#but it is emblematic of everything that's wrong with liberals

[princesssarcastia]

thinking about the tragedy of The West Wing tonight. thinking about how jed bartlet convinced josh lyman to work for him, before they ever met, by telling the truth even when it cost him political points. thinking about how bartlet massively betrayed the trust of the people working for him, and also kind of did defraud the american public!

thinking about how even when american liberals write their wet dream political fantasy they still can't get anything done. thinking about how the bartlet white house got so stymied politically the show spent more and more time writing convoluted military plotlines, because they'd hit the ceiling of their own political imagination.

let bartlet be bartlet, they said, and bartlet wanted to lie. he compromised on his agenda and his values. he promoted moderate positions and people. he sat there and watched everything he'd worked for be unwritten by a maverick republican speaker.

the most interesting moment in the back half of the show is when bartlet attains some kind of meta-level awareness of his own ineffectiveness and sends the government into a shutdown because he can't bear to play politics by the rules anymore. but it only lasts for a few episodes before it's back to business as usual.

"Filling another seat on the court may be the only lasting thing I do in this office," Bartlet says, and he's right. yes, they negotiated that deal on social security, but they couldn't take credit for it and that was it! that was their one thing!

no, don't go after the KKK and other white supremacist groups. no, don't publish that study about the necessity of sex education. don't do anything. espouse some grand ideals and watch as they're slowing crushed by the political machinery that YOU are operating.

it's best epitomized long before aaron sorkin left, in a half-overheard exchange happening in another room.

BARTLET: I couldn't disagree more, Cal. As long as these people are funding their public school districts with property taxes, neither the value of the schools nor the value of their property is going to go up. It's a vicious circle. It's terrible and it has to be stopped. CAL: So we're going to do something about it. BARTLET: I wouldn't go that far.

That's a real issue that we need a real solution for. But instead of reaching for the stars, the west wing decided to stay right here in the dirt where our current system has left us. and here we still sit, together, over twenty years later.

#west wing #we are trapped by our own lack of radical imagination #not that any of these problems are the fault of the west wing lol #im not charging them with that #but it is emblematic of everything that's wrong with liberals

[dictee]

I don’t get why people argue it’s problematic to assign gender roles to a same sex couple like isn’t the show engaging with loads of problematic issues?? For better or worse it’s what the show is about. Marrying a powerful wealthy man who promises you everything your hearts desires in order to escape your dissatisfaction only to find he’s a controlling monster. I mean how else are we meant to watch this show without the gender lens! It’s impossible to engage with this show w/o it.

yes! well i understand the idea in principle which is like. generally the attempt to assign gender roles to a same sex couple comes from straight people trying to comprehend a break in the myth of universal heterosexuality in which they are invested. So in that sense yes that's a reductive and inaccurate framework to coerce people into. But that's not what's going on here! the depiction of something and the discussion of it is not the endorsement of it and to treat it as such--to write a world where race class and gender have no bearings on people's existence or behavior--is actively harmful. Like this anon that got sent to a different blog

first of all i dont think either of them are gender nonconforming in terms of presentation LOL (Edit: except for louis in dubai) second of all i don't think anyone talking about for example louis reading edward carpenter in the wake of severe domestic assault is being like i love gender roles and domestic assault lmfao. and thirdly it's not "swapping out" it's what's depicted in the show. but to explain myself in depth anyways 💀:

i think this is emblematic of how totally the project of "representation" has neutralized queer politics. & this is why i think movies that came out under the hays code often have more interesting and nuanced gay characters than movies that came out for decades after. because after it was legal to depict gay people on screen well there's still the amount of homophobic jokes but like putting that aside. "positive" representation is about marketing. it is a reactionary politics that centers on reifying social categories as intrinsic to people's selves and making us think that celebrating those categories is liberation when really it's about creating another market. the rare "respectable" depictions of gay people emphasized assimilation into society ("we're just like you!") and demanded morally upstanding, universalized characters which are fundamentally uninteresting. the earlier hays code depictions (like the children's hour or rope) aren't about representation because they legally couldn't be. instead if they include queer material it is because there is a genuine thematic interest. so often this is very homophobic but also often it involves a real criticism of normative structures.

what i really appreciate about iwtv is that the writers are obviously not interested in presenting a generalized "correct" (and marketable) representation of what gay people are like. because that doesn't exist--the idea that it exists is a trap. and because they have moved beyond what would have been a concern ten years ago, which is the relationship genuinely being interpreted as a message about the evils of homosexuality, and towards an actual thematic engagement. they're interested in telling a complex and engaging story! in the same way, Louis isn't Black so they can say oh we have a Black character who behaves Correctly and proves the racists wrong. the humanity--not the moral perfection--of the characters is already assumed, and therefore not the point. instead we have a story that is concerned with grappling with immortality, trauma, forgiveness--with the core "lie" of vampirism being that it means freedom from the past and the society that made and hurt you. we can understand Louis's deep rooted desire for assimilation and we can see as it plays out how the very premise of the bourgeois nuclear family both conceals and relies on a problematic configuration of power.

there is a real wave of (mostly white) bioessentialist "to be a woman is to be oppressed therefore women are good and men are bad" type rhetoric which serves no one's liberation. and thats emphatically not what i'm trying to get at. i'm not defining womanhood by suffering and i'm not saying louis Is a woman. but i also think it's equally reductive to say the characters are Essentially Gay Men and establish "gay man" as a category somehow discrete and uninfluenced by the heteropatriarchal world. it is reductive to say that gender is absolutely discrete and uninfluenced by social context and the roles we are forced to play. like that too ends up with an essentializing understanding of gender. it's not that abuse in general is feminizing, it's that the abuse in the show is explicitly gendered even as it's in a family with a same sex couple. because the nuclear family is fundamentally a mechanism for the perpetuation of patriarchal abuse. and the show, at least in this season, is explicitly concerned with domesticity and with the inescapability of social roles. And it's criticizing those things. To be clear.

#Long post / #and to say that acknowledging the existence of patriarchy or gendered abuse is bioessentialism is just. unserious #iwtv

[anthonybialy]

Liberally Wrong About Israel

Israel has some nerve surviving.  It’s like they’re trying to encourage anti-Semitism.  The country that keeps fighting just because others keep punching also embarrasses its critics.  Scolding about hunting terrorists embodies how the left sees everything.  Honorary North Koreans get war sides wrong like it’s the economy.  The next round of printing cash will be the one that lets us buy what we want.

Figuring oppression is innate leads to reflexively seeing who’s its victim.  The only way to exacerbate warped claptrap about incessant mistreatment is to identify the alleged oppressor incorrectly.  Of course, atrocity’s enablers do that.  One side targeted the other, which is inconvenient for foes of coherent timelines who think corporations discovered greed after Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Ask who Hamas admirers think were World War II’s bad guys to at least get some giggles out of their shame.  Uncannily siding against one particular faith also involves thinking loser countries have gotten robbed.  The Third World party isn’t having much fun.

The team with less surely must be exploited.  A faction that’s unable to devise anything surely couldn’t be resentful against one that can: in fact, we’re told they’re just trying to get their stuff back.  The alternative is that hard work and creativity lead to success, and we can’t let conservatives start to think they’re right.

Believing there’s a finite amount of wealth is the standard belief of the useless.  Forget trying to actualize any: those who mooch off the productive can’t even conceive of contributing.  Personal desires motivate the philosophy of the ironically selfish as they condemn the greed of those who desire to keep what they earn.

There sure is a lack of empathy amongst those who claim to care about everyone else.  Retailers offering value resemble Israel building an outlet out of sand, and such entrepreneurship spurs resentment in social justice studies majors.

Identifying who’s victimized is a challenge invented by those who don’t like anything easy.  Israel is a shark tank surrounded by a sea of predators.  Pretending it’s the neighborhood’s aggressor is a common hobby for those who coincidentally also damn cops instead of criminals.  America’s vanishing property spike resulted from Democrats getting everything they want.

The keffiyeh crew announcing which place they prefer enhances their emblematic cognitive dissonance.  Offer the chance to live anywhere in the Middle East including Gaza for the real chance to live with allies in earthly paradise.  A relocation to somewhere more diverse is not just an opportunity to flee racist police state America but a chance to put values into practice.  Funding moving expenses would be a great grant program for a civically-minded wealthy free market fan.  As for the beneficiaries, they should scout locations for a pride parade.

Creating a comfortable country out of nothing is a testament to ingenuity.  Those who think government is the source of productivity are outraged.  Liberty’s opponents get to loaf because of it.  Uncannily, they universally think Israel’s thriving must be either a matter of random luck or predatory plundering.

Israel is not good at colonialism.  They occupy land that was theirs since the dawn of recorded history that nobody else wanted.  Demanding their share of something that belongs to someone else is how Israel’s enemies inspire affinity in Western leftists.

The joke about God’s chosen people living in the one Middle Eastern place with no oil is funniest because they didn’t let it bother them.  Sighing about what’s unfair before working to withstanding it offers a crucial life lesson about what to do with what we’re handed.  Israel possesses something way more valuable than fuel.

The gift of developing character by working hard isn’t the most fun one to receive, but it’s rather useful in this rather imperfect world.  As a result of overcoming not being handed a cushy life, Israelis established the one country you’d want to live in if you were in the vicinity.  Their concocted pleasantness is exponentially cozier than living on the quad with student commies.  Only one of the two groups can obtain their own groceries.

Israel defends itself after manufacturing prosperity.  Of course they’re despised by the left.  Responding righteously to an assault seems a little too close to exercising Second Amendment rights.  A concealed carry country shows why the virtuous deserve to arm themselves.

Screwing up identifying aspects of reality is the pinko brand.  Outrage is reserved for daring to suggest punishment for illegal immigrants who tally second crimes.  As for citizens, they particularly adore those who have turned to shoplifting as a career.  Looking at the global scale involves presuming terrorists have legitimate beefs.

Bad guys have regrettably good friends.  Woke lunatics express sympathy for the turnstile-hopper instead of the commuter who occasionally foregoes lunch to afford a ride.  The concert slaughterer motivated by having land that was never theirs and nobody wanted stolen will always find backing from the 2020s’ purveyors of radical chic.

The only crimes indolent adversaries of society care about are imaginary ones.  Justice’s warpers maintain a grievance toward Israel like it’s a supermarket that uses plastic bags.  New York City is once again renowned for muggings, but at least villainous pizzaioli can’t cook with coal.

Political junkies who got every policy they want fume at how lousy conditions have become.  Avoiding troublesome notions about consequences is common amongst those who put sanctimoniousness in place of sense.  Zealots who conclude their cause is righteous will do everything possible to demonize heathens.  If they’re fighting for the survival of millions, then anyone opposed must be diabolical anti-social justice goons.  Acting obnoxiously is part of the commitment to preening.

Israel made it when nothing in the natural realm went its way.  I wonder if there’s a term for that.  Persevering when everything tells you to quit shows character at its best, unlike what its frothing critics flaunt.

If class warfare warriors really believed in conquering persecution, they’d be praising Israel nonstop.  Instead, the Hamas Campus Camping Club decided the side fighting back against human demons who massacred music festival attendees is the one perpetrating genocide.  

Doing the right thing when it’s unpopular is decried by fans of the trendy.  Declare pronouns along with contempt for the one country that happens to be Jewish.  Uproar over preserving their existence could be based in more than anti-Semitism just because the shriekers hate everything connected to that particular religion, including those humans and nation that practice it.

The republic that wouldn’t take its beating like a bitch will never be forgiven for it.  Using weapons just makes the mean war even more repressive.  Seeking out grievances while impugning the one place with genuine ones is how leftists stay consistent.

#Israel #leftism #liberalism #Hamas #Middle East #class warfare #Israel Hamas War #terrorism #economy

[careycuprisin]

Missing Hannah Arendt

I sometimes wish Hannah Arendt were alive right now and could offer her analysis of what’s happening in the USA, as the 2024 elections approach. It’s exhilarating to read her analyses of the times she lived in and I’m sure she would be extraordinarily perceptive about ours. Alas, Hannah Arendt isn’t around, and we’re left to try to understand what’s going on today without her.

Which is a difficult thing to do! It feels to me like we’re experiencing a sequence of events that will in retrospect seem part of a process that can be explained by pointing to the proclivities of our leaders, their weaknesses, their conflicting aims. Once we hear this explanation I’m sure it’ll be clear who deserves praise and who deserves scorn, who was a villain and who was a hero. I have my strong suspicions and likely guesses, but from my perspective in themiddle of the sequence, and not knowing the ending, everything we say now feels provisional and as likely to turn out wrong as it is to turn out right. But I’m sure Hannah Arendt felt similarly when she was writing, and she didn’t let that stop her. So I won’t let it stop me, either.

Let’s start with a focus on the 2024 election, less than one year away now. Primary elections are going to begin next month. On the Republican side, Donald Trump seems very likely to win without much trouble. None of his GOP challengers with the possible exception of Chris Christie are even trying to present themselves as substantively different from Trump, and according to the polls, voters aren’t likely to choose a substitute-Trump when they can have the real thing. On the Democratic side, the incumbent President is going to be renominated absent his dying or suffering an incapacitating illness. Both of which are real possibilities given his age. No need to pretend that things are more complicated than that. So we’ll likely be faced with (surprise!) a rematch of Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden in 2024.

As a brief aside, I find this to be emblematic of modern America’s overweening brittleness and inflexibility. There is so much to say about this, but for now I’ll just say that I think one of thiscountry’s biggest problems is stasis, and a seeming inability to even entertain any substantive changes. Our institutions are in trouble because they are brittle and unresponsive.

The Trump-Biden rematch is spicy only because, for one, polls are suggesting that Biden is a weaker candidate this time around and might very well lose to Trump. Democratic Party cheerleaders can post online all they want about Biden’s accomplishments, but I’m certain that for most people, not much seems to have changed since Biden was elected, and this feeling of being stuck in a situation that simply doesn’t feel comfortable for many people is leading to Biden’s low approval ratings and electoral weakness. Biden told these voters in 2020 that installing him as President would restore the country to Normal, and the fact that he hasn’t done that (even if his promise seemed to many of us obviously impossible) makes him look less attractive than he did in 2020 when people associated him with their relatively fond memories of the Obama years.

Another reason that Biden vs. Trump seems spicy is that Trump could be either disqualified from office in many states under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and/or convicted in one of the many criminal proceedings against him, most notably Jack Smith’s prosecution for inciting an insurrection on January 6 of 2021. Cards on the table: I think Trump should both be disqualified from holding office AND put in prison for his efforts to overturn the last election, but sadly these things seem to have divided the broad anti-Trump coalition of leftists, centrist liberals, and the tiny rump of conservatives that still think electoral democracy is good. This division is for me personally one of the most interesting and also the most upsetting political dynamic, about which, much more to come! For now just note that we could very well elect a President who is likely to be sentenced to prison or who has been declared by several of our august judicial institutions to be Constitutionally disqualified from holding office.

Faced with this kind of an election, the most fascinating questions for me are 1) how did we get here, and who should be held responsible for it, and 2) what will happen next, and can we do anything now to influence the outcome, and what will be needed from us if the outcome is bad. Arendt would almost certainly be publishing insightful articles about all these questions were she still alive. She wouldn’t be guaranteed to be correct, but her track record was pretty good in my opinion, and I think she’d offer something very useful were she alive to write today. When we look back from several decades in the future, I’m sure it’ll be easy to identify the Hannah Arendt of our times. But can we identify them now? So many people are wrestling with contemporary political questions, it’s certain that some of them are offering both truthful and useful commentary — but who are they? Not knowing the future, it’s difficult to identify the people in the present we should be reading. One of my fears is that this contemporary Arendt isn’t anyone writing for the big platforms, the NYT, the Washington Post, the Atlantic. They aren’t one of the big accounts on Twitter. A reader passively scanning easily-available political commentary isn’t likely to stumble upon the most useful or truthful commentary. But maybe this is too pessimistic. Arendt herself was an easily readable public intellectual in her day, and perhaps our current Arendt is equally well-connected and widely-published.

Whatever the case, I’m sure Arendt herself would be voraciously reading most of what the big outlets published and putting in the work to think about what she was reading. She’d exhort us to do the same.

#hannah arendt #politics

[catrinathomas]

When you see jail in dream

We as a whole have those fantasies that are so distinctive and reasonable that we can't resist the urge to feel somewhat uncomfortable when we awaken.

For certain individuals, these fantasies can be of scoring that sweepstakes or getting an advancement. Yet, for other people, their repetitive dream is, sadly, one of being in prison. Yet, what might this fantasy at some point mean?

Today, we'll investigate the imagery of being in prison and find everything that our psyche may be attempting to say to us.

Mental Importance of Longing for Being in Prison when you see jail in dream frequently isn't well defined for being in a jail office however relates all the more by and large to feeling stuck or caught.

It typically represents our vulnerability when we can't determine our contentions, all things considered. Assuming that you fantasy about being secured, it very well may merit considering what issues are causing disappointment and weakness.

Portraying these sentiments and confronting them can assist you with moving past them and begin feeling more in charge of your life once more. On the other hand, you could require a break from stressors in your day to day existence and a chance to make something positive or progress on a task.

Whatever the explanation, don't allow tension to keep you from perceiving any areas of worry that could utilize your consideration. With commitment and mental fortitude, it is feasible to liberate yourself from anything figurative jail you feel caught in!

Various Situations of Longing for Being in a Prison Dreams are a one of a kind window into our oblivious personalities. They can address stowed away feelings of dread and nerves or give direction to assist us with going up against complex issues.

Dreams including prisons are normal and frequently reflect responsibility, weakness, or weakness.

Fantasy about Being in a Prison Longing for oneself in prison can demonstrate a craving to be more focused or coordinated. It can reflect feeling caught and limited, overpowered by liabilities, or feeble under testing circumstances.

It very well may be an emblematic approach to letting you know that now is the right time to go to some pressure help lengths or face gloomy feelings as opposed to imagining all is great.

Dream of Kids in Prison Longing for kids in prison could highlight sensations of culpability or obligation regarding the prosperity of others, particularly with regards to nurturing. It could connote that you feel overpowered by bringing up your children and believe you're accomplishing something wrong.

It is a call to get a sense of ownership with yourself and guarantee you're dealing with your should be the most ideal parent.

In conclusion, this fantasy could push you to ponder the existence examples you need to show your kids and how best to grant them.

Dream of Effectively Getting away from Prison These fantasies address the requirement for opportunity and freedom.

It could imply the longing to split away from a harsh or prohibitive circumstance in cognizant existence, whether it's a task, relationship, or family commitment. You can make a move in light of your necessities and wants in the event that this sort of dream seems obvious you.

At last, this fantasy could mean the need to go up against impediments keeping you away from accomplishing genuine opportunity and freedom.

Fantasy about Being Binded Inside the Prison Longing for being tied inside the prison can show feeling caught in a specific circumstance. It could connote the need to assume command of your life and break liberated from a harsh or prohibitive climate.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Doubting the Story of Exodus

By Teresa Watanabe Los Angeles Times religion writer    April 13, 2001

It’s one of the greatest stories ever told: A baby is found in a basket adrift in the Egyptian Nile and is adopted into the pharaoh’s household. He grows up as Moses, rediscovers his roots and leads his enslaved Israelite brethren to freedom after God sends down 10 plagues against Egypt and parts the Red Sea to allow them to escape. They wander for 40 years in the wilderness and, under the leadership of Joshua, conquer the land of Canaan to enter their promised land. For centuries, the biblical account of the Exodus has been revered as the founding story of the Jewish people, sacred scripture for three world religions and a universal symbol of freedom that has inspired liberation movements around the globe. But did the Exodus ever actually occur? On Passover last Sunday, Rabbi David Wolpe raised that provocative question before 2,200 faithful at Sinai Temple in Westwood. He minced no words. “The truth is that virtually every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all,” Wolpe told his congregants. Wolpe’s startling sermon may have seemed blasphemy to some. In fact, however, the rabbi was merely telling his flock what scholars have known for more than a decade. Slowly and often outside wide public purview, archeologists are radically reshaping modern understanding of the Bible. It was time for his people to know about it, Wolpe decided. After a century of excavations trying to prove the ancient accounts true, archeologists say there is no conclusive evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt, were ever enslaved, ever wandered in the Sinai wilderness for 40 years or ever conquered the land of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership. To the contrary, the prevailing view is that most of Joshua’s fabled military campaigns never occurred—archeologists have uncovered ash layers and other signs of destruction at the relevant time at only one of the many battlegrounds mentioned in the Bible. Today, the prevailing theory is that Israel probably emerged peacefully out of Canaan—modern-day Lebanon, southern Syria, Jordan and the West Bank of Israel—whose people are portrayed in the Bible as wicked idolators. Under this theory, the Canaanites who took on a new identity as Israelites were perhaps joined or led by a small group of Semites from Egypt—explaining a possible source of the Exodus story, scholars say. As they expanded their settlement, they may have begun to clash with neighbors, perhaps providing the historical nuggets for the conflicts recorded in Joshua and Judges. “Scholars have known these things for a long time, but we’ve broken the news very gently,” said William Dever, a professor of Near Eastern archeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona and one of America’s preeminent archeologists.

Dever’s view is emblematic of a fundamental shift in archeology. Three decades ago as a Christian seminary student, he wrote a paper defending the Exodus and got an A, but “no one would do that today,” he says. The old emphasis on trying to prove the Bible—often in excavations by amateur archeologists funded by religious groups—has given way to more objective professionals aiming to piece together the reality of ancient lifestyles. But the modern archeological consensus over the Exodus is just beginning to reach the public. In 1999, an Israeli archeologist, Ze’ev Herzog of Tel Aviv University, set off a furor in Israel by writing in a popular magazine that stories of the patriarchs were myths and that neither the Exodus nor Joshua’s conquests ever occurred. In the hottest controversy today, Herzog also argued that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, described as grand and glorious in the Bible, was at best a small tribal kingdom. In a new book this year, “The Bible Unearthed,” Israeli archeologist Israel Finklestein of Tel Aviv University and archeological journalist Neil Asher Silberman raised similar doubts and offered a new theory about the roots of the Exodus story. The authors argue that the story was written during the time of King Josia of Judah in the 7th century BC—600 years after the Exodus supposedly occurred in 1250 BC—as a political manifesto to unite Israelites against the rival Egyptian empire as both states sought to expand their territory. Dever argued that the Exodus story was produced for theological reasons: to give an origin and history to a people and distinguish them from others by claiming a divine destiny. Some scholars, of course, still maintain that the Exodus story is basically factual. Bryant Wood, director of the Associates for Biblical Research in Maryland, argued that the evidence falls into place if the story is dated back to 1450 BC. He said that indications of destruction around that time at Hazor, Jericho and a site he is excavating that he believes is the biblical city of Ai support accounts of Joshua’s conquests. He also cited the documented presence of “Asiatic” slaves in Egypt who could have been Israelites, and said they would not have left evidence of their wanderings because they were nomads with no material culture. But Wood said he can’t get his research published in serious archeological journals. “There’s a definite anti-Bible bias,” Wood said. The revisionist view, however, is not necessarily publicly popular. Herzog, Finklestein and others have been attacked for everything from faulty logic to pro-Palestinian political agendas that undermine Israel’s land claims. Dever, a former Protestant minister who converted to Judaism 12 years ago, says he gets “hissed and booed” when he speaks about the lack of evidence for the Exodus, and regularly receives letters and calls offering prayers or telling him he’s headed for hell.

At Sinai Temple, Sunday’s sermon—and a follow-up discussion at Monday’s service—provoked tremendous, and varied, response. Many praised Wolpe for his courage and vision. “It was the best sermon possible, because it is preparing the young generation to understand all the truth about religion,” said Eddia Mirharooni, a Beverly Hills fashion designer. A few said they were hurt—"I didn’t want to hear this,” one woman said—or even a bit angry. Others said the sermon did nothing to shake their faith that the Exodus story is true. “Science can always be proven wrong,” said Kalanit Benji, a UCLA undergraduate in psychobiology. Added Aman Massi, a 60-year-old Los Angeles businessman: “For sure it was true, 100%. If it were not true, how could we follow it for 3,300 years?” But most congregants, along with secular Jews and several rabbis interviewed, said that whether the Exodus is historically true or not is almost beside the point. The power of the sweeping epic lies in its profound and timeless message about freedom, they say. The story of liberation from bondage into a promised land has inspired the haunting spirituals of African American slaves, the emancipation and civil rights movements, Latin America’s liberation theology, peasant revolts in Germany, nationalist struggles in South Africa, the American Revolution, even Leninist politics, according to Michael Walzer in the book “Exodus and Revolution.” Many of Wolpe’s congregants said the story of the Exodus has been personally true for them even if the details are not factual: when they fled the Nazis during World War II, for instance, or, more recently, the Islamic revolution in Iran. Daniel Navid Rastein, an Encino medical professional, said he has always regarded the story as a metaphor for a greater truth: “We all have our own Egypts—we are prisoners of something, either alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, overeating. We have to use [the story] as a way to free ourselves from difficulty and make ourselves a better person.” Wolpe, Sinai Temple’s senior rabbi, said he decided to deliver the sermon to lead his congregation into a deeper understanding of their faith. On Sunday, he told his flock that questioning the Jewish people’s founding story could be justified for one reason alone: to honor the ancient rabbinical declaration that “You do not serve God if you do not seek truth.” “I think faith ought not rest on splitting seas,” Wolpe said in an interview. “For a Jew, it should rest on the wonder of God’s world, the marvel of the human soul and the miracle of this small people’s survival through the millennia.” Next year, the rabbi plans to teach a course on the Bible that he says will “pull no punches” in presenting the latest scholarship questioning the text’s historical basis. But he and others say that Judaism has also traditionally been more open to nonliteral interpretations of the text than, say, some conservative Christian traditions. “Among Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews, there is a much greater willingness to see the Torah as an extended metaphor in which truth comes through story and law,” said Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. Among scholars, the case against the Exodus began crystallizing about 13 years ago. That’s when Finklestein, director of Tel Aviv University’s archeology institute, published the first English-language book detailing the results of intensive archeological surveys of what is believed to be the first Israelite settlements in the hilly regions of the West Bank. The surveys, conducted during the 1970s and 1980s while Israel possessed what are now Palestinian territories, documented a lack of evidence for Joshua’s conquests in the 13th century BC and the indistinguishable nature of pottery, architecture, literary conventions and other cultural details between the Canaanites and the new settlers. If there was no conquest, no evidence of a massive new settlement of an ethnically distinct people, scholars argue, then the case for a literal reading of Exodus all but collapses. The surveys’ final results were published three years ago. The settlement research marked the turning point in archeological consensus on the issue, Dever said. It added to previous research that showed that Egypt’s voluminous ancient records contained not one mention of Israelites in the country, although one 1210 BC inscription did mention them in Canaan. Kadesh Barnea in the east Sinai desert, where the Bible says the fleeing Israelites sojourned, was excavated twice in the 1950s and 1960s and produced no sign of settlement until three centuries after the Exodus was supposed to have occurred. The famous city of Jericho has been excavated several times and was found to have been abandoned during the 13th and 14th centuries BC. Moreover, specialists in the Hebrew Bible say that the Exodus story is riddled with internal contradictions stemming from the fact that it was spliced together from two or three texts written at different times. One passage in Exodus, for instance, says that the bodies of the pharaoh’s charioteers were found on the shore, while the next verse says they sank to the bottom of the sea. And some of the story’s features are mythic motifs found in other Near Eastern legends, said Ron Hendel, a professor of Hebrew Bible at UC Berkeley. Stories of babies found in baskets in the water by gods or royalty are common, he said, and half of the 10 plagues fall into a “formulaic genre of catastrophe” found in other Near Eastern texts. Carol Meyers, a professor specializing in biblical studies and archeology at Duke University, said the ancients never intended their texts to be read literally. “People who try to find scientific explanations for the splitting of the Red Sea are missing the boat in understanding how ancient literature often mixed mythic ideas with historical recollections,” she said. “That wasn’t considered lying or deceit; it was a way to get ideas across.” Virtually no scholar, for instance, accepts the biblical figure of 600,000 men fleeing Egypt, which would have meant there were a few million people, including women and children. The ancient desert at the time could not support so many nomads, scholars say, and the powerful Egyptian state kept tight security over the area, guarded by fortresses along the way. Even Orthodox Jewish scholar Lawrence Schiffman said “you’d have to be a bit crazy” to accept that figure. He believes that the account in Joshua of a swift military campaign is less accurate than the Judges account of a gradual takeover of Canaan. But Schiffman, chairman of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, still maintains that a significant number of Israelite slaves fled Egypt for Canaan. “I’m not arguing that archeology proves the Exodus,” he said. “I’m arguing that archeology allows you, in ambiguity, to reach whatever conclusion you want to.” Wood argued that the 600,000 figure was mistranslated and the real number amounted to a more plausible 20,000. He also said the early Israelite settlements and their similarity to Canaanite culture could be explained as the result of pastoralists with no material culture moving into a settled farming life and absorbing their neighbors’ pottery styles and other cultural forms. The scholarly consensus seems to be that the story is a brilliant mix of myth, cultural memories and kernels of historical truth. Perhaps, muses Hendel, a small group of Semites who escaped from Egypt became the “intellectual vanguard of a new nation that called itself Israel,” stressing social justice and freedom. Whatever the facts of the story, those core values have endured and inspired the world for more than three millenniums—and that, many say, is the point. “What are the Egypts I need to free myself from? How does the story inspire me in some way to work for the freedom of all?” asked Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben of Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades. “These are the things that matter—not whether we built the pyramids.”

Teresa Watanabe Teresa Watanabe covers education for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the Times in 1989, she has covered immigration, ethnic communities, religion, Pacific Rim business and served as Tokyo correspondent and bureau chief. She also covered Asia, national affairs and state government for the San Jose Mercury News and wrote editorials for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. A Seattle native, she graduated from USC in journalism and in East Asian languages and culture.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-13-mn-50481-story.html

_____________________________

Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Joshua – there is no evidence any of them ever lived

The Divine Principle: Questions to consider about Old Testament figures

Unearthing the True Origins of the Bible 

– interview with Dr. Andrew Henry

#Exodus #Moses

[stillness-in-green]

Shigaraki, the League and “Redemption”

(In this post: 1700 words about how much I feel like stories/meta in which Shigaraki is rescued or redeemed miss the entire point of Shigaraki.)

It's a big open question how much of Shigaraki's backstory was engineered by All For One.  We're not even sure if AFO is the villain who killed Nana's husband, the event that kicked off the entire downward spiral of the Shimura family, much less what degree of involvement he had in Tenko's manifestation of Decay.  There's a tremendous amount of well-thought-out, interesting meta and fic about what will happen when Shigaraki finds out the truth, whether he can or should still be redeemed as he currently stands, or how Tenko might have been saved from ever becoming Shigaraki to begin with.  While I have read and enjoyed quite a lot of those theories and stories, I still find myself bothered by the prevalence of that line of thought because it ignores the fact that hero society stands condemned regardless.  

Whether or not AFO gave Tenko the Decay quirk knowing what would happen, whether he found out about Tenko the night of the accident or never lost track of Kotaro from the very beginning, in truth, none of that matters to the narrative of the League on the whole.  Nothing about Shigaraki's past has any bearing on the pasts of the other members. Trying to decide how to "save" Shigaraki avoids the fact that he is the leader of the League of Villains and their pain still stands regardless of their leader's history. 

You cannot act as though saving Shigaraki--with All Might, Inko, Izuku, Eraserhead, anyone--would redeem hero society, because Shigaraki is not hero society's only victim. He's not even its most straightforward one!  The condemnation he articulates of the world he lives in can't be addressed by him realizing he was manipulated by AFO all along or getting a good therapist in prison, because the world he lives in has failed a good many more people than just him. 

Let's break it down.  

The League Members

Twice fell through the cracks because of a lack of social support after his parents were killed in a villain attack.  He was just a teenager back then--what arrangements were made about where he was going to live?  If he was old enough that foster care/being placed in a group home wasn't a good option, did he instead have a stipend from the government?  Where was the social worker who should have been overseeing his case?  Where was his homeroom teacher when he dropped out of school?  What support should have been available when he wound up homeless on the streets?  Heroes stop villains and are rewarded both socially and monetarily for doing so, but the much more difficult and involved work of dealing with the fallout from those battles is clearly undervalued, badly so, in comparison.  Hero society, which prioritizes glamorized reaction over everyday prevention, failed Bubaigawara Jin.

Spinner had the wrong kind of face.  X-Men-style mutant discrimination left him isolated and alienated, shunned by the inhabitants of his backwater hometown because of his animal-type quirk.  To say nothing about the threat of violent hate crimes implied by the existence of a KKK analogue!  But it goes further than just the bigotry of his neighbors--Spinner's quirk was also unremarkable, meaning that, in a society that prizes flashy and offense-based quirks in its heroes, Spinner would have had few if any role models.  Given how many heroes there are, it seems strange to consider that there isn't a single straightforward heteromorph for Spinner to idolize, but given how strongly he latches onto first Stain's warped ideals and later Shigaraki's nihilistic grandeur, Spinner is clearly a young man desperate for a role model--if a hero that fit the bill existed, he wouldn't be a villain today.  So he's failed directly by his community for their bigotry and indirectly by society for the way it told him, in a thousand ways big and small, that Iguchi Shuuichi was not a person worth valuing.

Toga had the wrong kind of quirk.  It's true that, more than anyone else in the League, she feels like a character who would always have struggled with mental stability, even with the best help imaginable--but she didn't get the best help imaginable, did she?  She got parents who called her a freak, who berated a child barely into grade school about how unnatural and awful the desires she was born with were.  She was put into a quirk counselling program that apparently only caused her to feel more detached from society.  If Curious' characterization of quirk counselling is at all accurate, it seems to focus not on how to manage one's unusual or difficult quirk in healthy or productive ways, but rather on stressing what society considers "normal," on teaching its participants how to force themselves into that mold.  Hero society wants people with different needs to learn how to function like "normal" people; it is unwilling to look for ways to accommodate such people on a societal level.  Toga Himiko was failed by a society that demonized and othered her for a trait that she did not choose and innate desires that she never asked to experience.

And then, most prominently of all*, there's Dabi.  We all know where the big Dabi backstory mystery is going, and his is the most open condemnation of hero society of them all.  Dabi was raised on a heady cocktail, parental abuse mixed liberally with unquestioned acceptance of the fundamental importance of having a powerful quirk.  Whatever else can be said of Endeavor's path to redemption, the old Enji is emblematic of everything wrong with hero society: the fundamental devaluing of those without power, the fervent strain to push oneself past one's limits over and over and over again, regardless of the consequences to your health or your relationships, the practice of raising children to glorify a dangerous profession that fights the symptoms of societal ills rather than the root causes.  The ugly secrets hidden in the Todoroki house are the ugly secrets hidden within hero society's ideals, and because he embodies those ideals so thoroughly, of course Endeavor is lionized and well-paid by a society that never had to see Todoroki Touya's scars.

Mirror of Reality

All of these issues map to things in real life, and I don't only mean in a vague, universal sense--I mean they reflect on specific and observable Japanese problems. Read up on koseki family registries and consider how the dogged insistence on maintaining them impacted the Shimura family, tracked down by a monster.  Look into societal bias against orphans and imagine how it shaped peoples' reactions to teenaged Jin and his alleged 'scary face.'  Read up on how Japan approaches mental and physical disabilities, on what it regularly does to homeless camps, on what responses get trotted out when someone comes forward with a story about closeted abuse.  The League embodies these issues in indirect, sometimes fantastical ways, but they're not what I would call subtle, either; there's a reason the generally poor, disenfranchised League members are contrasted with powerful, urbane criminals like All for One, callous manipulators like Overhaul, and entrenched pillars of society like Re-Destro.  

Hero AUs are a fun thought exercise and all, but the League exists to call out and typify very real problems in heroic society and, by metaphorical extension, modern day Japanese society as well.  Hero society studiously looks away from its victims.  It doesn't want to see them and it thinks even trying to talk about them is disruptive and distasteful.  There's no indication in-universe that there's even a movement trying to change this state of affairs.  Certainly there are a great many things that could have changed to spare the BNHA world Shigaraki Tomura, but none of those quick, easy solutions would have saved Twice or Toga, Spinner or Dabi.  The League of Villains is the punishment, the overdue reckoning that their country will have to face for its myriad failures--for letting its social safety nets grow ragged, for failing to stamp out quirk-based prejudice, for allowing its heroes to operate with so little oversight.  For growing so complacent that not one person had the moral wherewithal to extend a hand to a bloodied, lost, suffering child.  

Shigaraki, Past and Future

One of the most heartbreaking and yet awe-inspiring aspects of Shigaraki's characterization in his Deika City flashback is that he was thoughtful and compassionate enough to reach out to other kids who were being excluded and teased by the rest of his peer group.  The League is foreshadowed for him even as a child, because even back then, he was a kid suffering repression and repudiation and so had empathy for others in similar straits.  Young Tenko is the person who would have reached out a hand to the scary but obviously needy Tenko wandering the streets; Tomura, despite everything All For One did to him, still retains that core of fellow-feeling that invites other outcasts to play with him.

"Saving" Shigaraki without addressing the societal flaws that created the people gathered under his banner negates the entire point he and the League exist to raise. I think readers will be forced to confront those flaws alongside Midoriya and the rest of his classmates, who the story has made a point to keep mostly isolated and on a steady PLUS ULTRA diet of all the same rhetoric that leads to consequences like the League to begin with.  I only wish more of the fandom--hero and villain fandom alike--was on the same page and writing their fic and meta accordingly.

Footnotes and Etc.

*The only characters in the League whose backstories we don't have much window on are Mr. Compress and Magne, both of whom are framed as seeing society as repressive.  Magne openly says as much to Overhaul; Mr. C intimates it to the 1-A kids during the training camp attack.  I'm inclined to hold off on commenting on them very thoroughly, though, because in neither case do we know exactly what drove them to crime in the first place. That's not a huge problem for Sako--if anyone on that team is into flamboyant villainy for the sheer joy of it, it's him--but I would definitely want to know more specifics about Magne's personal history before I correlate her experience as a trans woman with her portrayal as a violent, even lethal, criminal.  That would get right into the problematic elements of portraying all these societal outcasts as villains, people who undoubtedly have a point, but have taken to terrorism to illustrate it.  It's very possible that, for all that the League maps to real problems in Japan, we're still going to get a very mealy-mouthed, "But it's still wrong to lash out when you could protest nonviolently and work with your oppressors to seek a peaceful solution," moral from all this.

P.S.  None of the above meta even takes into account the multiple non-League characters whose stories illustrate various failings of hero society--Gentle Criminal, Hawks, Shinsou, even Midoriya himself, as those endless reams of Villain!Deku AUs are ever hasty to expound upon.  Vigilantes touches on the idea of "hero" and "villain" categorizations as being almost entirely political in their inception, as is also hinted at with historical characters like Destro.  Seriously, the mountain of problems with hero culture just looms higher with every passing arc!  

P.P.S.  I absolutely do not mean to imply with this meta that Japan suffers uniquely from any of the problems discussed above.  Other countries obviously have their own difficulties with homelessness, accessibility of care, victim blaming, and so forth.  Horikoshi is writing in and about his own culture, though, and stripping Shigaraki of his villainous circumstances in the interest of making him happier and/or more palatable strikes me as being kind of culture-blind in a way that it’s very easy for Western fans to unthinkingly slip into.  Just some food for thought.

#shigaraki tomura #tomura shigaraki #league of villains #boku no hero academia #bnha meta #my hero academia #my writing #bnha

[antoine-roquentin]

I think one of the major problems with the modern left is a focus on cultural analysis instead of economics. When I say culture I EXPLICITLY DON'T MEAN racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and Indigenous rights/decolonization.

Stupidpol and their ilk are reactionaries and should be treated as such. What I'm talking about is the focus on things like analyzing TV shows or picking over the latest issues of the NYT op-ed column, the sort a caricatures you see on Chapo.

Zizek is emblematic of this syndrome. He's a theorist of ideology, a film critic, a Lacanian psychoanalyst and complete reactionary on gender and immigration issues, and he's widely considered to be one of preeminent Marxist scholars alive. And, and this is important, Zizek does fuck all actual economic material analysis. Mark Fisher, who was an excellent Marxist theorist, covers almost exactly the same ground from a different perspective, and you can repeat this across academia.

Inside academia the problem has gotten so bad that the best economic analysis is being carried out by the fucking post-humanists. Take, for example, Anna Tsing's excellent Supply Chains and the Human Condition. Tsing is a brilliant theorist but she spends most of her time writing about multi-species interactions between humans and mushrooms. Carbon Democracy, one of the best theories of the carbon economy ever written, is by a left-Foucaldian.

There are some exceptions to this, Andreas Malm's Carbon Capital is wonderful, Riot Strike Riot is great and I have to mention the group I call The Other Chicago School, Endnotes, whose infrequent analysis is a breath of fresh air. But Endnotes isn't particularly well read even inside the academy, which takes back outside the ivory tower in the dismal mess that is what passes for popular left "economics."

I want to go back to Occupy for a second because what happened there is indicative of the problem. Occupy, at least technically, actually had a theory of economics that went beyond "neoliberalism bad, welfare state good." And it's really not as bad as its critics have since accused it of being. Graeber's "the 1% meme" was supposed to be part of an MMT analysis of the ability of banks to create money out of nothing, see Richard A. Werner. The theory then goes with the ability to create money out of nothing the question becomes who should actually have that power. The 1% are the people who control that power and use that it to gain wealth and their wealth to gain power.

This is essentially what happened after 2008 and it relates to an entire analysis of the politics of debt and war that's captured really well in the last chapter of Debt, The First 5000 Years, drawing from Hudson's excellent Super Imperialism. Again, not bad, and not the disaster it became in Liberal hands. But note two things:

1, His work is intentionally detached from the production process- Graeber uses a value theory of labor about the social reproduction of human beings. That theory is really interesting and I'll leave a link to his It is Value that Brings Universes into Being here. But Graeber is an anthropologist, not an economist, and his recent work is mostly composed of a set of theories of bureaucracy.

And, don't get me wrong, I really like Utopia of Rules and Bullshit Jobs, and it's possible to build an economic theory out of them, but almost no one actually does. And this gets us back to my second point about Occupy and economics.

2, Not a single other person I have ever met, including people who were in Occupy, have ever actually heard the theory behind the 1%. Part of this has to do with Graeber’s rather admirable desire to not become an intellectual vanguardist. But, I cannot overemphasize how much of this is a result of the left's retreat into an analysis of consumerism instead of capitalism and its further insistence that the entire fucking global economy can be explained by chapters 1-3 of Capital and this just isn't a "read more theory" rant, it's not like reading the rest of Capital is going to help you here. But even that's better than what's actually happened, which is people reading Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and the Communist Manifesto and trying to derive economic theory from that, or getting lost in a Gramscian or psychoanalytic miasma trying to explain why revolution didn't happen. But we can't keep fucking doing this.

If we do we're just going to keep getting stuck in endless fucking inane arguments, one of which is about which countries are Imperialist or not based on trying to read the minds of world leaders, and the other of which is a bunch of racists trying to argue that they're actually "class-first" Marxists and that if we don't say slurs and be mean to disabled people we're going to lose the "real working class," which is somehow composed only of construction workers banging steel bars.

So let's stop letting them do that. One of the reasons Supply Chains and the Human Condition is so great is that it describes how the performance of gender and racial roles creates the self super-exploitation at the heart of global capitalism. Race and gender cannot be ignored in favor of some kind of "class-first" faux-leftist bullshit. THEY ARE LITERALLY THE DRIVER OF CAPITAL ACCUMULATION.

Most of the global supply chain has been transformed into entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs (see the countless accounts of Chinese garment factory workers who dream of getting into the fashion industry and who attempt to supplement their meager income by setting up stalls in local marketplaces to sell watches and clothes).

The fact that global supply chains have reverted to the kind of small family firms that Marx and Engels thought would disappear is a MASSIVE problem for any kind of global workers movement, because it means that the normal wage relation that is supposed to form the basis of the proletariat isn't actually the governing social experience of a large swath of what should be the proletariat, either because they're the owners of small firms contracted by larger firms like Nike who would, in an older period of capitalism, have just been workers or because the people who work for those firms are incapable of actually demanding wage increases from the capitalists because they're separated by a layer from the firms who control real capital, and thus are essentially unable to make the kind of wage demands that would normally constitute class consciousness because the contractors they work for really don't have any money. These contractors are in no way independent.

Multinational corporations set everything from their buying prices to their labor conditions to what their workers say to lie to labor inspectors. The effect of replacing much of the proletariat with micro-entrepreneurs is devastating.

The class-for-itself that's supposed to serve as the basis of social revolution has decomposed entirely. Endnotes has a great analysis of how this happened covering more time, but the unified working class is dead. In its place have come a series of incoherent struggles: The Arab Spring, the Movement of the Squares, the current wave of revolutions and riots stretching from Sudan to Peru to Puerto Rico- all of them share an economic basis translated into demands on the state. We see housing struggles, anti-police riots, occupations, climate strikes, and a thousand other forms of struggle that don't seem to cohere into a traditional social revolution and WE HAVE NO ANSWER.

I don't have one either, but we're not going to get out of this mess by trying to read the tea leaves of the CCP or analyzing how Endgame is the ruling class inculcating us into accepting Malthusian Ecofascism.

I want to emphasize YOU DON'T NEED TO SHARE MY ECONOMIC ANALYSIS to develop one, I'm obviously wrong on a lot of things and so is everyone else. The point is that we need to start somewhere.

There are other benefits to reading economics stuff even if it can be boring sometimes, like being able to dunk on nerd shitlibs and reactionaries who do the "take Econ-101" meme by being able to prove that their entire discipline is bunk. Steve Keen's Debunking Economics is absolutely hilarious for this, he literally proves that perfect competition relies on the same math that you use to "prove" that the earth is flat.

Or learning that the notion that markets distribute goods optimally is based on the assumption that what is basically a form of fucking state socialism exists, and that the supply demand curve is fucking bullshit. Here's a page from Debunking Economics looking at the socialism claim, it fucking rules, and it's the result of the fact that neo-classical economics and central planning were developed together. Kantorovich and Koopmans shared a Nobel Prize.

But wait, there's more! We can PROVE that THE MARKET PLACE OF IDEAS DOESN'T EXIST. Do you have any idea how hard you can own libs with facts and logic if you can demonstrate that THE MARKET PLACE OF IDEAS DOESN'T EXIST?

But seriously, if you go outside of the Marxist tradition there are all sorts of fun and useful things you can find in post-Keyensian circles and so on and so forth. I'm a huge fan of Karen Ho's Liquidated, an Ethnography of Wall Street/Liquidated_%20An%20Ethnography%20of%20Wall%20Street%20-%20Karen%20Ho.pdf) which looks at how the people at banks and investment firms actually behave and, oh boy, is it bad news (they're literally incapable of making long-term decisions which is wonderful in the face of climate change).

Oh, and also, all of the bankers are essentially indoctrinated into thinking they're the smartest people in the world, so that's fun.

This may sound like I'm shitting on Marxism, and I sort of am, but there's Marxist stuff coming out that I absolutely love! @chuangcn is a good example of what I think the benchmark for leftist economics and historical analysis should be.

Chuang responded to the call put out by Endnotes to cut "The Red Thread of History," or essentially to stop fucking arguing about 1917, 1936, 1968 and so forth and look at material conditions instead of trying to find our favorite faction and accuse literally everyone else of betraying the revolution, and then imagining what we would have done in their shoes. The present is different from the past and we need to organize for this economic and social reality, not 1917's.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EBvBIVhXYAYlVfj.png

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EBvBM3CXoAA7Qmx.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EBvBP0SWkAEl6OX.jpg

Chuang produced an incredibly statically and sociologically detailed account of the Chinese socialist period in issue 1 and the transition to capitalism in the soon to be put online issue 2 that focuses on shifts in production and investment and shifts in China's class-structure and how urban workers, peasants, factory mangers, technicians, and cadre members reacted to those movements and shaped each others decisions and mobilizations. They largely avoid discussions of factional battles of the upper level of the CCP, which dominate liberal and communist accounts of the period and produce, in supposed communists from David Harvey to Ajit Singh, a Great Man theory of history.

Instead, they trace how strikes and peasant protests shaped the CCP's decision making and how the choices of people like Mao and Deng Xiaoping were limited by material conditions, in this case by their production bottleneck.

What's great about Chuang is that their work is so rich in sociological detail that you don't need to agree with them at all about what communism is and so on for their account to be useful, and they force us to think about the world from the perspective of competing classes bound by economic reality, instead of the black-and-white "good state/bad state," "good ruler/bad ruler," discourse that dominates our understanding of both imperialism and the global economy.

I'm just going to end this with a TL;DR: Cut the read thread of history and stop fucking arguing about 1917, use economic theory to dunk on Stupidpol and shitlibs. When you talk about "material conditions" talk about the production process, supply chains, capital movements and so on, not which states are good and bad (the bourgeoisie is a global class friends), recognize that strategies need to be built around current economic and social conditions, WHICH ARE INSEPARABLE FROM RACE AND GENDER, climate change is more complicated than the 100 companies meme (I only touched on this but please read Fossil Capital and Carbon Democracy), and in general try to learn more about different schools of economics and social theory, I swear reading something that wasn't written in 1848 isn't going to kill you.

[cosmiciaria]

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate Review! (spoiler free - long post)

It's done! I finished my first AC game ever! And I loved it!! YAAAY!!

First things first: this is going to be an honest review. I liked the game, A LOT, more than I expected, actually, but it has flaws. Not many that I could find personally, but it has. But before I delve deeper into it, let's have an overview of the game.

AC: Syndicate is the ninth?, installment in the Assassin's Creed franchise. It's a sequel to Unity, that came out just a year before, but you don't need to play any of the other AC games to plunge into this one (or any of them, to be honest), since each game tells a self-contained story. If you've been living under a rock for the past decade or you don't know a thing about videogames, Assassin's Creed games follow a character in the present time, joining the Order of the Assassins, warriors and masters of stealth that have been at odds with the Templars since time immemorial. The Templars desire the pieces of Eden, magical artifacts created with ancient technology by the Precursors, gods and goddesses that somehow bear the names of the Roman pantheon members. These pieces of Eden are extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, but have been long lost to the folds of History and withered pages of books. The Assassins must find them in today's world, through the genetic memories buried within the DNA of the descendants of the Assassins that at some point in History have come into contact with those artifacts.

Well, that premise is true for all Assassin's Creed games. This time, we're following the same initiate we met during Black Flag and Unity, if I'm not mistaken. The previous games have followed Desmond Miles, an actual character with a face, but in these "in-between" installments, the initiate is a faceless placeholder for the player to incarnate them. But, to be honest, the present timeline is, uh, what's this word…

BORING.

Nobody cares what's going on in the present! Let's move on to the actual plot!

Syndicate takes us to Victorian London! Through the DNA of the initiate we travel in time to 1868, to the middle of the British capital. Our protagonists this time is a pair of twins: Jacob and, lo and behold, Evie Frye. I say "lo and behold" because this is the first official female assassin protagonist that we have in the mainline series of games. Prior to this game, we have Liberation which also followed a female assassin, the real first one, but that game is a spin off and mostly overlooked, since it came out only for the Vita sadly back in the day (although there's a remaster for the ps3!). Either way, all previous Assassin's Creed games (if Syndicate is the ninth, then you got the number) have starred male assassins as their protagonists. In Unity this came to a great peak when in the multiplayer co-op players were unable to play as female avatars, which caused a great ruckus. As Syndicate intended to mend many of the problems players found in Unity, we have now an official, canon female character in the main series! And I say: CHEERS TO THAT!

I MUST address this because it was one of the two reasons why I bought this game. I was never interested in the AC games but I've always wanted this one, because you could play as Evie Frye. As a female cis person, I find the lack of canon female protagonist to be baffling, to say the least (the actual word I'm looking for would be "annoying"). I'm not going to say that I'm forced to play as a male character all the time, because nobody forces me to play any game, I play them all because I wish to – but the truth is that, for many years, the videogame industry has been directed at one public only: boys. And some boys, for some reason, won't play the game if the protagonist is a girl or looks like a girl. And I don't care if the presence of a female character breaks your history immersion and whatnot: we have fricking magic in this game, do not throw historical accuracy at me for it. So, Ubisoft: I AM GLAD you created Evie Frye. She's fearless, she's relentless, she's clever, she has a clear goal in mind and solves every little piece to make the bigger plan work. She's badass without throwing her femininity off the window, and for a change she's the one saving the man in distress. I love her and her cloaks. Also she's cute as hell.

I am ALSO GLAD that Ubisoft created Jacob Frye! Jacob is a good balance to Evie, since he's more impulsive, a brawler, and likes throwing himself into battle. He speaks with fists, while never leaving his morals aside. He shows disregard for careful plans, but ultimately works in favor of them. He might sound a little stupid when I picture him this way, but he's not: he follows the creed strictly, during the assassination missions he shows clear precision, planification and ingenuity, and most importantly, he has a golden heart, and knows his ideals and principles very well. And for the love of Minerva, he's so handsome I might die.

So the Frye twins are both your protagonists this time! During the open world map and sidequests, you can switch between them on the fly. But during main missions, one of them will be assigned for you to play as and you'll be forced to complete the quest with either of them. Evie favors stealth, whereas Jacob is all about combat. This allows the player to tackle the game and the different activities as they see fit. If you're patient, probably Evie will be best for you, but if you can't handle the stealth, choose Jacob and start throwing punches! The city of London is open for you to choose the way you can liberate it.

And that takes me to my second reason why I bought this game: London.

For a not native-English-speaker as myself, who has learned and studied British English for over ten years, London will always hold a soft spot in my heart. Two years ago I was finally able to realize my dream and visit the city for the first time ever. I cried when I stepped out of St. Pancrasse station, understanding that my feet were touching English ground. So when I saw that this game not only offered me the chance to play as a female assassin, but it would also allow me to revisit London, I didn't think twice.

We follow Jacob and Evie to London, where they must meet Henry Green, the assassin watching over that city, in pursue of an important Templar figure: Starrick. Along the way to assassinate him, we'll take down other important Templar members, all responding to him. As I will keep this spoiler free, let's leave it at that. Let's just say that Starrick is in London, controlling every nook and cranny, while his second in command, Lucy Thorne, is reservedly researching the leads of a possible piece of Eden that might be hidden in the city's most secretive places.

London is so well recreated, I cried once when I stopped in front of the Big Ben. You're only able to visit and play through a portion of the city, around the Thames and Westminster, but still, even small though it seems, the map is big enough and full of activities to fulfill. The streets feel alive with its multiple, many, MANY npc's walking, running, driving carriages, interacting with each other, often having conversations as well! I was astonished when I was walking with Evie down an alley and an npc waved his hand to another npc that was some feet away, and the first one rushed to the second one to greet each other. It was such a realistic thing to see on the street that I was amazed at the technology behind it. As always, AC games excel at the presentation of countless npc's, each with a different animation and voices. On top of that, the city looks gorgeous, with so many details that I often stopped to stare, especially in the most emblematic buildings, like the different train Stations, the Parliament, St Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and, of course, the Buckingham Palace. Everything is so faithful and vibrant and alive, that… yes, I love it. I fricking love it. I travelled again there in this game and I'm thankful for it.

There are nine sequences with 4 to 7 memories each, and all of them are different and unique enough to make them memorable. In particular, the main assassination quests were complex, using exclusive scenarios to the mission, offering the player different paths to tackle the killing – they were my favorite out of all the game. The last mission was *chef kiss*.

Apart from the main missions, you can slowly liberate each neighborhood from the Templars' claws. Each borough has a set of different activities to complete in order for you to "conquer" it. Gang wars, bounty hunts, Templar hunts, there's a lot to do. It might seem a lot at first, but you'll soon see the patterns across the sidequests, only to (unfortunately) realize that they're all the same. These can get tiresome and repetitive after a while, but they're also the best way to level up and earn money quickly. My personal favorite were the child liberations, because I felt like I was doing a good deed and also as if Charles Dickens himself was asking me to do it.

Oh, yes, Charles Dickens is in this game! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, because I don't! He's one of my favorite authors, so, to be GIVEN a QUEST by HIM, I'm in tears guys, do you understand why I loved this game so much??

But Dickens isn't the only historical person that you'll encounter: Darwin also makes an appearance, as well as Marx (of whom I believed to be in Brussels, but I guess he visited London at some point – now I want an AC game set in Brussels), and Alexander Graham Bell, who will be your DaVinci of this game (Oh, now I want to play Ezio's games), offering you new toys to tinker with as you pave your way across the city. There are other historical people, but I won't mention them, since they're probably a spoiler, so I'll let you be surprised!

You'll have like a "hub world", or more like, a hub train – a train will be your hideout, your base, where you'll collect money, take some quests, interact with some characters and buy stuff cheaper. This train will constantly move around the city – sometimes I found myself appearing on the other side of the map because I was studying and investigating the things the train offered. I really liked the idea of a "moving base house", also it's quite fancy, and besides, I love trains. This game just keeps bringing me the good content.

Evie and Jacob are good protagonists – I'm not going to say they slay at it, but they serve the purpose. They're quite stereotypical, specially Jacob, as he seems to follow the trend Ezio imposed back in the day, and to which Arno also contributed – and Evie is quite the "polar opposite", a cliché often used on twins to express how "different they are". Their personalities are nothing new; what is endearing and worth noting, though, is their interactions. At first I thought "this is going to be another of the never-ending cases of twins acting like friends instead of siblings". I do come across this mistake more frequently than I'd like to, only broken by some exceptions (World of Final Fantasy is a really good one), even more if the twins are a boy and girl. I'm not saying twins shouldn't be friends themselves, but they're siblings first, for the love of Juno, and most creators who put twins into their stories don't seem to remember how siblings treat each other. Luckily, this game proved me wrong, since the Frye twins showed me that they're real siblings: not because they quarrel (they do, sometimes, quite forced in my opinion), but because of the way they look at each other, they care for each other, they often joke about the other, the familiarity and complicity they treat some topics with, because of the small banter that you can hear them have in the train hideout, how Jacob teases Evie with Henry or how Evie teases Jacob for the cloaks he's wearing – that, all of that, all combined, make up for a good sibling relationship and show me that these two have been brother and sister for a while now. I'm glad they ended up being one of the exceptions to this godawful rule among the fictional twin characters. I would've liked, though, maybe a few more scenes with them having a real heart to heart – I think we were robbed of one or two (specially after sequence 8 if you ask me- Jacob please, let's talk, baby).

Henry is another important character – although I thought he'd be more important. He ultimately appeared in less missions than I expected, and is soon relegated to be Evie's love interest and that's it. And even that is, uh… a little underwhelming. I kinda shipped them at first, then I was like "please, they're FRIENDS, don't force this", only to see myself getting disappointed. I think Henry needed more screentime for me to care more about him, and I definitely believe that, after that mission with Evie, we needed a cutscene with an explanation. It was kind of forgotten later, and he felt more like a plot device than anything else. I'm sad, because he could've been a great opportunity to show us a bit of Indian culture, and also because by the end of the game he's treated like another protagonist, when it doesn't feel like he'd earned it, though, considering the whole game. My opinion.

There are other characters worth mentioning, like Freddy Abberline, another historical person, whose running gag about disguises soon grew on me; Clara O'Dea, a little girl who asks us to liberate her fellow children friends from the claws of foremen who exploit them and acts like a little spy for us; Ned Wynart, who brings trans representation into the game; and some other sequence exclusive characters, who I won't mention because it will spoilerish. Let's just say that Jacob comes across a very interesting man.

On the technical department, I already said that London looks great, but I want to stress this: the whole game looks great. From cinematography to animations, I think they nailed the direction in this one. As my first AC game I can't speak for the others, but this one is a gem. I must mention though that the game crashed on me only once, and I was looking for the "destruction trophy", the one that asks you to break 5000 destructible items of the city – well, it seems I had destroyed enough and the game couldn't take any more wrecked chaos across London, but other than that I didn't encounter any bug nor any trophy didn't pop up. It looks great and it plays great: the controls are responsive, you swiftly dash across the city feeling unstoppable – sometimes controls didn't do what I wanted but it wasn't the game's fault, it was mine, so I can't blame it for my own stupidity.

The soundtrack is also such an unexpected jewel in this game. The solemn tracks that play on the background while you're peacefully traversing the city – some are lyrical and dramatic, others go well with a rainy suburb. The vibrant and electrifying tracks during battles or escapes did bring all the Sherlock Holmes movies vibes to the game. It was all – so English, if you catch my drift. The music did fit well with the British atmosphere they were aiming for.

The ending is satisfying – don't expect an opera prima, or a huge revelation, or groundbreaking plot twists. The story is fairly lineal in its presentation: this is the goal? Alright, the whole game goes for it. We can say that it's quite predictable, but let's be honest, we're not here for the ending or the things that might happen to discover the characters in the present time, we're here to assassinate people with our beautifully hidden blade – wait, that sounded way too violent – we're here for the gameplay, for the historical events, for the feeling of being an assassin, and for some world-building regarding the Precursors.

In regards to that, I cannot not mention the World War I Simulation – a rift in time appears in the Thames towards halfway through the game, and you can enter it – it will take you forward in time, to the same London that is now under the attack of the German. In this more modern time, you play as Lydia Frye, Jacob's granddaughter, also an assassin, who collaborates with no other than Winston Churchill to defeat the Templars. In this kind of DLC episode we learn way more about the Precursors, Juno, Minerva and other important figures to this world-building, that it's mostly lacking in the rest of the game. This simulation does feel like a DLC since it only offers a few hours of gameplay, the metaphor isn't in vain – it's a huge change of pace, it plays a little different since you'll be doing war stuff, and you also visit a portion of the city that isn't available in the main game: the Tower Bridge. It IS worth playing, though, not only for the trophies or for the extended map, but for what I said earlier: world-building. Juno plays a big part in this simulation, and I encourage you to play it, even though it's optional. Slowly but steadily, the world of the Precursors is unfolding before our very eyes. Also, Lydia, YASS another female assassin joins the family!

All in all, Syndicate is a positive experience. Sidequests are repetitive and mostly boring after you complete the first borough, some characters needed more screentime, Evie and Jacob could've used a sensitive cutscene with a deep conversation – but the mechanics, the gameplay, the city, the main missions, the relationship between the twins, the customization of weapons and outfits, and the fact that I literally entered Buckingham Palace after killing a royal guard or two – that, is more than enough to compensate for what it's lacking. You might be tired of the same formula over and over if you're a fan of the franchise, but do give the twins a shot. If you never play an AC game before, try this one out – it might turn you into an AC fangirl, like it did to me.

I'm a trophy hunter myself, so I'll try to platinum it! And now my eyes are intent on Unity, because, if you've seen this post, you know that Arno and Élise resemble two of my oc's, so now I need that game to be injected into my veins, thank you very much.

#assasins creed #assassins creed syndicate #syndicate #evie frye #jacob frye #henry green #evie and jacob #maxwell roth #videogame review #review #ubisoft #london #queen victoria #fredderick abberline #winston churchill

[miseriathome]

I’m flipping through the pages of the journal I had to keep for class my sophomore year of high school and it’s a lot. Rambly longpost below the cut.

CW: MAP discourse, abuse talk, anti-Catholicism, angsty high schooler nonsense

The first entry I landed on was a bunch of baby-fash railing against society, and it made me laugh how edgy and petty I used to be. But the second entry I turned to was an account of how I’d skipped class to cry to my band director, because he was pushing me so hard and I kept failing and I couldn’t cope with being the center of everybody’s attention. That was a pretty bad time, and it’s hard to know that all the warning signs that he and his program were toxic were all there so early, two and a half years before I finally extricated myself.

Some entries are pretty irritating because I haven’t changed--I still feel baseline misanthropy that I fight against, I still fear vulnerability, I still put way too much trust in concepts like “privacy” and “confidentiality.” At the end of the day, this journal was incriminating for me and no doubt fueled quite a lot of shit I couldn’t identify the source of at the time. It was my mistake to pour my soul into a journal that would be read by a teacher.

There’s one memorable entry in defense of pedophilia as distinct from child molestation, which I think about all the fucking time, and I reread that. The argument is so very emblematic of high school me: riddled with cheap semantics, bleeding heart liberal, and subversive for subversion’s sake. I’m also not wrong, and I’ve mentioned before how ironic it is that I’ve looped back around to respecting the distinction again, years later. But it also sickens me that being taught that distinction was part of my grooming--that I was manipulated by something true and meaningful.

There’s another page where I drew my pony OC and talked about their lore, which, I mean. At that point just fucking kill me, yeesh, I’m glad I got to keep my journal when all was said and done but I have some disappointed headshaking for past me for thinking that that’s really truly what I would want to remember years down the line, and especially for thinking that’s what I wanted my teacher to see.

There are songs and poetry that I recorded in there, too, and I’m so very thankful for that. One poem’s fucking good and I’ll probably record it. There’s a song I wrote down that I didn’t have any other record of, so it’s not lost like to many others, and it’s one of my better ones too. But it also grips me with terror because of who I wrote that song for and performed it for. It’s really irritating that this one year of my life that I have such detailed notes on was also a year that I was living a horrible double life with the singular manipulator, violator, abuser I fear most in this world.

Also, this gem:

Why I Won’t Take Philosophy:

Adding hypocrite and flatterer to my list of sins didn’t do much for my self-esteem. The thing that kept me grounded was the notion that to sin is to be free. The rightful within Catholicism don’t just need to act like good people--they need to be good. They must whole-heartedly embrace all doctrine and unquestioningly accept it, without even a malicious thought as a margin of error. Essentially, the good have no freedom to make their own decisions in life because everything they must be has been dictated for them. There’s only one way to be pure and holy, but sinning can come in all forms, which is why Hell is so diverse. With responsibility comes consequences, or rather, with freedom comes sin and vice versa. It seems like sinning makes me an individual; I’m not bound by doctrine because in choosing my own path, I have declared my own worth and values. Can I be proud of being a sinner? Would that be reasonable? I would gladly take ownership of my actions, but only when they follow my beliefs, rather than always being against someone else’s.

This is only the second time I’ve opened this freaking journal since finishing writing it, and the other time was months ago. It’s an Ordeal but it seems like a worthwhile exercise. I kind of wish somebody else could comb through it and find me the tame entries to read first, though, instead of spinning a roulette wheel of wild emotions or having to go chronologically. Big grimace emoji for having feelz--not my strong suit.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #personal #my life #my thoughts #don't reblog

[transhawks]

Ah that post. I originally saw it and figured it'd make sense before reading from the title. Now I can't remember much of it, but that's mostly due to backstories except that's like one half. I saw this two years ago elsewhere, but there's three instances of children in poor conditions being raised in (specific environment) and influenced by it. Shigaraki - Villain, Overhaul - Neutral (actions aside, its because of Yakuza), Hawks - Hero. So OP was looking at the last two.

Nah, I read some of what they were saying and they specifically don't consider what happened to Hawks grooming. Being raised away from a family for the purposes of being a child soldier with no personal say in the matter is apparently not grooming y'all.

Anyway, I blocked for my sanity. I don't have the patience to deal with liberal nonsense who don't realize Keigo is emblematic of everything wrong with the statism in bnha, amongst other bad takes.

#Asks

[thesinglesjukebox]

HAIM - NOW I'M IN IT

[7.54]

Hard times...

Ian Mathers: Sometimes adulthood feels like the process of realizing you've been "trying to find [your] way back for a minute" for years now. Part of that is that you can never get back (to fewer responsibilities, a younger body, a less complicated life) and part of that is that you don't need to because you've grown in ways you didn't expect or notice and part of that is just that feeling like you're in it is just the condition of being an adult (at least here and now). Of course, Danielle Haim has said the song is about depression. I'm not the only person I know for whom adulthood and depression seem inextricable. [8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Like grey clouds drifting slowly overhead, depression can manifest itself gradually. You may not even notice it happening. That is, until it's too big to ignore: suddenly, there's an underlying sadness that keeps popping up, and you're too anxious to reach out to others, too unhappy to look in the mirror, too tired to leave your apartment. You're just in it. "Now I'm In It" perfectly captures the moment you realize this -- and while so many songs that discuss mental health can seem condescending or sloganeering, the introspection that Haim does here is genuinely powerful. This is art about depression without wallowing, set to an undulating guitar rift that recalls the strength of "Dancing on My Own." At face value, "Damn I'm in it/ And I've been tryna find my way back for a minute" sounds so simple as to be mundane, but to me, it feels like liberation that can only come from being honest with yourself. Every time I hear it, it feels like air in my lungs, sunshine on my skin. There's a moment during the music video (at 3:20) when, after making it through a shit day, Danielle Haim musters the energy to go out with her sisters. As they cross the street, drums beat triumphantly and a sample of what sounds like cheering plays -- and then, inexplicably, she breaks the fourth wall, shooting a glance directly into the camera, almost like she's looking directly at her depression and giving it the side eye. I have yet to give a 10 since starting to write for TSJ, but that moment alone merits my first one. [10]

Michael Hong: Perhaps the best shot of the music video is the one in which Danielle Haim goes through a car wash, but the most emblematic is likely the penultimate one, where she downs a shot, grimaces and takes one breath. The song is its "before image," a tightly wound version of Danielle Haim over a tense guitar that feels synthetic as it pulses across the track. As it progresses, Danielle loosens up and regains some of that confidence symbolic of Haim. The instrumental also gradually shifts, focusing more attention on other more organic elements. The piano line on the bridge allows her to take stock of her surroundings, backed in harmony by her sisters, but it's those drums on the last chorus that deliver the track's final moment of catharsis. Like depression, that guitar vamp remains, but Haim push it to the background, mostly stopping it from overpowering themselves. It's Danielle Haim, defiantly rejecting depression and taking back control for what feels like that penultimate shot -- the ability to finally breathe after a particularly difficult episode. [8]

Isabel Cole: If it hadn't been for Danielle Haim's Instagram post, I probably wouldn't have known to read this as a song about mental health. But once I saw that it made an immediate intuitive sense: the anxious thrumming that won't relent even as the melody opens up in the chorus, stumbling-fast lyrics sketching a harried picture of isolation, an atmosphere of panic and dread like pacing restlessly in a room you can't make yourself leave. The sigh of regret in the bridge, the dawning realization that you can no longer deny. I've spent a lot of hours looking for something I knew I wouldn't find in mirrors, too. Haim build a gorgeous encasement for the sentiment, lush and textured and perfect, actually, for listening to on repeat on a long walk taken trying to get a little further back to yourself; I particularly love the moment the second verse starts and everything deepens and opens at once. Would love this even if I weren't spiritually obligated to give at least a [7] to any song that closes by layering one of its parts over the other. [9]

Alfred Soto: Whenever they use a skittering rhythm track that forces them into breathlessness, I swoon, but then I liked but then Something to Tell You more than most. The ghost of "I Love You Always Forever" haunts -- will Haim's next album study their idea of '90s-ness? [7]

Will Adams: Haim, always ones to wear their references on their sleeves, take their soft-rock aesthetic to the extreme by synthesizing "I Want You" and "I Love You Always Forever." Those choices alone make "Now I'm In It" great, but Danielle using her signature patter to evoke racing thoughts is the cherry on top. The verse barges in by the second chorus, words tumbling over each other resulting in sensory overload. And then, finally, gloriously, the bridge arrives, when everything falls away and a moment of clarity is reached. The ensuing chorus is the same as it was, but now it feels assured, confident amidst the chaos. "Now I'm In It" is a song about going through it that goes through it. [8]

Tobi Tella: The frantic, almost falling-on-top-of-each-other speed of the lyrics is the real secret of the song -- it puts the listener on edge from minute one. I wish it built to more in certain ways, but I think the tension with such little release feels deliberate -- I feel like I'm still in it too. [7]

Kylo Nocom: Never trust a man who will gleefully scrutinize a Haim track's influences as a marker of unoriginality and yet ignore any accusation you throw at LCD Soundsystem. "Now I'm In It" bubbles, springs, and thrusts forward until the sisters reach a bridge that would make Vampire Weekend circa Modern Vampires proud. [8]

Oliver Maier: Rostam and Rechtshaid's production team-up unsurprisingly results in shades of the bleary, melancholic sound of Modern Vampires of the City, notably in the bluesy piano, ambient noise and thudding drums that filter in after the second chorus. That moment also happens to be the point at which Haim often run out of ideas (even in their best songs) and resort to padding out the remainder of the track with repetition upon repetition to the point of indulgence. Here they're more economical, more conscientious of the song's arc, and the final chorus feels earned rather than copy-pasted as a result. A shame that said chorus is not quite as catchy as they're capable of, though "I can hear it/But I can't feel it" is as succinct and lovely a lyric about depression as has ever been penned. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: "Now I'm In It" turns the corner well-- that slowdown after the two-minute mark, when the piano and harmonies come in and the fervent pulse of the rhythm guitar stills a little, is genuine catharsis. But the rest, both before and after, feels nervy and formless. Danielle remains a great pop vocalist, but the words she sings are sketches and the beat below it sounds like something Katy Perry and Zedd would've thrown out earlier this year. [5]

Thomas Inskeep: The song throbs and thrums, yet the Haim sisters just sound bored, and I'm unmoved. Actually, worse than unmoved: I'm annoyed. [3]

William John: While the track motors along behind her, Danielle Haim here breathlessly corkscrews her way through the awful, disenfranchising inertia that most of us are prone to from time to time. When paired with preceding single "Summer Girl", "Now I'm In It" seems to indicate that a central theme of Haim's putative third album will be the power of the collective in providing a fulcrum for those experiencing trauma. Though the lyric sheet suggests the protagonist remains in the widening gyre, the music video powerfully reinforces the notion that help is always available, even when it seems like it isn't. And maybe the gyre remains, but maybe also, with others around to lend a hand, it might stop widening, or even get a bit narrower. Haim have always been about "the sisterhood," in the most literal sense, but the image of Este and Alana, scuttling down a street and carrying Danielle on a stretcher, nursing her through the rut, might be their paradigm illustration of that concept. [9]

Kayla Beardslee: In the past month or two, as I've built up enough reviews to start referencing my past scores as a consistent standard, I've latched onto two regrets over too-low scores. One of those regrets is "Summer Girl": I was initially impressed and gave it an 8, but as the song kept growing on me in the following weeks, I realized I loved it enough to be a 10. The brilliance of Danielle Haim's restrained vocals, the quiet intensity of the lyrics, the sax riff that carries it all along -- it was quickly becoming my favorite Haim track. Well, the good news is that I was wrong: "Summer Girl" is still an 8 or 9. This is a 10. "Now I'm In It" sounds, somehow, both clean and impossibly hazy. The production is mixed clearly, but allows each bouncing bass note and subtle sound effect to shine; in contrast, Danielle's voice, as impressively agile as ever, folds itself into reverb and whispered backing vocals. Even the fuzz of static in the background of the bridge feels like purposefully crafted chaos. The sisters have said that the song is about Danielle's struggle with depression, and the lyrics reinforce that idea of being stuck in a mental fog. Like the bridge of "Summer Girl," the heart of "In It" boils down to a specific moment: in this case, it's when Danielle sings, full of longing, "And the rain keeps coming down along the ceiling/And I can hear it/But I can't feel it." I love that line, not only because it's absent from the first chorus and comes as a total surprise in the second, but because of how well it works as a metaphor on two levels. Being numb to "the rain" can signify detachment from the outside world, but it can also mean refusing to acknowledge your own depression: this track is smart and detailed enough to express both. And yet the music itself is a rejection of the lethargy of depression. With layers of instrumentation being constantly added and dropped, each section of the song is unique, and all of it builds up to that forceful, cathartic final chorus. In a lesser song, this clear sense of musical growth working against the stagnant nature of the lyrics would feel contradictory, but here, it feels instead like an intentional message of hope. Things will change, even in the storm -- and, if "Now I'm In It" is any indication, Haim will only keep getting better. [10]

[Read and comment on The Singles Jukebox]

#HAIM #pop #music #music review #writing

[makistar2018]

10 Years Later, Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’ Still Slaps

When it was released in 2008, Swift’s sophomore album launched a thousand takes. Today, it’s best remembered as a simple time capsule

By LAUREN M. JACKSON November 12, 2018

Taylor Swift during the "Fearless" tour at Madison Square Garden on August 27, 2009 in New York City.

Theo Wargo/WireImage for New York Post

Like Propel water, The Scarlet Letter and mechanical pencils, Taylor Swift’s Fearless pairs well with the sporadic squeak of team-issued sneakers, overpriced hot lunches and the kind of angst that defines comfortably suburb-bound teenage years. Sliding open the album on Spotify with my iPhone 8, I can still feel my limbs stretched in all directions, hear the snap-crackle-pop of a dozen adolescent girls’ joints going through the motions of yet another warm-up to what would become the soundtrack of my high school varsity dance team’s inner and outer lives, as well as leave poptimism forever changed.

I am 27 now, still anxious but inflexible, no longer clinging (as) tightly to singular albums to tell the emotional landscape of my life — but back then, Fearless was god. Swift was barely into legal teenagedom when compiling her sophomore album’s original 13 tracks, but more than the happenstance near-synonymy of our ages (I’m younger by 1 year, 6 months, 27 days), the four-walled, high school claustrophobia induced by the album is a matter of skilled musical mood setting. From the first downbeat of the inaugural title track to the last flippantly rebellious “hallelujah” on “Change,” Swift traps us in the mind of an ungainly teen as she was once trapped, as I was, as so many others wading the ambiguity between comportment and desire that doesn’t quite end when gowns come on and caps fly up.

Like so many notebook pages on the golden screen, Fearless is filled with boys. Stans and haters have their theories, but I like to think of each song as an archetype, less true stories of relationships gone sour than a young woman’s true to life hetero-ethnography. There are the boys who do good — the “Fearless,” “Love Story,” “Hey Stephen,” “The Best Day” boys (the last a tribute to Dad) — the boys who nurture and love intensely. They do all the usual country boy things, all the usual cinematic things: driving slow, kissing in the rain, flouting archaic inter-familial squabbles. They honor their promises and, most of all, leave the narrator better changed for her affection.

These boys who do good are short-lived. By Track 2, “Fifteen,” we’re already checking in to Heartbreak Hotel for the upteenth time with an account of that age generic enough to warrant a fan-made montage of clips from Degrassi: The Next Generation. The song tells an allegedly universal story of freshman year woes, complete with riding in cars with senior boys who also play football (because of course). It’s saccharine, sung in the vernacular of normative coupling that would become Swift’s enemy in the gossip pages. But the limited lexicon is not necessarily untruthful. “Fifteen” has aged about as well as anyone would expect, but some of those refrains make me yearn for arms long enough to slap all the powers that be responsible for belittling the whims of young girls. And according to the greater duration of Fearless — tracks like “White Horse,” “Breathe,” “Tell Me Why,” “You’re Not Sorry,” “The Way I Loved You,” and “Forever & Always” — the greatest threat to the happiness of teen girls are boys.

November 2008 looks rosy from here. America had just elected its first black president, the man who promised too much hope and change to possibly be true, but faith felt good back then. Men had committed just five mass shootings over the past year with one more on the way in December (2018 has 307 mass shootings to its name so far). The nation boasted just under 150 recognized active white supremacist groups (that number would climb to over 1,000 during Obama’s presidency). Global finance was in crisis but cable networks were still winning Emmys. Amy Winehouse was alive. Kanye still made sense and a bright-eyed, hair-tousled new country darling was exclusively concerned with dating, rather than local politics. 

Like any celebrity who is also a woman, but also in a lane quite her own, Swift’s relation to mainstream feminism wanes and waxes with the season. A female artist beloved by the girls for whom her songs are written, Swift and her music are therefore more scrutinized, more rigorously excavated for signs of harmful messaging than her male singer-songwriter peers. Fearless frayed Swift’s reputation in a way that wouldn’t let up for years, if ever, largely because of its critical success. Swift took home four Grammys at the 2010 awards, including Album of the Year, beating the Dave Matthews Band’s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, The Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D., Beyoncé’s I Am… Sasha Fierceand, most egregiously, Lady Gaga’s debut studio album, The Fame. The perceived slight invited robust inquiry into this supposed album of the year, and the aesthetic discrepancy between the two quickly turned to politics. 

Autostraddle’s Riese called Swift “a feminist’s nightmare,” the enemy of “brave, creative, inventive, envelope-pushing little monsters” everywhere. An accompanying infographic, “a symbolic analysis” of Swift’s works to date, cataloged her most damning motifs, including “virginal” imagery, “the stars,” “crying,” and the 2AM hour. At Jezebel, Dodai Stewart agreed that Gaga was the rightful winner, speculating that in a race between “Gaga the liberal versus Taylor the conservative,” the latter “makes the Academy feel more comfortable.” One joy of pop culture is the revelation of how melodramatically things can change. Last month, Swift announced her endorsement of Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper for the midterm elections; meanwhile, Lady Gaga hews the path of glamorous respectability on her lengthy A Star Is Born Oscar campaign. 

Feminist readings of Fearless weren’t wrong, exactly. Allies on the album come in strictly male form, while other girls are competition for Swift’s persecuted first person. Even the red-headed bestie Abigail becomes a lesson in chastity, losing her virginity — “everything”! —to the boy who broke her heart (the foil to Swift’s main character, whose dreams of living in a big ole city protect her from such a fate). The charting single “You Belong With Me” is a bouncy jaunt through the valley of me versus those other girls. The video that won Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards over Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” — to seismic effect — stars Swift as both the frizzy blonde, bespectacled weirdo in band and the sleek brunette cheerleader with the man (Lucas Till who now plays MacGyver on CBS). In true romantic comedy fashion, Good Swift, clothed in white, ends up with the guy in the end, defeating Bad Swift, whose only crimes it seems are great taste in footwear and not appreciating her high school boyfriend’s likely moronic sense of humor. Both the song and video became emblematic of a kind of Swiftian all-for-one girl power. Her 2017 video for “Look What You Made Me Do” resurrects and buries all sorts of Swiftisms, including the iconography of the uncool girl who features so heavily in the Fearless-era of her oeuvre. 

Pop music exists not to elevate our souls or our politics, but to safely wade in the muck of our pettiest appetites, whether they come with trap drums or in serenades. Pop music deserves interrogation, but it will never exceed us. Fearless was a diary, sounding like the selfishness that bubbles up regardless of one’s intellectual or political guards against it.  The debate it ignited wouldn’t happen were it released today, amidst all this. It’s a relic of a time when determining exactly what an album meant, culturally and aesthetically, was a crucial discussion to have in public, when nuance had stakes. Compared to the basic moral tenets we now expend so much of our energy defending, such communal acts of criticism feel small and regretfully scarce. Fearless was a moment, now relegated to a time capsule, no longer a prompt.   

Rolling Stone

#taylor swift #fearless #rolling stone #2018.11.12

[anthonybialy]

Tweet Away

The richest guy believes he shouldn’t tell you what ideas to share on the emblematic time-wasting application in the biggest threat to freedom since the Bill of Rights.  Twitter is suddenly a place for free speech, which is super dangerous considering you can share your dreadful little contrarian opinions.  Who even approves them?

Self-assigned thought monitors are horrified by unfettered expression.  Illiberal liberals haven’t pretended to favor personal expression for awhile.  Modern struggle session operators are fine with people having their say as long as they’re the only people.

We must fight hate speech, which is defined as any words that point out why Democratic policies fight fires with napalm.  Determining what qualifies as a violation of thought is easy as long as you’re in charge.  Rulings may displease those who dare hold that marriage should involve two genders or individuals can only stay one.  Not being allowed to speak is the tough but fair sentence for heeding biology.

Liberty-minded folks who want to control you dare suggest a hellish forum where each person could decide what stances are most reasonable.  Free speech resembles a free market, which liberals also maintain doesn’t function.  Consistency isn’t the best when the default setting features confiscating rights.

Society’s editors-in-chief act as if they should figure out what discourse is acceptable for everyone else.  They’re telling you something important.  By contrast to their take-deleting ways, you should want them to keep shrieking nefarious intentions.

One of the great aspects about the right to speak is that those who want to limit it announce it.  Aspiring stiflers gave away their dastardly plan using the very principle they hope to combat.  Inflicting controls to compensate for the inability to muzzle themselves is typical for enemies of commerce who act as if the only way to get rich is to tax the lucky.

But how will poor Twitter make a buck now that it’s reopened?  Telling Elon Musk how he won’t make money is another delightfully obtuse proclamation that pompous dolts should not only be allowed but encouraged to share.  Society’s wannabe supervisors know as little about profiting as they do autonomy.  I hope they continue to deliver baffling lectures despite their unfortunate intentions.

I hate banning hate speech.  At one time, that might have gotten me banned, which I hate.  But life might suck a bit less now, at least while turning the internet’s steam valve.  Users might encounter mean words if others are allowed to rant at will.  Humans also might encounter displeasing possibilities if you head outside.  Stupid free will and lack of knowing what’s next are one congressional vote away from being successfully regulated into oblivion.

Actual seething deserves shrugging.  The unpleasantly intolerant will abuse the privilege to yap responsibly, which is why sensible people exercise the option ignore them.  Control freaks are admitting they can’t figure out how to block or mute.  We can next explain how texting is like a call without talking.

Yapping is self-regulating.  The presentation of facts and interpretations of what they mean constitute an ongoing process like science, which those who spent 2020 shrieking about others daring to bust the six-foot bubble also mistakenly deem to be concluded.

On the plus side, they’re wrong about everything.  Your lecturers claim that, say, inflation is caused by corporations that decided to start gouging just as Joe Biden started getting what he wanted.  Trusting truth will win out spurs panic in panicky quarters.  Each contention deserves open criticism, which drives those out to control what gets said batty.

The sane should want those who hold awful concepts to self-identify.  Noxious theories still exist even if those who hold them can’t spew in certain spots.  It’s better for lousy thoughts and thinkers to fester in public.

Embarrassment is its own punishment.  Pernicious ideologies are defeated by exposing them.  Quelling ghouls is easier than confronting them openly.  Like trying to create prosperity by sending checks from the Treasury, there’s no actual progress.  Ending enmity by restricting access to a microphone is like claiming banning implements lowers crimes, which liberals also do.  Fear of confronting alternatives is part of their oh so accepting manner.

Editorial judgment doesn’t require a particularly useless diploma.  Figuring out what holds up is a commonly developed skill for humans even if they don’t figure avoiding a major with math entitles them to issue prophecies about truth.

Detecting mendacity is an ability that shows how easy it is to work in the media.  Those in useful fields are better at it in their free time with no training and a bit of common sense.  Locating accurate claims is easier when one is not invested in believing Democrats care about other people with accompanying loving policies.  Humans are better at journalism the less training they have.

Censoring the truth is a curiously popular hobby amongst those who fret about fake information.  Tweeters can now say a man who claims to be a woman is still the former even if it infringes on precious delusions.  Feel free to accurately opine that Hunter Biden is a grifting scumbag.  And you are allowed to notice that masks are as useless as Joe Biden.  Fact-checking who’s causing money to be worth less the more gets printed makes wholly unbiased reporters nervous that they’re not sufficiently protecting their sovereign.

Another gate cracked open frightens landowners who demand you heed their interpretations.  Jurassic-era dispatchers already lost control of the narrative with this whole internet deal, which really seems to be catching on.  Now, the most notable self-publishing site has reinstalled the DIY vibe. Permissive liberals who love controlling every last life aspect managed to crack down on vexing dissent in the ether for a bit.  Those protecting us from online rumormongering got the information wrong just like a traditional newspaper.  Some traditions may not be worth maintaining.

The right to tweet without regulation from an arrogant do-nothing in the sort of alleged workspace with a foosball table is not constitutionally protected, as a private entity can conduct itself as it wishes.  The notion is simply a wise one.  Those suspiciously insistent on halting debate could try letting evidence lead them as opposed to their partisan dreams.  Branding anyone who dares disagree a zealous hack leads to silly schemes involving restricting words.

Let everyone speak and sort it out.  Attempting to control information Newman-style is just one more urge to suppress personally instead of lashing out externally.  They should still be allowed to claim it.  We will mock them in response.  Authoritarian-inclined putzes despise free speech for personal reasons.

[clarenecessities]

Queerquiggle/Cybunnypoop

Subtitle: This Again

It’s been around two years since the shit hit the proverbial fan, but seeing as the individual in question has since deleted & remade, some of you may not be aware of whom you’re interacting with.

Queerquiggle & queerneopets are the latest installments in a series of urls belonging to one person, hereafter referred to as the original url, cybunnypoop. Other former urls for his neoblog include (but are not limited to): gaygelatin, shewhoneopetswiththee, neobloq, and candypaintbrush.

I should tell you all off the bat that he’s a Trump supporter, a “recovering” transphobe, and extremely Islamophobic, so this post may contain some upsetting information. There are some instances of misogyny, antisemitism, homophobia, and racism, as well. Oh, and ableism. Honestly, pick an -ism.

None of the information in this post should be a repeat of my first post regarding the matter. Warning: this post is even longer.

As before, I’d be remiss if I didn’t lay out my bias: I don’t like him. He’s been downgraded from “nemesis” to “nuisance,” as he’s no longer harassing minors (as far as I’m aware), but we’re never going to be best buddies.

We’ve spoken several times, though never to any resolution, and with each interaction it became increasingly obvious that it was futile. I ultimately blocked him following repeated propositioning and an unwillingness to engage beyond casting any disagreement as bullying and telling the kids to go back to their safe spaces.

Cybunnypoop is now 25 years old, and he hasn’t started anything major in a while. His posts remain fairly unpopular, though whether that’s the result of the quarantine or simple bad content, I couldn’t say. You’re under no obligation to take my word for any of this. Though I’ve provided links and screenshots where I can, what you make of that evidence is up to you.

TRANSPHOBIA

As it so happens, Cybunnypoop has recently tried listening to another human being, and has been educated about trans issues in a way that ~100 people on the internet offering resources apparently couldn’t accomplish.

What this means is that Cybunnypoop is now IDing with various names (itself nothing new, pseudonyms are an old hat here), gender identities, and pronouns, depending on the platform. I’m sticking with he/him for this post, as those were the last requested on his neopets blog. His description says shey/shem but unfortunately I have no idea how current that is, and his about says “whatever”–so if I’m misgendering here, I apologize; it is not intentional.

I, Clare, Author of This Post, am cis. So it’s not my place to gatekeep or say whether or not he’s ““really trans””. And, as he has expressly admitted to being transphobic in the past, none of this section is really up for debate. I’m just going to provide the information, including his apologies and the redaction thereof. I don’t know that he truly understands everything he did wrong, but he’s explicitly stated he thinks transphobia is bad, so hey, maybe we can all learn something.

I’m gonna try to keep this chronological, so here we go:

A fun little addition to a post via an anonymous terf, “You are still males, you have male privilege, you KNOW NOTHING & NEEVER [sic] WILL KNOW of our goddamn struggles.“ which Cybunnypoop began with “So much agree!”

When asked about the “trans bathroom debacle,” he stated he was, “just afraid it’ll result in sacrificing handicap-accesible bathrooms.” which is only tangentially transphobic but bears addressing: Why would it ever mean that?

Cybunnypoop has something of a preoccupation with the potential negative impact equity would have upon him, and ableism is a convenient vehicle for this–lord knows this country is appalling in terms of accessibility. However, no proposed version of “trans bathroom”s leads to the dissolution of ADA-compliant spaces. Whether it’s allowing trans people to use the bathroom they identify with, or installing/redesignating gender neutral spaces, it remains an issue of improved accessibility, not diminished. A disabled trans person has as much a right to use a bathroom as an able-bodied one.

When he graduated he was questioned on his political beliefs, specifically how he could support Trump and remaining uneducated about trans issues while claiming to be an LGBT ally–and congratulated on graduating. Rather than answering the questions, or thanking them for the congrats and ignoring the rest, Cybunnypoop declared it “harassment”. This is about the standard for what he deems harassment/bullying: Anything that disagrees with him.

Reposted a quote from Dixon Diaz, the alt right guy you may remember him quoting in several citations from my last post, which read, “Liberal: a person who tells you that you’re a bigot if you’re afraid of having weird men in the ladies room, but becomes traumatized if they see “Trump 2016” written in chalk.“ [sic]

trans people bad, diversity bad, children bad & trauma fake

An ongoing problem with fetishizing trans people, dating back long before his identification as trans, and indeed, during the period in which he was a self-avowed transphobe. (Warning: link contains slur!)

This grew more pronounced as he came to understand what it means to be trans, and zeroed in on transwomen in particular. This is itself a complex issue: When is a kink flattering and when is it dehumanizing? Are immutable adjectives inappropriate to fetishize, or is it positive representation?

Again, as a cis person, it isn’t my place to say–I’m just letting y’all know what he’s said, and you can determine how you feel about it. This post isn’t a thinkpiece on my opinions.

Select quotes from The Apology:

“I was transphobic. I was resistant to that term because I felt it was a misnomer. I was more…trans-ignorant, I felt, than “transphobic.” […] I couldn’t see what I was doing because I was too busy, I felt, being attacked.”

“I had a warped view of trans people, and I was too ignorant and stubborn to acknowledge it–to see it, even.”

“[…] it’s hard not to let a jerk taint your view of a minority, especially when that jerk was your introduction to the minority.“

I’ll be honest, my problem with this apology is in how it’s structured, not in its content. It seems to convey genuine remorse, but focuses the bulk of the message on excuses, including that last point, which… isn’t relatable.

Even this I could forgive (after all, he’s new to apologies) if it had heralded a change in attitude–but nothing changed. He continued on as before, and continued to refuse discussions of other issues (which we’re getting to soon).

Which brings us to The Second Apology:

Posted some day and a half after the first, it opens with the artfully passive aggressive line, “I thought this could be over but it’s obviously going to stick around.” And it’s all downhill from there, folks!

“What do you want? What more can I say? There isn’t anything left to say. Nothing will satisfy some people.”

“I never bullied anyone like some do to me.“

“If you don’t want to believe I am different,[…] then the problem is not mine. In these cases, it is a good idea for you to stop talking about me and lying about me“

Here is a glimpse, perhaps, into what he expected. He was waiting for accolades. Commendation. He’d just apologized–and unlike earlier attempts, it was genuine! I don’t know that he anticipated forgiveness, but the outright rejection of that apology by several individuals drove him almost immediately into a bitter tirade, once again foisting the blame onto the people he had hurt or offended.

Aaaand a redaction of former apologies. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a date on this one, so it may be referring to the older apologies, but its content bears addressing:

“Yeah, I apologised like a year ago […], and they refused it, so I’m done apologizing–not that I even have anything to apologise for.

“I’ll sooner die than acknowledge and apologise for their demented reconstructions of my words.“

Which, if this is about the older apologies–oops!

“I won’t deny I said some things that people found offensive, […] but they just took everything and ran apedoodie with it. It amazes me that, for all they claim to hate me, they have this obsession with everything I do and say.”

This is actually fairly emblematic of my own interactions with Cybunnypoop: Specifically, the characterization of all attention as both positive, and obsessive.

What is it about being held responsible for his actions that leads him to cry wolf? Historically, an unwillingness to debate his political beliefs. Oh, he’ll espouse Trump’s “virtues” for paragraphs and paragraphs, but anyone who criticizes him is obviously a liberal idiot who just loves to hate him, and I’ll bet they say “lame,” right? It’s these assumptions about other people that lead him so often to tilt at windmills, rather than addressing the subject at hand.

RACISM

“Obama spending $21 million to put refugees to work…why not spend that money in the inner cities to put young blacks to work… once again Obama and the Democrats have proved the black community is their who’re [sic] because we always come back to them after they screw us” a quote he posted from a Facebook page I won’t even name, because it’s literally got the N-word in it! But he’s definitely not a racist, right?

Obama being (literally) booted out of office, by a Confederate battle flag, symbol of white supremacy since the 1960s. (There’s been some suggestion it’s in the classic minstrel show style. Though he forwent the traditional depiction of red/pink lips in favor of purple, there remains the possibility that he just can’t draw caricatures).

I’m going to address this post more in the ableism section, but it’s worth noticing how often, and how readily, he uses the word c*lored unprompted. This is not the first occasion.

More lambasting of whitewashing as a concept, sarcastically proposing we paint a black person white and mutilate them to better portray Michael Jackson (whom he refers to as ‘Wacko Jacko’, an ableist and derogatory nickname) apparently under the impression that there are no other black men with vitiligo.

I think it’s important to cover this, as from Cybunnypoop’s posts suggesting we be outraged at the “yellow-washing” of Joan Watson (see my previous post) it’s clear that he has no idea what whitewashing means.

It is not literally painting POC white.

The term whitewashing is derived from cheap white paint of chalked lime, used for a long time to refer to a specific means of censorship, “to gloss over or cover up vices, crimes or scandals or to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data”. Simply put, it’s revisionist history, and the methods used to maintain that illusory timeline.

It isn’t difficult to see how the term came to be applied to the representative censorship in Hollywood.

Shared a Facebook graphic, “Black people who were never slaves are fighting white people who were never Nazis over a confederate statue erected by democrats, and why, because democrats can’t stand their own history anymore and somehow it’s Trumps Fault? [sic]“

“Also, you see Blacks everywhere, but they’re still considered a minority.” (He appended some context but frankly it’s even more damning.)

The term “spirit animal” is annoying but not because it’s racist, I guess

ISLAMOPHOBIA

Cybunnypoop’s Islamophobia is tied in pretty heavily with his support of Trump, so I’ll be citing a few of those posts in this section as well.

“Ban seven countries’ worth of ideology which promotes violence against women, LGBT people, animals, and nonworshippers? Sounds good to me!”

The cognitive dissonance of a self-avowed Catholic posting this is… incredible.

“Sorry to inform you, but the terrorists who attacked New York, Boston, Orlando, our embassies, and others weren’t Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, or atheists. They were Muslims.

“It’s not Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, or atheism which oppresses women, slaughters animals, kills gays, and calls for the conversion or beheading of nonbelievers. It’s Islam.

“Until the ideology evolves to be as peaceful and tolerant as it claims, it doesn’t belong in America.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s begin by refuting Trump’s claims that “the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.” Plain old xenophobia, not even in the ballpark of truth. Over the past 15 years, none of the self-described Muslim terrorists committing crime have come from the countries on Trump’s ban list. Zero. The country producing the most successful attacks against the USA is the USA itself.

A basic look at the data further reveals that white supremacist, self-described Christian terrorists actually lead the rate of attack and death toll by about 2:1. Yet, bizarrely, nothing from Cybunnypoop about the ‘violence and intolerance’ of Christianity, or even white supremacy… Who saw that coming?

It speaks to Cybunnypoop’s prejudice that he would believe such a blatantly false piece of information with no investigation or critical thought whatsoever. Although, it may speak more to his unwillingness/inability to use Google. We have had some problems with that in the past. 

“Dear Liberals: [sic] You claim to protect women. You claim to protect LGBT. [sic] You claim to protect animals. You claim to protect people who don’t ascribe to the dominant faith. But you’re protecting a violently misogynistic, homophobic, intolerant ideology which still slaughters animals in the name of their god and beheads people who worship otherwise. What the *** is wrong with you?”

Man, for derailing conversations so often to complain about perfectly valid modal grammar he sure loves breaking the English language.

When asked how he could still support Trump, he replied, “Because he hasn’t actually said or done anything wrong. The only thing with which I disagree was the transgender military ban, and that has been shot down, so it’s hardly relevant.”

Particularly in conjunction with his condemnation of liberals on the basis of not like, banning Islam, this is an explicit endorsement of everything from repealing the Alternative Tax Minimum to his sexual misconduct. Everything, except the one thing that directly affects one of Cybunnypoop’s demographics, was right.

HOMOPHOBIA

“I’m not like others in the LGBT spectrum. [bolding mine]

“I hadn’t cared for gay marriage nor had I especially cared to support the cause. […] I’ll fight for the welfare of the many before I’ll fight for the wishes of the few.”

(Well, historically, no, he won’t). Even without the implication that all the gay people who want to get married are selfish, this ignores the reason behind the push for the legalization of gay marriage: The AIDS crisis. Terminally ill gay men were forcibly evicted from their homes after watching their partners die, horribly, because they couldn’t inherit the lease/property. Their partners’ remains were the custody of parents who often wouldn’t allow the survivor to attend the funeral.

Up until gay marriage was legalized on a federal level, these incidents still occurred. One Indiana woman had to pay over $300,000 in taxes upon the death of her wife, and was told by the funeral home she could not arrange for her wife’s cremation as she was an “unrelated third party,” despite having the power of attorney. This is a significant concern.

“I don’t care for "pride.” I’ve actually started to loathe the undertones of the pride movement. […] is it truly worthy of a month and a gold star? […] I think it’s losing relevancy. Can we really celebrate something that’s no longer legally unique? Can we really have pride for… wait, what is it we’re proud of, anyway? We’re legally equal now; we’re socially equal, for the most part.” [bolding mine]

I don’t know if he forgot the homophobia he’s experienced, or if it just doesn’t matter unless it happened it to him.

“The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why Gay Pride Month is June tell them ‘A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.’“ -Tom Limoncelli

“Another thing–and the most loathsome part–about the “pride movement” concerns the very word itself. “Pride” …be proud of who you are, and be proud of not caring what others think of you. Fine. Sure. It’s fun to wildly flaunt your differences. But what’s the opposite of “pride”? “Shame.” So, if gays are to have pride, does that mean straights are to have shame?”

So why are we to be entitled to pride–why are we allowed to feel good about ourselves and they are not? […] The majority are not oppressive, and even if they wanted to be, they legally couldn’t. 

Good news guys, homophobia is dead and definitely super illegal.

“(Never mind the fact that pride is a negative, narcissistic trait and one of the Seven Deadly Sins.)” [bolding mine]

(We interrupt this post to bring you his “Antipridist Pride”)

“While it seems most of the LGB world makes their sexuality their entire identity, I leave it as just one facet of many.“ Once again, he’s not like Those Other Gays.

“ I’ll bet I pissed off a lot of gays with this post, but I don’t care, and I’m proud of not caring.“ (proceeds to describe the LGBT community as loud, angry, straight-bashing, etc. for a good paragraph or so, obviously very much caring)

That’s enough of that post, huh? Let’s move on.

“I know that a lot of the LGBT community is hypocritical–and intolerantly, angrily so. They scream about others giving them tolerance and respect while they don’t give others such basic rights.

“If there’s Black Pride, why couldn’t there be Caucasian Pride? Gay Pride, Straight Pride.“

As I broke down in my last post, Caucasian≠white, and was first misapplied by white supremacists and popularized by actual, literal Nazis. He evidently doesn’t care, and claims I “created” it. (I can assure you, I haven’t been alive since 1785).

“Is it me, or are there actually very few good gay celebrities?”

Doesn’t like the term “lesbian” because its “image is too pornified”. As I understand it this is fairly common among those who were raised in more conservative or religious families, so it’s not an issue per se; it just becomes weird in conjunction with his wanting to be called a dyke at one point (though I can’t find the post where he said that explicitly, only ones where he describes himself as such).

Said he’d expected Ted Cruz to be a “gay prostitute” because he gave off untrustworthy vibes.

MISOGYNY

As I’m sure most of you are aware, Cybunnypoop is pro-life. From certain parties, that can be motivated by misinformation rather than misogyny (though certainly the misogyny drives that misinformation). In his case? Well, actually only about 75% misogyny. The other 25% is empathizing with fetuses just until they’re born. Idk if it’s because of his parental situation or his existential dread or what, but we’re not here to psychoanalyze him; we’re here to review.

“It’s a point which I make constantly. It’s not hard to not get pregnant. You have a variety of options. There’s birth control. There’s getting your man snipped […]. And there is one absolutely fool-proof, sperm-proof way: ABSTINENCE. It’s stupidly simple, but there are self-righteous women and men out there who say–if you’ll pardon my pun–screw that. Free sex, rah rah. But if you don’t want to “risk” a baby, don’t do the do. There are plenty more things to do in life.”

Yeah, it may be “stupidly simple” for an “asexual homosexual” but other people do, in fact, get horny. “There’s birth control.” Where? You gonna pay for it? You gonna talk their “man” into getting a vasectomy? Pay for that?

I want you all to keep in mind that this is the same person who waxed poetic about his addiction to porn. And hentai. Which he downloaded in a public library, because he was just that addicted. But if someone (god forbid) “does the do,” and their birth control fails? Well, too bad. You should have been able to control your libido.

When Trump was elected he had the following to say:

“This is a time for healing.” No, this is a time for you to suck it up. You may not have wanted this result, but I and half of the country did. So, instead of bitching and moaning and trying to undo what I and half of the country have been working hard for, you need to shut the fuck up, go to school, work, or volunteer, and stop being an intolerant, selfish, hypocritical asshole.

Frankly this could go in a lot of sections but it’s using bitch pejoratively so…

Honestly there are more instances but I feel like you get the picture and this thing is already absurdly long, so we’re going to move along.

ANTI-SEMITISM

On screenshots of a neoboard discussing the origins of the ichthys symbol (the Jesus fish), Cybunnypoop added, apropos of nothing, “Hey, how about the fact that Christianity was originally illegal while Judaism was lawful, and the early Christians had to hold some Jewish mores so they wouldn’t be arrested and executed? Interesting, isn’t it…” and tagged it “two can play at that game”.

Christians weren’t being persecuted for not being Jewish; they were being persecuted for refusing to participate in state events from which the Jews were exempt via religious tradition. Christians were too new to be considered traditional, and were therefore considered in contempt of the state when they refused to, say, make a sacrifice on behalf of the Emperor. Also, we called each other brother & sister but still got married, and spoke weekly about eating a man alive, so people were kind of concerned.

Also, like, it was an explicitly socialist religion in an empire. That was never going to end well. The “mores” they had to hold were “don’t be anti-fascist” and “stop meeting in secret, we don’t know who you are and it’s freaking us out,” neither of which is explicitly Jewish and neither of which you can blame the Jews for.

Pretty minor, but in a poorly executed attempt to be inclusive, he wished everyone a happy Easter & Passover at the same time, only to be informed that Passover wouldn’t be happening for a month. So more about the assumption that Jews are lesser Christians again than any direct hostility. Perhaps better evidence of his ignorance of Jewish customs/how to hit “search” on Google.

 ABLEISM

Here there be slurs!

Alright. We’re going to begin this with a breakdown of the “lame” issue. Here’s the thing: Cybunnypoop hates it. He compares it (ceaselessly) to the r slur, which he uses liberally in his own defense.

I’m certainly not saying it isn’t a slur, or that you should use it, but to be frank, he’s wrong.

In both severity and time in which it’s been part of the English vernacular, lame is far more akin to other ableist slurs like “dumb,” “stupid,” “moron,” “idiot,”–all words which Cybunnypoop uses on the regular. The closest comparison we have to the r slur would be “cr*ppled”–which Cybunnypoop quotes on the regular.

Dumb is the closest analogue, as those middle three weren’t really popular until the American Eugenics Movement kicked in, but hey. If it bothers him so much, why say any of them?

Simply because, it only bothers him when it affects him directly and is said by his enemy.

For example, no problem whatsoever quoting Trump’s book, Cr*ppled America.

Here he calls someone ableist scum for calling him the r slur, yet here he mocks another’s offense at the term by comparing it to modern medical jargon.

Atheists and Liberals [sic] are “dumb”

“entirely okay” with the R slur

This post, which was also in the racism section, littered with fun slurs and what’s either blatant hypocrisy (see: his regular use of words like dumb/stupid) or one of the most incredible point-dodges I’ve ever seen.

Now we get into a recurring theme, with a recurring character. The problem with most of Cybunnypoop’s legitimate criticisms (e.g. lame is a slur, accessibility is bullshit) is that they’re never even googled, let alone researched, and that they come, 9 times out of 10, at the expense of another minority. Or, through sheer ignorance, one of his own.

“Trans people get [famous trans people]. Gay people get [famous gay people]. Black people get [famous black people]. Who do I get? I get Joe Swanson.”

“While everyone’s battling over how to bend backwards and make others comfortable, I’m just sitting here, cursing out the ungrateful bastards because there are places I can’t even ACCESS. […] And never mind the fact that there is no good disabled representation out there. You know who I get to look up to? Joe frickin’ Swanson. It’s so nice to be a forgotten minority. [bolding his]

Joe Swanson, for those of you who (like me) have no idea who that is, is a character on Family Guy in a wheelchair. This begs the question: Why do you need to shit on other groups and their representation to acknowledge how bad you have it?

There are dozens of famous disabled people I can name off the top of my head. Stephen Hawking, Hellen Keller, Beethoven, Lord Byron, FDR, Frida Kahlo, Sudha Chandran, John Milton–a cursory Google search reveals even more. Saying there are no famous disabled people is a shitty fucking thing to do, both because you’re erasing their accomplishments and you’re depriving other disabled people of that representation by pretending it doesn’t exist. Spreading misinformation so you can complain that everyone else is better off than you specifically is just plain cruel.

“I’m so sick and tired of society catering to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, but never giving a thought to people with disabilities. We don’t get a slice of the “diversity” pie.“

Catering to. … Catering to.

“Until our society can grow to acknowledge, accept, and represent the diverse world of disabilities, then we don’t have true equality and diversity.”

Like… he could have just made a post saying this. I mean, we have diversity regardless of equality, but that’s semantics. We don’t have to tear down other minorities to be heard. There’s enough “pie” for everyone.

Society: You should accept everyone regardless of sex, culture, gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, economic status Person: What about disabled people? Society: Huh?

I’m not a big fan of his little infographics, primarily because he uses them exclusively as a platform to strawman himself, but this one in particular is uh, frustrating. If he’s speaking about popular society, very few people accept all the groups he listed, particularly class/economic status. If he’s speaking about our country….

Federal protected classes include: Race, color, religion/creed, national origin/ancestry, sex, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, citizenship. 

It’s the same story.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

BLOCK HIM. Do not reblog his content. Stop him preemptively from reblogging yours. Do not engage with him. 

If you try to debate him, he will probably call you a bully, and you will probably get some not-so-mysterious anons. You will definitely be unable to reach a resolution. I know of at least one individual who’s attempting to “rehabilitate” him, so I guess we’ll see how that goes? I’d be genuinely delighted.

Reblog this post if you can, to spread the word.

Educate yourself about the issues addressed in this post. If you have questions, my inbox is always open.

I am not infallible, and I will also make mistakes. Please bring these to my attention immediately and they will be addressed.

This is a much less urgent situation than the previous post, as he’s (mostly) stopped harassing people, but you have a right to be aware of whom you’re interacting with. Whether you block him or befriend him or whatever is up to you, and I hope whatever choice you make is the right choice for you.

#neotag #cybunnypoop #not mentioned: art theft so that's cool #q slur

[crimethinc]

Confronting Escalating Repression in Germany: In the Aftermath of the G20, a Call for Resistance from the Rigaer 94

Following the popular rebellion in Hamburg during the 2017 G20 summit, the German state has sought to crack down violently on dissent. In August, the police shut down the most widely used German-language platform for radical politics. In September, the neo-fascist party Alternative für Deutschland secured seats in the German parliament. On December 5, police carried out 24 raids on leftist and autonomous infrastructure across Germany, seizing laptops, cell phones, and other means of communication. On December 18, the police published photos of people they accuse of participating in the G20 protests. Four days later, an anonymous threatening letter arrived at various autonomous centers around Berlin. Together, these events indicate a rapid descent towards tyranny. Yet German anarchists are resisting every step of the way. The Rigaer 94, a social center in Berlin, is emblematic of their courageous defiance. Here, we present some background on the Rigaer 94 and share translations of two statements on the conflict unfolding in Germany.

Background: The Rigaer 94

The Rigaer 94 is an autonomous housing project and social center in the Berlin neighborhood of Friedrichshain. The house has been at the center of many conflicts with the police, especially over the past two years. In 2016, the police declared the area immediately surrounding the Rigaer Strasse to be a “danger zone.” This designates a zone in which the police do not have to obey the law, where they may act according to the supposed imperatives of “security.” Berlin police regularly carry out illegal searches and set up control checkpoints in the neighborhood to harass inhabitants of the Rigaer Strasse.

In summer 2016, a 500-officer SWAT team raided the Rigaer Strasse and occupied the building’s social center, The Kadterschmiede. Police held the social center for three weeks. In response to this siege, hundreds and hundreds of luxury cars were burnt in night actions all over Germany. A 5000-person demonstration mobilized people from all over Europe to defend the autonomous center. The demonstration clashed with the police, receiving support from the neighborhood and from autonomous centers across Europe.

The fate of the Rigaer was to be decided in a court battle. Yet on the night before the verdict was to be announced, a car belonging to the state’s prosecutor caught fire. As a result, the prosecutor failed to appear in court the next day. The prosecution thus forfeited the case and the Rigaer Strasse won by default. Since then, the police have tried numerous times to provoke the autonomous center into conflicts.

This statement by the Rigaer gives a more in-depth look at the challenges it currently faces.

5000 people gathered in front of the Rigaer 94 on July 9, 2016 to defend it. The banner on the left reads “Government doesn’t create order—only subordination.”

Rigaer 94: Call for Resistance / Release of Manhunt Photos of Berlin Police

This text appeared in German on December 17, 2017.

The police state has set its forces loose: on Monday, December 18, the police published photographs of the faces of one hundred people who took part in the resistance to the G20 summit in Hamburg. The state has discarded the pretext of criminal prosecution entirely. Instead, it has made a major provocation against our movement by launching a new campaign of repression. This campaign is intended to strike fear into the hearts of those who participated in the G20 summit in order to crush all resistance. We will not be silent about this attack. The task of dragging this society of police collaborators, murderers, and fascists onto the funeral pyre remains before us.

It is clear to every reasonable person that the resistance in Hamburg was necessary. The forces of repression and the right-wing media have failed to reframe the narrative of the outpouring of defiance against the G20 summit. In a country that proclaims itself to be among the most democratic in the world, a country that presents itself as invincible, a country equipped with a sophisticated apparatus of violence, and in the face of enormous risks and serious consequences, tens of thousands of people dared to rise up. A mix of protests and offensive actions turned the summit of the ruling class into a disaster. A disaster for the city of Hamburg and a disaster for the powerful 20 leaders themselves, whose most important meeting now faces an uncertain future.

The summit was also a disaster for the police. In the Kaiser’s Germany, in fascist Germany, and today in democratic Germany, the police have never limited themselves to a merely executive function. They have always served as the front line for this nation of murderers. We all know how deeply anchored the ideology of the police is in our society. A society that threw Rosa Luxemburg’s corpse into the canal; that hunted Anne Frank behind her bookcase, to throw her into the extermination camps alongside millions of other “subhumans”; a society that ends up crowning the German-national military as the resistance1—this is a fascist society. The security apparatus of Germany, which was established during those slaughters and is now used to relentlessly hunt rebels and anti-fascists in the name of the German people, is also fascist. Just a few years after its “liberation,”2 this society and its executives were able to unite in the hunt against communists.

The German security apparatus was refined to perfection when it was used against guerrilla groups like the Red Army Faction, which carried out the long-overdue execution of Hanns Schleyer,3 a member of the Nazi Party. The faces of rebels were posted on every corner on manhunt posters; at every intersection, heavily-armed police maintained checkpoints. The death penalty was re-introduced and the nature of police work shifted. A new social discourse devised by a coalition of media, politicians, and police paved the way for state assassinations, psychological torture, and new special laws to be used against a large part of the population. The police state, still in its infancy when it murdered Benno Ohnesorg4, had to reckon with the permanent threat of insurrection.

Over the years, the German police have developed into a state within the state. Following the end of the urban guerilla groups and the new social movements of the 1980s and 90s, we are confronted with a society that can no longer generate any relevant opposition to the system. Not even when people are tortured and murdered in the bunkers of police stations, like Oury Jalloh from Dessau, who was burned alive by the fascist pigs. At the moment, the only factor inhibiting the completion of this totalitarian police state is its hesitance to scandalize civil rights activists too much. These civil rights activists, who like us are continually deprived of resources and support from civil society, have made their decision—whatever the state does cannot be wrong, whatever the press says is true: resistance is futile.

The time of comfortable protests is long gone. Today, German society has arrived at an extreme it hasn’t reached in over 80 years. Those who resist face the following challenges:

-Mere presence at a demonstration can mean receiving a prison sentence of many years.

-The police can designate zones in which their own laws are valid.

-The police can designate anyone as dangerous in order to lock them up and surveil them completely without approval from a judge.

Already in the lead-up to the G20 summit, sanctions were made against rebels. People who were designated by the police as “dangerous” received notice that they were forbidden to travel to Hamburg. These people were required to sign in every day at the police station while the summit was taking place, and were threatened with fines and jail time if they failed to obey. In a bid to intimidate rebels, police made their surveillance of certain people extremely obvious, not to mention the extensive secret surveillance that surely took place.

During the G20 summit, people undermined police control throughout the entire city of Hamburg, leading to the “adjustment” of citizens’ rights and massive amounts of violence by heavily armed troops of police.

portrait The mass demonstration on the final day of the G20 summit. Such scenes were significant because the image of the Kurdish leader Öcalan is banned in Germany. To see so many people bearing banners and flags with his face was an inspiring confirmation that the state had lost control.

The police activities before and during the summit were not qualitatively new. For many years now, the security apparatus has utilized every major event as an opportunity to mount new attacks on social conventions. What was exceptional this time was the number of attacks and how shamelessly they carried out these attacks against protesters.

What began after the summit was a qualitative leap. Some people invented conspiracy theories, claiming that the riots were carried out by the state in order to draw radical infrastructure into a final repression campaign in which it could be defeated once and for all. This kind of thinking is idiotic. We know precisely that the political disaster we created in Hamburg was desirable for us. In order to end this conspiracy theory, we claim full responsibility for everything that happened in Hamburg: from the first citizens’ protests to the very last stone that flew at the police.

As a part of that radical infrastructure, shortly after the summit we organized a demonstration in solidarity with all of those who were targeted by repression. In the future, we will not shirk our responsibility to take revolt further. Those who can only see state conspiracy behind every act of struggle deprive resistance of all its characteristics; they have no legitimacy to speak in the name of revolt.

It is clear that the state is fighting to ensure that its narrative of the events is the definitive one. It must conquer the narrative as it conquers everything else: our lives and our social structures, the environment and technology. In this battle for capitalist and nationalist ends, the state will always end up demanding fascism. With the same tactics, they try time and time again to delegitimize resistance by branding it criminal, antisocial, and apolitical. For this purpose, the German state can rely on its police, its media, and the German people, as well as its representatives.

It’s difficult to say who is the sleaziest of all participants in this process is. The boss of Soko schwarzer block,5 who would hunt everything he could get his hands on with the same fervor; or the nauseating Scholz,6 who represents the rotten bourgeoisie of Hamburg and their fancy cars; or the representatives of the press who serve to carry out PR work for the police; or the craven police collaborators, who deliver people up to brutal repression with the pictures they took with their cell phones, who would rather march behind every Hitler figure than take their lives in their own hands.

Some laughed at the latest wave of raids, which we saw coming far in advance. Others laughed because they knew that Fabio,7 a nice young man from Italy, would be a problem for the state’s strategy of repression. However, we should not underestimate the police strategy. An essential part of this strategy is to use PR to achieve long-term sovereignty of interpretation over the events in Hamburg.

All the same, who would have thought that so many months later, thanks to their regular appointments with the press, the G20 would still be a top theme on the daily news? And who would have thought that despite having almost unlimited resources at their disposal, their professional press work would fail without our doing anything?

Shoppers experiment with post-capitalist economics during the G20 summit in Hamburg.

For these reasons, and on the occasion of the manhunt for participants in the Hamburg riots against the G20, we want to emphasize anew the importance of our struggle against the state—against fascist organizations like the police, the secret services, and the right-wing structures—and also against the collaborators and informants within the population and the press. Fabio and everyone else who remains defiant in front of the judge are role models demonstrating a dignified approach to dealing with repression. The same goes for everyone who sends messages of solidarity to those targeted by repression, despite the intimidation of the state.

On the occasion of the police manhunt and the state’s call for a new wave of denunciations against 100 people, we have decided to release photographs of 54 police officers who took part in the eviction of the Rigaer Strasse last year. We would be glad to receive any tips, including where these police officers live and where we can meet them in private. Aside from taking part in the eviction, they should also be held responsible for all the violence they unscrupulously perpetrated during the three-week-long siege of our neighborhood in Freidrichshain.

It is important that we stop hesitating and put our strength into mobilizing solidarity and structures that are capable of action. The demonstrations8 after the raids were a beginning. After the next raids, we must become even more numerous. It is important that when all else fails, we take the streets to show our solidarity with all the comrades who are hunted by the henchmen of the ruling class.

So—out into the streets! Determined and angry, despite the repression, we will fight against the ruling order!

Burning barricades erected by demonstrators filled the skyline of Hamburg with smoke during the G20 summit.

Response to the Rigaer 94’s Call for a Police Manhunt / Threatening Letter Received from the Police State

This text appeared in German on December 30, 2017.

On December 22, an anonymous letter was delivered to various locations that the authorities have designated as “left-extremist meeting points.” The nine-page letter, double-sided with three photos on each side, contains threats against 42 people whose full names are listed. For 18 of those people, their photos were taken from the Berlin police department’s records or from people’s ID cards and are accompanied by partly relevant, mostly slanderous commentaries. This information can be directly traced to the data records from the state security departments. In addition, 24 people were named without their photos.

The letter, reproduced below for the sake of documentation, is signed by a fake organization called “The Center for Political Correctness.” The letter claims to be a reaction to the behavior of the radical autonomous house project Rigaer 94: “Your presence annoys an entire neighborhood.” The letter proves that the people who sent it were directly affected by the publication of the Rigaer 94’s call for a manhunt against the police. In the call, photographs of 54 police officers who took part in the summer 2016 eviction of Rigaer 94 were publicly released.

The letter threatens to publish more information about the individuals it targets. It is highly likely that the information and data records listed in this letter were passed on to Nazis. Many Nazi organizations are named in the letter, including “Autonomous Nationalists” and the “Identitarian Movement.” For the time being, we do not know to what extent this personal data has already been sent to Nazis. The letter makes nebulous threats—for example, against people’s cars or families, or that lawyers or investigation committees will become involved. The letter also threatens to send the data records to the police. This particular threat is an alibi that proves the letter’s authorship. An initial evaluation by a number of those targeted by the letter has confirmed that the information can only have been made available to the “scene-aware” state security officers (LKA 5) that work within the Berlin police department. The data records are pulled from approximately the last ten years. We are certain that the letter was created and sent by the Berlin police, since no one else would have access to these photos or the biometric information and investigation files.

The fake moniker reveals more about the authors. “Center for political correctness” is a play on “Center for Political Beauty.” The Center for Political Beauty is a leftist organization that uses publicity campaigns to fight against racism and fascism. Their last action was directed at the Alternative For Germany (AfD, the far-right German party) politician Björn Höcke. Höcke made a name for himself with his pro-fascist remarks about the Holocaust memorial in downtown Berlin: “We Germans, our people [Volk], are the only people in the world that has planted a monument to shame in the heart of our capital.” In addition, he complained about the “stupid” coping policy (Bewältigungspolitik)9 and demanded that the “memorial policy shift 180 degrees.” In order to stigmatize him and the AfD, the Center for Political Beauty secretly rented the empty lot adjacent to Höcke’s home and set up concrete slabs or “stelae” that looked exactly like those of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. They also publicly threatened to publish the results of their 10-month-long observation of Höcke from near his house. From this much, we can conclude that the letter that was sent to us was sympathetically received by the ranks of the Berlin police with their fascist activities and sympathies—to say the very least.

The official Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

Observing the house of the anti-Semitic politician Björn Höcke from the Holocaust memorial set up beside it by the Center for Political Beauty.

The threat to forward the data to extra-parliamentary Nazi organizations such as the Autonomous Nationalists shows that the authors of this letter are actively involved in far-right organizing. Furthermore, sending such a letter demonstrates that the authors have a great deal of confidence in and support from the police department. This is shown not only by the downright fascist ideology that the letter expresses, but also by the means itself. Slander and the sending of anonymous threats are known in all parts the world where political tension is high and regimes entrust their stability to security organizations. These techniques were developed in the 1960s in the US, where the FBI used similar methods to target the Black Panther Party. Named COINTELPRO, this program was exported to all dictatorships. The East German secret service, utilizing their strategy of “decomposition,” employed similar measures.

Cooperation between organized Nazi groups and the police is nothing new. During the siege and eviction of the Rigaer 94 in the summer of 2016, the personal information of people recognized by the police at the demonstrations was leaked to a Nazi blog in the “Halle-Leaks.” In addition, fliers illustrated with SS symbols were distributed in the area expressing support for the police. We also recall the right-wing activist Marcel Göbel,10 whose false testimony about the Rigaer 94 and the Kadterschmiede 11 was enough for the secret service to classify these places as “Autonomous strongholds.”

Lastly, the threatening letter confirms the claim made by the Rigaer 94 in their call for a manhunt against the police: fascist ideology lives inside the police departments, especially the secret services and state security. This is cause enough for us to renew our struggles.

We are not shocked that the police are carrying out this kind of repression. We are talking about the same police that murdered Oury Jalloh. The same police that made headlines throughout Germany because of its contacts with neo-Nazi groups and its escapades with individual Nazis.12 The same police force that let one of their officers be killed in order to prevent the full investigation of NSU activities.13

To everyone involved in our movements: we must prepare for further acts of disinformation, slander, false reporting, psychological and physical attacks, and “inexplicable” fires like the one that occurred in October 2015 at the entrance of the Liebig 34.14 The ones responsible for these acts are members of the Berlin Police department. The police figured out a long time ago that anarchy cannot be fought with legal means; they have decided on a strategy of direct escalation in the conflict with the Rigaer 94.

One final detail: the letter was sent from the post office in Tempelhof-Schoenenberg, the same district as the police precinct. We could never imagine that the police would make such an amateur mistake, even though they tried to conceal traces that would reveal who sent the letter. As can be seen in the photos posted with this statement, we were able to make the fingerprints on the letters visible. To do so, we made a solution composed of ninhydrin, ethanol, and acetic acid. We used a spray bottle to mist the letter and hung it up on a shelf to dry at 80 degrees Celsius. After about 10 minutes, the results were developed, as seen in the photos.

–Some of those targeted by the letter.

The threatening letter delivered on December 22 with the fingerprints on it revealed.

The German military is so unpopular that it has to portray joining the military as an act of “resistance,” as nobody wants to join. The military released a new youtube series which is an example of this. ↩

The end of World War II and subsequent occupation of Germany by Western powers and the Soviet Union is usually referred to as Germany’s “liberation,” implying that Germany was successfully cleansed of fascism. ↩

Hanns Martin Schleyer served in the SS during World War II. After the war, he became an important industrial leader in West Germany. The fact that prominent Nazi figures could still hold power after WWII confirms that de-Nazification never took place in Germany. This helps to explain why the RAF kidnapped and murdered Schleyer in 1977. ↩

The university student Benno Ohnesorg was murdered by German police during a demonstration in 1967. His death was an important moment in the German student movement; the June 2 movement was named after the date of his death. ↩

Soko Black Block is the official name the German police gave to their campaign of repression against G20 participants. ↩

Scholz is the Mayor of Hamburg, famous for suggesting that the police give people poison to make them vomit in order to prove that they took drugs. ↩

An 18-year-old Italian arrested at the G20 and held in prison for 4 months. ↩

On December 5, police raided several homes belonging to people accused of participating in a black bloc that the police brutally attacked during the G20 summit. Demonstrations took place all over Germany in response to the raids. ↩

This concept is specific to Germany and means “the politics of coming to terms with the past.” ↩

Marcel Göbel was a right-wing activist who infiltrated leftist movements. During the summer of 2016, when the Rigaer Strasse was being evicted by the police, luxury cars caught fire every night for months on end to protest the eviction. The police only caught one person committing arson—and that person happened to be right-wing activist Marcel Göbel. Göbel tried to light a poor person’s car on fire to make it appear that leftist activists were indiscriminately burning cars. In fact, left activists only burn luxury cars. After Göbel was arrested, it was revealed that he had worked extensively with the police. ↩

A social center and event space associated with the housing project Rigaer 94. ↩

In October 2017, police officers in Rostock came under fire for their involvement in a Nazi plot to murder left-wing activists. ↩

The National Socialist Underground [NSU] carried out a series of murders between 2000 and 2006, mostly against people of Turkish background. ↩

– Another leftist housing project in Berlin. ↩