#kill the abusers kill the fascists kill the oppressors

[egg-emperor]

Honestly the whole "Eggman is so based, even though he's a villain he's still not that bad because at least he's not a bigot and has standards!" thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I'm gay. Once again a part of it is how it's ignoring or misinterpreting canon/various other official media to do so, and also the message it's giving with that- intentional or not, is kinda discomforting to me.

Him being an oppressive fascist, terrorist, war criminal, and aspiring dictator who has also been abusive and a bit sexist, enslaves people, tries to kill children (and said killing an 8 yr old would be a pleasure), tried to suicide bomb a city, has likely wiped out thousands, etc gets downplayed and excused or even defended along with this claim, as I have seen people actually doing.

But why isn't all that being treated with the same energy for being bad too? How does Eggman have good moral standards if he'll do things like this without remorse? I just don't think he's the best advocate or role model with all of these things in mind. He doesn't target people specifically for what they are either and if you've seen my other rants you know I hate when people joke that he does but that doesn't mean he's a role model either

Sonic is a much more suiting character for the message. He canonically is said to hate oppression and Eggman is the oppressor of the story, that's the root of why he's evil, why his actions and goals are bad, and why Sonic stops him in the games. Just because he would oppress everyone doesn't mean it isn't oppression anymore, just because it's being equally done.

Anyway IDW actually gets it with the one sign Eggman has in his base. He doesn't think anyone deserves any rights whatsoever except for him as the right to be the ruler of the world!

Eggman sees everyone as equally beneath him and thinks nobody deserves rights or benefits except for him. But I don't think that's in a commendable way at all as it's because he's selfish and doesn't care about anyone that isn't himself in any way, in good or bad ways lol. And saying "well at least he's not a bigot" isn't saying much considering everything else he's done.

That isn't the only way you can be a terrible person and I find it uncomfortable how people act like it is when it comes to characters. Especially when some actually try to excuse or justify all the terrible things he really does do in the games that are actually just as bad. I get that it comes from a good well meaning place but all the potential implications irk me, sorry.

If anyone is teaching us anything, we can learn good from Sonic and bad from Eggman. I don't think we're supposed to go all "Eggman did nothing wrong" and try to say his oppressive rule would be cool and good in the ways he does in his Eggman Empire propaganda video to frame it as a good thing and then say "love is mandatory" because he knows it's bad and hated in reality.

Eggman is a villain and I expect him to do terrible things, it's a good thing for him to do stuff we don't agree with as good reason for him to be the enemy. I don't need to approve of all his actions and lack of good morals to find him a lovable and entertaining character and I don't think he needs to be changed so we can. That isn't the point, unlike how it's more suiting for Sonic.

[secularprolifeconspectus]

Why Anti-Abortion isn't Fascist (& How Pro-Abortion Is)

I think many people conflate "fascism" and "fascists" with "oppression" and "oppressors". You don't have to be fascist to be an oppressor, but fascism is inherently oppressive.

I refer to the definition provided by Robert Paxton of fascism, "a particular set of tactics to seize power".

Now, how do the anti-abortion and pro-abortion camps stack up? Let's start by defining their most basic positions:

Anti-abortion: All humans are people. It is murder to kill people, especially the dependent, who are powerless and captive, thus utterly at your mercy.

Pro-abortion: Some humans aren't people. It is slavery to force people to sustain other humans with their bodies and labor, especially non-people.

Neither of these stances on their own is intrinsically fascist, but they sure do make the opposing side look fascist. But here's the thing: according to Paxton, fascism isn't an ideology or a belief. Rather, fascism is a set of tactics.

Paxton identifies the following as fascist tactics:

Suppression of liberties

Incarceration of opponents

Prohibition of strikes

Unlimited police power

Military aggression

Fearmongering

Violence

Propaganda, promoting: rejection of rights and democracy, anti-socialism and nationalism, group exclusion and allegiance

In order to isolate abortion access alone as the fascist factor, with other variables controlled so as not to confound, we must compare two groups from the same side of the political spectrum. So, I am going to compare two left-wing groups for this exercise: Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) and NYC for Abortion Rights (NYCFAR).

See how each camp stacks up below the cut ↓

Pt. I: Tactics

Suppression of liberties

PAAU: allegedly suppresses freedom of religion by imposing their beliefs (but their rationale for fetal personhood is secular, not faith-based). Obstructs privacy by counseling patients and tresspassing.

NYCFAR: suppresses freedom of speech and press by calling for "no airtime for antis." Attempts to obstruct free exercise of assembly, protest, and religion every month by blocking Witness for Life.

Incarceration of Opponents

PAAU: openly anti-carceral. Opposes incarcerating anyone for complicity in abortion.

NYCFAR: members regularly express desire for opponents to be incarcerated and violated within prison.

Prohibition of Strikes

PAAU: supports unionization of the working class. Refuses to cross picket lines in solidarity.

NYCFAR: promotes Planned Parenthood despite their known union busting and worker abuses.

Unlimited Police Power

PAAU: believes in community defense. Minimizes contact with police. Lobbies against DOJ and FBI.

NYCFAR: members frequently call for the police to arrest Witness for Life leader Fr. Fidelis and to enforce illegitimate sanctions against Red Rose Rescue members that violate the Right to (be) Rescue(d).

Military Aggression

PAAU: while PAAU's activists may appear militant, they are committed to non-violence in principle and practice.

NYCFAR: some members participate in the aggressive guerilla militia of Jane's Revenge, which destroys property to intimidate and threaten escalation to violence.

Fearmongering

PAAU: the accusation that they fearmonger about later abortion is verifiably false and they can back up their claims with forensic evidence and data.

NYCFAR: fearmongers that abortion bans reduce access to ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage treatment, that people will be convicted or will die.

Violence

PAAU: holds that abortions are brutality, exploitation, excessive force, abuse of power, and violations of freedom from deliberate violence.

NYCFAR: many incidents of assault of pro-life activists, including sexually assaulting a priest and intentionally wounding a sidewalk counselor.

Propaganda, promoting:

Rejection of rights

PAAU: supposedly rejects right to bodily autonomy (yet supports access to contraception, gender-affirming care, and sterilization.)

NYCFAR: rejects the human right to life as inalienable, restricts freedom from deliberate violence to a privilege for the perfect and planned.

Rejection of democracy

PAAU: works within democracy to amass power, such as through lobbying and campaigning.

NYCFAR: advocates for legislative bypass of the Supreme Court and against checks and balances fundamental to constitutional democracy.

Anti-socialism

PAAU: embraces socialist and other economic left frameworks for addressing the material needs of parents, children, and families in crisis.

NYCFAR: protects a capitalist profits-over-people corporation and neoimperialist billion-dollar industrial complex that exploits the working class.

Nationalism

PAAU: as misfits both among pro-choice progressives and pro-life conservatives, doesn't identify with a particular nation or tribe.

NYCFAR: identification with the pro-choice "nation" and leftist "tribe"; disenfranchise preborn to gain socioeconomic power for the left.

Group exclusion

PAAU: policy is only exclusionary of individuals and groups who promote hate and use violence against others; all humans have human rights.

NYCFAR: excludes an entire class of humans from equal rights by claiming that they are clumps of cells and calls for their extermination.

Group allegiance

PAAU: unifies outcasts from the mainstream pro-life movement, members share principles from a diverse set of other social movements.

NYCFAR: allegiance to "sisterhood" and "the block"; gatekeeps feminism and socialism as belonging solely to the pro-choice movement.

Pt. II: Principles

Paxton defines a single core principle to fascism: gain power by any means necessary. His contemporary, Burley asserts that "Fascism promotes the concept of innate inequality and inescapable social hierarchies... a person's rank in society is determined by aspects of identity that are beyond their control." Fascists seize power for the "master" group.

Let's look at how each group fits this principle:

Innate inequality

PAAU: dehumanizes pregnant humans by using them as incubators to gestate clumps of cells into babies; discriminates based on sex and gender.

NYCFAR: dehumanizes preborn humans by using them as currency to purchase the liberation; discriminates based on age, ability, and location.

Social hierarchy

PAAU: treats pregnant people as second-class citizens by restricting reproductive autonomy and thereby their socioeconomic mobility.

NYCFAR: treats preborn people as untouchables outside the class system who may be exploited and discarded with impunity and no recourse.

Master group

PAAU: upholds the paternalistic patriarchy of old, rich, abled, religious, white cishet men against their own interests in order to siphon off power.

NYCFAR: upholds ableist adult supremacy in order to defend their power and "born privilege" over the most powerless members of humankind.

Pt. III: Elements

Stemming from this, Paxton suggests several common (but not definitive) elements in fascism, including: group primacy, victim mindset, rejection of individualism and liberalism, enhanced sense of identity and belonging, idolization of a leader, sublimation of violence, collaboration with elite to protect private property, and economic autarky.

You can't generalize either stance as fascist, but you can certainly find fascist factions and actors within either respective movement. Let's see if either of these leftist groups fit the bill:

Group primacy

PAAU: explores cognitive dissonance with curiosity and openness. Prioritizes wellbeing of individuals over image of group. Works across the aisle to build coalitions over shared goals.

NYCFAR: cognitive dissonance is dismissed and denied. Sacrifices wellbeing of individuals to maintain power of group. Unwilling to collaborate with opponents to achieve common goals.

Victim mindset

PAAU: praxis is non-violent, radical solidarity with primary victims via rescue, recognizes abortion is murder but murder isn't justified in return.

NYCFAR: justifies sexual assault and physical battery of opponents by identifying as victims of violation of consent, violates consent in return.

Rejection of individualism & liberalism

PAAU: encourages critical thought, dissent treated as opportunity for learning and growth, loose framework for ideals allows individualism.

NYCFAR: unity requires uniform adherence to collective ideals, shuts down critique to maintain status quo, dissent treated as threat to cohesion.

Enhanced sense of identity & belonging

PAAU: encourages sense of intrinsic self-worth and dignity, self-esteem tied to personal integrity, morale independent of group gains and losses.

NYCFAR: group esteem dependent on extrinsic perception of success, over-identification with "the cause" leads to reactionary internal policing.

Idolization of a leader

PAAU: Randall Terry erroneously purported to be leader; atheist founder; decentralized leadership, structured in autonomous affinity groups.

NYCFAR: defends Planned Parenthood despite accusations of racism; mythologizes abortion providers and denies allegations of misconduct and harm by victims.

Sublimation of violence

PAAU: teaches organizers "you've got to learn to take a hit" and to never retaliate against violence with more violence, explicitly non-violent.

NYCFAR: frames violence against peaceful protesters as romanticized struggles against fascist powers by grassroots activists.

Collaboration with elite to protect private property

PAAU: collaborates with Catholic Church to uphold women as private property of men (despite being a feminist organization).

NYCFAR: collaborates with ruling class old money such as the Rockefeller Foundation to uphold oppression of working class via abortion trauma.

Economic autarky

PAAU: advocates for socialist programs, mutualist aid, and radical community care to give poor people self-sufficiency so parenting is a feasible option.

NYCFAR: advocates for reproductive autonomy, aka the right to a dead baby, to give poor people economic self-sufficiency and unburden the State.

Discussion & Conclusion

Full disclosure: I am a staff member of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, and I wrote this analysis on my own time as my own idea.

I was recruited by PAAU because I believed in its principles. As such, obviously I conclude that PAAU beats the allegations: we are not fascists, and being anti-abortion is not fascist because ideologies themselves cannot be fascist. Rather, it is our leftist contemporaries in the pro-choice movement who are using fascist tactics to defend their exploitation of preborn people to expand power for the "master race" of born people.

There absolutely are fascist and oppressive individuals, groups, and factions within the pro-life movement. Those who are violent I refuse to cooperate with, and I refuse to resort to fascist tactics to advance our cause.

I believe I have proven NYCFAR to be (to use their lingo) "Fash", ironically. And I think most of the pro-choice movement also resorts to fascist tactics, in part because pro-choice is inherently pro-violence.

Your view of which stance you see as oppressive is founded upon whether or not you understand the preborn to be full and equal people to you and I, but violence is unequivocally done to living preborn human organisms by abortion regardless of your fetal personhood perspective. Pro-Choice is Pro-Violence, and as such they are quick to resort to violence to seize power.

So for my anti-abortion homies, here's two quick responses you can take from this:

Pro-Aborts accuse us of having fascist beliefs, but fascism is a set of tactics, not a set of beliefs.

Pro-Aborts use fascist tactics such as fearmongering and violence to seize power.

[tomyo]

Have a real love hate relationship with Studio Trigger because every single plot they do is "Here's an allegory for Fascistic Racism" but always make it messy by the end in the name of wanting a crazy plot twist battle.

BNA- Beastmen are literally an oppressed class with parallels to Jewish oppression down to being victims of the literal Holocaust and the human state represents how white supremacy is built into the structure but also the big bad is secretly also a part of the oppressed class which feeds into the notion of a Kabal.

Promare- Burnish are an oppressed class with parallels to immigrants with an overaggressive unforgiving task force that literally ices them and labels them all equally as terrorists to distract from the fact they're being inhumanely made fodder for their oppressors survival excepts also secretly the big bad is also a part of the oppressed class out of a desire to feed into his destructive urges feeding into the idea that third world nations are somehow more primally violent.

Kill La Kill- Satsuki runs her school in a fascist hierarchy literally meant to parallel nazis as suggested in the opening scene and she represents well the charismatic dictator but actually it was long game under cover work to eventually stop the even higher up dictator but then the story pivoted to the trauma of various forms of parental abuse (tbr it's been a long time so I'm not as strong on this one).

Gurren Lagann- There are definitely themes of forgiving the first half for subjugating humans and also parentally abusing one girl because of whatever happened in the second half.

I don't feel confident in talking on Little Witch Academia since I watched it at a time where I was sleeping so little that I was experiencing hallucinatory episodes but I do remember witches being kind of an othered class with some crazy witch weapon going off but again, my brain was being permanently damaged at that time. Also I haven't watched cyberpunk 2077 fully yet but given it's cyberpunk, it's obviously going to have themes of oppression.

[philosophyunknwn]

This is the same discussion that’s had at every single point in history when there’s an oppressive, fascist, imperialist body who abuses and murders another group of people in the name of religion, race, or power and essentially justifies their actions with the thinking that their lives are somehow superior in value to others

The oppressor: murders, kills, torments, starves, evicts persistently

Celebrities/World leaders etc: “we must not involve ourselves”

Palestinians: *retaliate*

Celebrities/World leaders etc: “what the Palestinians are doing is unforgivable and should be condemned”

If you make a people suffer for long enough eventually they get desperate. You cant’t expect people being excessively subjected to cruelty to only respond with love. Focusing on the recent actions of Hamas without taking into account how the situation got here in the first place is disingenuous and serves little purpose but to silence the cries of the oppressed

[warmageragnar]

I think "Hunters are agents of hetero-normativity" is a superficial take

Vampires and Werewolves, specifically in WoD, aren't misunderstood, sympathetic minorities and hunter's don't try to kill them because they're different, they try to kill them because they hurt people and probably have personally hurt them

Vampires are predators who use their unnatural abilities to worm their way into power and then exercise that power to actively make life worse for people because it makes it easier for vampires to eat them. They are the ultimate oppressors, ones who will rule forever

The Garou are fascists and habitual abusers that would send humanity back to the stone age if they had their way

Hunters don't belong to any particular group. They are anyone and everyone who can recognize and stand up to the very real danger in their midst, to protect themselves and those in their community

I don't really understand why you identify with the feudal, blood-drinking sexual predators and the "insane, neo-pagan, theocrat berserkers" over the regular people opposed to them

I understand what you're saying, but you're going at it from the POV of someone who has knowledge of all those WoD splats, enough to know why all those supernaturals suck. Going at it from a layman's POV, all you have is the premise of each splat. You're a vampire experiencing existential dread, fighting other monsters within and without. You're a werewolf fighting to preserve the environment, etc.

Outside the context of WoD, monsters like vampires have long been relatable to social outcasts, because we are branded as predatory and unnatural ourselves. It's a collective power move to lean into that and want to actually roleplay as the monster.

Through that lens, you could see why the prospect of being one of the hunters would be deeply unappealing to the uninitiated, or even to old fans who are used to being the monster.

Moreover, when you play Vampire or Werewolf, you don't play as the entire group or institution that's making things bad for everyone. You're playing as one nascent member of that group, and the weight of that faction's evils falls upon you too. You're a tiny fish in an enormous pond, you're a pawn to an elder's inhuman scheme, you're a cub pushing against millennia of misguided tradition.

And if you try to distance yourself from that corrupt immortal society, you find yourself alone and easy pickings for the human hunters, who don't care whether or not you are one of the horrible ones.

The monsters don't stop being relatable because their government and culture are horrible and harmful. If anything, they could reflect our own sense of powerlessness with our IRL situation, with our IRL government and mainstream culture.

[mikkeneko]

if there's one self-care skill I really wish fans would develop -- especially fans of continuing media, where you get into a thing before it’s finished -- it's the ability to say "this is no longer the story I wanted it to be" and walk away

(and I am not exempting myself from this! there are definitely periods in my past media engagement which would have been less negative for my mental health if I’d been able to do this, rather than banging my head in increasing frustration as the story veered further and further away from what I had always thought its arc was supposed to be.)

you gotta marie kondo this shit. if the story no longer sparks joy for you, then let it go. and you can grieve for that! that loss of potential, that happiness you might once have had with it. you can be frustrated and sad and bitch about it in your group chat. but you have to let it go.

because the alternative is trying to force the creator to change course to comply with your  vision and historically? the success rate of that is very, very low, and far more statistically likely to result in the destruction of the thing entirely. which might sound tempting and satisfying in those moments of frustration but in the end, honestly, is not going to make you any happier. (and is definitely  going to make other people  unhappier.)

what will make you happier is finding some other story that is more like what you wanted. because it’s a vast vast world out there, and people are creating stories and media faster than ever. yes, even queer media, yes, even PoC driven/led media. no one person will ever be able to consume them all. find something out there that brings you joy, that is the story you wanted. and the rest? let go.

[defiestars]

bad concept:  finn sacrificing himself to destroy the battering ram cannon and almost dying in service of his romantic subplot rather than his characterisation and being consistently sidelined in narrative themes he should be experiencing and growing from and not being lectured about

good concept:  finn almost dying to destroy the battering ram cannon in an act of self-sacrifice that saves the last stand of the resistance and surviving because the force is with him.  the force is with him,  and his sheer will and resolve and defiance of the first order’s tyranny coalesing with the energy of the force moving through him.  finn understanding that saving the ones you love doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive with fighting the fascists who turned him into a child soldier and are responsible for the systemic oppression of countless millions of people in the galaxy

[minisoc]

how can you reblog a post that describes the genocide in east turkestan as fake. I'm genuinely so confused about what to think with all of this (maybe it is all just western propaganda, I don't know) but how do you explain the disappearance of millions of uyghurs and other minorities in china? their community has been targeted since at least the 1960s, to more recently with the past 20 years and its forced assimilation practices (e.g. 2011 Project Beauty). so-called Xinjiang is also an area of enormous geopolitical importance, with massive oil reserves and bordering many countries...like how can you think it just western propaganda??? genuine question

i would vastly prefer you DM me such things instead of sending asks on anon. i understand not sending an ask off anon bc you might get people bothering you but really, if you want to ask me, I'd rather have a discussion, even if we disagree.

still, I'll try to share some information that will help explain my position which seems to confuse you

first, the main reason most westerners have ever heard of Xinjiang (accurately Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, XUAR) is because western governments, especially the US, have led a propaganda campaign to demonize China. this is something these governments and their loyal media have done to their "official enemies" for a very long time - we can list numerous other examples. when the West wants to pursue their aggression, they spread lies about their targets and paint them specifically as human rights abusers. this is called human rights propaganda.

it is very obvious that you have been affected by that propaganda since even this short ask is completely divorced from reality. i have a few guesses what your sources of information are but the things you say are flatly and totally false. not a matter of degree or nuance, but totally false.

the only people who use the name "east turkestan" are the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is an affiliate of Al Qaeda in eastern China, who advocate for war against China, separatism, the establishment of an wahhabist ethnostate. can you grapple with this for a moment? you are using the language of actual fascist murderers because, presumably, they've been sold to you as the woke alternative to the evil Chinese. you even call the name of the region "so called". this is such a petty jibe, this region has been called Xiyu Xinjiang in Chinese for nearly a millennium. are you bravely standing up to the Chinese oppressor by denying the name of the region *in Chinese*? it's called Xinjiang whether you like it or not, the Chinese language isn't open to your interpretation.

there have not been any disappearances, certainly not of millions of people. disappearing millions of people is physically impossible. such a Holocaust would be impossible to hide, and yet there is no evidence for this. there are stories, but no evidence. stories are easy to obtain. and to western media, the lack of evidence is evidence in itself, showing that China is too secretive, too capable of mind control, all kinds of impossible things. this is what's called a non falsifiable claim. if even the first western claim of one million in reeducation (different from "disappearance of millions") were true, this would inevitably result in a refugee crisis. people do not sit around patiently waiting to be thrown in camps, not in China, not anywhere in history. the fact that you say this means you have not thought about the world seriously. you have not engaged seriously with reality and you repeat fascist slogans.

the "community" of Xinjiang (which community? there are 25 million people there) has not been "targeted". there are a large number of government policies which apply specifically to XUAR, only some of which we hear about in the West. many of them have to do with combatting religious extremism, including project beauty, because US backed terrorists went on mass killing sprees in multiple cities within XUAR. now i do think how to respond to religious and ideological extremism is a subject worthy of discussion and i don't take as a premise that everything China has tried must be right or must be defended. but i do place it in its proper context and i can easily see how it compares to every capitalist governments responses to the same issue. it seems we have something to learn from China in this regard.

i can see why you'd be confused, it's because you've been confused by whatever your regular sources of information are. but it's not because I'm just denying some obvious atrocities. it's that you have been propagandized and are no longer able to engage with reality. i wish you luck in returning.

[maryibgarry102]

Okay I need to rant for a second.

Steven Universe may have been very progressive as a series in regards to representation, especially for the LGBT community, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have issues as a series and that it is somehow wrong to critique it

Like they took Peridot, a smart, well-developed autistic-coded character and then later dumbed down her character a ton, having her and Lapis become nothing but comic relief. To see Peridot's character get diminished so heavily was super upsetting, and I should be able to say that without someone being like "but..the gay wedding? good?" Like to have the most neurodivergent character be put into the "stupid, comedic relief" stereotype of autistic people is horribly upsetting and annoying.

And then they handled the topic of abuse poorly in the case of Jasper and Lapis; they were both abusive to each other and it was awful, but they made out Lapis to be this poor victim despite her also abusing Jasper. Not to mention she's a dick later on; like she literally stole the barn, which was not only her home but Peridot's too, and then abandoned them, only to magically come back later when it was convenient to the plot. But like is this really addressed? No because "oh but she's sad so it's okay" like no bitch being upset doesn't ever justify being a bad person

Oh and the diamonds! Remember when Blue Diamond was a metaphor for homophobia and literally wanted to kill Ruby and Sapphire just for accidentally fusing? And then they reintroduced her as sad and depressed over Pink, just an innocent sad lady DESPITE HER BEING AN INTERGALACTIC DICTATOR? Remember how the Diamonds are literally intergalactic dictators that destroy planets, subjugate and oppress gems, have all of the Pearls be "fancy servants" (essentially slaves, like we had the whole "i don't belong to anyone!" with Pearl like come on), murder gems for breaking status quo, took the shattered remains of millions of gems murdered BY THEM in the war on Earth and then fused them together to make a super weapon like a horrific, cruel experiment? Oh and this is all brushed off! They literally said "but intergalactic fascist dictators are people too!!!" Like yes, they are, but they're intergalactic fascist dictators. The fact that their characters were redeemed, and redeemed so quickly too, was absolute bullshit. And they literally make jokes?? Like there was a joke with Steven and Yellow Diamond like "what did we say yellow? What did we say to do? uwu" then yellow's like "ugh, not be all militaristic.." or something along those lines like HOW DOES THAT NOT BOTHER MORE PEOPLE

Also, the handling of the characters who are coded as POC sometimes displays racist stereotypes! My biggest issue with this is in how the show handled Sugilite, and this was within the first season, even. They displayed the fusion of Amethyst and Garnet, the two characters coded as POC, as monstrous, violent, aggressive, and out of control, only for Pearl, the white-coded character, to have the ~grace and mind~ to stop them from wreaking havoc. The fact that more people weren't upset or bothered by that always stressed me the fuck out. Even if it wasn't intended in that way, it's still problematic as it can have harmful implications about women of color, especially considering one of the biggest, most harmful stereotypes against them is that they're violent and out of control. Not to mention that they had a HUMAN ZOO in the show; I know this was a big, BIG issue for people of color because human zoos were A REAL THING; BIPOC were literally put into zoos and treated like animals in history for white people's entertainment. To have this show make a human zoo and then in the creation of it think "we tried to include as many hot people as possible" (yes that was legitimately something a creator said, though i don't think it was Sugar), how can you not be upset by the lack of nuance or care in handling a topic that has such a grave history for people of color? And then you have Bismuth, coded as a POC; she literally said "I want to fight back against the diamonds, intergalactic dictators who have oppressed myself and others for years and years" only for Steven and the show to say "but fighting back against the oppressors makes you just as bad as them" and you know how fucking stupid and awful that statement is. Then, they literally bubbled her and forgot about her for a while. Like, what the hell.

I do digress, SU does have a lot of diversity and positive representation, but these kinds of bad things should NOT be brushed over and justified because there is some good representation. And the amount of times I've seen POC be upset about the racism in the show and then have to deal with white people telling them "but the show has done so much for representation. Especially for the lgbt community! We shouldn't criticize media that's done so much for us" is absolutely ridiculous!!!

Us white people should NEVER brush off the concerns or upset that BIPOC have over media and it's negative representation/messages; BIPOC should be listened to, and when they say there's an issue, do NOT ignore them, do NOT imply they're in the wrong or shouldn't be calling creators out on their bullshit. A show might have good qualities, it might have some good representation, but marginalized communities calling out issues in media that hurt them and spread harmful messages shouldn't be ignored or silenced. EVER. STOP DOING THAT

anyways thanks for coming to my TEDtalk

[quellgame]

Prolegomena 1 - Nietzsche's Legacy

a. Cringe Culture as Philistinism

In his book Anti-Nietzsche, Malcolm Bull provides a thorough critique of Nietzschean aesthetic thought. “Philistine,” Bull claims, is the insult of contemporary times. A philistine is somebody who refuses to appreciate high culture, or fine art; one who denies aesthetic value. Yet, for all the vitriol, nobody seems to have taken on the mantle of philistinism. If there are no philistines, what explains the endless accusations?

If philistines were to have a theory, argues Bull, it must take shape as the transience of all values. We know from Nietzsche that nihilism approaches the devaluation of all value - but that this very devaluation requires a re-evaluation. For Nietzsche, evaluation ultimately takes the form of aesthetic valuation. It is easy to deny specific values, but it is not so easy to be rid of value altogether. Nietzsche argues that it is impossible to completely remove valuation. Once all other values have been removed, nothing is left but pure preference. This is the role of the superman: as taste-maker - the creator of value. But if there is no base on which value rests, why not re-evaluate these newly created values?

Thus, although value may be ineradicable, it may also be fragile, and its existence in any one area a contingent historical fact dependent on local conditions. [...] With this in mind, it is worth asking whether the fact that philistinism is a form of negation that is universally condemned but nowhere visible may be [...] a historically significant indication of the nature and location of positive value in contemporary society. (Bull, 6)

Nowhere can a challenge to aesthetic norms be seen more clearly in contemporary culture than in the based/cringe debate. “Based” refers to content that is aesthetically appealing in some undefined but culturally understood sense, while “cringe” refers to content that makes one “cringe” - is unappealing both aesthetically and morally. If Bull’s method is correct, it would do us well to take a look at based culture in an attempt to understand where its values lie. We’ll argue that based culture is oppressive. As based culture’s aesthetic opposite, we have a moral imperative to examine cringe culture so as to discover and replicate its value framework.

Bull’s genius lies in his method of deconstructing Nietzche: instead of reading Nietzsche as intended - on the side of the oppressor, or against the oppressor - Bull decides to read Nietzsche like a loser - as the one to whom all the fiery rhetoric is spoken. In this way, Bull discovers Nietzsche as a groomer, and positions himself as a rejected candidate. He examines Nietzsche’s rhetoric and theoretical framework to understand how and why Nietzsche is so capable of pulling in an audience and making them believe him. I’ll argue that Nietzsche’s abusive rhetoric is directly mirrored in both fascism and in based culture.

b. Nietzsche as Groomer

Nietzsche intends his books to be read for victory. He calls to an audience like himself, those who “belong to a time that has not yet come to pass;” in other words, people who might transcend the “idiotic,” “subhuman,” “slave-like” nature of contemporary society. Clearly, this is cruelty, but it is

[n]o wonder Nitezsche can so confidently identify his readers with the Supermen. It is not just flattery. If Nietzsche’s readers have mastered his text, they have demonstrated just those qualities of ruthlessness and ambition that qualify them to be ‘masters of the earth’. (Bull, 35)

One might recognize this as the first step in any grooming process: flatter your target, make them feel safe and loved. Fulfil for them a need: in this case, the need for power. Once the indoctrination has begun, those in power can begin to ostracize and criminalize the group they have othered. In Nietzsche’s case, few are left unscathed: only those powerful enough to say “yes” to the void will find within themselves the power to create value - and only they can survive the onslaught of nihilism. The rest will perish - and to Nietzsche, that is a good thing.

This is clearly mirrored in grooming tactics used by white supremacists and pedophiles. I will use my own experience as an example.

// CW: pedophilia, white supremacy //

As a child I spent a lot of time on a forum dedicated to the Super Mario Bros. franchise. The forum was not age-appropriate - several members talked openly about their time on 4chan; about pornography and subculture. Naturally I was curious. I wanted to consider myself grown, so I could talk about my interests. So I emulated the adults’ behavior. Eventually I started consuming pornography and visiting 4chan’s /b/ board. That’s where I was first exposed to Nazism and to child pornography. I recall having conversations about loli and shota when I was fairly young. I thought this was all quite normal - or at the very least, that I was strong enough to overcome whatever may happen to me as long as I could satisfy the need to see bodies like mine in a sexual context. In many cases, child pornography would be packaged alongside pornography featuring trans actors, as both were considered equally “alternative.” This is how I first discovered trans women - and this is not an uncommon narrative.

I was made comfortable: welcomed into a community where I could talk about my interests to a sympathetic audience. I was told I was special. I found myself trusting this community more than my local culture - they gave me an outlet to explore my queer identity from a young age. Then they showed me content that was actively harmful to my psyche - and I was threatened with jail time and social ostracization should I be caught. This is the grooming pattern.

Nietzsche makes his audience comfortable: he fulfils the need to obtain power through his writing style. He tells his audience they are special - literally superhuman. Then he launches abuse at every opportunity. He creates his sense of power through relating to the master race, the blonde beast; by actively deriding others and openly calling for the extermination of all “slave-like races.” And he says: we are unlike the others, you and I; and should you tell them this, you will be ostracized. So stay with me. Let’s conquer the world together.

This is directly echoed in the fascist grooming pipeline. Gamergate is an exceptional example: gamers were made to feel oppressed; they were made to be othered, then used the rage at their so-called oppression to be swayed into fascist beliefs. And should they leave, they too would be exterminated. You must be based. Kill the cringe. We see now the slogan “6MWE.” We see open genocide and warmongering in the American government (which, frankly, is nothing new). America has become a proudly fascist state - and much of this is with Nietzsche’s influence.

// CW //

If Nietzsche’s core project is abusive, how do we overcome it? Bull’s method is to reject the core hermeneutic: instead of reading for victory, we’ll read like losers. Whenever Nietzsche fires abuse at some subhuman thing, we will take the position of the abused. “Rather than reading for victory with Nietzsche, or even reading for victory against Nietzsche by identifying with the slave morality, we read for victory against ourselves, making ourselves the victims of the text. [...] Reading like losers will make us feel powerless and vulnerable” (Bull, 37). We can see this displayed quite clearly in cringe culture - it is an entire aesthetic created from the feeling of being worthless and small; of being less-than, plentiful, disposable - and embracing it. What does it mean to be one of these herd-creatures, so deprived of power? What could our values be?

c. Levelling

To understand what the losers of the nihilistic future believe in, we need to take a quick look at the history of Nietzsche’s interpreters, and how our understanding of the history of nihilism has developed over the years. This is the same history as the history of Being, the history of Nothingness. Bull spends much of the text discussing this, and it is well worth the read, but we’ll have to suffice for a brief synopsis here.

Bull brings us from the superman down to the lowest form, travelling from subhuman to animal to inanimate. He does so by continuing to read like a loser: examining Nietzsche himself, then Heidegger, then contemporary scholars Vatimo, Nancy, and Agamben. In each of these scholars Bull finds a target: for Nietzsche, the subhuman; for Heidegger, the animal; and for our contemporary scholars, the inanimate. In each case we must consider ourselves the loser of the exchange - we must consider ourselves as one with the subhuman, the animal, and the inanimate. We must become a mirror, reflecting on mu - absolute nothingness.

In essence: We must bring ourselves down to the lowest level of the un-valued if we are to escape the extremities of prejudice which Nietzsche’s lessons, so embedded in our culture, have taught us. This is levelling. Its essence is radical empathy. Nietzsche’s earlier works were focused on overcoming nihilism; he later gave up and decided that he must himself be a nihilist, one who destroys. Yet, in declaring himself a nihilist I think he was grasping at a concept that Hegel explains best: non-nihilating contradiction. To overcome nihilism is the same as to become a nihilist: to become dynamite - self-nihilating. If we are to reevaluate all values, we must obliterate ourselves. We must re-evaluate the concept of self, the concept of reality.

[thehmn]

I love love love nuanced and complicated fantasy/science fiction cultures. Nothing more boring than all good or all bad races, so I was really happy when it was revealed that the Asgardians have a past filled with war and slavery that they’re now trying to pretend didn’t happen.

And I love that the Xandarians are a thinly vailed fascist military state that throws people in inhuman prisons for “public drunkenness” but still has good people in it who just want to take care of their families and live their lives. Gray on gray morality. Love it.

So I was a little disappointed to see how the Kree/Skrull war was changed for the MCU. Now the Kree are just evil bastards who are hunting down the poor innocent Skrulls for no real reason.

It’s much more interesting in the comics where the Skrulls used to rule the Kree, keeping them as slaves and subjecting them to weird medical and social experiments. Eventually the Kree managed to do what Killmonger in Black Panther was hoping to archive: armed themselves and started killing their oppressors.

That’s why the Kree are the way they are today. They are extremely proud because they were kept down for so long, they ban interracial breeding because the Skrulls hid among them until the Kree lost their identity and sense of who they were, and they attract everyone so no one can enslave them again. Their identity is shaped by their past trauma. As Ronan says to the Xandarians “I will not forgive the murder of my father and his father, and his father before him” The Kree never fucking forget.

This doesn’t make them good guys. Anyone who wants to murder a baby because it’s ancestors killed your ancestors isn’t right in the head. But it does make things a lot more interesting, and I’m happy that the people behind the MCU have said there are some real evil Skrulls out there so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’re saving all this for a later reveal.

It would be an interesting look at revenge. Yeah, you should rise up against your oppressors but at what point do you stop? At what point were the Skrulls no longer the bad guys but the victims? And how does a guy like Talos feel about their history? It must be fucked up to know that the Kree are tearing through the universe now because your ancestors abused them. Does other races blame them for this? And we see that the Skrulls are still scientists. How do they feel about a lot of that knowledge probably coming from torturing Kree who are now trying to murder your whole family? Not to mention how Carol would feel about being tangled up in all of this.

As someone else said, it’s a real shame that a race of attractive queer space people who believe in free love and sex are such warmongers when their planet Hala could have been party central one and the Kree could have been the Most Popular Race In The Universe. Yes, isn’t it? And isn’t it a shame that good people like Talos and his family have to suffer for the cruelty of their ancestors?

Can I have that grey on grey complexity, please?

[sometimesrosy]

What is your take on the grounders? I just have no idea where their story is going since S3 essentially where we saw their politics they haven’t seemed to change or adapt at all. They are always one step away from a mutiny no matter who tries to unite them, its a never ending cycle of temporary unity, infighting, violence and mutiny.

Well, I mean... if the show is about breaking the cycle of violence and abuse and tyranny and putting humanity on a different path to a better world, then it seems to me that the STORY of the grounders is that the society needs to come to an end.

For precisely the reasons you mention.

It’s not the ONLY society that needs to come to an end. So does sky crew. The ark may not have been as violent and barbaric as the grounders, but it was more oppressive and repressive. MW also NEEDED to come to an end. It would have been nice to reintegrate some of those people into a new society but that was impossible because of the society as it was. Sanctum also needs to come to an end. It is fascist and a nightmare. The eligius prisoners are barely a society, they’re more like a bunch of violent criminals dressed sitting on each other’s shoulders and dressed in a trench coat. They nearly devoured themselves with the first freedom they found in Eden. I can’t tell about the COG yet. I don’t know who they are.

I think actually one of the main ideas of this story is revolutionary in nature.

In order to set the world on a better path, to do better, to be better, and allow humanity its redemption, the old world needs to end.

This is revolution.

Our heroes are the rebels. Sometimes they can change things without violence, using reason, community, support, friendship, opportunity, vision, etc. But when faced with violent societies that want to destroy opportunity, hope, opposition and their own people, then the only response is... well... violence.

If their position was that only peace was the answer, then Luna’s society would have survived, instead of being eaten by the original violence. If their position was that ONLY peace was the answer, then Monty would not ALSO have been a killer. 

Where is the story of the grounders going? Change or die. That’s where it’s going. 

We’ve got characters who supported that change... most notably Lincoln, who shifted the whole story. He died for it, but he didn’t fail. Luna failed because she didn’t support that change, she was an isolationist. She didn’t try to change anything, she just left it behind and ignored it and lived a life pretending it didn’t exist, no matter what happened. MAYA supported that change, and even though she didn’t survive, she succeeded. She wanted to help her people change but they were unable to, and so her people failed to change and died. Monty supported that change, and he SUCCEEDED, he didn’t fail. He may have failed with the earth itself, because the people, wonkru and eligius, were too violent, but he rescued the survivors and set them on a better path... a STEP to authentic transformation. GABRIEL supported that change and did what he could, but it was not enough. Perhaps he was too gentle, refusing to face down his people, who he loved, who were doing wrong. 

Oh hey. Diyoza supported that change... but I think she’s more like Clarke and Bellamy, willing to take down the evil in order to save the people. But she failed. And we didn’t see that story, we only saw her after she failed, although we did see her try to set up a better society, which also failed because of the violence of eligius and wonkru. So she failed there too. Kane also supported that change, he failed to do it himself, but influenced others, Bellamy, Octavia, Clarke, Miller, Harper, to do better. Sometimes the successes come in stages, and one generation alone can’t do it. 

Huh. It’s interesting that every one of our societies has rebels within it who attempt to change the violence.

THIS is the story of the rebels. 

The delinquents and their found family are the REBELS attempting to wrest the violence of their post apocalyptic societies away from the violence and oppression that surrounds them.

Hmm. I have a theory that I’m beginning to wonder about that grounds this science fiction show in history and the politics of the country that are blowing up right now. Ok. so stay with me. It all begins with JR, where he comes from, and what this show all MEANS. (I know everyone hates JR, but this is irrelevant in trying to UNDERSTAND JR, her perspective, and what he’s trying to say with this show.

First. JR is from Detroit. I mean, maybe he’s from white flight detroit or Grosse Point the rich suburb, idk. But where he’s from is a place that has suffered a LOT because of racism and class oppression. I had a slightly older baker friend (white lady) when I lived in Michigan, who told me stories of sitting on her front porch in Detroit, watching tanks drive down her street. And that put me to mind of what we’ve seen in the news lately, of militaristic forces going down civilian streets shooting rubber bullets to get them to go inside. 

So I googled to see where JR was from. I didn’t get anything specific about his background, but I did find out that before The 100, he created a pilot called “The Body Politic” that was a drama about about young DC staffers. It was never picked up but was considered “one of the best pilots you’ll never see.” [x] I was not clear on what “the body politic” meant, so I looked it up.

bod·y pol·i·tic/ˈˌbädē ˈpälətik/ noun

the people of a nation, state, or society considered collectively as an organized group of citizens."individual dissent was considered necessary to the health of the body politic"

huh. Body Politic. The head and the heart. And we’ve been talking about the parts of the body the other characters represent. 

I think The 100 is The Body Politic turned into a post apocalyptic sf show.

Okay. Back to detroit. I googled civil unrest detroit and found out about the 

The 1967 Detroit Riot, also known as the 12th Street Riot, was the bloodiest incident in the "Long, hot summer of 1967". Composed mainly of confrontations between black residents and the Detroit Police Department, it began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967, in Detroit, Michigan

I MEAN. Like. HELLO 2020. 

And it turns out that JR was born ONE MONTH before the Detroit Riot. Clearly too young to remember it, but also clearly, when looking at his creative projects, it DID influence him. 

He was born into a city in revolt. His show tells the story of the heroes of revolt, not the leaders or military (the guards who terrified octavia, bellamy becoming a guard as betrayal,) Also, he’s jewish and a lot of jewish people took part in the civil rights movement, and considering his story, he may have been raised by parents in a community that fought with black people against racism. This is speculation, but you can tell what matters to people by what they write about, and sff has ALWAYS offered a way for people to write about social injustice by taking it out of the context of the real world and putting it into a fantasy setting, thereby allowing people to see the people in the political conflicts without the implicit bias of our societal racism, bigotry, classism, homophobia and other isms. 

This analysis should make fans who think JR is going to go the way of D&D feel better. Because D&D NEVER EVER had political motivations to their work. They weren’t trying to make a better world, they were just trying to make money and are in fact on the side of the oppressors, as you can see by how the story ended up when they were in charge of the narrative. Because according to what I’m saying, JR is on the side of the oppressed, and on the side of the revolutionaries who want to end the system that tyrannizes them. So our heroes, the revolutionaries, should be victorious. He’s not going grim dark. He’s going hope in the darkness. It might still be a romantic tragedy, but these revolutionaries are going to win and bring about the rebirth of humanity. 

Where was I going with this?

Oh you asked about the grounders and you got a surprise “JR says we’re going to find out what it all means, what does it all mean???” answer.

Because the answers are connected. Where is the society of the grounders going? Where all the oppressive societies are going. Gone.

If they don’t change with the revolution, they’re going to be eradicated. SOME are changing. Niylah, Gaia, Indra. 

Our friends are burning down the old world, so that the new world may start again. That’s what wanheda is for. The poison must be cut out. The cancer must be killed. The deadwood must be burned. 

Make it go boom. 

[arcticdementor]

Recently, a lot of you who told me I was insane when I said that Winnie the flu was all theater and though it existed and was a flu and would probably take “severe flu, no vaccine numbers” it was and is stupid to lock the sick and the healthy in, destroy the economy and make everyone wear a mask, have come back and ask how I knew. And apologized.

Well, attention in the isles, my friends on the right: you are falling for the same king of bullshit diversion. You are being spun like a top. And you’re falling for it and falling in line.

I blame you and I don’t. You didn’t grow up with the constant-pretend-reality of communist psi-ops, and you haven’t learned to smell it.

Over and over again, you condemn Trump and the “rioters.”

NO ONE RIOTED. Not compared to this summer. THERE WERE NO RIOTS. And the protesters were treated with an iron fist and live ammo, btw.

There are videos. I don’t know which ones are still live. They keep removing them. There was no riot. There was a protest. You know, those things that are vital for public health?

Did they go into the Capitol? Yes they did. You know what? It’s a public building. WE PAY FOR THE F*CKING CAPITOL’S UPKEEP.

But, but but…. the congress critters ran. They were scared!

Were they now? WHY? No, seriously, why were they scared, if the people they work for want to watch the deliberations. They’re in our presence all the time. You know the worst thing we do — or used to do — we called them traitors. That was it.

But they vandalized Nancy Pelosi’s office! Oh, my stars and garters? Evil people. Was that before or after she vandalized our constitution and sank a knife in the heart of the republic? Is the evil bitch dangling from a lamppost this morning? No? They were civilized beyond all hope.

But Sarah, you’ll say, this will give them the excuse to avenge themselves on us.

Dear idiots, you’re like the wife with her arm in a sling and both eyes blackened telling her husband “Please don’t say anything to Joe. He’ll be mad.”

In other words, are you out of your ever loving little minds? These people STOLE two elections — it’s now absolutely obvious the nominal right is fine with this. They hope for crumbs from their masters’ tables. The left is more likely to kill them, but never mind — in a row, in full view, and refused to let us have our day in court to show the evidence. Because the American people are now peons with NO STANDING and can be disenfranchised with no punishment. But you’re afraid that largely (truly) peaceful protesters “made them mad?”

Withdrawing the objection to the fraudulent votes due to the riot? That only makes sense in the mind of an abuser. “I stole your thing, and I was going to maybe give it back, but you cried, so now you don’t get it back.” Are you all actually out of your ever loving minds to blame the protesters and Trump for this?

These people are saying “You peasants dared to show up in our presence. We’re now going to take away even the illusion of franchise.” And…. you’re cool with this? It’s the protesters fault?

Get up off the floor. Wipe the blood from your lip. KNOW WHO YOUR ABUSER IS.

And BTW it’s not Trump. Trump thought maybe if congress saw how ad people were, they would play straight. I said before that’s all the protest was about, and that’s all it was. He told people to go home when it was obvious it had failed.

And I hope to G-d someone with access to him reads this and tells him it’s time. Take the family NOW and go to an undisclosed location. As much as it hurts me to say this, because I want him to continue harassing the left, he has to realize this is no longer the sweet land of liberty. This is now a tyrannical third world shithole. Or will be within months from the way our occupiers are behaving. They will find a way to kill him and his whole family, or kill him and turn his family against him. Go Mr. President. G-d bless. You’ve done all that you could. If the so called right in this country will pearl clutch and blame even people who engage in a very mild protest, they deserve what’s to come.

He now promises an orderly transition. I will tell all of you that DEAD is the most orderly of all states. And right now the Republic is effectively dead. There might be a hope for CPR, but I’m not sure there’s the will to apply it. Pence has joined the rats fleeing to the lefty rotten ship. because he hopes that will save his life. Spoiler, it won’t. The left will kill all the right who turns their coat. Because they can’t trust them. Good. They deserve it. I shall eat popcorn.

Do we ever get the republic back? I don’t know. I think the most likely thing is that we fall apart into separate states while around us the world falls into chaos, famine and misery. We’ve been feeding the world for a century. The world had better look to itself now.

What do those of us who’ve sworn an oath to the constitution do? I don’t know. Most are still busily doing a Peter in Pontius Pilates Yard “I was never with him.”

Oh, and there’s talks of rounding up Trump supporters. Of denying them flights and hotels and the ability to engage in commerce.

I suppose that’s the “protesters” fault too? Except that that, like the paper to withdraw objections because of the “protest” were already written. They would have found an excuse.

I don’t want war. But I liked having a homeland. To everyone who, like me, came here as the last place of refuge: I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to tell you. We need to fight this, but even if we do, unless the natural-born citizens see what they’re losing, it’s unlikely we’ll ever get our country back.

This morning, in DC, the police are beating down what remains of protesters. A young woman was murdered in cold blood yesterday.

And our side is pearl clutching and tut tuting, and hoping the abuser won’t get mad. Oh, and talking about 2022, because seeing two elections frauded RIGHT BEFORE THEIR EYES and courts refusing to let anyone see evidence of it is not enough. They need to be stomped on some more before they believe they’ve lost the franchise.

Me? I’ve seen what happens when your votes don’t matter. Elections will continue as a form, possibly for fifty years, if we let this bullshit go on that long. Your next president after Commie laWhorish is Michelle Obama, because the ignorant bitch hasn’t shit on us enough. She felt stupid and inferior at Harvard, and by gum, she’s going to make you grovel to pay for your sins.

But your real masters are now Winnie the Pooh and his merry band of fascists. And we know what they do and how.

I can’t get the order, but we’re about to see: social credit; the banning of conservatives from the internet; branding us as terrorists, just as they’re doing to innocent protesters; show trials; people disappearing; our money confiscated; our houses confiscated; more lock downs, to prevent revolt; more masks to promote alienation; more lies.

When people die in the famine to come, it will be Covid-19 and Trump’s fault and you’ll be required to repeat it publicly.

It wont’ last. These commies are industrial-level STUPID. It won’t last. I give them ten years, maybe, before most of the country is starving, and they have no clue what to do about it. And then it all falls apart, because unlike Venezuelans, we have no one to help and no place to run to.

Or, you know, we can stop pearl clutching and say “Hell no.” and “Molon labe” and stop repeating the lies the left wants written into history.

To lefty idiots: yes, the election was stolen. Because if it had NOT been, the left would have joined the right in demanding the courts take the case, and that it be shown to all as an honest election. Also, to lefty idiots, what the protesters — and all of us at home — want? ANOTHER ELECTION with minimum accountability. I mean, we can’t even clean the roles. There wouldn’t be enough time. We just wanted to make sure each person voted only once, and the votes were counted with full supervision.

Instead, you’re handing off the country to China, via their bought and paid for man, Biden. Yes, I know you heard good things about China. You’ll find out, along with the craven right that the leftist press makes Pravda seem honest. Enjoy the ride.

As for you and me, my friends. We’re going to eat the bread that the devil baked. Save what you can from the ruin. It won’t be much. And don’t let them into your head. NEVER let them into your head. They’re invaders. They’re oppressors. They’re thieves. Treat them as what they are. Do not comply unless you have to, and then engage in malicious compliance.

Keep the republic in your heart. Maybe there are enough of us left that it will rise again. But in the meantime, this is going to hurt and hurt badly. And the longer the restoration of law takes, the higher the butcher’s bill.

Most of you have no idea how bad it will get. Imagine your worst nightmares. Then double them. Prepare for that as best you can. You won’t be able to do much. If you’re lucky they’ll leave you your conscience.

Your country was invaded (even if the invaders were born here, their masters aren’t) and is about to be raped. The least you can do is not cooperate.

[deogenezen]

A Leader’s Great Influence

Hello! We are Group 3 and today we proudly present to you our blog! 

To give you all a short preview, when all our essays are compiled, it revolves around one topic - A Leader’s Power in Effect to his or her Followers. 

                                                   ✯

─── ──── ──── ❝ Ways of being a Leader ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Alfonso Herrero)

          Napoleon, who is the leader of Animal Farm, and Duterte, who is the President of the Philippines, have some similarities and differences on how they run their government and how they rule their people. Sometimes, one leader is better than the other in how they do things. With so much power in their possession, Napoleon and Duterte used their powers in many different ways that made their own followers have conflict with themselves or their supporters into their enemies. 

          These two leaders have a distinct way of addressing their followers. They both have others who act as a dictionary to make the people understand what they said or did. These two leaders have others twist their words and actions to make it less controversial. Duterte has Roque as the Presidential Spokesperson, as he is the one who sometimes, sits in front of the cameras to repeat what the president said. Napoleon has Squealer to explain his actions to the other animals to make them think that Napoleon is not breaking the seven commandments.

          Both of these leaders have lied to their followers multiple times. These promises were made as a way to gain the favor of everyone. Back at the 2016 election, Duterte promised to fight for the West Philippine Sea. Right now, all we see is him being friendly with China and just letting them take what is rightfully ours. Napoleon lied to the animals because he broke majority of the rules that he implemented for everyone. An obvious commandment he broke was “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy” as we read in the last chapter that he was walking on two legs. 

          These two leaders, no matter what they do, they will always have some people who will not always agree with them. While they experience the same thing, they have different ways on how to respond to those people. Napoleon will kill anyone who will go against him. Like how he killed the chickens because they weren’t willing to give up their eggs. He killed other animals as well because they confessed that they had been working with Snowball all along. As for Duterte, he answers back to his critics in a non-professional way and acts immaturely. When he receives criticism from anyone, he will take it as a personal attack and not as a way to improve himself. An example of this is how he responded to Leni Robredo’s criticism against him during Typhoon Ulysses. He answered back to Robredo by saying that she herself was not doing anything and that she was just sleeping with another man while the Typhoon was happening. 

          Both Napoleon and Duterte have a special group of people that will help them intimidate their opponents and anyone who will try to go against them. This show of force is a way to strike fear within people so any sort of resistance against them will be discouraged. Duterte’s way of intimidating people is with the use of the Military and Police. He uses the military and police against the communist party of the Philippines and any drug users. Napoleon has his dogs that he stole from their parents when they were born. Napoleon uses the dogs to chase Snowball out of Animal Farm and to kill animals who confessed their crimes. 

          The people in their land work hard for the benefit of everyone else, but they were treated differently. In the Philippines, when you’re a taxpayer and already retired, every month you get a pension depending on how much you contributed during your working days. Another benefit is that you are granted benefits from PhilHealth if anything happens to you or to anyone from your family. Napoleon treats his people differently. He bosses everyone around only for the benefits of himself and not for other animals. He has no respect towards them and doesn’t care about their contribution to the animal farm. He killed the chickens because they did not want to give up their eggs and he killed Boxer because he could no longer do his work properly. 

          Napoleon and Duterte have some similarities and differences on how they run the land that they lead. One similarity is that they lied to their people to gain their favor and one difference is how they treat the people who work hard for the benefit of their land. While our officials are terrible leaders right now, we’re lucky they aren’t worse than other leaders were.

                                                  ✯

── ─── ❝ Perfecting Absolute Fascist-Communism  ❞ ─── ──

(By: Allan Dela Cruz)

          In animal farm, Orwell explicitly made direct allegories to real-life counterparts. Among which include the creation of animal farm; in which the real-life counterpart would be the Russian revolution – seeing as the animals overthrew the “Czar” in this case. The different and diverse class system and their familiar government system named “animal system” which screams of the modern-day socialist system built by Marx. But the most prominent similarity by far is the representation of totalitarian dictators, in this case, Napoleon; is to Stalin. 

          Both leaders assert their influence in both the military and the constitution. Both have played their own share of politics – and both have won with ruthless force and became dictators. Using both of their absolute and authoritarian power to corrupt and exploit too much of what is, “necessary”. And both having been an inspirational leader. These are the qualities that Orwell clearly wanted to point out to his readers. In terms of contrast, while both leaders are downright power-hungry. I think with Napoleon; he is more interested in his personal (or his kin’s) goals and gains compared to Stalin. While Stalin is greedy, greedy in a sense for the “betterment” of his country, I mean all classes regardless of noble-born or peasants as he was one of the people who revolted against the much privileged and unfair Czars that it only made sense to him for Russia to reform. Stalin's problem was his means to get there, which involved the gulags that made them no better than the 3rd Reich. I do not think Napoleon and the pigs care about the other farm animals, as they focus too much on their self-interest and abuse it to the point of exploiting the other animals. While Stalin technically exploited his citizens, his “first plan" [also called the great turn] – industrialized and modernized Russia in just five years. Russia turned into a once primitive and backward empire - whilst taking no heed by the Czars - into a prospering union – with the help of the gulags of course. While back in animal farm, while they have their own version of gulags – albeit less brutal – the benefits they get from it anyway is almost nonexistent, and that most of it just goes immediately to the pig’s self-interest.

          That being said, I think what Orwell’s trying to aim at is that the nature of totalitarianism can be easily distinguished – albeit the way he portrays it can be exaggerated – and that it must be avoided, which is propaganda really.

                                                 ✯

── ❝  The Practice of Abuse in the Russian Revolution ❞ ──

(By: Eurick Gamboa)

          Orwell has allegories hidden in the story Animal Farm. It overlooks the Russian revolution. The Animal Farm also focused on the system dictatorship, symbolizing Napoleon. There was also a social class system which was called the “Animal System”, which shows the modern day socialism system. Orwell's main message in Animal Farm is that power can corrupt, even when idealism is at the start. The allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917, where the Bolsheviks overthrew the tsar to establish a communist regime.

          One of the novel’s most impressive accomplishments, is its portraits of not just the figures in power, but also the oppressed people themselves. Animal Farm is not told from the perspective of any character in the story. Rather, the story is told from the perspective of the common animals as a group. Foolish, loyal, corrupt, and hardworking, the animals gives Orwell a chance to tell how situations of oppression rose, not only from the motives of the oppressors, but also from the naiveness of the oppressed. When presented with a situation, one of the characters, Boxer, prefers not to be suspicious, so instead he repeats to himself the mottos such as, “Napoleon is always right” and “I will work harder.” Animal Farm demonstrates how the inability to question authority criticizes the working class to suffer the full extent of the ruling class’s oppression.

          One of the Commandments was “All animals are equal”. However, this equality was shortly diminished and the pigs began to bend the rules until inequality returned to the farm and the pigs gained power. Orwell used the animals and their actions to make the reader think about equality and inequality. Before 1917, the majority of Russian people suffered from great inequality. They had far less money and food than the ruling classes. However, before the rebellion in Animal Farm, Mr. Jones takes everything that the animals have been keeping or have been caring for away from them. After the Rebellion the animals were free from the tyranny of Mr. Jones and seek to establish equality amongst themselves once and for all. 

          In conclusion, Orwell's message warns readers about allowing smart, selfish politicians to abuse power and gradually take away civil rights and independence. He warns his readers about the various methods of manipulation and propaganda used by oppressive regimes to crush and control the people.

                                                ✯

─── ──── ──── ❝ Napoleon and Trump ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Breanna Geronimo)

          The boar, named Napoleon, is the leader of animal farm. He became the leader of the Animal Farm (also known as Manor Farm) when the animals rebelled against the humans, specifically Mr. Jones which was the owner of the Manor Farm. The current President of the United States now is Donald Trump, he won his position last January 20, 2017 and his term will end on January 20, 2021.

          Napoleon is a corrupt leader because he only does things that benefits himself. One example was when he stole the idea of Snowball, which was to build a windmill. Another example is that he would also use Squealer to tell all of the animals lies and anything that will make him look correct and good. He is also a greedy leader because he wants all the power of being a leader to be his. He also has a tendency to get too much of everything/ tend to get things that he does not need. An example is when he and the pigs drinks all of the milk and does not give/ provide for the other animals. In my opinion, he is a leader who does not promote/ give equality, because he does not treat the animals equally. For an instance, he said that “no animal, shall sleep in a bed” then he changed it to “no animal, shall sleep in bed, with blankets.” He changed the rules so that he and the pigs can sleep in a bed, while the other animals aren’t allowed to.

          Trump as I have said is the President of the United States. He is a corrupt president, because just like Napoleon, he would do anything that can benefit him and his family. For an instance, he corrupted the tax system and funded his own taxes (David Halperin, Oct 26,2020). President Trump can also be a greedy leader because he eviscerated health care, because of his hatred for the former President of the United States, Barack Obama. In my opinion, I also do know and believe that he is a President who does not give/ promote equality. For an instance, He calls “Black Lives Matter (BLM)” a symbol of hate. I do believe that what some of the Americans did was inappropriate (like breaking glass of buildings and stealing) but he still does not have the right to say that it was a symbol of hate. Because what the Americans only wanted was for them to have equality.

          Both Napoleon and President Trump are leaders of a certain area/place and they can also tend to be corrupt and greedy leaders. The only difference that I can find between Napoleon and President Trump is that Napoleon is a fictional character and President Trump is not. They are also not the same type of animal Napoleon is a boar while President Trump is human. I just hope that someday people will be able to learn from people who are trustworthy, kind and loving to their country and countrymen.

                                               ✯

─── ──── ──── ❝ The Rule of Dictators ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Liezl Montemayor)

         Lives dictated by leaders, such as Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos, had their followers struggle with threats, abuses, and inexorable deaths. These two leaders are corrupt and used all means to keep their power and wealth all for themselves. Because of how much they wanted to satisfy their greed for power has brought many to rebel against them. Therefore, corrupt and dictating leaders, such as themselves, must be impeached for a better society.

          To start, Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos have quite a similarity in their excellent side of leadership traits, though they will soon break their image of good leadership in the future. An example of Napoleon’s leadership trait is uniting and directing the animals to a specific goal. He also organized the structure of power of the animals on the farm. On the other hand, Ferdinand Marcos treats his officials with civility and respect. He also approved building infrastructures to increase the economic growth of the Philippines.

          With such leadership, there is no doubt that the threats and civil strife will arise against Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos’s position. Luckily, they could see this coming and used their power to threaten and terrorize such menace against them. For Napoleon, he used his loyal dogs as a shield to protect his position. Meanwhile, Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law, which will soon bring abuse, threats, and deaths among his country’s people.

          The dogs, Napoleon raised were used to kill and terrorize the animals who dared to threaten their master’s position. They were monsters that got brainwashed with the teachings they learned from Napoleon as they were isolated when young. Because of such a horrific event that the animals experienced, Napoleon’s greed has shown that the surviving animals could no longer differentiate pigs from humans. At the same time, Ferdinand Marcos was no different from being greedy with all that he possessed. He violated human rights of his citizens through armed forces and other means. Then, time went by that these violations could no longer be tolerated, and people started to perform reformist oppositions, revolutionary oppositions, and religious oppositions.

          Greed to gain power is the paramount satisfaction of leaders that corrupt and abuse their followers and environment. To attain a prosperous state, a leader must have a great passion and qualities that may influence everyone and everything that surrounds them. Keep in mind; dictators have pros and cons that significantly affect their followers and the situation itself. Goals are set for citizens to seek development of their environment, not its destruction. Eyes must open to free oneself from lies and fear because a life dictated like a puppet is not a solution for a better society everyone aims for.   

                                              ❈ ❈ ❈

References used for the Blog: 

More Equal Than You- (Napoleon Animal Farm) by Stardust-Legend on. (2018, January 24). DeviantArt. https://www.deviantart.com/stardust-legend/art/More-Equal-Than-You-Napoleon-Animal-Farm-727346398

References used by Herrero:

References used by Delacruz:

PLOT SUMMARY, BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9w7mp3/revision/1#:~:text=Animal%20Farm%20was%20written%20by,Russian%20politicians%2C%20voters%20and%20workers. 

World war I Russian revolution, Ducksters Education site, https://www.ducksters.com/history/world_war_i/russian_revolution.php#:~:text=The%20Russian%20Revolution%20took%20place,country%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union.

Fascism, Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/26/stalin-was-a-greater-fascist-than-bandera-or-mussolini/

https://www.slideshare.net/prime_metin/animal-farm-17943780

References used by Gamboa:

https://www.history.com/topics/russia/russian-revolution

http://links.org.au/russian-revolutions-1917-paul-le-blanc

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/george-orwell-s-message-in-the-novel-448825

https://www.achievementfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Ideas-8.pdf

References used by Geronimo:

https://twitter.com/pinkpolitical/status/1001824330446237698?lang=ga

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53261067

https://www.republicreport.org/2020/ten-reasons-trump-is-the-most-corrupt-president-in-u-s-history/

References used by Montemayor:

Human rights abuses of the Marcos dictatorship. (2020, December 16). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_abuses_of_the_Marcos_dictatorship

(n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://study.com/academy/answer/what-made-napoleon-a-great-leader-in-animal-farm.html

Three important leadership traits from Ferdinand Marcos. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.fef.org.ph/gerardo-sicat/three-important-leadership-traits-from-ferdinand-marcos/

Arillo, C. (2015, November 13). Marcos's unmatched legacy: Hospitals, schools and other infrastructures: Cecilio Arillo. Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://businessmirror.com.ph/2015/11/13/marcoss-unmatched-legacy-hospitals-schools-and-other-infrastructures/

Animal Farm. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-does-napoleon-from-book-animal-farm-contribute-129633

How Napoleon Takes and Maintains Control Of Animal Farm in George Orwell's Novel. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.bartleby.com/essay/How-Napoleon-Takes-and-Maintains-Control-Of-P3JR8GAZTJ

M. (2017, February 12). ANIMAL FARM. Nerdy254. https://kathmandupost.com/opinion/2017/12/06/dialectics-of-dictatorship. (2017, December 6). 

[mandala-lore]

I find every group assembly of humans destructive and toxic. Proud boys, antifa, million MAGAs or BLM I just think that large groups of people are fucking horrible and cause so much pain and burden. every time I voice this hot take Im called racist

Well, I suppose I genuinely, literally did ask for this. In all fairness to me, however, idk what the fuck you're doing following me....

Look, there's a lot to unpack here but I'm gonna keep it simple because I'm not that smart and there are smarter people who can dig into the ethical/philosophical issue you have with allllll groups of people. (Which in itself isn't....racist.... But feels very.... Gross....)

My simplest thing is this: groups that rally themselves around bigotry, conservativism, nationalism, etc are a way bigger problem and cause way more harm than groups that form in response to violence (as a defensive or offensive measure) and/or to do the hard, unforgiving work toward liberation.

These groups you've listed are not all equal. They're not two sides of the same coin.

People organizing and marching and fighting back against oppression and violence are not "just as bad" as their oppressors.

You need - and I mean NEED - to sit down and ask yourself, ask yourself gently, then brutally, and painfully honestly, ask yourself WHAT specifically is horrible about each group. Make lists. Pros and Cons. Make a flow chart. Do some research. Read up on these groups, their founders, their ideals, their movements.

If you come back from that soul searching, that learning, and that research and you still think all organized groups of people are equally bad.... I'm not equipped to help you.

I understand and sympathize that, in all large groups there will be disagreements and abuses and friction............. But I don't think that's what you're referring to here.

If you think that all human groups are inherently destructive and toxic, that is a very depressing outlook and you need to address that within yourself.

ALSO for the love of fucking god, antifa is not an organized group. It's a phrase that literally just means "antifascist". There are tons of different regional groups that use the term and they are not all organized together under one big group, nor should they be.

I'm antifa because Fuck Fascists. If your grandparents killed Nazis, they were antifa too. If you're not antifa, you're, what, Pro-Fascist? Learn to google.

[crystalelemental]

Edelgard’s an emperor trying to expand her empire. Adrestia’s got that clear German influence. Flayn, Seteth and Serios can be killed in BE and they’re among the last members of their race, so that’s where “Edelgard commits genocide” comes from.

Damn, is that where it came from?  You know what, fuck it, I can appreciate a good asspull, 10/10.

But seriously, I feel like this must have started as a joke, and was taken seriously and became a real thing people now argue over.  There’s no way that started real.  Like...you took one data point out of context, and another you forced a convenient interpretation onto to make the claim.  That’s absurd.  Like...okay, first off, does Edelgard even know that Flayn and Seteth are dragonkin?  Because, like...I didn’t.  For a while.  They mention pretty early on that the saints and heroes could have ridiculously long lifespans, and it was pretty apparent that Seteth and Flayn were related to the saints, so for a while I just assumed that was all it was.  I can’t even remember when I started to connect they might be dragons too, and I think it was specifically when they start talking about how Rhea is like family.  Which happens in the Church route, an entirely separate reality.  Secondly, if we’re going to start counting “killed the last known dragon” as a form of genocide, then I’m pretty sure about every lord in Fire Emblem is guilty.  Killing dragons, especially corrupted or evil ones, is kind of a series staple.  Hell, apparently they’re not even the last, they’re “among the last.”  I’m really hoping that has to do with the Nabateans that Seiros mentions near the end of BE route.  God, please tie this in to some dragon society.

Moreover though, it’s just amazing to me that this is the direction we take with Edelgard’s character.  You know the first thing that happens when you join Edelgard against the Church?  She asks everyone if they’re sure they want to stay, and tells them they can leave if they’re not up for it.  What a vile, power-hungry fascist, allowing her friends and comrades to duck out of a conflict they may not be ready for.  When you take over major areas, her first declaration is for everyone to drop their weapons and cease fighting.  Again, so vicious.  Or hell, how about Hubert and Ferdinand’s B-support, where we’re told point-blank that Edelgard intended to allow their enemies to go free?  It’s Hubert who sends the order to kill; Edelgard had every intention of allowing her enemies to live.  What an unbelievable showing of cruelty.  Hell, even her motivations don’t line up.  Yes, her goal is to unify the continent within her empire.  I haven’t finished the game yet, but one of her proclamations is that the Church was explicitly responsible for creating the divisions between nations, and that this division held people back.  I dunno, maybe that’s right.  Even if it’s not, the Church is responsible for keeping a lot of secrets about relics, crests, and crest stones from everyone, and has shaped history to the current form where Crests are all-important, to a degree where many go to disgusting lengths to obtain them.  Edelgard’s entire MO is basically “Eat the rich.”  She hates the nobility that stole power from the emperor, and immediately used that power to torture children to essentially create weapons bearing two crests, and called it “research.”  She was one such kid experimented on.  If we seriously want to talk about who’s the oppressed and who are the oppressors, it doesn’t take both brain cells to figure out Edelgard was on the worse end of this.

Hers is the story of a child abused by society at large, recognizing those responsible for setting the conditions that allow or even celebrate these atrocities, and rising up to dismantle the systems that protect them.  At every step of the way, she’s resolute, but she’s clearly not happy that things have to go this way.  She cries when she has to kill Dimitri.  Someone out to kill her who would stop at nothing, and she cries over the fact that nothing would have been able to stay his hand.  I’m not saying she’s a perfect cinnamon roll who did nothing wrong.  She fucks up quite a bit.  She never once talks with Dimitri about the truth of what happened before the timeskip, which could’ve saved everyone a lot of trouble.  She could have been more detailed about the problems the Church is responsible for, because believe me, having played it, I’m still not entirely clear on their role, which made it harder to understand why they’re her target.  Her ambitions being largely for the greater good don’t excuse the fact that she’s willing to jump to subjugation through force in a case like with the Alliance.  Hell, you could argue that Dimitri, even consumed entirely by his lust for revenge, didn’t need to die, and that she’s simply justifying the solution that’s most convenient for her.  All of those criticisms I’m fine with.  But my god, it’s like you don’t know how to tell someone with complex motives and questionable actions from a sociopath.

Personally, I blame Fates.  I feel like a lot of Fire Emblem does pretty well with moral gray, and characters who can seem purely evil having a complex history or motivation.  Those qualities are what drew me in so much when I first played through Blazing Blade.  But Fates...did a terrible job of this.  Garon and his goons were so transparently evil as to be cartoons, and Hoshido was left to be the pure “did nothing wrong” victim good guys despite showing the more overt levels of racism and hatred toward their enemies.  They created this concept of picking a side as if they were equal and just butchered it so hard.  Awakening was...actually really not much better about this at all.  So I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised that many newer fans to the series are seeing this game play out and trying to fit it into a neat little pure good and pure evil box, but that’s not the way the series has traditionally played out.  I hate to be this much of a snob, but god Three Houses feels like a proper return to form.  It legitimately feels the same as when I played the Radiant games the first time through, only without the frustration of the fucking bridge.  This moral complexity is how the series is meant to run, and by god it feels good to be back in a game that has this kind of depth.