figmentpez

[figmentpez]

[figmentpez]

I know I’m never on, but I encourage all of you to watch and share this video as much as possible. This is an Australian reporter covering the LA protests. You can see, on camera, the cop turn and purposely aim at her before firing. This narrative that it’s all the protestors is a clear lie.

[figmentpez]

I still consider myself a Christian. I still believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins. I'm really struggling with my faith. I thought that was mainly due to my health problems and not getting enough in-person contact with people, but it's not just that, and the last few days have driven home that the larger issue is the state of Christianity in the United States.

Recently a man assassinated a duly elected government official, murdered that officials spouse, attempted to assassinate/murder two others, and had a list of over 70 other targets they intended to murder as well. All evidence points to the murderer being a Christian Nationalist, an ordained pastor who gave hateful sermons decrying how evil the United States is, and portraying his political opponents as demons.

What really shakes me about this is that the majority of Christians I know who are not struggling with their faith, those who are most steadfast in declaring that the Church is fine and their faith is strong, are those who seemingly share Vance Boelter's views. They, like he, believe that LGBTQ people are evil and that the current administration is good.

I reject the idea that Christians should assassinate fairly elected government officials who are obeying the rule of law. We must engage in the political system for as long as it still functions. However, I cannot deny that Christianity in America is currently being complicit in promoting the hated that led to these assassinations. The Church needs to stand up and denounce Christian Nationalism. A theocracy is never going to be the holy institution that hateful men like Vance Boelter claim it will be.

Christian Nationlism, by whatever other name you call it, is a movement based on hatred. It targets the least of these as a way to gain more power for those already rich. Those who have faith in Jesus Christ must denounce movements based on persecuting those who are already vulnerable. We are called to love and care for immigrants, foreigners, outcasts, and even our enemies.

I still believe in Jesus Christ, but I don't know what to do with my faith when so many of those who also call themselves Christian believe that a teenager waving a rainbow flag is more of a danger than a pastor wielding a gun.

The threat is coming from inside the church. Christians cannot shy away and pretend that it is outsiders causing the problem. We cannot say "this man is not truly a christian, therefore he's not our problem". This man stood in front of congregations and sowed his hatred among us. The hate that led him to murder is still being spread by those in the Church. The lies he told about LGBTQ+ people are still being told by Christians. We cannot deny that something is deeply wrong in the Church that has led many Christians to believe that hatred is more important than love, or that it is somehow loving to persecute and imprison those we have been told to fear for being different from us.

My faith is strained, and I am very distressed, because the way that Christ taught me to love is so very much at odds with what I see being done in the name of Christ.

A man took the name of the Lord in vain when he murdered those he preached were God's enemies. I will not stand silent after that. This is not what Jesus Christ taught. This is not what the Church should be. It is, however, what is going on in the Church today, and Christians must stand up and change that.

Christians must stand up and protect those that others claiming Christ would harm. I don't care if you disagree with me and think LGBTQ people are evil, protect them anyway. I don't care if you disagree with me and think immigrants are inherently criminal, protect them anyway. I don't care if you disagree with me and think trans people are confused, protect them anyway. There are those in the Church who would seek to pervert the Gospel and do harm in God's name, and so the faithful within the Church must stand up and protect the least of these from being harmed.

[figmentpez]

btw the thing she couldn’t ignore was someone calling her out for saying anti-depressants/hormone therapy are only perscribed by lazy doctors

[figmentpez]

I hate the phrase “I never let my disability stop me” because yeah, I do. I don't push myself to go for a run. I stop myself from committing to a bunch of outings. I let my disability stop me doing things that will cause me pain, endanger me, or worsen my health. I let my disability get in the way of things I am unable to do.

By definition, there are things we can't or shouldn't do. If you think that's not inspiring enough, then fuck you.

[figmentpez]

[figmentpez]

[figmentpez]

[figmentpez]

[figmentpez]

One of those situations where, 'you're turning into your father' is the furthest thing from a insult possible.

[figmentpez]

Knives! Get your Knives here for no particular reason!

🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪

Get em while they're cold, get em while they're sharp!

Special discount if your name is Brutus for no reason in particular!

[figmentpez]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[figmentpez]

Lmaoooo you can see it sweeping in on the right at the start of the video

[figmentpez]

Not to be horny on main but does anyone want to like. give me a hug

[figmentpez]

[figmentpez]

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

[figmentpez]