#progressivistic

[michaeldrawrrett]

GOBLIN WEEK SALLIES FORTH: A particularly nervous-looking Cupboard-Variety Buttlescutt, who I made with a torn napkin, a uni-ball eye micro, three seconds of my time, and who I would frankly defend with my life

[eelhound]

[goku20193]

#EugeneGoodman #TrumpTraitorCards #Trumpers #CapitolHillRiots #Progressivists #HomeGrownTerrorists #SuperDouche #TrumpNFTs #Fatman https://www.instagram.com/p/CmUJvERpK2fZsgSeXnNjVRTA26MSKKSDSxS7zE0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[still-searching-for-something]

I want to go back to how things were.

I want to go back to when I believed that the progressives were on the right side of history, fighting against oppression in all its forms, and had critical thinking, honest compassion, and understanding in a way that the right--inundated with racist conspiracy theories and absurd lies--did not.

In many ways, I'm a perfect demographic fit in the pro-Palestine circles. I'm bisexual. I'm a young university student who's been progressive for as long as he knew what progressivism was, and I never experienced genuine economic insecurity or wondered if I'd eat that night. In another timeline, maybe I'd be there marching and shouting their horrible slogans. But there's one, teeny little thing that ruins it, which makes me fall through the cracks and renders me politically homeless, outcast by the progressive left and the MAGA right.

I'm a Jew.

And I'm trying so, so hard to hold compassion for the suffering of minorities who have not extended us that same compassion. I'm trying to maintain my progressivist urge to go out and help minorities in solidarity, but it's so hard when they make it clear that they hate us and want our state dead and gone. I supported BLM, but Al Sharpton, Leonard Jeffries, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Louis Farrakhan, Malcom X, Jesse Jackson and many others either were or are wildly antisemitic, especially Sharpton and Walker, and so are the BLM movement's leaders, who openly sneered at Jews for being shocked by them by announcing, "I guess their activism was just transactional. How (((Zionist))) of them!"

And the queer community forced me out of their ranks for merely questioning whether the war in Gaza is a genocide, for pushing back against them saying that Hamas is fighting oppression. And spread antisemitic lies about me, claims of harassment and supporting genocide to my friends because I dared to question them. And they've chosen to side with those who would throw both of us off roofs for being queer. Cast out by the outcasts.

Like, what do I do? Our only allies are Hindus, Iranians, Kurds, Republicans, and Christian Zionists (respect to all of these groups for that... even you Republicans. This is one of our only points of agreement). That's literally it. No loud show of from indigenous nations supporting what is effectively the most successful anticolonial land back movement in human history. No push from "antiracist progressives" against rising antisemitism and genocidal terrorism from a reactionary fundamentalist group against a historically discriminated group.

And they aren't even just leaning back and being silent--many members of these groups are being actively antisemitic--especially the progressive left, which has morphed into the most antisemitic mainstream political movement since the Nazis. Instead, we're 'Zionazis' and genocidal colonizers who aren't even oppressed anyway, that's just evil Jewish Zionist lies designed to stoke sympathy for their unrelentingly evil nature, which we can't even help. The notion that Jews are intrinsically predisposed to evil acts and deception--never heard that one before.

So now, when I look at pictures of Pride Parades, a celebration of an identity of which I am a part and would have previously killed to attend--I wonder... would I be allowed to hold up a rainbow flag with a Magen David on it? If I asked any of their views on the state of Israel, what will they say? What about on Zionists who support its existence? Would all parts of my identity be respected, valued, and celebrated? Or would I be forced to leave the Star of David flag at home, pretend I don't notice their antisemitic views, and pass the litmus test of disavowing Israel before being accepted?

I feel suspicious and wary of the very community which I am 'supposed' to belong in. I feel uncomfortable. I hate, hate, hate that I feel this way. That I've become more closed, more cynical, more angry. Those of us who fall through the cracks, who hold multiple marginalized identities--queer and Jewish, black and Jewish, Indigenous and Jewish--we are ignored and silenced, our voices and experiences entirely spat upon as being a front for 'Zionist crimes' or whatever new buzzwords they create.

I've decided that first and foremost, I am Jewish. The me that was proud to be a part of the queer community is dead. I want to support the progressive causes of antiracism and social justice, but they hate us. They want us dead. They wouldn't view my participation as being a genuine gesture of solidarity, but an evil Jew Zionist seeking to con them and co-opt support in order to aid our evil apartheid genocidal settler-colonialist white supremacist illegitimate entity in a land that should really be given to Hamas anyway.

How am I supposed to hold space for other minorities when nobody is holding space for us right now?

[jewish-vents]

To be brutally honest the pro pal movement is the most counterproductive thing I've ever seen. I was fairly sympathetic to Palestinians before the protests and now I have a hard time caring about anything but getting the hostages back and for Israel to be secure at any cost. Well played Goyische left. You have so thoroughly alienated a bisexual patrilineal Ashkenazi who is philosophically agnostic and a life long lefty Democrat to the point I don't feel safe at pride and feel like I've lost 90 percent of my friends so I now have nothing left to lose if I just go full Zionist on your performative progressivist asses. I'm not alone. History will record the Hamas fan club as the exact wrong side. You aren't helping arab children you are just making things worse for literally everyone but yourselves.

It's important for us to remember that the antisemitism of Western Leftists and the violence of Hamas are not the fault of the civilians of Gaza. There are still many innocents in Gaza, including many children. Quite frankly, the people of Gaza deserve better than the antizionist movement.

Because it is extremely difficult to hold space for others when one is traumatized and facing imminent danger to themselves or their loved ones.

The vast majority of western antizionists are not in this position. If they are traumatized, it is because they made the choice to look at pictures or videos which traumatized them. If they are in any danger, it is because they made the choice to participate in violent activities.

But because of their actions, because they target our schools and our places of worship and our spaces on college campuses and our internet spaces, this is exactly the position the vast majority of Jews are in. 🐞

[sarahjacobs]

“If I’ve done my job right, it makes a statement that’s bigger than the newsies,” [Fierstein] said. “It’s about a bunch of kids changing the world, about handing over the world to a new generation.”

[source]

i find this quote fascinating because fierstein seems to imply that the 92 film didn’t “[make] a statement that's bigger than the newsies,” which is why he changed the framing of the strike from being about the rich vs the poor to the young vs the old. from a class struggle to a generational divide. and i really want to take this opportunity to think through newsies through a politically nihilist lens, keeping in mind that a) i don't think the film is a perfect political text either, nor do i believe such a thing is possible, and b) this is a springboard of sorts to critique a broader pattern of how leftist movements and history are represented and talked about.

katherine often unfairly catches a lot of flak when this thematic overhaul is critiqued, but the issue doesn’t lie in katherine’s inclusion. it’s more about how she was written to say things like “their mistake is they got old,” in conjunction with how the writers cut out every adult ally who wasn’t medda and roosevelt (and slotted in hannah to replace seitz as the sole advisor who pushes back against the price hike). denton was cut, of course. and sure, the trolley workers still serve as inspiration for the newsie strike, but we don’t actually see them like we did in 92. mayer, who is similarly used as a reason to strike (“if your father had a union, you wouldn’t be out here sellin’ papes right now”) but isn’t shown. the mention of his overwhelming support for the strike was also cut.

it’s even in the little things. compare and contrast the small moment in which, after denton bails the newsies out, a waiter tries to refuse when denton gives him money to cover their food expenses, to how on broadway, jacobi still charges two cents for seltzer, then shoos the newsies away to make room for paying customers.

(also i would be remiss if i didn’t at least briefly talk about how sarah was cut entirely, not even a passing mention reserved for her. and while her potential was never fully realized in 92, the fact that sarah, a child laborer who worked in the garment industry, helped produce and distribute the newsies banner feels significant to me in further marking the transition from a purely newsie strike to a more generalized children’s strike.)

additionally, more dialogue and lyrics that criticize adults were written in. and to be fair, there’s a trace of this in 92, as they sing, “and the torch is passed,” as well as “and the old will fall / and the young stand tall” in twwk (i believe these are the only instances of this). but on broadway, it is wayyy more recurring and explicit. i’m not going to list them all out because the only instance i actually want to talk about in depth is this —

ROOSEVELT: (recognizing this historical moment) Each generation must, at the height of its power, step aside and invite the young to share the day. You have laid claim to our world and I believe the future, in your hands, will be bright and prosperous.

— which is a deeply revealing line, one that shows the progressivist heart of the broadway production. and by progressivism, i mean the myth that history is a linear story of progress, and no matter what, we are always marching towards a brighter future. as bædan argues, politics revolve around futurity, which revolves around the image of the Child — think of how often children are evoked in politics as an unassuming, blank slate that deserve unique protection from evil. in left wing spaces, this is often expressed in the desire to improve the world for future generations; “the future is kid stuff,” as lee edelman claims.

but the Child, futurity, and progressivism are all problematic — it's a kind of cruel optimism. these ideas ask people to be content with horrifying conditions today, and with bitterly disappointing reformism, because progress is slow while simultaneously being certain. and yet the future, and the utopia it promises, is always hovering on the horizon… but never within reach. all of this points to a general “[misrecognition of] promise as an achievement.”

i would also argue that anything that uncritically valorizes youth movements, or the Youth more generally, plays into this. and don’t get me wrong, youth liberation is a real thing, and the age of the newsies and katherine does play a role in how they’re perceived (“i'm young, i ain't stupid”). but resistance is always delegitimized, most often by discounting them as violent, illegal, or outside agitators... and flatly rendering the conflict of newsies into a matter of age obfuscates precisely what they are struggling against — complex power structures that privilege the upper class and men. as mayer and the trolley workers show, it doesn’t really matter if they’re kids or adults, the newsies would still be crushed under the heel of the boss because they’re workers, doubly so because they’re poor.

and being young, just like the future, doesn’t guarantee anything, least of all a kind of politic. young people aren’t exempt from engaging in and replicating harmful dynamics. many are privileged in some way — because of their whiteness, class, gender, etc — or they’re desperate to attain privilege. and as a result, they have a vested interest in the uninterrupted existence of varying systems of domination, rather than its abolition. take the delanceys, who are around jack’s age, and yet they’re actively involved in breaking the strike. their age doesn’t automatically guarantee their allyship; as hired muscle, or “rent a cops,” they act in favor of protecting capital and the state, as all cops do.

too often movements populated by young faces are turned into feel good spectacles of how “the kids are alright,” that these so called revolutionaries are going to be the leaders of tomorrow, and how the future therefore looks “bright and prosperous,” to borrow roosevelt’s words. but implicit in this messaging is not only the continuance of the current social order, which is fucked and rotten to the core and needs to be destroyed, but the Youth assimilating and integrating into these systems.

take a look at how the skills jack used to rebel (his charisma and art) were met with repression at first but praised and rewarded at the end.

PULITZER: (to JACK) I can’t help thinking… if one of your drawings convinced the governor to close The Refuge, what might a daily political cartoon do to expose the dealings in our own government back rooms?

it’s worth noting the framing of this job offer — jack is not only being given a chance to climb the professional ladder, but he's specifically being hired to use his artistic skills for what essentially amounts to activism. and i use the term activism critically; it packages resistance, something anyone can do, into a specialized/professionalized role, a class of people separate from ordinary people. this makes it similar to a job, or, in jack's case, an actual salaried position. and as “give up activism” points out, all of this renders activism an “accepted form of dissent.”

additionally, jack using the world as an outlet for his discontent with the current state of affairs automatically defangs him. after all, how much social change can jack really push for in the inherently exploitative context of a worker-boss relationship? how effective can jack really be when his ideas are mediated to the public via a company like the world, which ordered a news blackout of the strike and used its wealth and power to violently crackdown on the newsies? that concerns itself with whether or not its papers are marketable to the masses and therefore profitable? anything jack publishes will have to go through a process of approval, filtered through a boss who derisively calls roosevelt a socialist, then a communist. this means jack can continue to publish his drawings, continue his activism, so long as he’s not threatening the interests of the world. what a huge constraint!

more broadly speaking, integration and assimilation can be seen in the recurring idea of power being transferred throughout newsies — from “just look around at the world we’re inheriting / and think of the one we’ll create,” to “you’re getting too old, too weak to keep holding on / a new world is gunning for you, and joe, we is too.” and finally, roosevelt claiming that the future “in your hands,” as in, under your leadership, is bright. but i take issue with the very notion of power, of leadership itself. as katherine quotes, “power tends to corrupt,” and while she proposes that corruption can be avoided so long as “[we] stay young forever,” having youthful, friendly faces in positions of power is meaningless when the very systems that facilitated any abuse of power are allowed to persist.

i want to close this out with an excerpt from serafinski's blessed is the flame:

The “progress of society” might be better described as the “evolution of systems of power,” and as Bædan reminds us: “any progressive development can only mean a more sophisticated system of misery and exploitation.”

think of the differences and similarities between the 1899 that newsies portrays and where we stand now. how history has been an unceasing transfer of power between generations, by virtue of the previous one dying out. and yet misogyny still prevails in the workforce and in everyday life, workers remain exploited, police continue to be employed against any social unrest, and the prison industrial complex has only expanded. have we really improved?

[dungeonmeshi-confessions]

Mithrun fans thinking that all racism in Dungeon Meshi is created equal and that Mithrun is some kind of elf progressivist for listening to Kabru because he's somehow anti-racist the way Kabru is anti-racist (a character who has directly suffered at the hands of elven imperialism, which Mithrun to this day continues to have power and benefit from (Adventurer's Bible Vol 2, "A Second Life") even though we KNOW it's because he thinks Kabru could be used to help him conquer the dungeon (Adventurer's Bible Vol 1, pg 59, "Kabru's Adventurer Relationships") can only be a result of some kind of mass hypnosis that caused them to forget the story they just read. Mithrun is not special just because he's able to recognize other people's value as tools in furthering his own goals and otherwise doing nothing when they're being mistreated (and mistreating them yourself, lest we forget Mithrun slapping Kabru and then continuing to attack him after he'd already rallied in chapter 90)

.

[miochimochi]

Just wanna get a feel for things.

Please reblog for a wider reach!

[kharmii]

Remember, secular progressivists make life bad for everyone, even themselves. Donald Trump is just some guy who wants to run the country like a business and not like something he hates that's made to be looted and burned. They didn't get him, but some poor man in the crowd got his brains blown out.

[queering-ecology]

Chap 12. Melancholy Natures, Queer Ecologies by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands (part 2)

Mourning and Melancholia

(1915 essay by the same name by Sigmund Freud); mourning and melancholia are reactions to the loss of a beloved object: “both are grave departures from the normal attitude of life” (1984, 252)  but with mourning “we rely on its being overcome after a certain lapse of time” (225) in melancholia the ego will not let go, the melancholic internalizes the lost object as a way of preserving it.  (334) A loss has occurred, “but one cannot see clearly what it is that has been lost, and it is all the more reasonable to suppose that the patient cannot consciously perceive what he has lost either” (254)(335)

Mourning is thus a process of recognition of beauty as well as an acknowledgement of its extinguishment (things are beautiful because they die) (336)

Melancholy Nature

Ecotourism, wilderness tourist practices are a form of ecosocial ritual by which consumers of ‘vanishing’ nature confirm their own transcendence of nature in the moment of mourning its loss: by understanding nature as something ‘lost’ at the hands of modernity, and by witnessing its demise in the fetishized chunks that are offered up to spectacular consumption by modernity, the victory of the modernity responsible for the loss is confirmed (337)

The temporal logic of this (bourgeois) progressivist narrative is very akin to Freud’s: the position of the present as ‘better’ than the past is achieved through an understanding of loss that assumes the libido will simply ‘move on’, and that also, in this case, assumes that modernity will simply move on from nature even as it memorializes its legacy in parks and monuments (337)

Fetishization and commodification of a lost, romanticized nature—“unspoiled” wilderness—is very important; it is the very quality of nature’s impending extinguishment (buy now or you’ll miss it) that fuels much ecotourism (337)

“Nature” becomes mythic, idyllic, a commodity, a fantasy, a fetish  that can be bought to extend the reach of capital rather than critique the relationships that produced the loss in the first place. The idea of a pristine nature on the perpetual verge of destruction is not only a violent rationale for the dispossession of peoples and livelihoods but a seductive fantasy that keeps consumers poised to watch that destruction. (337)

Nature as a fantastic, watchable visitable commodity is a part of modernity (338); the consumption of nature as wilderness is an imposition of one hegemonic relationship—capitalist exchange—into a landscape of many other relationships and intimacies, relationships that are often destroyed in a process of consumption itself. crucially, the fantasy of wilderness is not only infinitely consumable, but infinitely replaceable.

There is lots of evidence of environmental loss but few places in which to experience it as loss, to even begin to consider that the diminishment of life that surrounds us on a daily basis is something to be really sad about, and on  a personal level. Non-human beings and particular life filled places are,  here, ungrievable in the same moment that their loss (or impending loss) propels their value on the market (338-339)

How does one grieve in a context in which the significance, the density, and even the existence of loss is unrecognized?

Melancholia, pressed into the service of memory—environmental loss becomes something recognizable and meaningful—and grievable

Queer Melancholia

Mourning is a process of accepting that by the loss one undergoes one will be changed, possibly forever (Butler 2004, 21) (340)

Melancholia is a productive response to the twentieth century’s “catastrophic losses of bodies, spaces, and ideals, [and that] psychic and material practices of loss and its remains are productive for history and for politics” (5) (340)

Melancholia suggests a non-normalizing relationship to the past and the world, in which the recognition of the identificatory persistence of loss in the present—loss as self, the fact that we are constituted by prohibition, power, and violence—is central to our ethical and political relationships with others.

Butler writes; grief furnishes a sense of political community…by bringing to the fore the relational ties that have implications for theorizing fundamental dependency and ethical responsibility (2004, 22) (341)

The author makes direct connections to queer activism especially surrounding the AIDS crisis and the catastrophic losses experienced.

“The numbers of deaths are unthinkable’ but ‘the rest of society offers little or no acknowledgment” ; is it not surprising that gay men feel “frustration, anger, rage, outrage, anxiety, fear, and terror, shame and guilt, sadness and despair” but rather that “we often don’t”  (Douglas Crimp) Crimp believed that the failure of activism to acknowledge the fact that AIDS is bound up with internal violence as well as external is itself a form of disavowal; “by making all violence external, pushing it to the outside and objectifying it in ‘enemy’ institutions, and individuals, we deny its psychic articulation, deny that we are effected, as well as affected, by it”; Mourning is a vital companion to organizing and melancholia a part of the politics of AIDS. (341)

Cvetkovich; the collective preservation of loss is an ‘archive of trauma’—[…]suggests the acknowledgement of melancholia as a public activity; public melancholy as a form of survival (342)

What might it mean to consider the preservation of a public record of environmental loss, an “archive of ecological trauma”—made up of the kinds of art, literature, film, ritual, performance and other memorials and interrogations that have characterized so many cultural responses to AIDS—as part of an environmental ethics of politics?  

What would it mean to consider seriously the environmental present, in explicit contrast  to dominant discourses of ecological modernization, as a pile of environmental wreckage, constituted and haunted by multiple, personal, and deeply traumatic losses rather than as a position from which to celebrate their demise by consuming them (and moving on to something else)?

What might it look like to  take seriously the fact that nature is currently ungrievable, and that the melancholy natures with which we are surrounded are a desperate attempt to hold onto something that we don’t even know how to talk about grieving? (342)

[certainwoman]

"Recognizing and activating the coexistence of multiple histories is more easily done from the vantage point of temporal removal than in the present. It is worth noting that this is not equivalent to the progressivist notion that “it gets better.” Oppression thrives in forms too covert and invisible to warrant such a hasty claim. At the same time, one is more likely to form a reparative relationship to a problematic film when one acknowledges being in a different moment than when the film was first released. This is precisely the kind of “temporal awareness” that Meira Likierman, in analyzing Melanie Klein’s concept of reparation, says orients a person toward making good with his or her objects.

The camp reading is a perfect example of how this operates. As Susan Sontag claims, “things are campy, not when they become old— but when we become less involved in them, and can enjoy, instead of be frustrated by, the failure of the attempt.” For Sontag, a (reparative) reading of camp might be most rewarding for a spectator when the camp is unintentional. By this account, earnest representations, or better, representations perceived as earnest at the moment of their release, age to become pleasurably ironic, inflated, and mannerist, and therefore fail to be taken seriously in contemporary encounters. We might consider films such as Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980) and The Killing of Sister George (Robert Aldrich, 1968) as optimal examples of camp “bad objects” because their tropes and their stereotypes of gays and lesbians as perverse fetishists become that much more obvious with time. Their repetition can now be so effortlessly detected that the retrograde depictions become amusing. "

Marc Francis, For Shame!: On the History of Programming Queer Bad Objects

[dasha-aibo]

I don't know why people think only THEY are a complex human. I don't know why people don't realize that most people think what they are doing is "right." Adolph Hitler didn't wake up and say "I am going to be an international problem for no reason other than I am a bad guy." I hate hate hate the Progressivist narrative they use in schools. It rots peoples' brains into thinking problems pop up out of thin air to be dealt with "the right way" and put away like the end of an episode.

Preach it, man

[definitely-not-the-kgb]

It is time to say it.

You. Yes, you, the person reading this. Yeah, I am talking to you directly.

If you are a liberal - in the American sense, mind you - and you are reading this: Go read Marx. If you do not want to do that, fuck off with all the other Liberals in the GOP. Yes, you heard me correctly. I just called "Conservatives" "Liberal". Did I shake your world? Did I topple your fucking little cloud castle? Did I spook you? Flabberghasted you, even? Well, guess what: You are not a leftist.

Being progressive does not make you a leftist. Under any fucking definition of the word. It makes you a vaguely decent human being, I am willing to hand that to you, but I am not even going to commend you for it because it really doesn't: It's the bare -god-damn- minimum.

If you use "Socialist" and "Liberal" interchangeably: Go fuck yourself.

If you use "Liberal" and "Leftist" interchangeably: Go fuck yourself.

Liberals are not even centrist: they're centre-right wingers. You're centre-right wingers. All you liberals reading this. Reject the American political spectrum. Reject your stupid-ass big-tent Democratic slogans; reject the bastard bourgeois who bomb kids.

You heard me. Fuck your Obama, fuck your Biden, fuck your Teddy -goddamn- Roosevelt, he was an imperialist pig. Do you idolise JFK? Get the fuck out of here. Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Do you even know what he did to the Mexicans?? Go read a fucking history book, then read Marx, then come back, and then maybe we can talk, and conceivably you could call yourself a leftist.

So long as "Liberals" (Which really only means Social Democrats, Third Wayers, Social Capitalists, Neoliberals, Ordoliberals, Bleeding-Heart Libertarians, and other such capitalist supporters, right-wingers and moderate rightists in American terms) are considered "Left Wingers" or "Leftists" or call themselves those names, the Left will be unable to act.

Liberals are not leftists and, I would like to add, Liberals cannot be progressivists. Capitalism is inherently conservative: it cannot generate genuine progress because real progress and change can only originate within the proletariat through revolutionary action, both political and cultural (See my piece on Situationism.).

In short: If you consider yourself a liberal and a leftist, and you think we communists and socialists are on your side... Stop thinking that, and if you want to be with us, pick up a book, or an audio-book, or both, or one of the many actually leftist resources such as this beautiful site and read, get educated, become a leftist, a true one, one that wants to change things for real. I might make a post clarifying the part about capitalism being inherently conservative, but that's for the future. Until then, study your theory for the sake of my sanity (So that I no longer must hear Liberals being referred to as "Leftists") and for the sake of Humanity so we may change things for real.

[jodjuya]

I'm dismayed by the referendum outcome but completely unsurprised by it.

I voted "YES" while angry about it.

Angry about it being the most pathetically milquetoast paper tiger possible,

angry that such a piddling insignificant thing was enough to further unify the cookers and the racists (not that there's much of a meaningful division between the two to begin with),

angry that those dropkicks got to freely whitewash their reprehensible nonsense by latching onto the many legitimate concerns about how fucking dodgy the proposal was,

angry that I felt obliged to vote "YES"—despite fully believing the proposal was fucking terrible—out of sheer irrational spite and wrathful indignation toward the very thought of being aligned in the slightest with Australia's broad spectrum fascism-would-be-good-actually crowd,

angry that no matter how pathetic, vague, and incoherent the YES-campaign was, the NO-campaign would be even worse AND that Australia would fall for it hook, line, and sinker; because Australians are an uptight, boorish, and fearfully conservative people with contemptible predictability,

angry that all of this hoopla and utterly deranged dogwhistling became the culture war's hot topic of the month, and Indigenous Australians were subjected to the indignity of a national public debate over whether or not we should say we're thinking about bullying them less,

[Like, "sorry mate, we held a public vote, AND you voted too don't forget! You had your fair say just like the rest of us did! You can't get rid of democracy just because you don't like that you didn't win. Now stop struggling and let the four of us flush your head down the toilet or we'll break your nose first, nerd" (🤮)]

angry that this whole bullshit fucking referendum was lose-lose with extra lose on the side,

angry that I have to attempt to explain the nuances of this lose-lose with extra lose to my child—which I'm thankfully inept at doing so before she loses interest, and so her innocent perception of the world is maintained for the time being—those nuances being:

if YES:

We get constitutional embodiment of "The Voice", an ineffable body as politically significant as the winner of Australian Idol, thanks to coming with so many point-of-failure loopholes that literally what the fuck is even the fucking point of doing this; this is so embarrassingly incompetent, are you for real this stupid at your job that you submitted the first draft minimal effort as your final essay, or can we all just reasonably assume this is merely some bit of insincere virtue-signalling chicanery?

(big "it took me an hour to write those two pages of dialogue, so I thought it would take you an hour to read them!" energy. Funny when Matt Groening does it, but much less so when it's from your so called nation's so called leaders. 😒)

if NO:

(1) holy fucking shit, we can't even collectively bring ourselves to go through the motions of beginning to unfuck our relationship with Indigenous Australians! I have so many negative feelings about that, but right this sec it's mostly shame. If the world was a kindergarten classroom, Australia is the child eating glue.

(2) relief that such a malformed stillbirth of a proposal didn't come into being; with additional relief that its existence now can't be used to justify future heel-dragging.

(3) visceral disgust at knowing there will be many cookers and other assorted far-right degenerates out there being overjoyed with celebration that this mere feint of national movement towards progressivism was shot down

(4) existential horror and Cassandran anguish over knowing that this failure WILL be used to block and forestall progress on all relevant progressivist movements. Like, losing a referendum is the death knell of a movement. Pattern clearly observable throughout history. Recently in New Zealand's attempt at cannabis reform, then further back with Australia's attempts to become a republic, and so on and so forth.

(5) frustration that how could the people doing this not foresee this extremely detrimental outcome and how obviously they were setting themselves up for this failure?? How are our leaders such incompetent and/or conniving bastards?!

(6) irritated frustration that fascism-would-be-good-actually's garbage rhetoric for garbage brains, and the far-right grifters peddling it, have had their whitewashing attempts legitimised and gotten the Overton window ratcheted one step further to the right

with extra lose:

👎🏻 aforementioned indignity of a national public debate over whether or not we should say we're thinking about bullying the Indigenous less

👎🏻 we had to sincerely engage with the incoherent codswallop put forth by the cockwombles of the 'reactionary NO' campaign and their delusional insistence that we "can't make such a divisive change to the constitution" as if the constitution wasn't inherently divisive in every sense of the word since before the ink had even dried on the page, given that it was predicted upon Terra Nullis?

Like, what the entire fuck could be more divisive than "we declare that our country is allowed to exist because we declare that you don't exist! Finders keepers, bitches!!"??

👎🏻 having to wade through the army of well-intentioned muppets volunteering at every polling location to hand out "How To Vote" pamphlets as if filling in this referendum's single yes/no question were anywhere near as complicated as the one-metre-wide ballots for the big state/federal elections

********

Just yuck feelings all around. There was no possibility of a good outcome, and this wasn't the least-bad outcome.

[apesoformythoughts]

«I was hoping that the Church’s antipathy to female and openly gay priests would, in time, weaken and dissolve. Now instead, it seems, a whole lot of bigoted reinforcements are arriving [via the Anglican Ordinariate] to galvanise those more unpalatable aspects of Roman Catholic doctrine. Should I stay in a club that would welcome these people as members?

Just can't grasp the mindset. These stances that progressivists today denounce as bigotry were stances held universally and invariably by the Catholic Church for two millennia, and indeed until the last forty years or so they were held by all Protestant denominations as well. You could, if you were brainless, argue that the Church and her saints were bigots from the beginning, yet that's not a reason to hope the Catholic Church will correct herself tomorrow but a reason to reject Christianity root and branch. If you believe the Church was a purveyor of evil in the past, you have no grounds for denying she may be a purveyor of evil in the future. Moreover, the criterion by which you judge the Church wrong in condemning sodomy and correct in embracing it must be distinct from and more reliable than the Church herself, whence the Church is superfluous in any case.»

— Paul Mankowski, SJ: Diogenes Unveiled

[canpandaspvp]

"the most important progressivist moment of the 20's was women's suffrage" This Woman Suffers Every Time You Speak