thomasthetankieengine

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These people's obsessions with trying to prove that "artists are bourgeois scum who deserve to have their work stolen and repurposed and this is actually a radical act" will never not be extremely bizarre to me.

I don't know whether it's a childish kneejerk response to be asked not to repost people's artwork online without credit or permission or if they have a massively unrealistic idea of most artists living in splendor.

In any case, fascists did not make distinctions on art based on whether it had "sufficient Soul and Difficulty" . The theory of degenerate art was instead based on true art being easy to understand, beautiful, moral, celebrating life and health, and exhibiting the right values that is, to say, honoring racial purity, militarism, and obedience. And, of course, the Nazi ideal of beauty was narrow: it had to be based on they perceived as norms from Classical Antiquity and whatever they dubbed as proper German-ness.

Bad or degenerate art, conversely, supposed celebrated ambiguity, ugliness, insanity, illness, death, promiscuity, race mixing, pacifism, and rebellion. (One wonders if they realized these ideals would have condemned, say, Goya.)

Bringing up Impressionism as an example of a straightforward art everyone likes in this context is especially weird, because the Nazis and others who pushed the theory of degenerate art were vocal about how much they hated it, just like they also hated Cubism, Dada, Expressionism, Fauvism, and Surrealism.

Perhaps malware-bytes doesn't realize it, but what made the Impressionists novel at the time is that they loved to paint pictures of ordinary people engaged in everyday activities, rather than just portraits of the rich and powerful or scenes from mythology and history. This (and the fact it didn't adhere closely enough to Classical models of beauty) was what made it degenerate in the eyes of the Nazis, though they weren't the only ones: Manet's Olympia, which depicts a high-class courtesan reclining in her boudoir, caused a fervor when it was first exhibited in Paris.

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AITA for crashing a local Bar Mitzvah to hand out leaflets about Palestinian rights?

I'd ask if you're archaeocommunologist, but I think we all know he's an internet tough guy who would never dare to pull a stunt like this in real life.

He's probably defend someone doing it, though... and send death and rape threats to anyone who disagrees.

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"It's OK for me to harass Jews online and invade Jewish spaces to minimize antisemitism because what Israel is doing in Gaza is worse."

He might have a germ of a legitimate point to make if the Israeli government had created or posted often in the Jumblr tag, but since they didn't ... well.

This is the rancid post the anon was referencing, by the way:

Comparing Jews complaining about antisemitism to White nationalists complaining about white genocide and anti-white bias is not only wrong on the face of it, but offensive. For one thing, there's the inconvenient fact that while White people as a collective have not been ethnically cleansed or subjected to genocide, Jews very much have. White nationalists who want to indulge in the fantasy of being persecuted frequently resort to claiming that immigration and mixed race marriages somehow count as White genocide and that this all being orchestrated as a result of a plot by Jews -- which makes archaeo's analogy all the more offensive and boneheaded.

In any case, despite archaeo's belief otherwise, Trump and other leaders of right-wing governments he mentions are not philosemites. Their fervent support of Israel arises out of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment. They are also pandering to the Evangelical Christians amongst their followers who believe that the Jews' presence in the Levant is necessary to fulfill biblical prophecy about the End Times.

In any case, if archaeo bothered to do google searches, he'd find Jews of varying political persuasions expressing profound ambivalence over Trump's supposed mission to combat antisemitism and claiming that will not actually help to protect Jews, regardless of what opinions they have of Zionism (despite archeo's belief that only anti-Zionist Jews are in danger).

One good example is this article from The New Republic which discusses in detail how Trump and his cronies (such as the Nazi-saluting Elon Musk) support antisemitism while maintaining a pro-Israel foreign policy while also mentioning that conservative Evangelical Christians are, by far, the demographic that supports Israel the most.

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What's really funny is how this proves Archeo only bothered to read the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on the Neo-Assyrian Empire's resettlement policy. 

While Ashur-Dan II might have started the policy, some of the most extensive deportations were carried out by Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V. These two kings were both responsible for the mass deportations of Israelites. After the Assyrians were conquered the Babylonians and Medes, the former continued the policy and then deported vast numbers of Judaeans to Babylon.

I'd accuse Archaeo of having the bad taste to make a cheapshot about Israel when this subject he is ridiculing was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of ancient Israelites and Judaeans, but let's be honest here: he's probably never heard of the the Assyrian or Babylonian captivities.

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I don't know who annoys me more, you or them.

I'm not first in your heart??? NOOOOOO!!!

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I guess tankies think marginalized groups in the US don't experience as much suffering because they still "benefit from imperialism" apparently https://mesetacadre.tumblr.com/post/769885208448319488 https://mesetacadre.tumblr.com/post/769956009947086848

Funny thing about this post is that I spent most of my childhood in the Rio Grande Valley, the site of the some of the poorest cities in the nation, along with the numerous shantytowns along the border known as colonias. Some of these colonias do not have water or sewage systems and often suffer severe flooding from hurricanes and heavy rains. Even if you stay in the cities in the RGV, I'd caution travelers against drinking the water. My mom and I both caught Giardiasis from the drinking water c. 1988 and it almost killed me.

While Mesetcadre appears to be from Spain, a lot of American tankie types tend to live in solidly blue liberal enclaves in the US and the non-American ones only seem to know about America from movies, which usually pretend that New York City and Los Angeles and maybe Chicago are the only cities of note.

But I wonder if they'd sing the same tune if they lived in or even bothered to, you know, look up what conditions are like in impoverished parts of the South or the Rust Belt. In case, anyone is wondering, these are photos of places in the US...

As for benefitting for imperialism, or whatever… The main benefit a poor person from the US is going to receive is in the form of some cheap consumer goods. Ironically, this is the same arguments that right-libertarians and actual neoliberals use to defend capitalism and the status quo.

I'm less than convinced, though, that the existence of cheap bananas, cell phones, and t-shirts should be held up as evidence for the US provides a good or even adequate quality of life for all of its citizens and residents.

This is what a Vox article from 2016 had to say about life in one of the poorest counties in the US:

Every day, Thomas, who is 60, wakes up fearing rain. If the skies pour down on her brown-brick bungalow, the pools of wastewater that have gathered in her backyard will swell. On hot and humid days — of which there are many in Louisiana — they release the rank scent of raw sewage. … Thomas has been living with this fetid water in her yard for three years. It’s there because the oxidation pond on her street, which is supposed to clean the neighborhood sewage, is broken and hasn’t been fixed. When I visited, the pond was completely overgrown with trees, weeds, and grass. “People are throwing dead dogs and stuff in here,” a neighbor, Vernon Smith, tells me. If Thomas flushes her toilets or runs her sinks and shower, the runoff doesn’t enter a waste treatment facility — the bedrock of modern sanitation — it just flows right onto her land, where her grandchildren play. (She has to warn the kids to stay away from the water.) The sewer on her property also backs up and overflows, putting her community at risk for a range of illnesses — diarrhea, cholera — we typically associate with extreme poverty in developing countries. This fact was not lost on Smith, who’s been suffering with breathing problems lately. “It’s the 21st century, and we still got our sewers backing up,” she says.

Yeah, having to live with literal shit water in your backyard is NBD and is definitely not "anywhere near similar to the global south" and Thomas and Smith should STFU because the US military massacres millions of people abroad and that materially benefits them and improves their life ... um... somehow.

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so the vibe i'm getting from you is that if other tumblr users don't deep-throat the metaphorical boot of western imperialism, they're automatically "tankies". a real normal take in the big year of 2025.

Definitely only a reasonable and normal vibe to get from me, since you seem to think not deep throating the metaphorical boot of western imperialism means giving a tongue bath to Vladimir Putin, the Iranian mullahs, China, and Erdogan.

That you seem so willing to believe that Chinese, Iranian, Russian, and Turkish people are apparently naturally free of the taint of imperialism is patronizing, not flattering, and mainly speaks volumes about your ignorance.

If you'll do me a favor... Why don't you look up what the titles Huángdì, Shahanshah, and Tsar meant and what the Seljuk and Ottoman Empires were and then get back to me?

Alternatively, assuming you're referring to my blog title, that's a reference to a song, Venus in Furs by the Velvet Underground, which is itself referencing an erotic novella about BDSM.

Why did I use it? Because of how amused I am at the idea that tyranny is OK if the Right People are doing it.

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I'm sure this post sounds super intelligent, unless you actually bother to look up how anti-EU parties behind Brexit such as the UKIP feel about the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin.

Then it just sounds odd.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43555253

Far-Right nationalists, in general, whether British, American, or something else, tend to just looooove Putin and the RF. Which makes a lot of sense, because they share so many core beliefs, such as Christian nationalism, cronyism, nativism, hatred of homos, letting the poor starve, and keeping women barefoot and pregnant.

Treating a Ukrainian national's attack on Nord Stream 2 (which of course she portrays as 100% an American conspiracy, probably because Papa Putin says it was) and Trump's slapping Mexico and Canada with tariffs as part of one coherent American plan is also ... certainly a take.

Trump's rather singular obsession with tariffs are based mostly on his rather flawed understanding of economics and his belief that they be used to help for his tax cuts, boost manufacturing (which it might or might not) and somehow magically stop illegal immigration and drug smuggling (which it will not, because drug smuggling is driven heavily by Americans' demand for illegal drugs. The current opioid crisis was actually driven heavily by the overprescribing of opioids by the American medical industry, not by the supposed evil machinations of China or Mexico or anyone else. But rather than admit that most of this crisis is self-inflicted, I suppose it is much easier to just blame foreigners.)

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"If you REALLY think about it, Trump's plan to turn Gaza into a luxury resort (by almost implicitly ethnically cleansing the Palestinians) is literally EXACTLY just the same thing as Liberal Zionists, which I mean anyone who supports two state solution. I know this is true because of some quotes from David Ben Gurion from 70+ years ago."

It's nice to see, though, that hyperions-fate has yet to explain why he believes David Ben-Gurion's racist nationalism and ordering of ethnic cleansings are somehow wholly different and worse than those of Grigori Zass, Miloš Obrenović, Otto von Bismarck, Enver Pasha, Yusuf Kemal Bey, Faisal I of Iraq, Bakr Sidqi al-Askari, or Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Or, for that matter, tamamita's dearly beloved Joseph Stalin.

While hyperion loves to babble about how "he must criticize the actions of states supported by the UK first" or some other such bullshit, I suspect the real reason is that he has already made up his mind ahead of time and doesn't want to be confused with facts.

That or he simply does not want to admit that the very idea of nation-state necessitates cultural genocide at minimum.

Finally, cheering on the Bund while also making posts about how cool the Soviet Union is ... definitely a choice, considering that the Bund was forcibly disbanded by the Soviets in 1921 and how many former Bundists fell victim to political purges in the 1930s.

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awww why havent you done my blog yettt :(((

I've been too busy writing erotic fan fiction about trains, because the reality of politics lately has been too depressing to engage with.

I do want to know what you think of Trump's plan to annex Gaza, though!

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Why do you block replies and reblogs you pussy bitch. I want to see everyone making fun of you

Because I'm an admitted pussy. And I also really don't care about what a bunch of twentysomething bourgeois kids LARPing as revolutionaries think of me, no offense.

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indeed.com

That's funny you're posting this when I haven't updated this blog since, like, December.

Don't worry, though. I haven't become cool. I've just had to worry a lot of real life shit lately like trying to navigate government bureaucracy in order to keep surviving.

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Somehow, I doubt that suicide-baiting, terrorist-stanning Anneemay was SOLELY suspended for giving information about libraries...

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The funniest things about these posts is what while fictionalauthorityii is posing as an expert™ on Syrian Politics, he cannot spell Alawite correctly and does not understand that the question of "Are you Shia or Alawite?" is not a straightforward question with a definitive answer.

So, what are the chances he has any understanding of how the Alawites were relevant to Syrian politics in general and the Assads in particular?

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If only Assad was still in power. Then he could be genociding all Syrians (and also Palestinian refugees) as God intended. 😭

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Tariq Ali knows that massacring Muslims is only based when Serb nationalists do it, because then it's a blow against Western Imperialism.

Or something. 🤡