I mean I guess people can do a lot of violent and unjustifiable things in the heat of rage and grief. What bothers me about TLJ is that there is no acknowledgment that what Rose did was, at the very least, over the top and uncalled for.
The second part of your ask is an off-topic diversion. The conversation was about whether Rose was justified in using violence against Finn when he was not threatening her in any way and there was no indication he could not be talked out of his plan. I happen to disagree with you that his plan was immoral, but let me ask you a more fundamental question: Why does it matter? Do people who make an immoral plan deserve to be physically hurt and humiliated, especially when they can be stopped without such violence? Why did you change the topic to Finn’s immorality when the topic is about the immorality of the violence used against him?
I think you really need to examine why you’re so eager to justify and victim-blame here, and are unable to admit Rose was wrong without bringing up the irrelevant issue of Finn’s wisdom and morality.
I appreciate that you don’t listen to Nazis. They don’t deserve a platform, or debate. That said, I do believe in physical violence against Nazis–to break up their rallies which are direct threats to marginalized communities, to publicly expose their leaders as weak laughingstocks, and, if it comes to that, to destroy their organizations and remove their leadership.
My doctor Jerry Rabinowitz was among those killed in the Pittsburgh synogogue shooting. He took care of me up until I left Pittsburgh for NYC in 2004. In the old days for HIV patients in PIttsburgh he was to one to go to. Basically before there was effective treatment for fighting HIV itself, he was known in the community for keeping us alive the longest. He often held our hands (without rubber gloves) and always hugged us as we left his office.
We made a deal about my T cells in that I didn’t want to know the numbers visit to visit because I knew I would fret with every little fluctuation and I also knew that AZT was not working for my friends. The deal was that he would just let me know at some point when the T cell numbers meant I needed to start on medications. The numbers were his job and my job was to finish my masters thesis and get a job with insurance and try not to go crazy.
I got lucky beyond words – because when he gently told me around November 1995 that it was time to begin taking medications – there was an ACTG trial for two HIV medications that saved my life. One of which I still take today.
Thank you to ACT UP for getting these drugs into a safe but effect expidited research protocol. You saved my life.
And thank you Dr. Rabinowitiz for having always been there during the most terrifying and frightening time of my life. You will be remembered by me always. You are one of my heroes just like the early ACT UP warriors- some of which I now call friend. – Michael Kerr.
You know, the news is really sheltering gentiles from the full horror of what happened this morning when they keep using the phrase “Brit Milah.” Yes, that’s what was happening in the synagogue this morning, but do you know what it is?
It’s a baby naming.
Every bit as important as a christening or first birthday.
That is what this shooter opened fire on. A baby naming with people praying for that baby’s health and happiness and future.
If you were watching breaking reports that kept including the line, “No Children” when referring to casualties, this is what they were talking about: the shooter didn’t injure or kill the 8 day old baby the ceremony was being held for.
Started listening to the audiobook version of Inferno Squad and Janina Gavankar’s voice is 👍❤️😍 It saddens me a little sad that tie-in audiobooks seem to be the only SW products where these insanely talented actresses of color are front and center.
It’s fascinating to see what a loyal and elite subject of the Empire thinks of its atrocities. The book opens with Iden being excited about the destruction of Jedha, Scarif, and Alderaan, and I don’t think I’ve been so angry at a protagonist in the opening moments of a book. If I’d had a more personal relationship with the subject of genocide I can see myself ditching the book altogether.
I thought maybe Iden was kept from knowing the full details, but no, she knew Jedha was no mining accident (the derisive way Janina reads “mining accident,” just… I love this woman), and she knew millions of innocents had died on Alderaan.
Iden could justify the Empire’s actions to herself because she interpreted the same information completely differently. To her, Jedha was a successful anti-terrorist operation and a strike against a harmful superstition from a bygone age. The deaths of innocents at Alderaan were the fault of the Rebel leadership who had put them in harm’s way. And finally, with the imminent destruction of the Rebels and the advent of peace, the Empire could direct its energies to helping people instead of restoring order.
Iden’s thought process is chillingly familiar, really. She sounds like any good patriotic American who defends their country’s actions and is a believer in the enlightenment their way of life will bring. She is frightening not because she is outlandish but because she is so prosaic and familiar.
These thoughts were running through her head during the Battle of Yavin, so let’s just say I’m thoroughly enjoying this asshole’s shock and awe at the destruction of the Death Star. How do you like that taste of your own medicine, bitch? I hate her so much right now and am looking forward to her changing sides in large part so she’ll suffer horribly from what she did.
That said, despite the fact that the opening has Iden cheering at genocide and killing Rebel pilots left and right, nothing about this character comes across as irredeemably evil. These actually are the normal actions of a soldier in wartime, an excuse often bandied about for Kylo Ren but doesn’t work because he wasn’t brought up to that way of thinking. I can see how Iden might believe the things she does and why she might change, though I’m hoping it will be a difficult process.
Considering what eventually happens, Gideon and Iden being close friends and pseudo-siblings is bringing out all kinds of Feels. It makes me uncomfortable to see Gideon as such a warm and caring friend who is genuinely concerned for Iden, and without any gross Nice Guy™ undertones at that. It’s a good thing that I’m uncomfortable: Evil is a human phenomenon, after all. It adds another dimension to his character that his parents were killed in a Rebel attack when he was young, an interesting facet of the conflict. Gideon will come to be Iden’s path untaken and vice versa, so it makes a whole lot of dramatic sense for the two to be so close and to mean something to each other starting out.
Speaking of the humanity of evil, the amount of trauma and grief Gideon, Iden, and the Empire ranks at large are going through at the destruction of the Death Star is fascinating in a “You’re so close to getting it!” kind of way. If only they could realize that the destruction of the Death Star, unlike that of Jedha and Alderaan, was a justified self-defensive action. If only they could extrapolate from their own trauma at losing hundreds of thousands of colleagues to seeing that the Rebels are feeling the same kind of trauma and fear on a massively larger scale. If only they could realize that their pain, while understandable, is ultimately the fault not of people who were defending themselves and the galaxy from more terror and mass murder, but of the Empire that turned them into weapons for the destruction of their fellow citizens. Iden and Del get there eventually, and Gideon will not. I look forward to how their choices will come to define them.
Okay, that business with the Squad members being made to compete against each other for leadership with individual mission proposals was bullshit and, thankfully, acknowledged as bullshit by Iden. What are they, contractors submitting bids? It’s inefficient and harms teamwork.
What I think would have happened if some bigwig had tried to pull that shit in the Rebellion: the squad would have pooled their skills and resources together to come up with a totally kickass plan and all four would have submitted identical proposals. When called on it they would have pointed out that this was how they would work together in actual missions, working as a team and not four separate competitors. And that would have been revealed to be the test, of course, for them to work as a unit and refuse to be pitted against each other just because someone told them to.
I actually kind of expected the above to happen with the other three in the Squad who were chatting and getting to know each other while Iden wrote her proposal. I thought maybe, since this was supposed to be a relatively autonomous unit, they’d show some outside-the-box thinking and the ability to make their own rules instead of playing the game as presented to them. But I guess that shit doesn’t fly in the Empire. Maybe it’s just as well, too: Fascists are doomed to lose wars, indeed.
Iden’s determination, no desperation to be the Squad leader struck eerily close to home because it was so clear that the obsessive nature of the desire was about getting her father’s approval. And her father acts exactly as emotionally abusive and withholding parents do, sending mixed signals and keeping the child always guessing, setting the bar so high that even an incredible result is just the minimum expected, mixing praise with doubt to keep the child anxious and on their toes, dangling the promise of acceptance always juuuust out of reach. If you work harder than anyone, if you fucking KILL yourself working, you just might get there. But you never will, of course, because acceptance is a mirage. The point was always to keep you hanging on your parent’s every word for the promise of love that will never be real, so that you will never have an independent existence that does not hinge on their approval.
(Yes, I’m maybe a little bitter lol. Serious kudos to the author btw.)
The book’s portrayal of the Imperial elite is so layered and multidimensional, with everything seeming so normal, or at least relatable, and then BAM! Some fucked-up shit hits you right between the eyes. Like Alderaanian wine being left in Inferno Squad’s quarters, holy shit. Iden feeling a pang at the sight, wishing the Rebels hadn’t “made” the Empire destroy Alderaan while recalling her father extol the necessity of killing children who will grow up to be enemies. Like I wanted to beat those fascists to death with the wine bottle. And yet they’re people just like me, because that kind of evil is committed by people just like me. It’s complicated.
i am shaking a lot right now and my heart is in my mouth and i’ve been crying on and off and on and off for the past two weeks, and i know that none of you give a fuck about brazil, and that none of you care about politics outside of the ones that directly affect you, but i am terrified. as a bissexual, socialist, umbandista, brazilian woman, i am terrified. and i am begging you to care.
in this year, we hold presidential elections. these elections are the most important in the history of brazil, for a very simple reason: now, that we are on the second round, we either elect a far-right candidate with authoritarian tendencies who flirts with fascism, or we elect a center-left candidate who belongs to the party that was in power for from 2002-2016, before a coup occurred mid 2016.
one of the candidates is fernando haddad, the man seen on this gif:
he was the mayor of são paulo, has been called by the new york times a ‘visionary’, was considered the greatest mayor of latin america, as his time as minister of education made over 100 federal, free institutes, ensured that the history of africa was taught in schools. he has a bacharel degree in law, a masters in economy and a phd in philosophy. he is currently a professor at an university. he gave free buses to children in public education, who could not afford it otherwise, lowered the corruption in the state of são paulo, created a better system for women to denounce harrassment and assault, and overall did a lot of good. i’m not going to spend 3 hours finding different sources for this, because you all don’t actually care.
the other candidate, is jair bolsonaro, and he is not the “tropical trump”, he is not our version of berlusconi. he is worse.
he has praised general carlos alberto brilhante ustra, who is known as the mastermind behind the tortures that occurred during the dictatorship. when he praised him, he did so when voting to impeach our former president dilma rouseff, who was tortured during the dictatorship, and fought for freedom. he has said that “if the crisis gets worse, we’ll shut down the congress” and install a dictatorship. he has said that the dictatorship should have killed more people, and tortured less. that it should have killed 30.000 people. that it should have killed our then president fernando henrique cardoso. he has said that his son would never marry a black woman because he gave him education. he has said that gay people are only gay because they were not beaten as children. he has said that indigenous people are lazy and greedy, that immigrants are the scum of the earth. he has said that women should earn less because they get pregnant. he has said that he would not rape a congresswoman, maria do rosário, because she is not worthy of it. he has said that his daughter is a woman because he got weak and could not produce another man. are you horrified yet? do you understand the problem yet? do you care yet?
in the beginning of the year, marielle franco, a poor, black, bissexual politician was executed. a street was named after her. here’s what people in his party did:
he is leading the polls currently, around 54-58% against 42-46%. ever since the first round of elections, last sunday (07/10), over 50 cases of assaults to people against bolsonaro have been reported.
here are some of them:
a black man was stabbed to death 12 times for saying he voted for haddad.
a woman had a swastika carved onto her belly for walking around with a shirt that said “ele não”, not him, the name of a campaign against bolsonaro.
a swastika was painted in front of a university, alongside the saying “get out blacks”
in different stadiums, football crowds sing “hey, fruit, beware, bolsonaro is going to kill f*gs”
to make things more worrying, the united states, who has knowingly backed up a military coup in 1964, has donated 96 BULLETPROOF MOBILS TO THE BRAZILIAN ARMY.
here are some cartoons on american newspapers:
if you want to get informed, if you care enough to do so, here are some sources in english:
According the article it was the dude’s wife who got him out of bed, saying Brennan was trying to break in. (That’s… that’s not how a break-in works…) Yet again, white woman lies, white man is all too happy to kill.
Thank God the kid got away and there was video. If it weren’t for the footage they’d have tried to frame him to high hell.
“The blade is a phallic symbol, and Kylo penetrating her with it foreshadows their sexual union. Rey’s gaping wound symbolizes her lost virginity, and also her vagina with which she will give birth to his Skywalker babies.”
L.J.'s Obsessions 