#nazis are a very specifical political group

[woman-respecter]

"everyone i don't like is a nazi!" and "everything bad that happens is the holocaust!" things can be bad without being nazis/the holocaust. words have meanings. shut the fuck up

[whereserpentswalk]

The nazis that you see in movies are as much a historical fantasy as vikings with horned helmets and samurai cutting people in half.

The nazis were not some vague evil that wanted to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. They had specific goals which furthered a far right agenda, and they wanted to do harm to very specific groups, (largely slavs, jews, Romani, queer people, communists/leftists, and disabled people.)

The nazis didn't use soldiers in creepy gas masks as their main imagery that they sold to the german people, they used blond haired blue eyed families. Nor did they stand up on podiums saying that would wage an endless and brutal war, they gave speeches about protecting white Christian society from degenerates just like how conservatives do today.

Nazis weren't atheists or pagans. They were deeply Christian and Christianity was part of their ideology just like it is for modern conservatives. They spoke at lengths about defending their Christian nation from godless leftism. The ones who hated the catholic church hated it for protestant reasons. Nazi occultism was fringe within the party and never expected to become mainstream, and those occultists were still Christian, none of them ever claimed to be Satanists or Asatru.

Nazis were also not queer or disabled. They killed those groups, before they had a chance to kill almost anyone else actually. Despite the amount of disabled nazis or queer/queer coded nazis you'll see in movies and on TV, in reality they were very cishet and very able bodied. There was one high ranking nazi early on who was gay and the other nazis killed him for that. Saying the nazis were gay or disabled makes about as much sense as saying they were Jewish.

The nazis weren't mentally ill. As previously mentioned they hated disabled people, and this unquestionably included anyone neurodivergent. When the surviving nazi war criminals were given psychological tests after the war, they were shown to be some of the most neurotypical people out there.

The nazis weren't socialists. Full stop. They hated socialists. They got elected on hating socialists. They killed socialists. Hating all forms of lefitsm was a big part of their ideology, and especially a big part of how they sold themselves.

The nazis were not the supervillians you see on screen, not because they didn't do horrible things in real life, they most certainly did, but because they weren't that vague apolitical evil that exists for white American action heros to fight. They did horrible things because they had a right wing authoritarian political ideology, an ideology that is fundamentally the same as what most of the modern right wing believes.

[stephobrien]

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that.

Note: If you prefer plain text, you can read the plain text version here.

Over the last few days, I’ve had conversations with several Jewish people who told me how hurt and scared they are right now.

To my great regret, some of that pain came from a poorly-thought-out post of mine, which – while not ill-intentioned – WAS hurtful.

And a lot of it came from cruelty they’d experienced at the hands of people who claim to be advocating for Palestine, but are using the very real plight of innocent Palestinians to harm equally innocent Jewish people.

Y’all, we need to do better. (Yes, “we” definitely includes me; this is in no small part a “learn from my fail” post, and also a “making amends” post. Some of these are mistakes I’ve made in the past.)

So if you’re an advocate for Palestine who wants to make sure that your defense of one group of vulnerable people doesn’t harm another, here are some important things to do or keep in mind:

Ask yourself if you’re applying a standard to one group that you aren’t applying to another.

Would you want all white Americans or Canadians to be expelled from America or Canada?

Do you want all Jewish people to be expelled from Israel, as opposed to finding a way to live alongside Palestinian Arabs in peace?

If the answer to those two questions is different, ask yourself WHY.

Do you want to be held responsible for the actions of your nation’s army or government? No? Then don’t hold innocent Jewish people, or Israelis in general (whether Jewish or otherwise), responsible for the actions of the Israeli army and government.

On that subject, be wary of condemning all Israeli people for the actions of the IDF. Large-scale tactical decisions are made by the top brass. Service is compulsory, and very few can reasonably get out of service.

Blaming all Israelis for the military’s actions is like blaming all Vietnam vets for the horrors in Vietnam. They’re not calling the shots. They aren’t Nazis running concentration camps. They are carrying out military operations that SHOULD be criticized.

And do not compare them or ANY JEWISH PERSON to Nazis in general. It is Jewish cultural trauma and not outsiders’ to use against them.

Don’t infuse legitimate criticism with antisemitism.

By all means, spread the word about the crimes committed by the Israeli army and government, and the complicity of their allies. Criticize the people responsible for committing and enabling atrocities.

But if you imply that they’re committing those crimes because they’re Jewish, or because Jewish people have special privileges, then you’re straying into antisemitic territory.

Criticize the crime, not the group. If you believe that collective punishment is wrong, don’t do it yourself.

And do your best to use words that apply directly to the situation, rather than the historical terms for situations with similar features. For example, use “segregation,” “oppression,” or “subjugation,” not “Holocaust” or “Jim Crow.” These other historical events are not the cultural property of Jews OR Palestinians, but also have their own nuances and struggles and historical contexts.

Also, blaming other world events on Jewish people or making Jewish people associated with them (for instance, some people falsely blame Jewish people for the African slave trade) is a key feature of how antisemitism functions.

Please, by all means, be specific and detailed in your critiques. But keep them focused on the current political actors – not other peoples’ or nations’ political or cultural histories and traumas.

Be prepared to accept criticism.

You probably already know that society is infused with a wide array of bigotries, and that people growing up in that environment tend to absorb those beliefs without even realizing it. Antisemitism is no exception.

What that means is, there’s a very real chance that you will screw up, and get called out on it, as I so recently did.

If that happens, please be willing to learn and adapt. If you can educate yourself about the suffering and needs of Palestinians, you can do the same for Jewish people.

Understand that the people you hurt aren’t obligated to baby you. Give them room to be angry.

After I made a post that inadvertently hurt people, some were nice about it, and others weren’t. Some outright insulted my morals and intelligence.

And I had to accept that I’d earned that from them.

I’d hurt them, and they weren’t obligated to be more careful with my feelings than I had been with theirs.

They weren’t obligated to forgive me, trust me, or stop being mad at me right away.

I’ll admit, there were moments when I got defensive. I shouldn’t have. And I encourage you to try not to, if you screw up and hurt people.

I know that’s hard, but it’s important. Getting defensive only tells people you care more about doubling down on your mistake than you do about healing the hurt it caused.

Instead, acknowledge that they have a right to be angry, apologize for the way you hurt them, and try to make amends, while understanding that they don’t owe you trust or forgiveness.

Be aware that some antisemites are using legitimate complaints to “Trojan horse” antisemitism into leftist spaces.

This is a really easy stumbling block to trip over, because most people probably don’t look at every post a creator makes before sharing the one they’re looking at right now.

I recently shared a video that called out some of the Likud and IDF’s atrocities and hypocrisy, and that also noted that many Jewish people are wonderful members of their communities.

I was later informed that, while that video in particular seemed reasonable, the creator behind it is frequently antisemitic.

I deleted the post, and blocked the creator. I encourage you to do the same if it’s brought to your attention that you’ve been ‘Trojan horse’d.

EDIT: Important note about antisemitism in leftist spaces:

While it's true that some blatant antisemites are using seemingly reasonable posts to get their foot in the door of leftist spaces, it's also true that a lot of antisemitism already exists inside those spaces.

This antisemitism is often dressed up in progressive-sounding language, but nonetheless singles Jewish people and places out in ways that aren't applied equally to other groups, or that label Jewish people in ways that portray them as acceptable targets.

If you want to see some specific examples, so you can have a better idea of what to keep an eye out for, I suggest reading this excellent reblog of this post.

Fact-check your doubts about antisemitism.

Depending on which parts of the internet you look at, you’ve probably seen people accused of antisemitism because they complained about the Likud and/or IDF’s actions. So you might be primed to be wary, or feel unsure of how to tell what counts as real antisemitism.

But that doesn’t mean antisemitism isn’t a very real, widespread, and harmful problem. And it doesn’t mean many or even most Jewish people are lying to you or being overly sensitive.

So if someone says something is antisemitic, and you aren’t sure, I encourage you to:

A. Look up the action or thing in question, including its history. Is there an antisemitic history or connotation you aren’t aware of? For best results, include “antisemitic” in your search query, in quotes.

B. Understand that some things, while not inherently antisemitic, have been used by antisemites often enough that Jewish people are understandably wary of them. Schrodinger’s antisemitism, if you will.

C. Ask Jewish people WHO HAVE OFFERED TO HELP EDUCATE YOU. Emphasis on WHO HAVE OFFERED. Random Jewish people aren’t obligated to give you their time and emotional energy, or to educate you – especially on subjects that are scary or painful for them.

@edenfenixblogs has kindly offered her inbox to those who are genuinely trying to learn and do better, and I’ve found her to be very kind, patient, reasonable, and fair-minded.

Understand that this is URGENTLY NEEDED.

In one of my conversations with a Jewish person who’d called me out, they said this was the most productive conversation they’d had with a person with a Palestinian flag in their profile.

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

I didn’t do anything special. All I did was listen, apologize for my mistakes, and learn.

Yes, it feels good to be acknowledged. But I feel like I’ve been praised for peeing IN the toilet, instead of beside it.

Apologizing, learning, and making amends after you hurt people shouldn’t be “the most reasonable thing I’ve heard from a person with a Palestinian flag pfp.”

It should be BASIC DECENCY.

And the fact that it’s apparently so uncommon should tell you how much unnecessary stress and fear Jewish people have been living with because of people who consider themselves defenders of human rights.

By all means, be angry at the Likud, the IDF, and the politicians, reporters, and specific media outlets who choose to enable and cover up for them.

But direct that anger toward the people who deserve it and are in a position to do something about it, not random people who simply happen to be Jewish, or who don’t want millions of people to be turned into refugees when less violent methods of achieving freedom and rights for Palestinians are available.

Stop peeing beside the toilet, people.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

I am posting and responding to this ask anonymously as I don't want anyone harassing its sender. This has already been communicated with the person who sent the ask.

I just want to thank you for being a light in the darkness of anti-semitism, especially on this website. I have found I am on this site a lot less ever since it was made clear that other leftists here are more anti-semitic than we ever knew possible, using very specific wording of our own trauma against us (i.e. saying stuff like "colonialism", "genocide/ethnic cleansing", and calling JEWISH PEOPLE Nazis). It feels like, at best, they know Hamas ≠ All or even most Palestinians, but think that they think all JEWS = Bibi; and at worst, agree with Hamas and think of him as some sort of "freedom fighter". So, thank you from one leftist Jew to another, just trying to keep afloat here. ❤️

You are very welcome; it's certainly been overwhelming, and I'm glad this can be a safe space for you.

I do want to push back on some of this ask, though. Specifically in regard to terms such as "colonialism," "apartheid," "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing."

The use of these terms is not inherently anti-Semitic. For a lot of people, these terms are the best ones they have access to describe what they are seeing. I do think such terms as “colonialism” and “apartheid” are overly simple in regard to the last ~3000 years of Jewish history, and that they cast the situation into an alien historical context which dilutes and uncomplicates the all the historical realities at stake, but I truly do not think that all who use these terms do so to cause Jewish people pain.

Further complicating the picture is that terms like "colonialism" aren’t completely wrong. Modern Zionism arose in the context of mid-nineteenth century European large-scale movements towards nationalism (ie, the creation of nation-states) and away from the multi-national empire. Jews—a subject of anti-Semitism and fifth columnist suspicions within those emergent European nations—reacted to all this by joining the nationalism game.

What’s ironic, is that those European Jews who founded contemporary Zionism were reacting to the exclusion and racial hatred with which Gentile Europeans treated them, and then once they had some settlements in Palestine, they deployed similar variants of racial hatred at both the Palestinian Arab population, and Middle Eastern Jewry.

The existence of a distinct people and ethnic group in Palestine before the aliyot were not something the first generation of Zionists were concerned with. Because they were part of the same shitty, white supremacist, pro-imperialistic intellectual European tradition to which they were responding as victimized parties. As time went on and Zionist thought spread across Ashkenazic communities, we can see some variants. Some forms of far-left Zionism in twentieth century Poland, for example, actively built the presence and rights of Palestinian Arabs into their ideology, some of them actively stating that Zionism could not be a success if it necessitated transforming Palestinian Arabs into a group of secondhand citizens and a cheap source of labor in their own home.

Those leftist strands of Zionism tended to be Socialist/Communist in nature, and centered around the idea of life in Eretz Yisrael as one of a series of self-sufficient communes. Thus when the 1930s hit and things start to go bad, the Zionists we see fleeing to Palestine tended to be of the more centrist and far right variants. The left wing, socialist movements, already operating as a collective, had a membership uncomfortable with fleeing to safety while the rest remained behind.

And that same socialist/communal attitude, is why those variants of Zionist thought never made it into the Israeli political mainstream; most of their members and proponents were murdered in the Holocaust in part because they refused to leave their comrades behind. The General Zionists and Zionist Revisionists who rode out the years of the Holocaust in Palestine therefore already had access to the avenues of power which would become important in 1948, when the British Empire shrugged off its responsibilities towards the regions it colonized and destabilized.

Now, as for ethnic cleansing. I can’t sugar-coat this: that’s what the Naqba was. It was ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from their homes to make way for the Jewish State. The manipulative shit (but still somehow extremely prestigious) youth group I was in taught us that Arabs call it Naqba because they hate Jews and therefore existence of Jews in the Southern Levant was a tragedy, as was the fact that Hitler didn't finish the job.

That’s garbage: it’s called the Naqba because it was ethnic cleansing. And that's not the fault of the Holocaust survivors who made their way to Mandatory Palestine/Israel in the late 1940s--they lacked political power, and were often looked down upon by those who did; the Holocaust as part of Israeli National Mythology wasn't an immediate Thing.

If you spent your formative years around older Jewish folks of A Certain Generation, whose trauma has pretty much placed a permanent block on their ability to see some of what went down in 1948 for what it was, I can’t blame you for having that gut/cognitive dissonance reaction to the use of “ethnic cleansing” in the context of Israel and Palestine. I know those older folks. I loved them. They’re mostly gone now, and I miss them terribly. But their trauma-induced view of everything lives on in the ability of some younger Jews to properly name and understand what it is that happened in 1948.

It was ethnic cleansing.

Further, not only were Palestinian Arabs ethnically cleansed, but the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Jews who were forced by their governments to flee their homes of thousands of years and seek refuge in Israel throughout the second half of the twentieth century…the Western and Central European Jews in control of Israel and its institutions treated them like shit too. Hadassah actively stole the babies of Yemeni Jews, told the parents that their children were dead, and rehomed them to Ashkenazic couples. There were death certificates. Members of the Ethiopian Jewish community were forcibly sterilized, and their ongoing treatment by the State is racist and generally atrocious. And this analysis of the relationship between the Israel State, MENA Jewish populations, and different Ashkenazic groups in Israel is horribly short and overly simple.

As for genocide. I honestly don’t know. I do know many people, who are very much not Anti-Semites, who are calling what’s happening in Gaza right now genocide; many of these people are also Jewish. I know many others who refer to the experiences of Palestinians between 1948 and now as a slow genocide. Many of these people are also actively not anti-Semites, and many of them are Jewish.

So these terms, as uncomfortable as they may feel for people within the very specific Jewish generational background I believe we share, are not deployed as anti-Semitic weapons. Nazi comparisons? Yes. Swastikas superimposed over the Star of David? Yes. Very specific hook-nosed Jewish caricatures in relation to Israelis? Yes. Blood libel shit? Yes. These are all anti-Semitic, and are deployed to hurt and retraumatize Jewish people. But the rest are not nearly that simple.

And I didn’t learn this from like, Bad Evil Post-Modern Academics at Columbia University Who Hate Jews; I learned this from doing graduate-level work in the field of Modern Jewish History, and working in Jewish archives; this did not come from outside the building.

Now, as for Hamas as freedom fighters…that’s ignorant at best. Hamas’ charter clearly calls for the global destruction of the Jewish people [ETA: they edited this part out in 2017 for PR purposes], and their actions as rulers are horrifically, violently, homophobic, and seem to be more abut provoking Israel than they are about governing and protecting their people. But as you said, Hamas isn’t all Palestinians, and it’s also not all Palestinians who consider themselves freedom fighters. (A second reader of mine had the following commentary on this paragraph: "Might need a bit more complication around Hamas? I know that's not your area of expertise but it's worth mentioning that they were basically set up to undermine the PLO and what would become the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. You're right that they aren't representative of all Palestinian thought and resistance, and that they are on some fuck shit.")

So while I’m so glad that blog is a comfort to you, I encourage you to also take a step into some of your discomfort, and ask yourself where it comes from.

No one reading this post has my consent to use it to silence other Jewish people who are in different stages of their journey towards understanding how generational trauma has impacted their ability to grasp all of this. Further, if you choose to attack me for gently calling my people in, you're a piece of shit and I will be mean to you.

[caffeineandsociety]

There's a specific genre of shitty antisemitic joke that I have seen fly under the radar (as it was designed to) a LOT more often lately - especially since Kanye started going full mask-off nazi - so I feel the need to issue a warning about it. Namely, the genre is jokes that get spread around by people who aren't willfully antisemitic because outside of conspiracy brain rot land, it appears that the point of the joke is absurdism.

As an example, let's examine the 23-and-me lizard DNA test that I've sadly seen floating around unquestioned.

Because, see, to the average person who isn't willfully antisemitic, this genre of joke comes off as nonsequiturs, or hilarious mistakes - you, as a person with some level of basic observational and critical thinking skills, living on Earth and not in whatever batshit mirror dimension conspiracy theorists think we live in, might very well end up getting a giggle out of it because, HAH, we KNEW those DNA ancestry kits were a scam! If you're not a deliberate antisemite but not really up on the dogwhistles, it doesn't scan as anything awful because you're put in mind of things like feeding a photo of something decidedly not human into that one selfie-to-anime neural net, which sometimes works and produces interesting results because the thing is looking for specific patterns and trying to make anything fit - not things like blatantly lying about doing something like that in the hopes that normies who see the absurdity and want to have a laugh at a scummy company's expense will pass it along to people who unironically believe that Jewish people are actual literal lizard aliens and the test proves it.

This is the same strategy that guy at the game awards pulled. You, a person living in reality where the main source of political corruption is just the basic consequence of an economic system that makes power pool in the hands of anyone willing to exploit enough people, a world of banal mundane evil, know damned well that QAnon-pizzagate-satanic ritual abuse cult conspiracy bullshit is, well, bullshit, if you're even familiar with the details of what they believe at all. When someone crashes the stage and thanks Rabbi Bill Clinton, you may very well laugh because to YOU it is a blatant absurd nonsequitur.

Problem is that to someone else, someone who's deep into that shit, it's either someone letting the truth slip, or someone backing the deep state into a corner - whichever is more convenient to believe.

This is one form of how the far right uses memeification (CW: the example discussed in the link is a rape "joke") - it means something totally different to the in-group than it does to the out-group. To you, it's funny because it's nonsensical; to them, it's fun because they think they're onto something huge and they're about to blow this shit wide open and it's going to be their great moment of triumph.

I cannot stress enough that no matter how absurd an antisemitic conspiracy theory sounds to you, there are people who believe it, unironically. There are people who unironically believe that Jewish people are very literally not human and no amount of evidence to the contrary will ever change their minds. There are people who believe that we're born with horns and tails and pointed ears and have them surgically altered to fit in with good Christian humans like some kind of extremely high-stakes game of Among Us. There are people who believe that we steal, ritualistically abuse, and kill Christian babies. These beliefs, while fringe enough that, yeah, most of you who this post is aimed at have never heard them in the wild before very recently, are not nearly as fringe as you probably think they are. Just look at fucking Kanye. This asshole has more fans than there are Jewish people in the world.

So I'm begging you to please, bare minimum, be careful of "absurdist" jokes about Jewish people, especially if they reference lizards, money, banking, or government power. Also, you may see Jewish people debating how religious laws may apply to fictional creatures, but outside of that context you should also be wary of any time Jewish people are mentioned in the same sentence as vampires, dragons, goblins, zombies, fantasy demons, or any number of other fantasy creatures known for greed, feeding on humans, or both.

If the reason it seems funny to you is because you'd have to be really stupid to believe it's true or makes any kind of sense - it's probably looking for you to spread it to people who are, in fact, that stupid.

[transmascpetewentz]

yes, @lambdadelta--communism, zionist infighting exists and is a thing because zionists are a very diverse ideological group with members from all quadrants of the political compass. because zionism encourages disagreement and discussion, and isn't an echo chamber, people might not always agree with one another on specifics. i'm sure that's unfamiliar to you, someone who thinks that everyone she doesn't like is literally a fascist, nazi, and every other obviously bad thing.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

So I am a bit ashamed given modern day politics to admit that I'm left leaning at all. Even if I'm a just Left of Center Libertarian.

But the reason why is because of the fact that a huge swath of the left has an issue when it comes to words. Specifically changing the meaning of words until they mean next to nothing at all.

What do I mean by this? Well let's consider, what words have been made to mean nothing by the left:

Gender

Sex

Abortion

Genocide

Nazi

Man

Woman

Child

Family

Capitalism

Communism

Socialism

Fascism

Racism

Sexism

Etc

The list goes on and on and on.

Nazi more or less now means, "I don't like you and you don't agree with me thus forth I will bestow this label on you so as to smear you publicly"

Gender used to mean sex and now it both does and does not mean sex and even is now used to mean "Identity" with that was never what it meant.

Genocide is SUPPOSED to mean the intentional removal of a group of people through killing them or breeding them out by sterilization or intentional delusion of their bloodline. (Example of this is the raping of Uyghur Muslim women by Han chinese men and the sterilization of the Uyghur Muslim men by chemical castration or actual castration). Now it just means, "People dying in war is genocide. People not being allowed to chemically castrate themselves is genocide. People being allowed to eat meat is genocide". IE: It means nothing at all.

And then there's my favorite phrase from the left.

"This is a threat to our Democracy" which actually translates to: This is a threat to the power of Democrats therefore we need to smear and slander anyone pushing whatever is being pushed currently. And we will use weasel words normies use in order to scare them away from whatever this thing being pushed is".

First and foremost, we DO NOT live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic. Secondly, when people want power as BADLY as Dems and will lie, cheat, steal, and smear to get there, you should be concerned. I mean for god sake, people consider a very TINY riot at the capital with 99.99% of people unarmed completely, while we also know feds were in the crowd, an "Insurrection"; But then will not consider fire bombing the security office outside the White House, the pushing down of the WH fence, and the burning of a historical church across the street, and the injuring and killing of several Guards and Police the same thing.

So basically, it's a "If we are in power, everything we do, no matter what it is, is fine and reasonable. If you are in power anything we do to try to remove you from power is fine and reasonable.", situation.

That's why I don't like most of the left. Because they think they are gods. Their "Moral" is correct even when it never stops changing. Look at their defense of slavery in the middle east all because, "Those poor oppressed Arabs". I'm sorry but what?! SO slavery is FINE so long as it's non white doing it? That's what I'm hearing right? And sadly a lot of the time it's "YES! That is what you are hearing". If time has taught me anything it's that most of the left is a brainwashed, uneducated cult. They believe EVERYTHING outside of their cult views as evil and thus forth need to lie about it to make everyone else NOT involved or not informed also have the same resentment towards the people they hate.

And it was the last straw when I saw post after post after post of leftists excusing rape. And then people like Hasan Piker calling Kids, "Colonizers" while in the breath before talking about violent removal of people is fine if they are colonizers.

No leftists. You need to understand something very clearly. The "Right" you view as so bad and evil are consistent in most of their morals. But you view everything in bad faith. Thus can't see past your own bias long enough to realize the actual evil ones are you.

And understand. I'm not calling EVERYONE on the left evil. But if you worship the left, you probably are evil. Even if you believe you are doing "The right thing" that doesn't mean you are. And it's about time you realized that.

[bijoumikhawal]

I mentioned this in the tags of a post the other day, but since NK is high profile and getting a lot of videos shared, and I saw someone today decry a short speech one of their rabbis gave as "extremist", I guess I'll make a post too

Neturei Karta is a Litvish Ultra-Orthodox/Haredi antizionist group. In my experience, they are the most high profile antizionist group that ties that stance to their religious practice within Judaism, but they are not the only group (the Satmar are also generally antizionist, and they're a larger group, but they don't like NK).

As I mentioned yesterday, there was an incident with Iran- one of two, actually, but this one gets brought up more- where NK sent speakers to a conference specifically for the purposes of defending the existence of the Holocaust, as several Holocaust deniers were in attendance. The speaker specifically chosen had his grandparents die in the Holocaust. However, he also was blunt in stating his opinion that Zionists used the Holocaust to oppress others, Zionists had been collaborators and thwarted efforts to save Jewish lives. This prompted the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi to call for their excommunication, essentially, and for the Satmar and broader Haredi movement to tell people to stay away from them. These remarks are complicated; many incidents one could classify as collaboration were Zionists trying to move Jews out of Europe, to save lives. However, when the speaker said the third statement, I'm fairly certain he was genuinely expressing his own intergenerational trauma. Early Zionists did indeed, have a fair amount of animosity towards Orthodox Jews. At one point Theodore Herzl (a founder of the modern Zionist movement) did express the opinion that Jews should convert en masse to Christianity, and the feeling was that the Orthodox who refused should be left to their fate. This accusation is a response to a very real tension among Jews that existed at the time. And the collaborationism was not always about saving lives; the Lehi gang, which committed the Deir Yassin massacre, sought out an alliance with the Nazis on several occasions, and expressed a desire for a totalitarian nationalist state.

Another incident was one where NK met with heads of state in early 2006, particularly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after criticizing other Jews for referring to remarks he made as antisemitic, and did an interview with Iranian press where they stated the Holocaust was used as a political tool by Zionists, that Zionism is "not Jewish, but political", and that not all Jews are Zionists. They also clearly stated that when they say they are not Zionists, they do not mean withdrawal to 67 borders, but a full dissolution of state, where Jews still can live with Palestinians. Later on in 2006, Ahmadinejad made comments about the reality of the Holocaust that prompted Haroun Yashayaei, one of the most prominent members of the Iranian Jewish community, to publicly speak put against him (and no, he didn't get arrested over that. He actually is also a movie producer and got an award in 2008).

It should be noted that in West Asia and North Africa, Iran is one of only a few countries that still has a significant Jewish population. The others are Turkey (14,500), Azerbaijan (7,200), Morocco (2,100), and Tunisia (1,000). For those unaware, this is significant because during the 1920s and 30s, many colonial governments stripped WANA Jews of citizenship, and in the 40s-60s, many post colonial WANA countries forcibly expelled local Jews. As a result, the centuries long presence of Jews in countries such as Egypt or Syria is down a hundred or fewer individuals in many cases. Ideologically, I do not support Iran's government because it's a theocratic state that treats Kurds like shit, but all of NK's interactions with Iran must be contextualized in light of this. This is not me using WANA Jews as a rhetorical device either: my paternal country, Egypt, which I wish I could so much as visit, is such a country. The 2016 Iranian census puts the country's Jewish population at 9,826. That's a number that I would weep to see reported in Egypt, and the second highest of any West Asia or North African country.

Personally while I hold no serious ideological disagreement with NK over antizionism, I do not wholly support them for other reasons (gender/sexuality politics reasons primarily). I bring up these incidents with Iran because in the past I've seen people claim they are Holocaust deniers, or that they think Jewish people brought the Holocaust on themselves. I have never seen a NK member say ANYTHING of that sort, and the idea that Jews bring antisemitism in any form on themselves is in fact an actual belief Herzl held. The closest I've heard is when NK distributed leaflets after a Chabad was attacked in Mumbai where they criticized Chabad for being in bed with Zionists. I'll be linking some articles in the replies of this post about this, including the text of the actual speech given at the Tehran conference so it can be read in full.

[littleguyconnor]

IHNMAIMS CAST RE-INTERPRETATION

Due to my visceral hatred of the game and the way they handled the characters, I’ve decided to re-write their stories a little bit! I’m using the book, comics, and radio drama as reference, and my own headcanons too for fun. This is all For Fun

Ellen

Things I’m Keeping

Born in Trenton, New Jersey

Computer scientist

3 degrees

Went to Stanford university 

Graduated high school early

Lived with her grandparents 

Hope in humanity

Self assured

Sympathetic

Rape survivor

Little to no interest in sex in general

Work driven

Career focused

Things I’m Changing

Black rights advocate

Queer rights advocate 

Feminist

Outspoken

Trans woman 

Lesbian

No interest in motherhood

Fell into a depression when her assault left her with chronic illness and pain

Has OCD

Character Notes

Highly distrustful of people. Kind and caring, but her concern for others is surface level. Struggles with the fear of men and violent intrusive thoughts. Favorite color is red. It calms her.

——

Ted

Things I’m Keeping

Born near Shelby, North Carolina

Grew up extremely poor

Lived on a farm

Interest in reading

Knack for mechanics and engineering

No traditional education, self taught

Studied intensively

Education focused

Grooming victim

Charming

Relied on his body for money

Philanthropist

Rich

Good sense of morals

Kindhearted

Things I’m Changing

Closeted bisexual

Not a con-artist

Not a racist

Not a womanizer

Has anxiety

Has a paranoid personality disorder

Touch adverse

Struggles with dermatillomania

Demisexual

Character Notes

Had always been paranoid and anxious even before AM, but it made his problems even worse. Struggles heavily with internalized homophobia, and gets visually uncomfortable when queer topics or people are discussed. Prideful and egotistical out of habit, but is deeply insecure in reality.

——

Gorrister

Things I’m Keeping

Born in the Midwest

Troublemaker as a child

Disrespect for authority 

Did poorly in school

Moves across states for work

Practically friendless

Has experience as a construction worker, electrician, mechanic, and a trucker

Interest in reading

Prefers to stay home and eat home-cooked meals

Wants to settle down

Divorced

Anti-war

Left-leaning political activist

Strong sense of morals and justice

Wanted a family

Things I’m Changing

Marriage with Glynis was not abusive

Did not strike his wife 

Divorced due to wanting different things out of life and overwhelming mental health issues

Bisexual

Queer rights activist 

Has depression

Has CPTSD

Born in Texas specifically

Struggles with alcoholism

Struggles with anger issues

Is an artist

Character Notes

Very deeply loved and adored his wife. He did everything he could for her, but it just wasn’t enough. Glynis’ worsening mental state became too much for either of them to handle, and Gorrister didn’t know what to do. Sending her to a mental hospital was a non-option, things got worse, and she commuted suicide. He blames himself for it every day of his life.

——

Nimdok

Things I’m Keeping

Born in Düsseldorf

Jewish parents

Went to medical school 

Apparent lack of compassion

Gay

Scientist

German

Has dementia

Had a partner in Brazil

The oldest of the group

Self assured

Logical

Things I’m Changing

Not a nazi 

Not decrepit 

Has early-onset dementia specifically

Not AM’s favorite

Low empathy

Low sympathy

Has a general disinterest in other people

AroAce

Struggles with schizophrenia 

Character Notes

While unable to sympathize or understand other people’s emotions, it wasn’t ever in his nature to be outright mean or cruel. Rather, his dementia is what caused the change in behavior. Sometimes he has moments of clarity, where his true nature can be seen for a few fleeting moments. Still retains his sharp scientific mind.

——

Benny

Things I’m Keeping

Gay

Professor

Good looking

Intelligent

Born somewhere in America

Strong willed

High perseverance

Self assured

Physically strong

Things I’m Changing

Had absolutely nothing to do with the military 

Did not have a wife

Is not needlessly mean or violent

Career driven

Focus in academics

Knows sign language

Struggles with chronic fatigue and pain

A softer man

Interest in nature and the outdoors 

Character Notes

Never one to start a fight or even anger much at all, Benny was laidback and easygoing. He had a calm life, and his personality was upbeat. Nothing ever seemed to bring him down. Not even his chronic illnesses, as frustrating and disheartening as they could be. In his free time he was somewhat of a survivalist. 

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 11 Interludes thoughts:

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Ok. Just in order I think. Sorry for the chaos.

Started off with puppies. I was happy.

Then the puppies started getting a little more violent than needed. I was less happy.

Then Victoria got clowned on a little and I was little bit more happy.

Then the unkillable naked zebra lady showed up everything kinda went downhill. For everyone.

Bitch do not join the supervillain serial killer group, please and thank you.

Seriously though, The Siberian is a bit scary. Just, completely invincible as far as anyone can tell. And super strong.

Theo is having a bad day. And unless someone takes care of Jack Slash for him he's gonna have a bad few years.

Jack Slash is such a poser oh my god. Dude. Come one. You aren't all that.

Also. Jack. Do not toss a loaded baby! That baby had a full diaper. You toss that baby and you are liable to have a containment breach. Speaking from experience, you do not want a containment breach. (Also just don't throw babies of course.)

I hope Theo gets cool powers and is able to become a super amazing hero like he dreams of. On the plus side, probably gonna be lots of opportunities for trigger events coming up. On the minus side, he didn't trigger when Jack Slash was planning on killing him so I don't know if he's gonna be able to.

They were obviously going to go for Labyrinth. She has such amazing powers for mass terror. Though I guess Burnscar never tried to actually recruit her. I assume that was the plan though.

Also Burnscar needs to stop excusing her actions. Just be evil or don't be evil. You don't get to be evil and say it's not your fault (that sure will come up again in these interludes).

I fucking LOVED the description of how Labyrinths powers work. Just the details of everything. So good!

Fucking Colin. Of course they had to go for you. Why can't you just go away and leave my robot daughter alone?

Mannequin is fucking WILD. Like, god damn. Those are sure choices you made. Helps you be creepy as shit though. And get through air vents.

Mannequin writing out "U ME" to Pocketknife Man by laying keyboard keys down on the table one at a time has cursed meet-cute energy.

In the end, Colin survives cause my robot daughter saves him. And I guess she's gonna tell him the truth about being an AI. Fiiiiiiine. I will be polite to Colin if he comes over to dinner. He still needs to apologize to my other daughter though.

Also I'm sure glad the Slaughterhouse Nine won't have any use for the magic pocketknife that can cut through anything that Mannequin took. No worries at all I'm sure. It won't do jack shit for them. Might as well just slash the idea and toss the knife out.

Cool. Some Nazis died. That's great!

Not enough though. Disappointed in Shatterbird.

But if one good thing can come of this whole Slaughterhouse Nine thing, maybe Hookwolf can die. I'm not holding my breath though.

Shatterbird has a very interesting power set. Being specifically glass focused like that. Definitely can see how she would terrorize a city.

Dinah PoV. DINAH POV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok well first off, I obviously hated Coil for Dinah already. Enough that I don't really know if the Dinah PoV can technically make me hate him more. But that said, I hate him more. WTF.

The description of her power was so NEAT though! Had a minor moment of "oh hey this paragraph of this precog talking about her power works inside her head is an almost perfect description of how my brain works" which was wild. I don't actually get to see the future though, which is a major difference.

She can actually just full blow see a possible future holy shit! Wow. Like it hurts and she hates it but it's still crazy.

Also I guessed that Crawler was going to come for Traveler in a Vault (that is Noelle's cape name until I am told different) after the Bitch interlude. I was very happy I got that right since I really knew almost nothing about either.

So Crawler just basically can't die and gets stronger every time he gets hurt. I wonder how long it will take him to reach Endbringer level power?

And Traveler in a Vault is just a large monster that is always hungry and can be driven to the point of eating people. That sucks a lot for her.

Also Leviathan came after her too huh? Well that's probably fine and won't matter in the future.

Regent's sister is worse than he is. That's impressive! Like, not good impressive. But impressive.

Getting real close to the "can't exist" physic power set. I guess it's not quite it though.

She should keep a better eye on her phone battery.

AMY DALLON! I knew it would be you.

I knew you were destined to be a tragedy from the moment I met you. You were always going to become a villain. So once I knew the Nine were recruiting it was a guarantee that you'd be recruited.

Specifically, that you'd be recruited by Bonesaw. She is an artist and obviously she is obsessed over the art you could make together.

Holy shit though that chapter.

Lets see. FUCK CAROL. Victoria gets some excuses, she's a kid, she's following her mom's example, etc. But FUCK CAROL. You are partially responsible for what Amy is about to become.

Despite being terrified, Amy seemed to have a dark fascination with everything Bonesaw was doing and saying. Really listened as Bonesaw explained things.

The more detailed view of what Amy's power does is crazy. She really can do just about anything to someone.

“Why not fix your dad?” is where Bonesaw won. It's about 3/5 of the way through the chapter. And she won at that point. That was the killing blow. The rest of the chapter, the remaining 3.5k or so words, is watching Amy bleed out to drive the point home. It is Panacea's death monologue. It is beautiful and tragic and amazing.

All that said, since she is losing anyway, is it bad for me to want more of Bonesaw's notes? SHE HAS LORE! GIVE IT TO ME!

Dad at least seems pretty good. He made the perfect response after getting healed. Unfortunately she was already gone.

AND THERE IT IS. THERE IS THE THAT FINAL STEP. Fucking rewire your adopted sisters mind to have romantic feelings for you. No you don't get to say it was an accident! You chose to do it. Holy shit Amy. You are going to be an amazing (terrifying) villain.

Callback to Burnscar and blaming her power for her actions.

If Worm was a Disney movie Amy would end up with the best song, 100%. Hellfire or similar levels.

[cookingwithroxy]

A good deal of present day discourse problems center around the bad use of terms.

For example: TERF stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. Which means, if you're not anti-trans, but a radical feminist, you're not a TERF. If you're not a feminist at all, you're not a TERF, even if you're anti-trans.

Nazi does not just mean 'anti-semite', it's the name for a specific political ideology with major socialist authoritarian ideals, WHO ALSO are anti-semites. If you idealize the group, you MIGHT be a neo-Nazi, or at least creepy as fuck, but you're not ACTUALLY a nazi. Lots of very very notably non-Nazi groups exist that idealize the Nazi's, from the PLO to the Black Hebrew Israelites, and my god would NONE of them have survived under Hitler.

Treating terms as casual fill-ins will get you fought against, because people who know better know 1) you're lying, and 2) You don't care to say the truth, or even know what you're talking about.

It doesn't mean your enemy is a bigot, it just means you're shit at the discourse.

[hadesoftheladies]

alright, some misogynist and ableist goons on this site keep bothering me about my jkr post because they cannot fathom the fact that calling out bias doesn't necessarily equal endorsing. so i'm going to be super nice about it and put all the facts here for the fact-enjoyers.

let's go over the claims made against jkr by testerical twitterheads, because everything to do with trans politics regarding jkr is just extremist white liberals reaching.

Claim: JK Rowling is friends with Matt Walsh. False!

Claim: JK Rowling is friends with Kellie-Jay Keen. Ambiguous! (She has agreed with Kellie-Jay Keen on several issues and advocated for her based on false allegations about nazism concerning Kellie-Jay Keen. Men-rights activists made shit up about her endorsing nazi salutes at her women's campaign. also, JK Rowling has agreed with many people whose politics she does not wholly endorse, like matt walsh. agreeing with someone on an opinion or fact, does not mean you agree with their politics.)

Claim: JK Rowling denies the Holocaust. False! (For proof, see this thread. JK Rowling does not DENY that the Holocaust happened, but that trans people were specifically targeted by the Nazis. Some argue that this makes her a Holocaust denier based on some German article, but I find the term muddies the water. It can be an offense, a grievous one, to deny the Nazis did something when they did, but calling JKR a Holocaust denier makes people think she doesn't believe the Holocaust happened when she absolutely does.

Additionally, the topic as to whether trans people were explicitly targeted by Nazis has had a fair share of scholarly debate. They may have faced some measure of harassment, but being specifically targeted is also a reach considering how little historical evidence we have of transvestites being outrightly persecuted, at least, to anywhere near the same degree homosexual, black or Jewish people were. Cross-dressing certificates were legal in Nazi Germany, for example, and I have found no record of a transvestite suffering things like forced sterilization. This article briefly mentions a German author who thought that the Nazis would finally take care of "the transvestite problem" because now they could be sent to concentration camps and castrated there, but there is still no record of any transvestite having undergone such a thing. Furthermore, of the examples of transvestites that were taken to concentration camps, both of them were homosexual, so it would be more accurate to say they were targeted for being homosexual, especially when you look at why they were arrested. On the other hand, some transvestites ended up in concentration camps, but it was likely due to the fact that they were Jewish rather than trans.

It is also very significant that in the German Republic, transvestites had permits while homosexuals did not!

JKR might be denying that they burned trans books. Unfortunately for her, she is wrong. Transvestite research WAS targeted by the Nazis. Again, not much is known about transvestites during this time and I have found no solid numbers. It most definitely didn't happen on the same scale as what gay, lesbian, Jewish or Roma people were suffering through--and why would it, transvestites weren't a large population, also i have found no record of transvestites being forced to wear pink triangles, like homosexual men were--, though gay men and transvestites seemed to get more leniency if they were "Aryan." )

Claim: JK Rowling directly funds government suppression. (Which government? Source? I'll make an assumption and guess that you're referring to her 1 million pound donation to the Better Together anti-Scottish independence campaign? Yes, she has. But she respects the opinions of those who disagree with her on the subject. She's also donated to the Labour Party, which is more centre-left politically.)

Claim: JK Rowling has financially supported groups that repress Scotland's right to independence. True! (She also voted "No!" on Scottish independence).

Claim: JK Rowling is gunning to be a Neo-Nazi. False! (She has not expressed any explicit Nazi views! Please tap the source to see what Nazi views actually are! JK Rowling has been explicitly leftist in her politics and anti-racist.)

Claim: JK Rowling is a fascist. False! (She does not identify as fascist and does not have any explicit fascist views. Unlike the people burning and trying to ban her books, which contain very little of her politics.)

i don't worship JKR, i don't even agree with a good chunk of her politics. especially when it comes to her sympathy for israel. she's a millionaire white woman, and i am a born and raised african middle-class person. we won't have many politics in common. but unlike you lot, i don't need to be misogynistic or ableist in order to disagree with a woman. resorting to misogyny, ableism, racism or homophobia just because you hate someone is still misogyny, ableism, racism and homophobia. i wouldn't call a transperson the "t-word" even though i don't profess their gender faith. because i recognize that using the "t-word" on a trans-identified person that's done or said disgusting things like, idk, andrea long chu or hunter schaffer (are these your leaders? seriously?), saying that word will still hurt trans-identified people who didn't do or say those horrible things unnecessarily.

see what i did there? i read things up for myself, added sources from people i disagreed with politically, discussed the valid history of people who i disagree with without resorting to dehumanizing language, and called out the celebrity you lot think are "my hero" without being a hypocrite!

class dismissed.

now fuck off you rancid misogynists and go back to snivelling about how righteous you are to your echo chamber.

also, radblr girlies feel free to reblog or link this for all the anti-jkr posts that make any of these claims or keep trying to bait you with this braindead discourse to save yourselves the effort. love you and muah! :)

[river-taxbird]

JK Rowling has denied Nazi crimes against trans people on twitter.

People have been calling her a holocaust denier for denying the nazis targeted trans people. Obviously she thinks this because she doesn't believe that trans people really exist, so nothing would convince her, and more attention has been drawn to this by her trying to silence a critic calling her a holocaust denier using legal threats.

So should we call her a holocaust denier? Maybe not. By doing so, it makes it sound like she is denying the holocaust as a whole, (As nazis and people aligned with them are a fan of doing.) That is an easy statement for nazis and terfs to argue with.

However, I would like to propose an alternative. In 2022, German phd student and terf Marie-Luise Vollbrecht pulled the same stunt on twitter that JKR is pulling now, and was accused of "denying nazi crimes." For this, she filed a lawsuit against the people accusing her, and the court ruled against her. It was deemed that she was, in fact, denying nazi crimes.

JKR is a big fan of Motte and Bailey arguments, where you try to hide a hard to defend argument (That she hates trans people and is lobbying to make it illegal to be trans) inside an easy to defend argument, (That she is just trying to protect women and girls you guys, seriously.) She doesn't say what she means, so I think when criticizing her, we should say what we mean.

By calling her a holocaust denier publicly, you open yourself up to "Well she is not denying the holocaust happened, just that trans people were involved." which when it comes to terfs is an argument you can't win because they will never acknowledge trans people even exist as a meaningful political group, and by taking the very specific thing she is doing and generalizing it as holocaust denial, is that not also somewhat of a Motte and Bailey?

But, if you say "She is denying the Nazi crimes against trans people," what argument can be made against that? A german court decided for the first time in 2022 that the nazis were, in fact, targeting trans people as a separate class from gay men, and by denying that fact, you are "denying nazi crimes," and that's an opinion you could defend in a court of law.

[stephobrien]

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that. (Plain text version)

I kept getting "needs pt" tags on the original post, so here's the plain text version:

Over the last few days, I’ve had conversations with several Jewish people who told me how hurt and scared they are right now.

To my great regret, some of that pain came from a poorly-thought-out post of mine, which – while not ill-intentioned – WAS hurtful.

And a lot of it came from cruelty they’d experienced at the hands of people who claim to be advocating for Palestine, but are using the very real plight of innocent Palestinians to harm equally innocent Jewish people.

Y’all, we need to do better. (Yes, “we” definitely includes me; this is in no small part a “learn from my fail” post, and also a “making amends” post. Some of these are mistakes I’ve made in the past.)

So if you’re an advocate for Palestine who wants to make sure that your defense of one group of vulnerable people doesn’t harm another, here are some important things to do or keep in mind:

Ask yourself if you’re applying a standard to one group that you aren’t applying to another.

Would you want all white Americans or Canadians to be expelled from America or Canada?

Do you want all Jewish people to be expelled from Israel, as opposed to finding a way to live alongside Palestinian Arabs in peace?

If the answer to those two questions is different, ask yourself WHY.

Do you want to be held responsible for the actions of your nation’s army or government? No? Then don’t hold innocent Jewish people, or Israelis in general (whether Jewish or otherwise), responsible for the actions of the Israeli army and government.

On that subject, be wary of condemning all Israeli people for the actions of the IDF. Large-scale tactical decisions are made by the top brass. Service is compulsory, and very few can reasonably get out of service.

Blaming all Israelis for the military’s actions is like blaming all Vietnam vets for the horrors in Vietnam. They’re not calling the shots. They aren’t Nazis running concentration camps. They are carrying out military operations that SHOULD be criticized.

And do not compare them or ANY JEWISH PERSON to Nazis in general. It is Jewish cultural trauma and not outsiders’ to use against them.

Don’t infuse legitimate criticism with antisemitism. By all means, spread the word about the crimes committed by the Israeli army and government, and the complicity of their allies. Criticize the people responsible for committing and enabling atrocities.

But if you imply that they’re committing those crimes because they’re Jewish, or because Jewish people have special privileges, then you’re straying into antisemitic territory.

Criticize the crime, not the group. If you believe that collective punishment is wrong, don’t do it yourself.

And do your best to use words that apply directly to the situation, rather than the historical terms for situations with similar features. For example, use “segregation,” “oppression,” or “subjugation,” not “Holocaust” or “Jim Crow.” These other historical events are not the cultural property of Jews OR Palestinians, but also have their own nuances and struggles and historical contexts.

Also, blaming other world events on Jewish people or making Jewish people associated with them (for instance, some people falsely blame Jewish people for the African slave trade) is a key feature of how antisemitism functions.

Please, by all means, be specific and detailed in your critiques. But keep them focused on the current political actors – not other peoples’ or nations’ political or cultural histories and traumas.

Be prepared to accept criticism. You probably already know that society is infused with a wide array of bigotries, and that people growing up in that environment tend to absorb those beliefs without even realizing it. Antisemitism is no exception.

What that means is, there’s a very real chance that you will screw up, and get called out on it, as I so recently did.

If that happens, please be willing to learn and adapt. If you can educate yourself about the suffering and needs of Palestinians, you can do the same for Jewish people.

Understand that the people you hurt aren’t obligated to baby you. Give them room to be angry. After I made a post that inadvertently hurt people, some were nice about it, and others weren’t. Some outright insulted my morals and intelligence.

And I had to accept that I’d earned that from them.

I’d hurt them, and they weren’t obligated to be more careful with my feelings than I had been with theirs.

They weren’t obligated to forgive me, trust me, or stop being mad at me right away.

I’ll admit, there were moments when I got defensive. I shouldn’t have. And I encourage you to try not to, if you screw up and hurt people.

I know that’s hard, but it’s important. Getting defensive only tells people you care more about doubling down on your mistake than you do about healing the hurt it caused.

Instead, acknowledge that they have a right to be angry, apologize for the way you hurt them, and try to make amends, while understanding that they don’t owe you trust or forgiveness.

Be aware that some antisemites are using legitimate complaints to “Trojan horse” antisemitism into leftist spaces. This is a really easy stumbling block to trip over, because most people probably don’t look at every post a creator makes before sharing the one they’re looking at right now.

I recently shared a video that called out some of the Likud and IDF’s atrocities and hypocrisy, and that also noted that many Jewish people are wonderful members of their communities.

I was later informed that, while that video in particular seemed reasonable, the creator behind it is frequently antisemitic.

I deleted the post, and blocked the creator. I encourage you to do the same if it’s brought to your attention that you’ve been ‘Trojan horse’d.

EDIT: Important note about antisemitism in leftist spaces:

While it's true that some blatant antisemites are using seemingly reasonable posts to get their foot in the door of leftist spaces, it's also true that a lot of antisemitism already exists inside those spaces.

This antisemitism is often dressed up in progressive-sounding language, but nonetheless singles Jewish people and places out in ways that aren't applied equally to other groups, or that label Jewish people in ways that portray them as acceptable targets.

If you want to see some specific examples, so you can have a better idea of what to keep an eye out for, I suggest reading this excellent reblog of the original post.

Fact-check your doubts about antisemitism. Depending on which parts of the internet you look at, you’ve probably seen people accused of antisemitism because they complained about the Likud and/or IDF’s actions. So you might be primed to be wary, or feel unsure of how to tell what counts as real antisemitism.

But that doesn’t mean antisemitism isn’t a very real, widespread, and harmful problem. And it doesn’t mean many or even most Jewish people are lying to you or being overly sensitive.

So if someone says something is antisemitic, and you aren’t sure, I encourage you to:

A. Look up the action or thing in question, including its history. Is there an antisemitic history or connotation you aren’t aware of? For best results, include “antisemitic” in your search query, in quotes.

B. Understand that some things, while not inherently antisemitic, have been used by antisemites often enough that Jewish people are understandably wary of them. Schrodinger’s antisemitism, if you will.

C. Ask Jewish people WHO HAVE OFFERED TO HELP EDUCATE YOU. Emphasis on WHO HAVE OFFERED. Random Jewish people aren’t obligated to give you their time and emotional energy, or to educate you – especially on subjects that are scary or painful for them.

@edenfenixblogs has kindly offered her inbox to those who are genuinely trying to learn and do better, and I’ve found her to be very kind, patient, reasonable, and fair-minded.

Understand that this is URGENTLY NEEDED. In one of my conversations with a Jewish person who’d called me out, they said this was the most productive conversation they’d had with a person with a Palestinian flag in their profile.

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

I didn’t do anything special. All I did was listen, apologize for my mistakes, and learn.

Yes, it feels good to be acknowledged. But I feel like I’ve been praised for peeing IN the toilet, instead of beside it.

Apologizing, learning, and making amends after you hurt people shouldn’t be “the most reasonable thing I’ve heard from a person with a Palestinian flag pfp.”

It should be BASIC DECENCY.

And the fact that it’s apparently so uncommon should tell you how much unnecessary stress and fear Jewish people have been living with because of people who consider themselves defenders of human rights.

By all means, be angry at the Likud, the IDF, and the politicians, reporters, and specific media outlets who choose to enable and cover up for them. But direct that anger toward the people who deserve it and are in a position to do something about it, not random people who simply happen to be Jewish, or who don’t want millions of people to be turned into refugees when less violent methods of achieving freedom and rights for Palestinians are available.

Stop peeing beside the toilet, people.

[rametarin]

Angry about something

Please, please, please, let movements be horrible on their own without saying, "The're the [previous thing] of [subject]"

We don't say the Nazis were the modern Napoleonic Imperialists. We don't say the Napoleonic Imperialists were their day's Golden Horde of Genghis Khan. We don't say Muslim pirates and abductors from Tripoli cruising Europe for slaves and conquests were "totally Trans Atlantic Slave Trading it." Muslims were abducting Europeans for slave applications for centuries before Europeans did it for

And when people talk about modern day Intersectional Feminists, capital P Progressives and oldschool TERF-flavor feminists get nasty in accordance with their values all over a pasttime, a hobby, or a group of people that enjoys something and tells them they're doing it wrong thanks to a VERY unreliably narrated assessment of what they are and why they are, they tend to treat their behavior as if it's the same stock mindset of previous experience related to Christian puritainism and religious evangelism.

Don't fucking do this. Their values are not the same. They come from a different place, and you doing this helps them do something they SPECIFICALLY like to do. First, muck around acting like assholes in self-righteous quests to control how people interpret reality and see things, and when called out for it, have their own controlled mea culpa where they apologize because, "that's just the old Christian White Supremacist in me, the feminism part of me isn't like that and can't be like that because feminism is just good and can't be bad. I'm sowwy. :C"

No. Fucking no. Do NOT fucking allow that to happen. Feminism is not a simple act of seeing women as equal, it's an entire dogmatic baggage that necessitates Class Struggle Theory, the willful adoption of the idea the only thing that matters in sexual politics is that "Women Are Oppressed (TM)" even when circumstances and culture are entirely equal and even handed with them, and that society owes them something to compensate for this inherent oppression- at the expense of men. And that Society is the third wheel in their relationship, automatically there to redistribute from the man.

Feminism bills itself as simply a phenomenon of 'equality'... for women.. but it is no more this than Christianity is synonymous with The Good(tm). It certainly is a shitty way to see the world, but it is not the definition of seeing the world. It boils down to making some very very intensely specific logical leaps and shortcuts out of convenience and then dogmatically insisting these values are immutable and unquestionable.

From that position, we come to the other little black box in the equation. The idea that something that exists in culture that represents an icon or concept, oppresses and exploits that icon, object or group, and that it is specifically wrong to objectify that, but only if it's a woman, a group that is "oppressed." (it's however perfectly justifiable to objectify an 'oppressor.' See how that works.) Right before they say some apologetics like, "It's not MY fault cisheterosexual Judeo-Christian Patriarchy is sexually binary! Maybe if you agreed in more options we wouldn't be having this conversation!"

And it's because of this shitty point of view, they argue that even having big booby fictional characters that are female, boobily boobing down the stairs for the appreciation of the audience, they jump to the next facet of their belief system. Male Gaze Theory.

Built off their idea that Classes Struggle (tm) and Women Are the Obligate Oppressed Class(tm), and that any reference or participation by women is inherently an act of an oppressed political group in bondage to and beholden to their oppressive captors, AND that works of fiction and literature are part of culture, these facets of culture give groups their marching orders, programming and ideas on what they are, mean and even their existence. They believe, uncompromisingly, that your very perception and understanding of reality is built solely upon what books written by the state have to say about what is real and what isn't. That if society writes books about a murderer and don't go out of their way to omnipotently, omnipresently dictate with no ambiguity that, "Murder is bad, ackshully," that you endorse a society where murder happens. And, no joke, this is how they imagine murder, theft and antisocial behavior happening. Because it exists in that cultural bubble like evil waves of energy, just going unneutralized to warp the minds of unprepared people who haven't been told what is right and wrong by society, making them rapists, murderers and exploiters of those weaker than them (and they only care when the person exploits someone weaker than them.)

So they see sexy drawn women as depictions of an oppressed minority being reveled over by a slavemaster class, exploiting their image and the idea of that group for profit (which they also despise) and believe the women should also be profitting off their "exploitation" in fiction, and some sort of state council should exist that oversees the expression or interpretation of women in fiction, or else abolish the work from existing for not fitting their moral and social view of how literature and culture are "allowed" to see women. Seeing this very dour, extreme interpretation about how all men depicting women is exploitation, and by default society is meant for a male, oppressor perspective, is called, "Male Gaze Theory."

At no point in this equation did their greviance or conceptual principles cross over with Puritainism or Christians. They are their own totalitarian beasts, and like the Nazis are not Napoleonics are not The Mongol Horde, FUCKING TELL IT LIKE IT IS AND ACCEPT RADICAL FEMINISM IS JUST LIKE THIS.

You can somehow see one radical conservative and condemn the entire conservative or right-wing party as inherently racist, white supremacist and homophobic, but you can't acknowledge that radical feminism has more Ls to its name and more bad ideas and more bad values than rejecting the idea that trans men and women aren't men and women. All their ideological supremacism, all their logical leaps, all of their antagonistic marching into any fandom and demanding the fandom most conform to their ideas of what is mentally, emotionally an socially healthy, are their own. They are not Puritans, they're fucking radical feminists. Do not use the bad behavior of past groups as an ablative shield when you fucking mean what you mean.

"Well complaining about feminism makes me sound like some kind of CHUD..."

That's a you problem. In the past, complaining about the Church when it was synonymous with power would've made you a "pagan" or an "unbeliever." And before the T in LGBT got traction, it was just "anti-feminist" for a biological man to argue with a woman, giving them infinite instant Ls, even if they did identify as a woman. It starts somewhere.

Call it like it is and just realize radical feminism is rotten from the top windows of the attic to the foundations.

[decolonize-the-everything]

I’m not a registered democrat, I have campaigned for a progressive before, but I’m gonna be real with you. If democrats are “pro-Democracy” and republicans are the “fascists” than why the fuck do the democrats not have debates this year but do have superdelegates? But the repubs don’t have superdelegates and do have debates (even when RFK Jr and Marianne Williamson are both doing better in the polls against Biden then any of the republicans other than DeSantis are doing against trump)? You can make the case he’s an incumbent but half the democrats want someone new. I can’t be the only one who sees this nonsense

fascism(n.)

fas·​cism ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm

a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that

exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader

severe economic and social regimentation

and forcible suppression of opposition

I can't post more than 10 links on a post anymore so I can't provide sources proving that the USA has met all-if not most- of these check marks. But it has. And it has for a long time, before Trump and before Obama. Regardless of party.

Because fascism is fascism. Just like democracy is democracy regardless of which party you align with. Why would which fascist party you like matter? Its fascism.

Like when was the last time any of us Genuinely had a say in anything? We're just now coming out of centuries of genocide, slavery, and systematic abuses against minorities. We all just got human rights within the last generation and not even all of them. And we had to fight tooth and nail, lose family for the ones we do have.

And that's not even talking about how long it took us to get our right to vote and it's still actively & shamelessly suppressed every election.

And we're slipping backwards? Already?

Does our "democracy" think the people suddenly lost interest in the rights and protections our previous generations fought for? Funny that while also adding more laws to make protesting illegal and more funding and protections to police. Did you know Biden labeled people protesting specifically against fascism as terrorists part of a terror group (antifa)?

Why?

Who does it benefit to strip us of rights?

Why do it when that's Not what we want?

What could They want for us?

Why are they censoring protests critiquing capitalism?

Do you want people deciding which rights you should have For you when they think you shouldn't have less?

Is the way this country is functioning right now a healthy democracy?

This is something that someone just made in contrast to the above images I'm sure. I can't find any indication online this is a genuine list.

But it does make a very strong point about the political leanings of the US political climate. And it's certainly not leaning towards any of these things. Always seems to be justifying attacking them or not supporting them instead...which goes back to the scapegoats checkpoint.

The first thing Nazis did was blame minorities for the state of the country. As soon as they had enough support, they started rounding us up.

Kinda like how Mexicans are stealing jobs, Black people steal cuz they don't work, queers are perverting our youth and welfare queens are stealing from taxpayers.

And what are the Dems doing about this rhetoric?

Pushing you right every chance. Like using the pied piper strategy for their nationwide campaigning. Like having superdelegates and not letting progressives participate.... But yeah Republicans will.

At least they listen, right? At least they're honest.

Makes that step right seem way easier than you thought before. Funny, innit?

Democrats are truly personifying the ratchet effect but not just by allowing republicans to pass awful policy while doing Nothing in return. They're also doing nothing at best while the right recruits more and more people (and helping at worst).

I think there are a lot of people in our government who are there for good reason and with good intentions and are "pro-democracy."

I think very few of them are aware enough of the bigger picture to realize they're cogs in a well oiled fascist machine.

That is to say only fascists work in fascist governments.

They're all fash. Not just repubs. Not just Dems.

The only people I have any hope for are progressives and leftists willing to throw a wrench in it.

I'd happily vote for Marianne or Bernie or Andrew Yang if it meant giving fascists a run for their money.

Nothing would scare them more than the people having spare money and time to organize. And we'd have that with higher wages or ubi or universal healthcare.

Voting for a socialist is the best way to beat a fascist. Socialists fundamentally believe everyone deserves rights. There is no greater challenger to fascism than that.

It's why Democrats refuse to push Bernie and Marianne and Andrew Yang. It's why candidates like them with campaigns focused on social programs and increasing life quality are reduced to clowns and radicals nobody should take seriously.

It's all propaganda. All of it.

As long as we still have the ability to vote we should be voting for people like them.

Who cares if they aren't perfect, you know? We're living in the setup stages of another genocide.

Who cares if we lose when we lose either fucking way at this point. Biden is the fucking president and he can't stop what Desantis is doing???? Won't challenge it???

We need someone who will. And WE, together, need to stop settling and putting up with less when we can have So Much More.

Anyone telling you to vote for Biden is a psyop for fascists and I stand by that.

Voting for parties like green party or independents or whatever is not "fascism" because it's splitting the vote. I don't care what Democrats and liberals tell you. It's just you exercising your right to vote for a representative that represents you. Which is what a healthy democracy is supposed function like.

If they call you a fascist/psyop/Russian/bot it's time to start really analyzing what principles and beliefs Democrats stand for in 2023. Do they want you to vote with their beliefs and principles or have they shaped their nationalism to align with their political party which they want you to support without question?

And if they start pressuring you because "the fascists" will win without a unified vote on a democratic candidate then it's time to start considering more aggressive approaches to fascism if we are ONLY ever one election away from it.

If we are One vote away then voting isn't enough to keep it away anyway. And this "warning" coming from the same party year after year that's ALSO promised to "address (voter sticking point) after we win the votes we need" for decades in a row now.

They didn't. In fact we don't have Roe v Wade over it. We're losing human rights over it.

And now Democrats are the Only ones who can stop fascists, huh?