#and are advocating the death of disabled children

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

I saw this on Reddit and instantly got so pissed off. This person is ableist as shit. Advocating for the death of disabled children? That’s just sickening. This person is so fucked up.

My apologies for the cursing. This just really made me angry

[intersectionalpraxis]

X, formerly known as Twitter post states: Israel Finance Minister says he agrees with every word in this column: that women in Gaza are part of the Hamas infrastructure (by having babies) and must be destroyed using severe epidemics (source: @ MacaesBruno). Originally posted: November 20th, 2023.

This is a genocidal mentality that advocates for the mass and forced sterilization of Palestinian women via their deaths... I am beyond enraged. For ANY feminist still being quiet while so many people (women, children, the elderly, disabled folks) continue to be disproportionately targeted in Gaza by imperial and settler-colonial military forces and powers... ya'll are also equally complicit.

Everything the IOF has done for decades now is truly one abomination after the other.

[fandomtrumpshate]

FTH 2024: Supported Nonprofit Organizations

Here are the nonprofit organizations that will be supported by this year's FTH auction. Many of these orgs will be familiar from last year's list, but we've cycled in some new groups as well. In particular, because it's a major election year in the US, we've brought in (or brought back) organations focusing on voter enfranchisement.

If you are a FTH creator and you want to ask your bidders to support an organization that’s not on the list, please read our policy on outside organizations here.

Bellingcat *

Bellingcat is an independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists brought together by a passion for open source research in the public interest.

Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center *

The Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC) is a nonprofit legal organization that fights for liberation and equity through the lens of intersectional disability justice.

In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda *

A national-state partnership focused on lifting up the voices of Black women leaders at the national and regional levels in our fight to secure Reproductive Justice for all women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals, NBWRJA delivers proactive advocacy and policy solutions to address issues at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Life After Hate

LAH provides support to people leaving hate groups, and providing pluralism education and training to vulnerable young people.

Middle East Children's Alliance *

MECA is a nonprofit organization working for the rights and the well-being of children in the Middle East. They collect funds in order to provide direct aid, financial support for community projects, water purification systems, and university scholarships, and also create educational and cultural programs in the US and internationally to increase cultural understanding.

National Network to End Domestic Violence *

NNEDV offers a range of programs and initiatives to address the complex causes and far-reaching consequences of domestic violence.

Never Again Action *

A Jewish-led mobilization against the persecution, detention, and deportation of immigrants in the United States, NAA takes on campaigns against detention centers and ICE training programs, and organizes mutual aid and deportation defense.

Razom *

Razom initiates short and long-term projects, or collaborates on existing projects with partner organizations, which help Ukraine stay on the path of fostering democracy and prosperity

Sherlock’s Homes Foundation *

SHF provides housing, employment opportunities, and a loving support system for homeless LGBTQ+ young adults so that they can live fearlessly as their authentic selves. Within these homes, young adults learn about responsibility, accountability, financial independence, life skills, and how to love themselves

Spread the Vote

STV helps eligible voters make their voices heard through voter education, supporting voters through the process of getting necessary ID, and advocating against voter suppression laws.

Violence Policy Center *

VPC works to stop gun death and injury through research, education, advocacy, and collaboration; exposes the profit-driven marketing and lobbying activities of the firearms industry and gun lobby, and offers unique technical expertise to policymakers, organizations, and advocates.

VoteRiders

VR works to help all citizens exercise their right to vote. It informs and helps citizens to secure their voter ID as well as inspires and supports organizations, local volunteers, and communities to sustain voter ID education and assistance efforts.

Umbrella: Environmental orgs

For the past four years, FTH has supported one “umbrella” cause: we invite participants to donate to their own local grassroots organization, while also suggesting a handful of exemplary organizations working in communities where the need is especially acute. This year our umbrella category is environmental organizations.

Pollinator Partnership *

Deploy/Us *

Together Bay Area

Wildlands Restoration Volunteers

Coral Restoration Foundation *

++

Organizations marked with an asterisk (*) allow for international donations directly through their websites. The orgs without asterisks may take international donations through a paypal or venmo account. If you are a non-US-based bidder/donor and you are having trouble finding an organization to which you can donate, please email us directly at fandomtrumpshate @ gmail . com.

[kaija-rayne-author]

Would you recognize an autistic or ADHD person if you saw one?

What about an autistic or ADHD fictional character?

Many of y'all will say, of course.

And you'll be wrong.

I'm not talking to hatched autistics and ADHDers. We can usually spot others like us and autistic/ADHD coded characters in fiction.

Definition: A 'hatched' autistic or ADHDer is someone who knows they're one or the other or both, AND they understand and accept that pretending to be neurotypical is bad for us.

It actually kills us, so, yeah, bad. The leading causes of death for autistics is unaliving or heart attack from the stress of living in a world that was most certainly not created for us. In some ways, this world is antithetical to us.

We also experience the stress of what's known as 'masking'.

Our average age of death is 36 years old. Think about that for a second. 36. And the rates of unaliving in autistic and ADHD kids is utterly obscene. The suicide watch for parents of autistic kids starts at 8 years old. 8.

(I don't say this for everything, but self-diagnosis is absolutely valid for autism and ADHD. In a world where people can still be institutionalized or lose their kids because of an autism diagnosis--this is fact for Britain and several US states. France is awful for autistics-- self diagnosis must be valid so we can figure ourselves out without endangerment.)

Masking is where a traumatized autistic (and I've also never met or even heard about an untraumatized autistic/ADHDer) will create a, persona, almost, that lets us function in the world.

It's rarely intentional, my youngest son started masking at 4 in pre-kindergarten because he wanted other kids to like him and want to play with him. Even though our home is very supportive of diversity, especially about autism and ADHD, y'all... he was *4*.

Being autistic and/or ADHD is so damned lonely. Especially if you don't know why you're different. So we do our best to adapt. That can cause issues.

Masking isn't meant as a lie. It's survival instinct. Because even though the world absolutely doesn't treat us like we're human beings, we still are. We want to survive and thrive as much as the next hominid. We have all the same needs and desires as any other human.

But what about the rest of all y'all? Can you recognize us?

Last week, a music teacher banned a 6 year old autistic kid from the school concert because 'they would ruin the experience for the other children' this is after making the autistic kid learn and practice the songs for weeks. 6 years old and that kid already has scars from discrimination about a genetic condition he can't help. It's cruel and so damned inhumane. At worst, the kid probably sang off key and maybe fidgetted a bit. But that would 'ruin' the concert. It's not the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, lady, it's an elementary school concert. It's absolutely not worth scarring that poor kid over. It also happened back in 2022, and again in 2017.

People will have seen 'Atypical' or 'The Good Doctor' or, gods forbid, Rainman and think they know what autistic people look like. (You should probably know that the majority of autistics loathe those shows because the rep is so bad.)

But here's the thing.

You can't see autism or ADHD. Not just by looking at us. It's purely a brain wiring difference. People don't even believe me when I tell them I am if they've seen me in person. And I'm professionally diagnosed as both autistic & ADHD.

Sometimes, there are co occurring issues, like intellectual disability, that are confused with autism, but they aren't actually the autism or ADHD part of things.

I'm an autistic and ADHD advocate. I have a consultant option on my Patreon for people who want advice either for themselves or so they do the right thing by their kids. I'm autistic/ADHD, my kids are too. I've been researching and learning about the topic for close to a decade at this point. I truly know what I'm talking about. I understand the different flavours and experiences of these two types of neurodivergency extremely well.

As an aside, while I have you here, ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) is never the right thing. You know how gay conversion therapy is bad? The same person (Ivar Lovass) came up with ABA, and it's meant to do the same thing. To torture people, most often children, into pretending to be what someone else wants them to be. It doesn't support or help the autistic person.

Almost unilaterally, ABA causes a PTSD breakdown of self coming into our 30s. I say almost, but I've never even heard of an autistic person who has been tortured by ABA who hasn't developed severe PTSD.

If you tried to use the methods used in ABA on a dog, you'd be guilty of extreme animal cruelty.

Yet, because it's practiced on human children, it's fiiiiine. Big money lobbying has even made it so that ABA 'therapy' is the only one covered by a lot of insurances.

We can thank Autism $peaks for that. They are a hate group. They fit every bit of the definition of one and then some. (So please don't donate to them at the till. They love to pollute stores like Toys 'R' Us.)

Adult autistics have been speaking out against them forever. But since most autistics (80%) are under or unemployed, we don't have the kind of financial sway we'd need to get rid of them. Yes, this even counts for 'the new ABA'.

You can't save ABA. Putting a 2 year old human child through 40 hours weekly of 'training' so that they can look and act neurotypical is just flat out torture. Making a child 'extremely hungry or thirsty' so that they will do what you want is torture. There's just no other way to slice that apple. It's rotten to the core.

But back to my point.

Recently, someone disagreed with my opinion on a fictional character. I feel the character is autistic/ADHD coded, the other person disagreed.

That's cool. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. And it's fiction, whatever. I'm not mad or upset. (I'm slightly insulted, because if you're not autistic/ADHD, [and a comparison they suggested made me think they definitely weren't] it's definitely not your place to disagree with one of us who says a character is autistic/ADHD coded. It's disrespectful and more than a little ableist. Simply because so many people have the completely wrong idea about both conditions.)

Regardless, the important part for a fictional character is that a person was able to see themselves in the character, to empathize with them. So it's not a big deal.

But it got me thinking about this.

Would most people recognize the subtle signs? They're almost always extremely subtle.

Ever hear of 'resting bitch face'? It's an incredibly common autistic trait because we either emote less or we emote differently than neurotypicals. In our world, it's known as 'flat face effect'. I have it, and I've been harmed many times because it looks like I'm pissed off even when I'm having a good time or I'm just deep in thought. I've got a firey temper, trust me when I say you'll know it when I'm pissed off.

So. You see a character (or even a person) who doesn't emote a lot? Or emotes extremely subtly? Wellll... that's a good clue.

So, X fictional character (or person) has odd or esoteric knowledge or hobbies. That's a good clue.

Are they nerdy or geeky in some way?

Most autistics and many ADHDers experience what's known as hyperfixation on special interests. Ever see someone get so fascinated by a topic or skill or activity that they get lost in it?

Forget to eat or drink?

Learn to do an obscure craft just because they wanted to know how it's done? That person is likely autistic or ADHD or both. It applies to fictional characters too.

Are they stand-offish? Many of us are for various reasons. One is that we're trying to figure out the 'rules' of wherever and whoever we're with.

Why all y'all insist on staring creepily at each others eyeballs is beyond me. I find it either too intimate, painfully so, or just ridiculous.

That quiet character (or person) who warms up slowly? There's a hint.

Another reason we tend to be cool with strangers is that ever present trauma thing. So many autists and ADHDers get to the point in life where we just don't have it in us anymore to keep trying to make social connections. A very common trait of both autism and ADHD is a lack of understanding of neurotypical social rules. And trust me, y'all have them.

Does the character or person fidget? Either subtly or more obviously?

It's called stimming. I had to learn to do it unobtrusively, so I'll suck air through my teeth (my dentist isn't impressed by this), circle my pointer finger around my thumb, tap the pad of each finger on my thumb in a rhythm, count silently to myself... the list is probably endless. I intentionally leave the cuticles on my thumbs rough, because I often rub the forefinger or ring finger of that hand over the rough cuticle as a stim.

Maybe they rotate their ring around a finger?

Play with their hair?

Stimming is something that calms us down and helps us regulate our emotions. (It's also one of the first things ABA robs us of. It's called 'quiet hands'.) It's really bad to deprive an autistic or ADHDer of stimming.

I used to click the button on a pen so much that I banned myself from having clicky pens because of how annoying it can be to others.

There are healthy stims and unhealthy ones. (Head banging is an example of an unhealthy stim.)

So a character or person who is just, always moving somehow? There's a hint. Or they're rhythmically moving a body part? Tapping fingers? Wiggling a foot or leg? Fussing with their clothing? Rocking?

Is the character or person 'a walking encyclopedia'? In other words, do they know a lot of information about either one or two topics or about many topics?

That character (or person) is often stereotyped as being a computer genius who can make any computer work just by looking at it for a few minutes. But it can honestly be any topic or combination of topics. That's another clue.

Many autists are almost hard wired to be painfully honest. Unless we've been traumatized into it, we tend to be shitty liars. I'm, unfortunately, a very good liar. It's not something I choose to do, because I don't want my trauma to change something so innate to me as my honesty. I had to learn to lie to survive. I don't recommend it.

Does the person or character truly believe in things like honour? Justice? Mercy? Peace? (Many neurotypical people will call these things social lies that keep the world working.) I'm talking a bone deep belief in honour etc. Are they a shitty liar?

I think I've blathered enough for now. I want to make it clear that I don't speak for all autistic and ADHD folks. I'm just one person attempting to share some of the more common traits with whoever wants to read about it.

A final thought.

Nothing can make someone autistic or ADHD. It's a genetic condition. Which is why so many parents find out they're autistic or ADHD when their kids are diagnosed. It's not more prevalent now, it's just that more people are learning about the actual parameters of it. Diagnosis is easier now than 50 years ago. It's been around since ancient Egypt and probably evolved as a way to keep the clan safe in prehistoric times.

We often have heightened senses. Sometimes we have what I call 'predator vision' which sounds awful but just means that my gaze is automatically drawn to movement. Our sleep cycles are also commonly very different than a neurotypical's. We probably ended up being people who would take night watch, stare at the stars for hours, or warn people when food has gone off so no one eats it.

I think we evolved right alongside neurotypicals because we're both needed for a successful society.

Many, many of the world's famed thinkers/creators are considered to have likely been autistic/ADHD based on records about them.

These people include:

Leonardo DaVinci

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Nikolai Tesla

Albert Einstein

Thomas Jefferson

Charles Darwin

Emily Dickinson

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

William Butler Yeats

Vincent Van Gogh

Benjamin Franklin

People who are autistic or ADHD these days that you may not expect?

Dan Ackroyd

Darryl Hannah

Anthony Hopkins

Jerry Seinfeld

Eminem

Courtney Love

David Byrne

Wentworth Miller

Satoshi Tajiri (creator of Pokemon)

There are also many, many people who have shown autistic or ADHD traits and haven't confirmed or it's impossible to confirm because they're deceased and we don't have the right records.

It's considered a massive faux pas to assign a diagnosis of anything to a living human being. So everyone living I've listed has in some way confirmed it. There are many, many other people (especially in creative industries or hobbies) I believe are likely one or the other, but I wouldn't label. That's for them to do.

If you enjoyed this or learned something and you can, please consider a tip or becoming a Patron. My work of words is my only income.

Every historical person is just a 'likely' because we'll never actually know. All we can do is point at the exhibited traits via records and say, probably.

[doberbutts]

I don't support everything he has ever said, but you should understand that this is coming from decades of abuse. Cripple course didn't start this year. Or the last. MIABs have been sending us death threats for a very, very long time. They literally stole our terms, closed their communities to us, and demanded we thank them for it. They called my friends ableist for wanting our own spaces and drove them to suicide. Let me ask you this. How many PD only spaces have you found? Compared to the numerous MI only, or even Autistic Only spaces?

Is one angry cripple really the bad guy?

I gotta tell you in 30 years on this earth never once have I thought that any of the various things wrong with me were properly accomodated unless I was specifically in a space that was intentionally curated to accomodate my specific needs. Including in so-called "disability-friendly" spaces. Sometimes it was the neurological. Sometimes it was the physical. Sometimes it was the mental. But without shaping my life around my needs, I was never really supported.

And for the record I don't love labelling folks as acronyms. It always seems somewhat combattive to me.

But I'm seeing some pretty bad takes on my dash, including "people with such severe sensory issues that sensory devices don't help them are rare and don't really go on the internet" (um. Hi?) and "at least you can get in the door" (yes I can physically move my body to go in the building but then I will vomit everywhere and pass out on the floor in minutes and that means there's accomodations that are lacking here) and "neurodivergent people are always coddled" (lmao yes I was literally beaten by my second grade teacher for having add symptoms in class but go off I guess).

Maybe it's because I was raised by a disabled man who was born in a time where the world was so hostile to disability that he didn't even know he was deaf until he was in his 20s, he just thought he was genuinely stupid because he interpreted it as "can't understand" instead of "can't hear". Because I was raised by his wife who specialized in teaching disabled children. Because I was born with multiple disabilities and from a young age was taught to fight for my rights and advocate for myself.

But, honestly? I think attacking other disabled people is wrong. Shouldn't really come as a surprise considering I say this about everything else 🤷‍♂️ there are some otherwise able-bodied neurodivergent people who are shitheads to both the severely mentally ill and also to physically disabled people. There are some mentally ill people who are shitheads to neurodivergent and physically disabled people. There are physically disabled people who are shitheads to neurodivergent and mentally ill people. But here's the thing.

I just think they're all shitheads.

[zeroar]

An Open Letter to the People Who Support Autism Speaks

Autism Speaks is eighteen years old. The age they should start dismissing themselves as being an authority on autism like they do with autistic adults if they cared about consistency at all.

They were founded in 2005 by a couple of Hollywood executives who grieved the diagnosis of their grandchild. This was a full dozen years after the seminal "Don't Mourn For Us" by Jim Sinclair was penned and presented.

From the beginning, Autism Speaks was anti-autism. They sought a "cure" they could use to erase our existence from the planet, they fomented anti-vax conspiracies which are still plaguing our society today, and they fostered and continue to foster an environment supportive and understanding of child-murder.

But. They were connected to celebrity. And they had the endowment and reach to become the largest anti-autism group in the nation and world.

The primary method of advertising which Autism Speaks used from the beginning is known as "fear appeal".

Typically, they frame autistic children as changeling-like creatures which replace the allistic or neurotypical child you had with one which will never love you and will tear apart your family.

Autism Speaks spotlights the worst of having an autistic family member and pulls the drapes on any mitigating circumstances or assistance. They emphasize the burden we are and the harm caused to our families by our existence.

Autism Speaks then goes on to frame themselves as being the solution and the experts on everything autism. They say, don't listen to autistic people, listen to their parents and other people who have been negatively affected by their existence. Listen to these cherry-picked examples.

They talk vaguely about support for autistic children and families while they campaign ceaselessly to find the genes which contributed to making us... so they can unmake us.

As you might expect for people who frame themselves as being the victim of their children's existences, they have been easily taken in by snake-oil salesmen and conspiracy theorists.

To this day, Autism Speaks continues to emphasize the "environmental causes of autism" even while fully knowing (from the millions of dollars of research they put in pursuing a debunked study) that autism appears to be primarily genetic and our environment really only affects our presentations as autistic, not our realities as autistic.

"Environmental causes" is a dog whistle for vaccines because they no longer feel it is profitable for them to explicitly encourage widespread death and alternative disabilities of children, so they have started only alluding to it and finally, years after the study was debunked and retracted, agree that vaccines do not cause autism.

"Environmental causes" is also a dog whistle for things like heavy metal poisoning causing autism and various other external things that can be "taken care of" via chelation therapy and bleaching our insides. Yes, Autism Speaks is at least partially responsible for spreading bleach "cures".

I believe they've taken it down since I first started advocating for SPLC to recognize Autism Speaks as a hate group—something autistic persons have recognized for years—but as recently as a year ago they were still directing people to seek out these "cures".

They worded it in such a way that it was, "These 'cures' do not work and can cause harm, but you should talk to people who tried them for their children and see for yourself."

It's cruelty for cruelty's sake. Or it's believing scientifically disproven things in a way that promotes the torture of children.

Which brings us to arguably their biggest crime against humanity and against autistic people specifically thus far: the advancement of behaviorism or behavioral conditioning as the "treatment" for autism.

Behaviorism, that is, conversion therapy torture. When done on autistic people, it is commonly called ABA or PBS.

This is another reason why they cling to "environmental causes", because behaviorism is entirely consumed with external presentation.

Autism is a pervasive neurological state which colors every aspect of our lives. Their "solution" is to deny our reality, break us to their will, and have us pretend to be "normal".

Through their efforts, they have ensured conversion therapy is not just used, but frequently the only choice for covered treatment of autistic children.

I say "choice", but the torture is sometimes court-mandated (and this is more common when the parents are marginalized-by-society in some way themselves).

Autism Speaks is so very proud of their government influence. Shortly before I started the petition, I watched in horror as their testimony scuttled a bill at the state level intended to help autistic children which had the support of their parents because not enough torture was included in the "help".

People say they've "changed", yet it's not like their institution is so hallowed and sacrosanct that it is necessary to keep around even as it is continues to encourage harm and death to autistic children and autistic adults.

Autism Speaks is the multi-headed hydra of anti-autism rhetoric and hate in the world today. They have so many branches and have infiltrated so deeply that many of their supporters ( I hope ) are not even aware of the hateful rhetoric and active harm they spread.

People tend not to even question the premise that autistic humans are better off dead than alive, people have for ages not even thought of us as human. Autism Speaks recommends starting behavioral conditioning as early as possible in children as young as two. The least intensive programs they recommend are for dozens of hours a week.

This is what they recommend, push, and lobby for with *all* autistic children.

If they become able to accurately recognize autism in a fetus, then their genocide and eugenics will only accelerate. I am pro-abortion, but no one should be coerced into an abortion with lies and one-sided propaganda.

Showing hateful rhetoric and catastrophizing about our existence to a newly pregnant person is similarly abominable as the sort of thing anti-choice people do.

Autism Speaks has not changed, though they have gotten better at pretending normality. Maybe they put themselves through conversion therapy torture to learn how to pretend to be a force of good while being sympathetic of child murderers?

Or, you know, they've hired publicists and PR people.

If you were duped by them, I'm sorry that their hate is not more well-known. Can you imagine if the first place you felt supported you and understood your struggles was the bad guy? Who would think that by default?

But they are the bad guy. And they're using you. Preying on your isolation and desire for community and support.

They start early. Constant public outreach. Working with cops. University chapters. There may even be entire branches under their umbrella that are actively dedicated to good. But they support the hate and harm by supporting Autism Speaks.

If you support Autism Speaks, then you support the elimination of autism.

If you believe their fear-driven propaganda designed to earn more money for themselves, that may sound like a good thing to you.

But you cannot eliminate autism without eliminating the autistic person, too.

We cannot turn off our autism, some of us can pretend normality—frequently to our great misfortune—but others can't do that either. It's similar to what happens when you force queer people through conversion therapy torture / behaviorism regimes.

There is not some hidden switch in our brains to "fix" us. Even if there was, we would not be ourselves, we would be different people. You cannot separate autism from the autistic.

If this letter spoke to you, I hope you will consider signing my petition to get the Southern Poverty Law Center to track anti-disability hate and to recognize Autism Speaks as an anti-autism group.

You can find the petition here:

Thank you for reading, Zero Richardson

[scroogemcducksbastardchild]

it scares me how quickly so many supposed leftists have turned away from palestine, and how similar their language is to the people they say they're fighting.

how is calling for the violent death of palestinian children because you say they're terrorists any different from attempting to justify the murder of a black boy who was acting "suspicious"? how does ignoring and ridiculing the suffering of palestinian women make you a feminist, and why does the argument that they "deserve it" sound so familiar? how can you claim to advocate for disability rights and then pass over a child who starved to death just because he had cerebral palsy and he was "at risk anyway"?

this is a genocide happening in real time, and the world will not forgive you for ignoring it. we CAN'T ignore it.

being part of an oppressed group does not excuse you from oppressing another. saying that all people supporting palestine are antisemitic is wrong and insulting. we're not calling for the death of all jews, we're calling for the safety of all palestinians. the fact that you think jewish and palestinian lives cannot exist together says more about you than it does the people you're fighting against.

why does someone who lives on the other side of the world have more right to the land than someone who has lived there their entire life? that's colonist rhetoric, and it's the same ideals that were used in the manifest destiny when the u.s. expanded west and attempted to eradicate hundreds of indigenous cultures. that's bad!! forcing 2 million people- individual lives, each with dreams and hopes and a family and secrets and favourite school subjects- into a "safe zone" they can't evacuate from and then carpet bombing them is bad! it's fucking unfathomable to me how people have gotten so stuck on the false dichotomy of freedom for israelis or freedom for palestinians that they're excusing a genocide. they asked for your help and when you demanded proof, they gave it to you. you said it wasn't enough and they gave you more, the fucking israeli army gave you more. and you're still sitting here reblogging iof thirst traps and calling yourself a leftist.

palestine is a feminist issue. palestine is a disability issue. free palestine 🇵🇸 🍉

KEEP TALKING ABOUT PALESTINE.

[they-are-a-prolife-autist]

So this is my introduction.

The recent overturning of Roe v Wade has sparked- or rekindled rather - the debate about the morality and necessity of abortion (the medical removal of a human fetus from its mothers uterus.)

I’ve seen and heard many say that it’s absolutely necessary and argue for its protection in the name of children in foster care, children who suffer abuse, children who grow up in poverty, children who will be disabled, and of course… mothers who don’t want children. So I've decided to speak up about my own perspective and experience.

Hi.

I am an autistic (disabled) woman who grew up in poverty. I use they/them pronouns.

I was physically, emotionally and sexually abused as a child, and I am a survivor of incestuous rape. I have six younger brothers and sisters, most of whom were born after my mom began loosing her vision. She’s now a single disabled mother of 7 kids, whom she loves. According to the pro-choice mindset, (and I have been told this to my face,) my life isn’t worth living, and my mother wronged us and herself all by allowing us to exist.

I have been told that abortion would have “saved” me, any of my siblings, or my mom even from a miserable existence. I have been asked "how can we allow families to live in poverty? How can we allow the suffering of disabilities? Don't you want to end suffering like yours? Like your families." <- Besides the manipulative wording of questions like these in regards to abortion, the mindset that abortion would "save" us from our lives as minorities is ableist, classist, frankly sexist, and wrong. My mother is the strongest woman I know; not just because she carried, birthed, and raised 7 neaurodivergent children in a home with a narcissistic man all while gradually going blind, but because she loves each and every one of us, sees the value in all of our lives, and never once considered we would be better off not living for our sake or for hers. I will always be grateful that she knew our value as human beings before we were even born.

I find the concept that my death would have been better than my rape, my disability, or my upbringing as a impoverished child extremely offensive. I deserve better than that. Society deserves better than that. Women deserve better than that. My death would not have been preferable to my abuse or to being poor. I learned that after my first two suicide attempts.

Killing me or my siblings wouldn’t have made my mother safer or more happy, but rather would have deprived the world of 7 beautiful neurodivergent lives that are still worth living. The argument that abortion is necessary to prevent lives like mine and to protect my mom from us rather than our abuser is horrendous.

Abortion is used as the failsafe excuse to remove other options. Who needs free birth birth control when you have abortion? Why advocate for better healthcare for pregnant mothers, more protection from abusers, more resources for poor families when, better sex education, or birth control and sterilization rights when…. We can just cover up the issues with abortion. Abortion doesn’t solve any problems. It doesn’t save lives. It doesn't give women an equal seat at the table. Rather, it furthers our oppression by telling us that the only way we can succeed is to adjust our biology to be more convenient, to wage war on our children so we can have an education. This culture of death and quick fixes is a grotesque bandaid hastily plastered to the bullet wound that is our societies selfishness and lack of compassion for the truly weak and vulnerable.

Using the impoverished, the disabled, the sufferers of abuse, and children in a broken system to justify abortion in the name of lives unworth living? No. You don’t get to use people like me to justify wiping us out before we get to live. Despite my circumstances and the suffering I have experienced, my life is valuable. You really want to help us? Stop advocating for our death and advocate for real lasting change.

Or sure… you can call me a forced birther, call me sexist, throw around slurs and death threats. I will continue believing the right to live is the most important of all human rights. I will continue defending the value of lives like mine, and despising this “cure all” for all the issues that make having a family, or just EXISTING hard for people like me and my mom.

I’m Ashe. Nice to meet you.

[esoteric-chaos]

Disability-Friendly Prosperity Magic

So let's face it, those who are disabled have a hard time with money in general, either from being unable to work or not having a steady, strong source of income. Sometimes we can monetize our hobbies, admittedly at a limited capacity (some less or more than others).

From our relationship with money, money mindsets, and income streams, it's hard. That's not to shame anyone, either. Some overspend to cope, while others are incredibly frugal.

In this post, I will review some resources, tips, and tricks for the struggling disabled witch.

The Mundane Before Magical

Step one is to make a budget and track your expenses. I'm serious. Sit down, look at where your money is going, and decide on a budget that you can realistically stick to. I use the 50/30/20 rule as a budget, which is 50% Needs, 30% Wants, and 20% Savings. However, I recently switched wants and savings around so I can save for a trip.

Now I do not want you to worry about a big fancy budget method. I don't want you to overthink it. Here is a resource (Canada, but it can be used in the USA) to start one. Focus on your needs like housing, utilities, basic clothing, food, etc. Then go into wants and entertainment, and finally, savings. I suggest you put any debt payoff into the needs category if you have any debt. You do not want a blow to your credit report.

Now do you have any financial goals? Going back to school? Debt payoff? A trip? Even a big medical trip coming up? Here is a resource (Canada, but it can be used in the USA) that can help you create a goal and a plan to pay this off.

Savings, please, your SAVINGS. It is vital to have an emergency fund. Job loss? Death? Vet bills? Children? Dentist? You better believe that piles up. It is recommended if you are single to have at least 3 months of income saved up, with a child and single at least 6 months. Married on two incomes, the same amount. Married with one income, it is recommended without children at least 6 months saved up and with children 9 months. It is vital you have the means to take care of yourself if an emergency strikes. It is never recommended that money be stopped from being put into these accounts.

If you are in debt, look at your debt relief options. Sometimes there are services out there that can advocate for you regarding debt. They will help you develop a plan, understand the relief options, sign documents with you, and develop a credit rebuilding program. These services are out there; even if they are paid, they can help you pay off some of your debt, especially credit card debt.

Educate yourself on investing, basic investing, and financial literacy, in stock markets and everything beyond. Know what kind of accounts you can hold and what could help you in your situation.

Need help applying for disability? Here's a resource for the USA (a lot can also be used for Canada).

The Magical

Upkeep a prosperity altar. Work with the spirit of money like you would any other spirit. Honour it, talk to it, venerate it. Money loves to be valued, moved, not wasted, and used in charity. Most importantly, money takes time. Money takes time to grow and build a relationship with.

This is the most important thing I've learned about money. It wants to be worked with. It's sitting there. It wants to help and aid you in ways that you need.

Work with this altar on Thursdays, incorporating the spirit of Jupiter. Jupiter rules over finances. Long steady finances, not quick finances. Jupiter rules over business, legal and all things finances. Jupiter is a slower-moving planet.

You can also incorporate the spirit of Mercury on Wednesdays along with your Jupiter workings. Mercury is a fast-moving planet, a planet for fast-moving money. However, you must build a long, steady form of finances over quick, easy cash (but sometimes you do need it right now).

You can create a money bowl and work with it on this altar, a Jupiter cashbox (I will make a future post on this), or a manifestation mirror box filled with petitions, sigils and your investment/banking information.

Fill your altar with greens and gold, imagery for wealth and abundance, pocket change, and anything else that symbolizes wealth.

Do not forget to leave offerings for your money altar. A simple glass of water can do but try to do more if you can.

Road opener workings or petition with an offering for the cross-road spirits who can unblock blockages in your way.

Final Take Away

I know this might not help everyone, but I sincerely hope this helps somebody. Financial literacy was not taught to everyone, nor were proper budgeting tips. I wanted to share what I've learned over the years as I believe it is vital information for some of the information I have collected.

Blessings

[joemerl]

I’ve been looking through your posts tagged pro-life and I earnestly do not get it. why would anyone want abortion banned? why would you want to take away a person’s autonomy over their body?

like I can get it if you cannot fathom terminating what you perceive as a life. Why should it be enforced on every person? Why can’t it stay a personal moral code? That way, I can respect it. Why ban the right to choose?

I see you’ve reblogged tweets about abortion being an industry?? is this something like big pharma?? or is it like plastic surgery? That women are being socially tricked into having abortions?

Also if you do read/answer this, you don’t need to talk about when life starts because I don’t think that matters. the baby’s in the womb of someone who may or may not want them. why do you care about the unborn baby matter more than the pregnant person?

First of all, thank you for asking so politely, on an issue where so few people are polite. It makes me feel bad that my answer is going to come off as flippant no matter how I try to phrase it.

Because, for any pro-choice person trying to understand the pro-life position, there's a simple formula: take an argument in favor of abortion, and rephrase it into some variant of "murder a baby."

That kind of makes my position clear, doesn't it? You don't say "I understand that you don't want to murder a baby, but why do you want to ban other people from murdering their babies?" In a pluralistic society, we accept that some things need to be left up to individual choice. Do any of us want to say that murder is included in that category? Hell, would you argue that people who are against the death penalty shouldn't campaign against it? It's not their business, after all.

Pro-choicers often note the reasons that women have abortions: what if they're already struggling financially, what if the baby is disabled, etc. Those are all legitimate issues, don't get me wrong. But again, apply the formula. Instead of "Martha is already struggling financially with three children, so she decided to get an abortion," try "Martha started struggling financially after her fourth child was born, so she decided to kill her." When my brother got diagnosed with autism, it never occurred to my family to murder him. Why should it be different if it's an unborn baby diagnosed with Down syndrome?

You say that you don't want a debate about when life starts, but that's...kind of relevant, don't you think? It's like if I said that I wanted to understand the pro-choice side, but you're not allowed to suggest that women should have choices, because that doesn't matter to this debate.

And the fact is, it's not that "I perceive" a fetus as being a life. It is alive. The old mantra used to be that a fetus was "just a clump of cells," but as we learn more about fetal development, even pro-choice advocates have had to abandon that claim, given how developed the baby within a few weeks of conception. Does that prove that abortion is "wrong?" Technically, no, but technically you can't prove that any murder (or theft, or rape, etc.) is wrong, because it's a metaphysical claim. But the fetus being a human life is undeniable, and I think we can agree that, in general, human life is not supposed to be snuffed out.

As I see it, so much of the pro-choice argument is "out of sight, out of mind." You don't see the baby, you don't see the dismembered corpse getting dropped into a "Medical Waste" bag, so you don't have to think about it. The ultimate example of this is the debate about whether or not women should have to see ultrasounds before they get an abortion. I readily admit that these laws are a pro-life stunt to get women to keep their babies, but what's the pro-choice argument? That women should have less medical information before they make their choice?

The main problem with abortion as an industry is that it's one, you know, dedicating to killing babies. You can't argue that the gun lobby or military-industrial complex are bad if you think Planned Parenthood is great. And after all, it's in their best interests to make sure that people keep aborting children, since that's how they make their money. Big Business in general benefits from abortion, for various reasons (keeps women in the workforce, justifies lower wages, etc.), but that's a side topic to the main issue.

(Actually, funny story. My mom is VERY pro-life, but when she was pregnant with me, she had recently moved back to the U.S. for the first time in her adult life. She wasn't familiar with this "Planned Parenthood" group, but she stopped by to get a pregnancy test. For some reason, they just kept asking her if she wanted an abortion, even when she kept telling them no! Weird, eh?

(Anyway, the test was a false negative, so I can thankfully say that I don't owe my attempted murderers anything. I guess they weren't used to living babies.)

The issue of bodily autonomy is harder to apply the formula to, but let's try a different, admittedly more eccentric scenario. Bob and Ted are conjoined twins; the heart is in Bob's body, so if they were separated, Ted would die. Bob doesn't care. He doesn't want to be connected to Ted. He admits that yeah, it'll suck that his brother has to die, but he wants to live his own life and do all the things that he can't with Ted still attached.

You ask "why do you care about the unborn baby more than the pregnant person?" but that question doesn't really make sense. They're both equally worthy. But one is going to die and the other, except in rare cases, isn't. Why should I care about Ted's right over Bob's?

And here's the real kicker: in that scenario, imagine if doctors tell Bob that they can separate him and Ted, but the process isn't quite perfected yet. They need, say, nine months before they can do the surgery. But Bob wants it done now. To him, Ted's life isn't worth waiting.

So, which would you choose? Bob's bodily autonomy, or Ted's life?

[attackfish]

I saw a deeply stupid post in the Ursa tag the other day, which is unfortunately not an uncommon occurrence, but in this case, this particular post took aim not only at Ursa, the fictional character, but at the human beings who defend her parenting of Azula. The poster said that it really bothers them when people try to justify Ursa's reactions to Azula' behavior by saying that Ursa was just worried about her daughter's behavior, because after all, that's what the abusive parents of neurodiverse children say too, they say it's about the behavior not the child.

This line of logic is deeply flawed and dare I say problematic. Azula wasn't stimming. She wasn't talking too much in class. She wasn't misreading social cues and upsetting someone. She wasn't doing any number of things that neurodivergent children do that are ultimately harmless, for which they are punished. She wasn't even doing something that was potentially dangerous to herself, for which she had minimal understanding or control over. The behavior that concerned her mother was the skillful manipulation, control and bullying, of her brother and companions, animal cruelty, and speculating openly and gleefully about her grandfather's possible death or usurpation, something that would be echoed not long after by her equally gleeful taunting of her brother with the prospect that their father is about to murder him.

This behavior is all very much the product of Ozai's abusive parenting, and a sign of deep psychological damage that has been done to her. It's also dangerous to herself and to her peers, including her brother, and if it isn't somehow stopped, it indicates that she will grow into a dangerous adult. I want to repeat that, her behavior, leaving aside the concerns for what it might mean for her future development, is already dangerous to herself and other children.

This is a thing that happens in the real world. Children, including traumatized children, often exhibit behavior that is dangerous to themselves and others, and that behavior should absolutely concern the caring adults in their lives. Likewise, behavior that is the sign of trauma and abuse should also concern the caring adults in a child's life.

Ursa is not aghast that her child is acting in socially frowned upon ways. She is coping with a child who is engaging in deliberate and profound cruelty aimed at other children, including her brother. There would be something very wrong with Ursa as a parent if that didn't scare her, as indeed there is something extremely wrong with Ozai, who encourages it.

The use of neurodiversity here is especially aggrivating to me for two reasons, the first, because it feels manipulative as hell, and is used to claim that any parent who is concerned about their child's very worrying behavior is in fact ableist, and a bad parent. More, this logic is overtly aimed not at Ursa the fictional character, but at the real people who don't agree that her treatment of Azula was mistreatment. It's the manipulative use of accusations of ableism and supporting the abuse of neurodiverse children to win a fannish arguement, and as a disabled and neurodiverse person, seeing ableism against neurodiverse children used as effectively a manipulation tactic in this way is offensive, and also dangerous, because it is exactly the kind of argument that ableist parents bring up to counter people advocating on behalf of neurodiverse children, who want them to not be punished for behaviors that are part of their neurodiversity.

The other reason I find this particular argument nauseating is because of the exact type of behavior that Azula was engaging in, which is to say the bullying of her brother and companions, in which she exhibits a high level of social awareness, and certain types of strong social skills. I was regularly bullied by children with strong social skills and high levels of social awareness, for my lack of those things, and for my weirdness, almost all of which was born from either my neurodiversity, or my lack of social experience thanks to my disabilities. This bullying was often either ignored, or encouraged by the parents and teachers of the bullying children. They did not view this deliberate cruelty as concerning. And they should have.

Azula has one parent who sees that behavior as concerning, as extremely troubling, and one parent who doesn't. The fact that so many people in this fandom seem to think that realizing this kind of behavior is troubling, inherently makes someone a bad parent, is frustrating in the extreme, because it is in fact an example of good parenting, and Ozai's lack of concern about that behavior is part of what makes him one of the most abusive fathers in children's media.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Robert F. Graboyes

Published: Jan 28, 2024

On this, the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Holocaust Remembrance industry stands as a colossal failure. Holocaust Remembrance Day, it turns out, successfully transfixed eyes on the rear-view mirror and diverted attention from the dangers 10 feet in front of us. And, truth be told, the rear-view mirror is growing a bit foggy, as well. Less than a century ago, the leading intellectuals of Germany—the most highly educated nation on earth—initiated, participated in, or acquiesced to mass murder on a previously unimaginable scale. And only weeks ago, intellectuals in America, Europe, and elsewhere waxed lyrical over the rape, torture, mutilation, murder, beheading, and kidnapping of innocent Jews. 

An important parallel underlies both historical episodes. Both Hitler and Hamas were the cancerous outgrowths of respectable and sometimes altruistic intellectual movements that saw individuals as nothing more than avatars of demographic groups, defined by immutable characteristics. At my own Substack, Bastiat’s Window, I’ve written of this in “The Briar and the Rose,” “Intellectual Tyrants Beget True Believers,” and “Zola, Weiss, and J'Accuse...! 2023.”

A century ago, eugenics provided the unquestioned and unquestionable foundation for academic writing and public policy. Eugenics preached a world of predestination, where an individual’s worth was irrevocably determined at birth by race, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, economic status, and family history. No one could escape his or her essentialist destiny by dint of action, accomplishment, or character. Eugenics began as parlor conversation among well-born, well-educated, often well-meaning British academics. Then, it jumped the Atlantic and gave rise to a sexual sterilization machine in America—enabled by a debauched Supreme Court. Finally, it leaped back to Europe, where it metastasized into the Holocaust. 

In our time, the equivalent academic tendency is one that travels under many names—diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); critical race theory (CRT); antiracism; white fragility; intersectionality; social justice; anticolonialism; social and emotional learning; progressivism; safetyism; critical social justice; identity Marxism; and (primarily to its denigrators) “wokeness.” The central connective tenet in all of this is something called “equity”—which does not in any way resemble any traditional definition of the word. 

A note on nomenclature: “equitism”

Writers like Thomas Klingenstein on the right, Freddie DeBoer on the left, and Bari Weiss in the center decry the lack of a consistent name for this intellectual and activist movement. I use the term “equitism” here and suggest it to others. Unlike “equity,” “equitism” offers no ambiguity of meaning. Unlike, say “the equity agenda,” “equitism” is a single word. Advocates of this philosophy often present “equity” as a substitute for “equality,” so “equitism” is parallel to “egalitarianism.” Unlike “woke,” “equitism” is not an insult or pejorative, and the web shows that a few advocates have used the term to describe themselves. I’ll use the term below for simplicity and clarity. 

Equitism as echo of eugenics

Like eugenics a century earlier, equitism presumes that demography is destiny, with some demographic groups imperiled by the immutable malignities of other groups. This often manifests itself as a Manichaean “oppressor/oppressed” dichotomy across demographic categories. Intersectionality and other frameworks array groups along a spectrum between these polar opposites. In its most extreme manifestation, this weltanschauung justifies horrific punishment of perceived “oppressors.” Hence, the pro-Hamas marchers proclaiming “by any means necessary”—which presumably includes baking babies to death in ovens, tying parents to children and immolating them together, raping young girls till their pelvises shatter, beheading children in front of their parents, and visiting all manner of depravities upon elderly Holocaust survivors—as long as they are Israelis and Israelis are classified as oppressors.

Clearly, those Western professors celebrating Hamas have not absorbed whatever lessons that Holocaust Museums were designed to impart. To name one category of protestors, LGBTQ+ Jews marching for Hamas seem not to understand the message of Martin Niemöller. The most enthusiastic practitioners of Holocaust Remembrance, unfortunately, seem to be the members of Hamas, who learned the lessons of those years all too well. It should noted that David Patterson’s 2022 scholarly work, Judaism, Antisemitism, and Holocaust: Making the Connections, documents Hamas’s literal organizational and philosophical links to Hitler’s Nazis. 

The central feature of both the Holocaust and of Hamas’s slaughter is that once one abandons the sanctity of individuals and considers only the presumed virtues and vices of demographic groups, one is free to attack those deemed unvirtuous in any way. 

Furthermore, equitism, like eugenics, can anesthetize those who do not share the murderous intentions of the Nazis or Hamas. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has been open for 31 years, but its mission clearly failed to educate the Ivy League presidents who hemmed and hawed and equivocated over questions of whether calls for genocide against Jews qualified as protected speech on the same campuses where subjectively discerned microaggressions or misuse of preferred pronouns are grounds for ostracism and punishment. 

Who wants to contradict something called “social justice” or “diversity” or “equity?” The anesthetic effect seems to have impacted even the Holocaust museums themselves. At Commentary magazine, Seth Mandel asked, “Why Are Holocaust Museums Cowering in Silence?” 

Corrosion begins in microscopic proportions

The most important lesson for Holocaust Remembrance comes from Dr. Leo Alexander’s simple, chilling statement that “corrosion begins in microscopic proportions.” Alexander, an American psychiatrist, neurologist, educator, and author, of Austrian-Jewish origin, was a key medical advisor during the Nuremberg Trials. He wrote part of the Nuremberg Code, which provides legal and ethical principles for scientific experiment on humans, and discovered that German doctors didn’t fail to stop the Nazis’ program of genocide and barbaric medical experimentation. Rather, he discovered they didn’t do more to stop the horrors because they were instrumental in initiating them. In a 2018 article on this subject, I argued that:

German doctors enthusiastically volunteered for [service] to, and leadership within, the Third Reich. Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess declared Nazism ‘nothing but applied biology,’ and many German doctors apparently agreed.” Collectively, they decided that medicine’s primary purpose was to build “an economically productive populace,” a concept that “opened the floodgates for atrocities.” 

By contrast, Alexander found that Dutch physicians following the Nazi conquest of the Netherlands, unanimously rejected this assumption and viewed their role as healing and comforting the sick and dying. Even when threatened with punishment and death, “humility assured that no Dutch doctors participated in the Holocaust.

German doctors, besotted with eugenics, gladly segmented society by ethnicity, by disabilities, by sexuality, and so forth. And once they began thinking of groups (e.g., productive versus nonproductive races), rather than of individuals, then they were free to commit atrocities in good conscience—or at least to acquiesce in the atrocities committed by others. The same dynamic plays out today on the campuses of America or the streets of London and Paris and Sydney.  

Alexander’s work is described in James A. Maccaro’s brief 1997 article “From Small Beginnings: The Road to Genocide.” Alexander’s full paper is his 1948 New England Journal of Medicine report on “Medical Science Under Dictatorship.” A century ago, the oxidants that began society’s corrosion lay in eugenics. Today, the oxidants lie in equitism. 

In the early 20th century, eugenics was almost universally accepted by academicians, politicians, doctors, the general public, and celebrities. Opposing eugenics put one’s career and friendships in peril. One of the few public intellectuals to oppose this madness was the British writer G. K. Chesterton, author of Eugenics and Other Evils (1922). Chesterton understood better than anyone that evil comes most often not from evil people, but rather from good people with unmoored ethics. In 1908, he wrote:

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

Holocaust Remembrance Day is a worthy project, but not if it is solely backward-looking. Looking for Nazis in 2024 is a futile endeavor. Scanning the horizon in front of us for those with parallel intent is far more urgent and challenging. 

As goes the aphorism, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

[bloghrexach]

🗞️ … NYT: this is shameful!! Not surprising — why believe your veracity? — lopsided, kinda, right?

By: Sofian Ouadah, Advocating fir a Gree Palestine, from LinkedIn …

“The memo instructs reporters not to use the word “Palestine” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps”.

Basically anything that recognizes Israel’s flagrant human rights violations.

**The outlet has lost all credibility. They are a certified propaganda arm for Israel.**

To understand the severity of this memo replace the words with "deportation", "holocaust" and "concentration camps". Maybe you'll understand now …

Shame on them and frankly, all the journalists who upheld their lies and contributed to the political environment that led to the deaths of thousands of innocent PALESTINIAN women’s en, elderly, disabled and children.” … 🗞️

#BreakTheSilence … #CeaseFireNow … #StopGazaGenocide … #FreePalestine …

@hrexach

[winntir]

I'm autistic. I'm not shy about this on social media. And I can't afford to be shy about the fact that if I lived in Nazi Germany, my life would've been at risk. Because I didn't fit the vision of a perfect world sold to the desperate by the hateful, I could've been euthanized. Let's not forget that Hans Asperger, a forerunner in the study of autism, was a member of the Nazi party and sent uncountable children to their deaths.

When we think about the lives lost in the Holocaust, it is fair to think only of the Jews. Their numbers were highest, most visible at the time. However, do not forget they weren't the only victims, and prejudice against them still lives today. The queers, the disabled, the Romani, the Armenians, the many who the hateful of this world still target today. Do those who enable them realize what the Nazis really were? No, they don't.

The Nazis were a mirror onto the rest of Europe, onto the rest of the world, showing the greatest evils of their societies reflected back at them at perhaps the worst they had ever been. And at once, they became a scapegoat, a comic villain to pretend like they weren't guilty of the same things. It's in this that the wolves who do not where black uniforms have a comfortable distraction for them to advocate for "tradition."

Remember who the victims were, and remember that the evil the Nazis represent didn't die in 1945. Hell, there are still bastards calling themselves Nazis and a hell of a lot of enablers on their side. Do not forget, for evil relies on a lack of opposition to grow, and the easiest way for it to lack opposition is for its greatest opposition to forget it even exists.

[risingfire17-the-weeb-trash]

40 Day Anime Challenge Day 24- Best Anime Parents: Gunther and Effa from Ascendance of a Bookworm

*Caution: Ascendance of a Bookworm Spoilers*

These two are relatively new to the small but mighty group of excellent anime parents, but they’ve more than won their place. They live in a world that’s about as technologically advanced as pre-Renaissance Europe (except where the upper classes have magic) and are commoners with 2 (later 3) children, including perpetually ill Myne. Now, in that kind of life, with resources scarce, it makes sense to let her die and focus on keeping their other children healthy. But they take care of her. 

They don’t question or condemn her obsession with creating books, or any of the other advanced technology she “invents.” When they find out the reason for her illness is that she was a commoner born with a high degree of magic, they don’t try to sell her off to nobles, the way other magic afflicted commoners are sold. They care for her just as they always have, and respect Main’s decisions how she handles her magic. They support her as she enters the world of merchants and then of the church, advocating for her so they’ll accommodate her disability (chronic illness), which is unheard of in her society. In fact, they both almost get killed multiple times standing up for her, because commoners aren’t supposed to stand up to upper classes. 

And finally, and this one hits me on a very personal level, they allow her to be adopted by a noble who can keep her safe from the bad nobles targeting her, something they just can’t do in their position, no matter how hard they try. They love her and want her to be safe more than anything else, even if it means they need to let her go. Now, this hits home for me because, years ago, I placed my son for adoption at birth because I couldn’t care for him at the time. I picked the family and they are the sweetest people ever and the adoption is open so I still see them and he knows who I am, but at the time, I was heartbroken losing my baby boy. And this is before I even got to know him. I can’t imagine the pain Gunther and Effa felt when allowing the girl they’d raised and bonded with to be adopted. And to top it all off, this was a closed adoption. Her name was changed, and they were not allowed to let on that they knew her ever again. She was just another noble they had no business approaching. In fact, her adoptive father even said the only reason he didn’t kill her whole family was to prevent Myne from going berserk with her power. To place a child they’d raised, in a closed adoption, and threatened with death if they ever approach her. I don’t know if I could do that. But they did. And for that, they have my respect.

[teaveetamer]

I am not an expert in American culture but if the goal is to protect children , shoul'nt they do something more useful like regulating guns ? I keep seeing new about little kids accidentally killing a family member because someone gave them a gun

The short answer is: it's not actually about protecting kids.

The long answer is: children are a useful tool in political discourse because they are uniquely vulnerable and completely unable to advocate for themselves. Either they're too young (<12ish) or society refuses to take them seriously if they try (12-17ish).

There are no children's rights groups run by children advocating for themselves, for example, like there are gay rights groups, trans rights groups, advocacy groups for people with disabilities, etc. AKA, there are no children who will push back on harmful policies aimed at children.

Children aren't going to be able to tell you what is actually best for them. Nor should they have to. Adults need to make those decisions for them 99% of the time.

"Think of the children" preys on the inherent ambiguity and fear a lot of good parents feel ("am I doing this right? What if I'm wrong?"), and can justify bad parent's horrible, potentially abusive decisions ("I was just doing what I thought was best! No parent is perfect!").

This means you can essentially do whatever you want as long as you trojan horse it in as "protecting the children". There will be some pushback, but there are enough people with fear and insecurity that your pushback will be small enough to overcome (and if it isn't, just proclaim the people trying to stop you as child abusers or pedos). But the people pushing these efforts don't actually care about children. They care about power, control, and political capital.

And you'll notice... when minors are actually old enough to tell you what they want, the political discourse will start infantalizing them to get them back to the "they can't tell you what's actually best for them" stage. Teenagers get treated the same as 4 month old babies.

Look at the recent shit about trans healthcare in the US. Often times the trans youth accessing these services are teenagers, 13 and older. But whenever you hear the fundies talking about it, they'll opine about 3 and 4 year olds getting abused and manipulated into wanting top surgery. To be clear - no one is doing that.

For reference, 15 is the age at which we allow minors to operate two ton death machines (cars) supervised in the US, and 16 is the age we let them operate them unsupervised. If you're a farm kid you can be legally driving tractors even younger than that. You'd think if you were old enough to do that then you'd be old enough to decide if you feel more comfortable with she/her, he/him, or they/them pronouns, but the people who want to exploit your vulnerability for political capital will always treat you like you're barely out of the womb.

That's why we're having endless legal battles over trans kids' access to health care, which impacts ~300,000 kids in the country (0.4% of the American child population, probably even less since MANY trans kids do not access gender affirming care and their transitions are primarily social in nature), but no one wants to touch the obvious gun toting elephant in the room. Which affects 73,000,000 children in the country and has quite literally surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death for minors. Because guns get their own little advocacy group to protect them, but children? Fuck 'em.