#“when you cut a liberal a fascist bleeds” | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sirfrogsworth · 1 year ago

Text

75% of Democrats approve of Joe Biden.

That's the problem.

Some people seem to be under the impression that everyone hates Joe Biden but they vote for him because he is not Trump. But Biden won the primary. He will probably win the next one, as no incumbent has ever lost a primary.

The majority of status quo Liberals think he's doing a good job. And it seems they can excuse a little genocide.

Leftists/Progressives in the US are actually a pretty small group. Our numbers are growing and we are getting some good people elected into state offices and even into Congress, but we just don't have a lot of legislative power yet. And, as I keep saying, I think improving that is a much better plan than allowing fascism to take hold.

I do not feel safe. My trans friends do not feel safe. When Trump was president, Republicans had started floating the idea of cutting Social Security and other benefits. Myself and many other disabled people were quite fearful of losing the only thing keeping us alive. I got a message just today from someone who said they were in constant fear of homelessness because Trump and the Republicans kept threatening to cut their benefits. I use myself as an example, but this is not anecdotal. The problems I describe affect millions of other disabled people.

Trans people currently have about a 40% suicide attempt rate. And that is mostly because they have no means to escape an area that will not accept them. Right now queer folks are starting a mass exodus from states like Texas and Florida so they can keep their healthcare and hopefully stay alive.

If a fascist right wing government takes power, the most vulnerable will be the most at risk. I fear a legitimate trans genocide. And I fear myself and the millions of others like me might not make it either. Currently, I am fighting for my life to prevent homelessness. And I am terrified about not winning that fight before the election.

At this point it isn't about safety, it's about survival. And if you told me that not voting for Biden would instantly end the horrible massacre, sure, I would take the risk and make that sacrifice. But when I play things out in my head, a Trump presidency does nothing to achieve that. In fact, I fear it may escalate the conflict. He could send more money and weapons. He would be able to send US military resources. Maybe even troops.

All of that in addition to the trans genocide. There may be no more blue states they can escape to. Disabled folks may lose access to food and medicine. The border wall will be built. Increased concentration camps at the border. Plus, no more funding for Ukraine—which could lead to another genocide.

I am very afraid, but I don't think I am a coward. I don't think sacrificing ourselves for nothing is a good solution. And yeah, I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. But that doesn't make me heartless. That doesn't mean I don't care about what is happening.

But also, the most vulnerable are the ones fighting for a truly better world. They are the ones saying the status quo is shit. And if they all die in a pointless sacrifice, who will be left to fight this fight?

I think one of the biggest issues on the Left is a lack of pragmatism and strategy. We have big ideas and I love that. Medicare for All. Green New Deal. The end of capitalism. World peace. And I want all of that. But all of that may take decades to achieve. And we need to survive until we can achieve those goals.

"Let's end capitalism" is not a plan. A plan has steps and goals and strategies. And those goals will be nearly impossible to achieve under a fascist right wing government. So we need to maintain an environment that allows us to slowly make progress.

If you are bleeding out, you have to put on a tourniquet before you stitch the wound.

Someone last night told me I should opt out of the system. Don't vote for anyone. They said we should start a "dual power" revolution. Trans people should make their own HRT so it is free. Lots of big ideas. I'd love to end our capitalist hellscape. And I also like the idea of finding a way to make and distribute HRT. And underground hormone railroad. But that isn't going to happen tomorrow. Or even a year from now. And I tried to explain that I and millions of others are stuck in the system. We depend on it. Social Security and Medicare pay for my food and medicine. Those trans folks who don't know how to manufacture HRT still need doctors and prescriptions and pharmacies. And in an epic display of ableism, they told me I should grow my own food and read a book on medicine. And I don't know if reading a book will help me learn how to make Ozempic. And I don't know if I could start a potato farm from my bed.

We have to live in the system we are trapped in. We can't just opt out. I want to fight and make it better. I want to dismantle the system and create something better. But that takes time. We need to plan. We need to strategize. And, most of all, we need to survive. We cannot fix things if we are dead.

I am not saying we do nothing. We should protest. We should pressure our government to stop supporting this genocide. We should fundraise for candidates that align with our values. We should come up with a goddamn plan that goes beyond not voting for someone.

This country desperately needs a heart transplant. But we can't remove the heart before we have a better one to replace it with. And we certainly don't want to stick in a worse heart than the one we have.

I am willing to fight in whatever way I can. But I am not willing to die and I am not willing to sacrifice the ones I love to accomplish nothing.

If you have a viable plan that goes beyond just not voting, I am willing to have a discussion. I mean, if someone knows of a way to not vote for Biden and not get Trump, they need to speak up right now. But I am done arguing and being called a monster and a genocide supporter just because I don't want the person who killed my mom and hundreds of thousands of others to regain power.

To clarify, Biden sent a bill to Congress asking for 14 billion that 100% of Republicans voted for after stripping out all humanitarian aid.

Biden alone seems to be responsible in this narrative. But he is not. The direct instrument of this massacre is a corrupt far right government. And people want to risk giving power to an even more corrupt far right government with a much more powerful military?

How does that make sense?

All I'm asking is for people to think, "Then what?"

If your plan stops at, "I'm not voting for Biden." That is a bad plan.

How does that stop genocide?

What does not voting for Biden do to help Palestine?

If Trump is elected, what damage will he do?

These are basic questions and I don't think asking them means all of the death is meaningless to me. My very intention is to reduce harm and suffering and even more death.

Also, if you die, you can't stop anything. Dying is also a bad plan. I don't want to die. Please don't sacrifice yourself over voting.

Maybe there are alternatives we haven't thought of. We do have a year before the election. There have to be ways to influence this as a collective to help save lives that do not involve handing power to fascists or just... dying.

1K notes · View notes

blackchantilly · 4 months ago

Text

CW: US politics and voting ahead, FYI

So I almost never post about political stuff because it stresses me out majorly, but this being an election year...ugh. There are things I want to say, and I will say them, and that's the last you'll hear from me about politics for another four years.

Tl;dr -- If you value yourself or your loved ones who are LGBT, racial or ethnic minorities, or women, VOTE IN YOUR LOCAL ELECTIONS if you do nothing else.

Long-winded rationale under the cut.

This is a crucial moment for conservatives right now. A relatively small but not insignificant number of "moderate" conservatives (aka not full-blown fascists) are jumping ship and no longer affiliating themselves with the Republican party. Meanwhile the full-blown fascists have taken over and are making concerted efforts to move the Overton window towards -- you guessed it -- full-blown fascism.

This is happening on all levels but, most crucially, at a local level. This was brought to my awareness when a locally-owned office I've been doing business with for six years emailed its entire client database telling them to vote for the far-right M*G* candidate over the "moderate" conservative incumbent in a Republican primary. The rhetoric was that the incumbent was, and I quote, "moderate at best and liberal at worst." This was infuriating for a few different reasons:

McCortney is FAR, FAR from liberal or progressive.

This assumed that every one of their clients was a registered Republican and could vote in that election.

This assumed that every one of their clients had far-right values.

(And yes, I am in the process of cutting ties with the lunatics who sent that email.)

(Also yes, the fascist representative candidate ended up winning the primary, probably due to widespread smear campaigns like this. Unreal.)

You've probably heard people talking about Project 2025 and cherry picking parts of it to criticize that aren't even the worst parts (lol), so I won't harp on about that. But the point is that, again, the far-right is attempting to gradually move the range of socially-accepted values towards literal fascism by painting people who are merely right-of-center as bleeding heart liberals. This is WORRISOME.

I don't actually care too much whether you vote in the presidential election just because of, you know, the electoral college doing most of the decision-making. (The 2016 election showed us that the popular vote didn't count for a lot.) (I am going to vote in that election, though, because I want to do everything I possibly can to make sure Tr*mp stays out of the White House.)

But for the LOVE OF GOD, vote in your local elections, because this is where your vote actually counts. Vote for your representatives, because those are the people who ARE going to be voting in the presidential election. Vote against the fascists at every turn. Don't let the bigots let the more powerful bigots decide our future, dammit.

#cw politics

0 notes

rpgsandbox · 3 years ago

Link

What is The Hammer and The Stake?

The Hammer and the Stake is a new stand-alone tabletop roleplaying game set in a fictionalized and alternate history where marginalized Eastern European socialists fight against the depredations of fascist vampiric un-dead. The game's core mechanic focuses on player cooperation and wagering to overcome obstacles. The game was created by 5-time Ennie Award winner, Chris Gunning, who wrote for Delta Green, Vampire: the Masquerade, City of Mist, Hellas, and Tribe 8!

The game has been playtested and revised based on player feedback and the manuscript stands at over 150 pages and is nearly ready to share! As you can see, some art has already been procured. Help us make The Hammer and the Stake a reality by backing this project!

Check Out the Quickstart (for free during the KS campaign)!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355332/The-Hammer-and-The-Stake-The-Workers-Primer

“[Our] greatest strength is our inclusivity. It is a power the elite capitalist blood-suckers cannot and will not match. Our duty is to harness the inherent power of the workers, all workers, in such a way that we present the Kard too many problems to solve. We are the proletariat waves that wear against the fascist stone.”

- Lili Batfalszki, Notes of the Speech to the 1st Carpathian Revolutionary Council

The Setting.

The Pitch:

There is a spectre haunting Europe...

Following World War One and with partition of the Austro-Hungarian Empire looming, Count Dracula (THE Count Dracula) engineers a fascist vampire-coup in Hungary and Romania and establishes himself as the autocrat of the newly created Nagy-Magyarország ('Greater Hungary' pronounced 'naj ma-jar-or-sahg').

The players are proletariat freedom fighters, working to overthrow Dracula's despotic regime. The threat is very real; Dracula's magic is powerful enough to make manifest the worst fears of Marx. Time is of the essence. If Dracula's minions are left unchecked, the people will literally lose their identities and become lumpenproles - beaten down degenerate servants of the Dracula regime.

You play one of the heroic socialists fighting to liberate the people from both the invisible hand of Adam Smith as well as despotic vampire overlords led by Dracula himself.

You have to fight, not only for your freedom, but for your identity.

...and if you can't wrest the means of production from the leeches, you and yours are going to burn it all down. To. The. Ground.

The Carpathian Revolution:

The Carpathian Revolutionary Front (CRF) is the rag-tag organization that attempts to coordinate the fractious socialist and communist organizations in Nagy-Magyarország towards overthrowing Dracula’s despotic government.

The characters are members of the CRF. You were likely brought into the CRF’s umbrella through another organization with a distinct socialist-communist vision for the future of Hungary, Romania and the region. You were placed in a cell with socialists you don’t know. They have their own skills… and their own philosophic outlooks very different than your own. Your diversity will be your Cell’s strength… or so you hope.

As members of the Front, your job is to destabilize the Nagy-Magyarország government however you best can. The CRF has pretenses towards directing and organizing the various revolutionary cells, but in reality, you and your comrades are largely on your own.

“Greater Hungary:”

The Dracula cryptostate rules over a fictional Hungary and Romania as well as portions of Ukraine and Serbia. Cities still stand and house a large portion of the population, but growth has stagnated. New technologies embraced elsewhere across Europe are rare, if not outright outlawed. The fields are tended, but machines are eschewed for an ever-increasing population of semi-serfs who feed the demand for back-breaking labor. Books are outlawed. The borders are closed. Security forces are ever-present. Life is cheap.

The land is ruled by Dracula. This is not Vlad Tepes. This is Stoker’s Count Dracula – a creature of a bygone age who fetishizes anachronistic social structures. The enemy of the people is a regressive-fascist who perverts Hungarian pride and destroys Romanian identity to create social divisions. Dracula seeks to destroy the structure of progress to permanently keep the people as his slaves.

Vampires literally and figuratively bleed the land and the people dry. They feed easiest when the people are fearful and broken, deprived of the weapons to fight back. The Dracula government steals everything from the working class. It steals their labour. It steals their hope. It steals their future. The state owns all and consumes all.

Unless something is done, Nagy-Magyarország will devolve into the vampires’ paradise – a place where humanity is little better than cattle.

The Factions:

The eight factions that make up the Carpathian Revolutionary Front (CRF) are:

The Hungarian Socialist Revolution (HSR): The most populous of the CRF factions. HSR members tend to be well rounded and hyper-focused on the survival of the movement. Many play diplomatic roles within the Collective.

Faction Talent: “The Movement is All”

The Literati: Based in Romania, but with branches throughout Greater Hungary. Members defy the Kard’s laws to curb literacy and reading, and use the written word as the basis of their rebellion. Many Literati members are canny smugglers.

Faction Talent: “Educated in Militancy”

The International Workers’ Union (IWU): This group believes that the best way to bring down the Dracula government isn’t by directly fighting the vampires, but by capturing the means of production and upending the delicate economic structures that Dracula relies upon.

Faction Talent: “Saboteur”

The International Liaison Department (OMS, in Russian): This group is closely aligned with the Russian Bolsheviks in Moscow. They are well-funded and well-equipped. They are determined to ensure a triumphant socialist movement in Hungary is part of the worldwide Comintern.

Faction Talent: “Furnished”

Society of St. Blaise: The Society traces its socialist roots back to the very beginnings of Christianity as a revolutionary movement. They see the two-pronged fight against the vampires and the effort to empower the people as dual moral imperatives and reject capitalism as idolatrous.

Faction Talent: “James 5”

Company of Secularists: The fight against Dracula and the vampires is an existential one, and must be carried out rationally and efficiently. The Company believes victory can be achieved by mastering the new tools and cutting-edge technology and machines that will define the coming century.

Faction Talent: “Rationality’s Razor”

The Krewspach Commune: This group has roots in the isolationist Germanic speaking communities of Greater Hungary. Members of the Commune have temporarily abandoned their communal agrarian lives to hunt vampires. Commune members are notably protective of their privacy.

Faction Talent: “Far Beyond Driven”

The Committee of the New Revolution (CNR): Bitter rivals to the HSR and no longer formally part of the CRF. The ‘sisterhood’ is less focused on fighting vampires and more interested in the fight to empower marginalized communities.

Faction Talent: “The True Revolution”

The Mechanics.

The Basics:

The Hammer and The Stake's mechanics were designed from the ground up to accentuate the setting. The system is based on games of chance like roulette, craps, and blackjack and uses D6s (everyone has six-sided dice).

The game defaults to scene resolution, where a single roll accounts for multiple actions by the character to achieve a larger success. However, the mechanic is granular enough that task resolution is possible should the players and GM want to focus on the drama of a single act.

The goal of The Hammer and The Stake’s dice rolling mechanic is to create a sense of suspense, stress and anticipation with every roll. Statistical probability is complicated and fluid and involve taking calculated risks.

The System is designed to keep every player invested in each roll. The betting mechanic and helping mechanic promote player communication and cooperation. Multiple actions from multiple characters can be resolved with a single roll. Every player with a character in the scene has a vested interest in the outcome of the roll.

Character Stats:

Characters are primarily defined by their Attributes and Skills.

There are three Attributes; Physical, Mental, and Social. Attributes represent the raw abilities of the character.

There are eleven Skills, with a much larger number of specializations. Skills represent refined training and knowledges gained through the character’s work, insight, and experience. The Skills are: Brawn, Education, Explosives, Firearms, Lookout, Lead, Machinery, Occult, Rhetoric, Skilled Trade, and Subterfuge.

Many characters also have Abilities. These are special actions the character can perform – they represent heroic (or dastardly) aspects that make the character a cut above the masses. Abilities each have their own special rules that are defined in the description of the Ability.

Wagers

Wagers are bets on the results of the dice. A ‘Hit’ is a successful wager and results in a successful character’s action.

Wagers allow a character to be successful on a roll of the dice that results in something other than a 2 (which is always a success for everyone performing an action in the scene). Players place wagers on numbers they hope will come up on the dice. Players can place multiple wagers on the same dice roll (to elicit better results).

The number of wagers a player can make on a roll of the dice is dictated by their character’s relevant Attribute. For example, a character with a 2 in Physical can place two wagers on the table before the roll.

The types of numbers a player can place a wager on is dictated by their Skills. Higher skills allow wagers on numbers that more frequently hit. A character with a 1 in a skill is severely limited in the numbers they can chose to wager on. A character with a 4 in a skill has a number of choices.

A Few Example Abilities:

Wo(man) of the People

Any time you place a wager on a number for a roll involving the Social attribute, the bet is considered to be two XP wagers on the same number.

The Voice of the Proletariat

Any time your roll involving the Social attribute is a success AND the dice show the same number (doubles) the bet is doubled and you score a critical success.

The Struggle

You may reroll any failed throw to convince someone of the righteousness of your cause.

Pacifist Rejectionist

If you are resolving a conflict using your Physical attribute but are not intending to cause damage, then you may ignore the first failure (7) – forcing subsequent throws specific to your character. The other characters involved in the shoot must still abide by the first failure.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Fri, July 2 2021 12:45 PM BST

Website: [facebook]

#RPG #kickstarter #The Hammer and The Stake #Weaponized Ink

19 notes · View notes

autokratorissa · 5 years ago

Text

Within two weeks of the total application of Libertarian Communism in Aragón, collectivized businesses became vacuums of empty stores and warehouses, creating a serious supply problem. The textile industry, the produce industry and in general, all light industry in Catalonia, also collectivized by the Anarchists, refused to accept the vouchers and other paper money given out by the “Committees” in Aragón. They demanded that they be paid in the coin of the Republic.

In reply the Committees of Aragón threatened the National Committee of the C.N.T. with cutting off the electric power that serviced the greater part of the industries of Catalonia, plus the central electrical system itself, if clothes and supplies were not sent to the “liberated areas.”

In reply to the gravity of this threat the National Committee of the C.N.T. ordered the Military Chief of the Anarchist forces in Aragón to execute the leaders of the Committees if they persisted in their attitude.

While the contradictions within the F.A.I./C.N.T. leadership grew ever sharper, the dominion which they continued to exercise over the peasantry of Aragón and Catalonia presented grave consequences for the war as a whole. Economically, these areas which had held such a wonderful potential for the Republic, were fast becoming wastelands. Politically, tens of thousands of peasants were losing all interest in the war; some had been actually forced into minor revolts against their persecutors.

In Catalonia the situation grew worse. At the end of August the Casanovas Government issued a decree that imposed the obligatory syndicalization of all peasants into one union---The Federación de Sindicatos Agricolas de Cataluña (F.E.S.A.C.).

[...] [T]he Catalan peasantry [...] were obligated to join the new syndicates where the selling of all crops would be regulated as well as all personal purchases. [The] syndicate would control the prices, security and credits. The system took from the peasants all the freedom to handle their own products, buying and selling, and in the long run, destroyed any stimulus to produce anything beyond their personal needs.

With an abysmal lack of knowledge of economic laws, the Anarchists also set out to reorganize Catalan industries, basing their concepts upon infantile solutions that had been declared “utopian” by all Marxists as early as the 19th century. Applied to the 20th century, only catastrophe could result.

[...]

A first result of the takeover was the refusal by the F.A.I. to recognize the priorities of the fronts---this, when the war against Fascism was a question of life and death for the whole of Spain. All stimulus was killed. “Equal” salaries were imposed for all categories; from engineers and technicians to the lowliest worker.

[...]

The Anarchists forgot, or never knew, the simple, elemental reality, that production is the decisive aspect of any active economy; if you do not produce there is nothing to distribute. They put down the problems of production, concentrating solely, in their demagoguery, upon their programs for “equal distribution.” In fact this highly touted “equality” didn’t apply either, since salaries differed from one factory to another. The workers collected according to the fortunes and the reserves of their particular factory, and were continually subjected to the caprices of the omnipotent Committees. When the reserves were spent the F.A.I. then went to the [central] State to ask that it subsidize the payrolls.

This process of applied egalitarianism went to such extremes that actors and entertainers collected the same as the cleaning woman in the theater. And if this sound[s] inspiring to “Women’s Liberation,” know this: equality stopped with the differentiation between the sexes. The F.A.I. maintained the principle that the wages of woman workers would continue to be inferior to those of men, though they did the same work.

In the name of “economic federalism” the Anarchists pushed a chaotic decentralization of industry, sowing confusion and disorder. There was no coordination of any kind. In not a few cases different factories of the same industry, those that would complement each other, fell into the hands of different committees. Economic relationships were destroyed and production suffered.

Goods generally produced were not the goods so desperately needed at the front, but rather that which could be sold quickest and with the highest margin of profit. Indeed an almost artificially created anxiety for increased benefits surged in many factories inflaming conflicts of interests between one factory and another, and one committee and another. [...]

Deprecating the absolutely desperate war needs of the country, the F.A.I. did little or nothing to create a meaningful war industry. The immense possibilities existing in this area were almost totally disavowed or ignored. One is reminded of the Chinese 8th Route Army and its “war industry” located in the caves of Yenan, where thousands of rifles were manufactured almost by hand during China’s long struggle against the Japanese and the Kuomintang. One is reminded too of the “arms industry” of the early Viet Minh located in the jungles of Vietnam, and producing excellent weapons with nothing but the will and the heart and the patience of a people intent on winning their fight against imperialism.

The industrial might of Catalonia, with a metallurgical and chemical industry equal to that of some of the most advanced countries, was sufficient to have provided all the small arms—rifles, machine guns, mortars and cartridges, plus all manner of artillery shells, that the Republic needed.

The Anarchists, who for the first critical year of the war, controlled this industry, and in effect sabotaged its potential for the war, will forever share the guilt along with the capitulationists and the defeatists, for the final Franco victory.

D. Santillán boasts that at the end of three months they were producing approximately 4,000 shells per month. This is at less than 150 per day; less than the total potential of any medium sized machine shop. He also boasts of 1,000 kilos of T.N.T. being produced per day, after one year, and 600,000 fuses for shells and grenades during that year. And this was done, he writes, with approximately 150,000 workers in the war industry. If his production figures reveal nothing more than the total waste of manpower here, one will have some idea of the tragedy of the Spanish Republic. Where were the rifles and the small arms so desperately needed? There is no mention anywhere of this kind of production in Catalonia. Any applied statistics will show that the zone was capable of producing these weapons in the tens, if not in the hundreds of thousands. But this was not done, so that in the end, when Catalonia fell, Álvarez del Vayo could say that the remnants of the Peoples Army in its retreat across the French frontier, had but 30,000 rifles to defend itself against a Franco army—in Catalonia alone—of over 350,000 men inclusive of five complete Italian divisions.

Absolving themselves of any guilt in the matter by simply hiding the facts from the world—and they had plenty of help in this—they then, in what can only be described as an act of supreme arrogance, denounced the Central Government of the Popular Front for not issuing Soviet arms to their units in Aragón—this, while the Madrid militia battalions were bleeding to death before the guns of the Army of Africa and the bombs of the Condor Legion; while Málaga fell, and while the Fascist onslaught in the valley of the Jarama and before Guadalajara was being desperately contained. “It is obvious,” they announced pontifically, and ignoring any vestige of reality, “that these arms are being given only to the Communist led units to enhance the prestige and power of the P.C.E.”

--- Landis, Arthur Harold. “The Death of the Spanish Republic.” Spain: The Unfinished Revolution. 1972.

#tag: quotes #tag: history #arthur landis

616 notes · View notes

monkeywiki · 4 months ago

Text

Ok what gets me is "misinformed rube" has to be be excluded from your community. This is why the saying "cut a liberal and a fascist bleeds" exists.

If you're in a ground roots organization of other human beings from different backgrounds, you're going to meet diverse elderly and different individuals who are stubborn and with different beliefs, misconceptions and levels of social awareness. The point is you can look past or overcome your differences because of a shared goal of a better life for everyone. You can't drop grandma off the cliff because she has dementia and doesn't understand gay ppl. she still is unable to retire, works 40 hours for 13 an hour at retail, and cant afford her heart condition pills.

My boss was a church worker and educator of over 30 years. Devout Christian. She grew to love me, as a human, while being trans and bi. We disagreed about a lot, though. She was "set in her ways" about a lot. Especially religion. You know what we did agree on? Systematic imperialism, Working class solidarity. Healthcare, etc. Jesus loved the poor and hated the rich. That people deserve better. And you know what? No matter how much I disagreed with her about her old school ways of teaching, I cried hard when she died. Still doesn't feel real. Because she died in her 40s the day of my shift. She had been running on a barely functioning heart that whole time, and never burdened any of us with this information. Despite everything, she loved us, and I loved her too. It was too late for me to tell her. She set up a celebration for the marriage between me and my trans husband. And then one day she was gone. She was overworked, and financial and home security was a worry of hers often. Why did it have to be? You know how many of us working class humans would be able to learn and grow and love eachother if we just. Had. More. Time?

God. Fuck I'm still hurting. Imagine if we'd had more time. She'd already learned so much just by us learning about eachother as people. She'd made bounds to respect what she didn't understand. And she got taken way too fucking soon, and it's not fair. Imagine if we'd had more time to talk???

If we just had more security. If we just had more time. If we just had more money. If the roofs above our head could be mended by our neighbors and not held hostage by the people who would sooner see us rot in mold if it meant keeping our money and taking advantage of someone else next, whatever meets the next quarterly marker. Whatever vets the better shareholder meeting. Whatever keeps profits above lives.

At the root of everything you humanize eachother because you want better for everyone even if you are firm in what you believe in and disagree with the other person. You cannot change people, but you can earn trust with empathy and a listening ear. Not everyone is maliciously misinformed, and socially isolating people who have ultimately the same goal as you is detrimental to your cause and fundamentally contradictory to what you claim to represent.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but please remember the working class will ALWAYS have eachother before ANY politician will "have us".

When every day people desperately want you to listen, consider wondering Why and giving an attempt at listening instead of jumping to the same dismissal every time. Its the same conversations every 4 years. Why? Why does the pattern keep repeating? Politicians Want you to hate the working class peers around you. They Want You to distrust your allies. They want you to make enemies of your peers and stay divided. THEY DO NOT WANT US TO TRULY UNITE AND ORGANIZE. The two party system Wants To Placate You With Kindly Worded Small Solutions to keep you in line, and prevent fundamental change. NOTHING WILL FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE.

recognize this pattern now and KNOW what it means for human lives to have the autonomy to live as long and healthy a life as they have the right to.

Truly the most useless people on Earth

322 notes · View notes

johns-prince · 5 years ago

Text

Music Mix: John Lennon

1st John Lennon Mix

My Own Worst Enemy || Lit

It's no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy Cause every now and then I kick the living shit out of me Can we forget about the things I said when I was drunk I didn't mean to call you that

Under the Bridge || Red Hot Chili Peppers

Sometimes I feel Like I don't have a partner Sometimes I feel Like my only friend Is the city I live in The city of angels Lonely as I am Together we cry

I don't ever want to feel Like I did that day Take me to the place I love Take me all the way I don't ever want to feel Like I did that day Take me to the place I love Take me all the way (yeah yeah)

Come As You Are || Nirvana

Come as you are, as you were As I want you to be As a friend, as a friend As an known enemy

Take your time, hurry up The choice is yours, don't be late Take a rest as a friend As an old

Memoria, memoria Memoria, memoria

Blurry || Puddle of Mudd

Everything's so blurry and everyone's so fake And everybody's empty and everything is so messed up Pre-occupied without you I cannot live at all My whole world surrounds you I stumble then I crawl

You could be my someone you could be my scene You know that I'll protect you from all of the obscene I wonder what you're doing imagine where you are There's oceans in between us but that's not very far

Everyone is changing there's no one left that's real To make up your own ending and let me know just how you feel 'Cause I am lost without you I cannot live at all My whole world surrounds you I stumble then I crawl

Broken || Lund

Will you end my pain? Will you take my life? Will you bleed me out? Will you hang me out to dry? Will you take my soul in the midnight rain? While I'm falling apart While I'm going insane

Can you break my bones? Will you tear my skin? Can you taste my lust? Can you feel my sin? See, I'm a waste of life, I should just kill myself Yeah, I could slit my wrists, but it really wouldn't help Wouldn't fix my issues, or change your mind 'Cause I broke your heart and you buried mine Now, I'm six feet deep and I can't breathe I got dirt in my eyes and blood on my sleeves But I dig my way up through these roots and leaves So I can get some air, so I can finally breathe And now I'm on my knees, oh baby, begging please Will you Will you

Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too || SayAnything

If I die and go to Hell real soon It will appear to me as this room And for eternity, I'd lay in bed In my boxers, half stoned With the pillow under my head

I'd be chatting on the interweb Maggots pray upon the living dead I had no interest in the things she said On the phone every day, I'll permanently hit the hay

I called her on the phone and she touched herself She touched herself, she touched herself Called her on the phone and she touched herself I laughed myself to sleep

Nineteen || Bad 4 Good

You want it rough? you got it rough You want it tough? you got it tough You want it mean? well I'm mean! I'm bad! Nineteen!

The Logical Song || Supertramp

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible Logical, oh responsible, practical And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical

There are times when all the world's asleep The questions run too deep For such a simple man Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned I know it sounds absurd Please tell me who I am

I said, watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical Liberal, oh fanatical, criminal Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're Acceptable Respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable! Oh, take it take it yeah

Fight For Your Right || BeastieBoys

You wake up late for school, man you don't want to go! You ask you mom(Mimi), please? But she still says, no! You missed two classes, and no homework But your teacher preaches class like you're some kind of jerk!

You gotta fight for your right to party!

Your pop caught you smoking, and he said, no way! That hypocrite smokes two packs a day Man, living at home is such a drag! Now your mom(Mimi) threw away your best porno mag! (bust it!)

You gotta fight for your right to party!

You gotta fight!

Don't step out of this house if that's the clothes you're gonna wear! I'll kick you out of my home if you don't cut that hair! Your mom(Mimi) busted in and said, what's that noise? Aw, mom(Mimi) you're just jealous, it's the Beastie Boys!

You gotta fight for your right to party! You gotta fight for your right to party!

Fat Lip || Sum 41

Well I'm a no goodick lower middle class brat! Back packed and I don't give a shit about nothing You be standing on the corner talking all that kufuffin But you don't make any sense from all the gas you'll be huffing And if the egg don't stain you'll be ringing off the hook, You're on the hit list wanted in the telephone book I like songs with distortion, to drink in proportion The doctor said my mom should have had an abortion

I don't want to waste my time Become another casualty of society I'll never fall in line Become another victim of your conformity And back down!

Paranoid || Weezer

I need someone to show me the things in life That I can't find I can't see the things that make true happiness I must be blind

Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh And I will cry Happiness, I cannot feel and love, to me Is so unreal

And so, as you hear these words telling you now Of my state I tell you to enjoy life, I wish I could But it's too late

I Don’t Care || Fall Out Boy

Say my name, and his in the same breath, I dare you to say they taste the same, Let the leaves fall off in the summer And let December glow in flames

Erase myself and let go, Start it over again in Mexico These friends, they don't love you They just love the hotel suites, now!

I don't care what you think, As long as it's about me The best of us can find happiness, in misery I don't care what you think, As long as it's about me The best of us can find happiness, in misery

Oh, take a chance, let your body get a tolerance, I'm not a chance, but a heat wave in your pants Pull a breath like another cigarette, Pawn shop heart trading up, Said no

I'm the oracle in my chest, Let the guitar scream like a fascist, Sweat it out, shut your mouth, Free love on the streets, but In the alley it ain't that cheap, now!

Don’t Threaten Me With a Good Time || Panic! At The Disco

Champagne, cocaine, gasoline And most things in between I roam the city in a shopping cart A pack of camels and a smoke alarm

This night is heating up Raise hell and turn it up Saying "If you go out you might pass out in a drain pipe" Oh yeah, don't threaten me with a good time

I'm a scholar and a gentleman And I usually don't fall when I try to stand I lost a bet to a guy in a Chiffon skirt But I make these high heels work I've told you time and time again I'm not as think as you drunk I am And we all fell down when the sun came up I think we've had enough

Boys || Sakima

I was busy fucking with boys, boys, boys I was busy fucking with boys, boys, boys Head is spinning, drinking with boys, boys, boys I was busy fucking with boys, boys, boys I was busy drinking with boys Boys

Weak || AJR

No thank you They call me after dark, I don't want no part My habits, they hold me like a grudge I promise I won't budge

One sip, bad for me One hit, bad for me One kiss, bad for me But I give in so easily And no thank you! is how it should've gone I should stay strong

But I'm weak, and what's wrong with that? Boy, oh boy I love ya when I fall for that I'm weak, and what's wrong with that? Boy, oh boy I love ya when I fall for that I'm weak But I'm weak, and what's wrong with that? Boy, oh boy I love ya when I fall for that

Bang! || AJR

I get up, I get down and I'm jumpin' around And the rumpus and ruckus are comfortable now Been a hell of a ride but I'm thinkin' it's time to grow (Bang! Bang! Bang!) So I got an apartment across from the park Put quinoa in my fridge, still I'm not feelin' grown Been a hell of a ride but I'm thinkin' it's time to go (Bang! Bang! bang!) (Here we go)

So put your best face on, everybody Pretend you know this song, everybody Come hang Let's go out with a bang! (Bang! Bang! bang!) I'm way too young to lie here forever I'm way too old to try so whatever Come hang Let's go out with a bang! (Bang! Bang! bang!)

Feel like I'm gonna puke 'cause my taxes are due Do my password begin with a one or a two? Been a hell of a ride but I'm thinkin' it's time to grow (Bang! Bang! bang!) (Metronome) Man, I'm up to something, ooh-dee-la-dee-doh Thank you all for comin', I hope you like the show 'Cause it's on a budget, so ooh-dee-la-dee-doh Yeah, come on here we go, yeah, come on (here we go)

So put your best face on, everybody Pretend you know this song, everybody! Come hang Let's go out with a bang! (Bang! Bang! bang!) I'm way too young to lie here forever I'm way too old to try so whatever Come hang Let's go out with a bang! (Bang! Bang! bang!) (Bang! Bang! bang!)

Been a hell of a ride but I'm thinkin' it's time to go

#john lennon #john lennon mix #lowkey mclennon #can you figure out the songs that remind me of mclennon and john

24 notes · View notes

kevinbingham · 5 years ago

Text

“Not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines”

https://www.facebook.com/thethinker42/posts/10155931022478700

Lori Gallagher Witt

January 7, 2018

An open letter to friends and family who are/were shocked to discover I'm a liberal...

This is going to be VERY long, so: TL;DR: I'm a liberal, I've always been a liberal, but that doesn't mean what a lot of you apparently think it does.

Some of you suspected. Some of you were shocked. Many of you have known me for years, even the majority of my life. We either steadfastly avoided political topics, or I carefully steered conversations away from the more incendiary subjects in the name of keeping the peace. "I'm a liberal" isn't really something you broadcast in social circles where "the liberals" can't be said without wrinkling one's nose.

But then the 2016 election happened, and staying quiet wasn't an option anymore. Since then, I've received no shortage of emails and comments from people who were shocked, horrified, disappointed, disgusted, or otherwise displeased to realize I am *wrinkles nose* a liberal. Yep. I'm one of those bleeding heart commies who hates anyone who's white, straight, or conservative, and who wants the government to dictate everything you do while taking your money and giving it to people who don't work.

Or am I?

Let's break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I'm getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: Not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines.

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. Period.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all." This is not the case. I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

3. I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone. It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly. I'm self-employed, so I already pay a shitload of taxes. If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, that means increasing my already eye-watering tax bill. I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal) All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" -- I'm offended that you're trying to force me to live by your religion's rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia on you? That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don't force it on me or mine.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe we should have the *same* rights as you.

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally.). I'm not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

10. I believe we should take in refugees, or at the very least not turn them away without due consideration. Turning thousands of people away because a terrorist might slip through is inhumane, especially when we consider what has happened historically to refugees who were turned away (see: MS St. Louis). If we're so opposed to taking in refugees, maybe we should consider not causing them to become refugees in the first place. Because we're fooling ourselves if we think that somewhere in the chain of events leading to these people becoming refugees, there isn't a line describing something the US did.

11. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It's not that I want the government's hands in everything -- I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

12. I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I'm butthurt over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

13. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege -- white, straight, male, economic, etc -- need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person? Your refusal to adjust your vocabulary in the name of not being an asshole kind of makes YOU the snowflake.

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.

I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I'm a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

So, I'm a liberal.

10 notes · View notes

trebaolsmovingcastle · 7 years ago

Text

@saint-just replied to your post: “Are we all gonna die?”

(A) You’ve lumped automation in with fiercely negative things like climate problems and doom-war. Why? (B) “A minority of people hijacked the country and do evil with it, and somehow it means that it’s all over.” - Are you referring to when a minority of evil people birthed the country then stayed on top, or are we to believe contemporary developments are a significant departure from the norm? When you say “it’s all over”, is the “it” this country? Would that even be bad?

S’alright, so there’s definitely a lot to unpack here and go through. First let me just say that the post in question isn’t a carefully crafted paean or anything, I got an anonymous ask, which got me thinking and I tend to extemporize as I go...which in turn made it a paean to hope of sorts. So I hope you’ll cut me a little slack on certain flourishes, or at the very least on not bogging myself down in some serious semantics.

That aside, let’s take a look at my concerns about automation, mind you I’ve been reading on this topic for the last five years mostly, and I’m not an academic. So I wasn’t smart enough to make a refined list of resources I can constantly drag up or refer back to when I need to reference specific numbers. That’s my fault, I just accrue information and create a holistic image of outcomes.

Also, Saint-Just, I’ll go on at length, which I think won’t bother you, so everyone else feel free to skip all of this.

At face value automation is a savior, imagine, all these jobs, roles, systems suddenly handed off uniformly to AI’s robots, machines, systems that take the human element out of the equation. It’s star trek, it’s the replicator in a way. 3D printers making houses for next to nothing, no more miserable truck drivers pulling dangerous all nighters because the freight industry is automated. no more low wage jobs, they’re all done by the push of a button. Even the white collar jobs, and medical jobs all vanish far enough down the automation line. If you can teach a robotic arm to prepare a meal, you can teach similar arms and AI’s how to close a bleeding heart valve or excise a tumor with more precision than any human surgeon. You can have your markets rise and fall at speeds completely unimaginable as processors crunch numbers and make trades at speeds that we’re basically already at.

Now, this seems all great, when I lived in Seattle I had a friend who worked at Amazon, he was obsessed with automation and the golden future it would create, he also supported a universal basic income. He believed that tech giants would pioneer the way in pushing for a UBI, that automation would render industries nonexistent, and that the capital would get picked up by either the government or that these companies themselves would willingly just hand the money to the public, providing everyone a livable income without the need for work.

The problem is that there is virtually no evidence that any corporation or business entity is likely to start handing off profits to the public for free. Nor is there evidence that the tech field is somehow immune to the corrupting influence of capitalism and for profit enterprise.

So what seems more likely is that you’ll have industries disappear, even now you can see automation taking over a variety of industries, open a factory that used to employ 5,000 union workers, now you can open that same factory and staff it with a skeleton crew of tech savvy workers who can perform maintenance of the new robotic workers. Meaning rural communities that formerly would depend on these types of jobs can just keep waiting, because their town can’t be saved by a factory with 25 jobs for people with coding skills.

Even looking at analysis made by I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics creates this uniquely grim image. In essence they’ll go through industries and provide long term career analysis for various fields, including factors that could impact the industry in question and how competitive the work environment is for new workers. Anyway, these analyses paint a rosier picture than most, but still list automation as a major threat to a number of fields.

So you have a variety of low paying jobs disappearing from the economy, especially in service jobs, creating more and more underemployment, and stiffer and stiffer competition for these low wage jobs. As a side note consider how many retirement age americans are now expecting to work until they die. So now add in over the years all the competition created by this gradually increasing group of workers. Suddenly we have this extremely broad category of low income, or no income people, uneducated for the new automated economy, without resources to join the existing workforce. You and I know that there is no social mobility now, and that whatever income bracket your parents inhabited is now less likely to be the bracket you will occupy.

Okay, so now we’re setting a stage where you have broad automation cutting a swathe through the jobs held by the 50% of American households that are under the poverty line, then you have automation also hitting at white collar and traditionally upper class jobs. All of this we have to assume will happen without Federal assistance for the working poor, or means to support this growing mass of people unable to find jobs.

As a class, we workers in a capitalist system only have one single way to really enforce our survival and protection...strikes, attacks on production at our jobs. When you eliminate the working class, as automation does, you lose your voice, you lose the only tactic you had within the existing system to demand change, protection, recompense, anything. You’re no longer a part of the system because the system doesn’t need you. For future generations consider trying to plan a college education around what kind of career you’ll need to be in at 40...when you’re 20. We’re already sold the lie of college as an answer to security, I was told at 10 to plan for my 50′s by picking a stable job I could retire with. By the time I entered the workforce the notion of a company keeping you to retirement no longer existed for most workers. As automation comes for some industries there will be a proliferation of jobs in that industry as you can have more people working in these fields as the cost of the fields drops, but that means that those jobs are generally part time and low paying. It has happened to paralegals for example, as well as bank tellers. Sure technology has caused these industries to balloon and meet a greater demand, but now the people in those fields are paid a pittance of what they used to.

The one thing I didn’t go into at length in that post was that a lot of this all seems to be an area of concern for the decade of 2020-2030. Most fields concerned with the health of a society seem to have this notion that this coming decade is going to be a reckoning, that what is currently modest automation will balloon as the decade progresses, that the inequality we experience now will be enhanced, I imagine that a lot of the people singing praises about the ‘singularity’ ten years ago are now biting their nails as fascism comes back and the surveillance state entrenches itself ahead of all of the increasing economic inequality.

So although automation isn’t in and of itself bad, when handled by the same humans that brought us Google and Amazon...I’m concerned. We can’t depend on capitalism restructuring itself into a system that will care for the public and redefine what it means to work...we can’t hope for a UBI and careers in creative fields and just free cash to pay for the goods generated by an automated economy. We need to see this coming and be prepared for what looks like reality, a world where the jobs for the working classes disappear, with no retraining options, and few new jobs to fight over...jobs that likely will also face automation.

Alright, bear with me, Saint-Just, if you’ve come this far I appreciate that you care enough to go further.

On to the next bit. I need you to accept a series of ideas that may seem in some bizarre or contradictory or just...impossible to accept...but neo-liberalism isn’t ur-fascism and the harm done by one isn’t categorically identical to the other. Does this mean I want a neo-liberal President, a neo-liberal system? No, I want something altogether different, but when given the choice between the agony of millions, without relief, and a boot stomping on them for decades and at least limited option to resist and alter course, I’ll take the altered course.

When you allow fascism to truly take home in your political ecology you introduce the possibility that the softness of people’s resistance to evil will see people in camps in due time. We already have these problems with our government before Trump, but this is virtually asking for an authoritarian neo-feudalism to take over. How likely is a successful revolution against a government of that type?

So to me, in this moment, the threat George Washington poses to the world is minimal, but the threat Donald Trump poses is more important. And when offered a choice between combative resistance to Clinton and Trump, I would choose Clinton because there’s at least a minimal chance that time, effort, and action would lead to change. Now we’re entering into a realm where information technology and the changing economy will truly render our ability to avert disaster moot. We’ll be against the wall when the fascist revolution comes, and despite the beauty of the White Roses stance wouldn’t you rather they never die along with all the Jews, homosexuals, romani, and other unwanted by the fascists of Germany?

The nation was founded by slavers and self interested businessmen, the nation is crowned with the genocide of the indigenous nations that came before, our national drink isn’t coca cola, it’s blood of everyone our forefathers executed to plant a homesteader in some prairie cabin, to suppress a vote, to sell cotton...both North and South. But right now, in this moment, I have more pressing concerns, the safety of people who aren’t me, the survival of people who aren’t me. When ICE is kicking in doors and baiting families by using their children...we have people suffering on a matter of societal semantics.

As for the ‘it’s all over’ go back and reread it with a question mark, that’s a typo on my part, it’s a rhetorical question. I’m making the case that simply because you have fascists at the gate doesn’t mean that they have to win.

That is what the post is about at heart, it’s what this is all about, that there are alternatives. I’ll still make a point to answer your understandable misread of my message, namely that it wouldn’t be bad if this ended. But you have to be prepared for what happens next. I can’t rail for revolution without conscience of what can happen. I can’t take a stance that says we need to tear it all down this moment, that you, or I, is able to do that. Because in this moment, with these resources, in this world...you most likely hand all the power you need to the people who have made this world categorically worse.

Revolutionary thought isn’t just about action, it’s about vision, goals, and again, as always, over and over, hope, love for mankind, even the people we loathe most. You can’t save everyone, you can’t win without some bloodshed...but you can’t throw it all away early because your ideology can’t accept the current reality. To me, now, in the coming years, all I can do is talk, write, engage with people, stand up and be counted as the counting comes. Resist tooth and nail against the worst of it, but I need to also consider who lives, who comes next, who will benefit. Revolutionaries are better alive and volunteering, helping the living who can’t themselves muster the energy to do more than nod along with a message of something better. Martyring for causes doesn’t bring us any closer to anything better, because the life lost was a life that missed all its future opportunities to enact change.

Look at your name! Look at beloved Robespierre! A slip...a momentary accident of exhaustion, of placement, a misstep, and suddenly the ideals of a transformed society dashed and instead you get Napoleon and two centuries of ‘Bloodthirsty’ Seafoam Incorruptible. Revolutions burn the revolutionaries like kindling, that is history on repeat, so take that and consider what can be done when revolutionary action is needed? That possibly instead of burning out before the job is done, we all try being the ones to decide what comes next. No empires, no neo-feudalism, no fascists, no new Bonapartes, Hitlers, Franco’s, Kim’s, or Jackson’s...that’s the goal, that’s the seemingly impossible demand put on true souls, to think, and plan, to resist, angry, ready, eager, but with the desire to pull as much of the people out of the fire as possible.

My sincere hope is that I can help, in some small fashion, as the times demand. I do not want to be at barricades or on tribunals, I don’t want to daydream about revolutionary councils, I want to dream that the institutions that corrupt this world are dismantled, that the poor don’t suffer, that the starving are fed, that the image of western civilization...white civilization are cast down and something better is achieved. That as needed I can talk my way through problems, that when needed I can go to the streets, that as things get worse my message doesn’t stop. I can’t dream about revolution because revolution is innocent blood heaped with the guiltys for little to no gain. I am not against these things, I am not against a coming change, but when you blow a society apart, you need to have thought about the timing. There is a right time. Right now...be these ideas, life, exist in the face of these awful things. Existing at all can be revolutionary. Being an image of what could be better in the world is more important now than stockpiling brickbats in hopes that tomorrow there will be a window to break.

Now, I do not mean to imply that you’re what I fear from revolutionary thinkers, I’m expressing what I’ve experienced in the past amongst a handful of people on the coast, that there’s this suicidal desire to martyr yourself for a cause, the cause becomes a bloodthirsty god that can only be satisfied by propaganda of the deed. The purpose of revolutionary ideas should be other people, the happiness, security, FUTURE, of other people. God, but a revolutionary should love, love adoringly the world, the suffering and misery of the world should hurt the revolutionary like seeing harm come to someone you care for, multiplied again and again.

If the time came, for anyone, to rise up, to lead, to declare, to act...surely challenges, cruelty of the times, hardship, terror all would follow, but until then it is so important to focus on what is coming and what all of us are best at, what all of us can do when called upon. I will die, as will you, as will we all, but I must live so that should I die, I will have died unwaveringly standing in my convictions and hope for something better. Let me be of the immortal dead if it means the message of love, of the people, of something better for this dismal future is what gives me voice beyond the grave.

I hope I have been clear, I know I can be long winded, I’m better in person in almost all regards and easier to understand than in writing. I also hope that this satisfies you, that you understand my position better and can see what I mean in what I said before. That post was about hope, about encouraging hope in people who are too terrified of tomorrow to have hope. We need hope, we can’t despair the future because it needs us.

5 notes · View notes

pro-prin-prinny · 9 months ago

Text

Since I'm pointing out something I found funny I want to also say I get a real kick out of Liberal Zionists calling Pro Palestine people leftists as an insult. Bro, who do you think we were talking about when we said "cut a liberal and a fascist bleeds?"

Okay listen, I know I shouldn't make light of the situation but I just saw a Zionist argue that if a shooter had a school hostage they would bomb the school to stop them and attempt to recover the remaining students. 🤦

#israel is like the liberal utopia because they can be as authoritarian as they want while pretending to be progressive #the ethnostate where gay marriage is still illegal is the most progressive place in the area? sure buddy #free palestine

1 note · View note

newslegion-blog1 · 6 years ago

Text

CONNOISSEUR: DARK TOURIST - NETFLIX TRAVELOGUE 2018

I watched the Netfliix series Dark Tourist. It was mostly enjoyable and certainly interesting. I made some notes on the show which may as well see the light of day here.

Segment on war reenactment and the presenter couldn't get his head around the fact the people there we taking a break from their humdrum lives and playing around Hollywood, all in uniform, with their friends. Mocked the fact they all ate together, Germans and Americans.

The presenter spent the whole time chasing down the "Nazi" subtext and looking to find out if they were all closet fascists. Despite the entire experience being simply people doing silly but communal things, with the war and the tossing about in uniform, without any sinister politics... the commentary throughout treated anything said as if it was suspect, questioning "should this be allowed?" re: World War II reenactment where you have Germans in Nazi insignia uniform. It's not a big leap from this, to censorship - the sort of SJW bullshit that deplatformed everyone.

"And this is, like, your holiday?" asks the Dark Tourist to the mildly autistic ninnies playing war-games in uniform (Nazis included). Last episode, let’s not forget, the Dark Tourist was going on a Jeffrey Dahmer tour, participating in a vigil trying to summon up his serial killer ghost. Hypocrite! The reenactment soldier-actors are all outrage culture savvy though and the technique fails to resonate so we can almost feel the disappointment as the Dark Tourist motions “cut!” to the crew and moves onto the black history museum instead.

Again the same angle, the same presumption of shared values and sensitivities giving the Dark Tourist license to behave like a rude bastard, e.g. questioning the weird curator's motives in running such a macabre museum, insinuating there’s surely something criminal in the acquisition of fascist/racist collectibles. “Isn’t it a proof of something evil? And therefore collectors - let alone those who display them - are revealing themselves as evil sympathisers? SURELY?”

Not only is all this fatuous bullshit but it’s also a hypocritical double-standard that pervades a lot of SJW and now coopted ‘official’ liberal thinking. You see: it's alright to mock and judge-condemn white folks in England or Russia, but if it’s a brown hitman in Colombia he’s a charmer or a Mexican death-cult mistress in Mexico City is treated with reverence, narrated as likeable and enigmatic.

There's a funny blend in Australian (and New Zealander) liberal lefty graduates that's a strident mashup of American idealism and dynamic curiosity and English erudition and quiet complex judgment. Masked by a faux self-effacing attitude that’s alert for triggers that might break out and occupy a moral highground that’ll serve as an injection of confident confrontation. This is a blend that works a lot of the time, while it remains mild and humane and genuinely non-egomaniac, e.g. the soft humanitarian liberalism of a Tim Minchin. When it doesn't work, as sometimes with the Dark Tourist, it becomes an entitled white privilege made palatable to the advocate by a dose of saccharine super-tolerance. See, this tolerance is selective and self-serving. Self-serving as it’s a conceit, a justification for those aggressive moral highground judge and punish indulgences. Selective as it’s a tolerance ‘downward’ (which is itself a conceit) and hostile ‘upward’ not least because the conceit is incompatible with the challenge of facing anyone who’s a cultural “peer”.

All this adds up to something a bit offensive: a cake and eat it syndrome, bleeding lifecontent from weirdos and obsessive compulsives and daft thrill seekers, all the while unconsciously driven by a need to fill a strange void in their own volitions.

I think this is a common complaint among a certain flavour of educated middle class Anglo-white liberals. It’s not entirely about conceit or morality. It’s partly a consequence of the relentless rootless realism - athiesm versus faith is a microcosm. So much hocum has been dispensed with, so much bullshit debunked, it doesn't leave enough that’s compelling (even if that’s a mindscape of neuroses) to make a sufficiently compelling life. Nothing fun or explosive about reductive understanding. Seeing the Emperor is naked and his new clothes are no clothes at all: it’s good and progressive but it’s still a rather bland imperfect nudity in place of rich beautiful diversity of colour!

Titillation, the Dark Tourist reluctantly concludes, when it comes to a lot of the white weirdness. This is quite perceptive "Maybe that's reason enough," he comments to the camera and that's about the sum of it. Vampire fangs for lonely Louisiana misfits, war-games for bored Carphone Warehouse managers, voyeur 'forbidden' collections in Wisconsin and Wiltshire, radiation chasers in Japan, weekender husbands staying off the scag in Kazakhstan: the details don't matter. It’s all titillation and, sure, that’s rather pathetic, but perhaps it’s better than sneering at the world in search of triggers for manufactured outrage.

There was one standout episode in this series though the show didn't mention how the Dark Tourist managed to get into the rocket launch site at Baikonur. But get there he did and though the piece begins with the boring familiar routine - in this case wanting to poke fun at the wealthy American gammons who pay a fortune to merely watch the launch in Russia-leased Kazakhstan or, failing that, gently mock the old Russian space program legacy Soyuz rockets or the weird am-dram of the cosmonauts doing their final press conference. Indeed in this conference the Dark Tourist gets up and asks "what is the point of space?". This is a key point in the show as the astronaut answers with words that - to a cynic - would be taken as platitudes. But here is a guy who is about to risk his life doing something amazing. The Dark Tourist is disarmed, not because of what was said but the contrast of his own agenda - the empty cynicism of a risk-averse middle class tourist - and the brave single-minded practical “child-like” focus of the cosmonauts.

Then the lesson comes to life. The rocket for the astronauts is wheeled out of its warehouse and it is enormous. And then the cosmonauts walk to the launchpad, saying goodbye to their families through the goldfish bowl helmets, pressing handprints together. This is too basic human and 'good' to be mocked. Finally the rocket launches and it's a magnificent brilliant spectacle - just three human beings being sent into space, sitting on top of a million pounds of rocket fuel burning a bright trail into the night sky, passing out of sight into the mesosphere. You know, just three humans trying their best.

It's bricks and mortar (or kelvar and rocket fuel) human endeavour. At the cutting edge, in this case. A dangerous edge, too. It's impossible not to be inspired. Or to find an answer, cutting through the bullshit, to the question "why do we go into space?"

0 notes

zenruption · 7 years ago

Text

You Say Patriot. I Say Fascist. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it.

With Independence Day upon us, it might bear saying that democracy is now on the decline. What are we celebrating? Our willingness to give up the American experiment?

There isn’t a day that goes by where this author isn’t referred to as a “commie”. Despite degrees in political science and business, despite owning businesses and despite a lifelong dedication to the study of American political history, those of no world view find the delusion of a dead system invading their country and my mind, to be convenient. A business owner being called a “commie” by someone that works for a someone else seems comical at times.

For some reason, the Trumpians are now all political scientists, purveyors of morality, climate scientists, economists, proper capitalists and proper patriots. They have positively distorted political science into some silly beliefs that a republic isn’t the same as a constitutional democracy and that the political scale of left and right is incorrect (actually it is left and right but in a circular structure). They call Democrats both “commies” and fascists, despite the absolute polarity of the two. They assume to be less government while refusing to embrace proper tradeoffs and not realizing many of their policies are actually bigger government or implicit government endorsement of larger institutions. The federal government demanding voter records from states is ok despite advocating for privacy. The intent to re-impose federal regulation on marijuana is acceptable despite espousing state’s rights.

Well guess what? They are believers in authoritarianism despite their belief that they stand for democratic institutions and patriotism. Perversion of political history and definitions won’t change what you are and Trumpians are the enemies of democracy.

How do we know this? Well from the smart and educated scholars that the disciples of orange skin detest.

Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt has extensively studied fascist regimes from Mussolini to Franco, Hitler, Suharto and Pinochet. He has established the 14 identifying characteristics of fascism from these studies.

Please read and determine for yourself.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

Check. We have that in spades right now. A football player is more at risk to never play again for kneeling during the national anthem than a player that beats his wife.

America's men & women in uniform is the story of FREEDOM overcoming OPPRESSION, the STRONG protecting the WEAK, & GOOD defeating EVIL! USA🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Gu3f8DCO3o

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2017

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

Check. Travel ban. U.S. prisons are considered cruel and unusual punishment by Amnesty International.

3 Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

Check. Islam is feared and protested. The terms commie and socialist are thrown around with abandon. Black Lives Matter is called a terrorist organization and systemic racism is justified daily in right wing and alt-white news. Hate crimes have increased 80% this year. A huuuge wall is proposed. Obama was a communist who hated America, despite having policies to the right of Nixon.

4. Supremacy of the Military

Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

Check. We spend more than the next 12 nations combined, have a budget proposal that adds another $40 billion and domestic programs of true value are being cut. Oh… and we have 22 carrier groups. The next highest nation has a total of two.

5. Rampant Sexism

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

Check. Defunding Planned Parenthood is a priority. Our President is the embodiment of sexist pig. The evangelical base would gladly sacrifice the freedom of others to further an anti-gay agenda.

6. Controlled Mass Media

#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017

Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

Check. Locking out certain reporters from White House press briefings. Tweets calling the press fake news and an enemy of the people. Calls for libel law changes in order to sue the press.

The failing @nytimes writes false story after false story about me. They don't even call to verify the facts of a story. A Fake News Joke!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2017

7. Obsession with National Security

Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

Check. No laptops on flights to the U.S. Proposals to track Muslims.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

Check. Evangelicals have heralded Trump as almost the Second Coming. Preachers of Prosperity Doctrine were at the Inauguration. Republican dominated statehouses are legislating morality as an exact opposite as their calls for smaller government. Hypocrisy is a non-issue.

9. Corporate Power is Protected

The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

Check. Banking deregulation, rollbacks of environmental protections, proposals to open up protected land and billionaire Cabinet members pushing pro-corporate agendas while telling the masses they will benefit from lower corporate tax rates and opposition to a living wage.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed

Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

Check. Labor unions under constantly attacked and have seen ever diminished membership rolls.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts

Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

Check. Funding of PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts are proposed to be eliminated despite being a fraction of government spending. Universities are under constant attack and suspect to conservative media. Iowa even introduced a bill requiring University Professors to reveal their political beliefs. Science denial is in charge with budgets being cut and climate change erased from the EPA website.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

Check. Militarization of the police and drug sentencing guidelines that are far stricter than the nature of the crime. Disproportionate sentencing times for African Americans and Latinos, than white Americans.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

Check. Ivanka and Jared Kushner in the White House. Three former Goldman Sachs executives and billionaire donors on the Cabinet.

14. Fraudulent Elections

Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Check. Rampant Republican gerrymandering, voter ID laws targeted at minorities and a politicized media owned by corporate interests (Sinclair Broadcasting buying local stations).

Holy shit! It wasn’t expected we’d have all 14!

You say Patriot. I say fascist and the end of democracy in America.

medianet_width = "728"; medianet_height = "90"; medianet_crid = "728762653"; medianet_versionId = "111299"; (function() { var isSSL = 'https:' == document.location.protocol; var mnSrc = (isSSL ? 'https:' : 'http:') + '//contextual.media.net/nmedianet.js?cid=8CUTI81HQ' + (isSSL ? '&https=1' : ''); document.write('<scr' + 'ipt type="text/javascript" id="mNSC" src="' + mnSrc + '">' + 'ipt>'); })();

#Trump #Fascism #nationalism #patriotism

0 notes