fuckindiscourseblog

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discourse about That Fucking Franchise courtesy of That Rancid Abyss Of Evil (cisfem, 50s) often retreads reeeeeeeaaaaaally annoying points where it's like.

i, personally, have always hated this series and thus am superior to you. personally i think my aesthetic distaste for the mid children's series is more important than the fact that its author spends her days actively trying to destroy trans people's rights (& women's rights along with them).

or the annoying opposing view:

i, a fan, am actually doing the Greatest activism by promoting her shitty ip but making the characters she made up into trans & queer people. obviously this fills her with more rage than trans people existing

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it is fully possible to recognise the dangers of ai - racism, either bc of programmers (grok) or data sets; environmental health; general misinformation (safety, poison, esp) - & be aware that people using ai are very often doing so for a reason. see this on the school system and this excellent piece on ai therapy/ai as a tool to help mental health vs the total lack of resources for mental health in either the nhs or the third sector. like. you calling people using ai idiots or selfish or lazy is not praxis even if you refuse to accept both these things at once.

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think the reason it's easier to 'pass' as a man than it is to 'pass' as a woman is because femininity is more heavily policed in terms of appearance/desirability to men. like, behaviours are a part of that, but appearance is the baseline. the beauty industry preys on women to a greater degree than it does on men, and 'male' beauty focuses on achieving a higher level of masculinity, reaching 'elite' or 'superior' masculinity (usually highly linked to whiteness/wealth), where other men defer to you and see you as more valuable than them.

masculinity is policed, but in terms of behaviours or style choices that fall outside the lines of masculinity and challenge it. men are threatened with 'becoming women' - 'you throw like a girl', 'you act like a girl', a whole array of slurs - & if it's clear they're fully committed they're threatened with third gendering.

if you dress masculine enough and act innocuously or masculine-ly enough, you're assumed masculine because masculine is the 'norm', even as it requires certain style/aesthetic choices and behaviours

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another bad take from me, king of bad-to-lukewarm takes:

i don't think it's necessarily bad/wrong for men to feel hurt or say they feel hurt by 'i hate all men' rhetoric. some of the rhetoric is a response to rape/misogyny specifically - ie, i have seen posts breaking down about how men are more likely to harm people than bears, kill your local rapists is not about you unless you are the local rapist, in which case, whatever bitch, eat lead - some of it has been critiqued by feminists - ie, 'kill all men' rhetoric from white feminists, body shaming or job/income shaming bc it aligns with oppressive social norms & not feminist/anti-patriarchal values.

however, when you get to blaming that for joining a hate group, you need to examine your own motivations more than blaming feminists. like, i'm sure it was nice to be welcomed by the alt-right, but you have endless leftists going on about 'accepting men' & creating 'positive masculinities'. there are spaces that aren't about oppressing people of colour or trans people or queer people or women that will accept and welcome you, & honestly if you're not finding those that may be more to do with whatever's keeping you stuck online (where community is much harder to find) rather than feminism. (but even online, there may not be active community but there sure as fuck are voices on the left that are v pro-men. often way too much pro-men to the point of ignoring abuse/rape/misogyny, but i digress.)

(& being lonely/stuck online isn't a flaw, but choosing a hate group is a very active choice. you don't usually do that solely out of loneliness and desperation to connect, because i assure you, trans people, queer people & people of colour feel those things too, and they would not find welcome in those spaces unless they lied about their identity. white women's alt-right spaces are usually more like that godawful pearl woman where your whole purpose is tearing down other women & enforcing the patriarchy; i can't imagine they'd be helpful for escaping loneliness. terf spaces would be a more likely hyperonline white women's equivalent - the hate is all directed outwards to trans people (particularly trans women) & often women of colour, too.)

like, you definitely need to examine your own choices, but if you're looking at issues in society too, you need to look at what's preventing community building/forming where you are or online, and it sure as fuck ain't feminism. if you're claiming that's the main issue you still have misogyny to deal with.

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honestly if the people who are like 'i'm voting harris & proud' genuinely think that the dem government would never agree to stop funding & arming the genocide & that's why they refuse to be tactical, they should reflect on that.

ngl i'm also deeply uncomfortable with 'voting is evil & a betrayal of principles & therefore you should refuse to vote' when inaction isn't going to help make the choice any better. like. yes the ruling class is evil yes they're always going to be doing some evil shit unless we get to the point where we can set up a viable alternative & overthrow them, but until that point surely we can try to push them away from their worst positions? like. the option is always either 'don't vote no matter what' or 'always vote for the guy that isn't [candidate for the designated far right party]'.

the idea of trying to change the minds of the candidates by leveraging the power of the vote seems way more powerful than denying that that exists entirely by either saying you'll definitely vote for anyone that can feasibly beat [furthest right candidate] no matter how shitty they are or saying that you'll never vote ever even if the shitty right/centre-right/centrist candidate agrees to stop doing the most egregrious shit they're doing. like. at least try to get them to change their stance. they're more likely to change their mind than the furthest right candidate and the time to do that is now.

& honestly if they don't? that's on them, not the people who refuse to vote for someone funding and encouraging a genocide.

i just wish we could be more strategic instead of 'never vote' or 'always vote'.

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thinking about liberalism & weird policies that get attributed to the 'far left' but honestly benefit the right:

assisted dying. theoretically, yes, people should have the right to die. but in this medical system? where people barely have the right to live? it's just going to lead to eugenics. no assisted dying until all patients have full autonomy

defending paedophilia/rape/abuse w/ the claim that it's somehow related to queerness/is an 'identity', or that it somehow allows autonomy for children. a) no-one's 'identity' is harming people, and b) rape & paedophilia are deeply normalised under regular-ass patriarchy. they're not transgressive or new or granting autonomy, they're extreme expressions of the notion that (white) men have rights to the bodies/persons of women/mages(1) and (white)(2) adults have rights over the bodies/persons of children. no-one has rights over anyone else's body/person. if we genuinely focused on consent/autonomy it'd be clear that the power imbalance between children & adults is so great that consent is impossible, especially with the addition of things like knowledge/maturity/understanding.

(1) mages = marginalised genders, i'm not living in a weird alternate world where magic users are oppressed by the patriarchy. that'd be wild though. magic use as a type of gender. damn.

(2) i say white, white supremacist patriarchy will allow men of colour rights to the bodies/persons of women/mages of colour so long as no white person's 'ownership' is being breached, and the same for adults of colour over children of colour.

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genuinely infuriating that 'why don't we push them left *now* by making our vote conditional' is so rarely a part of voting discourse

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ngl i'm also deeply uncomfortable with 'voting is evil & a betrayal of principles & therefore you should refuse to vote' when inaction isn't going to help make the choice any better. like. yes the ruling class is evil yes they're always going to be doing some evil shit unless we get to the point where we can set up a viable alternative & overthrow them, but until that point surely we can try to push them away from their worst positions? like. the option is always either 'don't vote no matter what' or 'always vote for the guy that isn't [candidate for the designated far right party]'.

the idea of trying to change the minds of the candidates by leveraging the power of the vote seems way more powerful than denying that that exists entirely by either saying you'll definitely vote for anyone that can feasibly beat [furthest right candidate] no matter how shitty they are or saying that you'll never vote ever even if the shitty right/centre-right/centrist candidate agrees to stop doing the most egregrious shit they're doing. like. at least try to get them to change their stance. they're more likely to change their mind than the furthest right candidate and the time to do that is now.

& honestly if they don't? that's on them, not the people who refuse to vote for someone funding and encouraging a genocide.

i just wish we could be more strategic instead of 'never vote' or 'always vote'.

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voting isn't automatically useful. the reason it gets targeted is bc of its potential should a candidate who actually wanted to challenge vested interests - military-industrial complex, imperialism, capitalism - stood. that & they seem to generally just hate people of colour having any rights.

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jfc some of these people are not satisfied even if you agree to vote. they want you to eat your poison with a smile because hey, at least it'll kill you slowly

the way pro-biden libs talk about voting is kind of bizarre/a double standard tbh. not voting is somehow active support for trump, but voting for biden isn't support for his policies on gaza?

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horrifying to see reform be in second place on the first two constituencies :/ :/ :/

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similar hypocrisy in pro-starmer libs. not voting for starmer means you're ~letting the tories win~ even if you're voting green/independent, but not voting for corbyn was fine, actually

the way pro-biden libs talk about voting is kind of bizarre/a double standard tbh. not voting is somehow active support for trump, but voting for biden isn't support for his policies on gaza?

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the way pro-biden libs talk about voting is kind of bizarre/a double standard tbh. not voting is somehow active support for trump, but voting for biden isn't support for his policies on gaza?

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even aside from the overwhelming evil of it, the israeli tactics are so fucking stupid & counterintuitive. all the rhetoric about save the hostages, but also we're going to starve & bomb gaza, where the hostages are (not to mention the literally killing hostages waving a white flag). saying 'oh haniyeh is safe & wealthy elsewhere' & then killing his kids & grandkids, making him part of the collective grief & way more connected to palestinians.

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i mean sure but for kids to have a genuine choice they need to know what it is they're about to read. if a child knows they'll feel sick/horrified reading details about incest or cannibalism or something - or just know they don't want to read about that - they need to know the book will contain that.

There is genuinely no such thing as an inappropriate book for a child.

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actually cannot fucking stand when people take a serious issue & say bc of it's seriousness you have to do/not do minor thing that barely influences the issue as if it's akin to active support.