#i have way more leftist beliefs if you can tell

[snekdood]

Was tlaking to my bf about my issues w tumblr and he was like "yeah, ever since they got rid of porn neo nazis have been trying to take over the site" and i think that just makes everything make so much more sense on here. The puritanism, the division, the intentional misunderstanding, the fact ppl act like kiwi farmers and fucking. Record people they dont likes every fuckin action. Ppl making excuses for some of the most fucked up behavior. The fact i feel like i cant post my art lest i be hella judged for being #problematic in a way i dont know or understand, the fact ppl are so quick to call people problematic and dismiss them, the way people call you a "lib" like a conservative would and especially for things like idk. Not wanting to kill people. The fact we've somehow normalized saying "kys" to eachother, the fact everyones so fucking paranoid on here about eachother. Like Idk if i feel like i can call this a progressive site anymore or if i can even call it leftist when ppl are like speedrunning trying to prove horseshoe theory true and its like. Are they even real leftists? Probably some of them are or were and get swept up in bs secret neo nazis post. And its not like this is entirely new, neo nazis have been trying to manipulate people since forever on here. I just wish people could recognize when their morals have been compromised by a jackass whos good at wording things a certain way. Im starting to feel like the only way to interact w this site is to reblog pretty pictures and go.

[qqueenofhades]

There is no law that prevents a convicted felon from running for and becoming president, nor a law that bans someone from being president in prison. Also, if Trump gets incapacitated in someway, many ultra right republicans who equally despise trans people and immigrants and Muslims would happily take his place

And I ask, with all due respect, what is your point?

Do you think I don't know that?

Do you think I am somehow convinced that everything is hunky dory now and we don't have any work left to do?

Are you just determined to be the first of the gloom-and-doomers who show up like clockwork in my inbox, every time some consequence happens to Trump, to morosely insist that no consequences will happen to him? First it was "he'll win re-election." Then it was "the coup will succeed." Then it was "he will never be indicted." Then it was "2022 will be a red wave!" Then it was "he will never be tried." Then it was "he will never be convicted." Now we've moved on, within less than 2 hours of the first US President ever to be convicted of ONE felony, let alone THIRTY-FOUR, "he'll never be sentenced or face a real consequence or lose the election." The goalposts keep moving RIGHT along without even a single pause to acknowledge the difficulty and the value of the progress we have made thus far, and it makes me CRAZY.

Do you people realize how fucking rare it is, both in the world today and historically, for a former (and would-be future) head of state to be held to criminal account by a jury of 12 anonymous ordinary citizens? When that one person, Trump, is the center of the malignant fascist cancer that has spread through this country ever since 2016, and plenty of his cultists are still insisting that it's Trump or nobody for them? When we've actually reached the stage of holding him legally accountable for (some of) his crimes for the first time in his miserable misbegotten life? I suspect that most of you are so deep in the "America is totally broken and the system is useless and we can only Revolute!!!1" rabbit hole that you're bound and determined to argue away every step we take, however slow, as Meaning Nothing TM. Voting? Fake. Fighting to make real progress? Also fake. Everything is fake except our belief that everything is broken and we need the Keyboard Warrior Glorious Revolution!!! As long as you can keep inventing ever more contorted twists of logic to ignore everything else that's happened so far, this makes sense... or something. I guess?

Now we're onto "removing Trump won't matter :(" when a whole lot of people have been fighting day and fucking night to get all the privileged-princess Online Leftists to get off their Che Guevara cosplaying asses and cast a single fucking vote to keep us from full-on-sliding into fascism. A slide into fascism that, again, has been spearheaded and centered around Trump's toxic cult of personality and which is still tied to him in almost every way. Apparently holding him to account (again, which has never happened to him in his life) already doesn't matter because wah wah he won't suffer any consequences. If he loses this election he's probably going to jail for the rest of his life! We would have electorally defeated the greatest threat to the American democratic experiment in 250 years, and frankly a huge part of the fascist far-right hydra that is currently attempting a comeback around the world! This is, yet again:

THE FIRST TIME ANY AMERICAN PRESIDENT, EVER, HAS BEEN CONVICTED OF MULTIPLE FELONY CHARGES IN A COURT OF LAW BY A JURY OF HIS PEERS

and yet we're still hearing that nothing matters and no work has been done and removing him will have no effect???

Come on. Come on. I know it's tiring and it's slow and it doesn't go as fast as we want. But every single damn time the process goes another step, here you people are in my inbox insisting that we're still at zero progress and it means nothing, and lemme tell you, I am Tired of it. Come on. You don't have to jump up and down (my own feeling is glee and vindication but still not relaxation, I will not relax until he loses the fucking election and goes to jail), but you also don't need to keep myopically pretending that all the effort thus far by so many people means nothing. Come on.

[tea-earl-grey]

i do think it's really interesting to compare the ways Star Trek and Doctor Who succeed and fail as pieces of progressive media because they almost have the opposite problem.

both of the shows are progressive, let's make that clear. while there are exceptions, both shows and worlds consistently critique capitalism, value compassion, solve problems without violence, and at least try to be diverse. there will always be individual episodes (and even eras/arcs) that contradict those values but in general, they are progressive compared to your average procedural or whatnot. but they, by the very nature of their premise, often fail to live up to fully realizing those progressive values. and yes, individual instances of racism or misogyny or any type of bigotry is a product of the bigotry of the writers/creators, but Star Trek and Doctor Who ultimately fail and will always fail to fully embody progressivism.

Star Trek is trapped in its own system of the Federation & Starfleet. for any of the shows to work, we the audience have to believe that the Federation is almost always a good & benevolent force and while criticisms of it are made, those criticisms are the exception and not the rule. the Federation/Starfleet can be criticized but at the end of the story, we must reaffirm that our characters are still good people and it's individual corruption that's the problem. the system can be portrayed as flawed but it must always be better than the alternative. if there is a Star Trek show that would truly dig far enough into how the Federation is a product of imperialism and how the nature of exploring & going where no one has gone before is inherently rooted in racism & orientalism then the franchise would collapse because nearly everything to this point relies on the belief in that a fundamentally good utopian system is possible.

now there's Doctor Who. Doctor Who has a quite different premise in that it is never rooted to one place or time the way Star Trek is attached to Starfleet/the Federation. (there could be an argument that Doctor Who is ultimately rooted in Britain but despite the 2005 series and the UNIT era in classic who, there are large swathes of classic who and the EU that never visit Britain. it's been made an important part of the show (as the show is an important part of British culture) but it's not inherent to the basic premise.) however, because Doctor Who is focused on traveling and seeing the wonders of the universe, its premise essentially becomes "some people turn up to fix a problem and then disappear". again, there are exceptions to this (especially in early classic who), but the formula of the show is almost trapped in the belief of individual action and power to solve systemic problems which... is not how most problems or solutions behave in reality. and just as Star Trek can criticize the Federation but must ultimately forgive it, Doctor Who can criticize the Doctor and portray them as flawed but must still reaffirm their status as a hero.

so we have Star Trek too caught up in its own systems to be able to critique them and Doctor Who too focused on running to portray how complex, long term solutions are needed to solve deeply entrenched problems.

and honestly... i don't think either of these are bad. they're simply the limitations of the shows as they exist and it would be far more worthwhile to develop new premises & find other media that incorporate those types of leftist political values from the start than to try to graft them onto 60 year old media franchises and pretend like they've always been there.

and they do serve a purpose! Star Trek might not be able to adequately portray the flaws of a system but it does give you hope for a better utopian future where people are taken care of and allowed to live however they choose, where there's infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Doctor Who might not be able to portray the complicated solutions to complicated problems that we face today but it tells you that every life matters, that kindness is the most important quality, and that everyone can make a difference in some way.

[decolonize-the-everything]

Hey, just wanna put in the Kamala Harris tag that leftists like me couldn't be convinced to vote for Biden when you had his whole campaign to try and so there's really no way youre gonna convince us to vote for Kamala in 4 months.

No. I don't have a sense of solidarity to fight Trump with democrats.

Nope. I dont. I will not vote for someone who supports genocide. Period. There is no amount of guilt or yelling or shaming that you can do to change my mind. If you justify genocide, an act of ethnic cleansing why would I care to analyze how that's different from advocating for it? Why should I care about your opinion at all?

Your "TRUMP WILL BE WORSE. NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO TRY THIRD PARTY VOTING-" posts are unnecessary. Chill with the caps lock.

"Trump will be worse"

All the more reason why democrats should've spent more time putting protections in place instead of just promising to. Especially when those promises were only going to be fulfilled if their Biden won and he just Dropped Out. Why should I care to analyze how much worse a trump genocide will be compared to a Biden genocide when the deal breaker is genocide. How did you accept genocide so easily?

Why even ask when all that matters is that, like the alt-right, you'd allow a genocide to happen if it benefitted you.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"So you want trump to win??"

I want fascists to lose. Why spend time analyzing which one?

You really want to try stopping fascism with electoralism? The ACTUAL fucking hard truth is that it'll never happen with the status quo candidates running on the status quo parties that consistently cater to fascist comfort.

That should be common sense, I fear.

And so no. I will absolutely fucking not meet you "in the middle" when you've somehow convinced yourself supporting genocide is a centrist belief and the rational decision to make.

I wont fight fascists with fascists because that sounds like a bad awful terrible and not thought out plan at all but I would vote in solidarity with anti-fascists to make sure neither a Fascist Cop nor a Fascist Reality Tv Star gets elected.

Third party or fucking bust, Democrats. I'm not fucking changing my stance and as far as I'm concerned a Harris admin is the same as a Trump admin so threats about him are gonna fall on deaf ears and so are fear mongering claims about project 2025 (which I've read btw).

I think y'all should call your reps and the DNC and tell them you want Kamala to step aside so that a more left candidate can run on their ticket. It would eliminate ballot access concerns which are really the only issue I ever see come up when it comes to 3rd parties.

Your move. How bad do you actually wanna avoid Trump?

Will you stand with your party or against trump? cuz those aren't the same thing.

[fromchaostocosmos]

If you will forgive my somewhat clunky metaphor, being a Jew on the Left often feels like I'm in abusive relationship.

I'm most certainly not going to go to the Right not only because of my morals, ethics, and values, but because whether it be overt or covert their end goal is the death and destruction of me, my people, our culture, and everything we hold believe in. It is like the Right is someone who just all red flags and your gut tells you if enter into a relationship with them the only way it ends is with them killing you. But the Left, well the Left seems cool and you get along and have similar view points so you think okay this could work. But it turns out the have some strange friends who have some real not okay thoughts and the Left will say "I'm not really with them you know", but they will still do stuff with and invite to stuff and won't end the friendship when those friends say some real disgusting things. Then as things progress you are not allowed to have things from a different perspective made from the nuances of your history and experiences. Then Left is telling you can't have certain thoughts, feelings, or be hurt by things. The Left is telling you what think is not what you think, what you heard you didn't, what you saw you didn't see, you just don't get it, you don't understand. Suddenly the rules that you both agreed to are being changed on you, and you are being told that you liar and are in fact the one with power and abusive. Not just that antisemitism is not antisemitism and according to Left you call everything antisemitism to delegitimize and downplay and shutdown. Suddenly the Left knows your history better then you and is explaining your beliefs, history, just everything to you as if you don't know it all already and know it better and more in depth. You are alone with no one and the Left is saying you are cheating with the Right when you would never and you just want to make it work. And it all is mess.

That is basically how I feel right now about the Left and how it feels to be a leftist and Jewish.

I mean it has always been somewhat difficult. There has always been a pretty large amount of antisemitism there. But right now it is on a whole kind of level.

I mean there is the old joke about hating Jews being the one thing that can bring the left and right together.

I think a fair amount of what I'm describing other marginalized people's have felt to a degree as well on the left. I do not want to discount those experiences.

I think overall the left needs to do better, I think it needs to stop being so White TM like white focused in its leftism, I think also that using the USA understanding of Race and Racial politics is dangerous and plain unhelpful when applied to global scale.

I think the Left needs to stop viewing the amount of color in a persons skin to what they must be because it ignores so much history and nuance. This doesn't mean we ignore White Privilege because we can not. This means we need to start having nuance and dialectical thinking going on. Such as understanding Conditional Whiteness and White Privilege are not the same.

The Left also needs to take Colorism more seriously as a whole and do more to combat and end it.

The Left needs to learn and understand just how much of the world we live in now is built on so many systemic abuses. And that the very foundation of it, no material that the foundation is made of is Systemic Ableism, Systemic Anti-Blackness, Systemic Antisemitism, and Systemic Misogyny with everything really branching off and out from there.

[shadowmaat]

NeverBidens

We're on a fast track to another Trump presidency. It was already going to be a dicey situation given his popularity among the white power groups, the antiqueer extremists, the misogynists, xenophobes, terrorist militias, and ultraconservative Christians.

Unfortunately, there's another equally large group throwing themselves in the mix. People who claim to be leftists, but whose beliefs align more with the alt-right than anything on the liberals side.

The NeverBidens use Biden's involvement with Israel over Palestine as a rallying cry to oust him. They're furious over the genocide taking place in Palestine and think the only way to "save" those people is to get rid of Biden.

"We need to send a message to Dems!" they claim. This has never worked in modern history, of course, and has led to an increase in suffering when attempts have been made, but that hardly matters. Whether it's refusing to vote at all or wasting a vote on a third party, their goal is the same as MAGA's: get Trump installed as president.

Why? Well, some of them say that Trump can "hardly be worse" than Biden, which shows a significant memory failure, if true. Others have flat-out stated that their goal is to destroy the US: burn it all down and start over from the ashes. This is, they claim, the only way to "fix" the country. I'm beginning to believe that this is what all of them want, no matter what excuses they make or lies they tell themselves.

Some of them may claim that no, this isn't about killing the US, it's about saving Palestinians, but if that were true they'd voting for the guy who is at least starting to waffle a bit rather than the guy who thinks Benji should "finish the job already."

The ones willing to admit they want the violent destruction of the US are also aware that this will lead to countless deaths, both in the US and across the world. It's a "necessary sacrifice" to achieve the "better world" they envision, and they're willing to throw all of us onto the pyre of their beliefs.

This is part of why I say that NeverBidens are a death cult: whether they're willing to admit it or not, they know a lot of innocent people are going to die, and they either want that or don't care as long as they "win." Many of them may not even care what comes next as long as the rest of us are punished: for allowing the country to get this bad, for voting Biden into office in the first place, for not managing to fix everything already.

Do the people calling for the death of the US honestly believe something better will take its place? Or do they just want the country to die and don't care what happens next? Hard to say. I'm sure some of them could probably outline grand plans for a better future, one where everyone is treated equally and nothing bad ever happens and all is wonderful and perfect, but that isn't the same as believing it's possible. And it isn't the same as being able to successfully implement those plans without any hiccups or dissent.

As an aside, I remember reading about a group of disenfranchised fic fans who decided they'd had enough of AO3's lenient content policies and decided to start up their own perfect archive: one where Immoral Content™ was forbidden and all the creepy perverts on AO3 wouldn't be allowed.

Which might have worked well if they had been able to agree on the specifics of the immoral content and where to draw the lines. Except, y'know, everyone has their own opinions on "immoral" and eventually the arguing got so bad that the project was abandoned.

Anyway! NeverBidens are a death cult. A lot of them get angry when you point that out. No, no, they don't want more people to die, they want the Palestinians to live! How, exactly, that's supposed to be accomplished with Trump as president remains vague and undefined. And even if, by some miracle, Trump suddenly decided to stop sending Israel money and weapons, A) I'm pretty sure Benji could continue to cause damage without us (we're his biggest supporter, not his only one), and B) what about the rest of the world? What about the genocides in Sudan, Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc? What about the hellscapes in the DR Congo? Haiti? Nigeria? Mass death and violence is happening in so many places across the world, not just Palestine.

While Palestine deserves to be recognized, so do all the other people who are suffering. And yeah, the US is going to get significantly worse under Trump, too. As is planned. As is desired by certain factions, including the NeverBidens. But hey, a little mass death, stripped rights, global suffering, and terrorism is better than letting Biden remain in office, right?

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Listen to me right now, genuinely.

You should vote in November. You really should, but I don't really want this post to be about that. I have a pretty profound distrust of the average liberal "blue no matter who" crowd on here. I am not of the belief that you should willingly suspend your capacity of criticism and accountability of people in charge. If that can be extracted out of you, they will not give it back. Democrats are not a party full of people who love you and want to do everything you ask of them: they are a party who support the capitalist system first and foremost, and their interests are more beholden to the system than they are to us.

BUT, speaking as a trans woman right now, I'd personally really not rather see Trump get elected, obviously. If you're the type of person who sits and goes "I don't believe in politics", I want you to really listen to me. I get it. I truly do. American politics suck. Our politicians are chronic liars, they make promises they don't even try to keep. But there is almost one thing they never lie on, and that's the people they intend to oppress and stomp down. Trump wants to legislate and use his executive powers to push trans people out of existence. He can't be allowed to do that.

BUT

BUT. Voting cannot be the only thing you do. A bunch of the blue no matter who posters on here are going to do one of those things come November

Trump will win, and despite any evidence to the contrary, they will blame the like 50 communist bloggers on this website for ruining the election chances of the entire country. It was Russia yet again, somehow.

Biden will win, they will pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and proceed to sit on their hands until they find another reason to blame leftists for the actions of conservatives.

Trans history is full of examples of us being left behind. Your political plan for the future CANNOT just be to show up at a polling booth. You need to do more than that. What you will need to do will change somewhat depending on who is in charge, but I'm begging those among you to start taking action both now and after the elections.

Make sure your trans friends are safe. Check to see if they still have access to their medications. Check to see if they need money to get out of the country. Work to protest regressive and transphobic policies. If you're a lawyer, it's time to get ready to defend the cases of trans people against libelous suits. Plenty of you can do this pro bono.

Build mutual aid groups among your neighors and peers. Show up to a local LGBT organization and see what they need. Volunteer your time and money and often time spare clothes for other people. Educate yourself on our history, educate yourself on political theory, support organizations that help out the homeless directly.

Learn how to defend yourself and others during a protest when it faces police brutality and state sanctioned violence. Learn how to effectively neutralize tear gas, learn how to cover your self up so that you cannot be tracked by the pigs. Learn how to break kettle formations, learn your rights.

Never stop protesting against the people who feel it is their God given right to turn America into a theocratic dictatorship (which is not in the Bible by the way. I feel I should mention this. This is not a Biblical belief, the conservative Christians who tell you otherwise are lying out their ass.) Never stop protesting to stop the exploitation of the Global South by tech companies. Never stop protesting to end the genocide in Palestine. Never stop fighting so that the people of Sudan can be heard.

Just voting does not make you a politically active citizen, or really, a politically active person. It takes work, work that is very easy to burn out on. But if we can't rely on the American government and the Democratic party to do the things we need in order to avert the twenty crises looming over the horizon, then yes, we need to do more as a united people than fucking vote.

[bisclavret]

hello I'm thinking about that gifset you did. yaoi cocaine. whatever it was. with gwaine and merlin having figured each other out. and gwaine looking betrayed while merlin looks elated is SO IMPORTANT TO ME YOU DON'T EVEN GET IT.

GWAINE USES HAVING MERLIN FIGURED OUT TO BRING HIM JOY. MERLIN USES HAVING GWAINE FIGURED OUT TO HURT HIM.

fuckkkk it just. you can sort of see it with how they distance themselves too and what their relationship looks like in s4 & 5. ESPECIALLY 5 bc at the end of the season merlin uses his knowledge of gwaine (that gwaine cares about him and would risk his life for him without hesitation) to hurt him (not being honest with him about his magic or allowing him to help get it back) LIKE OH MY GOD. THEY HAVE EACH OTHER FIGURED OUT. MERLIN KNOWS IT'LL HURT GWAINE IF HE DOESN'T TELL HIM THINGS BUT HE ALSO KNOWS GWAINE WILL DO ANYTHING FOR HIM AND I JUST. AUGH. I THINK THAT SHOULD BE EXPLORED MORE BC LATER SEASONS MERWAINE TOXIC YAOI IS EVERYTHING TO ME

oh im so glad you picked up on that too! theyre literally ideological foils to each other in that episode: even as they bond over some shared values and trauma (and attraction), the key conflict between them is that gwaine's life experiences have made him a staunch anti-royalist while merlin is prophecy-pilled into believing he lucked out with "the good ones". from the moment merlin learns gwaine's dad was a knight he relentlessly uses this fact to convert gwaine back to catholicism nobility so he can stick around as a knight of camelot, which merlin rationalizes as a kindness because gwaine seems lonely and leads a dangerous life.

but the way gwaine reacts to merlin's attempts at persuasion is conflicted and suspicious because "what's this guy's agenda?" and i don't think that ever fully lets up. even as gwaine concedes that arthur is one of "the good ones" i do believe it's just for merlin's sake because there are no "good ones" in a class war lol he sees how rooted merlin is in his beliefs (not to mention the repressed sexuality) and wants to reassure him that even though he's in no rush to join him, he's not judging him either. and merlin is relieved and happy with this outcome because gwaine kindly didn't call him out on the homosexuality and he stopped trying to threaten his beliefs. that whole episode is the equivalent of being a leftist on a dating app in 2022 wondering how low you'd stoop for a cute british twink that's unironically mourning queen elizabeth. but i digress.

merwaine is toxic yaoi to ME because not only does it start with them butting heads ideologically, merlin's ideology WINS and gwaine abandons everything he stood for to become a knight in the hopes of finding love and community. and then of course by the time s4 and s5 roll in there is so much grief and shame and fanaticism in merlin that he refuses to indulge, refuses to go off-script and allow gwaine to be anything except a tool and a weapon. which is obviously not the vibe gwaine was getting off of merlin in s3, but by his last episode he's surrendered himself to the reality that that's all merlin allows himself to want from him to the point where after merlin rejects him one last time he literally gives him his sword and lets him walk away. grim!

then again, they're both complicit in making each other feel worse! gwaine sounds like he already has some mistrust of magic when we first meet him, and by s5 he's parroting camelot-isms about magic, "you are a sorcerer and a heretic", and killing sorcerers who did nothing. and then merlin quietly marks their grave and keeps repeating to himself that "it'll get better one day" while refusing to listen to anyone who has any criticism whatsoever.

and to circle back to the point of "they figured each other out": THAT'S WHY IT'S SO POTENT. TO ME. merlin knows that gwaine loves him best of all but whenever gwaine tries to act on his love merlin recoils because of catholic fanaticism he's convinced everyone he shares his secrets with will die. the repression is off the charts. and gwaine resents repression but he's forced to abide by it because he's disarmed by merlin's apparent selflessness and bravery (and the fact that merlin gets to live a life of adventure and self righteous fighting while not actually being a noble - that's literally gwaine's dream!) but i simply cannot look at gwaine in honestly ANY of the seasons he's in and go "oh he doesn't mind :) he just wants to be involved!" the man practically died of a broken heart. merlin broke his heart. and gwaine let him, he was also an active participant! i like to overanalyze eoin's acting decisions and try and pinpoint moments where he bites his tongue lest he says something that goes against merlin's (and the show's) ideology that will cost him his place. which is not unlike hiding a secret identity if you think about it

[a-very-tired-jew]

Dropout has an Antisemitism Problem (Cont)

I did not think I would be doing a write up so soon after my first one regarding Dropout’s Antisemitism problem, but here we…

(Note: all screen caps are from this week Feb 18th - Feb 24th, 2024)

For the past week, and some change, the members of a specific channel on the Dropout TV official Discord have been calling for Sam Reich’s “pound of flesh”. I talked about it previously, but to rehash it: they want Sam to openly denounce Israel and Zionism. Considering who Sam is and who his family is…that’s not likely going to happen. It’s also antisemitic to demand a Jewish person renounce a part of their identity to fit your own ideals. Regardless, this has been going on for some time. Someone got tired of the hypocrisy and antisemitism in the channel and posted the following.

Fig. 1. User comes in and asks people to stop making assumptions of the company, corrects their own mistakes, and then addresses the inherent antisemitism in the anti-Zionist positions in the channel (albeit with harsh language). The second user immediately calls for a moderator (this second user is the person who exclusively posts pro-Hamas propaganda from AJ and MEE). This person was immediately banned and the active members immediately told people not to engage with them. However, it did open the door to a discussion regarding what Zionism actually is, which in turn led other members to ask what definition was being used. You can see in the questions that are being asked regarding the definition the inherent bias of the channel and its members. They do not allow for other definitions of the term beyond their own.

Fig. 2. Top user asks if they’re correct in thinking that a 2SS is at odds with Zionism. Middle user provides the simple definition of Zionism. Bottom user is the moderator calling user and emphasizes not to engage.

Fig. 3. Moderator comes in and tell people that this space is anti-Zionist. While they state there is no defending the ideology, their actions reveal that they don’t want any one coming in and challenging their ideals. After this more questions revolved around the definition of Zionism. The Top User from Fig. 2. asks for more clarification as there are Zionists that don’t fit the extremist definition that the channel is using. In particular they are referring to Sam’s father Robert Reich who is a Zionists but is often lauded as a champion of Leftist causes and has a history that is hard to besmirch. Again, another definition is then provided in the channel that is basic (Fig. 4.) and an article summarizing the I/P history from Vox (which is relatively good).

Fig. 4. Top User has asked for more information regarding Zionism as it seems contradictory. Bottom user provides a definition and link. However, as is standard in this channel…the accepted common definition does not fit the biased narrative. After the above definitions were given, multiple members started posting their own definitions that were/are entirely antisemitic in nature. One of the most egregious definitions is below in Fig. 5. This user clearly states that Zionism is a genocidal ideology. This means that belief and support for a Jewish state in the Jewish homeland is therefore genocidal and anyone with that ideology is therefore a genocidal colonial settler. In turn, this means that any Jew who holds Zionist beliefs, regardless of anything else, is therefore bad. Guess what? That’s antisemitic as it equates wanting a Jewish homeland with genocide. No other minority group that is a diaspora outside of their home country, who want to return to that land or believe they should have their own nation is treated the same way.

Fig. 5. User defines Zionism as settler colonialism against Palestinians, that a 2SS is actually intended to genocide Palestinians, and Israel is a country bent on committing this genocide. They then try to justify this position with saying Zionism does not equal Jews. The User who asked for definitions does appear to see the writing on the wall regarding how vehemently biased the channel is and quickly backtracks to stay present on the server (remember, they will ban you from the entire thing for questioning them). The act of banning people and making users so afraid to ask questions that they backtrack to stay present in a space is not good behavior. It maintains an echo chamber that leads to more and more radicalization until you’re holding positions like “terrorism is justified”… oh wait, they already hold that position (see my previous Dropout post).

Fig. 6. Top User is the one asking for definitions. They clearly backtrack a bit after user in Fig. 5. responds. The bottom user then provides an ahistorical account of Zionism and the I/P conflict (the article in Fig. 4. actually talks about leftist Zionism in the 70s).

Several users then present ahistorical accounts regarding Zionism and the creation of Israel. One of the common refrains from the right wing in Israel is that Palestine cannot be recognized because it would be rewarding Hamas for the 10/7 attacks. This is a problematic position that I don’t agree with as official recognition would entail more diplomatic relations, sanctions, etc… However, one user posits that Israel was rewarded its statehood for the Nakba, this disregards the Israeli War for Independence (aka the Palestine War, aka the Arab – Israeli War). This is not a surprising act though as throughout the channel there has only every been one narrative and this is “Israel (the Jews) is bad and has always been the aggressor.” In fact, they have explicitly stated within the channel that the space is only for marginalized people and that they don’t consider Zionist (Jews) to be marginalized, thereby justifying their banning of people who question them.

Fig. 7. User providing an ahistorical account of the Arab-Israeli War.

All of this culminates in a post by another frequent member of the channel about Zionism being an inherently bad ideology. They state that ethnostates have always been problematic. This disregards almost every country in the world except for the immigrant made ones like the USA and Australia, which is ironic because this channel has talked about indigenous rights and the right of indigenous people to have their own country (which would be an ethnostate). Many of the countries people in the server talk about supporting the channel’s cause are themselves ethnostates. Citizens of those countries do express nationalism as well. There’s only one difference…they’re not a Jewish country. The user then goes on to tell people not to engage with anyone who is a Zionist, and implies that anyone attempting to challenge the ideals of the channel are even worse and should not be engaged with at all.

Fig. 8. Frequent User posts an antisemitic definition of Zionism and tells people not to engage with Zionists.

The channel repeatedly misrepresents Zionism and has its own definition that stands at odds to the common accepted definition. The accepted definition is the one used by the Jewish community for a Jewish ideology regarding the Jewish homeland. Zionism is Jewish nationalism. That’s it. There are some flavors to this regarding whether or not the individual believes this for secular or religious reasons, but it all boils down to Jews believing in, wanting, and supporting a Jewish country in their ancestral home. People all around the world engage in nationalist behavior, some more than others (looking at you USA), but it appears that only Jews get told what their ideals, terms, and beliefs “actually” mean. Jews are told that their country is inherently evil and have their history inverted and used against them. It’s almost like we’re not welcome in any space, which is ironic because we’re being marginalized by marginalized people. And that, my friends, is antisemitic.

[jewishbarbies]

Hi, I hope this isn't rude, but could you please breakdown your thoughts on the whole 'people saying celebrities are terrible because they are zionist, or similar things' thing? Because I've seen it a lot.

this is a little long just because I wanted to be thorough in explaining the reasoning and thought processes here so sorry if you weren’t up for that.

well, just based on historical fact, claiming jews are not indigenous to the levant is asinine and antisemitic. so when people are upset someone is a zionist, they’re upset they believe in jewish indigeneity. that, and they grossly misunderstand zionism and its many forms. they hear zionist and immediately jump to “this person hates palestinians, wants them all dead, and bootlicks for the Israeli government” and that’s where 99% of problems lie when discussing it. because that’s not what it means. the root belief of zionism is that jews have the right to self determination in the land they’re indigenous to, not that no one else can too. there’s no tenant of zionism that states you HAVE to wipe everyone else in the region out in order to self determine there.

now, there’s political and Christian zionism which are both corrupt and bigoted versions of zionism (most jews agree with this, from what I can tell). it’s christian and political zionism that’s used in the way leftists think ALL zionism is. christians use their zionism to be Islamophobic and continue voting for republicans because they fetishize jews and the modern state of Israel. politicians use their zionism to beguile american christian voters and further sow seeds of hate in their base. both these camps use jews as scapegoats for their hatred and lust for power, and progressives have fallen for it hook line and sinker because terrorist organizations like hamas know they can work both sides with this and some misinformation disguised as colorful infographics on social media.

just like the russian bots that have been spewing disinformation to rally support for putin and hate for ukraine, terrorists use leftists’ fundamental misunderstanding of zionism, judaism, and their internal bias toward jews to gain support for hamas, claiming hamas is simply fighting back against israel. but they use language leftists have become obsessed with to do it - like colonialism, for example. they know leftists give a strong response to that language and are prone to fall victim to propaganda, and they’ve used it to their advantage for decades. palestinians haven’t had an election since 2007. would freedom fighters do that? no. freedom fighters value - you guessed it - freedom.

my thoughts are that leftists fall victim to disinformation like “zionism = colonialism because jews are all white Europeans” because they refuse to vet their sources and responsibly engage with the things happening in the world. they would much rather scream at and boycott and ostracize a minority community than do the work because screaming is easier and more people hear it. being mad about zionism for these people has become a social competition to see who can seem the most progressive, and it’s only shown their bare asses. they’re refusing to listen to the 70% of palestinians who want a peaceful resolution with Israel, the people of gaza who marched during oppression chanting anti hamas chants, and refuse to acknowledge what happened on Oct 7th because all of it would make supporting hamas the wrong thing to do. they’re too deep in it now. they can’t admit they’ve been fucking up. they can’t admit that they wanted revolution in their own country so bad that they yelled over and trampled the people they claimed to be trying to help, and they can’t admit they’ve fallen for propaganda because they’ve convinced themselves they’re immune. they believe they’d punch nazis and hide jews and they’re soooo progressive there’s no way they’d fall for obvious lies. but they have. and they will continue to do so until it’s their lives being played with by privileged assholes in another country with racial biases.

unless someone who identifies as zionist is actually calling for the death and/or relocation of palestinians in the region, then no, they’re not terrible. it’s truly that simple.

[intheholler]

What makes you count as Appalachian? I was born outside the Appalachians but my family has a long history there and used to live there for the early years of my life but haven’t lived there since.

I hesitate to call myself Appalachian truly but I do feel most at home there and miss it greatly. I wish I was better connected with the culture overall.

Even if I wouldn’t be considered Appalachian, this blog is a great comfort and I thank you for running it! :)

(another identity-questioning anon, another long ass answer bc i feel for you)

first, i wanna say that no one gets to define who you are but you, and especially not me. that said--i hope my opinion benefits you in some way.

when you say what 'counts' as appalachian, it sounds like ur holding urself up against a set of strictly defined traits, and that isn't fair to you. try to shed that mindset.

now. my idea of what makes a person appalachian is this:

direct ties to the region. period.

either you live here now, grew up here but moved away at some point, even just spent the bulk of your childhood visiting family here--whatever steeped you in the land and the culture for long enough for it to become an authentic, meaningful part of you.

spending the "early years" of your life here and being raised by appalachian folks outside of here definitely qualifies (in my eyes, which, again, aren't the defining lens).

and location isn't all, bc culture isn't a static place.

when i was dealing with my own appalachian identity crisis(TM), i learned about the appalachian diaspora. i don't mean to 'splain, but, just in case you aren't familiar with the term:

di·as·po·ra /dīˈasp(ə)rə/ noun the dispersion or spread of a people from their original homeland

there are any number of reasons why we as a people leave our homes even if the roots done grown thick and intertwined. economic or socioeconomic reasons, usually.

mine was economic. (not to make this about me, but i always hope my experience can provide some helpful perspective)

i was born in nc and grew up poor as hell. my dad was a contractor, so we moved around wherever the money was. usually didn't stay in one place more than two years but always either lived in the mountains of nc or in the piedmont region of SC.

i have spent over half my life in appalachia, and a little under half on the outskirts. the times where i didn't live here used to make me question everything, since i'm not a cradle-to-casket, never-left-never-will appalachian.

but i came to see that's really fucking unfair to do that to myself, because it was never my choice. it wasn't yours, either.

appalachia informs every single part of who i am, from my values to my queerness, from my education to my (leftist) politics, from my beliefs to my worldview.

my family has been here for centuries, and grew up on the same soils in scotland. i spent my formative years here. no matter what, i was raised by appalachian women, speaking the appalachian dialect, eating appalachian food, and living the appalachian way of life, for better or worse.

some time spent elsewhere don't change that. neither does it for you.

all of that said, i get it, bc i still sometimes struggle with The Crisis. moving around so much means i never had one exact place i can call my hometown the way most people do, that i never had a place to plant permanent roots.

so, being "from appalachia" as a region is deeply, deeply important to my identity and sense of self. and that's all that matters. if it's important to your identity, then that's all that matters.

and like hell does anyone get to tell me one way or the other. lord help em if they try. they don't get to tell you, either. you spent your childhood here. if feels like home, then it's home <3

[snekdood]

im not gonna say you cant use the n word w a hard r on a almost fully anonymous tumblr account where you claim to be black-

I will say that it makes you 100% more suspicious and worth keeping an eye out on you bc usually its neo nazis pretending to be black that spam saying the n word w an r and use tumblrs weird trust for almost fully anonymous accounts to their advantage to get away w it

you can say it, but, if you Are a neo nazi pretending to be black, I will say, you're not doing a good job of convincing me rn that you actually are.

[qqueenofhades]

Think what strikes me about something like "we can't vote because the system is rigged! Ban the electoral college!" is the big underlying implication of it.

That there is no multiple solutions or paths, only the one correct path and everything else is worthless.

And that's incredibly frustrating because there are two levels of problems with it:

is the utter dismissiveness of anything other than their specific solution, which ignores how any degree of positive change cannot occur with only just ONE idea, it's usually the result of many ideas that lead to change.

The fact that it feels like they're skipping every step in between the current situation to this end result, or actively fixating on themselves having the correct solution, but only by literally getting everything in between completely wrong in the process.

Like, the latter point in particular is like a complex math equation: Just because you got the right answer doesn't mean you can just ignore every difficult step in between, or just assume that all of the WRONG processes become validated retroactively because you stumbled into the correct answer. You'd literally get failed and be forced to redo the problem if you tried that shit in math.

I saw a poll the other day claiming that support for abolishing the Electoral College had now reached 65% of all Americans. Now, I take all polls, whether good or bad, with a grain of salt, but this does reflect a growing awareness that the EC is a horrible racist anti-democratic dinosaur only applied to the presidential election and only used for electing Republicans who don't win the nationwide popular vote, and that there's a genuine groundswell of support to abolish it. See the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which could possibly collect enough state-by-state ratifications to go into effect into 2028 (in the best-case scenario). So even all the bitching about how "the system is rigged" (which. WE KNOW! WE KNOW! There's not a single Democratic voter going to vote like WOW I LOVE THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE CAN'T WAIT FOR MY VOTE TO DEPEND ON HOW MUCH IT COUNTS THANKS TO THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WHEE OLD DEAD WHITE GUYS!) blatantly ignores that a possible seismic change IS possibly in the offing, because people put in the work to make it happen!!! The fact that the EC might soon be superseded or disempowered is FUCKING MONUMENTALLY HUGE!!! It has existed literally since the beginning of America and arbitrated every single presidential election!!! And let me tell you, the people working to make that change and fundamentally reshape American democracy are absolutely not the Online Leftists, whose grasp of civic and political theory starts and ends at "wah the system is rigged I do not vote I am very smart!"

This also reminds me of the recent idiots in my notes complaining that Biden was a) not "genuine" in supporting the striking auto workers, that b) Don't You Know He Broke The Rail Strike (the follow-up where he gave the railworkers what they most wanted with that strike was conveniently never mentioned), or c) that he wasn't "doing it for the right reasons" (whatever the fuck that means). Which accurately reflects their belief that the way you do politics, or praxis, or anything at all, is just by having the Really Goodest Mostest Purest Intentions really hard, and that's it. Like. Aside from the fact that it's impossible to prove why Biden is privately motivated to do anything, we have a long track record demonstrating that he is a person of genuine Catholic faith who has been moving more and more to the left overall, and has been the most pro-union, pro-labor president in American history. So first of all, complaining that "he's not GENUINE!!!!" in supporting the strikers is impossible to prove, and contradicted by actual evidence. But the Online Leftists gotta feel More Gooder Than Him somehow, so.

Likewise: as I said in one of my previous posts about Hillary Clinton: I do not give a fuck if she was privately the most Neoliberal Corporate Centrist Shill Ever To Shill (and as I also said, none of those words means what the Online Leftists think they do). I do not care about the American monarch president's personal feelings, unless they reflect directly on the policy that they make and the real-world effects that it has. I don't care if Clinton killed puppies (or dreamed about killing puppies, which for the thoughtcrime police is equally bad), as long as she appointed 3 new liberal justices to SCOTUS and throughout the courts, instead of the hacks that Trump forced onto the bench and literally everything else he did. In the same vein, Biden could secretly be like "hahahaha fuck all workers BIG CORPORATIONS FOR LYFE but I gotta support the workers and get them their rights so they'll vote 4 meeee" (not that I actually think he is, but still) and hold onto your hankies, children: I DO NOT CARE! Because the tangible real-world effects of that policy that he is working hard on making results in a better economy for those workers and substantial redistribution of capital away from the oligarchs for the first time in a generation! Not to mention, I kind of like the idea that a president decides to make himself most appealing to workers instead of bosses! But for the Online Leftists, if this action isn't done with the Sufficiently Pure Motives, it is Wrong and Bad and Not Good Enough and Blah Blah Biden Sekrit Republican.

Anyway. Yes. That. The end.

[transmutationisms]

also I am not trying to convince the other side to mask, I am trying to convince other leftists to do any kind of pandemic advocacy, but I've largely been met with resistance and pandemic denialism, and I may be wrong but I can't help but attribute it to guilt surrounding a refusal to even consider any kind of accommodations for disabled people in their spaces, covid or otherwise. this usually comes in the form of masking, ventilation, and/or remote options. I understand it's not feasible to Always have accommodations but it feels like people could at least consider it, and that frustration often does come out in the form of "why can't you just do the bare minimum that costs nothing and mask for a half hour". that's not perfect optics, I admit, but it is exhausting to have to be looking for the correct combination of words to tell someone who claims to be an ally to get them to not immediately shut me out. perhaps your point is that all of that is wasted effort, anyway, and maybe that does count as "the other side" in this case

hey, i really do sympathise with your frustration here. like i said: i <3 masks. i <3 other pandemic interventions. and i agree that a lot of resistance to these things comes down to ableism, whether overt (actively exterminatory mindsets toward disabled people) or more 'subtle' (just not giving a fuck). my point was just that i have observed a tendency, including among those nominally on the left, to shift any conversation about pandemic safety to technical interventions that they believe obviate the need for political action, and that among a certain subset of those who do take covid seriously, masks can sometimes serve this rhetorical function. if that's not you then great. again i repeat that the point here is not to reduce mask usage but the opposite. in fact i would say pushing for accommodations to be offered as a matter of course and not a 'special exception' is exactly the sort of political action that the technical-intervention crowd doesn't want to think about or deal with, because that points to a way in which masks (although great) do not 100% solve a social and political issue (the fact that large groups of people gathering together in person is inherently inaccessible for some people and always will be). like, this is precisely the sort of larger political issue i'm pointing to—capitalist valuation of disabled people, social designs that are exclusionary, and the way that the covid pandemic ought to be prompting us to think, "hey, even if we masked up and got vaccinated and dealt with This specific illness, don't we also have ongoing issues with eg accessibility as a result of living in a society designed around capitalist notions of productivity rather than the social responsibility we all have toward one another?"

in a more narrow conversation about public health communication strategies i would maybe say that assuming a guilty conscience on the part of your interlocutors is understandable but probably not helping you much (i'm not accusing you of something here. i would also not communicate to the public in the exact manner i do on this tumblr blog lol) and, although this is not my complete or definitive account of pandemic denialism, i do think a certain amount of it is fuelled by the sort of techno-optimism i'm talking about: the belief that we just need to get the right medical-technology intervention, and then that obviates our need to change our behaviour in any meaningful way. among those who are resistant to masks, often the vaccine is the technology of choice here, but this attitude is (i think) somewhat malleable in terms of what actual technical intervention it invokes. again: not a comprehensive theory of pandemic denialism but i do think this is part of the puzzle and is happily encouraged by a lot of mainstream news coverage & general attitudes toward science and technology as quasi-magical Forces For Good that will simply Solve Society (at its most concentrated this is simply technocracy). my position is that we need to be watchful for this sort of attitude, and resist it, whilst also using and encouraging those technical interventions that are useful for public health (masks, vaccines, ventilation, &c) or other reasons.

[citrineghost]

Yeah I don't know how to tell you guys this but Jewish people are still an oppressed minority group. Just because Israel is a shit show and full of terrible people doesn't mean Jewish people at large are to be blamed. The diaspora are no more responsible for the Palestinian genocide than a Germanic Amish man in Pennsylvania would have been responsible for the Holocaust

And a lot of you are getting way way too comfortable misappropriating words like Zionist to mean "any Jew I dislike"

Here's a reminder that Jews are indigenous to the land Israel is occupying and, whether or not the state of Israel has a right to exist, that land is historically referred to as Zion. Turning Zionist into a slur is not the radical leftist move you think it is. Should you be wary of some of the people claiming to be zionists? Sure, maybe check that they're not pro Israel/anti Palestine before following or reblogging something from them that sounds like it might be. Do you due diligence to ensure you're not spreading things that disalign from your beliefs. Doesn't mean every person with the word Zion or Zionist in their blog is a violent supporter of genocide. It might just mean they're Jewish and believe in the right of Jewish people to live in that region - many of whom would be happy to do so in a place governed by Palestinians.

Please just be more conscientious of the rhetoric you spread. Antisemitism can be very insidious and it's easy to let it slip into your words and beliefs if you're not being careful. Remember to look on Jews with good faith until an individual has proven themself counter to your beliefs

[feralwifey]

what do you think of those ultra-liberal "progressive" christian churches, with the pride flags and the lesbian ministers? on the one hand, they aren't biblical and are acting as false teachers, but on the other hand, churches like that can act as a sort of "gateway" for people who are deep in the liberal progressive spaces and can lead people who might otherwise never go to church to the Bible and God

I’m fully against them. Since you’re saying minister instead of priest I’m assuming you are talking about Protestant churches, although there were a few cases like that in the Catholic Church as well. However they got excommunicated from what I remember.

I don’t think anything that is against what God tells us is right is a gateway to Him, but instead a way to distance yourself more and more. Those Churches do not serve God, they serve themselves, just like Satanists do. They are no better. Shepherds will be judged more harshly than the rest of us according to the Bible. If they mislead their congregation, they are leading souls away from God and therefore their home in heaven and instead to hell.

Protestants are wrong either way, I’m not saying they all go to hell, that’s not it, but they are wrong about a lot of their beliefs. And those leftist preachers, ministers and pastors will get to see what is just and will eventually understand what it means to fear God. Encouraging sin, teaching people lies (their own interpretation of the Bible which they have like a million of), and putting their word above Gods word is not going to look good at the end of all days.

I was a radical leftist, Marxist, gender freak, bisexual, satanist, pro choice, premarital sex, vegan, and whatever else leftist cliche there is and that didn’t serve me as a gateway. What served me as a gateway was TLM. Truth, an all powerful God, fear of hell, and righteousness is what converted me. Not everyone can be saved and we know that hurts God but there’s a reason why the Bible says the path to heaven is narrow. I don’t know if I’ll get there, I hope I will, I’m a very sinful person who messes up a lot, who doubts, who runs away like a coward, but I know the truth. And I hope at least some of those people will see it too before it’s too late.