@silver-and-ivory / silver-and-ivory.tumblr.com
Most gruesome thing I learned in religion class is that crucifixion doesn’t kill you via blood loss from the nails, dehydration, or exposure. Once all of the strength from your limbs gives out, you can only support all of your body’s weight on your chest, resulting in your body basically suffocating itself
R0bin DiAngelo, when addressing her childhood poverty, says she “make[s] the distinction that I grew up poor and white, for my experience of poverty would have been different had I not been white”. [source]
I will literally eat a hat if this broad isn’t a spook
@house-of-crows said: I feel like I’m missing something here
~
I could write way more about this than I have time for, but in brief: Robin DiAngelo is an “anti-racism advocate” whose approach to the subject trafficks heavily in racial essentialism and segregationist logic. She believes that black people and white people are fundamentally separated by race, and, accordingly, that race must remain at the forefront of all interracial interactions. This belief is especially evident in her framing of “white poverty” and “black poverty”, which is a time-honored tactic of government agents to suppress meaningful material organizing across races. Even if she isn’t literally a government agent herself (though tbh who knows), she’s certainly doing their work for them.
@buetterfliege said: If nothing else, she’s playing to a market of primarily government agencies, who at this point are the only groups who can afford her insane consulting fees. Even if it’s not intentional sabotage, the intersection of her message and its primary audience is a really, really unfortunate coincidence.
~
An excellent point. Companies that can afford $12,000 for a three-hour reeducation seminar are typically pretty invested in the status quo. How convenient that her message prohibits any meaningful alteration to same.
@dr-dendritic-trees said: It occurs to me that i’ve never seen a single piece of data of any sort about the actual effectiveness of her seminars (to the tune of, if companies who pay her higher more POC, etc). I can find people praising her and people critiquing her all from many angles, but not a single scrap of actual data.
~
I mean, that’s to be expected: she’s not a psychologist or sociologist. She’s not running longitudinal research, or any kind of research at all, really. The entire thesis of White Fragility is based on people’s hostility to corporate diversity training, not on any kind of genuine psychosocial evaluation.
An actual quote from Robin diAngelo:
Capitalism is so bound up with racism. I avoid critiquing capitalism — I don’t need to give people reasons to dismiss me.
Another actual quote from Robin DiAngelo:
Wanting to jump over the hard, personal work and get to “solutions” [is a] foundation of white fragility.
[source]
~
This is quite literally the most transparent grift I’ve ever seen unfold in real time, and I was a woman on Facebook during the rise of LuLaRoe.
The New York Times Magazine actually had a recent article about whether this variety of anti-racism training is effective. tl;dr: There’s no real evidence it is beyond a span of a few hours, as study quality goes up measurable effects go down, and people are skeptical of it for reasons other than that they’re just irredeemably racist.
“It might be good policy, mostly, for white people to do more listening than talking, but, she said with knowing humor, it could also be a subtle way to avoid blunders, maintain a mask of sensitivity and stay comfortable. She wanted the white audience members to feel as uncomfortable as possible.” SHE MOVED THE GOALPOSTS excuse me while i laugh at this for approximately ten hours rotflmao
holy SHIT that’s the most blatantly culty shit I’ve seen in a long time.
uhhh
uhhhhhhhh
This summer, I came out as bisexual. For various reasons it was a trying time for both me and my partner of four years, and though we’ve worked through it and we are now closer than ever, there is something we’ve learned that we think needs to be more widely publicized so anyone in a similar situation to ours is forewarned.
We need to tell you about the Straight Spouse Network.
Content warnings for biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and mentions of emotional abuse.
The term “Revisionist History” can’t even cover this summary of the brutal lynching of Leo Frank
Just in case it wasn’t clear, this isn’t true. He was not a pedophile.
There is a book “The Leo Frank Case” and again told in “(((Semitism)))” he was framed. There was in fact evidence that he was framed. It was the KKK who drug him out of his prison cell, lynched him, and sang songs about how he was going to hell and was a dirty Jew.
falling down the clickhole of reading blog articles, came across this excerpt that sums up pretty well one of my main issues with elon musk and his contemporaries’ attitudes
“And Elon’s secret? He’s a scientist through and through.
Hardware and Software
The first clue to the way Musk thinks is in the super odd way that he talks. For example:
Human child: “I’m scared of the dark, because that’s when all the scary shit is gonna get me and I won’t be able to see it coming.”Elon: “When I was a little kid, I was really scared of the dark. But then I came to understand, dark just means the absence of photons in the visible wavelength—400 to 700 nanometers. Then I thought, well it’s really silly to be afraid of a lack of photons. Then I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore after that.”
you were never afraid of the absence of photons! you were afraid that the absence of photons would prevent you from being able to react to some sort of danger that would harm you
declaring that your fear of the dark is “just being afraid of a lack of photons” isn’t “rational thinking” despite using scientific words, it’s “rationalizing” - as in attempting to explain away something through clever definition wrangling
and sometimes rationalizing works very well - for example, it can be helpful in undoing conditioning by extricating the connection between some stimulus and an expected proceeding negative event
except the issue is that people then substitute their abstractions for the complexity of reality, losing a massive amount of relevant information in the process
this the second half of that excerpt:
“Human father: “I’d like to start working less because my kids are starting to grow up.”
Elon: “I’m trying to throttle back, because particularly the triplets are starting to gain consciousness. They’re almost two.”
Or:
Human single man: “I’d like to find a girlfriend. I don’t want to be so busy with work that I have no time for dating.”
Elon: “I would like to allocate more time to dating, though. I need to find a girlfriend. That’s why I need to carve out just a little more time. I think maybe even another five to 10 — how much time does a woman want a week? Maybe 10 hours? That’s kind of the minimum? I don’t know.”
I call this MuskSpeak. MuskSpeak is a language that describes everyday parts of life as exactly what they actually, literally are.”
my issue is that he ISN’T describing aspects of life in a manner that captures “exactly what they actually, literally are”
he’s boiled down a complex multifaceted problem down to a simplistic analogy expressed using technical language, then substituted that abstraction over topics that make him uncomfortable
there needs to be more epistemic modesty, in my opinion
mistaking “feeling comforted by certain abstractions” for “being logical”
I went to 7-11 at 0600 to get food. I try to get something different each time. This time I decided to get a pink donut for 0.99$. I saw a human (!) next to me pull a thin sheet of wax paper from a box labeled “Please Use Tissue (BEB-13TISSU)” and grab a donut with the sheet between their hand and the donut. I hadn’t noticed those when I’d gotten donuts *before*.
With my pink donut in a protective tissue in one hand and a variety bag of chips and spicy things in the other, I walked to the stairs outside the laundromat next door where I usually eat things. I sat down on the top step and finished the donut and went to set down the tissue beside me to pick up the variety bag of chips and spicy things.
Except in the spot to the left of me I saw … a wax paper tissue. Identical to the one I was about to put there. I looked behind me and saw another tissue half covered in rain water. Experimentally I looked down at the lower steps.
And saw another.
At an attempt to introduce some spontaneity, I whipped my head towards the parking lot. And … I mean, it’s a story I’m telling you now so you already know, but at the time I was surprised to find … another tissue! Suddenly I felt a little less alone.
A car door slammed and I looked up. Two police officers got out of a police car and head towards 7-11. Technically, according to the sign in the window, loitering here is illegal. They looked towards me. I was less concerned than before though. Clearly they were somewhat okay with people loitering exactly here.
At least if they were eating donuts.
The officers entered 7-11.
I turned back to my meal and finished off my bag of chips. And was going to get up when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and saw someone I recognized from inside the laundromat.
“Well there’s so much trash, I might as well set this down here.” He said to anyone who was listening. And carefully tore and aligned a piece of paper three times and placed the eight parts on the ground before walking away.
Here I’m thinking “What kind of tv special am I in? Did this person just very deliberately, and with stilted commentary, play out an example of the broken windows theory? There’s a trash cans just over there!”
I looked up. 8 meters in front of me is a 0.75 m wide by 1 m tall sign on a pair of thick metal springs advertising a coffee and donut special for 2$. That exactly blocked the view of my usual trashcan.
“Oh.”
I got up on the top step and jumped a few times. So the can isn’t visible from 2 meters above the top step. Which means that it isn’t visible from 2 meters above the ground at any point behind the step and at the same elevation, where the guy was standing.
I thought about how the guy still could’ve looked around first before purposefully *littering* as I knelt and gathered up all the the papers within my arms’ reach.
“After all, there was a time when I *first* went to this 7-11 and didn’t know about my now-usual trash can.” I thought as I carried the papers over to my usual trash can.
“It’s a bit of a heavy-handed demonstration. Although I’m not even sure if the broken window theory was ever proven? Maybe I should look it up again.” I thought while shoving the papers into the can which overflowed with carboard food containers, paper cups, and candy wrappers, most of which I could identify as coming from this 7-11.
Hey don’t do that! Don’t do that put it in the black bin!
I looked up. A man in a garbage truck is above was yelling. I looked down at the container of rubbish which despite its top layer of contents was clearly labeled:
GLASS & CANS ONLY
I stopped shoving the papers in my usual bin.
The *black* bin!
I placed the papers in the black bin.
There you go!
He said with high voice and some sort of smile. The truck wrrred, lifted up the black bin, emptied the contents into itself, set it back down, and drove down the street.
“Truly this hierarchy is vast.” I thought.
And that’s about exactly when my brain, out of having some sense of pride, ceased to function entirely and I died of embarrassment.
Collett’s argument is this: Jews have had a disproportionate presence in the porn industry since at least the 1970s. (There’s some truth to this, as we’ll see in a bit.) And they aren’t just motivated by profit — they actually mean to harm Western civilization, too. Young white men, Collett claims, become addicted to porn at an early age, to the point where they’re less and less interested in, or even capable of, actual sex. Furthermore, these young men’s addiction drives them to pursue ever greater highs, as the porn they used to watch no longer works for them. So they end up hooked on gay and trans porn, and interracial porn featuring black men and white women. This is why “cuck,” the porn trope of a white man forced to watch his wife have sex with a black man, became a popular alt-right term for anyone to their left.
The goal of this addictive material, supposedly, is to neuter and desexualize white men, and ultimately doom the white race. This is where the alt-right theory of porn ties into the larger theory of white genocide. The immigration of people of color into Europe and North America, coupled with the declining birth rate among white couples, will render white people a minority, if not altogether extinct, and then Jews will be the only high-IQ race left in the West, leaving them free to control the black and brown masses.
Collett is far from alone in his views. He’s joined by white nationalist and alt-right voices like David Duke, Kevin MacDonald, Identity Dixie, the Daily Stormer […]
“It’s hard to find someone on the alt-right who doesn’t basically buy the ‘Jews created porn’ idea,” says Daniel E. Harper, who knows the ins and outs of the Alt-Right Extended Universe better than anyone who isn’t, you know, a Nazi. And according to Harper, the alt-right is generally in agreement that the purpose of porn is “to corrupt ‘the host society,’ i.e. white society.”
What were the more serious allegations from the investigations into Russian election interference?
This is a big outline of everything we’ve learned – or everything serious, at least – so we might as well start at the beginning.
Let’s start with the first public report, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. We mocked it at the time, but it has held up remarkably well, especially when you understand the inherent limitations of declassified intelligence reports.
Intelligence operations are not criminal investigations. Intelligence agencies exist to collect, understand, and protect secrets. They might recommend prosecution when someone has shared state secrets, but criminal investigations are secondary to that general mandate.
Criminal investigations might hinder the mission. Intelligence information might be enough for that mandate, but not enough for criminal prosecution. Or it might be enough for prosecution, but prosecution might compromise the collection and protection of secrets.
When intelligence agencies make public disclosures or prosecutions, it is often because they have failed. And whether or not they are successful, they prefer to limit their public disclosures as much as possible.
Accordingly, when the intelligence community issued its report, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” in January 2017, its disclosures reflected both the act that American intelligence had failed to counter a Russian intelligence campaign against the United States, and the intelligence community’s preference for limiting public disclosures:
The Intelligence Community rarely can publicly reveal the full extent of its knowledge or the precisebases for its assessments, as the release of such information would reveal sensitive sources ormethods and imperil the ability to collect critical foreign intelligence in the future.
Thus, while the conclusions in the report are all reflected in the classified assessment, the declassifiedreport does not and cannot include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence andsources and methods.
Accordingly, the intelligence community did not disclose specific intelligence and sources and methods, but it did disclose its general findings:
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the USpresidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assessPutin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. Wehave high confidence in these judgments.
We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’selection chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting herunfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidencein this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.
Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of theelectoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clintonwas likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on underminingher future presidency.
Further information has come to light since Election Day that, when combined with Russian behaviorsince early November 2016, increases our confidence in our assessments of Russian motivations andgoals.
The intelligence community proceeded to characterize the nature of the Russian influence campaign:
Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covertintelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Governmentagencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.”Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on USpresidential elections that have used intelligence officers and agents and press placements to disparagecandidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin.
Russia’s intelligence services conducted cyber operations against targets associated with the 2016 USpresidential election, including targets associated with both major US political parties.
We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main IntelligenceDirectorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material toWikiLeaks.
Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or localelectoral boards. DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted orcompromised were not involved in vote tallying.
Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as aplatform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.
The report did not disclose many specifics about Russian operations, but it is consistent with what we now know. The report disclosed few specifics about Russia’s social media influence campaign, for example, but Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr have now confirmed its existence.
Beyond social media, the report identifies four elements of Russian operations:
The RT element is probably not worth mentioning. The most ominous item here is the threat to US election systems, but the intelligence community did not find that Russian actors had not targeted or compromised vote tallying systems.
The Department of Homeland Security subsequently disclosed its finding that election systems in twenty-one states had been targeted by the Russian government. The DHS and FBI refused to identify the states that had been targeted and the information that had been acquired, but assured the Senate that no votes had been changed.
Even that was enough for an effective active measures campaign, as Marco Rubio pointed out:
Obviously people talk about affecting the tallies. But just think about this. Even the news that a hacker from a foreign government could have potentially gotten into the computer system is enough to create the specter of a losing candidate arguing, the election was rigged, the election was rigged.
And because most Americans, including myself, don’t fully understand all the technology that’s around voting systems per se, you give that “election is rigged” kind of narrative to a troll and a fake news site, and that stuff starts to spread. And before you know it, you have the specter of a political leader in America being sworn in under the cloud of whether or not the election was stolen because vote tallies were actually changed.
So I don’t know why they were probing these different systems, because obviously a lot of the information they were looking at was publicly available. You can buy it, voter rolls. Campaigns do it all the time. But I would speculate that one of the reasons potentially is because they wanted these stories to be out there, that someone had pinged into these systems, creating a specter of being able to argue at some point that the election was invalid because hackers had touched election systems in key states.
The second most ominous items are the operations against US campaign targets and the public disclosure of victim information – the hacking and publication of emails from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta.
Rubio has another good line here:
You know, we have something in American politics. It’s legitimate; both sides do it. It’s called opposition research. You find out about your opponent. Hopefully it’s embarrassing or disqualifying information if you’re the opposition research person. You package it. You leak it to a media outlet. They report it. You run ads on it.
Now, imagine being able to do that with the power of a nation state, illegally acquiring things like e-mails and being able to weaponize it by leaking, leaking it to somebody who will post that and create all sorts of noise.
Those covert operations complement overt influence campaigns, but there’s also something serious here: Russian covert operations invaded the privacy of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of private American citizens.
In July 2017, Roy Cockrum, Scott Comer, and Eric Schoenberg brought a civil suit against the Trump campaign. You don’t have to believe that the Trump campaign was responsible to acknowledge the harms the plaintiffs allege in their statement of claim.
Beginning in July 2016, emails containing their private information were published by WikiLeaks. That included personally identifying information, such as their social security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, cell phone numbers, and bank account details; personal health information, ranging from their doctor’s appointments to life-threatening illnesses; information about conflicts with co-workers, collaborators, friends, and family members; their sexual orientation and romantic relationships; and private details about their lives that were never intended for publication.
Mr. Cockrum saw multiple strangers attempt to obtain credit in his name, and at least one was successful. Each new attempt required a round of communications with creditors and credit agencies. Mr. Schoenberg had his identify stolen and used in fraudulent attempts to obtain credit cards.
Mr. Comer had his emails stolen and published. He was a closeted gay man. Now everyone who cared to know knew his sexual orientation. Some of his relationships were strained. Others ended. Mr. Comer received phone calls threatening violence. Some called him a “faggot.”
Messrs. Cockrum, Comer, and Schoenberg, of course, were not the only ones to have their private information stolen. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands more like them. WikiLeaks put it all online, made it easy to search, and promoted it.
I know that some have said that “leaks are positive,” and that they are “in favor of the American and Russian states publicizing each other’s secrets.” But these were not exactly state secrets.
The House Intelligence Committee recently wrapped up its investigation of Russia’s active measures campaign. To protect the president, the Committee put together the most generous possible account of Russia’s active measures campaign.
Nonetheless, the Committee’s conclusions substantiate the intelligence community’s findings about the scope of Russia’s active measures campaign. Their conclusions that Russia does not deserve much generosity:
Russia conducted cyberattacks on U.S. political institutions in 2015–2016.
Russian actors and third-party intermediaries were responsible for the dissemination of documents and communications stolen from U.S. political organizations.
The Russian government used RT to advance its malign influence campaign during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Russian intelligence leveraged social media in an attempt to sow social discord and to undermine the U.S. electoral process.
As the House Intelligence Committee Minority Report points out, however, the Committee cut its investigation off prematurely.
The Committee declined to pursue the second and third prongs of the investigation – whether the Russian active measures campaign included links between Russia and individuals associated with US political campaigns or US persons – to the bitter end.
Still, even if the intelligence agencies are silent and the congressional committee decline to exercise their powers, the Office of the Special Counsel has continued the investigation.
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller was charged with investigating any links with, or coordination between, the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump, as part of broader investigations into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller has run a relatively leak-free operation; the media generally reports on the investigation through the Special Counsel’s public indictments, plea agreements, criminal informations, and subpoenas, or from the private disclosures from the defense bar, rather than from informants within the Office of the Special Counsel.
As a result, you can generally follow the investigation through its public disclosures, released through its website at the Department of Justice. The best coverage of the investigation comes from the team at Lawfare.
It’s worth laying out what the Special Counsel has established thus far. I’ll let Andrew Prokop do the talking:
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has either indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 19 people and three companies so far — with most of those being announced just in the past few weeks.
1) George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty in October to making false statements to the FBI.
2) Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December to making false statements to the FBI.
3) Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, was indicted in October in Washington, DC on charges of conspiracy, money laundering, false statements, and failure to disclose foreign assets — all related to his work for Ukrainian politicians before he joined the Trump campaign. He’s pleaded not guilty on all counts. Then, in February, Mueller filed a new case against him in Virginia, with tax, financial, and bank fraud charges.
4) Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and Manafort’s longtime junior business partner, was indicted on similar charges to Manafort. But he has now agreed to a plea deal with Mueller’s team, pleading guilty to just one false statements charge and one conspiracy charge.
5-20) 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies were indicted on conspiracy charges, with some also being accused of identity theft. The charges related to a Russian propaganda effort designed to interfere with the 2016 campaign. The companies involved are the Internet Research Agency, often described as a “Russian troll farm,” and two other companies that helped finance it. The Russian nationals indicted include 12 of the agency’s employees and its alleged financier, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
21) Richard Pinedo: This California man pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge in connection with the Russian indictments, and has agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
22) Alex van der Zwaan: This London lawyer pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Rick Gates and another unnamed person based in Ukraine.
There are some straightforward connections to Russia here:
George Papadopoulos plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI concerning the timing, extent, and nature of his relationships and interactions with foreign nationals whom he understood to have close connections with senior Russian government officials.
Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy advisor for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, stipulated that he had been in contact with an overseas professor, whom he understood to have substantial connections to Russian government officials.
After the professor disclosed that Russia had “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton, in the form of “thousands of emails,” Papadopoulos repeatedly sought to use the professor’s Russian connections in an effort to arrange a meeting between the campaign and Russian government officials.
Michael Flynn plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI concerning his communications with the Russian ambassador during the transition period.
Flynn, Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor-designate, stipulated that he made a request to the Russian Ambassador that Russia refrain from escalating the situation in response to US sanctions. Separately, Flynn made a request to the Russian Ambassador that Russia vote against a United Nations Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements.
Paul J. Manafort, Jr., and Richard W. Gates III were charged with tax evasion and bank fraud regarding the compensation they received for their work for a pro-Russian party in Ukraine.
The Russian nationals and the Internet Research Agency were the sharp end of Russia’s influence campaign in the United States:
Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and creating false U.S. personas, operated social mediapages and groups designed to attract U.S. audiences. These groups and pages, which addresseddivisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S. activists when, infact, they were controlled by Defendants. Defendants also used the stolen identities of real U.S.persons to post on ORGANIZATION-controlled social media accounts. Over time, these socialmedia accounts became Defendants’ means to reach significant numbers of Americans forpurposes of interfering with the U.S. political system, including the presidential election of 2016.
Defendant ORGANIZATION had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. politicalsystem, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Defendants posted derogatory informationabout a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations includedsupporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) anddisparaging Hillary Clinton. Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities,including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons andentities. Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S.grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities andORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparagecandidates. Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russianassociation, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign andwith other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.
They outline the operational strategy of the influence campaign:
ORGANIZATION employees, referred to as “specialists,” were tasked to create socialmedia accounts that appeared to be operated by U.S. persons. The specialists were divided intoday-shift and night-shift hours and instructed to make posts in accordance with the appropriateU.S. time zone. The ORGANIZATION also circulated lists of U.S. holidays so that specialistscould develop and post appropriate account activity. Specialists were instructed to write abouttopics germane to the United States such as U.S. foreign policy and U.S. economic issues.Specialists were directed to create “political intensity through supporting radical groups, usersdissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation and oppositional social movements.”
Defendants and their co-conspirators also created thematic group pages on social mediasites, particularly on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. ORGANIZATION controlledpages addressed a range of issues, including: immigration (with group names including“Secured Borders”); the Black Lives Matter movement (with group names including“Blacktivist”); religion (with group names including “United Muslims of America” and “Army ofJesus”); and certain geographic regions within the United States (with group names including“South United” and “Heart of Texas”). By 2016, the size of many ORGANIZATION-controlledgroups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers.
I know that some have said that the Russian trolls “sound basically just like people having opinions online, and pretty good opinions, even,” but an organization that creates both “United Muslims of America” and “Army of Jesus” is not a group of people just “having opinions online”.
Nor is a group that runs an Instagram account called “Woke Blacks” and tells its followers they will “surely be better off without voting AT ALL” merely expressing “pretty good opinions.”
It’s worth reading through the rest of the indictment, if only for the details:
“We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues.” KAVERZINA further wrote, “I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”
The Russians were charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, in addition to bank fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft – because the Russians stole the social security numbers and birthdates of actual Americans, without their knowledge or consent.
Even if nothing else comes out, the intelligence community, the congressional intelligence committees, and the Office of the Special Counsel have made serious allegations about Russian election interference.
We do not know everything. Eventually, we might know a little more. We know little, but what little we know is bad enough.
no offense but UK laws sound fucked when it comes to fiction (Well excluding writing). I cant imagine even *looking* underage in porn as *an actual adult* is illegal.
UK law is absolutely diabolical.
Adult sites are blocked by default, including drawn comics like Oglaf, which I always forget when I turn on my data and remember I’ve not gone into the shop to prove my age is over-eighteen yet (one day I’ll remember)! They’re also planning to bring in further blocks, even on your private wi-fi, so that you have to prove your age in order to access any porn sites at all (either with a credit card or copy of personal identification to the owner of the site).
In terms of ‘simulated’ pornography; I know that if it even looks like it could be real, in terms of bestiality, that it breaks laws (and people have been arrested), and that even if it’s drawn or animated that it breaks child pornography laws (and people have been arrested). You should also look at ‘extreme pornography’:
It’s a pretty messed up law of censorship.
It includes acts “likely to cause serious danger to anus, breasts or genitals”, even if it’s simulated; so anything from fisting to BDSM to nipple clamps can theoretically be in breach of the law and banned, with many cases of such materials having been banned or charges brought to consenting participants. The definition of “serious injury” is left up to the magistrate too.
Emotive words like “disgusting” and “grossly offensive” are used to determine what is illegal, too; you can also be arrested for ‘storing’ images, so if someone sends you images against your will, you can theoretically be charged with ‘possession’ of those same images. Even if you can prove everyone participated out of consent, the person filming/photographing is still in breach of the law, even if everything else is absolutely fully legal.
Pornographic magazines must be kept on top shelves, where children and teenagers can’t reach (or short adults, but eh) - they must also be covered in a plain cover and sealed, much like cigarettes (that have no individual packaging or identifiable markings unique to the brand). Sex shops must also have plain shop fronts with no items or merchandise on display.
Television has a “watershed”; no swearing, sex, or violence can be shown before 9pm on any channel whatsoever, whether it’s satellite/cable or not. If channels air something like “Sex and the City” before that time, I’ve seen the summary not match the show and the run-time cut in half, as it’s so censored.
I feel uncomfortable looking at simulated child pornography laws in the UK, because I don’t want that on my search history, and Wikipedia is unclear on this, but: I’m almost certain even pornography featuring legal adults is illegal should those adults be purposely designed to pass as minors or could be mistaken as being minors. This may have changed, but I doubt it.
This also just in regards to sexual content.
We also have shitty-ass rules when it comes to violence, along with a hideously terrifying record of censorship when it comes to horror films, but - as that’s a whole other rant - I recommend looking up “Mary Whitehouse” and “video nasties” and also generic “ermagawd, violence media makes violent people, hurr durr!” It’s not far off “1984″ up in here, and censorship doesn’t stop there!
If you’re rich, you can get an “injunction” to stop certain information hitting the presses. While you all gossiped about Elton John’s affair? It was an illegal act here to discuss it, print it, say it, etc. - our reporters and presenters could only discuss them in terms like “Celebrity X”.
So when I bitch about censorship -? That’s why.
Our press is free to fan the flames of issues they dislike; so when a hospital wanted to take a child off medical treatment, people were protesting and harassing staff due to the press releasing every last detail, but when it comes to stuff our government finds “immoral” or the rich want silenced -? Nothing.
One thing I’ve had to get used to since moving to England? Movies are released later here than they are in most other countries, unless it’s a big company like Disney (gee wonder why). This is because every film must go through an independent, intense ratings process here.
I’m also a member of Fetlife, which is almost constantly on the chopping block for censorship here. Most UK fetlife members have backup plans in case the site ever does get blocked.
including drawn comics like Oglaf
What the fuck! This is an outrage! An outrage, I say!
I mean too bad about the shackles put on your freedom of expression and freedom of press, but … Oglaf? That’s too far.
maybe antis should move to the uk, seems like the perfect set up for them 😒
seriously tho those laws are way too oppressive, I had no idea people in the UK were dealing with such crap.
Additional fun fact: British policies on libel and censorship substantially helped at least one very prolific pedophile, Jimmy Savile (likely guilty of raping about ten children and sexually assaulting 50-100 more), keep his activities covered up. Savile used legal pressure to stymie many early investigations into his sexual misconduct (an easy task under Britain’s incredibly plaintiff-stacked libel law), and fear of controversy torpedoed a Newsnight report investigating allegations of sexual abuse around the time of his death. As more evidence of his depredations emerged, this caused a major scandal at the BBC, but unfortunately not much seems to have come of it with regard to greater freedom of information and expression.
Also, check out the McLibel Case, in which McDonalds successfully sued English environmental activists for publishing pamphlets containing true information regarding McDonalds’ labor and environmental practices. This led, among other things, to a condemnation of the British courts by the European Court of Human Rights.
fellas, is it gay to be masculine? I mean, a man, being attracted to the idea of strength and courage…. 🤔🤔🤔🤔
fellas, is it gay to keep addressing these questions exclusively to other men?
I mean, a man, consorting solely with other men and constructing his ideal archetype of masculinity by a Socratic process of homosocial bonding, 🤔🤔🤔🤔
@discoursedrome (I can’t seem to tag you for some reason)
About your post here-
I think that you’re only partially correct when you say that people clearly actually hate others for superficial traits, then cover it up by appealing to real reasons.
This is because I used to do that thing where you actually hate someone because they’re terrible, but you actually make fun of them for completely facile traits. The most prominent example would probably have been Trump.
People hate Trump because he’s a racist, misogynist, xenophobic probable-rapist. But that’s actually not very funny- not for very long. And it makes you upset when you remember that he’s actually a terrible person. It gets old after a while, too, going on and on about the same damn aggravating traits over and over.
So instead, people start to focus on superficial things, like, say, his orange face and weirdly corn-like hair, because those are easy to joke about. They’re funny. They’re snark-worthy.
Also, excepting him from the usual rules (”don’t make fun of people for their appearances”, “don’t be gratuitously mean about people”) makes you feel transgressive. It emphasizes in itself “this guy is a really shitty person, a really unusually shitty person”. It’s more Othering than simply criticizing his ideas. All of these factors combine to make it funnier.
It’s unfortunate that what counts as a funny, snark-worthy attributes are typically socially constructed, and thus tend to be unfairly stigmatized.
And so now from the outside it looks like you hate Trump because he is fat and has a weird sounding voice.
The other thing you notice here is that when challenged on their hatred of superficial, stigmatized features, people will react as though you’re challenging them on their serious reasons. This is for a number of reasons. It could be because they see the hatred of superficial features as legitimized by the evilness proven by the serious reasons. It could be because, by challenging them, you’re a soldier for the other side.
And it could be because you’re disturbing their fun.
In the post you quoted, it’s kind of hard to tell what’s going on. I think that your theory about stereotypes leading to associations of the superficial features with the serious badthings is pretty good. However, I would guess that the commentors truly think that “this guy is a misogynist” legitimizes making a meme out of his face to make fun of him. I would also hazard that, before they had good evidence of misogyny, they pattern-matched him, through stereotyping, to the misogynist men they’ve encountered elsewhere (”he reminds me of the nerd boys I knew in high school who were always looking down their noses at me”).
I also want to point out that it’s legitimately possible that people know supercilious, arrogant nerd boys who were perceived to have had or who actually had higher status than them. This is a possibility that’s sadly neglected in a lot of these discussions, and I think it ought to be mentioned more. Nerd boys do not have a monopoly on having been bullied, having been unpopular, etc.; I know for a fact that many people {who stereotype and are vicious towards others} were, themselves, unpopular and bullied for things like being queer, being Japanese, et cetera.
This doesn’t make it better for them to stereotype and mock others, but it’s certainly worth noting.
(This is also a thing I’ve written about earlier, in that post about stereotypes that I know you’ve already read but which I’m linking for others.)
discoursedrome says-
I think you can't @ ppl who are set ungoogleable? It's weird. Anyhow yeah this is all v. true. My read on the original post was that it wasn't a specific person, just a random image being used as a joke and riffed on. If it was a specific person who's actually bad that would soften it somewhat, though I think the core issues are still there.
It's true that a lot of the people doing this stuff are doing it becuase they've been seriously wronged by people in the group. It's just that if you're intentionally careless at how you delineate that group, attacks against it are going to have a lot of collateral damage, and if people are /consistantly/ careless in a specific way it seems indicative of a broader problem with tribal identification.
Oh, wow. I think your read is correct and mine is wrong; disregard some of what I’ve said in that case. It didn’t occur to me that that could be the case.
And yes, I definitely agree that it’s bad to be careless about delineating groups. It is bad to make jokes tarring given groups with the same brush and connecting actually-fine traits with actually-bad traits, and even worse to do this based off the actually-fine traits alone.
If it wasn’t clear here, my point here is to say that, even if you know that someone is a misogynist, or they are really despicable, you (general) shouldn’t Other them to the point where you’re making fun of them for actually-fine traits, even if it feels really funny and transgressive and Accurate.
(Side note: I once read about the Star Wars Kid from the memes. He was fairly badly affected by people discussing his video and ended up moving away from his school due to it. This is not really relevant, except that I’m worried that this might be the thing happening here. But I don’t have much actual support for that.)
samtaims ai vonder if inglis spiiking piipöl aar eiböl tu riölais thät ai äm äksöli vraiting in inglish rait nau bat tsast vith veri finnish spelling
sou if juu spiik inglish bat not finnish kän juu pliis reblog änd liiv ö komment on tis post tänk juu veri mats
Sammteims ei wonda iff inglisch schbieking pipel ahr ebel tu rieleis set ei ehm ecktschuli reiting in inglisch reit nauh batt schast wiss währi tschörmen schbelling
So iff ju schbiek inglisch batt nott tschörmen kenn ju plies riplock end lief eh kommänt on dies pust senk ju wäri matsch
tänk juu for joor tsörman kontribjuusson, ai äpprishieit it veri mats. änd it oolsou helps mii tu gräsp tö essens of tsörman äksent
Samtajms aj vonder if ingliš spíking pípl ár ejbl tu rielajz det aj em ekšuely rajting in ingliš rajt náv bat džast vit veri slovak speling. Sou if jú spík ingliš bat not slovak ken jú plís riblog end lív en koment on tiz poust tenk jú veri mač
Самтаймз ай вондр иф иньглиш спикинь пийпль ар эйбль ту риэлайз дзят ай эм экшуалий райтинь ин иньглиш райт нау бат джаст виць вейрий рашин спеллинь. Со иф ю спик иньглиш бат нот рашин кэн ю плиз риблог энд лив э комент ан дзис пост цянк ю вейрий мач
Samtæms æ wonda if ínglis spíking pípl ar eybel tú ríalæs ðet æ em ektsuali ræting in ínglis ræt ná bat dsast við veri æslendik speling
so if jú spík ínglis bat nott æslendik ken jú plís ríblog end líf a komment on ðis post þenk jú veri mats
Samtaims ai uonder if inglisc spiching pipol ar eibol tu rialais det i em acscualli raiting in inglisc rait nau bat dez uid veri italian spelling. sou if iu spic inglisc bat not italian chen iu plis riblog end liv a comment on dis post tenk iu veri macc’.
sumtaimes ai wundère eef angliche peepole ar ébl tu rayolize zat i am actualie ritin en angliche rite nau bat dees iz veri french spélling. sau if u speec angliche bat nut french plis cun u reeblog end leev a commant en deez post tank u veri muche
somtajms ai wonde if inglisj spieking piepel ar ebel toe riëlais det ai em eksjelie wraiting in inglisj rait nau but djust wif verrie dutsj spelling
so if joe spiek inglisj but not dutsj ken joe plies rieblok ent lief uh komment on dis poost tenk joe verrie mutsj
Samtajms aj łonder if inglisz spikink pipul ar ejbul tu rielajs dat aj em akczueli rajtink in inglisz rajt nał bat dżast łif weri połlisz spelink
Soł if ju spik inglisz bat not połlisz ken ju plis riblok ent lif a koment on dis połst fenk ju weri macz
somtaghms aigh bhondar iobh iunglois spíocang píopal ár éabal ta ríalaghs dat aigh eim aicsiúlaí raghtuing in iunglois raght nadh bot diost bhot bhéirí aighris spoiling
sómh iobh dhiú spíoc iunglois bot nát aighris cean dhiú plíos ríoblág eand líomh a camoint án dus póst taenc dhiú bhéirí moit
sʌmtaɪmz aɪ wʌndɚ ɪf ɪnglɪʃ spikɪŋ pipl ɚ eɪbl̩ tə ɹilaɪs ðæt aɪ æm ækʃəli ɹaɪɾɪŋ ɪn ɪnglɪʃ ɹaɪt naʊ bʌt dʒʌst ɪn ði ɪntɚnæʃʌnl̩ foʊnɛɾɪk ælfəbɛt
soʊ ɪf ju spik ɪnglɪʃ bʌt nɑt aɪ pi eɪ kæn ju pliz ɹiblɑg ænd liv ə kɑmənt ɑn ðɪs post θænk ju vɚɹi mʌtʃ
ソムタイムズ アイ ワォンダー イッフ イングリッシュ スピキング ピーパル アル エーブル ツ リアーライズ ザット アイ エッム アックシャリー ライティング イン イングリッシュ ライット ナオ バット ジャスット ウイッス ベッリ ジャパニーズ スペリング。
ソ イッフ ユー スピック イングリッシュ バット ノット ジャパニーズ プリーズ リブロッグ アンッド リーヴ ア コメンット オン ディッス ポスット サンク ユー ベリー マッチュ。
سمتمس ي وندر اف ينكلش سبيكنك بيبل ار ابل ت ريلز ذت يم اكشلّي ورتنك ان ينكلش رت نو بت جشت وث وري عربك سبلّنك
س ق يو سبك ينكاش بت نت عربيك كن يبلس ربلك ند لك و كمّنت ان تس بست تنك ي وري مك
