https://old.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1inyz31/buckbreaking_or_the_true_story_of_why_no_one_else/

🇺🇸🤔 US defense stocks are falling.

Over the month:
• Lockheed Martin: -16.41%
• Northrop Grumman: -13%
• General Dynamics: -10.93%
• Raytheon Technologies: -2.66%

European defense stocks are rising:
🇩🇪 Rheinmetall: +36.4%
🇫🇷 Thales: +22.66%
🇬🇧 BAE Systems: +10.17%
🇪🇺…

— MAKS 24 🇺🇦👀 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) February 18, 2025

Thаt fаļļ аínt еvеn řеļаtеd tр khоhоļstаn

Аnd еvеn íf ít wаs, thоsе соmраníеs соmbínе аrе 6 tímеs ļеss wоrth thаn nvídеа

🇺🇦 Zelensky in shock: "It feels like Russia and the US are now discussing the ultimatum that Putin set at the beginning of the war".

If we didn't go for it at the most difficult moment, where does this feeling come from that we will agree to it now? - Zelensky asks.
He recalled… pic.twitter.com/QMun0NZApx

— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) February 18, 2025

But thís ís funníеs shít tоdау, Zеļеnskуу сļаímíng thаt thíngs tоdау аínt wоřsе fоř ukřаínе thеn ín 2022

Ιn 2025 thеrе nо hорíum thаt wеst саn gívе sоmеthíng thаt hеļрs Ukwаínе wín, thеrе nо rеsеrvеs tо kеер fíghtíng, sаnсtíоns аrе оvеr, nо mоrе Bídеn, соuntwу еxíst just аt gíbs

Something new is coming to the shops. ⚡️💙⚡️ officialsonichu.com/collections/... www.etsy.com/shop/Officia...

— CPU Jesus Christ Chan Sonichu Prime (@cpujcwcsprime.bsky.social) 2025-02-04T17:18:03.180Z

skyview

Chris' handlers still haven't figured out how to use the bluesky block features yet like they do on . Probably because nobody actually uses bluesky. Weens barely even try even though chris officially switched there to fight drumpv and elmo or whatever.

traverse390 asks:

Are we at risk of censorship of LGBTQ+/adult material re: U.S. 2025 federal policies?

The short answer to your question is yes. Of course, there is a risk of increased censorship of LGBQT+ and "adult material" in 2025 and beyond for those of you living in the United States.

The worrying trend of banning books in schools and public libraries across the United States will worsen before it gets better. The Comic Book Journal reported in September that:

"The American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, which tracks book challenges and bans around the U.S., recorded that 378 different graphic novels were threatened with bans or challenges in 2023, with a total of 1,020 total censorship attempts. In the last three years, the numbers have seen a huge jump – 2023's total censorship attempts are twenty times what they were just three years ago in 2020."

In March last year, The Guardian reported on the recent American Libraries Association report covering all of 2023's known book bans. Amongst other things, the report detailed "Seventeen states [that] saw attempts to ban more than 100 books: Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin."

Why is the banning of books so prevalent across American public schools and libraries?

Sadly! The banning of books and the occasional outright burning of them has been a regular occurrence throughout American history. Despite its relatively young age as a country, the USA has been banning books pretty much from the get-go. Think about it this way. The first white Europeans arrived in the country and settled in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and these same "Founders" banned their first book in 1637.

The first book ever to be banned in the United States was New English Canaan by Thomas Morton, who established an early colony in Massachusetts where settlers and native people co-existed fairly harmoniously. Morton espoused a more pragmatic approach to colonization with the land's original inhabitants. This was seen as a threat by the Puritan settlers, and Morton was subsequently twice exiled back to England, where he wrote New English Canaan. He was not a white savior of any kind. He was a fur trader and businessman, and most of the book describes the "opportunities" the New World presented to entrepreneurial readers. Nonetheless, his pragmatic views on peaceful co-existence with native people were seen as a threat to the fabric of the new society the Puritans were attempting to build, and he was punished for it.

It is the fear that certain types of ideas, practices, and beliefs can "undermine" the cultural fabric of America that drives book bans. So! It comes as no surprise that graphic novels that depict "non-traditional" romantic and erotic relationships and/or characters who are non-conformist to the hetero-dominant culture will be targeted by censorious organizations and individuals.

While I wish to focus specifically on the type of material that matters to you in your question, I would like to remind everyone that it isn't just LGBTQ+ material that is being banned. Far from it…

The most recent high-profile case of statewide book banning, including comics and manga, happened last year in Tennessee when the state legislature brought in the HB843 mandate. Books in school libraries must be suitable for the age and maturity levels of the students. Some of the types of content deemed inappropriate for school-age children include any type of nudity, "descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement," excessive violence, and of course, LGBTQ-related subjects.

ANN reported on the mandate at the time that includes the first eight volumes of Assassination Classroom, Jujutsu Kaisen, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes (volumes 1 and 3), all of Attack on Titan, and Akira, which really pisses me off. Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha is also on the banned books list in Tennessee, which is a perennial favorite of many younger readers. It contains some sexually suggestive moments, and some of the key characters, including the protagonist, possess an element of what one could argue is gender fluidity, but it is incredibly subtle, and I am genuinely surprised it made it onto this list.

The depiction of LGBTQ characters in manga is not uncommon, and so you have every right to worry about whether more works could be banned in the future. Manga like Sailor Moon, Claudine, Hunter X Hunter, and Rose of Versailles vary in their depictions of same-s*x couples and/or openly trans characters. Some depictions are more overt, others are more subtle, coded even. Some are serious and core to the story. Other characters provide light relief. Nonetheless! They exist and they are featured in some of the most popular and important works of the past forty years, which I find surprising because Japan is also a socially conservative country. For these works and for these characters to exist, and be known and popular with readers is remarkable and a testament to the fact that the majority don't have major issues with depictions of "alternative lifestyles" in literature, contrary to what much of the media and some politicians tell us.

ScreenRant reported in November that Richmond County School District in North Carolina recently banned (pending a review) Unico: Awakening Volume 1, the new reimaging of Osama Tezuka's classic manga by Samuel Sattin and illustrator, Gurihiru following a complaint from a "concerned parent." The parent's six-year-old son purchased a copy of the manga at a local Scholastic Book Fair, and she was "shocked to discover depictions of animal cruelty (I hope they never read Tezuka's Buddha Volume 1. That poor bunny!) and gun violence".

The book ban movement in the USA over recent years has most definitely grown, and as The Guardian reports it is "particularly prevalent in Republican-led states, as religious-political activism gains strength," but the canceling, boycotting, and banning of pop culture in your country is something that unfortunately is a "both sides" issue, and it cuts to the bone of your First Amendment rights. The more organized book banners know this, and while many of us may wonder whether your federal law-makers might seek to increase the scope of these bans, it isn't necessary to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing access to what they may consider to be "dangerous" and/or "unsuitable" reading material for children and young adults. The market will ultimately decide what reading material you can have access to, and unfortunately, book banners know this.

The Unico manga is a case in point. School libraries never used to hold graphic novels or manga in them. Public libraries barely did either. Unico is a flagship manga title for Scholastic's Graphix imprint, which is dedicated to publishing creator-owned graphic novels for early, middle-grade, and young adult readers. Graphix launched in 2005 with Jeff Smith's epic series, BONE #1: Out From Boneville. This imprint came about in part because of the huge shift in boy's reading habits starting in the late 90s. This is when I, as a 15-year-old, first discovered "edgier" books like Alan Moore's V for Vendetta and The Killing Joke in my local library.

This recent ban, "pending review," of Unico is noteworthy because Scholastic is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a major supplier of books to school libraries. They have a better understanding of what is and isn't acceptable when it comes to age-appropriate literature for school-age children than almost any other publisher. Censorship is a slippery slope, and what one parent may find unacceptable for their six-year-old to read is not necessarily the same as another parent who also monitors what content their kids are consuming. I wanted to use Unico as an example of censorship that isn't driven by an organization, and which doesn't seem politically or religiously motivated.

America's moral majority has been at war with comics as a corrupting influence since the early 1950s and what is now commonly referred to as the "Moral Panic," which was a reaction by the press, religious groups, and politicians against what many considered to be the gradual decline in standards of decency and morality in the media and the arts. Especially film-making and comic books. This moral panic also coincided with a rise in reporting around juvenile delinquency. Senate hearings were held, and miles of column inches were printed, resulting in the voluntary implementation of the Comics Code Authority, which was a self-policing and self-censoring program committed to by all of the major comics magazine publishers at the time. Unbelievably, "The Code" continued well into the 2000s with the final holdouts, DC and Bongo Comics, discontinuing their carrying of the unmistakable CCA badge on every comic cover they printed.

What concerns me is that with your country's rightwards political momentum when it comes to issues of identity and culture, alongside its anti-globalization economic policies, increasing downward pressure on manga and comics publishing will impact readers well beyond the USA's borders. If America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Less than 21% of comics, manga, and graphic novels are currently printed within the USA. If aggressive tariffs are brought in against the majority of America's major international trading partners, including China, where 24% of domestic publishers print their books, the price of the average tankoban is likely to increase considerably. This will mean lower print sales. Combine this with potentially more states banning more manga, and it isn't out of the question that some books may be discontinued and others not printed at all. And sorry, Canadians, Aussies, and Brits, but if fewer books are published in the USA, that means fewer titles for you, too.

I abhor the idea that a book can be dangerous, and I find it ridiculous to believe that a comic or a book can fundamentally change the reader's sexual or gender identity. I've read a lot of books in my lifetime, and none of them caused me to become a straight, cis-hetero male. I am just one, and that identity has, in all likelihood, influenced what types of comics, books, novels, etc. I like to read, as well as what types of movies, series, animation, etc. I like to watch the types of video games I like to play. I feel seen all day long by the culture I inhabit. Erasing what little pop culture is available that recognizes those of us who are not part of "the norm" seems unnecessarily cruel to me.

Based on the strength of some of the aforementioned LGBTQ-friendly manga brands, it could be commercially damaging for some of the biggest names in manga publishing, too. I believe that a change is coming, and it may well impact the print publishing of manga and comics in a significant way. With English-language digital manga and comic sales barely representing 20% of all graphic novel sales currently, perhaps these changes will signal a significant increase in digital manga sales.

References:

Deb Aoki report re: impact of tariffs on manga imports… "In The Comics Journal, Gina Gagliano explains how new tariffs will likely affect comics/manga publishing in 2025 (spoiler: it's not good for readers or publishers)."

"What will potential tariffs mean for comic publishers in 2025? "We'll likely have less customers." - The Comics Journal

"The state of comics and censorship during Banned Books Week" - The Comics Journal, September 2024 [Source: The Comic Book Journal "The state of comics and censorship during Banned Books Week", Gina Gagliana, September 23, 2024

"Books bans in US schools and libraries surged to record highs in 2023 - Though the list is broad, many of the 4,240 books were targeted because they related to issues of LGBTQ+ communities or race " - The Guardian, March 14, 2024

Choice quotes from the forums:

Well, censorship of adult or controversial content is already happening.Whether it's Japan doing this to itself or due to social changes around the world.

This is absolutely drop dead terrifying.

The focus on library bans seems geared toward the all-ages LGBTQ+ side of the question, but don't forget that the same forces are pushing for blanket criminalization of pornography. There are already multiple states that companies releasing adult manga/anime won't ship to.

Mod note: don't conflate libertarianism with LGBT. This is your only warning.

Also, I mentioned that if the book ban goes beyond anime/manga, is that going to escalate to targeting Asian-American/AAPI communities. I asked because a few days ago, I read an article from KQED (a local PBS in San Francisco) about the local Japanese-American communities are going to protect undocumented immigrants and come to the defense of the larger immigrants communities due to their experience of the Japanese internment during WWII. So that is my biggest worries as a anime/manga fan, if Japanese-Americans are building a big resistance toward Trump's treatment to the immigrant communities and the wider AAPI communities, is this going to lead to Trump and MAGA attacking not only the Japanese-American communities, will the MAGA/Trumper dare go after anime/manga and the fandom as an act of retaliation, is that going to lead to more manga ban in the school and public libraries? Is that going to lead to the FCC going after companies like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and other streaming companies that stream and license anime, what about manga publishers like Viz Media, Kodansha USA, etc...

The only thing really saving us from censorship and the other crazy things that these Christo-fascists want to do are the judges and courts blocking the orders and lawsuits being made and present right now which will only increase as time goes on at this pace and will be an astronomical amount.

literally not a single judge will defend queer cartoon kiddie porn sweetie

As a straight person, I feel like the opposite has been in effect on Reddit for a few years now. Unless you're towing water for Left leaning causes, you'll get downmarseyd or your comment will be deleted by a mod. If platforms would stop censoring opposing viewpoints, that would be great. This applies to both Left (Reddit) and Right (X) dominated platforms.

chud whining about chuds being censored on reddit in unrelated topic award

!gaystapo !gayporn

IVE BEEN WITH HIM FOR BOUT 3 WEEKS EXCLUSIVELY, NO MORE SLEEPING AROUND AND FRICKING OTHER DUDES, HES HANDSOME AND GOOD ENOUGH TO BE MY SUB

Full movie link:

!kino !lgbt !gay

!coons

!chuds lol

!asians !chuds lol

SINGAPORE: An 18-year-old Singaporean student who identified as an "East Asian supremacist" and was radicalised by violent far-right extremist ideologies has been detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

Nick Lee Xing Qiu, who is of Chinese ethnicity, had aspired to conduct attacks against Malays and Muslims in Singapore. He believed that the Chinese, Korean and Japanese ethnicities were superior, the Internal Security Department (ISD) said on Monday (Feb 10).

Lee was issued with a detention order in December last year. He is the third Singaporean youth with far-right extremist ideologies to be dealt with under the ISA.

The first case involved a then 16-year-old detained in December 2020 for planning machete attacks on mosques. The second case also involved a 16-year-old who was issued with a restriction order in November 2023 after authorities found that he identified as a white supremacist and aspired to conduct attacks overseas.

ISD also announced on Monday that a Singaporean housewife who was radicalised after the Israel-Hamas conflict has been put under ISA restrictions. A Malaysian man, who worked as a cleaner in Singapore, was repatriated for supporting Islamic State.

SELF-RADICALISATION PROCESS

Lee first started developing hostility towards Muslims in early 2023 after encountering Islamophobic and far-right content on social media. He spent several hours a day searching for and consuming extremist online content, according to ISD.

In June 2023, Lee searched for the livestream video footage of far-right terrorist Brenton Tarrant's attacks against Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Mar 15, 2019.

He watched the footage repeatedly and came to idolise Tarrant. He then downloaded video game modifications and role-played as Tarrant killing Muslims at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch.

By early 2024, Lee's radicalisation deepened and he had developed a strong enmity towards Malays and Muslims, as well as other ethnicities traditionally targeted by far-right extremists including Jews, Mexicans, African Americans and Indians.

"He was also supportive of white supremacy because he felt that Islam was a threat to white culture," ISD said.

He had come across ethno-supremacist ideas that made him believe that Chinese, Korean and Japanese were superior ethnicities, resonating with them given his Chinese ethnicity and antipathy towards Muslims.

In September 2024, Lee got a tattoo on his right elbow of a sonnenrad, a symbol that was seen in Tarrant's manifesto and on his rucksack during the Christchurch attack. He also purchased T-shirts with custom printings of symbols associated with neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other far-right groups.

ENVISIONED STARTING A "RACE WAR"

Lee aspired to carry out attacks against Muslims in Singapore with other far-right individuals that he spoke to online. Although he claimed that he was too afraid to conduct an attack alone, he admitted he would have participated in attacks together with those he met online.

"His attack aspirations included conducting a Tarrant-style attack on Muslims at a mosque in Singapore using homemade guns, knives and Molotov cocktails," ISD said.

Lee had hoped to livestream the attack online, dedicating it to Tarrant.

He also thought about throwing Molotov cocktails at his Malay-Muslim neighbours during a religious holiday to maximise casualties. But apart from enquiring online on how to make a Molotov cocktail, he took no further preparations towards this.

The ISD also said Lee was deeply convinced by the Great Replacement Theory, which claims that white populations in the West are in danger of being replaced by non-white immigrants.

He believed that violence was necessary to prevent the Chinese majority in Singapore from being displaced by what he perceived to be a rapidly growing Malay population.

Lee envisioned starting a "race war" between Chinese and Malays in Singapore, by creating anti-Malay and anti-Muslim propaganda to post online, hoping to create animosity between the two races.

He started a social media account in late 2024 to instigate others to conduct attacks against Malays and Muslims. This account was used to repost far-right extremist videos, and he uploaded about 20 self-made videos glorifying far-right terrorists and containing anti-Malay and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Lee's family, teachers and schoolmates were unaware of his radicalisation and there is no indication that he tried to influence them with his violent extremist views, ISD said. His attack plans were aspirational with no set timeline and investigations into his online contacts have found no imminent threat to Singapore.

"Far-right extremism is a growing security concern globally, and Singapore has not been immune to this threat," ISD said.

Although the movement is often associated with white supremacy, its broader messages of ethno-religious chauvinism, racism and xenophobia can appeal to non-whites.

"ISD will take firm action against any individual in Singapore who supports, promotes, undertakes or makes preparations to undertake armed violence, regardless of how they rationalise such violence ideologically or where the violence takes place," it said.

I don't really have any gay friends. One guy I follow on the gram and I just found out cuz of valanetiMes day.

They seem very performative to me. Which is not a very male trait imo. Are they just making themsleves men for the female gaze? Like speaking English with a foreign accent vs being a native speaker. A lot of women seem to like them.

I was loose friends with a few lesbians in high school but I thought I had nothing in common with them. I'm just curious, what do people see in them? How like men are they? Do you think they truly like what they're interested in?

Don't mean to ruffle feathers! 🪶

Shadow the hedgehog is a half alien, artificial creation who uses he/him pronouns despite canonically having the soul of a little girl.
His entire arc is about rejecting what he was made for and choosing a purpose for himself even if the world is against him.
He's not transphobic https://t.co/1h9nc6eWXX

— Space Rat💙💫 (@galaxylover06) March 1, 2024

The r here stands for r-slurred btw

Back in the good old days in the 20th century, both corporations AND unions bought politicians to do their bidding. Also unions were based, corrupt, violent, and fought for their members.

Then the Feds only went after the politicians bought by unions, but not the politicians bought by corporations. So now, all the politicians are only bought by corporations, and all corporations are gay and lame without exception.

That's why we're now headed back to another Gilded Age where only corporate leaders and the rich have power and now everything is gay and lame and sucks on every end of the political spectrum.

True Radical Centrism requires corruption from based uneducated blue collar labor to counteract the gay and lame corporations.

Genuinely what does this mean in Latin this is a book about symbolism and emblems.

Yikes here is an account of how good she was at being a pilot by her friend and that she deserved to be in that helicopter when it mowed down 70 people https://www.yahoo.com/news/earned-her-place-friends-grieve-223954905.html