Red Light Politics
Welcome to my short form Tumblr blog. My name is Flavia Tamara Dzodan, I am a business developer, writer, public speaker, ideas instigator, content creator, media facilitator and trend watcher living in Amsterdam.
This Tumblr is about the spaces and intersections between politics, culture, race and gender matters with some humor and pop culture thrown in the mix.
My long reads blog is Red Light Politics.
I also blog at Tiger Beatdown.
If you would like to know more about me, visit this page .
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Noted Elsewhere
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What did I miss?
I’ve decided that I am not even going to try to catch up on Tumblr since Friday. Nope. Not gonna do it.
So, did anything important...
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Interesting
Just got a job offer? I know the company, it has a good reputation. And awesome downtown offices.But it’s not quite my style - their...
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“The new rules, which were given the force of an executive order, are a clear improvement over a draft version. If monitored and enforced, they could...”
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Heroism in the Supermarket:
Vitamin Water wants me to believe that drinking their sugary concoction will help to make me a superhero rather than...
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…and The Onion for the win, forever.
Tl;dr: All 10 ways are “Revolutionary Terror.”
(via TheNoobYorker)
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Last night got the pleasure to met and chat with the German Tumblr team.
These women were totally awesome. Total girl crush!
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“The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words. Marriage was under attack years ago by men who viewed women as...”
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141 posts tagged politics
The nature of Tumblr and insidious changes in meaning
My Tumblr posts are not always very well thought out (well, not that my non Tumblr posts are, but that’s another topic altogether). I sometimes respond to comments on the fly and don’t necessarily flesh out style or proper paragraph breaks. My Tumblr posts sometimes contain typos or kinda broken grammar (especially if I am working with sources in a language other than English and translating them as I type). However, even though some of the posts can have a draft-like quality, I do consider the words I use. So, yesterday I vented about the European boycott over the Eurovision Song Festival. Now, I fully acknowledge that it wasn’t a ground breaking post or super meaningful or even all that original. It was written in a couple of minutes just to share immediacy, to express something that was relevant to yesterday’s news cycle.
In the post I used the expression “these Othered bodies” to refer to the way the EU deals with undocumented immigrants and internment camps. This wasn’t a typo. This wasn’t a mistake or something that I misused. This was fully intentional and central to my politics. So, when someone reblogs this post and changes the expression to “these other bodies”, they are actually changing the very basis of my politics. I know it is a trivial and a small issue, pretty inconsequential, etc. However, it is worth noting that these changes in meaning (which we cannot control) are also of a political nature. And I’d say not exactly free of ideology either.
“Argentina received support across Latin America and the Caribbean today to become the non-permanent representative for the region at the UN Security Summit for the 2013-2014 period, the Foreign Ministry informed today.”
Argentina elected to represent Latin America at UN Security Summit - BuenosAiresHerald.com
Also, from the article:
“The Republic of Argentina is committed to representing all of the relevant topics for the region and the Security Summit and its voice will be the voice of the people,” the government assured through a communiqué sent from the Foreign Ministry.
It continued to say that Argentina “received today the unanimous support of Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations, for the candidacy as a non-permanent member of the Security Council during the 2013-2014 period.”
“President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the Argentine people thank all Latin American countries and the Caribbean for this acknowledgment,” the communiqué furthered.
“It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the EDL. Last month’s attempt to unify Europe’s anti-Islamic groups – a pan-European coalition of idiots, if you will – in a “summit” in Denmark’s second city, Aarhus, was a bit of a washout, with media and spectators easily outnumbering the supporters. But while it’s easy to laugh at EDL’s failures and jokes on Twitter, everyone knows laughter is only the best medicine when the illness isn’t terminal.”
From the piece:
Anders Behring Breivik is on trial for the murder of 77 people in Norway and his links to our very own far-right group are clear from his “manifesto”: “I … have spoken with tens of EDL members and leaders,” he wrote. “In fact, I was one of the individuals who supplied them with processed ideological material (including rhetorical strategies) in the very beginning.” And a recently published report by anti-racism group Hope Not Hate found that the “counter-jihad movement” – a network of foundations, bloggers, political activists and street gangs – was flourishing in Europe and abroad.[…]
So while the laughter is a good starting point – as pointed out by Flavia Dzodan in her article on the hidden networks of hate in the EU – more needs to be done and said.
Go read the piece, which is great, not only because it’s about one of my “pet topics” but because it sheds light on how people have reacted to this hatred by taking Twitter by storm.
The King of Spain, Juan Carlos de Borbon, hunting elephants in Botswana this past week. Photo via.
There is a huge uproar in Spain at the moment over this. The “safari” (it’s the name the Monarchy is using) resulted in a serious injury for the King who broke his hip and had to be urgently hospitalized. If it wasn’t for that accident, the whole hunting elephants would have never come out as his trips are usually not disclosed to media. And in a country plagued by soaring unemployment figures and an increase in people living below the poverty line, this one trip alone cost more than 45,000 Euros for a mere week of “entertainment”. Not to mention the fact that a Head of State should not go around shooting elephants in Africa, in a colonizer deja vu that is unpalatable for a great number of people.
“A damning new report into the death of dozens of African migrants who were left drifting in the Mediterranean last year has concluded that Nato contributed to the 63 fatalities, and raises for the first time the possibility of British military forces being connected with the tragedy.”
More about the boat tragedy and NATO’s responsibility, today at The Guardian. See my previous posts about this here and here.
From the article at The Guardian:
The report reveals that the survivors’ description of a military helicopter that twice hovered over and communicated with their boat, only to then fly and off and abandon them without attempting a rescue, corresponds almost exactly to the British army’s Westland Lynx helicopter. Units of Lynxes are known to have been operating in the Mediterranean at the time of the Libyan conflict.
The Latino Project: a Pan-American strategy (of hatred)
The National Organization for Marriage is a US hate group that, in their website, presents itself thusly:
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it.
Founded in 2007 in response to the growing need for an organized opposition to same-sex marriage in state legislatures, NOM serves as a national resource for marriage-related initiatives at the state and local level. For decades, pro-family organizations have educated the public about the importance of marriage and the family, but have lacked the organized, national presence needed to impact state and local politics in a coordinated and sustained fashion.
Equality Matters reports on their antics:
Last September, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) launched the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance, a website dedicated to documenting Americans who’ve had their “rights and dignity” denied by supporters of marriage equality.
You know, they devote themselves to the kind of hateful nonsense we’ve grown to expect from some of these groups who confuse their faith with public policy. Now, to me, their efforts would be pretty much inconsequential if they contained them within US borders. However, a few days ago, an internal document from NOM, outlining their media outreach and initiatives was leaked and that’s where I found this gem. The document is not new but it speaks of a strategy to undermine LGBTQ rights not just within the US but across all of Latin America (from page 19 of the document):
The Latino Project: A Pan-American Strategy
The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote,and will be so even more so in the future because of demographic growth. Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We can interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity.
We aim to identify young Latino and Latina leaders, especially artists, actors, musicians, athletes, writers, and other celebrities willing to stand for marriage, regardless of national boundaries (For example: Eduardo Verastegui, the young actor who starred in Bella, has come to us offering to be a major spokesperson on marriage; we have also met with a former Miss Mexico in preliminary work on this project). Here’s our insight: the number of “glamorous” people willing to buck the powerful forces to speak for marriage may be small in any one country. But by searching for these leaders across national boundaries we will assemble a community of next generation Latino leaders that Hispanics and other next generation elites in this country can aspire to be like. (As “ethnic rebels” such spokespeople will also have an appeal across racial lines, especially to young urbans in America).
With the help of Schubert Flint Public Affairs, we will develop Spanish language radio and TV ads, as well as pamphlets, YouTube videos, and church handouts and popular songs. Our ultimate goal is to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of “Anglo” culture.
So you know, next time progressives/ leftists/ social justice advocates in the US dare to mention a word about those “backwards” countries in Latin America, we should point to this group and their concerted effort to actually influence policy and ideology all over the continent. After all, now we know who’s spreading hatred across borders.
Here, Scribd user nomexposed has been uploading a whole series of memos and policy related files for more of their strategies.
Yesterday, I facilitated a workshop about diversity in political movements which, was a raging success when a White, Dutch native brogressive called me “evil witch” and stormed out after I dared say political movements in The Netherlands and, specifically the party he is a member of, D66, only pay lip service to diversity but actually do nothing for it. A middle age manarchist said I am not fit to coordinate workshops of this kind because I purposefully acted to exclude the brogressive. When I informed him I had no interest in ever accommodating the feelings of a White brogressive, middle aged manarchist stormed out. And yet another White young guy called me “intimidating” and said that it was difficult to deal with women like me in political movements.
Now, there was this middle aged man of color. I am not sure where he is from as he just told me he was born in Africa (he was certainly not Dutch because of the way he spoke the language, that much I can say). Then he took the ring in this photograph out of his pocket and handed it to me and said “for you lady, because you have light”. He seemed to have some mental health issues (as in, he told me he shot Bin Laden, and he was going to marry Queen Beatrix’ niece next week). And yet, he was one of the kindest people in the room. Also, beneath his obvious statements, he had a great political understanding, actually far superior to several of the brogressives and manarchists.
Geert Wilders Party would like to revert to Medieval units of measure
I wish I was making this up. Geert Wilders Party (the PVV) has been stepping out of their usual racist and anti immigrant rhetoric to add further points to their political absurdity platform. Apparently, they’ve realized that they need to expand in order to capture more bigot’s hearts and minds. A week or so ago, Wilders himself barked that the only way forward for The Netherlands is through abandoning the Euro altogether. Apparently, such statement wasn’t bombastic enough (it only garnered like five minutes of air time), because today, one of their Members of Parliament has come with a novel idea: The Netherlands should abandon the metric system and, instead, use medieval units of measure such as the cubit, the imperial bushel and the ell.
Since these units were customary at a time when the Dutch were trading in human beings, I have to wonder what the next step in these involutionary proposals will entail. We are talking Geert Wilders here, so I learned to expect the worst.
Details here, alas, the site is in Dutch but google translate does a decent enough job to get the idea.
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[Trigger Warning: Sexisim, racism, and telling someone to ‘go kill themselves’]
Hey, STFUConservatives, Redlightpolitics, advocating censorship is a very feminazi thing of you to do; you’re both pathetic scum. Not only that, but you’re also idiots too stupid to see how easily a right-winger could use your argument against you; right-wingers can just as easily make a case to Tumblr that it is promoting left-wing extremists practicing Hate Politics. And you want to complain that he’s “undermining your rights” while you’re trying to undermine his First Amendment right? Really, cunts? Finally, for the record, MOST people on BOTH SIDES of the political aisle reject your racist, sexist notion of privilege; it’s only left-wing fringe radicals like you trash who buy into that nonsense. Do the world a favor: Go kill yourselves you feminazi twats. — Ryking
”(via stfuconservatives)
Dear dumb fuck ryking;
People on the left are aware of privilege. People on the right, consistently deny it.
Feminism is not equal to a genocide, and you should kindly check your fucking privilege before you start talking shit about people who ACTUALLY DID FUCKING DIE IN THE FUCKING HOLOCAUST YOU IGNORANT TWIT.
Now, kindly go fuck yourself, stfu, and gtfo.
The end.
(via stfuhypocrisy)
There’s a difference between feminism and feminazism, and you’ve just proven which camp you’re in. Sieg Heil, cunt! You should take your own advice and STFU you racist, sexist hypocrite. And no, not all people on the Left believe in privilege. I’m living proof. — Ryking
(via ryking)
So I don’t think this guy knows what racism and sexism are
(via angrybees)
You summed up your entire worth in that last sentence.
Go kill yourselves you feminazi twats.
Ryking, you are an arrogant fool that is so deeply seeped into the cultural rot designed to maim independent thought, souls and bodies and subsequently destroy even the ones working for it. You do not win anything by lowering yourself to hate speech. The First Amendment does not protect hate speech. It doesn’t protect slander or libel either so if you or any other public official has yet to take that basic law class or grasp that concept that you have no business speaking about things you don’t understand. Otherwise, that’s a little something we call bullshit.
Furthermore, about that last line, you’ve finally degraded yourself into nothing more than troll scum. Granted, you’re still human but one who thinks he’s somehow superior to everyone else around him. You have no fucking right to tell someone to go kill themselves. And what if they actually did? What if someone actually took you serious. What would you accomplish? What do you win when someone looses everything? In a world ruled by chaos and violence and suffocating in the stench of apathy that even you have helped to pollute, what do you gain by presenting a message filled with slurs and enough hate that wishes for another person to take their own life? You don’t win shit.
Fuck you.
Love,
Taylor
(via thecuntmentality)
This was back in June. As we can see, he hasn’t changed one bit. And some sycophants want to tell me that he is the “most egalitarian” person. Yeah, as long as you are not someone he labels “feminazi cunt” who should “kill herself”. And “scum”. Because that’s what I am according to him.
Btw, his reference to “racist notions of privilege” is because he believes that White privilege does not exist. So those of us who speak against it are labeled “racists against Whites”.
It was after he wrote this that Tumblr made him an editor.
You know, violence is rewarded.
(via thecuntmentality)
About misogyny in politics
Back in June when I wrote about a certain Tumblr editor in the Politics tag, I was dismayed that Tumblr would allow someone who specifically worked against reproductive justice to represent their brand. This guy held an Anti Affirmative action bake sale in his University! And this is who Tumblr saw fit to represent them. Which is to say, a person with deeply sexist and racist views is allowed to control the visibility of the content that is promoted. Now, Ryking holds a similar position. Also, a known misogynist who uses violent rhetoric against those he dubs to be “feminazis”.
Here is the thing, media does not necessarily change our minds. If we read something that is at odds with our beliefs systems, media will not magically turn us to the other side. However, media does validate opinions. It does give people the ideological framework to justify their ideas and to promote their views/ ideologies.
When a corporation like Tumblr gives someone like Ryking a platform to validate his misogyny and propagate it, Tumblr is contextually participating in the erosion of women’s rights. The congressional hearing yesterday in the US where reproductive rights were discussed by men? Tumblr is also playing a role in the normalization of those views. Because the media we consume cannot be contextually removed from the sociocultural and political environment where it is produced. What Tumblr is saying when they bestow some kind of corporate endorsement on the Rykings of this world is that this violence against women (whether cis or not) is to be validated, institutionalized, given a “framework of truth”. Which is the way violence is normalized and perpetuated.
Back in June I already wrote about the Politics editors on Tumblr. That’s what got me the hatred from Ryking (feminazi cunt, kill yourself, etc.). Now, here’s the funny thing: back when I wrote about this, Ryking was not an editor of the Politics tag.
He was rewarded with the position after I wrote about the racial and ideological markup of the section. That’s right. After I took it against another known misogynist editor, Tumblr rewarded Ryking by giving him a similar position. After he hurled slurs at me and violent rhetoric.
So, you know… maybe now they’ll elevate someone worse than him to prove that we have no power?
Vatican told to pay taxes as Italy tackles budget crisis
via The Independent:
After several years of scandal in which the Catholic Church has faced allegations of financial impropriety, paedophile priests and rumours of plots to kill the Pope, the Vatican is now facing a new €600m-a-year tax bill as Rome seeks to head off European Commission censure over controversial property tax breaks enjoyed by the Church.
As the EC heads closer to officially condemning the fiscal perks enjoyed by the Catholic Church and introduced by the Berlusconi administration, Prime Minister Mario Monti has written to the Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, saying that the Vatican will resume property tax, or Ici, payments.
Mr Almunia said in 2010 that the exemption amounted to state aid that might breach EU competition law.
Now, if every government told them to stop meddling in the usual restrictive and oppressive politics that made them infamous in most of Latin America, we might be on the path to some change.
“
The dictatorship that followed consigned thousands of Argentineans into military detention. Most were tortured; a few were released, many were eventually murdered. These “disappeared” numbered in all around 30,000.
In 1979, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission visited Argentina and inspected the most notorious detention centre, the Navy Mechanical School in Buenos Aires. They found no prisoners. As Horacio Verbitsky reveals in this extract from his extraordinary book, the prisoners had been dispersed, some of them to El Silencio, an island property that had belonged to an official of the Catholic archbishop of Buenos Aires.
The Catholic church’s complicity in torture and murder in Argentina should be no surprise; it had, after all, long precedents in extreme doctrines that came to Argentina (and elsewhere in Latin America) from the far right in France.
”Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the ‘dirty war’ | openDemocracy
I know today many Americans are rightfully very angry because of the Catholic Church’s meddling into politics. Some of us have seen this first hand elsewhere. At the link above, one of the many examples of how the Church was not just complicit but an active participant in the torture and death of thousands of people. And this is just one such case, it is an almost exact copy of what happened everywhere in Latin America during the 70s and 80s.
This, of course, does not mean that what they are currently doing in the US is not disgusting. Of course it is. I am just surprised they hadn’t openly inserted themselves into politics sooner.
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Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration PVV party has launched a new website where people can report complaints about central and eastern European immigrants in the Netherlands.
‘Do you have problems with people from central and eastern Europe? Have you lost your job to a Pole, Bulgarian, Romanian or other eastern European? We want to know,’ the website states.
”DutchNews.nl - Problems with Poles? Report them to us, says new PVV website
And then this:
PVV parliamentarian Ino van de Besselaar told the AD the aim of the site is to develop proper insight into the ‘problems caused by central and eastern Europeans in terms of crime, alcoholism, drugs use, dumping household waste and prostitution’.
If anyone had told me that there would be a significant political party, in Europe, that gave a space to the local equivalent of Daily Mail commenters and turned those comments into a political platform, I would have laughed. And yet, here we are. Imagine the worst of tabloid comments, the most bigoted Fox News viewers and the racists from Stormfront, now have a place to legitimately “complain” about Romanians, Bulgarians, etc. This is what the website the PVV is opening will look like.
Headache by theology
When I write some stuff I tend to go through the rabbit hole of departures, meandering theories, etc. I know for a fact these deviations have no purpose for the topic I am writing but I cannot help it, it just… happens. Yesterday I started going through the documents released by the EU for the program of administration of external borders (and more specifically, the issue of the treatment of migrants within the EU). I don’t know what kind of mental leaps I took that I ended up reading about Calvinist theology (Calvinism was the official religion of The Netherlands for a few centuries until all Protestant Churches formed an alliance to become the official Protestant Church in the Netherlands, again, all of this is an oversimplified version of events that transpired for decades).
I’ve been specifically reading about the Calvinist doctrine of the “non-elect” (i.e. this piece of, to put it in very simplistic terms, Calvinist doctrine that states that people have been chosen by god to be saved beforehand, which renders the issue of human will to be pointless). This Calvinist doctrine was used to justify slavery and the slave trade on the basis that Blacks (and all Africans) were not elected by god for salvation and, as such, they didn’t have to be granted “humanity” (again, I insist, this is a rather simplistic reduction of the entire argument). It was also the doctrine used by Afrikaners to set up apartheid in South Africa.
I wonder how much of this doctrine survives in modern theology as it is clear that Calvinism still holds the principle of the “non elect” to be central to their belief system. And of course, the implications of said beliefs in our contemporary, current society and the racist ideas that seem to flourish these days. Especially considering that the SGP IS a political party, with several seats in Parliament and a sizable power in some regions of The Netherlands and their politics are based on Calvinism.
