The Lockheed Martin Equation

I'm trying so hard to listen but I know that I'm failing. I know that there are absolutely lots of wrong answers but trying to find moral equivalence when there are so many bad actors involved may be impossible. Full disclosure, I had been following Mardoll for a few years (?) on my main Twitter account so I've seen other things get blown out of proportion but I also was not there long enough to witness past incidents that people were bringing up. Xir account had thousands and thousands of followers as well so I am truly not here to play, "find who is at fault for past incidences," I don't have the time, bandwidth, or frankly the research chops to get into this particular decades-long history so I'm only going to talk specifically about this recent incident and what I know and saw to be true. Mardoll's account is gone and may never return so that's already a problem when it comes to fact-finding and people sharing screenshots without the best context and such.

It also doesn't help that there were already camps of people that wanted to see Mardoll punished or brought down a peg either because a lot of those people are doing the same work and same job as kiwifarms in that respect by spreading as much disinformation and crowing as loudly as possible which then moves the stakes and goalposts of the entire conversation and situation. I'm worried this is going to blow back on the wrong people and cause more division in the community. I think there are a lot of things that we can absolutely, rightfully criticize, discuss, and condemn BUT I'm not interested in doing it with a "fact" sheet from literal n*zis. 

First, let's talk about leftist/liberal bad actors. I had no idea, once again I'm white and cisgender and I try to follow a variety of Black, Indigenous, POC, Queer, and all intersections thereof on my Twitter feed, that there were "leftists/liberals" (kiwifarm bad actors???) that were trying to justify working at Lockheed Martin in a, "the people who get bombs dropped on them don't matter because that would happen anyway/to other people/whatever ridiculous justification it WAS because now it's coming up tweets deleted (hmm? bad actors?)," kind of way. 

I think this was where a lot of the responses from the aforementioned communities were coming from and now I am both listening and understanding because I wasn't seeing the context they were working with. I think this paired with the disinformation regarding Mardoll's actual job title, description, and salary created a perfect storm to REACT rather than RESPOND; it is known that kiwifarms mixes fact and fiction to get the desired outrage/punishment cycle result so unless there is a non-kiwifarms source that can confirm the details I am going to continue to treat it as disinformation for the time being. 

Things I currently know to be correct: Mardoll is NOT a software engineer/does NOT hold a salaried position, according to Mardoll's own disclosure that is no longer available xie is a 'software licensing specialist' which is a part-time less than twenty hours position. I have no idea about the housing; however, 'owning a 400,000 dollar home' doesn't make you rich it makes you able to pay a mortgage and yeah Mardoll definitely has white privilege in play and at work for him and all I really knew is that xie had a place to live. As for the 'legacy hire' stuff... well... at the university I went to even if you were a janitor for the campus you could get your kid in 'for free' (I don't remember the exact details of this and it probably varies from state to state, might have been more of a steep, steep discount kind of situation you know) and assuming that maybe your kid wouldn't go to college right away if you also got your kid on as a janitor I think you could call that a 'legacy hire'. Obviously, Mardoll is more than a janitor or administrative assistant but I've seen phrases like 'arms dealer', 'software engineer', six-figure salary, the house thing, and honestly there can't be a conversation if the basis is disinformation. You end up arguing about the fictions rather than the actual matters at hand and people who are trying to correct the fiction end up pissing people off because it comes off as excuses; however, I think if we want to talk about Mardoll and Lockheed Martin then we need to be using the facts or otherwise, the only winners are kiwifarms and the other n*zis watching and gleefully participating.

People spreading the disinformation like that and also claiming that it doesn't matter that Mardoll works for Lockheed Martin, especially my fellow white cisgender people, are being completely unserious and muddling the issue hopelessly. However, I now realize why the adjacent question of, "If it's a problem to work for Lockheed Martin why isn't it a problem to work for X, Y, Z corporation that is also known to abuse and end up killing people?" is NOT the argument we think we're having because we were missing the context of people literally not giving a shit that people are dying at all which is an obvious non-starter. I would ask yourselves where you first saw or received that information and to both consider the source and consider their stake in this, especially if they don't appear to have one or have never been a part of the conversations before; the faster we remove the noise the faster we can get to the heart of the matter.

I think if we can get past the disinformation then there could actually be productive conversations to be had. I don't know why in all these discussions about accountability that there is no accountability to the facts of the matter whether you personally believe them to add or subtract from the situation might be part of the problem. It should not lessen the criticism that Mardoll works for Lockheed Martin no matter what the capacity but I do think it should drive the shape of the criticism just like I would want for anyone else. I personally believe that there is a huge swath of culpability when it comes to the CEO, the CFO, the board of directors, the people who design the outsides and insides and software to make it all deadly, and the people purchasing them and using them compared to the cogs in the wheel. However, maybe that's not good enough. 

If it's not good enough then the conversation immediately needs to shift to community action and organizing because a punching bag is not the actual opponent and by itself would never fully prepare you to go up against the real deal, to get metaphorical. 

There are a lot of people proudly proclaiming that they'd rather die than work for Lockheed Martin in any capacity and I don't know if there is a right answer to choosing morality over survival. I absolutely try not to judge people for it when it comes to a rock and a hard place and would want to extend that benefit of the doubt to anyone but that isn't how white cisgender people let society work for people except themselves. 

Once again there is undeniable white privilege at play here and other dynamics that some people were unaware of that are absolutely up for discussion but most of that conversation doesn't require stuff from the bad site. 

So I further understand the rush, the push to not let someone get away with something or anything but if the criticism is correct to the situation that has a better chance of happening. If there is a lot of disinformation that people rely on to do the punishing then you give that person a portal to image rehabilitation that lets them ignore the wrong they actually did (just my opinion, but I bet I'm not the only person to notice this). 

If all that matters to you is that Mardoll works for Lockheed Martin and that breached your trust I'm not saying to ignore that; block, tell people that specifically and how it changed your mind, but do not, do not, do not share a bunch of n*zi made propaganda because that's exactly how it's going to happen to you and me if you get on the sides of the wrong and worst people. There is no rolling back finding out something like that no matter where it came from but you are absolutely NOT REQUIRED to share disinformation along with it or give the bad actors authority on which to turn on you and yours in the future. (Once again, I'm taking a huge issue with the presentation of facts/truth because other people are saying that they would not get the benefit of the doubt, and looking around I'm like, "yeah... exactly my point" *clenches teeth together*)

As for the other tangles coming out of this that are coming down to perceptions of Mardoll, once again, I have no problem criticizing people for the perception not meeting the reality so long as it's actually the reality of the situation and not a bunch of n*zi made disinformation. 

I think most of the other issues that are coming up that were ongoing or had happened previously still deserve discussion and critique; for example, once again there was a large platform in play and you can be naive and still perpetuate racism by directing attention flow or failing to direct your followers to sit on their hands and shut up but there were also clear instances of more bad faith actors twisting the situations from not great to everyone beefing with each other on Twitter over things that had never been said or suggested by the original participants involved. 

How do you hold people with large follower counts accountable when most of them are completely unaccountable and are happy to band together over personal vendettas and clear-cut lies (that once again don't matter because they already wanted to punish a person, once again I think we absolutely have to have conversations but they have to be contextual and factual) and that type of behavior goes far beyond Mardoll though it is well-represented on book twitter (not YA twitter, all of book Twitter) and some of you are lucky that your readers are not as chronically online as you all are. 

I also apologize to the Black, Indigenous, POC, and Queer communities for the pushback you've been receiving on the Lockheed Martin stuff; a lot of you are absolutely correct but the disinformation aspect is causing a lot of fear about fair representation which you don't get anyway so I understand not empathizing but as long as the n*zis are declaring victory I don't think anybody is hitting the mark on this. (Once again, the cat cannot go back in the bag but sharing a whole stream of n*zi disinformation doesn't do anything for anybody because if it doesn't matter what xie did at Lockheed Martin then it doesn't matter but if you are using the words 'arms dealer' or 'software engineer' then people are arguing with you because you made the distinction so they think it's a part of the equation.)

Once again if all of the factual criticism is lined up and presented there can be a reckoning where n*zis and their bad site are not winning. However, here is what is going to happen... 1) the people who spread the disinfo so they could finally punch the punching bag and punish a trans person already got what they wanted so except for gleefully engaging in schadenfreude you won't see them continuing the conversation or helping or taking any constructive next steps 2) the Black, Indigenous, POC, and Queer people involved will continue to be picked on by cisgender, white people like me who are not prepared and do not have good or correct arguments for the moment 3) nothing will happen at Lockheed Martin by what has currently been generated, especially to the most culpable members of the company 4) Black, Indigenous, PoC, and Queer supporters/defenders of Mardoll, no matter the argument or whether they directly or indirectly tried to excuse the actions of a weapons manufacturer that kills people on a daily basis will become the next targets of the white, cisgender people that felt most harmed by Mardoll's deception and still don't care about Black and Brown people dying because, like I said, they got to punch their punching bag and now they want to scorch the earth for good measure so there can never be nuance. 

I don't want to rehabilitate Mardoll's image or excuse Mardoll but I do want you to take a very, very close look at the people leading the charge and the people still spreading the most easily debunked disinformation and ask yourself, "Do they actually care about the people dying or have they convinced you that they care or are they still only and just talking about how 'horrible' Mardoll is?" Because if it's the latter... I think we have another big problem folks. A big, big problem. A white, majority cisgender problem.