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pokefarm-q · 4 years

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firewolf1117 refuckingceipts (it's all been removed now but people archived it)

this bitch:

When you say “All Cops are”, here’s what you’re really saying:

All Blacks are Criminals All Mexicans are Illegal All Americans are stupid, fat, and lazy All Rape Victims are liars All Suicide Posters are Attention Seekers All Muslims are Terrorists All LGBT deserve to die

Are you outraged yet? GOOD.It means I touched a nerve.

You would never, ever, EVER say those things about those groups of people because you KNOW that it’s not true, even in the slightest. There are so very very FEW Cops who are actually corrupt and using their power and position inappropriately.

So what gives you the right to say the same about cops? COPS! Who are practically SOLDIERS! EVERY DAY their family lives with the fear that they won’t return. EVERY DAY they put their lives in danger to PROTECT you! They, as a whole, deserve your RESPECT!!! MOST ALL “Brutality” cases are from the CRIMINAL fighting, disrespecting, grabbing a weapon, etc. If you’d just COOPERATE AND BE RESPECTFUL you’d be treated FAIRLY!! Cops don’t have the time to sort things out. Their snap second decisions PROTECT them AND nearby Civilians. You can’t possibly understand the FEAR AND TERROR they hold EVERY SECOND of EVERY DAY! So don’t you DARE judge them for mistakes.

and here’s the response of one brave user, this legend, this badass mofo, who replied to their bullshittery and got banned for a day for posting in the whiny crybaby bitch’s journal without permission:

Replying to this, because FireWolf1117 is intentionally spreading misinformation and hate. I don’t care if the staff is going to tell me off for this — for once, I care a little more about setting this right than following the Journal rule.

First of all, United States cops are legally not required to save civilians. It’s not considered unconstitutional, according to the case Warren v. District of Columbia (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981). To keep it short, cops can literally see crimes being committed and decide not to intervene if they feel like it. This has been quite common among police departments if you (objectively) compare the police’s actions during BLM protests and anti-lockdown protests.

Anyways, let’s get to your generalizing logic. I have to agree with you on one thing: generalizing is bad. No group should be generalized because of some rotten apples. However, this doesn’t count for cops. Here’s why not:

The police force isn’t a marginalized group. A police officer is a profession. A job. Cops are public servants. They work for the state, for the civilians. And that’s why they need to be held accountable for any misconduct they commit. Which is, unfortunately, is objectively not the case. According to statistics from https://mappingpoliceviolence.org, 99% of United States cops who have killed citizens have not been criminally charged, because police departments literally protect officers from getting tried. Of the 750+ shootings done by police this year, only four cops are getting tried. So much for “there are only a few corrupt ones”. Black people are also way less likely to carry a weapon compared to White people, while Black people get shot by cops thrice as likely.

What’s more, because the police force is a profession, people can quit being a police officer. This doesn’t count for most of the groups you mentioned: Black people can’t stop being Black, Mexican people can’t stop being Mexican, Americans can’t stop being American (also you including Americans kinda makes you look embarrassing lol no offense), rape victims can’t be ‘unraped’, Muslims (or even just Arabs in general) can’t stop being perceived as Muslims (even Sikhs get seen as Muslims nowadays…) and LGBTI+ people can’t stop being LGBTI+ (unless they discover they’re not). Police officers can literally take their uniform off and be perceived as normal human beings. As soon as they are on duty and take on their uniform, a huge responsibility awaits them. A responsibility that has been abused by them to the point that marginalized people will hesitate before calling the police, fearing that the police will either come too late or escalate the situation. Cops aren’t endangering their own lives. They’re endangering the lives of those they’re supposed to protect. No good person would shoot a man in his back SEVEN times for being 'aggressive’. No good person who claims to protect and serve would kneel on someone’s neck for eight minutes while that person was cooperating with them. No good person would shoot a completely innocent woman in her sleep because they raided the wrong house. (BTW, Breonna Taylor’s murderers are still walking free as if nothing happened.) No good person would shoot a 12-year-old kid for having a toy gun. No good person would kill a man in his car for… picking up his ID to show it to the cop. Just because you cooperate, doesn’t mean that you’re safe.

Your logic is clearly flawed, because you judge cops on their personality, and not on the bigger picture. All cops are “bastards” not because we see all of them are evil killing machines that shoot people on sight — it’s because they contribute to an oppressive system, whether it’s directly or indirectly. It’s more than 'just a few cops’: the government wants bad laws to be enforced, the prison system is getting used as a business model, minorities are forced to live in poor socioeconomic areas on purpose BY the government, gentrification exists, multi billionnaires are exploiting low-class working people even more, there’s a damn pandemic that’s not being taken seriously… And guess who’s at the front of keeping the fragile capitalist system intact? Right. The police. The face of the government, that’s laughing at Black people, people of color, disabled people, LGBTI+ people… No good cop exists, even if they’re nice to everyone. Good cops who speak out against the abuse of other cops get fired, because the police departments don’t want the truth to be exposed. If you truly want to be someone who saves people’s lives, then stop being a cop and get a better job, like a firefighter, an EMT, a psychologist… Anything that isn’t completely corrupted.

Even during the recent BLM protests, cops are showing off their power. They escalate situations without provocation more times than BLM protesters start shit. Also cops are committing literal war crimes by using tear gas and other chemicals against civilians (IT GOES AGAINST THE GENEVA CONVENTION FOR FUCK’S SAKE). Not so protective now, aren’t they? The only thing BLM protesters have hurt are cops’ ego. Trust me, protesters being a little mean to cops won’t ever be as bad as all the innocent lives cops have taken and covered up.

I want to go on forever, because I have a lot more to say (such as why “All Lives Matter” is reactionary and racist, how the police force was formed in the first place, how the effects of slavery and colonialism are still being felt by Black people to this day, how and why 'riots’ can be 'justified’), but I’ll leave it at this. At least I got to give counterarguments to your points. Take care and educate yourself! (Tip: stop watching FOX News and Infowars if you do that, you’re going to develop brainrot! ;__;)

ladies and gentleman of the jury, as you can see, this user not only came into this argument prepared, but they were civil and had links (that aren’t links now oop soz). they gave this bitch plenty of opportunity to learn and grow from this without attacking her.

but your bet your ASS the poor little white girl went crying to her daddy about people ATTACKING HER and BULLYING HER FOR HER OPINIONS!!!! she uses her anxiety as a get out of jail free card CONSTANTLY, bitching and moaning about how, and these are directly quoting from HER own journal:

MAY 29, 2020

I log in to this game to have fun and escape the stresses and problems of real life. I do NOT want to be going about my business, and see “BLM” in someone’s Trainer Card, and have to deal with a surge of overwhelming emotions (whether positive or negative). I simply cannot handle the Anxiety that results.

This is a GAME site. NOT a place to share your political, racial or other stances. PLEASE keep ALL such topics OFF this site. I understand you want to talk about them, and that’s fine. But out of respect for people like me, can you please do so in private with the people you know WANT to see and discuss it?

just admit you’re racist dude.

She uses CSS. SHE CAN FUCKING HIDE OTHER PEOPLE’S FUCKING CARDS. PEOPLE CAN TALK ABOUT WHATEVER THEY DAMN WELL PLEASE ON THEIR OWN DAMN PAGES. THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU.

Also! You know she only put “whether positive or negative” to quell any hate she might’ve gotten because ANXIETY is usually not a positive emotion. There’s not even a positive CONNOTATION. and she hopes to be published by the end of the year lmfao yeah right.

and then, on JUNE 16, 2020:

I WAS going to make a post in response to the most recent announcement, but now I’m just too frazzled and upset about it. Still making a post. I’ll just be posting it off site so I can say things how I want to say them, and so I don’t have any in game repercussions.

Honestly, though. I log onto this site to ESCAPE reality. I do NOT want to see ANY stance on ANY “cause” ANYWHERE. NONE OF IT BELONGS HERE. NONE!!!! Because of this “decision”, I’m going to make one of my own. I am gone from this site until current affairs are resolved. Heck. Perhaps even after. I will NOT be a part of a site that allows…Ugh. NOT going to get into this here.

but like… she came back a month later lmao

OH AND!! Earlier this month on AUGUST 6, 2020 she posted this!

It really breaks my heart seeing derogatory remarks against Cops in people’s Trainer Cards. It’s upsetting that you feel that way, and even more so that you make your hatred so vehemently known.

Personally, I don’t know why any of those Cop comments are allowed. If someone had something in their Trainer Card against Religion, LGBT, or POC, I guarantee that statement would be removed. So why is it alright for people to make hateful, vile, disgusting remarks against Cops? Despite it being someone’s personal opinion, it’s still Hate Speech, and shouldn’t be allowed.

this bitch is part of the lgbt+ community. she’s part of a marginalized group.

The “"derogatory remarks”“ she’s talking about? #AllCopsAreComplicit #CopsStinky #AllCopsSuck

which brings us back to Exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen! Her equating #AllCopsAreComplicit and #CopsSTINKY to "All LGBT deserve to die” and a Shitton of other stereotypes. Well fucking done.

Despite bitching and moaning about I DONT WANNA SEE ANYTHING, despite there being ways she can fucking hide it HER DAMN SELF she chooses instead to bitch piss moan bitch piss moan bitch piss and fucking moan and then when someone calls her out on her genuinely harmful bullshit, pulls the wounded gazelle gambit, claims she’s being attacked, and puts in her Card that “anxiety attack! again! waaaah!” like anyone has a shred of sympathy left for her ugly ass. She can’t handle looking like the bad guy so she plays the anxiety card. She bitches about never having any friends, only depression and anxiety, and it’s like bitch no fucking wonder.

Both the top posts have been taken down, but the user who responded to her has gotten nothing but love for her mad courage in saying something when no one else dared.

Firefurrywolf made a halfassed apology (August 30, 2020) which I won’t go into but there is one line that sticks out to me because it’s such a goddamn lie:

When I state my opinion, I usually do so with grace and eloquence. I did not think about my actions this time.

… do you?

This is a GAME site. NOT a place to share your political, racial or other stances. PLEASE keep ALL such topics OFF this site.

Do you… really?

I log onto this site to ESCAPE reality. I do NOT want to see ANY stance on ANY “cause” ANYWHERE. NONE OF IT BELONGS HERE. NONE!!!!

I don’t think so. You vile, disgusting, manipulative, obnoxious, PRETENTIOUS, racist, terfy bitch.

Oh, before I forget, yeah. Terf. She looks like one too. All over her insta. Gross.

NOVEMBER 19, 2019

My response to a LGBT post in one of my writing groups.

I don’t know most of these terms within the community. Don’t really care to know either, cause your preferences won’t change my feelings about who you are. I probably should, though, cause the Its and Xes really confuse me.

I knew I was a Demi-Ace for a few years. I’ve also known that I was Poly since I was early teens. But I’m also attracted to beauty and care more about who you are as a person than your preferences, so apparently I’m Panaesthetic as well?

Also firm believer of “True Love Knows NO Bounds”

Her journal got moved to 18+ because there was a post talking about sex. Might’ve even been alluding to rape. On a CHILDREN’S SITE. In her CHILD-FRIENDLY journal. It sat there for at least two months. TWO MONTHS. But I will not be posting that here, but it’s still there if anyone wants to snoop. All of this is public. Well, it was. But at least minors won’t be exposed to this histrionic little whiny whitey who is absolutely drowning in her white privilege.

Just because she changed her pfp from her face to a shitty drawing she did doesn’t hide the fact that she’s white, and the worst kind of person with little to no actual coping skills.

She claims to be an artist, a writer, all this, blah blah, but then why doesn’t she channel any of it into her work so she can get fucking better at them? She says she’s working on losing weight, so do that. Instead of shrieking and stomping your fucking feet like a toddler at the peak of their terrible two’s, throwing tantrum after fucking tantrum on a CHILDREN’S SITE about your shitty stances, go for a fucking walk. Punch a fucking punching bag. Literally anything else. You’ll feel better, you’ll lose weight faster, you’d be keeping your vitriol to your damn self and no one will “attack” you.

“Are you ourtraged yet? GOOD. It means I touched a nerve!”

She fucking wanted a reaction. But couldn’t handle it when she actually got one. I’m so embarrassed. Grow some fucking thicker skin, you’re older than I am. Grow a pair and shut the goddamn FUCK up.

For now, the evil is defeated, and I rest my fucking case.

#this is a nice archive #pokefarm #pfq #pokefarm drama #submission

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evilelitest2 · 4 years

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how do you keep rightists from infiltrating leftist spaces? I used to think that just being openly socialist would keep nazis away but the Dirtbag Left and the Red/Brown Alliance and the whole "anti Idpol" shows that doesn't seem to be true

Yeah one of the misplace concretes of the left is that “oh if we just openly support socialist/communist/anarchist rhetoric, the fascists won’t join us” which logically should make sense but that isn’t how things play out in reality. Turns out, Far Rightists are actually pretty good at infiltrating openly far left spaces because by definition, Fascists don’t have consistent beliefs by definition and rely far more on rhetorical flourishes and other such nonsense to hide their beliefs. Cause in reality, people don’t unusually have consistently laid out beliefs, they have a hodgepodge of various contradictory beliefs borrow from a bunch of sources, so simply supporting universal healthcare in no way prevents Nazis from growing in your audience (cough Chapohouse Cough). So the best way I think to keep Fascists from your space is to rely less on ideology, and more on specific methodology and rhetorical styles (because fascists always value rhetoric over ideology)

�� Firstly, any leftist space must openly declare their support for intersectionality in all forms. I know a lot of them do this already, but it is very important that even if your primary concern is say, healthcare, you make sure to address the issues of Racism (including antisemitism), Sexism, Homophobia, Classism, Transphobia, Anti Immigration rhetoric, Colonalism, and disability bigotry. Openly acknowledging these issues is important to keep fascists out, because there is a long history of the Rightists using a specific form of bigotry to infiltrate a community. For example, TERFS started out as a feminist group and were generally left wing, but many of them have moved to the Right because bigots almost always value bigotry over other values. There also has to be an awareness of how groups who are good on one front might be bad on another, lie how many Black Nationalist were quite antisemtic or the sexism you find in a lot of socialist groups. That needs to be addressed at the outset.

Secondly, absolutely zero tolerance for conspiracy theories. In addition to being incorrect and a form of intellectual laziness, one of the dangers of conspiratorial thinking is that you lose a sense of reality. I was reading about how QAON has been attracting supposed leftists of the hippie variety, because they are drawn to “Deep State” narratives over their actual leftist beliefs. The Far Right thrives on conspiracy theories, in fact conspiracy theories are sort of their founding principles, and they are extremely good at using them to get leftists to adopt reactionary positions. Also most conspiracy theories are just a step or two removed from the Jewish Conspiracy Theory (notice how many supposed leftists bitch about George Soros)

Thirdly, an adoption of academia. Academia has its problems, but its rigorous approach to research and its demand that claims need to be backed via evidence makes it like holy water to the alt right, there is a reason why one of their main targets is academia and college universities. Anti-Intellectualism or anti education attitudes are just breading grounds for reactionary thought.

Fourth, no tolerance of harassment. If there is a core belief of the Far Right, it is “Being a dick to people is good actually, cruelty is something to be valued” so while it might seem tempting to harass shitty people, the problem with harassment is that it morphs, cruelty is addictive and people who engage in abusive behavior against shitty people, inevitably start to turn it against each other. And if your community gives praise to people for being cruel, its an environment where Nationalists can easily infiltrate. And when your community is defined by hate, its a lot easier to divide leftists from each other. This is how “anti Idpol” was able to thrive, because the community that would become the Dirtbag left made their bones being toxic to people online, and then they took those methods and turned them against other forms of leftists. Its comically easy for rightists to infiltrate Communist or Anarchist spaces, because if you have been in any of those circles, its an endless cycle of auto-cannibalism and people harassing each other, so the maladjusted reactionaries can fit in easily. Civility politics are pretty shitty, but the response among some communities seems to be to just embrace the most toxic elements of internet culture. If leftist spaces feel like 4chan but with Marx avatar, then that is just screaming for Far Right infiltration.

Finally, there needs to be a rejection of political binaries and linear thinking. The Far Right isn’t just morally abhorrent, their entire world view is extremely simplistic and reductionist. All bad things have a single source, goodness is just based on being a dick to the “bad people” and you never have to acknowledge complexity of reality. Reality has a strong left wing bias because the world is actually complicated and nuanced and contradictory without clear simple answer (beyond fascists suck). The left can have a bad tendency to embrace this really simplistic binary world view, which makes them really easy for fascists to trick. A great example of this is how all the tumblr teenagers are using the term liberal as the embodiment of everything bad, and they keep hanging out with other people who hate “liberalism” but mean something very different with that term. You keep seeing supposed leftists who keep hanging out with White Nationalist because they both hate capitalism (again, Fascists don’t actually like capitalism, they just are willing to ally with it to destroy minorities). People who make themselves ideologically rigid on purpose are really easy to manipulate, which is why the left keeps fighting each other rather than focusing on the fucking fascists. An anti fascist space is one where people can tolerate a degree of disagreement as long as the subject isn’t bigotry.

Its not enough to just oppose fascism, you need to reject their methods and mindset

#ask EvilElitest #Dirtbag left #Red Brown Alliance #Leftism

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xtruss · 4 years

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For Spaniards Who Remember 1981, the Storming of the Capitol Looked Eerily familiar

— Giles Tremlett | Guardian USA | Saturday December 9, 2021

The events in Spain marked the definitive end of Francoism. Will the assault on the Capitol do the same for Trumpism?

Lt Col Antonio Tejero during the attempted coup in the Spanish parliament on 23 February 1981. Photograph: Manuel Barriopedro/AP

Tension was high, security was weak and a bitter handover of power was under way when violent intruders forced the people’s representatives to stop their debate and cower on the floor.

Future generations of Americans will identify this as a description of events at the Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January 2021. For Spaniards, however, it fits an earlier moment in history – an assault on Madrid’s parliament, the Congreso de los Diputados, on 23 February 1981.

Spain’s attackers – reactionary followers of the dictator General Francisco Franco, who had died six years earlier – were also led by men in silly hats, although Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero was sporting the patent leather tricorn of Spain’s civil guard paramilitary police force rather than a pair of buffalo horns.

Comparisons mostly end there. Tejero was waving a real weapon. Some of the 200 soldiers and civil guards with him peppered the debating chamber ceiling with machine-gun fire.

This was a proper coup attempt, not a shambolic human tidal wave containing costumed followers of an egomaniacal conspiracy theorist. In Spain, tanks rolled down the streets of the eastern city of Valencia to support the coup. Some people began packing for exile. Others worried about firing squads, recalling the techniques employed by Franco.

Reactions in the Spanish debating chamber were also different. The outgoing prime minister, Adolfo Suárez, and the deputy prime minister for defence affairs, General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, refused orders to hit the floor, while the latter angrily commanded the armed assailants to desist. They ignored him.

The communist leader, Santiago Carrillo, was the only other deputy to remain in his seat, slouching calmly and chain-smoking. “Old, disobedient and smoking away,” is how Javier Cercas describes him in his masterpiece of literary non-fiction, The Anatomy of a Moment. “He understands that if he survives the gunfire, the golpistas [coup leaders] will execute him.”

In Spain, there was no need to urge the head of state to make a television address condemning the assault. King Juan Carlos organised that himself, donning his commander-in-chief uniform and rebuking the “actions or attitudes of anyone who wants to interrupt by force the democratic process … voted on by the Spanish people”.

He did not say, like Donald Trump, “We love you. You’re very special.” Yet it seems Juan Carlos may also have unwittingly encouraged the plotters in advance, since many were convinced he was on their side. “In the King’s name!” some shouted during the assault.

Those who stormed the Spanish parliament thought a military junta was ready to take over, led by a mysterious figure known as White Elephant (probably the now deceased former royal aide, General Alfonso Armada).

When the gunmen burst in (failing to turn off a TV camera that recorded the whole thing), there were good reasons to believe people would die, but in the end nobody was hurt. White Elephant did not reveal themselves and, after 18 hours holding the deputies hostage, the attackers surrendered. The coup had flopped.

I once met a musician who claimed that, during his military service, he had taken part in the coup. He recalled being bundled into a truck and deposited outside the parliament building, but he sneaked off to buy cigarettes while his unit awaited orders. When he returned, they had gone. A policeman told him they had entered the parliament building, so he ran in and joined them. For Spaniards, then, there was a spooky element of deja vu in the scenes transmitted live from Washington on Wednesday, not least because they combined real danger with farce.

The good news, though, is that Spain’s coup was an end, not a beginning. When it failed, Spaniards realised they no longer had to fear an army that had been the backbone of Franco’s regime. Democracy and its institutions proved resilient, just as they have in the United States. The assailants went to jail, even if their shadowy backers mostly escaped identification and retribution.

In fact, apart from a few frights in the 1980s, Spain has barely witnessed any further military stirrings in the post-Franco era – until last month. In a 6 December “patriotic” letter, 34 aged generals and admirals, and hundreds of other ex-officers, claimed the Socialist-Podemos coalition government led by Pedro Sánchez was intent on imposing a form of communism.

Publication of the letter, which was also signed by the 1981 coup plotter Major Ricardo Pardo and one of Franco’s grandsons, followed revelations of a group Whatsapp chat among retired officers in which one participant wrote that “there is no other choice but to start executing 26 million sons-of-bitches”.

The reactionary old Spanish military officers clearly feel emboldened by a global normalisation of far-right, anti-democratic rhetoric, but their threats are empty. A year after the failed 1981 coup, Spaniards voted in their first leftwing government since the 1930s. The socialist prime minister Felipe González stayed in power for 14 years, overseeing a remarkable and solid transformation in Spain.

The trauma, then, need not last. In fact, an incident like this can be purifying and clarifying. For Spain it marked the limits of violence and the definitive end of the rotten era of Francoism.

In time, one can only hope the events in Washington on 6 January may seem just the same.

—Giles Tremlett is a correspondent based in Spain. He is the author of Ghosts of Spain, and biographies of Catherine of Aragon and Isabella of Castile

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thefabulousfulcrum · 7 years

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You Are Not a Rebel

via The Baffler

by Laurie Penny

IN REAL LIFE, nobody has the decency to realize that they’re the bad guy until it’s too late. The worst thing about the historical record is that it is usually written after the fact. Just think, if we could only get our hands on advance copies of tomorrow’s historical bestsellers, we could work out once and for all how we fit into this cruel and anxious age we’re living through, and get a sneak peek at the ending to see who ends up dead, decked out with medals, or living incognito in South America. Sadly, that would hardly help those of us who are most dangerously confused. The people who most urgently need to consider which side of the moral ledger their story will be written on tend to read few books in which they are not the hero.

It’s hard realizing that you’re the bad guy, because then you have to do something about it. That’s why the most aggressive players on the gory stage of political melodrama act in such bad faith, hanging on to their own sense of persecution, mouthing the plagiarized playbook of an oppression they don’t comprehend because they don’t care to. These people have a way of fumbling through their self-set roles till the bloody final act, but if we can flip the script, we might yet stop the show.

Let us remember, then, that in the violent psychodrama going on in their own minds, modern reactionaries, almost to a man, think that they are the hero. They think they’re the plucky underdog. They continue to think this even with their tiny-fingered mascot bellowing over the White House lawns and their agenda ascendant around the world, and I know, I know it makes no sense. But dogma doesn’t have to. And one of the articles of faith uniting all our modern proto-fascists, crypto-fascists, baby-fascists, whining 4chan fascists, and the growing number of fascists for whom any sort of prefix is redundant is that they all think they are rebels.

The new far right has recognized the enduring appeal of adventurism and appropriated its rhetoric for reactionary ends. Propaganda hubs like The Rebel repackage far right ideas as edgy and avant-garde, reassuring recruits that they are hip outsiders in a mass of squares and normies. This is a time-worn trick. As George Orwell observed in a review of Mein Kampf, “whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger, and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”

This is what happens when we fetishize the romance of rebellion while making actual social change impossible.

Fighting for people who are less privileged than you to become even less privileged than you is hardly a revolutionary mission. CEOs do it all the time. Last year I was interviewed for a Vicedocumentary about the relationship between Gamergate and the new far right. I remember that to get the shot at the right level, I had to half-sit and half-stand on a fancy sideboard. While I was engaging my core muscles trying to balance, the affable hipster doing the interview asked, “But aren’t the guys a bit underground? Aren’t they a bit counter-culture?” I was so flabbergasted that I fell off my perch. Yes, I told him, they are underground, a bit. But even Vice magazine, which is woke enough as long as woke sells ads—another Viceeditor told me authoritatively a few years ago that “it’s not cool to be stupid anymore”—even they can surely see that simply being “underground” does not make something fit to dredge up. A lot of things run underground that would be better off staying there. Sewers, for instance.

This is what happens when we equate “anti-social” with “anti-establishment.” The far right think they’re the resistance. They think they’re Mel Gibson in Braveheart, when they’re actually just regular old Mel Gibson, screaming about bitches and whores and Jews and then wondering why no one answers their phone calls anymore. Well played, Rob Roy.

The Shitler Youth come in many flavors of plausible deniability, but none are quite so woefully iconic as everyone’s favorite ship of fools: the fake pirates of Defend Europe.

In case you hadn’t heard, a few months ago some white supremacists decided that the rescue boats trying to save desperate people from drowning in the Mediterranean were a threat to “European” way of life. (I will not dignify them with the term “activists,” because activists have meetings and have read things that aren’t spittle-flecked sexually paranoid internet retro-rants about white people being bred out of existence.) They decided to solve the problem by pursuing a merry life of adventure on the high seas. No, really. These rudderless twits went ahead and chartered a boat, with the initial, unabashedly evil intention of impeding the rescue ships, a plan which was quickly changed to “monitoring” said ships, as apparently nobody had any idea how to do actual sea battle, because whatever the copyright people told us, downloading a lot of free porn does not, by itself, make you a pirate.

They got a lot of press, of course, which was part of the idea—there’s no point being a rebel if you can’t get your picture in the paper. They even got Katie Hopkins, Britain’s own dollar-store Eva Braun, to come along for part of the ride, presumably as some sort of totem against shipwreck, because any self-respecting god of the ocean would spit Hopkins right back out again. Deliciously, before they had even managed to embark on their main voyage, they accidentally smuggled twenty-one Sri Lankan asylum seekers into Europe. Then their boat stalled in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. The founder of the Sea-Eye, the NGO ship that was sent to offer aid—the pouting stalwarts refused help—told the public that “to help a ship in distress is the duty of anyone who is at sea, without distinction to their origin, color, religion, or beliefs.” Hopefully the Sea-Eye was also stocked with burn cream.[*]

The very worst part about this entire episode is that an actual rescue ship was diverted to help these cretins, a rescue ship that could have been saving people who are really fleeing for their lives, rather than simply fleeing reality. I’m not going to permit myself to wish the baby-fascists had fucking drowned, but I do hope the stalled vessel gave these quisling Quixotes time to check out their own reflection in the surface of the sea and wonder whether being “underground” was quite so much fun anymore. I also hope that when they make the movie of this, every single one of them is played by Nicolas Cage in a variety of unconvincing wigs.

Claiming that anti-fascists are morally equivalent to fascists is a little like claiming that, as both take a toll on the body, cancer and chemotherapy are basically the same.

In the United States, radicalized extremists on the far right are also due for a rebrand, having been embarrassed on the international stage in Charlottesville by fellow travelers who took the street-fighting-Nazi live-action roleplay too far, marched around screaming about being replaced by Jews, and murdered someone. The Shitler Youth are now going through desperate conniptions trying to claim that anti-fascists are morally equivalent to fascists, that “all sides” are aggressive and forthright, which is a little like claiming that, as both take a toll on the body, cancer and chemotherapy are basically the same.

Shit got real, eh? One minute you’re a nice normal boy with hobbies and internet friends, and the next, your picture’s all over the place holding a torch and doing the Nuremberg uglyface and your parents won’t talk to you because everyone thinks you’re a militant racist, and they’re right. If I may talk directly to these self-deluding subterraneans: I’m sorry to be the one to point this out, but you have been radicalized. There’s a reason people call you Vanilla ISIS. ISIS think they’re rebels, too. Have a good hard look at these Defend Europe twits with their rickety armada. These are your people. They’re your compadres. You are paddling beside them in the shallow end of political discourse, screaming when anything living nibbles your toes.

This is what happens when we fetishize the romance of rebellion while making actual social change impossible. My guess is that the ruling class, the people whose agenda these people’s mean-spirited credulity serves, aren’t standing about with flaming torches screaming that they’re about to be replaced by Jews. They don’t spend their time harassing girls on the internet. They outsource that shit. To suckers. For free. Meanwhile, the ruling class is just writing the speeches and jerking the strings and watching gullible, self-anointed rebels make fools of themselves on television.

These are the very people whose names the Shitler Youth wear on their unbelievably ugly hats and t-shirts, which incidentally is exactly what happens when you let straight white guys who consider gold a neutral design your neo-fascist aesthetic. The one problem with calling these faux-rebels Nazis is that it suggests they know how to goddamned get dressed in the morning. The left are out-styling them as well as out-thinking them right now. The left! Some of us wear hemp! And t-shirts with weak science puns! And we let our flatmates cut our hair! And we spend half our time fighting each other over tiny ideological debates that started before we were born, and they still make us look good. They make us look good because they’ve swallowed the fake oppression story cooked up by propagandists on the right to recast their most reactionary opinions as risqué.

So let’s be clear: getting fired because you hate women is not an equivalent hardship to getting fired because you happen to be one. People who have been disowned by their parents for being gay or transgender aren’t going to have sympathy when your mum and dad find your stash of homophobic murder fantasies and change the locks. Getting attacked for being a racist is not the same as getting attacked because you are black. The definition of oppression is not “failure to see your disgusting opinions about the relative human value of other living breathing people reflected in society at large.” Being shamed, including in public, for holding intolerant, bigoted opinions is not an infringement of your free speech. You are not fighting oppression. You are, at best, fighting criticism. If that’s the hill you really want to die on, fine, but don’t kid yourself it’s the moral high ground. I repeat: You cannot be a rebel for the status quo. It would be physically easier to go and fuck yourself, and I suggest you try.

The fact that some people—the women, people of color, immigrants and queer people you want put back in their proper place—disapprove of you does not make you edgy. A bag of cotton wool is edgier than you lot. Fighting for things to go back to the way they were twenty or thirty or fifty years ago does not constitute a bold resistance movement. It constitutes the militant arm of the Daily Mail comments section. Fighting real oppression involves risk, and before you start, I’m talking about real risk, not some girl on the internet calling you a cowardly subliterate waste of human skin, like I just did.

This was gig-economy bigotry from the beginning, every bedroom hatemonger his own self-facilitating media node.

Of course, the fragile self-image of American nationalism has always been grounded in the idea of rebellion, in an aesthetic of protest and struggle for individual liberty powdering over the ugly worship of authoritarianism andhierarchy that was also baked in from the beginning. The United States has never truly stopped fighting its civil war, but the tropes and language of that war have been re-appropriated by net reactionaries in an effort to dress up their racism as rebellion, which by coincidence was part of what the war was about in the first place. That’s why there’s such attachment to the confederate or “rebel” flag among conservatives, even in states which fought for the Union; even in states which did not exist at the time. And this investment in maintaining a state of permanent rebellion is why net reactionaries have no idea what to do now they’re technically in power, like the confused golden retriever who finally catches that Ford Focus, except far less fluffy.

Mewling subluminaries have, for years, approached backyard fascism as a growth industry—why stop now? These enterprising intellectual bantamweights did not wait for the mechanisms of state and party to show them how to goose-step or gather seed money—this was gig-economy bigotry from the beginning, every bedroom hatemonger his own self-facilitating media node, like a sort of fascist Nathan Barley. The millennials among them have merely done what the television told us all to do as kids: find your passion and make it your career. It’s just a shame that their passion happens to be the creation of a white ethnostate with a stack of sexually frustrated video rants as a transitional demand.

So propping up the establishment does not sit well with their sense of themselves as brave, entrepreneurial outsiders battling the forces of something-or-other. Perhaps it feels strange to be told you have won when nothing in your own actual, material life has changed. Perhaps winning didn’t taste as good as the picture on the package. They were promised thrills and spills and danger and adventure and instead they’re on the haunted teacup ride through the wreckage of civil society and they’re feeling a bit sick but they’ve given the man their money, so they can’t get off.

And in any case this is not the sort of game you just win or lose. Politics doesn’t work like that, although in fairness, the sense that it does is one of several delusions they share with the political elites they claim to despise. Playing by those rules is a great way to make sure that the house always wins. What’s changed in the world in the months since their team supposedly won? The rich are still running things, they’re just a lot less shy about it. Living standards have gone nowhere but down. The planet is still sizzling towards climate collapse, and I know they think that’s not real, but you don’t have to believe in a train to get run down by it with everyone you care about while you stand in the middle of the tracks screaming about cucks and Jews like a prize prick.

One major thing, however, has changed, and that is that an awful lot of people who happen to be foreign, or female, or members of a different race or faith from these fools are suddenly living in fear of violence, violence the Shitler Youth and their crewmates helped whip up to make themselves feel like big damn heroes. Because they wanted to feel like they were fighting the power without actually having to challenge anyone who had it.

If you’ve a niggling suspicion I might be talking about you here, it’s time to take a look at your own reflection in whatever screen you’re reading off. If you want to cosplay as a revolutionary from a made-up time before brown people and liberated women existed, go and drink mead at a Ren fair like a normal person. If you just want to be famous on the internet, go and make some porn. If you can’t get over your fetish for fake oppression, go and hang out in a club where people wear expensive black rubber and get yourself consensually flogged by someone with legitimate rage to work through. But don’t call yourself a revolutionary just because you can’t stop running in circles.

[*] Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly suggested that the crew of the Defend Europe vessel had been rescued by the Sea-Eye. Although the Sea-Eye was temporarily diverted to travel toward the Defend Europe boat and offer aid, the latter crew refused help and the rescue ship carried on its operations. The fascists’ boat later restarted.

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jonboudposts · 7 years

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General Election 3: British Culture is the Problem

1. The Dark Side

One thing for certain about the upcoming General Election on 8 June is that for once we the voters have a choice. While our piss-weak press went batty over the Labour Party manifesto even before it was released, the rest of us have the chance to see what a real political alternative looks like. The present state of affairs that produces no improvement for the majority will be provided by electing Teresa May’s government into power.

The Conservative election campaign is the epitome of the empty rhetoric of modern politics, all about appearance and no depth. They have no real policies, no costing for their policies (because they do not believe there is a need to) and the few they have show contempt for the public. They stay ‘on message’, one of the most loaded phases in politics, that basically means repeat the same thing until people believe it (where did I read about that being effective?).

Instead of meeting anyone or debating anyone, Theresa May is toured around rooms full of supporters while drooling on about being strong and stable, making personal attacks and nothing else against the leader of the opposition and claiming Europe is out to get her. The Conservatives are so desperate to keep money on side (their only real god) that they have even screwed over pensioners; the group most likely to vote Conservative. There are a few reasons for doing this, but chief among them is outright disrespect for the people affected by their policy and arrogance that they can get away with it.

But we must face the fact the Tories believe they can get away with it because of our inaction.

The Labour Party have put forward a progressive and people-centred manifesto that seeks to bring equality to the country and address the severe damage done to many people’s lives by the Conservative austerity rule since 2010. Many of the policies have been drawn up based on results from polls and public opinion, particularly the re-nationalisation of the railways, water and Royal Mail.

However, there is a rather familiar echo coming from many places that said these policies are what they want. You have probably heard it, may have even said it; ‘I like the policies/ideas/whatever, but do not like Jeremy Corbyn’ for some unspecified reason; or ‘well there are some good ideas but can they really make it happen?’ or the truly repulsive ‘I don’t want to rock the boat/am too old to change’, etc.

Most of these people I talk to also say they do not like Theresa May (and never mention Tim Fallon) but still have this almost in-built fear of change, of taking control of their own lives. There seems to be a lack of understanding about what is actually on the line here.

Let me say this again; Mr Corbyn is willing to give people what they say they want, such as improvements to wages, saving the NHS and putting railways back into public ownership. What most of us often say we want. Now, do you really want these things?

Public of Britain – can you handle a real choice?

I am afraid you may not be able to. Years of conditioning and refusal to step out of your comfort zone means when you actually get the option you want, when the time comes to step up and make that choice, you back down. Let us be honest, many of you are perfectly comfortable. The middle class in particular have achieved the golden throne of ‘comfortable’. You are comfortable in deterioration; comfortable in defeat and comfortable so long as no one comes and attacks you directly. You were scared by the financial crisis and surface-level disgusted at the way neo-liberalism-loving banks and their irresponsible staff were bailed out and never faced justice but now…well, everything seems alright again really and we do not want to upset business as some of them may leave and take their great jobs with them – so let’s just go back to being quiet.

Many working class people are just about comfortable too (although far less securely). All of you however have never been good at coping with change, even when you had a backbone. The economic changes of thirty years ago usually hit you the worse, but even the idea of ditching an economic system that turns you into little more than slaves is too much to imagine now.

I believe this is the result of a few things but the main one is the internalisation of the class war of the last thirty years. It has made people weak, reactionary and prone to think too little of themselves and often overtly hateful to others. You are not willing to stand up or stand out and hate anyone who does. You people care more about your fucking flag than you do about the future for your children and grandchildren. My greatest fear is this is the dominant way of thinking in our national psyche.

‘There is a battle of narratives. The working-class narrative is being erased. And as you erase that narrative, you erase truths with it.’ – Mark Thomas

My dad once told me a story about growing up in Camberwell. He would listen to the adults around him complaining about the Conservative government of the time. However, when election time came around, they voted Conservative. ‘Well’ they would respond when dad asked why; ‘they know what they are doing’. Although it was common during David Cameron’s government to agree that the lack of diversity of his cabinet – privately educated, posh background, never having a real job – was not good for government, it seems in practice many people think this set up is fine, because after all, they know what they are doing. They are well educated unlike us and have run businesses probably and were raised for this position. The arrogance of their class is not something that really bothers you; if anything it provides a certain sort of security.

These are the elites that you say you hate, right?

No, since Brexit and perhaps before, it is the likes of me that are elitist. With my aspiration for education and wanting to bring equality of opportunity to all. Never mind all the shit jobs I have done through my life and the position I am in now; no, I am that London Liberal Falafel Elite. Not them, who have thrived from the misery they inflict on so many, which they can do because we do not stand up to them.

They made you powerless; so now you want to make me powerless.

The present culture is one of receiving whatever is thrown at us and considering ourselves lucky for some reason. I am not and never will be ‘lucky’ to have a job. That is the thinking of the weak and defeated; the malleable and easily-controlled. We give these people their money and their power; we generate that which they love and hold over us. We owe them nothing.

There is a lack of hope because people do not want hope. They are secure in defeat. They do not want four more Bank Holidays because they do not think they deserve them. They do not want their children to get better access to education because they do not deserve it. They do not want equality because too many of them fear it will take away what little they have (although they have far more than they admit) and no matter how big and tough the average bloke is, he will not take on his boss because at heart he is a coward.

Never mind who stands for election on what platform – if we do not address this cultural failure, we will never move forward.

We need to cut out this pretence of politeness that people are so obsessed with. This is not to advocate being unkind to each other on public transport or in the street; or to people serving you food or similar services; but when it comes to politics, do not judge someone’s argument on criteria like dismissing them if they swear or get passionate. Knowledge is something to care about.

The political elite have a horrible middle class notion of being polite to each other and many of us follow that without thinking. The problem with this is that ultimately it is an empty politeness that prevents anything worthwhile taking place.

We need to tell people when they are wrong and tell toxic people their opinions do not matter to us, then move on and leave them in the dust. We can start with the anti-PC Brigade; consisting of the professionally insulted and screaming bigots who cannot cope with a world where women have opinions and gays have sex.

Many of these right-wing wing nuts would use language against us as a wind up; words like ‘snowflake’ to describe someone upset by the latest bigotry bile; or ‘triggered’ to someone who responds to suggestions Muslims should be put in camps or whatever. Strangely though, it is much easier to trigger a anti-PC bitch than it is anyone else – try saying Happy Holidays at Christmas time, or having an egg hunt at Easter. Witness the latest antics of Kelvin McKenzie; who perhaps epitomises the inability to ‘get over it’ no matter how well you are doing. For a bunch of people ‘winning’, they act rather like the opposite. Permanently pissed off because they know that the fundamental parts of the culture war have been lost and they will never get it back.

These commentators and social media parasites have no such qualms of politeness towards the rest of us. They will attack anyone to the left of Genghis Khan, harass LGBT people in some cases to their suicide, plus just straight-up attack people (especially Jeremy Corbyn) on purely personal grounds. The overt Islamaphobia that comes from these quarters, with anti-Antisemitism usually not far behind, must cease to be as tolerated as it presently is within the mainstream. These people often hide behind legitimate concerns and campaigns such as against FGM, but their reasons are nothing to do with concern for young girls being brutalised; they just hate Muslims and ‘outsiders’ and always have.

Their argument is not about political correctness or the attacking of any non-existent ‘indigenous’ culture; this is about rejecting equality. These are the same people who have always hated the alternative, women, ethnic minorities or anyone not male, pale and stale like them. Anti-PCers do not know how to co-exist and do not want to learn. They will always hate anyone who does not agree with them and their out-of-date and fact-less view of the world. They are the ones with integration problems.

The Conservatives have done and will continue to do horrible and destructive things to the people of this country and internationally and not only will I not accepts this, I will never forgive them for it. I see no reason to be compelled to be polite when dealing with them or their supporters, even around a family dinner table. If you vote for something, the result is partly your responsibility and you will be held to account.

You cannot hide like your incompetent and careless leader Mrs May.

It is time to strike back and stop taking this shit. If you are not my politics, you are not my friend. We may be able to hold a conversation or even have the odd cup of tea together but the present political climate and the people who put us here are unacceptable to me and we will never bridge that gap.

I feel this way for one reason above all else – because the chummy nature of so much politics and culture clash shows me that you do not really have any skin in this game.

Divisions between our political beliefs are good, they should be embraced. For how can we evolve when being held back by the weak and jealous? The Anti-PC Brigade are not just your enemy, they are modern Britain’s enemy and they must be crushed. This should be a fundamental to our understanding of the world we live in and must navigate through every day. But we do not.

How did we get to this point?

The prevailing influence in British or certainly English culture is one of hopelessness. Defeat and hating anyone, including within your own family, who even look for a second like they may do ‘better’ than you is more common than we might like to admit. This in a genuine politics of resentment, not a fake Tory-defined one

Many people have drunk the toxic cocktail of hopelessness mixed with nihilism and a life-stripping horror that makes sure defeat is inevitable before you start. This poison must be destroyed, or there simply cannot be any advancement for people, young or otherwise, in Britain.

The only antidote I can see is Labour Manifesto.

I hope we can turn this around but it may be too late to really change this downward spiral of self-destruction. I hope for many things. I hope because I can; because hope is a choice. You have it too.

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