Search results for tag #narrative
#DebatingFascists is more foolish than building a sandcastle at low tide beach waterline, because at least the #sandcastle delivers one with intangible benefits, like enjoyment, teamwork, creativity and/or just having a good time with other people.
- Whereas if one is #debating #fascists, one's wasting lifetime and -energy and only enriching and #normalizing #fascist takes and #fascism in general as something that is "#debateable" when in fact it's not and engaging in such a debate is a net and gross negative for anyone but the #fascists!
- The only way to stop their "#Narrative" of being "#canceled" is to leave them alone, gloating in their #Hatespeech as noone is #platforming that shit because one doesn't do that - period!
Long post [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
The Trump-Vance lie that the city had been “destroyed,” the notion of “carnage,” the dehumanization of immigrants— all of this creates the impression that their promised ethnic cleansing action would be a response to something, rather than a simple choice to exercise state violence against an invented racial enemy. These reversals are very important. It is important to consider this carefully.#USPol #ICE #history #authoritarianism #tyranny #resistance #resist #narrative #immigration #HaitiFirst, Vance reported that the Nazi propaganda campaign that he had himself inspired amounted to factual evidence. Mental chaos has been created where there was none before. And then that mental chaos becomes the justification for physical chaos: Trump’s “large deportations,” ICE raids that will, in fact, wreck an improving local economy. And once that physical chaos has been created, it will be blamed on the immigrants who are no longer there. Most of this has already played out. A key threshold, which it appears that we are about to cross, is the application of the state violence. At that point, so to speak, the lie is supposed to become “true.”
Long post [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
In the schools and churches of Springfield, Ohio, people are making hasty preparations for a “large deportation” promised by the president. To all appearances, and according to local sources, the city is two or three days away from a federal ethnic cleansing, grounded in a hate campaign organized by the vice-president and American Nazis. The destined victims are ten thousand or more Haitians.From Timothy Snyder's substack. Note the use of the phrases "ethnic cleansing" and "hate campaign", which are accurate. Snyder later states, regarding his use of the word "Nazi", "I use the word advisedly". It's well worth reading what he says about that. J.D. Vance's words led to a self-professed US Nazi group terrorizing Springfield Ohio. Snyder spells out how the hyperreality--the non-existent parallel and false world Vance set in motion and then Trump amplified--is turning into real-world consequences for real people.
#USPol #ICE #history #authoritarianism #tyranny #resistance #resist #narrative #immigration #Haiti
Here's one point: masked thugs in mismatched camo are breaking laws that include abducting, assaulting, and executing people, and the regime is attempting to force us all to refer to this as "law enforcement". For all the many criticisms one might aim at US law enforcement, members typically wear blue, show their faces, and doctrinally aspire to behave transparently and professionally (please don't @ me with your critiques of law enforcement or hashtag ACAB comments; this is not meant as a defense, only a contrast. I've been beaten and teargassed by cops and witnessed far worse so I am acquainted with this aspect of US "law enforcement").
In other words the regime is attempting to change consensus reality so that Americans accept that the phrase "law enforcement" includes random, unprovoked breaking and entering by heavily armed masked men into homes or vehicles, assaults, and summary executions on the street, targeting all citizens. They want this to be a normal and accepted occurrence anywhere and at any time. Much as one might criticize previous administration's immigration policies---and one might really really criticize those---this attempt to shift consensus on "law enforcement" to include summary executions of anyone and all the rest is new (It is not new for certain groups; what I think Snyder is saying is that it'd be new for everyone to be targeted in this way, and for most people to accept that's just how it is now).
Snyder also points out that the border plays an important role here because it is where the country, and therefore the law, ends. In other words, it's not coincidental that the regime chose to elevate ICE. Historically, authoritarian regimes have a marked tendency to expand the lawlessness and indefiniteness of border zones to include the entire territory of the country, and the current regime is no different. Immigrants and immigration aren't the only targets here. The larger aim is to indefinitely suspend the rule of law nationwide by making the entire nation into a border zone (Recall the Texas governor kidnapping immigrants and shipping them to "blue states", a classic attempt to spread resentment of immigrants throughout the country). Again, this is a narrative move, an attempt to shift consensus reality.
So, one way to resist is to simply not accept either of these attempts to change reality. Continue to refer to what's happening as unacceptable, not who we are, etc. Continue to point out that out of control border "enforcement" has led to street executions. Continue to name these actions as the criminal acts of thugs. Continue to pressure people with power, such as lawmakers, to do the same. Not out of some misguided or naive nationalism or patriotism, but in order to keep a stake firmly planted in the ground against the forces attempting to move it. This is something we can all do.
Incidentally, all eyes on Haitian and Haitian-American people in Ohio over the coming weeks. The Haiti Temporary Protected Status designation ends this coming Tuesday, February 3, 2026. Haitians in Springfield were specifically abused during the Trump campaign. The US has a long history of abusing and dehumanizing Haitians dating back at least to Thomas Jefferson, so the Trump campaign rhetoric was no outlier or anomaly. Haiti is also one of the countries specifically named in the US State Dept's announcement about indefinitely halting immigrant visa processing. It would not be surprising if the next ICE "surge" targeted Haitian immigrants in Ohio given how the groundwork's been laid.
#USPol #ICE #history #authoritarianism #tyranny #resistance #resist #narrative #immigration #Haiti
This is exactly right. ICE, CBP, and ATF are three agencies that are STRUCTURALLY FASCIST by dint of their missions, and thus ALL part of what ive been referring to--for #narrative reasons--as the #ICEtapo.
If democracy makes it out of this alive, ALL three need to be fully disestablished, their personnel subjected to a Nuremberg style tribunal for #CrimesAgainstHumanity, and those functions they perform that are truly NECESSARY broken up and reallocated to other agencies with cultures that will better prevent them from fascist constructions of their missions.
Hey, I'm CONSERVATIVE, but I'm also (1) pro-democracy (one of the OG NeverTrump generals), (2) anti-fascist, and (3) a #narrative warfare leader for a quarter-century, so I'll bang those pots right beside you, and see if I can get some NATO allies and private-sector experts in on it too....
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:hf7ezrajxadu7v3tzcyij424/post/3mdg45sthqk2u
From the article: "Washington inadvertently would be sending a message to Muslim youth that the democratic process and peaceful participation in electoral politics are a sham, which could damage American national security and credibility in many Muslim countries."
This is, of course, exactly why our #IslamophobeInChief did it.
In fairness, of course, our shortsighted coolness toward the Brotherhood's embrace of democratic participation (see, for example, backing Al-Sisi's coup in Egypt) has been self-defeatingly proving the extremists' point--on both sides of the aisle--FOR DECADES, flushing the #narrative wins that folks like Emile Nakhleh and I devoted much of our lives to right down the (newly gold-plated) shitter....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-designation-problematic
Read my story →
https://www.ficklefutures.com/p/thank-god-for-the-sinners-31b
#shortstory #fiction #narrative #creativewriting #literaryfiction
Alt...
Thank God for the Sinners! | https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/def58531-d28e-4700-a518-bb7c7fb42930_1024x1170.jpeg
Read my story →
https://www.ficklefutures.com/p/thank-god-for-the-sinners-31b
#shortstory #fiction #narrative #creativewriting #literaryfiction
Alt...
Thank God for the Sinners! | https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/def58531-d28e-4700-a518-bb7c7fb42930_1024x1170.jpeg
This fucking guy
He's one for the ages
Ukrainians are angry at a tone in Western #media lately that #Ukraine is losing
#Disinfo from the usual #socialMedia #troll farms and #plutocrat influenced channels shilling a #narrative for a corrupt #agenda
So what does #Zelensky do?
He goes to the frontline in #Kupiansk and films himself there
While the #West repeats #Kremlin lies that #Russia controls it
😂
Zelensky is something else
Tough, crafty, true
In a world of dipshits
This is, overall, an excellent writeup. I have a couple of quibbles (e.g., this WAS the expressed will of a plurality--though not a MAJORITY--of last years' voters, so our #AmericanOligarchs WEREN'T just ignoring the will of the people, and I do, for example, think a decent case could be made for handling illegal narcotics shipments into America as an act of war--as a form of chemical weapons, which have killed FAR more Americans than the attacks of those more famous "unlawful combatants" on 9/11) but even there, the #AgolfShitler administration consistently refuses even the most basic standards of evidence, oversight, and accountability REQUIRED FOR such justifications.
More to the point, though, Robin's writeup reminds us JUST HOW FAR the #Donjjal--the #MAGAts' 'messiah' who literally epitomizes EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Seven Deadly Sins--has (mis-)led us toward normalizing behaviors that EVERY CHILD can recognize as wrong...while spinning false #narrative woven from whole cloth out of #disinformation, to obfuscate and confuse those obvious conclusions for us 'more worldly' adults.
It's high time 'We, the People' rouse ourselves and put a stop to it. And Scott hints at a crucial conclusion that my wife (a scholar of ethics FOR DECISIONAKING) and I have reached as well: that getting back to and making explicit our "#FirstPrinciples of Americanism" that #Trumpsim stands manifestly opposed to is a key initial step.
https://robinhorsfall.substack.com/p/the-principles-of-right-and-wrong
As a parent AND a digital #narrative warrior, I was excited to see this yesterday. It's a conversation we very much need to be having--as families & as a society--and Cynthia has been leading the charge on it for some time.
But then I came upon this passage, which has gnawed at me since:
"RK: When discussing misogyny, sexism, and gender-based bigotry, how does the book Man Up manage nonbinary issues with gender?
Dr. M-I: By defining misogyny not as hatred of women (which is how it’s understood in popular usage), but rather as the policing of patriarchal norms and expectations. Misogyny, then, is a kind of law enforcement arm of the patriarchy for policing all genders."
I do understand where she's coming from with this, ESPECIALLY in the context of the #manosphere--which IS, after all, our subject here. But expanding this definition this way is problematic in the same way the IHRA's attempt to expand how we define #antisemitism is: it makes it possible to treasure & value the contributions a group makes to our shared society, vigorously defend their rights to self-determination in it, welcome & support advances in their safety & their freedom to participate in it as THEY see fit...yet still be tarred with a pejorative implying our bigoted & irrational hatred for them SIMPLY FOR EXERCISING OUR OWN, Constitutionally-protected right to submit OURSELVES to God's decree as we understand it, and to speak and publish freely in defense of its guidance--just as the IHRA definition would tar me as an antisemite for opposing #IsraelAtWarCrimes even though I also defend its right to exist, in peace, as a Jewish state, and love my spiritual cousins among #AbrahamsChildren.
There's a lot of nuance here--as Cynthia actually does a pretty good job of acknowledging: just as there are ABSOLUTELY actual antisemites (e.g., Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson) trying to adhere themselves to the #JusticeForPalestine movement as a cover for their vile hatred, there are plenty of ACTUAL MISOGYNISTS using theological language to cover for theirs. And while I've always urged folks to follow Jesus' own advice in Matthew 7 for discerning the difference: "By THEIR FRUITS you will know them" (in other words, the dangerous ones are the ones using their speech TO CALL FOR THE INFRINGEMENT OF RIGHTS OR THE SHUNNING OF NEIGHBORS IN *THIS* WORLD for those who turn away from their call), in 2025 there can be no doubt that the misogynist wolves currently running our government LONG CLOAKED THEMSELVES IN the right to free exercise of their faith WHILE PLOTTING TO infringe the rights & compel shunning of neighbors who turn away from their call. And nowhere is this truer than in the manosphere.
Still, we need to be careful not to throw the Constitutional baby our with the fascist bathwater--and expanding how we define misogyny to encompass faith-based arguments we don't like because they've been abused to justify oppression TOO would put us at just that risk.