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paperstorm · 8 months

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i know you said you didn’t want to talk about this and you can delete this ask when you get it but speaking into the void here

i personally as an arab never expected ronen to give a both sides are bad let peace prevail kind of statement (im aware that is what he is posting now and has reiterated that palestinians aren’t responsible for hamas i haven’t ignored that)

fully acknowledge that this is painful for him given his personal family history and just the generational trauma jewish people have lived through and antisemitism raging in the states for the past few years and spiking drastically since the bombing started

so him sticking by israel no matter how much of a bitter taste it leaves in my mouth lmao i understand why but what genuinely hurt was him reposting videos from violently islamophobic and racist right wingers like nathan*el buzolic calling it “palestinian propaganda” and who dont care about jews or israel but in his eyes brown arabs are the devil and need to be gone (ronen could very well not know what that man stands for but doesn’t change that its who he’ll be associated with henceforth cuz everyone knows and noticed)

celebrating biden sending weapons to israel knowing full well who exactly its being used against and pushing the “human shield” bullshit to justify it all makes it hard to digest seeing babies pulled out of rubble and dying and never not once admitting that collective punishment isn’t right or mass starvation isn’t right

i dont think anybody is ignoring his sentiment of wanting peace between communities but compared to what he’s been pushing it makes it harder to acknowledge when the most hes said about palestinians is “oh life will be lost on both sides no can do” and not voicing support for a ceasefire and doubling down against people trying to kindly show him a more nuanced view and flat out blocking people

i’ve long since stopped caring about celebrities and their political opinions cuz they need woke points but since we’re all a part of the same fandom i guess its making rounds more

(and also a general thing, the fact that antisemitism and islamophobic hate crimes are spiking should push politicians to call for a ceasefire instead of doubling down on their money making tactics from defence contracts and stocks cuz as long as people see videos of palestinian parents losing their children and vice versa and weeping in the streets and IDF soldiers in uniform eating mcdonalds in a full face of makeup and acrylics its just going to keep getting worse cuz the disparity is getting more obvious)

It's not that I don't want to talk about it, it's that every time I do like clockwork about 30-45 minutes later the death threats and 'kys' anons roll in and that isn't easy to deal with. But I do think these things are massively important and I do want to talk about them.

And I agree with all of this. It feels so silly sometimes to care about him or what he's saying when there are babies buried under rubble from genocidal bombs dropped purposely on apartment buildings and bakeries and hospitals and funded by American taxpayers like ... he's a random C list celebrity and we aren't the victims here by any stretch of the imagination. But it still hurts. It seems to me like he is extremely misinformed. Uninformed, ignorant, uneducated, whatever adjective you want to use. If he's bought into the human shields propaganda then he's bought into all of it, and the US/Israeli propaganda machine is one of the strongest the world has ever seen (I mean you have a state indiscriminately slaughtering thousands of children and you have the whole Western world terrified to say "hey maybe don't do that", it would be impressive if it wasn't so horrible) so he isn't the only one who's fallen for it but it's ... sad. I dont' know, it's just sad. All of that and all of what you said is context for his response to this, but context doesn't make it hurt less. It sucks that we're going to have to do the heartbreaking work of separating him from TK in order to keep loving our show and not feel like we're de-facto supporting genocide. We're not the victims in this, especially those of us who are white and not Arab and not Jewish and are far less likely to face any consequences here, but it still sucks. I don't have any answers but I'm there with everyone who feels let down by him right now.

#911ls asks #palestine #israel

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bisluthq · 3 months

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Hamas being designated a terror organisation by countries that arm Israel and want a Western outpost in the Middle East isn’t the slam dunk you think it is. Beg you to think critically about how international law, statehood, defining groups as terrorist and human rights are weaponised by Western powers to legitimise their actions and demonise the other.

where did I say it’s a slam dunk lol? I said this is a nuanced and complicated conversation and Hamas are… an extremist terror organization. They literally are. That doesn’t justify Israel’s actions and at no point did I say that it does? In fact I repeatedly said Israel is… wrong? Being supportive of Gaza's civilian population should not equate to being pro Hamas? Literally a bunch of non-Western countries (eg Egypt still and Syria until recently and again because what Israel is doing is objectively wrong) have previously refused to work with them on account of how, and I don’t know how else to say this, they’re an extremist terrorist organization and it’s very hard to work with terrorists?? One can support civilians and also say “wow these extremists are probably not the best people to be governing the local population there, probably won’t be awesome for the locals either” same as idk the Iranian government (which is a legitimately elected government and no one is disputing Iranian statehood at all) is maybe not the best for human rights in Iran??? We can say “wow it kinda sucks to be a woman in Iran” (which it yk does) and also say “Iran has the right to do whatever the fuck it wants but eh they’re not the best dudes ever”?? We can say “wow it’s fucked that Uganda introduced the death penalty for homosexuality that’s shitty” without saying “Uganda should be wiped off the map”? We can, in fact, say “wow it’s fucked that American states are banning IVF” without calling for an invasion of said states but like we can still acknowledge the policies I am mentioning are not exactly awesome sauce? Nuanced conversations are in fact possible? Multiple truths can coexist? Hamas can be… extremists… which they are… and Palestinian civilians still deserve to not be bombed??? I’m not sure where you think there’s a slam dunk on either side because idk that one is possible in a conflict where people are literally dying every day??? I’m also not sure why the fuck any person holding liberal to progressive values would support… Hamas??? You don’t need to support Hamas to be anti the war or support a ceasefire??? It’s literally not necessary??????

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ammcgee-author · 7 months

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219. Sorry, I was Assassinated <3

As Mark Twain once said, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” I’m not dead, yet, but trying to regroup and make some kind of sense out of the world around me.

In the old days, you could count being assassinated as an “occupational hazard” of being a Peacenik, an AntiWar Activist, or even holding a non-mainstream opinion. (Sort of like how losing an arm or getting sucked into a machine is an occupational hazard of working in a factory, dying in a fire is an occupational hazard of being a firefighter, getting shot is an occupational hazard of being a police officer; and having your whole family slaughtered in front of you is an occupation hazard of being a Palestinian journalist.) Just look at what they did to John Lennon, and more recently, the lead-singer of Audioslave, Chris Cornell.

My favorite half-baked conspiracy-theory is that he was assassinated for the AntiWar stance he took at his last concert. Although I know, that in reality, it’s just as likely he planned his suicide in advance; and wanted his last message to the world to be one of peace, love, and brotherhood.

I was never really much of a Soundgarden or Audioslave fan but I really liked their instrumental song “Night Surf," and of course “You Know My Name,” Chris Cornell’s Bond theme and one of my favorite 007 theme songs of all time! It’s worth noting that, although James Bond movies are fun and exciting action flicks, full of international intrigue and traditionally sexy women, they’re also composed of the most blatant pro-war propaganda; rivaled only by Disney/ABC’s Marvel Movies or HBO’s Game of Thrones, which tend to be slightly more allegorical; which is fine, as long as you’re aware of that going into them and treat them only as the lightest of all light entertainment.

Though, in spite of whatever Mr. Cornell’s personal issues might have been, I can’t help but think “selling out” to the war-machine is one of the factors that led him to suicide. At the very least, it probably didn’t help.

Speaking of “international intrigue,” my grandmother who was a pilot and an electrical engineer in the United States Air Force, (who also helped design the American-Made cruise missile systems Russia is currently using against the Ukrainians) was once questioned by the CIA because she ran a small airport gift shop, and routinely flew from continent to continent looking for exotic wares to sell in her shop. She was accused of being a spy, and sharing government secrets with overseas enemies. As outlandish as it sounds, stories like this are not uncommon, and cause a lot of generational trauma and general mistrust of the government within families. Of course, the government likes it that way, they enjoy keeping people on their toes and out of their way, especially militarily. Because of this experience I’m always sympathetic to people with seemingly “paranoid” or “schizophrenic” views of the government because the government does enjoy terrorizing people for their opinions. This danger obviously increases, exponentially, the more exposure and influence you and your ideas have. Both my grandmother and grandfather were in the Air Force, and being in the Military after World War II, caused my grandparents both to take a decidedly AntiWar stance against our wars of conquest, imperialism, and liberal interventionism overseas. Even as they worked as civil engineers for the Defense Industry and Military Industrial Complex.

Another notable member of my family is my distant cousin, Pat Robertson, someone who up until his death, recently, was literally paid to promote Zionism and Zionist pro-war propaganda on television. (He’s the reason why I feel I’m able to view the Israel/Palestine situation in a more fair and nuanced way, than I might otherwise be inclined to… And also the reason why most of my immediate family generally vote independent and identify as Democrats.) I don’t mention this because I’m at all proud of the association, but because it does seem to loom over my Christian family, our AntiWar history, and my activism; even if we’re not all doomsday Christian Evangelists like my famous cousin Pat and his televangelist heir, Gordon Robertson.

Understanding my history and ties to both the military and Christian evangelism is important to understanding who I am as a person, and why I choose to take such a profound moral stance on issues of justice and international policy. Though that association somehow seems particularly important to mention, now, even if it alienates me from the other Pro-Palestine demonstrators protesting today, because it makes me feel like a kind of mediator who can sympathize with the views of both pro-war Zionists and Palestinian AntiWar demonstrators. Though I myself am committedly Pro-Palestine, and of course, AntiWar.

A pragmatic way of looking at Israel’s current campaign of ethnic-violence and genocide in The West Bank and Gaza, in particular, is that is not a “war” but the result of the Palestinians losing a war in 1948. This is hardly “politically correct,” and is probably the most politically insensitive thing you could say to people on both sides of the conflict. It also in no way delegitimizes Palestinian resistance to Israeli Apartheid, but does explain the situation better than simply damning and condemning vague things like “colonialism” and “whiteness,” altogether. (Which, let’s be honest, was only ever a trick or tactic used by Jewish protesters to manipulate Blacks and People of Color to take either side, which when used outside of the limited scope of Black Muslims, like Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, who have always stood by Palestinians, where the language was first borrowed and misappropriated from, is often used to keep people of all races and nationalities from understanding the issue; while also distracting attention away from the larger issues at hand, ones that may or may not actually affect them; such as how America’s unfettered support for Israel could potentially lead to a U.S. war with Iran.) The world has taken on the overly vague and sometimes idealistic language of Jewish-Israeli Peaceniks and Refuseniks without knowing what, specifically, they were protesting. If those protesters just said, “We’re against Zionism and Jewish-Supremacy” rather than mincing words, then they surely would have gained a lot more followers and supporters on both the left and right, though they might not be the supporters they wanted.

Actually, in a recent video of Israeli IDF refuseniks (a slang term referring to conscientious objectors) they do just that, refer to Zionism as Jewish Supremacy. Which a refreshingly positive change of course from the usual vague allusions to “indigenousness,” (in regards to who is or is not indigenous where) “white-supremacy” (to describe several only vaguely related and oftentimes incompatible political ideologies) and other debatable variables, coming from the far-left.

Nowadays, it’s much easier to silence people.

You don’t even have to assassinate them, for their views and opinions, because you can just as easily discredit them by “cancelling” them, locking them out of social media, downvoting or shadow-banning their comments to keep them from having a prominent voice by limiting their influence on public discourse; and otherwise intimidating them into compliance. (Usually through a combination of online and IRL terror-tactics and good old-fashioned character assassination.) Or by simply confusing them with political double-speak until their ideas disappear into oblivion.

Celebrities, today, rarely take an AntiWar stance because the entertainment industry is run by, well, Zionists — And thus anyone “fated for fame” is heavily vetted by the Military Industrial Complex before you ever even hear their names or see them on a marquee. (Though that very likely may be a coincidence, because most people today aren’t really very political, especially on international and foreign policy matters, except for performatively, and because most celebrities only have a high-school or grade-school education.) Jewish guest, Timothee Chalamet’s, recent rather distasteful mention of Hamas on SNL, during Israel’s current genocide of Gaza, is just one example of how Hollywood acts as an eternally out of touch propaganda machine. Thankfully, Tim’s character offed himself at the end of the skit, which was funny and well-deserved, but which might also be read as a distasteful reference to Israel accusing Palestinians of causing their own destruction.

This kind of gross insensitivity and feigned ignorance might have been forgivable if Americans had forgotten that this is the exact same comedy and variety show that held prayers and candles for Ukraine, after the U.S. forced Russia’s hand by manipulating Putin into intervening in the region by first orchestrating the U.S.-backed illegal Maiden coup, and creating a civil-war, there, under the Obama Administration; and then threatening to make The Ukraine, which is historically part of Russia, part of the NATO alliance, (which was only created to oppose Moscow and the former Soviet Union, in the first place,) during the Biden administration. (Simplifying the issues of today is of course this current movements’ greatest weakness, because in order to understand what is happening in Syria and Ukraine, you have to have an in-depth understanding of American foreign policy over the last decade, at least. Gen Z may seemingly have a greater sense of morality when it comes to America’s wars of conquest and colonialism overseas, but not when it comes to holding members of their own generation accountable, like Mr. Chalamet.) SNL did that, of course, because “standing with with Ukraine,” a U.S. puppet ally like Israel, is obviously a pro-war not an AntiWar position.

It’s also more than merely noteworthy that Ukraine’s acting President, Zelensky, is a Zionist himself; and thus any attempt to equate Palestine with Ukraine, or Russia with America’s ally, Israel… (especially when the current Banderist government in Kyiv has been massacring ethnic-Russian civilians in the Donbas region, critical of the U.S.-led coup, since the Obama administration) Is a bit of a stretch.

Nor is the humor lost on me, that many of the people in the George Floyd/BLM/ANTIFA rallies who worked so hard to get President “Genocide Joe” into office, are the exact same ones who are currently protesting his foreign policy in regards to Israel/Palestine, now. It’s pretty damn hilarious, in fact! Are they all just fools who genuinely feel betrayed by the person they campaigned and possibly also voted for, or is something deeper going on? And who exactly is funding and organizing these protests, anyway?

If I sound cynical, it’s only because I remember the (20 year!) long period of Hipster political burnout and apathy to U.S. foreign policy following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That was also a landmark year for AntiWar protests, but as the years went on people became more and more indifferent to the joint Republican/Democrat-backed wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. (It might even be too optimistic to refer to the protests that are going on now as “AntiWar Protests” since they’re really “anti-genocide” protests with a more narrow focus and simpler demands. Which is honestly great! Since in order for a protest to work, it needs to have clear demands that can be achieved; but at the same time I think many of these protesters are missing the bigger picture, that Zionism isn’t just a threat to Palestinians, but to the whole world. This is true mainly because of the relationship between war and industry, banking, lobbyists, and foreign investors. What we AntiWar protesters sometimes refer to as “The Military Industrial Complex” describes this relationship between war, industry, finance, and propaganda; and regardless of whether it’s labeled a “Jewish conspiracy theory” or not, for most of Israel’s 75 old history the MIC has been decidedly pro-Zionist.) Many of these protesters weren’t even alive back then, or were simply too young to protest, but many of us who have been carrying the AntiWar torch are turned-off by the phoney political correctness and “wokeness” demonstrated at these rallies. Mostly, since these are the exact same “politically correct” ideas that got us here in the first place. The same censorship, and the same policing of language and ideas, and the same silencing of sincere foreign and domestic policy discussion.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the numbers are great! And I wish we saw this same turnout when the U.S. and NATO bullied Russia into war on its borders in the Ukraine, or when America’s “Worst Black President” Barack Obama, and his Vice President “Genocide Joe,” created ISIS and invaded Syria in 2012… But I digress. It’s just that begging your oppressor for a ceasefire, rather than getting to the root of that oppression — U.S. foreign policy towards Israel — is asking for far too little far too late. The only way to reverse course, though it will never bring back the lives of the roughly 12,000 Palestinian civilians who have been killed in the last few weeks, is to sanction Israel rather than supplying it with the weapons it needs to continue to commit genocide against innocent people.

Protest and protesters have the power to block the shipment and dissemination of weapons, temporarily, but not permanently. Only policy can do that, that’s why more action is needed. By action I don’t mean more reactionary protests, when the fires of the obscene immorality of our sacrificing literally tens of thousands of innocent civilians for our foreign interests grow too hot to bear, but the kind of sustained action that puts pressure not only on Israel, but on American policy makers, as well.

I was locked out of my Facebook account, without explanation or violation, right before the U.S. publicly sent depleted uranium and cluster munitions to Ukraine, (which is surely a coincidence) and that’s why my usual online activism on my AntiWar Pages: Peace & Love and The AntiWar Independent Party, have been silent throughout this most recent escalation in Israel and Palestines’ 75 year old long conflict. While I obviously feel both inspired and encouraged watching the younger and older generations marching together for peace, and while I wish I could somehow position myself as Gen-Z’s foreign policy professor, since I know so much of the brainwashing “information” they’re getting is incorrect, just as it was when I was young. I believe moving forward we have to be more direct with the particular policies we oppose, if we ever stand a chance to make a real difference in the world, and limit the influence of foreign bad actors (like Benjamin Netanyahu, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Benny Gantz) on American politics.

Like Chris Cornell said in his final speech, at his final concert, “They don’t give a sh*t about me, and they don’t give a sh*t about you!” He was talking about American politicians, lobbyists, and war-profiteers who perhaps in their own minds are looking out for long-term American interests, (or their own short-term financial or political gains,) but at the sacrifice of American soldiers and our National Conscience.

I say this with all humility, since I was only ever really an outspoken AntiWar Activist during the Obama years when the AntiWar Movement was most dormant. I created my own political party, simply because I could not abide by the pro-war policies of either major political party, as a lifetime AntiWar Activist. As an American I believe I should have some say in who dies in my name, and why. As an Independent I wanted to create a political party that I would be proud to be a part of, one that I felt was looking out not only for my country’s best interests, but the best interests of my fellow countrymen. (Although I first became politically aware as a child during Kosovo, and opposed “The War On Terror” campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a teenager; I only, truly, politically came of age during Obama’s invasion of Syria; something that even many American veterans and active duty servicemen protested.) Nor do I delusionally count myself as some kind of charismatic leader, quite the opposite in fact, as I often limit my own activism (such as paying for advertising for my political party) simply because I know that I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be. (And also, because I can’t afford it!) Rather, I am simply a concerned citizen who cares about peace and the future of American Foreign Policy; as just another American who, like millions of others; is right now witnessing the results of our policies of endless war, rampant political Zionism, capitalist imperialism, liberal interventionism, modern-day colonialism, war-profiteering, Genocide, and destruction overseas.

— A.M. McGee

#prose poetry #freepalestine #AntiWar #truthisshadowbanned #stopthewar #stop censorship

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talenlee · 1 year

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Story Pile: Harrow The Ninth

Harrow The Ninth is the second book in the four-and-a-half-book-so-far Locked Tomb trilogy by Tamsyn Muir, a New Zealand author, and to get the box blurb copy out of the way early, it’s as intricate as wristbones, multi-layered, wrought out of several kinds of deliberate excellence and also extremely bloody funny. It commands its venaculars and surgical terminology alongside one another to construct a narrative puzzlebox of regrets and rage and guilt and violence and queer shit and I loved it.

There are these healing moments of emotionally satisfying contact between people who you can maybe let your guard down and like because they don’t have to suck just because this situation sucks and maybe that’s the important thing, maybe it’s the friends we made along the way. Or maybe it’s really, really not. You’d have to get to the end of the book to start to find out what you think. I know what I think.

Now, it is a slight problem that Harrow The Ninth is a book that builds directly on the previous book, which is a book with a very distinct conclusion that leaves you wondering ‘okay, now how does this proceed,’ and Harrow The Ninth doesn’t actually give you easy answers. As a matter of simple necessity, then, and in order to discuss ideas in this book and why I love it, I am going to talk – even a bit obliquely – about the stuff in the book. Therefore, if you’re the kind of person who wants them, I put here, a SPOILER WARNING.

And you may think ‘oh come on, it’s a book with a twist, you can talk about stuff around that,’ and like kinda no not really, it’s way more complex than that, and even just telling you that is enough to make the wrong kind of mind leap at shadows thinking every single thing you deal with in the book is The Twist. Good news, though, because in this situation, oh natively paranoid, must-not-be-surprised, solve-it-first readers, you’re right!

Everything in this book is The Twist.

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When I talk about the author of this work, understand I’m talking about this in the context of your Barthes-style critical engagement with the hypothetical author of a work, an individual expressed by the work that exists, not like I can sift through the word choice in this book to winnow away publication guidelines and editorial oversight and test reader input and anecdotes and tumblr jokes and Biblical references to try and pull out some narrow thread that reaches into Tamysn Muir’s head and interpolate something about her as a writer or a person. That’s not how this works, because if it did I could somehow supposedly divine the character of King David of Israel just because this quotes one of the Proverbs. No no no. Bear that in mind when you read the next bit, okay.

Holy shit this is an Australasian author.

And I don’t mean things like how Harrow’s story can be seen as the narrative we get, white as we are, about how being included in the system of Empire, get to benefit from this system of privilege as long as we are immediately useful but we all – all of us, both in group and out – we know that you’re not really part of it, and we are going to throw you aside the second you stop being immediately useful or highlight how you’re different to us.

I don’t even mean the way that Harrow’s entire perspective is broken into three pieces as she tries to construct a narrative of who she is, in the heart of a communal space that is also dying and cracking up because something terrible is happening.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think this story is about how vast systems that affect huge numbers of people are in the name of benefitting a tiny number of dysfunctional shitheads, and how understanding them does require understanding that they don’t understand you, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

What I’m getting at is this is a book where, without any explanation or belief that an explanation is necessary, a narrator refers to the emperor losing his nana. And you may think ‘I know what that means’ but if you’re not from the area, no you don’t, it’s not his nanna, that’s a different thing, and the lovely audiobook reader made that mistake too.

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This is a book that cares about words, though, and it cares in a way that’s awesomely clever. And as seems appropriate for this book, I want to pull over and talk about words for a moment.

First, clever. Often when I use the word ‘clever’ its a neutral term, an idea of how something can be done in an intricate way, a way that required a particular kind of good idea but that’s not the same thing as being the best way to do things. I know as a writer, I care a lot about being clever with wording and terminology because that’s something I can do, as someone who spends a year with the book that a reader who spends a few afternoons with it can’t necessarily. Clever can be a mousetrap but clever can be a clockwork.

Second, awesomely. It’s not a word I’m using here to indicate a generic positivity. It’s a word about being rendered, in a moment, bolted in spot in awe. A realisation that something that I have been party to a magic trick, been fooled by someone who never lied to me, all because they were relying on me to imagine and anticipate a different lie.

The wordplay and subtle references and cleverness around terminology in the start of The Locked Tomb danced across the whole narrative like constellations on a blue sheet of a sky. You could connect them all (hey, notice how all the characters are named after numbers?) and that definitely added depth to the work, but the story wasn’t about being clever, or inviting you to try and be clever. You were in a mind and body that approached everything with a headbutt. The close-in perspective of a mind that thinks about tits every third breath but nonetheless knows the word liquescent uses that deep vocabulary to tell you about the narrator. It also betrays a love of the words themselves, and a love of using them to control attention.

Harrow The Ninth feels like it took that same concept and instead asked, hey, what’s the most I can do with the least. How much weight can I use, how much power can I wield, with the least word possible? Harrow The Ninth is a book that completely transforms the very fundamental assumptions of what the story is doing at all based on the word ‘me.’ Not joking, not kidding. There’s a single point where the word ‘me’ appears on the page and at that point you have to stop and go back and reconsider everything before now and every single bit of comforting structure you assumed the book was doing that was also already pretty difficult to put together was wrong.

It’s like imagining you’re working on a completely white puzzle and you’ve got your four corners out of the box and you’re about halfway through these multiple different chunks that don’t connect to each other yet and then as you’re sifting through you find, taped to the inside of the box lid a fifth fucking corner piece.

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I used to like talking about character voice in fiction with people, because it was a great way to show people the way work they loved did something they didn’t notice but once they noticed it, it was something of a revelation, and then over time, mass media eroded the practice and it actually became more common to see large groups of people who had a character voice, based on the work of the whole fiction. In Harrow The Ninth, this discipline, of being aware what one character would say and how they would say it and how they would think it, and how they would think of other people thinking it, is slowly unfolded like a dead rose, and if it wasn’t also engaging it would just feel like the most titanic flex.

There’s more, of course, because it’s not just doing something clever, every part of the machinery that locks the cleverness together is also individually engaging. What the hell is going on with Ortus? What do these flashbacks mean? Where is Ortus?

Why is Ortus’ sword so important and why isn’t Harrow even trying to work with it? Why is all this stuff in Canaan House not like it was in Ortus The Ninth? What does dying mean? What doesn’t dying mean? Is everyone here a shithead? Oh wait, no, is nobody here a shithead? How much of a huge smile did the author had when they made a None Grief, Oof Ow My Bones, I’m Dad, or There Goes Gravity joke? How universal an experience is it to hold onto love letters from someone you haven’t spoken to in a year that this book made me personally feel very small? Where the hell is Ortus?! And why aren’t the other characters asking ‘where’s Ortus?’

I’m obviously signed on to read the rest of the series and probably whatever else Muir makes at this point because it turns out that in addition to making stories that are very good and very impressive, they’re also about things I like to read about and have a willingness to be violent and funny and horny and smart in ways that I normally feel alienate me from other books. I know I’m meaner than stories want me to be, I know I can find a lot of fantasy novels about how religion is only bad when it’s bad, and empires can be okay, sometimes, actually, and maybe I’m just a bit much for the whole landscape of storytelling.

But not here.

Y’know what, I think at this point I have to accept that I’m absolutely just going to be one of those people who are Very About this franchise and consign myself to that fate. Don’t worry, I don’t expect to cosplay anything in it.

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And now, here are some glib alternate titles I proposed to friends as I was reading it:

Isn’t Dumbledore An Arsehole

Gideon Navi

How Harrowhark Was Always Right, Actually

Old People Are Evil

Wives Out

Symbolism 301 As A Vomiting Goth

Big Evil Clown Energy

Girlboss Gaslight Girlboss

Wight By The River

Ripper of a book. Absolutely choice.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Media #Story Pile

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im-the-punk-who · 4 years

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The Real People of Black Sails!

Here’s a quick(I promise....I promise this is as short as I could make it without leaving out some really choice shit) rundown of all the real historical figures peppered throughout Black Sails! I think I caught them all but if you know of others please mention them and I’ll add them on! Under a readmore because this is....so long y’all.

Pirates & Maroons

Anne Bonny (possibly 1697 – unknown; possibly April 1782) Started life crossdressing at her dad’s behest to avoid his wife(who wasn’t Bonny’s mom), married a guy her dad didn’t like, moved to Nassau. There her husband became a spy for Rogers and Anne was like ‘Not cool bro’. She met Jack, they started fucking, and Anne discovered she was really good at stabbing things. Resumed dressing as a man and started trying to seduce Mary Read who was also dressed as a man. They did indeed fall victim to one of the classic queer blunders. Anyway, Anne’s like ‘it’s not gay I’m a chick!’ And Mary is like ‘really?? Then it’s a little gayer than you realize because I’m a chick too!’ They (probably) start banging. Rackham’s like ‘hang on! I’m the only dick in Anne’s life’ and Mary and Anne are like ‘you sure are’ and Mary shows him her boobs and then they have some sort of complicated and probably not totally consensual threeway. Then they get captured because, Jack is That Guy Who Was Too Drunk To Realize His Ship Was Under Attack and Mary and Anne had to defend the ship against like, a whole other crew. Jack is hung(not a dick joke), but both Anne and Mary plead stays of execution due to pregnancy. Anne disappears but possibly is maybe referred to later. No one knows. Neat!

Edit: According to sources from this post there is a genealogical record that refers to Anne and it records her death as 1782. Very neat!

Israel Hands (c.1701-death unknown) Israel Hands was a real pirate and Blackbeard’s first mate. Not much else is known about where he came from or his life, other than that Blackbeard shot him in the knee at one point while supposedly aiming for another man. ‘Oops my bad this pistol is from like, the 18th century or something.’ While recuperating in Bath he was arrested after Teach’s death but took a pardon in exchange for ratting out the colonial officials who had been bribed by Teach. It’s unknown what happened to him after that although That Book About Pyrites says he died a beggar in London.

Benjamin Hornigold (1680–1719) Horny4gold was one of the most well known and influential pirates of the Golden Age. Most other pirates sailed under him or with him at one point, and he was one of the founders of the Pirate Republic of Nassau. He never attacked british ships during his time as captain so that he could be like ‘but brooooo I was acting in Britain’s Interests!!! Bro!!!!!’ But his co-pirates didn’t like that and eventually voted to replace him with Sam Bellamy. He accepted the king's pardon in 1718 and became a pirate hunter instead. Bummer. He was reportedly killed in a shipwreck.

Okay listen Horingold in any universe is a fucking JOKE I have to share this passage with y’all:

“Hornigold is recorded as having attacked a sloop off the coast of Honduras, but as one of the passengers of the captured vessel recounted, "they did us no further injury than the taking most of our hats from us, having got drunk the night before, as they told us, and toss'd theirs overboard"” WHAT A JOKE.

Dr. Howell - (birth/death unknown) John Howell was a pirate surgeon forced into service by Hornigold sometime in early 1717. He sailed with various pirate crews until October before returning into the service of Governor Rogers.

Ned Low (1690–1724) N’EDWARD. Okay I’m serious again. Born in London, Lowe grew up a thief in a thief family before moving to Boston. His wife died in childbirth in 1719, so he decided ‘fuck it I’ll become a Pirate Captain’ and did just that. He was known for torturing the people on board the ships he captured before murdering them and burning the ship. Interestingly though, Lowe was known to have a huge amount of regret over abandoning his daughter when he turned pirate, and wouldn’t force married men into his service. He also reportedly would allow women to return to port safely. Because of his numerous captures and cruelties, he was one of the most well known pirates in his day. There are differing reports about Low’s death - some say his crew mutinied and marooned him and he was subsequently hung, others say his ship sunk in a storm, and some say he just straight up disappeared. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jack Rackham - (December 26, 1682 – November 18, 1720) Really a pirate, really named himself after a housecat pattern. (No, okay, he didn’t, it was because of his threads. But wouldn’t the cat thing fit too?) Sailed with Vane, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read. Was mostly known for being That Guy Who Was Too Drunk To Realize His Ship Was Under Attack and being Anne and Mary’s captain. He was captured and sentenced to hang after the aforementioned Drunk Blunder in 1720.

Mary/Mark Read - (1685 – 28 April 1721) Much like Anne Bonny, Mary dressed as a boy for much of her youth so a parent could swindle someone out of money. From her teenage years on she continued dressing as a man to find work in the military and as a sailor. She did marry but her husband died young and so she decided to become a pirate. Like ya do. She accepted the king’s pardon in 1718, then mutinied on the privateer she was aboard, once again becoming a pirate. Because pirates are sexy. In 1720 she joined Jack Rackham’s crew and sailed with him and Bonny. Cue the whole ‘Hey you’re hot, also I’m a woman.’ ‘Oh, hey, same hat!’ with Anne. In November of 1720, Rackham’s ship was captured. Mary died of a fever in prison(likely due to her pregnancy) in 1721.

Edward Teach - (c. 1680 – 22 November 1718) He started piracy sailing under Hornigold, and built the fleet alongside him and Stede Bonnet until Hornigold retired. COOL fact about Blackbeard is he was a MASTER showman who liked to light slow burning fuses under his hat to scare his enemies, and he relied more heavily on creating an image his prizes feared than violence. He did a lot of cool shit including ransoming the entire town of Charles Town and annoying the shit out of Woodes Rogers before settling in Bath and later dying of like, a shit ton of wounds while battling Lieutenant Maynard. The battle on Roger’s ship is pretty much what happened minues the keelhauling. Afterwards he was beheaded, his head hung from the bow of Maynard’s ship, and his body was thrown in the bay in Bath, where it’s said his ghost still haunts! Funky!

Charles Vane - (1680 – 29 March 1721) Really a pirate captain! Known for being Not A Nice Dude. Sailed with Henry Jennings, Edward England and Jackie Rackhammie. He led the pirates in resisting Rogers in Nassau, and yeah he really did light a ship on fire and 18th centuryeet it into Rogers’ line in order to escape. There’s a note that he returned to Nassau to get married but I couldn’t find any info on who he married so he’s gay now. That’s a rule I just made up. Anyway so at one point his ship got into a fight with another ship and Vane ordered a retreat and the crew was like ‘this is BOOshit’ and voted him out in favor of Jack Rackham. Ouch. Vane and some of the crew that supported him left aboard the Katherine(I believe) but then they got caught in a storm that said ‘fuck you specifically to Charles Vane,’ and he was marooned on an island. He survived! Just long enough for a British ship to stop at the island for him to attempt to board, get caught, and then hung. Deus ex piratica.

(Honorary mentions)

John Silver + Captain Flint (sort of but I’m not kidding!) Okay so of course there are a bunch of suspected origins of the characters of Captain Flint and Long John Silver, but the one I like the most is of two brothers - one of whom had a peg leg! - who captured an enormous Spanish treasure and buried it near Ocracoke island. Their names were John and Owen Lloyd. (And yes, John was the one-legged brother.) In 1750 a Spanish treasure fleet named the Flotas de Indias attempted to sail from Havana to Spain in late August, and three ships were wrecked during a hurricane. By a stroke of luck, the Lloyd brothers had been blown to the same inlet as the wrecked ships Guadalupe and Soledad , and managed to convince the Captain to hire them to transport the treasure to Norfolk.

But of course because they thought the Spanish SUCKED they said ‘psyche’ and just fucked off with it while the Captain was fighting Bureaucratic red tape in North Carolina. Iconique. Owen Lloyd reportedly buried the treasure on Norman Island and the pair became folk heroes in the area, particularly in St. Kitts. (P.s., the Stevenson family ran a sugar production business on St. Kitts, and R.L. Stevenson’s great grandfather worked there as early as 1773 - just 25 years after the epic heist. COOL STORY BRO.)

Captain Throckmorton (Okay not really but I just love this guy’s name) Okay so this guy wasn’t really a pirate captain but he was a Steamboat captain in the 1830s and his name is just too ridiculous for someone to make up. Toot toot, motherfucker.

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Queen Nanny(Maroon Queen/Madi) (c. 1686 – c. 1755) The spiritual, cultural, and military leader of the Windward Maroons (who the Black Sails Maroons are based on.) She led them alongside her ‘brother’ Quao although the relationship between them isn’t known. Exact information about her origins are not known but best guess is that she was of royal lineage from present-day Ghana, born sometime in the 1680’s. She did have a husband named Adou(who may have been the same person as Quao? I’ve read conflicting stuff), but they had no children. Many of the guerilla warfare tactics we now think of as common practice were developed by Queen Nanny and the other Maroons in their fight against British incursions. (The trap that Flint lays, covering themselves with paint and leaves, and the pits the Maroons lay in the forest are tactics known to have been used by the Windward Maroons.)

Nanny was a fucking legend okay a LEGENDS ONLY legend. She was one of the most instrumental people in preserving African culture among freed slaves and Maroons, and in encouraging the resistance to slavery in the Bahamas and surrounding areas. She was one of three leaders of the First Maroon War (which the war in Black Sails is based on). She initially refused to sign the treaty offered to Cudjoe because she knew the British were losing and was like ‘Why????? Would I surrender???? In a war??? I’m winning?????’

Anyway Queen Nanny was a fucking badass please read every piece of literature you can find on her. (You should absolutely read her full bio because she was fucking badass.)

Cudjoe (not exactly, but Julius is very close) (c. 1690s – 1764) Likely a freeborn son of one of the original escaped slaves turned Maroons, Cudjoe is hailed as one of the greatest Maroon leaders(after Queen Nanny). Much like in Black Sails, these original Maroons were slaves who escaped or overran their masters, forming free communities in the Mountains of Jamaica. The treaty in Black Sails is based on the one Cudjoe negotiated with the British, wanting an ‘honorable peace’ with the enemy, rather than the continued war and better terms that Queen Nanny and Quao wanted. (sound familiarrrrrr?) I do want to note that by the end of his life he became completely disillusioned with the idea that the British should be reasoned with and basically started fights with every British superior he could.

The English, Spanish, and Scottish!

The Guthries So while there wasn’t ever a female head of the Guthrie clan in Nassau, the Guthries were a Scottish merchant clan who emigrated to Boston around 1652 due to religious and racial persecution. While most of the family stayed around Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, John Guthrie moved to Virginia and his brother James Guthrie moved to Bermuda sometime after 1683.

(James Guthrie of Suffolk County, Massachusetts was listed in the will of John Richardson, dated 7 May 1683, in which Richardson says, “I give and bequeath unto James Guthrie all I have in the world except twenty shillings to buy John Harris a ring and ten shillings to buy John Kyte a ring.” This was witnessed by John Raynsford and John Ramsey.) Fellas is it gay.

Anyway, between Virginia and Boston and James’ ties in the Bermuda islands, the family made a shit ton fencing pirated goods during the Golden Age of Piracy, particularly from the Pirate Republic of Nassau.

A John Guthrie(likely a son of James’) was also a Colonel who was part of the peace talks with Cudjoe and the Maroons. Neat!

James Oglethorpe (22 December 1696 – 30 June 1785) Okay listen Oglethorpe was COOL AS FUCK. He is the founder of the colony of Georgia and is imo who Thomas Hamilton is probably based on. Oglethorpe was a HUGE humanitarian and even before he decided to form an entire colony around people not owning slaves. He advocated for better conditions for sailors, and prison reform. In 1732 he read a letter by a slave in Maryland named Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and on the spot decided slavery was terrible, divested himself of his stock in the African Trading Company, and resolved to include a law banning slavery in Georgia to the colony’s charter. Radical, man.

Speaking of Georgia, and specifically his plantation near Savannah, Oglethorpe actively spoke with the native Yamacraw who populated the land to ask permission and trade for the land he sought to build Georgia on. His plantation was meant to help debtors in London, released without any support, from falling back into debt and offering them a way forward to landownership through indentured servitude. I highly recommend anyone interested in early attempts at an equality based colonial system read up on the original charter of Georgia. (Of course there were still problems, but Oglethorpe was one of the most prominent proponents of a non hierarchical society - including limits to the acreage any person could own based on how helpful that land was to the people who worked it, and communal resources.) Oglethorpe was also a lifelong friend with Tomochichi, the chief of the Yamacraw, and worked very closely with him on colonial-indigenous relations.

Vincente de Raja (birth/death unknown) He was the real Governor and military Captain of Cuba from 1716-1717. He was a devoted pirate hunter and encouraged Spanish privateering against the pirates. Due to an attempt by Spain to increase tobacco profits at the expense of the farmers, there was a large revolt which resulted in many of the Cuban officials, including Raja, being replaced.

William Rhett (4 September 1666 – 12 January 1723) He was a merchant captain and plantation owner in Carolina who served in the colonial militia and hunted pirates. He captured Stede Bonnet and was probably just as much of an asshole as he is in the show.

Woodes Rogers - (c. 1679 – 15 July 1732) The Governor of Nassau who was largely responsible for ending piracy in the Bahamas. He really did offer a universal pardon, which a large number of the pirates took. Fun fact: before he was Governor, he rescued Alexander Selkirk, who is believed to be the guy Robinson Crusoe is based off of! Neat! He really did have a brother who really did die during his privateering exploits which also really did leave him ‘disfigured’. He got sued by his crew, went bankrupt, wrote a book, got famous for writing the book, and he really did have a wife named Sarah whom he divorced shortly after all this happened. He then became Governor of Nassau for the first time. This first term did end in him being imprisoned for debts incurred defending the island from Vane and Teach and the Spanish, but he was released, helped write that most famous A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, and became governor again in 1728. He died in 1732 of just plain exhaustion from dealing with the bureaucracy. Alexa play tiny violin.

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miserable-child887 · 3 years

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Ok wtf why is everyone hating on Israel-

Hamas is a terrorist organization???

People are supporting it?? People are supporting killing Jews?? They support the Palestinians, and that by itself isn't a bad thing, but they also encourage the death of Jewish people. They want me dead. THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES SUFFERING.

WHEN THEY ARE SUPPORTING TERRORISM AND A SECOND HOLOCAUST, THEN IT BECOMES A PROBLEM.

THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO HAVE CHILDREN DYING. THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO LIVE IN FEAR.

I'm very sorry, but seeing people hating on me and my family and my friends all over the world, with absolutely NO knowledge about what is going on, and encouraging terrorism, violence and hate, is something that disgusts me.

Like, literally shut the fuck up, go suck a dick, and stop encouraging this war.

Sure, not all of the people from Palestine are bad, and not all of them are supporting the Hamas, but people seems to forget that Israeli people did nothing wrong.

Not all of us deserve to die.

I don't.

I don't wanna die.

I don't want my family to die.

I don't want my friends to die.

And I'm scared, because when more than half of the world is encouraging terror and violence, it only makes things worse.

And YES! of course we attack Palestine back, the send rockets at us! What do you expect us to do?? Let them?? When they burn houses and farms, do you expect us to just ignore it??

At this rate, we're gonna have another holocaust.

And I. Dont. Want. To. Die.

#literally just let us live #and people all over the world are like:#free palastine!! UGA BUGA FREE PALESTINE with literally no knowledge about this subject #Israel #Palestine

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revisitingsundayschool · 3 years

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Genesis 31-36: More Jacob Stories

Jacob and Laban - Genesis 31

Synopsis: Laban was upset with Jacob for taking advantage of him for profit. Jacob was upset with Laban because Laban kept changed the agreement for his wages multiple times. God told Jacob to leave, so he left with his wives and possessions back to Canaan. Before they left, Rachel stole Laban's (her father's) idols without Jacob's knowledge. Laban chased Jacob's family down for 7 days and they finally met in Gilead. God told Laban not to say anything to Jacob, good or bad. Laban didn't follow God's instructions, and complained to Jacob about deceiving him and running away. He also accused Jacob of stealing his idols. Jacob denied stealing the idols, told Laban to search the camp. Jacob said that if someone had the idols in his camp, they'd die. Laban searched the camp. Rachel was hiding the idols under a camel saddle she was sitting on. When Laban got to her, she said that she was on her period, so she couldn't stand up. After Laban finished searching, Jacob told Laban off a bit for how he was treated while working for Laban. Laban and Jacob decided to make a border that neither would cross. They marked it with a heap of rocks and a pillar. Laban said his goodbyes to the family and returned to his home.

I didn't remember such close relatives of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob worshipping gods that weren't God/Jehovah. The Bible points out that Rachel took the idols without Jacob's knowledge, but I have a hard time believing that based on his previous antics. I know I'm questioning the facts of a story that likely didn't happen, but it would seem more in character for him to be the mastermind behind stealing Laban's stuff. I have no sympathy for Jacob complaining about his wages changing under Laban. He tried to claim innocence, but he was super manipulative and attempted to steal Laban's entire flock by making them all give birth to spotted and speckled offspring in Genesis 30. I like to think that Rachel wasn't actually on her period and was just playing into how men are stereotypically grossed out by periods. Also, there wasn't not much payoff of Laban talking to Jacob against God's wishes. Many people have died for much less in the Bible. My thoughts are a bit all over the place with this story, but whatever.

Jacob and Esau Meet Again - Genesis 32:1-21, Genesis 33

Synopsis: Jacob sent messengers to Esau to give him a large gift of donkeys, sheep, goats, and slaves. Jacob was afraid of Esau's wrath (explanation in last week's post), so he split the camp in two. One group would be present when Esau came. If Esau killed that group, the other half would live. Jacob prayed to God for protection from Esau. Later, Esau came with 400 men. But, Esau hugged Jacob and met Jacob's family. Esau tried to refuse Jacob's gift, but finally accepted it after Jacob's insistence. Esau offered to escort them back home, but Jacob said that he needed to go slower due to his livestock. Jacob bought a plot of land from the sons of Hamor the Hivite to set up an altar called El Elohe Israel (translates to "El is the God of Israel" or "mighty is the God of Israel").

Despite Jacob taking so much from Esau, Esau is very receptive to Jacob returning. Before Jacob left for Paddan Aram over twenty years ago, Esau was filled with rage and was ready to kill Jacob over having his blessing stolen. Maybe God pulled some mind-games on Esau to change his heart in an effort to protect Jacob. No matter what, this is just another example of why Esau is a much more sympathetic character than Jacob. One detail in the story is that before Esau approaches the group, Jacob orders the family slaves in front, then Leah, and finally Rachel in the back. Jacob was not even hiding his favoritism and put on display who was the most expendable in his eyes.

Jacob Wrestles God - Genesis 32:22-32

Synopsis: Jacob sent his family across the Jabbok river on their way to meet Esau in the previous story. Then, a man wrestled him all night. The man realized he couldn't beat Jacob, so he touched Jacob's hip to wrench it. The man asked to be let go, but Jacob refused until he blessed Jacob. The man said that Jacob will now be called Israel (likely translates to "he struggles with God") because he beat God in the wrestling match. The Israelites did not eat the tendon in the hip because that's where Jacob was touched by God.

Jacob's opponent in the match is debated. Some interpretations of the story are that Jacob wrestled an angel, but the NIV is fairly explicit that Jacob wrestled God disguised as a man. There are some pretty cool statues/drawings depicting this event in the Bible. In my head before rereading recently, I think I combined this story and Jacob's ladder into a single event. The story is a bit goofy the way a man comes out of no where to wrestle Jacob for a day. At the same time though, it's kinda cool.

Dinah and the Shechemites - Genesis 34

Synopsis: TW for Sexual Assault. If this subject upsets you, skip to the next section. Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite (a ruler in the area) raped Dinah, Jacob's daughter with Leah. Shechem wanted to marry Dinah afterward. Jacob's sons heard about what Shechem did to Dinah, so they told Shechem that Shechem's entire family would need to be circumcised in order for the two groups to intermarry. They agreed and Shechem, Hamor, and all of the men of their city were circumcised. Then, while they were recovering, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, killed all of the men, looted the city, and took the women and children. Jacob was upset that with Simeon and Levi because of how the other Canaanites in the area may respond. But the two sons believed they did the right thing in defending Dinah.

I wish Dinah wasn't used as a plot device in this way. It sucks that women are excluded of most of the Bible. When they are included, many times they are used for sex and having children. Her brothers avenged her, but I'm not a huge fan of this story. I can't believe children are encouraged to read this book sometimes.

Jacob Returns to Bethel - Genesis 35:1-15

Synopsis: God told Jacob to got to Bethel to build an altar. Jacob told his household to get rid of any idols they had and change their clothes before they left for Bethel. When they got to Bethel, God told Jacob that nations would come from him. Jacob built a stone pillar, poured a drink out as an offering, and put oil on it.

Not a whole lot we didn't already know in this story. This is an early reference to "pouring one out for a homie". This isn't a gesture to someone who had died, but it is a symbolic offering.

Death of Isaac and Rachel + Lineages - Genesis 35:16-36:43

Synopsis: Rachel died during the childbirth. As she was dying, she named the son Ben-Oni ("son of my trouble"), but Jacob named him Benjamin ("son of my right hand"). Reuben, Jacob's eldest son, slept with one of Jacob's concubine Bilhah (mother of Dan and Naphtali). Jacob heard about it. Shortly after Jacob returned home, Isaac also died. Then, Genesis 36 goes into Esau's family line and Edomite kings.

They change the name between Jacob and Israel in this story. I'll continue to refer to the man as Jacob to avoid confusion with the nation. Jacob going against his wife's name for his son on her death bed is on brand for him, but the name meaning "son of my trouble" would be a tough one to have. It's ridiculous that Isaac is just now dying. 20 years earlier, he gave Jacob the blessing that was meant for Esau. At that point, it seemed to me like he was so close to death that the blessing couldn't be transferred to Esau after it was clear that Jacob deceived Isaac. Reuben having sex with one of his half-brother's mom is weird. I also updated the family tree. For some simplicity, I did not include Edomite rulers that did not have a hereditary link to Esau or another figure already in the family tree.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below or in the Discord. The passage for next Sunday will cover some stories about Joseph (Genesis 37-40).

#genesis #bible #atheist #ex christian #jacob #dinah #esau #laban #shechem #wrestle #hamor

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years

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01/25/2021 DAB Transcript

Genesis 50:1-Exodus 2:10, Matthew 16:13-17:9, Psalms 21:1-13, Pr 5:1-6

Today is the 25th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is a joy and an honor to be here with you today as we move into our workweek. And there's a surprise for us today. I have a surprise for you. We’re gonna finish the first book of the Bible today. We’ll finish the book of Genesis. So, just like that we’ve move through a whole book of the Bible, a big one too. And look at all we have covered. From the origin story of creation Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, Noah and the flood, Abraham going into a land he didn't know following a God he had never met and entering into a covenantal relationship. And covenants and covenantal language permeates the Bible. The son of promise, Isaac and then his son Jacob, and then his son Joseph, a lot of ground has been covered and lot to plot…to apply to our lives has been placed before us and planted in our hearts. And then so today we will finish the story of Joseph by reading the 50th chapter of Genesis, and then we’ll move in Exodus and when we get there, we’ll kind of do a little flyby and get a little kind of context of where we’re going, and then we’ll read the first couple chapters of Exodus. So, we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Genesis chapter 50.

Introduction to the book of Exodus:

Okay. And that concludes the book of Genesis. So, well done to us all for making it through the first full book of the Bible, which brings us now to the second book of the Bible, known as Exodus. And if we remember Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible are known as the Torah or the Pentateuch. So, we’re entering the second book of the Torah. And if we remember when we were talking about Genesis, we’re like really really trying to establish the fact that there's a family line here - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, whose Israel, and then he has children, and they are the children of Israel. That’s important because it affects the whole Bible. It’s important to know where they came from and their origin story and how everything became what it became because their story so parallels our own life journey. So, when we left the book of Genesis just now Joseph died, had made his brothers promise to bring his bones out of Egypt when they left. Now as we turn our attention to the book of Exodus, we’re moving forward several centuries. And, so, with one turn of the page hundreds of years have gone by. And, so, with the flip of a page then everybody that we’ve been traveling with has died and their progeny has flourished. And, so, we’re hundreds of years in the future now with the future generations of promise and they are still in Egypt. And as we will see their…their prosperity, their flourishing begins to make the Egyptians uneasy because they can one day outgrow them and take over. And, so, they enslave them. And what we will learn is that this slavery goes on for 400 years. So, that's a long time to be holding onto a promise about land, right? And the oppression of the Hebrews by the Egyptians doesn't go unnoticed. And, so, we will meet another major figure in the Bible. We’ll watch him grow up. And he has a very interesting childhood. We’ll watch them flee Egypt. We’ll watch him return from Egypt to set God's people free and his name is Moses. So, basically in Exodus we’ll meet Moses's, we’ll see the plight of the Hebrew people, we’ll watch Moses become the leader of these people and we’ll watch a very drama filled confrontation between God and Egypt and in particular the king of Egypt the Pharaoh. Eventually, God's people will be freed from their slavery and sort of the center part of Exodus will deal with their trials in the desert. And then as we move into the last part of Exodus God will begin to weave His story into the fabric of this new culture. These recently freed slaves are in the desert and God is establishing a completely new culture in the desert among them and He will be weaving Himself into everything that they do. And we’ll see things like the tabernacle and the way that sacrifices are to be given to God. And, so, what we’re watching is God culture making. And we get to sit on the front row and watch it happen. And, so, let's begin. Exodus chapter 1

Commentary:

Okay. So, we've already transitioned from Genesis to Exodus and talked about that.

Let's look at one thing and Jesus says in the book of Matthew today because it's really famous. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” So, this is obviously the call to the path of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Like this is Jesus saying what it's gonna take. “If you want to come after me deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” Let's stop there and talk about deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Jesus. That seems to be the precursor of one of the greatest most pervasive themes of the Bible – endurance. And we don't like to hear about it and we don't like to do it that well. And, so, we don't hear about it a lot. And if we can avoid it, we do. And yet, Jesus is saying yeah, the life following me is a life where you’re denying the false identity that you are trying to craft and build. You’re denying yourself and you’re taking up your cross and following me. You’re taking on my identity. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. And that's famous. And, so, we…we think of it in terms of like being willing to die for the cause of Christ, to become a martyr. And, indeed, that has been required of many brothers and sisters over the millennia, but it's deeper than this. It's not just a willingness to humanly die, it's the act of dying to yourself, taking up your cross and following Him. In other words, dying to yourself so that you can actually live for Christ. Later in the New Testament when we get to the letters of Paul, we will hear Paul describe it as a living sacrifice. Okay. So, that's kind of the lay of the land. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus then your identity isn't a worldly crafted thing, it's the identity of the child of the most-high God, a disciple of Christ, and you will have to participate in the act of endurance often. We’re still kind of at the beginning of the year. I…mean it’s not my favorite thing to talk about, endurance. The Bible just brings it up over and over and over and over. And I have over the years, I’ve thought, “why? Like, why can’t your yoke be easy and your burden light? Like, we like those kinds of scriptures better.” But I have come to realize that endurance isn't the absence of God's blessing. Endurance is actually evidence of God's blessing. Think about it. Think about your life. What have the greatest lessons that you have ever learned come through? Challenge, endurance, something that you had to see through, something that you had to stick with. This is how we grow. And Jesus, God made flesh is telling us that this is a part of following Him. In other words, this is a part of how it's supposed to go. So, we've got a reframe some things and rewire some things because none of us likes to go through difficulty and challenge and most of the time we wallow in it, we get stuck in it, we dig a hole there, we camp out there when we’re supposed to move through it and gain strength and wisdom and keep going. But just normally, we get mad at God, and walk away and get rebellious and act like a toddler and only to find that we missed…we…like it took so much longer than it had to take. And we missed so much that we just misunderstood that “I am apparently going into a season of endurance here, of challenge and obstacle. And, yeah, I'm gonna still hate it. It's not fun.” But it is also not a waste of time. It's not without purpose. And Jesus is telling us this right out of the gate. And then He something interesting. “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” In other words if we could have a life of ease and get everything that we wanted but we’d lost our identity, we got sucked into creating a false identity because of all the stuff that we have achieved and all of the stuff that we have and we thought that this is who we are and we lost the plot of the story that we are a child of the most-high, then in the end, what does that profit a person? It’s a pile of stuff. It may be cool stuff, but it's a pile of stuff. Hundred years from now nobody's gonna care about any of that stuff except for maybe antique dealers. And, so, let's pour that into our coffee and stir it around today and keep it with us. Endurance is unfortunately my friends, a part of the journey. Endurance, fortunately my friends is a part of the journey. This is how we grow. Let's just bring it really close. Let's pretend we decided that today is the last day we’re going to go through the Bible in community and we step off this train, we don't go any further, we don't endure until the end, we don't maintain the rhythm until the end, we are going to lose so much that God will gift us through His word. But those of us who stick it out show up every day and continue to show up every day, week by week, month by month, we’re going to see transformation in our lives. And this is about the time where were starting to think about, maybe not doing the New Year's resolutions anymore. Like, yeah, salad’s getting’ old and all the stuff that goes with it. And then there's all the temptations all around us to just jump off the wagon of health. And, so, we do. We’re like just this once. And then it becomes the trajectory that we head in. And, so, we can get to the year…end of the year having had wonderful goals for the year that we didn't endure and so we didn't achieve. If we want to achieve being a disciple of Jesus, then we’re gonna have to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.

Prayer:

Jesus, we enter into that. We invite Your Holy Spirit into that to apply it to our lives in places that need attention in this area right now. But we also acknowledge, You're not asking for something You didn't model. Like You’re not demanding something that You didn't show how it's done and explain it. And we have all these kinds of ideas about what it is to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow You when at the end of the day this really does boil down to what is driving us. How is it that we are trying to achieve an identity? What is making us continue forward on any given path? What we have to do is lay down anything that's not a path that pursues You. The things that distract us or the things that pull us away, what does that profit us? Help us to see that clearly Holy Spirit, we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here always. It’s how to get connected. So, be familiar. Come visit. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can...you can do all this within the app as well.

Be familiar with the Community section. That’s where the Prayer Wall lives. That’s where different links to social media, different channels on social media we participate in. It’s how to get connected in that way.

The Daily Audio Bible Shop is there with things to take this journey deeper, things to take this journey wider, things to just wrap ourselves in and be involved and understand that we’re involved in a community as we make this journey through the Scriptures. So, check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible that can be done at dailyaudiobible.com as well or in the app as well. And I thank you. If…if the mission that we share in common here to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and given freely to the world to anyone who will listen to it anywhere upon this beautiful planet that God has given us to be home any time of day or night, and to build community around that rhythm so that we know we’re not alone – we’re not alone in our quest to move through the Bible and understand it, but we’re not alone, period. We’re not alone, we’re in community together as we take this journey. If that has meant something in your life, then thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, the link, there’s a button in the upper right-hand corner or if you prefer the mail, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or there are number of numbers that you can use. In the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number to call. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number or if you are in Australia or that part of the world. 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to call.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Amy calling from the center of Canada. I…I’m lying awake in bed again, another sleepless night. I suffer from insomnia and it's exasperated my…by my depression. I also have type one diabetes and have been unemployed for almost a year now. I feel like I have a lot on my plate. And the thing that I can't stop thinking about and I feel almost obsessive about at this point is finding a partner, a husband. I feel really feel really lonely and I’m…I feel angry that God has let me have this strong desire for my whole life that I have not been able to get rid of or fulfill. And I know it's not up to me but it's really hard for me to let go of trying to do all the right things and go on the dating apps and it all feels so empty.

Hello, Daily Audio Bible this is Duane from Wisconsin. All praise and glory to our wonderful Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Today is January 21st. Yes, I've been away for a bit. My wife and I took a vacation. We went out to see our youngest daughter, our 9th granddaughter was born on Christmas Day and they live out in Seattle. So, we took the train from Milwaukee out to Seattle. So, that was fun to see the beautiful country they God has created. So, everyone's doing well. And I want to thank all of you for your prayers. I am calling in for God's Smile and then there was a gentleman who called in and he said he only has apparently a few months to live. He has cancer and I apologize I can't remember your name, but you wanted us to pray for you. So, Lord we lift up God's Smile and this gentleman who was told that he doesn't have long on this earth. He's battling cancer. Be with God’s Smile Lord. We ask for Your comfort and peace. She is such a joy for us Lord and the peace she gives us, we are asking that You would give her that piece, the piece that she…that flows through her from You to us Lord, we're now asking You would allow it to flow from us to her and that she would get the rest she needs and the strength she needs to carry on and be a light for You as she is. We ask that You be with this gentleman who's battling cancer who has a wife and children Lord. We're asking that You will give him extended time on this earth to be a light for him for his wife to be there with his children and grandchildren. We want to lift this up to You are great and precious Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. And God bless.

Good morning my name is Soniato here from Ontario CA. Please key from my family in Boston they have Covid 19. Her name is Jeannie – Jeanine, Evelyn, Gobanni. Please pray for them for healing. Thank you. God bless you.

Good evening everybody this is God’s Smile here. You know, this community’s a beautiful thing and sometimes a caller just touches you very deep inside and I've just listened to a lady who's recently got out of hospital with Covid an she said that her husband had left her after 46 years. She's no help at the moment and she said that the home health hasn't kicked in. And she's alone. So, I don't know your name dear lady, but I'd like to pray for you. Father God, we as a community, we wrap our owns around this lady and we ask that You would breathe and surround her with Your love not that Your love is never there but Father would You whip it up, would You whip that love up so that it is felt and seen. May she hear You as she reads Your word. And Father when this home health kicks in, I ask dear Lord, I ask because I can come to You and ask these things that this home help would be more than just a help, she would become a friend. And could I go as far to ask dear Lord that You would give her a Christian lady? Wouldn't that be just wonderful? Father I don't know if she has a church, but I pray the church around her would support her. Time's ticking away. I send you my love and a kiss. Kiss kiss. Love you all.

Hi family this is Biola from Maryland I hope you're all doing well. Brian and Jill God bless you. God bless your ministry. We're looking forward to China's little baby. Well, I pray that God will continue to touch her and protect her. Family today is January 22nd. Today would have been my father's birthday. He went home to be with the Lord in 2016 September 20. So, I just want to ask for prayer especially for my mom who is still grieving his death that God would just uphold her and be with her Jesus’ name. A listener from Montana, oh my gosh sister. I listened to your message like two or three times. I was so intrigued and convicted by what you said. Sister, you have such a sweet spirit. I am so happy that you found Daily Audio Bible. You know it is because of new listeners like you that I am proud to give to Daily Audio Bible. It is ministry worth sewing into. Sister I pray that God will continue to let you experience His joy. I can…I can tell from your voice that joy in spite of the blindness I am thanking God for your life and for your sweet 2-year-old and for your husband and for your marriage and I pray that God will continue to just wrap His arms around you and just show you His love intangible ways in the name of Jesus. And then I'm also praying for the brother who called in and said he was blind, and he just found Daily Audio Bible app. Oh wonderful brother. I pray that as…__ word is you walk by faith not by sight that God will show you different things in your life and He will answer your prayers. Before you call He will answer in the name of Jesus. Now Sarah from London I am praying for you sister that God will touch you He will continue to wrap His arms around you He will make your heart for Him. You will have a heart that follows hard after Him in Jesus…

This is Chili from Florida and I'm calling in for an urgent prayer request. I've had some heart issues for quite a while and now I'm in the…the hospital. You know chest pains and just really scared right now. Trying to have faith and trust in the Lord that His hands of healing will heal and touch my body and get me through this. It's just…it's just a scary time, you know, 'cause I did have to also confess to my wife of a sin. I sinned against her recently. So, my hearts also broken. So, I just really need prayer with you guys 'cause I'm just scared right now. Thank you guys I love you very much and I've been with this group for years…

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Abba’s Joy. It's been a while since I've called in but first, I just want to say I'm so excited because I read through the entire Bible with you all last year and it's been something that I've wanted to do for so long, so many years as a believer. And I finally did it and it was life changing. It was a huge blessing and to be able to do it with you guys was just amazing. But I wanted to call in because I wanted to share something. After listening to the wonderful message from yesterday I went back and read the entry in the God of Your Atory and if you don't have it I encourage you to go get it. So, one thing Brian wrote that was profound to me in my current situation. After all that Joseph had to endure which was not by choice or because of anything he did when he saw his brothers he observed. He could have easily spoken what his flesh may have been feeling or even acted on it but like Brian says in his distress he didn't even reveal himself. He goes on to say to slow down and be observant. My biggest challenge right now DAB community is navigating adolescence with my teenage son. He loves the Lord with all of his heart and has been raised in the word but there's a lot happening that overwhelms an exhaust’s my heart. And anyway, Brian helped me to see that I don't have to reveal myself in my distress I just need to just slow down and sometimes just observe the situation because I don't even know where my son's heart may be at the time. And responding in my distress will only provoke him and escalate both of our emotions. So, for those parents in the same boat as I am trying to raise godly teenagers in the midst of a…of everything that's going on with all these distractions I encourage...

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lesbianchemicalplant · 3 years

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There are photos of signs reading kauft nicht bei juden, don’t buy from jews, a sentiment familiar today to anyone who has been Jewish on a college campus with a boycott-Israel campaign.

[...]

Shooting people in a synagogue in San Diego or Pittsburgh isn’t “systemic”; it’s an act of a “lone wolf.” And it’s not the Holocaust. The same is true for arson attacks against two different Boston-area synagogues, followed by similar attacks on Jewish institutions in Chicago a few days later, along with physical assaults on religious Jews on the streets of New York—all of which happened within a week of my visit to the Auschwitz show.

Lobbing missiles at sleeping children in Israel’s Kiryat Gat, where my husband’s cousins spent the week of my museum visit dragging their kids to bomb shelters, isn’t an attempt to bring “Death to the Jews,” no matter how frequently the people lobbing the missiles broadcast those very words; the wily Jews there figured out how to prevent their children from dying in large piles, so it is clearly no big deal.

🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪

(from this piece that was linked on here. obviously the atlantic sucks, unfortunately this is also like, standard fare for what gets passed around on jumblr)

#garbage #.#'#/#\#genocide apologism /#zionism /#antisemitism /#holocaust /#shoah /

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millennial-review · 5 years

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Okay so today I was told by my professor that the left is more antisemitic then the right and that when it comes to Marxism and Marx himself, they are antisemitic as well. This doesn't really make sense to me and I was wondering if you had any information and opinions on the subject?

I think it’s inaccurate to say the left is more antisemitic than the right. I think if we’re just talking broadly, just looking at Europe during World War II, the far right was universally antisemitic. And you can trace through-lines to many European parties today that hold the same attitudes. Antisemitism is a political plank for a lot of rightwing parties and far right groups. I just don’t see there being a compelling argument there, unless you rely on not supporting Israel as proof of antisemitism, in which case I guess you could argue the right is less antisemitic, but that is silly. Still, that doesn’t erase the left’s history.

The left has been very antisemitic historically. I don’t think that speaks to leftist thought or anything inherent there. But just in a broad sense, leftism kind of relies on the idea that there are people out there controlling your life and those people get that power through money. That’s a really broad view obviously, but a lot of people really view these things broadly. And taken broadly, antisemitic tropes are fairly easy to graft onto leftist views. It’s not that much a stretch to go from “the bankers secretly control all of our lives” to “the jewish bankers secretly control all of our lives.” Especially when antisemitic tropes are there ready to be easily attached. They also easily attach themselves to nationalism, “we are the real Germans, the real protestant Germans, the real Catholic Spainards, and these outsider Jewish people are bad” was a really potent idea that fueled a lot of evil events and still does to this day.

Historically speaking leftist thought and antisemitism both kind of reached their peaks in the 20th century at around the same time. If you look at the Russian revolution through when the USSR really became a world power (so 1920-1945) that’s the same time frame Germany and antisemitic thought really reached their peak. Nazis were virulently antisemitic, but so were A LOT of non-jewish folks. Communists didn’t create concentration camps in World War II, but a lot of people in Russia who would become communists were deeply antisemitic and it’s not difficult to say they would have done something similar if given the chance.For example, Lenin had jewish ancestry and while he himself was an atheist the communist party went to great lengths to hide this fact. It’s important to remember that a lot of the Jewish people who wound up in Germany and Poland before World War II, were there because of genocidal pogroms in Russia. The history of Judaism in Europe is one of continually being forced into mass migration because people decide they think Jews are outsiders and people start dying. Pretty much rinse and repeat for centuries. The social attitudes that fueled that were present in most leftist circles. Just like most leftists were homophobic up until the last few decades where the LGBTQ community demanded respect and humanity. Marx himself was antisemitic, again because most people of his day were. It sucks that he could be so prophetic in some ways and so disgustingly wrong in others, but that’s most people when viewed a few hundred years later.The religious and cultural divides that fuel antisemitism cut across broad swaths of society and that was especially true in the early 20th century. It’s pretty recent that race, identity, and those issues latch onto issues of class and kind of form a neo-marxist coalition. For most of the last century racism, antisemitism, sexism, homophobia, what have you, were easy to find in leftist spaces. And still are to be honest, there is just more consciousness in general and a bigger society wide effort to undo some of that. It took a while for Marxist conceptions of power to work themselves into the discourse surrounding gender, race, ect.. but it has and even though not everyone views all those issues as disparities in power, the groundwork has been laid and leftist thought is better for it.

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Spain to Eurovision with whole lotta fun

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Dare I say Operación Triunfo is a little bit of... a Choice?

I mean, you got yourself a format that a bunch of young-aged/teen/late-teen aged droolies follow for the drama more than the music, at least that’s what I suppose it is because it’s one of those singing reality shows where you’re oh so very welcome to follow the lives of all the 20-somethings that were unfortunate to sign the contract of the show, not being able to read all the fine-prints in the contract and later regretting not doing so because things like Eurovision. In Israel. But more on that later.

But this is Espain, and this is the sad state of television that is today - if they like your shitty talent show with 24/7 followship of the contestants, and if they watch that, and if they eat that with a spoonful, chances are you’re going to prolong its post-mortem revival state in order to maaaaaybe attract a new audience and acquire a new shippable couple people will vote “a Eurovisión”. Even if your last couple sucked. And even managed to break up unceremoniously sometime before the 2019 show’s Eurovision final <3 god bless them for finally breaking the chain and breaking the hearts of thousands who were ‘dying’ for the ship. It was never EVER meant to last.

So is it a no surprise that Operación went thriving for another year? Certaintly at least it’s no joy to bear with another amount of subpar desperates from every other corner of Spain, but only because Spain deserves a better NF format. I mean, with these other NF formats we can at least have a variety of artists with their own (or composed by others) songs, and it doesn’t matter an inch whether the public’s big fave gets rigged out to me - as long as it’s just a NF I can get easily over with, it’s all fine to me! And of course OT is also fine for me, it’s just that people are begging for it to get axed for some reason. Maybe because of all the ships?

I don’t want to put too much more thought of what happened in the reality show other than the Eurovision Gala, BUT I seemed to notice something rather crazy. You see, at first we had Natalia (or was it Alba Reche or Sabela even?) heavily speculated as the winner pre-show, but in the end the OT glory was all handed to some Dutch-born boy of Nigerian origin named... Famous. Not shitting you, it is his name. But what’s the saddest part about this? Famous CLEARLY wanted it all to himself just because of Eurovision being included in the contract. Yet his only victory in life is being the best among the rest of these stars that were watched over 24/7. Unfortunately, Mr. Oberogo couldn’t make this out to be in his favour in the Eurovision-special gala, to which the “triunfitos” can attend if they have songs chosen for them in the lineup, and yes he was admitted, but then he was given a SUCH DISAPPOINTING SONG EHMERGERD!!!!!!!! :’(

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(lol calm yer ladyhormones, “No puedo mas” wasn’t THAT bad, it’s just that given Famous did songs like “Nobody but You” (yes THAT one) on the show, you’d expect something contemporary soulful, not just blatant radio filler that could have easily been an EYD reject?)

So how did it all happen that the girls were rooted for to win OT, but in the end the one that wanted Eurovision the most won? And how come the one that wanted the Eurovision the most was given a song that paled in comparison to that one song that was performed by someone who was blatantly against going to ESC because “nuuuuu Israel stop hurting Palestine” and that one being favoured to win? AND HOW COME ONE OF THE BIGGEST SHOW’S VILLAINS GOT HANDED ABSOLUTE SLAYAGE OF THE SONGS?? Honestly it’s for the best if Spain is just there to subdue everyone’s expectations, just like they did when choosing Manel (be it because of a corrupt juror or whatever). They did it every single turn of the time this year during OT’s run.

And of course I’ll forever love them for that, as the end result was AN ABSOLUTE FUCKING FIESTA BANGER. Courtesy of Miki (Núñez).

Ngl, the first thing I went in for about “La venda” before listening to it was through this first impression tweet on Miki’s ‘eliminated’ song from the selection, “El equilibrio”:

BITCH HOW WAS SHE NOT READY TO SEE THAT COMING AT HER.

Granted, the sudden start of happy sounds rushing right at me was a little startling, but I was able to cope with it and jam to the song in the end.

I completely adore this one, it’s so powerfully joyful with all its instruments and the Spanish language, the interesting turn of events in lyrics, the incredibly easy probability to sing along to this (LO QUE EEEEERE! LO QUE ERE ERE E!), the authenticity, the cultural roots (tbqh Eurovision countries should be welcome to embrace their culture rather than stray further away from it! also this is why more native languages other than English are encouraged)... mmm-mmm.

And like I said, for some reason Miki was seen as a grand villain to the show, and even if I didn’t follow OT all that much, I was constantly questioning why, and after seeing him eliminated I only wanted to know if people in Espain were rejoicing about it. The against-agenda turned up onto him again when he happened to have the most songs in the internet selection bunch handed to him (THREE!!! Two solo tracks and a duet.), but nothing there was to worry, as instead other favourites were discovered, therefore Miki ended up in the dust for a while. Up until something happened that got him a big surge of votes at the end. Go figure.

Despite all this, I think it’s the right direction for Spain songwise! Me gusta mucho, and not only personally, but also objectively, honestly. Miki’s got a right enough good song for the nation and provided the revamp doesn’t make it crash and burn (yes, the good friend of a Eurovision song - the revamp! It’s happening), it’s safe to say that Spain can stand a chance. Not win, for now, but stand a chance. Yes.

Before I repeat myself some more I’d probably have to add this part for no reason as it came from my Twitter review for “La venda” this time, as I heard songs 1 day before the NF as when I expected the NF to go on Saturday but it was on a Sunday:

BITCH HOW WAS I WRONG. Well mostly thanks to the fact the fanwank-ess of OT ESC Gala actively asked to direct her votes to Miki’s song (Monika Marija teas amirite), but still, WRONG!

Now that I finally composed my thoughts I guess, let’s all go and read the below verdict I’m putting this up for:

Approval factor: I’m giving this a big fat SÍ!

Follow-up factor: Of course I like it way better than “Tu canciYAWN”, there’s no doubt in it :) and after Almaia’s romance advertisement they’re doing a great job by coming back to their great Spanish roots of music, honestly. And it’s better that way than forcing a ship onto a Eurovision 2018 ship, so yeah

Big 5 factor: As of this time Spain lowkey fizzled out with everyone now that a big wave of other faves arised, BUT I don’t think that Spain’s drowning in misery this year, not at all! With right kind of energy of the staging and uplift Spain can totally woo them televoters this time around, making them “lo que ere” their worries away to the sunset. And this is a positive thing - as if juries decide to drown this sometimes and televoters don’t, it will still soar somewhere up high enough in top 15.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Now, I don’t quite think this year’s OT was quite as memetic as I expected, but we still have had some pre-NF gems, just like this:

• “THEN POLKA”. That one moment was also brought up to her on her OT Eurovision Gala postcard.

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• and this one contestant’s gloriously accidental butt-shot

Though we did have a handful of these kind of moments on the Gala itself (and surrounding it), such as:

• NF’s biggest favourite to win songwise not even trying. Yes, there are those NF winners which underperform but only because they don’t seem to know better, but did you know that there are THOSE like María Villar who decide against it? Basically, she was one of those opposing against the situation in Israel with Palestine, so out of protest towards all this, she voluntarily went against doing Eurovision in a nation like this by encouraging her fans to vote for Miki the night before and sacrificing any slightest grains of trying with her performance - by barely dancing on stage and not outselling anything vocally. And it worked to some extent, as she came SECOND only, and shortly after Miki won, she spoke out loud that she was satisfied to not have become the victor (I mean she just thanked everyone for not voting her to ESC lol). But you know what, for situations like these I really do love ESC NFs - where everything predictable is upturned by some sort of events like these. I mean, I like "Muérdeme", it’s catchy, Latino-appealing enough (for those whores thirsty for Luis Fonsi and similar fucks who sing in Spanish on English songs these days), has a cool breakdown and what not, but it would just probably bring back another disappointing result from Eurovision much to fans’ dismay, especially if the Tel Aviv (oh wait sorry... for Maria’s case this would have probably been Limassol or Vienna) edition was to bring many bops for this time around that are BIGGER and BETTER than this one. It’s just happening that it’s unfortunate to be Spain...

• Yet again, putting Famous up on here, but of course he was disappointed to not get that win. I know I’m not the right person to judge considering I’m WHOLE THREE DAYS YOUNGER than him, but I’d still tell him he only had RTVE to blame for giving him THAT in the end and putting him through online voting rounds... and speaking of:

• Like I mentioned before several times, there was an online voting round for to pick-pocket the songs that sounded the best out of the demo-ic snippets of a minute or less. Its top 3 was of course dominated by ladies and their own bangers/just likeable enough songs, with poor Famous being 4th in it (and the top 3 is a must on there to be automatically admitted to the show without any higher-ups shuffling the other competitors ‘round later on and toying with their fates). I liked the complete final cut of the Gala for the most part, but boy did they miss out some, like this male laidback-acoustic pop bop “Sale”, courtesy of Damion Frost. I can at least forgive the loss of “El equilibrio”, but this? Nah siree. And yeah I know this whole shtick is a tire, but I like some of it, and I saw a worse track from the same shtick collection qualifying through higher-ups and that’s NOT boding well with me.

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(yes of course Manel happened but still)

• Miki joining the glorious wall of epic NF victory reactions with his O face of total cartooney awkwardness <3

• and Eleni Foureira being able to rock a trashbag as a dress during her guest performance of both “Fuego” and her ‘new’ ‘smash’ hit in partially more Spanish than “Fuego” was - “Tómame”. Granted the juxtapose transition was a little too jarring, but hey - 2 songs for a price of 1. Go get them Spanish audience people acknowledging your pop art Elli <3 (also her chitchat with the ESC Gala host about what do you need to do good in Eurovision <3)

At this point I’m too not fucked to remember more of them but I’m really sure I missed a lot of the OT lulziness that happened before the Gala, during and after it (such as Natalia (who also sang one song in the NF with Miki himself) not wanting ESC but still trying better than Maria). I don’t want to be reminded of them, as my review’s as long as it is. But I’m sure someone else remembers, so I’ll let them judge.

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #spain 2019 #miki núñez #la venda #spain

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clenastia · 3 years

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Discord Prompt #3! Write an all-dialogue story, but with only one character speaking! The other character’s questions should be inferred from your character’s answers!

...this fuckin sucked.

Did not like.

There was also a random generator to decide our character’s race/sexuality/etc and I got Israeli/lesbian and I’m like. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Everything I know about Israel I know from bible study as a child, so it’s like, 2000 years out of date and functionally useless.

And I really did NOT want to spend ages googling for this prompt to try and learn the quick and dirty of a whole different culture.

So I just-

Tried to dodge most of the questions lol.

Apparently we’ll be using these characters in next week’s prompt too, so THAT’LL be fun. Hopefully I’ll be more in the mood to actually look up stuff by then.

“Oh you don’t have to worry about that - my parents may have followed their God, but I don’t really care. But I don’t like meat anyway- yes, a salad will do.”

…

“Right, I suppose we have to get started then? I’m Beyle De Vitis, but please, call me Berry-

“What? Oh, that. Well my father, may he rest in peace, had to move to England for work, and then ended up having to stay longer than expected, so we moved out with him for a couple years - the other kids kept mispronouncing my name, and eventually it just stuck. I really don’t mind though, I’ve always found it rather cute.”

“Anyway, where were we? I think I was introducing myself: I was born in April of 1996, in Israel. I- yeah, I think that’s Taurus, but I’ve never been much for those astrology things - yeah, the 21st.”

*sigh*

“Right. My family was pretty well-off, I think. My dad wasn’t home much when I was younger, his job only settled down later on, sometimes we’d travel with him, though most of the time we couldn’t. Mom didn’t work, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t busy! School and all, you know. And she loved to volunteer, so there were always places to be…

“I guess that’s how I fell in love with languages though. Especially when I was really little, when we went with my dad and I heard all those people speaking so many different languages, I just wanted to know them all. And I’ve finally got my degree!”

“No, I don’t really- it’s- I do freelance work, mostly. Just not good at sticking to any one job, y’know? I get too antsy, always want to move on to new things.”

“My family? I visit occasionally. My younger brothers still live at home- yeah, the twins. I think they don’t want to leave Mom alone, especially now that Dad’s gone, but I just couldn’t stay, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess you do. Heh, who’d have thought. Nah, I don’t have anyone in my life. Not too good at, how should I put it, going steady? My last girlfriend broke up with me after- I wouldn’t call it cheating, really, it’s not like I had sex with Myra, but I guess it’s true I wanted to. I’ve given up on the whole relationship thing. I guess it sounds bad, but I just get bored with people, you know?”

“Heh. Guess not.”

“Why are- are you reading a sheet? Why are you asking about my appearance, you’re literally looking at me. Should I become some dramatic heroine in a story, ranting about how plain I am while every reader in the world face-palms at my self-deprecating behaviour?

“Yeah I thought so.”

“The scar? Oh, it doesn’t really have any dramatic story. I got into my dad’s fishing supplies once, and tried to use it unsupervised - got the fishhook caught right in my eyebrow, honestly I’m lucky it didn’t go through my eye. I panicked and ripped it out, so the damage was pretty bad and it left a mark. Hurt like a bitch too, I couldn’t even look at a fishing pole without freaking out over it for years.”

“Stuff I like to do? Learn languages, obviously! I speak six fluently, and a few more casually. No, I never got my IQ tested. I don’t really need to? I just like learning languages, and lucky for me there’s all sorts of jobs for that! I’m thinking of brushing up my Hindu next, maybe Greek after that.

“Well I already speak English, I don’t really need any other European languages. You can get through pretty much all of Europe with a bit of English, and I know passing phrases if I need one. After Greek I think I want to learn a couple Chinese dialects. China’s very big, and it’d be a blast to just spend a year or two in the country, learning all the different language variations and exploring, don’t you think?”

“Well, I guess I just think it’s fascinating, dialects. The way a single language can change into so many different forms - I know Europe’s a bit like that, with Latin, and all, though it’s a bit more drastic over there. I’m sure one day I’ll learn all those languages too - it may be a bit unrealistic, learning every single language, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try! My child’s self would never forgive me otherwise.”

“Politics? Well- I don’t really like discussing it. As a translator, my job is to try and understand, right? You can’t just translate words, you have to sometimes translate cultures, make sure the people you’re translating for understand where others are coming from- it makes it kind of hard, expressing your own political views. I always have to try and look at it from a cultural perspective and- ugh. I don’t really know what I’m saying here. But I guess I can try to answer the easy stuff.”

“Well- I mean, I don’t like people dying? I guess that’s an obvious thing to say, but I mean- stuff like the death penalty, stuff like that. Ugh. You know what, let’s just change the subject.”

“What do you mean you’re out of questions? You seriously were going down a list! Come on, can’t you do a bit better?”

“Look, if your entire list revolves around someone describing themselves and their political views, you have to admit, it’s a pretty bad list. No one wants to feel like an idiot going on about their appearance, or kicking up arguments with their politics - well. I mean, I guess some people do, but I’m certainly not one of them.”

“Ah. Was that a bit rude? Sorry. I mean, it’s still a bad list but I’m sure you did your best. Oh- ugh. Here, I’ll- y’know, just to cheer you up. Don’t look so despondent.”

“My favorite color’s blue. But like, dark blue- I know these questions aren’t on your list, but they’re better than the ones on your list, admit it! My favorite planet is Neptune-

“Well- you know, those pictures in like, some of those old textbooks? I just thought Neptune was cute. It’s- oh stop laughing at me!

“ANYWAY. My favorite food’s stir-fry- obviously I mean vegetable stir-fry, didn’t we already talk about the meat thing?”

“Favorite animal? See, you don’t need a list, just make stuff up, that’s the spirit! I don’t really have a favorite animal, but if I had to pick, maybe a panda. They just look so cuddly!”

“My favorite book is All. The. Books.”

“Please. I translate for a living. Give me anything with words on it, I promise you I’m in love. What- no. We’re not talking about Twilight. Ugh, look- English isn’t even my third language, and I read those books when I was still learning. I would like to continue to pretend that I only thought it was bad due to my own poor understanding of the language, because-

“Look, I know there are worse books out there but-

“Ugh. I’m just not much for vampire stories even on a good day. Not really my style, you know?”

“Well, Tolkien, obviously. He invented his own languages for those books - I am absolutely fluent in Sindarin.”

“Klingon? Eh, a little. American television’s always been a little strange to me, but maybe one day I’ll sit down and give it a proper study.”

“Huh. Yeah, sorry, that’s my brother- I have to take this-

“Sorry! Thanks for the interview! Uh- and sorry for making fun of your questions!”

*door slams*

#clena's original ficlets #discord writing prompts #lazy author is lazy #also too lazy to fix my italics that tumblr has eaten again #never again pls

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johnhardinsawyer · 3 years

Text

Saved

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 14 / 21 – Fourth Sunday in Lent

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

John 3:14-21

“Saved”

(Wondrous Love – Again and Again)

A few years ago, we got a tax refund at our house. It wasn’t a huge amount, but it was enough for us to buy a Roomba. At the time, we had two cats and an infant child, which meant a lot of fur and a lot of mess. So, what could be more convenient than a robot vacuum cleaner that we can set to run while we’re out of the house? Every Tuesday and Thursday, the Roomba runs at 10 AM, bumping into walls and furniture and sucking up everything in its path.

There’s a problem, though. . . When I say that it sucks up everything, this means that if you don’t want it to be sucked up by the Roomba, it needs to be picked up off the floor. Instead of a regular vacuum cleaner, where you can vacuum around piles of stuff on the floor (which used to be a regular practice of mine), the Roomba just charges ahead and eats it all up, sometimes getting stuck in the process. So, we have learned that we do have to pick up before the Roomba runs and then empty out the Roomba’s little dustbin when it is through.

This past week, when I went to empty the Roomba, there was the usual dust, dirt, and cat fur. But there was also a little toy man caught in the dustbin. Thankfully, he was made of a tough plastic and had made it through the Roomba, basically unscathed – though a little dusty. If I hadn’t seen that little man, though, and pulled him out of the dust and dirt, before emptying it all into the trash can, he would have been a goner. In the end, he wasn’t a goner. He’ll live on, in his little toy man way. . .

In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, we can see and hear Jesus saying the very familiar words that are proof and promise that, in the end, when it comes to God, human beings are neither little plastic toys nor goners. Instead, we find Jesus talking about God’s love for us – for the whole world. In the original language, the word Jesus uses, here, is kosmos– the sum total of all that is.[1] And, because God loves all that is – including us human beings – God does not intend our destruction, but our salvation.

As John, Chapter 3, begins, Jesus is visited in the night by a learned and influential man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a Pharisee. Now, the Pharisees often get a bad rap in the stories of Jesus, because they are always looking down their noses at him and saying things like, “Jesus, you shouldn’t be healing that guy on the Sabbath or hanging out with ‘those’ sinful people because it goes against the ancient laws of Moses.” And 100% of the time, when the Pharisees say things like this to Jesus, the Pharisees end up being in the wrong.

But Nicodemus is a curious man. Instead of condemning Jesus for breaking the law, he is genuinely interested in what Jesus is up to and why Jesus is doing these things. So, he sits down with Jesus and says, “. . . we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” (John 3:2)

And then Jesus and Nicodemus have a conversation. I must admit that the conversation gets a little heady, here – even for a learned man like Nicodemus. Jesus talks about being “born from above” (3:3) and things that are earthly and heavenly, and ascending and descending. He even makes a strange reference to a bronze serpent that Moses put on a stick long ago.[2] Nicodemus might not understand everything, but he does get the reference about the snake. Just in case you don’t get the reference, let me explain. . . the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness and grumbling because they were hungry and thirsty. In response, God, who had been providing for them, daily, by feeding them and giving them water every day for years, got a little upset with them because they had forgotten the power of God’s providential care. So, God sent poisonous snakes to teach them a lesson. By the way, remind me not to ever complain that I’m hungry or thirsty! Anyway, the people were suffering because of the snakes and God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and hold it up so that when the people looked at it, they would live. The logic here is that maybe when the people are healed, they will learn to rely on God again.

“So,” Jesus tells Nicodemus, “you have come here, tonight, to ask me why I am here and what I am doing. Well, I am like that bronze serpent that Moses had. . . only better. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness to save people who were dying, so I will be lifted up – lifted up on the cross, lifted up from the tomb, lifted up to reign in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever believes in me will have eternal life.” (3:14-15)[3] “For,” Jesus continues – and you can say it with me, if you happen to know it by heart – “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. . . God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (3:16-17)

John 3:16 is one of those verses that many people just know – whether they know any other verse from scripture or not. Jesus’ promise of God’s love and eternal life is a powerful one. It is as if you and I – and all who have placed their trust and loyalty in Jesus – have been plucked from the dustbin of the Roomba. We may have been through a rough time in life, we may be covered with the dust and dirt of sin, but in Jesus Christ, God has seen us and God is not throwing us away. We are given a new way of life – a way of life that is not limited by death. We are saved. . .

That term “saved” is one that Christians have been using since the time of Jesus. And, very often it is used in some eternal sense, as in, Jesus has saved us and given us the eternal life promised us in John 3:16. For many people, this is quite enough – all the salvation that they (or we) need.

It is interesting, though, just how rich and full of meaning the salvation of God can truly be. You see, in the Bible, Jesus is always talking about how God’s kingdom, salvation, or other blessings are here in the present and not just in some great and glorious future. There is always some kind of understanding that the salvation Jesus offers is a gift to us right now. The salvation that God offers is not limited to some holy and mysterious event that happens at the end of our life. The holy mystery of it all is that God’s salvation is right now. God’s eternal and abundant life is right now because God is present with us right now in all of God’s loving power.

Today’s reading from Psalm 107 captures this in a small way. If you are able to go back and read Psalm 107 in its entirety, you’ll get a bigger picture of what I am talking about. The Psalmist writes about how God is always saving us – again and again – no matter what we may have gotten ourselves into.

There are those who are wandering in desert wastes – alone, hungry, and thirsty. But then they cry to the Lord in their trouble and God saves them, giving them just what they need.[4] There are those who are sitting in darkness and gloom – prisoners in misery and in irons – because they’ve done something wrong. But then they cry to the Lord and God brings them out of darkness and breaks their chains.[5] There are those who are sick with sin – unable to eat, near death. But then they cry to the Lord and God saves them from their distress.[6] Are you sensing a pattern, here? But wait, there’s more. . . There are those who are tossed about by the stormy waters of life – close to losing their courage along with their lunch, because the seas are so rough. But then they cry to the Lord and God calms the waves and saves them from their distress.[7]

Throughout the Psalm, whenever God saves someone, there is this little repeated refrain: “Let them thank the Lord for God’s steadfast love, for God’s wonderful works to humankind.” (Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, and 31)

I don’t know about you, but when I read these ancient words of God’s steadfast love and wonderful works, I see Jesus written all over them. Because when we are lost, and in misery, and sick, and tossed about like a boat on the stormy sea, who is there to save us, but Jesus? As the Psalmist writes, “When they [or we] are diminished and brought low through oppression, trouble, and sorrow. . . [the Lord] raises up the needy out of their distress.” (Psalm 107:39, 41) We are. . . saved.

Now, there are plenty of questions that could be asked, here, especially about why bad things still happen to good people and why there is still suffering in the world if God is supposedly in the business of saving people like us. The Roomba of life – and sin and death – is relentless, after all, eating up everything in its path. . . even us. Believe me, I know it can be hard to see the fruits of God’s wondrous love, especially in trying times – in pandemic times, in cancer times, in war times, in oppressive and unjust times.

But is where I have to remind myself that God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. I have to remind myself that we are saved. . . in this life and the life that is to come. This is the fruit of God’s wondrous love – a love that is so deep and broad and high that it is offered to all that has ever been and to all that is – even to you and me.

For my part, I have placed my trust in this promise above all others – my hope in this promise that offers light in the darkest of times. As the Psalmist sings. . .

O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good.

God’s steadfast love endures forever.

Let all of us say so:

those who have been saved by the Lord,

those who have been redeemed from trouble,

those who have been gathered in from the lands,

from the east and from the west,

from the north and from the south. (Psalm 107:1-3)[8]

We are the ones who have been saved - who have been redeemed from trouble and gathered together by Jesus Christ, our loving shepherd. Jesus is always inviting us to see and know the salvation he freely offers. Who knows? Maybe when we come to know God’s wondrous and steadfast love, we will be able to put our trust and faith and hope in it for the living of these days, even as we watch for the life that is to come.

God’s steadfast love endures forever – right here and now and beyond the end of time. In Jesus Christ, God has seen us and is not throwing us away. We are given a new way of life. We are saved. . . Let us give thanks for God’s steadfast love, for God’s wonderful works to humankind – for Jesus Christ and the light and hope and salvation that he offers us in every moment of our lives.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

--------

[1] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 445-446.

[2] See Numbers 21:4-9.

[3] Paraphrased, JHS.

[4] See Psalm 107:4-9.

[5] See Psalm 107:10-16.

[6] See Psalm 107:17-22.

[7] See Psalm 107:23-32.

[8] Paraphrased, JHS.

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mikhalsarah · 4 years

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We could easily re-title this as, “6 Things Entitled Black Activists Need to Do to Completely Discredit Their Own Movements and Drive Even Other Black People Away From Them”

Afterward can just throw this on the general pile marked “Things Entitled Leftists Have Done since the Civil Rights Era to Completely Discredit Their Own Movements and Drive Even Other Leftists and Liberals Away From Them”

But with a two year hiatus to consider it, let’s unpack this, cause unfortunately covid hasn’t shut the stupid down, and now we’re trying to make Jesus black instead of Levantine, and all kinds of crazy....

1. Well, the thing about white privilege is…

Yeah, the thing about it is that most white people don’t actually get it. To them a “privilege” is something you get that nobody else gets AND nobody else is entitled to. It’s an extra, not something everyone should be getting. So mostly this whole notion and change in the meaning of the word confuses the fuck out of them.

When blacks get their human and civil rights violated just for being black, the fact that white people aren’t experiencing that (except on college campuses) is not a privilege, it’s a BASIC FUCKING HUMAN/CIVIL RIGHT which is being violated. When blacks get held to an unfair double standard, the fact that whites aren’t being held to that standard is not a privilege. It is a basic ideology (though not well-lived) of all modern western liberal thought that people should be treated with the same dignity, respect and rules, and black people are still not being uniformly afforded that. When you call that shit “privileges” you sound like a kid who’s mad cause their sibling gets to stay up and watch tv and they don’t. You completely belittle it with that word.

I happen to get the concept of Privilege just fine. I studied it way back when it was part of the Cultural Backback Theory, before a bunch of cultural Marxists subjected it to their half-baked Sokal-esque hermaneutics. My objections to what’s been done with it lately have nothing to do with “not caring” (about black people being the subtext there) but about really fucking caring about the integrity and relevance of the original theory and how it’s being denigrated by extremism and stupidity.

2. As a white woman, Rebecca, you have to understand that…

No I don’t, you’re right. I don’t need to understand anything “as a white women”.I simply need to understand it. If I understand the concept, then I will inherently understand my place or part in it. But that presumes that the concept at hand is logical, sensible, and works in practice, not just in theoretical cultural Marxist hermeneutics.

We already know that enjoying entertainments created by black people has SFA to do with whether a person is racist or not. We also know that a white person having sex with a black person does not mean they are not a racist. We’ve known this since the slavery period, so we have an area of agreement. Marrying them though? Historically we don’t find many people who marry people they think are inferior and beneath them. Strictly speaking you can have racialism and racism without the supremacy and denigration (Asians are all good at math!) but we don’t normally bother to run around decrying them as racist.

Could dear Rebecca have stray beliefs about black people that are incorrect? Yes. Everyone has incorrect ideas about other groups of people. Know what else, they even have incorrect beliefs about their own people and culture. I just had a liberal Jew tell me all the ultra-Orthodox Jews are married to their cousins and was very annoyed when I showed them the demographic data on which Jews actually do marry their cousins at high rates, cause really they just wanted to hate on the ultra-Orthodox and not be informed. Things like truth and respect only matter to most people when it’s their own group and interests they’re protecting, not when it’s somebody else’s. Since I’m self-evidently not ultra-Orthodox with all the swearing, and some of those u-O people would whip bottles and dirty diapers at my head in Israel, you can clearly see that I value the truth even about someone who views me as a dangerous moral pollutant to be expunged violently. I got the suspicion though that you’re not in that category with me

Could some of Rebecca’s incorrect beliefs have filtered down from the racist and eugenicist beliefs of yore? You betcha! She probably doesn’t know, for the same reason my best friend called herself “Hymie” in front of me because she didn’t want to spend money on something. It was something picked up from her parents, who picked it up from their parents, who picked it up from...well somewhere along the line they picked that up from when dyed-in-the-wool antisemites said shit like that. When I politely told her it comes from the Jewish name “Chaim” and was meant as an insult about being cheap like a Jew, she was horrified, as were her parents when she told them.

And why the fuck are white women being singled out here like they’re the only people still holding wrong beliefs about black people? Asian people have some of the most openly horrible racist beliefs about black people and I have yet to hear, “As an Asian woman, Wei-yi (or Sundeep, or Aisha), you have to understand...” (or change all that to man and male names). Why don’t I hear that? Because A) Some of them really don’t give a shit, and you know it, and B) Most of the Asian people immigrated relatively recently so they don’t feel guilty about slavery, and C) many came from the middle and upper classes back home and they will not put up with that illogical racist crap toward them, and have not yet been brainwashed that they should. Most white women who are liberal are so concerned with not being perceived as racist that they will tie themselves into any ridiculous intellectual knot and bend over willingly to be fucked up the ass rather than be called a racist. They are an easy target for your kind of victimized-entitlement bullying. I’m not, because your “radical” kind have so watered down the word racist now that it basically means “existing while white.” If everyone is racist, as you claim, then being called “racist” is about as meaningful as being called “human��. There’s a law of diminishing returns at work here.

Way too many ignorant “liberals”, who don’t even understand the principle’s of liberalism, think that the most radical voice is the most correct now, and bow down before the most abusive little bullies. That’s an example of, how did you put it? Ah yes, “the nuances of privilege and how Black people and other oppressed groups can wield it as well”. In any part of North America and Europe where these pernicious ideologies have been allowed to take root there are pockets of society, where white people, especially women, are now scuttling about with their tails between their legs terrified of being called a racist,outed as a “Karen”, twitter-mobbed and fired, while everyone else is engaged in a pissing-contest over who is less privileged than whom. Liberal people of other races, again especially women, are not far behind them. Why? Because in the world of cultural Marxism that has filtered down into everyday liberal thought, the least privileged person is the person who gets to define reality and no one else gets to contradict them. Victimhood = Power, and the power to define everyone else’s reality is absolute power.

The problem with ultimate power is it corrupts absolutely. Take it from a Jew. Don’t want to? Well according to your worldview, you’ve been oppressed for 400 odd years by colonialism and slavery and their legacies. Jews have been oppressed for nearly 2000 years in the West (and that’s not including all the pre-Christian invaders and mass population transfers) and someone tried to wipe us off the face of the Earth to the tune of 6 million dead within living memory. I’m also not straight, so that’s like 3000 years of oppression and death. I’m also disabled, wow, don’t even know how long for that. I win the oppression olympics, ergo what I say is reality. Don’t like the sound of that? I wonder why....

We Jews have currently got the market cornered on entitled victimhood. So much so that we’ve convinced entire governments to make criticism of Israel a form of anti-semitism. Guess who that will silence? The entire Palestinian Rights Movement and all its supporters including BLM. WHAAAAT? Yeah, black people who want to support Palestinians could get kicked out of schools, BLM chapters could get kicked off campuses, fined or sanctioned. Finding that situation a little unfair, are we? Well too bad. According to cultural Marxism, black non-Jews need to sit down and shut up with the rest of the non-Jews because you’re all part of the problem.

As a non-Jew, what you really need to understand is that you were raised in an antisemitic system and your entire thinking is tainted by it. Even if you are not a Farrakhan, and don’t support anyone like him, and would never dream of erasing Jewish identity by calling them Khazars. Even if you liked Mad Magazine and Seinfeld, even if you were to remove yourselves from all organizations influenced by antisemitism (like BLM)...you are still an antisemite and complicit in the system that continues to oppress me by making me work on Shabbat. Why just last year someone tried to erase me by telling me that Jews should “integrate” into Canada by giving up Judaism and Jewishness. Even though they were white, you’re complicit in that just because you’re a non-Jew, living in an antisemitic system. Also you appropriate our culture by putting “mazel tov” in your pop songs about sucking dick, which religious Jews find offensive. And as you know, if ANY member of a minority, not matter how crack--potted, tells you your use of something is appropriation, not appreciation, then it’s appropriation. End of story.

So, it only took us 70 years of “anti-colonialist liberation movement” to become some of the most right-wing, racist, violent assholes on the planet. How long ‘til you go from “not moving out of the way on the sidewalk”, to “pushing people off it into traffic”, hmmm? Cause you already had a Yusra Khogali...a young woman who has NO connection to American slavery or the Civil Rights struggles, and in fact arrived fairly recently in Canada from Somalia, screaming that white people are recessive genetic defectives who should be killed. God forbid reading the comments on that because out comes every dumb-ass white racist to prove that they’re better than black people at everything, including making as ass of themselves. The difference being that liberal white people don’t celebrate those people and make them the leaders of our movements. (Instead we celebrate racist white people who hate other white people, which is not really better).

You have black geneticists trying to tell everyone to stop mis-using genetic discoveries to make broad sweeping statements about race, and do you celebrate those people, your best and brightest? No. You call them Oreos. Instead you celebrate an idiot girl barely out of her teens who has as much understanding of genetics as Mendel’s pea plants. Red hair is recessive (having two of the same mutation at the same locus, that would otherwise be eclipsed by a more dominant mutation). Blue eyes are also recessive. Skin colour is NOT recessive, it’s the cumulative outcome of differences at 378 different loci...most of which happened before humans left Africa and are also present in African populations. Congratulations. You’re genetically defective, too. Welcome to the club.

3. There’s a great article out by…

How about all the great articles out on Malcolm X, particularly his disillusionment with NOI, his Hajj, his change of heart on the ability of whites and blacks to interact as equals, his embrace of working with mainline civil rights groups, and about how some of y’all are wearing his face on t-shirts one day, but fawning all over the organization that killed him and people who said he deserved to die the next?

Yeah, some of us do read articles by black authors pretty routinely. Whole books and histories even. If I’m not reading the “great article” you want me to read it’s probably because I’ve read the kind of bullshit you write and that has turned me off before I could turn the page.

4. No, you can’t even sing the word because the history…

Once upon a time “the Word” just meant “black”. You can see the etymological relationship to less “Wordy” words like negro, negra, nigra (as in substantia nigra), and vinegar. But you’re right, at some point the word was totally ruined by association.

So why hasn’t it fallen out of use? Because YOU are now the people keeping it from being consigned to the rubbish heap of history, with all that bullshit about reclaiming it. If the word is so god-damned awful and painful that white people can’t even sing a song that black people wrote that contains it, then maybe you should stop writing songs that fucking contain it. I guarantee you, if you do that, you will not hear it come out the mouth of any white person who isn’t on David Duke’s mailing list.

Jewish people don’t walk around calling ourselves “Kikes” (which by the way started as an inter-Jewish slur against Eastern European Jews). Pakistani people don’t call themselves “Pakis” The only people who’ve managed to “reclaim a word” successfully are the GLBT+ community with “Queer”, because they don’t scream at people who use the regular word queer (odd) in context (unlike Wendy Malik who nearly got fired for using the title of an unfortunately named 1970s book on Quebec Sovereignty while discussing the actual Quebec Sovereignty movement) and don’t even get mad when straight people refer to things as “Queer Rights” or “Queer support groups” or any other clearly non-derogatory use of Queer.

Maybe it’s time for a decision...is the word so bad it should be banished, or should it be reclaimed totally, like Queer, even though you’d have to listen to some off-key white people singing it on TikTok? Because trying to eat your cake and keep it too doesn’t seem to be working out IRL.

5. Excuse me.

So I guess I don’t have to be polite to you anymore either, because some of you are fascist, black supremacist, antisemitic, homophobic scum?

Oh, and my 6 foot 180 lb trans daughter will now be blocking your use of sidewalks you transphobic cisscum. We’ve already taken Tai Chi (as a martial art) and Kung Fu but we were delayed in starting Krav Maga by covid. Future looks bright doesn’t it?

Got to get our reparations for 3000 years of Queerphobia and 2000 years of Jew-hatred/antisemitsm somehow, right?

Yeah, that’s right sad that you didn’t actually personally commit the queer hatred and antisemitism, but that’s how Identity Politics work: Even if you didn’t do the crime, if you fit in the same box you do the time. You’re guilty by association.

Up ‘til I read your piece I was broadly in favour of slavery reparations, because even though the people who did it are gone, the nations and governments who did it still exist, and it’s fair game to try to sue them. But now that you’re trying to take it out of my hide personally, I don’t feel so disposed to make a fuss on your behalf. See how this works yet? You want my support, that’s why you’re mad when you don’t get it, but you’re also saying, “Fuck you and your support, and I’m going to be a complete cunt to you even if I get it.” Not much incentive for me there.

Holding people individually responsible for things their country, culture, religion, or even direct ancestors did doesn’t make much sense. If you tell me your ancestor was raped by a white slaveowner and you descend from that, should you be placed on the Sexual Offender Registry?

And oh, isn’t that precious. You have direct ancestors who were slaveowners and, so far as I know, I don’t. The Norman side might have some somewhere, but yeah, my family didn’t get here until 1965. We get demerits for having been part of the British Empire, even though most of us didn’t want to be. But if you are going to blame a new immigrant from one of the more than 28 European countries that never had a colony, or any of the countries that never participated in the slave trade, save a finger to point back at yourself for having actual slaveholding ancestry. And wait, let’s go back to Miss Yusra Khogali, a Muslim Somali....unless there’s relatively recent reversion there, some of Miss Khogali’s ancestors were probably part of the Arab culture in Somalia that was trading in sub-Saharan Africans while Denis the Peasant was still wallowing in the English mud. Oh the joys of Arab slavery. Sure, you could eventually rise to great power, especially if you “reverted”, that is if you managed to survive having your genitals cut off. (2/3 eight year old boys tested didn’t). You’re very quiet on that, as you are on the plight of actual Africans actually being enslaved right around the time you wrote this in Libya....beaten, branded, auctioned for $400. What, you’ll raise 50 000 dollars for a dancing prostitute but you still can’t even mention Libyan slavery in 2020? Clearly not ALL black lives matter.

I suppose it’s just too much cognitive dissonance. The Libyans are Berber and Arab-Berber mix. They’d totally be identified as black in America. Blacks enslaving blacker blacks in this day and age? And you can’t even blame that black on black violence on American racism. Take a stab at blaming colonialism if you like, but we’ve already established that Arabs and other Africans were enslaving Africans long before Europe got back in the game (most of us enjoyed a nice long hiatus from slavery after Christianity arrived - not that serfdom was such a much but still). I imagine it’s all just too hard to look at head on, isn’t it pet? Getting a wee feel now for what it’s like to be confronted with every sin people who look like you have ever made for the last millenium? But I’m not the one saying you are to blame, or should be held responsible. You’re being indicted by your own belief system. I’m just pointing it out, sweetie.

6. I forgive you.

.And I’m not forgiving you for 2000 years of Christian Jew-hatred, 1400 odd years of Islamic Jew-hatred, 3000 years of Queer hatred, forever of sexism, etc.

I can’t “forgive you” for something you didn’t personally do.

I will sleep fine at night, knowing I, also, did not do any of the shit you don’t want to forgive me for.

#race relations #blm #radicalism #identity politics #sjws ruin everything #cultural marxism #a war of all against all #oppression olympics

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