#what got me out of it was becoming more leftist and feeling disgusted at how most 'pro-life' people do not support policies

[silvermoon424]

I just watched John Oliver's video on abortion rights and it was nice to see that my favorite game of "let's see how long it takes for 'pro-life' people to admit they hate women" is still relevant.

It only took a couple of comments for anti-choicers to devolve into "women need to keep their legs shut." Absolutely no blame directed towards men who impregnate women because as we all know pregnancy only requires one person. Also, it was awesome seeing people defend the fact that anti-choicers don't support social welfare policies because "why should we have to pay for the consequences of you opening your legs?"

[lumini-317]

Hello!

This will be my official “introductory” post!

My real name is Erica, but I go by many names. My nickname repertoire includes but is not limited to: Lumi, Lumini, Cricket (I have a habit of rubbing my feet together, lmao), Jinx, Eri, Er, EriJoy, Sunbaeby, and Aceir (my real name but in alphabetical order).

This is my first ever Tumblr blog. I’ve had it for a while but have rarely posted anything, that along with the fact that I’m on mobile is kind of a mess so I apologize for mistakes and all that.

I have 3 older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother.

I’m an ambivert. Sometimes I love hanging out with bigger groups of people, other times I dread it.

I’ve taken the “16personalities” test 4 times and all 4 put me in the “Diplomat” category, however I got “Advocate” (INFJ) 2 times, and “Protagonist” (ENFJ) and “Mediator” (INFP) 1 time each.

I am LGBTQ+. I’m asexual, aro+panromantic flux, and while I feel like I’m genderfluid, the changes are very subtle and so I sometimes just go with agender, gendervoid, or neutrois. It’s a lot less complicated that way. I’m ambiamorous, and also pronoun apathetic!

I love whump. I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember but only found the whump community maybe 3(?) years ago.

I also love K-Pop, C-Pop, J-Pop, and Asian dramas, mainly K-Pop and K-Dramas, though.

I’m a HUGE multistan. ATEEZ, SKZ, TBZ, EXO, BTS, Red Velvet, SHINee, iKON, MONSTA X, TWICE, TO1, WANNA ONE, SuperM, X1, MIRAE, Ciipher, Golden Child, Purple Kiss, BAE173, SF9, IU, ONEUS, ONEWE, The Rose, PIXY, LUCY, STAYC, WEi (which I pronounced as “way” for an embarrassingly long time), Dreamcatcher, Brave Girls, TXT, ENHYPEN, SNSD, KARD, AKMU, SHAUN, Gaho, NCT, GHOST9, 1team, SE7EN, Cross Gene, D1ce, AB6IX, CRAVITY, BLACKPINK, CIX, VIXX, f(x), 4Minute, CLC, YEZI, B.I, Wonho, (G)I-DLE, EVERGLOW, SEVENTEEN, BROOKLYN, Ha Hyunsang, DAY6, GOT7, Teen Top, BAP, TREASURE, UNIQ, etc! It goes on, far longer than I can list. I am also very much against fanwars, they disgust me.

I’m also a HUGE animal lover, and a big softie. I can’t even squish insects. I don’t care that they can’t feel pain and don’t experience emotions, I just can’t bring myself to. I make it my mission to save any type of animal I come across. I find toads in our koi pond and immediately pick them out and take them to a safe place. I help turtles across the road. I got a mouse out of a puddle and revived it, releasing it when it was healthy enough. I saw a snail on a piece of wood that was going to be thrown on a fire and carefully pulled it off and put it somewhere else. So far I’ve found 5 stray cats (Piper, Toothless, Felix, Kai, and Kit Kat—all were found as skinny, sickly kittens) and took them in, raising them as my own. I rescued a chipmunk from certain death-by-cat. I’ve even saved a few baby raccoons, ducklings, lizards, spiders, and snakes in my time. And I’ll keep doing so for as long as I live.

I love writing, drawing/sketching, and painting, however I’m not confident that I’m good at any of those things, lmao. I mean, I don’t think I’m the worst, but my finished “works” often leave me unsatisfied with my “skills”. But of course, that won’t stop me from trying to improve!

I’m a maladaptive daydreamer. This can cause issues in some places while helping me out in others. On one hand, it makes doing chores and such kind of difficult. Like one time I had to take care of my dad’s pigeons while he was fixing our shed and one time he pointed out how slow I was with the chores. His words were something along the lines of, “I’m already almost done with what I have to do and you’re still working with the pigeons.” Also, it (and maybe ADHD if I do have it?) made school a nightmare for me. But it’s also helpful because then during church it’s really easy to keep myself occupied while the pastors go on about their Magical Sky Daddy™’s son throwing a tantrum and killing a figtree because it didn’t have any figs and how that story should “challenge” us or something.

The characters in my daydreams are weird, though. They merge and separate with each other to make different characters depending on the situation. Most of them don’t have definite genders. Only a handful of them have names because they’re always merging and separating like some kind of Shadow Clone Masters or something. Stuff like that.

One of my characters is for sure a demi-boy, though, and his name is Kyler.

I brought this up because I was watching The Andy Griffith Show and Andy was giving Opie a lecture on how many poor kids there are in the world and used the ratio “one and a half boys per square mile”. Opie then says that he’s “never seen a half a boy before”. Kyler just sort of pops into (fake) existence, jumps off the couch, and throws his arms in the air while saying, “Half a boy, right here!” I burst out laughing. Thankfully it didn’t seem weird, since my parents started laughing at Opie and thought that I was just laughing at it, too.

Any-who.

If I daydream while I’m standing, I’ll often pace and gesture with my arms while moving my lips. Sometimes I’ll even whisper. If I’m sitting down, I usually fidget a lot (such as pick at my shirt and rub my feet together), stare into space, and move my lips or whisper. My family sometimes ask me, “Why are you whispering?” Or, “What are you grinning about?” And I just shrug because I don’t know how to explain it to them without risking them calling someone to pray over me, lmao. I mean, I wasn’t even allowed to have imaginary friends because that was “evil”. When I was about 7, I told my parents about my imaginary unicorn friend and they gave me a lecture and “prayed over me”. It was embarrassing and awkward for me.

I’m suspicious that I might have ADHD, but don’t have the money to actually get a professional diagnosis. I’m also too scared to ask my parents about it.

Speaking of which, my family and I don’t see eye-to-eye. I mean, they don’t know it because I’m good at hiding it, and they think I agree with mostly everything they do but boy, is it a mess.

You see, they’re evangelical conservative Christians. “LGBTQ+ people are going to hell”, “ThE LeFt ARe eViL AnD ARe TrYiNg To BrAiNwAsh OuR ChiLdrEn”, “Trump was sent by God”, “Intersex is fake”, “Women must submit to men”, “You should get married no later than in a year or ‘the temptation’ to have sex might become too much”, the whole bit.

Meanwhile I’m over here with my (imaginary) pride flags, just existing as an agnostic leftist who wants everyone to have equal rights, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, and would rather redo my horrifically atrocious kindergarten closing program role than pray to a god who (if they/he/she/it/whatever exists) gives cancer to kids and killed millions of innocent animals and people in the Bible.

But they have no idea that this is how I feel and now expect me to be baptized within the next month to show that I have “accepted Jesus Christ as my savior”. Yeah...that’s gonna be an awkward discussion...

Anyway, that’s just some things about me. Sorry that I got sidetracked a few times, lmao!

I look forward to posting more and maybe even making friends!

Thank you for reading (:

[sharpened-fantastic]

what are the reasons to vote for Biden? because you're out here talking about how we shouldn't vote green/abstain from the presidential, but can you please tell me what exactly would be different about a Biden presidency vs a Trump one? besides that a second Trump turn would keep liberals engaged and give us more chances to radicalize them. Joe Biden is just as bad as Trump on nearly every level and if he miraculously wins the gen, the DNC will be left unchecked. I'm curious on who that helps!

Hey! A genuine thank you for sending a full, non-anonymous ask. 

However, the biggest thing to remember is that having a democrat in the office will lead to policy changes and will change how our country is shaped for literal decades to come. 

Yes--Biden is a shit head, he would probably continue a lot of the racist and outright idiotic policies that Trump either put in place or continued from previous presidencies. I wish it weren’t true but that’s a simple fact. I agree that this sucks dick and makes me not want to vote at all.

One BIG thing is having a leader, regardless of political views, that has literally any political experience other than “accidentally got elected for four years as president”. Even compared to other presidents, even other republicans, his approach is overly militaristic, explicitly fueled by monetary gain, and he refuses to bend to even feign concern or duty towards American citizens. His open xenophobia (that has literally been UNPRECIDENTED, even to other politicians sharing his beliefs) has allowed greater mobility and reach for hate groups, and has let other politicians feel more comfortable in presenting non-coded, upfront, racist policy. It’d be one thing if it just showed the American public “oh wow, all of these places were racist the whole time”, but elevating literal concentration camps (yes, those did exist during the Obama era) to “let’s use abandoned warehouses to strip kids from their families, live in conditions we legally don’t let a lot of animals live in, and give them marked psychological scarring!”, among other things (I’m gonna put references at the end of this I’d hate to be talking purely out of my ass).

Trump is also horrifically undiplomatic--severing or straining our ties to other developed nations--, overemotional and unprofessional constantly on social media, and speaks positively on radically bigoted and backwards groups.

I think you’re giving Trump a lot of credit by saying he and Biden are equally bad. Both racist? yes. Both made bad policy decisions? oh yeah. However, Biden is still left enough that the democratic party accept him, the republican party has been squabbling since 2016 that Trump is too right-wing for republicans. Let’s have a president that even pretends to condemn Charlottesville or the dozens of other explicit hate crimes across the country. Let’s have a president that has better tax policies, or maybe even pays their taxes at all! Sure, they’re both bad! It’s a shit situation we’re in! But would you rather be trapped in a room with a child throwing trash, or a child setting the room on fire? 

Oh and one other big thing, I don’t want Trump choosing the supreme court for an entire generation, thanks.

Who knows, that’s up to you I guess, and if you don’t wanna vote I can’t stop you, I mean, it’s punishment enough that you’re gonna have to live with your decision. 

Here’s the biggest thing to remember: voting isn’t fair. It’s a broken system that supports those who abuse it, and those who abuse it are shitty people that don’t deserve that power. HOWEVER, refusing to vote only allows those who support people who abuse power to become more brazen in their racism, disregard for the American public, and signals to republicans “we give up! we swear we’re gonna have a revolution one of these days, but until then, you choose who’s in office!”

Biden is the wrong choice for presidency, but he’s our only choice. I don’t support Biden, I support voting, and I refuse to support letting Trump have another minute in office just to “radicalize leftists”. Not to be rude, but I think anyone who’s gonna get radicalized in this direction has been radicalized, but there are plenty of centrists that were taught “racism is bad” in grade school, but are getting a ton of support from the “racism can benefit you” crowd.

Ok, I’ve held off from the caps lock and stupid italics and bold for long enough, but “a second Trump turn would keep liberals engaged and give us more chances to radicalize them.”?! 

Are you fucking kidding me???

I don’t think anyone should have to think on having their political ideologies shifted while hundreds of Americans die due to lack of access to basic necessities, having their families torn apart, and while the future of the country burns in the background. Trust me, regular republicans do enough heinous shit to radicalize me and the majority of my group, you just normally need to dig ever-so-slightly deeper than surface level to see it, and providing that information to people is something I’m willing to do to get Trump out of office.

I really hope that I’m misreading what you said there, because holy hot fuck is that the most disgusting thing I’ve heard all fuckin month.

But here’s the biggest thing! VOTING IS SO EASY TO DO. PLEASE JUST DO IT. DON’T ACTIVELY ALLOW TRUMP TO WIN. I KNOW IT’S MUCH MORE DIFFICULT IN SOME STATES COMPARED TO OTHERS, BUT IF YOU DO HAVE THAT PRIVILEGE I WILL BURN YOU TO THE GROUND IF YOU THROW IT AWAY. 

Sorry, this was way longer and more of a rant than I intended. TL;DR--

Both are bad, but saying that Biden is “just as bad” as Trump is flat-out irresponsibly ignorant

One has political experience. That’s it that’s the bullet point.

As far as bad presidents go, Trump has been fuckin record breaking

Trump goes on overemotional, uneducated rants on social media, refuses to speak against extremely open, literal hate speech groups, and is straining America’s relationships with all other developed nations

There are some differences in their policies, again, both are bad, but this is not the time for black and white thinking please 

A radical president radicalizes people in both directions

I can’t even properly express my distaste for the comment “a second Trump turn would keep liberals engaged and give us more chances to radicalize them” I am literally praying that I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying right now, holy fuck

IF YOU CAN VOTE AND YOU CHOOSE NOT TO, I’M MORE ENRAGED AT YOU THAN PEOPLE WHO STILL THINK THIRD-PARTIES CAN STILL WIN, BECAUSE AT LEAST THEY GIVE ENOUGH OF A SHIT TO ENGAGE WITH DEMOCRACY. 

Ok references (sorry they’re all in the wrong order and of varying quality): x x x x x x x x x x x

[bigtittyhimmler-blog]

Who Goes Nazi? Brooklyn Edition

If you’re anything like me, a twenty-something Twitter leftist with an advanced degree in the humanities, you hate absolutely everyone around you and badly want to kill them. You live in a brownstone playground of Timorese food and adult coloring books, and you want to suicide bomb the L train but leave a note blaming it on manspreading or whatever, so people don’t think you’re one of “those” random mass murderers (the bad kind). You hate having to tell people at parties that you “work in content,” and you hate the fact that they all also work in content. You hate that they all make content for outlets that are slightly cooler and more prestigious than the outlets you make content for. You hate that none of them have even fucked you for like thirteen months. You hate that you can’t even hate them for the ways in which they’re different to you, because there aren’t any. But fear not! There’s one thing you’ve got that nobody else does: you know that you’re definitely, 100% Not A Nazi.

But what about them? Imagine if the Nazis took over America and it was suddenly cool and prestigious to be a Nazi, and there were trendy Nazis on the TV the whole time, and they once again sold soap with slogans like “Dove: The White Pride Soap for Hating QTBIPOC and Not Amplifying Their Voices.” But also don’t imagine, because that’s exactly what’s happening.

 This game was invented by Dorothy Thompson in her classic 1941 Harpers essay Who Goes Nazi?, in which she presciently pointed out that intellectuals are definitely more Nazi than aristocrats, but not nearly as Nazi as union leaders. But she set her essay at some dinner party in the Hamptons or wherever, and last time I went out there I went swimming in the sea and a wave hit me and I lost my bikini top and a bunch of bros in boat shoes started laughing and pointing at me in a way that despite my white privilege I still feel was somehow like imbued with racism, and then afterwards I just stayed inside for three weeks writing content and ordering groceries online, so the setting needs to be updated. Let’s look at your group DM. Which of these Twitter creatives who live in Brooklyn would go along with it and become a Nazi? (All of them.) And who never, ever would? (Me.)

 Mr A isn’t actually in your group DM, and you’ve never encountered anyone like him irl, but you literally can’t stop talking about him, so he gets included anyway. Mr A is a short ugly loser, and he’s already a Nazi. He doesn’t even live in Brooklyn, he lives in his mother’s basement, and eats chicken tenders, and he doesn’t get laid, but in a different way to the way you don’t get laid, which has to do with patriarchy. Mr A is a Pizzagate. Mr A is a Gamergate. Mr A is a segregationist. Mr A opposes the reforms of the Emperor Diocletian (284-305). Mr A won’t shut up about the superiority of a “free silver” bimetallic monetary system over gold specie, and keeps on talking about the “gold shills” in a way that doesn’t really make sense until you realize that your own name is Goldschmidt, and yeah, he doesn’t really care about expansionary monetary policy at all, he’s talking about the Jews, and specifically you. Mr A is basically a pathetic worm whose life sucks and nobody likes him, but also he represents the whole of the repressive forces of society and he’s at the top of the social hierarchy. Everyone you’ve ever met is actually Mr A, wearing various masks. He is the source of all your problems. He must be killed, and once we kill him, we need to find more people like him to be the source of any problems we have left over.

 Mr B is in your group DM, but you also have a separate group DM with everyone else except Mr B in it. He keeps trying so hard to be nice, and says stuff like “so how is everyone’s day today” with a smiley emoji, and when you’re talking to him you get this airless feeling like you’re about to suffocate in his treacly good-natured presence. Every time you see Mr B at a party you’re afraid that he’s going to blurt out that he loves you, but you can’t keep your distance too much because he’s so clearly autistic, and you don’t want to be ableist. Anyway once in the group DM he said that while he obviously thought divining for water with Y-shaped copper rods was good and important and valid, he didn’t understand what it had to do with socialism. That made everything better, because clearly he’s a Nazi. The whole group DM expended hours of emotional labor educating him about how dowsing is part of LGBTQ+ culture and how his dismissive bro-y attitude was reactionary and gross, and eventually he posted a video of himself crying and begging for forgiveness and promising to do better, because you guys were the only friends he had. This was classic white fragility, but in the end you let him stay. You just have the other DM now, where you make fun of him and it’s ok, because if the Nazis came and he had license to start being cruel and sadistic to other people, he’d definitely do it.

 Ms C is one of those women who doesn’t like other women, and you know this about her because you can’t fucking stand the bitch. Plus she says stuff that’s really not ok, even though it costs nothing to have empathy and be kind. You’ve personally heard her use the D-word, the H-slur, and the L-pejorative, all while laughing and holding a glass of white wine by the stem, like she doesn’t need to consider the harm this does to others, just because she’s “funny” and “an artist.” She’s the Cool Chick. She makes nude self-portraits (the bad, skinny kind), and she’d throw you under the bus in a second for male attention and approval. She’d definitely go Nazi. But the worst thing about her is that she has the impudence to be bisexual and Asian, which makes it really hard to call her out. But then you realized that all Asian people are collectively responsible for the long history of anti-Blackness and misogynoir in their communities, and you’re thinking of holding her collectively responsible for the Rape of Nanking too, once you’re certain she’s a sushi Asian and not the dim sum kind.

 Ms D’s boyfriend works in finance, or like accountancy or something, or I think I heard he was a musician? Maybe a drummer or possibly he used to bartend at a place where they had live music. Anyway they definitely have vanilla cishet sex in the missionary position and you can’t stop thinking about it, his body, her body, naked, moving, breathing, together, almost silent, tender, disgusting. She says she’s a socialist but doesn’t devote every minute of her waking life to getting mad about people online. This means she’s just vaguely following a trend, and if the trend were being a Nazi (which it is), she’d be a Nazi (which she therefore is). You can’t imagine yourself actually hitting her but it’d definitely be punching up to maybe poison her food?

 Mr E used to be a comrade, but then he did a tweet that got 38.6k RT’s and now he’s moved to Los Angeles to spend his whole time in writers’ rooms. Last you heard he was pitching an animated show for adults about a snail with borderline personality disorder. It hasn’t even been greenlit yet, but you’re already thinking about all the ways in which it will be a missed opportunity and do harm and perpetuate tropes. Mr E will definitely turn out to have been a Nazi, and then you can start an anonymous petition to get the show cancelled so he has to move back to New York. Once he’s back you can send him a long email about how much it sucks his career burned out and how (even though you won’t say it in public) sometimes people do actually take the social-justice thing too far. That way he’ll be a comrade again, which is good, because we believe in rehabilitating people who have a genuine change of heart.

 Mr F probably thinks he’s better than you. He’s a union organizer. So are you (you added “#Unionize” to your Twitter name), but his union stuff involves workers who aren’t in tech, content, or grad school, and he probably thinks that makes him more in touch with “the real workers,” who he probably thinks are just a bunch of cis white males in a factory, who are probably all racist and probably have thick, heavy dicks that intrude on your mind in a kinda #MeToo way a lot of the time. He talks about class, and you agree that class is important because you’re not a lib (you support Bernie, you just want him to Do Better). But from the way he says it you’re certain he doesn’t acknowledge all he/him lesbians as part of the working class. He’s trying to save a tiny sector of the workers from a necessary and important socio-economic shift that will impoverish them and make their lives worse, and that’s what being a Nazi is. This is why his union needs to stop dragging their heels, change all of their rules and priorities, and let you get him fired.

 Ms G (me) will never go Nazi, because she is beautiful and kind and pure, and has all the good opinions instead of the bad ones. Because of this she’s allowed to do things that other people can’t do. She can totally fail to understand what having an authoritarian personality actually means, and construct a version of the Who Goes Nazi? essay in which the people who go Nazi are just people who are already right wing, having confused politics with personality, probably because she herself has no personality other than her politics. She can minimize, ignore, or even encourage the infliction of actual suffering when it happens to the wrong kind of people. She can write that “nothing that terrible has really happened” since the publication of Mark Fisher’s Exiting the Vampire Castle, even though Mark Fisher himself is mysteriously not around to appreciate that fact. She can do some shit with threatening to leak an unedited draft that I don’t even want to go into. She knows that the Nazis don’t come promising hatred but promising to be your friend, but it’s ok because she doesn’t really have any friends, just mufos. She’s doing great. She’s building a better, kinder world. She will never, ever be the Nazis.

[bacchanta]

My problem with ship haters

The reason I hate Internet liberals sometimes despite our overall proximity on the political spectrum is that their 'righteous cause' often turns into a free-pass to walk on other people for absolutely no justifiable reasons. Specifically, thorki haters. Fuck. you. all.

It's become a daily routine where I search the tag just for discussions or creativities and have to take extra care to step over loads of hate-tweets. Fetishizing, abusive, homophobic(?), incestuous, disgusting, you name it. There seems to be absolutely zero reservation when they fucking use 'a fictional relationship between two fictional characters' as the monolithic standard to decide if actual persons with feelings on the other side of the Internet qualify as a foot mat on which they can casually rub their self-righteous ego and feel good about it.

First thing that bothers me is that many of them are character-shippers. It doesn't take much probing into the corpus of 'slash culture' studies to understand that 'shipping' is by and large something to do with one's fantasy, esp. a reflection of feminine sexuality which lacks legitimate outlet in a patriarchal society. If shipping A/B is such outrageous sexual exploitation deserving constant shaming, shipping C/D is not so different. You read smut, you bend characters at your will, you create arts, then you are fucking FANTASIZING, too, and there is nothing wrong about it as long as you don't actively press any form of your fantasy in the face of those who don't like them. But stop fucking pretending that you like a fictional relationship because it's morally flawless while dirty fetishizing het girls are sexually exploiting the minority. I am not saying that slash is not sexual exploitation of homosexuality. It is. As much as we like it we have to keep that in mind. But see? SLASH being a largely female-oriented genre is in itself sexual exploitation, not because two characters grow up together or whatever.

The second thing that absolutely baffles me is the casuality of the hate. There are countless times when I see people complaining about 'seeing something BUT the OP turns out to be thorki'. Or just occasionally dropping anecdotes about how all thorki shippers' advocacy for equality is hypocritical because, thorki, the trending new favourite target of Internet social justice advocates. If some major argument or drama triggers some hate tweets I won't even care. But it turns out that the hate is so casual. To the point that it becomes nothing more than cyberbullying. Maybe it's a cultural thing, that US users do not put in hyphens or slashes in the subject matter of criticism to avoid searching. Either it's not common practice in the US or they are actually so entitled as to think that their opinions, ALWAYS phrased with cringey passive-aggressiveness and no more useful content than teenage whining, are so important that people who like thorki should stand named and shamed and listen to their preaching and walk away fully enlightend and totally repented.

The third thing is the disturbing observation of the Pavlovian instinct among young, western liberals to ALWAYS find a moral justification for their personal judgements. But aestheticism can be separated from morality. You can dislike or hate, but don't think that there is always an explanation about how you liking or disliking something is because you are morally superior and lonely in the patriarchal world and the best you can do is cyberbully people (whom you know nothing about) and make groundless accusations for liking a fictional relationship.

BE FUCKING FRANK when you dislike something. Don't be so fucking delusional as to believe that your taste in which fictional characters should or shouldn't shag each other makes a reflection on your noble personality.

Thorki haters please please just grow the fuck up by taking the first step of admitting that you are still so childish as to hate on people for liking a ship you don't appreciate. By this point it says much less about fetishizing LGBTQ+ than about your own immaturity and vitriol. Back when me and my friends are in primary school we did hate on ships and shippers. We've got over it since. That's probably asking too much out of you whiney cohorts, but maybe, try? Take the first step and perhaps people will cheer you on to actually get over it?

Grow the fuck up and be considerate and take personal responsibility for what you express. Think twice before you hide personal biases behind moral righteousness, because moral appeals by nature pressures more people to concord and that, nowadays, easily grows into a mob. If you dislike something just say you don't like it. Or at least don't be so quick to shout 'OPPRESSION SPOTTED' because let's be honest, when you say that you intend it to be open season on those you accuse. You intend to hurt people you don't even know with malice because they like to see one fictional character getting with another but you don't, and you don't seem to understand how tolerance works.

We all know how Internet populist-leftism works. When you make accusations of oppression, you want as many people to criticisze those accused as possible. Individuals, personal thoughts and feelings mean nothing to you. Who diminishes individuals to labels and attack them?

Using your all-time favourite buzzword. Bigots. Fucking bigots.

The leftist movement has always been about allowing individuals to thrive regardless of various labels, about showing care to individuals' feelings. It's not up to anyone (NOR YOU) to decide whose feelings can be overlooked and trampled, especially when you are only using a label for people whom you know nothing about.

It's so fucking exhausting when people back where I'm from are struggling to save the very right to create non-het content, and then crybabies on the Internet are all smugly charting up which ships are pc and which shippers are oppressors.

Some of you thorki haters embody the highly hypocritical and selective kind of social activism at its best. The only actions you take are those that are 1) useless or even harmful and hence 2) the best form of self-righteous egoistic whacking off at the least effort. All I ask is that you do it the right way, aka by your own, not in front of other people who are not interested in your thick ego by the slightest.

[persephonealmana]

My Thoughts On The Vic Situation

I’m aware that I’m going to be called a “cunt”, “bitch” and other vile names for speaking my opinion but this is just my thoughts on the whole situation. 

~*~*~*~*~*

Considering that I'm more caught up with Overwatch VA's these days, but I have sadly learned of a situation with a VA that I loved.

Read the journal for more information:

There are some journals about this.

I never thought that the #metoo movement was going to be a problem movement. It was originally combating against Sexual Harassment, but I guess there are people out there to twist it for their own agenda. Like Monica and Jamie did. They twisted it to fit their own agenda to take a person down, just like anyone that uses this movement to twist it for their own personal gain. These fucking idiots felt like using it as a weapon to ruin people's lives JUST for the hell of it. Susan B. Anthony must be rolling in her grave right about now, I can't blame her though. Since all of her female descendants are poisoning the feminist movement and forgetting about equality.

I also forgot that Vic was accused of sexually assaulting girls at cons, which there is no EVIDENCE of him doing that.

Both Monica and Jamie DON'T have evidence that Vic did this to them. Allegations like this require evidence and so far Monica & Jamie show none of it.  It's all a hearsay.

These people basically don't know what sexual harassment is! They never met anyone or experienced what sexual harassment is like or how to feel. They decided to say; well I was sexually harassed by this person, but I don't know what it's like being sexually harassed anyways.

Was Vic being inappropriate? No. But yes, he is a bit of a touchy guy but he doesn't mean to be touchy it's just who he is. He always asked permission before giving hugs and kisses on cheeks, but there are at times where he does it without consent. The fans are ok with that. But what was his crime? Being Overly-friendly to people. Being too nice to people even his co-workers, now he's going to be afraid to hug his fans again after this situation, he's going to be afraid to give out his hugs and kiss on the cheeks to fans. Since he won't know if they will sue him or file harassment against him. Studying Vic's body language, tone, and speech during his apology he displays textbook remorse, sorrow, and self-awareness.  From what I have seen he clearly got comfortable with treating everyone fairly, assuming everyone wanted to be hugged, kissed or fan serviced with a scene of one of his popular characters. The man has already apologized for becoming too lazy about hugs which display self-awareness and remorse.

They, Monica and Jaimie, think hugging and kissing on the cheek is sexual harassment. Which is not! Vic is very affectionate to his friends and fans, he's not afraid to hide that. Even they should go to some European countries that are big on giving hugs and kisses on the cheeks.

The fact that the voice actors of DBZ are throwing Vic under the bus to save face makes me sick to my stomach even their comments, don't get me started on the comments some made. Personally, they have a personal vendetta against him, which I'll explain at the end, they know Monica and just want to defend her of all this BS. Then again the majority of these voice actors at Funimation are narcissistic Leftists.

Funimation dropped Vic without hearing his side, cons banned him and now he's left with nothing. He's banned from Cons and fired for doing a job that he loves and a community that he adores.

It's funny that they dropped Vic without evidence, but remember the incident where another VA of FUNimation was accused of Child Pornography? FUNimation decided to wait until the evidence comes out. But with Vic? Nope, sorry bud you are cut from the scene.

The only voice actor that is on Vic's side is Todd. He is standing by Vic's side, which I praise him for.

I literally lost respect for Funimation, which I haven't watched them for years, they fired Vic without evidence shown. While Funimation said that they don't condone harassment, they still have Monica, Jaimie, and Sean who openly harass fans who question them over the lack of evidence.

Monica is basically acting like a bully who constantly says that they are going to tell on you but with her, it's like "I'm gonna screenshot this to show my lawyer!" She obviously now thinks she can sue people for disagreeing with her. Can I say that those who were sexually harassed sure as hell won't go online to tell the whole world what happened!

I’d say if you’re accusing someone of something serious you are OBLIGATED to provide evidence. Where has the mentality come from where you accuse someone of something horrible and serious and you expect people to go off nothing but word of mouth alone and treat the accused as 100% confirmed guilty? That’s a disgusting backward way of thinking.

Especially with screenshots being capped of people wanting to edit photos of Vic to make him look guilty because of their twisted sense of justice. The people who felt uncomfortable exist, but don’t you dare sweep under the rug the proven false allegations still circulating and people with malicious intent trying to lie to make things worse.

You can’t accuse people and when someone asks you to bring more info and proof to the table you essentially say “I don’t owe you proof, you’re supposed to just believe me completely.”

NO. That’s not how things should ever work in real life. It’s illogical and illogical to expect that of people.

Does she not realize serious allegations like this can lead Vic to depression and suicide? But then again she doesn't care nor does SJW's care about whose career was destroyed. Which I hope Vic doesn't consider even doing. No one wants that.

Monica Rial has officially gone on a complete meltdown on twitter. She's showing her true colors: she's a textbook narcissist with false victimization tendencies.  She displays compulsory to lying, passive aggressiveness to hold herself accountable. She doesn't want to stop the harassment on Twitter, she's fueling it. She said that she had to be far from social network because of her lawyer's advice (which is the best solution honestly), and now she keeps threatening people like that. She threatens those that question her for evidence and to show proof. How can she still work at Funimation after this, this is unacceptable. She didn't give us any PROPER photo evidence, video or audio evidence to back it up these claims. Now if there was evidence I'll happily change my mind but this is all just a hearsay. When Monica threatened to sue anyone who simply makes a video that has a different opinion than her, it showed a guilty conscious. She bragged about getting his job after this, she claimed he didn't have the right of innocence before being guilty outside of court. Can I just say it's funny that I know two people that are treating Twitter like a courthouse? Monica Rial & Timethy Heller? Both are treating Twitter like it's their personal courthouse just to be sided with.

And FUNimation is basically defending her through this BS. Monica personally LIED to take Vic's job away from him.

Also, how can fans follow this VA that constantly harasses people that asks for evidence? Like, how can you still support her after what she's doing? She has no video evidence, no anything to prove her point that Vic did this to her, it's all a hearsay!

But now let's take a look at this at another angle, this is just a thought: If Monica Rial and other coworkers apparently knew that Vic Mignogna had been this “sexual predator” for years, why didn’t anybody do anything about it beforehand? Why didn't they report his behavior to HR(Human Resources) if he was sexually harassing them? Or even try to talk with him to curb his behavior.

How were they still working with him that whole time? No investigation, no police report, no credible evidence, nothing? And she’s saying she doesn’t owe any sort of explanation? Yes, she does! She OWES an explanation to fans about him. She and others put fans in danger because of him if he was a "Sexual predator".

Especially if she’s trying to make claims against someone regarding sexual assault or sexual harassment. Those are serious offenses that should be reported to law enforcement immediately, not some angry Tweet to vent to some fans and subscribers about on social media years after the supposed offense.

If Vic is proven guilty (which I doubt cause I've yet to see hard solid proof but there hasn't been any) then they should be held accountable as well cause they let a predator on the loose and turned a blind eye to his wrongdoings and all the people he "sexually harassed" after that are because of them cause they knew but didn't stop him.

Thanks to them they banned someone who's the most sweetest VA anyone has met, a lot of people had met Vic and they literally said he's the sweetest person.  Vic also defended the LGBT+ community and told off a bunch of Christians in front of the building where the con was being held to leave so that those that were attending can enjoy.

To those who say he's "homophobic", he supports the LGBT. He might be Christian but he defends and supports the LGBT+ community.

Much to the saying says; Rethink your heroes and never met your heroes. Since you may not like who you meet. It's like a punch to the gut for fans to realize that these VA's of DBZ are shitty people.  All respect that fans had for them, they lost their respect for them.

But I'm also saying that there are friendly VA's that you should meet and that you should have a great experience with. Just remember that VA's are humans too and they can have emotions just like us.

Continuing,

I need to add that Sean Schemmel, Goku's VA. Funny enough, I liked Sean since he seemed like a cool guy but after this situation (probably from the youtube videos that make him look like a cool guy).  I stopped liking him as a person, I love him as a VA but not a person, he's also coming to Wisconsin Comic Convention so a lot of fans will give him shit about this situation. I bet that no fans would ever wanna meet him in person anymore and avoid him because he turns out to be such a rude, disrespectful douche. A fan talked about Sean that he's a mixed bag, he can be nice & Friendly but he stresses a lot, another said he has Bipolar Disorder.

He basically defended Monica and Jaimie after this situation, he absolutely has lost my respect by his behavior to some people. Some people like myself are trying to stay neutral and objective about this, but Sean is making it personal by tweeting this out.

Only, I think Sean jumped into the Vic situation because he doesn't like him. Maybe that he has a fear that he's not going to be FUNimations poster boy anymore since Vic is a very talented Voice Actor. People give Monica, Sean Schemmel, Chris Sabat and so on way too much credit. They've been planning to get rid of Vic for years, ever since Vic stepped into the studio. Now that the Super Broly movie has gotten so much praise, it was the perfect opportunity to get Vic in trouble with false accusations. Vic is a white European male who has strong Christian ties - it's exactly who the Leftists love to side against. This man is literally one of the nicest guys out there. And there's also proof that was leaked of people planning to stage evidence against Vic, such as photoshopped pictures to accuse him of something he didn't do.

Monica is one of many threats. There's also Chris Sabot, who stated only the so-called 'survivors' know the truth and that we should listen to them. Sonny Strait is also attempted to back up Monica's claims. And there's that Neil, who openly admits he's always hated, Vic. He posted a video of Vic riding on the guy's shoulders at convection. Almost like a damn parody, he tried using that video as evidence, claiming he felt assaulted. Which wasn't an assault, he got on his shoulders and was having himself a good time, Neil looked like he was having fun too.

Then there's Jamie, who stated she basically wants Vic dead. How psychotic do you have to be? Jamie is an absolute psycho, just like that Marzbitch(Who started the whole kickvic campaign). Even Jamie has a lot of nerve to tell Vic to apologize to her. What for, Jamie?! If you ask me, Jamie Marchi needs to apologize to him for the death threats, name-calling treating him like shit. She needs to apologize, but she won't because she'll refuse too. Every FUNimation VA's chose a side, some have remained silent on the matter, but some have decided to add fuel to the flames making it bigger.

Anyway back to Sean, he is dragging us through the mud throughout all of this bullshit. Fans want answers. Monica made this public on twitter. It is our business now. Which it shouldn't.

If they wanted to handle this professionally and privately, they would have done so. They did not do so. They are acting like children. Monica took to twitter, she made it public and now it's the fans business now. She's treating Twitter like a courthouse so that she can be believed and have fans turn against Vic, she's manipulating them into thinking that Vic is this monster, which he isn't. Those that want evidence, they know what's going on and they don't believe her. There is more proof coming out of the woodwork.

To everyone defending Monica, stop. You have fallen for her lies. This woman, instead of going to the authorities, staying neutral til proof was presented, choose to talk about something this serious on Twitter. She wants attention and she got it. Hell, her withholding information like this alone makes her a shitty person because of she alone, for those who believe that Vic is a monster, put more people in danger.

She knew that saying she was a victim would get everyone on her side because she voices Bulma, a very well-known and loved anime character. And you believed her. No questions asked just “Omg not you too!” “I’m so sorry you had to go through that!” “NoT mOnIcA!”

Doesn't take much to win y'all over huh? Anyone could say that Vic touched them inappropriately at this point and you’d immediately believe them without proof or a bit of an explanation on what happened, and no, saying “He was creepy” isn’t good enough. Not when it comes to accusations like this.

If they didn't want any of this to happen, they should not have gotten their fans involved. Now some people could be in serious danger because of these FUNimation VA's releasing private information. Do they think about their fans? No. This just shows their true colors, they don’t care about them. They don't care that they put their fans in a serious situation because they couldn't keep their mouth shut.

The swatting incident is absolutely awful and I hope whoever did it is found and charged with attempted murder. Sean talked about this in a tweet. This has already happened several times in the gaming community and has even lead to someone being killed. Swatting is a very serious matter and should not be done on any side. I know that a voice actor almost getting killed is terrible (it's a relief Reuben is alright and alive), but scapegoating the Vic supporters into this is just idiotic. We have nothing to do it with it and even if were someone who supports Vic, he's not doing a good job and we disassociate that person from us. If Vic is innocent, this is not how you prove it.

He's digging his grave ever deeper, just like Monica is. He's ruining his reputation more. He's showing more of how much of a douche he is. He's making more of his fans losing respect to him.

All of it is his fault, not the fans.  He's dragging the fans down with him.

He said he was going to "stay off of twitter" but he decides not too. Why is it that hard for him to comprehend that?! If you want to "stay off of twitter" then do what you said before and not do a freakin' 180. All he had to do was say nothing. Stay out of this shit show, but no, he just had to take a side and add his fuel to the flames.  

All of this SHOULN'T HAVE BEEN MADE PUBLIC. There are reasons why lawyers tell you to stay off the media to avoid letting people know about this. When this goes to court, these tweets can and will be used against them.   Monica obviously should've listened to her lawyer's advice but nope, she refused to listen and threatened anyone who wants proof since "she has a lawyer". Obviously, Vic has a lawyer so he's doing a good job of laying low and not saying anything until they go to court.

Then what would Funimation do if these tweets are used against Monica? They would face an option on firing her,  then try to find someone to voice Bulma or just keep defending Monica once everything was revealed.

In the end, if Vic is found innocent. Then we can all say karma played her sweet role in this.  That still won't recover Vic's career sadly, since it's already been tarnished because of these allegations and it won't be the same. I even doubt he would even want to step foot in FUNimation ever again, due to all of them stabbed him in the back and ruined his career for good.

[aridara]

Soo, apparently there’s a new asshole in Tumbrtown. dev2c4u has been sending me a lot of hateful messages through the chat in the last couple of days. They reached the point where they openly advocate in favor of shooting me.

Fun times.

Here’s the complete transcript. TW for transphobia, misogyny, homophobia, racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and pretty much every form of bigotry.

DEV2C4U: You stupid cunt!  Thats rich that you say "Nazis" make things up!   That must mean the "progressive left" are the new Nazis!   You grotesque imbeciles tell more lies in a day than a "Nazi" will in 10 years!

  Are you a fat cunt too?  That's more blood you filthy pigs will have on your hands trying to say "fat is ok"  it definitely fucking isnt ok!  You can add this blood to the blood already on the lefts hands from promoting :

Transsexual/Transgenderism

Filthy faggotry

Letting subhuman "immigrants" in so they can kill more Americans and leech off of them! Abortion:  learn to keep your legs closed you filthy twats!  If you want to murder babies that is on you---but as a taxpayer i will not pay for your irresponsibility

And  slutty ways!  God you lot are a bunch of filthy diseased (I would say animals but you are beneath animals) so I will call you turds!

  Promoting pedophilia----I hope you empty headed cunts burn in hell for this fucking sickos (it almost makes me wish i believed in heaven/hell)

  In short, the "progressive" left in the nations of the West are a lower than the hemorrhoids on Hillary Clintons asshole!

  I hope you all die of something like lung or pancreatic cancer ---IOW ---I hope you dirty subanimals die in horrible pain and regret-'-fuck you all!

ARIDARA: That's funny. I, instead, hope that you live.

Because living as a hateful, violent bigot like you is punishment enough.

DEV2C4U: Say what you will you whore!   But I'm not a bigot in the least!  I just wish each race would deny political power to their dumbest losers and then the world would know peace---on this list --faggots, niggers and those who enable them ---like why the fuck hasnt disgusting queer nigger, Jussie Smollett admitted to his horrible racist hate crime of bearing false witness been made to apologize for his story which anyone with an IQ above 80 could tell was a lie from the start??!! Islamic cunts like ilhan Omar

Pedophilic cunts like most gay democrats and Roman Polanski

Feminazi whores like Cameltoe Harris

----I could go on and on and on---sadly!

Every now and then there is a bright spot like Gov Northsm hanging on to his seat in Va ----Haha Haha and the other Va democratic polisluts--suck it dems!

And there was a delightful "rainbow" in the news today with some WVa pol. Calling LGBTQ people "terrorists" like the KKK----which is true beyond a shadow of a doubt

I wouldn't expect a filthy commie fatass dyke like you to understand---after all a whore is a whore and a lady is a lady forever! But I do want people to know how much you silly twats on the left are hated! BTW ---great job with your phoney Indian Veteran ---that piece of shit needs to face charges as much as Jussie. Fuck You and have a shitty life!

ARIDARA: "I'm not a bigot" (uses a ton of slurs, falsely claims that LGBT+ people are pedophiles).

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not your father, and you aren't impressing me.

DEV2C4U: How come every two-bit faggot, dyke, transcum, nigger, cameljockey, beaner and white trash liberal feels that it is their business to get in everyone else's business?

Fuck each and every one of you freaks in your self-righteous assholes!   Except for fags of course, since youd enjoy it too much!

  This nation not only needs to be disinfected--it needs a fucking exorcism! Where are our modern Torquemadas and Savonarolas?!

ARIDARA: ...Says the one who thinks that it's their business to get into the business of leftists, fat people, LGBT+ people, migrants, pro-choicers, women, people of color, Muslims, Latino people, and allies to any of the above.

In fact, you think that it's SO MUCH your business, that you openly advocate in favor of GENOCIDE.

Here's a question for you: if leftists, fat people, LGBT+ people, migrants, pro-choicers, women, people of color, Muslims, and Latino people are genociding your precious nation just by existing...

...doesn't that mean that your nation is incredibly weak?

I mean, WE live with leftists, fat people etc., and we survive just fine. Maybe it's YOUR people who has some evolutionary problems.

DEV2C4U: Ooooooohhh Score one for Mega-Twat! I admit I come on strong But i dont get why this dyke----this cunt----Ellen Page. Whoever the fuck she is---- has any fucking right to question Chris Pratts (whoever the fuck he is) where he goes to church?  Where she gets that I have no idea---

I would much rather NOT be around any shitstabbers, carpetmunchers, Alabama porch monkeys, spics, or tranny cunts

Because i think most of you are filthy diseased trash

But as much as I dislike some of you ---I would never get in any of your faces and say lose some weight and stop carpet carpetmunching or stop fucking camels---or get some of dat goddamn melanin out of your skin. Or stop smoking poles

You know why fat cunt? Because Momma raised a gentleman!

And i wont get in any of your worthless, trashy faces as long as you stay out of mine!

But you fucking hypocrites better stay the fuck out of my very happy, proud, white life!

Fuck you again Ellen Page ---Whoever or more appropriately whatever you are!?

Keep your warped baby murdering opinions to yourselves!

ARIDARA: Man, your mum will be SO HAPPY to know how much you hate marginalized people. Or how you think that your own mum should have less rights than a corpse.

DEV2C4U: Anyone who feels "marginalized" in the USA is a fucking loser!  I'd like to see any of you pigs try to pull this shit in a non-white majority/ non Western country!

Especially fucking trannies, faggots and dykes!  Go to Saudi or Zimbabwe (at least Robert Mugabe was right when he said gay people are lower than dogs and pigs!)  For any other people of different races---if you don't fucking like it here--then dont be such losers---put your goddamn cards on the table and go to a black or brown majority nation where you will not be a minority anymore---of course I know that most if these nations are disgusting shitholes---but that just means you belong there even more!!

To baby murdering sluts---I do think you should be able to get an abortion---with a goddamn clothes hanger you fucking whores!

You are just as bad as the faggots in the 1980s blaming Reagan for AIDS---it wasn't Reagan forcing you to put your schlongs in each others assholes!

IOW---try to take some personal responsibility for once in your silly fucked up lives!

I bet some faggots would be hard pressed to thank any of the STRAIGHT, WHITE, MALE researchers who saved their worthless lives by finding anti hiv drugs??   Well fuck you then!

This world would be no more than a fucking garbage dump without white people (and Asians)! Nigras and spics---ask yourselves why other pocs/ethnicities such as East Indians, Asians and conservative Persians (people who fled the Khomeini regime) can come to this nation and be enormously successful ?? You dont hear these people bitch and bawl 24/7/365 about how put upon they are!  They just get to work, stay out if trouble and become great citizens!

If all this horse shit about "white privilege" and racism were true why are many of these other ethnicities more successful than many whites?

One last thing ---I so wish with all my might that the police could open fire on any traitors that say things like "No borders, no walls, no USA at all"

ARIDARA: Yyyep, we've got threats of violence alright.

Thanks for violating Tumblr's Terms of Service. You'll hear from the staff shortly.

[sharingshane-blog]

Why I am a Leftist

I thought I would spend some time discussing some of my socio-economic beliefs and how I came to where I am today.  My battles with poverty, disability, chronic illness, and discrimination (being genderqueer and bisexual) have largely informed my current beliefs about how society should function.  Just like anybody else, my environment and struggles have shaped who I am and what I believe today.

I have been registered in every party with the exception of the libertarian party.  Currently I have no affiliation.  I have become increasingly more frustrated with the socio-economic and political climate of today, and it is not due to how divisive people are after the orange was elected in 2016.  That divisiveness was always there, and it was always meant to be there.  The so-called problems in this current system are not really problems at all.  They are simply injustices, but those injustices were meant to be there.  The United States was never founded as a land of freedom and democracy.  Hell, only about one-third of the population in the American colonies actually wanted to break away from England.  The vast majority were either ambivalent or actively opposed separation.  The Constitution was drafted and ratified by a legislature that consisted solely of white, cisgender, heterosexual, wealthy, privileged men.  Some were rapists such Thomas Jefferson.  Some were frauds such as George Washington.  Some were narcissists such as Benjamin Franklin.  All of them were racists.  They all possessed power and influence in their given states.  The America today is exactly what America was always meant to be, a place where those privileged few controls and uses the rest of the population for their own personal gain.  It is an oligarchy disguised as democracy and exploitation at its finest.  I am completely pessimistic about the future of America unless the entire system is uprooted and we begin again from scratch.  Anyone who believes that the system can be fixed are unfortunately sorely deceived.  

I came to this understanding during my one-year hiatus from college in 2017.  During this time, I was working at Panera Bread as a cashier. As the year progressed, the job became more difficult.  I was unable to work full-time because of my health.  I was in intensive therapy for the first half of 2017 spending about 10 hours doing that and 20 hours working each week.  It was emotionally exhausting and my chronic fatigue was weighing heavily on me.  During the course of the year my anxiety and PTSD became more intense.  Near the end of my intensive treatment, I began to develop these disassociative episodes or stupors when I was triggered or overwhelmed. It happened to me once while I was driving causing me to have car accident and total my car.  They began happening more at work and I would have to be sent home.  During these episodes, I cannot respond to most external stimuli and am largely unresponsive.  I am unable to speak or speak very little.  I lose track of reality.  I cannot feel different parts of my body particularly my arms and legs.  There became an increase fear that they may be seizures.  Sometimes it appears I am having a stroke.  So far there is no evidence of either.  I developed more chronic pain.  It is highly suspected that I have endometriosis although I haven’t had the opportunity to have the surgical procedure to confirm the diagnosis. There is more, but I will not get into that now.

During this time, I realized how little my health seemed to matter to my employers.  They could make some accommodations for me, but in the end, it was their priority to make sure that business ran smoothly.  If my health got in the way too much, then I could face the chopping block.  I watched as two other fellow coworkers got fired for taking too many sick days. Both have debilitating chronic conditions that could become life-threatening if not treated.  Of course, it would be outright discrimination to fire them based solely on their health conditions.  So, they took another route.  I was terrified of losing my job.  I pushed myself as hard as I could and would neglect my health in the process. It became clearer; however, that I could not maintain the work.  My managers began cutting hours.  I was already not making enough to satisfy basic necessities and now I was making even less.  I was forced to have to live with my parents which was an unhealthy situation for me (which I will refrain from explaining why for the time being).  I felt like a burden on everyone which took a toll on my mental health.  I attempted to return to school after my hiatus while still working my job at Panera and living with my parents.  This proved to be too much for me to handle.  I quit college and moved in with a friend.  I came out as transgender and my hours were cut more at work.  I was eventually forced to quit.  I caught my manager complaining about my health issues behind my back to other coworkers.  This is actually a HIPPA violation, and I could potentially press charges.  In the end though, I am poor.  I do not have the financial and emotional resources to fight her.

Be patient.  I promise you this is all relevant.

In all this, I tried to develop a better way to organize the business in order to make the employees feel less like they are part of a massive machine and more like individual human beings.  I felt as though I was part of that machine, and if I became too weak, the machine would break.  Another thing I realized was that I was easily replaceable.  There is not much incentive for employers to work with me when they could easily switch me out for a stronger part.  No matter how nice they seemed, their primary duty is business.  If they are not successful at it, they will lose their position of power.  The system requires them to be exploitive towards the lower-wage workers.  I could not develop a system in my mind that would fix this unless capitalism as a whole was completely abolished.  If we remove CEO’s and had the workers run the industries democratically, that would fix the problem.  However, this would require a complete uproot of the system today.  I became more familiar with the term class-consciousness.

I am a hard worker and a fighter.  However, I am human and limited.  Because of my disabilities, employers consider me to be a malfunctioned part. I cannot lift heavy things or be on my feet for too long without feeling like I’m about to collapse.  I have now been reduced to a cane.  There is nothing that I can do to change this.  The phrase, “pick yourself up by the bootstraps,” did not work for me.  It did not matter how much effort into the system, I was stuck.  It would have to take sheer luck and a willingness to exploit others to rise up in the ranks.  The latter goes against my moral compass.  I realized that I could never bring myself to ever be a manager.  I cannot ethically justify being in such a position where I have to treat money with greater importance than the human beings that would work under me.

However, in order to create a society in which people are treated as human beings, and true equality is obtained; it would mean that those on the top would have to relinquish their power and wealth.  There is this narrative in which people believe that it is perfectly natural and necessary for there to power figures; otherwise, society would turn to chaos. It is true that we make decisions on our self-interest, but that is why an anarcho-communist society could honestly work.  It is in the workers’ best interest to distrust power figures, to have control over industry, to regain their humanity, to maintain industry and do their part in society, and to be a part of a society.  It will not happen without a fight though.  Millionaires and billionaires will not relinquish their power easily.  The system was created to keep those people at the top.  Racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia have been perpetuated to pin those on the bottom against one another, to keep them from uniting. The police were established to enforce this narrative and protect capitalist interests.  In the North, they were established to protect the transportation of goods and keep poor workers, largely immigrants, from collectivizing and prevent them from having a voice.  In the South, the police were derived from overseers with the intent to preserve slavery. The police system is not broken. It is running exactly how it was intended to run.  The narrative that there must always be people on the top and those on the bottom was a common defense of African-American slavery.  It is an idea with the sole intent to keep people oppressed.

Helen Keller, the famous activist who fought for the rights of those disabled, understood that equality for those disabled could never be obtained in a capitalist society. Disabled people will always be seen as inferior.  Safety was secondary; so, businesses can maintain their quotas increasing the possibility of accidents causing workers to become disabled.  It is not commonly known that she became a socialist herself and became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, an organization which believed that that the workers must run industry.  It is a workers’ union dedicated to democracy and solidarity. Their core belief is that you have nothing in common with your boss.

Bernie Sanders is not a true socialist.  He is a social democrat, and lately he has had to tame his speech in order to maintain his power and influence.  He believes in a highly regulated capitalist system.  Socialists believe in abolishing capitalism altogether.  

I am an actual socialist.  I do not believe the system is flawed.  I believe the system works exactly how it is supposed to function and it is disgusting. This ended up being a loner post than I had planned it to be, but I do have much to say on the subject.  It is something I am passionate about even though I will probably not see this come to fruition.  I hope this was insightful to how I have come to my beliefs which I hold today.

[catbountry]

How to Become an Un-Person, or We Are Already Divided and You’re the Ones Doing It

Jontron hopped in on a livestream with noted pro-GGer and social justice critc Sargon of Akkad recently, and if you believe Tumblr and Twitter he pretty much admitted to being a Nazi, which I suppose makes it acceptable to punch him in the face, or so I’m told. You can listen to it yourself (it’s fucking five hours long, though), but in it, as expected, it’s being quote-mined for the most incriminating shit he says, while the overall message is being completely ignored, ‘cause the people most upset about it don’t want you to hear it: that is, you have three dudes who were once potential allies and formerly fairly progressive themselves admitting to being actively driven away from the Left due to the Left’s poor behavior. They also identified identity politics as being a catalyst for the resurgence of white nationalism on a broader scale and basically expressed feelings of being disenfranchised and alienated.

The broader point is that Jontron knew that his expressing his views would get him crucified by the new Left, and whaddya know, he was right!

Now, I could go over all the things he said I personally disagreed with, found to be ill-informed or ignorant, or whatever. But that’s not really the point. The point is that he expressed his views despite being more than a little terrified of the backlash he might receive. And his views are pretty moderate by most standards. Some of them wouldn’t even jibe with what most people consider left-wing. But for disagreeing at all, for going against the narrative, he has found himself what Izzy might call “un-personed,” but I think is more akin to shunning, or being labeled as a dissident. It’s a big ole’ Scarlet Letter passed around a community as a way of saying, “do not engage this person. Shun them. Reject them socially, as they do not follow the accepted rules. They have crossed a line, and must be punished until they repent.”

One of the other points made in the stream was criticism of the dogmatic nature of internet social justice and the new Left. If you’re wondering why so many atheists seem put off by social justice, it’s because the movement has been co-opted by people who treat its principles the same way they treat religious texts. I can say that for me, growing up Catholic, the idea that white people are inherently racist (or men are inherently sexist) is far too close to the idea of Original Sin, which is the root of all Catholic Guilt. It’s little wonder, as Jontron points out, that by grouping white men together and antagonizing them, that a few of them got pissed off enough and now this generations youth is more conservative than any generation before it. Oh yeah, and Neo-Nazis are back.

All of this happens less than a day after I basically got shouted down by a co-worker for thinking that punching Nazis is not a good idea and won’t fix anything, but instead will more likely escalate violence.

This happened on our lunch break. I’d discussed politics with this guy before and was able to disagree politely on a number of subjects, but when I expressed disapproval for the use of violence against abhorrent speech, my previously mild-mannered co-worker, a dude who looks like hipster Jesus, went fucking livid. At one point he shoved a poorly-drawn meme in my face in lieu of an argument, demanding me to “READ IT!” while shoving his phone in my face. When I pulled up a post on Popehat that better stated my own argument, he scrolled through it quickly, barely reading it. When I argued the legality, he shouted “THE HOLOCAUST WAS LEGAL! SLAVERY WAS LEGAL!” to the point where I felt like I was in a plebcomics strip. When he kept talking over me, I quipped at him to “quit mansplaining me” as a way to break the tension, but that just set him off further. As his anger escalated, he threw everything he could at me; guilt-tripping, name calling, putting words in my mouth, turning ME into a strawman by not listening to my arguments, and even used Captain America and my love of punk rock against me as a means of emotional blackmail. When I finally said that he was scaring me and acting way too violent, he said “OH, BUT I THOUGHT EXPRESSING IDEAS WASN’T VIOLENCE!”, throwing an earlier point I made back in my face. There were others in the room, mostly women, and it took my one co-worker, a gay, black man, to try and get us to calm down. I tried, feebly, to apologize, to recognize he felt passionately but that I would not change my mind and I merely wanted it to be understood where I was coming from (mostly that I don’t want to be a hypocrite; if we’re allowed to punch somebody because we feel their ideas put us in danger, then that will have to apply to those we disagree with), he shot back at me bitterly, accusing me of being a hypocrite myself. Eventually I walked out. I had co-workers trying to re-assure me that things got heated, that these are uncertain times, everybody’s tense right now, and it’s not like I’m pro-Trump anyway.

But to hipster Jesus, I might as well have been a swastika-branded Nazi reciting the 14 words and Hitler saluting.

The next day we didn’t really talk or make eye contact. I found myself wondering if he hated me; if I’d been branded an un-person. But I also was too afraid to say anything, for fear of provoking him again. I became so sick with worry I ended up having to go home early after throwing up for three minutes in the women’s restroom. I expressed this concern to my manager, who said that for now, at least, this is between us, but if it gets worse, he will have to sit both of us down and have a talk. So long as it’s not interfering with our work, he says.

I’m terribly afraid that if this is going to be resolved, if I’m to be un-un-personed, I’m going to have to apologize for... well, I guess engaging him at all. Part of the reason I was so caught off-guard was because we’d disagreed before, and walked away with polite disagreement. This was unprecedented. I really don’t know what’s going to happen from here on in.

So when Jontron said he got the chills seeing the reaction to Richard Spencer getting punched in the face, I, too, felt a chill. Because the problem with saying that punching Nazis is okay is that the very same people who say this are also prone to calling people who they disagree with Nazis, regardless of whether they are or aren’t. So many years of crying wolf over “fascism” has left me numb. Oh, is it fascism now? What about those other times before when you said it was fascism? Oh, but it’s for REAL now? Well, do you really expect me to believe you NOW?

But on top of all that, was hipster Jesus barely holding himself back from punching ME in the face?

Personally, I find using violence to silence those that have opinions you find objectionable, even if those opinions are already horrible, is more akin to fascism, really. But I suppose this is to be expected from self-professed communists. Communism, which wound up with a higher body count than National Socialism ever did.

I discussed this with Izzy, and he told me this, in regards to his own beliefs that punching Nazis won’t work: that as a Jew, he’s equally as fearful of the far Left as he is of the far Right, because whenever either one takes power, he said, it always seems to end up with dead Jews.

I can’t blame him at all for feeling wary that the people who stay silent about Jews being attacked by leftists on campuses are suddenly bragging about how they are championing the Jews.

So pardon me if I’m feeling more than a little disgusted with the people whose side I’m supposed to be on.

[caleb-1193]

With Trump's inauguration tomorrow, the irony being the theme "unity," there's one thing I want to bring up. One of the most aggravating things I hear when I become visibly annoyed or frustrated with the Trump supporters in my life is when they turn it all around and ask me where my "love" is, and there is this expectation even among leftists that we must come together in unity for the sake of the country as if bipartisanship isn't responsible for facilitating the same neoliberal bullshit that got us in this mess in the first place. And to a degree they are right. We should love. But love is not always a feel good reconciliation with our enemies. Love is also love for the oppressed and is thus expressed as loud and ceaseless opposition to their oppressors. Christ's revolutionary ideology involves love, but not always a love that reconciles but one which also demands justice, one that flips over tables in frustration, one that walks around calling out the privileged and elite, one that steam rolls over the traditions and teachings of men that seek to nullify the love and grace of God. Love is not just empathizing with the oppressed. Love is joining the oppressed and suffering in solidarity with them. And that's when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond unity or charity and towards justice and solidarity with the suffering, as Christ did, they get in trouble. Once we become intimate with folks in struggle, or even when we find ourselves to be in positions of disadvantage or marginalization, we start to ask why, which is never as popular as unity. A Catholic bishop once said, "when I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a Communist." I know I'm showing my colors as a liberation theologian, but I'm convinced God has a preferential option for those in suffering. When we draw lines between the oppressed and the oppressors (I believe these are the only two categories that exist), God always stands firmly on the side of the oppressed, the poor, the out group, the excluded, the group on the margins, no matter who they are. We know who Christ associated with in his lifetime two thousand years ago and I believe this predilection of his hasn't changed in that span of time. He still is here, not for the righteous, but for those drowning, not for the rich but for those struggling through poverty, not for those at the top of the social ladder, but for those trodden down by systemic injustice. When any person was oppressed, abused, dehumanized, Christ was there with them, affirming their humanity, suffering and enduring what they suffered and endured. God does take sides and it's not always in the safe, proper, orderly churches or the well-ventilated suburban homes. For as soon as we start pushing people, any people, to the margins, we push God right out with them. Neutrality, or "unity," has never been an option for the ones who strive to follow Christ. Unity wins awards and applause. Unity wins popularity, but joining the suffering gets you killed. People are not crucified for helping the suffering. People are not crucified for unity. People are crucified for solidarity with the oppressed. So it isn't that I don't love the Trump supporters in my life, but I have lost respect for them. Not because I am mad that Clinton lost, or that they voted one way and I another, or even because they have different politics (even though I believe right-wing politics inherently has a sense of immortality to it). I have lost respect for them because they watched an adult mock a disabled person in front of a crowd and still support him. I think less of them becasue they watched a man advocate for war crimes and still think he should run this country. I have less respect for them becasue they saw a man spouting racism and islamophobia and still support him. I think less of Trump supporters because they watched a man equate a woman's worth to her appearance and got on board. I find their politics repulsive, but it's their personal willingness to support Trump in particular that truly repulses me more. By virtue of voting for Trump, they have granted onto themselves the title of oppressor. They have sided with a bully and it seems they will always side with a bully when it matters most. You cannot possibly expect to vote for someone like Trump and believe there should be no social consequence for it. I keep hearing calls for empathy and healing, civility, polite discourse, and unity as if supporting a man who would fill his administration with white nationalists and misogynists is something to simply agree to disagree on. You don't get to vote for a man who brags about sexually assaulting women and expect the women in your life to shrug their shoulders. You don't get to vote for a man who appoints a literal white supremacist as a senior adviser and expect the people of color in your life to sit and be comfortable around you. And you certainly don't get to vote for a man who appoints an attorney general with perhaps the worst record on LGBT issues and expect me to believe you have even an ounce of genuine good will towards me and people like me. You don't get to play the victim when people disassociate themselves from you, as if being disliked for supporting a bigot is somehow worse than the suffering that marginalized people will endure under Trump. Absolutely not. I will not "get over it." I will not be coming together in unity to move forward. I hope this presidency not only brings a revival of real leftist politics, but I hope it also calls forth some of the brightest (and youngest) minds, minds full of new ideas and innovation. I do not yet know my role in Trump's America. But as for me and my house, I will serve God in loud opposition. I will exemplify the gospels in these days by promoting community over the individual. You will see me at protests, and demonstrations, and Prides. You will find me in streets singing my heart out and holding hands unafraid. From this point on I am reminded of how I was meant to live my life: in complete and obstinate defiance. So whether it's that classmate, or that by-stander, or that relative at the table, there are people in this country, right now, who should be made to feel uncomfortable. Do I love the Trump supporters in my life? Sure. But it is the fact they he doesn't disgust them that will stick with me long after this presidency. And in a time where there is so much to protest, so much work to do, the uncomfortableness is necessary and shame on us if we ever stop.

[nicemango-feed]

Jordan Peterson - His Strange Atheist Bedfellows & His War on Cathy Newman

Over the last week or so, I’ve watched this Cathy Newman/Channel 4 saga unfold. It took twists and turns that were quite surprising to me, but shouldn’t have been - especially considering the recent trend of Movement Atheism to join hands with almost anyone that is sufficiently anti-left or anti-feminist. Even if that means allying with a Christian fundie snake oil salesman they themselves would have laughed out the room a few years ago. I mean just take a look at this short clip below, wtaf is this nonsense?

(clip via TMM)

As we see the rise of the Cult of Jordan Peterson, we also see the rise of I-love-Jesus atheism. Douglas Murray is a good example of that...though, he's been one long before Peterson arrived on the scene, to be fair. He's a hispter Jesus Atheist. 

Murray is embraced wholeheartedly by the increasingly rightward shifting atheist scene for his anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim stances (going so far as to worry about the future children Muslim asylum seekers may have, *possibly* growing up to become extremists even if their parents weren't) 

We could take in the 'nicest' asylum seekers, 'but their son could be a suicide bomber': @DouglasKMurray on second-generation terrorists pic.twitter.com/3yMHLjF2aj

— The Bolt Report (@theboltreport) May 29, 2017

“We could take in two asylum seekers, who might be the nicest most pro-British people ever, but their son might turn out to be a suicide bomber" - Douglas Murray

"But what levels, after all's said and done, do the celebrants of diversity want to get to? What is their ideal target figure? Is a ceiling of 25 per cent white Britons in London — or the country at large — optimal? Or would it be 10 per cent? Or none at all? A final, and perhaps harder, question: how — given the concatenation of claims against them — might "white Britons" ever acceptably argue, let alone complain, about such unspecified or unspecifiable odds?"  - Also Doug Murray 

You'll never believe who Doug is a big fan of: 

He's consistently been an excellent judge of character though, so we should *totally* trust him on this one...his other judgements have been So. Spot. On... especially regarding Trump.  -___-

***

Anyway, aside from I-Iove-Jesus-atheism (which is still some form of atheism), Peterson is also having the effect of stirring the embers of religion...in the hearts of some 'atheists' (being anti-left is a powerful uniting force). Perhaps some lost lambs needed a father-figure like JBP in their lives, to yell basic shit at them, shit that my grandma gave away for free...like 'clean your room!' 'Sort yourself out!'...they needed someone to lead them toward god's warm and loving embrace. Yay!

screenshot via @classiclib3ral

After this recent Channel 4 interview, we've seen a flood of predictable 'contrarian' thinkpieces pouring out in defence of this newly emerged hero...one who dares to challenge 'leftist orthodoxy', by sharing ‘truths’ that no one else will tell you. 'Truths' like, how women just don’t WANT powerful positions, (no really, I've watched lectures of his where he, a top earner on Patreon making over 60K $ A MONTH, spends a lot of time deterring women from wanting power positions. He talks about how awful and complicated being rich is, how it can make you (women) unravel) about how the gender pay gap can be explained away because women are choosing lower paying careers, what they need in order to be happy is marriage and babies, ok? Also, there is no systemic discrimination, you silly emotional, brainwashed neo-marxist sjws! 

"The more I see women in particular, they hit 35-40 …and they’re not married…and they don’t have kids…and they are not happy. Cuz what the hell are you gonna do from the time you’re 40 till the time you’re 80?! You got no family… you got no relationships? What are you gonna do?! Go run your company?!!! Yeah well… if you’re 1 in a 1000 that will satisfy you.” - an actual JBP quote. 

“each sex has it’s own unfairness to deal with, but to think of that as a consequence of the social structure….come on really?!" - also an actual JBP quote (from the lecture linked above)

Anyway, amidst those thinkpieces...shared by the most popular anti-left (but still clinging to leftist status) figureheads,  there is a wave of outraged culty fanbases coming together, speaking out in unison against this shrill harpy of a woman who dared to have an adversarial interview with Peterson. 

The ones with a bit of self-awareness and self-respect will never admit to being sympathetic to Peterson’s views (kind of like they did with Milo)...and so will phrase their disgust at this interview more along the lines of, “I’m no Peterson fan BUT, all he did was say true things while she aggressively strawmanned him.”

How dare she assume *this man* could be saying sexist things????

I honestly had to watch the interview 3 times to see if maybe I had missed something the first two times, and no, I still don’t understand where the hate and rage towards Cathy are coming from. 

Why are people SO upset that she didn’t perform to their liking (people who claim to be 'for equality & progress')? I don't get it...She was pretty standardly 'meh' I thought. Not great at grilling him, sure. But at least she tried to take on this shifty charlatan. I see it as I would if someone was imperfect in grilling someone like Mo Ansar, like sure they made some mistakes...but even attempting to expose someone like that is good (Though, I don't think Mo is remotely as rich, powerful or influential as Peterson...so not nearly as dangerous).

Why the full blown outrage? I mean, I understand where it’s coming from with people who are openly anti-left and anti-feminist, people who think diversity is a codeword for white genocide…people who think theres a leftist cultural marxist conspiracy to compel them to use non-binary pronouns, or some garbage like that - But I really don’t understand what so-called sophisticated thinkers & non far-right lunatics are doing lowering themselves to defend Peterson in any way whatsoever. 

There could have been a perfectly fair and measured critique, where people kept in sight who Peterson actually is; 

--An extremist thats radicalizing many young people every day, and making big bucks off it--

A man with ideas so regressive that they're sure to set us back a few decades, if they gain enough influence. His explanation here for accusations of sex assault is not to first find fault with the perpetrators of the assault, but to blame the idea that sex is no longer enshrined in marriage (not like marital rape ever happens or anything, never mind that many of the accused are MARRIED). I mean, I'm no stranger to hearing such garbage, I did grow up in Saudi Arabia, as a woman. 

I just don't expect to hear this nonsense being embraced so gleefully by people outside of a blatantly misogynistic theocracy.

Like any Salafist preacher in Saudi, JBP doesn't like the idea of casual sex. Quelle Surprise.

In this now disproportionately notorious Channel 4 interview he remained cool and calm is all. That is not to be confused with performing well or having decent ideas...or speaking 'truths'. 

He could have performed in any way and his sycophantic followers would have perceived it exactly how they do now. In their eyes he would have 'won' regardless. 

The harassment Cathy received from this misogynistic fanbase was mentioned in several publications. At first, even causing Peterson to tell his fans:

If you're threatening her, stop. Try to be civilized in your criticism. It was words. Words, people, words. Remember those? "C4 calls in security experts after presenter suffers online abuse." https://t.co/z4UAVOSYuO

— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) January 19, 2018

Don't let it fool you though, Peterson often engages in this kind of performative condemnation, of the alt right, or of misogynistic harassment...when he feels the mainstream media are on to him. But it isn't long before he shows his hand. 

He continued to post criticism of Cathy right after telling people to stop threatening her, which is not something you'd do if you were genuinely concerned about her being targeted. 

He then soon went on to do another interview where he started off obsessively complaining about her...and the apparent 'spin' that was being created, that she was some kind of planned feminist martyr, because this was a sort of ...I dunno face saving tactic, because she had received so much criticism. He said the criticism was being spun as harassment. 

So first he says stop threatening her, then he expresses regret for saying that and now is discrediting that it could be harassment or threats at all. That faux-concern didn't take long to unravel at all...

If that wasn't tasteless enough for you - he even dogwhistled to his followers through this other interview by saying,

29:30: "I was reviewing maybe 10-11 of these newspaper articles that had played this twisty game and accused me of like, siccing my internet trolls on poor hapless journalists and I thought --this was the dark part of me-- the shadow part thought, If I wanted to sic my internet trolls on channel 4 then there'd be nothing but broken windows and riots, and then there's a little part of me that thinks... wouldn't that be fun"

This man is dangerous, and he's clearly on some power trip. 

If a future interviewer ever tried to press him on this statement and say something like 'wow what an irresponsible thing to say after a channel had to call in extra security because of your fanbase' - he'd most definitely hide behind semantics, as he always does...and say something like, "Oh I wasn't signalling that they should do that, I was saying that that's the dark part of my thoughts, something everyone experiences...everyone has dark thoughts...but obviously I believe we should control those. So I'm not sure why you are misrepresenting what I was saying there" - Meanwhile, his followers would get enraged again that someone dared 'misrepresent' him, and again he'd get away with putting out troubling statements.

The idea that media coverage of Cathy Newman's post-interview harassment is part of a leftist conspiracy to portray Peterson’s poor fanbase as misogynistic is ludicrous beyond belief. Not like his own ideas could set the tone for his fanbase, and how people perceive them. It's got to be a conspiracy. 

Consider his chat with Camille Paglia which an article from Chatelaine puts as:

"Peterson said that men can’t control “crazy women” because men aren’t allowed to physically fight women. “I know how to stand up to a man who’s unfairly trespassed against me,” he said. “The parameters for my resistance are quite well-defined, which is: we talk, we argue, we push, and then it becomes physical. If we move beyond the boundaries of civil discourse, we know what the next step is."

"He adds that men unwilling to throw a punch are contemptible. “If you’re talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever, then you’re talking to someone for whom you have absolutely no respect.”"

"...talking to Paglia, he laments that his own socialization prevents him from taking a swing at a lady. Referring to a woman who accused him of being a Nazi, he said, “I’m defenceless against that kind of female insanity because the techniques that I would use against a man who was employing those tactics are forbidden to me.” It’s hard to decide which is creepier: Is it the suggestion, in Peterson’s rueful tone, that he’s kind of bummed out about the fact that he can’t hit women? Or is it the implication, if you were to follow his argument to its conclusion, that because women can’t be hit, they shouldn’t be allowed to participate in civil discourse with men at all?"

***

Regarding the Cathy Newman interview though, let's not forget who the real victim in all of this was - Jordan B Peterson, of course. 

Not only did Cathy treat Peterson unfairly (even though confrontational interviews like this are not uncommon in Britain, I hear), but it was actually HER Feminist fanbase that threatened and abused HIM. 

And who was reporting on that, huh? Only one noble MRA blog (there might be another, but I haven't found it yet). 

We mustn't laugh....they could be a reliable source, we shouldn't jump to conclusions.... 

Ok..I checked their twitter account and it's full of great stuff like Retweets of Breitbart's Raheem Kassam, Cernovich and Paul Joseph Watson. See? Perfectly reasonable account. 

Daily mail, on the other hand, was reporting on how Cathy received extreme harassment and death threats. But we're all aware that the Daily Mail is known for it’s far left, radical feminist bias right? Everyone but the MRA blogs have been infected...it's why you've got to go straight to these sources for REAL information without a cultural marxist bias.

Speaking of cultural marxism and postmodernism corrupting things, here's Peterson the free speech activist calling for entire fields of study to be shut down because he deems them corrupt. Fields like 'English Literature'. Totally normal professor. 

Well that escalated quickly. pic.twitter.com/6Y9qBhSco4

— CyberViolence [HC] (@CyberHarm) November 11, 2017

(clip via @cyberharm)

***

In all seriousness though, not everyone who jumped into this social media debate knew the backstory of Jordan B Peterson. I’m not faulting them for being unfamiliar with his views - and there are some fair criticisms to be made of Cathy’s interview but it just wouldn’t be the hill I’d die on when a swarm of far-right MRA types are already descending upon her. It just seemed wrong to pile on in the middle of all that. 

***

In the past, many on the left became complacent with the progress we’d made. We never could have imagined that these stone-age ideas about traditional gender roles, race etc. would aggressively claw their way back into the public square like this.

These regressive ideas we thought we'd put to bed, come again in the form of various new-media far-right commentators like Milo, PJW, Molyneux, etc…who spend their time decrying victimhood culture on the left that portrays women, PoC as ‘victims’ of some systemic discrimination. Though this far rightwingery isn't all new...it's just that Fox News has more friends now - friends with influence among young people. 

These uncucked heroes turn our attention to who the real victims are - White men (especially conservative) brave enough to take a stand against victimhood culture are the most victimized group of all. 

Peterson actually *weeps* in this clip about how some poor men have it real hard. Not the first time I've seen him cry for his causes either.

Funny, because he certainly doesn't have that kind of compassion for women. Maybe, just maaaybe..Cathy Newman sensed something off about his views. 

***

However, now that there’s some distance I’d like to point out that Cathy was indeed a bit ill-prepared for the interview. 

Exceptionally so? Nah, nothing outside of what I’d expect from mainstream journalists trying to grapple with the slippery tactics and sophistry of the new far right. That's how we get clueless 'Nazi next door' type articles. They aren’t in the trenches of youtube comments daily, hearing the arguments against every possible reasonable position that most of us took for granted. Unless they specifically research this or are personally targeted...they aren’t usually dealing with or studying crypto rightwingery, that hates more than anything to be called right-wing. Such free-speech warriors (who will sue you if you so much as suggest they are associated with the right or far right) cultivate a specific image, with a veneer of credibility that only thrives if the waters are murky on this…incredibly murky.  

Could some mainstream journalists be better on this? Yes, absolutely... as the far-right updates it's tactics, they should too. Especially if they want to have conversations where these types are held accountable for their positions.

I cringed when I heard Cathy's point about Free Speech. 

"Why should your right to freedom of speech trump a trans person's right not to be offended?"

That was really a gift to the Peterson trolls. I thought it was pretty basic understanding among journalists that the freedom to offend was an important one. I for one would love to hold on to my freedom to offend conservatives from around the world. As Peterson rightfully said, Cathy was benefitting from the freedom to offend Peterson at that very moment (hate to agree with Pete, but hey).

What I didn’t understand was the proportion of the anger. Yes that one bit was terrible...but say that and move on. Ultimately she attempted to do a good thing (at least to her best ability) by trying to expose Peterson for what a caveman he is.

Now I’m not a fan of Cathy Newman, I had no idea who she was before this whole thing. I have no emotional investment in her as a person. I just think the harassment and outraged articles calling her interview a 'catastrophe' are ridiculously out of proportion with how mediocre the interview seemed to me. It was nothing out of the ordinary - what they refer to her doing as 'strawmanning' Peterson, is her just trying to cut past his bullshit flowery language to make some sense of what his points actually are for her audience. Which he of course masterfully sidesteps because vagueness is his game, so he can’t actually be pinned to his vile positions if you don't have enough information on him. It reminded me of good ol' fashioned atheists trying to get a theist to acknowledge that a certain bit of scripture is violent or misogynistic. If you've played that game, you've seen the semantics dodges, you've seen the 'you're taking it out of context' accusations. This was just more of that. A pity many atheists fell for it though. 

I will say that Cathy barely scratched the surface with the things she could have pinned him on. His sexist tradlife ideas are shit but there are better ways to expose him. Firstly, I’d have asked about his posing with a Pepe flag and a white nationalist…

Then about his friendly appearance on a neo-nazi podcast, with a host that has advocated violence towards people residing ‘illegally’ in her fantasy ethnostate. 

He should have been asked this especially in the context of how he himself deplatformed (now) open ethnonationalist Faith Goldy from one of his Free Speech events, for going on a Daily Stormer (Nazi) associated podcast and not questioning them sufficiently about their beliefs. If that was something he judged Goldy on, surely he could see that he himself hasn't always met those standards. 

Peterson who is also a staunch defender of people fired for their unpopular views can’t get others fired quick enough (those he doesn't align with ideologically, that is). 

(As ridiculous & unhelpful as her tactics are, had this been blatant discrimination towards a PoC, Peterson's tune would be entirely different). 

He who complains about the left not tolerating differing opinions, reacts this way when confronted with an opinion he disagrees with. When...Infowars...is criticized. 

After holding him to account on his most blatant contradictions and hypocrisies, Cathy could have gone into his more absurd viewpoints where he considers Disney’s Frozen to be propaganda, simply because Elsa didn't need a man to succeed. How very dare she get by on her own. 

Talk about fragility and snowflakery...being upset by Disney movies....tsk. 

(click to enlarge)

Or she could have questioned him about a chat where he doesn't quite grasp the concept of consent, with 'race realist' and known misogynist Stefan Molyneux (who also has theories about movies like Star Wars being anti white, white genocide propaganda) 

how the hell can you have free sexual expression and also not rape people pic.twitter.com/AWM0gu7rHR

— Tom Bloke (@21logician) February 13, 2017

-----

But then again, it wouldn’t really have mattered what she said to be honest…because his fans would have been furious with her regardless. She had the audacity to be combative with the great Peterson. This is a cult like following, no jokes. 

(click to enlarge)

Had she made him look properly foolish with excellent points, they would have been twice as enraged and felt twice as victimized by the postmodern neo-marxists who are always out to get them. *sob*

***

I have had many discussions with 'moderate' Petersonites, where they start fairly reasonably. It's almost as if they're reading from a script. First, they'll say they aren’t *at all* fans of Peterson (they just happen to agree with and defend everything he says and vehemently disagree with the critic). Then they jump to the fact that they are in disbelief that you could find anything particularly alarming about him at all...or that you could find him even remotely 'right wing' (there's that crypto rightwingery again). They demand that you back up your claims that he’s right wing… and from here on, it really doesn’t matter what you say. 

You could show his friendly appearances with neo-nazis, his proud posing with pepe (hate symbol) flags & white nationalists, his naziesque conspiracy theories about cultural marxism being everywhere. His conservative views on sex and gender roles, his love of sharing far-right media, none of that matters. They can explain everything away with a "Oh he meant it metaphorically" or "You haven’t seen his *entire body of work* otherwise you’d know he isn’t right wing, he was doing that ironically to piss off leftist SJWs like you", the excuses are endless. And that is why this brand of right wingers enjoys vagueness so much, because it gives them plausible deniability. 

Now, I’m sure there are some lectures by Peterson that aren’t far-right..but that doesn’t excuse him for times his views overlap with alt-right talking points, his alt-right associations and it certainly doesn’t excuse his free speech hypocrisies….when he is every bit a screaming, sniffling, unable to tolerate differing opinions, wanting to get people fired 'SJW' as the people he projects this stuff on to - except his idea of social justice is upholding the status quo…so SQW to be precise. 

He is what he hates. And his dogpiling fans are exactly the intolerant bunch they claim the left are. 

----

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[tune-collective]

Listen to Seether's New Single 'Nothing Left'

Listen to Seether's New Single 'Nothing Left'

Frontman Shaun Morgan says new album looks at how society idolizes ‘vapid, empty people that have done nothing to warrant the admiration they receive.’

Hard-rock band Seether has been on a roll at U.S. radio since “Fine Again,” lead single from their Wind-up Records debut, Disclaimer, introduced the band in 2002. Since then, the South African act — which is led by singer-guitarist Shaun Morgan —has logged 20 top 10 hits on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Songs chart, including the No. 1s “Remedy,” “Fake It,” “Country Song,” “Tonight” and “Words As Weapons.” They’ve also notched four top 10s on the Billboard 200 (with 2011’s Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray peaking at No. 2) and have accumulated U.S. album sales of 4.5 million, according to Nielsen Music.

With a track record like that, it’s not surprising that Morgan took the reins as both label proprietor and producer of Seether’s new project, Poison the Parish. Morgan acted as the sole producer, employing engineer-mixer Matt Hyde to help put the record together. The album will be released May 12 on Morgan’s Canine Riot Records. The frontman says of manning the boards, “Ultimately, at the end of the day, I didn’t want anybody else to answer to. For me, it was kind of a liberating experience, because I was making an album where I was getting it to sound like I always wanted it to sound like.”

He notes that he learned much from Seether’s previous producers: Jay Baumgardner, Bob Marlette, Howard Benson and Brendan O’Brien. “They’re all great in their own right,” says Morgan. “Of all the producers I learned the most from, [it was] definitely Brendan O’Brien. I learned from him what to do and I learned from the other guys what not to do, so with that kind of knowledge and having done six albums at that point, I figured I had enough information that I could try it myself.” 

Seether’s new single, “Nothing Left,” is being premiered today and can be heard below. Meanwhile, read on about how Morgan’s producing stint resulted in a meatier sound for Seether, why he considers pop-culture hits like Jersey Shore and Real Housewives “vile, disgusting stuff,” why he abhors society’s mindless pursuit of fame — and how growing up on a South African pig farm helped shape his work ethic.

I thought the album had a heavier vibe than some of your earlier stuff.

That’s because a lot of the time, we were dealing with the record company that wanted the band to … sound slightly more radio-friendly, in terms of possibly pushing us toward an alternative direction. Alternative used to be something that was the category [we were] in. That’s no longer the case. Now, it’s more that guitars are less of a player in the music, and it’s more Imagine Dragons and Lorde and stuff like that. We don’t fit the alternative category anymore. That was something that the label wanted us quite desperately to try [to be a part of], and I think the producers steered us in that direction as well. It all makes sense, in some respect. They had a plan that we just weren’t privy to [Laughs.]

The whole point, for me, was to reclaim the fact that we’re a rock band and it’s what we’ll always be, and until the alternative label shifts back to the kind of rock bands that have guitar and vocals, that’s just what we’ll be.

A recent interview quoted you as saying that there were times when Seether made an album and certain songs got earmarked for radio, it seemed like they got more attention than other tracks, and you thought that was a disservice to the band and the listeners. With Poison the Parish, since you didn’t have that hanging over your head, did you still wonder if you would produce something that radio would play?

The problem with the previous approaches is you earmark a couple of songs, those songs get all of the attention, and the rest sort of become considered album filler. I always found that kind of offensive in a sense, because to me, all the songs are equally important, and therefore to treat some differently sort of annoyed me. This time, we said, “Let’s start alphabetically and work that way from the top to the bottom.”

The goal really wasn’t to appease any kind of radio listener or radio station, because the whole point of this was to make music that I want to hear and listen to, that I love to write and to play. If we needed to look at it afterward and say, “This is unlistenable” or “This is unplayable,” then I guess there would have been some hurdle to overcome. But I think there’s a place for what we do. I was never afraid of radio saying, “We’re not going to play this music, it’s too acerbic,” or, “It’s too unpleasing to the ear.” I never had a problem with that. I just wanted it to be written the way I thought it should be. It should be heavy guitar, it should be loud drums, and it should be pretty simple down the line. It shouldn’t have a lot of percussion in the background and keyboard parts and tons of strings in different places. There’s a time and place for all those things, but I didn’t feel like this was that time or place.

What’s the inspiration behind “Nothing Left”?

The inspiration behind that song, and pretty much everything else on this album, is looking around at society and seeing how, in my mind, it seems to be crumbling in the sense that we worship and idolize vapid and empty people that have done nothing in their lives to warrant the admiration that they receive. I see it, and it makes me angry and it makes me sad. The fact that I have a teenage daughter who thinks that Instagram is a very important place to get likes because therefore that gives you some sort of self-worth as a human being, I think is bullshit. There’s no other way to say it. As far as I’m concerned, there’s far more important and valuable ways to be considered important and that you are worth something and that as a human being you have something to offer, something to bring to the rest of the world.

Listen to “Nothing Left” below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vvI0ckwpJU

What we are being fed down our throats is “Well, you can just be a Kardashian. You can just be in a sex tape, and suddenly you can have an empire.” Or you can be 16 and pregnant, and suddenly you can be making millions of dollars as a porn star. I mean, what message is that sending? … To put on a pedestal little girls that are 16 and 15 years old and pregnant, and then to say to other kids, “Look, this is great, because look what happens: You get a career out of it…” To put it on a major TV network that it’s OK to be 16 and pregnant, because things will work out just fine for this select handful, it’s not a message that should be sent. That should be shut down and shelved.

Stuff like Jersey Shore, all these Real Housewives, all this crap dominates the airwaves. It’s vile. It’s disgusting stuff. On Instagram, people are famous because of the way they look. [Laughs.] What have they done? What have they contributed to society? Looks fade, and at some point those men and women will become crones and trolls, and that’ll be the end of their short-lived fame. I just wonder why that’s something that people aspire to and how it’s become a thing where fame is more important than say, I don’t know, learning a trade.

Did you consciously set about writing about that topic, or did you notice as you were writing the music that that was what was coming out?

I don’t consciously set out to do very much, actually. [Laughs.]

I’ve been watching the whole political thing, with the hysterical left and the alt-right, and nobody can get on with each other, and how there’s this massive, ridiculous ongoing inability to allow each other to speak to each other and try to figure out what’s going on instead of “If you disagree with me, I’m going to scream at you” or “I’m going to beat you.” It’s this sort of Neanderthal response.

It’s overwhelming to think that that’s the world we’re living in right now, where nobody can get along because of simple political beliefs, and whether or not one person should be that polarizing is not the point. The point is that you should be able to have a discourse and discussions without turning violent or without [being insulted]. If you’re a Trump supporter, you shouldn’t be told that you’re a misogynist sexist pig because that’s how you feel, or that you’re stupid, and on the other side, you shouldn’t be called a social justice warrior and a hysterical leftist or feminazi or whatever the terms are these days. You shouldn’t have to be called that, either.

When did the name-calling become acceptable, and when did the world become such an ugly place? I guess I’ve been sort of consumed with it, and I find myself sitting squarely in the middle, looking at both sides, going, “You’re all idiots,” because really, what’s done is done. Now’s the time for everyone to get along and figure out how to make the best of a bad situation.

I get your point. But as a musician, you have a certain level of fame, and you may or may not be rich. What would you say to those who think, “You’re condemning people who want to be rich and famous, but aren’t you yourself rich and famous?”

I didn’t start playing music because I wanted to be rich and famous. I started playing music because it was fun and it made me feel like it was a great way to spend a summer afternoon with a few friends and a six-pack of beer. Then you start playing shows, and it becomes this thing that you embrace, and it’s a really fun time. Things like sitting around a campfire and playing an acoustic and singing whatever songs come to mind, those are all the things that started me playing.

In short, everybody has the aspiration to make it in the music business … But that entails a lot of hard work and a lot of focus and dedication and blood, sweat and tears. That does not include just making a sex tape, you know? Or just putting on some makeup and taking some upshots of yourself on an Instagram profile. I think that’s a ridiculous comparison to draw, because we’ve worked our asses off. None of this fell into our lap. I grew up on a pig farm in Africa, and this has been a career that’s been 20 years-plus. I started playing in my first band when I was 14, and I’m 38. For [nearly] 25 years, I’m playing guitar and writing songs and learning how to get better at what I do, and every single day I learn something new. So to draw a comparison like that is absolutely unfounded.

I have no problem with people wanting to be rich and famous. My problem is that’s all that they want to be without having anything to contribute. I think we contribute something to society by the music that we write. Obviously, people get something out of that music, and we provide, in some way, a service. We’re out on the road, we’re touring 10 months out of the year, five, six shows a week. It’s not an easy thing to achieve in a musical climate where whatever we do is, [people] assume it should be free.

Did you have to work the farm as well?

Yes, of course. I was knee-deep in pig shit most weekends. (Laughs.) When you’re on a pig farm, you can’t escape it. You always smell like pig shit wherever you go, because it’s a very permeable substance.

How did that affect your work ethic as a musician?

I don’t know. What affected me most about music was every time I was told I couldn’t do it or I shouldn’t do it, it ticked me off. I was told that by many people, because when you first say, “Hey, I want to be in a band,” your mom says, “Well, that’s fine, that’s cute. Go ahead and try it out.” You start taking it seriously, and then people go, “Listen, you’re wasting your time. This is never going to work out.” Then when it did work out [and you say], “I want to do this with every single ounce of my energy,” they’re like, “Well, now you can’t do it anymore, because it’s stupid.” It just makes you angry, and it just makes you more convinced that you’re going to prove everybody wrong. In some weird way, it made me believe in myself.

Hard work in general is something I’ve never been afraid of. Maybe that was from watching my dad, maybe it was watching my grandfather, who was a diary farmer. I had numerous cousins that had a whole host of other kinds of farms. Interestingly enough, a lot of musicians have come from farms, which is really bizarre. [Laughs.] [Once], I was sitting at a panel at one of those things where they have six musicians with different backgrounds, and four of us had been raised on farms. I think there’s an interesting connection.

This article originally appeared on Billboard.

http://tunecollective.com/2017/04/13/listen-to-seethers-new-single-nothing-left/