#this is how it feels talking to any radical leftist

[186-3]

courting antisemitism

so i recently decided to take a look at the latest stonetoss comics (probably because i love suffering). and while i was expecting some content on the israel palestine conflict, what i did not expect was how... standard it seemed. well, most of it at least, but i'll get to that in a second.

for context, if you don't know what stonetoss is, it's a (poorly drawn) webcomic known for having radical alt-right views - meaning it's incredibly racist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, antisemitic. all that fun stuff.

so while i was expecting to see bad stuff, one of the first things i saw on the topic of israel was this:

terrible art aside, this comic is making a point that i usually see in left wing circles: that israel is pinkwashing genocide.

curious if there was more like this, i kept looking, and the comic right before that one was this:

again, this makes points that i usually see in left wing circles. that american healthcare is crazy expensive, that canada tells poor people to commit suicide, and that israel is bombing hospitals.

why does stonetoss, this well known alt-right nutjob, now seem to be bringing up left-wing talking points?

curious, i kept going deeper:

well this is... odd. clearly, stonetoss is trying to say that israel is on another level of bad, even worse than russia, iran, and north korea. i can possibly see someone on the left making the argument that the russian invasion of ukraine isn't as bad as what israel is doing in gaza, or that at least north korea isn't invading any other countries, but... iran??? the country that has a police force designed to enforce religious law, and gets away with murdering women who do not properly cover their hair? the country that props up paramilitary groups in countries all over the middle east, including lebanon, yemen, and yes, palestine?? that's completely ridiculous

but, given how much more israel is in the news nowadays than any of these other countries, i could see why someone would buy this

and now, we're starting to get to the crux of what stonetoss is trying to do. when someone sees this, they might be inclined to agree with it. they might begin to think that israel is the worst country on the planet

and that might not seem so bad at first. but the more you hate israel, especially irrationally, the more you feel allowed to dehumanize those who support it. the more you might be willing to agree with this comic, which came out two days prior to the one above

this comic says that jews, as a whole have no desire to exist with other people. it is blatantly antisemitic

i'm sure you could imagine some young leftist who sees the comics above this one and thinks, "this guy makes some good points". and then, when they get to this one, they might realize that this is antisemitism

or, they may not.

and that would start them down the road to becoming an antisemite.

this is what stonetoss and other alt-right nutjobs are hoping to achieve. to take left wing fury at israel, and direct it at jews.

we saw it with those neo-nazis at the palestine rally, and we're seeing it again here.

and if you've found yourself agreeing with what stonetoss has said so far, i would like you to see the last comic stonetoss put out before october 7th:

this horrifically racist comic is in reference to an environmental activist who was murdered by a black man in early october. this blatantly racist garbage is the kind of stuff stonetoss usually puts out.

but as soon as october 7th happened? these were his next two comics:

stonetoss completely changed the comic's tone as soon as the current crisis started. why?

to get as many people as possible to get on board with hating jews.

and i know many of you might be thinking that "well, everyone knows that stonetoss is racist garbage. nobody is going to fall for this"

except, as we saw with the neo-nazis at the rally for palestine, it's not always that obvious who the antisemites are and who is just rallying for peace. they are often a lot better at disguising it than stonetoss is.

AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE AWARE OF THAT

EVERYONE, no matter HOW much experience you have, can fall victim to propoganda. EVERYONE needs to be aware of what people around them are saying, and able to pick out hateful rhetoric, because even the stuff that is just kind of toeing the line of what's hateful is still putting your foot in the door

be cautious, everyone. and stomp out hate where you see it.

#israel #palestine #stonetoss #racism #antisemitism #tw racism #tw antisemitism #jumblr #rant #long post

[iberiancadre]

I've talked about this before but I have a deep dislike of sentiment like this within "leftist" circles, regarding unions. And it's practically always from USamericans, go figure.

(Before anyone interprets this post on bad faith, which is inevitable, I am not against being in a union and I am not telling people not to join a union, it's the most inmediate form of protection workers have and that is, in fact, good)

It's this overbearing insistence on joining unions, treating it like the best (and only) way of achieving workers' liberation, and I think that shows either a bad understanding of what unions are or a bad understanding of how capitalism works. Unions are bargaining bodies for workers, that's it. They aren't revolutionary, and they aren't going to kill your boss. And I want to really hammer in this point. They aren't revolutionary. Precisely because their role is to bargain, and to achieve better conditions within the system of salaried work.

You are never going to "liquidate the ownership class" by getting longer breaks, paid holidays and an excellent health plan. Keep in mind, bargaining with the capitalist is necessary, and that in itself isn't non-revolutionary, not necessarily. But the only purpose of a union is to bargain. I really don't think people get this. A union's only purpose is to bargain, it is to negotiate. Negotiations also necessarily imply compromises and unsatisfactory deals. Unions are not a magic key to not being exploited, and they especially are not the way to liberation.*

I think this is especially prevalent in the US because of two things:

Their labor movement is so fucked that any kind of opposition to capitalism is by default radical. And therefore some people feel it's enough to just tell people to join a union. However, this isn't unique to the US and many places have it much, much worse

Living in the imperial hegemon makes it very easy to ignore any other place outside of their little sphere. People can go years engaging in left-of-DNC circles but without ever leaving their USamerican community, they end up not knowing who James Baldwin is, to give a topical example. This affects the US labor movement by allowing them to ignore other places' struggles, so it's very easy to see anything they do as the horizon of political action. They only need to look to their own country for examples in action, and the truth is that the labor movement in the US has been largely very mild. In the cases when it has not been mild (notable exceptions include the Black Panthers), it's largely forgotten, demonized or revised in bigger circles.

So you get people who call themselves communists just for being unionists. But a communist is someone who identifies the core of exploitation to be the very structure of capitalism and work and attacks it. You are not a communist, however, for believing the core of exploitation is your shit boss who refuses to pay for dental.

And what's funny is that 90% of what people on here claim to be communist and anti-capitalist is just the norm on most of the world. People will hype up the DSA or VoteSocialist2024 as if they're breaking ground, and then you read their programs and they're just socialdemocrats. They are nothing more than reformists, just another manager of capitalism.

My father works for one of the biggest textile manufacturers and distributors in the world, and unionization is the norm, it's a "union job" but it's still shitty and exploitative. There are in fact 3 unions, and they engage in petty electoralism within the workplace, only sometimes actually protecting worker's rights, and that's a country-wide norm. This is what unions end up becoming when they become established, especially with a friendly government in place.

CCOO was a union created in the late fascist dictatorship in Spain, and they were genuinely fighting (with guns!) against the dictatorship. And the moment the dictatorship ended and they became the largest union in the country, they slowly became less and less radical, and more complacent. Last year they signed a labor reform that legalizes highly precarious and inconsistent forms of work contracts. That's not "liquidating the ownership class", that's just social-democracy when it doesn't need to be the opposition anymore

To wrap up, a note on syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.

Unions are by their very nature an organization that only operates within one aspect of the life of the working class, the workplace. Sure, it's the main one and the part that defines us as a class, but it isn't the only one. In order to actually "liquidate the ownership class", you have to take power by force, and that will have to involve intervening outside of the workplace. What syndicalists used to claim is that unions can be the base of a socialist society and organize the entire working class to destroy capitalism. However, at that point, you have created a party and called it a union. And not only a party, but a myriad of them, each with their own characteristics and desires. So a multi-party system. I will not get into the viability of multiple parties in socialism in this post, but they are not unions in anything by name.

Footnote under the cut:

*I know I'm repeating myself a lot these days on this topic, but if you live in an imperial core country, there is no way to have prosperity (as the example above puts it) without some of that wealth coming from imperialism. It does not matter if your particular country never had colonies, it does not matter if your country is stereotypically nice (fuck the Nordic countries). And no, the expoliated wealth does not only remain within the capitalist class, there is always at least some circulation of wealth from the capitalist to the workers within any welfare program. If your workplace can afford to have long breaks, that is at least in part because your capitalist is profiting from the exploitation of the third world, and because the entire economies of imperial core countries uses the wealth extracted to support their deficits and to stabilize their currencies.

It's not a hard concept. If you can understand that it's basically impossible to manufacture batteries for renewable energy without exercising violence on places like the Congo, it's not that hard to understand the same is true for most things.

#real marxist hours #unions #finally got (mostly) all of my thoughts on this into words #accidentally posted before I completed it and now there's two posts :(

[anarchistfrogposting]

I don't consider myself an anarchist but i'm pretty sympathetic, there's just some stuff i'm not sure yet would work well under anarchism as i understood it after reading the bread book.

What would incentivize people to work, for example, at oil rigs away from their communities doing dangerous work?

Would it be that they'd have a smaller expectation for how long they're suposed to work? Like, instead of you working 9-5 for 8 months instead you work 9-5 for 4 months and then can just do things you like the rest of the year?

Yes hi hello! This post re-emerged from the depths of accidental deletion!! I’m getting the bus to go get a burrito so let me talk about this one!!

Kropotkin actually talked about dangerous work; after all, some work is just inherently and unavoidably a bit more dangerous than others: so what’s the point? Why bother?

To start, resource extraction is going to be inherent to any industrial economy, but it’s worth pointing out that when you eliminate a lot of overproduction, an inefficiency inherent to capitalist economy, the demand for extraction is going to shoot down in a big way. That’s a big reason why a lot of the more hardcore environmentalist movements have been radical leftist ones; it’s features inherent to capitalism which are bringing about the downfall of the environment which sustains us.

Another big consideration to make is that a lot of the danger of these fields arises solely because the demands of the profit motive incentivise management to overwork/underpay/cut back on or wholesale eliminate critical safety measures; there’s a reason why unions and collectives in those fields are such critical players in the constant battle to keep people safe.

There are quite a few fields in the domestic/public sector, as well (think electricians, certain waste management professions etc.) which are (and were more so in the past) fairly dangerous but are not generally regarded as such because they’re regulated well in the public domain/have very strong unions/have otherwise strong safety regulation.

This stuff gets safer and safer as we improve the automation of our economy, as well.

It’s worth remembering as well that those remote professions and operations are, in a way, their own communities, as well, and for some people travelling long distances away for more lonesome work is quite an attractive prospect; I once knew a geologist who said he found the relative isolation quite peaceful. My great grandad did some remote mining and he always talked quite positively about it when I knew him (although this is very anecdotal - if anybody in the field wants to weigh in I’d be more than happy to hear what you think).

About hours as well;

If there’s no profit motive, then industrial processes are going to be driven by how to do them as safely, efficiently, and easily (among other stuff). The demand for hours is going to be a lot less tough because you’re going to be able to have more workers and source better equipment without worrying about how it will cut into your bottom line; so yes, the hours will be shorter and the shifts less demanding, with a greater support network and safety network when shit hits the fan. All of this, of course, makes this kind of work a lot more attractive.

But what about dangerous work in general? Why would anyone put themselves in danger?

You just have to look at the tremendous danger that volunteers face to understand that humans don’t really need a profit motive to put their lives on the line to better their communities and the world, or to feel part of something greater than themselves. Not everyone is going to want to do that, and that’s ok, but some people really derive a lot of happiness and fulfilment from dangerous work.

Humanity is flexible and diverse; working together to champion that is our strength, and it always has been.

#anarchism #anarchist #anarchocommunism #praxis #communism #communist #revolution #leftism #leftist #danger #dangerous work #mining #resource extraction #q and a #qna

[genderkoolaid]

I'm interested in what others think of this video.

On one hand, it discusses fatphobia in a very easy-to-understand manner. It covers the racist, eugenicist, unscientific history of BMI, how it was used by insurance companies, the construction of the obesity epidemic using poor science, talks a good bit about men with eating disorders, calls out the "calories in calories out" model as well as the individualization of health rather than looking at systemic issues, and talks about anti-fat bias as a fact which harms people.

But on the other hand... I was disappointed by how lukewarm it felt. Like, the bring up that the deaths attributed to obesity were grossly inflated, and that doctors are negatively biased against fat patients... but they never connect the two? Like, they never say "hey, maybe the reason why fat people have poor health is in part because doctors are killing them via gross medical neglect"? Or questioning what exactly is counted as a "death from obesity"? Instead, they kind of say "the obesity epidemic is inflated, and might not be an epidemic, but also we aren't saying for sure its not a problem at all."

And they also never bring up the science of diets & how they don't work! They discuss diet culture and are very critical of diets, but they don't discuss how diets have been shown to fail by many studies. And they also don't bring up Health At Any Size & how that tactic has been shown to improve health regardless of whether or not there's weight loss. Their advice for how to deal with this problem is basically "don't fatshame people," which isn't wrong but its also doesn't really encourage people to confront internalized & systemic fatphobia on a meaningful level. I don't think they ever say the word "fatphobia."

Its just... disappointing! Like on one hand, you could say this video is good as an introduction into how the fatphobia industry has been built for people who have very little knowledge on it and are resistant to anti-diet culture ideas. On the other hand, its annoying that even leftist media is still so hesitant to actually engage with more radical fat liberation- most people don't even know that its been a movement since the 1960s. It just feels like a missed opportunity. It feels like the left is stuck at "don't be mean to fat people!" and refuses to move on to more radical notions of fat people as an oppressed class.

@fatphobiabusters do you have any thoughts on this?

#m.

[lobotomyladylives]

You’re pro gun? I’m not from the USA so I’m just curious. I’d feel so anxious if people around me were carrying a gun.

Is it not scary to have a weapon that could possibly take someone’s life?

long winded rambling answer under the cut, to my many mutuals who hate america with a fiery passion (I get it #ally #hero #oneofthegoodones #pleasedontholdyourapplause) I advise that you scroll past this bc it's just an american talking about american issues & may cause your blood pressure to rise

So, I would say that I'm pro gun under specific circumstances-I carry a glock as a self defense weapon & am trained to use it, and I frequently advise other women to do so as well bc it's by far the most reliable way to stop an attacker that is larger & stronger than you are. Knives, tasers, & pepper spray, while better than nothing, all have significant limitations and downsides & due to being close range. An attacker can usually overpower you and take your weapon away once they get close. The idea is not to allow them to get close enough to disarm you in the first place. Guns are long range weapons and therefore ideal for protecting yourself. I actually feel WAY safer walking around while I'm carrying my gun than I ever did before! It's genuinely empowering imo.

All that being said...I obviously don't like the fact that it's so easy for deranged men to buy weapons like AR-15s, which are designed not for self defense but to slaughter as many people in as little time as possible (there's a reason almost all mass shooters use this type of gun). I also hate the NRA & their lobbying efforts. Gun control is a really complicated issue that I think both sides simplify for the sake of winning an argument when there's really no easy solution to this problem. Yes, other countries have had success with outright bans, but the thing is we already have more guns than people in America, it's extremely easy for criminals to buy them illegally, so what libertarians say about gun control only applying to law abiding citizens is not entirely inaccurate imo.

The other thing is that trying to implement gun control to the level of other countries would legitimately start a civil war in the US. That's how strong gun culture is here. It doesn't help that the right to own a gun is baked into our constitution & that our government was founded on well organized militias overthrowing a tyrannical monarchy that had a more structured military.

Conservatives & libertarians (as well as many leftists, like me) think that there may come a time where we need to ride up against a tyrannical government again, and obviously a well armed population is a less vulnerable population. People say "well, the government has nukes, what are some guns going to do?!" but they're making several wrong assumptions about the nature of guerilla warfare, how civilian resistance operations are carried out, and what governments are generally willing to sacrifice. To explain it all would turn this already long answer into an essay but in short, the US government is not ever going to drop an atomic bomb on one of its own cities to get rid of some insurgents. It would kill their supporters as well, turn more people into radicals, the collateral damage & financial ruin involved is not a price any leader would be willing to pay unless they were actually clinically insane.

If I had to make the decisions myself I would focus primarily on the social problems that lead to violence as well as repairing the broken mental healthcare system in this country. Of course Republicans always SAY they want to do this whenever a shooting happens but they clearly don't give enough of a fuck about it to actually pass any legislature that would make accessing mental health services easier for people in poverty on account of them all being money hungry psychopaths.

#in short-looser gun laws for women tighter gun laws for men #asks

[kiefbowl]

I know you're probably sick of hearing about amazon in general but I just want to mention that their impact on the environment is truly worst than most people think. I work somewhere that process Amazon returns and it makes me genuinely disgusted at some people's consumerism. I'm talking about people bringing back litteral dozens of amazon parcels on a weekly basis. Clearly they had no intention of keeping those things, they just love getting a new package and opening it. It's not a rare behavior either. The return process uses a ton of fuel (much more than if they were juste returning something to their local store) and just as much plastic (seriously, I know it doesn't look like that much but I tried to imagine how much tape was used on a daily basis just for amazon returns and it made me sick to my stomach. And that's just the tape...). Anyway, I'm venting at this point but you're 1000% correct, amazon is trash and I don't trust anyone selfish enough to defend it.

yeah :( part of the problem is that "hauls" are now a type of online content. people buy stuff to open it on camera to their followers with no real intention of keeping any of it. it's an indefensible way to behave tbh. someone buying a couple of cheapo pants off shein a couple times of year isn't great but it's better than buying stuff every week so you have boxes to open on camera. you can't act that way and call yourself radical or leftist or marxist or whatever left leaning words people want to use as identity markers. like we can't get around buying stuff sometimes and I don't want to live in a world where nothing exists, even fun frivolous stuff - but the fact that so many people act like "well if I want something what exactly can I do besides buy it??" as some sort of defense to buying things when...you could literally want less and maybe explore why you constantly want things and maybe realize you are being manipulated by marketing. if you use your airfryer every day and plan on keeping it clean and working for 10 years, that's awesome. if you bought it because you saw 17 reels online about it being cool and only used it twice, you could have kept your money and done a little elbow grease (barely) to go look up how to cook those things with the stove and oven you have. if you feel like you need to avoid repeating outfits all month, maybe think about who actually benefits from you thinking like that. so if you see yourself as so left you're off the spectrum, you really should be trying the best you can to buy less and optimize more. and as a hint, like you say, if you're returning stuff constantly, you're not doing so hot. imo ;)

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Y'know, in the same vein as the earlier post about not policing reclamation of slurs/language used by marginalized groups...

I really hate not feeling safe in any spaces dedicated to activism for others causes as a disabled person.

I'm too scared to ever say how much it hurts when the words for our symptoms and pathologies are used derisively. When "delusion" is used to mean "a non-pathological disconnect from reality caused by radicalized hatred and bigotry". When "stupid", "idiot", "moron" and so on are used nearly exclusively to describe bigots, bad people, and exclusionists, reaffirming the idea that intelligence has any correlation to morality and harm. How words like "narcissistic", "sociopathic", and "psychotic" are used as synonyms for abusive and bigoted.

I see it in activist spaces for communities that I'm in. I'm scared to say anything out of fear I'll be denied both resources and community itself and be outcast and dogpiled for daring to ask for a change in language that would make disabled people within the community feel safer and more comfortable.

I see it in activist spaces that I enter as an ally. I'm afraid the axis on which I have privilege will become a weapon in trying to speak up on the axis in which the people using the language (often) have it. I know dynamics of privilege and oppressive power are complex and often fluid themselves, and try to simply uplift the disabled people within these communities... but they're encountering the problem in the last paragraph and are often just as scared to speak, so no ones does and the issue continues unchecked.

(I see it in activist spaces where I am questioning or joining the community, especially where I'm trying to educate myself while I occupy the weird space between "ally" and "member".)

Sometimes I see members of specific marginalized groups that I'm not in say that no one else could possibly understand entering queer or plural or even just leftist spaces and facing the deeply rooted bigotry against that marginalized group in what's supposed to be a safe space. I know I can't understand exactly with each specific form of bigotry, but I have experienced a form of that. I know what it's like for what's supposed to be a safe space to be deeply unsafe on the basis of identity.

I wonder when I see these words being used in this way: if they knew I had NPD, would they think I'm more likely to be an abuser? Would they reveal years into a friendship as close as any romantic relationship that they thought I was "one of the good ones"? Would they say "narcissism is different from Narcissism the Personality Disorder, anyone is capable of being a Bad Narcissist" and simply not care enough to listen to the person hurt by those words about how they hurt them? Would they care that I don't know whether they think people like me are less than human when they use that language, but I do know they're using my identity as a pejorative?

I wonder: If I ask them to reconsider conflating lack of intelligence with harm, if I pointed out that this is insidious language which upholds the oppression of those with mental, intellectual, cognitive, and developmental disabilities - particularly by subtly perpetuating the idea that we are dangerous - if I point out the way we flinch every time we see "stupid" as an insult because, well, it's a word that's been used against us, that belongs to us, that is us (in a way we refuse to have taken away)... will they care?

I wonder: If it's pointed out how misuse of terms related to psychosis and delusions are foundational to sanism, that the contexts in which they are misused often link them to "dangerous" and "harmful" behaviors which only serves to further the myth that "mad" mentally ill people are a danger and need to be locked away for their own good and the good of society, if I talk about how this language is inaccurate, taking the few words we have for what can be intensely traumatizing experiences internally and are almost always intensely traumatizing identities to hold in a sanist society where we are many times more vulnerable to abuse than most... what would be the response?

Will I be accused of "derailing"? "Stealing important language" from "the real victims"? Of "speaking over marginalized people" in cases where we each have full, nonconditional/noncontextual privilege on one of the axes involved? Will attempts at education over words being used derogatorily against nonconsenting parties (which is still harmful even by parties that can reclaim said language for self-usage) that are carefully neutral in tone and wording and even encouraging be ignored because it's not focused on "the real issue"?

I mean, this is an issue even within disabled spaces, particularly those for physical disability (which I am in as a physically disabled person), much like corpoableism is prevalent and harmful in mad and neurodivergent spaces. It's not a unique issue. Ableism is so pervasive and so insidious in our society that many people are legitimately ignorant. Ignorance is neither evil nor a crime.

When I was less traumatized in this regard, I had many lovely interactions with individuals who were grateful to be informed about these things, with whom I was able to have nuanced conversations about how language itself can be neutral but the context of its usage can cause it to further harmful ideologies.

Unfortunately, the bad interactions vastly outnumbered these in scope, scale, and magnitude. People who seemed otherwise progressive and anti-bigotry would go full mask-off fascist, claiming everything from "narcissists should all be lined up and shot" to that I was "clearly too [r-slur] to understand how these words were actually perfectly fine" to how I was "psychotic and should be locked up and asylum treatments should be brought back".

Honestly, those were the least traumatizing interactions. It was the little, subtle stuff - the way self-identified abled people would turn around the accusations of ableism and accuse me of being ableist (or otherwise bigoted, usually against my own other identities) in classic DARVO fashion. The way people would twist and manipulate my words to claim I was arguing something I never said in order to shut down discussions of ableism that might force them to examine their own accountability and complicity. The way people just wouldn't ever take conversations on ableism seriously and will ridicule any attempts at discussing any ableism that isn't shouting r slurs at people in the streets or telling disabled people you hope their disability kills them.

The way that I struggled to find examples extreme enough for that last sentence, because if you're subtle enough you can use equivalent words to the slur or simply IMPLY that disabled people are burdens on society who live miserable lives that are not in any way fixable and that we and everyone else would be happier and better off if disabled people were dead.

I want to make it clear: if you have any willingness to learn, if any of the language you use has been out of ignorance and you are willing to listen (even if you need to take time to be in the headspace to process it properly), if you can even sit with this post and not reactively do the aforementioned behaviors... this isn't about you. This is a vent post about the people who make it unsafe and terrifying to open a dialogue with the people that simply aren't educated on every possible form every kind of bigotry can take.

I'm constantly terrified. I relate to what other marginalized people - jewish people, people of color, even people with specific disabilities I don't share - are going through right now. This isn't to call out any specific space, because it's just... everywhere. How can you stand up to it when it's so completely ubiquitous? How do you maintain the courage to keep demanding a baseline standard of decency when everybody is using the language that the people who legitimately think you should be dead or worse use?

How do you explain that something is a dogwhistle for your own dehumanization and oppression to someone, when odds worse than a coin flip are that they agree with the premise of the dogwhistle even if not knowingly using it as such?

I dunno.

People are welcome to reblog this, though of course I will never pressure anyone to do so (and if this triggers any kind of OCD or other compulsions, this is me giving you a pass not to do so!)

I debated on asking people to keep the discussion centered on ableism or to limit commentary to only those affected by ableism, but quite honestly, I think the discussion would be enriched by discussing this phenomenon as it pertains to other forms of bigotry. All I ask is that for anyone who does participate in this conversation, that no one ridicules or derides anyone for expressing "this is a form of my oppression/bigotry that hurts me" and that we all do our best to center the voices most affected by a given issue, even while allowing for participation in that part of the discussion by others.

(Maybe this post will languish and die without opening a conversation and that last paragraph is just my ego getting the better of me lol. Who knows?)

This also is really just a vent post. Not a call out post, not meant to assign blame, not any kind of attempt at holding anyone accountable (what an ineffective tool a tumblr post would be for that, anyway!), not anything other than expressing frustration and rage and grief and pain and terror and trauma over the way the lines between well-intentioned ignorance and malicious but pretty-sounding hatred have been blurred by bad faith actors.

I will say though for those willing, one of the best ways to combat this problem is to educate yourselves and others. It's okay to focus your efforts on members of your communities that you trust to be receptive to you specifically. It's okay to only spread the basics and direct to disabled (or otherwise marginalized, for other issues) activists who are focused on education for further information.

Sometimes "privilege" in the context of marginalization can simply mean "I will not be hurt by someone being reactive towards an identity that I'm not, AND they're less likely to do so in the first place because they know I am a safe person for our shared identity".

That's maybe an imperfect explanation, but it's one pulled from my own experiences calling in members of communities I'm in. Calling in is better, whenever possible, for this reason! It's why my fears expressed about communities that I am entering as an ally and a disabled person are about causing harm, rather than just being harmed, but which tie into the fact that disabled people within those communities fear being harmed.

Entering the conversation as someone who is marginalized AND nonmarginalized on the same axes as the other person puts you very solidly on even footing. It makes a space recognizable as safe by ALL parties from the start. Discussing bigotry that does not affect you especially, even if you lack some depth of perspective on it, lowers the stakes and allows the delicate conversation to take root and grow.

#ableism #sanism #activism #trauma

[gremlintrash]

Ok but why is there always a reason. When it's about macro all of a sudden it's oh why should I care about the sob story of some bihettie who couldn't ever live through a day of real homophobia. When it's ppl like inosa or swagy or radgoose or countless others getting told disgusting things like that their bfs should kill them, it's laughed off too and it's like oh go back to your hettie world if you're so mad. When it's about catboy it's like oh why should I care if we make fun of the SA of some moid thats praxis actually. When it was ppl saying bi women are just like tims and they're weaponizing their rape it's oh why can't you bihets learn to read none of that matters. When there was a big burst of a bunch of people getting openly attacked by "blackpills" it was oh this is just so online why are the bihetties playing the victim. These ppl are just coming out to advance the position that they won't go after you no matter what you say about bihets. Like the refusal to condemn anything at all unambiguously is very much the point.

Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that people these days (esp young people) are not any more progressive than other generations... I honestly think their politics and values are possibly more conservative than 10-20 years ago - these are just my feelings as a low income bisexual woman who is pretty white passing but I've had friends of other races (esp older friends in their 30s-40s) talk about how they feel the same thing in regards to how ppl are regarding race now and there's tons of posts circulating about how people are more homophobic than 10-20 years ago and we just lost roe v wade, income disparity is worse and social services are cut, etc etc etc

I feel like people such as you described above are highly individualistic and don't really have principles in the traditional way like "x behavior is bad" like if we use examples specific to the recent state of radblr re: the treatment of bisexual users, they don't think that homophobia and misogyny are unacceptable behaviors, they think its perfectly fine to leverage homophobia and misogyny against groups they see as "other" and don't identity with in some way. There's always a reason why the people I have marked as "other" deserve their mistreatment and why my own actions and the actions of people belonging to the group I identify with are excused from scrutiny.

A lot of the time in spite of how they call themselves "radical" (feminist or leftist or whatever) they express behaviors and ideals which are sooo extremely in line with the cultural norm for treating people of marginalized groups.

Examples relevant to this convo: Gay and bi women talking about how they "don't fuck with" bi women because they are untrustworthy and flaky partners and "most of them are basically straight and will end up with men anyway" so they don't need LGB community support

Also, determining that a woman's intimate relationships overshadow all of her other actions, and feeling entitled to information about a woman's sexuality to determine how valid you think her words are and how much support from her community she deserves.

Also, telling a victim of sexual assault and homphobia his problems arent real and he should be quiet about them.

Also, you can't trust women with partners and especially children to take part in feminism because they're going to by default center their lives around their male partners and children, so they're going to at best half-ass things and probably just decide to focus on their families instead anyway, may as well exclude them and write them off.

But its okay because the women in the first example were gay and bi, even though they're saying the same things straight men say about bi women. The second example is okay because it's statements and demands made by other women a lot of whom are gay and bi, not men or gossip rags. The third example is okay because it's gay/bi women speaking to a man. The last example is okay because it's said by other women who call themselves feminists, and not a sexist boss, even if they have the same way of thinking and similar actions with similar results.

And on one hand I get it, these people are trying to pass along their own hurt a lot of the time and they are usually legitimately telling themselves and each other that they aren't doing anything worse than maybe hurting the feelings of individual strangers. But they're adults who are behaving in unacceptable ways, and honestly some behavior should just be unacceptable, like... we should be kind to each other if we want people to be kind to us. Beyond that though, the concept of "punching up" has rotted people's brains and is ruining our community solidarity, is honestly a huge class consciousness issue, and they are doing more tangible harm than they're admitting to themselves.

I see this way of thinking as way more of an obstacle for dismantling these power structures than activists being imperfect in their personal decisions. Like, structural opression does not exist in a vacuum and spring forth from nothing, it requires a culture mindset to continue. Like, the whole deal with structural opression is that the opressed groups "deserve" their structural oppression in some way like it's always "justified". While the power structures/axes of opression/classes DO serve social and economic functions, human beings are emotional beings and most people aren't evil, to get social animals to hurt each other you have to socialize them to do so... like as feminists I think we know that at least.

"It doesn't matter if you shave because you prefer it, it perpetuates the expectation for women to remove their body hair and you are indirectly socializing other women as part of society" but then, if you have a good reason you can excuse homophobia or misogyny and suddenly it doesn't contribute to any larger power structures or the socialization of those in your communities?

If you have conditions in which you support homophobic or misogynistic (or racist and so on) behavior then first of all, you're perpetuating the cultural mindset and socialization that allow the abusive power structures to exist in the first place which beings me to my second point... it will lead to them being used against you by people who deem YOU as "other" at some point, unless you're the most privileged person on earth and there's no axis of oppression someone could decide to flip on you if they feel you deserve it and we all just keep crabs-in-a-bucketing each other

It's in our own best interests to treat each other as well as possible, that is my belief. Anything else is cutting off the nose to spite the face, who benefits?

#ik your point was more targeted but ive been thinking about this a lot lately #and imo it applies to the homophobia towarda lesbians on radblr and the racism as well #and like i said its pretty much the same outaide as well which is why it makes me roll my eyes when they fixate so much on being “radical” #if anyone reads all of this ily lets get married #txt #i also think everyone is like this now for psyop reasons but im being so normal rn #like it's just convenient isn't it

[nokingsonlyfooles]

“It’s my hope, Mr. President, that you listen to us, that you choose democracy over tyranny.” - Abdullah Hammoud, Dearborn Mayor and Voter

YES! I can't fuckin' believe the media accurately reported this as a protest and printed/publicized the words of the voters explaining why they did it. AND NOBODY HAD TO ATTEMPT SUICIDE! This is big and it could get even bigger! But it's a qualified bigness, because...

Walz, a major supporter of Biden’s reelection campaign, said Michigan’s “uncommitted” results were a healthy demonstration of democracy. “I think they feel passionate, as they should, about an issue we all care about,” Walz said, adding that he expected most protest voters would eventually return to Biden’s side in a likely November rematch with former President Donald Trump, who himself has struggled with college-educated voters and suburbanites in his ongoing Republican primary against former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. “I’m much more convinced there’s a chance bringing those folks home is much greater than bringing the ‘Never Trump’ folks back home,” Walz said.

Yeah. I know this song and dance. I've seen it happen in person, at protests, in reatime. They come out to "do voter outreach" and they're all smiles to start. "Yes! Please do continue to act upon your freedom of speech in a way I, an advocate for the status quo, find nonthreatening. Your feelings are valid, ha-ha! I expect nothing to change, and indeed I will act to change nothing, but good for you!" A few folks always believe the message has been received and quiet down, that's why they do it. But wait and see what happens to that smile when a few people start interrupting and yelling, "THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"

At least this guy's willing to suggest Biden would pick up more votes by moving left than moving right, although I doubt he actually expects anything radical. A few more forgiven student loans or somewhat cheaper drugs aren't much of a problem, and that's leftist too! So we don't really have to worry about the ongoing genocide.

The thing is, if/when this picks up momentum and the DNC starts to think they might have to change something or lose, it will become something other than a positive demonstration of free speech. It'll be childish tantrum-throwing, pointless, uncivil, attention-whoring, astroturfed, counterproductive foreign interference, and whatever else sounds bad. If any of you out there in internet-land already feel threatened by it, you're probably saying that right now. (Go ahead and comment, you'll boost this with other people who think like you, and I might change some minds.)

And, if you are comfortable with it and want voters to do it instead of threatening to withhold votes from Biden in the general, check your privilege. Not every state offers this. Unless something changes real fast (at least, I THINK it hasn't changed, it's hard to do a search when "uncommitted" brings up SO MANY news articles about Michigan 😁), mine won't. I can't do this. I can't vote in a third party primary either. It'd be all blue or nothing. And neither of those things will get me any press, so I gotta keep talking. Maybe I'll motivate someone who can vote uncommitted! Or scare a politician! I still think I'm doing more good by staying alive, and I'm a bit distant from any property I might meaningfully damage (although I am open to suggestions that won't get me arrested and silenced), so this is the only thing I got that won't injure a human being.

Tumblr, no matter how you actually intend to vote, if you're not up for living in a two-party system where both parties think they can do a little genocide and stay in power, you have ways of making yourself heard. There are options beyond falling in line behind the lesser evil. Don't let anyone tell you there aren't. And when you start hearing "stop!" or "you can't!" that means you have something they want. A cessation of hostilities! Well, now you might be in a position to negotiate terms! Don't give up!

Please, please, please don't give up. There is so much to be done.

#us news #us elections #michigan primary #protest votes #protest #democracy #democrats #democratic party #palestine #genocide #resist #nonviolent resistance #uncommitted

[theremina]

Extending heartfelt apologies to anyone who happened to see my reposts of Clementine Morrigan's writings over the past few days.

As a messy, traumatized Harpy committed to honoring all peoples' baseline humanity regardless of what they've done --as well as someone whose lifelong CPTSD is sssllloooowwwllllyyy healing as I embrace personal accountability, avoid B&W thinking, and extend grace and compassion to myself and others-- I was taken in by a lot of what Morrigan says about encouraging non-punitive modalities. I reposted her words without learning how she herself is actively complicit in perpetuating ongoing harm to others in leftist and liberal spheres, especially as the popularity of her podcast FUCKING CANCELLED grows.

In retrospect, I see that I was moved by Morrigan's writings primarily because they're a clever, zinger-filled repackaging of more genuine and nuanced essays penned by others. Namely, by queer Black folks and other more sophisticated and culturally rooted voices.

When I posted Morrigan's stuff, I had no idea about her partner Jay Manicom's forceful silencing of several BIPOC peers and partners they'd allegedly abused and made no amends to. I didn't realize that Morrigan was publicly weaponizing abolitionist and twelve-step language in order to defend Manicom's alleged ongoing violence and harm. Said harm includes sending legal threats to several survivors, femme PoC, after they'd repeatedly asked him to join them in a circle to hash things out. When these folks spoke out about their experiences, both Manicom and Morrigan were quick to frighten, shame, and silence them. (Even while simultaneously decrying similar acts perpetrated against credibly alleged serial perpetrators! Try to make it make sense!)

Comparing "cancel culture" to the carceral state by using appropriated language and concepts that Black and Indigenous activists have been cultivating and nurturing for centuries is not an approach I want to lend any credibility to. It's DARVO. White femme DARVO. That's messed up.

When a popular, charismatic young white woman, a self-described "powerhouse" and "controversial public figure", goes so far as to compare survivors' requests for basic accountability and community-wide responsibility to "acting like a cop", there's some straight-up pastel Q-Anon dog whistle "Guru Jagat" horseshit goin' down.

Recently, I observed Morrigan on a panel with several other speakers, all healers from various lineages whom I admire and trust. I enjoyed their talks a lot. But in spite of my initial enthusiasm for Morrigan's breezy social media writings, as soon as she launched into her very polished, practiced lip service to radical compassion and acceptance, red flags started popping up for me. BIG Russell Brand energy. (And most of you already know how I feel about THAT righteous broheim. I've been roasting him years.)

Observing Morrigan's onscreen presentation, my curiosity died almost instantly. I won't say I was shocked by her performativity. I did experience rolling waves of nausea. Whether it's a fair assessment or not, I parsed her almost instantly as yet another cult-of-personality cultivator who is using hierarchical tactics to center the comfort and safety of active, unapologetic abusers ahead of everyone else. Not okay. She may have the best intentions in the world, but NO THANK YOU.

Morrigan's particular approach to justice is not what I'm about. If it were, I'd still be hanging out with a whole lot of sketchy af people I met in various green rooms over the years and making a whole lot more money while we all dance together around similar cognitive dissonance in our professional lives as celebrities, pundits, and "righteous" preachers. Again, no thank you.

I wanted to fast-forward through Morrigan's portion of the presentation, but gritted my teeth through it out of respect for the panel's curator. The wild thing is, on paper, I agree with *so much of what she says*! Still, something felt very, very off. So I went and read up further, and finally understood why my heart was sinking, my stomach, churning.

I wholeheartedly respect that the healers who invited Morrigan onto this panel have a different, more generous perception of her. I'm not making this post to demonize or dehumanize Morrigan, her partner, her friends, her listenership, or anyone else who leans into ye olde "hurt people hurt people" tenets in order to make sense of various horrors committed by them or to them.

However, the FUCKING CANCELLED fan club is most assuredly not something I want to give my time, energy, or trust to any more than I would Amanda Palmer's, or Rosie O'Donnell's, or Rose McGowan's, or Lena Dunham's, or Asia Argento's, etc.

My casual shares of Morrigan's work were a mistake. Consider this post a personal retraction. If there are further reparations I should consider, please let me know. Especially if you're a transformative justice buddy who has been quietly observing my promotions of her and feelin' barfy because of it!

Please, please know that I wouldn't have boosted her bandwidth so blithely, had I dug a bit deeper. I hope no one was too hurt or freaked out by my ignorant shares.

My apologies and my love. In solidarity. May all beings be free from suffering. Ashe.

#Clementine Morrigan #Jay Marquis-Manicom #Jay LeSoleil #transformative justice #abolition #anti-racist #FUCKING CANCELLED

[azhdakha]

I am kind of loosing hope in the decolonization movement in Russia for my people and my republic. I have already written about it, but I need venting as I don't really have anything to talk to about it. From what I have seen the majority of a big percent of our decolonial activists are very or sometimes extremely traditionalist, religious and conservative. Should I explain why it goes on the opposite direction with the leftist values? Probably not. You might have heard that radical conservatism, forcing religion etc is already a problem in Russia. And I honestly don't see any reason in being forced into Christianity or being forced into Islam, as my people and the people of my native republic(neighboring) are traditionally majority Muslims. A lot of these put religion as some major or even the main and only factor in decolonizing their land. Meaning, decolonization = returning to traditions. As someone who does value their own indigenous culture, I understand the importance of traditions, as well as I understand the significance of Islam in our history and in colonization. Forced christanization and a lot of limitations and oppression was used as an instrument of colonialism and assimilation. I am interested in learning about Islam and learning about the traditions. But I am genuinely tired of constant judgement and negativity towards secular tatars and bashkirs or those who prefer to leave their religion. Not even mentioning feminism and lgbt community(yeah, I am not cisstraight, neither is my partner, who is also not tatar, so I am combo of a dirty mankurt). Sometimes I feel like maybe I am being bigoted and don't understand them. Or that I have to be more tolerant in uniting with them against Russia. But how? With people that are literally negative towards me and that have totally completely different aims other than overthrowing Russia? I don't know. The only good thing about them is that they support Palestine. But they do it in some weird antisemitic way, claiming Jewish people as an ethnicity for that or denying Holocaust. Liberal opposition meanwhile support Israel for some reason. Idiotic situation, right?

This is it, basically. I want to be together with my prople and support decolonization, but at the same time I meet too any that have completely different values and don't see me as an equal human. And it does hurt very much.

#azhdakha

[opinated-user]

LO defends Sophie Labelle

on her last video "maybe politics as fandom wasn't a good idea" LO used the image of Sophie Labelle, creator of Assigned Male, as an example of "were you pedojacketing trans women online" at around 0:18.

i assume most people know by now what Sophie Labelle did that earned her the label of being a dangerous person for minors, but for those who don't here's the shortest summary: it was find out that Sophie Labelle had an secret alternative account where she published furry diaper art, since that was her fetish, and deleted it as soon it was found out. before that, some people noticed that at least one of the pictures she draw used real life baby as reference, practically tracing over it. it's highly possible that there were many other examples of this happening but the account was gone before anyone could look any deeper, as surely it was Labelle's intention. it wasn't, as LO makes it seem, "radicalized people" the ones at the front of dennouncing this outside of KF. most of the loudest voices during this "controversy" were trans survivors on twitter who were rightfully concerned because Labelle was a influential voice in leftist/trans spaces, many of which included parents of vulnerable children or children themselves. this dennouncing did little else but stop Labelle from posting more frequently. she still has her business going, many people aren't aware of what fully happened or don't realize how serious it is that she purposefully witholds information about what she did. for even more information, this post could help since it contain screenshots of the original tweet with the two pictures side by side and the response of Labelle.

i can't stress this enough: this is not information tucked away on KF anymore. it was exposed on twitter, expanded to facebook and other platforms too. many people became disgusted and dissapointed when they found out because they were fans of Labelle, they have supported her work before, they probably even share it with their own children. by dismissing all these people as "radicalized alt righters" and putting them on the same level as people who would send bomb threats to children's hospital (0:15), LO send two messages to her audience: 1. what Sophie Labelle wasn't too bad and only bad people would care that much about it, so they shouldn't be listened to. 2. "i'm being slandered just as these other two trans women and we all three are equally innocent". someone might argue that maybe LO doesn't know about the reason of the controversy and that is why she can easily dismiss it, as she indeed did when people brought it up to her. the only issue she did had with Sophie is that she is queerpositive on her works and nothing else. i remember many post like the one below that happened the day after Labelle have been dennounced on social media.

https://archive.vn/ldTR6

https://archive.vn/VAzsK

this post have been deleted from her tumblr as far i could search on her blog, even the ones that talked positively about the comic itself.

considering that we recently discovered the sankaku accounts of LO, which we know includes instances of multiple artists using real minors as references, one can't help to wonder why LO feels the need to defend Labelle and, more than that, directly put herself on the same level as her.

#lily orchard #lily orchard is transphobic #lily orchard is a predator

[daffodilhorizon]

i've always been outspoken about equal rights. It started with posts about mental illness stigma. Since being traumatized as a child, i've struggled with depression and anxiety. I opened up about this, in hopes others would feel inspired to share their stories. There's every reason why suffering from mental illness should not happen alone. Then i started talking about gay rights and biphobia and feminism and #metoo and the patriarchy. I tirelessly educated on rape culture and mansplaining. I went hard on telling people to vote (haha) for the most liberal option available. I told people about the wealth gap and classism. I educated myself and read both anarchist and communist theory, and then i started criticizing colonialism and exploitation itself. I advocated for unions, i told people to never cross a picket line and to support strikes. I was already ACAB before Ferguson, but after that i spent years reading antiracist theory and seeking out black revolutionaries. I had to tell an extended family member "all lives don't matter until black lives do". I did not shy from my work in attempting to gently radicalize the people in my life. I attempted to educate others on why we need prison and cop abolition and the alternatives. I got pretty far, even with people i don't consider leftists! Like anyone else, i of course, advocated for environmentalism. I myself do not own a car and go to great lengths to use fully renewable energy. I re-use before recycling. I avoid plastic when i can. In my veganism self-education, i learned about disability rights. This was enforced further during covid. I stopped using ableist language or comparisons. I have successfully eradicated using comparisons to intelligence in my daily life and gently correct people around me when they use them to use a better word. None of this lost me any friends. Until i brought up animal rights. Even the tamest "i'm vegan" had acquaintances putting distance between us. My entire family turned on me, simply for saying stuff like "you are a good person, you just don't see the difference between your cat and a pig because of defense mechanisms, but you would be upset if your cat went through what animals at those places do." or saying killing a turkey is wrong. Then i started losing friends and being ostracized. From people who said nothing even when i pointed out war crimes against Palestine and are full anti-capitalists. People who are open minded, and generally kind to others. People's environmentalism evaporated when i pointed out that methane from cows is x28 as heating as CO2 in the short term, that we can't stay under 2c without people being plant based, or that the majority of plastic in the ocean is from fishing nets, or that fishing is killing way more sea turtles and other "cute" animals than straws. Even just mentioning animal victims a few times every now and then is enough to make people uncomfortable. Definitely not a sign of their own guilt or anything! How painful must the reminder be, to have to completely block out not only the victims at every meal, but humans who remind them of the suffering they are inflicting as well. So it's very jarring to me now, to see other people advocating for other causes saying much more extreme things and not getting any negative social feedback. Straight up mainposting things like "you are a bad person for voting wrong" is becoming more normal with the election season coming up. But vegans get shut down simply for bringing up animal abuse, because carnists know deep down it's wrong to hurt animals and objectify them into commodities. That's why they care so much about animals they view as "cute" "pets" or value (at least on the surface) animals they admire for being free and wild such as Elephants, pretty birds, and whales.

#vegan silencing #vegan stigma #sensitive carnists

[she-is-ovarit]

I need to rant to a radfem, even though ig this is a relationship problem...my boyfriend is leftist, it's clear that he's leaning radfem ally, which is nice, but I feel like he protects leftist men way too much in the way of misogyny.

I was talking about how performative men are when they posture hatred for pedophilia/rape, and he want on to say that "conservatives just do it more." I agree that conservatives definitely support institutional rape and pedophilia, but obviously progressive men are engaging in it as well if it's still such a widespread problem (I also have first hand experience with more than one progressive man in this regard).

He eventually agreed with me at the end, but most of the conversation he kind of seemed to be defending leftist men as if they don't contribute to rape statistics at all, just because they don't appear to support institutional misogyny.

The whole thing just put me off, and this isn't the first time he's had a take like this. It kinda just makes me wanna stop engaging with him politically at all, at least when it comes to radical feminism.

I am sorry to hear you're going through that, that sounds like a frustrating place to be. I don't feel that I can provide you with fresh wisdom or a very relational perspective as I'm not currently in a relationship and I'm homosexual, nor do I generally hang around men much anymore. However, I can say I would likely be upset too if I was in your shoes. It is distressing to have female-centered perspectives on issues dismissed or ignored just generally, but especially by people within our intimate circles. Men across any political ideology do not generally consider things from a female-focused lens and are less inclined to do so when a group they associate with or their core beliefs fall under scrutiny. Political polarization certainly doesn't help with this.

#ask

[genderkoolaid]

I've been trying to put it into words properly so I figured I should ask how you feel about it too

So there's just been something that's been bothering me about how people have taken the conversation about how in the stonewall days trans women have been in the frontlines only to be abandoned in favor of respectability politics etc and how particularly in online spaces it's been used/weaponized to just be, well, homophobic.

Like it went from a very reasonable and important conversation to just "while you f*gs have been busy being useless and dying of AIDS the transfems and lesbians did the Actual Work". Idk if you've met with this sentiment yourself but in some online queer spaces it's not uncommon to hear "cis gays did nothing for queer liberation" (while also being very much queerphobic like opposing leather daddies being at pride, go figure lmao) which is just, not true??? And I don't see how that's uplifting or helpful to anyone, also note the lack of any mention of trans men too.

I hope I'm making sense it's just been bothering me and I don't blame transfems for that because it's been mostly cis lesbians acting like this from what I've personally seen. The "supporting" of transfems seems to be an excuse to be homophobic which is very gross.

Oh yeah, I get what you mean. "Trans women built pride" is used a lot as an empty gesture of support (like, "yeah you girls did so much for queer people back in the day thanks!!" without actually doing anything to support transfems who are suffering Right Now. idk if there's a "strong trans woman" stereotype but it feels like it's starting to come about in leftist spaces, but thats a whole separate conversation) and that's gotten picked up the TIRFs to be like "men did NOTHING in queer history and it was all the women and femmes (a group which somehow does not include men) who did the hard work!!" Like... acting as though gay men are just passive observers in gay history, that we haven't done anything "real" for queer history. It also erases transfems who might've also been gay men.

And I don't think the origins of this are bad; there is a very real reason to be loud about the part trans people and queer women played in queer history, because there has been a lot of erasure. But, y'know, radfem misandry is like glitter. It gets all over everything.

There's also the fact that trans men & nonbinary/genderqueer people are almost always erased from this. I don't think we should talk about trans women's part in queer history less, but it's... interesting to me that people never bring up transmasc and GQ people, even though I don't think a lot of folks (especially queer kids) could name a major transmasc figure in modern queer history. I hardly ever see people talking about how Lou Sullivan is the reason that LGB trans people can medically transition, about how he was the first publicly out gay trans men- a major feat, and yet I pretty much only see other trans men talking about him. I've noticed that, at least on tumblr, lesbian/sapphic history tends to have a lot more discussion around it than gay men/achillean history. People view it as less meaningful, less radical, and that's 10000% a radfem concept (I've literally seen a radfem claim that gay men in history basically faced 0 oppression, because they could stay bachelors or just get married and still have relative freedom, which.... is just so insane and coldhearted).

#m. #ask box

[indy-gray]

Nothing frustrates me more than US election season "leftist v liberal" arguments. Congrats you have missed the point so entirely just to make yourself feel good! I'm just gonna put this under a read more because I don't want to clog my followers dash with my rant

Literally liberals will be like "vote blue no matter who!" And ignore all the opportunities they had to improve the Democratic party and create a party they can stand behind

And leftists will spend more time shitting on liberals and talking about the "real good" They're doing at any chance they get even when faced with genuinely tough theoretical questions than they will actually doing all the things they say they do.

Saw someone wax poetic about all the local work they're doing as like a counter to the argument "what alternative to voting blue do we have" as if that actually answers the question???

Like admit all the reading up on history and theory you're doing is literally useless without telling me you're lying out of your ass about reading theory.

And the using of the Palestinian genocide to make your argument makes me sick, like any modern US election can EVER be a single issue. I saw someone say it genuinely doesn't matter who is in the White House for Palestinians and 1. That's not true at all, and 2. Voting is not a virtue signal, it's a chess move.

Like say it was true that it doesn't matter who the president is (it's not) but let's say it it is. Then you are casting your vote (or not) over ONE issue. I care about Palestinians, absolutely, and I'm obviously not happy with Bidens handling of the genocide, nor do I really want him reelected. But realistically, the alternative choice is the GOP nominee, who is TRUMP.

So if I vote for Trump, or vote green and the green party is not (nor will it ever be) elected, then I am also voting for a guy who fully intends to implement policies designed to kill palestinians. And my brother, for example. Or kill me, for that matter. That vote will go to Trump, who has stated in no uncertain terms that he admires and agrees with Putin and actively supports and wants to strengthen Netanyahu.

So in this thought exercise, assuming that the president doesn't matter to the genocide in Palestine, which I can't even agree to, then voting along the "moral" (read "holy") choice would actively harm other marginalized people. How is that moral again???

Because if you care about Trans kids in Texas, the president matters. if you care about health coverage by your employer for certain life threatening health emergencies, the president matters. if you care about poor kids in city districts getting at least one meal a day at school, the president matters.

Voting is not a moral choice, it is a strategic one. And single issue voting is not a system we can survive on. If we want real radical change, we know we can't rely on voting anymore (could we ever?) But the alternative to voting blue people are asking for DOES NOT EXIST.

If you don't like the democratic nominee, you can't do much about that UNLESS you vote. You don't like who's running? Then YOU run. Believe it or not, you can! You SHOULD actually! We need more common people running for small offices and judgeships.

You don't want to vote for the republican? Well you have two voting options, the third party (which, to my leftists claiming to read history and political theory, you KNOW it's not a viable option for change, we have ample studies and analysis of previous elections to look at) and the the democratic party. And the third option is to abstain from voting.

If you don't vote, pat yourself on the back! You have remained ideologically pure, and should be canonized for your hard, holy work. After all, it takes a lot to do less than the bare minimum, and it's especially hard to be able to say that you lack the skills and adult understanding of the world to make hard decisions between two bad options. You have found the secret answer to choosing between the love for your own kids and the love for your neighbors, something no one has ever had to choose between except for you. But it's a good thing this tough choice fell on your shoulders because, like the Saint you are, you managed to make the only correct (holy) decision. By staying silent you have made it clear that you will never stand aside in the face of adversity. There is no issue in this world that can stop you from doing what is Right (holy) and simply not do the most basic easy thing to push the world towards positive change.

Kiss my ass