#Leftist Disruptors

[msclaritea]

According to The Daily Wire, Black Voters Matter Action PAC, an electioneering group that spends millions in support of Democrat candidates, is up with an ad that refers to Cameron as “Uncle Daniel Cameron,” and uses the saying, “Skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” — a refrain used by black liberals to suggest that anyone who disagrees with them politically is a race traitor.

Here is the latest racist ad by Black Voters Matter..."

From Wiki: "Institutional and Corporate partners are collaborating to combine financial, volunteer, marketing and other resources to raise awareness of Black voting rights and address other Black community issues. This include America Votes advocacy, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) awarding multi year grants, The Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic group founded by the business magnate George Soros bestowing a 5 year grant, BET partnering for the #ReclaimYourVote 2022 campaign, MTV’s “Rock the Vote” support to mobilize student voters, Oprah Winfrey's Own Your Vote raising money for voter education initiatives, and Ben & Jerry's is rebranding its Cold Brew Coffee flavor to "Change is Brewing", to highlight the power of Black voters and encourage voter participation by supporting Black Voters Matter activities. BVM partnered with BET Media Group and the National Urban League to promote Black community involvement in voter registration and to ensure Black voter voices are heard.

BET...Republican-owned

MTV...Republican-owned

George Soros...conveniently attaching himself to Leftist causes and being used to push an anti-Jewish conspiracy

Oprah Winfrey... don't get me started

Ben & Jerry's....big, phony Leftists and close paks to Bernie Sanders

That SKINFOLK AIN'T KINFOLK by the Black Voters Matter super pac, was straight up sabotage against the Democratic candidate for governor. That was an absolutely ratchet move, guaranteed to give Daniel Cameron, a psychopath who believes that nine year olds should be forced to carry babies, SYMPATHY. Figures that Roland Martin keeps focusing on it.

It had better not happen again.

[jeramyolmack]

Apologists are not productive to the actions we must take to end fascism.

[jeramyolmack]

Conservatives know they are hurting people and won’t stop because they know Liberals will continue to sit here asking them to stop instead of taking decisive actions and steps to stop the destruction. Both sides are deflecting their worse aspects and claim they are doing their best. Don’t but the lie.

MAGA knows they are hurting people and they don't care. #NorthCarolina #Ohio

[anais-nyx]

Wow crazy Bayer was ordered to pay 1.56 billion to people who got cancer from its Monsanto round up product oh wow guys who could've seen this coming

[txttletale]

I mean it might just be more people coming into leftist spaces without unlearning deeper biases and stuff, but I did a cursory google on it and I’m fairly sure american reading comprehension in schools has been recorded going down, and covid might’ve been a large enough social disruptor for enough people worldwide that it might have something to do with it? But there’s also the chance it might just be the fact that a lot of people tend to discover more unsavory stuff (because they discover more stuff) as time goes on and they chalk this up to being things getting worse rather than those things just not being seen

the type of reading comprehension that is in crisis is not the undergrad-literary-analysis type but the fundamental 'being able to read words' type, and that's mostly because of really flawed teaching methods. it's a very different type of 'reading comprehension' to the type that people are complaining about when someone, like, doesn't get the point of fight club.

[magicalpoisonouspotato]

I feel like y'all should know what's going on here today.

Today is election day in Mexico, it's also the day we'll probably get our first woman president (the first one in all northamerica actually) Claudia Sheinbaum, yet it isn't exactly something to celebrate. Yes it's groundbreaking to have a woman as president, however she is not a good woman. She was essentially handpicked as a successor by AMLO, our current president from within his political party, Morena.

Morena was the driving force behind the Tren Maya (a train running all the way through southeastern Mexico, an area full of indigenous territories, archeological vestiges, protected ecosystems and species, that he been negatively affected if not destroyed by this project. The Asamblea Maya is heavily against it), the Felipe angeles airport (an airport settled over an area full of paleontological remains, and a huge disruptor to migratory bird routes, so yknow another ecological disaster, plus it endangers the preservation of the Teotihuacán archeological zone due to its closeness, as well as being a nuisance for the people of San Juan Teotihuacan), plus many other megadevelopments in the name of "progress" and the "people first", most of which have actually made life worse for people or have been directly opposed by indigenous communities. It's also important to point out that AMLO and Morena used the grieving families of the Ayotzinapa 43 (forcibly dissappeared students, a tragedy committed by the army and covered up by the government) and promised the army and everyone involved wouldn't go unpunished and then betrayed the families by painting them as opportunistic sell outs to the opposition, never actually releasing the information or punishing the people involved in the disappearance of the students, and giving more and more power to the army, effectively militarizing the country.

While Sheinbaum was head of government in Mexico City there were a lot of protests, most of which were confronted by a lot of police brutality condoned by her government for example they gassed feminist protesters and escalated violence against propalestine protesters, among others. Her government was also bad for the infrastructure of public transportation in the city, with these last few years having been some of the worse for the Mexico city subway in recent history. She also spearhead "mobility projects" to allegedly help the flow of the city traffic and maintain our environment, all she did was destroy wetlands to make more roads, which have had horrible consequences for the biodiversity of the city (destruction of the original ecosystem and disruption of migratory bird routes) while suppressing and intimidating the originary people of the area that rightfully questioned this projects, that not only hurt the ecosystem, but actively took water sources away from their communities.

She is also a zionist and has filled her party with terfs and a known rapist.

This election was unfortunately another choose the lesser evil election in Mexican history, since the other two presidential candidates are also a terrible choice (Xochitl Gálvez is the representative for the conservative paty in Mexico and Jorge Álvarez Maynez is very similar), and the fact that very single politician is trying to distance themselves from PRI the most prominent party in Mexican history and also the orchestrator of a lot of the bad things in our country, however most of them worked in or with the PRI at some point, including most of Morena's representatives. This has lead to most people not wanting to vote, annuling their vote, or voting for missing people to visibilize them and the incompetence of the authorities.

So yeah, I guess finally having a woman as a president is something good, but it is definitely not a good thing, don't let the media fool y'all into thinking this is some "socialist" or "leftist" win for Mexicans, when at best it won't change anything.

https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2021/05/07/la-desigual-batalla-contra-cdmx-para-salvar-los-humedales-de-xochimilco-uno-de-los-ultimos-cuerpos-de-agua-prehispanicos/

https://www.radioformula.com.mx/nacional/2024/5/31/caso-ayotzinapa-no-esperamos-novedades-dice-abogado-sobre-reunion-de-padres-con-amlo-818334.html

https://elpais.com/mexico/2024-03-06/los-normalistas-de-ayotzinapa-echan-abajo-una-de-las-puertas-del-palacio-nacional-para-presionar-a-lopez-obrador.html

https://asambleamaya.wixsite.com/muuchxiinbal

https://etcetera.com.mx/nacional/metro-denuncian-falta-mantenimiento-irregularidades-contraloria/

https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/estados/2024/05/31/tren-maya-transformo-el-paraiso-en-infierno-rios-subterraneos-tienen-un-color-turbio-por-el-metal/?outputType=amp

https://la-lista.com/mexico/2024/05/29/policias-agreden-a-manifestante-durante-protesta-a-favor-de-palestina-en-cdmx-esta-grave

https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/8m-minuto-minuto-de-la-marcha-por-el-dia-internacional-de-la-mujer/

[jeramyolmack]

The cause of death needs to be engraved on the tombstone. It is a huge disservice that we are not putting the cause of death on memorial stones as it allows that information to be lost to time. I firmly think that we should be writing it in stone as the information is pertinent and crucial information that archeologists, historians, communities, and families will use to get insight into their past. We would also mark the atrocities in plain sight so those in power can't deny the truth as the bodies pile up.

Remembering Amber Nicole Thurman. She didn't have to die

[patricide1885]

Controversial, but the woman class's refusal to embrace being an actor in the world (as is necessary to fully eliminate patriarchy anyway) and instilling that value in its children, and its lack of awareness that this is an issue in the first place, is a big part of why we are going to all die - the left is largely female and queer. Women are more highly educated than men now. That not translating to women as disruptors of the system cannot be fully blamed on sexism. There's a lack of tangible cause and effect thinking or movement towards applying knowledge in general. It's like the baby elephant tied to the stick thing.

Also women literally almost all look at compsci and mechanics and practical direct system building skills in general and are like "oh yeah I'm not smart enough to do that" without even fully being self aware that they are thinking that way. And half of them are in their minds somewhat expecting to depend on their husbands financially as the more capable one in general as a life plan.

You see this in trans men too. It doesn't change because they don't have the self awareness and they enjoy being in the relaxing take it easy way of living and missed out on the social pressure that "you need to prove yourself young man". Which is why trans women are genuinely probably our only hope.

Being a man implies growing up and taking your place at the machinery that moves the world. Being a woman doesn't. Now why is that?

It's not just society at large. It's also a severe feminist blindspot. And I'm angry that I was raised to be this way, by both family and leftist peers in early adulthood. Every time I tried to become competent in something or educate myself I felt like I was wilding out, and I always found myself being the only AFAB in the room. I am now actively learning all sorts of skills and developing broader competence across the board and it's liberating and relieving.

[msclaritea]

So nice of Andy Ngo, Righty, to let us know what his brothers and sisters on the Left are up to. No need to reiterate. There's plenty of articles now, on how corrupt BLM is. Antifa is nothing more than Leftists disruptors, encouraging violence, and all of this funded by dark money from entities like Silicon Valley, home of the Dark Enlightenment crowd. Chicago always had a lot of billionaire cash on hand, too, to pass around to thugs.

[jeramyolmack]

Fun fact it has always been a leftist idea.

This ideology is not and has never been common place, it is a willful misconception to believe otherwise. The traditionalist have argued for millennia that they own their workers as slaves/serfs, as property. Workers have never been treated like people.

We, the common people, have always had to fight to the death for the rights and liberty that we have today. The fight is not over and this type of rhetoric undermines that fact. We are in the midst of a global revolution against the authoritarian and egocentric ideals of Roman and Western Civilization. We can not forget that. We are putting forth revolutionary ideals that usurp the traditional powers and authorities that control our world.

[aphnxrising]

Some things I do as a queer leftist Jew working for a Catholic organization:

I don't wear my Star of David (though I wouldn't do that with this population even if I didn't work for a Catholic organization. Casual antisemitism is just a thing I deal with daily ..as well as sexism, racism, etc..mental health is a bitch.)

Around Jewish holidays I bring in foodstuffs related to the holidays (macaroons, hamantaschen, etc )

my holiday display is inclusive - while obviously, it includes stuff for Christmas there are two menorahs and I'm working on getting Kwanza stuff (this year I ordered Kwanza stuff but did not read the size)

I am working on getting information/decorations for Muslim holidays (Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the US and I think it's fair to say the majority are Muslim)

When clients want to have intellectual conversations (instead of just using the computer) I tend to let my leftist side come out and back it up with facts and articles

I have the last 3 years of pride funkos (well, most of them) on my desk

Our organization made a pride flag sticker last year that says all are welcome, I display that proudly

When someone says something transphobic/homophobic I shut it down and educate.

I like to be a subversive disruptor. That being said our organization is one of a series of charities around the country (possibly the world?) and I can confirm that ours is more Catholic in name only than other organizations like us. Plus we're the largest social service agency in the area that helps/shelters the unhoused.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, February 20, 2021

One of Ten in U.S. May Have to Switch Occupations Post Pandemic (Bloomberg) One out of every ten U.S. workers—about 17 million, all told—will likely be forced to leave their jobs and take up new occupations by 2030 as Covid-19’s after-effects destroy huge swathes of low-paying positions in a labor market that was primed for disruption before the pandemic. “Covid is a big disruptor,” Susan Lund, a Washington-based partner at McKinsey Global Institute, the consultant’s research arm, said in an interview. The 17 million Americans are part of the more than 100 million people worldwide that the institute forecast will need to leave their jobs and enter new lines of work by the end of the decade. That will amount to about one in 16 workers in the eight leading economies covered by the study, which includes China, Japan, Germany and the U.K., as well as the U.S. In a more-than-130-page paper, the institute sees the pandemic accelerating three trends that will continue to upend the labor market in the years ahead: more remote work and working from home; increased e-commerce and a bigger “delivery economy;” and stepped-up business use of artificial intelligence and robots. The forces Covid-19 unleashed mean there could be a lot less demand for front line workers in food service, retail, hospitality, and entertainment.

Politics Is Seeping Into Our Daily Life and Ruining Everything (Reason) Is there anything that politics can’t ruin? The answer, it appears, is a resounding “no” as partisan conflict creeps into all areas of American life. Our political affiliations, researchers say, obstruct friendships, influence our purchases, affect the positions we take on seemingly apolitical matters, and limit our job choices. As a result, many people are poorer, lonelier, and less healthy than they would otherwise be. “Political polarization is having far-reaching impacts on American life, harming consumer welfare and creating challenges for people ranging from elected officials and policymakers to corporate executives and marketers,” according to a new paper in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing by researchers from Arizona State University, the University of Wyoming, and four other U.S. universities. People’s partisan identities influence the range of people with whom they are willing to have relationships, the brands they purchase, and the jobs they take. The finding that everything is becoming politicized builds on a growing mountain of data. Even before political tensions hit their current fever pitch, a 2018 survey found that “Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of consumers around the world will buy or boycott a brand solely because of its position on a social or political issue” (the number for the U.S. was 59 percent). In 2020, a separate survey reported that “83% of Millennials find it important for the companies they buy from to align with their values.”

Cracked Pipes, Frozen Wells, Offline Treatment Plants: A Texan Water Crisis (NYT) Power began to flicker back on across much of Texas on Thursday, but millions across the state confronted another dire crisis: a shortage of drinkable water as pipes cracked, wells froze and water treatment plants were knocked offline. The problems were especially acute at hospitals. One, in Austin, was forced to move some of its most critically ill patients to another building when its faucets ran nearly dry. Another in Houston had to haul in water on trucks to flush toilets. But for many of the state’s residents stuck at home, the emergency meant boiling the tap water that trickled through their faucets, scouring stores for bottled water or boiling icicles and dirty snow on their stoves. Major disruptions to the Texas power grid left more than four million households without power this week, but by Thursday evening, only about 347,000 lacked electricity. Much of the statewide concern had turned to water woes. More than 800 public water systems serving 162 of the state’s 254 counties had been disrupted as of Thursday, affecting 13.1 million people, according to a spokeswoman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Texas Good Samaritans Are Helping Out Those in Need Amid Deep Freeze (Newsweek) From owners turning their stores into warming centers, to a mystery man handing out $20 bills to shoppers in Houston, when faced with a crisis that has left 24 in the state dead, and millions without water and electricity, Texans have instinctively turned to helping others. One such figure is Raymond Garcia of Houston, Texas, who, upon realizing he had no power at home, decided to use his time helping others. He has been visiting people in his local community, helping with tasks such as fixing burst water pipes. "I'm just trying to help the Houston community," he told ABC13. "If I can help anyone else in my close range I will.” Garcia said he was inspired by the teaching of his mother, who died recently from COVID-19. "My mom always taught me, if you help and you give to people, God will always bless you," he said. "And you know what, I've been blessed." On Thursday, Jason Spenser, the Public Affairs Director for the Harris County Sheriff's Office tweeted about another remarkable character, a man dubbed a food 'angel'. When electricity outages meant the Foodarama near 18th Street and Ella Boulevard could no longer accept credit and debit card payments, the unidentified man began handing out $20 bills to people waiting in the line. Spenser estimated the man, who did not want to be photographed, handed out a total of $500. In Elgin, Texas, Monica Nava, owner of the Chemn Cafe, put in a big order just before the storm hit. Rather than see perishable items go to waste, she boxed them up with shelf-stable good into care packages estimated to have a value of $25 each. She gave the packages out to in-need members of the community and asked for those who could afford it to pay a donation.

Biden repudiates Trump on Iran, ready for talks on nuke deal (AP) The Biden administration said Thursday it’s ready to join talks with Iran and world powers to discuss a return to the 2015 nuclear deal, in a sharp repudiation of former President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” that sought to isolate the Islamic Republic. The administration also took two steps at the United Nations aimed at restoring policy to what it was before Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. The combined actions were immediately criticized by Iran hawks and are likely to draw concern from Israel and Gulf Arab states. The State Department announced the moves following discussions between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British, French and German counterparts, and as Biden prepares to participate, albeit virtually, in his first major international events with world leaders.

The Cuba bet (Foreign Policy) Cuba may still become Latin America’s first country to design a successful COVID-19 vaccine, with Phase 3 trials on one of its four vaccine candidates set to begin next month. If the shot performs well, it is expected to be exported to other Latin American nations. Cuba and Iran are partnering on Phase 3 trials of the Soberana 02 vaccine, and Mexico is exploring carrying out a Phase 3 trial as well.

It’s mud, mud everywhere in UK’s 3rd lockdown (AP) It’s apparently not enough for Britons to endure almost 120,000 COVID-19 deaths and face a new variant of the virus that scientists say is more contagious and more deadly. Not enough to struggle through a third lockdown in less than a year, a shutdown now in its ninth week in London with no end in sight. No, all of this has to come smack in the middle of Britain’s mud season, the time formally known as winter. While everyone in the U.K. is already lacking Vitamin D, the sun chooses to take a months-long work stoppage and named winter storms kept sweeping eastward across the Atlantic. Storm Bella marched in right after Christmas, bringing gusts up to 106 mph (92 kph) and rains that dumped 3.2 inches (80.2 mm) on a village in Scotland. A sodden, freezing version of a hurricane. Storm Darcy roared in last week from the opposite side, bringing an icy Arctic blast and the U.K.’s coldest temperature in 25 years. Unlike the southeastern U.S., which floods during the summer-fall hurricane season, Britain floods in the dead of winter, bringing hypothermia alongside germ-laden waters. Rivers across England and Scotland are bursting: 73 flood alerts were in effect on Friday alone. And this year, few gyms or schools are available for emergency housing for fear they will turn into COVID-19 factories. It’s a Dickensian time.

Spain arrests 80 in 3 nights of riots over rapper’s jailing (AP) Protests over the imprisonment of a rapper convicted of insulting the Spanish monarchy and praising terrorist violence were marred by rioting for the third night in a row Thursday. The plight of Pablo Hasél, who began this week to serve a 9-month sentence in a northeastern prison, has triggered a heated debate over the limits of free speech in Spain and a political storm over the use of violence by both the rapper’s supporters and the police. The rapper and his supporters say Hasél’s nine-month sentence for writing a critical song about former King Juan Carlos I, and for dozens of tweets that judges said glorified some of Spain’s defunct terrorist groups, violates free speech rights. Besides that case, the rapper has previously faced other charges or has pending trials for assault, praising armed extremist groups, breaking into private premises and insulting the monarchy.

Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’ (NYT) Stepping up its attacks on social science theories that it says threaten France, the French government announced this week that it would launch an investigation into academic research that it says feeds “Islamo-leftist” tendencies that “corrupt society.” While President Emmanuel Macron and some of his top ministers have spoken out forcefully against what they see as a destabilizing influence from American campuses in recent months, the announcement marked the first time that the government has moved to take action. It came as France’s lower house of Parliament passed a draft law against Islamism, an ideology it views as encouraging terrorist attacks, and as Mr. Macron tilts further to the right, anticipating nationalist challenges ahead of elections next year. Frédérique Vidal, the minister of higher education, said in Parliament on Tuesday that the state-run National Center for Scientific Research would oversee an investigation into the “totality of research underway in our country,” singling out post-colonialism. In an earlier television interview, Ms. Vidal said the investigation would focus on “Islamo-leftism”—a controversial term embraced by some of Mr. Macron’s leading ministers to accuse left-leaning intellectuals of justifying Islamism and even terrorism.

Myanmar protests stall fuel imports, drive up costs (Reuters) Myanmar’s refined fuel imports have stalled as protests over the Feb. 1 coup have shut the banks and government offices necessary for trade, while depreciation in the nation’s currency has driven up costs, four industry sources said. The economy of the Southeast Asian nation has been pulled up short by the biggest demonstrations since the “Saffron Revolution” of 2007, with protesters taking to the streets to denounce the military takeover and the unseating of a democratically elected government. Myanmar relies heavily on gasoline and diesel imports as its refineries are too small and old to meet its fuel needs. One of the sources said imports may make up as much as 98% of Myanmar’s fuel consumption. The “economy is almost at a standstill. Almost all government ministries are closed,” the source said. “Fuel supply is running low. (The country) might run out of oil in two months.”

Jakarta’s poor fear landslides from overflowing waste mountains (Nikkei Asia) The stench is overpowering, and it only gets worse as you approach the biggest landfill site in Southeast Asia. The green grass on the embankments of the road leading into the Bantar Gebang landfill on the outskirts of Jakarta quickly gives way to trash—stacked in piles as far as the eye can see, reaching the height of a 15-story building in places. Plastic bags, food packages, rubber wheels, cardboard, drink cans, and everything else that Jakartans consume and throw away can be found here—much of which turn to sludge when it rains. The site that constantly threatens landslides is also home to thousands of impoverished families. Around 20,000 people, according to an estimate by locals, make a living from collecting trash in Southeast Asia’s largest dump. More than 100,000 live in the landfill and its surroundings. Authorities are struggling to dispose of the massive amount of waste created by the 35 million people estimated by Statistics Indonesia to live the Jakarta metropolitan area. Landslides often occur at such sites. In February 2005, heavy rains triggered a slide at the Leuwigajah landfill, which serves the cities of Cimahi and Bandung in West Java, killing 157 people and swallowing two villages, Greenpeace Indonesia said. The Bantar Gebang landfill has also taken lives.

Israel expands its nuclear facility (The Guardian) Israel is carrying out a major expansion of its Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert, where it has historically made the fissile material for its nuclear arsenal. Construction work is evident in new satellite images published on Thursday by the International Panel on Fissile Material (IPFM), an independent expert group. The area being worked on is a few hundred meters across to the south and west of the domed reactor and reprocessing point at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, near the desert town of Dimona. Pavel Podvig, a researcher with the program on science and global security at Princeton University, said: “It appears that the construction started quite early in 2019, or late 2018, so it’s been under way for about two years, but that’s all we can say at this point.”

[xeansicemane]

To be the annoying leftist:

Yeah, Joe the Biden is not personally ordering this, he's not even suggested something like this would happen. In every logical and legal sense no, this isn't his fault.

I think on a broader scale, however, this event kind of serves to articulate a larger exhaustion with Democrats as a party; the Mayor of New York is a democrat and had to have approved this level of response at some point, or at least he could have put a stop to it.

Sure, any sensible person knows it'd be worse for more people with Trump, but on the ground level for these protestors and their family, the response of the two parties is identical.

The problem isn't so much that the Dems are the lesser of two evils, the problem is that "lesser" is getting worse and worse. The Democrats are never held to promises to be better because they can always run on "well we're not actively fascist". The national party consistently rests on the laurels of not being as evil as it is possible to be while a lot of the state parties have shown that it is possible to leverage thin margins into better things, real workable change.

I'm not saying people should withhold their vote (though I understand the motivations to do so) and I would never say someone should vote for my destruction.

Biden is the president. He is one of the handful of people with the power to sterilize this earth of life, he could bring ruin on a scale unimaginable. He has immense power and he is refusing to use it to protect a peaceful protest that got a little tense. While it may be a vast oversimplification of how things are run in this country, it's understandable that people are frustrated that the man with the keys to Armageddon is refusing to even comment on this.

I'm not asking for an answer, per se, I just mean to point out that not everyone frustrated with the DNC is a Russian plant, no more than everyone I don't like at the anarchist book circle is an FBI disruptor.

The lesser evil is getting more evil by the day.

[soulvomit]

I feel like there's a lot of really positive stuff in the culture right now in addition to the negative stuff, and I want to point it out:

* "I am a person." "people deserve respect, and I am a person." This is one of the healthiest things I've ever seen passed around. It's so helpful and gentle.

* "treat yourself and talk to yourself as you would treat a friend." This is so positive!! 80s-00s pop psychology was so shaming.

* shift in pop psych stuff from books to online culture. Some online cultures have been fucking toxic but bestselling books and "experts" on TV talk show circuits were basically a narrow and gatekeeping group of elites setting the norms. Millennial and Gen Z etiquette and self care blogs are actually a positive step. The fact that people are talking about what works on the ground, with discussion of lived experience, is big.

* really good discussions around etiquette and boundaries. 80s and 90s stuff in my spaces was dominated by "Me Generation" anti-codependency (a good meme that went bad) and anti-neediness memes which shamed people for having normal human feelings, non-nuclear family backgrounds, and or the social dynamics of less-privileged spaces.

* more visibility of a broad variety of lifestyles and social situations. I may have grown up in an ethnically diverse space, but it wasn't as lifestyle diverse as what we now see on Netflix and on the internet. By a long shot!

* "adulting" as opposed to what constituted an adult when I was growing up. It's just less judgmental and authoritarian.

* I have experienced the broader culture of Millennials and younger, except for a handful of the most radicalized traditionalists and crypto-traditionalists, seems to be much more accepting on the whole of a broad variety of lifestyles, forms of expression, personalities, and tastes. As much as I've commented on taste-policing, I *still* don't think even liberal and leftist Gen Z are half as shamy as the broader culture I grew up in. The 80s culture I found so stifling is now subcultural, not broad, in spaces I'm in. My most mainstream Christian, midwestern relatives my age are a bit more mellow than their parents were. There is a broader cultural letting-up on consumption habits, hobbies, and lifestyle choices. Even "anti-shipping" culture isn't as broadly shamy as the broader general culture I grew up in. I'd have to go deep into TERF-world to begin to approach the broad levels of stifling moralism and monoculture that was being pushed back then. I feel like the broader culture is still more liberal than it used to be, even with the issues we presently have. I experienced lots of Gen Xrs and Gen Jones as judgemental assholes (and so many white, middle class Gen Jones Americans were just clueless, they were privileged as the last generation to come of age in an industrial economy.)

It's shifted from the traditionalists painting themselves as the only standard norm and liberalized culture as disproportionately disruptive outliers (mainstream midcentury square culture), to traditionalist battle cry being "we are surrounded by freaks, and all normalcy will die."

* mainstream fashion seems to be more ok with individual taste and expression!! This is fucking awesome.

* much more acceptance of a broader variety of bodies and hairstyles, and pushing back against 20th century ethnocentric beauty norms. There was a weird thing going on in the Aughts where Boomer/Jones/older X employers were seeing curly hair as unprofessional, for example. I feel like this is getting pushed back on. It's not 100% okay to be who you are, and mileage varies with privilege, but even that 5% more okay is noticable.

* ultimately I think individual branding being the focus of one's self-curation, is probably more positive for many people than what I grew up with. The focus of 80s through 00s work culture was so much "I am the same as all of these people but 10% more skilled."

* the mainstream of conservative culture seems stuck in the 1980s. But when I was growing up, it was stuck in the 50s!! People want the 50s back are radicals, or very old, and not a mainstream norm. In 30 years, many people will have caught up to where the broader culture is *today*, assuming some major disruptor like a fast-unfolding apocalypse doesn't happen.

[blackscenesolidarity]

Housekeeping in Industrial

Hoo boy, it has been a day in the scene. I want to try and get this down as soon as I can, because it is a lot and it is messy. A DJ known in the NYC scene that goes by DJ Eisdriver was shown to be an out and proud White Supremacist. I will copy and paste the conversation he had with someone within the scene, but I will remove their name for privacy reasons: 

"There’s nothing wrong with being White and there’s nothing wrong with being a Nationalist so therefore there’s nothing wrong w being a White Nationalist...I fulfill both those requirements and I’m not about to apologize to you for it.

You SJWs are fucking insane and the behavior you’ve shown on this thread is appalling...you have been belligerent and abusive from second one you have called people baseless slurs simply because you don’t have the logic to form an argument. You poke fun at the Constitution which you misunderstand and the Law both elements which govern this situation but you’d rather invest in emotions and not the facts of this case. I’m really going to remember that jag of yours about if an angry mob says it’s racism then it’s racism! Haaaa! Yeah because Mobs are such rational actors!!!

There’s lots more I can set you straight on but the one thing I’ve learned in dealing with your perpetually butthurt kind is that I’d only be wasting my breath and I can’t see the point to keep having circular fruitless arguments with you while you insult my friends so you’re done here. I think its hilarious how much you seemingly forgot about who I am when you thought Id ban ppl on your instruction...just WOW!

You can walk away and tell your similarly thinkskinned friends the [REDACTED]  that you just busted up some alt-right hive of villainy when all that’s really happened here is that I’ve tired of your refusal to listen and your SJW histrionics.

And PLEASE know you read like a fool when you write Y’ALL...you’re a Jewish girl fro NY you’re not fooling anyone."

 So, there’s that. People have stepped up and said there is no room for this type of hatred in a scene that prides themselves on being inclusive. And I applaud that sentiment; I truly do. However, for many that decry it, there are some who are, for lack of a better term, immobile on certain things regarding the scene. In another group, that for the moment shall remain nameless, another white guy thought the backlash against the white supremacist was blown out of proportion. Spoiler: it isn’t. The guy in question was ranting about ‘lefties ruining the industrial scene’. Now, here’s where his argument breaks down. The industrial scene is comprised of people of color and all people within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum with the idea of standing up for what’s right and protecting their own. Which means being expressly against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. Which again, means being better than the society that treats them as outcasts. Industrial itself is a statement of radical leftism. Just the incarnation of what we know as industrial seemingly no longer embodies that.

Back to dude’s failed and flawed argument: he argues that leftist politics are ruining the scene, and music should be apolitical. Again, that is disingenuous. The personal is political, especially when it can affect you, people you care for, and the world at large. To say it isn’t is being disingenuous about the world at large and believing you to be the exception to the rule. Life doesn’t work that way. Opting out of scene policing because you want to foster the ‘I want to get along with everyone’ ideal is white privilege. Let me try to frame my issue with the scene by an example. Imagine the scene as a house. It’s a nice house, serviceable and comfy. You invite people over and they police themselves, keep it clean and in order. Now one day, you decide to leave the door open for roaches. The door is wide open and they flood in. The folks who frequent the house suddenly notice and ask why you have roaches in the house. And you respond, “why do you want to kick them out? They’ve always been cool to me! You’re just being divisive!”

You can’t act surprised about a dirty house when you’re letting disruptors in. Just because someone was cool to you and you feel that their politics shouldn’t figure in to things is aiding and abetting your idea for a dirty ass house. Again, likening the scene to a house, you’d want the house to grow, expand and flourish, right?

You can’t have folks over if you’re not willing to clean your dirty ass house. You can’t bemoan scene death if you willingly court misogynists, racists, homophobes, transphobes and the like. People that want to come in won’t because they won’t feel safe. And I don’t blame them. There are definitely people interested and want to get in, but you have to make it clear that you welcome them. You can’t have your arms outstretched to embrace them while you’re holding on to someone who has detrimental ideas.

I’d like to thank my friend Aedra for reviewing this with me, talking it over and helping me to refine points.