You're Such A Hypocrite It Is Truly Infuriating. You Want People To Condemn Hamas Attacks On Hospitals

If there is an afterlife, I hope it's this (with a few friends, pets, and a kitchen where you can have or make anything you're craving)

📚 💜🌌

K.A. Applegate's letter to fans re: the ending the Animorphs series

Dear Animorphs Readers:

Quite a number of people seem to be annoyed by the final chapter in the Animorphs story. There are a lot of complaints that I let Rachel die. That I let Visser Three/One live. That Cassie and Jake broke up. That Tobias seems to have been reduced to unexpressed grief. That there was no grand, final fight-to-end-all-fights. That there was no happy celebration. And everyone is mad about the cliffhanger ending.

So I thought I’d respond.

Animorphs was always a war story. Wars don’t end happily. Not ever. Often relationships that were central during war, dissolve during peace. Some people who were brave and fearless in war are unable to handle peace, feel disconnected and confused. Other times people in war make the move to peace very easily. Always people die in wars. And always people are left shattered by the loss of loved ones.

That’s what happens, so that’s what I wrote. Jake and Cassie were in love during the war, and end up going their seperate ways afterward. Jake, who was so brave and capable during the war is adrift during the peace. Marco and Ax, on the other hand, move easily past the war and even manage to use their experience to good effect. Rachel dies, and Tobias will never get over it. That doesn’t by any means cover everything that happens in a war, but it’s a start.

Here’s what doesn’t happen in war: there are no wondrous, climactic battles that leave the good guys standing tall and the bad guys lying in the dirt. Life isn’t a World Wrestling Federation Smackdown. Even the people who win a war, who survive and come out the other side with the conviction that they have done something brave and necessary, don’t do a lot of celebrating. There’s very little chanting of ‘we’re number one’ among people who’ve personally experienced war.

I’m just a writer, and my main goal was always to entertain. But I’ve never let Animorphs turn into just another painless video game version of war, and I wasn’t going to do it at the end. I’ve spent 60 books telling a strange, fanciful war story, sometimes very seriously, sometimes more tongue-in-cheek. I’ve written a lot of action and a lot of humor and a lot of sheer nonsense. But I have also, again and again, challenged readers to think about what they were reading. To think about the right and wrong, not just the who-beat-who. And to tell you the truth I’m a little shocked that so many readers seemed to believe I’d wrap it all up with a lot of high-fiving and backslapping. Wars very often end, sad to say, just as ours did: with a nearly seamless transition to another war.

So, you don’t like the way our little fictional war came out? You don’t like Rachel dead and Tobias shattered and Jake guilt-ridden? You don’t like that one war simply led to another? Fine. Pretty soon you’ll all be of voting age, and of draft age. So when someone proposes a war, remember that even the most necessary wars, even the rare wars where the lines of good and evil are clear and clean, end with a lot of people dead, a lot of people crippled, and a lot of orphans, widows and grieving parents.

If you’re mad at me because that’s what you have to take away from Animorphs, too bad. I couldn’t have written it any other way and remained true to the respect I have always felt for Animorphs readers.

K.A. Applegate

A kid’s book series that didn’t coddle it’s readers just because they were children? How awesome is that? I think this series did an even better job than Harry Potter at showing how horrible and horrifying war is. Harry Potter still gave us that happy “everyone is married and has a family” epilogue, and we rarely (if ever) saw the characters truly dealing with nightmares or PTSD like symptoms from what they’d experienced. Animorphs showed readers how horrifying war is from the start - book 1 has Jake suffering through nightmares because of what he’d seen. Animorphs doesn’t give readers the easy “all of x group are evil” way out. The series starts off allowing readers to think Andalites = good and Yeerks = bad, but then goes on to fully pull the rug out from underneath us when we learn how Andalites treat disabled members of their society, and how horrible it is for Yeerks when they don’t have a host. Nothing about the war is comfortable for either the readers or the main characters.

This series ran from 1996-2001, and the characters are 13 when the war starts, and 16 when it ends. Each book is between 150 and 200 pages long, and even though there are a butt ton of books, I think everyone who enjoys YA/childrens lit should give them a shot. Though if you do, beware extreme 90s-ness. Many plot lines and jokes are extremely reliant on the time in which the books take place, so the sooner you get “if they’d had a cell phone, this wouldn’t even be a thing” out of your head, the better. Like, one of the books’ plot is that the CEO of the AOL equivalent is being targeted, and that would allow the alien invading force to control the entire internet. So yea, it’s very of it’s era. But still excellent!

I was today years old when i found out that i was allowed time off to vote. Something no boss has ever told me.

When you crawl into someone's DMs and are like "i'm sorry I just don't understand enough!", receive emotional labor from the Jew to educate you, then continue to repeat your previous behavior and rhetoric MULTIPLE TIMES--you graduate from a type 3 to a type 2.

In my own experience as a Jewish Leftist, and corroborated by the similar experiences of other Jewish Leftists, there are, roughly speaking, five to six broad categories of Leftists in their attitudes towards Jews. This is a tangential categorization in terms of precise political affiliation; in other words, one's position in these categories is not dependent on what precise type of Leftist/Progressive an individual is.

Type 1: Open And Unapologetic Jew Haters

These Leftists hate Jews and don't try to hide it at all. According to them, Jews are the Problem, and they know what type of Solution they want enacted.

The archetypal example that I'll currently use is Cynthia McKinney, former US Congresswoman and US Green Party presidential candidate, who, well...

But this is also the class of Leftists who say that there is no room for Judaism in their ideal, imagined perfect world, that they picture everyone assimilating and giving up their ethnic and cultural identities to just be "human", and often single out Judaism as a particular problem in that regard.

Type 2: Closeted Knowing Jew Haters

These Leftists hate Jews, know that they hate Jews, but know that it's bad optics to openly praise Hitler or cozy up to the KKK to satisfy their hatred of Jews, so they try to find the barest veneer of plausible deniability to hide behind. "Anti-zionism" is a particular favorite on the Left, but the hatred has a way of slipping past the mask when they get questioned.

A classic example here is the Boston Mapping Project, who literally made up a list of every Jewish institution in Boston, Mass, on suspicion of them being "Zionist"--including elder homes, Jewish high schools, and Kindergartens, and including scary "links" on the map to various government agencies, no matter how tenuous or outright imaginary, thereby invoking old conspiracy tropes about "Secret Jewish Control of the Government". (And BDS, as the parent organization, also gave the lie that they're just antizionist, not antisemitic, when they disavowed the Mapping Project for bad optics, not the rank antisemitism and conspiratorial thinking they were promoting). Another example would be the organizers of the Chicago Dyke March, who explicitly expelled Jews from the March and crowed about "zio tears" (which is a slur originally used by the KKK, no less).

However on first encounter, Type 2 are indistinguishable from and camouflaged by...

Type 3: Undereducated And Unknowing Traffickers In Antisemitism

These Leftists don't hate Jews per se... they're just unaware of the deep antisemitic history of repeating claims that "Jews have too much power", or stating that the Holocaust was "White on White violence", or that "Jews are just White People from Europe", or any of a host of other antisemitic beliefs that are endemic on the Left. They're initially indistinguishable from Type 2, as they say the same things, and can only be told apart by their reactions; a Type 3 will go, "Oh, I didn't know and I'll try to learn!", while a Type 2 will typically double down, or let the mask slip in some other way.

The problem is that, from the perspective of Jews, Type 2 and Type 3 are indistinguishable from each other at first glance, and rather than try to engage and risk the emotional harm, a lot of Jews tend to write off all of them as Type 2, and there's a lot of debate on the ratios between the two.

Also worthy of mention, as a midpoint between Type 2 and Type 3 are:

Type 2.5: Openly Antisemitic "I'm Not An Antisemite, I Just Refuse To Learn, Listen, Or Let Jews Define Antisemitism"

As a midpoint between types, these Leftists openly traffic in antisemitic motifs, conspiracies, and attitudes, all the while insisting that they're not antisemitic. They're a midpoint between types 2 and 3 because they've had plenty of time and opportunity to learn about the bigoted attitudes they're espousing, but refuse to do so... but at the same time, they genuinely seem to think that they're not antisemitic. They just think that there's a vast Jewish conspiracy out to get them personally, or any of a number of other antisemitic beliefs, and refuse to accept or learn that what they're saying is antisemitic. They can believe that they themselves are not all they want, saying that Jews have too much money and power and run the world's politics is still trafficking in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The archetypal example of this type, assuming we can take his word for it, is Roger Waters. Waters is openly and explicitly antisemitic, saying that there is a widespread conspiracy of Jews running the world's politics... but he has been insisting for over 40 years that he's just "antizionist, not antisemitic."

But these are just the outspoken ones. None of them would get anywhere without the tacit support of...

Type 4: The Silent Majority

These Leftists are, being blunt, hypocritical cowards. They don't want to get involved in issues on antisemitism. When a Leftist Jew is being harassed by one of Types 1 to 3, they don't speak up, they don't get involved, they just say nothing.

Maybe they agree with one of the above types. Maybe they just don't want to get involved. Maybe they're afraid of seeming sympathetic to Israel. Maybe they're afraid of getting the social backlash that the Jew is experiencing. But ultimately, their motivations don't matter, their actions do—and their actions give tacit social support to the antisemite in the Leftist group, not to the Jew being harassed and chased out.

And the reason they're hypocritical cowards?

Well, if your ideology claims that you want a better life for everyone and social progress and being against racism and bigotry... but yet they don't speak up when it's happening right in front of them...

Well.

That says a lot, doesn't it? Both on what their ideals actually mean to them... and how highly they value Jews. And we know that it is possible, because of...

Type 5: The Pro-Jewish Leftist

These Leftists are, in my experience, a minority outside of Leftist Jews, but they do exist among non-Jewish Leftists. They stand up to Types 1, 2, and 3 when they express antisemitic views, and try to shame and cajole Type 4 into standing up as well.

And, just to point out how normalized antisemitism is on the Left...

Some people in this category might object to being labeled as "Pro-Jewish", as if they're biased for Jews. But I have to ask... do you think that they would also object to being labeled "Pro-LGBTQ"?

"Lawrence it's the fucking Taliban" gives similar vibes to "Harold they're lesbians"

The tragedy of Gaza was caused by people pretending it is humane to leave people under a bloodthirsty dictatorship

Palestians have received greater international aid per capita than Europe during the Marshall Plan.

But because they are ruled by rich mad men with disregard to human life, including the lives of own civilians, that couldn't be enough to uplift them.

Which was always obvious, but people insisted of it not being obvious.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-DAqHXRsW-/?igsh=bnF3MHk2ZW43ZWpw

The thing that’s driving me crazy here is that anti-Zionists say they’re not antisemitic, and yet their fundamental claims about Jews are:

That all Jews are white Europeans, even Jews who are inarguably non-white and don’t even live in Israel, because White = privileged and oppressive, and Jews are both, no matter where we live, by virtue of being Jewish.

That the Holocaust wasn’t that bad, people only care because it happened to (again) white Europeans, and now it’s just a propaganda tool used by Israel. Oh, and anyone who says otherwise is a racist Zionist.

There is a certain region of the world in which Jews Should Not Be Allowed to Live (ironically, the region in question is the one Jews have the most cultural ties to). Therefore, any amount of violence and cruelty is acceptable towards Jews who live in the place where Jews Should Not Be Allowed to Live, as well as any other Jews connected to them, because their existence is inherently evil, so inflicting pain and suffering on them is justified and a moral good.

Like. Forget the Blood Libel, the Elders of Zion conspiracy theories, the Rootless Cosmopolitan tropes, the right wing and neonazi slurs. Just forget all of that for a second. Because the end of the day, this is the general belief-set of the anti-Zionist movement. Hell, these beliefs are the basis of the entire movement. And they are inarguably, fundamentally, genocidally anti-Jewish.

So no. Anti-Zionism cannot be separated from antisemitism. Not until the movement unlearns all of these points and starts treating Jews like people instead of a nebulous evil to be eradicated. And so far, I’ve seen no evidence that any of them are willing to do so. They just want us crushed under their boots until we’re all dead or assimilated out of existence.

CNN

Why OpenAI should fear a Scarlett Johansson lawsuit | CNN Business

Could Scarlett Johansson sue OpenAI for creating a voice assistant that sounds like the actor’s performance in the 2013 film “Her,” about a

So ... one of the interesting things in this article is that there's already legal precedent in Johansson's favour here. Apparently, Bette Midler turned down an offer to do a Ford ad, and they got one of her backup singers, and the likeness was so close that a fair few people came to Midler and said they thought she'd done it.

Tom Waits? Same deal, but with Frito-Lay. The Midler precedent was cited.

This? When you add Altman's going on and on about creating the real-life version of an AI that Johansson played in Her on former-Twitter for weeks before it came out? He's going to get eaten alive in court.

Altman has fucked up. He said the quiet part loud. He put the spotlight on it in the worst possible way ... well, for the industries that want to skim people's voices to not pay voice actors etc, anyway. Because not only is it just going to be ... well, slop, honestly, but it's turned a spotlight on not only the issues with AI voices, but also the Midler precedent. Now just about anyone whose voice is approximated by an AI can cite the Midler precedent.

I'm never sure what to make of Johansson from one bit of star gossip to the next, but this time? SUE HIM INTO A FUCKING CRATER, SCARJO.