Reblog this if you post any of the following:

cognitivedissonance:

thedailydissident:

politics
economics
social justice/activism
culture
leftist stuff
drug war
occupy wall street
unions/labor
war/foreign policy
feminism
racism
classism

If your blog posts anything like the above, please reblog this so I can follow you! I really want to build up a big network of progressive bloggers to help inspire my own vision and get more involved in activism in general.

Please and thank you, comrades!

Oh hi mostly my entire blog. 

Well, except cat pictures. I post those often.

This is all fine and dandy, believe me when I say that I follow a LOT of… non-conservative types? I’m not sure how to phrase it; I follow people of everything on the left half of the political compass. But! Don’t forget to pay attention to the other side once in a while, too. 

That being said, I focus on current events, political stories - usually within the US, and other nifty and enlightening things - all with left-leanings. I have been slacking due to my being overworked, but soon this blog will be working at full capacity again.

Welcome, Comrade.

socialistscum is a misogynist, a molester, a creep, and a fake

lurid-fragment:

trigger warning: molestation, victim blaming, misogyny

I’ve been avoiding makiny this post for so long out of fear, but I’m done being silenced.

As some of you know, Derek (socialistscum) came to visit me over the summer. We had been “internet dating” up until that point, so we were expecting his trip to be incredible. Instead, it was a horrible failure. He ended his trip a week earlier than planned, bashed me on his blog for ruining his trip, and supposedly moved on, heroically not holding any grudges against me. The reality of the situation couldn’t be further from the truth.

While Derek was here, he was imposing, pushy, creepy, and manipulative. He touched me without my consent throughout the entire trip. I told him multiple times, including as soon as we saw each other for the first time, that I didn’t feel comfortable with him and that I didn’t think we could be sexual. In spite of this, he still touched me. I literally froze up when he did things to me, clenching my muscles and barely moving, but he didn’t stop. He touched me without my consent pretty much every day for the entire trip.

Derek maintained a controlling and threatening environment in order to continue molesting me without extreme resistance. He used “nice guy” rhetoric to try to guilt me into accepting his advances and to be even more sexual with him. He complained about how he came so far out to see me and got extremely grumpy and annoyed when I didn’t return his affections. He was overbearing, watching my computer screen, following me when I would just get up to get a glass of water, etc.

He also made my roommate extremely uncomfortable. After knowing her for all of two days, he talked to her about how horny he was and how annoyed he was that I wasn’t putting out for him. She was very upset and told me not to leave her alone again.

At the end of the first week, I was crippled with fear. I felt dirty, used, small, and scared. I couldn’t stand being around him, but I couldn’t leave him alone at my house with my roommate. I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I stupidly agreed to front the cash for him to get an early flight home, which he is now refusing to pay me back for.

Derek’s responses after he got home did as much, if not more, damage than his actions at my house. He blamed me entirely for what happened. He constructed some story about how our relationship didn’t work out because I didn’t try hard enough.

After I called him out on what he had done, he was initially apologetic. He called me, crying his eyes out, saying he never meant to hurt me, he felt so bad, etc. Once he discovered that I wasn’t going to crawl back to his arms, though, his already blatant misogyny came tearing through. He completely denied that he had done anything wrong, claiming that I should have somehow been more clear that I didn’t want him to touch me, which is typical rapist logic. (I’m not sure how “I’m not comfortable being with you romantically or sexually” and then flinching and tensing at contact doesn’t make that clear.) He admitted to some things but said I was at fault for them, then turned around and denied that he did them all together. He claimed I made it up because I loved being a victim (because every woman just dreams of being molested by someone they trust). I’m not sure what his story will be when he replies to his, but I am sure it will be completely different from all of the other stories he’s given me about what happened.

Although I know some will claim that this is out of character for Derek, it really is not. He has been misogynistic, creepy, overbearing, and all around a shitty ally many, many times in the past. I’m sure many of you have been contacted by him asking for naked pictures/videos (especially if you’re a sex worker), or being very affectionate and lovey-dovey despite barely knowing him, or just being very sexual without gauging your interest in hearing about his sex life. And even if he just did these things to me when we first started talking, that behavior isn’t excusable.

He has advocated for violence against women (link, analysis, analysis 2), he has used pictures of women as trophies of his masculinity, deflecting criticism with bro quips like “you’re just jealous girls this hot won’t hang out with you” (I tried looking for links to this, but it looks like he deleted those posts), he has called an Afghan woman a “drone” (link), and he threatens women who call him out (link). These are all very recent occurrences, too.

Derek is a creepy older man who manipulates people on the internet to give himself an ego boost. He fools people into thinking he’s a great anarchist comrade and feminist ally, throwing around academic language and buzz words to construct himself as a radical activist. In reality, he literally does nothing but sit around his parents’ house smoking weed and blogging. His only hiatus from that was to come to my house to molest me and creep out my roommate.

Part of my fear of posting this is that Derek is very good at manipulation. He fooled me into thinking he was some awesome anarcho feminist for seven months. He’s able to deflect very serious call outs of his misogyny by lying about what he did, joking around, making up a new story, threatening his accusers into silence, or just deleting his posts. There also seems to be a group of “famous” bloggers that Derek is a part of that defend each other without question, as well. I didn’t want to make a post, have him deflect it, and then have even more victim blaming shit thrown on me. I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

But you know what? I’m sick of seeing my sisters drool over men who secretly have their boots to their faces. I’m sick of sitting quietly horrified, replaying traumatic experiences in my head, while my abusers get to live their lives carefree. I’m sick of being bashed for being a victim by the very people who claim to fight against victim blaming. I’m sick of watching molesters and misogynists get praised for feminist commentary that they stole from less popular women bloggers. I’m sick of getting fucked over worse by “feminist” men than by overtly sexist men. And most of all, I’m fucking sick of being treated like an object for radical and non-radical men alike to play with when they’re bored.

Derek molested me. He engaged in victim blaming in order to ease his guilt and silence me. He threatens women, he objectifies them, he is overbearing with sexual advances, and he is just all around a piece of shit. He deserves what any misogynistic abuser, molester, or rapist deserves. There are plenty more of him hiding in our midst, both in real life and on tumblr, and I don’t want to be afraid of them anymore.

edit: I forgot to add his information so he can be google-able. Derek Christopher Osika, who lives in Gainesville, Florida, is a molester.

Jesus christ. I want to say something about this but I don’t really know where to start. I’m shocked.

Woman in Comedy: A really scary thing happened to me last night at a comedy show.

gabydunn:

Part of me thinks it’s too soon to be writing about this because I don’t think I’ve completely processed how I feel, but I also think maybe this has happened to other women and I should talk about it in as raw a way as possible. I’m still really embarrassed and ashamed and garbled up inside, but maybe this can start a helpful discussion in terms of women and comedy.

Last night, I was on a stand up show in the East Village. The show started out with a small crowd and the host did an amazing job interacting with them and riling them up. By the time I got on stage, there were about 20 or so more people in the audience and the place had really filled up. The show was still kind of loose because of the back and forth between the host and the audience, so when I got on stage, I riffed a bit about the stuff that had happened before and then talked to one guy on the side of the audience who the host had dubbed “Banana Republic.” All joke-y. All in good fun.

Then, I start my actual set and do my first two jokes, which go pretty okay. I start another joke that is vaguely sexual - not crude, not crass - mainly silly and that goes well too. The next joke I do is about my boyfriend.

At a comedy show, when you’re on stage, usually you can’t see the audience because of the bright lights. So I’m looking into pitch darkness. As I start the joke, someone yells, “Does your boyfriend know?” referring to the sexuality joke I’d just told. I stop, laugh and say that he does because I think it’s just more of the loose environment that’s been going on at this show. I attribute it to an audience member just having fun.

I start to tell the joke about my boyfriend again, and at the midway point, the same voice yells something else derogatory about my boyfriend, homophobic and misogynistic towards me. I stop, confused. I can’t see who is talking to me so I make a HUGE mistake and say, “Sir, if you’re gonna talk to me, you need to come to the front because I can’t see you.” I think calling him out like this will shut him up.

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You’re a strong woman and you did the right thing. It’s a shame that the other people at the venue didn’t do more to help you though. It really sounds like everyone else let you down.