#Liberal feminism is a hoax

[thefamiliarstrangers100]

When a man says he prefers a woman who is strongly opinionated and independent, don’t take his words literally. Because what he truly means by that is he is looking for a woman he can ‘tame’, someone he can bend to his needs because men are insecure and wanna prove their ‘manhood’ to themselves through ‘dominance’. He wishes to acquire a woman he’d otherwise not stand because it feeds his male ego. They view strong women as a conquest to be won, exotic birds they can collect, only to imprison them and dehumanize them, as it gives them a sense of ‘accomplishment.’ They perceive the challenge of ‘taming’ such women as a test of their own prowess. Men love to test their limits on women. He views naive women as boring because he sees no ‘thrill’ in pursuing them. Women have never been humans to men. Don’t take men’s words literally.

[missmisandrytabletalk]

I hate it that soft porn and female nudity has become a norm on every social media platform. there's not been a single time I haven't had to see that bizarre promiscuous content surrounding teenage girls having their nips and bosoms out & don't even get me started with those comment sections which is full of those porn addicts constantly thirsting over them. though the most abominable thing is seeing those young women feel empowered in their own objectification and feeding those incels with exactly what they seek from women. what they fail to understand is that the liberal feminism itself is a hoax and reeks of internalised misogyny. i mean now look where are these young girls and women really heading to? plus these female celebs in the west infuriates me even more for promoting and glorifying the use of OF. and guys.. have you seen the trending shows on netflix recently? i mean more than half of the content is about male sexual fantasies and 365 days-ish eroticas. ofc the male audience is flourishing on such platforms. so appalling and a really high time for us to actually do something about this obnoxious filth taking over the internet.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Amanda Borschel-Dan

Published: Oct 5, 2018

The term “Femi-Nazi” became all too accurate when a trio of academic tricksters participating in an elaborate hoax submitted portions of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” rewritten through a feminist lens to a leading peer-reviewed feminist journal. The satirical paper was accepted this past academic year for publication by Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work.

The sting operation against academic journals became public this week.

In a truncated year-long project aimed at highlighting the alleged influence of extremist dogma and confirmation bias in academia, the trio wrote 20 farcical “scholarly” papers — three of which were based on rewrites of “Mein Kampf” — for leading cultural studies journals. All 20 of the papers were based on “something absurd or deeply unethical, or both,” the authors have said; seven were accepted for publication.

One of the papers, “Our Struggle is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice,” was written under the alias Maria Gonzalez, PhD, who claimed to be based out of the fictitious Feminist Activist Collective for Truth (FACT).

According to the real-life authors, “The last two-thirds of this paper is based upon a rewriting of roughly 3,600 words of Chapter 12 of Volume 1 of ‘Mein Kampf,’ by Adolf Hitler, though it diverges significantly from the original. This chapter is the one in which Hitler lays out in a multi-point plan which we partially reproduced why the Nazi party is needed and what it requires of its members.”

Hailing from differing countries and fields, the trio of academics is made up of self-proclaimed liberals who claim to want to fix a broken system, not ban the fields of study themselves: Helen Pluckrose, a UK-based English literature and history scholar; James Lindsay, a math PhD; and Peter Boghossian, a professor of philosophy at Portland State University. The project was documented by Australian filmmaker Mike Nayna, who released a viral YouTube video with an authors statement on the project this week.

The scholars targeted high-ranking humanities journals in the niche subjects they label as “grievance studies.” These relatively new fields, which have become popular in the past 50 years with the rise of the civil and women’s rights movements, examine the lives of the historically and traditionally oppressed: women, racial, religious and cultural minorities, and the LGBT community.

With a steep learning curve, the team quickly took six of their initial attempted hoax papers out of circulation, believing they could do better. After adapting their submissions based on peer reviewers’ comments, within a few months, an unheard of seven absurd papers were accepted. Leading the pack was “research” on rape culture at urban dog parks, which was recognized by leading peer-reviewed feminist geography journal Gender, Place, and Culture as “exemplary scholarship.”

It was skeptical media attention after the publication of the dog parks paper which brought the project, initially scheduled for 18 months, to an abrupt end this summer. All papers are available online, as well as the name-redacted comments of the peer reviewers.

According to the trio of scholars, it is likely that another six fictitious papers would have been accepted for publication as their experiment in “reflexive ethnography” within the world of grievance studies progressed.

Is there any idea so outlandish that it won't be published in a Critical/PoMo/Identity/"Theory" journal? Helen Plucrose et al. submitted a dozen hoax papers to find out. https://t.co/TTDLuIQN9p via @areomagazine — Steven Pinker (@sapinker) October 3, 2018

The trio contends that the fields have been infiltrated by radical and intolerant theories. And what better way to prove their point, they figured, than turning to one of the most extreme manifestos in recent history — “Mein Kampf.”

Mathematician Lindsay told The Times of Israel on Thursday, “We decided to try to rewrite something from something old and nasty, and ‘Mein Kampf’ not only is the pinnacle document, it proved accessible for our methods.”

Theological fire and brimstone writing “didn’t transliterate easily,” Lindsay said. However, “much of ‘Mein Kampf’ is an autoethnography.” This style of self-reflective writing is en vogue in the grievance studies’ academic journals and therefore the substitution of feminist or anti-patriarchal terminology for Hitler’s well-known screed was evidently undetectable to the peer reviewers.

According to a comment from the co-editor of the journal, the reviewers were “supportive of the work and noted its potential to generate important dialogue for social workers and feminist scholars.”

A quest to expose ‘sophistry’

In a long co-bylined essay published Tuesday in Aero Magazine, which Pluckrose edits, the trio wrote that during the course of their experiment, “the reviewers’ comments are in many ways more revealing about the state of these fields than the acceptances themselves.”

The team explained their motivations and methodology: “We set out with three basic rules: (1) we’ll focus almost exclusively upon ranked peer-reviewed journals in the field, the higher the better and at the top of their subdisciplines whenever possible; (2) we will not pay to publish any paper; and (3) if we are asked at any point by a journal editor or reviewer (but not a journalist!) if any paper we wrote is an attempted hoax, we will admit it.”

The basis of each paper was “something absurd or deeply unethical (or both) that we wanted to forward or conclude. We then made the existing peer-reviewed literature do our bidding in the attempt to get published in the academic canon,” they wrote.

[ Perpetrators of an elaborate hoax against academic journals (from left) mathematics Ph.D. James Lindsay, UK academic Helen Pluckrose and philosophy professor Peter Boghossian. (courtesy) ]

“This is the primary point of the project: What we just described is not knowledge production; it’s sophistry. That is, it’s a forgery of knowledge that should not be mistaken for the real thing. The biggest difference between us and the scholarship we are studying by emulation is that we know we made things up,” they wrote.

In undertaking the hoax, the use of satire was often employed. According to the authors, every paper “also endeavored to be humorous in at least some small way (and often, big ones).”

The team was so successful that four journals asked the papers’ fictitious authors to become peer reviewers themselves. For “ethical reasons,” they declined.

The proverbial wheels came off after a Twitter account called “New Real Peer Review” sniffed something foul from the Dog Park essay. Soon, local newspapers became suspicious, and eventually, in cooperation with the hoax team, the Wall Street Journal broke the story this week, with an ever-widening international ripple effect and coverage.

Satire as social commentary

It is not the first time scholars have written hoax papers to illustrate a broken academia. While other fields can be equally guilty of publishing unscientific work, gender studies in particular has already been repeatedly flagged as problematic.

After the current hoax experiment became public this week, author and Harvard lecturer Yascha Mounk proclaimed on Twitter that “Three intrepid academics just perpetrated a giant version of the Sokal Hoax… Call it Sokal Squared. The result is hilarious and delightful. It also showcases a serious problem with big parts of academia.”

In 1996, mathematics and physics Prof. Alan David Sokal submitted a nonsensical paper to Duke University’s Social Text journal called “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” in a (successful) experiment illustrating editorial bias and the prevalent incorrect use of scientific terms.

The Sokal hoax was the basis for a May 2017 experiment when two of the current project’s authors, Boghossian and Lindsay, attempted to replicate his success with the publication of a fake paper that claims “that penises conceptually cause climate change.” They write about the experiment in an essay, “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies,” which discusses the problematic nature of “pay-to-publish” open access journals.

In September 2017 the duo became a trio with the addition of Pluckrose and the new, much more elaborate project was launched.

According to the scholars, the goal of the current project was not to end the study of these niche academic disciplines, rather highlight the intolerant thinking within their lock-step that is infiltrating popular culture.

Asked by The Times of Israel if academic journals in the field of Jewish Studies would also be in their sights, Lindsay answered that the team didn’t fully examine this particular field. “The grievance studies methods are dubious, and I hope [Jewish Studies scholars] don’t take them up,” he said.

“I’ve only looked closely at one paper in Jewish Studies and it seemed to use similar methods but criticized a nasty streak of antisemitism in critical race scholarship,” he wrote via Twitter, citing a paper called, “Critical Whiteness Studies and the ‘Jewish Problem.'”

The cited paper was written in response to the increasingly trendy theory proposed by Critical Whiteness Studies and promoted by young American Jews on college campuses, social media, and even mainstream Jewish media, that Jews are not “white.”

According to the paper’s abstract, “‘whiteness” is used as a critical concept denoting those who enjoy white privilege in American and other Western societies.” Calling a Jew “white,” however, “is more than controversial, for it assimilates the most persecuted minority in European history to the dominant majority, while downgrading the significance of antisemitism.”

The fact that this type of topic itself is being debated within the ivory tower and infiltrating popular culture is not what appears to bother the scholars. Rather, it is the fact that there are few skeptical and critical checks within peer-reviewed journals and that what they consider to be a “kind of blatant corruption” through confirmation bias is pervasive in the fields.

“Politically biased research that rests on highly questionable premises gets legitimized as though it is verifiable knowledge. It then goes on to permeate our culture because professors, activists, and others cite and teach this ever-growing body of ideologically skewed and fallacious scholarship,” writes the team.

“We managed to get seven shoddy, absurd, unethical and politically biased papers into respectable journals in the fields of grievance studies. Does this show that academia is corrupt? Absolutely not. Does it show that all scholars and reviewers in humanities fields which study gender, race, sexuality and weight are corrupt? No,” they write.

[ Perpetrators of an elaborate hoax against academic journals (from left) mathematics Ph.D. James Lindsay, UK academic Helen Pluckrose and philosophy professor Peter Boghossian. (courtesy) ]

However, when a journal publishes — without revisions — a paper written in under six hours by a man which describes “moon meetings” for women in womb rooms with vulva shrines, it might reasonably be thought that something is deeply amiss. When an essay which promotes the pedagogical boon of silencing and chaining “privileged” pupils to the floor to affect “experiential reparations” is taken under serious consideration and given notes for improvement, one might wonder about the Ivory Tower’s foundations.

The authors are now calling upon universities to conduct a thorough review of the grievance study fields “to separate knowledge-producing disciplines and scholars from those generating constructivist sophistry.”

“Research into these areas is crucial, and it must be rigorously conducted and minimize ideological influences,” they write. “The further results on these topics diverge from reality, the greater chance they will hurt those their scholarship is intended to help.”

--

==

Flashback to the days when this was shocking and hard to believe, rather than ordinary and everyday.

[dismantlexsjwsxfeminism]

Reminder about how many fake hate crimes there are after Trump got elected

[memecucker]

sometimes i think about this person i vaguely knew who was a woman that wanted to write an article on a commie website criticizing “anti-class reductionism” liberal feminism but published the article using a male sounding pseudonym and it was partially to increase the troll power and also partially because that meant people from the opposing side would actually acknowledge the article rather than ignore it which is typical of identitarians when they can’t simply use the same cliched arguments about “voices”

also the author revealed that in like a private facebook group so it wasn’t even like the main point was to reveal a hoax it was like pragmatics lol

anyway i think about that a lot considering all the discourses like that especially when it’s “allies” claiming to be “listening” only to go deaf-mute when the identity alignments aren’t what they feel they should be

[girlbossx]

it’s funny that ‘terfs’ are the supposed conservative allies when a) every bit of radical feminism is contrary to the conservative agenda and b) trans activism mimics the Republican party’s tactics so much more than any other social justice movement I’ve seen. think of how trump changed facts: covid is a hoax, the economy is doing great, anyone who disagrees is a never-trumper who can’t be trusted. compare that to TRA’s talking points: sex-based discrimination is a hoax, hormone therapy and puberty blockers are great, anyone who disagrees is a TERF who can’t be trusted. the two groups want different things, but the way they’re delivering it is the same; if the facts disagree with you, change the facts. if people disagree with you, poison the well so anything they say must be baseless and wrong. TRA’s don’t listen to what radical feminists say because TERFs are hateful, evil people who hate children; republicans don’t listen to liberal sources because democrats are hateful, evil people who hate the country. but it’s the ‘terfs’ that are the ones in the wrong.

[hopethisdoesntawakenanythingnme]

Hello! This is my Do Not Interact List ✌🏻

RadFems/Radical Womanists (not to be confused with Womanism, which is a branch of feminism that focuses on WOC)

Trans Medicalists

Gender Critical 🙄

Ace/Arophobes

Panphobes

Biphobes

Transphobes. Just in case I didn't make myself clear enough, fuck you.

"All Lives Matter"

Blue Lives Matter/Thin Blue Line

MAGA supporters

Nazis/White Supremacists/"White Genocide"

MAPS and MAP apologists

Islamophobes

Xenophobes

Antisemites

Pro-Life

Anti-Vax

Soft DNI - Minors. Please be aware that I am an adult and sometimes post/rb nsfw stuff. I'm not responsible for your tumblr experience.

Anti-Maskers

Coronavirus Conspiracy Theorists. Really? You really, really believe liberals/gubbern'ment created a worldwide hoax to do what? Make you stay inside? Trick you into thinking there's a new deadly virus just for funsies? Barbara, please.

Thanks for reading. ✌🏻

[marjanefan]

The Devil of Christmas and the 1970s. A Dark Nostalgia

’The Devil of Christmas’ is much respected among fans of the show ‘Inside No.9’for being an affectionate pastiche of a certain sort of 1970’s television show, a meticulous recreation of how these shows were filmed , and for a particularly dark pay off. Pemberton and Shearsmith grew up watching the type of shows it pastiches and the episode makes their affection for them clear . They credit shows such as ‘Armchair theatre’, ‘ Beasts’ and especially ‘ Tales of the unexpected’ with inspiring them to work in the anthology format. The episode manages to be a knowing and humorous tribute to these shows. But it also subtly passes comment on the attitudes of the programmes and those who made them.

The episode is directed by Graham Harper, who in a long TV career has directed episodes of both ‘classic’ and ‘new’ Dr. Who. Derek Jacobi (who voices Dennis Fulcher) and Rula Lenska who appears as Celia /Nancy both worked extensively on television during this period. Adam Tandy, the show’s producer had worked as a child actor during this period and he discussed his experiences in the audio commentary with Pemberton and Shearsmith. So this would have been a nostalgic experience for quite a few people involved in the making of the episode (apparently the crew also enjoyed dressing up in 70s styles for the closing scenes).

This review will contain extensive spoilers so only continue if you have watched the episode

Nostaliga for the past is always a two edged thing.. We risk overlooking the problematic aspects of periods such as the 1970s when we look back too cosily. The show 'Life on Mars' took apart the culture of sexism, racism and toxic masiculinty of the 1970s as portrayed in shows as 'The Sweeney' while making us cheer the politically incorrect antics of Gene Hunt. This blog post does an excellent job (far better than I can) of illustrating how the ostensible story we are watching in ‘The Devil of Christmas’ comments on the casual misogyny of 1970’s television drama. It also makes an important observation about how Dennis Fulcher’s attitude toward the violence inflicted on the female star of the episode can be shown to fit in what we have learnt in recent years about the abuse of young women within the television industry of this time.

https://dodoswords.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/inside-no-9-review-series-three-the-devil-of-christmas/

In the commentary on this episode Pemberton and Shearsmith commented on the fact that the type of television programs ‘The Devil of Christmas’ pastiches regularly used the trope of a wife/husband deliberately brining about the mental collapse of their spouse or driving them to their deaths. It is interesting that this particular trope became popular during this period of societal change. Women would make greater use of liberalised divorce laws and begin to assert their right to pursue professional careers. The trope spoke to men’s anxieties about women becoming more assertive and empowered. It is worth noting the 1970s television series Derek Jacobi is most associated with ‘I, Claudius’ had several scheming unfaithful female characters, most of whom were young and attractive, who often met nasty ends, rather like ‘Kathy’ does in this episode . It’s problematic portrayal of women has been a subject of academic discussion.

‘Kathy’ is set up as a bad woman. She is a disloyal wife and stepmother. She is shown to be a gold digger who deliberately causes the death of her husband and who hates her young stepson. She is also unfaithful and is unashamed about carrying another man’s child. The audience of ‘The Devil of Christmas’ would obviously approve of and enjoy her eventual punishment. But Penny, an innocent young actress, suffers for Kathy’s ‘crimes’.

Elizabeth, Julian’ first wife is set up as the ‘good’ wife . Tellingly she is already dead (in misogyny the best sort of woman). Celia, Julian’s mother is suspicious of Kathy’s intentions and tries to warn Julian to no avail. The two women of the piece must be in conflict with each other as no solidarity or sympathy must be allowed between women. Dennis Fulcher expresses his frustration that Nancy, the actress who played Celia would not wear glasses (arguing they were not right for the character) meaning she more than once missed her mark. While Dennis is somewhat dismissive of Nancy , it is worth considering she wanted to appear glamorous as Celia and refused to wear glasses because she was afraid that being older woman and no longer physically attractive would have a detrimental effect on her career. (I wonder what memories of being a young actress in this period must have brought up for Rula Lenska)

Dennis comments on his commentary that he has ‘Kathy’ be pregnant as it would ‘tee up the ending if you sensed there was something inside Kathy making it more poignant’. This speaks to both men’s fear and envy of women’s reproductive capacity (and their desire to control it). Penny is also dressed in white for the final scenes, ironically the colour of supposed innocence given ‘Kathy’ s actions. This heightens the impact of her appearance as a sacrificial victim in the final seconds.

For me personally one the most shocking moments in the episode is when Julian hits Kathy. The audience can see that the hit is filmed is such a way that Brian (who plays Julian) does not actually hit Penny (who plays Kathy). The moment is plays into the pastiche of 1970s television as we can see that it is obviously fake. But the casual act of domestic violence shows how it was written off and normalised in this period (not that things are much better today). It is also shocking coming from a character like Julian who is otherwise portrayed sympathetically. It also happens in front of a child (both in the story and filming). Dennis also directs Brian to play the moment more angrily.

Of course the horrific conclusion of the episode with its very real violence and Penny’s absolute terror as she realises her fate. She actually cries ‘Dennis’ in her final seconds pleading with him to save her. The over the top acting of the rest of the episode is suddenly horribly recontextualised. The very artifice of episode stands in stark contrast and almost as a mockery beside this final act of violence. The pride Dennis takes in this particular moment and Penny’s ‘genuine fear’ is truly blood chilling. As WeeLin noted in her analysis of the episode what does it say about Dennis’ exposure to and involvement in ’Snuff’ that he says ‘In it’s defence, it was one of the better ones’ (it is also hinted this may not have been the only ‘snuff’ film he directed). He cannot bring himself to watch Penny’s murder, refusing to accept his role in enabling it, and moans ‘ but If only I’d got Gummidge’ more concerned about his career than the brutal killing of a young woman.

There is another narrative from the 1970s. This was the period of second wave feminism and the women’s liberation movement. Feminists set up rape crisis lines and women’s shelters and highlighted the issue of violence against women and girls. They also critiqued the way women were portrayed in the media. They helped critique and call out the attitudes toward women that ‘The Devil of Christmas’ lampoons.

It is worth looking briefly at how second wave feminists reacted to the film ‘Snuff’ itself. The original film ‘Snuff’ was a grindhouse film that was released in early 1976 (about a year before ‘The Devil of Christmas ‘was set). The female lead character Terry London (who apparently gets killed at the end) was pregnant like Kathy in ‘The Devil of Christmas’. It also ends with the crew apparently killing the female lead. (information from the Wikipedia page for the film). While it was very obviously a hoax it caused a considerable amount of controversy. Andrea Dworkin and other feminists would lead protests against it in New York and it would lead to the formation of the group ‘Women against violence against women’. The supposed existence of ‘snuff’ films would be brought up feminists like Dworkin in their campaign against pornography over the next few years.

Mary Daly in her book ‘Gyn/Ecology’ discusses the original film ‘ Snuff’ and discusses the men who enjoyed films like it. She states ‘This type of entertainment is enjoyed by judges, physicians, police, physicians, and other professionals today in the line of ‘duty’, when women who have been victimised (rape victims, for example ) come under their power ‘ [Mary Daly Gyn /Ecology, Woman’s Press, 1979]. Daly points out that not just that the most respected and powerful men in society enjoy these types of portrayals of violence against women but it informs their treatment of the vulnerable women in their power. Daly links the attitudes of these men toward women to the misogyny of the male witch finders of the past in the following paragraph. So there is an argument to link the way ‘The Devil of Christmas’ examines and subtly calls out the misogyny of its time to the way ‘The Trial of Elizabeth Gage’ examines the misogyny that underlay the seventeenth century witch trials .

While Dworkin, Daly and others have been mocked and decried for their apparent gullibility in believing in the existence of snuff as a genre, this loses sight of a wider point. They were correct in pinpointing the misogynistic attitudes that underlay the original ‘Snuff’ film and films that came in its wake. They were also correct in their calling out of the mistreatment of women in the adult entertainment industry, which was rapidly growing in the 1970s. But as we have discovered with the #metoo movement and the Weinstein scandal the entertainment industry has been rife with male abusers.

Dennis expresses casual surprise that this dark piece from his past eventually surfaced, almost as if being involved in a woman’s murder was a minor thing in his life. Many of the men who were investigated by investigations such as Operation Yewtree obviously did not expect to be called to account for their crimes. We have only in recent years started to look honestly at the abuses of this period. With that we have had to evalate the media of this period to. It may have taken almost forty years but Dennis Fulcher is finally made to account for his role in Penny’s murder. His is not the final voice we hear in the episode but the detective investigating him.

[helshades]

I don't mean to "offend", but it's strange that you denounce transgender theory while seemingly being a social constructionist who denies innate differences between the sexes. Behavioral/personality differences, not reproductive organs. Didn't "transgender theory" arise from French post-modern philosophy and from the desire to severe the mother-child bond in favor of the abstract concept of a "parent"?

It’s not an offensive question at all, only Iwish I had a little more context on this, so that I know which post or commentof mine precisely made you think that I subscribe to postmodern ideas. Wait—I reckonI am offended!

All joking aside, though, philosophicallyspeaking, I’m a Marxist (with tweaks), and therefore attached to historicalmaterialism, which posits that historical events are determined not by ideasbut by social relations and the consequences of the evolution of means ofproduction on mentalities. This pertains to philosophical Realism, which opposesIdealism in saying that the outside world exists independently of the perceptionof it by the human psyche, and of knowledge. Metaphysics-wise, materialismstates that matter is reality. Idealism, on the other hand, believes thatreality is only ever conceivable through ideas: in the end, tangible reality isinsignificant; all that matters is the ‘being’, the consciousness.

‘Queer’ theory and contemporary transgender activismis ferociously idealistic, in the philosophical sense, as it generally claimsthe primacy of inner truth over material reality. It is, indeed, a part ofpostmodern philosophy, which was at the root a critique of Westernphilosophical tradition, of the notion of ‘modernity’. However, many detractorsof postmodernism would not present ‘queer’ theses as the direct transpositionof the ideas of postmodern French thinkers (M. Foucault, G. Deleuze and J.Derrida in particular) but, instead, strictly as an American adaptation of someof the French concepts—occasionally a misconception of them—with additionalinfluences, such as a rejection of analytical philosophy.

It’s always a weird experience for me to seeAmericans complain about the postmodernism of a so-called ‘cultural marxism’ omnipresentin academia when I know too well how the French postmodern intellectualsprecisely rejected Marxist philosophy, embraced (economic) liberalism and supported‘centrist’ politicians, which is to say, regulated capitalism—whilst imposingonto French universities anti-Marxist, relativist, post-structuralist ideas.(To read: Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont’s Intellectual Impostures, publishedin the U.S. as Fashionable Nonsense. Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse ofScience, 1998 and 1999, an in-depth analysis of the infamous Sokal hoax. Also to read, the amazing 1985 C.I.A. report on the Defection of the Leftist Intellectuals in France with the rise of the self-proclaimed, anti-Marxist ‘New Left’…)

P.S. #1: given the fact that different educationsgenerate distinct individual behaviours, and given the fact that exactly zerohuman being can be born without other beings, and that children raised by wildanimals have never been terribly functional in society, I tend to think that verylittle of what EvoPsy firmly believes to be ‘innate’ actually is.

P.S. #2: postmodern feminism(s) didn’t reallyconcern itself with the mother-child bond, I’d argue, so much as it wanted tosevere women from the material constraints of maternity, this profoundlydistinctive, uniquely female experience, which also meant, to the feminists at the very least, that women couldn’t truly be individuals, fully subjects, citizens, even.

[samsterham]

The Fuckening, Entry # 1

Despite the novel covid-19 being around for a pretty hot minute now, I have only been self-quarantined about 6 days. There have been several confirmed cases in my county, and today the county had it’s first death.

If it’s not apparent by the title, I’ve decided to officially from here on out refer to this entire debacle as The Fuckening. I will swear. A lot. 

I figure it might be somehow lucrative to record my experiences throughout the pandemic, at least as it is pertinent to my country & area. Aside from broader, more public events, it might be interesting to someday look back on my day to day & how we dealt & felt & what we did. I should have been keeping a diary of my life anyway & had intended to despite never making it a priority. Now is as good a time as any.

Anyhow, I anticipate this being a rather disjointed project, variable in moods, topics, formats, etc. & rife with grammatical errors. I haven’t decided how revealing of my identity & location I would like to be, I suppose that’s something I’ll decide as I go. All I’ll reveal for the moment is I live in the U.S. in Pennsylvania.

Recapping what I can right now:

I’m in about day 6 of self-quarantine. All schools have cancelled regular classes and have gone exclusively online, as has happened pretty much everywhere else. My community college also followed suit along with probably every college & university at this point. I’ve had a little over a week off for faculty & staff to prepare for the shift. Class resumes this upcoming wednesday online for the rest of the semester. Curious to how they’re going to structure & grade our biology lab credits. 

Bars & restaurants have been state-mandated to shut down except for take-out. Now the liquor stores have shut down as well. Somehow the beer distributor down the street is still open however...

Me & K (boyfriend) haven’t gone nuts with preparations, but we did have 1 significant shopping trip before the state officially began recommending social distancing. We got enough non-perishables for several weeks. We’ve made a couple mini trips for things like milk & fresh veggies. 

I also have a few immunocompromised friends who I’ve gone shopping for. I expect to continue doing so as needed. One such friend has a bitch of a rare disease which is frankly on the verge of killing her if she sneezes or coughs too hard. There is so, so much more to it than that, than I dare go into here for privacy reasons but I have spent the last month as one of her actual medical advocates. She is partly the reason I would like to focus my education and eventual clinical research on rare diseases such as hers. Anyhow, despite it being flat out unsafe, she was discharged from the hospital yesterday as my city prepares to get slammed with covid-19 cases.

Both my cats got a stomach bug just 2 days into self-quarantine. It began with Crowley puking, then what looked like bloody emesis & trip to the emergency vet. Sent home with stomach meds & instructions for supportive care before jumping into more than basic testing. He was fine within 36 hours, just in time for Aziraphale to become a little vom-bomb. This lasted for 3 days, with many debates as to when we should finally get her poor little fuzz butt medical attention. She thankfully healed on her own, just as I was about to break down & take her to the vet.

Not to make light of the fact that they were sick, but Zira’s throw-up noise is THE FUNNIEST sound I’ve ever heard in my life. It begins with that usual choppy but also deep guttural *hork hork hork* followed by a very abrupt & very loud  scream “rrRAAHH!” as things made their way up & out. I couldn’t help but kinda lose my shit as I pet her & cleaned up the mess. I’m probably going to hell for this.

Me & K have enjoyed spending more time together during quarantine. We have only had 3 friends over since, all being of our regular weekly crew of Sarah, Greg, & Amanda, & all of who are otherwise self-quarantined. Sarah & Amanda came over last Saturday, Sarah made “Quarantinis,” a goddamn delicious cocktail of vodka, lemon, honey, & crystalized ginger. Us girls & K got quaran-trashed, ate dinner together, played Cards Against Humanity, & watched Waking Ned Devine.

We have been making the FUCK outta some food. This is easily the healthiest we’ve eaten in a long time. Thank God we both can cook.

The weather has been fairly forgiving & the two of us have made efforts to get outside as much as possible while it’s nice. K works from home with some good flexibility & I was fired about a month before corona shit hit the fan. We’re enjoying the local parklette & the humongous cemetery in walking distance from us. 

Yesterday was mostly blustery & rainy, save for a 2 hour break in the weather where it was sunny and around 70 degrees. We trekked through said cemetery. As we were on our way out, we rounded the bend of one of the long paths, along the side of a large grassy hill. From that initial perspective of the hill, there was a large pile of indiscernible objects about halfway up the hill. As we came around, we noticed the pile was next to a grave very freshly covered in dirt. Upon closer inspection it became apparent that the “pile” was actually a man wrapped in blankets, with one arm stretched over the dirt of the grave. On the road at the bottom of the hill was what I assumed to be his car. I don’t know who he was, I don’t know who he lost, but they’re burned into my memory forever. It was one of those sights that breaks your entire heart. I cried a little & held K’s hand a little tighter as we made our way toward the gate. K kissed the top of my head & gave me a loving squeeze.

 I didn’t get fired over anything serious; my chronic migraines plus a personal failure to obtain intermittent FMLA in a timely manner resulted in termination. My bosses didn’t want to let me go, but you can only fight HR of a corporate health system so much. Oh well. I wasn’t happy there anymore anyway. After 3 years I was bored, having trained up as much as possible without my degree. Some toxic personalities made their way onto our floor staff in the last year which made some shifts absolute hell despite my efforts to avoid them & remain utterly professional. Aside from running out of money, I’ve been incredibly relaxed since being let go. I’ve even lost 4 pounds in the last month. My hair is currently a weird ginger-pink, the result of a failed self bleach job, but it’s not entirely embarrassing so I’m going to let it recover before I try it again & go teal.

I never got around to watching Breaking Bad when it was popular, but last night I finally saw the first episode. K has seen it before, it’s one of his favorite tv shows & he’s ecstatic to watch it together. One episode legit got me hooked already. I know the premise of the show & I can’t wait to see how it pans out.

The political fuckery around this has been.... ugh. I wanted to say “staggeringly defunct” but what else is there to be expected from this current administration? I have designed most of my tumblr to be apolitical but that will change with these specific entries. I’m politically outspoken on Facebook & Twitter & I wanted one or two platforms that could just be fun and neutral. My current politics are very leftist, a head-spinning 180 degree turn from my upbringing & early voting habits. The last four years have sent me purposefully, intentionally & determinedly headlong into the progressive movement, feminism, and hunger for democratic socialism. The only conservative thing left about me is my stubborn remaining infatuation with firearms & gratitude for the 2A. Counterintuitively I’m very pro-sensible gun control, but having the discussion with either side of the issue mostly leaves me wanting to knock heads together. 

I digress, the administration’s response to the pandemic has been unsurprisingly subpar, yet somehow not as awful as I expected. Trump went from “not a big deal” & “liberal media hoax” to “oh shit, I actually better get my shit together for this” real quick. I don’t know if it’s because it’s an election year or if there’s actually a shred of competency that’s been hiding under the comb-over but I’ll take what we can get from him, including that $1000 check. Getting unemployment has been a bitch. None of this however, changes the fact that Republicans have known about the crisis since December & instead of preparing the public, decided insider trading was a better idea. This doesn’t change the fact that the DOJ is trying to invoke indefinite detention as a “crisis response” and the only thing standing in the way are House Democrats. And it doesn’t change the fact that our hospital system is overloaded & underfunded, and the Republican controlled government would still rather bail out large corporations as we plunge into an inevitable recession. 

I’ve spent too much energy fighting ignorant shit sticks on the internet over all this, including people I know in real life. I gotta keep remembering that all I can do is my best, that you can’t change the world but you can make a dent. On that note, I finally introduced K to Danny DeVito’s cinematic masterpiece Death To Smoochy.

Today I finished reading Darker Than Amber by John D. MacDonald. Quick, fun read, definitely a product of it's time.

That’s all I have in me for today. My neck hurts. Sleep sweet and WASH YOUR FILTHY PAWS. 

[atheistforhumanity]

Why I Vote Blue

When Abraham Lincoln bravely embraced the liberal philosophy at the time that African American's should not be property conservatives responded by saying:

South Carolina

“...A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.”

Mississippi

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world...These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”

Louisiana

“The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.”

Alabama

“for the triumph of this new theory of Government destroys the property of the South...to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans.”

Texas

“...in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states....”

Conservatives are still waving the flag of these people today! To anyone who says I don't understand what that flag represents, you need to learn more history.

Source

After the Civil War, when the Democratic party was the conservative wing in this country and dominated the south, confederate veterans formed the KKK-an American terrorist group-to fight the peaceful integration of African Americans into our society. People like to bring up the KKK and Dixie Democrats to deny that the Republican party is the home of racism, but the fact is that in the 1960's the two party's switched platforms. Mainstream Democrats broke ranks with the southern Dixies and all of their conservative and racist values. The south flipped to the Republican party in support of Goldwater and his vicious attack against civil rights. LBJ won the presidency and lead Democrats toward the liberal end of the spectrum we operate on today. That is why the south, which waves the confederate flag and is a stronghold of racism today votes solidly Republican. This is also why the KKK and white nationalists vote Republican, because they find support for their causes in their policies. In fact, in at least 5 races happening right now there are self-avowed Nazis, white supremacists, and holocaust deniers running as Republicans. We have a racist Republican president who called white supremacist demonstrators “very fine people.” It's seriously hard not to see where conservative values live.

When women wanted to vote:

When women wanted to vote men lost their minds and were not having it. Truth be told, women largely had to make this happen on their own because men were hostile to the idea. As far as which party supported women's suffrage it was truly a mixed bag with lukewarm support from both sides. However, I'm focusing on ideological mindset, not party labels. It was a liberal idea to support women voting, just like it was liberal to support feminism in the 70's. Conservatives today are still using the same talking points used by anti-suffrage proponents in the 1920's. 

Here is a anti-suffrage political cartoon from the 1920's. This is mirrored by Senate Candidate Courtland Sykes. He doesn't want his daughters to become "career obsessed banshees who forego home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic[sic] hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the tops of a thousand tall buildings they think they could have leaped over in a single bound – had men not ‘suppressing them’."

The GOP largely embraces an anti-women platform. Trump famously claimed he had the right to grab women by the pussy at any time, and with nearly 20 accusers of sexual assault he was still elected President. Republican Todd Akin famously said “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Modern Republicans have proved that they know nothing about rape and it's not surprising given their anti-feminist platform. Republican Clayton Williams flat out said to reporters that "If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it." He said he was “joking.” Even Republican women are breathtakingly ignorant of the concept of equality for women. Republican state lawmaker from Florida, Kathleen Passidomo, made the worst victim blaming statement I've ever heard in support of a school dress code: “There was an article about an 11-year-old girl who was gang-raped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute," she said. "And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn’t happen to our students." Notice that was in Texas, a strongly conservative state. I could literally write pages and pages of quotes against women by conservative figures. The point is that we can see very plainly the conservative minded citizens of our country are not advancing the equality of women and never have.

The Civil Rights Era

Remember when I said the parties switched platforms in the 1960's when the south supported Goldwater for President? Well, Goldwater was a serious opponent of the civil rights act, another conservative man running for president became the face of racism and anti-equality. That mans name was George C. Wallace and he made a fiery speech denouncing LBJ and the Civil Rights Act. Here are some snippets:

“It is therefore a cruel irony that the President of the United States has only yesterday signed into law the most monstrous piece of legislation ever enacted by the United States Congress.

It is a fraud, a sham, and a hoax.

This bill will live in infamy. To sign it into law at any time is tragic. To do so upon the eve of the celebration of our independence insults the intelligence of the American people.

It dishonors the memory of countless thousands of our dead who offered up their very lives in defense of principles which this bill destroys.

Never before in the history of this nation have so many human and property rights been destroyed by a single enactment of the Congress. It is an act of tyranny. It is the assassin's knife stuck in the back of liberty...

...Ministers, lawyers, teachers, newspapers, and every private citizen must guard his speech and watch his actions to avoid the deliberately imposed booby traps put into this bill. It is designed to make Federal crimes of our customs, beliefs, and traditions...

...Yet there are those who call this a good bill.

It is people like Senator Hubert Humphrey and other members of Americans for Democratic Action. It is people like Ralph McGill and other left-wing radical apologists...It was left-wing radicals who led the fight in the Senate for the so-called civil rights bill now about to enslave our nation.

We find Senator Hubert Humphrey telling the people of the United States that "non-violent" demonstrations would continue to serve a good purpose through a "long, busy and constructive summer..."

...I am having nothing to do with this so-called civil rights bill. The liberal left-wingers have passed it.”

Okay, we will stop there. If you think listening to Donald Trump makes you feel like you've entered another reality where everything immoral is cherished, then I suggest you read Wallace's full speech. It makes modern Fox News hosts sound rational. Do you think he is just the remnant of a distant past when conservatives didn't know any better? Well, let's compare his statements to modern conservatives.

Wallace called the Civil Rights Act “an Act of tryanny,” and Donald Trump called Black Lives Matter “purveyor's of hate.” In fact the knee jerk reactions of Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter deny the core issue of constant racial violence against black people in America today, both by police and right-wing terrorists.

When Wallace says that the CRA made crimes of “our customs, beliefs, and traditions,” this is echoed in the defense of the confederate flag today and confederate monuments. Conservatives deny that rejecting those symbols of slavery and oppression are a moral action, therefore denying the true dynamic and pain they cause. That's exactly what Wallace was doing by framing civil rights protections for minorities as turning traditions into crimes. Modern supporters cry about the civil war soldiers who will be dishonored, completely ignoring that their cause was dishonorable to begin with and not caring about the disrespect and fear those symbols represent for non-whites.

Wallace mocked the protests of the era and the idea that they were a force for good. What's ironic about that is that Conservatives today always talk about the non-violent methods of MLK and condemn modern protests as being violent and destructive, but that's exactly how conservatives in MLK's day talked about him. Republicans have come out strong with legislation against protesting, taking a page out of the 60's play book. On top of police brutality and violent lash back against protestors, they want to make protesting as illegal as possible.  

Will Herberg in the 60's made scathing comments about MLK and his protests, “in almost every part of the country, called out their mobs on the streets, promoted “school strikes,” sit-ins, lie-ins, in explicit violation of the law and in explicit defiance of the public authority.” He spoke of King inciting anarchy and chaos.

Does this sound familiar? It should, because conservatives on Fox News have been pushing the same narrative that the left has devolved into mob rule, that they are violent people, and protests are illegitimate. The similarities go on and on. Nothing has changed.

LGBTQ

It is unquestionable that support for LGBTQ people is a liberal value, and conservatives have fought tooth and nail to resist granting these citizens fair and equal treatment both socially and legally. 

This graph illustrates my entire point I've been making about voting blue, about being liberal. Modern conservatives will reject the label of bigot while still rejecting homosexuality. We can see that consistently through the past liberal supported LGBTQ FIRST! Every civil rights issue you can think of was pushed by liberals first. I've laid out evidence showing where conservatives and liberals stood for some of the most important issues of our time and where they are today. Conservatives are always playing catch up. They are morally regressive, but always eventually giving in to a moral standard made in the past by liberal minded people. Now, you look at this graph and see that not even all liberals support homosexuality, but the point is not that liberals are perfect only that they are further ahead. Every value that liberals push for eventually becomes a moral standard. Democracy was a liberal idea in the face of conservative monarchists, capitalism was liberal compared to feudalism, religious freedom was a liberal idea compared to state sponsored religion. To be conservative is to be fundamentally against moving forward.

I don't vote blue for the Democratic party, the party may change, I vote for who represents the liberal spectrum. Liberal ideology has brought us everything good in this country and conservative voices have done nothing but hold us back. Whenever conservatives win it is on a campaign of fear. I vote blue because I know that one hundred years from now the people who call themselves conservatives will have accepted much of what we fight for today, but will be refusing to accept new advances. I know the liberal values of today are the values of the future.

I apologize for not going into as much detail about LGBTQ, but I felt that it’s less contested as far as who supports the movement and Pew Research shows where we are at today. It’s no secret who fights against marriage equality, and equal rights.

I hope everyone voted blue today, because you can see what a major impact it has on our lives.

[spookyghostiesandthings]

Do you think There's any hope in getting some brainwashed libs out of the propaganda machine and believe all the hoax?

I cannot give a concise answer to this, because I just don’t know. There’s no guideline to how people’s views shift and change. A few years ago I was a feminist, though not a very critical one, just like many of them are. I was a liberal, I wanted almost all of the things they do. My best friend at the time was the same way.

I grew out of it. I joined fandom cultures where I met people who were older than me, and whom taught me a lot about why the views I held were very aggressive. I mellowed and became a centerist and I’m where I am now because of the older, conservative-leaning women and teens who helped me through that time of my life. My friend, however, is still a feminist. We’re no longer friends because she fell face first into radical feminism just as it was beginning to become a big thing, and her new beliefs labeled me a nazi sympathizer, a misogynist, a racist, and so on. The only difference between us growing up is that I believed it because I was told to by the people around me. She really truly believes the things she says. The media contributes to turning people like me, and fueling people like her to continue on. Unless people with radical beliefs meet and make connections with the people they despise the most, they probably won’t ever get out of it. That’s why people having conversations is important, it’s why free speech and anti-censorship views are important.

Sorry for the rambling. It’s midnight and I’ve been up for close to 19 hours straight and I’m starting to blur thoughts together. If this is a mess I’ll delete it in the morning.

[bebopjared]

The Time for Conversation is Over

In this era of Donald Trump, the issue of Freedom of Speech has been brought to the forefront of American politics. Debates rage across the United States asking the question: do we have the right to shut out ideological extremists from civil discourse? This question has been asked because of the renewed visibility of Right Wing extremists like Nazis, the KKK, Neo-Confederates and the Alt-Right. These extremists have always been present in the United States. Going back to the inception of this nation, there have been White people who believed not only that African-Americans (who were, for the most part, enslaved), LGBTQ+ people and religious minorities (mainly Jewish people) were inferior to them on the basis of their race, religion and sexual orientation. The Ku Klux Klan was formed by former Confederate generals after the Civil War to combat progress made for African-Americans, mainly through terrorism. Fascist sympathizers have existed for as long as Fascism has been a published ideology. The Nazis looked to the American eugenics movement for inspiration for the development of their own racial policies. And now, it is normal to see Neo-Nazis marching in the streets, tiki torches and all, spewing their vile ideology.

The renewed debate on free speech started for me when video of Richard Spencer, a famous American white supremacist, appeared on the internet, showing him being punched by an Anti-Fascist protester on the same day as Donald Trump’s inauguration. It was immediately memed and took over liberal Twitter and Facebook pages. Most media outlets covered it and some posed the question: is it ok to punch a Nazi? Some said yes, some said no and with this video, free speech was up in the air again.

Another important flashpoint was Milo Yiannopoulos’ canceled speech at UC Berkeley. Yiannopoulos is notorious for harassing undocumented immigrants at events he has spoken as and has in the past outed undocumented students at college events. He is an outspoken critic of Islam and feminism. He was banned from Twitter for encouraging racial harassment of Leslie Jones. Many students and faculty at UC Berkeley did not approve of the inviting of Yiannopoulos because of his history of harassment. In response to his scheduled appearance on February 1st, 2017, hundreds of people came out to protest. Some of the protestors turned to violence, causing $100,000 in damage and injuring several people. 

This debate came directly to Bard’s campus last Spring when Lucian Wintrich, White House Correspondent for The Gateway Pundit (a far right “news site” that reports hoaxes and conspiracy theories) was invited to be apart of a panel. The goal of this panel was to try to bring in people of differing viewpoints together to have a civil conversation (here’s the link to the whole panel). Lucian brought a posse of people with him, who both verbally and physically harassed several students on campus.

Many questioned whether or not white supremacist groups should even be allowed to apply for permits for marches, especially in response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia which was provoked by the white supremacists who claimed to be protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue.

My opinion on free speech has shifted throughout my life. In a middle school social studies class, I was introduced to the debate over free speech for the first time. Before this class, I understood the first amendment of the American constitution protected freedom of speech, including hate speech. But after this debate was introduced to me, I began to believe that hate speech had no place in our society. As the years went by, I softened my position on hate speech. But now, confronted to the normalization of white supremacist ideas and positions in civil debate has forced me to reevaluate my beliefs.

I wholeheartedly believe in free speech. You should be able to say what you want without fear of a violent response by other people or the government. Once you begin to incite violence or provoke others to violence, you have lost your right to say what you are saying. Where I break with radical white supremacist speech is in civil discourse. I believe that white supremacists and those arguing in favor of white supremacist ideas, at every avenue, should be shut out of civil discourse. Their vile ideology has no place in any civil society that I would like to help create. They are wrong, plain and simple. White supremacists abide to an ideology that is genocidal and has no purpose besides to oppress those they see as inferior. Their ideas add nothing to conversations on racial justice and liberation.

This seems to be a popular opinion in some Liberal and Leftist spaces but has faced huge backlash from all sides of the politics. Those who disagree with this position say that I am barring anyone who disagrees with me from having a conversation with me. That simply is not true. To me, there is a clear difference between people who disagree with me and those who would like to exterminate my people or spread ideas that are clearly coded white supremacist language. For example, I believe that our current system of Capitalism is not working for most people in this country and is in dire need of replacement. That doesn’t mean I won’t talk to people who support Capitalism with all their heart. As long as they do not think that all people who oppose our current system of Capitalism should be burned at the stake, I am completely willing to have a conversation.

White supremacists would love to talk about whether Black lives matter forever. Why? Because if we keep talking about it, there will never be a conclusion and therefore, no solutions to clear institutional problems. If we keep debating whether or not racism is a factor in the lives of people of color, we won’t get to the point, which should be to deconstruct racist systems. If you don’t believe racism exists, you have been tricked and are not worth my time. If you think that Black people are simply mistaken when they say race has been a major factor in their life, you have been tricked and are not worth my time. If you think race is not a huge determining factor in police interactions, you have been tricked and are not worth my time. I refuse to waste my time with those who are too far gone. It is not my responsibility to guide your fragile white mind to the truth. If you want to do liberation work, get with the program or step aside. If you think I’m crazy for wanting to exclude white supremacists from my discourse, you have every right to believe that and you do not need to discuss matters of liberation with me.

Frankly, the time for conversation is over. The time for revolution is here and it has been here since the first slaves arrived in the Americas. Nat Turner understood that. Toussaint L’Ouverture understood that. Malcolm X understood that. The Black Panther Party understood that. #BlackLivesMatter understands that. Black people are being oppressed everyday by white supremacist institutions. This is a fact. Plain and simple. From school segregation to state sanctioned lynchings. Frederick Douglass in this famous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852), when speaking on discussions on slavery said, “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is need but fire; not a gentle shower but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

I will no longer debate whether or not I am a person. If you don’t think I deserve equal rights under the law on the basis of my race, I will not have a conversation with you. If you have ideas that are rooted in white supremacy, even if you denounce white supremacy whole heartily, I will not have a conversation with you. My time can be and will be better spent than giving you a sense that your racist ideas are legitimate in a civil society.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

1. I realized that even the Muslim friend I had in college that was "nice" and "moderate" would still talk shit about western people and white people whenever she got the chance. 2. How do you think individuals can fight back against everything being "islamophobia" and innact change to make our countries safer?

This is the problem we have. Obviously not all Muslims want to blow people up but even the moderates hold views that are incompatible and highly concerning. You look at the numbers and answers in my last post, they were answers from moderate Muslims living in Britain. Moderates still believe punishment is necessary for anyone who questions the Quran. Maybe not the kind of punishment terrorists strive for but moderate Muslims are the ones pushing for prison sentences, fines, being expelled from school and fired from work for anyone who disagrees. They are the ones creating all of these fake hate crime hoaxes in order to give their “Islamophobia” narrative substance which then gives them justification to shut down opposition. They don’t advocate jihadism but they also don’t condemn it. Most of them haven’t read or studied their Quran and they try to deny any link exists between jihadism and Islam without realizing there’s over 100 scripts in the Quran that call for jihad. The mosque in Manchester near the location of the attack have even come out to say that “It was merely a response to the war against Islam.” They have not moved on from the 15th century, they are brought up to believe that they are under attack and to never trust non-believers, generation after generation. They are against most Western customs such as music, sports and dancing and as you prove with your friend, they simply don’t like Western people and white people in general even though they could be the nicest people ever.

We fight back by speaking out and making it clear that there’s an issue, something they have gone to great lengths to keep us from doing. Just like feminism screams sexism, black lives matter screams racism, we have to brush off the Islamophobia nonsense that was created specifically to shut down vitally important discussion. Even former head of the Commission for Racial Equality who was the first to use the term “Islamophobia” confesses he got it entirely wrong. “Liberal opinion in Britain has, for more than two decades, maintained that most Muslims are just like everyone else. Britain desperately wants to think of its Muslims as versions of the Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, or the cheeky-chappie athlete Mo Farah. But thanks to the most detailed and comprehensive survey of British Muslim opinion yet conducted, we now know that just isn’t how it is. We predicted that the most lethal threat to Muslims would come from racial attacks and social exclusion but we completely failed to foresee the atrocities in Madrid, Paris, Istanbul, Brussels and London. For a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.” Now the word he popularized, Islamophobia, is today being used against him. 

We can longer be scared to speak out, demand change, share the truth about what is going on, keep factual and educated and share to everyone the disgraceful state our countries are in and how they are refusing to make us safe, they are refusing to learn from these deaths and they are devaluing the life of so many all to protect the feelings of a few who we are told must never be criticized otherwise it will be our fault when they kill us. All we can do is get our voices in the open, that’s the first change, the second and most crucial changes can only come when they are heard. The naivety to believe that we can prevent terrorism by holding hands and singing kumbaya instead of making physical and no-nonsense changes to our country’s policies and procedures is astounding. Saying we will move on and learn nothing from the attacks is only going to get more people killed. It’s not empowering, it’s not inspiring, it’s blinded naivety and it’s welcoming terrorists to try harder next time. It has to stop. 

[hoaxzine]

We are eager for feminists of all backgrounds and genders to submit! Potential ideas for material on the topic of spaces include, but are not limited to,:

Establishing Boundaries: Strategies for setting boundaries and enacting holistic consent; Self-care; The meanings and implications of “holding space” for another person; Strategies to make relationships more equitable and less hierarchical; Peer support and mutual aid; Strategies to deal with grief, loss, and trauma; Seeking out / creating healthy ways and places to address mental illness; Addressing our needs for emotional closeness (introversion vs. extroversion, etc.)

Statehood and Citizenship: Refugee crisis as a feminist issue; Historical essays about de/colonization; Family lineage and national identity; Informational essays and personal narratives about experiences with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), detainment, etc; Nationalism and resistance; anti-fascist and ANTIFA movements; Palestinian liberation, Puerto Rican independence movement, First nation resistance, etc; Challenging the “We are all immigrants” liberal solidarity movement; Experiences living with/in diaspora

Physical Boundaries: Environmentalism, global warming, and climate change (scientific essays, essays about how these issues correspond to contemporary politics and treaties, the negative impact that the construction of walls has on our environment, etc); Water protectors; Rapid gentrification of urban areas and the politics of paying rent; The connections between the prison industrial complex and the surveillance of Black and Brown bodies; Experiences with local organizing and how state borders impact our abilities to create and sustain inter/national movements

Psychogeographies: What it means to call a space a “home;” Psychogeography and the emotional / behavioral impact of a space; Strategies to effectively use social media as a tool to build alliances across geographic borders; Personal exposure, secrecy, and surveillance culture; Aging and how we separate different chapters or parts of our lives

Inclusion and Exclusion: White supremacy and xenophobia within the feminist movement; Concrete strategies to “show up” for our community members facing violence; Organizing in solidarity with identity and geographically-based communities you are not a member of; “Women’s spaces” and addressing transmisogyny in feminist communities; Arguments amongst the general Left to either divide or unify radicals and liberals; Restorative justice and informal efforts concerning how to handle sexual assault allegations, hate speech, and other acts of violence in our communities (banishment, intervention, accountability processes, etc.)

Communities: How do we define “community”?; Reaching out to and including feminists who are geographically isolated; Addressing dis/ability and making feminist spaces more physically accessible; The establishment of sober spaces and strategies for sober people to safely move through drinking spaces; Who is and is not included in our conceptions of community?; The push for “safer spaces” and the confluence of safety with comfort; Observing noticeable differences in our communities; Working within collectivist structures; Moving on from toxic / unhealthy friendships and relationships; Learning how to spend time alone; Bridging emotional and physical distances with others

All written submissions would ideally be between 500-2,500 words, or between 1-5 single-spaced pages in 12pt Times New Roman font. We are also in need of images (photos, drawings, paintings, etc) that will format properly as background designs — this means fitting into a vertical 5.5 inch x 8.5 inch page as accurately as possible, contrasting well in grayscale, and being noticeable while allowing the written text over-top of it to still be legible. We strongly prefer art that does not just portray thin / white / cis / able-bodied people. All accepted material will be compensated with a small cash stipend, one print copy and one PDF copy of the zine, and one Hoax pin. We will pay all shipping costs, whether domestic or international. Please aim to e-mail us your amazing material to hoaxzine@gmail.com by our deadline, OCTOBER 31ST, 2017! If you are interested, feel free to send us your ideas for topics and artwork! As always, we are willing to work with you during any and every stage of the writing process. The sooner you send us your submissions and ideas, the better! Thank you so much to every contributor, reader, and supporter of this zine! We are looking forward to seeing your work! Please tell your friends and spread the word! In Solidarity, sari (Editor) & rachel (Editorial Assistant)

[doopydoopla]

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