Destroy Throwaway Culture

I like to wear swishy skirts and complain about society.

[draquus]

As a poor, semi-disabled, almost-40-year-old woman, everything having to do with my uterus is kind of terrifying. I worry about getting pregnant again. I worry that I'll never have a daughter. I worry about how I would manage if I did have more children. I just had a period where I was bleeding so much I thought I might have to go to the ER, and my doctor says it was most likely either a miscarriage or a sign of impending menopause, and both of those ideas are so contradictory and so connected and so emotionally fraught. It's rough right now.

The worst part is living in a world where 95% of the advice on how to manage all these difficulties is violence. Your uterus is causing you problems? Burn it, cut it, twist metal into it. Make it inhospitable to life. Take the nurturer of life and make it a wasteland, but don't stop sending children there. Kill the children you're afraid of losing. Feed your anxiety on the blood of innocents.

There's this idea that birth control and abortion make women free and strong and independent. That anyone who would dare subject women to inconvenience and even danger is a horrible, controlling abuser. That this is how we make strong, bold women.

Let me tell you something. I have seen strong, bold women. Women who don't hide their miscarriages, but actually talk to each other and support each other. Women who are not dependent on surgeries and pharmaceuticals, but actually understand how their bodies work better than some doctors. Women who have husbands who are invested in the health and lives of their wives and children. Women who suffer, and endure, and come to the other side full of joy.

My anxiety doesn't make me stronger, it makes me weaker. Fighting it, doing the hard thing, being humble and asking for God's help, that's where the actual strength is. When I say my kids are a blessing, I don't mean that in an easy, #Blessed, happy-go-lucky looks good on Instagram way. I mean it in the way food is a blessing, health is a blessing, LIFE is a blessing. You know it most when it's the hardest to come by.

We live in a world that tells us to quietly kill so that we never have to face death. Death to self, death of self, death of children, death of our own bodies as they age. But death is so much more terrifying when you let it lurk in the corners. It's powerful when it hides in the shadows. But look it in the eye? Well, you can't do it alone. But when you find you're not alone, that's when you can begin to be brave.

[spacelazarwolf]

(X)

i’m going to let this video speak for itself. bc i don’t even know what to say anymore. i don’t know how we come back from this level of radicalization among young people to the point where holocaust denial has become the norm.

[chanaleah]

remember that palestinians are humans: they are mohammed and amal and khaled and fatima and ahmed and sana.

remember that jews are humans: they are david and tamar and eitan and yael and ariel and noa.

we are not sides. we are not pawns. we are people. we have passions and hobbies and dreams. so stop treating this conflict like a game.

[fish-in-need-of-a-bicycle]

The Iranian Regime is going to execute rapper Toomaj Salehi for supporting protests of Jina Amini’s murder by the regime in his songs.

Iranian activist Elica Le Bon says, “Iranians in the diaspora picked up on the fact that the regime tends not to execute people who become known to the international community. We have seen many examples of prisoners that were either released on bail or had their sentences commuted through our “say their names to save their lives” campaign on social media, using hashtags to garner attention for their causes, and even before social media existed, through getting the stories of political prisoners to international media outlets. Once reported on, and once the eyes shift to the regime and the reality of its pending brutality, realizing that the action is not worth the repercussions, we have seen them back down and not execute. For that reason, this is part of an urgent campaign for readers to talk about Toomaj as much as you can, using the hashtag #FreeToomaj or #ToomajSalehi. Every comment makes a difference, and if we were wrong, what did we lose by trying?”

Iranian Rapper Toomaj Salehi Sentenced to Death for Songs Critical of Government

Toomaj Salehi, a dissident Iranian rapper, was sentenced to death on charges related to the antigovernment music he released during the 2022

[insert-some-url]

Reminder that Toomaj is still on the death row

The only way to save him is drawing international attention!

Say his name, save his life!

#ToomajSalehi

[stephobrien]

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that.

Over the last few days, I’ve had conversations with several Jewish people who told me how hurt and scared they are right now.

To my great regret, some of that pain came from a poorly-thought-out post of mine, which – while not ill-intentioned – WAS hurtful.

And a lot of it came from cruelty they’d experienced at the hands of people who claim to be advocating for Palestine, but are using the very real plight of innocent Palestinians to harm equally innocent Jewish people.

Y’all, we need to do better. (Yes, “we” definitely includes me; this is in no small part a “learn from my fail” post, and also a “making amends” post. Some of these are mistakes I’ve made in the past.)

So if you’re an advocate for Palestine who wants to make sure that your defense of one group of vulnerable people doesn’t harm another, here are some important things to do or keep in mind:

Ask yourself if you’re applying a standard to one group that you aren’t applying to another.

Would you want all white Americans or Canadians to be expelled from America or Canada?

Do you want all Jewish people to be expelled from Israel, as opposed to finding a way to live alongside Palestinian Arabs in peace?

If the answer to those two questions is different, ask yourself WHY.

Do you want to be held responsible for the actions of your nation’s army or government? No? Then don’t hold innocent Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli army and government.

On that subject, be wary of condemning all Israeli people for the actions of the IDF. Large-scale tactical decisions are made by the top brass. Service is compulsory, and very few can reasonably get out of service.

Blaming all Israelis for the military’s actions is like blaming all Vietnam vets for the horrors in Vietnam. They’re not calling the shots. They aren’t Nazis running concentration camps. They are carrying out military operations that SHOULD be criticized.

And do not compare them or ANY JEWISH PERSON to Nazis in general. It is Jewish cultural trauma and not outsiders’ to use against them.

Don’t infuse legitimate criticism with antisemitism.

By all means, spread the word about the crimes committed by the Israeli army and government, and the complicity of their allies. Criticize the people responsible for committing and enabling atrocities.

But if you imply that they’re committing those crimes because they’re Jewish, or because Jewish people have special privileges, then you’re straying into antisemitic territory.

Criticize the crime, not the group. If you believe that collective punishment is wrong, don’t do it yourself.

And do your best to use words that apply directly to the situation, rather than the historical terms for situations with similar features. For example, use “segregation,” “oppression,” or “subjugation,” not “Holocaust” or “Jim Crow.” These other historical events are not the cultural property of Jews OR Palestinians, but also have their own nuances and struggles and historical contexts.

Also, blaming other world events on Jewish people or making Jewish people associated with them (for instance, some people falsely blame Jewish people for the African slave trade) is a key feature of how antisemitism functions.

Please, by all means, be specific and detailed in your critiques. But keep them focused on the current political actors – not other peoples’ or nations’ political or cultural histories and traumas.

Be prepared to accept criticism.

You probably already know that society is infused with a wide array of bigotries, and that people growing up in that environment tend to absorb those beliefs without even realizing it. Antisemitism is no exception.

What that means is, there’s a very real chance that you will screw up, and get called out on it, as I so recently did.

If that happens, please be willing to learn and adapt. If you can educate yourself about the suffering and needs of Palestinians, you can do the same for Jewish people.

Understand that the people you hurt aren’t obligated to baby you. Give them room to be angry.

After I made a post that inadvertently hurt people, some were nice about it, and others weren’t. Some outright insulted my morals and intelligence.

And I had to accept that I’d earned that from them.

I’d hurt them, and they weren’t obligated to be more careful with my feelings than I had been with theirs.

They weren’t obligated to forgive me, trust me, or stop being mad at me right away.

I’ll admit, there were moments when I got defensive. I shouldn’t have. And I encourage you to try not to, if you screw up and hurt people.

I know that’s hard, but it’s important. Getting defensive only tells people you care more about doubling down on your mistake than you do about healing the hurt it caused.

Instead, acknowledge that they have a right to be angry, apologize for the way you hurt them, and try to make amends, while understanding that they don’t owe you trust or forgiveness.

Be aware that some antisemites are using legitimate complaints to “Trojan horse” antisemitism into leftist spaces.

This is a really easy stumbling block to trip over, because most people probably don’t look at every post a creator makes before sharing the one they’re looking at right now.

I recently shared a video that called out some of the Likud and IDF’s atrocities and hypocrisy, and that also noted that many Jewish people are wonderful members of their communities.

I was later informed that, while that video in particular seemed reasonable, the creator behind it is frequently antisemitic.

I deleted the post, and blocked the creator. I encourage you to do the same if it’s brought to your attention that you’ve been ‘Trojan horse’d.

Fact-check your doubts about antisemitism.

Depending on which parts of the internet you look at, you’ve probably seen people accused of antisemitism because they complained about the Likud and/or IDF’s actions. So you might be primed to be wary, or feel unsure of how to tell what counts as real antisemitism.

But that doesn’t mean antisemitism isn’t a very real, widespread, and harmful problem. And it doesn’t mean many or even most Jewish people are lying to you or being overly sensitive.

So if someone says something is antisemitic, and you aren’t sure, I encourage you to:

A. Look up the action or thing in question, including its history. Is there an antisemitic history or connotation you aren’t aware of? For best results, include “antisemitic” in your search query, in quotes.

B. Understand that some things, while not inherently antisemitic, have been used by antisemites often enough that Jewish people are understandably wary of them. Schrodinger’s antisemitism, if you will.

C. Ask Jewish people WHO HAVE OFFERED TO HELP EDUCATE YOU. Emphasis on WHO HAVE OFFERED. Random Jewish people aren’t obligated to give you their time and emotional energy, or to educate you – especially on subjects that are scary or painful for them.

@edenfenixblogs has kindly offered her inbox to those who are genuinely trying to learn and do better, and I’ve found her to be very kind, patient, reasonable, and fair-minded.

Understand that this is URGENTLY NEEDED.

In one of my conversations with a Jewish person who’d called me out, they said this was the most productive conversation they’d had with a person with a Palestinian flag in their profile.

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

I didn’t do anything special. All I did was listen, apologize for my mistakes, and learn.

Yes, it feels good to be acknowledged. But I feel like I’ve been praised for peeing IN the toilet, instead of beside it.

Apologizing, learning, and making amends after you hurt people shouldn’t be “the most reasonable thing I’ve heard from a person with a Palestinian flag pfp.”

It should be BASIC DECENCY.

And the fact that it’s apparently so uncommon should tell you how much unnecessary stress and fear Jewish people have been living with because of people who consider themselves defenders of human rights.

By all means, be angry at the Likud, the IDF, and the politicians, reporters, and specific media outlets who choose to enable and cover up for them.

But direct that anger toward the people who deserve it and are in a position to do something about it, not random people who simply happen to be Jewish, or who don’t want millions of people to be turned into refugees when less violent methods of achieving freedom and rights for Palestinians are available.

Stop peeing beside the toilet, people.

[perfectlyvalid49]

OP, this is a very good post, and I’m very glad that you are willing to learn from where you screwed up, and share what you’ve learned with others.

I hope you’re willing to continue learning though, because there’s one important point that you make here that I disagree with. You say that antisemites are trying to “Trojan horse” their way into leftist spaces, but leftist spaces are already filled with antisemites, and have been for a long time. To continue your Trojan horse analogy, Odysseus is and antisemite, sure, but so are Hector and Priam.

I think that this is something that is vitally important for leftists to understand, and I know it’s something that they don’t want to, but antisemites don’t have to sneak in to leftist spaces because leftist spaces are already full of antisemites. Jews have been complaining about antisemitism in leftist spaces for a long time, and have been noting for the past decade or so that things have been getting worse. An easy example is when the star of David was banned from the D.C. Dyke march in 2019, but that wasn’t particularly new or exceptional, it just got more press than average.

You’re right that it’s an easy thing to stumble over, because a lot of antisemites have learned how to hide their antisemitism behind progressive language and dog whistles. But it is important to learn how to spot those, because there are a lot of very reasonable sounding if you don’t think too hard or don’t know what you’re looking for. To use the example above, the Dyke march told people that they could not display the star of David on a flag because it considered it a “nationalist symbol from a country with oppressive tendencies.” And that language sounds good to the leftist ear – nationalism is bad, countries with oppressive tendencies are also bad. So why is it problematic? Well, Israel’s record with LGBTQ folk isn’t great, but it’s better than any other country in the Middle East. As an example, in Palestine, you can be executed by the government for being gay. Why do I mention Palestine specifically? Because the Dyke march said that the Palestinian flag was ok to fly.

So, when we take a step back we see that the rules are not being applied the same way to Jews/Israel as they are to everyone else. That’s antisemitic. But the way was presented, it sounded like good leftist praxis. And you see it all over on the left. It’s the same way that Israelis have been branded as “settler-colonists” even though most of the Jews who came to Israel in the last 80 years have been refugees, and are indigenous to the land. But if we call them “settler-colonists” then they’re oppressors, and we can be as mean as we want. The left works very hard to find reasons for Jews to be bad guys – if you’re anti-capitalist, then they’re capitalists, if you’re anti-communist, then they’re communists. If you’re not in Israel, they should go back to where they came from, if you’re anti-Zionist then they’re colonizers. There’s always a “reason” that a leftist can give to hate on Jews, but the real reason is antisemitism, and you will find it in every sort of leftist space you can hope to find.

I’m sorry this got a little ranty, but the Jews are tired of this nonsense, and those on the left have gotten increasingly bad at hiding it over the last four months. I’m sure as a non-Jew this is less obvious to you because you have to deal with less of it and it’s not pointed in your direction. But I think that if you’re really interested in learning and growing (and it seems like you really are! And I want to reiterate that I appreciate your willingness to do so!) then one of the next things that you need to learn is that it isn’t a handful of sneaky antisemites trying to get in to leftist spaces, it’s that leftist spaces have always contained a large population of antisemites.

[stephobrien]

Thank you very much for the acknowledgement and additional info. I just made an edit to my original post, in which I pointed out that a lot of antisemitism already exists in leftist spaces, and encouraged people to read this reblog of yours to get specific examples.

I'd love to know your thoughts on the new addition, and if you think there's anything else I should change or add. As you noted, I'm not as aware of the details of antisemitism because I don't have to live with it on a day-to-day basis, so advice from those more knowledgeable than me is welcome.

[perfectlyvalid49]

I appreciate the edit. I think it gets my point across, and I can’t really complain about you sending them to my reblog – I said what I said to hopefully help people understand, so it’s good if people see it. I’m always happy to answer questions as long as they’re in good faith, so I don’t mind people coming my way.

There’s a lot to say about antisemitism on the left, and I don’t really know how to condense it all down into something shorter than the length of a novel. It’s been a constant conversation going around jumblr for the last four months (a lot longer really, but as the antisemitsim intensified after 10/7, so did our discussion of it). And I know this post started as an, “oops, I messed up” post, and I don’t know what conversations you’ve already had that prompted this post, and I don’t want to beat you over the head with this stuff, as that’s not fun for anyone.

So I guess, here’s the shortest version (and it’s not short) of what a goy needs to know about antisemitism on the left that I can write. To keep it short(er), some of these are going to be VERY broad statements. I’m happy to follow up with more detail if you have questions. All instances of “you” in the list are the generic you, not any specific person.

Judaism is an old religion, and people have hated Jews for a long time – longer than Christianity has existed.

Christianity has a bunch of antisemitic teachings. A lot of these stem from the fact that for Christianity to be right about certain things, Jews *must* be wrong. Why are we wrong? Because we’re bad.

Also, early Christians allied with Rome for power and threw Jews under the bus as part of that deal.

Because of this, EVERY culture that has been significantly impacted by Christianity (and its offshoot, Islam) has a background level of antisemitism baked in. This includes atheists living in cultures heavily impacted by those religions, such as atheists living in Europe and any of its former colonies.

Because it’s everywhere, of course it will be present among leftists.

Leftists generally aren’t big on hating people for no reason.

But many of them are ok with hating people who are morally bad in some way.

So, you can’t hate people for race or religion, but you can hate “oppressors.”

To alleviate their cognitive dissonance at being antisemitic, they find a reason for Jews to be bad guys that are ok to hate.

Examples:

Rape is bad and wrong, but it’s ok that Jews were raped on 10/7 because they were oppressors who needed to be stopped.

People have a right to defend themselves (and nations have a right to defend their citizens) unless their Israeli because Israelis are colonizers.

Indigenous people have a right to their native land, unless their Jewish because then they’re lying about where they came from.

People will also hold Jews/Israel to different standards than they hold other people/nations to. As an example, when talking about Israel/Palestine, people will talk about the Nakba, where nearly a million Palestinians lost their homes and were ethnically cleansed from Israel, but no one talks about the approximately equivalent number of Jews that were ethnically cleansed from MENA countries in the years following Israel’s independence.

This is incredibly frustrating because a lot of Jewish teaching leads to left leaning Jews who are made to feel unwelcome due to their religion.

And when they point out antisemitism, they are shouted down or kicked out of leftist spaces.

In the last few months, this has come mostly in the form of calling Jews “Zionist,” “Zio” (a slur coined by David Duke (yes, that David Duke)), or “Zionazi” (any conflation of Jews and Nazis is antisemitic. Don’t…just don’t fucking do that guys).

Zionism is a Jewish movement with many branches. At its most basic, it is simply the belief that Jews have a right to their own state, and somewhere between 80 and 90% of Jews identify with Zionism in some form. If you hate Zionists but not Jews, you basically just hate Jews

If you object to there being a Jewish ethnostate, but you don’t object to Ireland (Irish ethnostate), Germany (German ethnostate), Lebanon (Arab ethnostate), Syria (Arab ethnostate), Jordan (Arab ethnostate), Egypt (Arab ethnostate), etc., then it isn’t the ethnostate part you have an issue with, it’s the Jewish part.

A lot of the left’s arguments against the Jews/Israel fall apart when this metric is applied. They either don’t object to the behavior unless it’s done by Jews, or they object, but object much more strongly when Jews do it. There are at least half a dozen major ongoing genocides right now. Most people angry about Palestine couldn’t name three if I gave them a million dollars.

Many Jews want to be allies to left leaning causes, or should be welcomed into leftist communities, but they can’t because Jews aren’t welcome. See my earlier post about the Dyke March for an example. I saw one person put it simply: “I can only be Jewish and Queer in Jewish spaces, because in Queer spaces I need to stop being Jewish.”

Basically I think your original post actually covers a lot of the actions that non-Jews should take pretty well, I’m just trying to add some understanding of some of the talking points I see coming from the left and how a lot of Jews feel about them. I guess I’d also throw out that Jews often disagree with each other (two Jews, three opinions is a thing for a reason), so you may wind up getting different takes from different Jews. I would urge people to err on the side of caution and if one Jew says “that’s antisemitic” then I just wouldn’t do it even if another says it’s ok. Especially because I’ve seen a fair number of people claim to be Jewish or “of a Jewish background” and then turn around and say stuff that a Jew just wouldn’t say, like “this person won’t be going to heaven” or stuff like that. Also JVP isn’t Jewish, they’re just pretending to be. That’s a whole thing I’m not going to get into, but just know that they’re not.

The easy rule I tell people to use is swap in a different minority identity for “Jew” or “Zionist” and if it doesn’t sound OK, that’s a belief you should maybe question. Like, if you wouldn’t say, “I wish Hitler had finished killing all the queer people,” then you shouldn’t say, “I wish Hitler had finished killing all the Jewish people.”

I hope this makes sense. It’s late and I need to go to bed, but like I said, I’m happy to answer any questions. But, tomorrow. Right now I need sleep.

[faggotry-enjoyer]

thinking about how so much of the left spent so long making dual loyalty accusations that so many jews had to reiterate that "judaism != israel" as in "just because i'm jewish doesn't mean i support anything and everything the israeli state does wtf" only for the left to turn around and start saying "judaism != israel" as in "israel has nothing at all to to do with judaism" as in "any and all discussion of antisemitism with regard to israel is irrelevant derailing" (at best) and have the gall to act like they're saying the same thing because those are the Right Words, right? forced them to put up a shield only to rip that shield from their hands and beat them with it. vile. fucking vile.

[faggotry-enjoyer]

a number of statements that are not contradictory:

jews are not collectively responsible for anything the state of israel does.

expecting the relationship israelis (whether jewish, arab, or otherwise) have to israel to be fundamentally different, more sinister, more antagonistic, more nationalist, or less valid than the relationship people anywhere else have to their countries is an antisemitic double standard.

expecting jews, whether israeli or diaspora, to have any specific take on israel is antisemitic (dual loyalty).

demanding to know any jew's take(s) on i/p is invasive and disrespectful.

attempting to divide jews into good antizionist israel-hating tokens and evil zionist palestinian-hating monsters is antisemitic.

jews are indigenous to the land of israel, and denying their connection to the land is antisemitic.

jews, like any other indigenous group, deserve the right to self-determination in their homeland. in our current world, the typical form of self-determination is the nation-state. therefore, the state of israel is as legitimate as any other nation-state.

the modern state of israel was established for jewish refugees, and continues to be a place for jews to go when the rest of the violently antisemitic world expels them or makes fleeing the least dangerous option. it is the only place in the world where jews are not an extreme minority, and the only place in the world where jews can be visibly jewish without fear. therefore, israel's existence is essential to jewish safety.

roughly half of the world's jewish population lives in israel, which would make their loss of sovereignty devastating to the jewish community as a whole

a number of significant aliyah waves are within living memory. there are very few jews in the world. jewish communities tend to become stronger and form more ties with each other whenever antisemitism increases. communication across long distances is easier than any other point in human history. all of these factors combined makes it so that many diaspora jews are only at most a few degrees of separation away from at least one israeli jew.

all of these factors, and probably more i'm missing, mean that most jews are probably going to have some kind of feelings ahout israel, which are often going to be very personal. expecting their thoughts to fall into your outside party line is antisemitic and quite frankly callous.

the state of israel has its problems and deserves to be criticized like any other country

most outside criticism of israel is done in bad faith, and israel is not treated like any other country. no other country has its right to exist denied or called into question so frequently or so widely.

antisemitic tropes are commonly projected onto the state of israel

the state of israel is commonly used as a rhetorical prop for justification or denial of antisemitism

if the anti-israeli crowd and broader discourse on i/p wasn't antisemitic, we wouldn't see massive increases in antisemitism every time tensions rise or large-scale violence breaks out in israel and/or palestine

inverting an incorrect point of view does not produce a correct one. inverting "jews are inherently more likely to support israel and anything bad israel does" to "jews do not have any connection to israel" doesn't get rid of the antisemitism. it's just a different antisemitic talking point.

i am not jewish. all claims about jewish community and culture i make here are based on the most common views i see expressed by the many jews i follow. political takes are heavily influenced by analysis and stories from a number of jews and middle easterners, especially israelis and mizrahim, but are ultimately my own and always subject to change. this reblog was written on january 19, 2024.

[lift-blog]

[bebsi-cola]

disabled people are worth whatever cost or resources is needed to keep them alive. disabled people are worth it even if they don't live long. they're worth it even if they will need extra support and resources for every day of their life. they're worth it even if they spend all they life indoors. none of it is wasted. none of it is in vain. time, effort, money, resources spent on a life are not wasted. these things have served their purpose. the joy of someone's existence is not undermined by not lasting forever. there's no meaningful point, some threshold where you can say "okay this is enough. after that it's not worth it." it's always worth it.

[jewish-sideblog]

I think people forget that the Nazis never said they were the bad guys. If someone says, hey, I’m evil! You don’t let them take over your country. They presented themselves as scientific, not hateful. By their own account, they were progressives, and the superiority of White Europe over the other races was a proven and immutable fact. They had scientists and archaeologists and historians to prove it. They didn’t tell people they wanted to kill the Jews because they were hateful. They manufactured evidence to frame us for very real tragedies, and they had methodological research to prove that we were genetically predisposed to misconduct. Wouldn’t you believe that?

Hollywood has spent the last 80 years portraying the Nazis as an obvious and intimidating evil. That’s a good thing in some ways, because we want general audiences to recognize that they were evil. But we also want them to be able to recognize how and why they came to power. Not by self-describing themselves as an evil empire, but by convincing people that they were the good guys and the saviors. They hosted the Olympics. Several European countries capitulated and volunteered themselves to the Empire. There were American and British Fascist Parties. They had broad public support. Hollywood never shows that part, so general audiences never learn to recognize the actual signs of antisemitism.

People today think they can’t possibly be antisemitic, because they’re leftist! They abhor bigotry! They could never comprehend Nazi ideology coming from the mouth of a bisexual college student wearing a graphic tee and jeans. How could they? The only depiction of antisemites they’ve ever seen have been gaunt, pale, middle-aged men in black leather trench coats with skulls on their caps.

If the Nazis time-travelled from the 1930s and wanted to take power now, they’d change their original tactics, but not by much. They would target countries suffering from an identity crisis and an economic collapse. They would portray themselves as the pinnacle of what that society considers progressive. Back then, it was race science. These days it’s performative wokeness. Once they’d garnered enough respect and reputation, they’d begin manufacturing propaganda and lies to manipulate people’s anger and fears at a single target— Jews.

If the Nazis made an actual return, they wouldn’t look like neo-Nazis. They wouldn’t be nearly as obvious about their hatred. Their evil wouldn’t give them yellow eyes, and no suspenseful music would play when they walked in the room. They’d be friendly. They’d look like you. They would learn what things your community fears and what things you already hate. They would lie and fabricate evidence to connect the rich elites and the imperialists you revile to a single source of unequivocal Jewish evil. It wouldn’t be hard— they already have two-thousand years of institutional antisemitism they can rely on to paint their picture.

If you’re curious why antisemitism today is coming from grassroots organizations, young, liberal college campuses, suburban neighborhoods with pride flags and All Are Welcome Here signs? That’s why. It’s because, as a global society, we’ve forgotten that the world didn’t used to see the Nazis as bad guys. And what is forgotten about history is doomed to be repeated.

[patron-saint-of-smartasses]

What happened to Canada’s ‘mass graves’?

Another excavation at a Canadian residential school has failed to find evidence of human remains.

I know that Google and the like love to suppress dissenting voices, so any more articles on this topic from a range of political affiliations would be appreciated.

[radical-femininity]

I knew this would happen when people started describing what was found at these schools as "mass graves." There was never a real possibility that these were mass graves, and I'm not aware of any reputable news source that used that terminology. There has been at least one mass grave found near a residential school, but that's not what this was about. From my understanding, what ground-penetrating radar did reveal was ground disturbances that may have been regular, unmarked graves, many of which were likely marked at some point, but which were essentially lost to poor record-keeping and lack of maintenance.

But that doesn't generate nearly enough clicks or outrage, so the narrative began spreading that there were mass graves at residential schools. Once searches of some of these schools confirmed that there are no mass graves, and that some of these ground disturbances aren't even from burial sites, some people concluded that Indigenous communities were just making things up, probably to make money (I don't know about the States, but "Indigenous people just want free money and/or land" is a major stereotype here).

That's not actually what happened, though. It's well-known that a lot of abuse went on in those schools, and that children really did die there, often due to disease. It's also been known for quite some time that we don't know the locations of some of their graves. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action, published in 2015, include calls for the federal government to help identify and document residential school cemeteries, and to inform families of where their relatives are buried when possible.

Now, though, because of the way everyone latched onto the "mass graves" narrative, the fact that these cemeteries have not been found is being used to minimize the role of residential schools in Canada's cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples. "So they were wrong!" the average Canadian can say. "Children weren't being beaten to death and thrown into mass graves after all! I knew it was too far-fetched to be true. Those People are always making up outlandish stories to get money from the government." Meanwhile, it remains a historical fact that Indigenous children were placed into schools that were structured to alienate them from their cultures and families of origin, and that some of them died there, and that the records of which children died and where they are buried are often incomplete, leaving their families without closure.

Anyway, if you want to learn about residential schools, check out the film We Were Children. It's based on survivor testimonies, and it paints a really clear picture of the racism that influenced how these schools were run and of how growing up in that environment affected survivors.

[pro-birth]

Dobbs is Bearing Out a 45-Year-Old Pro-Life Feminist Theory - Secular Pro-Life

Pro-life feminists have long argued that the availability of legal abortion suppresses real systemic solutions. Dobbs has made possible a la

TL;DR — Despite doubts and critiques from pro-choice activists, the Dobbs decision has largely proven a decades long pro-life theory: that abortion delays progression for women and children’s welfare, and limiting/eliminating it forces policymakers to actually accommodate childbearing families. Who woulda thunk.

[feminism-is-not-radical-deactiv]

"Some disabled women need to go into prostitution to pay bills because they can't have a 40hr a week job" is not an argument for prostitution, it is an argument for radical social welfare change.

[starlightomatic]

Someone sent me an ask about how to avoid antisemitism when talking about what's happening in Palestine, but Tumblr ate it. This is a really important question, because we don't want to fight one oppression while enabling another; we don't want to accidentally foment the conditions that lead to antisemitic violence, and we also don't want to shy away from speaking about Gaza for fear that we're doing so.

Here are my thoughts.

There are a lot of unconscious antisemitic beliefs that people hold, that they may not be consciously aware of. They may have learned these from parents, peers, or society at large. Like any bigotry, a huge part of not being harmful in bigoted ways comes down to learning what unconscious bigotry looks like within you and learning how it is expressed.

Antisemitism is very old, and there are a lot of tropes and beliefs that have developed through the years. Many of these are alive and well, though they may be subtle enough that people don't realize they're carrying them. However, they show up in the way that people speak, especially about Israel and Palestine. Here are some:

1. Jews are overwhelmingly wealthy

2. Jews control the world

3. Jews control a given country (eg the US)

4. Jews are not oppressed

5. Jews are some of the most privileged people in society; more than non-Jewish white people. Jews are white people but even more so.

6. Jews are whiny and complain about their nonexistent oppression too much

7. Jews are sneaky, deceptive, and untrustworthy. They don't speak sincerely or plainly; they have an ulterior motive and are trying to get one over on you.

8. Jews are greedy

9. Jews are really powerful

10. Jews undermine and destabilize movements and countries. (This one connects to 3, 7, and 8).

11. Jews are inherently guilty; a good Jew needs to apologize for being Jewish

12. Jews are bloodthirsty and desire violence against non-Jews

13. A Jew is from somewhere else, and does not belong in the place that they are.

14. Jews sap resources from the country they are in and funnel them into their own communities/interests. They are a vampire-like parasite on the societies they live in.

How do these get expressed in the movement? Here are some examples (these are paraphrases and combinations of various things I've seen):

Example A:

"American Jews are complaining about oppression while living in their NYC apartments and taking Ubers. It's ridiculous, so much privilege and entitlement." This one's got 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

1: Assumes wealth. Plenty of us can't afford NYC apartments or Ubers!

4, 5, and 6: self-explanatory.

7: Belief that on some level, fear of antisemitism can't really be sincere; we must be talking about it for some other purpose, eg to distract from "real" issues.

Example B:

"The US is funding this genocide because of the influence of Israel and Israel's interests, and the Jewish lobbyists." Employs 3 and 9.

3: The US is doing this because of its own interests; if anything, the US wants to be able to use Israel as a pawn.

9: Imagines Jewish lobbyists as powerful enough to drive US policy. Also forgets how dramatically the US dwarfs Israel in size, money, and power; imagines it's the other way around.

Example C:

"These Israeli first responders are lying about finding mutilated and sexually abused bodies after October 7th. This Israeli girl who was held hostage is lying about having talked to fellow hostages who were sexually assaulted. This Israeli first responder is lying about children having been killed on October 7th."

This is 4, 6, and mainly 7.

7 because it assumes that these people are telling these lies for some nefarious purpose: to garner false sympathy, or worse, to manufacture support for genocide. It cannot be because they are actually telling the truth.

Example D:

"It's suspect if someone talks too much about antisemitism. Or if they correct my misinformation. They are probably a crypto-Zionist. In fact, all of these Jewish tumblr bloggers are crypto-Zionists."

(The first part of this I haven't heard said; but rather it's the unspoken attitude I'm frequently presented with.)

This one has 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10. Mostly 7 and 10.

Beliefs that our goal is to derail pro-Palestine organizing by sewing Zionist beliefs in the movement. That we would be capable of such (9). That it's impossible that we're sincere and we're concerned both about what's happening in Gaza and the everpresent, intangible potent threat of imminent antisemitic violence.

Example E:

"What everpresent threat of imminent antisemitic violence? You're either delusional, too privileged to understand how oppressed you aren't, or lying to some sinister purpose."

The first two (delusional and too privileged) often comes from other Jews, who, yes, can be antisemitic too.

This one has: 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9.

Example F:

"As a Jew I know I am responsible for what's happening in Gaza, and I need to call in my people who deny our privilege and who think they're unsafe."

1, 4, 5, 6, 11. Shades of 10.

Example G:

"Israel is invading Gaza for oil."

8. Also this isn't true.

Example H:

"No Israeli is a civilian. All settlers are guilty, and need to leave."

Technically, it is possible for someone to hold this belief consistently for all settlers worldwide due to stringent decolonial beliefs. However, it frequently is applied only to Israelis. In such an iteration, I think it contains 10, 11, 12, and 13.

Which leads to my next point: Double standards. If something doesn't invoke a particular trope, but views Jewish or Israeli actions more harshly than we'd view the equivalent in any other place or people, to me that's suspect.

For example, relating to the above, if we believe that Truth and Reconciliation is the answer in the US and Canada, but in Israel the answer would be forced displacement of the Jewish population, that would be antisemitic.

Also, if we're able to hold nuance around the idea of refugees to the US and Canada, and understand that they're simultaneously taking part in colonialism while also arriving under duress because they need a place to live, we can extend the same nuance to the idea of Jewish refugees (Holocaust survivors, SWANA Jews, Ethiopian Jews, etc) who have come to Israel.

And, going back to example A, is there any other marginalized group we would say is not actually oppressed because members of it live in NYC and take Ubers? No? Then, it's antisemitic when you say it about Jews.

I also think misinformation about Jewish history and identity is antisemitic. For example, lines of thought that deny our ancestral, historical, cultural, and liturgical connections to the land of Israel/Palestine. One false belief I see a lot is Khazar Theory, popularized by the quack Shlomo Sand. This states that Ashkenazi Jews do not have ancestral origins in what's now Israel/Palestine, but rather descend from a mass conversion of Turkic peoples in the Kingdom of Kazaria. It is not, in fact, true.

Something else along these lines is back-defining origins and land-connection through current events. For example, a white gentile ex-friend of mine shared a post stating that because the IDF, as well as settler extremists, destroy Palestinian olive trees (an egregious act, in my opinion, as well as against Jewish law), this means we are not native to the land. While I understand the term native is complex and this might have been an attempt to denote our positionality as colonizer in a colonizer-indigenous dynamic, the framing of the post led me to believe that, actually, the post was using these actions to prove that we do not actually originate from the land.

Destroying Palestinian olive trees is an act of great violence against the land, against the Palestinian people, and against our own history, culture, and religious traditions. However, it does not change the historical fact of our origins or ancestry, nor the fact the our religious traditions are deeply intertwined with the seasons, climate, and agriculture of Israel-Palestine, even when that puts them out of sync with the seasons and climate of wherever we live in Diaspora.

I hope this is helpful. This is a really hard time for so many of us, and I know it can feel like derailing to focus on antisemitism right now, and to focus on the potential of future violence when the people of Gaza are experiencing actual extreme levels of violence right now. But if we truly believe that none of us are free until all of us are free, then fighting antisemitism has to be part of our collective liberation. We cannot and should not fight genocide by engaging in oppression. Speaking up for Gaza and Palestine does not have to mean fomenting conditions that put Jews in danger of bigotry and violence. The world we're building is one where seeing your trees destroyed, or your family killed, or your home receding into the distance as you are forced to leave is but a distant memory. For Palestinians, and for Jews, and for everybody on this Earth.

[radical-femininity]

PSA for Low-Income Canadians

File your taxes! It's the only way to access federal benefits like the Canada Child Benefit and the Canada Workers Benefit. Provincial benefit programs might also ask you for proof that you've filed your taxes, so making sure you file them on time can prevent disruptions to your income if you rely on those programs.

Also, if you're low-income, you don't need to go to H&R Block and pay them to do your taxes. There are volunteer-run tax clinics that will complete your tax return for free as long as your tax situation isn't too complicated. Some of them will even do multiple years of taxes. Don't pay money to have your taxes done if you don't need to!

[menlove-archive]

[takes u all gently by the hand] conspiracy theories, misinformation, and reactionary posts are just as dangerous when they are about something you agree with. even more so, actually. be careful not to spread something just bc you think it SHOULD be correct to further your stance on something. that does not make it true.

[themorningstars-blog]

I’ve been thinking about making this post for a while, and I finally decided to make it.

At a certain point in my life as a pro-choicer, I discovered something: In order to be intellectually honest in my pro-choice thinking, I had to be willing to look around at all of the people I knew–my family, my friends–and be willing to say, “It would be okay if you had never been born.” And I had to be willing to say the same about myself, too.

And I actually was willing to say this. While my mother was pregnant with me, my father tried to pressure her into an abortion, and you know what I thought when I found out? I thought, “She should have gone through with it.” I was a burden; I made everyone’s lives difficult; I wasn’t worth loving or sacrificing for; I didn’t matter. I had so completely internalized this message about myself that finding out that I had almost been killed in my mother’s womb was no big deal. I mean, hey, it would have saved us all a lot of suffering. The cost-benefit analysis seemed perfectly clear: I just wasn’t worth it.

I wasn’t quite so obviously callous in my estimation of other people’s worth, but, had they asked me if I believed that they mattered in any real way–mattered in some way which did not include some reference to my thoughts or feelings about them–I would have had to say no. I would have had to say, “I am overjoyed that you were born because you have contributed so much to my life, and you make me so happy, and I think you’re wonderful, and look at all of the people who love you, but, ultimately, if you had not been born, it would have been okay. At the end of the day, there is nothing necessary about your existence. You are replaceable.” Those were the consequences of my worldview–the worldview which says that each and every child conceived in his mother’s womb is theoretically disposable; the worldview which can talk about “what you have to offer” and how “useful” you are, but can say nothing about the worth of the “useless.”

And I think our society has done a pretty decent job at living out that vision: the Vision of Replaceability. We don’t just treat the unborn this way. We treat the born this way, too. We give up on our spouses when our marriages stop being “useful” contributions to our lives. We give up on our families when the going gets too tough. We give up on our romantic partners when “the spark is gone.” We give up on our friends when we’re not getting what we “need” from them. We’re a culture of quitters. We love when it’s convenient for us. And people are often inconvenient; they demand our time and attention and care; they’re not perfectly suited to our desires the way objects are. So, we objectify them. We pay attention when it suits us and then tuck them away on a shelf somewhere where we keep the rest of our “toys.”

Is it any wonder that we don’t think that we matter? We’ve never seen it. Is it any wonder that many of us cannot even conceive of true selflessness? That the notion that someone might actually want good things for you and might actually not expect anything in return and might actually not just be doing it because “it feels good to do good things” seems so foreign and strange? Should we be surprised? It’s all we know.

And this is the root of the culture of death. This is where death starts. It doesn’t start in war zones or brothels or abusive homes or abortion clinics or execution chambers. Those are its manifestations, but that’s not where death starts. Death starts with people as things. It starts with “you are only as necessary as you are useful.” It starts with “you are not precious; you are replaceable.”

So, we leave ourselves with no resources when we are truly confronted with death. We have nothing real to offer to the suicidal, the eating disordered, the self-injuring, the depressed, the lonely, the abused. Nothing but empty words. We may say, “You are irreplaceable,” but do we mean it? Do we know what it would mean to truly mean those words? I don’t think we do. Not as long as we see each other as “choices,” as “options” in a sea of options. Not as long as we cannot honestly look one another in the eye and say, “It would not have been okay if you had never been born. You belong alive, and you matter, not because of what you do, but because you are you.“ 

And for those of us who call ourselves pro-life, that has to mean something. It has to mean that we see people as people; that we treat them like people; that we love them. Maybe the reason that the pro-choice movement so often accuses us of "only caring about fetuses” isn’t all unwarranted hyperbole; maybe they’re responding to the very real lack of true, genuine, selfless love in our society, and maybe we’re all in that battle together. How on earth are any of us supposed to know that that’s possible–that we could matter in that way–unless someone shows us? That’s where the culture of life starts: the moment when we discover that we’re loved.

[secularprolifeconspectus]

Unpopular opinion: people with anencephaly ought to be born & loved for as long as possible. They deserve palliative care, not murder in the womb. Abortion is not euthanasia.

This little girl is not in agony. She coos and smiles at her mother's touch. She is loved. She wouldn't have known any of that love had she been violently stabbed with a lethal injection and born dead. According to her mom on YouTube she lived for 3 weeks and her family cherished her.

When I say later abortion is not euthanasia, I mean: the children are killed without general anesthesia. We wouldn't even kill a horse or someone on death row this way. Later abortion, even for medical reasons, is horrific violence. The babies are stabbed with an overdose of digoxin or lidocaine. They may be exsanguinated or dismembered alive.

If you want your disabled child to live with dignity and die humanely, with the least suffering possible, then do not abort them. Love them. You will suffer less in the long run knowing you protected them, that you did not pay for their brutal murder.

And for the record, you still have to go through labor when you get a later abortion for fetal anomaly. Unless, of course, you get your child ripped out piece by piece in mangled shreds. The chances of uterine perforation and sepsis from this are extreme.

Disabled children are not "choices". Perinatal hospice is ethical. Murder is not.

Learn more about anencephaly.

For anyone feeling pressured to terminate for medical reasons, I highly recommend

carryingtoterm.org

perinatalhospice.org

nowilaymedowntosleep.org