#militant Harry

[sitp-recs]

15 fics with Militant Harry

I don’t know you guys but I’m equally soft for recluse!Harry and for militant!Harry. Maybe because I’m a sucker for political fics? Truth is, seeing Harry get involved can be so thrilling and inspiring. He doesn’t need to be attached to the Ministry to care about people - I love it when he’s doing the good deed behind the scenes, dismantling corruption while on the run, funding charities or unapologetically using his fame and voice to leverage better policies for those who are marginalized. That’s such a beautiful and powerful Harry trope imo, and the best thing is that in many of the fics I highlight below, Draco either seduces him into joining the revolution, or is there to inspire and help him along the way. Talk about a power couple! I hope you all enjoy these as much as I did ♥️

A Little Death Never Hurt Anyone by @tackytigerfic (E, 4k)

Harry's getting good at slipping through the Veil. He's determined to win the war, even if means he has to raise the dead to do it. Draco just wants a stiff drink and a good night's sleep.

And Save Me From Bloody Men by @blamebrampton (T, 10k)

Draco Malfoy once watched others fighting to stop the world falling apart. This time, he's not just watching.

Two Zinnias and the Scent of Lemon by @the-starryknight (M, 16k)

The Ministry didn’t turn bad overnight. Harry didn’t suddenly turn rogue either. Between covert Legilimency links and Polyjuice disguises and running and running and running, Draco has forgotten what it is like to have a safe harbor that isn’t a person. If there’s an art to fighting back, then they’ll find it hand in hand.

Vortex by @xanthippe74 (T, 20k)

Ten years after that conversation, the idea of perfectly-matched soulmates feels more like a curse than a blessing to Draco. Who would want a soulmate who was a schoolyard bully, a Death Eater, and a convicted felon? Certainly not Harry Potter. And Draco is determined to take this secret to the grave.

Unfinished Business by cupiscent (E, 20k)

Ten years after the War ends, Harry and Draco still haven't got their act together. But maybe it's not too late.

Doing the Lambeth Walk by @blamebrampton (T, 26k)

There are only three traditional choices for the cashed-up hero after victory. Harry Potter is too young to settle down and provide the wizarding world with a happy ending, and has too acute a sense of humour to spiral downwards into a spectacular flame-out. That leaves a life of good works. Choosing to lead it in Muggle Brixton comes with its own set of challenges, including Malfoys in the biscuit aisle.

The Nobility of Ascent by Lomonaaeren (E, 27k)

Not even his own fame and power are enough to get the Wizengamot to pass laws protecting Muggleborn and orphaned children, so Harry swallows his pride and goes to Draco Malfoy, who can teach him how to convince the prejudiced old bastards to listen to him. And Malfoy hasn’t even named a price. Which…concerns Harry, but he’s found a cause worth living for. And maybe someone, too.

Little Compton Street (One Rainy Night in Soho) by @writcraft (E, 65k)

Draco is lonely, Harry hates the press and it won’t stop raining in London. Harry discovers a magical street that’s close to disappearing forever and Draco realises he’s one rainy night in Soho away from finding everything he’s been searching for.

A Young Radical's Guide to Love by @blamebrampton (T, 66k)

Memories of the war are still fresh, which is all the excuse Decent People need to do appalling things. In this quietly waged conflict, Draco Malfoy is happy to be on the right side of things for once, and even happier to find he’s not alone.

Dear Enemy by GingerTodgers (T, 69k)

An anonymous benefactor makes a generous donation to Harry Potter's School for Squibs in exchange for a weekly letter from the Boy Who Lived. What begins as a chore soon becomes the only outlet Harry has to talk about the war, love, life, hope, redemption, his renewed obsession with a certain blonde nemesis and how he really, honestly, believes that this will be the year Puddlemere United reclaim the Quidditch League Cup.

Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love by @aibidil (E, 80k)

In which a group of wizards' rights activists goes on the offensive after a prohibition against love potions, forcing the magical world to confront the horror of magic's role in sexual assault and the murky legal nature of consent. Ron, Hermione, Harry, and Draco are swept together to solve the case, and in the process they're made to confront their own love and lust—with and without potions.

Super Rich Kids by @thusspoketrish (E, 81k)

Draco Malfoy has become disillusioned by the glitz and glamour of the scandalous lives of the Post-Second Wizarding War Pureblood Elite. Enter: one existential crisis, one group of thieving cynical friends, and several terrible, terrible decisions.

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them (or Draco Malfoy's Guide to Stop Dying and Start Living Instead) by nerakrose (T, 96k)

Malfoy is way too interested in coroner reports for somebody who's definitely not looking for ways to die, Harry wants to be friends with him, and Ginny wants to break up with Harry.

Who we are in the shadows by @quicksilvermaid (E, 100k)

What happens when you’re forced to become the very thing you despise? Ex-Auror Harry Potter, tossed out of the Ministry for something he had no control over, has been looking for a way back to his former life. When he comes across Draco Malfoy in the criminal underbelly of Wizarding London and in need of protection, Harry figures bringing him in to face the Ministry's justice is his ticket back to everything he's lost.

By the Grace by lettered (T, 140k)

Harry is an Auror instructor. Malfoy wants to be an Auror.

[boyohazard]

Watching "The Chute" and thinking about how the early Internet must have reacted. Like there must've been riots in the virtual streets

[primepaginequotidiani]

PRIMA PAGINA De Morgen di Oggi giovedì, 25 luglio 2024

[decolonize-the-everything]

I feel like we all glanced over Kamala saying "strength through unity" a little too fast.

That was literally the slogan Mussolini used to gain popularity and I just. Maybe we all should care about that more.

That "in a choice between Hitler and Mussolini, choose Mussolini" joke might not be a fucking joke

He coined the name of the party based on the Italian word for bundle—fascio—in reference to bundles of rods used in ancient Rome to symbolize strength through unity. The party emphasized national unity—even if it required violence to keep dissenters in check. “Basically, Mussolini hated the Socialists, and so did the rest of the Fascists,” Ebner said. “One driving force behind Fascist violence was their desire to punish the Socialists for not supporting Italy during the Great War (World War I). The Fascists viewed the Socialists as cowardly traitors, internal enemies, who needed to be eradicated.”

See also:

The Economist, for example, which on November 4, 1922, sympathized with Mussolini’s aim of imposing a “drastic cutting down of public expenditure” in the name of the “the crying need for sane finance in Europe,” rejoiced in March 1924: “Signor Mussolini has restored order, and eliminated the chief factors of disturbance.”

In particular, “wages reached their upper limits, strikes multiplied.” These were the factors of disturbance, and “no government was strong enough to attempt a remedy.” In June 1924, the Times, which called fascism an “anti-waste” government, praised it as a solution to the ambitions of the “Bolshevist peasantry” in “Novara, Montara, and Alessandria” and “the brutal stupidity of these folk,” seduced by “experiments in so-called collective management”.

Fascism responded to what was perceived as the failures of both liberal and socialist ideologies. It is a kind of totalitarianism, demanding reverence for the state and its leader and an elimination of political opposition. Fascist regimes are also characterized by a reliance on propaganda, a focus on militarism, and a concern with indoctrinating youth, as well as by the persecution, ethnic cleansing, or genocide of minority groups. Adolf Hitler used Italian Fascism as a model for his own, though his version of fascism was more violent, racist, and genocidal. In 1936 Mussolini formally signed a treaty with Hitler to form a Rome-Berlin “axis.”

source

"I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world." - Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

[qqueenofhades]

Hello, qqueenofhades!

I just want to say, that ever since I discovered you in the week following Biden stepping down, you've actually made me not dread talking about politics. I look forward to your thoughts on what's going on, and I want to thank you for that.

I would love to know: What do you think of the apparent exhaustion from Republicans/MAGA about Trump? People leaving his rallies (and that's not even covering how few are even coming at all or his supposedly needing to pay people to come), and the slew of formers we see at the DNC openly talking about their change in sides. Do you have any ideas about what might be causing this shift? Was it Harris? Was it Jan. 6th? Was it one singular reason, or multiple at once?

Hope you're having a good day.

I think it's a lot of reasons. First, as I said earlier, the whole theme of the DNC is about reclaiming the USA FREEDOM message from the Republicans, who have had a monopoly on it for the past three decades at least and used it to justify even more antidemocratic fascist militant theocratic hard-right turns. The scenes of joyful people talking rousingly about hope, compassion, morning in America, and breaking out into regular USA! USA! chants appeals a lot to the average American, who doesn't want to hear constant violent and negative bile from the Orange Felonious Traitor, because that is literally the only thing he has to offer and it's getting openly more deranged and dangerous every day. The whole Tough Talking Populist Outsider shtick worked in 2016, when Trump didn't have four years of incompetent chaos as the actual president and was just a theoretical concept who a lot of people thought would "smarten up" and take it seriously if he actually won. Likewise, the backlash of white grievance against Obama and the complacency that Trump didn't actually stand a chance was able to be leveraged against the decades of smears that the GOP had already leveled on HRC. Of course, Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million-plus, but the Electoral College did what it's designed to do and he snuck in anyway. But it wasn't a rousing landslide or a thumping victory.

As such, a lot of Reagan Republicans are now turning to the Democrats as the actual pro-USA party, because Trump trash-talks America, calls it a shithole third-world country, bellows about WWIII and the Great Depression, cozies up to foreign dictators, etc etc. Reagan also pitched the sunny message of America as the shining moral hero of the world (he in fact used the Make America Great Again slogan that Trump repurposed), and that likewise resonated with people after the chaos and unrest of the 1970s. Now, we all know that I hate Reagan's ass and I hope he's burning in hell for so many reasons, but his message was effective because it gave people a soaring rhetorical vision to believe in (even while he was often stripping away their economic prosperity in particular behind the scenes, all together now, FUCK REAGAN). But the Republicans who joined the 1980s party are now seeing Republicanism become a tawdry cult centered on, as Geoff Duncan (GOP former Lt. Gov. of Georgia) put it yesterday, the worship of a felonious thug. Trump is wildly anti-America; he only uses it as a vehicle to get what he wants, because Donald Trump is all that Donald Trump cares about. Yes, there are still plenty of brainwashed cultists in numbers great enough to make this election far, far closer than it should ever be in any sane universe, but increasingly even his own cultists don't want to hear it anymore. They keep leaving before the event is over and he's drawing far smaller crowd sizes than in 2016, which as we know is pretty much all he cares about. He has a desperate need for attention and approval to feed his damaged narcissistic-sociopath dementia-riddled brain, and he's just not getting it, while the very real prospect looms that if he loses this election (and it looks more and more like he will) he will go to jail for the rest of his life. Terrifying.

That's why we have the unprecedented spectacle of lifelong Republicans and former Trump voters flocking to Harris in large numbers. We've had Republican speakers at the DNC every night, and they keep playing video montages of former Trump voters disavowing him or explaining that they won't vote for him. If you consider what propelled Trump in 2016 -- conservative white grievance against a black guy named Barack Obama -- the willingness to unhesitatingly embrace a black/mixed-race WOMAN named Kamala Harris is incredible. Many of them were already planning to vote for Biden before he dropped out, but it was no certain thing that they would move from being willing to vote for an establishment old white guy to also being willing to vote for a woman and a person of color. The fact that we've had so many high-profile affinity group Zoom events for Harris, including from truly unbelievable quarters (Republicans for Harris, Mormons for Harris, EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS for Harris), shows that there is a country-wide exhaustion with Trump's poisonous selfish grievance performances, where he's willing to do anything to anyone and turn the USA into a fascist dictatorship if it will exempt him, personally, from the consequences of his odious actions. That is not a message that any sane person can support, and more and more, they don't. As I have said before, that is why fascist movements always sow the seeds of their own destruction. They work for a while, but eventually they're boring, they're mean, they're exhausting, and they offer nothing for anyone but being angry all the time at everyone. Most humans don't like that, and eventually, they drift away.

I also think that part of the reason Kamala absolutely nailed it with Tim Walz as VP is because Walz is the literal anti-MAGA in every way. We have seen a lot of similar straight white military-vet football-coach-type Middle America older men drift into MAGA grievance politics because it offers a home for guys like them and feeds on fear of the future and fear of the other. They feel like they're being heard and understood, even if they aren't, and they vote Republican because they've grown up with Republicans being the pro-America party (however defined). But because Walz is a straight white married military-vet football-coach guy who actually models a joyful and compassionate masculinity, an openly emotional and supportive masculinity, who talks movingly about his love for his wife and children, who is a hunter and gun owner who nonetheless loves kids more than guns, who has taken his small-town rural-America values and become an effective and genuinely progressive politician focused on making ordinary people's lives better, he offers a total antidote to MAGAism. He shows that it is possible to be a traditionally manly American straight white guy who is not a gibbering conspiracy theory-addled shitbag dedicated to trampling on everyone else out of reactionary fear. He shows those guys that they can embrace the diverse future and not have to fear it, and he gives them a permission structure to vote for Democrats because it's the right thing to do AND feel that the Democrats are now the real pro-America party.

Basically, right now, Walz is the most popular member on either ticket, and he's crushing Vance into oblivion (there's something like a 27-point difference in their favorable/unfavorable spreads) because Vance is a horrible robotic hateful gremlin and Walz is an authentic and genuine person who a lot of traditionally Republican-affiliated men (and women!) can identify with. He's also the guy who came up with the devastating "weird" attack line that the GOP can do nothing with except splutter and whine, like playground bullies, that no YOU'RE THE WEIRD ONE. He models that it's actually normal to want your leaders to be compassionate human beings who want to use power to make your lives better, and not hateful fascist alt-righters dedicated to making you also hate everyone and be steeped in doom and gloom. That is why people responded so well to Obama in 2008 after the turmoil of the Bush Jr. years, and why this feels even more monumental than Obama. We won't know until the votes are counted, but this giant tsunami just rose out of nowhere when Harris took over, and it's speeding forward in a really incredible way. We've got to do the work and we've got to vote, but if we do, we could absolutely pulverize Trump and MAGA to smithereens in a way that means it wouldn't be able to come back for a good long while, and oh, what a glorious day that would be. So yes.

[infamousbrad]

Biden's "Dean Scream"?

A week and a half ago, I was convinced that "Biden had one bad debate performance" was going to be a 3-day story. But now I see why it wasn't. (I mean, aside from the fact that summer is Silly Season in US journalism.) How well do you remember Howard Dean's final run for the Democratic nomination?

Howard Dean was a "progressive" by the standards of his time, that is to say, slightly to the left of, say, Richard Nixon at a time when the post-Bill-Clinton center-right wing of the Democratic Party totally controlled the nomination process, and he was running on an FDR-liberal type platform.

And the press spent the whole time he was in the race asking him the same question over and over again, "Does this mean that you're angry at the 'Third Way' Democrats? I'll bet you're angry at Bill Clinton and the 'Third Way' Democrats? Governor Dean, why don't you say a word about how angry you are?" Because if he was still running against "militant centrism" in a post-liberal party, he must be angry, right?

But he really wasn't. I never saw him actually get angry that whole campaign. He was happy to have inspired so many volunteers, and proud of his plan to rejuvenate the state-party apparatuses in written-off "red states," and never not happy to talk to a reporter, any reporter. Which was all the proof they needed to show that he was not only angry, he was nefarious. Because they couldn't imagine any plausible reason why anybody would go to as much effort as he did unless they were genuinely angry.

After the New Hampshire primary, he stood up in front of a group of his campaign volunteers to cheer them on, and they handed him a defective microphone. So he screamed his cheers into the dead microphone, so the volunteers in the back could hear him over the din. But the press microphones? Worked. And he didn't sound excited, he sounded deranged. And I swear to God, 100% of the political press reported it as "Howard Dean finally reveals his inner anger," even though the video shows him grinning and smiling like a child on Christmas.

Why could nothing disprove the "Howard Dean is the Angry Candidate" theory before, why was evidence to the contrary taken as proof it was true?

Because it fit the pre-existing narrative.

Look, we have never not known that Biden's age was going to be a problem. Even as he was sweeping the primaries in 2020, it came up. That's where the "he knows he's too old, he's just reassuring older voters that the party is normal, he's going to step aside for Kamala Harris" rumor got started, remember that? No matter how many times Biden himself denied it?

And if there was any truth to it, there's no point to it now. She hasn't gotten any better at either of the president's jobs, not at public speaking nor at shepherding legislation, so unsurprisingly she polls even worse than Biden.

Should Biden be replaced because he's getting slower and more mumbly as he ages? Did Reagan? He sailed to easy re-election despite the fact he was visibly declining by the end of his first term, way faster than Biden is now. His White House Chief of Staff, Howard Baker, was, by all accounts, acting president for at least three years, making sure that the last person to talk to Reagan before he had to make a decision was the person Baker thought that Reagan would have agreed with if he could remember anything that was happening around him.

(It's not even the most extreme example in US national politics: look up stories about Strom Thurmond's last term in the Senate, which was full-on "Weekend at Bernie's.")

An entirely senile top official who put a good team into place before he sundowned can do a perfectly good job. And trying to replace him would just hand the election to Trump. So no, even if he were as tired and confused as the press and jealous Democrats are painting him, that wouldn't be a good reason to replace him, not at this late of a date.

(If the entire party apparatus had discussed this behind closed doors and agreed to set up, say, Michigan's governor Whitmer or Pennsylvania's governor Shapiro as an agreed-upon backup candidate in case something like this happened, and gotten it done no later than, say, spring of '23, we'd have a minimally plausible option. But we didn't, so we don't. The choice isn't Biden or someone better, it's Biden vs Trump or Trump unopposed.)

But even given how weak-sauce the argument that a few verbal slips and mutters mean that Biden can't perform the duties of the president is, I suddenly realize now why it wasn't a three-day story. Just like the Dean Scream, he handed them the proof they needed of something they've been saying for four years, long before it was true, and everybody loves being "proved" right. Because, as I always say:

Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Luke Rosiak

More than 80 media outlets with forced to issue a correction after running an Associated Press story that alleged that 40,000 civilians had been killed in the Gaza Strip.

An August 18 AP story said that Vice President Kamala Harris had been “vocal” about the need to protect civilians in the Israel-Hamas war, and that the “civilian death toll has now exceeded 40,000.”

But “not even Hamas has alleged that more than 40,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed in the war between Israel and the terror organization,” according to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), which monitors Arab media.

“While the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported over 40,000 total deaths among Gaza’s residents, its data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israeli sources, meanwhile, estimate that over 17,000 of those killed are Hamas combatants,” it said.

AP appended a correction to its story on August 19.

The outlet also revised the article’s text to say “More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the territory’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry says, but how many are civilians is unknown. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.”

Media outlets who carried the wire service’s article also issued corrections.

But CAMERA said that NBC affiliates in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York had still not made the correction three days after being notified.

[werewolfetone]

All this discourse has done is convince me that it is my moral imperative to attempt to convince all children of my acquaintance that harry potter was actually in the ulster young militants the entire time

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 4 June 1950, the 43 Group of militant anti-fascist Jewish ex-servicemen and women voted to disband itself at an extraordinary general meeting in London, England. The group had been formed four years prior by Jewish people who had fought in the British Army against the Nazis in World War II, who had seen the horrors of the concentration camps, and who returned home to see fascists organising openly on UK streets. They resolved to continue their fight against fascism, racism and antisemitism by any means necessary. The group included people like decorated war hero Gerry Flamberg (pictured, left, outside court on trial for attempted murder of a fascist) , apprentice hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, gay former officer Harry Bidney and women like Doris Kaye, who infiltrated fascist groups, and Julie Sloggan, who was one of its most ardent street fighters. They disrupted and broke up fascist meetings, usually after breaking through the fascists' police guard, and harassed fascist aristocrat Oswald Mosley and his followers in towns and cities up and down the country. Eventually Mosley went into exile, and fascist organising dwindled to such a level that the 43 Group dissolved itself. Although veterans of the group would throw themselves back into the movement when Mosley attempted a comeback in the 1960s. Learn more about the group in our podcast episodes 35-37: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e35-37-the-43-group/ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=637872025052683&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[ducktracy]

The Ducktators is a fascinating little cartoon, though not a particularly enjoyable one. It’s very hard to watch nowadays but your review makes its strengths as animated propaganda very clear. As always, a very nice review. Also, sorry to bring him up, but I always thought the racist stereotype Japanese duck was supposed to be Hideki Tojo (Hi-duck-i Tojo?).

THANK YOU FOR THE KIND WORDS!!! that really means a lot! absolutely, it's not a short i revisit for obvious reasons, but i'm almost glad for that "fresh pair of eyes" point of view because it definitely allowed me to view its directorial strengths much more clearly. in terms of pure cinematography and directing alone, it really shows that Norm McCabe had a lot of potential to be a great director if he wasn't bogged down so much by shoehorning topical references (ie propaganda) into his cartoons! like, this is a crazy shot

it is an extremely fascinating watch to see how they play on the psyche and psychology of the audience. cartoons are manipulative! i know this from working in them! i don't mean that in a bad way, but objectively: cartoons manipulate emotions of the audience and inspire them to laugh, to cry, to be scared, to be triumphant, they manipulate where you're supposed to look or how you're supposed to ingest--or NOT ingest--the information. it's almost comparable to a magic trick. even the most inconsequential, silly, stupid, "nothing" cartoon you can imagine has some sort of subliminality in it dictating how you are interpreting the information on screen. i'm being hyperbolic with my wording and i swear i don't mean this in a Dale Gribble conspiracy theory way LOL. it's just a fact! and it's so fascinating to me! and propaganda cartoons are really at the zenith of seeing how these subliminalities and playing on the psychology of the audience works. obviously, not always (and really, seldom) for the better, but it's very neat to study and see how that is accomplished. it makes for a very fascinating deep dive

I HAD ASSUMED FOR THE LONGEST TIME IT WAS A TOJO CARICATURE TOO.. i've gotten some conflicting information. cartoon wise, i plucked the voice credits from Keith Scott's book, who bills him as a Hirohito caricature, Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald's book just labels him as "a Japanese duck"--i've been getting a bunch of conflicting research, and it evidently seems that historians themselves are in conflict as to the extent of Hirohito's role in the war. i assumed that for the purposes of the cartoon, the duck was Hirohito since it seems he was considered one of the leaders of the Axis Powers, which is of course what the short hinges on. that, and that he was Emperor, whereas Tojo just reported to him. the general consensus seems to be that Tojo took the majority of the blame (obviously, given that he was hanged)--the website of the National WWII Museum points out that Douglas McArthur and Harry Truman seemed hesitant to charge Hirohito with war crimes since they were scared of a retaliatory uprising, given that he was the Emperor, and so publicity instead fell on Tojo.

I TYPED ALL OF THIS OUT BUT I SEEM TO BE PROVING YOUR POINT LOL Tojo seemed to be much more active on the militant side and received more publicity, so i guess that technically would make him a candidate... but given that Hirohito was at the very tip top and considered the reigning Axis leader for Japan, my assumption was that it was him for the purposes served by the cartoon. it'd probably make more sense for it to be Tojo though if he was more directly involved on the military side... that, and it's clear there's a little bit of a divide in power between the Tojo/Hirohito duck and the Hitler and Mussolini duck, but i also assumed that was a byproduct of the clear resentment directed towards Japan, and was just them jumping at any chance they could to belittle and humiliate them. riding on the catharsis of making such a big figurehead seem small and weak and easy to pummel and all that. (it also doesn’t help that the extent of caricaturing is “uhhhhh Japanese people have squinted eyes and big teeth right?”, both Tojo and Hirohito wore glasses and so that’s really the only visual clue… but i guess the duck also has a military cap that probably would be most associated with Tojo)

any historians who are obviously much more equipped to answer this, i welcome any corrections! it's obviously been a bit since my last World History class and i am genuinely embarrassed i can't give a more concise answer :')

[beardedmrbean]

"Disney wasn't an antisemite"

Uh you sure you wanna die on that hill?

How about we ask the Jewish Press what they think

Actress Meryl Streep reignited a debate that has simmered below the surface in Hollywood for decades: Was Walt Disney anti-Semitic?

The occasion was the annual awards event of the National Board of Review, an organization of filmmakers, students, and movie scholars. Streep presented an award to Emma Thompson, for her role in the new movie “Saving Mr. Banks,” about the making of the 1964 Disney film “Mary Poppins.” Thompson co-stars as Poppins author P.L. Travers, alongside Tom Hanks as Walt Disney.

Streep took the opportunity to blast Disney as racist and misogynist who also “supported an anti-Semitic industry lobbying group.”

She did not actually call Disney an anti-Semite, but many people took it that way. The Hollywood Reporter declared that Streep accused Disney of being “sexist, racist and anti-Semitic.” Film professor David Hajdu said Disney was “a deeply flawed human being. A misogynist? You bet. An anti-Semite? That, too.” An unnamed “female Academy member” interviewed by the Reporter referred to him as “that old anti-Semite, himself, Mr. Disney.”

Hollywood historian Neal Gabler examined the anti-Semitism charge in his 2006 biography of Disney. “Of the Jews who worked [with Disney], it was hard to find any who thought Walt was an anti-Semite,” Gabler reported. “Joe Grant, who had been an artist, the head of the model department, and the storyman responsible for Dumbo… declared emphatically that Walt was not an anti-Semite. ‘Some of the most influential people at the studio were Jewish,’ Grant recalled, thinking no doubt of himself, production manager Harry Tytle, and Kay Kamen [head of Disney’s merchandising arm], who once quipped that Disney’s New York office had more Jews than the Book of Leviticus. Maurice Rapf concurred that Walt was not anti-Semitic; he was just a ‘very conservative guy.’ ”

On the other hand, one former Disney animator, David Swift, has claimed he heard Walt make an anti-Semitic remark, and another ex-staffer, David Hilberman, has alleged that one employee was fired because he was Jewish. (However, according to Gabler, Disney himself was rarely involved in firing anyone except the top brass). In addition, the original animated version of the “Three Little Pigs” portrayed the Big Bad Wolf as a stereotypically Jewish peddler, although after complaints, the segment was altered.

When it comes to explicit proof that Disney was anti-Semitic, the critics’ case weakens.

“There is zero hard evidence that Disney ever wrote or said anything anti-Semitic in private or public,” according to Douglas Brode, author of Multiculturalism and the Mouse: Race and Sex in Disney Entertainment. Brode told The Hollywood Reporter that Disney used more Jewish actors “than any other studio of Hollywood’s golden age, including those run by Jewish movie moguls.”

Gabler also revealed that Disney “frequently” made unpublicized donations to a variety of Jewish charities, including a Jewish orphanage, a Jewish old age home, Yeshiva College (precursor to Yeshiva University), and the American League for a Free Palestine. The League, better known as the Bergson Group, publicly supported the armed revolt against the British in Palestine by Menachem Begin’s Irgun Zvai Leumi. Disney was embracing not just Zionism, but its most militant wing.

How, then, did the rumors of Disney’s alleged anti-Semitism spread so far and wide?

That’s where Meryl Streep comes in. The “anti-Semitic industry lobbying group” with which Disney was associated was the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. The group’s statement of principles said nothing about Jews; its declared purpose was to prevent “Communist, Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups” from gaining a foothold in Hollywood. Among its members were politically conservative actors such as John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Ginger Rogers. But some of its other members were accused of being privately anti-Semitic, and in general it had a reputation as being reactionary.

Gabler believes that “the most plausible explanation” for the rumors about Disney were a kind of guilt by association: “Walt, in joining forces with the MPA and its band of professional reactionaries and red-baiters, also got tarred with their anti-Semitism. Walt Disney certainly was aware of the MPA’s purported anti-Semitism, but he chose to ignore it…. The price he paid was that he would always be lumped not only with anti-Communists but also with anti-Semites.”

The irony is that while Meryl Streep was condemning Walt Disney for associating with extremists, she herself was doing the very same thing. The actress to whom she gave that award when she made her anti-Disney speech, her close friend Emma Thompson, is active in the anti-Israel boycott movement.

Streep hailed Thompson as “splendid, beautiful, practically a saint…a living, acting conscience.” Yet this “saint,” together with other British actors, publicly urged a boycott of Israel’s Habimah theater troupe when it participated in a festival in England. Habimah, of course, has nothing to do with Israeli government policies or any political issues. Its only “crime” is that it’s Israeli.

By contrast, Thompson had no problem with the National Theater of China taking part in that festival, even though it really does represent the Chinese regime – a regime guilty of the most heinous human rights violations, aid to terrorists around the world, and support for the genocidal government of Sudan. But of course, hypocrisy is the hallmark of the “saints” of the anti-Israel boycott crusade. ______________________

The Antisemitism claim is literally communist propaganda.

[sitp-recs]

Masterlist Drarry Recs - Pt 3

• Angst with a happy ending

• Angsty secret relationship

• Angsty first time

• Addiction themes

• Ace Drarry

• AU

• Bartender AU/Pub fics

• Birthdays

• Break up make up (epilogue compliant)

• Break up make up + arranged marriage

• Forced marriage

• Divorced Drarry getting back together

• Bucolic fics

• Chef AUs

• Dark Draco

• Death Eater trials

• Draco on probation

• Disasters

• Drarry + gossip

• Drarry + mythology

• Drarry coming out as a couple

• Draco is open about his feelings | Hopelessly in love (Draco)

• Oblivious Draco | Self-sabotaging Draco

• Draco takes care of Harry | Harry takes care of Draco

• Dark Academia

• Fics with horror elements

• Esoterics and astrology

• Established relationship with spoiled Draco

• Epilogue-compliant

• Friends to lovers slow burn + redemption arc

• Idiots to lovers

• Harry-centric fics | Different takes on Harry

• Jaded Harry & morally ambiguous Draco

• Odd jobs | Militant Harry | Powerful Harry

• Harry falls in love first | Draco as Harry’s bisexual awakening

• Harry lives in Godric’s Hollow

• Hospitals (setting)

• Hurt/Comfort

• Holiday fics: Christmas | NYE

• Horcrux hunting

• Harry betrays Draco | Draco hurts Harry

• Harry breaks up with Ginny

• Jealous Harry 1 & 2 | Early jealousy

• Homophobia

• Infidelity 1 & 2

• Intense UST

• Intimacy issues

• Melancholy love

• Memory loss

• My favorite romantic fics

• Meet-cute

• Organic and routine sex

• Kink discovery

• Pansy & Blaise as side characters

• POV Outsider

• Physical hurt/comfort | Injured Harry

• PTSD & sex as coping mechanism

• Post-war loneliness

• Power imbalance

• Professors (both)

• Queer themes

• Rainy romance

• Reality show AU | Romcom AU | Sci-fi AU | Cowboy AU | Heist AU

• Religious imagery and symbolism

• Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll | Sex Magic

• Seer Draco | Seer Harry

• Surviving together

• Soft 8th year | Field trips | 8th year Draco pov

• Sports AU

• Soothing reads

• Step dad Harry

• Successful Draco comes back to Britain

• Toxic family dynamics

• Voldemort Wins AU | War fics

• G and T long fics | Draco-centric

• Plot-oriented M and E fics

• Short fics under 5k

[thelastharbinger]

WELL, I'LL BE THE FIRST TO BRING UP GENOCIDE: KAMALA HARRIS CALLED FOR CEASEFIRE AT A RALLY THE SAME DAY SHE AND JOE BIDEN SENT $3.5 BILLION IN WEAPONS TO ISRAEL. AND MERE HOURS LATER THEY BOMBED OVER 150 PALESTINIANS, MOSTLY CHILDREN, PRAYING INSIDE OF A SCHOOL.

Libs need to be very careful about how they choose to talk about an ongoing extermination campaign of an entire region. You all are starting to sound like the very opposition y'all purport to hate so much. And if I ever hear another liberal say some shit about who is and who isn't getting things done, you're in for a very jarring wake up call because every luxury and freedom you enjoy is because someone considered "a little too extreme" was willing to die for the hope that you now lazily rest on. Hope means NOTHING if there is no accountability. The way you maintain hope is by DOING and repeating the ACTIONS that move us toward a better place. And anger has its rightful place within a revolution.

Truth be told, a lot of yall aren't angry enough for me. Because if you had an ounce of the rage, the blood-curdling ire, the cry-you're-so-angry, we wouldn't be coming up on a year of seeing kids massacred every day. The people in power would be very frightened by an angry, militant populace because that would signal the fall of the empire (because what they want you to forget is that we outnumber them. We do).

[terrible-eel]

I know the topic of "What if kamala Harris is elected? what will she do for Palestine has been a circulating topic. I just want to point out: What will be the alternative?

Trump has been quoted saying "Israel should finish the job"

But lets look at his track record regarding Palestine.

Here is an article from 2018

Trump cuts more than $200 million in U.S. aid to Palestinians

excepts from the article include:

"The announcement came at a time when the Palestinian leadership has angered the White House by boycotting its peace efforts since President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the embassy there, reversing decades of U.S. policy."

"The status of Jerusalem - home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions - is one of the biggest obstacles to any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians."

"The State Department cited the Islamist militant group Hamas' control of Gaza as part of its justification for reallocating the funds. The United States and Israel designate Hamas as a terrorist group."

"The decision is almost certain to exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. More than 2 million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip, which suffers deep economic hardship."

"The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion," she said."

"Ambassador Husam Zomlot, head of the PLO General Delegation to the United States, said in a statement: "Weaponizing humanitarian and developmental aid as political blackmail does not work."

"Jordan, which hosts the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East outside Palestinian territories, warned this month that a severe financial shortfall facing UNRWA could have a “catastrophic” impact on the lives of millions of refugees in the region."

"U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, criticized the Trump administration's decision.

“Inhabitants of Gaza are already suffering severe hardships under the tyranny of Hamas and border restrictions imposed by Israel. It is the Palestinian people, virtual prisoners in an increasingly volatile conflict, who will most directly suffer the consequences of this callous and ill-advised attempt to respond to Israel’s security concerns.”

J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group, called the Trump administration’s move a “moral outrage and a major strategic blunder.”

Here is an article from 2021

Trump-era spike in Israeli settlement growth has only begun

"EFRAT, West Bank (AP) — An aggressive Israeli settlement spree during the Trump era pushed deeper than ever into the occupied West Bank — territory the Palestinians seek for a state — with over 9,000 homes built and thousands more in the pipeline, an AP investigation showed."

"Satellite images and data obtained by The Associated Press document for the first time the full impact of the policies of then-President Donald Trump, who abandoned decades-long U.S. opposition to the settlements and proposed a Mideast plan that would have allowed Israel to keep them all — even those deep inside the West Bank."

"Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian spokeswoman, called the Trump administration a “partner in crime” with Netanyahu. She said Biden would have to go beyond traditional condemnations and take “very serious steps of accountability” to make a difference."

"According to Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, Israel built over 9,200 new homes in the West Bank during the Trump presidency. On an annual average, that was roughly a 28% increase over the level of construction during the Obama administration, which pressed Israel to rein in building."

"Perhaps even more significant was the location of the construction. According to Peace Now, 63% of the homes built last year were in outlying settlements that would likely be evacuated in any peace agreement. Over 10% of the construction in recent years took place in isolated outposts that are not officially authorized, but quietly encouraged by the Israeli government."

“What we’re seeing is the ongoing policy of de facto annexation,” said Hagit Ofran, a Peace Now researcher. “Israel is doing its utmost to annex the West Bank and to treat it as if it’s part of Israel without leaving a scope for a Palestinian state.”

“2020 was really the first year where everything that was being built was more or less because of what was approved at the beginning of the Trump presidency,” said Peace Now spokesman Brian Reeves. “It’s the settlement approvals that are actually more important than construction.”

"Israel went on an aggressive settlement spree during the Trump era, according to an AP investigation, pushing deeper into the occupied West Bank than ever before and putting the Biden administration into a bind as it seeks to revive Mideast peace efforts."

Here is an article from 2023

Trump vows to expand Muslim ban and bar Gaza refugees if he wins presidency

"Monday vowed to bar refugees from Gaza and immediately expand his first-term Muslim travel ban if he wins a second term following the deadly attack on Israel last week."

"Trump pledged to bar the entry of refugees from Gaza fleeing Israel’s retaliatory strikes after the surprise 7 October attack, just as he tried to bar citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries during his first term with an executive order. The executive order, however, was met with fierce opposition and was fought all the way to the US supreme court. The high court eventually upheld a third version of the ban, which included travelers from North Korea and some from Venezuela."

"The ex-president and 2024 Republican frontrunner also said he would aggressively deport resident aliens with “jihadist sympathies” and send immigration agents to “pro-jihadist demonstrations” to identify violators."

“In the wake of the attacks on Israel, Americans have been disgusted to see the open support for terrorists among the legions of foreign nationals on college campuses. They’re teaching your children hate,” he said. “Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities and we will send them straight back home.”

Kamala Harris does need to fight harder for Palestine, but keep in mind, she has been actually seeking peace deals. The Biden administration has not been doing everything I want them to do, but at least they are not an active hate group with their leader saying "Finish the job" when referring to the Palestinian genocide led by Israel.

Sometimes decisions come between doing some amount of good and being complacent in a genocide. Personally, I would rather someone in office who can be reasoned with and who has been quoted saying "I believe a two-state solution can be reached" on multiple occasions than someone who actively shows support for genocide.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Iraq’s prime minister scoffed Thursday at U.S. efforts to rein in Israel’s military campaign against Hamas and lay out long-term plans for a more peaceful Middle East, noting that Israeli leaders aren’t onboard. In comments at the World Economic Forum, Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani dismissed in particular Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s more hopeful earlier remarks about how the crisis playing out in the Gaza Strip could be a chance to get back on track for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[...]

“That is nothing new, what Mr. Blinken has said. Everybody has said the same thing, basically,” Al Sudani said during a session moderated by POLITICO Global Editor-in-Chief John Harris. “What is being said by Blinken is refused by the Israeli government. Even the post-war scenario is refused from the Israelis.”

“The international community has failed,” the Iraqi leader added. “The International organizations have failed. The international institutions have failed in this unjustifiable, unacceptable death that is unraveling before us in Gaza.”[...]

U.S. forces based in Iraq have come under fire from Iranian-backed militias, and have responded in kind. The U.S. carried out a recent drone strike that killed an Iranian-backed militia leader in Baghdad. That has led Iraq’s government to say it is looking at ending the U.S. military presence on its soil, which, as part of an international coalition, has helped Baghdad battle the Islamic State militant group. Al Sudani insisted that at some point the U.S.-led coalition had to wrap up its role in his country. “The sooner we withdraw the coalition, it is a necessity for the stability, the security of Iraq,” he said, speaking through a translator.

18 Jan 24

[g0mens]

it's petty but sometimes i think about how david tennant was in the harry potter films and no matter how militant a TRA he becomes, no matter how much misogyny he spews, he'll never be able to undo that fact. i just know he's seething about the fact that he inadvertently contributed to JK Rowling's success and there's nothing he can do but cope and seethe! ha!