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Dec 29, 2023·edited Dec 29, 2023Liked by Jackie Dana

"By your definition of incitement there are Atheists, "anti-racist" white hating bigots, communists, socialists, vegans with barely veiled militancy issues, black supremacists, Islamists, music snobs, corporatists, and I guess just incitement gallore on every platform including our precious." This is just egregious bullshit. But I knew I wouldn't be able to get to the end of the comments without one sealioning white man showing up to defend Nazis, and pretend everyone else is the problem. Come the fuck on, dude. Music snobs? Vegans? Far as I know the FBI hasn't put out any reports about dangerous music snob militias being a big threat to the country. They *have* said that about white supremacists.

"I consider them to be an inferior form of human." Yeah, and that's kind of the problem with people like you. You're really fucking quick to categorize who gets to be human and who doesn't.

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Dec 29, 2023·edited Dec 29, 2023

LOL ok drama queen.

Hunny bun. There are more white nationalists out there than just the three dingdongs that willingly joined a plan to kidnap and kill Gretchen Whitmer. And I guess you're leaving out the fact that of the *fourteen* people who were charged, only a few of them were acquitted on those grounds. And there are a lot more organized white nationalist groups out there, who have been more and more open these days. And that's leaving out alllll of the white supremacists in the Republican party at various levels. The party is fully captured by fascists, and anyone who cannot admit that is not being honest with anyone. And some random TedX talk does not change that. The left does not have that kind of power in this country. The far right? Does.

You wanna know who uses the internet to do egregious and terrible things? Far-right bigots. White nationalists. Nazis. Mass shooters have been activated by people like that. That is the precise reason *why* the original letter was written. How long will it be before someone is "inspired" by a Substack Nazi to do something terrible?

Being a Nazi is not an immutable characteristic. Neither is thinking you're an inherently better person because you're a white man, which is basically what you just admitted. And just to be clear: there's no such thing as anti-white hate speech. Whiteness is not a protected category; gender IS a protected category, but I think you'd be hard pressed to make the case that anti-man speech is stochastic, given that most violence is *perpetrated by men.*

I don't find you inferior. I find you to be a fuckwit like the dozens of other white male fuckwits who have stepped forward to incoherently defend Nazis. Seriously, I have had this conversation so many times. I'm genuinely disappointed at how many there are of you, and how little you seem to recognize your own blindness.

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I'm okay with friendly discussion but I'm not down for ranting or people talking about others being bigoted against white people.

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Count me in. There is no room in any civilized space for virulent haters. There is no ambiguity about who they are. They ANNOUNCE who they are. They’re loud and proud.

I haven’t seen a single argument that would make me change my mind: I want them gone.

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Agreed. I love the concept of freedom of expression in theory, but not when it allows people to spread hate, harass and bully people, and incite violence against others.

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With every freedom there are consequences if that freedom is abused. Freedom of speech is no different. I'm really tired of that argument.

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I think calling for absolute free speech is definitely a sign of privilege. There are a lot of people that can’t afford to take that position because they are already the victims of someone else’s free speech. And eventually, everyone will be if hate speech continues unabated.

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Yep. However, I'm moving things off of Substack. I deleted my fiction Substack, though then the motivation was simply that I wasn't seeing sell-through of related work or the final version, and I was concerned about A.I. scraping. Since then...yeah.

I can't afford to have my author newsletter associated with this place, due to the political nature of my fiction. I'd already started seeing trends that reminded me of Medium and worried me, including a proliferation of bots and trolls on Notes. The founders' reaction to Substackers Against Nazis just confirmed it for me...and I am withdrawing from depending heavily on this forum as a result. Just started making lists and thinking it through today, sigh.

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This is precisely why I haven't started publishing on Substack. There is a lot that makes me uncomfortable.

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The thing is, there really isn’t a good alternative because all of these tech bros believe in “free speech” for all, damn the consequences. And if we let Nazis run us off of Substack, then they win, and I’m not OK with that.

There are lots of problems with Substack leadership, but there are also a hell of a lot of us that are pointing it out. I’m not giving up yet.

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I'm Leaving Substack. This Is Why...

It's true aspirations and values are different than I originally thought they would be. The non-answer answer by Substack leadership was sadly an insult to injury. I'm also part German - some of my family was murdered by the SS - and I feel a special responsibility to try to make the motto: "Never Again" a reality.

Here's the profound poem by Martin Niemöller, which expresses the result of inaction, neutrality or taking a "hands-off" approach towards a murderous ideology:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me..."

-----

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Thanks for writing this, Jackie. I’ll gladly support your thorniness as co-founder of Fictionistas, but if I’m being honest, I’m working on moving my new main newsletter to another service. It hurts on a number of levels, but I don’t want to bring more people into this ecosystem until things get better.

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I completely understand, and we'll miss you!

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Dec 31, 2023·edited Dec 31, 2023Liked by Jackie Dana

Glad I found @Geoffrey Golden so I could find you, as well 👏🏼 Happy to contribute to the bramble, and also encouraging folks to divest from payments here and pick them up elsewhere. More than our words, our marching dollars will get their attention.

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Awesome!

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