Blimix

Hey, everyone.

This week is going to be hard to get through. I want to remind you of two things:

1. We're here for each other. We may not feel like we have a country. Or a world. But we have our community. We help each other, and we need each other.

2. Your job today is to get through today. If you're trying to figure out how to survive the next four years and/or how to fix a broken system, you aren't going to come up with the solution yourself today. That's not because those are unsolvable. It's because those are long term problems. Give yourself a realistic goal. Today, get through today.

I wrote two resources a while back that might be helpful.

Dealing with depression and/or burnout:
https://blimix.dreamwidth.org/180153.html

The tension of, "It's an emergency and I have to do something but I can't" can sometimes be relieved by "completing the stress cycle":
https://blimix.dreamwidth.org/168525.html

Those methods might work, or they might be premature. You may need some time simply to express yourself with someone who feels safe. Whatever it is, doing something is more psychologically helpful than doing nothing.

While I would love for you to talk with someone, have a good cry, do some deep breathing, and ask for what you need... If all you can do to get through the day is bottle it up and play video games to distract yourself, then go ahead.

I'm looking forward to whatever time I can get with the people who make me feel safe. Try to reach out for the same.

"This is regular bread, not whole wheat. So I'm going to make my sandwich out of broken glass instead."

"I have an issue with Harris, so I'm not going to vote for her in November."

The only difference between these two statements is that the first one is better: Your broken glass sandwich will only wreck you, not the whole country.

...

(In 2016, when I tried to ask y'all to be sensible, some dudebro commented that he was voting for Stein because PA was going blue regardless. Stein's share of the vote in PA was bigger than the margin by which we lost PA. He and people like him, who "voted their conscience," threw the election to Neo-Nazis. Don't be like them. You know better this time.)

I watched Anna Cramling's video about a chess match in which she played extremely well against a higher rated player, until an oversight caused her to miss a necessary move. She didn't see that she was still in a good position for a draw, and assumed that she was going to lose. This caused her to make another mistake, in not playing for the draw. That second mistake cost her the game.

I was immediately reminded of two things:

1. World War II: Rommel's campaign against the British in Africa. His forces were outmatched and undersupplied. But he repeatedly tricked the Brits into thinking that they would lose if they engaged him, causing them to retreat. If they had fought, they would have won easily.

2. The job and life advice, "Make them say 'no'." You want a promotion, a favor, a relationship, or whatever. But you think you're not going to get it, so you don't ask. Now it definitely doesn't happen, because you assumed it couldn't. Like the chess draw! Instead, acknowledge that the situation looks disadvantageous, but you don't know everything. Maybe you don't meet all the qualifications, but the boss thinks you can do it, or HR can't find a better candidate. Maybe that cute person sees more in you than you think they do. So ask anyway. Either it doesn't work, but you got practice asking and didn't stand in your own way, or in a pleasant twist of fate you get what you want!

All of these are important to keep in mind now. We are living in bleak times. Things look awful, and motivation is hard to come by. But a lot of events, from personal to nation- or world-shaping, come down to surprising luck: Gavrilo Princip's conspirators' assassination attempt failed, until Ferdinand's motorcade happened to stop right in front of him. The pandemic drove democrats who could work from home into gerrymandered areas, flipping them and costing the Republicans many races in 2022. Cows helped Kodak discover nuclear fallout, thanks to radioactive gelatin ruining some of their photographic plates.

Point is: You never know. The power of fascists is always more tenuous than they let on. Your action could make a difference. Or it could embolden other good people. Or it could crucially distract the powers that be from someone else's action. Even if all you do is survive, vote, and make a few ethical decisions in how you spend your money, you're making a difference.

They want you to give up hope, because they're scared of you. They want you not to vote, because they're scared of you. They want you immobile, too paralyzed to act. Because they're scared of your power. They know that they are hanging on by a thread.

Don't give up.

I feel sorrow for my SCA friends. From what I can see from the outside, the organization leadership are being dickbags, sacrificing the well being of members and encouraging power hungry bullies. There's a big event tomorrow that friends of mine have put a lot of work into. They are not allowed to require masks (thanks to the Board of Directors), and there will almost certainly be Covid-positive attendees. Other friends have already left the SCA for their mental health. There have long been toxic aspects of the culture there, but the leadership is making it so much worse now.

I think the SCA is one of those groups where outcasts, geeks, freaks, and nerds find their "home": The people with whom they can be themselves. I used to have a small, far-flung, and passionate group like that for myself. But we were young and full of Geek Social Fallacies. Few who have suffered ostracism want to inflict it on others. Few who benefit from their group want to deny its benefits to the other members. But then one or two toxic members gradually rip the group apart. In a big organization like the SCA, it's way more than one or two toxic members. As the worst are encouraged and the best are driven out, even those who stay out of desperation for their valued friendships and passions will lose what they were getting from the group.

I'm sure it was never supposed to get political, but I can't help but see the hand of identity politics. Spreading Covid is a Republican value. Punishing people for defying bullies is a Republican value. The SCA leadership are taking these actions because doing so declares their affiliation, which they think will keep them safe from their overlords. Because they've never read about the Brown Shirts.

People whose politics are literally defined by fear mock good people for "living in fear" during a pandemic. Right now, the thing they *should* fear is that when they inevitably get disabled by long COVID, society will treat them every bit as cruelly and negligently as they themselves are currently treating others.

In 2014, I wrote a post explaining why it is problematic to silence the people who complain about police murdering Black people. A random commenter took great offense at my defense of "criminals".

We all know what this is code for, but let me say it out loud: If you learned of the killing of Eric Garner and decided that you have a problem with someone selling cigarettes outside of the packs, but not with someone committing murder, then you don't have a problem with criminals. You have a problem with Black people.

My lefty friends: I love you. And when you have a problem with the Israeli government's war crimes but not with Hamas' war crimes, do you know what that sounds like you do and do not have a problem with? Yeah, that.

It's tiring. But in this case, I know it's not your fault. What's happening here is an engineered Dunning–Kruger effect.

Hear me out. I'm not pretending to be an expert. I merely know enough to be aware of how much I don't know, because I've at least had the privilege of listening to experts, and I'm awfully good at recognizing patterns. (Just like nobody but a Black American is an expert on the experience of being Black in America, and nobody who isn't Autistic is an expert on autism, nobody who hasn't lived in the Middle East is an expert on the situation there.)

The biggest thing that you're missing is that you're hearing less than half of the story. This article explains it:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/

In short, international reporters in the area, and their editors, are aware that they are in danger of being murdered by Hamas. So they can print anti-Israel stories with impunity, but they have to leave Hamas alone. "Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff — and the AP wouldn’t report it." "Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying."

There is much more that I could quote, but my purpose isn't to turn you against Hamas or the reporters. I merely want to let you know *that* you aren't seeing the whole picture, and *why* you aren't seeing it. You're good folks, and most of you are willing to open your mind to the idea that you have been systematically lied to.

We're used to that. From the whitewashing of American history to the erasure of women in STEM, we keep learning that we have been indoctrinated since childhood with unnecessary prejudices. We do what we can to counter and unlearn those. A friend created a video (no longer available) detailing various antisemitic tropes, and I was stunned by how many of these I had internalized as harmless. I still enjoy the loving self-mockery of 2 Live Jews, "As Kosher As They Wanna Be," but it's good for me to be aware of how the tropes they use for humor can also be problematic. Just as Black people here are raised with internalized systemic racism, I (named Levy) was raised with some amount of internalized antisemitism.

I'm glad I know more about that now, and am no longer perpetuating those stereotypes, to the extent possible. I'm glad I know more about Israel and Gaza now, and have stopped accidentally emboldening anti-Semites by being complicit in the telling of a one-sided narrative: A narrative which decries brutality by the IDF against Palestinians while ignoring systemic brutality by Hamas against not only Israelis but also their own citizens.

And... If I'm being honest, my complicity was not just caused by ignorance and perhaps unconscious antisemitism. It was caused by Islamophobia, too. I figured that I could write to people who share my culture, who look and talk like I do, and ask them to curb their violence. These Jews might be reasonable, and I could appeal to their empathy. What good would it do to ask Arabs to not be violent?

Yeah. It's shameful. I don't think I ever consciously thought those words, but the sentiment was there, in the background. If asked, I would have cited the lack of common language and common culture. Why would they listen to me, an outsider? Indeed, there is little reason. Having since read many empathic, caring, and very human essays in fluent English from Gazans, I now know that there were only two reasons that my pleas couldn't have moved the citizens of Gaza — and they were the same reasons that my essays of the time never moved any citizens of Israel. First, I had fundamentally misunderstood their situation. Second, most of them already desperately wanted peace, but those were not the people in power.

As an American, I cried when Bush Jr. invaded Iraq. All of us who were paying attention knew that it was a going to be a humanitarian disaster, accomplishing nothing but to enrich Halliburton and Saudi oil barons. Our protesting had been powerless to prevent it. How much more powerless must the people of Gaza feel, watching Hamas fire rockets from their schools at Israeli schools? How terrified and traumatized, when the IDF fires back?

I'm glad now that I hadn't tried to beseech them for peace. Imagine how insulting that would have been: How utterly invalidating of their lived experiences, and of their basic humanity.

And how insulting — how utterly, ignorantly blind — is it now, to write of the terrified, traumatized people of Israel, who have been fleeing at sirens and feeling the blasts from the bomb shelters built into their homes, and to condemn them for violence? They don't want war! Nobody good wants war. Are there Israelis who do want war? Sure. There were also Americans with "Freedom isn't free" bumper stickers when Bush invaded Iraq, but you wouldn't paint us all with the "fascist" brush, so why do it to the citizens of Israel? When you pretend that killing is their aim, you are calling them evil. And then yes, whether or not it is your intention, you are engaging in antisemitism.

Learn. Do better. You're lefties; that's what you do. You got this.

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p.s. I've noticed an issue with the word "Zionist". It tends to be associated with the militant, xenophobic right wing. But Israelis will also defend against criticism of the word, explaining that it simply refers to the belief that Israel has a right to exist, or to the belief that Jews have a right to live where they will not suffer systemic oppression and murder. What's a person to think of Zionists, then? Consider that we have a word that enjoys a similar double use here in the U.S.: "Patriot". If someone here describes themselves first and foremost as a "patriot," I'll conclude with 98% certainty that they are a cowardly, treasonous Nazi with homicidal fantasies and a subservience to power that would make Stanley Milgram facepalm. Those of us who care to protect and uplift our fellow Americans? We are patriots. We don't crow about it, because being decent toward each other is not something to be proud of: It's simply the bare minimum, that we should all be doing anyway, and we don't expect a cookie just for not being a douchebag. Of course I'm a patriot: No big deal. If someone calls themselves a "Zionist," you may have to read their meaning from context.

p.p.s. If someone explains the causes of the Middle East conflict and doesn't mention British imperialism, they're not informing you. They're just trying to sway you. Also, racial problems there are very different from racial problems here. Comparison of Israeli/Palestinian relations and violence to BLM is a fantasy. If you've followed me for any time, you know I fully support the Black Lives Matter movement. The organization of the same name, like many of my beloved American progressives, espouses a mistaken official line regarding race in Israel.

p.p.p.s. Again, I'm not an expert. If you are one, feel free to correct or clarify anything here. I'm always ready to learn and do better.

The difference between a typical conservative and a Nazi isn't whether you condone white supremacist violence. It's whether you're too embarrassed to admit that you condone white supremacist violence.

...

If you see yourself in this post, and think that I'm mischaracterizing you, then prove me wrong:

1. Assert in public that the police need to stop murdering Black people.

2. Speak out in public against the genocidal neo-Nazi, and ask your friends not to vote for him.

Bonus point. If you're not a complete coward, try speaking out against the genocidal neo-Nazi and the attempted coup before you know that they're on the losing side.

If you can't do these things, then you do in fact condone white supremacist violence.

Amalia Rubin and I just recorded this song: Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Fascists

It was my first time in a professional recording studio, and I had a great time.

We had a spectacular outdoor take for the video, but my camera cut out (due to low battery) two-thirds of the way through. I can't complain, though: We still have a good video. (And the outdoor one, while very pretty with snow falling on us, had a couple of cars drive by in the background. So it's not like we lost a perfect take.)

This discussion is over because you're arguing in bad faith.

I was willing to discuss the topic with you, but since you refuse to do so honestly, you have given up all claim to my attention. I will not waste my time taking our discussion more seriously than you take it.

While I do not owe you any further explanation, I might indicate that one or more of the following gave you away:

1. You grossly misrepresented my point, turning it into something silly that you could rebut, since you couldn't address my actual point. (Straw man fallacy.)

2. You completely ignored the fact that I have already refuted your point. You either continued to assert the same misinformation without addressing the refutation, or you immediately moved on to assert new misinformation.

3. You have shown by your actions (during or before our discussion) that you don't even believe the words you just said.

4. You literally insulted me for being a good person. (For example, you might have said, "cuck," "social justice warrior," "ni**er-lover," "feminazi," or "politically correct" (which is a derogatory way to say, "respectful").)

5. You compared a cry for justice to oppression. To ask people (including you) to not do harmful things is to oppose oppression. If you think that your "right" to harm people is more important than their right to be free from your harm, you are an entitled, sociopathic brat.

6. You attacked good people but claimed to be neutral. Pretending that "both sides are the same" is a transparent attempt to silence good people who are trying to stop bad people from continuing to oppress and murder. In the fight between right and wrong, between good and evil, "objectively neutral" validates the wrong and empowers the evil. You are not "neutral" or "objective". You are merely a scared sycophant supporting oppressors by trying to keep people from making waves.

7. You object to being associated with the position that you fervently support. (For example, you support fascism, Nazi apologism, white supremacy, or sexism, but object to being called "fascist," "Nazi apologist," "white supremacist," or "sexist".)

8. Cursing me out is not an argument. It merely reveals your frustration with your own inability to argue your point.

9. You just told a bald-faced lie to support your position. Did you seriously think I couldn't look it up? If you have to lie to make your case, you don't have a case.

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In case it wasn't clear, this page is a resource for people arguing online. When the person you were arguing with shows that they were wasting your time, but you just can't let their final comment go unanswered, give them a link to this page. Their exact transgression need not show up here.

If you feel maligned, or think that you were sent here inappropriately, suck it up. The discussion is over, and you have nothing to gain by attempting to draw it out.

Feel free to add more numbered points in the comments!

Okay, my latest attempt to save the world is now up on Medium. I'd regard it as a personal favor to humanity if you would please spread the word.