marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl - Tumblr blog

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

!!!

This is an album I haven't stopped recommending people for a while, it's genuinely one of my favourite albums, it's, like, jazz-punk, very neat. It's called "God, Forgive These Bastards" Songs From The Forgotten Life of Henry Turner. There's also a book based on it written by the lead vocalist! It's great!! @uitzinnigmp3 @yelrabmena @krakios !!

EVERYONE GIMME AN ALBUM U REALLY LIKE AND PASS IT ON PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

I'll go first, 666 by Aphrodite's Child :)

@leahandherstuff @lichenstone @sotalia-fluviatilis @field-cryptobotanist @forflightlessbirds @bat-luun @theoneandonlywinnie

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

The more I learn about the world &, importantly, myself, the more I find myself unabashedly, unapologetically caring & being myself; the odd, queer, sometimes dysfunctional person that I am. Because the act of being authentically is, truly, a beautiful if not divine thing to me. Existing is artistry. It's artistry in whatever abstract conception of the word "art" & "artist" I hold, in any case.

Existing as you are, without feeling ashamed for that to any degree other than the genuinely bad (read: immoral, not just socially unacceptable) qualities & traits you have is core, to me, to feeling liberated & free. If I wasn't the unashamedly cringey person I often am, or try to be, I don't think I'd feel nearly as good about myself as I do. & actually caring for yourself is the first step to caring about anything else.

Another dimension to this for me is how this isn't something I created for myself, not entirely anyway, there's people who have taught me to care, there's things which made it clear to me that caring, in the purest sense of the word, is a radical act worthy of respect as much as any other. One of the first things which made me feel this way, cognisantly, is something which used to be in the bio of almost every social media account I had. A quote from The Leftist Cooks' video "This is Not a Video Essay."

"Do you want to save the world? Can we admit that to each other? Do you want to save the world? I want to save the world." There's something real in admitting that that I think a lot of people, myself included, are afraid of. It's vulnerable! It sets you up to fail. Because, like, yeah, of fucking course I want to save the world! But I can't. & you can't. & Neil from The Leftist Cooks can't either. But we can try, and together, if we care & go out & do things we might one day succeed.

Something else which really impacted me in regards to all this, whatever you want to call it, Caring & Existing or something like that, probably the very first in that regard, is folk-punk. I could go on a tirade about how it's the song of my people or whatever, being an anarchist, but what I find most important is that it's also vulnerable & honest. & it's music for losers! Half the time it's about making art because you're too unproductive to change the world. The other half is about drug abuse. But, like, it's real. & it cares. Folk-punk speaks about relatable struggles & experiences & reminds you that everyone else in this mess with you is as dysfunctional as the next. & there's work to be done there, sure, but that won't ever go away. & we need to go out & do stuff anyway!

I find this sentiment all throughout my life, mirrored in a way which is almost creepy in its persistence. A book I read years ago, The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe contains the quote "we’re all just different flavours of fucked-up, hiding it as best as we can." I don't necessarily know what I'm trying to say. Probably something about how important art is & has been to me & how much I genuinely adore people. We're weird & a bit screwed up & I genuinely think that's beautiful.

If there's anything conclusive I'd want to say it'd be this: Go out & be yourself, authentically. Fuck up. Fall down & get back up again. & try to change the world in a positive way, while you're at it. Just don't sweat the small stuff, disregard morally neutral social conventions whenever you can, & it's always better to do a bad job than not to do it at all.

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

About me:

Trans girl* (she/her), anarchist, autist, dilettante.

I'm Marcie. I'm a very explicitly political person & that's what I've been using this blog for mostly up until now: politics. But I find that getting boring, especially as I start engaging in real life politics & not just talking & thinking about it. So, I'll be expanding what I post a bit! In future I'll also be posting about music, art & whatever keeps me busy, really. Expect posts when I feel like them, which is basically just any time anything fascinates me enough to properly write about.

List of useful tags for my blog: -Marcie's Thought of the Day, these will be the politics posts I've always been posting.

-Leftist Musical Analysis, I'll use this to tag all music stuff which is explicitly political.

-Music Reviews, I'll use this for album reviews & stuff! I'm a sucker for a well-constructed album & I think listening to an album in full is one of life's great pleasures, so I'm definitely gonna write a review or two about albums (or songs, maybe) which impacted me a lot.

-Personal, pretty self explanatory, but I'll use this for any personal things which come up. Feel free to block it (or any of the tags, really) if you're not interested.

I'll try to update this list if anything else comes up. It probably will, but we'll see!

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

fuck wrapped, how obscure are yall

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

happy dungeon meshi thursday

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

Taboo & the Power of the Mind

As I've been taking or started the processes of taking real, direct action, it's become much more clear to me how much of our world exists mostly in what we've been taught, as social constructs, some reified enough that they become something you don't even question any more, accepted as fact. Material conditions aside, which are prerequisites for all things in life, many options available to you are ones you write off initially as being unfeasible, unacceptable or, according to some, illegal. These, all, to differing degrees are social constructions which you can deconstruct. & once you do, a world of untapped potential opens up!

To take a simple example, there are those who rescue goods rejected by whatever corporation or service distributes them, out-of-date food & the like. They realise that the expiry date written on any product's packaging itself is also a social construct, one not to be taken at face value given those who put it on there. Yes, bacteria & mould are real dangers, but those don't care for the date on the packaging, they'd be there 10 minutes before it went overdate if they'd be there when it does. The expiry date, ultimately, is just a suggestion as to when it stops being in service of the profit motive to sell product. This is but one of the manifestations of what deconstructing what you've been taught can take.

The same goes, though in a different way, for legality. It's a human construct that only takes shape when observed by one who deems it illegal, like the police or a particularly rule-following citizen. As such it really is as young children say: It's not illegal if you don't get caught. My overarching point is, so long as you don't have self-imposed unreasonable standards & are willing to disregard what a normative society has taught you, you can make a much bigger tangible difference than you may realise. Not to sound too bootstraps-ey, again, if your material conditions, whatever form they may take, don't permit you, that's 100% valid, but if life permits you, you kind of just have to get out there & do it!

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

Why did I get like 10 seemingly legit followers suddenly. I don’t even post much. Help 😭

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

This works, I think

Fun picrew game to try! I tried remaking myself as accurate as possible was fun

No pressure tags 💓: @witheredoffherwitch @hieronymph @multifandotakugirl @otaku-chanx @luckytoucan @nyaerys @maidragoste @liv-cole @donaemondtargaryen @smaugbornassassin @lynnbeth5172 @um-weird-flex-but-ok @aemondsdragon @richardsthirdnipple @drunkchickpea @boundlessfantasy @zae5 @snowblack-charcoalwhite @madame-fear @barbiedragon @fearthhereaper @qyburnsghost

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

These elections were a disaster! I think I'm gonna go flee to a cave, Belgium, or a cave in Belgium.

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

Leftist Musical Analysis: Rainbow Drones - Dog Park Dissidents

Rainbow Drones by Dog Park Dissidents is a song, at its core, about the dangers of respectability politics & moderatism at large. It's a song about the risk ran when dropping any resistance so soon as a modicum of respect & equality has been afforded to you. About how relenting once the needs of a specific part of your marginalisation have been met is ineffective & immoral

It specifically speaks on how the fight for queer equality has lead to us, too, becoming part of the imperialist power that is the US. In our enfranchisement, we, too, have become a tool in the government's pocket to beat down & oppress others with. Legal inequality is an issue, sure, but if the equality you are fighting for is the ability to shoot government-assigned undesirables, there, clearly, is an underlying issue.

Rainbow Drones is a cautionary tale: If you do not take an intersectional approach to liberation, you may be fighting only for equality within a corrupt system. Your fight may only lead to finding your place in an oppressive power structure, instead of dismantling it. It's a song about the tragedy in fighting to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell without further questioning of the military as an institution, therein accepting the presupposed terms which state the military is valuable & necessary. In fighting for equality & not justice, the mistake is made of accepting the terms the status quo poses.

In the words of maia arson crimew- Though this goes for all fights for liberation, not just feminism- "Your feminism is either intersectional or nonexistent."

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

I think there's an inherent dichotomy I experience between the romance & (for lack of a non-dramatic word) tragedy of being a socialist.

Seeing how much more this world & its people could be makes it almost impossible to accept the inefficient & cruel world we live in & I think that has a certain melancholia. Part of the beauty of the world we live in, an unchanged one, is for me, forever tainted. I don't think it's at all apt to conclude ignorance is bliss, though. Ignorance is, to me, just disappointment you're saving for later, but being conscious of the many what-ifs & could-bes makes the fact we live in this specific world sting a bit. I truly wish things could be different, I truly wish neither I nor anyone else had to worry about the future, but we do & I don't think that'll change anytime soon, maybe not ever. But, again, I do think there's a certain romanticism to it. The people I have the greatest amount of respect for are, without exception, always the people who fought for change in their time, which is what I am trying to do now & I think that is freaking radical.

I suppose I hate that I have to be radical, but love being radical. Feelings are contradictory like that sometimes.

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

the "voting does nothing"/"voting isn't harm reduction"/"if you vote you're an idiot liberal"/"they're both the same" crowd that exists in progressive areas of so many western democracies really is so unbelievably privileged. so many people globally do not have this right and yet people treat it like it's nothing.

literally like i don’t think ppl who don’t take voting seriously realize how difficult it is for a lot of ppl (poor ppl and poc in particular) to vote. i live in a low income and primarily black neighborhood and the hoops we have to jump through just to figure out where the fucking polling place is just for them to change it the morning of election day with no notice is insane. voting isn’t gonna magically get rid of fascism, but keeping fascists out of power in whatever way you can will help slow it down.

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

There is little which frustrates me more than the sentiment that Western hegemony is, at all, a good thing. The assumption which follows all too often when I express this is that I would like or support the hegemony of some other culture, past or present, like Russia, the USSR or China.

I cannot say I do not have my critiques of all of these societies, some more than others, but I also cannot say that I do not have my critiques of the West. The thing I take issue with which is, currently, unique to the West is that it exists largely without blatant outside threats, there is currently no other world power truly keeping it in check.

If we go back to the '80s, the USSR did in many ways compete with the West. There was an alternative to Western (often US) collaboration, which I don't think exists any longer unless a country is powerful & resource-rich enough to be self-sufficient. You will participate in the free market, whether you want to or not.

Another problem this causes besides the lack of freedom & choice is the erosion of workers' rights. With no major, living, breathing example of anything but Western capitalism, all smaller examples being suppressed, the palpable reality of the possibility of change is all too easily erased.

This is among the reason I believe Western hegemony is, directly or indirectly, a cause of a lot of exploitation & how inescapable it has become. Furthermore, I think Western capitalist hegemony is a large part of why meaningful choices & freedoms are becoming rarer & rarer to come by. Capitalism & freedom are antithetical & with nothing fighting back against capitalism (regardless of the merits or demerits of said force) it is allowed to run rampant.

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

I find it horrifying & frankly dystopian how money has become the de facto way to quantify impact on the world. I saw a YouTube video recently which detailed research into sustainable alternatives for pesticides in the cattle industry & the conclusion had nought to do with its positive environmental impact nor how it might affect the quality of life for livestock, instead it was about how much extra profit the American cattle industry might stand to make per year.

There are many more examples of this, when trying to conceptualise success, for example, many peoples' minds (including, in the past, mine) immediately jump to wealth & ignore mostly everything else, despite the fact that purely wealth is obviously an imperfect metric. If you go off of only wealth, no celebrity would really ever have a reason to commit suicide, but as we all understand money does not make one immune to harassment, mental illness or any other number of factors which might push one to the brink. Still, I don't think many “30 under 30” style lists include any such factors & our personal conceptions of success all too often don't either.

I think, though, on some level money can be a way to quantify impact on the world, not because money is a good quantifier, but because under a downright oppressive capitalist system there is little (though not nothing) which gives you more influence or sway than money does. To make any systemic changes from inside of the system, you require capital & there is no way around that fact.

All of this, to me, is just another thing which symbolises how capitalist social conditioning is ultimately harmful to humans & discourages genuine intellectual discussion. We barely know how to make sense of the world & capitalistic socialisation gives us an easy out by quantifying nigh everything with something we have all been taught to understand & accept blindly since birth: money.

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

The recent rise of AI “art” has made me realise something which is pretty integral to the way I personally experience art & that is that I think art without an artist is no art at all, for pretty pictures or drawings does not art make.

I would personally define art as unconventional ways to express thoughts & feelings & most importantly of all, self-expression. & if there's no self to express, you simply cannot live up to my definition of art.

Importantly, then, I also things we wouldn't conventionally consider art should count, too: Talking, cooking & sewing are to me, for example, all forms of art. & to me, the truer the art is to the artist, the better. I suppose that might be another reason why I feel so iffy about capitalist art, the profit motive disturbs that somewhat.

[marxistmanicpixiedreamgrrrl]

"But look at what happens in socialist countries."

I literally don't care. No one's saying to elect people who call themselves socialist and let them do whatever they want. No one's saying to find a socialist country and copy their policies exactly.

Also, when bad things happen in the United States, you blame socialism for that too.