#now their being racist??? homophobic?!?and anti abortion?!?!

[francis-mulcahys-angels]

My cousins and brother are lowkey drunk and they came over to the room that I’m staying in and ugh I’m so uncomfortable :/

[adarkrainbow]

Given I haven't seen people talk about this, here is the simple thing you need to know about the "Snow-White live action battle".

Everybody heard and talked of the upcoming live-action remake of Disney's Snow-White. Everybody had a part in the never-ending debate this caused. This seemed to be all rounded up, and we were awaiting for the movie to be released to be finally able to speak about it...

And then, something came up. This to be precise:

A trailer for an upcoming movie called "Snow-White and the Evil Queen". This is set to be released on Bentkey, a new streaming platform part of the DailyWire+ group - basically DailyWire has recently decided to create a whole branch dedicated to the making of kid content. Children-aimed movies, children tv shows and cartoons, all that. And what everybody has been talking about is how this movie was made with one specific design: to oppose and contrast Disney's own Snow-White release.

The people behind this movie, openly dismissing and disdaining the live-action remake project of Disney, decided to create their own movie adaptation of the fairytale, which would be more traditional and closer the folktale, and thus show what an "actual" live-action remake of the Disney cartoon might look like. A lot of people have been chering and celebrating at this "anti-woke" and "anti-Disney" move, and they're all amused and all that...

And if you don't know who or what is behind Daily Wire and Bentkey, you might be tempted to support this movie. Well, please, DO NOT. Because I personally did not even know what DailyWire was - but I went searching for Bentkey, this "brand new streaming platform". And I found the Youtube video posted on the DailyWire channel introducing Bentkey, where the platform's creator explains why they launched this project and... And this is vile and frightening. You can see it down there but if you don't want to give more views to this I'll give you a little breakdown below:

I only watched one minute and a half of this nauseating thing, and it was already enough to make me identify this whole project as just pure evil. Under the pretense of fighting against "woke extremes" and "far-left politics", the creator of Bentkey and its team explain very clearly their homophobic, racist and misogynistic views. The guy literaly opens up by saying that Disney is pushing a "queer agenda" to "brainwash" and "indoctrinate" children into the "LGBT cult". He also criticizes some of the things the Disney company does such as "paying for abortions" as dangerous political extremes ; and to add a cherry on top, he accuses the fact of Disney making shows acknowledging the existence of racism and discrimination in the USA as being "anti-American" and against everything Walt Disney stood for.

So, funnily enough, while we all mocked and insulted and accused Disney of being an homophobic, racist company... Turns out THIS, DailyWire and Bentkey, is the actual "evil Disney" people have been denouncing and criticizing all along. As in... Our fear of a massive corporation making tons of kids' shows and movies while pushing forward homophobic, racist and far-right agendas is now real. These guys do not even hide their intentions, they blatantly say "We will make kids movie so that they will grow up straight and only straight, we will make kids show that will not mention anything about racism or discrimination, and we will certainly not allow any of our employees to have any abortion".

So yes if you see people cheer for this "Snow-White and the Evil Queen" movie, make sure to check if they are aware of Bentkey's socio-political goals and intentions. And if they are... well I don't need to say anymore, do I?

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Rosemary Neill

Published: Dec 2, 2022

In his bestseller The God Delusion, published in 2006, author Richard Dawkins famously wrote that the god of the Old Testament is “a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser” and “a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal … capriciously malevolent bully’’.

Not for nothing has Dawkins been described as “a poster boy for militant atheism”.

The former Oxford University professor and evolutionary biologist is also regarded as a brilliant and passionate science communicator: His 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, reframed our understanding of evolution and has been named by the Royal Society as the most inspiring science book of all time, while his latest volume, Flights of Fancy – a surprisingly lyrical work aimed at the over 12s – looks at how animals and humans have “learned to overcome the pull of gravity and take to the skies’’.

In 2013, Dawkins was voted the world’s top thinker in a Prospect magazine poll. Yet in recent years, his controversial tweets and remarks about everything from aborting Down’s syndrome foetuses to Islamic fundamentalism have provoked sharp criticism and threats of cancellation.

Now aged 81, the career controversialist will conduct a national speaking tour in Australia in February, addressing topics including the wonders of science, the importance of reason and his scepticism about religion. Ahead of his tour, which starts in Melbourne, the British author gave a typically forthright, sometimes combative interview to Review.

During this encounter, conducted over Zoom from his Oxford home, Dawkins oscillates between donnish erudition and a kind of pugnacious rationalism, as he argues that parents should not have the right to “indoctrinate” their children with their chosen religion; that human foetuses are “no more a person” than animal foetuses; that anti-vaxxers are selfish; and that transgenderism has become “a mimetic epidemic” among schoolchildren. He also warns that human beings could one day be obliterated by the same kind of meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs.

You have been called a militant atheist, and you’ve argued that religion causes wars and entrenches bigotry. Yet you use the borrowed phrase “tooth fairy agnostic” to describe yourself. Tooth fairy agnostic – that’s right. We are all actually agnostic about anything you can’t actually disprove. You can’t disprove the tooth fairy; it’s trivial to bother about it, so that’s the way I am about gods.

Why do you oppose faith schools? I am not against education in religion. I think that’s important and that children should be taught about religion because it’s such an important part of history, politics, art and music. I’m against educating in a particular religion – I’m against a child being told, “You are a member of this church and therefore this is what you believe”. I like the child to be told, “There are people who call themselves Catholics and they believe this, and there are people who call themselves Muslims and they believe that” and so on. That’s important, but children should not be told what to believe.

Would banning faith schools amount to erosion of parental choice and authority? I think children have rights, and the right of a child not to be indoctrinated is important.

You get hate mail from evangelical Christians and you are also a trenchant critic of Islamic fundamentalism. As an outspoken public intellectual, what did you think of the recent attack on The Satanic Verses author Sir Salman Rushdie? It’s horrible. It’s irrational. It’s vicious. It was allegedly perpetrated by a very foolish person who doesn’t know what he’s doing. He has been indoctrinated by his Islamic upbringing and that’s one kind of reason why I find indoctrination so bad. (The suspect, Hadi Matar, has said that Ayatollah Khomeini, who issued a fatwa against Rushdie, is, “a great person”. Matar has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges brought against him in the US.)

Many Christian fundamentalists in the US oppose abortion. What is your view of the US Supreme Court ruling that overturned the historic Roe v Wade decision? I deplore that.

You maintain that pro-choice activists in America are using the wrong tactics. Why? I think the pro-abortion lobby is tactically unsound when they say something like, “A woman’s body is her own to do what she likes with”. I happen to think that’s right, but that’s not going to cut any ice with somebody who thinks that an embryo is a baby, and they think therefore that abortion is murder. They’ll say, “Ah, but she contains another body which is not her own.” I think we should tackle that assumption. We should say, “A foetus is no more a person than, and no more has personal feelings … than the foetus of a cow or a pig, let alone an adult cow or pig.”

You dedicate your latest book, Flights of Fancy, to the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Why does he impress you? He certainly is a high flyer and he certainly is a hero of our times. I do admire him and I think that he’s an appropriate dedicatee for a book about flight. He’s a man with immense imagination and he is a genius as an engineer, a genius as an entrepreneur.

In Flights of Fancy, you note how, just decades after the Wright brothers’ historic flight, we were in the era of supersonic and space flight. Does this constitute an extraordinary burst of progress within a short time? It is rather remarkable, isn’t it? I think it’s a very good century to have lived in for that reason. In a way it’s rather sad that things (to do with space flight) are only just taking off now after the 1960s, when men first stepped on the moon, and nothing much has happened since then, until quite recently. I’m glad things are getting going again.

In 2021, the American Humanist Society withdrew an award they had given you because of an old tweet. In that tweet, you called for a discussion about the vilification of those who deny transgender people “literally are what they identify as”. How did you feel about the award being cancelled? To be honest, I had actually forgotten that I ever had that award, but it is upsetting when your own side turn against you, of course. I’d never worried about religious fundamentalists disliking me, but when it’s your own team, it’s upsetting. It’s a remarkably foolish thing for them to do, because all I did was to raise a subject for discussion.

Has academe changed for the worse in terms of restrictions on freedom of speech since you first worked at the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University in the 1960s and ’70s? It’s not possible to imagine that we’re going to go on with this nonsense where you can’t even discuss something.

Why is the transgender debate so heated, and such a no-go area for many commentators? You’d have to ask a psychologist or a sociologist about that. It (the debate) seems to me to be utter nonsense. Of course, there are people who suffer from gender dysphoria, and one has to be sympathetic to them. But there clearly is a mimetic epidemic, especially among schoolchildren who get persuaded that somehow the cool thing to do is to be trans, and this is a very disturbing by-product of a very genuine phenomenon, which is gender dysphoria. That is quite a rare thing, but it’s being blown up into a kind of false, common thing.

With the recent closure of the Tavistock child gender clinic, it appears the UK is adopting a more cautious approach to hormonal and surgical treatments for trans-identifying children. How do you view this development? I think we’re seeing the beginnings of a very appropriate reversal of this trend.

You have 2.9 million followers on Twitter. Do your more contentious tweets scare your publishers? Possibly, but I’m not here to talk about Twitter.

Even so, why are you drawn to Twitter, given the nasty pile-ons that are a feature of the platform? I suppose, misguidedly, I thought it was rather a good way of raising discussion. That’s why I put “discuss” at the end of so many tweets, (as) a follow-on of the Oxford tutorials. I am afraid I rather over-estimated the intelligence of the Twitter audience.

You’ve said it would be fun to fly like a bird or go hang-gliding. Does your fear of heights hold you back? I certainly wouldn’t want to jump off a cliff.

No bungy-jumping for Richard Dawkins then? I might run down a hill, maybe.

Why do you believe there is merit in people establishing a colony on another planet? This, I think, is one of the motives of Elon Musk wanting to go to Mars. It’s interesting, by the way, that NASA has just succeeded in diverting or changing the orbit of a small asteroid. They need to do it for a much bigger asteroid in order to save us from the sort of catastrophe that hit the dinosaurs. But (the recent NASA diversion) is a very important first step. It’s a magnificent feat of engineering and science and mathematics.

During the Covid lockdowns, you wrote two nonfiction books and failed to complete a novel about bringing back Homo erectus, our ancient ancestor. Have you given up on writing fiction? I abandoned that, at least temporarily. It turned out to be much more difficult than I thought.

Why do you argue the Covid pandemic has been good for science? As soon as the genetic code sequence of the virus was decoded, which nowadays can be done very swiftly, several different teams of scientists got to work on making a vaccine, and they did it in double quick time; astonishingly quickly. I think that’s a great tribute to the genius of our species.

What about the rise of the anti-vaxxers? Has that surprised you? Tragically, really stupid opposition to vaccination has been whipped up, mostly in America, but it spread to other countries as well. A lot of people don’t understand that vaccination is not just about protecting yourself, it’s about protecting society as a whole, to get herd immunity so the epidemic doesn’t spread.

Is there a selfishness inherent in the anti-vaccination movement? Yes, they just think it’s a matter of individual liberty. They don’t realise that refraining from vaccination for no very good reason is rather like driving on the wrong side of the road …. We do owe a certain curtailment of individual liberty in the interests of society.

You invented the word “meme” (an idea or behaviour that spreads from person to person within a society.) We’ve seen Donald Trump turn memes into a political art form. Were you dismayed by that? He just lies and lies all the time, and unfortunately, I think it was Goebbels who said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Huge numbers of Americans actually believe Trump’s lies and it’s a tragedy.

You live in Oxford and drive a Tesla. Are we all going to be driving electric cars in future? It looks like it, doesn’t it? I think that’s a very good thing.

Some detractors say your reputation as a fierce supporter of atheism is in danger of eclipsing your insights as a visionary evolutionary biologist. I hope not. I’ve only written two books about atheism and about 17 about science, so really science is by far the more important part of my life.

The God Delusion has sold millions of copies, but what do you regard as your most significant book? Probably The Extended Phenotype, which is one book that I wrote for my professional colleagues, although I like to think it’s readable by nonscientists as well. It’s the main book in which I propose something which I suppose is original; something that is all my own.

Scientists don’t know how the universe started. Isn’t that an argument in itself that a god or creator must have kicked things off? That’s a terrible idea! The idea that just because you don’t know what the answer to a question is, therefore god did it. I mean, that’s a ridiculous argument. By all means say we don’t know – that’s true, we don’t know – therefore it’s better to try to find out. We don’t just lie down and say, “Oh, god must have done it”.

Across the globe millions of people, including those without a financial safety net, find comfort in religion. Can you see how rubbishing their spiritual beliefs can be perceived as arrogance? Not arrogance. I mean, if they don’t want to read my books, they don’t have to. My books are about what I believe to be true and what evidence is. I’m not going to refrain from writing books for fear that it might upset people. I write books about what is supported by scientific evidence. That is what I try to do, and if the evidence changes, of course I change my mind. That’s about it, really. I’m a scientist who writes books about science.

[ Via: https://archive.vn/Se49o ]

[roxanneslosteyes]

Full DNI

Proshippers/Comshippers/Darkshippers (Whatever proshippers are now called)

p3d0s (this includes L0l¡/sh0t@ likers/supporters)

Z00files

Fatphobic people

Ai artists/supporters

NFT supporters/likers

Wallyest aka Appleest DNI and selfest shippers in general (It's makes me uncomfortable)

Transphobic people (This includes terfs)

Homophobic people (This includes Lesphobic, Aphobic, Biphobic etc)

Racist people

Swerfs

N@z¡ supporters/N@z!s

Inotreal supporters

Ablest people

Pro Capitalism

Pro patriarchy

Anti abortion people/Pro lives

People are anti an religious that isn't Christian (example: Anti Jews, Muslims, Pagans, people who believes in Satanism, etc. These are about people who hate religion because they can not about people who hate religion due to religious trauma!)

misogynists

zionists

Incest likers/supporters

fetishizers (the ones who fetishize race, Sexuality, Disabled ppl, People's trauma, gender, bodytypes, etc aka seeing groups of people as Objects not humans.)

Sexist ppl

Fatshamers

Slvtshamers

Victim blamers

People who hate on harmless ships (Such as Oc x canon, canon x canon, rarepairs, Self inserts x canon etc.)

• Also Helluva boss/Hazbin fans who have to make a big fuss over valid criticism or try defend the things that being criticism.

• Any toxic fans really in any fandom

Bigoted people!

People who make traumatised people's trauma as gender wars (Example: Mostly **from what I seen btw** the male fake allies of male trauma of any type survivors saying 'It's happens to men too' under a female or AFAB person of the same trauma video about their trauma)

Anti-Kink people

Fujios (This is under fetishizers who fetishizes groups of people since they fetishize gay people.)

People who forgave yan dev and people who support him

People who support Dream (The dsmp member)

People who romanticizes true crime

People who treat real victims of trauma as circus animals and not humans

MERF (Male exclusionary radfem/Radical "Feminist", I looked this up and many sources say its an alternative term for terfs who are Transphobic to trans women, they see trans women as men.)

The "Misandrists" who are just bigot women who use misandrist as a safe guard for their hate (I don't think these people have terms unlike with feminism who has terms for bigot women who use feminist as a safe guard for their hate. I saw two Transphobia "Misandrists" against a trans woman and amab non binary person, An Afab victim blamer "Misandrist" and "Women cannot be harmful to people" "Misandrists". All these "Misandrists" I mentioned are just bigot people who are using "Misandrist" to spread their biogot hate)

Lovelypeaches fans/stans

White supremacy people

Wilbur Soot (The YouTuber from Dream (Minecraft YTer's group) Supporters/forgivers

white feminists (White Feminists are basically a "Feminist" version of White

transmisogyny people (I didn't know this exists until recently)

Georgenotfound supporters/apologist

I should really explain three things of my DNI list.

What's Terf?

A terf is short for Trans-exclusionary radical "feminism"/Trans gender exclusionary "Radfems"It's pretty self explanatory, they are "Feminists" who are Transphobic.

What's a Swerf?

A swerf is short for sex workers exclusionary radical "Feminism"/Sex Worker exclusionary "Radfems".

Swerfs are the sister of terfs in a way.

Yes the sex work industry and its sub industries have serious problems and exploitive however the sex work industry and its sub industries aren't the only industries with serious problems and exploitative, all industries in this world have serious problems and exploitative due to all industries are under Capitalism and Patriarchy's control.

Swerfs also have this black and white view of sex workers and clients, Swerfs think all sex workers are straight women and all clients are straight men when in reality sex workers can be any gender and Sexuality same with the clients.

Swerfs also think sex work is the reason for women objection (when it's Patriarchy's fault) and sex work is only for "Male gaze" (Which doesn't make sense as male clients aren't the only clients due there are clients that are all genders)

The time i know about the male gaze fits into sex work more on the heterosexual men side since well that's literally what male gaze applies too, gross Heterosexual men (I'm talking about misogynistic straight men who objectify women)

However Swerfs only use it to fit in "Every sex worker is a woman and every client is a man." View they have while completely forgetting about lesbian SWers, gay SWers, Bi Swers and other Sexuality outside of straight SWers and clients. Queer clients and Swers exist.

Swerfs also blame sex workers for the gross crimes of men and inappropriate behaviour against women (Again Patriarchy's fault) **FROM WHAT I SEEN**

They also blame sex workers for holding up the patriarchy and blame them for fetishisation of groups of people who get fetishized instead of the fetishizers and Patriarchy.

They also paint SW as a literal crime. When SW and that crime is VERY different

(SW is legal and the crime takes place in countries where SW is illegal.)

What are anti-kink people?

Anti kink people are people who don't understand kinks at all but only know the serious harmful stereotypes of kinks. They don't want to learn about kinks, they want kinks to be illegal due to the harmful stereotypes against kinks they know of since these harmful stereotypes have filled up their brain so they assumed all kinks are like their harmful stereotypes counterparts

Also they confused kinks with Fetishisation.

(Note: Fetishisation isn't about fetishes, Fetishisation is about people seeing groups of people such as survivors of literally crimes, POC, disabled people, women etc as objects not as humans.)

When both aren't the same thing.

The same way Swerfs want SW to be illegal and Terfs want transgender to be illegal too.

Due to

Swerfs treat sex workers as subhumans and the cause of everything bad

Terfs treat Trans people (Mostly trans women) as sub humans

Anti kink people treat kinks as an abomination sub group to sex and the cause of every thing bad.

Because of the Transphobic ideas, SWphobic (idk if I can say the actual word on here) ideas and anti kinks ideas against those people (Sex workers and Transgender people) and that group (kinks)

[mywingsareonwheels]

Why it matters actually that some Christians are LGBT+ or good allies (ditto plenty of other religious people)

Right now, the SNP leadership elections in Scotland are being hampered by the fact that one of the candidates (Kate Forbes) is a Christian fundamentalist (from the Free Church of Scotland) who is very homophobic, transphobic, and misogynist. She’s also not great on the environment.

[More behind the cut, includes discussion of various bigotries.]

The second candidate (Ash Regan) is better on cis women’s rights and cis gay rights (and is gay herself), but she’s even worse on the environment and is also very transphobic.

And the third (Hamza Yousaf) is pretty good on all of those things. He happens also to be a brown, Muslim man.

And here is a very very annoying thing: Kate Forbes, the fundamentalist, keeps claiming that her views on trans issues, same sex marriage, abortion, and sex/childbirth outside marriage are just normal for “all Christians, Jews, and Muslims”. And some absolute twits in the independence movement, all as far as I can tell white secularists, are going, “welp I hate Forbes views but I prefer her to Yousaf because he clearly must think the same as her as he’s Muslim and at least she’s honest about it”.

[facepalms, a lot, with some swearing]

The thing is this. Forbes is clearly very strongly influenced by low church fundamentalists in the US. She is absolutely wrong about Christians in Scotland. The Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) permits ministers to perform same-sex marriage and has some congregations which are actively LGBT+ (yes, all of it inc. trans) affirming. That’s a decision they made that was voted on by members, by the way, and I believe the vote was not close. The Episcopalian church in Scotland (in communion with the Anglican church but not tied to its silly attitudes) is similarly good on all this. Scotland has a lot of LGBT+ Christians, as well as Christians who are active and excellent allies, or who are at worst neutral/focused on other things.

And she’s clearly wrong about Jewish people and Muslims also; I mean do I even need to argue this point? I am a vaguely Christo-Pagan gentile; I don’t speak from much knowledge here. But I know perfectly well that there are plenty of LGBT+ and allied Jewish and Muslim people and that saying otherwise is outright bigoted.

The assumption that Yousaf must be a transphobe, a homophobe, and anti-abortion and anti sex-outside-marriage because he’s Muslim (despite the fact that he has conducted himself as an MSP as sensible on all these issues) is just plain racist and Islamophobic.

Hopefully he’ll become leader. He’s got the most support from other Holyrood and Westminster members, and the membership in general apparently does tend to be more left-wing than the parliamentary party (so he should do even better there), so unless he totally fails to get his message across (or the Scottish as well as English media are appalling which... they can be.. :-S) he ought to pull this off. He’s the only one who the Scottish Greens (with whom the SNP are in a semi-coalition) would comfortably work with. He’s the only one who’s properly left-wing. He’s doesn’t seem to be as brilliant or competent as Sturgeon but then very few people are, and he is clearly pretty decent. At any rate, as a Scottish Greens member who also liked the SNP under Sturgeon a lot, I’m rooting for him. <3

Anyway: plenty of people in every religion are LGBT+ or allied. And it does matter that not all Christians are the same. Because, for instance, the Scottish Green MSPs include Ross Greer, a devout Christian about the same age as Forbes, who openly and sincerely regards his (extremely good) allyship of queer and trans people and women as a crucial duty as part of his religious practice, of honouring the humanity in everyone and opposing injustice. The idea that being “conservative” on social justice issues is intrinsic to any of Christianity, Judaism, and/or Islam is both completely wrong, and risks letting my beloved adopted country getting a leader who most definitely thinks that it is, and is an absolute shit. Gah.

[gluttonous-hoards-archived]

Since I ain't looking to reblog a giant reblog chain that'll keep coming around, lemme say it now.

I ain't homophobic (considering I'm either bi or pan), ain't transphobic (got several trans friends, and being enby can run me into similar lesser problems), ain't anti-abortion, ain't racist (again friends of other races), or against anything else that should be basic human rights and common sense to treat others fairly.

Anyways, know that I love y'all, regardless of your orientation, gender identity, race, religion, disabilities, ect. The world is a beautiful place, and y'all make it just as beautiful. (When we all get along anyways)

[navree]

hey! before anything just wanted to say i love your meta, you always have super thoughtful responses :)

anyway just wondering, what do you think the portrayal of alicent making a window in the wall of her own prison/being a woman for trump etc? i really don't like how this played out on the show but i'd be curious to hear your thoughts

Oh thank you that's so sweet!!! Glad that there are people who like whenever I babble on about things <3

I'm gonna separate this into two different things, because the concept of "making a window in your prison" and "woman for Trump" are two very different things. I'll start with the latter, because making a comparison between Alicent and women for Trump is incredibly stupid and not supported by the text of the show. This one gets me kinda heated, cuz as I've said, I work in politics, so this isn't just an interest, this is literally something I am spending my life doing, and here's the thing: Women for Trump is a very specific political group. It is a political group borne of a very specific time in the United States of America, and you can't really make it analogous to one lady in a society modeled in Middle Ages England. And more importantly, even if you take away the actual literal Women for Trump group (which is a political group that's an offshoot of the American Tea Party movement that's mostly just a Tea Party lady and people she knows who support Trump) and refer to just women who happened to vote for Donald Trump, it still doesn't make sense.

The fact that there were women, in particular white women, who voted for Donald Trump in spite of their best interests, in spite of the fact that it would mean things like appointing anti-choice judges or just in general his horrible attitude towards women and his long history of sexual assault and harassment and abuse, is an incredibly complex topic. It's a mix of things like various other prejudices taking precedence over group self interest (willing to accept Trump's misogyny because you're super homophobic or racist and like his homophobia and racism), and just how politics specifically grew and spread in the American populace in the 21rst century. None of these various sociological and very specific factors apply to the situation of.........Alicent following the precedence of law for her kid? There's nothing in Alicent's story or what she does that supports this idea that she is operating against her own self interests due to much stronger societal prejudices and hatreds that have been present in her society for centuries (bastardphobia isn't a real thing) and because her own personal convictions (say, supporting anti-choice measures because someone personally is anti-choice) are stronger than the overall societal good (the fact that anti-choice measures are unpopular and incredibly bad and also affect so much more than just abortion access). It literally just doesn't make sense to me at all that it's a comparison being made, and I think it's telling that it's a comparison primarily being made by people who probably think that voting in midterm elections is a waste of time.

(also if the argument for it is "alicent's got internalized misogyny just like women who supported trump" then i'm gonna be honest imma need you to pull textual receipts for alicent's supposed internalized misogyny, because that is literally nowhere to be found in anything alicent's actually said or done in the entire ten episodes we've gotten so far)

Now that that's out of the way: Alicent making a window for herself in the walls of her prison. There's no denying Alicent's done that, she has and she herself seems aware of it in her conversation with Rhaenys where she brings it up. But, that's not a bad thing? Rhaenys implies that this is a sort of failing on Alicent's part, because rather than just be imprisoned she should have tried to "escape", and many people much smarter and more eloquent than I have pointed out why that's a ridiculous thing to say to Alicent, especially coming from someone as privileged and with as many resources as Rhaenys. The Shawshank Redemption is not based on a true story, ladies and gentlemen. If you're in a prison, literal or societally constructed or anything, the best thing you can do is just try to find the best of things for your time there until you're out. The idea that Alicent is in a bad situation, imprisoned in her marriage and by the role society has for her, and makes the best of that, finds the power she can wield where she can (participates in Small Council meetings, essentially becomes regent when Viserys becomes incapacitated) and helps who she can with her power (offers Dyana comfort and contraceptives and a way to start a new life and does attempt to discipline her son for his actions) and finds whatever happiness she can (in her love for her children and attempts to bond with them) is not a bad thing. It's kind of how the world works. I don't think there's anyone, anywhere, who hasn't been in a situation they haven't wanted to be in, however fleeting and however great or small, and hasn't just decided "let me find the things that are good in this while I'm stuck here". Monty Python wrote a whole song about it. No, I don't have any issue with the fact that Alicent, in a situation she cannot get out of, did the best she could and found contentment, if not happiness, where she could get it.

The issue I have with it is that the show seems to be leaning more towards the fact that this is some kind of flaw on Alicent's part. Again, as I've mentioned, I don't view Alicent making herself a little window in her prison as a bad thing, because that's all she can do with the tools she has available. She doesn't have dragons or armies loyal to her personally or a claim on any seat of power. Her power derives first from her husband and then later from her husband (along with her own authority and goodwill that she's cultivated during her queenship), and if, like Rhaenys said, Alicent is someone who wants power, it makes no sense for her to try and cut herself off from that by "escaping", rather than just making the system work for her. That's just what most people do and have done throughout the entirety of history. It is incredibly rare for someone to affect the change they want from outside the system unless you're talking about a sweeping societal issue, and even then that involves the system largely getting on board with the outside view and acquiescing to it. Alicent's doing the same thing everyone does, the same thing Rhaenys herself did, she's making the world she lives in and the confines of her gender work for her as best as she can, despite the limitations. It's not a bad thing, or an immoral thing, or a weak thing, it's just something people do.

And lastly, part of that view seems to come from the idea that Alicent is being cowardly because she does want ultimate power, but is choosing to stay confined to the gender norms of Westeros that refuse to give it to her, even while knowing that she's being disadvantaged. That's the entire impetus behind Rhaenys's line of Alicent imagining herself on the Iron Throne. But the show has never so much as hinted at the idea that Alicent wants the throne. There has been nothing to show that Alicent is power hungry and that Alicent would have taken the throne for herself if she had the opportunity. Alicent's involvement in politics is a combination of her doing her duty towards the realm as queen (a good queen counts the cost to her people, etc) and her genuine good nature that makes her want to try and be certain that things are going well not just for people she knows but for the realm at large. Alicent's motivations have never been about power, her motivations have been primarily about duty and love: duty to the realm and duty to her father and family but love for Rhaenyra and love for her children, and everything is borne of those two key concepts. We know Rhaenys wants the throne, because she was denied the throne solely on the basis of her gender in spite of the fact that Viserys was ill-suited and she would have been better, so it makes sense that she might view other power-grabs through that lens as well. But the narrative doesn't push back on the fact that, just because that's how Rhaenys sees the situation doesn't mean that it's correct, because Alicent has never expressed that desire. Then it becomes some shoddy writing that nobody tried to think about for longer than two seconds, because good line outweighs actually making sense. That's a problem that isn't unique just to this scene, it also shows up in the "now they see you as you are" thing which, baller line, makes no sense in context and is just bad writing.

TL;DR: Some of it is just bad analysis from people who don't understand narrative, the show, or American politics that does not hold up whatsoever and I refuse to entertain beyond a scathing critique, some of it is people taking a normal thing I don't have an issue with and I think is a decent part of Alicent's characterization and twisting it in bad faith for some reason, and some of it is just writing that wasn't thought through all the way.

[whoa-its-dani]

PSA - Don’t Give Money to “Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights”, it’s a cult.

Don’t give money to “Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights”.

It’s a front run by a cult group called “RevCom”. RevCom / The RevComs is an anti-trans, anti-sex work, racist, MLM / pyramid scheme cult run by a creepy dude called Bob Avakian.

Here’s part of a statement by NYC for Abortion Rights discussing it: [x]

We, a coalition of grassroots pro-abortion organizers, publicly denounce RiseUp for Abortion Rights.

Our movement needs to be strong and united. Most repro groups have turned their backs on RiseUp privately since their inception. It is vital for all repro groups to now unite in discrediting RiseUp publicly.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of our concerns about RiseUp, and why we strongly urge pro-abortion activists to join us in rejecting its leadership and demanding the group step back from pro-abortion spaces:

RiseUp is a cult and pyramid scheme.

RiseUp is an offshoot of the RevCom (Revolutionary Communist Party) group. Over the past few decades, RevCom has emerged as a personality cult revolving around its white male leader Bob Avakian. While RevCom fervently denies accusations of it being a cult, RevCom’s own website claims the only effective way to achieve social change is to follow Avakian’s leadership and teachings. Similar to its parent group RevCom, RiseUp’s only goal appears to be gaining more followers in order to raise more and more money. Both essentially function as pyramid schemes that prey on social movements.

RiseUp diverts money from social and racial justice movements.

RevCom and its fronts — RiseUp and Refuse Fascism — are notorious for raising tens of thousands of dollars and using those funds to pay RevCom leadership, and to purchase marketing materials (to raise even more money). Refuse Fascism exploits civil unrest to recruit followers (as it did during the 2014 and 2020 uprisings), and RiseUp is now repeating the same scheme. The RiseUp website, for instance, features urgent prompts to donate with no information about where this money goes. What we do know is that this money never goes to abortion funds (which they argue are not a strategy to defend abortion access), providers, practical support groups, or anyone actually working to increase abortion access.

RiseUp stigmatizes abortion and perpetuates harmful myths.

RiseUp is currently focused on its ‘Save Roe’ campaign, which involves the wearing of white pants painted with fake blood, die-ins, and coat-hanger imagery. These theatrical tactics further the extremely harmful idea that abortion is a violent procedure and safe self-managed abortion is not possible. In fact, RiseUp has not once raised awareness about medication abortion as a post-Roe tool, and its only aim is “saving Roe”, despite this never having been enough historically.

RiseUp perpetuates anti-Blackness and does not center intersectionality.

RiseUp’s leader, Sunsara Taylor, has been a controversial figure in pro-abortion spaces. She and her followers are known for swooping into town and leeching off of existing BIPOC-led grassroots efforts across the country. Additionally, RiseUp frequently likens abortion bans to “female enslavement,” which is profoundly disrespectful to Black, Indigenous, and POC comrades.

RiseUp has a homophobic past, and remains transphobic.

RiseUp leadership frequently others trans and non-binary folks and excludes them from its speeches, writing, and conversations. In responding to feedback in Instagram comments, RiseUp admitted they focused on “women and girls” and referred to trans and non-binary folks getting abortions as “others” (we have screenshots).

RevCom also has a homophobic past. Up until 2002, the group’s official position was that homosexuality contributed to women’s oppression, amongst other nonsense. While RevCom and its fronts have since begun to include platitudes for the rights of LGBTQ+ peoples, they have yet to apologize for this past or issue a statement or position in defense LGBTQ+ rights.

RiseUp continues to intentionally exclude sex workers.

Sunsara Taylor, the brain behind RiseUp’s grift, is explicitly against sex work and the porn industry (see her prior activism with Stop Patriarchy). Sunsara Taylor’s stance is harmful to the fight for abortion, which we believe must be intersectional.

More sources are included in the full statement.

This has been your PSA. I’d appreciate if you could spread this around.

[selene-borealis]

Why I’m Pulling My Harry Potter Fics, Effective Immediately

(Note: I’m copying and pasting the text here to my FFN profile, but for the readers who also occasionally look at my shit here, I’m posting it here as well.)

So, a few months ago I made a note on my FFN profile stating that I was debating on whether or not to delete my Harry Potter fanfictions. I hadn’t decided at the time, but the thought had occurred to me after seeing all the shit JKR has been up to lately.

Well, I’ve reached a decision now. Effective immediately, I’m pulling my Harry Potter fanfictions.

This is not a decision that has come out of the blue. Although I’ve deleted a few of my stories in the past, the vast majority of them have remained on my profile, abandoned or not. I am a firm believer in letting the old fics remain, in order to show the progress I’ve made as a writer. Because I’ve been writing fanfiction for a good chunk of my life now (8 years!) and it has come to be something that I love dearly. A fair chunk of my friends in real life would even say it is one of my defining traits for better or worse, being a fanfiction writer.

And more than that, Harry Potter used to be a series that was very dear to me. Although I read PJO first, Harry Potter was the book series that I read in a month as a kid. It was the first fandom I actively searched out, and the first fandom I wrote fanfiction for. I still read fanfiction for it, even, because the ideas that other fanfiction authors have made are brilliant and awe-inspiring, although I do not actively go out to look for Harry Potter fanfiction anymore.

However, all of this being said, I cannot abide by JKR’s views anymore.

Recently, JKR replied on Twitter to Matt Walsh, a political commentator in the US who labels himself as a “theocratic fascist” on his Twitter and Facebook accounts. This was not the first time I had looked at JKR’s tweets and other such bs in disdain, nor was it the first time I realized that she is not going to change her views anytime soon, if ever. But, when an author who supposedly wrote her books to be against fascism actively engages in positive conversation with a self-proclaimed fascist (no, I do not care if he means it as a “joke” or not, he has proclaimed himself to be a fascist and he is), I can’t ignore that. It is the culmination of her shitty views of transgender people, her shitty views of LGBT people. And as an LGBT person myself, as an anti-fascist person myself, I no longer want to show my support for her. So, I am pulling my stories.

To be clear, my Harry Potter stories can still be found on FictionHunt, and I do not mind this. If you want to read them, you can go there. I also might write Harry Potter fanfiction in the future (i.e., a rewrite for Harry Potter & the Secret of Life, my most popular Harry Potter story). However, if I do, it is going to be as a direct “fuck you” to JKR. The contents of those stories will feature as much shit as I can figure will piss her off while still being a serious story, because though I still love Harry Potter, I can no longer hold anything but contempt for its creator.

This is a not decision I will be debating. As I said in my previous note, I do not tolerate bigoted people, whether they be transphobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, anti-abortion, or a combination of all of those. If you try to debate me on this, you will be blocked. I am done with being nice to shitty people. And I would say that I am sorry to say it, except that’s not true. No, I’m just sorry you ever thought those kind of beliefs were correct in the first place. Especially if you still continue to do so.

[myragewillendworlds]

Those election results are terrible. I've never informed myself much with your country's politics but from the outside (like news reports) it always appeared like the Netherlands is very progressive and open-minded with little footing for right-wing groups to gain power. Very much an image of a neighbour role model. Obviously the right-winged groups exist everywhere even in the "better" ones (the whole of Europe seems to be shifting to the right), but I really feel sorrow and I hope they will not reverse too much progress or cause too much damage. Is there anything in particular you are worried about now with their majority?

And do you think the whole of Europe is getting too comfortable with the right, now with immigration and Islam extremism being addressed again? Maybe I am too paranoid.

We have had right-wing, largely conservative Christian cabinets for the past 6 years. Prior to that, from 2002 to 2010 we had cabinets led by a Christian party and MP. The idea of the Netherlands as the great tolerant, progressive country is a farce. (Of course, compared to the political state of a country like the US, we are still relatively very socialist/left-wing. Someone like Biden would probably be a conservative right-winger here.)

The big winning party is more populist than that it is purely right-wing, in that it also has quite some socialist stances regarding health care, education and minimum wage. But Wilders also denies climate change, blindly supports Israel for anti-Islam reasons only, and is a Putin-cuck who wants to "fight all this russiaphobia" and cut off all help to Ukraine. He wants our king to publicly revert his prior apology speech regarding the country's colonial past. He wants a "Nexit", despite the grim outcome of Brexit and the lack of a majority here that wants this. He wants to get rid of the parliament, so it'd be easier to push through his unconstitutional bullshit. He wants to end all Islamic education on the basis that Islam is sexist and homophobic, but he's supportive of Christian schooling (that has been in the news for similar problems plenty of times) and felt no reason to sign the decree that would outlaw Christian schools denying homosexual students or teachers as well as outlaw (generally Christian) conversion therapy, nor does he feel anything for cementing the right to abortion further for proper legal protection. It's always like that with the populists, they'll manipulatively claim to fight for women's rights, LGBT rights, or some other minority group, but when it comes down to it they will actively block any progress made in those groups' advantage. He's a known dictator-type too in his party; countless of people have left the party over the years citing the same issues, that he allows for zero disagreements or otherwise differing opinions. Well in the past, when he first formed his own party, I was interested in him as he was one of the few people who dared to speak up about the problems we have with mass immigration and islamization (and those sure exist) but as it's turned out over the years, he's just a populism-spewing cunt, a hypocrite, a Russia-paid bitch, a manipulative opportunist, a science-denier, a megalomaniac and arguably a racist.

It's also a common pattern that left-wing parties always let this national research institute calculate the costs and economic effects of their plans, usually showcasing the ways their program would actually improve the lives of (particularly lower class) citizens, while right-wing and populist parties continue to refuse to do this. Deep down they must know that it would just reveal the obvious truth: that right-wing plans serve only to make the rich richer, and populist drivel serves no one at all.

Still, every election tons of people cast their dumb fucking "protest-votes" on him, now to the point where it's made his the biggest party (instead of, idk, a proper fucking party with actually effective plans), and after all these years of him accusing other politicians of incompetence and lying to their voters, I'd love to watch him go down as completely incompetent and a liar to his voters himself. The political system here isn't like in the US, he'll never have as much power as Trump did, nor have the power to surround himself with yes-men or appoint fucked up right-wingers in powerful positions for life. He'll still have to deal with the voices of the other large parties, as well as the entire opposition, as well as the parliament that verifies if any law changes are constitutional before they would ever be applied. None of his extreme ideas would make it through. And on a larger scale, types like him and the current Italian MP still have to deal with Brussels, too. Though with that said, these election results did leave me feeling worried, for my own well-being and that of many others, and particularly for his anti-climate stance and Russia-affiliation.

Which is all just a long rant and not particularly a clear answer to your question. But yes, the whole of Europe is getting too comfortable with right-wing populism, and it's concerning, because they have no answers to the existing problems and only care to serve their own dubious agendas.

[lunamor-moon]

Pinned Post!

dni:

racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, antisemitic, islamaphobic, you know the drill

prolife/anti abortion

anti endo (our system is traumagenic we're just open minded)

t*rfs, r*dfems, transmeds, etc

anti MOGAl, anti mspec lesbians, anti he/him lesbians, anti multigender, anti man in any way, basically if you exclude any queer identity, get the fuck out

MAPs/pedos and their apologists

proshippers/anti antis

pro israel/anti palestine

dream supporters and HP supporters

nonBlack users of the word s*mp

(e, a, i)

About Me!

im technically new to witchcraft and being Wiccan? i attempted to convert a year or so ago but didn’t stick with it, i think because i didn’t tell anyone irl about it and it became bothersome keeping the secret. now im out of the broom closet and ready to fully commit to converting! also idk what kind of witch i am yet, and im still building a connection with the god and goddess, it’s been about three days since i got back into this so ;^^

im part of a system of alters, and some of my headmates are into witchcraft and some aren’t. so if this blog goes silent at any point, it’s either because someone else is fronting or i just suck at multiblogging lmao

main: @catboygirlboss

[elizabethsharmon]

So. Poland has chosen its "president" yesterday - if we can even talk about real choice here when he won by approximately 422k votes. When he won in 6 out of 16 regions, all of them with significantly lower number of eligible voters. When there are huge discrepancies between the results displayed in each polling district and the ones published on the website of the National Electoral Commission. When there were recurring instances of some voting cards not having the necessary stamps which automatically classified the vote as invalid. When some people went to vote and it turned out they're not registered in their designated district because of system error. When people abroad didn't get their voting cards on time. When his party sent over 150 buses to villages in Eastern Poland to take older, conservative people to voting stations. When this is how the results map looks like - and somehow the blue wins with orange.

In the last five years, Du*a and his party PiS (literally lAw AnD jUsTiCe but believe me, they're none of these things) have completely ruined the country and regressed it to Middle Ages.The democracy practically doesn't exist anymore, not since they have the majority to rule (the opposition won the senate back in the parliamentary elections so it's a small win but it's still not enough). They started with the judicial system, appointing conservative judges who are always ruling in their favour. The courts are not independent anymore. The Constitution is being broken over and over and over again. People have been marching and protesting for years now but to no avail. 

The national television, TVP, is practically owned by the ruling party. The propaganda, fake news, hatred on the opposition and minorities is getting stronger each day. What you need to know is that this is literally the first channel on every TV set in the country. No matter where you live, no matter if you have cable or satellite, you turn on TV and TVP is what you get. Their reach is so much higher than other TV stations from the big four (TVP1&TVP2, TVN, Polsat). Poland has fallen to 62nd out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders. Before PiS took over in 2015 we were 18th. For du*a's presidential campaign now they gave TVP 2 billion PLN in order to strengthen the propaganda. There was a project to give those money to hospital oncology wards but PiS said no. TVP has only been showing him during the campaign. The other candidates have either been showed in a bad light or haven't been showed at all. Voters for whom TVP is the only source of information haven't seen other candidates nor their campaigns.

During the second round of the campaign, when another tv station, TVN, with two major Polish online media, Onet and WP, invited him and his opponent, Rafał Trzaskowski, for a debate. Du*a declined because he said he won't participate in a debate which isn't available for everyone and he asked them to reach an agreement with TVP to host the debate together. In the end there were two debates. Du*a on his own in TVP, answering predetermined questions from journalists reporting to his party and people in the studio that were paid to be there. Trzaskowski on his own in TVN and live on his Facebook channel, answering questions from the journalists from 16 independent offline and online media teams.

At the beginning of his and PiS first term of destroying the country, they started their crusade against women, because as we all know middle aged men are the most eligible people to make choices for women and their bodies. Abortion is Poland is (was? honestly who knows now) only allowed in three cases: if the woman's life was in danger, if the prenatal testing indicates severe damage of the fetus, if the pregnancy was the outcome of rape. With their pro life and anti women initiative, PiS was determined to ban abortion completely and punish it by prison. The bill was so flimsy that in some cases even miscarriage could be turned against woman. Even if the baby would've been born sick or severely disabled, even if the pregnancy could be fatal for the mother, even if it was caused by rape. We went on the streets. All dressed in black, with umbrellas in hand. Hundreds of thousands of women and allies marching and protesting together against the government. And they got scared. The bill proposal was dropped but the fight wasn't over and it still isn't. They tried to bring it back now during the pandemic just because they knew we wouldn't go out protesting. But we did, we blocked the streets with our cars.

The day after pill can only be bought on prescription. But if you end up going to the conservative ob/gyn they can invoke conscientious objection to abortion and they won't prescribe it for you. They want to ban sex ed from schools. In their opinion sex ed “demoralizes children and teaches them masturbation.” They want young people to be uneducated and have sex and get pregnant and give birth. They want to make kids have kids just so they would depend on the government and social wage programme 500+ which gives 500PLN (approximately 125€) each month to families with 2 or more children for each of their children. Right now you can be a woman raising your three or four kids and you will get the equivalent of minimum wage just for that. This program made people vote for them in 2015. First Du*a used it in his presidential campaign, then PiS was blackmailing the voters saying the program will only happen if both president and the government will be on board aka they have to get in so Du*a will sign the bill and people will get the money. People still believe only they can ensure the stability of the program even though almost all the other candidates said it will not go away.

In the last couple of weeks of presidential campaign, it became more clear than ever how Du*a is planning to win the elections - by trying to reach to the mindsets of elderly and conservative voters by attacking the LGBT community. He called us “ideological hurricane”. He said we are worse than communists. His party members have been saying we're not humans. He was saying over and over again how he doesn't care what people do in bed as long as they're not obnoxious on street and in real life about it. How sexuality is a private thing and we shouldn't be proud of it. How there's no place in Poland for “LGBT propaganda that wants to demoralize our children”. How there's no space here for unions for same-sex couples, not even mentioning marriage or adoption. How he'll do everything in his power to protect the “traditional Polish values and family model” (whatever that means). The most conservative parts of the eastern Poland has claimed their towns and villages as “anti-LGBT zone”. It's been going on since last year. After Dua's words now the hate crime is stronger than it ever was. When LGBT activists asked him to apologize for his spiteful words, showed him proofs that suicide rate among LGBT teenagers is higher than it was since his party is ruling, showed him the photographs and shared the stories of the people we lost because of the bashing they encourage and support, he said he won't apologize because he stands by his words and there's a freedom of speech in the country. Not for everyone I guess.

The journalists have been interviewing many people in different parts of Poland after it. What stuck with me were the words of some old man from the countryside who has said that “LGBT should be exterminated in Majdanek”. It's one of the places where the death camp was during World War 2. I don't think I have to tell anyone what words like this mean, how much they hurt, and how much worse it is when they’re said in the country that’s lost so so many lives during WW2. In a country that fought so hard for so many years to reclaim its freedom from the nazis and then from the soviets. In the meantime of this bashing, Du*a has pardoned a pedophile so he could return to his family (and the victim he abused). So that would be it for protecting family values.

The exit polls results yesterday were so close that they gave us so much hope that we would wake up in a new reality today but the hope died quickly. Now we're stuck again with a man who said in the middle of the global pandemic that he's anti-vaccination and he doesn't think vaccine for covid-19 should be obligatory. With a man who thinks climate change and global warming isn't real. With a man whose actions are constantly destabilitizing economy because he only acts like there is today and doesn’t look forward in the future and doesn’t know the way he and his party ruin the country will have terrible consequences in a few years. With a man who is homophobic, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and many, many, many other things. With a man who is a "president” of Polish people but only if you're a straight catholic man voting for his party.

Now our fear is that with him being “elected” as the “president” again, his party will try to meddle with the Constitution and try to change it so they could either extend his term for more years or extend the number of terms a president can have. And even if the change can’t happen so easily, what’s sure is that they will try to take away basic human rights from women and LGBT community. They made it perfectly clear in the last five years and during the campaign now.

So if you’re asking yourself now what can you do about it the answer is simple: spread the word. Read about it. Educate yourself. Make a buzz in the social media. We need as much help as we can get. We need foreign media to pick up the topic, we need them to talk about it and to make the noise. We need the foreign governments to know about it. European Union has already declared that if the bashing on LGBT continues, they will take away the development aid from the self-proclaimed “anti-LGBT zones”. Our country has suffered so much and somehow we’re still standing but I don’t know for how much long we will last. So please. Don’t leave us alone.

[fernreads]

Over the last week or so, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a moderate Democrat from Virginia, has returned to one of her favorite activities: attacking members of her own party. She recently dished to Politico, attacking police reformers as being an electoral liability (as she did immediately after the 2020 election), and boasting about sucking up to her local police department.

The next day, she joined up with Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) to attack President Biden in an open letter, demanding that he keep the notorious Trump-era Title 42, which allowed for accelerated deportations ostensibly on pandemic control grounds. Given the rampant and basically unchecked circulation of the virus domestically, Title 42 was really just a pretext for shutting down asylum entry into the country, and more to the point, for the propagation of bilious anti-immigrant xenophobia based on racist smears.

Spanberger and Slotkin aren’t alone on the Title 42 front. Numerous Senate moderates running this November have broken with the president on the policy, asking for Biden to postpone its expiration. For its part, the White House says it will move forward with the end of Title 42 on May 23, at least for now.

I think Democrats attacking their own party base and leadership seems unlikely to convince many to vote for Democrats. I humbly suggest Spanberger and company attack Republicans instead.

Let’s grant for the sake of argument that far-reaching police reform, or abandoning Stephen Miller’s fascist immigration policy, would be an electoral liability for Democrats, and that moderates are sincerely concerned about that, instead of preemptively scapegoating the left for a defeat they think can’t be avoided. Republicans have a very effective strategy for handling this type of thing on their own side: simply keep quiet about the scandal in question while throwing up distractions. This was how half of Congress got through the Trump years—by saying “I haven’t seen the tweet” so often it became its own reporting cliché, followed by hysterical accusations of Democratic perfidy. 

It’s political messaging 101—avoid uncomfortable topics, and stay on your preferred argumentative ground instead. Spanberger, by constantly bringing up the thing she doesn’t like, only associates it with her own party even more, reinforcing Republican ideological frameworks and sparking bitter infighting.

So if a loyal Democrat doesn’t want to pour sulfuric acid into their party’s most sensitive wounds by repeating Republican talking points or trying to beat the GOP in a cop-worshiping contest, what should be done? Luckily, there’s a much more appealing message available. 

It so happens that Republicans have recently begun a furious assault on LGBT Americans and abortion rights that puts them squarely on the wrong side of popular opinion. Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, which is very obviously intended to purge all gay teachers from the classroom, has been copied in Republican states across the country. Party elites have been signaling that the Obergefell decision, which legalized gay marriage, is up next on the chopping block, and its most prominent demagogues have brought back classic homophobic smears that LGBT people (and anyone who supports them) are all pedophile “groomers.”

Meanwhile, now that the Supreme Court has de facto gutted Roe v. Wade and is on the precipice of finishing the job this summer, it’s open season on reproductive rights in conservative states. Texas led the way, but Oklahoma recently passed a nearly categorical abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest. More than 20 other states are certain to restrict almost all abortion should the Court formally overturn Roe, or even if it signals that it’s a dead letter. As Kate Riga argues at Talking Points Memo, given the accelerating pace of conservative radicalization, a national statutory ban on abortion in all states is the likely next objective, and I would not be surprised if they start coming after contraception next.

All this is incredibly unpopular. An Oklahoma-style abortion ban polls at something like 10–20 percent support, while gay marriage polls at about 70 percent support.

I sincerely think running a furious campaign against Republican extremism and bigotry could lead to Democratic victory this year, or at least some measure of success. The GOP is plainly out of its mind on its own propaganda—the political equivalent of huffing paint thinner until you start bleeding from the ears—and has been getting away with everything for so long that they think they can’t lose. Democrats’ total failure thus far to hold any of the principal perpetrators of the January 6 putsch accountable (above all Donald Trump) is only the latest in a streak of impunity going back to the Nixon pardon. If you can get away with trying to overthrow the government by force, why not keep pushing the envelope? 

Indeed, an anti-bigotry campaign is virtually the only strategy available to congressional Democrats, now that the party’s conservative wing has killed President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Congress is broken, the government can barely keep the lights on, and every day a new 34-year-old Trump judge strikes down another part of the administrative state.

The only reliable motivator in politics anymore is dislike of the other team, and Republicans are the most hateable major party in the world. It’s the party of whipping up violent hatred against trans people and bringing back the endemic vicious homophobia of the 1980s. It’s the party of returning to back-alley coat hanger abortions and forcing rape victims to bear the children of their assailants. It’s the party of bringing back measles, mumps, rubella, and polio by ending vaccine requirements in public schools. And if the snide right-wing demagogue attacking public schoolteachers as “groomers” gets his way, it’s the party of ending public schools entirely. 

The only way Republicans can win is if their horrendously unpopular agenda is lost in a foghorn blast of propaganda, and neither collaborationist political reporters nor the opposition party makes it clear what the stakes are. But there’s a space for new leaders to mobilize the clear majority of Americans who don’t want to turn back the clock to the 1890s, if someone will only seize the opportunity.

[thatsimslady]

The Real Problem with sims4kiwi...

TW: Racism, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Rape

At this point, if you are active in the Sims Community, I am sure you have heard of the Twitter user sims4kiwi that decided to make an default replacement of the Pride flags that included Christian/Trump/Anti-Abortion/Anti-BLM flags. I’m not going to go into detail about why that is problematic because I believe it has been covered enough. I want to discuss why I not only think that sims4kiwi is more than just racist/homophobic, but is also transphobic. Also, I believe most of this was planned to get notoriety within the Sims Community. 

(Screenshots after the break)

So how did this start?

So six days ago, sims4kiwi sent out this tweet. She did this to get a reaction. It was 100% planned. (As you can see in this next three photos)

I would like to highlight some other way that sims4kiwi is problematic. 

Let’s start with Transphobia:

She then changed her bio to this:

She knew people would notice so she decided to be transphobic. Her Twitter bio now only says “female”

She also tweeted this lovely tweet making light of transphobia and being transgender. 

Ok, so we now know she’s transphobic. We also know she’s racist because of the “All Lives Matter” flag. But how racist?

Yeah, that’s pretty racist. But how homophobic is she?

Please tell me she wasn’t ok with the latest and very controversial EA addition to the “Hates Children” trait...

Wait, she told someone to “have fun with cancer”?

It is important to note that in her bio and a few tweets, she does claim to be a BIPOC. She later clarified that she’s part Native American. This does not negate the fact that she is racist. I’ve met quite a few non-white people who were racist. Family members, actually. But, remember, she’s not racist because she “plays with black sims.” (That’s literally the Sims equivalent of “having a black friend”.)

My point? I don’t think people should forget this. She is not someone we want as part of our community. I’m holding her accountable for her words.

[menalez]

I remember I saw a tiktok that criticized the way really extremist radfem attitudes can alienate people who are new to the community and make them turn into more and more reactionary ideologies, until falling into conservatism.

And, I really didn't want to give it credit, because to me that sounds as bullshit... I mean, what conservatives agree with a movement that is pro-abortion, pro-women, anti-prostitution, anti-sex trade, critical of traditional roles, etc.?

But then I see people like the racists you call out and I start to get worried. I mean, another good example is Arielle Scarcella. She started being pro-trans, became gender critical, and now is critical of "anything leftists" including BLM.

I mean, do you think it's true that some attitudes within the radfem community can alienate people this much?? Or do you think they were just racists before and somehow felt more comfortable showing it now? Or maybe they're just trolls trying to disarm the community? I have no idea...

i think the community on radblr and twitter is very toxic and often appeals to conservatives. i mean compare how much focus u see on issues such as abortion rights, anti-gender roles in general, etc vs the focus on trans ppl. the community is dominated by pseudofems that hold the basic beliefs but do little to no analyses, surround themselves w conservative rhetoric and mimic conservatives, and do literally no activism despite many of them obviously having the time & resources. the fact that one of the most popular “radfems” on here is an ex-dom who literally made fun of a woman for being in prostitution and mocked me for being a submissive as a teenager should be a big tell on how people on here aren’t as dedicated to the basic ethics feminism teaches as they claim. i do think women being outspoken & unwilling to compromise is good, what is off-putting is the aggressive pushy approach some ppl use, the aligning with conservatives, certain language used, the mimicry of conservative arguments u sometimes see on here. and if u call it out and point out that they’re being misogynistic/homophobic/racist they’ll claim that ur being like a TRA for.. expecting them to not be prejudiced? and that sorta behaviour ends up pushing out so many woc, lesbians, and even genuine left-wing & critical women in general, while favouring hardly-veiled conservatives.

[mostlygibberish]

I feel like after blocking some people just now it's a good time to remind you all that if you're a homophobe, transphobe, misogynist, racist, anti-vaxxer, anti-abortion, or just a general right wing bigot, you should unfollow and block me.

I don't like you, as a person. This isn't up for debate, I just personally have decided you're an asshole and don't want you around.

You should work on not being those things, because they make you a shitty person, but I'm not here to educate you or engage with your “reasoning”. I don't need to be the better person or adhere to your concept of respectable discussion to tell you to fuck off. Just go away.