction. I met Palestinians claiming heritage to the place as long running as she claims for her father in Iraq; they have no rights on their own land. The displacement surrounding them is a constant unremitting social holocaust, and that’s if that family even exists anymore. They claimed to have been Jews who converted at the time of Christ. The claim of her heritage as Jewish pre-empts his claim to the right to live in Bethlehem, though it may be just as long. His family’s claim only exists under an exercise of prolonged gradual erasure and constant annihilation exacted by the State of Israel, -for not being Jewish. PS: The division inflicted by the right is nothing compared to those on the Left, as they were designed to shatter the left. The right generates fracture, the left’s fractures are internal. The right is fine, the left is shattered. And a mass sell out of our greatest artists (considering what they could be) was no flaming help at all. What a flame out to watch. 

Disillusionment all 'round, Thom. Actually it flaming hurts. And Thom here, if he really believes in not causing division, could make an effort rather than dolloping out than this trolloping piece of condescension, especially since he’s already apparently falling for the latest division sent to destroy the real left (the Russians did it, not the flaming neoliberal subversion of the left that made this whole election an exercise of differentiation between levels of sadism one must expect, replicated from one western nation to the next). The Russian ploy exists to buttress the failure of neoliberal hegemony (hence, denial), whose only raison d’être in the first place was to destroy the left by creation of a facsimile with a gloss over of identity politics. Maybe Thom Yorke could take a hot tip from Noam on that one instead of falling for this little number. He certainly missed Noam’s hot tip that neoliberalism is by definition fascist.   PPS: As for Mr. Godrich: when my kid doesn’t do any homework and his classes are in jeopardy, I withdraw his PS3. On a national scale, the cultural boycott is no different. I think people who are already in disagreement within that country can understand the need for a little withdrawal of privilege from the majority of the culture who have no problem denying the Palestinians everything to the point of extirpation and Cabinet posts are casually allotted to ideologues who get their compass bearings from Meir Kahane (an American Rabbi who participated in a terrorist organization and who advocated Palestinian genocide is experiencing a popular resurgence) with hardly any protest by the domestic population. No, for Jerusalem Day, 2017, they were singing for Palestinians to be wiped out. Not to mention Harvard’s entry into #BDS was incentivized by an Israeli minister taking control of the Al Aqsa Mosque in the company of 1000 Israeli police officers.  This reaction is so first world it hurts. I can’t have my concerts! What a travesty! The bulk of humanity in the meantime is far too poor to do any concerts, and the Palestinians can’t hardly at all. I have hardly been able to go to concerts for decades now, so here’s to getting a clue. Read Part III and IV if you want to have any clue just how milquetoast the environmentalists Thom adheres to are, seeing as they’re funded by some of the bigger ecocide-al profiting billionaires the planet has to offer.   PPPS: WE DIDN’T WANT THIS. It’s the ONLY FORM OF POSSIBLE SOCIAL SANCTION left when all world government has failed. And if we didn’t publicly engage in economic sanctions en masse to correct institutionalized social evils that won’t correct internally and are being supported by international governments, the planet would still be blessed with South Africa. And if you want to be ingratiated intellectually with the world and involved intellectually, you quit putting xenophobic racists as your Minister of Defense (Avigdor Leiberman), because the two don’t mesh. For the world to withdraw is corrective. It must be asserted that those traits don’t belong to governance nor civilization, and cannot be sanctioned as such. Brian Eno knows this (along with 1200 other artists). When Thom reached for Noam Chomsky, he lied in the sense that he misrepresented Noam’s views, which can be summed up as basically the broader public are too deluded effectively participate (when is this an excuse), -plus relativism, as in the US is so bad why aren’t we boycotting Harvard first off (-fine, -let’s go for it until they correct their globalized blood bath), and thirdly, that it becomes the subject of focus in debate when Israel opposes BDS, rather than the issues themselves, effectively sidelining them. Noam took the position of opposing BDS on these grounds while acknowledging simultaneously that Israel’s condition is far worse than South Africa’s. Tom Yorke treats Noam’s position as if it’s moral. It is not (and that “sideline” hyperlink dismantles it in depth). Noam doesn’t oppose BDS on principle. He actually supports BDS within limits (quoting from the link above), i.e., “BDS should be limited to opposing Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian territory conquered in the June, 1967 war, which he emphasized after 2002. In his July, 2014 article, he cited approvingly the first goal of the BDS movement, “Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall,” Israel’s “separation barrier,” which effectively annexes to Israel parts of the West Bank.13 This “makes good sense: it has a clear objective and is readily understood by its target audience in the West.”14 Chomsky found “the case” for advocating the second BDS goal, “Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality,” to be “ambiguous.” He acknowledged that Israel’s oppression of its Palestinian citizens violates international law, but found such criticism hypocritical. The call for equal rights for all Israeli citizens “at once opens the door to the ‘glass house’ reaction: for example, if we boycott Tel Aviv University because Israel violates human rights at home, then why not boycott Harvard because of the far greater violations of the United States?”14″  Noam Chomsky disagrees with the third BDS platform as well, support of the right for forcibly expelled Palestinians to return to Israel and the Occupied Territories. In short, as well summarized by one Gregory Smith: “Chomsky supports BDS targeted at Israeli institutions in the Occupied Territories, or Israeli institutions directly linked to the occupation. But he does not support BDS measures targeted at non-occupation-linked institutions inside Israel.” So Thom took it upon himself to reach for a BDS supporter, -claiming to be in alignment with this individual when there is no way to know as Thom gives no position other than to imply one that’s divergent by aspersion, claiming by his usage that this intellectual was against BDS, when Noam’s position was more for than against. Score one for Thom for a patent falsehood.

As for Thom declaring that his position is also shared by J.K. Rowling, her point of reference includes blithely falling for twitter feeds out of Syria, parading this exchange as emotionally authentic when both parties are signed to the same talent agency. Based on the position of that twitter feed, (which has inevitably been rewarded the requisite attention since it cries for Western/US military intervention), Thom’s basically buttressing his position by reaching for imperial lite. 

AND THAT FOLKS, IS ALL HE’S GOT. If he wants to participate with the minority against BDS, he has to have a position. Thom has no clue that 80% of Canadians support BDS, whereas the reigning neoliberal Prime Minister has accosted BDS as anti-semetic, an accusation he has the audacity to launch against the vast majority of his constituents who disagree with him. If this is the position Thom has chosen to align with (neoliberalism’s very existence is in order to attenuate and terminate social justice sought by the broader public by defanging the left, -see ‘spectrum shift’’s comments in the above hyperlink for how it decimated the Canadian left), he represented their position rather sorely. 

Our Prime Minister is now on record as lying about every liberal platform he appealed to his constituents to vote for him for, -from electoral reform to marijuana legalization to aboriginal reconciliation (we got the Federal forcing of the Trans Mountain pipeline (which has 19 aboriginal cases against it) and the Site C dam instead, (when the Site C is on Treaty 8 land). He was at least honest about his continued support for unwarranted spying against Canadian citizens under the guise of Bill C-51. When he completed the largest arms deal to Saudi Arabia in Canadian history, ranking us among the top five of their arms producers, he said his hands were tied. That’s a neoliberal for you. Thom has also misled the general public in his only public response that makes an effort to buttress his position. His response relies on practically nothing beyond this falsehood as per identifying with an intellectual and a purely petulant emotional response.

The politicians, BTW, that Thom lists on his wall of shame in order to shame BDS, equating them as being equally divisive, are all vehemently against BDS and extreme Israel supporters, and are even responsible for bringing terrorism home domestically, a position which, had Thom Yorke been a voting American, he would have apparently voted for in his fear and loathing of Trump, feeling decidedly righteous about his alignment with these wartime legacies resulting in waves of refugees to Europe, -providing they were the fruition of neoliberals. Not that I looked, but I highly doubt Thom Yorke ever complained about Obama’s bombing of seven Muslim nations, let alone Libya.

Odd how he shames BDS participants by equivocating them with a right wing they are the very opposite of, BDS’s strongest opponents. The point he attempts is leavened in equal measure with the extremity of the insult. Beyond that, he spent the bulk of response wailing about HIS and the BAND’s EMOTIONAL DISCOMFORT at having been confronted by BDS, complaining that any advocate was deeply patronizing. This is literally the sum of his complaint, ignoring the entire backdrop and context as so much graffiti splattered on a wall, asserting that of course they know it all and they of course are so much smarter than that. Yet apparently he didn’t know the situation enough to reference it in his official comeback, we’re just supposed to accept his assertion that he does know based on his oh so superior grounding and mental faculty. We weren’t worth a response, -when Thom’s is problematic to begin with since relying on Jonny Greenwood’s Israeli connection is purely personal anecdote. I’m grounded in this situation purely by my individual personal connection (and that’s more than sufficient) passes the smell test of intellectual rigour nowhere on this planet ever. Worse yet, framing a response almost purely on his and his band’s own personal discomfort to the situation is beyond first world pathetic. His response is all about himself. He can’t even frame a position based on the reality of the situation. In short, he has no argument, and is flaunting the implication that he may have had these arguments in private but to even air his position is far too beneath him, though being massively insulting to everyone who took the opposing position is not, and every one of the artists who appealed to Radiohead not to perform in Tel Aviv falls under his blanket condemnation of having been overwhelmingly patronizing, -based on the laughable repudiation that Thom exists in first person anecdotal “evidence” that makes him “fully grounded”. This doesn’t just reek of condescension. It’s flaming condescension that has nothing backing it up because none of the public opposition is worth active thought. His complaint is that those in opposition didn’t approach the band personally but approached the situation publicly, -notwithstanding that virtually everyone in opposition to Radiohead performing in Tel Aviv has no ability to access Thom Yorke other than publicly, and that is literally how boycott campaigns must operate, by highlighting those who refuse to participate and endorsing those that do. Furthermore, however this was conducted by individual artists, whether there were several instances of personal effrontery involved, which only the band would know, the nature of such exchanges has LITERALLY NO BEARING on the rational debate of whether or not the band should or should not perform in Israel. Yet that is virtually the sum of Thom’s complaint, upset at personal individual treatment of himself and his bandmates, when it is he who has categorized every individual in opposition not on the virtue or failure of their position, but by claiming they were all failures interpersonally. This is not a rejection of their position, but a blanket rejection of them as people (identity politics wins the day in the total evacuation of substance, and on this basis I reject all of you). Because it’s all about how we feel and interact in the debate that matters, and how we feel is the verdict, -effectively erasing the entire substance of the debate. That isn’t a rational reaction. It’s functionally absurd, and Thom parades this as if he’s too intellectual to respond with anything else. Quite priceless when it appears he needs a tap on the shoulder to remind him that feelies never figure in debate?

-At least he tried, right? Which I’m sure is more than can be said for others such as Depeche Mode and RHCP. 

I take too long, so thankfully, someone commented at Variety and nailed it PERFECTLY: “Very interesting — he talks about everyone and everything except palestinians. he is in fact erasing them. just because his bandmate is married to an israeli arab means nothing. what does she think? we’re not told. and she is a citizen of israel, not a palestinian who is subject to the brutal and oppressive practices of a half century long israeli occupation that even israelis increasingly describe as apartheid. nor does yorke address the fact that by playing there he is in fact normalizing the occupation and going against the express with wish of the vast majority of palestinian civil society organizations, who have determined this is the best way for them to fight nonviolently against the occupation. instead he gets angry at roger waters for pressing the issue and making him uncomfortable with his friends. perhaps he should consider what it means to live as a palestinian. then complain about how bad he feels. his defense of playing israel reflects both a complete ignorance of the realities of the occupation and the goals of BDS, and the arrogance of someone who is too privileged to actually consider that sometimes you need to take a principled and difficult stand.” -Thank you, Mark LeVine.  And yea, everyone at this point who supports BDS is now faced with a personal question. If a band actively refuses to participate in BDS as Radiohead has just done, is it your moral obligation to boycott them for profiting off a performance in Israel? Those profits aren’t small. Let your basis for arriving at  this decision be known loud and clear.  As for the response below by deathistardy: Isn’t it astonishing how an individual can equivocate the decision not to buy a single concert ticket with advocating death of Israel as if their reaction is rational? The first hyperlink presented in this essay delineates the crippling logical fallacy that gets him there (”identikit straightjacket”). This was the peace process he alludes to. It is redundant that it failed because the failure serves Israel in perpetuity, and is what they desire, because illegal settlements on Palestinian occupied territory have never been halted and the perpetual failure of the peace process allows this travesty to continue. The parity instituted in these negotiations by the US is a paradigm that is completely false. And this, this and this is Ehud Barak.  Do not enter here unless you know of what you speak. My dream is Israel’s true integration which might mean it truly inherits its place as God’s nation by embracing a one state solution that embraces their greater heritage and in one fell swoop manages to reverse the crippling tide of colonialism with the purest act of reversing the travesty against them by integrating the indigenous population, -graduating from the most polarized of war time situations by virtue of love and peacemaking. They alone in this world might be capable of such transcendence. We can hope. They could be well capable rectifying the sum of history if they just embraced forgiveness and self-recognition. I believe both sides are fully capable if they just rejected the epic failure that is their leadership.

#thom yorke #rollingstone #israel #bds