#or 'humans should be exterminated' which is GENOCIDAL

[a-dragons-journal]

Forgive me for showing my fangs a little here instead of being as delicate in phrasing as I usually am, but. Periodic reminder:

sweeping "humans suck, humans are evil, the world would be better off if humans disappeared/had never evolved" statements may be cathartic but they're thoroughly inaccurate (ie, the vast majority of uniquely bad effects of humans on the planet are a) extremely recent, like within the last couple centuries, b) the fault of an extremely small minority not the entire fucking species, and c) fixable)

hating being human isn't the same as hating humans. I get species dysphoria is a thing. I get that it's often hard to fit in as a nonhuman in human social groups and that can make it easy to slip into hating everyone around you. Please fight that instinct

villainizing people for traits they didn't choose, such as the species they were born into, is neither cute nor fair. No species is inherently good or bad

misanthropy is cathartic in short term vents or whatever but genuinely embracing it wholesale as a philosophy is liable to lead to you hating humans, human society, and being in a human body more and more over time and thus make your life worse by constantly reinforcing a thought pattern that makes you angry and upset

you are not immune to being part of human society (translation: just because you're nonhuman doesn't mean you're not included in statements about the effects of the human population on the world, ie "humans are killing the planet")

related, you are not better than humans for being nonhuman. looking at my fellow dragons in particular on this one. I get it, draconic pride is a thing, dragon brain probably says you're the supreme being and all else is beneath you especially anyone who annoys you. Mine does too. Please recognize that is an instinct you are supposed to FIGHT, not something that's TRUE AND THAT YOU SHOULD EMBRACE. Good fucking gods.

some nonhumans are also human (it's me, I'm some nonhumans) and you are making sweeping "humans suck, why would I ever want to be human, all humans do is kill the planet" statements in the presence of people included in those statements, which is insanely rude (and no, you don't get to "but you're different because you're nonhuman" me! you do not get to decide to ignore half of who I am because you don't like it, you do not get to decide I'm not "really" human, and also see the previous bullet point). this goes doubly if you're in a space like a DIscord server where people have expressly stated they're not comfortable being tacitly included in statements like that

saying "but I don't REALLY mean all humans, I just mean the specific ones at fault!" after the fact does not actually change anything if every other thing you say is constantly "humans humans humans" and not the group you're actually referring to, or at the very least doesn't change how it reads to everyone around you

[heritageposts]

how do i start to read marxist leninist/leftist stuff ? i searched on the internet but it’s super confusing lol

the most important value for me as an ML is anti-imperialism, so i guess i'll always recommend that people start with works centred on that

some suggestions below (all books should be available either on marxist.org or as pdf/epub files on libgen)

American Holocaust by David E. Stannard

about the colonization of america. not explicitly marxist, but it's probably done more to radicalize me than any other piece of writing. this is the pile of corpses capitalism is built on:

Within no more than a handful of generations following their first en counters with Europeans, the vast majority of the Western Hemisphere's native peoples had been exterminated. The pace and magnitude of their obliteration varied from place to place and from time to time, but for years now historical demographers have been uncovering, in region upon region, post-Columbian depopulation rates of between 90 and 98 percent with such regularity that an overall decline of 95 percent has become a working rule of thumb. What this means is that, on average, for every twenty natives alive at the moment of European contact-when the lands of the Americas teemed with numerous tens of millions of people-only one stood in their place when the bloodbath was over. To put this in a contemporary context, the ratio of native survivorship in the Americas following European contact was less than half of what the human survivorship ratio would be in the United States today if every single white person and every single black person died. The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. That is why, as one historian aptly has said, far from the heroic and romantic heraldry that customarily is used to symbolize the European settlement of the Americas, the emblem most congruent with reality would be a pyramid of skulls. - David E. Stannard

2. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. - Vladimir Lenin

3. The Wretched of The Earth by Franz Fanon

Let us look at ourselves, if we can bear to, and see what is becoming of us. First, we must face that unexpected revelation, the strip-tease of our humanism. There you can see it, quite naked, and it’s not a pretty sight. It was nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affectation of sensibility were only alibis for our aggressions. A fine sight they are too, the believers in non-violence, saying that they are neither executioners nor victims. Very well then; if you’re not victims when the government which you’ve voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving without hesitation or remorse have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of doubt, executioners. And if you chose to be victims and to risk being put in prison for a day or two, you are simply choosing to pull your irons out of the fire. But you will not be able to pull them out; they’ll have to stay there till the end. Try to understand this at any rate: if violence began this very evening and if exploitation and oppression had never existed on the earth, perhaps the slogans of non-violence might end the quarrel. But if the whole regime, even your non-violent ideas, are conditioned by a thousand-year-old oppression, your passivity serves only to place you in the ranks of the oppressors. - prefrace by Jean-Paul Sartre

4. Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire

Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa I have talked a good deal about Hitler. Because he deserves it: he makes it possible to see things on a large scale and to grasp the fact that capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophicrenunciation, there is Hitler - Aimé Césaire

5. Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

probably the most accessible introduction to communism that doesn't demonize countries that have undergone—or attempted to undergo—a transitation into socalism (like the ussr, cuba, etc.)

The very concept of "revolutionary violence" is somewhat falsely cast, since most of the violence comes from those who attempt to prevent reform, not from those struggling for reform. By focusing on the violent rebellions of the downtrodden, we overlook the much greater repressive force and violence utilized by the ruling oligarchs to maintain the status quo, including armed attacks against peaceful demonstrations, mass arrests, torture, destruction of opposition organizations, suppression of dissident publications, death squad assassinations, the extermination of whole villages, and the like. - Michael Parenti

[cavalierzee]

Palestinian “Subhumans” (Untermensch)

Israel’s Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem calls for burying detained Palestinian civilians ALIVE with D-9 military bulldozers, calling Palestinians “Nazis”, “Subhuman” & “Ants”. “They are not human beings & not human animals, they are subhuman and that is how they should be treated.”

The men are thought to have been arrested in Beit Lahia, in the far north of the Gaza Strip.

Amalek is in reference to a biblical verse, which has also been referenced recently by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for the extermination of every man, woman and child, and their livestock, belonging to an ancient enemy of the Jewish people. 

Several far-right Israelis and ultranationalists have in the past referred to Palestinians as modern-day Amalekites, in what commentators have deemed as genocidal language used to justify the killing of Palestinians.

Source: MiddleEastEye.com

Untermensch ‘underman’, ‘sub-man’, ‘subhuman’;  Untermenschen) is a Nazi term for non-Aryan people they deemed as inferior. (Wikipedia)

[probablyasocialecologist]

‘Refusing to actively assist in a genocide’ is the absolute lowest of low bars, an existentially minimal expectation of a post-war European polity. But that’s where we are. The ranks are closed and serried. It is a hypnotically grotesque spectacle. Meanwhile, in Gaza, the killing intensifies. Genocide has still been on the table all this time, it seems. Every piety about it being the ultimate evil was just so much noise, to be discarded when it became awkward. It now appears that thinking genocide is bad is for the little people. Or perhaps it is a ‘luxury belief’. The most powerful states in the world have enshrined remembrance of the Holocaust in their public places, their calendars, their museums, their education systems. We were given to understand that this was because genocide was the final, absolute line: never, ever again, for anyone. But insofar as Britain and other nations have ignored or assisted Israel’s campaign in Gaza, it turns out that these same states have in fact kept systematic human extermination and ethnic cleansing on the list of possible political options, as rights which they might need to exercise one day. At my most grimly cynical, I fear that this is because the Northern states have concluded that the coming age will take the form prophesied by the Bannonites and neo-reactionaries—a time of sovereign power amidst climate breakdown—and this means they want leeway to operate as they will, at home and abroad, without being bound by any laws or responsibilities, moral or otherwise. Gaza is the end of all pretence to a belief in any law but that of raw force, and as such, it is the proving ground for all tomorrow’s hells.

[...]

The British state is an active and official participant in an ongoing genocide, its politicians and press are running cover, its intelligence services and military are actively involved. The fact that this is still barely in the papers, and that the people who have taken to the streets asking for it to stop have been denounced as hate-filled racists and fanatics, should tell you all you need to know about how much anyone in power or in the press ever really understood or cared about ‘never again’. Perhaps I am naïve, but the purpose of Holocaust education, as I always understood it, was not to teach us that we should obediently wait and see what position pundits and politicians would take on urgent events, and then follow their lead. Nor was it so we could take the long view, see both sides, mutter about complexities, patiently wait for years to pass and for evidence to be gathered. No, the purpose of the quite extensive Holocaust education that most people in this country received was surely so we would know a genocide when we saw it. We were supposed to learn what it looked like so it could be stopped, and so that our perpetual duty to those who died in the camps – a duty consisting of an eternal never again, the magnetic north of personal and political morality – would be rightly discharged, should our time ever come to discharge it. It was so we would not be the ones who turned a blind eye to the removal of our friends and colleagues; so that we would know to speak, to act, to refuse to let it happen without a fight; so that we would never betray a hiding child, never denounce a neighbour, never find ourselves just following orders. Whatever else could it possibly have been for, if it was not to know these things, yourself, in your heart? What can the story of Anne Frank mean to us, as individuals, if it does not mean that we must each of us internalise the lesson that we should never give up a child to genocidaires? And did we not learn, too, that the state would bombard us with propaganda, that the truth would be hidden, and that without effort we would become inured and complacent so that it would not be so simple to see what was before us, and so that many would simply accept what was happening without demur? Were we not warned? We were. A clearly distressed Palestinian man whose mother and family had been killed in the bombardment of northern Gaza was recently manhandled out of a Labour party event in Stockport for the transgression of asking people to look at photographs of his dead mother. In a widely circulated film, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner stands frozen and silent as he is violently ejected. What has happened to those heart lessons she was supposed to learn? Is this not the very moment for which those lessons were prepared, the moment that we were warned about? If not now, when?

[bump-inthe-night]

Vaggie has been an exterminator for years...

With countless kills...

And somehow the moment she changes is when she's about to kill some random child? (Minus the fact that she chased this kid for a good minute; didn't seem that sympathetic towards em when they were crying and running away from ya V.)

Why not have it where she witnesses some Exterminators deliberately torturing a sinner for fun instead of killing them to get it over with, resulting in her snapping and killing said Exterminators in order to help the sinner?

THEN have Lute see this and result in her being stripped of her wings? Ffs, have it where Lute is about to kill her but chooses NOT to (like Vaggie is allegedly the best of the best, so it'd make sense that Lute would've worked or trained alongside her; aka 'The only reason you're not dead is because I still have some sliver of respect for my comrade.')

And don't have fucking Charlie just INSTANTLY forgive Vaggie. Ffs, the woman WILLINGLY participated in slaughtering thousands of human souls and didn't tell you; that's not something that should be used as a damn b-plot.

Oh wait, I forgot. THIS would require Viv to actually have common sense and an ability to write things BESIDES sex jokes along with not having your characters say 'fuck' every .5 seconds, which is something she's obviously not mature enough to do.

There's also the fact that it would require Vivziepop to have a genuine interest in Vaggie, which, just like her other female characters, she doesn't. There's different ways that she could've gone about Vaggie being a former exterminator that are far better than her feeling sympathetic after slaughtering sinners for YEARS just because she encountered a demon child, and apparently she somehow hasn't before.

Vaggie was the best exterminator, yet she somehow avoided killing any children during this time. If, like you said, you witnessed how cruel other exorcists were being to sinners, then that would've worked, or if this was her first extermination and she encountered a child, making her realize how inhumane the genocide is, then this also would've worked. Almost anything is better than Vaggie just realizing years later that she was aiding in genocide because of one kid.

Charlie shouldn't have forgiven her girlfriend so easily because she killed thousands of her citizens. She had every right to be upset with Vaggie and no longer trust her because how can you trust someone when they've spent 3 years lying to you about who they are? This conflict should've lasted longer than an episode, but since Vivziepop doesn't know how to pace her story, she rushed to the conclusion.

[curoopeez]

I just saw episodes 5 and 6 of Hazbin Hotel

First off, Lucifer is such a meme. He's literally a short king, he says shit like "take that, depression" and "you like girls? Me too" and he's trying so hard to be the least dissapointing father he can

I think it was really interesting that Alastor got possessive over Charlie specifically as a father figure. It was a nice spin on the "two guys fighting over a girl" trope, but also it reinforces that he has some sort of connection to Lilith, which was already implied by the fact they both dissappeared around the same time.

The scene with Alastor threatening Husk was really good, it highlights that Angel Dust's problem with Valentino is not a bad boss problem, it's a system of injustice where all overlords are free to abuse their subordinates at will problem

I apreciate that they took the time to explain Alastor's backstory as well, having some of it in the official series instead of letting important information in the pilot

As for episode 6, , the first thing I want to say is that St.Peter is disturbingly humanoid. It's probably for the best, since he's the first angel human souls would see, but still it kinda freaks me out

They really pulled a bait and switch with the character design, because (unless you count the cherubs in Helluva Boss) the only angels we'd seen so far were Adam, Lucifer and exorcists wearing helmets, and Vaggie looked nothing like any of them, but when we do get to see other angels we notice there are angelic elements in her design

We learned here that Adam was not just the one who enforces exterminations, he was the one who proposed them and most angels aren't even aware of them. This feels much more like he has personal beef with the sinners, as if he's mad that they lived a life that only Lilith could've let them live

I loved the reprise of hell is forever with Charlie and the younger Seraph, how they highlighted that, by heaven's own rules, Angel Dust should be in heaven and there was no real criteria for who goes where.

In fact, this episode deconstructs a lot of how imperialism works. The mortal souls in heaven would probably be opposed to genocide, but they didn't know about it. They did know that "bad" people were in the other place and their "government" protected them from evil forasters, and they trusted their judgement. The head Seraph was "stopping rebellions" (which she portrayed as something that had happened in the past, while Charlie portrayed as a purely preemptive measure against a hipothetical war). Also the fact that the younger seraph was strongly against genocide, while the older one told her not to worry about it and leave it to the people in charge (herself, who was already enforcing it)

Also, when Charlie defended Angel Dust drinking with friends after a bad day, Adam's reply "we don't have bad days in heaven" really shows that the main difference between them wasn't morals but privilege. It's easier to avoid alcoholism if you never have anything you need to get away from, and as flawed as he was, Angel Dust managed to fullfill every criteria to go to heaven out of his own impulse, while the angels had all they could ever need in the world and still enforced a genocide

Lastly, it was hilarious Sir Pentious trying to flirt with Cherri Bomb and ending up flirting with the entire bar instead

[sepublic]

Jokes aside, I’d argue Belos isn't openly homophobic because there's no point to it; There's no point in trying to 'redeem' witches and demons by changing their lifestyles if he's convinced himself they're all going to Hell anyway, so the only thing he needs to do is kill them. "Why bother teaching them anything if you can just wipe them out?"

Belos only changes aspects of witches' lives that are directly necessary to his plans; In this case, applying sigils by justifying the lack of them as 'wild magic', and then keeping magic divided with different covens so they can't easily rebel against the system that's applying sigils, thereby allowing it to keep doing that and marking as many targets as possible for the draining spell. It's really quite simple. That's why he'll refuse to replenish the Palistrom forests but then promote women like Hettie and Terra to coven heads; Because Hettie and Terra will be killed by the draining spell anyway, but Palismen won't be.

And let's be real... He's a Puritan white guy. He absolutely believes that queerness is inherently a threat to society not just on a spiritual level but a biological one, because it discourages people from making babies because they're more focused on partners of the same sex they can't reproduce with. He probably thought Boiling Isles queerness was contributing to an inevitable decline that he merely hastened and that's why he allowed it. And Belos can't be openly bigoted because people wouldn't listen to him that way.

He's also definitely racist. Belos making an 'exception' for Luz is totally meaningless because white racists make exceptions for brown and gay folk all the time, while still clinging to their beliefs. Luz just happened to be the only human around since centuries, and that's better than no humans because the lowliest one is still above the greatest demon. And he still tried to murder Luz when she didn't flatter his white savior complex, and didn't adhere to his idea of what a proper human should be.

Even if Belos didn't try to kill Luz... Genocide isn't just murdering people. It's also erasing a culture, such as when white people assimilated Native American children, forcing them to convert to Christianity and dress like white people and speak only English, under the claim that they were 'civilizing' them. So even if they were alive, it was still genocide and it was still racism in the form of the White Man's Burden.

He was a white boy raised in a colony, everyone would've taught him that the indigenous people were 'savages' and Philip not only devoted his life to exterminating an entire culture he deemed evil and demonic, but actively enjoyed it too. Why would he stop at brown humans, unlike Caleb who already unlearned one major prejudice of his. If he never learned of the Boiling Isles, he'd have gone after women in Gravesfield (which would've been misogynistic in practice regardless of Philip's intentions), and probably Native Americans too because his witch hunting games are no different than Cowboys VS Indians.

Like I dunno man these white racists do have fellow white people they care about, and are willing to make exceptions and humor brown women too. But they're still racist and will refuse to listen to those people when called out over their bigotry, and ultimately choose that. Any argument that Belos wouldn't be guilty of other human prejudices is purely wishful thinking, and fairly contradictory to his characterization and whole narrative.

And we can wax poetic about why Belos doesn't openly disparage Luz for being brown, queer, and/or a girl, but we know the real reason why; It's because Disney censors would throw a conniption over portrayals of bigotry, and the show was already shortened for 'not fitting the brand'. Look at how Texas banned critical race theory. They think discussing racism is inherently racist, kinda like Twitter users. But with the added difference that they know it's a callout of the people running corporations and the government and investors (AKA themselves) and they hate that.

This kinda gets me back to an earlier point I made; I think the fundamental disconnect fans have with the show over Belos is that Belos stans (not necessarily fans) recognize their character's backstory and motives are something gross that can't be romanticized, and that's why they work so hard to reframe the focus towards Philip's dynamic with his brother Caleb, emphasizing codependency, and religious suppression and guilt. Because they can romanticize that, but not the intentionally pathetic core of Belos' character (itself a satire of certain subgroups).

They're seething over the reminder that their sexy aesthetic will always be second-banana to a 4channer complex, and salty that the crew chose to discuss something topical instead of making a sexyman villain, because their complaints can be boiled down to tastes and preferences, not actual objective critique. That's also why they claim the finale 'retconned' Belos and stripped him of nuance, because all the show really did was just frame and acknowledge his desire to be right as cowardly and selfish, instead of flattering him with tortured abandonment angst over a brother he never cared enough for. As if we didn’t have the ghosts in the previous episode for that purpose.

[thatdebaterguy]

Forcing Beliefs

I saw this post here, and clearly they think what they're doing is spreading a good cause, but god they've done it so wrongly. The entire reason of wars stems from different opinions. Hamas believes Israel is some hellish creation that should be wiped off the face of the Earth, Israel thinks it has a right to exist. Saying that's a debate that actually exists genuinely blows my mind, that a country's right to be sovereign and exist peacefully is debated, because barely any Israel supporters say Palestine should be wiped out, but a scary amount of Palestine supporters call for the death of the state of Israel.

It's a debate. I believe strongly that my stance is correct based on morals, facts and evidence, but I don't deny people their right to oppose me or believe Hamas is in the right. Even if Hamas are literally terrorists, I'll let anyone debate that. Also using the 'silence is complicit' argument has never worked in history, when German's just wanting to get through their lives under the Nazi regime weren't out protesting, it doesn't mean they wanted the death of all Jews, they just didn't want to die a horrible death for voicing it. In fact, the way people push supporting Palestine is very similar to the way the nazis were, since many people who speak up and say Israel is in the right, could lose their jobs, their social status, friends, family, get told to kill themselves, just for a difference in opinion. If I was part of a certain fanbase, or even better, if I was queer, and started voicing my opinions for Israel, I'd be called a fake member of the community, a traitor, an oppressor, told to kill myself, and be isolated from that community entirely.

I can't speak for all Israel supporters, many of whom think differently to me, but if you support Palestine, I'll watch movies with you, joke with you, play games with you, go on walks with you, go to restaurants, as long as you aren't some brainwashed incredibly headstrong supporter who refuses to acknowledge any difference in opinion. If you can even just tolerate that one difference, I'll happily get along with you.

One thing they're doing though, they're linking things like supporting Palestine with supporting human rights. I had a teacher who ran the debating club I was part of who taught us the basis of logical argument. An argument can be logical without being true, and the structure went like this; IF you support human rights, AND supporting human rights makes you Pro-Palestine, therefore you MUST support Palestine. I'm a literal example of why that framework is logical, but untrue. I support human rights, innocent victims of war, victims of genocide, but not Palestine. It's a way to rope in more people to their cause, by trying to play on peoples emotions rather than logic, to make the idea of refusing to support Palestine, an alienating, racist, bigoted thing to do, which just isn't true. Don't let people bully you into having certain beliefs. Form your own logical argument that IS true and contains evidence, to base your opinions on. For example, IF genocide is defined by the purposeful extermination of people based on race, ethnicity or other categorical factors, AND you accept that definition of genocide, as it is in the dictionary, therefore you MUST accept that Israel is not committing genocide, because based on the very definition you said you believe, it simply isn't happening, and if you agreed with that definition, then still believe that Israel is committing genocide, then your opinion is illogical and factually wrong, so either you believe they aren't committing genocide or you change the definition of the word, OR try debate that Israel is attempting to wipe out all Palestinians, to which all I have to say is, IF Israel has a weapons arsenal that could wipe out Gaza in minutes, AND Israel is attempting the extermination of all Palestinians, therefore Gaza MUST currently be flattened to the ground. Which it isn't. It really isn't that hard to debunk. Don't get brainwashed.

[sixty-silver-wishes]

with regards to the iran/israel situation and literally any other humanitarian situation that's going on right now, I just want to re-iterate some of my stances on current events:

I do not believe in wishing death on anyone. no matter anyone's identity or beliefs, I think that everyone should be entitled to basic human rights. I will NEVER advocate for statements calling for the mass death of civilians of any country, and detest seeing such statements made as jokes. I don't want to see "death to (country)," "burn (country) to the ground," "(country) needs to be nuked," etc. if you make those statements, think about what you're saying. we should not believe ourselves to be entitled to who gets to live or die. that is genocidal rhetoric.

WAR IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT. by that I mean I'm tired of people who have never experienced war treating it like fictional media. it's not strictly good vs. evil, it's not a sports game where you pick your favorite team. people die in war. and of course that seems obvious, but ever since the russian invasion of ukraine, I've seen people online, usually westerners with no connection to either country, treating a global conflict with devastating civilian consequences like fandom. express your support for ukraine by raising awareness for humanitarian causes, supporting ukrainian businesses, or learning about ukrainian culture and history, not making volodymyr zelensky thirst traps, goddammit. (and yes, I remember the volodymyr zelensky thirst traps. those were indeed a thing.) war is not meme fodder and entertainment, especially for those who are fortunate enough to be removed from it.

I do not believe in generalizing entire populations based on the actions of their governments. yes, of course there are civilians that support a government's actions, and there are civilians who oppose them. there are israelis who oppose the actions of the israeli government, russians who oppose the actions of the russian government, americans who oppose the actions of the us government, etc. the minute you generalize all civilians under a certain government as holding the same beliefs, you risk promoting rhetoric that is also used to justify ignorance and bigotry in best-case scenarios, and genocide in worst-case scenarios. people are not monoliths, and treating them as such can lead down a dangerous pipeline of attempting to justify the extermination of entire populations.

just because a government is committing atrocities doesn't mean the governments opposed to it are absolved of atrocities. powerful governments are not generally interested in human rights; they're interested in gaining as much influence and power as possible. ukrainians and palestinians are both suffering, but the international governments that claim to support either group of people are only doing so to support their own self-interests, such as global prominence or economic gain. we should not be cheering for the iranian government just because they oppose the israeli government; the mahsa/jina amini protests happened for a reason.

whenever there's a war, civilians always suffer the most. for those of us removed from war, we're removed from the full extent of this suffering. nowadays, with the rise of social media, we are able to witness atrocities in real time, but seeing videos of mutilated bodies and hearing the testimonies of survivors still doesn't equate to witnessing such atrocities firsthand. I don't believe that we should actively seek out graphic or distressing footage in order to alleviate any feelings of guilt, but we should treat these situations with extreme sensitivity, because we're not the ones experiencing them.

this goes with point #1, which is sort of where all of these points ultimately stem from, but I don't believe the killing of civilians is ever justified. even if one believes the ends justify the means, the lives of those people don't stop mattering.

please, going forward, let's be sensitive, compassionate, and kind. we need to be open to learning about different perspectives, as well as history, culture, and current events. there's already been so much suffering in the world in these last few years alone, and for those of us who are privileged enough to be removed from this sort of suffering, it's our responsibility to do our best not to make it worse than it already is.

[kob131]

thoughts on this

I feel fucking vindicated.

Yeah, that is exactly how that beatdown everyone praised as 'Nazi punching' should have ended. Red Skull mocking Victor over his moralizing because the man is ALSO a genocidal racial-supremacist. Doesn't matter if mutants are discriminated against- Magneto's philosophy doesn't give a shit if the humans he kills are bigots or not. He justifies their deaths because people of their race sinned against his kind and thus he is righteous in their extermination. Just like how the Nazis justified their extermination of the Jews by saying they sinned against Germany.

Doesn't matter if people are individuals, to people like the Red Skull the people as a group must be killed for his people's sake. Sound familiar Victor?

'But Red Skull's a Nazi!'

Yeah, that's the point. Victor's actions and goals are so reprehensible that a Nazi is capable of firing back on perfectly legitimate grounds and he can't even argue back. He has to resort to physical intimidation to fight back, which all but says- 'Yes we are exactly alike.'

Now is this perfectly correct? No, I don't Red Skull actually cares about the immorality of Victor's actions. To him, the immorality likely comes from defending mutants and not the actual actions. But we already know that about Nazis and know they are wrong, that personal actions are what matter not some vague connection through genetics.

And the actions of someone like Victor is indistinguishable from Red Skull's.

[sir-josh-of-art]

⚠️URGENT!⚠️URGENT!⚠️:

A WEEKLONG ACTIVE STRIKE AGAINST GENOCIDE IS NOW IN EFFECT.

DECEMBER 18 THROUGH DECEMBER 25TH.

FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY. NO EXCEPTIONS OR EXCUSES ARE APPLICABLE:

MINIMIZE PURCHASES AND AVOID NON-ESSENCIAL PURCHASES ENTIRELY.

AVOID CONTRIBUTING TO THE ECONOMY.

STRIKE OUT AT WORK AND IN PUBLIC SPACES.

DO NOT WORK OR ENGAGE IN WORK PRODUCTIVITY.

DO NOT JUST STAY HOME, ATTEND PROTESTS IF AND WHENEVER POSSIBLE.

DISRUPT AIR AND SEAPORTS.

WITHDRAW YOUR MONEY FROM THE BANKS.

REFRAIN FROM DEBIT OR CREDIT.

DO NOT BUY GIFTS DURING THE STRIKE. THEY ARE WORTHLESS COMPARED TO THE INNOCENT LIVES THIS STRIKE IS INTENDED TO HELP SAVE.

Why the strikes and protests So close to Christmas Day?:

It is paramount that this strike be carried out diligently to it's utmost extent in order to harm the economy enough for our representitives to actually listen to our desires.

As it happens now, Gazan Palestinians are being slaughtered indiscriminately and pushed out of what homeland they have left with no intention of them returning home by the israeli government.

The attrocities commited are an attempt at exterminating some of the oldest and most ancient remnants of Palestinian history, for every hour our leaders have stalled, for every bit of military aid sent to the "IDF" and israeli settlers, innocents (nearly half of whom are CHILDREN) are shot, bombed, maimed, imprisoned without trial, starved, and dehydrated through manual control of supplies by israel.

Israel makes very little effort in hiding their intentions with gaza: to bomb it flat and settle there. Israeli officials have repeatedly used the label of "hamas terrorist" on civilians, press journalists, doctors, humanitarian workers, and whole hospitals all the while stripping down, beating, killing, and abducting random civilians.

The Palestinian west bank is also the stage for settler colonialism as ethic Palestinians are driven off their rightful land and livelihoods, often by violent or even deadly force, all to make way for armed israeli settlers to move in and stay there, leaving the Palestinian no hope to return home.

Israel as a state has no right to exist, it is an occupying force built solely on money and crime, Israel does not need to exist either, antisemitism is a horrid prejudice with no place in society and therefore jews should be safe wherever they decide to live, but israel is built largely on the idea that jewish people absolutely MUST be entitled to a state, and that "entitlement" is being used to stamp out Palestine's actual indigenous inhabitants.

It is likely (if not certain) that if you live in a western nation your country is liable in some way for the sluggish pace at which action is taken against israel.

If you live in the United States of America you are at a particular responsibility to perform this strike, this is because the united states provides weaponry (some of which violates international law just by existing) to israel and completely nullified the overwhelming votes for a ceasefire at the UN security council with it's unfair veto power.

I'll say this again: The United States of America vetoed the end of a military genocide via bombings. The United states also insists upon supplying death weapons to israel.

AGAIN: NEARLY HALF THE PEOPLE BEING BOMBED AND STARVED ARE CHILDREN AND TEENS.

THERE ARE WHOLE LISTS OF BABIES WHO DIED BEFORE THEY COULD EVEN BE NAMED.

CHILDREN WRITE THEIR NAMES ON THEIR LIMBS JUST TO BE IDENTIFIED.

As our leaders fail to demonstrate humanity for longer and longer unopposed, more of the blood on their hands trickles onto ours. That is not something anyone of us wants during the holidays, the so-called "most wonderful time of the year."

I cannot order you to do anything, nor can people in Gaza, but I can beg you to listen and act, just as they have.

So please, share this around, reblog it, put it on your other socials, whatever, and carry out the strike and protests to the best extent you can. It's needed. It is so sorely needed of you as it is from all of us. Are peace and freedom not the greatest gifts of all?

.

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.

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This is our test in humanity, will you pass?

[jellybeanium124]

xxx

I'm angry in this one btw. real properly angry. I don't wanna talk about this because I know some of y'all are thiiiiis close to blocking me for not falling in line and being a good little jew and repeating the slogans thoughtlessly, but I'm so mad and scared and nobody cares at all and I wanna shut up about it so I don't lose all my goyische friends but I can't I just can't.

hm maybe people are being arrested because there is some violence and this is terrifying jewish students?? and I think the author of this article is way too kind to these students. they hail hamas as heroes. they don't think the innocent civilian hostages should be released for the crime of being israeli. they champion themselves as being antiracist when ANTISEMITISM IS AN ETHNIC PREJUDICE YOU DUMB FUCKING CHAZERS!!!

jews are terrified.

rabbis are telling us to stay home.

whenever there's an "assembly" on the uni I live by, I'm terrified it'll turn violent. I'm terrified they'll burn down or deface the clearly labelled building where the jewish org lives.

I stopped wearing my magen david because I'm terrified of my peers, my peers who are supposed to be inclusive and love everyone regardless of ethnicity, seeing that I'm jewish and harassing me or worse.

the average college campus is less safe for jews than it has been in decades.

the optics of your movement are shit. you're infested with jew haters, and no one seems to care!! no goy cares, because you all care more about hating israel than not hating jews. and hating israel turns into hating jews so, so quickly. I want palestine to be a free nation. I want this war to end. but none of you understand that as long as hamas exists peace cannot happen. none of you understand that if you hate israelis you're a fucking antisemite lol sorry. if you want every israeli dead, you want half the world's jews dead. if you don't think that makes you an antisemite, lemme give you another example. let's say you want all black americans dead (not all black people are american, in fact, less than half the world's black population are in america). are you racist? YES. same fucking logic here.

saw a video the other day where some dumbfuck was like "have you considered that all hamas knows is oppression and hatred? 🥺" THESE ARE GROWN ADULTS!! YOU RACIST FUCKING INFANTILIZING FUCKING IDIOT!! THEY ARE GROWN ADULT HUMANS AND YOU ARE TREATING THEM LIKE BABIES AND CLAIM TO BE ANTIRACIST??? if you see POC as too innocent to be bad, then you are falling for the noble savage stereotype all over again. has that stereotype historically been attributed to arab people? no. but it definitely fucking is now with the way y'all think rape and terrorism is excusable.

none of you fucking idiots see anyone involved as full humans because none of you have a goddamn piece in it. you see palestinians as innocent babies who could never rape or hurt anyone, and you see israelis as demons to be exterminated. you're racist, you're hateful, you're not helping anything, and I hope you will one day be so, so ashamed of the fear you've instilled in jews worldwide while seeing them as genociding monsters regardless of ties to israel or anything, as well as the myopic infantilizing racist way you view arab people.

and one last thing: "FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA" IS ANTISEMITIC. IT'S A SLOGAN ENDORSED BY HAMAS. IF YOU ARE CHANTING THAT OVER AND OVER AND OVER GUESS WHAT YOU'RE HAVING AN ANTISEMITIC PROTEST, SORRY. you can't reclaim that slogan, it is calling for the destruction of israel, which will lead to jewish genocide, or just a massive jewish refugee crisis if they're lucky and hamas doesn't succeed in their goal of exterminating the jews.

[bracketsoffear]

Commander Tartar (Splatoon) "Thousands of years before the events of Splatoon, humanity went extinct. It was the perfect Extinction event, with the changing climate caused by humanity's misuse of the environment raising the ocean levels until no mammals survived. In their last days, when the survivors knew there would be no hope left for them, they began preparing everything they could to give knowledge to the next species so that their mistakes would not be repeated. Together, the scientists created an AI known as Commander Tartar, which would lie in wait and observe until another sentient species emerged, and give that species any knowledge it would require.

However, as the ages passed, Tartar became impatient. It saw the rise of Inklings and Octolings, and saw that they were even more wasteful than the humans that preceded them. In Tartar's eyes, the new species were not human for it to accept them. And so, Tartar began processing stray Octolings that found their way to it, juicing their DNA and preparing to create a new ultimate species. When the player character arrives to stop them, Tartar decides to wipe out all life on the planet rather than risk any further interruptions, and should you fail the final boss fight you get treated to a full cutscene showing the results of Tartar's extinction event."

Davros (Doctor Who) "Today, the Kaled race is ended, consumed in a fire of war. But from its ashes will rise a new race: the supreme creature, the ultimate conqueror of the universe, the DALEK!"

"Was originally a member of a fascist society in the midst of a perpetual war of mutual extermination that had turned the planet Skaro into a hellscape through the use of nuclear and chemical weapons, so would be well acquainted with the concept of Extinction from an early age. As an adult, was a member of the Scientific Corps, where he worked on a way to ensure the survival of his race/species, which turned out to be by genetically engineering them into squid things that traveled around in little mechs. He also made it so they would feel no compassion, and have a constant desire to destroy all other life, ending any possibility for Kaled society to be anything other than genocidal fascists. If you watch Genesis of the Daleks, this horrifies even his colleagues to the point where they join together to try and stop him, but it's too late. By the end of the story every Kaled is dead, (Davros gets better) and only the Daleks remain, and go on to continue the project of wiping out all non-Dalek life in the universe/multiverse."

[anarchoherbalism]

Some things that drive me up the goddamn wall:

Western medicine is not that old. CHARITABLY its like, 400ish years old, but all the most popular ways of defining western medicine (e.g. based on the modern scientific study) really only apply to information-generating and medicine-distribution practices that started in the late 1800s and were codified in THE TWENTIES. Sure, no ideas come out of nowhere and modern western medicine absolutely has a lineage and if you want you could make a good argument for tracing that lineage back to say, Galen. (Side note: american Doctors love to claim Galen when it makes them sound Storied and Dramatic but foist him off on us stupid herbalists as soon as anything controversial by modern standards comes up). But what's a lot more important to think about is that prior to the past hundred years or so, the diversity of actively-practiced, available medical traditions that existed in "the west" was so much greater than it is today, and if you go back another hundred or more years it's bigger and bigger. For most of human history in most parts of the world medicine has been a great, fluid cultural field (like cuisine! or religion! in fact these three subjects overlap quite a bit!!) that becomes forcibly homogenized and codified as part of nation-building. That has happened and is still happening here in the west as empire seeks to homogenize culture, through, yknow, genocide; and minority medical philosophies are deligitimized, criminalized, and culturally persecuted. Indigenous and folk traditions survive in small bubbles of people desperately trying to keep them alive.

Following from #1, the majority of people on the "left" to postleft & whatever recognize, at least nominally, that this is Bad. However, what most white people seem to be doing with the idea that Cultural Extermination Is Bad is grant some kind of nebulous exception status to their nebulous idea of "Indigenous medicine" while otherwise paying lip service to the western medical progress narrative: What "we" do now is so much better than what "we" "used to" do. First of all, "we" here is an incoherent concept unless you want to buy into the idea that dominant western culture (or civilization more broadly) is an inevitable evolution that all cultures will come to, which is uhm. Social darwinism. Second of all, "used to" is just a straight up lie in most cases unless it's very narrowly referring to any number of practices that were codified in like, 1930 by the still-budding medical establishment and have since been discarded by the extant medical establishment. Diverse, Indigenous & folk medical traditions are still fucking around and alive and being used, adapted and added to. Some are holding on by a thread and plenty are very closed practices now out of defensiveness, while others struggle to be known more widely because of medical licensure laws that claim to be about "safety" but were always about stamping out minority medical traditions. What a lot of motherfuckers miss is that when the western medical establishment tells the story about how everything is so much better now and we know the right way to be, they are telling the same story I told under heading one. The nonviolent story of progress that "we" just "discovered" "new ideas" is conveniently shuffling around the genocide and criminalization that are STILL actively trying to stamp out the """"old"""" ideas.

Does all of this mean that we should just willy nilly accept/use/treat as valid every single thought anyone has ever had about medicine? Fuck no! People have bad ideas sometimes! Medical traditions are LIVING traditions for good reasons. It just means that I wish people would sit down and THINK for a second before making a claim about non-western or historical medical traditions, ask themselves "is my only source for this claim the current western medical establishment?", and if "yes", spend any amount of time trying to find an alternate perspective. If you can't find any source that isn't affiliated with genocide and forced cultural assimilation on the practice you want to talk shit about, ask yourself "why isn't there a proponent of this practice around to defend it?" and like, go from there.

I truly do not care what medical philosophy any given individual person feels most comfortable using for themselves. Your reasons for preferring western medicine might very well be rooted in shit i disagree with/find abhorrent, I might think you could be happier (or more likely to survive climate collapse) if you were at all open to any strategy other than the one that's entirely dependent on empire and extraction, but I am frankly too tired and too busy to be remotely invested in what people I don't know are doing with their bodies. What frustrates me is how little critical thinking is being done when it comes to medicine, how comfortable everyone seems to be with incoherent cognitive dissonance when it comes to criticizing specific instances of oppression/nationalism/racism/etc in western medicine but still buy the overall narrative in a way that renders those critiques superficial, and how successful the project of western medical nationalism has been at claiming a monopoly on the story.

[houxe]

Free Palestine

Listen, I understand that I am just a silly little fanfic creator and my work is often used as an escape for rl problems, but I am also someone who's made my stance on dehumanization and abuse of minorities (even in fictional works) extremely clear and what is currently happening, and has been happening for almost a century, to Palestinians is unacceptable. If there is anyone who follows me, or is in my little community on discord, AO3, whatever, that supports the state of Israel? Lose my account.

This is not a debate. This is not a discussion to be had. I will not be arguing with you in comments.

If you support the state and government of Israel and the war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the imprisonment they're committing on the people of Palestine and Gaza, get away from my works, my art, and whatever small community I have made.

These are people. Living, breathing people who had hopes and dreams and futures they wanted to live. Palestinians deserve to live, they've done nothing to warrant the murder and ethnic cleansing of their people.

And the only reason they're facing this is because people think they're inferior. As something not human.

They're human. They're human.

I am not going to explain to you why imprisoning and killing thousands of innocent civilians (mainly children) is bad. Especially when the Israeli government has quite literally been spreading provenly false stories about things like murdered Israeli babies, human shields, and attacks to make themselves seem justified, along with propaganda portraying Palestinians as literal bugs. Calling them animals and dogs and rodents to be 'exterminated', and has been putting them in an open-air prison for years and then turned it into death camp.

It's disgusting, it's evil, is is quite literally a known practice for suppressors to do against their victims as an excuse to murder them.

I should not also have to say that me being pro-Palestine and anti-Zionism does not mean I am anti-Semitic nor do I support Hamas.

That is also propaganda.

I am not anti-Semitic nor do I wish or encourage any harm on Jewish or innocent people, and I do not support Hamas.

Palestinian people are also considered a Semitic people which means some of them are Jewish. Jewish people as a whole are not the Israeli government or state and should not be treated as such. It is blatantly wrong to say being anti-Israel (the state and government of Israel) and anti-Zionism is to be anti-Semitic.

Additionally, not all Jewish people are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jewish people. It's not a religion, it is a political ideology. Many, many Jewish people have spoken up against this and have been protesting against the state of Israel for their genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and for the colonization of their land.

What I am is anti-genocide, Zionism, dehumanization, apartheid states, colonization, literal war crimes, death camps, and ethnic cleansing. Just to name a few.

Again, if you support Israel, lose my account. Stay away from my community and any of my works.

If you'd like to learn more about what is happening in Gaza, the people of Palestine, and ways you can help, your best option is to go to TikTok and find these creators who speak and share videos of what is directly happening in Palestine.

vivafalastinleen

arabicmclovin

edwardmliger

thanaa89

clios_world

jamesgetspolitical

naleybynature

aljazeeraenglish

genzforchange

fakegyllenhalal

artlust

devotedly.yours (this link keeps getting removed)

palestine_mwm

rahimehramezany

rynnstar

5149jamesli

wonderlandnews

mxnonme

hippiearab

redauxdefective

brainsballsncigarettes4

super_soniq_m

simkern

dianalomani (this link keeps getting removed)

jamesissmiling

eyes.on.palestine (this link keeps getting removed)

More will likely be added to this list.

Places you can donate:

baitulmaal.org

map.org.uk

irusa.org

mecaforpeace.org

unrwa.org

Lastly, I will leave off with a few videos that should be seen.

Where you can learn specifics on the history and current events of Palestine.

And one specifically for writers of fantasy and sci-fi like me.

Edits: Added more CCs to the list, added a list of places to donate, added more videos, and clarified my wording more. I did take down the comparison just in case, but I'm leaving it to Jewish creators (Redauxdefective) to speak on it. Note, some links to CCs keep getting removed and I'm not sure why.

[tieflingkisser]

Last Thursday, South Africa filed its latest application to the International Court of Justice, urging the principal judicial organ of the United Nations to issue additional and amended provisional measures in light of new facts in its genocide complaint against Israel. The court declined to issue additional provisional measures after an application made by South Africa in mid-February, the judges stating that the “perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court in its order of 26 January.” In its application last week, South Africa states that “the situation then ‘perilous’ is now so terrifying as to be unspeakable, as described by United Nations humanitarian chiefs, justifying – and indeed demanding – the indication of further provisional measures of protection.” South Africa called for a response “to Israel’s continuing violations of and contempt for” the court’s interim ruling issued in late January, which found that Israel was plausibly carrying out a genocide in Gaza and ordered it to halt all genocidal acts.

[...]

“​​The extreme gravity of the situation facing Palestinian men, women, children and babies, and the existential risk the Palestinian people in Gaza as a part of the Palestinian national or [ethnic] group face as a result of Israel’s genocidal military campaign demands further action by the court,” South Africa argues in its latest application. South Africa compares its intervention with a similar one made by Bosnia in 1993, in which the tribunal was told that “this will be the last opportunity that this court shall have to save both the people and state of Bosnia and Herzegovina from extermination and annihilation by means of genocide … God will record your response to our request for the rest of eternity.” “South Africa fears that this application may be the last opportunity that this court shall have to save the Palestinian people in Gaza already dying of starvation, and now ‘one step’ from famine,” it states. In the Bosnia case, the court declined to order additional provisional measures. In the two years that followed, South Africa states, “approximately 7,336 Bosnians in the so-called ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica had been slaughtered, in what this court retrospectively determined to have been a genocide.” The cost in human lives will likely be even higher in Gaza should the status quo persist.