anarcowboy

[anarcowboy]

Like I don't understand how it's shocking that trans talk men about it as misandry when they get killed for being men. Like...that's not quite how it's happening, but it's also not not what's happening. They're killed for trying to be men, for "not" being men, for wanting to be men, for identifying as men. Someone says "I'm a man" and gets killed for it...he got killed for being a man. On paper at least.

So like...no there is not systemic misandry as a parallel in patriarchy to systemic misogyny but trans men face systemic violence for being trans men. And it's not just "because they are trans" because if they weren't men they wouldn't be trans. The "men" part is relevant and cannot be separated.

And this should challenge how we see intersectionality as "punished trait + punished trait equals super oppressed" because of course "men" are rewarded for being men. Male is a desired category. But you can't fight terfs saying how trans women are ultra-privileged men trying to escape accountability and then believe trans men are escaping misogyny by jumping into a world that will reward them for being men.

It doesn't work like that.

[anarcowboy]

Boiling it down to any single factor is a mistake when it's a soup of dogshit

--there was substantial decrease in voter turnout between 2020 and 2024. more voters than 2016 tho, and still a popular loss. Woof. 3rd party votes did not make a difference and even if all "other", Stein, AND libertarian votes went to Harris she'd still lose (libertarian pulled from Trump more than Harris)

--running to the right of Trump on various issues normalized conservative policy, so those who they attempted to court could get the same results from Trump without having to vote blue

--those they attempted to court are also, yes, a lot of racists and misogynists. The Black vote was almost unanimously in favor of Harris. Just wildly strong polling. The Latino/Latina vote was split, men leaned Trump and women leaned Harris. The white vote skewed pretty strongly to Trump. Failing to ever address white supremacy and instead court it will never make a woman of color appeal to these people, no matter how "lethal military strong border" fascist you try to be

--Harris's campaign ruthlessly belittled her constituents. They refused to speak with people, canceled meetings, mocked them, and tried to make a fool of people in mourning, scared, devastated, yet still ready to vote for her if she gave them crumbs. She didn't. The campaign turned its back, like Clinton did before, on people willing to vote for her if she put any effort into getting their votes. But like in 2016, Schumer was confident you could replace blue collar dems with suburban republicans. it failed. twice. The whole campaign trail has been littered with contempt for their own base. Harris didn't even speak at her own rally last night and sent everyone home.

--2020 has shifted us into an era of extremism and desperation. People are angry. People are scared. Multiple people have tried to kill trump in the last few months. Many voted for him not because they like him but because they have contempt for Harris, whether reasonable or bigoted varies across the board.

--Even as min wage hikes pass, abortion passes, social security expansion passes, and "radical" politicians like Omar and Tlaib win re-elections in the same exact places Harris loses, anchors blame progressive policy for her downfall. Even now, the marginalized people used as pawns by her campaign are being thrown to the wolves for her loss.

--The dems never learn from a loss. They are a center-right party with substantial hatred for progressive policy even as progressive policy polls as wildly popular among the masses. They loathe their base, while Republicans are willing to kiss the asses of theirs.

--Trump will fail to meet all the expectations placed on him, and his base will become angry. Then rather than ever run a platform to help working class americans, marginalized people in substantial and lasting ways, the dems will court those disillusioned by Trump, until they fail to wow them next time and a new fascist runs.

--The two party system does not work, especially when both are right-wing. Trump is not the sole issue and never was. He's convenient cover. Biden is too weak to do anything, then Trump will be too powerful to stop. It repeats forever. But this dance is crumbling for people. Something is breaking and people are tired of it. We have always been a fascist nation that is rapidly becoming more fascist, and unless something truly radical on the left becomes a possibility for dems that can grab the masses and inspire hope--like say, Bernie Sanders--then we are doomed to slide ever right-ward forever until collapse. But hey, the dems certainly wouldn't sabotage and kill a movement like Bernie's, right?

To sum up: we are in a fucked up time where we refuse to reckon with our past and white supremacy and instead cater to it and then have the nerve to be shocked it bites you once again. In politics and in life you cannot appeal to white supremacy, it is a snake to defeat.

Organize, find solidarity, fight, and god while you need to stop bending over for your enemy, you'd maybe be inclined to learn from them, understand them, and realize the way to defeating them has always been with force and a "fuck you I'm here to stay" attitude.

Electoral politics are never the beginning or end of what politics is. The presidential election is even a very small part of that process. Support community work protecting the people neither party will, support organizations working to undo the harm of these parties, and stop seeing this as a team sport with black and white villains and heroes where one side of a corrupt system represents the good guys and so surely their loss can only come from Evil Forces and not a system performing as designed.

[anarcowboy]

Idk I mourned the ADL a lot initially and got so nervous about who to hold up as reputable back in like 2018-2019 and then realized all the anti-zionist orgs and groups the ADL has been trying to kill for decades have been doing their work just fine. In the 2020 effort to drop the ADL so many Black-led orgs stepped up to offer support, a bunch of Palestinian groups groups did so much local support, and every institution who didn't find smaller local orgs reputable enough ALSO didn't give a fuck what the ADL had to say because they were antisemitic all along--and have only showed their asses even MORE in all the anti-Palestinian hubbub since last year.

Non-Jewish groups dedicated to opposing white supremacists and fascists were providing us with better resources than really intensely zionist groups--both Jewish and not--had been.

"Solidarity" and "intersectionality" are both easy and also super not easy answers to the issue.

Functionally, there always need to be Jewish voices on antisemitism but it cannot only be Jewish orgs doing it--and fortunately it isn't! But right now it's not enough, and it's been embarrassing to see orgs kinda shy away from addressing it all because they think support for Palestine comes at the cost of support for Jews and it doesn't. That keeps Jewish orgs from expressing solidarity with Palestine, and it makes pro-Palestinian orgs not wanna reach out to Jews.

The ADL is supremely replaceable not by another org, but by many many orgs, and we need to continue to replace it by as many resources in as many hands as possible.

I will say a dramatic step has been taken backwards since 2023 in a lot of areas of this fight, but I've also never seen as much coverage for groups like JVP or JFREJ or JAWS and more.

My hope is that more Jews see alternatives to zionist orgs as a possibility, there is more mobilization among Jewish orgs to combat antisemitism without zionism being a tenet of their org, and that non-Jewish orgs continue to expand their membership and mission to include antisemitism in their list of enemies in tackling white supremacy and fascism.

[anarcowboy]

Ultimately, exclusion and label policing and pointing out "trenders" comes from the person's own deep-seated misery. Cis people will look at trans people and say we are doing it for perverted reasons or depraved reasons--a display of their own discomfort with their roles and presentation and expectations. So many cis people all but say with their words, "why should you get to do this when I can't?"

My dad once tried to talk me out of being trans by saying that "everyone" wishes they were another gender sometimes. Either that's not true and reflects his own trans-adjacent struggle, or vast swaths of cis people truly are rolling around in abject misery unable to be who they want.

Trans people look at other trans people getting procedures and being read how they want to be read and decide that being cis-looking is conformity and ultimately not-radical. The very thing they want and can't have, that is hidden behind paywalls and barred by societal bouncers to them and somehow isn't transformative anymore when someone else gets it?

Trans people will look at other trans people who don't get procedures and don't get read how they want and decide that being nonconforming is taking the easy route. How dare you make peace with a life I could never stand to live, that makes it seem like all my efforts were for nothing. You trender. You fetishist. You freak.

No one who is comfortable where they are directs such anger at other people just struggling to be themselves. You would not lash out so violently against people who were you, who you can't be, who you want to be, if you were secure in your own identity.

I have been that person. People who want to be cis-passing stealth are not the problem. People who don't want to pass are not the problem. People who get surgeries I wouldn't are not the problem. People who won't get the surgeries I've had aren't the problem. People who go by weird pronouns or labels or call themselves silly things are not the problem.

Respectable productive attractive "fully" transitioned trans people are still killed for being trans. Not because of 15 year olds named Sock. And Sock getting kicked out wouldn't have stopped if it looked like a gorgeous young girl rather than a deeply depressed boy.

You are not a bigger target nor granted a pass for your misery, and you are not a bigger target nor granted a pass for finding happiness.

The only threat to the trans community from within is those trying to push our siblings into the margins.

No one transitioning for sex reasons is a threat when you find yourself sexier after transition. No one transitioning for clout is a threat when you find your true friends and come into your own when you transition. No one is transitioning for power when you realize there are no powerful trans people writing these laws, running our governments, and monopolizing the mentality of healthcare.

No one else's bodily autonomy is a threat to you. Choices about your self are not a threat, losing your choice is the threat.

Do not be the threat to others.

Let people be who they are.

Be who you are. And blame the right people who stop you.

[anarcowboy]

when i was a little kid my parents used to put me in an american flag tshirt for memorial day and july 4th. my sense of protectiveness in sports and among friends was picked up by teachers who pointed me towards army recruiters as a teen. i got raised on shit like Miracle that encouraged the idea that the highest form of pride was in watching The Country Unite to Defeat the Evils Beyond Our Borders.

i thought flag burning or sitting for anthems or refusing to say the pledge was the most insulting thing to do to the country that "welcomed" my family.

I fucking promise you you can grow up and overcome your sense of american nationalism

[anarcowboy]

it's been a while since since I first saw Ola's fundraiser circulating on the dash. it's been a while, too, since I spoke to Ola for the first time, and a while since I last made a post to bring attention to her fundraiser. in the last post I wrote for Ola I spoke of my dismay at the ratio of notes on one of her most widely circulating fundraising posts to donations her fundraiser has received (the former being disturbingly higher than the latter).

I'm having a version of that experience again now. I'm looking at Ola's gofundme page in something like disbelief. Ola's fundraiser should be further along than it is. we're approaching the point where it will have been a year of constant bombardment and displacement and threat of every imaginable kind to Ola and her family, and her fundraiser isn't far beyond the halfway point.

Ola and her family need money not only to escape this situation, but also to survive it. the weather is growing worse, food prices are still sky high, and there is danger every moment. i watched a video the other day which made the point that solidarity is not supposed to be easy - it's not just one click (though that one click is also vital in situations like these) but rather a commitment to go out of your way to help when necessary. your help is necessary here. share Ola's fundraiser as much as you possibly can, but please also remember to give whatever you have the means to give.

here's a link to Ola's gofundme / here's a link to Ola's verification (line 205).

[anarcowboy]

Idk dude it's surreal to talk to historians and read ancestry from my family where it's like "okay here's documents on ghetto deaths, and ghetto survivors and here's your family in death camp lists and here's your family in a list of Holocaust child deaths and here's your family name in death camp survivor testimony and here's a statistic about how people with your surname lived an average of 22 years until 1960" and talk to family where it was like most of your surviving lineage converted to something else or were forced to convert and then the fledgling few who still try to be active in Jewish spaces get relentlessly shit on for being against atrocity carried out in our name like come ON. "Self-hating Jew" the only ones left over from this ordeal who retained a shred of self-respect see this false narrative for what it is!

[anarcowboy]

Despite clemency recommendations and petitions and efforts to sway Oklahoma's government, Emmanuel Littlejohn was also executed, making him the fourth of five men put to death in under a week.

Freddie Owens by South Carolina, Marcellus Williams by Missouri, Travis James Mullis by Texas, Littlejohn, and then Alan Eugene Miller by Alabama. Miller was the second person killed with nitrogen gas in Alabama since its return as an execution method--a horrific way to die.

Among their killers are Governors Henry McMaster (SC), Mike Parson (MO), Greg Abbott (TX), Kevin Stitt (OK) and Kay Ivey (AL)

Many of the men maintained innocence, but ultimately none of these men should be put to the death by the state, particularly using horrifically brutal methods.

Republican governors may be the face of these decisions, but this would not be possible without Prosecutors and then Attorneys General who allow for this to happen. It also wouldn't be possible if Presidential pardons were issued to end this injustice.

From the top down, there is not just complacency but permission for this to be the norm. Even the dems have removed anti-death-penalty measures from their platform. There is consensus among politicians of all flavors that this is acceptable. This cannot remain so.

Abolish the death penalty, and may devastation follow every cop and politician who upholds it.

[anarcowboy]

I think a big political split between a lot of people who call themselves "leftist" (regardless of whether they are just a liberal) is between those who think American people are irredeemable or the American state is irredeemable.

There are those who have no hope or interest in rehabilitating a machine that does what it was meant to do, so they turn their focus elsewhere.

And there are those who are content to submit people they have given up on into the meat grinder in the hopes that the machine will be appeased and repairs on the "broken" system can begin.

[anarcowboy]

New political sideblog for @cock-holliday