#The Chain Factory

[queersatanic]

Ok, regarding voting/not voting in the US presidential election because neither candidate is a good option: What other choice is there?

I want to understand because I've seen so many people say that voting for the lesser of two evils is pointless and that I must not actually care about marginalized/oppressed people if I choose to do so, but voting in the presidential election is one of the vanishingly few scraps of influence I feel we have in this country.

Does it amount to much? No. Am I happy about it? No. Are we actually living in a democracy? Not even a little bit. Am I under the impression that Kamala Harris would solve every problem ever had around the world? No, absolutely not. The way I see it, voting for Kamala definitely isn't solving problems. It's just preventing Trump from arriving on the scene to create more problems for us because the last thing any of us need on top of the colossal shit-storm we're all currently dealing with is more bullshit, and of the two viable options that we've been given, Kamala is the one that would give us less of that type of bullshit. Again, I'm not happy about it. I'm fully aware that this is a band-aid solution at best, but this is the most influential thing I can do as a US citizen. There is nothing else I could possibly do as a single individual to meaningfully sway who's in power here.

I'm lucky enough to live in a state that allows us to mail our ballots. Voting only takes me like, five minutes, and it seems worth doing if it prevents us from having Trump back in office, even if Kamala is only better by a miniscule fraction of an amount.

So, if voting is truly pointless, if there's truly zero difference between Kamala and Trump, what should we do instead? I really can't imagine an alternative that would result in swift, positive changes for anyone. (Again, not that voting would create swift, positive change either, but it at least seems like it would give us a better chance at positive change eventually.) Anarchy and protesting and raging against the machine are all well and good, but those are also things that will endanger and cause the deaths of vulnerable people, just as much as voting. Not that they aren't also worth doing, because they are, but it seems like it would be just as lengthy of a process and as impactful as it would be to vote in the election. And it's entirely possible to do those things on top of voting in an election. So I want to know what it is that I should be doing instead. Please help me understand. This is a genuine question, I'm not looking to argue, I want to know what other avenues there are and what I'm not seeing about the situation.

So, here is the simplest way to understand this: replace everything you are saying and thinking about "voting" with "signing a petition". It only takes a few minutes, it amounts to more than nothing, etc., etc.

Do you think that signing a petition — any petition — deserves to be given so much money, attention, conversation, and so on that it forms the boundary of political imagination and is used as a synecdoche for political action?

Sign a petition or don't; vote or don't vote. But it's not the most important thing you do, it shouldn't be the thing you devote hardly any of your life to, and it should not be how you neatly reduce other people around you.

This includes voting third party for president.

This includes writing in "Free Palestine" on your ballot.

This includes not voting at all.

The anarchist critique of electoralism is usually not even that you shouldn't do it but to recognize it for what it is: a mostly meaningless gesture over who you want to run the orphan-crushing machine. You can say that it's important to you to select someone who will read a land acknowledgment while operating the machine or that it's critical with global warming to have an orphan-crushing machine operator who will commit to installing solar panels by 2035 or that it's a moral imperative not to cooperate with the machine at all and express no opinion on who the operator ought to be. But none of that has anything to do with stopping the machine from crushing orphans, and the purpose of a system is what it does.

By the way, this is not new or something that privileged keyboard warriors invented in 2013. A hundred years before that, the Japanese anarchist Ōsugi Sakae wrote a short allegory called "The Chain Factory" about people wrapped in chains, making even more chains they add to it, and the only the factory boss has the key to free all of them.

The narrator wants to free himself, but he needs the help of others, and other people have different ideas about how to go about this.

There are so many who do not realize that they are bound by chains. There are many more still who, were they to realize it, would only be grateful for their chains. There are also many who, while not grateful, have resigned themselves to working industriously to forge their chains. And there are the many who, seeing the chain-making as ridiculous, frequently find openings in the watch of the guards to rest their bodies while harbouring selfish delusions in their heads and passionately spouting nonsense about actually being free and not bound by chains at all. It is more foolish than I can bear to watch. I then suddenly cast my gaze about. I found others around me that seemed to be aligned with me. They are few, and they are scattered all around. But they all desire the key to their bellies in the clutches of the master. And like me, they seem to be aware of being unable to take back their keys alone, so they whisper frequently to their neighbours to forge alliances. “They are few; we are many. They are outnumbered. If we act together, we can take back our keys in one fell swoop.” “However, since we make pronouncements about justice and peace, we must not permit violence. We must proceed through peaceful means. There is a simple way to do this.” “Once a year, we send a representative to the master to decide every aspect of our lives. All of those chaps in that meeting are representatives of the master, and if we muster up our own true representatives now, we can be the majority in the meeting, and that's how we can pass the resolutions that we want.” “All we need to do is shut up and forge the chains. Just continue to wrap the chains around ourselves. Then, when the day comes every few years that we choose our representative, we simply vote for our own representative.” Our representative will gradually loosen our chains, and will, ultimately, take back the key to our bellies from the master. We will then find ourselves in a factory under a new organization and a new system of our own ideals, with our chains in the hands of our representative.”

So, how does this relate your question of what you should be doing? Vote or don't vote in the five minutes it takes you. Find whatever slate recommendation you trust most and follow that, then turn it in or throw it away. But live your life.

Talk to your neighbors. Talk to your coworkers. Bring food to each other. Lend tools to one another. Be available to take people to the airport and pick them up from the hospital. Talk about rent. Talk about wages. Talk about working conditions. Exchange contact info so you don't have to call down the drone strike that is cops showing up in your neighborhood over people yelling. Take people into your home when you can so they can escape domestic violence. Shun rapists so they actually face consequences even if it comes at social cost you yourself. Yes, get trained on first aid and shooting, too.

If all that sounds small, you could argue that. It's certainly more personal. But it's the stuff you do every day to build relationships with another another outside of capitalism and hierarchy, or maybe it's just the cigarette burns you put into those things, hollowing them out.

You creating trust with your coworkers so that you can perform a work stoppage together on any day is much more significant that who you vote for on some day because no matter who you vote for president, they will side with "small business owners" and "main street" over your boss shorting you on your paycheck. You talking to fellow tenants about your living conditions matters much more than your vote for city council because even in the most overwhelming Democratic city, county, and state, your electeds will side with landlords over renters. When there is a hurricane or a heat wave or a pogrom, you will know each other and be there for each other.

Vote or don't vote. When you see a petition coming to put abortion rights on your state's ballot, feel free to sign it. But you'd better have other plans when the courts throw it out. You'd better have plans for when political coalitions who don't recognize you as legitimate regardless of what you and people like you do, because that antagonist coalition will ignore the courts and do what they want anyway.

Anti-electoralism is not about voting. It is about opposing the magical thinking that voting is efficacious or will save us from fascism. The special counsel Robert Muller will not save us from fascism, or the courts, or the media, or the Democrats, or the police. There is no "someone else will solve this for us" that you can rely on, so you should engage in a sort of realistic doomsday prepping that isn't just about bugging out and running off but about creating networks of mutual reliance that build up and exercise the muscles now you will need even more in the future.

[lost-fool-wandering]

...

-L.F.

[exeggcute]

the like optics of medium-ish indie artist ventures are really interesting to me because on one side you have the people churning out bespoke handcrafts on etsy but then on the other you have the people who work directly with manufacturers in china for small-scale mass production (is that an oxymoron?) and are like "sorry to all my kickstarter backers, my manu fucked up the first batch so I had to make them redo it and then we couldn't get a spot on a shipping container until the next boat goes out." and then both are equally like #supportindependentartists

[my-anime-goods]

Mato Seihei no Slave (Chained Soldier) - New goods with new illustrations (Lap Pillow) by DMM Factory. Release: July 2024

[4typercent]

The Sick New World schedule is finally out!

Who are you excited to see?

I may be spending the day at the Gold Stage and the Red Stage. I'm choosing to miss Sleep Token because I'm seeing them in Montreal in May, but it breaks my heart...

[magicalshopping]

♡ Hammerhead Sharkie Plush Keychain by The Chad Factory ♡

[greencarnation]

Emailing and calling doesn't have to stop at your politicians. If you can, email your school or your work and your union if you have one, but don't stop there. Any local organisation with a publicly available email address - environmental rights groups because this is an environmental crisis too, churches because look what's happening to Gaza's Christians, childrens charities, hospitals and health centres, journalists and newspapers, anything you can think of. Some will ignore you, some won't, some will already be organising shit in which case it's a good way to get involved

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

so there was this pub, the crooked house or the siden house, where im from that was kinda famous for being the "wonkiest pub in britain". its been there since 1765 (it was originally a farmhouse) and let me tell you, the inside was some of the coolest shit ive seen. it was fucking bostin.

but four days ago, it burnt down. now its nothing but rubble, and its being treated as an arson for the investigation.

and just,,, im so gutted. i have that kind of sadness where you feel empty inside because this was our pub. we're an impoverished area and a lot of our country laughs at us for the way we speak, but we're proud of our local culture and history.

honestly the siden house represented us; we're a little wonky bunch with our dialect the most close to old english and banding together like misfits in a movie.

but now its just gone. its one of the few tranklements of our history we get to hold and its just fucking gone, at someones hand. it was probably new developer who just bought it because its the cheapest way to clear a lot.

and i ay even angry at whoever it was, im just sad. as a brit, i hold no pride for my country and the history of it. but i am a proud yam yam, and right now, it just hurts.

[vodkaandsnakes]

On this day, June 20, in Type O Negative history:

Type O Negative play the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion with Motley Crue and Brother Cane in The Woodlands, TX (1994)

Type O Negative play the Big Dogs Nightclub with Drain STH, Powerman 5000, and Fear Factory in Cedar Rapids, IA (1997)

Type O Negative play the London Astoria in London, England (2003)

Type O Negative play the Carling Academy with Paradise Lost and Zico Chain in Birmingham, England (2007)

Type O Negative play the Town Ballroom in Buffalo, NY (2008)

[feathers-little-nest]

Big brand bread???

Kinda? We have chain store bakeries which sell the same bread, buns, sweet buns and stuff. It's much much better quality than store brand bread (or any bread available in my local stores tbh) but a bit worse than super fancy bakery for rich people bread. There's like 80 bakeries from my fav chain bakery in my city alone so I think that kinda counts

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

What the fuck is Pret A Manger and why the hell are there more of them in midtown Manhattan than there are Dunkin Donuts in Boston 

[magicalshopping]

♡ Shiny Buneary Keychain by The Chad Factory ♡

[rastronomicals]

8:59 AM EST March 1, 2024:

Alice in Chains - "Sludge Factory" From the album Unplugged (July 30, 1996)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

--

[lovelaceisntdead]

Sat in bed sobbing clutching my copy of the Alice Isn't Dead novel having a normal Thursday evening

[thicc-astronaut]

Fanart I made in MS paint of my favoritest Mario antagonist. The Tsar Bomba himself. King Bob-Omb! Along with some of his suboordinates