Tag: trainwreck

Who is the racist, George?

So, who is more reasonably deemed “racist as fuck”, a white man active in science fiction fandom who created one of the most racially iconic scenes of the last decade and is openly trying to exclude a Native American from the science fiction world, or a part-Mexican Native American who dares to respond to people attacking him? I remember seeing that scene myself and thinking: “seriously, the white girl Christ?”

Last summer, in the finale of Game of Thrones’ third season, mother of dragons Daenerys Targaryen stood outside the walls of Yunkai waiting for the slaves she just freed, hoping to convince them to join her army as free men. Daenerys, the white-blonde queen traded moons ago to the Dothraki by her brother, moves into the crowd of outstretched brown arms as they chant “mhysa”, which, we learn, means “mother” in their native tongue, and is carried into the crowd as the camera pulls back to show her floating in the middle of this sea of arms like the bright planet in a constellation of darkness.

I turned to my husband and said: “No one at HBO remembers the visual impact of slavery, I guess?” It was at that moment I decided to stop watching it. I’m aware that Game of Thrones is a TV show, a work of fiction, but having invested in it for three seasons, I no longer trusted the creators to bridge the gap of thoughtful conversation between action and intent. How much misogyny and racism are we expected to put up with in the name of entertainment?

 
Save us, little white girl!

The man who came up with this imagery is calling me racist? And doing so because I generously described a deranged black woman as a “half-savage” after she described Robert Heinlein as “racist as fuck”, most of science fiction fandom as “racist as fuck” and me as “a self-described misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole.” I tend to doubt Martin has any idea who and what he is defending when he attacks me.

I am not. And no doubt Dr. Martin van Creveld, the brilliant Israeli military historian I have the honor of editing and publishing, would be very surprised to learn about the anti-Semitism I supposedly proclaim so loudly. I know I was. Needless to say, I have never described myself as any of those things. Nor am I any of those things.

As it happens, my novelette that was nominated for the Hugo last year, “Opera Vita Aeterna” from The Last Witchking, is about a deep and abiding friendship between two individuals of different races, an elven sorcerer and a human monk. It is not a story of hate, but of three loves, the love of knowledge, the love of God, and the love of a friend. Another short story in that mini-collection, “The Hoblets of Wiccam Fensboro”, is a story about a reluctantly righteous goblin saving innocent hoblets from the hoblet-hating orcs who occupy his village.

I am absolutely nothing like Requires Hate. When Martin says “Make no mistake. Vox Day and Requires Hate are twins. Mirror images of one another.” he not only makes a mistake, he lies.

John O’Neill says I’m the most hated man in SF, but honestly, I don’t think we’ve even come close to maximizing the hate yet. All we need now is for George Martin to have a heart attack from the stress brought on by attacking #GamerGate, thereby enraging all the Westeros fans who haven’t given up hope that Martin has a Secret Master Plan to salvage the series and reverse the disaster of the last two books. Of course, the Torlings would inevitably put it all down to my cunning plan to market Castalia House in general and ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT in particular.

“Vox Day is ruthless! George RR Martin’s untimely death just proves he will STOP AT NOTHING!”

Anyhow, this tweet amused me: Be especially nice to @GRRMspeaking at the moment. He’s getting much flack right now. 

Do you think? Because I was deeply moved by his plight, I felt I would be remiss if I failed to respond:

@GRRMspeaking My response to you is here: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2015/04/who-is-racist-george.html … I think it is clear who is, and is not, “racist as fuck”. #SadPuppies

@GRRMspeaking Now those you called “toads” will respond. Only they’re not toads. They are the Dread Ilk and they are wolves.

The racist SJWs of Making Light

It’s incredible, but now they’re trying to say I’m not a real Native American and Hispanics are just white people like everyone else. Because, after all, everyone knows that all Native Americans are good little Indians who stay on their intellectual reservations and only believe what the nice white liberals tell them what they can and cannot read, write, and think:

#942 ::: Alex R. ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2015, 10:32 AM:
Definitely spoiled white boys. Without ever having met one in person, it’s written all over their behavior. And paranoid too, in a particularly white and spoiled fashion. Please note that the word “boys” was chosen carefully. Boys self-nominate and involve their friends. Men (and women too) who want awards slog it out in the trenches and try to raise their game.

#948 ::: Matt ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2015, 11:01 AM:
I think the behavior you describe is pretty accurate, but I don’t think it’s a white boy thing as much as it is a rich, conservative boy thing. After all, the leader of sad puppies, Correia, isn’t a white guy (and I think that the lack of support by other other minorities in the field is part of his “persecuted for his political beliefs” narrative).

 #960 ::: Kelly Jennings ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2015, 12:03 PM:
Vox Day also claims to be a minority! An American Indian! Based on some genetic test he claims he took.

I mean, I’m sure no one would lie about something like that, for political reasons, or tactical reasons, or to bash liberals on his blog or twitter or whatever. Nah.

#961 ::: abi ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2015, 12:09 PM:
The footnote to my comment above notwithstanding, let’s tread lightly on the subject of whether any individual in this debate is or is not a member of any particular group.

Identity policing doesn’t tend to end well. Or start well. And the middle bits tend to stink, too.

There’s plenty to say that doesn’t go there.

#963 ::: Kelly Jennings ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2015, 12:12 PM:
Okay. Though VD’s use of that particular tactic has been a vexation to me, frankly. But okay.

#975 ::: Mike Scott ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2015, 01:23 PM:
Cat @950. If Correia’s ancestors come from Portugal, then he’s white. The Portuguese are white Europeans, the same as the rest of Europe. They doubtless have a bit more Arab and Berber than say the Swedish, but not enough to make any real difference. Remember, there’s no such race as “Hispanic”, which is mostly a mixture of white European and Native American in varying proportions.

It’s rather astonishing that these racist SJWs will openly assert that a genuine Native American simply cannot hold the opinions that I do. They may not like it, but I am a real Indian, complete with tribe, reservation, casino, and language. I even know a few words of the latter, although I am not one of the small number of people who speak it. And I can absolutely prove it.

They seem to think that minorities are pets who should be happy with whatever crumbs they deign to dole out to us. I say we take their thinning, greying scalps instead.

The ultimate argument against certification

This should pretty much end any discussion about the idea that government certification is necessary or even likely to prevent significatly negative outcomes. From the Aviation Business Gazette:

FAA recognizes Andreas Guenter Lubitz. Rheinland Pfalz-based pilot sets positive example.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is recognizing Andreas Guenter Lubitz with inclusion in the prestigious FAA Airmen Certification Database.

The database, which appears on the agency’s website at www.faa.gov, names Lubitz and other certified pilots who have met or exceeded the high educational, licensing and medical standards established by the FAA.

Pilot certification standards have evolved over time in an attempt to reduce pilot errors that lead to fatal crashes. FAA standards, which are set in consultation with the aviation industry and the public, are among the highest in the world.

Transportation safety experts strongly recommend against flying with an uncertified pilot. FAA pilot certification can be the difference between a safe flight and one that ends in tragedy.

Imagine what might have happened if those poor Germanwing passengers had flown with an uncertified pilot?

The ugly doctrine of anti-racism

The UK’s former equality czar admits anti-racism is an “ugly new doctrine”:

A former equality chief has branded his years working to stamp out racial discrimination as ‘utterly wrong’. Writer and broadcaster Trevor Phillips said efforts made under the Blair government turned anti-racism into an ‘ugly new doctrine’.

Mr Phillips is the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and has waged a 30-year campaign to tackle issues around discrimination and equality. In an upcoming Channel 4 documentary, called Things We Won’t Say About Race That Are True, he says attempts to stop prejudice instead encouraged abuse and endangered lives….

Mr Phillips, a Labour party member, says anti-racism began with good intentions but turned into ‘thought control’.

Anti-racism is anti-science, anti-history, and anti-freedom. It is pernicious and evil. Racism is neither a sin nor is it a societal evil. Race-based self-segregation is not only the observably preferred human norm for all races throughout the entirety of recorded human history, it is inevitable. You cannot support freedom and anti-racism at the same time. It is not logically possible. You cannot support freedom of speech and thought control. You cannot support diversity and freedom of association.

It is true that racism has inspired various crimes throughout history, as has greed, ambition, lust, and a variety of other concepts. But it is the crimes that matter, and it is the crimes that should be prevented, not whatever the intellectual motivation for them might be. Consider how ridiculous most people would believe the idea of passing a law against thinking or expressing lustful thoughts to be. That is precisely how stupid and totalitarian it is to try to ban racism.

Feminists don’t care about rape

They talk about it endlessly. They fantasize about it happening to them on their college campuses so long as it is white frat boys and athletes. But when it really happens and arrests are made? Crickets.

Last month, retired porn star Cytherea was the victim of a brutal gang rape at her home in Las Vegas. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, three teenage suspects, two of them minors, broke into the house, robbed Cytherea and her family at gunpoint, and raped her while her children were present. The rape and home invasion was so violent that not only are the minors being tried as adults, all three suspects could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty….

If ever there was a story for feminists to get enraged about, this would be it. According to SJWs, America fosters a “rape culture,” where sexual assault is trivialized and men are encouraged to feel “entitled” to womens’ bodies. You can’t get more entitled than a gang of ghetto thugs invading a woman’s home and raping her at gunpoint.

Yet feminists have been eerily silent on Cytherea. A casual Google search for “cytherea rape” shows that the only articles about the story are from news outlets, porn industry sites such as TRPWL, and the conservative site The Daily Caller. Searching Jezebel, one of the most popular feminist blogs in the world, for “cytherea” returns a grand total of zero results.

 Why? There is a simple answer. “Feminists don’t care about rape victims, and they never have.”

Why we fight

Because this is what happens when you don’t:

Karen Memery (like memory but with an e as she explains), is just such a seamstress. She is the titular narrator of Elizabeth Bear’s latest steampunk adventure, Karen Memory (with an o and not an e). A prostitute at the Hôtel Ma Cherie, a high-class bordello in Seattle Rapid City in the late 1800s, Memery is dissatisfied with her job and her johns, longing for the prairie life she gave up when her father died….

Bear also gleefully subverts gender roles in Karen Memory. Not just with Karen and Priya’s lesbian relationship. She also introduces Crispin, the gay bouncer at the Hôtel Ma Cherie, and Miss Francina, one of the seamstresses who has a select client base. As Karen puts it:

    “…the thing about Miss Francina is that Miss Francina’s got a pecker under her dress. But that ain’t nothing but God’s rude joke. She’s one of us girls every way that matters, and handy for a bouncer besides.”

So not only do we have three prominent gay characters, including the main protagonist and her love interest, but we also have a transgender character — the first I’ve run into in a 19th Century setting. And Karen’s plainspoken acceptance of Miss Francina, and those other societal outcasts who gravitate to the Hôtel Ma Cherie is probably the most refreshing part of the book.

Indeed, one of the major themes of Karen Memory seems to be the subversion of the dominant white male paradigm. Bear puts a variety of alternative lifestyles and minority role models on display, and fervently asserts that they too can be heroes in a fantasy novel. Madame Damnable in her quest for leadership of Seattle Rapid City against Bantle; the African-American Marshal Reeves, who has risen to a place of leadership despite his race (and actually Madame Damnable as well – Karen makes it clear that the powerful madame is also African-American by blood, if not by appearance); and Priya and Karen’s blossoming relationship, forbidden both as same-sex and interracial, are all examples.

Does that sounds like “loads of fun” to you? Because reading about a dissatisfied whore while being subjected to a sermon on the importance of diversity in sexual orientation, race, and transgenderism sounds about as much fun as listening to to SJWs drone on NPR about intersectionalism. I would genuinely rather read an IMF paper on the monetary policy of Zambia  or Newton’s Principia. In Latin.

Loads of fun. That’s what they want to bring to the game industry too. Loads of fun. Now, you can either submit to this SJW shit, or you can help us keep it out of games and take back science fiction. What will it be?

UPDATE: Bandai Namco sensitively responds to SJW concerns by providing new armor for female characters Ivy and Amy. Happy now?

No, apparently not.

Didn’t he see Serenity?

Stephen Hawking is a good example of why scientists should not be allowed to vote, let alone set government policy:

The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all. A major nuclear war would be the end of civilisation, and maybe the end of the human race.

This is idiotic. It isn’t human aggression that threatens to destroy us all, it is science and scientists. Hawking demonstrates a complete inability to correctly utilize basic logic.

Scientists created the threat. Rather than work to remove the threat, some of the very people who created it now want to EXPERIMENT WITH THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE in order to do something that won’t remove the current threat and might well create some that are even worse.

Scientists love to posture as if they are the good guys responsible for saving the human race, but they are the party primarily responsible for endangering it in a variety of ways.

93 percent corrupt

Apparently it’s very, very profitable running political “non-profits” these days:

Right Wing News hired a researcher who spent more than a month researching 17 conservative PACs so we could do a special report. What we found was shocking.

* The bottom 10 performing PACs we researched spent $54,318,498 overall and yet only paid out $3,621,896 to candidates.

* Did you know that despite the fact that it raised a staggering 13 million dollars, The National Draft Ben Carson for President isn’t affiliated with Ben Carson and the small percentage of money they spent on independent expenditures didn’t go to him? Now you know why Ben Carson’s business manager, Armstrong Williams wouldn’t allow the group’s campaign director to take a picture with Carson and said, “People giving money think it’s going to Dr. Carson and it’s not. …Our hands are tied. We don’t want people exploited.”

* The Republican Mainstreet Partnership is getting an enormous amount of union money.

“Labor unions provided significant funding for the (Republican Main Street Partnership) with Working for Working Americans, the International Union of Operating Engineers, and the Laborers International Union of North America all contributing around $250,000. The United Transportation Union ($30,000), Seafarers International Union ($20,000), were joined by the Teamsters, Air Line Pilots Association, International Association of Firefighters, and various other unions who contributed $10,000.  SEIU contributed $5,000, as did the Laborers Union, the Transport Workers Union and various others.”

In conclusion, “One of the things I realized while I was putting this report together is that perhaps the biggest reason grassroots candidates have been having trouble breaking through in recent years is because such a large percentage of the money that was intended for them is being siphoned off to vendors, wasted, and just plain old pocketed by people in these PACs.”

I’d like to be able to say that I was shocked, but I’m not even a little bit surprised. The only thing that is remarkable is the percentage of the skimming. That’s taking 93.3 percent off the top! They’re even worse than their sob-sister cousin charities; apparently fear-mongering is more profitable than tear-jerking.

The tedious Thor

It would have been vastly more entertaining had Thor come out of the closet. The Fabulous Thor! His outfit was always a little camp anyhow. Turning him into a grim transgendered feminist fighting to impose equalitarian thought control is as boring as it is offensive:

Thor a woman? It’s hard to believe the most macho, overtly masculine character in the comic canon could possibly be reimagined as a broad. But that’s almost certainly precisely the reason Thor was chosen: as a fuck-you to so-called nerdbros from the achingly progressive staff of today’s comic book establishment.

This has led to some questions from comic book fans. Questions such as: will Wonder Woman turn out to be a tranny? Is the Incredible Hulk only incredible because he endured cruel fat-shaming as a teen but didn’t let his size define him? And shouldn’t Spider-Man be a gay latino?

That last one’s not a joke, by the way: in 2011, Marvel unveiled a bisexual Spider-Man that was half-black and half-latino, called Miles Morales, to the consternation and confusion of ordinary comic book fans, as part of its Ultimate series of character reboots. We’re told “erasure,” whereby people’s pasts are scrubbed out by those in authority, is a social justice issue. Well, right now there’s erasure going in the basic, canonical biographies of some of Marvel’s most cherished superheroes.

Captain America, too, is changing: he’s becoming black. Changes like this are designed to provoke readers, and they do–not because readers are racist or sexist, but because they understand that certain characteristics are intrinsic to certain characters. James Bond and Captain America are obviously white. It is a part of their personalities. Thor is obviously a man; to suggest otherwise is daft.

What sticks in the craw of the fans I’ve spoken to about female Thor is how utterly transparent the political posturing is behind the change. There is no good literary justification for making Thor a woman, they say–and the results have been execrable. You can write intelligent satire about masculinity without making a classic masculine icon into a girl, an observation that seems to have escaped Marvel’s writers.

Of course, what all of these transformations most strongly indicate is the fact that Marvel believes women and minorities to be totally uninteresting. Not only does it highlight the fact that women and minorities can’t create their own characters, but even pro-intersectional white men can’t manage to create them in a manner that interests anyone, least of all women and minorities.

It’s exactly the same thing as a communist government taking over a capitalist society. They don’t understand how it works or why it works, they can’t create it or maintain it, but they can certainly manage to run it into the ground.

This comment from the SJWs at IGN is hilariously inapt:

“Not only do these scenes subtly acknowledge and render inert the
concerns voiced by real life detractors, but they also paint the
character in a stronger, more resilient light.”
— IGN

Subtle? The only way Marvel could have handled it any less subtly was if Thor spent the entire issue reading The Vagina Monologues with Gloria Steinhem at Wellesley.

It’s a joke, right?

The Republican elite is desperate to figure out a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory despite the electorate being weary after eight years of Obama’s misrule:

Jeb Bush is the clear Republican presidential frontrunner, surging to the front of the potential GOP pack following his announcement that he’s “actively exploring” a bid, a new CNN/ORC poll found.

He takes nearly one-quarter — 23% — of Republicans surveyed in the new nationwide poll, putting him 10 points ahead of his closest competitor, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who tallied 13%.

Physician Ben Carson comes in third, with 7% support, and Sen. Rand Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are both tied for fourth with 6%.

So, the Republicans have Bush III, Fatboy, and another token Negro on offer. 2016 looks like yet another election that I won’t be voting Republican even if the Democrats run a ticket featuring Asmoedeus and Belial.

I find the nominal Carson support to be particularly amusing. “Look, we got one too” has never been a winning strategy. And that’s especially true when everyone hates the previous one. It also makes it clear that no one got the “White Party” memo from the 2012 election.

It’s nothing of the sort, of course. Expressing support for an absurd black “candidate” is merely the Republican way of begging “see, I’m not a racist… please don’t hit me!”